What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?

Description

A renowned biblical scholar contends that we have misconstrued the meaning and lessons of the Garden of Eden story for more than two millennia Contents A Preface about “Really” Acknowledgments Introduction: The Fall Is with Us Always PART ONE .Now and Then 1. The Fall in Interpretation 2. The Fall in the Hebrew Bible 3. Who Wrote the Garden Story and When? 4. What Is a Reader- Response Approach to Interpreting the Garden Story? 5. Reading, Presenting, and Evaluating the Garden Story PART TWO. Before Then 6. A Down- to- Earth Story (Gen 2:4– 7) 7. Why Eden? Why a Garden? Where Were the Trees? (Gen 2:5, 8– 10) 8. Where in the World Was Eden? (Gen 2:10– 14) 9. The Gardener and His Tasks (Gen 2:15) 10. The Second Commandment (Gen 2:16– 17) 11. The First Social Welfare Program (Gen 2:18– 20) 12. The First Lady (Gen 2:21– 23) 13. Why “Therefore”? (Gen 2:24) 14. How Bare Is Naked? (Gen 2:25) 15. Clever Conversation and Conspicuous Consumption (Gen 3:1– 6) 16. Dressing Up for a Dressing Down (Gen 3:7– 11) 17. Interrogation and Negotiation (Gen 3:11– 13) 18. Procreation in the Garden (Gen 3:14– 19; 4:1– 2) 19. Not a Leg to Stand On: Th e Serpent’s Sentence and the Israelite Culture of “Curse” (Gen 3:14– 15) 20. No Bundle of Joy: Hawwa’s Sentence and Israelite Predilections in Legal Reasoning (Gen 3:16) 21. Toil and Trouble: Adam’s Sentence and the Rights of Laborers (Gen 3:17– 19) 22. Out of the Garden (Gen 3:20– 24) PART THREE. Then and Now 23. The Essential Plot of the Garden Story 24. A Literal Translation of a Literary Text 25. Allusions to the Garden Story in the Hebrew Bible 26. Contra the Common Interpretation 27. Beyond the Tower of Babel Appendix: Transliterating Hebrew for Tourists in the Garden Notes Bibliography Index