The Curse (Genesis 3:17-19)

Discussion in 'Bible Chat' started by teddyv, Jun 16, 2017.

  1. teddyv

    teddyv The horse is in the barn. Staff Member

    Several posts in the Faith thread got me thinking a bit about the curse of the land due to Adam and Eve.
    NIV

    Not being particular well-read amongst Christian scholars, do most take this as being a complete curse upon creation? This version, that all creation fell (i.e. the entire universe/earth), seems to be at least a fairly common idea amongst many Christians. For example, things like natural events such as earthquakes/tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, et al, may be attributed to the curse because these events generally viewed through the lens in harming humanity. However, the reality is that there events have been happening because they are a product of a dynamic earth and do not seem related to the curse, as the curse itself appears targeted at the earth in an agricultural sense - you are going to work hard to get your food; you are no longer in paradise. Certainly God has used natural events as means of signs or judgement upon nations

    Those of you that know me as a geologist and one who identifies as a evolutionary creationist, I would suggest these events have been happening for far longer than humans have ever been around. But I don't mean this question to turn into a YEC/OEC/TE discussion (although maybe we need one - no Christian forum is complete without a rancorous YEC thread :))

    Anyway, I'm not sure I'm going really anywhere with this...
     
  2. RabbiKnife

    RabbiKnife Open the pod bay door, please HAL. Staff Member

    From a biblical perspective, assuming the Noah episode to be an accurate depiction of a world-wide deluge, the change in weather and its effects seem to be more of an effect of a change from that event than from the Curse, as it is clear from the Genesis 5-8 account that Noah experienced the first rainfall.
     
    BlueSky likes this.
  3. teddyv

    teddyv The horse is in the barn. Staff Member

    On what basis do you come to Noah experiencing the first rainfall? I know Genesis 2 mentions that the land was watered from a mist of the ground because rain had not yet fallen. I guess it's not specifically mentioned in the intervening time thousand or so years, but that seems like an argument from silence. There were rivers flowing on the earth - these must have been sourced somehow.
     
  4. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    I understand the curses in terms of God withdrawing Himself. The ground is 'cursed' because (1) God has withdrawn, and (2) is largely at the merciful of disobedient humans. The toil will be painful because we're now the sole toilers; it will product thorns and thistles, and we'll eat the plants of the field, because we've been kicked out of the garden God provided for us. And then, separated from the tree of life, we'll die. There's nothing in the curses that suggest to me a fundamental change in creation, which would require additional creative acts, but no such acts are mentioned anywhere in Scripture. Rather, what I read is a change in circumstance and relationship.
     
  5. TrustGzus

    TrustGzus What does this button do? Staff Member

    By world-wide, do you mean global? I'm assuming teddy's view isn't global.
     
  6. teddyv

    teddyv The horse is in the barn. Staff Member

    I like the way you stated that. I suppose for point (2), not only is the creation at the mercy of humans, but the reverse would also be true as well. There could be a lot of speculation surrounding the relationship between humans and the earth/universe in the new creation
     
  7. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    Yes, quite!
     
  8. hisleast

    hisleast FISHBEAT!

    It just completely baffles me how people can assume that sin caused there to be predators and parasitic life forms, since there was no death anywhere for anything prior to the fall.
    That somehow lions ate delicious thick juicy fruits and vegetables, harvested in neat little rows from seemingly rigid ground by the lion's powerful forelegs and razor claws. And that botflies must have previously found their homes in some kind of soft shelled watermelons lost since the flood.
    And Lord knows how mushrooms existed in a world without death.
     
  9. BlueSky

    BlueSky Active Member

    Rancorous? Really?:cool:
     
  10. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    Why are “additional creational acts” out of the question? Why do they necessarily NEED to be mentioned in scripture? God is sovereign. He can do anything He likes and He doesn’t HAVE TO inform of us anything He does.
     
  11. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    But He did, and there was no mention of recreation. To take the curses in that way is to read into the text what isn't there.
     
  12. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    Just because God decides to tell us about SOME of the things He does it doesn't mean He is then obligated to tell us EVERYTHING He does. Your supposition basically puts God in a box. I personally prefer NOT to do that. I am not saying that you are absolutely incorrect in your belief. You may actually be correct in your assertions. I'm merely pointing out the fact that you may NOT be, though. Also, the scriptures don't talk about MANY things that are true. The absence of something being explicitly mentioned in scripture does NOT automatically dismiss it as being a reality.
     
    Last edited: Mar 31, 2018
    BlueSky likes this.
  13. ProDeo

    ProDeo What a day for a day dream

    Can't be a complete curse, creation even in its fallen state is glorified by God Himself on many places, the last chapters of Job comes to mind.
     
  14. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    We're talking about a portion of Scripture where God has spoken, and at no point is it even implied that as a result of Adam and Eve's sin, that either God altered creation, or Adam and Eve corrupted creation. Rather, God clearly withdrew Himself from Adam and Eve's presence, and He tells us that consequences of that withdrawing. This is exactly what we see with God's warning that Adam Eve will die. They die as a consequence, not because God takes away the immortality they were created with.

    What you're saying is fine, generally, but no I'm not putting God in a box, and no, I'm not expecting God to tell us everything. This isn't an example of absence.
     
    BlueSky likes this.
  15. BlueSky

    BlueSky Active Member

    Here is my current perspective on this. ;)

    I take it as curse upon the entire creation.

    Why? What point is there to just curse just the garden of eden? Besides, we see these “curses” everywhere on earth and affection everyone. They are universal for mankind.

    I don’t see the curses as more acts of creation, no, not at all, but merely God removing His/a stabilizing hand from Creation. As Ted said, why should humans live in paradise while they reject/hateGod?

    The earth is most certainly dynamic, but to what extent in a pre-fall earth? I don’t think we can know. Earthquakes/tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, etc have no doubt been exacerbated since the fall, and yet, may have not have been a part of the intended creation. ( Eden ).

    Will there be hurricanes and drought on the new earth ravaging Gods people? :eek::rolleyes:o_O
     
    Scooby_Snax and devilslayer365 like this.
  16. BlueSky

    BlueSky Active Member


    Hi there Keikegaard:)

    Here the text NASB for reference. (My bold)
    Just thinking out loud here... if God did not create something more, or alter the existing creation, how do we explain the changes that God pronounces here? The text does imply that the sin has somehow altered the original creation or status quo no? Exactly how and to what extent, we do not know.

    13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”
    The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
    14 So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this,
    “Cursed are you above all livestock
    and all wild animals!
    You will crawl on your belly
    and you will eat dust
    all the days of your life.
    15 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,

    and between your offspring and hers;
    he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel.”
    16 To the woman he said,
    “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
    with painful labor you will give birth to children.

    Your desire will be for your husband,
    and he will rule over you.”

    17 To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
    Cursed is the ground because of you;
    through painful toil you will eat food from it
    all the days of your life.

    18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
    and you will eat the plants of the field.
    19 By the sweat of your brow
    you will eat your food
    until you return to the ground,
    since from it you were taken;
    for dust you are
    and to dust you will return.”
     
  17. devilslayer365

    devilslayer365 Wazzup?!

    I agree. I have a hard time believing things like hurricanes, floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, etc., were all things that were part of God’s design for a perfect and paradise world. Had the whole rebellion in Eden NOT occurred, and the earth became populated with mankind, does it make sense that God would allow these phenomenon to occur, to mar His perfection and endanger His people? Plus, it mentions in scripture in Romans 8:19-23 that all of creation itself groans for the return of Jesus. Why would “creation” be “groaning” if it was still in it’s state of “perfection?”
     
    BlueSky likes this.
  18. BlueSky

    BlueSky Active Member

    I concur. Great point.
     
  19. Athanasius

    Athanasius Life is not a problem to be solved Staff Member

    The text doesn't imply that sin altered creation, but it does outright state that Adam and Eve were removed from the garden, a separation introduced between God and creation vis-a-vis Adam and Eve's sin, etc. God is telling Adam and Eve - and the text, us - about life in a state of separation from God, and then relative to the new moral knowledge they had claimed. In other words, the curses describe the new paradigm relative to life in the Garden. Nothing more is required to explain these pronouncements than that new paradigm.

    With that in mind, the cursing of the snake could possibly be an exception to what I've said, and if so, then it's a point in my favour: the re-creation is explicitly mentioned. But that said, I'm not totally convinced that the snake was a snake as we see today plus legs, due to God cursing it, but not Satan (if the snake was in fact Satan as Revelation's imagery suggests). That is, I'm not sure I take the snake as a literal snake. I'm also more inclined to take the first of Eve's curse as meaning sorrow rather than physical pain (re: Cain and Abel, and now the history of the evil of humankind). Eve was always created as Adam's counterpart so of course her desire would be for him (and he for her), though now Adam will lord himself over her - as many men now do. The curse is the last line, not the first. And then, Adam living a life of toil is exactly that: life outside the garden (eating plants of the field, not the plans of the garden?). They then of course will both die in all senses of the word.
     

Share This Page