Sin, Suffering, Sagacity: Genesis 2–3
Abstract
In the Christian tradition, the biblical chapter Genesis 3 recounts the origin of sin. Sin comes in the form of the serpent who seduces the woman to eat the forbidden fruit; the woman in turn seduces the man to do likewise. Consequently they fall from the grace of God, they are expelled from the garden, they are exposed to the hardship and suffering of the world. This chapter addresses some interpretations of the Garden narrative and points out those symbolic and mythological concepts attached to the objects in the garden. In the Ancient Near East trees were common yet simultaneously mythological objects. The Tree of Life was a cosmological tree with its roots in the underworld and the trunk passing through the centre of the earth. The wisdom of serpents represents the power to succeed, the ability to survive, resourcefulness, shrewdness'.Keywords: Genesis-garden; serpent; sin; suffering; tree
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
One of the themes of the Old Testament is making sense of human suffering in general, the suffering of Israel, and the suffering of the innocent in particular.
“It is not an exaggeration to say that one of the themes of the Old Testament is that of making sense of human suffering, in general (cf. Gn 2-3; Villiers 2009:4-17), the suffering of Israel (Isa 50:1; Ps 44) and the suffering of the innocent, in particular (Jr 12:1-5; Job).”
From The concept of vicarious suffering in the Old Testament (2019) · cites this paper as Villiers 2009:4-17
Cited by
Sorted by citations
The concept of vicarious suffering in the Old Testament
Geyser-Fouchè, A. B., & Munengwa, T. M. (2019) · HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies · doi:10.4102/hts.v75i4.5352 · Cited by 3 · see citing works
- Authors
- De Villiers, G.
- Venue
- Exile and Suffering
- Publisher
- BRILL
- Published
- 2009-01-01
- Pages
- 1-17
- OpenAlex
- W928540649
- Cited by
- 1
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2017: 1
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- book chapter
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- BRILL eBooks (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Archeology › Ancient Near East History
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Theology and Philosophy of Evil
- Keywords
- Genesis 2-3, Garden of Eden, origin of sin, serpents, tree of life, forbidden fruit, suffering, biblical exegesis, mythological symbolism
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
