{"id":36671,"date":"2018-09-13T06:00:06","date_gmt":"2018-09-13T10:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=36671"},"modified":"2018-09-13T09:31:45","modified_gmt":"2018-09-13T13:31:45","slug":"the-double-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2018\/09\/the-double-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"The Double Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,\u201d said Jesus.\u00a0 And \u201cyou shall love your neighbor as yourself.<\/span>\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>On these two commandments depend\u00a0all the Law and the Prophets\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0(Matthew 22:37, 39-40).\u00a0 Thus, the first table of the Ten Commandments has to do with loving God and the second table has to do with loving your neighbor.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Peter Leithart,<\/a> drawing on Thomas Brodie\u2019s Genesis as Dialogue<\/a>, points out that we can see this same distinction in Genesis.\u00a0 In fact, we can see a double fall:\u00a0 \u00a0The account of Adam and Eve is about violating the love of God.\u00a0 The account of Cain and Abel is about violating the love of neighbor.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first crime is primarily vertical, against God,\u201d says Leithart; \u201cthe second is more horizontal, against another human being. Furthermore, these two crimes involve two of the most basic pairings in life: man-woman; and brother-brother.\u201d<\/p>\n

He then notes some strong parallels between the two narratives, which underscores their connection.\u00a0 Here are a few (Adam & Eve first; Cain & Abel second):<\/p>\n

\u2013the beginning:\u00a0 \u201cThey. . the man and his wife\u201d;\u00a0 \u201cThe man knew. . .his wife\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Fruit forbidden by God;\u00a0 Fruit not regarded by God.<\/p>\n

\u2013After eating:\u00a0 they knew. .\u00a0 .;\u00a0 After the killing:\u00a0 Where is Abel?<\/p>\n

\u2013They heard the voice;\u00a0 The voice. . . is crying to me<\/p>\n

\u2013I hid; I must hide<\/p>\n

\u2013Avoiding responsibility:\u00a0 It was the woman. . . ; Am I my brother\u2019s keeper?<\/p>\n

\u2013Cursed is the ground because of you; Now you are cursed from the ground<\/p>\n

\u2013God\u2019s protective action: He clothes them; He puts a sign on Cain.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are five more parallels.\u00a0 Read Leithart\u2019s whole discussion.<\/a><\/p>\n

Brodie\u2019s book is about \u201cdiptychs,\u201d the structural device of repetition-with-variation and parallelism.\u00a0 This is a common structural element in Hebrew poetry:<\/p>\n

\n
Blessed is the man<\/span><\/span>
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>who\u00a0walks not in\u00a0the counsel of the wicked,<\/span><\/span>
\nnor stands in\u00a0the way of sinners,<\/span><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
We see it on a larger scale:\u00a0 The two books of Kings summarizing the history of the monarchy; the two books of Chronicles going over the same material, from a slightly different angle.\u00a0 The life of Christ repeated four times.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Brodie sees this structure within books and within narrative elements.\u00a0 Higher critics see this sort of thing as two separate versions edited together, alleging, for example, that there are\u00a0 two creation stories.\u00a0 But if parallelism is just the way the Hebrews wrote narratives, what we have is simply an overview of the Six Days of Creation, followed by a detailed account of the creation of Adam & Eve from an earthly point of view.<\/div>\n
\n

Can you think of other pairings or parallel passages in the Bible of loving God and loving your neighbor?<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Painting, Cain and Abel (1603), by Palma il Giovane [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cYou shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind,\u201d said Jesus.\u00a0 And \u201cyou shall love your neighbor as yourself.\u00a0\u00a0On these two commandments depend\u00a0all the Law and the Prophets\u201d\u00a0(Matthew 22:37, 39-40).\u00a0 Thus, the first table of the Ten Commandments has to do with loving […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":36801,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[86,7551,7557,7560,7554],"class_list":["post-36671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","tag-adam-and-eve","tag-biblical-narrative","tag-cain-and-abel","tag-love-of-god-and-love-of-neighbor","tag-parallelism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Double Fall<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A Bible scholar points out that Genesis gives us a double Fall: Adam & Eve violate the love of God; 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