Biblical Parallels Index – Bereshit 3/0

Biblical Parallels Index – Bereshit 3

This topic has not yet undergone editorial review

Overview

This index is meant to help the reader explore Biblical parallels, be they two accounts of the same event, stories with similar motifs and themes, or units of text which are linguistically similar and perhaps alluding one to the other. The page includes links to tools that aid in comparison, primary sources that touch upon the parallels, and summaries of and links to articles which analyze them in depth.

Knowledge of Good and Evil

Exploring the various appearances of both the root "ידע" and the phrase "ידע טוב ורע" helps one gain further insight into the nature of the knowledge granted by the Tree of Knowledge.

Tools

Concordance – Use the concordance to see how the word and phrase are used throughout Tanakh.

• By double clicking on the word "ידע" in the Mikraot Gedolot on Bereshit 3:5, one can find Biblical parallels that demonstrate the various connotations of knowledge in Tanakh.  This root word can relate to: a) skilled knowledge b) intent or will c) knowledge of God and d) sexual knowledge.
• One can then click on “יֹדְעֵי טוֹב וָרָע” in the same verse to see parallels to this phrase in Tanakh:
• In Devarim 1:39 and Yeshayahu 7:16 the phrase seems to refer to moral knowledge
• In Shemuel II 19:36 it appears in the context of physical/sensual experiences. 

Primary Sources

Almost all commentators question the nature of the knowledge granted by the tree.

• Ibn EzraBereshit First Commentary 3:7About R. Avraham ibn Ezra, RadakBereshit 2:17About R. David Kimchi, Abarbanel About Abarbanel Mashmia Yeshuah– These exegetes all suggest that the fruit of the Tree introduced sexual desire to mankind.
• RashiBereshit 2:25About R. Shelomo Yitzchaki, R. Yosef Bekhor ShorBereshit 3:5-7About R. Yosef Bekhor Shor, RambanBereshit 2:9About R. Moshe b. Nachman and R. Y"S ReggioBereshit 2:9About R. Yitzchak Shemuel Reggio – According to these commentators, upon eating from the Tree, humans acquired an inclination to do evil (יצר הרע), thereby giving them the free will to choose between good and bad.
• U. Cassuto, RambamMoreh Nevukhim 1:2Moreh Nevukhim 1:2About R. Moshe b. Maimon, RalbagBereshit Beur HaMilot 2:9About R. Levi b. Gershom  – According to these commentators, partaking from the Tree affected the intellect of man, either increasing man's intellectual knowledge or introducing subjective (and not simply objective) knowledge.
• R. D"Z HoffmannBereshit 2:17About R. David Zvi Hoffmann – The tree granted moral knowledge. After eating from it, universal concepts of right and wrong were instilled in mankind.

Articles

• See The Tree of Knowledge for an overview of different understandings of what constituted knowledge of good and evil, with an in-depth analysis of the approaches of each of the commentators mentioned above.

Adam and Avraham

Many Midrashim, commentators, and contemporary authors have noted the connections between the stories of Adam and Avraham, with several noting how Avraham's faith and obedience served as a corrective to Adam's disobedience.

Primary Sources

• Bereshit Rabbah 14:6 – The Midrash compares the two figures, suggesting that Avraham was worthy of being the first man, but was created after Adam only so that he could be a corrective to his sins.
• Pesikta Rabbati 70:193 – The Midrash states that Adam was created in the merit of Avraham.
• Several Midrashim draw connections between the story of Adam and Akeidat Yitzchak specifically:
• Yalkut Shimoni Bereshit 22:13Bereshit 22:13About Yalkut Shimoni – The Midrash states that the ram that replaced Yitzchak at the Akeidah was brought by an angel from Gan Eden, where it had been drinking from a stream flowing beneath the Tree of Life.
• Bereshit Rabbah 14:814:8About Bereshit Rabbah – The Midrash states that Adam was created from the dust of the place where he would ultimately achieve atonement, which is understood to refer to Mount Moriah (see Radak Bereshit 2:8Bereshit 2:8About R. David Kimchi), site of the Akeidah.

Articles

The following articles all view Avraham as being a corrective to Adam:

• In Zikhronot - the Covenant of the Akeida and the Repair of Adam’s Sin, R. Uriel Eitam notes a number of linguistic connections between the stories of the sin of Adam and Chavvah and the story of Akeidat Yitzchak, suggesting that Avraham’s acceptance of God’s command at the Akeidah repaired the sin of Adam’s and Chavvah’s original disobedience.¹ The command to Adam and Chavvah had permitted all but one thing to them, while the mirror-image command to Avraham required him to give up the one thing that was everything to him. Adam distanced himself and humanity from Hashem through his sin, while Avraham brought himself and mankind back to a state of total commitment. The blessings of manifold descendants bestowed upon Avraham represent a reversal of Chavvah’s curse of increased pain in childbirth.
• In Back to the Garden: Where Lies the Path?, R. Yehoshua Pfeffer analyzes how Avraham and the Land of Israel serve as a corrective to the ultimately ill-fated environment of the Garden of Eden. He suggests that, through his sin, Adam’s originally innocent, trusting orientation toward others and his surroundings deteriorated into cynicism and shame. His eyes were opened to the possibility of evil, leading to distrust and suspicion.²  Avraham was to reverse that trend, being a paradigm of one who is able to put his full trust in God. R. Pfeffer suggests that moving to and living in the Land of Israel was (and is) crucial to rebuilding faith. Unlike Eden, watered by four rivers, Israel's source of water is rain, necessitating one to always look heavenward.
• In לך לך: בין אדם הראשון לאברהם אבינו, R. Shlomo Brin compares and contrasts the religious awareness embodied by Adam with that of Avraham. Adam’s sin led to a dimming of his ability to perceive Hashem; he descended from the level of understanding that is compared to the clarity of sight to the less direct level of understanding that is akin to the sense of hearing.  Through his experience of the holiness of the Land of Israel, Avraham (and, subsequently, Yitzchak and Yaakov) returned to the level of being able to perceive Hashem with the clarity that is associated with sight.

The Garden of Eden and Shir HaShirim

Articles and Lectures

• In Paradise Regained: The Return to Gan Eden in Shir Hashirim, Dr. Yael Ziegler explores the ways in which Shir HaShirim represents a return to the harmonious relationship between man and woman that characterized the Garden of Eden.³ She suggests that the Land of Israel becomes a replacement for the ideal of the Garden of Eden throughout Tanakh, and is associated with promises of unity between man and God, and between man and nature. However, it is specifically Shir HaShirim which focuses on the ideal of harmony between man and woman, with the book suggesting that one way of symbolically returning to Eden is through the development of strong relationships between human beings.⁴

Adam and Kayin

The first two stories about man are tales of egregious sins of different sorts.

Tools

• The Tanakh Lab⁵ demonstrates that one of the chapters that shares the most linguistic parallels to Bereshit 3 is Bereshit 4, perhaps hinting to the reader to compare the sins of Adam and Kayin. See here to compare the chapters.

Articles

• In Religious Sin, Ethical Sin and the Punishment of Exile, Professor Yonatan Grossman notes the many parallels and contrasts between the stories of Adam’s sin in Bereshit 3 and Kayin’s sin in Bereshit 4.  He suggests that these demonstrate that the Torah views interpersonal sins, represented by Kayin’s murder, as no less intrinsic to man’s relationship to God than Adam’s sin of direct disobedience to God. The parallels between Adam’s sin of disobedience toward God and Kayin’s sin of violence toward man indicate that the Torah demands both religious and ethical virtue, and that the punishment of exile is meted out for both types of sins. 

¹ While Avraham ignored the desires of his heart in obedience to Hashem's directive, Adam and Chavvah had decided to ignore God's command so as to instead follow their own passions.

² This is exemplified by the role of nakedness in the story.  Though originally Adam could face Hashem unclothed and vulnerable, after the sin, he can no longer do so.

³ Some of the images of Shir HaShirim, such as the comparison of the beloved to a “locked garden” (4:12), call to mind the Garden of Eden, leading the reader to associate the stories.

⁴ The love between the male and female protagonists offers a promise of reversal of the curses of Adam and Chavvah. For example, they learn that “love is as strong as death” (8:6) (implying that love might be a reversal of the curse of death/mortality), and the female protagonist declares that her beloved’s “desire is toward me” (7:10), representing a reversal of Chavvah’s curse of subservience to man due to her desire for him.

⁵ In the Tanakh Lab, click on the Torah icon for a list of linguistically similar chapters to that being displayed.