The Story of Adam and Eve: A Fresh Old Perspective

By Charlie Comerford

I love the story of Adam and Eve.

These days it has a pretty bad rep across the board, from the atheist who believes it to be nothing more than a silly story to the devoted Christian who struggles with some of the “big theologies” that have been forged from its contents; it is perhaps regarded as one of the most controversial narratives of our time.

However, once you peel back all the hardened layers of prejudice and preconception that have smothered its message over the centuries, what you're left with is a beautifully simple yet profoundly sophisticated piece of literature that manages to convey the complexities of the collective human experience, in a way that would have been totally and utterly relatable to the ordinary working man and his family some 3000-4000 years ago.

With that in mind, let us try and imagine how they might have understood it.

Working the fields - Bible Fun for Kids: Genesis Series. Page by Debbie Jackson

The story sets the scene by introducing a land that is in need of cultivating.

This is a fairly fitting environment for the time. Back in ancient days the most common means of making a stable living would have been through agriculture. So we can tell from the very beginning that the story was likely conceived with the most common type of person in mind: the working man and his family.

We see in the story that in order to get the land working properly, man (Adam) is birthed from the ground (Adamah) to care for and maintain it.

The meaning behind the birthing metaphor (used twice in the narrative) is simple: it indicates that man was made for the purpose of working the ground. For the man, the ground represents his livelihood, his source of food, and ultimately his purpose for living.

This starts out as a good, healthy and mutually-beneficial engagement. The man can tend to the ground at his leisure, and in return the ground is generously cooperative; providing the man with an abundance of food.

Now we should pause for a moment and try to imagine what this might have sounded like to an ordinary working man listening to the story in those times, for surely such an accommodating garden would have seemed like paradise!

Why? Well if you think about it, your average working man in those days would have spent the majority of his waking hours toiling in his fields, desperately hoping that his efforts might reap enough harvest to feed his family.

In his routine he would have likely wondered – probably more than once – why work had to be so hard.

The story of Adam and Eve gives us a unique perspective on work. For the lowest common denominator, work would have been one of those universally harrowing experiences. However, in the story, we see that work is set out to be an enjoyable and fulfilling part of life. For the Yahweh-loving Israelite, it would have been important for him to know that his God had originally intended for work to be a pleasant experience.

Although when we return to the story, we find that, despite the fact that the man is enjoying his work, he is not completely fulfilled. He craves companionship – and a horde of fuzzy animals just aren't giving him the kind of satisfaction that he's looking for.

For this purpose, woman (Ishah) is birthed from man (Ish), and in knowing each other both are fulfilled.

Strangely enough, there are two different words for man in this story and both share a likeness to another word (Adam-Adamah, Ish-Ishah).

This is of course no accident. The similarities in sound would have pricked the ears of the ancient listeners and given them cause to contemplate the significance of the relationship between Ish and Ishah – which is initially set out to be an intimate and loving relationship.

For a woman in those times, the experience of social segregation and misogyny would have been her daily burden, and she might well have wondered – probably more than once – why it was so hard to be a woman.

Again, the story comes as a source of comfort and consolation, this time to the woman in her suffering; for in the beginning woman was made to be man's companion, and in turn the man was made to love and cherish her as though she were his very bones and his very flesh.

#Swoon.

At this point in the narrative, the picture is a pretty one: Man is happy with his woman and his work, and woman is happy basking in man's adoration.

And yet, despite the fact that they both had it so good, they still fell prey to one of humanity's most fundamental vices: the desire for more.

In a peculiar turn of events, this error in judgement is triggered by the words of a crafty snake.

Why a snake, some might wonder?

Well, if we again consider the context, what other creature could be considered a bigger troublemaker for an agricultural family than a venomous snake? To the average working man and his family, the snake would have been their natural enemy, and so it becomes an obvious choice for the role of “villain” in the narrative.

The story concludes by relaying the tragic consequences of humanity's greed: the ground is cursed, and so man is forced into backbreaking labour every day until he eventually returns to the ground in death; woman is cursed to submit to the will of man and endure horrendous agony in childbirth; and the snake and the humans are cursed to be locked in a never-ending battle of heel-biting and head-stamping.

The battle rages on...

This remarkable narrative provides us with a fresh perspective on how ancient believers would have dealt with big life concepts, such as birth; work; companionship; temptation; greed; consequence; suffering and death.

To my knowledge, there is no tale that better sums up the human experience in a more concise and comprehensible way.