Samurai ll. A Self Portrait. Amera Ziganii Rao Photography
Hierophant Knowledge :: ENCOUNTERING EVE. A Quaker Culture
Now the serpent was more subtle than any other wild creature that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman “And God says You shall not eat of any tree in the garden”. And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman. You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.
So familiar has this story become, so predictable its interpretation, we may dismiss it without a second thought. However, as we enter experimentally into this strange encounter between Eve and the serpent, we may find that more is going on here than simply the seduction of a woman by some kind of evil principle.
Our understanding of these verses has become clouded by the way in which the serpent has been linked with evil. We are clearly told in the passage that the serpent is a creature of God, distinguished not by its evil intentions, but rather by its supernatural knowledge, its shrewdness and subtlety. The serpent does contradict God but this does not necessarily mean that the serpent was opposed to God. On the contrary, I believe that the serpent was acting as a creature of God and was instrumental in drawing Eve into a new and vitally important awareness and relationship with the creation.
Until Eve’s encounter with the serpent the humans had been curiously cardboard images who acted in a largely unseeing unthinking manner. They give no indication that they recognise the goodness of the creation in which they find themselves. Nor do they thank God for it.
After Eve’s encounter with the serpent however she looks upon the tree, delights in it and desires the fruit. This is the first time any feelings are expressed by the humans in the creation narrative. As Eve looks at the tree suddenly we find a human being becoming conscious of creation, alive to it, moved by it and by the promise it offers.
I am not willing to blame Eve for eating the apple, neither am I willing to call it unequivocally a disobedient act. Eve recognised the tree as beautiful and she wanted to partake of the fruit. She was additionally motivated by the dimmest thought that somehow, through eating the fruit, she could also participate in divinity.
When we place ourselves experimentally in the garden, we understand Eve in a fresh way. She was I think a person who imagined and gazed attentively. Through the periods spent brooding over the serpent and the tree, a thought had lodged itself in her mind. Perhaps things are not what they seem, perhaps this creation hides a secret, perhaps appearances are deceptive. So knowledge dawned on earth that there was more to this world than meets the eye. She had begun to see beneath the surface and she found more than a serpent, more than an apple. Eve was out growing the garden and the parent God. She had embarked on a process of waiting, watchful and wishful thinking; she had begun to wonder at the creation.
Now wonder is a two-edged sword. We cannot experience wonder at creation in the sense of being filled with awe, without also wondering about creation in the sense of questioning. From the experience of wonder as awe arises the possibility for thankfulness, for relationship, for pure devotion and for the deepest experience of God. From the possibility for anxiety and isolation. Our capacity to question confronts us with the truth that we are separate from the rest of creation. We know ourselves to be other than the natural world, in it, but not completely of it.
Eve’s wondering was awe inspired and awe inspiring. However her wondering also inevitably caused her to question. It was this questioning which deprived her of her naiveté and set her for good or ill on a new path, which led away from the garden, away from the God of her childhood, and from the God of her dreaming innocence.
Eve must have eaten fruit in the garden before, but this fruit, this particular act of eating was significantly different in intent. She was no longer seeking out of a blind impulse to satisfy hunger, rather she was seeking to participate in the Wisdom of God. This was in fact a symbolic act of communion. It was an adventurous, even a dangerous act, but it was inspired by a hope which no one had ever dared hope before, that some how, through the physical world we might participate in spiritual reality.
A Quaker lecture
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