BEMA Episode Link: 2: Knowing When to Say “Enough”
Episode Length: 46:50
Published Date: Thu, 15 Sep 2016 01:00:00 -0700
Session 1
About this episode:

Marty Solomon and Brent Billings discuss the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and what the story might really be getting at.

Discussion Video for BEMA 2

Transcript for BEMA 2

Notes

*Note: The following notes are handwritten by me, Adam, and I reserve the right to be wrong.

• Genesis 2 and 3
• Genesis 2:4
  • We run into problems again if we read the Bible literally.
    • This creation story doesn’t pick up where we left off.
    • This is the same creation but is told from a different perspective.
  • “Both trees are in the middle of the garden.”
    • The Hebrew reads that the tree of life is in the middle of the garden and not the other.
    • There is a rabbinic tradition that explains when Eve meets with the serpent and she says we cannot eat from the tree of knowledge in the MIDDLE of the garden, it’s actually not in the middle, however, she has made it the center of HER garden.
    • The Hebrew gives enough lattitude to put the tree of knowledge ANYWHERE in the garden. It may be next to the tree of life or somewhere else entirely.
  • The rivers: Less and less important as you descend the list. One river in the Hebrew flows in a circle. Rain has not fallen yet and comes from the ground but it also comes from rivers?
    • Pishon, Gihon, Tigris, Euphrates
    • Names are important.
  • G-d brings all of the animals to Adam to name them.
    • Is it because Adam is lonely?
    • No suitable helper could be found.
      • G-d take his “rib” which really means “around” so G-d simply takes some part of me.
        • Adam named her Esh-ah. Male = Esh. Female = Esh-ah.
        • Eve also bares G-d’s image.
      • Loneliness isn’t good because we need tension in life.
        • Helpmate is a bad translation. Et-ser Co-neg-do.
          • Et-ser means help
          • Co-neg-do means against or opposition
          • She is the help that comes against him or the help that opposes
          • It wasn’t good for humanity to be alone so G-d takes a part of man and fashions woman and she is the part that is now missing from man. He is now incomplete.
          • Only when male and female are together do you see humanity in its fullness. Not just in marriage. If you have a room full of women, you’re missing a large piece of humanity.
          • The woman opposes us but in her opposition, she is out greatest help.
            • Rabbis depict two 2x4s leaning against each other; if one is taken away, they both fall down.
            • Blind submission to a man is not was Genesis teaches.
            • There is no plank that stands by itself.
        • A man leaving his mother and father for his wife goes against betov.
        • [PAUSED AT 12:55]

Edit | Previous | Next