Phillip Cary

The first time human beings have a conversation with God in Genesis they are making excuses, trying to shift the blame for what they have done. Taken with the proper skepticism, the excuses are very revealing: they tell us a great deal about what went wrong in humanity’s primal disobedience. They . . . . Continue Reading »

When the serpent first speaks in Genesis, the woman is eager to correct him. His opening speech is probably best construed, according to many modern scholars, as an incomplete subordinate clause: in Robert Alter’s translation “Though God said, you shall not eat from any tree of the . . . . Continue Reading »

The book of Genesis does not give an ultimate explanation of the origin of evil, for evil is at its heart not explicable or intelligible, just as darkness is by its nature not visible. It stems not from a positive presence but from an absence, not a reason but a form of unreason: a failure, a lack, . . . . Continue Reading »

Genesis tells us when the serpent spoke to the woman, her husband was with her (Gen. 3:6). Yet evidently Adam is silent . Why? I’m thinking we might learn how to answer this question from Ahab and Jezebel, whose story is similar in several respects. The crucial similarity is that the man knows . . . . Continue Reading »

Why does the serpent in the Garden of Eden speak to the woman, not the man? Genesis gives us a very strong hint about this, which I explored in an earlier post :  The great difference between the man and the woman at this point is that the man has heard the commandment of God first hand, . . . . Continue Reading »

I want to think about how “male and female,” a duality essential to the goodness of creation , play an essential role also in the first disobedience in the Garden of Eden. But to do that I need to address a prior question: Why does God command the man not to eat the fruit from the tree of . . . . Continue Reading »

I started this series of reflections on Genesis by thinking about when Creation was not yet good : when the man is without the woman in Genesis 2, and when heaven is without the earth in Genesis 1 (when we do not hear the expected refrain, “And God was that it was good” on the second day). Now, . . . . Continue Reading »

In Genesis the goodness of creation requires what I have called a logic of otherness , in which dualities that could become divisions or antagonisms are united for the good. The basic structure of this logic is: (1) first one, then the other, (2) the one for the good of the other, and (3) the one . . . . Continue Reading »

In previous posts I have been thinking about striking moments early in Genesis that have to do with male and female—familiar moments with little-noticed features that are striking once you see them. Here is another one: the commandment not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil is . . . . Continue Reading »

It’s striking—or it should be—that Genesis does not mention “male and female” until it comes to the human creation (1:27). Before that there’s seed bearing fruit and the blessing of procreation, “be fruitful and multiply,” which establishes the sexual reproduction of the beasts of . . . . Continue Reading »