Before Yahweh is an object of worship, He is a teacher, issuing an invitation to Adam to eat from the fruit of the garden but prohibiting the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:16-17). After He forms Eve, though, He disappears from the narrative, leaving Eve and Adam to face the serpent\u2019s test \u201calone.\u201d (He reappears in 3:8, immediately after the fall.)<\/p>\n
This is part of the divine pedagogy. Jesus does it too: Invite, command, teach, give; then leave. It\u2019s the divine equivalent of telling a kid how to move his arms and legs and then throwing him into the deep end. Yahweh is no hovering, hand-holding Father. He wants His son and daughter to grow up, and he forces them to do it quickly.<\/p>\n
The pressure is especially in Adam. Yahweh speaks directly <\/em>to him, and, from the narrative, we are led to surmise that Eve learned of Yahweh\u2019s invitation and prohibition from Adam. Yahweh teaches Adam so Adam can become a teacher. <\/p>\n Both explicitly and implicitly in the narrative of the fall, Adam\u2019s role as teacher includes a role as guardian. He is set in the garden to serve and guard it (2:15), and when Eve is put into the garden, she becomes one of the fruitful vines that needs to be guarded. Yahweh is absent. He won\u2019t guard Eve. And that puts Adam in the double divine role of teacher and guard.<\/p>\n Satan\u2019s temptation is in effect a counter-pedagogy. Yahweh spoke to Adam who spoke to Eve; Satan addresses Eve directly. Yahweh invited and commanded, in speech acts of invitation and command and warning. Satan offers no imperatives. He does invite, but the invitations are founded on interrogatives. He teaches Eve by subverting Yahweh\u2019s instruction with questions: \u201cHas God said?\u201d He offers indicatives that contradict the warnings from Yahweh: \u201cYou shall not surely die!\u201d He casts doubt on the purity of God\u2019s intentions, suggesting that Yahweh is more concerned to protect His privileges than to bless His creatures. Though Yahweh has invited Adam and Eve to eat from all the trees of the garden, Satan questions Yahweh\u2019s generosity. Satan\u2019s form of teaching is designed to raise doubts that will lead to disobedience. <\/p>\n Adam\u2019s sin is a failure to act as guard. He is \u201cwith her\u201d throughout the temptation (3:6), but is cowed into silence. He has taught Eve, but he fails to follow up teaching \u00a0by rejecting and refuting Satan\u2019s contrary teaching. He falls because he fails to counter Satan\u2019s corrosive interrogations with reminders of divine invitations and imperatives.<\/p>\n The contrast between Yahweh\u2019s instruction and Satan\u2019s counter-pedagogy is instructive. And it\u2019s worth contemplating how much today\u2019s pedagogy (outside the military!) is closer to Satan\u2019s than to Yahweh\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Before Yahweh is an object of worship, He is a teacher, issuing an invitation to Adam to eat from the fruit of the garden but prohibiting the fruit of the tree of knowledge (Genesis 2:16-17). After He forms Eve, though, He disappears from the narrative, leaving Eve and Adam to face the serpent\u2019s test \u201calone.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3021,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-ot-genesis"],"yoast_head":"\n