NOTE:
This post has been withdrawn. The post has been published in my book, Rereading the Biblical Text: Searching for Meaning and Understanding. The approach taken in the book is to compare how different translations have approached difficult texts in the Old Testament. The goal of the book is to invite readers to reread the biblical text in light of the new understanding of the intent of the original writer of the text. You can order the book from Amazon.
Rereading the Biblical Text
Visit my Amazon author’s page to purchase the book (click here).
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
A Note About This Post:
Before “The Serpent Was Right” was withdrawn for publication, “The Serpent Was Right” was read by 624 readers. You can read “The Serpent Was Right” and other articles on Bible translation by reading my book Rereading the Biblical Text: Searching for Meaning and Understanding. Below is the content of the book:
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments – Page xi
Abbreviations – Page xii
Introduction – Page xv
SECTION 1 — THE PENTATEUCH
Chapter 1. The Creation of Animals in Genesis 2:19 – Page 3
Chapter 2. The Serpent Was Right (Genesis 3) – Page 7
Chapter 3. The Seed of the Woman (Genesis 3:15) – Page 11
Chapter 4. Were They Really Giants? (Genesis 6:4) – Page 17
Chapter 5. “As Far as Dan” (Gen 14:14) – Page 20
Chapter 6. Abraham and the Promises of God – Page (Genesis 12:7) – Page 23
Chapter 7. The Sacrifice of Isaac (Genesis 22:8) – Page 26
Chapter 8. The Rape of Bilhah (Genesis 35:22) – Page 29
Chapter 9. Miriam, a Leader in Israel (Exodus 15:20) – Page 32
Chapter 10. Azazel (Leviticus 16:8-10) – Page 35
Chapter 11. Understanding Numbers 24:24 – Page 38
SECTION 2 — THE HISTORICAL BOOKS
Chapter 12. The Levite and His Concubine (Judges 19:1–30) – Page 43
Chapter 13. The Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter (Judges 10:6–12:7) – Page 47
Chapter 14. The Fate of Jephthah’s Daughter (Judges 10:6–12:7) – Page 4750
Chapter 15. The Virginity of Jephthah’s Daughter (Judges 10:6–12:7) – Page 54
Chapter 16. Who Went Back to the City? (Ruth 3:15) – Page 59
Chapter 17. Was Ruth Barren? (Ruth 4:13) – Page 59
Chapter 18. King Saul: Little in His Own Eyes (1 Samuel 15:17) – Page 63
Chapter 19. How Old Was Saul? (1 Samuel 13:1) – Page 64
Chapter 20. David and Melchizedek (Psalm 110:4) – Page 67
Chapter 21. David’s Sons Were Priests ((2 Samuel 8:18) – Page 70
Chapter 22. “Him that Pisseth against the Wall” (1 Samuel 25:22) – Page 72
Chapter 23. Whose Cloak Did Ahijah Tear? (1Kinga 11:4–7) – Page 78
Chapter 24. The Challenges of Parenthood (2 Kinga 21:25–26) – Page 82
SECTION 3 — THE WISDOM AND POETICAL BOOKS
Chapter 25. Psalm 8:5: In Search of a Better Translation – Page 87
Chapter 26. Understanding Psalm 17:14 – Page 90
Chapter 27. Jezebel’s Wedding Song (Psalm 45:1–17) – Page 93
Chapter 28. Psalm 100:3: In Search of a Better Translation – Page 99
Chapter 29. Sons or Children? (Psalm 127:3-5) – Page 103
Chapter 30. Proverbs 29:18 – Page 106
Chapter 31. “Black and Beautiful” or “Black but Beautiful”? (Song of Songs 1:5) – Page 108
SECTION 4 — THE PROPHETICAL BOOKS
Chapter 32. The Use of Gender Inclusive Language (Isaiah 9:1) – Page 115
Chapter 33. “You Have Increased Their Joy” (Isaiah 9:3) – Page 118
Chapter 34. Who Will the Messiah Strike? (Isaiah 11:4) – Page 120
Chapter 35. The Way of the Lord (Isaiah 40:3) – Page 122
Chapter 36. “All Their Goodliness” (Isa 40:6) – Page 126
Chapter 37. The Proclaimer of Good News (Isaiah 40:9) – Page 129
Chapter 38. The Problem of Divorce in the Old Testament (Isaiah 50:1) – Page 132
Chapter 39. Beulah Land (Isaiah 62:4) – Page 135
Chapter 40. The Balm of Gilead (Jeremiah 8:22) – Page 138
Chapter 41. The Mother of Seven (Jeremiah 15:9) – Page 142
Chapter 42. The Coming of the Messiah (Daniel 9:25–27) – Page 144
Chapter 43. The Seventy Weeks of Daniel (Daniel 9:25–27) – Page 148
Chapter 44. The Knowledge of God (Hosea 4:1) – Page 152
Chapter 45. The Word “Hesed” in the Book of Hosea (Hosea 4:1) – Page 154
Chapter 46. The Word “Justice” in Amos (Amos 5:24) – Page 157
Chapter 47. “What the Lord Requires” (Micah 6:8) – Page 160
Bibliography – Page 165
Index of Subjects – Page 169
Index of Authors – Page 171
Index of Scriptures and Other Ancient Documents – Page 173
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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Dr. Claude Mariottini - Professor of Old Testament 
>Dr. Mariottini, there is yet another option. With a tripartite view of Adam's being, we might conclude that his spirit is what died that day, although his body and soul lived on.So when Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born from above, it is that third part of man which has been missing since the Garden, which He is wanting to restore.
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>The Church teaches that God gave the gift of immortality to man. In light of this, I believe man was born immortal, free from suffering and death; he lived in paradise, an earthly paradise, after all. I also interpret Genesis in light of Jesus Christ; the Tree of Life is the fruit of the New Jersalem, the same symbol for the same gift of immortality, which God would give to Adam, not only increasing, as it were, his own immortality but giving him true immortality – which was lost in his fall but which the New Adam obtained for us by His sorrowful death; moreover, the death of Adam is twofold, for it is, on one hand, immediate and true death, the soul's death, and, on the other hand, the seed of what we consider to be death, the seperation of the soul and the body, i.e., Adam became a mortal man. But just as death came into the world through one man, so through another Man life was restored.
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>Bill,The tripartite view of human beings does not reflect Old Testament teaching. This view is yet again another aspect of "death before death"," a view I rejected in the post.Claude Mariottini
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>Nick,Genesis 3:22 clearly teaches that man would obtain immortality by eating of the fruit of the tree. Death entered the world because Adam disobeyed God: he ate the fruit he was not supposed to eat.Claude Mariottini
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>This topic reminds me of something I read in The Legend of the Jews by Louis Ginzberg. There, he describes Adam's days as set for 1,000 years, equal to one day of God. God, when asked by the Angels why he still lived, said he meant one of His days when issuing his decree. On why Adam lived only to be 930, it's because he granted 70 of his years to King David.–Quote–The perfections of Adam's soul showed themselves as soon as he received her, indeed, while he was still without life. In the hour that intervened between breathing a soul into the first man and his becoming alive, God revealed the whole history of mankind to him. He showed him each generation and its leaders; each generation and its prophets; each generation and its teachers; each generation and its scholars; each generation and its statesmen; each generation and its judges; each generation and its pious members; each generation and its average, commonplace members; and each generation and its impious members. The tale of their years, the number of their days, the reckoning of their hours, and the measure of their steps, all were made known unto him.Of his own free will Adam relinquished seventy of his allotted years. His appointed span was to be a thousand years, one of the Lord's days. But he saw that only a single minute of life was apportioned to the great soul of David, and he made a gift of seventy years to her, reducing his own years to nine hundred and thirty.'—end quote—It seems the granting of infinite knowledge to God's servants of subsequent history is a typical act of God in much Jewish/Christian unofficial apocrypha and legends, and it often makes me wonder if Jesus' cryptic statement in John 8:56 refers to some similar tradition.
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>Here is part of the passages relating to the punishment (and the entry of death into the world):Yet she could not bring herself to disobey the command of God utterly. She made a compromise with her conscience. First she ate only the outside skin of the fruit, and then, seeing that death did not fell her, she ate the fruit itself. Scarce had she finished, when she saw the Angel of Death before her. Expecting her end to come immediately, she resolved to make Adam eat of the forbidden fruit, too, lest he espouse another wife after her death. It required tears and lamentations on her part to prevail upon Adam to take the baleful step. Not yet satisfied, she gave of the fruit to all other living beings, that they, too, might be subject to death. All ate, and they all are mortal, with the exception of the bird malham, who refused the fruit, with the words: "Is it not enough that ye have sinned against God, and have brought death to others? Must ye still come to me and seek to persuade me into disobeying God's command, that I may eat and die thereof? I will not do your bidding." A heavenly voice was heard then to say to Adam and Eve: "To you was the command given. Ye did not heed it; ye did transgress it, and ye did seek to persuade the bird malham. He was steadfast, and he feared Me, although I gave him no command. Therefore he shall never taste of death, neither he nor his descendants–they all shall live forever in Paradise."… THE PUNISHMENTAs long as Adam stood naked, casting about for means of escape from his embarrassment, God did not appear unto him, for one should not "strive to see a man in the hour of his disgrace." He waited until Adam and Eve had covered themselves with fig leaves. But even before God spoke to him, Adam knew what was impending. He heard the angels announce, "God betaketh Himself unto those that dwell in Paradise." He heard more, too. He heard what the angels were saying to one another about his fall, and what they were saying to God. In astonishment the angels exclaimed: "What! He still walks about in Paradise? He is not yet dead?" Whereupon God: "I said to him, 'In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die!' Now, ye know not what manner of day I meant–one of My days of a thousand years, or one of your days. I will give him one of My days. He shall have nine hundred and thirty years to live, and seventy to leave to his descendants."When Adam and Eve heard God approaching, they hid among the trees–which would not have been possible before the fall. Before he committed his trespass, Adam's height was from the heavens to the earth, but afterward it was reduced to one hundred ells. Another consequence of his sin was the fear Adam felt when he heard the voice of God: before his fall it had not disquieted him in the least. Hence it was that when Adam said, "I heard Thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid," God replied, "Aforetime thou wert not afraid, and now thou art afraid?"
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>Nate,Thank you for this information. I had never seen it before.Claude Mariottini
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>I was speaking ontologically, which seems a reasonable next step if the original writer and audience truly left the point unexplained. That said, I do see your point. Thanks for responding.
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>I found it interesting too when I discovered it. Some of the stories are truly bizare, others just interesting anectodes. But I remember hearing some of them in Hebrew School growing up, with no distinction between whether they appeared in the Scriptures or whether they were from secondary sources like a Mishnah or the Talmud.(For instance, when I began reading Genesis as an adult I was surprised to find the story of Terah as an idol-maker was not part of the biblical narrative.)
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Dear Claude,
There is another way to understand Genesis chapter 3. But it would include my book on 200 pages to fully explain this, so I have to be very brief. I just give you some details for you to reconsider, on how to read Genesis 3 in the alternative way.
* Gen. 2:17 says: “THE DAY you eat …”. This has to mean God new Adam would eat of the tree. It does not say “IF you eat … “ as in a threat.
* Adam never brought “death” into the world, for he already was created “mortal”. The fact that Adam and Eve had to reproduce children, just like the animals, to be able to have their genes continue, confirms this.
* The word “sin” is not even a part of chapter 3. The first time “sin” is mentioned, is in Gen. 4:7. This confirms that what happened to Adam and Eve was something else, but a fall into “sin”.
* It is a fact, that the Garden of Eden was a temporarily place, to prepare Adam and Eve for the world “outside” the Garden.
* This fact shows us that when they did what God said they should not do (only, if they wanted to know about “mortality”).
* So, their “free will” was released. This prepared them for their calling as humans, needed by God to be on the Earth as Gods Image, making new images of themself’s that should fill the planet.
* The serpent was used by God, as His spokesman, to get Eve equipped to be Adams Helper. In this case to take the first step to confirm to Adam it was going to prepare them for their mission.
* God was not angry with Adam and Eve. Gods Voice was curious, not irritated or disappointed. The so called “death-sentence” was nowhere expressed. God did not punish them with a curse. He just informed them of the next step.
My Best
Ulf Malmström
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Ulf,
You write, “Gen. 2:17 says: “THE DAY you eat …”. This has to mean God new Adam would eat of the tree. It does not say “IF you eat … “ as in a threat.”
There is nothing in the text that says: “This has to mean God new Adam.” This is pure interpretation that finds no biblical support.
Claude Mariottini
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