Shame and Satan in the Garden of Eden

 Shame played a very powerful role in the ancient Jewish culture. It is something most American readers miss because it isn’t a major factor in our culture. But the relevance of shame is the focus of this account. Below are some key points Bible readers must understand about it.

 

● Shame must be understood in the context of group culture.

 

● Shame implies a failure to live up to internalized parental and larger societal goals, i.e. what a person "should be like".

 

● The shamed person experiences his/her failure as a lowering of personal dignity in the eyes of the group and fears ridicule, contempt or expulsion.

 

From the first chapters of Genesis on, we see humankind struggling to resolve interpersonal and intergroup conflict. The stories depict characters wrestling with powerful and sometimes contradictory impulses.

 

Personal and group destinies can only be truly fulfilled

through membership in the larger units of family, tribe, and nation.

 

We see similar conflicts in the story of Adam and Eve. Readers have the advantage of knowing about God’s blessing of humans in the first story. We know “what God created humans to be like.” We also know what Adam and Eve did.

 

● He was supposed to guard and protect her. He failed.

 

● They were supposed to work together. They failed.

 

● He was supposed to accurately communicate God’s commandment to her. He didn’t.

 

● He should have responded to the snake like a shepherd would have. He didn’t.

 

● She should not have given him the forbidden fruit. She did.

 

If they “had done what they should have,” according to God’s blessing, their destinies would have been very different.

 

In Jewish Scriptures, things like salvation, redemption and divine judgement take place in the context of the group.

 

● Christians generally say, “My sins have been forgiven and I have been saved.”

 

● Observant Jews say, “We must do TESHUVAH when we sin, and we will be redeemed in the future.”

 

Christians view sin in a “individual” context. Sin is something that affects the sinner’s life and destiny. Observant Jews view sin in the “group” context. Sin is something that affects the sinner’s life, other people’s lives, and the group’s destiny.

 

It is important to know that in the Garden of Eden story, the Hebrew word translated “shame” is in the hothpael verb form. This means that “the action is performed on or for oneself.”   An example of this is seen in Ezekiel 38:23:

 

Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself;

and I will be known in the eyes of many nations,

and they shall know that I am Yahweh.

 

With this in mind, below is an updated translation of Genesis 2:24:

 

And they were both subtle, shrewd, clever, crafty, and cunning,

the man and his woman;

and they had not shamed themselves.

 

The snake was more subtle, shrewd, clever, crafty, and cunning than Adam and Eve, but the snake didn’t shame them – they shamed themselves. Before I continue with the Garden of Eden story, I want to make sure your understand something that is extremely important about the snake (Genesis 3:1).

 

And the snake was more subtle, shrewd, clever, crafty, and cunning

than any beast of the field which Yahweh the god had made.

 

The snake is “a beast of the field” which God made. The snake exists because God wanted it to exist. It is there because God put it there. It is acting according to the “nature of beasts of the field.” The snake is not “Satan.”

 

Beginning in the 2^nd century CE, Gentile Christian leaders including Justin Martyr, Tertullian, Cyprian, and Irenaeus begin to reinterpret the Garden of Eden story and replace the snake with Satan. However, it was Augustine in the 5^th century CE that completely changed the story to this.

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Satan and God are involved in a cosmic battle over the souls of all humans. Adam's sin was transmitted by concupiscence, or "hurtful desire;" resulting in humanity becoming a massa damnata (mass of perdition, condemned crowd), with much enfeebled, though not destroyed, freedom of will. When Adam sinned, human nature was thenceforth transformed. Adam’s sin has been passed down to all of his descendants. They are “sinners” when they are born!

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This belief is called “The Fall of Mankind” and “Original Sin.” It is the foundation of all modern Christian religions. However, most people are not aware of these facts.

 

● Original Sin is not found anywhere in the Bible.

 

● Christianity had no doctrine of Original Sin prior to the 4th century CE.

 

What would Christianity today be like without Original Sin?

 

I will return to the Garden in Eden story in my next email. Thanks for Exploring Biblical Heritages with us and please share our emails with others!

 

Shalom,

Jim Myers

 

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