CHAPTER 2

Second Creation Account: Some theologians have speculated that God gave Adam infused knowledge. They may reason from the fact that Adam named every kind of animal. But the reasoning is inconclusive in that this is part of the story. What does it teach? It may be no more than that no animal was a mate for Adam. On the other hand, could Adam have developed language without it being given him by God. It is hard to imagine, for language commonly shows the power of abstraction: cf. out comments on dominion above. If God did not make Adam a gift of language then all communication between him and God would have been by means of interior locutions - no sign of that, and hardly fitting as the routine method in a being already equipped with the organs of speech.

What of the names Adam and Eve? Some weekend speakers, wanting to appear knowledgeable, have said: No. But care is needed. The genre of myth leave room for differences. So we need not insist on those particular names. But if they could talk, they must have called each other something, and that would suffice.

Was Adam just a generic word for man? in relation to adamah the ground? Then we would have Genesis teaching polygenism, or inclined to it. At present, scientific evidence does not reject polygenism flatly, but is unfavorable. We saw above that Pius XII in Humani generis, 1950 approved considering bodily evolution as possible - but not proved, provided it includes God's creation of the human soul. Then, turning to polygenism, he added that the faithful do not have the same freedom on it, because we cannot see how that idea could fit with Scripture and the magisterium. Some at this point say Pius XII closed discussion on polygenism --but others point to the "because" and say it may have been meant to leave open the possibility that someone might find a means of reconciliation.

Documentary theory: Does the change of names for God and the twofold account prove another document? Many have thought so. But it is far from proved: cf. our comments on JEPD in the introduction.

The fall: In Gen 3.15 God says: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike at your head, you will strike at his heel." Our question is: Could this text have been messianic, i.e., could it have meant a promise of a redeemer in itself?

We first check how the ancient Hebrews understood this passage. There are some few OT texts that might express original sin, but are quite doubtful.

Job 14:4: "Who can make clean from the unclean? Not one." The LXX reads: "Who will be clean [coming] from uncleanness? But no one [is clean], even if his life on the earth is one day."

In context, Job speaks of the frailty of humans. No connection is made to the first humans. The mention of those born only one day being in a state of uncleanness could imply a transmitted sin, but could easily refer to the evil yetzer, or else to levitical impurity from intercourse. So the text is quite doubtful at best.

Psalm 51:7: "Behold, in iniquity I was brought forth, and in sin did my mother conceive me." LXX: "Behold in iniquities I was conceived, and in sins my mother was pregnant with me." Most likely stands for ritual impurity from sex.

Sirach 15:23: "From the woman, the beginning of iniquity and because of her we die together." LXX has the same sense. The mention of the first woman does seem to refer to Genesis, but it is still not clear. However the word together could help suggest original sin.

Wisdom 2:23-24:"For God created man in incorruptibility and made him the image of his own eternity [variant "nature"]. By the envy of the devil death entered into the world." Ibid. 10:1-2: "She [Wisdom] guarded the first-formed father of the world... and delivered him from his fall, and gave him the power to rule all."

The second text here seems to refer to the personal salvation of Adam. The first does speak of death entering into the world, and so possibly could refer to original sin. Yet it is not clear.

Conclusion thus far: Very little of original sin, still less of a promise of a redeemer. All or nearly all could be understood of the yetzer ha-ra and its leading people into personal sin.

But better help comes from the ancient Targums: They are ancient Aramaic versions of the OT, most of them free, so as to have fill-ins which show how the Jews once understood them, without hindsight, that is, without seeing them fulfilled in Christ, whom they hated. Jacob Neusner in Messiah in Context, made a great survey of all Jewish literature from after 70 A.D. up to the Babylonian Talmud, 500-600 A.D. He found that up to the Talmud, there was no longer much interest in a Messiah. In the Talmud, interest returns, but the only one of the classic major points mentioned is that he should be of the line of David. In contrast, the Targums see the Messiah in so very many OT texts. It is evident, these parts of the Targums could not have been written in the literally centuries in which there was no interest in the Messiah. So they go back at least before 70 A.D. Some scholars think the beginning was when Ezra read the Scripture to the people, and the Levites out in the crowd explained it to them. This was in 5th century B.C., after the exile, when some had stopped using Hebrew, had turned instead to Aramaic. This is uncertain but very interesting.

The reason for Targums in general is debated. Some think that so many had stopped using Hebrew that a version was needed; others think the reason was to give a place to add interpretations - for in the Sacred Hebrew text, read before the Targums, no such insertions would have been permitted. It is uncertain how much Hebrew was known at the time of Christ. Targum Onkelos: "And enmity I will put between you and the woman, and between your son and her son. He shall be recalling what you did to him in the beginning; and you shall be observing him in the end." COMMENT: Onkelos is very sparing in seeing the Messiah; Only in Gen 49.10 and Numbers 2. It was much revised by the rabbis around 600, and messianic things removed. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: "And I will place enmity between you and the woman, and between the offspring of your sons and the offspring of her sons. And it will happen: when the sons of the woman will observe the precepts of the Torah, they will aim to strike you on the head; and when they will forsake the precepts of the Torah, you will aim to bite them in the heel. But for them there will be a remedy; whereas for you there will be no remedy. And they will be ready to make a crushing with the heel in the days of King Messiah."

Fragmentary Targum: "And it shall be: when the sons of the woman observe the Torah and fulfill the commandments, they will aim to strike you on the head and kill you; and when the sons of the woman will forsake the precepts of the Torah and will not keep the commandments, you will aim to bite them on their heel and harm them. However there will be a remedy for the sons of the woman, but for you, O serpent, there will be no remedy. Still, behold, they will appease one another in the final end of days, in the days of the King Messiah."

Targum Neofiti: "And I will put enmities between you and the woman, and between your sons and her sons. And it will happen: when her sons keep the Law and put into practice the commandments, they will aim at you and smite you on the head and kill you; but when they forsake the commandments of the Law, you will aim at and wound him on his heel and make him ill. For her son, however, there will be a remedy, but for you, serpent, there will be no remedy. They will make peace in the future in the day of King Messiah."

Conclusion from Targums: Three out of four of them make this text messianic, though they inject a bit of cloud from the use allegory.

Texts of the Magisterium

Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, 1854:"The Fathers and ecclesiastical writers... in commenting on the words, 'I will put enmity between you and the woman, and your seed and her seed', have taught that by this utterance there was clearly and openly foretold the merciful Redeemer of the human race... and that His Most Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, was designated, and at the same time, that the enmity of both against the devil was remarkably expressed." -

COMMENTS: We notice that Pius IX does not say in his own words that Gen 3:15 is messianic. He says that the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers say that.

Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, 1950: "We must remember especially that, since the 2nd century, the Virgin Mary has been presented by the Holy Fathers as the New Eve, who, although subject to the New Adam, was most closely associated with Him in that struggle against the infernal enemy which, as foretold in the Protoevangelium, was to result in that most complete victory over sin and death. Wherefore, just as the glorious resurrection of Christ was an essential part and final sign of this victory, so also that struggle, which was common to the Blessed Virgin and her Son, had to be closed by the glorification of her virginal body."

COMMENT: He speaks of the struggle against the infernal enemy as foretold in the protoevangelium, Gen. 3.15. Even though he does so in passing, yet he clearly takes it for granted that the protoevangelium does foretell that victory, a victory which is an essential part of his thought. Incidentally we notice the strong language on coredemption -- the "struggle" was a work in common, so much in common that there had to be a common result from a common cause - glorification for both Him and for her. [In passing: John Paul II, in his Allocution at the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Guayaquil, Jan 31, 1985, as in English Osservatore Romano of March 11, 1985, p. 7: "In fact, Mary's role as co-redemptrix did not cease with the glorification of her Son."].

Pius XII, Fulgens corona, 1953: "... the foundation of this doctrine [Immaculate Conception] is seen in the very Sacred Scripture in which God... after the wretched fall of Adam, addressed the... serpent in these words, which not a few of the Holy Fathers and doctors of the Church, and most approved interpreters refer to the Virgin Mother of God: "I will put enmity...."

COMMENT: 1) If the IC is contained in Gen 3:15, then of course she is contained in it in some way. Here is a good illustration of the providential work of the Holy Spirit. If we had to work without the Magisterium, we would probably say that Gen 3:15 might possibly speak of the Mother of the Redeemer and further, might possibly speak of a victory in which she was involved, and might possibly say that victory had to include the Immaculate Conception - but we could not get across the gap from possible to certain. Similarly, and even more so, with the "full of grace" text, whose translation is so much debated. Patristic evidence has two things on the IC:

2) Some, not all Fathers, have sweeping statements on her holiness, which could imply the IC;

3) The New Eve theme could have included the reasoning: Since the first Eve had an immaculate start, the new Eve all the more should have it. But not one Father ever made such an argument. Hence St. Bernard was able to flatly deny the IC, and so many medieval theologians with him, until finally after the work of Duns Scotus, Popes began to intervene, with statements of varying clarity until about a century and a half before the definition of 1854, the whole Church peacefully believed in the Immaculate Conception.

Vatican II: Lumen gentium §55: Speaking of Genesis 3.15 and Isaiah 7.14: "These primeval documents, as they are read in the Church, and understood in the light of later and full revelation, gradually bring before us the figure of the Mother of the Redeemer."

COMMENT: Exegetes have long discussed the question of a "fuller sense" of Scripture: a sense in which the Chief Author had in mind more than what the human writer saw. Later with deepening revelation, according to the promise of Christ to send the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth, more and more has been seen. In H. Vorgrimler (ed.) Commentary on the Documents of Vatican II, 1969, III, p. 220, we learn that the Council in DV §12 had an opening to declare on the existence of such a sense, but deliberately passed it by, writing less clearly. In the above words we do not have a formal statement that such a sense exists, but in practice LG 55 endorses it by making use of it. It shows uncertainty whether the human writer saw all the Church now sees: cf. M. Miller, "As it is written" The use of Old Testament References in the Documents of Vatican II. Marianist Center, St. Louis, 1973, pp. 49-60.

The citation of LG 55 continues: "She in this light is already prophetically foreshadowed in the promise given to our first parents, fallen into sin, of victory over the serpent (cf. Gen 3, 15)."

COMMENTS: 1) In saying she is "prophetically foreshadowed" LG identifies the sense as typical. Eve is the type, Mary the antitype: but this typical use is a subdivision of the literal sense: the antitype is real and definitely meant.

2) Pius XII, in Munificentissimus Deus, as we saw above, had said that the protoevangelium does speak of the Messiah and His Mother. LG 55 reaffirms with further precisions.

3) The NJBC on p. 12 give a pathetically flawed conclusion: "... the literal reference is to the human descendants of Eve who will regard snakes as enemies." The same work has a rather good essay on Targums, yet in commenting on the individual messianic prophecies, including this one, never once does it make use of the Targums. It ignores both the Targums and the repeated declarations of the Magisterium.

4) DV 3 writes: "After their fall, by promising redemption, He lifted them up into the hope of salvation (cf. Gen. 3.15... )". This implies they understood at least substantially the promise of Gen 3.15. So they had good intelligence. Later by the time Gen 3.15 was written down, the hope seems to have been lost to sight among the Jews, although Don Richardson, a Protestant missionary, in Eternity in their Hearts, as we saw earlier, tells of his own experience. In going to a primitive tribe as a missionary, he was welcomed by the elders who told him their ancestors had said some time a white man would come with a book they needed. Richardson tells of other missionaries who had similar experiences.