Genesis 3

Have patience!

Welcome to the Daily Bible Chapter. My name is James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as we discover new insights and new perspectives from a very old book.

Read Genesis 3 from the translation of your choice. I’m using Young’s Literal Translation.

One thing I’m getting from Chapter 3 is better context for Chapters 1 and 2. In Chapter 1, humans — male and female — were created in God’s “image and likeness,” but presumably created through natural processes. Chapter 1 seems to say the physical, external, material world was manifested by God.

In Chapter 2, however, the Garden of Eden, planted by Jehovah God, seems like a magical, fantastical place… or an allegorical place. Might it be that Chapter 1 is an account of physical creation, and Chapter 2 is an account of spiritual creation? The Man in the Garden wasn’t born from a natural, physical process, but molded from dust and Jehovah God “breatheth into the man’s nostrils the breath of life.” That Woman was made from a Man’s “rib.”

Perhaps we are born in the manner of animals, but also born of spirit, and both the Man and the Woman of the Garden dwell in each of us.

The magic (or allegory) continues in Chapter 3, with a serpent communicating with the woman. As one of the most “grounded” of animals, a serpent might be an…