The Serpent's Craft: Unpacking the Ambiguity and Tragedy of Genesis 3:1-7

Hey everyone, before we start this episode of Thinking Christian, I just wanted to encourage you to follow us on the platform wherever you get your podcasts, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or whatever. Click that subscribe button, that really helps us out. You can also find us on YouTube. We've been posting some unique content on YouTube, including some shorter videos, 20 minutes in length, as well as some shorts that are just smaller snippets of episodes that really don't air on Thinking Christian. So you can find us there at Useful to God on YouTube, and I'll include the link to that in the show notes as well. But just encourage you to do that, that really helps us out as a ministry. Thanks for listening, and take care, everyone. The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm your host, James Spencer, and today we're exploring one of the most foundational and complex passages in the Bible, Genesis 3, 1 through 7. This is about the fall. That's what I mean when I say I think I've been teasing this for the last few weeks. We've been talking a little bit about different aspects of the creation narrative and the fall and different things. And so now we're finally going to address Genesis 3, 1 through 7. And I will just say as a disclaimer, this is one of my favorite passages in all of the Bible. I've studied it multiple times throughout my academic career, and I'm pretty, it's just one of those that I always come back to and I find something new in every time. So this passage is going to narrate the temptation and fall of humanity, but it also, you know, details a little bit more than that. It's more than a, it's more than just the fall of humankind. I think there there's much more in this narrative than we often give it credit for. And in these seven verses, we're going to get a lot of insight into what's going on, how we could read the scriptures. I often use this in sort of a basic Bible study or Bible reading methods. It's one of the narratives that I go to to help people understand how to read the scriptures. I think it's just got some really great elements to it that we're going to go through, but today we're going to focus on four key aspects of the passage. The first one is the ambiguity of the serpent. The second one is the translation and the significance of the serpent's initial question. The third is the woman's response and its connection to clean and unclean legislation. And finally, we're going to look at the recurring biblical pattern of seeing good and taking. These elements don't just tell us about the fall. They expose dynamics of temptation and trust and chaos that still resonate today. So let's get started. So the first thing we want to do is we want to think about the ambiguity of the serpent. And so the serpent in Genesis 3 is described as crafty. That translation is kind of rough because, you know, crafty in our language automatically assumes something evil. And so my encouragement for most people when they read this is don't go into it as if you know the rest of the story, right? Don't go into it assuming that you know that the serpent is evil, even though you do. Try to suspend that understanding and read the Bible from the woman's perspective, right? The woman is being approached by this serpent. The serpent is the Hebrew word for translated crafty or shrewd is Arum. And Arum isn't necessarily a bad characteristic. It's a Hebrew word that does hold a certain ambiguity. It can be used in different ways in different contexts. And while crafty does carry that negative connotation in English, the Hebrew Arum is far more nuanced. It can mean shrewd or prudent or wise depending on the context. So, for example, in Proverbs, we see this term used positively. You know, Proverbs 12.23, it says a prudent Arum man conceals knowledge. And I tend to think that the ambiguity is significant for the narrative. Now, there's a couple of reasons probably that Arum is used here. One is this ambiguity. But just to be real, as we get to Genesis 3.7, and we see that the, you know, the man and the woman have eaten and they find that they are naked and they hide themselves. That word for naked is Arumim. And so you have this interesting Hebrew wordplay that comes out really well in the original languages, but that is completely missing from our English language. We can't quite figure out how to translate, you know, this Arum in the first line with the Arumim in the last line and make that work. But I think Arum is chosen in Genesis 3.1 to serve, you know, to create sort of a literary envelope, an enclosure around this narrative. A lot of times that was done in oral cultures to help people remember things. And so in addition to the fact that Arum is a little bit of a flexible term when it comes to whether this Arum is good or whether this Arum is bad, we also have that wordplay. But I absolutely think that the ambiguity is significant for this narrative. And at this point in the story, the serpent isn't explicitly evil. It's not presented as evil. It's presented as Arum. And so to the woman, the serpent may appear wise or insightful, someone who offers guidance or even help. And the reader, of course, you know, we know that the serpent is this agent of chaos, but the woman's interaction with the serpent highlights an important dynamic, and that is discernment. The serpent's craftiness introduces confusion about whether he represents life or death, good or evil. And it's this ambiguity that allows the serpent to subtly twist God's words, drawing the woman into a conversation that will ultimately lead to doubt and disobedience. Now, why is it that the serpent is uniquely well-suited to do this? Well, I think, number one, it's because if you think through the way animals sort of, the symbols we have for animals. So think about, for instance, an owl. An owl can be, in our culture, construed as wise. They're featured on the Tootsie Roll commercials for a reason. This owl comes out and he's an animated owl. He's got the graduate cap on. He's dressed in a little robe or whatever. And he tells you how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll pop. This is the owl being represented as wise. But if we think about an owl in connection with Halloween, we get a totally different vibe on the owl. It's associated with darkness and spookiness and probably, you know, the evil mystical aspects of life. And so we have these two different perspectives on the owl. And this is what the serpent was really in the ancient Near East. The ancient Near East, they would see the serpent as a symbol of life and wisdom. It's probably related to the serpent shedding of the serpent's skin that they got this idea of life, that the serpent is shedding off this dead skin and emerging out as a new life. And so it came to symbolize life and wisdom, but it was also very much a symbol of death and chaos. So you have the serpent itself is sort of an odd figure, an ambiguous figure. And so as we think back, you know, this ambiguity of the arum, whether it is good or bad to be this arum and the picture of the serpent as either life or wisdom or death and evil. Now we see sort of the dilemma that faces the woman. She's not, you know, I often hear some people say, you know, why wasn't the woman surprised the serpent could talk? How could she ever have trusted the serpent? Why would you ever believe it? Well, the context, and in this case, the ancient Near Eastern context and the words used is actually really important. And so we just have to, we just have to think that through and that I think the woman in this passage is doing her level best to represent God well and to try to combat the serpent's arguments. But ultimately, she's convinced that the serpent does represent life and wisdom as opposed to death and chaos. And so let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. Let's leave that there and let's think back to Genesis 1.1 through 2.3 just for a second. In the creation narrative, we've seen God pictured as sovereign, wise, and benevolent. And I talk about this in the very first episode that, you know, we see these three characteristics of God throughout the creation narrative. He's sovereign in

the sovereign, wise, and benevolent. Here, what we're going to see is that the serpent is going to raise doubts about who God really is. He's going to question God's sovereignty, God's wisdom, and God's benevolence. And so, he's ultimately going to make a transcendent God, a God who is up here, unreachable, beyond anything that humans could come to know, and he's going to make him imminent. He's going to make him reachable now, attainable, vulnerable in many ways. And this is what the serpent is arguing. And so, the serpent's rhetoric begins with a question. Did God actually say, you shall not eat from any tree in the garden? Now, on the surface, this question may appear to clarify God's command, but the Hebrew construction can also be understood as exaggerated or accusatory. So, it begins with a really interesting Hebrew construction. It's off-key. And off-key is usually found in between two phrases, but here it stands at the beginning of the phrase. When it's found between two phrases, it usually connotes a greater to an even greater sort of argument, right? And so, you'd have something like, you know, if, you know, if Jacob, how much more Abraham, right? If Joshua, how much more Moses? And it has that sense of if, how much more. And so, I think one of the ways to sort of understand the serpent's question is not as clarifying, not as asking about the content of God's command, so much as he is questioning the motivation of God's command. And so, we might paraphrase that and say, it would be something like, what more could God demand? Has he said you can't eat from any of the trees? And so, it takes on this accusation that if God is holding back this, you know, if we read a little bit forward in the narrative, it's going to become about the tree in the midst of the garden. And, and the serpent is saying, you know, if he's holding back this tree in the midst of the garden, he might as well be starving you, I think is essentially the force of the serpent's question. And so, if God is going to demand this, he might as well just kill you. And the serpent is implying that God's command is unnecessarily harsh and is intended to hold the human couple back. And in doing so, he introduces the idea that God's prohibitions might not be for the human couple's good. Instead, it seems as though God is limiting their potential. It's almost as if, you know, God has presented himself as untouchable, right? He is so far above and transcendent that the human couple could never reach him. And what the serpent is saying is, nope, God's reachable. He's prohibited the one thing that would allow you to become like him. And so, this is the opening question of the serpent. I've got a little bit ahead of myself, but the opening question of the serpent is, he's accusing God of withholding something of precious value to the human couple. And I think that rhetorical exaggeration sows the seeds. It elicits the response from the woman. And the woman's response to the serpent is particularly interesting. A lot of people will say that she is interpreting the command. And I think there's a sense in which that's true, but I don't think she's misquoting the command. It isn't as if, you know, when God gave the command to Adam, Adam added some things before he told it to Eve, and now Eve is just repeating what's going on. I think Eve actually is really trying to tell the serpent, no, no, no, this, the prohibition, right, is not because God is withholding something from us. It's because God is protecting us from something that would harm us. And so she says this, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden. We have all of this around us, all of this wonderful prosperity, all of this food. We have plenty. It's an abundant life. But God has said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die. Now again, some readers will say this is a misquotation of God's command since the original command says nothing about touching the tree. So Genesis 2.17 reads, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for in that day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. There's no reference to touching there. But I think the idea here is that God gave the original command to Adam, and when Adam conveys the command to Eve, he either adds the additional prohibition on or Eve misremembers the command as given by Adam. And I think that is possible, but it also underplays a pretty significant part of the woman's response. And I think we need to note that these words to eat and to touch are only found again together in the Old Testament legislation prohibiting contact with unclean animals. So if we look at Leviticus 11.8 and Deuteronomy 14, we're going to see these verbs come together. So Leviticus 11.8 is, you shall not eat any of their flesh and you shall not touch their carcasses. They are unclean to you. So we have the eat and the touch there. And then in Deuteronomy 14.8, and the pig, because it parts the hoof, but does not chew the cud, is unclean for you. Their flesh you shall eat and their carcasses you shall not touch. So again, the eat and the touch. And I think this suggests that the woman isn't merely adding to God's command or misquoting it. She is interpreting it. Her response frames the tree as something inherently unclean or corrupt, something that brings death, not because of it, you know, because of its very nature. It is unclean. It's somehow against nature, out of order. And so the serpent accuses God of depriving the human couple of something valuable. God's command is keeping the human couple from transcending their current condition. By reframing God's command as protective, the woman initially defends God's benevolence against the serpent's insinuations. Now we should also note that in her response, she does not say the name of the tree. That's pretty crucial. The serpent does not reference knowledge of good and evil up to this point. His language has been ambiguous. He just references any of the trees in the garden. And when the woman responds, she says the tree in the midst of the garden. Nobody's mentioned anything about knowledge of good and evil or good and evil or anything like that. And so I think we have to just be aware of that because this is another one of those ways in which the ambiguity, I think, plays into the narrative. What isn't said actually becomes pretty important. And so after she interprets this command, she suggests that the tree has not been prohibited because God is withholding it from them, but he's prohibited it because it's bad for them. The interpretation begins to unravel. And, you know, because part one, the woman looks at the tree more closely, but I also think it's because the serpent says something that makes it appear as if the serpent has knowledge that the woman didn't necessarily know he had before. So in Genesis 3, 4 and 5, we hear this. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die for God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Okay, this is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right? And it can be difficult to understand why the serpent's response is compelling if we don't notice that this tree hasn't been explicitly referenced in these verses up to this point. The woman has claimed that God has prohibited the tree because it's unclean. The serpent's response does not seem to address that matter. And in some rabbinic texts, what you see is the serpent portrayed as hanging onto this tree with its arms and legs and shaking it. And so in those texts, the serpent is touching the tree, but it doesn't die. And so his interaction with the woman and the tree becomes convincing. And while that picture is kind of interesting, I think it's helpful to think about, it isn't exactly rooted in the biblical text. And so what I would point to is the use of the phrase knowing good and evil in the serpent's response. This phrase echoes the original command in Genesis 2.18. And her response to the serpent, the woman uses that more ambiguous phrase, tree in the midst of the garden. And the serpent's use of the phrase in 3.4, knowing good and evil, demonstrates he has some knowledge about the tree. The serpent understands the tree's nature. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide. Or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. To kind of underscore the point, if you imagine that the serpent had responded by saying the tree would give humanity the ability to fly, it would have been

6 is a turning point in the narrative because the serpent's response is persuasive. He's telling the woman that no, it's not, this is not unclean. God really is withholding this from you. This is the pathway to knowing good and evil. This is the pathway to being like God. And so now the woman turns and looks at the tree. She starts to examine it for herself and we read, so when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. Okay, so what are we really seeing here? She's argued that the tree is bad, just in its very nature, but now as she evaluates it, she's recognizing, no, no, this doesn't look bad. This doesn't look undesirable. In fact, it looks kind of beautiful. It looks like it has good food on it. I don't see anything wrong with the tree. And so this verse in the Bible follows a pattern that tends to recur throughout the rest of scripture. So seeing that it was good is an act of discernment or judgment. Whereas God has warned that the tree would bring death, the woman decides that God's judgment can't be trusted. And in seeing the tree and assessing its goodness, the woman is echoing the repeated judgments of God about the various aspects of creation in Genesis 1, where God looked at the world he had created and determined that it was good. Here, however, the woman assumes the role of arbiter. She decides what is good apart from God's authority. Now, a lot of times when we're reading this passage, what we're seeing, you know, the tree, we saw the tree was good. So she saw and it was good. And then the next aspect of this is she's going to take from the tree. Taking doesn't actually occur in Genesis 1, though we do see it repeated in various other Old Testament texts. These three words, see, good, and take, are found in other places, such as Genesis 6-2, where we read that the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful or good. It's the same Hebrew word there. And they took as their wives any they chose. So we have the see, good, take following there. We also see this in Joshua 7-21, where Achan sees the forbidden treasure, finds it desirable or good. Again, it's the same Hebrew word and takes it. And so this pattern tends to reveal sort of a critical dynamic. Humans are seeking to determine their own course, make their own judgments apart from God. And they decide what is good for themselves and take it regardless of what God has said. And the woman is persuaded by the serpent's wisdom and her own sensory judgment. She sees it, she declares it good, and she takes it. And in doing so, she aligns with the serpent's chaotic wisdom rather than trusting in God's order. So I think the serpent's question, the woman's interpretation, this pattern of seeing good and taking, offer a profound understanding of sin. Number one, I think ambiguity can undermine our trust like nothing else. Like the woman in Genesis 3, we often face these situations where truth and lies are hard to distinguish and sin thrives in that ambiguity, twisting God's goodness into something questionable, convincing us that the paradise that God has provided is actually a prison. It's not as hard as it sounds. And so as we look at this narrative of the woman interacting with the serpent and we wonder how it is that she has all of this beauty around her, all of this lush garden, this paradise, why does she then shift to believing that that's a prison? I think we start to understand the depths of our own rebellion, of our own desire to direct our own lives. I think we also see this idea of distrusting God's word. The serpent's exaggeration invites the woman to doubt the trustworthiness of God and interpret reality on our own terms. And that's a common theme throughout the scripture and in our own lives. And I think also misjudging goodness. You know, sin often begins when we see something as good apart from God's word. This rejection of divine wisdom lies at the heart of the human condition. Now, I'd also say, as I said, you know, the serpent is questioning God's goodness, God's sovereignty, and God's wisdom. And so let me just pick that apart for a minute. When the serpent says, you know, number one, that the benevolence of God is sort of the number one question in my mind when we look at this narrative because what the serpent is saying is that God is holding the human couple back for his own ends. He doesn't talk about what those ends are, but it's not for the humans' good. And so God is not benevolent. God is manipulating the situation. He's trying to control Adam and Eve and keep them from fulfilling their true human potential. We also get into questioning God's sovereignty because no longer is God's word just enough for everyone to obey. Now what the serpent is doing is he's saying, look, God's word doesn't have to stand. You can choose your own path. And so in suggesting that, number one, God is not benevolent that he's holding the human couple back, he also suggests that the human couple can be like God. And so they can achieve this sort of relative autonomy from God. And finally, I think the wisdom comes in when we talk about the knowing good and evil. This is how they can be like God. They can determine their own course. They can order the world in the way that they see fit. They are not constrained by what God has said they need to do. And so those three aspects come out pretty clearly, I think, in Genesis 3, 1-7. And it starts this sort of cycle of unmaking the creation narrative, that as we don't trust God, as we misjudge goodness, we start to see the world and we start to see God very differently. And so I think Genesis 3, 1-7 isn't just a story about the first sin. It exposes these dynamics of temptation that remain alive today when we doubt God's goodness, trust other voices over his word, and assume to, you know, take the right up to declare what is good. We step into the same pattern of seeing, declaring, and taking. But I think the gospel offers us a way back. I mean, where the woman saw, judged, and took, Christ trusted, obeyed, and gave. In Christ, the broken pattern of Genesis 3 is reversed, and we're invited to trust in God's goodness again. So Genesis 3, 1-7 is a story of subtlety and ambiguity and tragedy, and the serpent's craftiness, the woman's reasoning, and the pattern of seeing good and taking hold a mirror to our own struggles with trust, discernment, and sin. And as we reflect on this passage, I'd just urge you to consider where ambiguity tempts you to doubt God's goodness. How might you learn to trust his word more deeply and discern what is truly good according to his wisdom, even when life seems like you don't understand what's going on? How is it that we get to the point where we obey, even when obedience doesn't really make that much sense to us? How do we avoid distrusting God simply because we don't fully understand what's going on? And I think that's one of the big aspects that we need to take away from Genesis 3, 1-7. That's it for this week. Thanks for joining us on the Thinking Christian Prep series. Don't forget that Thinking Christian airs a couple of interviews a week, so you can catch those as well. Otherwise, you can come back for Prep next week where we'll be discussing the Cain and Abel story. Take care, everybody. 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