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I'm Pete Enns. And I'm Jared Byas.

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slash kickstarter to check it out. Alright,

2:05

well on today's episode, we're talking about

2:08

the Greek life of Adam and Eve

2:10

with Jack Levison. Yeah, and Jack's been

2:12

on the podcast before to talk about

2:14

the Holy Spirit. And he holds the

2:16

WJA Power Chair of Old Testament Interpretation

2:19

and Biblical Hebrew at Perkins School of

2:21

Theology at Southern Methodist University.

2:23

He's the author and editor of many

2:25

books and has published a massive commentary

2:27

on the Greek life of Adam and

2:30

Eve, which is the focus of our

2:32

conversation today. And a fun fact about

2:34

Jack is that he and his wife

2:36

actually live on the SMU campus serving

2:38

as faculty and residents for undergraduates. With

2:41

all that said, we hope you enjoy

2:43

our conversation with Jack Levison. Well

2:47

Satan deceived Eve and then she

2:49

brought the fruit to Adam and

2:51

persuaded him to eat the fruit.

2:54

That is not the Bible. That

2:57

is the Greek life of Adam and

2:59

Eve. Hook, line and sinker. So when

3:01

you know the Greek life of Adam

3:03

and Eve, you know where the popular

3:06

notion comes from about what happened in

3:08

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Jack back to the podcast. It's great to have

4:24

you on again. It is really good to be

4:26

back on Thanks, Jared Pete and I when we

4:28

were devising the questions and thinking of talking to

4:30

you We got really excited about this topic and

4:33

that is the Greek life of Adam and Eve

4:35

So can you give just orient our

4:37

listeners? What is the Greek life of Adam

4:39

and Eve? What's in the book? When was

4:41

it written just some of the basics to

4:43

get us situated here? Okay So you have

4:45

the Bible Genesis chapters 1 to 5 takes

4:48

you through Adam and Eve Cain and Abel and

4:50

the birth of Seth So you got that from

4:52

the Bible. This is a

4:54

reinterpretation of that It's a really

4:56

fascinating retelling of the story of

4:58

Adam and Eve Cain and Abel

5:00

and Seth for a new generation

5:04

We don't know which generation so scholars

5:06

differ so there's a guy in Germany

5:08

on Dachshorn who says this was written

5:10

in the first century by a Pharisee

5:13

a buddy of mine in the Netherlands

5:15

Johannes Trump says nah, it wasn't first

5:18

century Jewish. It was fourth century Christian

5:21

So what did I do in my commentary? I

5:23

broke both of them down and said neither

5:25

of them has enough evidence to be able to say

5:27

but we know that by the Fourth

5:29

century there were these stories and tales

5:32

about Adam and Eve that were rooted

5:34

in the Bible But they were really

5:36

fanciful elaboration. So somewhere between the first

5:39

and the fourth century Someone

5:41

somewhere rewrote the story with their

5:43

own interests in mind And so

5:45

where then can we find this

5:47

book if it's not in the

5:49

Bible? Well, you could find

5:51

it on a lot of encyclopedias of

5:53

early Judaism or dictionaries or handbooks So

5:55

if you find newer ones, I probably

5:57

wrote that article because there aren't a

5:59

lot lot of people who work on this. So

6:02

you can find the translation

6:04

there. It's also in this

6:06

strange group of writings called

6:08

Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. So there

6:10

are volumes by R. H. Charles

6:12

or Jim Charlesworth or Jim Davila.

6:14

They have collected these primary sources.

6:16

There's also one in a volume,

6:18

An Early Jewish Anthology by Ron

6:20

Herms and Archie Wright, a couple

6:22

of buddies of mine. So you

6:24

can find them largely if you

6:27

look up Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Now,

6:29

I got to take a step

6:31

back. We call it the Greek life

6:33

of Adam and Eve now, but up until about the 1980s,

6:35

it was called

6:37

the Apocalypse of Moses because

6:40

Tischendorf, who found the first manuscripts,

6:42

these were the first words. So

6:45

it's actually often referred to as

6:47

the Apocalypse of Moses, but

6:49

now most scholars, all of us call it

6:51

the Greek life of Adam and Eve. So

6:54

if you're looking for the Greek life and you don't

6:56

find it in an Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, it's because it's

6:59

called the Apocalypse of Moses. Okay.

7:01

That's a lot. So

7:04

in other words, people, you won't find this

7:06

book anywhere except for right here on

7:08

this podcast, the Bible for Normal People.

7:11

And also I have Charlesworth's copies

7:13

of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. So

7:16

folks, you can get it. All

7:18

right. Are there other lives

7:20

of Adam and Eve out there or is

7:23

this the only one? I think you mentioned

7:25

before that like others were doing the same

7:27

sort of thing as well, retelling the Adam

7:29

and Eve story. Yeah, there's not really anything

7:32

quite like the Greek life of Adam and

7:34

Eve. You have the Testament of Adam, Apocalypse

7:36

of Adam, but that's a Gnostic text from

7:38

Egypt. So no, there really isn't

7:40

anything like this. But there are

7:43

a lot of different language versions.

7:45

So the Latin and Armenian and

7:47

Slavonic and Georgian, which is Russian,

7:50

these are all medieval

7:52

language versions of this

7:55

text, but not exactly this text.

7:57

They're very different. Plus, there are different

8:00

Greek versions of this. So I divided up

8:02

the different Greek versions into four. Actually, I

8:04

didn't do it. A French guy

8:06

by the name of Nijel did. So bottom

8:09

line, no. There aren't a lot

8:11

of things just like this. Yeah. Okay.

8:13

So here we have this retelling

8:16

of the first five chapters of

8:18

the Bible, Adam, and

8:20

Eve, and Seth. And because

8:22

it's a retelling, we can

8:25

assume that it's not going to really match up completely,

8:29

understatement, with the biblical text itself.

8:31

So just to orient us to

8:34

the nature of this literature, can

8:36

you give maybe just a few

8:38

brief highlights before we get into

8:40

details of how this

8:42

is different from the story of Adam and

8:44

Eve and going into Cain and Abel and

8:47

Seth that we're all familiar with? Okay. The

8:49

main thing that's different, and we can actually

8:51

kick the differences with Genesis, and we can

8:53

do that in a minute. But the main

8:56

thing that's different is the Adam

8:58

and Eve story isn't about our eternal

9:00

destiny. The Greek life of Adam and

9:02

Eve is, I mean, one of the things that keeps

9:04

coming up is, will God be

9:07

merciful to the works of God's

9:09

hands now that we sin? Will

9:12

God meet us? And

9:14

will God allow us to

9:16

be buried? And will there be

9:18

immortality? So the real

9:20

questions in the Greek life are

9:22

taking that Genesis story and making

9:24

it address the question of eternal

9:27

destiny. So that's totally

9:30

different from Genesis 1 to 5. You don't

9:32

have anything about eternal destiny there. You have

9:34

pain in childbirth. You have, when you farm,

9:36

you're going to sweat, it's going to hurt.

9:38

This is what life is going to be

9:40

like. You're going to step on snakes and

9:43

they're going to bite you on the heel.

9:45

But it's not like what's going to happen

9:47

after you die. The Greek life takes all

9:49

those stories and pulls them and tugs them

9:52

like yeast and dough and says, now, this

9:54

is really about the destiny of what it

9:56

means to be human. Adamus Is part of

9:58

that also justifying God's in a

10:00

way, or just explaining God's actions? That's

10:03

a good question. I think it's more... I mean,

10:05

it's a part of it like, is God just

10:08

towards us? That's really what I'm after. Is that

10:10

part of this as well? Because, you know, will

10:12

God punish the work of His hand, or will

10:14

He be merciful to His own... To

10:17

the work of His hand? Because I imagine, you know,

10:19

people have always been asking questions of the Odyssey, you know,

10:21

whether God is just or not. It just sort of

10:23

sounds like that might be there, but if not, then

10:25

not. Is it there? You know,

10:27

not so much. So okay, there are

10:29

a lot of parallels between the Greek

10:31

life of Adam and Eve and another

10:34

Jewish text in both the Apocrypha and

10:36

the Pseudepigrapha called For Ezra or Two

10:38

Esdras. In that text,

10:40

an angel and Ezra argue

10:42

about whether Adam is to

10:44

blame for original sin. And

10:48

in that case, Ezra says,

10:51

God's being unjust by damning us because

10:53

Adam sinned and we all sin now.

10:55

The angel says, God's not unjust at

10:58

all. What's wrong with you? You're the

11:00

one who's sinning. That's not the

11:02

question of the Greek life of Adam and Eve, though

11:04

there are parallels. That's not

11:06

really the question. The question is, what's

11:09

going to happen to us? So there's really two questions in

11:11

the Greek life of Adam and Eve. The first is, why

11:13

do we have so much pain

11:16

and suffering and death? Why

11:18

do the animals rebel against us? Why

11:21

am I afraid to go out in the woods at night? That's

11:24

one of the questions. Why is life so

11:26

difficult? And the other question is, is

11:28

there relief from life? So

11:31

those are the two questions. Why is life

11:33

so difficult and can I get relief from

11:35

it? Okay, three questions. And the

11:37

other one is, what happens to us after

11:40

death? Will God be merciful? But it's not

11:42

– God is definitely in the right. There's

11:44

no question that God is in the wrong

11:46

in this text. It's not like For Ezra.

11:49

Well, can we dive in a little bit more

11:51

into these characters? Because one of the things that's

11:54

exciting to me as it relates to our

11:56

life of faith and how we read the Bible and what we

11:58

do with it – is to see

12:01

these retellings. We talk often about the

12:03

creativity of later traditions, building on earlier

12:05

traditions, and we see this a lot

12:07

in the Greek life of Adam and

12:09

Eve. So can you just give us

12:11

a little bit of a flavor of

12:13

the characters and how they're maybe different

12:15

than the characters we meet in the

12:17

first five chapters of Genesis? Okay, yeah,

12:19

I'd be happy to. The story

12:21

opens with a dream, a nightmare really, where

12:24

Eve sees Cain killing Abel. We

12:26

know that. And in the Bible, Abel's

12:28

blood yells up from the ground. In

12:31

this story, Cain is a cannibal. It's

12:34

called anthropophagy. He eats his brother.

12:37

He drinks his brother's blood. So there

12:39

you have a really different view of

12:41

Cain. He doesn't just rise up and

12:43

hit him with a stone. That's different.

12:45

Very different. And Abel is screaming for

12:47

mercy, and he drinks it up

12:50

mercifully, and then he vomits it out.

12:53

So that's a very interesting first

12:55

scene. Can I ask, before we

12:57

move on, can I just ask about that? Sure. Is

13:00

there a particular motivation on the part of the

13:02

writer to present Cain that way, or is it

13:04

just a weird thing making him into some sort

13:06

of an animal or something? Yeah,

13:08

that's a really good question. And it's probably not

13:11

an answerable question, but I do have an answer

13:13

anyway. By God, I'm a professor. So

13:15

in a later scene, okay, so

13:18

here's the scene. Cain drinks Abel's

13:20

blood. Then in the next

13:22

scene, Adam is on his deathbed, and

13:25

everybody's wondering what pain and disease is.

13:27

So Adam sends Eve and Seth back

13:29

to paradise so that they can

13:31

get oil of mercy, and he can

13:33

not have pain. But in

13:36

the meantime, an animal attacks

13:38

Seth, and Eve and the animal

13:40

start talking to each other, and

13:43

the animal blames Eve

13:46

and her greed. So

13:48

in the Greek life of Adam and Eve,

13:52

sin in part is greed.

13:55

And what's going on in the Cain and Abel

13:57

story is greed. He

13:59

drew it. He drinks the blood, he drinks it

14:02

mercilessly, he ignores Abel's pleas to stop,

14:04

and then it comes back up out

14:06

of his mouth. He just wants

14:08

to drink blood. He is an evil, ugly

14:11

person. And there are lots of

14:13

examples, I give them in this

14:15

commentary, of political

14:17

interpretations where rulers

14:20

devour and eat and

14:23

drink the blood of the people they're

14:25

supposed to be taking care of and being just

14:27

a little prophetic there. So

14:29

what Cain is doing is what bad

14:31

rulers do by drinking the

14:33

blood of the people who are

14:35

vulnerable. So that's my take

14:37

on Cain and Abel. I remember going through,

14:40

there's a wonderful article by a guy, Balot,

14:42

I think it is, on greed and injustice

14:44

in the ancient world. And that

14:46

seems to be a great backdrop.

14:48

So greed, oh boy, okay. So

14:51

Romans one, right? Greed

14:53

is like, you know, what are they

14:55

doing? They're lusting after things they shouldn't

14:58

have. They're being greedy. I

15:00

believe that this kind of a

15:02

text illuminates Romans one and

15:05

this idea that people want what they

15:07

can't have. So I actually

15:09

have argued in an article that Romans one can

15:11

only be understood in the light of the Greek

15:13

life of Adam and Eve and the notion of

15:16

greed. This

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that's a central theme of the book. Bring

17:57

in some more characters here and maybe how

17:59

they are. similar or different? Yeah,

18:01

I think what everybody should care

18:04

about is the woman Eve in

18:06

this story. Adam is a fairly

18:08

flat character. He blames Eve. He

18:10

gets sick. He's really a

18:12

very passive character. He's like Isaac in the

18:14

Bible who doesn't do very much. And

18:17

so he doesn't attract your attention, but

18:19

Eve attracts a lot of

18:22

attention. And here's why. We

18:24

may have in the Greek life of Adam

18:26

and Eve, if not the earliest, one of

18:28

the earliest retellings, autobiographies in

18:30

the mouth of a woman. So

18:33

right in the middle of the Greek life of

18:35

Adam and Eve in chapters 15 to 30, Eve

18:38

tells the story of how

18:41

they sinned. Adam

18:43

had already told it in a short

18:45

version in chapters 7 to 8. Eve

18:48

makes much more hay out

18:50

of how they sin. So the

18:53

very reality is here, Eve

18:55

is her own storyteller. So

18:57

when you read popular books

18:59

or semi-popular books about Eve,

19:02

you'll say people were always interpreting Eve. They

19:04

were always saying this about Eve or that about

19:06

Eve. Yes, they were, but not

19:08

here. This is the

19:10

story told from Eve's point of

19:13

view. According to her point

19:15

of view, when the

19:17

serpent who was inspired by Satan, we'll get

19:19

to that, deceives her. She

19:22

is genuinely deceived. And

19:24

she gives you inside views of what

19:26

she was feeling and what she was

19:28

thinking and how she didn't intend to

19:31

deceive Adam at all. And

19:33

because of these inside views, you begin

19:35

to empathize with Eve. So even

19:38

though she sins, you

19:40

empathize with her as

19:43

she's telling the story of why

19:45

we sinned to her children.

19:48

And in her story of the first

19:50

sin, Adam actually says

19:52

this, I alone

19:54

have sinned. In

19:57

her version, Adam claims

19:59

complete responsibility for what

20:01

went on. And

20:04

even though you know she has sinned,

20:07

she does it in such a way

20:09

that you begin to empathize with why

20:11

she was duped by the

20:13

serpent. Does that make sense? Oh, yeah,

20:16

absolutely. Yeah. So this is her voice.

20:18

This is an amazing piece of ancient

20:20

history that we get to hear in

20:23

a narrative form a woman's voice that

20:25

we don't know who wrote it, but

20:28

it's put in her mouth. And that's

20:30

unique. You know, again, the question that

20:32

I have, which is probably as unanswerable

20:34

as the other question, is why

20:36

do that? You know, why

20:38

retell the story in such a way

20:41

that gives Eve

20:43

such agency in the story,

20:45

such almost independence in telling the

20:47

story? I think it's fantastic. I'm

20:50

just wondering, again, I'm always

20:52

thinking in terms of motivations on

20:55

the part of these ancient writers,

20:57

whether, you know, there are a lot

20:59

of people like Jim Kugel, my teacher,

21:01

are there any irritants in the text

21:03

itself that would have inspired

21:06

early interpreters to take

21:08

these stories in very different directions than what

21:10

you have in the biblical story itself? Or

21:12

was it answering a

21:14

particular question that people

21:16

were asking at the time? And I know

21:19

that's all very speculative, because this is, you

21:21

know, we're working with so little data on

21:23

some of these things answering these questions. But

21:26

I'm just fascinated by that. And if you

21:28

don't have an answer, that's fine. We'll just,

21:30

I just want to keep asking that same

21:32

question. Yeah, it's a

21:34

great question. Are there irritants in the text?

21:36

Are there, you know, itches that needed to

21:38

be scratched? Not that

21:41

I can tell that would prompt a

21:43

wholesale story of the first sin and

21:46

its consequences from the mouth of a

21:48

woman. No, I don't know what

21:51

would have prompted that. But there are some

21:53

biblical examples of this. So you think about

21:55

the story of Deborah and jail, right? In

21:58

Judges chapter four, you have the... version

22:00

of Deborah and Jael, and it's

22:03

fairly bad. I mean, Jael kills

22:05

Cicera with a hammer. But

22:07

then in chapter 5, you have

22:09

the poetic version, which is

22:12

much more dramatic, much more

22:14

visual, and you know, she gives

22:16

him not milk, but curds in

22:18

a lordly bowl. And

22:20

when she kills him, he's not lying

22:23

down, and she drives a tentpig through

22:25

his head. He's standing up,

22:27

and he falls, and then he stands, and then

22:29

he falls, and he stands, and he falls, and he falls at

22:31

her feet, and he's dead. He dies seven

22:34

times in the poetic version. And

22:36

what I say to my students is, remember

22:38

that little story in the story of Jephthah,

22:41

where all the women go up on the mountain

22:43

for a month a year, and they remember

22:46

Jephthah's story? I bet they retold

22:48

all these stories from a woman's

22:50

standpoint. And that's what

22:52

you get in the poetic version

22:54

of Jael and Cicera. You get

22:56

what women really felt about

22:58

this story. And I don't know who

23:00

wrote The Greek Life of Adam and

23:03

Eve, but it's very empathetic toward

23:05

Eve, even as it doesn't take the

23:08

blame away from her, apart from Adam's

23:10

confession, I alone have sinned. You know

23:12

that she sinned, she gave in. But

23:14

here's the example. Why does she

23:16

go to Adam and deceive him? Because

23:19

while she still thinks the fruit

23:21

is a good thing, before she

23:23

realizes, uh-oh, I blew it, she

23:27

promises the serpent with

23:29

an oath that she

23:31

will give the fruit to her

23:33

husband. And so when she weeps

23:35

about giving the fruit to

23:37

her husband, it says she wept about the oath.

23:40

She'd made an oath, and even though

23:42

she knows now that the fruit is bad,

23:44

she's bound by oath. So even that

23:46

is a side of her integrity. Right.

23:49

So the thing is, what struck me

23:52

in rereading The Greek Life of Adam

23:54

and Eve in English, but I mean,

23:56

just two quick things. One, I think

23:58

to answer my own question, and maybe

24:00

even to ask it in a more articulate way. The

24:03

takeaway that I have here right now

24:05

is that, you know, listen, the biblical

24:08

tradition, for

24:10

whatever reason, encourages these

24:12

retellings because we see them all over the

24:14

place. Maybe not Adam and Eve exactly like

24:17

this, but, you know, the

24:19

pseudepigraphal literature, the apocryphal literature, the Jewish

24:21

Midrashic literature, things we see in the

24:23

Dead Sea Scrolls, it's like the story

24:25

has a generative power that

24:28

people then adapt for

24:30

different purposes and those purposes might be

24:32

obscure to us historically. We can't read

24:34

people's minds. We don't know why they're

24:37

doing it, but they're doing

24:39

it. And this is the

24:41

legacy, I think, in both Judaism and

24:43

Christianity of taking these stories and then

24:46

maybe writing them in such a way to

24:49

address issues that they want to

24:51

see addressed or that maybe they're

24:53

struggling with for whatever reason,

24:55

I guess. I mean, that's sort of the

24:57

general conclusion I draw. I just love getting

25:00

more concrete answers about motivation, but it's just

25:02

not there, you know, and if it's not

25:04

there, don't force it. I mean, there

25:06

are many places where you can see,

25:08

oh yeah, they were resolving that problem.

25:10

And Jan Dachor who wrote a German

25:12

commentary, very different from mine, were night

25:15

and day. But he often talks

25:17

about the exegetical problems that get solved.

25:20

So that does happen, but I don't

25:22

think that explains the Testament of Eve,

25:24

as I would call it. But you're

25:26

right, in the Bible, you have the

25:28

chronicler rewriting the stories in one and

25:30

two Samuel and one and two Kings.

25:33

You have the gospel writers writing each

25:35

other's stories. There's constantly writing. It seems

25:37

like they write with an

25:39

eye to being rewritten for a later

25:41

generation, and that seems to be what's

25:43

happening. Right. Can I ask a specific

25:45

question from the text itself? Because what

25:48

really struck me is you just

25:50

mentioned how Eve promises the

25:52

serpent that she's going to

25:54

go make sure that

25:56

Adam also takes some of the fruit. In

26:00

chapter 7, there's Adam

26:02

saying the enemy gave to her and

26:04

she ate from the tree, knowing

26:07

that I was not very near her, which

26:10

is, I think, a direct contradiction to

26:12

what the biblical story says, which

26:15

is she gave to the

26:17

man who was standing by her. He was

26:19

watching the whole thing. And here, it seems

26:22

to remove some of the culpability

26:24

from Adam, that he's not

26:26

there just watching it. Can

26:29

you just comment on that? It's a

26:31

very odd, it's not odd, it's creative.

26:34

Yeah, it's really interesting to me too. I'm going

26:36

in one of two directions in my we-brain. But

26:39

the first one is the way the story

26:42

is told, paradise is a walled earthly garden.

26:44

So there's a wall around it. And

26:46

then there's a wall down the middle

26:49

that separates the female animals from the

26:51

male animals. Eve watches the

26:53

female animals, and then there's a wall. And

26:55

on the other side of the wall, Adam

26:58

watches the male animals. So

27:01

that's the image you have in the Greek life

27:03

of Adam and Eve, an earthly garden walled all

27:05

the way around with a wall down the middle.

27:08

And so what does the serpent do?

27:10

The serpent hangs

27:12

over the wall. The

27:15

serpent is clearly from

27:17

Adam's side. So

27:19

Adam and Eve are guarding the

27:21

animals. What the hay? The

27:23

serpent comes from Adam's side

27:26

and it's very phallic, dangles

27:28

over the wall and starts talking

27:30

to Eve. So it's

27:33

really Adam's fault that the serpent

27:35

is doing this at all,

27:38

I think. So I think

27:40

Adam is actually very culpable. Can I, I

27:42

want to go take a bit of a

27:44

left turn only because there's also something that's

27:47

interesting to me that we find in the

27:49

Greek life of Adam and Eve that we

27:51

don't find in Genesis. And that's the presence

27:53

of these supernatural beings. We have Michael, we

27:55

have Satan, these characters. And

27:57

of course, it is always interesting when... we

28:00

ask the question, is Satan in the Garden

28:02

of Eden? And people say, well, yeah, the

28:04

snake is Satan. And sort of like, well,

28:06

where are you getting that from? It's not

28:08

actually in Genesis. And so, can you talk

28:10

more about how these angels get introduced and

28:13

the role that they play? Because I feel

28:15

like that really does change the dynamic of

28:17

the story. God is

28:19

much more distant in the Greek

28:21

life of Adam and Eve than in Genesis.

28:23

So God doesn't walk in the cool of

28:25

the day. He's called the authoritative one. So

28:28

the authoritative one comes, Adam and

28:30

Eve get scared, and there's no

28:32

walking in the cool of the day with the

28:34

man and the woman. So the

28:36

angels really do make up the gap between

28:39

a very distant God and

28:41

a very sinful humanity. The

28:44

angels do God's bidding. It's not

28:46

until chapter 28, I

28:49

believe, that God addresses Adam

28:51

directly. They're always mediated by angels.

28:53

God sends angels because God is

28:55

the authoritative one, the distant one,

28:57

the Lord of armies. And

29:01

humankind is really very

29:03

sinful. And what they

29:05

can do is the angels go up,

29:07

the angels who guard Adam and Eve,

29:09

who guard Eve, they go up into

29:12

heaven and they worship. So you really

29:14

have a multi-tiered universe and God comes

29:17

to paradise, yes, but God is really

29:19

up above being worshiped by the angels.

29:22

So the angels mediate between a very distant

29:24

God whom you do not find in Genesis

29:27

and a very sinful humanity which you

29:29

do find in Genesis. I

29:39

think what's interesting to me about that

29:42

is this retelling shows us how the

29:44

theology has developed. Because

29:46

whether we say it's first century

29:48

or fourth century, where several centuries

29:50

out from these traditions that we

29:52

find in Genesis 1 to 5,

29:55

And so you see this development of a

29:57

view of God that is maybe more distant.

30:00

That. Necessitates these intermediaries so that there can

30:02

be interaction between God and people. How

30:04

can that happen If gotta so transcendent?

30:06

Now they are and where so tier

30:08

and sinful. Well now you have these

30:10

introductions of of heavenly beings and it's

30:12

just an interesting. Way. To

30:14

see that. I guess what

30:17

it? What I really appreciate about the Greek

30:19

life of Adam and Eve is a concrete

30:21

example of what the ancient people did all

30:23

the time and thankfully which we can get

30:25

into what I think we do all the

30:27

time which is kind of reading our particular

30:29

moment. Into. These tax.

30:32

Absolutely, that's exactly what's happening there.

30:34

Reading: a preoccupation with pay the

30:36

disease into the text. They're.

30:38

Reading the rebellion of the animals into the

30:40

say i what one thinks about. Surprised that

30:43

about the Greek life is how much

30:45

the rebellion of the animals matters to

30:47

them. They're. Really worried about this. We're

30:49

not worried about the rebellion of the animals and

30:51

a lot of the door ethics. You're like. the

30:54

person who wrote it was is like trying to

30:56

tell is like a farmer and seven like a

30:58

really hard day and just and the animals are

31:00

now. Sir. Are just had

31:02

a dog you good and frame server at

31:04

your theory that yeah we talk about that

31:06

are a bit of help help us understand

31:09

that diseases that the rebellion of animals which.

31:11

Again is Not the bible. No.

31:13

Idea whether you had there's your irritants. the

31:16

snake will bite your heel. Oh, that's the

31:18

erupted that may have brought in all the

31:20

rebellion of the animals, But. There.

31:22

Are a lot of texts like Isaiah Eleven

31:24

where the Anointed One will bring universal peace

31:27

in the line, will lie down with the

31:29

lamb of the child, will play over what.

31:32

Over. The the viper picked over the snake

31:34

pit. So. They're actually when it when

31:36

I began. To look at this is a lot more in

31:38

the bible. About animals doing things

31:40

and needing to have peace

31:42

with animals. Not least, the

31:44

temptation of Jesus. Who. Was

31:46

with the animals which according

31:48

to Richard Boulton suggests, was at

31:51

peace with the animals. So.

31:53

There is actually more than I ever thought

31:55

when I began to right on the background

31:57

of the Rebel either the animals. This was

31:59

a. obviously a big problem for them. And

32:02

it seems like maybe part of the

32:04

genius of a book like this, it's

32:06

not just slapped together. They're

32:09

thinking and they may be

32:11

dealing with intertextual echoes of

32:14

Scripture itself and maybe bringing that to bear on

32:16

this. I'm going to buzz you for even in

32:19

our own podcast. You can't use a word like

32:21

intertextual echoes without explaining it. Sure I can. What

32:23

do you mean by that? Way to go, Jared.

32:26

I like it. I think something that

32:28

is maybe going on in Genesis, faint echoes

32:30

elsewhere in the Bible and you want to

32:32

bring it all together, right? I mean,

32:34

the coherence of the biblical story is

32:36

I think important to a lot of

32:38

people, ancient and or modern. And

32:42

letting other parts of Scripture come to

32:44

bear on this story I think would

32:46

be very important for people. Yeah,

32:48

I wish I could think of some good examples of

32:50

that. But they're certainly

32:52

in Genesis, there's real associations

32:55

between chapter three and the curse

32:57

and chapter four and Cain. And

33:00

that happens in the Greek life. But there's like another one

33:02

where Seth, when he sees Adam and

33:04

pain and disease says, I'm going to go back to

33:06

paradise and I'm going to pray so that

33:08

God will give you the oil of mercy. And

33:10

he says, I'm going to put excrement on my head and I'm

33:12

going to pray. And I remember tracing

33:15

that to Malachi 3, something about dung

33:17

on their faces. And I had to

33:19

look at all the different versions of

33:21

that. But it looked like they

33:23

were making a connection between maybe ashes to

33:25

ashes, dust to dust and the dust on

33:27

your face and the dung on your face

33:30

and sort of bringing those things together. So

33:32

there are those. I actually do that.

33:35

I have a section called biblical precedent

33:37

where I try to talk about other

33:39

texts that get connected to Genesis

33:41

three that then become a part of the

33:43

Greek life. But my little brain can't

33:45

remember any of them right now. I mean, you also

33:47

have a very long commentary, as you mentioned. Folks, can

33:50

I tell you how long this commentary is? It's about

33:52

1,100 pages. Yeah.

33:55

That's a commentary, folks. Yeah,

33:57

this will keep you busy. Trust me on that. Could

34:00

we, before we move on and discuss a couple

34:02

other things, could you just flesh out a little

34:04

bit more Seth in the story

34:07

and his role? Yeah, Seth plays

34:09

almost no role. He's like a transitional role

34:11

in Genesis, right? He gets born. He's in

34:13

the image of Adam

34:16

and he replaces... Eve

34:18

says, I have born him. This is one of

34:20

the great things that scholars point out, right? Eve

34:23

says, I have born a son. Adam's not even

34:25

in the picture in the birth of Seth. But

34:28

Seth becomes a really important figure

34:31

in Gnosticism in the second

34:33

century. He becomes the

34:35

revealer figure who brings all sorts

34:38

of revelations to the world. Interestingly,

34:40

and I've written a lot on

34:42

this in the commentary, Seth

34:45

plays a major mediatory role

34:47

so that he goes to

34:50

paradise to try to get the oil of

34:52

mercy. Eve is with him, but the angel

34:54

only talks to Seth. Or

34:56

at the end of the story, Adam

34:59

is dying and then he dies

35:01

and Eve sees in the sky

35:04

visions and she sees two Ethiopians,

35:06

that is the sun and the

35:08

moon, which have been darkened because

35:10

they can't shine near God, who

35:13

is the light of all. And

35:15

she says to Seth, who are these

35:17

Ethiopians? And he explains that

35:19

they're the sun and the moon who can't shine.

35:22

So Seth is a revealer figure,

35:24

but you don't have to be

35:26

a rocket scientist to recognize those

35:28

are basically apocalyptic eclipses that are

35:30

happening. And going to

35:32

paradise, he got it wrong. He thought he could

35:35

go to paradise, put a bunch of crap on

35:37

his head, pray and weep, and the angel would

35:39

give them the oil of mercy and he would

35:41

be able to take it back to Adam. So

35:44

he's in other texts like the

35:47

Gnostic texts, a big revealer figure.

35:49

It's a much more muted role

35:51

as a mediator revealer figure in

35:53

the Greek life. I actually think

35:56

it's a really intelligent use of

35:58

the Seth story that doesn't

36:00

give itself to excess. I

36:02

was really surprised by the powerful role, but the

36:05

limited role Seth has in the Greek life of

36:07

Adam and Eve. Yeah. So if

36:10

we can, I think I want to maybe tie some

36:12

of these pieces together and talk for

36:14

a minute about, first, why are

36:16

you interested in this? Why did you write an 1100 page commentary

36:19

on it? But I think then moving from

36:21

there into, you know, what's the

36:23

value for everybody, your

36:25

everyday readers of the Bible? Why did we

36:28

take up some valuable podcasts, real estate, to

36:30

talk about the Greek life of Adam and

36:32

Eve? But maybe just starting that with you

36:34

first, Jack, what led you to be interested

36:36

in this? I started my

36:38

doctoral dissertation. What I really wanted to do

36:41

was the Jewish background of Paul. And

36:43

I looked at the Adam literature and I got

36:45

so involved in the Adam literature, I never got

36:47

out of it. So my first book was called

36:50

Portraits of Adam and Early Judaism. And

36:52

so in the mid to late 90s,

36:55

the editors of this series asked me if

36:57

I would write the commentary. And I

36:59

had no idea it would take me 25

37:01

years. I should have, but I didn't

37:03

know. So one of the things

37:05

is that it was academic. It was a

37:07

really good way to begin to build

37:10

on my dissertation. The other thing is, which is

37:12

much more important, for about 35 years

37:14

of my life, I had searing migraine headaches. So

37:16

about 29, I started to have

37:19

these really vicious headaches. And

37:21

so I'd become very interested in

37:23

pain and suffering, because

37:27

these headaches were so pervasive in my

37:29

life. And this is a

37:31

text that really takes seriously pain

37:33

and suffering. I think it's

37:35

just always been a compelling text for

37:38

me for that reason. It doesn't palliate

37:40

suffering. It doesn't palliate pain. It

37:43

takes pain seriously. And it basically

37:45

says, sorry, buddy, this

37:47

side of death, you're going to

37:49

have pain and suffering and disease. Only

37:52

after death is there the promise

37:55

of immortality. So I think

37:57

I was drawn to a text about pain and disease on a

37:59

personal life. level. Yeah, there's no

38:01

going back to the garden, right, and getting

38:04

a remedy for your pain, so. Yeah,

38:06

I was just writing on that this morning, the

38:08

way they tell the story of expulsion, it

38:10

makes it so clear there is no going back

38:12

to Eden. You are with John Steinbeck, you

38:14

are East of Eden, and that's where we live.

38:18

So there were the academic and the personal reasons

38:20

I was interested in this, but there were many

38:22

times in those 25 years that Priscilla, my wife,

38:24

said, Jack, why don't you tell them

38:26

you just can't do it. I mean, you just can't

38:28

do it. It's too much to do, and

38:31

I said, no, I'm not going to tell them, no,

38:33

I made a commitment to this commentary. It was not

38:35

a pleasure to write. It was

38:37

because, you know, with a New Testament commentary, you always

38:39

have about 15, 20, 30

38:41

commentaries you can rely on. There was

38:44

nothing. Every word I

38:46

had to research out and say, what's the

38:48

word mean generally, and what's it mean in

38:50

this text? It was a hard thing to

38:52

write. Well, it's still very readable,

38:54

I'm gonna say, Jack, even for an

38:56

academic piece. It's something that I

38:59

think people with a little motivation could

39:01

certainly benefit from. I

39:03

never try to divide my head from my heart, and

39:05

so there's a lot of heart in here as well.

39:07

Yeah, I can see that too, yeah. Yeah,

39:10

it's a bit of a speech act, right, in

39:12

the very act of writing it. You've demonstrated the

39:14

book, the suffering of the book. I

39:18

hadn't thought of it that way, but yes, the pain and

39:20

suffering is this one. That's right. Okay,

39:23

well then, looking as we kind of

39:25

extrapolate from there, what are some of the takeaways?

39:27

What's the value for everyday readers? I kind of

39:29

tipped my hand a little bit to kind of

39:31

how I see it, is that it

39:33

helps to situate the

39:36

practices even that we do today.

39:38

I come from a Christian tradition

39:40

that sort of had this like, we

39:42

don't interpret the Bible, we just read

39:44

exactly what it says, and that's how

39:46

it works. For me, these kinds

39:49

of books that we find in the

39:51

Pseudopigrapha and in Second Temple Judaism are

39:53

a real window into how we update

39:57

books, how we get creative, and how

39:59

we ennem- inevitably read into these

40:02

texts our context and our current troubles

40:04

and challenges and we see it so

40:06

clearly here What makes us think that

40:08

we're avoiding it in the 21st century?

40:10

So that for me is is a

40:12

huge value in reading books like this is to

40:15

help situate our context And what are we doing

40:17

and how are we doing it? Not

40:19

so that we can avoid it because I think it's inevitable

40:21

but so that we can be mindful of how we're doing

40:23

it What would you say Jack

40:25

or Pete like what's the value because

40:27

I think a lot of people are interested in

40:30

these You know quote like extra biblical books, but

40:32

they don't really know why they're attracted

40:35

to them and what value does it bring?

40:38

I think for me, I can

40:40

only speak for myself Jared. I think what's

40:42

interesting to me about This

40:45

creative engagement with the biblical tradition

40:48

is simply that that as

40:50

long as there's been a Bible there

40:52

has been creativity

40:54

and interpretation Because

40:57

the message of the Bible is not simply

40:59

I think for people of antiquity The

41:02

words on the page. It's

41:04

a deeper story that could be told Through

41:07

that story that has

41:09

relevance for them. That's why I

41:11

always ask the question of motivation I'd love to know

41:13

that and I I can't answer

41:16

that question myself But that's sort of where

41:18

I look at this. I mean I use the term

41:20

respectfully other people have used this There's a

41:22

playfulness in the text That

41:24

these writers were exploiting in a

41:27

sense to turn the story

41:29

into something a little

41:31

different But that's how I see it Yeah

41:33

And that's the positive side the positive

41:36

side is these texts these ancient texts

41:38

like the Bible become relevant as we

41:40

bring them together With our own experience

41:42

as we fuse the horizons of our experience

41:45

and their experience and that's the positive And

41:48

I think another thing that makes the Greek

41:50

life So important is that it

41:52

shows us places that we may have done

41:54

that to the detriment of ourselves So

41:58

for instance, I always start my

42:00

Old Testament class on Genesis by

42:02

reading children's Bibles. And

42:04

if you read Precious Moments Bible, it

42:06

says, now Satan waited

42:08

for just the right time

42:11

when Eve was sitting alone

42:13

under the tree. And

42:16

then you make them read the Bible and

42:18

there's no Satan and there's no alone for

42:20

Eve, right? She's not even called Eve at

42:22

that point. But then you read the

42:24

Greek life of Adam and Eve and you

42:27

say, look what they've imported into the text.

42:29

They've split paradise in half. The

42:31

serpent comes to Eve's side. And

42:34

in this story, Satan speaks

42:36

through the serpent to

42:39

Eve. And there all

42:41

of a sudden you have things

42:43

that most people, if you ask

42:45

them nowadays to retell the story,

42:48

would probably tell the story that

42:50

way. Well, Satan deceived Eve and

42:52

then she brought the fruit to

42:54

Adam and persuaded him to eat

42:57

the fruit. That is not the

42:59

Bible. That is the Greek

43:01

life of Adam and Eve, hook, line

43:03

and sinker. So when you

43:05

know the Greek life of Adam

43:07

and Eve, you know where the

43:10

popular notion comes from about what

43:12

happened in the garden. And

43:14

I think it's really important to be able to say, do

43:17

you see what you're saying? It doesn't come from

43:19

the Bible. It comes from this text over

43:22

here. And this text

43:24

over here at some points can be

43:26

very sexist and blame

43:28

Eve entirely and put her alone when

43:31

the angels go up, Eve is unguarded

43:33

and the Satan can come and deceive

43:35

her. Well, that's not

43:37

biblical, but it's the Greek life

43:39

that it's what many people think is

43:42

biblical. Well, Jack,

43:44

thank you so much for coming on. It's again

43:46

fantastic to talk with you and you just have

43:48

so much knowledge and insight about these kinds of

43:51

things. So it's been great to learn from you.

43:53

Well, it's been wonderful to discuss, as I said

43:55

before, people ask me how to talk about the

43:57

Holy Spirit all the time. But never, never do

43:59

that. Never has anyone asked me to talk

44:01

about the Greek life of Adam and Eve and

44:04

it's really been enjoyable. Jack, you are

44:06

welcome. Leave it to us, the Bible

44:08

nerds, the Bible for Normal People. Thanks

44:10

again. See ya. You

44:12

bet. Well, thanks to everyone who supports

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44:46

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44:56

This episode was brought to you by the Bible for

44:58

Normal People team. Brittany Hodge,

45:00

Steven Henning, Wesley Duckworth, Savannah

45:02

Locke, Tessa Stoltz, Danny Wong,

45:06

Natalie Wyand, Lauren O'Connell, Jessica

45:08

Shau, and Naomi Gonzalez. And

45:15

a fun fact about Jack is that he and his

45:17

wife actually live on the Southern Method

45:19

of Gurs. And a fun fact about... A

45:22

fact. Mm-hmm. Hey there.

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