Vindicating God Ministries: The Curse Pronounced in Eden

Sunday, January 12, 2020

The Curse Pronounced in Eden

I have been reading a book titled, "The Violence of the Biblical God" by L. Daniel Hawk. I found his understanding of the curses pronounced to Adam, Eve and the serpent in Genesis 3 intriguing:

"Yahweh's response to the serpent, the woman, and the man has traditionally been interpreted as laying out the punishment for each of the offending creatures.... it seems better to read Yahweh's words more as description than decree. That is, Yahweh's words elaborate the contours of the world that the aspiring deities make for themselves.... The world that humans will make is incompatible with the world the Creator called good." (p. 28)

I have always believed this as well though Hawk articulates it better than me. Because God gave man dominion over His creation (Gen. 1:26-28) then man was the one who brought into the world sin and its results (Rom. 5:12). God is not to be blamed as if He supernaturally caused the curse to come upon the ground, the pain of child-birth upon the woman or the serpent to crawl. The results of the curse are built into to a system that decides to push God out.