Justice or Mercy, or Perhaps Both?

05Jan15
Genesis 3:8-19
Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.  But the Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?"  He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."  And he said, "Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"  The man said, "The woman you put here with me -- she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it."  Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?"  The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate."  So the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!  You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike at his heel."  To the woman he said, "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you."  To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat of it,' Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.  It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return."

Some questions arise again.  For example, if the man and the woman heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden, and Adam even says "I heard you in the garden," then how is that?  Does God have a body?  Does this mean it is Jesus?  It certainly does not say so here.

The passage does not say that Adam and Eve felt naked, it says they did not know they were naked.  This is odd, because they do not speak like totally naive children.  Some people say that they were clothed in the visible glory of God, but if that were simply the case, wouldn't God have asked them how they became naked rather than asking Adam who told you?

It is important to take notice of the fact that Adam and Eve seem to be talking face to face with the Lord Creator.  While they are depicted as talking like adults, God speaks to them as if they were very young children.  Is this possible?  God calls Adam a man, or does he mean mankind?  Is Eve a woman, or is she womankind?  God comes walking, they hide while he speaks as though he doesn't know where they are.  Likewise, he asks "who told you you were naked?" as if he does not know.  This kind of speech is either a put-on, which seems impossible considering who is speaking, or it is justified by the mental maturity of those he is speaking to.

Before, it was written that there were no plants of the field because of he lack of rain and there had been no man to work the ground (Gen 2).  Now, man is told he will bring forth food by way of painful toil and the sweat of your brow.  There is a quality to the condemnation which suggests this was not how event had to go.  How long were Adam and Eve in the garden before The Fall?  How would I feel differently I knew it had been for one afternoon, compared with if I knew it had been for a hundred years?  I feel, but cannot prove from this passage, that the pronouncements are not so much God's punishment, as his explaining what will now result.  I feel there is more explaining than deciding.

It does not seem that the punishment fits the crime.  Therefore, I don't think that the passage is about crime or punishment, but rather about actions and outcomes.  

Say, for the sake of consideration, that a choice to shun the tree of choices would enable the man and woman to transform to an expanded existence which requires a purity which knows no selfishness.  The alternative is to become contaminated with a self seeking will which makes it impossible to become an expanded being, as the self centered will would expand as well.  God would there explain why the man and woman can not go on to the higher life in their current condition.  The judgment to death then becomes their protection from eternal doom yo a prison of self centered will, that is, a live like this one.