Chapter 1: What is the historical context of the Adam and Eve story?
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And today we are delving deep into that famous creation story that is that of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Naturally, as we do always on The Ancients, when we cover an Old Testament story, we'll be exploring the ancient historical context of
behind this tale linked to mesopotamia lots of different themes one that i found fascinating in this chat is that of immortality and whether adam and eve were they created mortal or immortal that and so much more is all to come i really enjoyed this chat with dr dylan johnson returning guest a good friend of mine who is a lecturer in ancient near eastern history at cardiff university let's get into the episode
Adam and Eve, the parents of the human race, formed from Earth's dust, a divine breath and a stolen rib. A pair of innocents.
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Chapter 2: Was there really an apple in the Garden of Eden?
That is, until Eve, tempted by the evil serpent, ate the forbidden fruit. Their transgression was met with bitter punishment from God. The daughters of Eve were condemned to pain in childbirth and the sons of Adam would forever toil and sweat over the accursed ground for food.
We all know the story, but strip away the version you might have learned in Sunday School and what is left is a dark myth with deep links to the ancient world. Today we will explore the Garden of Eden, its ties to the ancient Near East, and trace this foundational myth back to Mesopotamian epics that predate the Bible.
And I'm so pleased to be joined today by historian, biblical scholar, and expert in the ancient Near East, Dr. Dylan Johnson. Dylan, always a pleasure. Great to have you back on the show. Great to be back. Thanks for inviting me. So what have we done now? We've done Ark of the Covenant, Moses, Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ten Commandments.
Yeah.
Chapter 3: Where might the Garden of Eden have been located?
But Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. First of all, what a story. I mean, the way it's composed, the many different layers to it as well, like an onion and the influences you can see from the world in which it's written, like at that time. It's fascinating. It's a brilliant story.
Absolutely. I mean, it's extremely interesting in terms of the content, what it describes. It's also interesting in terms of its placement within Genesis, coming immediately after another creation. So lots of questions there.
First off, big question to start it. Was there an apple? Was the forbidden fruit an apple?
No, forbidden fruit was not an apple.
Chapter 4: How does the creation of Adam and Eve differ in Genesis?
That's purely an accident. Well, we think it's a bit apocryphal, but we think it's an accident of Latin translators. So in the Hebrew, the word is just pre, which just means fruit. And if we know much about horticulture, historical horticulture in Southern Levant, in the Middle East, not many apple trees.
But in Latin, there's a funny coincidence that the word for evil, that's pretty important, malum, is also the word for apple, malum. So by Eve eating the malum, she invites evil into this world. So we think that maybe that's kind of a folk tradition, why we think of the fruit as an apple, but we don't actually know for sure.
So it's a textual error almost, or a misinterpretation that's happened somewhere along the line, evil for apple. Yeah, something like that, or a play on words that it worked for both. Yeah. I'm glad we sorted that straight away and we will certainly return to the story of the fruit and many different themes within the story of Adam and Eve.
But let's get the background out of the way first and foremost. Where in the book of Genesis and where in the Old Testament is the story of Adam and Eve set and the Garden of Eden?
Where is it? So if we think of biblical writing as centered in and around this place in the southeastern corner of the Mediterranean, what would become Israel and Judah, then it's east. It's east of there. How far east? It doesn't really give us a very clear indication because, again, this is a fairly mythological place.
Mesopotamia, perhaps, perhaps further east, perhaps nowhere, perhaps as part of that mythical geography that in some ways is connected to real places, but always a little bit further, kind of a Shangri-La, not quite sure where it is exactly, but it is fairly clear that from the biblical mindset, it's somewhere in the east, which means it's old in certain respects because of the antiquity of those cultures that are further east.
And that's where Abraham is as well, isn't it? And Ur and that area of southern Mesopotamia. So it all kind of links to that geographic part of the world.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, just this place across the great desert, the great Syrian desert. Just the other side of the Fertile Crescent, really.
And also in regards to the book of Genesis, you mentioned it right at the beginning, but whereabouts in the book of Genesis is this story placed?
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Chapter 5: What themes of immortality and wisdom are present in the story?
Second chapter. So the first chapter in the beginning, we have the first creation story. So this might shock some viewers, listeners. There are two creation stories. The first one being a fairly unilateral act of God who creates man and woman in his own image. And then chapter two talks about another creation, which is Adam and Eve.
And we'll probably have to qualify Adam, whether that's a name or not.
Well, we absolutely will. I mean, another big question, though, is that's where it is in the book. But do we have any idea when this story is composed? Because once again, we always get this idea sometimes that the first chapters of the Bible are the oldest in the Bible. But what is actually the story behind this? When do we think the story of Adam and Eve is actually created and written down?
So as always with biblical texts, we're not sure. We have some good evidence to think it's older than chapter one. So chapter one looks very heavily influenced from the experiences of Judahites, so biblical writers in exile, which means fifth century. So it looks probably older than that, but we can't be sure. And there are people who think, no, it's also exilic.
I myself think it's probably pre-exilic, that it dates to a time when kings were still around, which puts us in the usual time frame that I give for a lot of dates of biblical texts, sometime between the 9th and 6th century, somewhere in there.
It's the early first millennium BC.
Yeah, somewhere in there, probably even more towards the mid, if anything.
And in regards to timescale, how far back they're looking when they're writing down this story. Traditionally, how far back in time is the story of Adam and Eve set?
So this is truly in mythological time. This is what we call antediluvian time before the flood. And this is really important because this is an idea of chronology that's not just unique to biblical writers. We also find it in Mesopotamia and things like the Sumerian king list, where before this global flood, the world was different. People lived longer, exceptionally long lives.
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Chapter 6: How does the story of Adam and Eve connect to Mesopotamian myths?
people had more direct contact with the gods. It was a different world before the flood. So in the mindset of the biblical writers, this is really what we call the primeval history, when God was still actively creating and then ultimately destroying when it comes to the flood. So outside real history, in essence.
And also for context, so the flood story in the book of Genesis, how much further along in the book is the flood story?
It's just a couple chapters later. So we have Cain and Abel immediately after the Eden narrative, and then we get into the flood story fairly shortly after that.
Well, let's explore the Adam and Eve story now. So it comes right after that first creation story of the seven days and God resting on the seventh day, having created the heavens and the earth. And so how does it then go to the narrative of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?
So it more or less just pretends like the first chapter hasn't occurred. Because at a certain point in verse 4, we have this kind of summation of, all right, God has finished creating, including creating man and woman. They now exist. And when we pick up in verse 4, the narrative acts like man and woman have not been created. So they don't even try to connect it to the preceding text.
Because ultimately, it's a completely independent account of creation. Now, unlike chapter one, which really focuses on the creation of the cosmos, you know, the sun and the moon and everything in between, this is more focused on living beings, including humanity, but also animals and things like that. So it's a completely separate creation story.
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Chapter 7: What are the punishments given to Adam, Eve, and the serpent?
And it sets off with this garden that God has planted this garden somewhere in the east. And he is want for someone to work it. And this becomes a really important theme that why is humanity created at all? It's to work and specifically to toil in the land.
But to toil a garden at first rather than anywhere else.
To toil a garden at first, yes. So hopefully the toil isn't too laborious. And this will become important when I talk about parallel creation myths from Mesopotamia. But at least from the outset, God creates a garden. There's no bushes in the field. And what's really interesting is there's no rain. So there's no precipitation at this point.
And the garden is fed by what translators for millennia have translated as mist. this word aid in Hebrew, but actually comes from Sumerian. We don't get many Sumerian loan words into Hebrew, but this one id in Sumerian just means a river, specifically the subterranean river that springs up from the underworld and waters.
And also for context, the Sumerian language by the early first millennium BC is one that's only really studied by academics, and it's not like a spoken language of the everyday person at that time, so very interesting to have it.
Yeah, it's a very erudite language, which makes us suspect that they probably encountered it through some other medium, but nonetheless, there's no doubt that this word is coming from Sumerian. Interesting.
And sorry, continue the story.
So underground river. So underground river feeding the garden that God has planted. He needs someone to toil the land and he decides to, what's the word is to fashion, really to sculpt. human being, the first man. And I think here I can say, when we encounter this name, which we often translate as a proper name, Adam, really the word just means man. It's not a proper name.
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Chapter 8: What is the legacy of the Adam and Eve story in modern interpretations?
Unlike Eve, which does become a proper name, Adam is quite clearly not a proper name. So the character should just be called the man, which is what he's called more frequently than not. So if you've got a friend called Adam today, you're actually just the man. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. So he creates man. He fashions him from the dust which is upon the earth. So think in terms of kind of almost a clay figurine here. And really, they're conjuring imagery here of a potter, of a potter creating a figurine. And he breathed the breath of life into this being which animates him.
And this is already steeped in Near Eastern traditions, thinking specifically about the formation of cultic statues. Ritual ceremonies like the opening of the mouth and the watching of the mouth ceremony where these sculpted objects are given vitality, usually in the form of divine inhabitants through these ceremonies. So God is kind of channeling that in the creation of humanity here.
And we'll get many parallels to this in Mesopotamian myths, which we can go on to later. But that's the creation of the man. And the man, unlike in the first chapter, starts to partake in creation. He starts to name things. And naming becomes a really important part of creation. Because once you give a name to something, then it springs into existence in both chapter one and chapter two here.
but he's lonely. So God decides to give him, and the word here is a helper, an ezer. And so it's decided that from the rib of man, he will create a companion for him. And this is, of course, the first woman. So the woman is created from his rib.
So from a component of this being that is partially made from the earth, but also containing at least some part of the divine essence in him, woman is created secondarily. And this is very interesting because in Genesis 1, man and woman are created at the same time, and both are created in the image of God.
Whereas here, and this is interested feminist interpreters, the woman seems to be derivative, secondary to the creation of man. So you can imagine how that's been taken in different directions.
So Adam and Eve have been created at this time, and the garden's already there. So what's the next key part of the story?
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