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| The Fall of Man (1628–1629) by Rubens in the Prado Museum, Madrid |
What have these stories got to say to us today as we try to find our way in a world where we are out of joint with God and a world in which trees have an important environmental part to play?
For the next 5 weeks during Lent I am inviting people to join with me for an online study of some of those encounters in the shade of various trees and shrubs, beginning this coming Thursday at 7.30pm GMT, when we will find Sarah laughing under the Oaks of Mamre. If you are interested in joining us email me at david.campton@irishmethodist.org
I will be posting the reflections here afterwards, together with some other encounters that we won’t have time to get into... And as a taster here's an introductory one...
DECISIONS BENEATH A POMEGRANATE(?) TREE:
Eve and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Genesis 2: 15-18 & 21-25; 3: 1-24
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Genesis 3: 6-7
“Don’t touch that range, you’ll get burned!” that’s what my Granny told my Aunts as children growing up in a farmhouse with an old black cast iron cooking range constantly on in the kitchen, the only source of heat and hot food in the house. A couple of them learned the hard way that there was wisdom in their mum’s warning. But in due course their mum let her daughters touch the range, as she taught them how to cook and bake... and boy could they bake... I have never tasted boiled cake or Apple tart like those made by my aunts...
Was Eve simply in search of apples for an apple tart when she gave in to the serpent’s crafty tempting?
The apple has long been maligned as the fruit that Eve and Adam ate with such devastating consequences, but the story in Genesis doesn’t actually mention apples, which aren't from the Middle East, but from Kazakhstan in Central Asia. The Hebrew word used is "peri," a generic word for fruit. Rabbis commenting in the Talmud, suggest various possibilities. Some argue for a fig, given that when Adam and Eve realized they were naked after eating the forbidden fruit they used fig leaves to cover themselves. Some rabbis actually suggest that wheat is being referred to because the Hebrew word for wheat, "chitah," is similar to the word for sin, "cheit" and given that we suspect that wheat was first cultivated in the early agrarian societies of Mesopotamia this perhaps has merit (though it messes with the theme of this series on Biblical encounters beneath the branches of trees and shrubs!) Grapes, with their association with wine and the devastating consequences of alcohol for many is another possibility. Others suggest a citron, - wild citrus pre-cursor, used during the Jewish fall festival of Sukkot.
Apples probably only entered into the picture in 382 CE, when Jerome started to translate the Bible into Latin. He translated the Hebrew "peri" into the Latin "malum," probably, because of the word “malus” meaning evil, offering a pun pointing to humanity’s first big mistake.
“Malus" was later translated into English as "apple," but both were at this point also generic terms for any fruit. However by the 17th century, apple was becoming uniquely associated with the fruit of the formerly Kazakh trees which were now endemic to the English countryside. Probably in order to avoid that close association the authors of the Authorised Version used the generic term “fruit” (of French rather than Anglo-Saxon origin), but those familiar with the Latin text probably associated “malum” with the ubiquitous English apple, hence in the epic poem "Paradise Lost," first published in 1667, Milton uses the word "apple" twice to refer to the forbidden fruit.
Unlike in writing, in painting a fruit cannot be purely generic, but they don’t always paint an apple. The "Fall from Eden" from the "Ghent Altarpiece" by Hubert and Jan van Eyck (1432), depicts the fruit as a citron, mentioned earlier, "Eve Tempted By the Serpent" by Defendente Ferrari (1520-25) portrays an apricot, whilst "The Fall of Man" by Peter Paul Rubens (1628-29), depicted above, points the finger at the pomegranate.
In the Quran, we learn that pomegranates grew in the Garden of Paradise and are referred to on multiple occasions as God’s good creations. Many believe that Islamic traditions draw heavily on pre-Christian traditions from Mesopotamia and Persia/Iran, the culture from which “Paradise Gardens” are drawn, and in ancient Iranian Christianity the pomegranate is also said to be found in the Garden of Eden, and was believed to be the real forbidden fruit rather than the apple. In ancient and Islamic Persia pomegranates also developed a reputation as an aphrodisiac, and because of their many seeds, are associated with sex and fertility. This also plays into the idea that before this fruit was eaten, Adam and Eve saw nothing erotic in their nakedness.
But of course the issue of what type of fruit the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, is only important if you think of it absolutely literally.
And whether it is literal or metaphorical, the much bigger question is what was at stake in this act of prehistoric scrumping. Was Eve’s disobedience the “Original Sin” that caused evil and death to enter into the world? (If you don’t know what scrumping is and never engaged in it, then you have been less affected by this supposed original sin than I was as a youngster!)
However, I am more persuaded by the thinking of Pete Enns and others that this is a story about gaining wisdom and the key to it is the nature of the fruit, not in a literal sense, but as it is described in the text as the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. (He also argues that the expulsion from Eden is more about the Exile than an existential "Fall", but that is a subject for another day).
It is not that God doesn’t want us to know the difference between Good and Evil, but that there is a right time to do so... just as there is a right time to teach children how to cook using big black cooking range...
The problem with Eve and subsequently Adam is that they fell for the smooth words of the crafty serpent, and took a short cut to gain such knowledge.
And we are forever taking shortcuts today as individuals and as a species... using our limited knowledge to make at decisions that sometimes have devastating consequences for ourselves and our world. The convenience of throwaway plastics... the unforeseen side effects of drugs... the unintended consequences of meddling with the natural environment, be it with fertilizers, forest clearances, antibiotics in cattle...
Eve is too often blamed for causing “the fall”, a non-Biblical term that is alien to both Jewish and Orthodox Christianity (with the same applying to "original sin.") But I am with Clare Hayns, keynote speaker at the recent 4 Corners Festival and author of the book “Unveiled” about women in the Old Testament, who suggests that it is perhaps better to think of Eve not as the “cause” but the "first." Many of my old lecturers on both the scientific and theological/philosophical strands of my education warned against correlation or even primacy being equated with causation.
Yes, under the shade of that tree, be it an apple or a pomegranate or something altogether more mystical, Eve was tricked by the serpent and made a decision that had dreadful repercussions for her and her family (however big you think that family is). She was the first to make the decision to disobey God. She was the first, but definitely not the last. Making the wrong decision is a very unoriginal sin.
- What decisions do we have to make? Personally? As churches? As a people?
- Who might be hurt by us taking short-cuts?
PRAYER
God who made women and men in your image,
grant us your wisdom in all the decisions we have to make.
May we listen to the right voices and make the right choices.
AMEN
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