Book Review: What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?

In this fascinating volume, Zevit seeks to provide an original reading of Genesis 2–3. He begins by summarizing the view that, before the Fall, Adam and Hawwa (Eve's Hebrew name) had everything but that, because of “a lapse in judgment, an impulsive decision,” they lost everything. In the Fall, they forfeited “a blissful life in a state of grace before the presence of God,” and were expelled from the Garden into a world whey they “labored to survive and became prey to all types of misfortune that visit those out of God's favor.” We, their spiritual heirs, “are always skirting misdeeds and tottering on the brink of a new fall” (xxv).

In Part I, “Now and Then,” Zevit surveys the development of the aforementioned ideas in the Hellenistic period (c. 323–100 bce), centuries after the story was first written down, and asks why the Hebrew Bible is unaware of the idea of the Fall. He questions the idea that “sin” was due to a mere lapse in judgment and examines whether or not the Garden story indicates that Adam and Eve experienced any sense of guilt over what they had done. Zevit wants to know what the story meant to its original readers, and takes up the tools of reader-response criticism in his quest to find the answer. He provides a brief introduction to this method, by which he identifies the original readers as 9^th century bce Judahites and their response as one that viewed the Garden story as “a tale about real people, the primeval progenitors, who had lived very long ago and very far away” (53).

Part II, “Before Then,” is the heart of the book. Throughout, Zevit employs a close philological reading of the text, which he supplements with ancient Near Eastern data and later Jewish and Christian interpretation. Instead of summarizing each of the seventeen chapters in this section, we will simply point out a few of the main conclusions Zevit sets forth. Humankind is made from ‘apar, which Zevit translates not as “dust” but as a “clod” of soil (80–82). The nepeš which is instilled in both humans and creatures is not an “ethereal spirit” but contains within it “components of what we identify as personality, mind, and consciousness” (83). The name ‘ēden means “bounty” (87), and was a garden located in the Lake Van area, known as Urartu in Neo-Assyrian times. Zevit identifies the Pishon as the Halys River, which flows through Anatolia to the Black Sea, while the Gihon is the Aras/Arax River, which runs east to the Caspian Sea (97–113). Adam and Hawwa were placed in this garden “to work it and to guard it” (Gen 2:15).

If Adam and Hawwa violated the prohibition against eating from the tree, they would experience mōwt tāmūwt, which “refers to death by natural causes at some undetermined point in the future” (124). Zevit explores two alternative translations for ‘ezer kenegdo (usually translated as “a helper as his partner”), and settles on “a helper like his kin” (136). In his study of the creation of the first woman, Zevit proposes that the Hebrew term tsela‘, traditionally translated “rib,” actually means “baculum,” a penis bone that is found in most mammals, but not in humans 137–50). Instead of a man leaving his father and mother to cling to his wife, he “strengthens,” “supports,” or “helps” his father and mother by doing so (151–57).

In the “temptation” story, the nāḥāš, “serpent,” is a generic figure that “did not evoke anything sinister in Israelite culture” (161). It is not portrayed as especially wicked in Genesis, but “may be understood as attempting to take revenge against the woman responsible for changing Adam's relationship with animals” (166). Zevit argues that the serpent did not, however, suggest that Hawwa eat or that Adam partake, and was ultimately “not guilty of anything” (203), thereby eliminating the temptation. Furthermore, there is no punishment meted out in 3:14–19 (226). Once Adam and Hawwa had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were chastised, but not punished, since they had done nothing deserving of punishment. Eventually, they “were sent into the world beyond Eden not in anger and not as punishment, but in an act of kindness,” so that they would not eat from the tree of life and thereby eat themselves “into aeons of suffering” (232). Being driven out into “the world beyond Eden … was God's gift to humanity” (236).

In Part III, “Then and Now,” Zevit acknowledges that he has retold the Garden story “in a most non-traditional manner” (241), but insists that his interpretation is warranted by the interpretive arguments he has made in Part II. He presents a new translation of the Garden story that incorporates his interpretive arguments (243–50). Zevit reviews how the Garden story is addressed and evaluated in the Hebrew Bible in books other than Genesis, and concludes that the story was “about the acquisition of wisdom” and not about “the myth of a Fall” (251–59). In the final chapters, he surveys biblical passages that illustrate “that ancient Israelites understood the Garden story as a positive and optimistic one” (242).

What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden? is dense but accessible to both the scholar and the educated lay reader. Zevit offers so many new interpretations in this volume that readers will certainly not agree with them all. Some of his reconstructions, such as that of the location of the Garden, are very convincing. Others, such as that the Hebrew term tsela’ means “baculum” instead of the traditionally accepted “rib,” will be controversial. The overall interpretation of the Garden story as not about a Fall but about how humankind acquired knowledge and wisdom will certainly cause debate. As a whole, Zevit's volume will unquestionably lead to a renewed interest in the Garden story and fresh examinations of the text, and these are worthy contributions indeed.