Tag Archives: Genesis

The Original False Rape Claim

Here’s the story of Joseph who was sold into slavery by his brothers and his false attempted rape accusation:

Now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian who was one of Pharaoh’s officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

Now Joseph was well-built and handsome, and after a while his master’s wife took notice of Joseph and said, “Come to bed with me!”

But he refused. “With me in charge,” he told her, “my master does not concern himself with anything in the house; everything he owns he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am. My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God?” And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her or even be with her.

One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, “Come to bed with me!” But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants. “Look,” she said to them, “this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us! He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story: “That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me. But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.”

When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, “This is how your slave treated me,” he burned with anger. Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined.

But while Joseph was there in the prison, the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.

 

The Curse of Eve

But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:20-22)

Eve was created to be the helper of Adam, to assist him in his great work, which, thanks to the curse of Adam, is a hard, miserable task.

Eve was tempted and in turn tempted Adam with her sweet fruit; he fell, as men are wont to do when a woman’s sweet fruit is involved. Adam was a given a cruel curse for weakness, but Eve was as well.

To the woman he said,
“I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing;
in pain you shall bring forth children.
Your desire shall be for your husband,
and he shall rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16)

The first part of the curse is harsh, but simply; Adam and Eve were blessed to be fruitful and multiply, but to Eve being fruitful became a painful and deadly experience. That is the first part of her curse, to desire children with her innermost being, but to suffer, and often die, in the bearing.

Yet, the second part of the curse is less straightforward, but more interesting. The more literal translation from Hebrew is more interesting still:

…and to your man is your following and he will regulate in you,

Following and regulate as defined for this:

Following: To go, proceed or come after. Being next in order or time. Subsequent to. As the river follows the path of its banks.

Regulate: To govern or correct according to rule. Rule over a dominion. To bring order, method, or uniformity to. To compare one thing to another in the sense of a rule of measurement, often as a proverb or parable.

Eve’s curse then is to desire her husband and to follow after him.

Her purpose, woman’s purpose is to help man, her greatest desire is to follow after their husband, she yearns to be his.

He will regulate in you. Her curse is not primarily that man controls her outwardly, physically, but rather that he rules in her.

Adam controls Eve’s emotional being; to him she is devoted, for him is her greatest desire, and to follow him is her greatest pleasure and purpose.

Eve’s curse is emotional dependence on fallen man. She desires to her very core to be wholly his.

Adam has absolute rule over her inner world, whether she wills it or not.

Before the curse, she was a helper to a perfect leader. Now she is a subject to a fallen man cursed with bitter hardship. This fallen man may be cruel, he may be weak, he may foolish, he may be sinful, he may despise her, he may reject her, and he will most certainly hurt her. He will never be the perfect man, God’s own untainted image, in which she yearns with longing deep to lose herself, subsume herself.

This is the paradox of Eve’s curse: She yearns to be Adam’s as he was, but Adam as he is is fallen: sinful and weak. She sees his weakness and may rebel against him and herself to her own ruin, but however much she may rebel, she knows she is beholden to him. Her desire for fallen Adam causes her suffering for she can not be rid of it, yet he is not the perfect man he was before he fell. Rebellion against his imperfection only causes her greater suffering for her need to be Adam’s is her very core.

Woman can only find true joy and purpose in wholly devoting herself to man, yet man, being imperfect, will never truly fulfill her longing to lose herself wholly in him.

Adam’s curse is to labour brutally and unceasingly only to see it come to ruin; Eve’s curse is to suffer the whims of cursed Adam or suffer the utter desolation of being bereft of Adam.

Adam’s Original Sin: Disobedience and Betaness

For the Biblical Alpha series, we’ll start at the beginning of the Bible, with the first man, Adam.

Now, the first mention of man’s creation goes:

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. ”

Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food. ” And it was so. (Genesis 1:26-30)

We can see here that man was created to rule. Man’s purpose, the reason for his creation, was to rule over the rest of creation and to his expand this rule over whole earth. Mankind’s purpose is leadership.

Now, knowing man’s purpose, we move onto the first man. The Bible only gives a few chapters to Adam but they are revealing. He was created, told not to eat from a specific tree, and named the animals. While in Eden:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

But for Adam no suitable helper was found.

So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the ribhe had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. (Genesis 2:15-22)

The creation story is re-iterated, putting the focus on man. Man is created to care for creation. His purpose is leadership over the earth.

We can also see that woman was created to be a helper for man. Man is to rule, woman is to assist the man in his leadership. This is the natural Christian order of earth, man rules, woman helps man.

Man was created by God for the purpose of being the alpha over the earth. He ruled over paradise with his helper at his side.

Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.(Genesis 2:25)

Man (and woman) was originally created to feel no shame. Shame is a result of sin.

It is interesting to note, that the alpha is immune to shame, but susceptibility to shame is the hallmark of the beta.

Then the Fall occurs:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? ”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me —she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (Genesis 3:1-12)

Here Adam displays a stunning lack of leadership and betaness leading to the fall.

First, while he is with her, he allows his helper to be tempted by the serpent, who is under his dominion, and he does nothing. He takes no leadership over either his helper or the one he rules.

Second, he then allows his helper to convince him to violate his duty. He falls into the woman’s frame and allows her to lead him against his own principles and duty.

Then he, rightfully, feels shame.

When confronted with his disobedience, what does he do? He shifts the blame. Instead of taking responsibility for his own actions as a man and a leader, he blames his helper.

The original sin was disobedience to God. This disobedience was caused and exacerbated by the beta actions and inactions of the first man, Adam.

Had Adam taken his alpha leadership role given him by God, the Fall would not have occurred.