Nakedness, Shame, and Guilt - Episode 114

Carey Griffel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Genesis Marks the Spot, where we raid the ivory tower of Biblical theology without ransacking our faith. My name is Carey Griffel, and I'm going to be addressing a couple of questions from two different people. They're two different questions, but they have some overlap, so I'm going to tackle both of them today, although I'm not entirely sure I'm going to get to a completely satisfying answer to answer all of it, so, I might be doing a second part. We will have to see at the end. If I don't do a second part, for sure these questions are going to trickle into other episodes in the future. I know that.

I have a question that Jason asked quite a while ago, and I answered him via email, but I knew that I was going to have to give a longer answer in an episode. [00:01:00] So here we are, and sorry for the wait, Jason. I'm not going to read his whole question, but basically Jason's question centers on shame and guilt and how we see that in Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. And it is an interesting question, because we have the word shame that shows up in Genesis 2, but we don't see the word in Genesis 3 when we might expect to.

So Jason's question kind of centers on that. What is shame and guilt? How do we see it here? Is the hiding that is going on in Genesis 3 related to this? Is shame and guilt the same thing? And Jason further asks about the first rebellion in Genesis 3 versus the second rebellion in Genesis 6, and what do we see with the guilt going on there?

Okay, so I think that is a really good question and it's a complicated one, simply because our views of [00:02:00] things today is very different from the views of the ancient world. It's really fair to ask, why is shame only mentioned in Genesis 2, 25, and not in chapter 3? And what does shame and guilt have to do with the increase in depravity that we see by Genesis 6?

So, to be fair, this is the aspect of the question I'm going to struggle landing the plane on in just one episode. But it's really very related to my second question that is from Vivian. Vivian's question is specifically about nakedness and shame. And for many people who've grown up in Christian circles, the idea of nakedness is very much tied to things like modesty and sin and things like that.

And so Vivian asks if it is being naked that was a sin in the garden, or if it was the knowledge of being naked that [00:03:00] was the actual sin, or is it related to sin at all? Is it really more about shame and guilt, and that they had known they had done something wrong and maybe their sins were naked before God and so they felt shame?

Basically the question kind of centers on, if we see nakedness as being inherently a wrong thing, as we tend to think of today, right? Then how could Adam and Eve fellowship with God in the garden in that kind of a sinful state?

All right, so today I plan on talking a little bit about the history of interpretation of these passages. I won't be able to go really in depth to cover every type of interpretation that we have had through history, but we'll go through a little bit of that history.

We're going to go through some passages that are very relevant to what we're talking about here. We're going to talk about the honor shame culture of the [00:04:00] past, as well as how we can see that today, where we do not live in an honor shame society like they used to, but that doesn't mean that we don't use shame as a particular tool in our societal tool belt, we might say. And we'll touch a little bit on the difference between shame and guilt, at least as many psychologists will talk about that today.

One of the questions that I thought of when I was working with these questions from Jason and Vivian is, how do we know that nakedness is or is not about sexual impropriety in the garden? Because that seems very related to this concept and idea of morality and modesty. Hopefully, by the end of the episode, I at least can have a partial answer to that question.

Okay, so first of all, let's go to a very brief scripture survey here. I won't be able [00:05:00] to touch on all of the passages that could possibly be speaking into this concept of nakedness and shame and things like that, but let's look at the main ones.

We have the end of Genesis 2, where we have Eve created, and Adam and Eve are supposed to be joined together.

Genesis 2, 24 says, quote, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and hold fast to his wife and they shall become one flesh. Verse 25 says, and the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. End quote.

I actually want to go over to Robert Alter's translation of this verse because he brings out an interesting point here.

Robert Alter's translation of verses 24 and 25 says. Quote, Therefore, does a man leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife, and they [00:06:00] become one flesh. And the two of them were naked, the human and his woman, and they were not ashamed. End quote.

All right, so a little bit of a difference here between the ESV that I read first and Robert Alter's translation.

Alter has a footnote for verse 25. He says, And the two of them, but characteristically, the narrative immediately unsettles the neatness of the eitiological certainty, for the first couple are two, not one flesh. And their obliviousness to their nakedness is darkened by the foreshadow of the moment about to be narrated in which their innocence will be lost. End quote.

So we already have an aspect of innocence here and, spoiler alert, innocence is something we're going to be talking about a lot in regards to this nakedness concept.

So one of the things we [00:07:00] need to ask about the end of Chapter 2 here, where it says they are not ashamed, is that, or is that not, a good thing here? We can't really tell from a straightforward reading. It just says that they were naked and they weren't ashamed. Now, this is before the sin of taking the fruit and the instance with the serpent and all of that. So, presumably, they're not in a state of sin, they're naked, and they're not ashamed, and you could say, well, they're not supposed to be ashamed.

Okay, that's one way of looking at that here. Part of the problem, then, is that, does that mean that when we go back to this original Edenic ideal, that we are supposed to be naked? Like, is there something wrong with clothing? That's a direction that some people take this, okay?

So another way of looking at it is, Are they [00:08:00] supposed to be ashamed, even though they're naked? And maybe that is the reason that shame is mentioned here, because it's not mentioned in the next chapter.

Let's go ahead and jump into Genesis 3, and we'll jump to verse 7. This is after the serpent and the woman and the man both took the fruit. Verse seven quote, then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Alright, so then we are familiar with what happens here. They heard God walking in the garden, and in verse eight it says, the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. God calls to the man, asks him, Where are you? The man says, Well, I heard you and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid. God asks, Who told you you're naked? [00:09:00] Did you eat of that tree? He says, Yeah, well, the woman gave it to me. And so you have all that blaming game going on, right?

Okay, so we have two instances where nakedness is mentioned, but we only have shame mentioned prior to the taking of the fruit. So that's really interesting because you would kind of expect the shame to be mentioned afterwards since that's when they should feel ashamed, right? Because they just sinned and they did something wrong and they should feel ashamed, but the word itself is not used.

Now, that doesn't mean that we aren't to read the concept into this whole thing. Now, I'm not saying that that's necessarily the case either. We just know that their eyes were opened. They knew they were naked. They sewed fig leaves, and they hid themselves. So perhaps the hiding that is going on is what is parallel to the shame in Genesis 2. Something to [00:10:00] notice is that Adam and Eve are not hiding from each other. They are hiding from God.

Alright, so basically what we have is this spiritual awareness, right? We have the eyes opening. And this is very much like what I talked about in my very famous, now I'm sure it's famous, my donkey episode, right? My episode on donkeys where I talked about Balaam and his experience with the angel of the Lord and opening his eyes and seeing the truth, right?

There's a spiritual awakening and a maturity that happens there. That's what happens also with Adam and Eve. With Balaam, Balaam wasn't taking that for himself, it was kind of God forcing it upon him. whereas with Adam and Eve, they were taking it for themselves and opening their eyes for themselves.

So the spiritual awakening that Adam and Eve were [00:11:00] experiencing in the garden was due to their own action and not God's. And so their experience was one that was skewed. It wasn't quite accurate. The incident with Balam, however, he is kind of forced to see, he didn't take it upon himself to see anything. It was the angel of the Lord who had opened Balaam's eyes. And so there's a difference there, right?

The theme of seeing is very prevalent through the book of Genesis. Let's go ahead and jump to Genesis 9, where we have the next incident of nakedness. This is after the flood, after God made a covenant with Noah, and Noah plants a vineyard, which should remind us of the garden back in Genesis 2 and 3. Noah drank of the wine from his vineyard, he became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. Now for those of you who are aware of the interpretation here that involves Ham and [00:12:00] Canaan, that's also the interpretation I'm going to point you towards, but I don't really have time to lay it out here specifically.

But we have in verse 22 of chapter 9, And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside. Then verse 23, then Shem and Japeth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward and they did not see their father's nakedness.

Now, what's going on here? Well, if you jump to Leviticus 18 where we have another instance of nakedness mentioned, it's clear that "uncovering the nakedness" is about sexual impropriety.

Leviticus 18. 7 says, You shall not uncover the nakedness of your father, which is the nakedness of your mother. She is your mother. You shall not uncover her nakedness. Verse 8, You shall not uncover the [00:13:00] nakedness of your father's wife. It is your father's nakedness. Okay, and we could go on. This whole chapter has a whole bunch of instances here, and basically it's talking about incest.

So if we take this language back into Genesis 9, what we have is incest against Noah's wife, who is presumably Ham's mother. Now, there are people who don't like this interpretation, and kind of fair enough, because verse 21 says straight out that Noah drank wine, became drunk, and lay uncovered in his tent. And that leads to Ham seeing the nakedness of his father. So, a straightforward, pure, plain language, at least in English, reading of this seems to be that it was only the seeing of the nakedness that was the problem. And that kind of feeds into our ideas of modesty here.

But at the same time, we can't presume that the [00:14:00] text is giving us every single little bit of information. If Noah is in the tent, having become drunk on his wine, where do you think his wife is? She's probably also drunk with him in the tent, and also naked. Alright, so I'm not going to get into explicit detail here with all of that. But my point here is that it can be a both and kind of a situation.

Just because you have incest at play doesn't mean Noah wasn't also passed out drunk naked. But was the sin actually just viewing his nakedness? Well, the fact that Ham is called the father of Canaan here in this, and you line that up with what we see in Leviticus 18 with the language of the nakedness of the father and Ham as the father of Canaan, then it seems to me pretty clear that Canaan is the result of what's going on here.

And this correlates really [00:15:00] well with these origin type narratives, right? Because the Canaanites, who come from Canaan, are the big bad guys, right? And so there needs to be a patriarchal reason why they are the bad guys. Not that they aren't bad guys for their own bad guy reasons, but people don't just get to become bad guys, there's really a start to it that happens in a patriarch somewhere. And that's kind of what these origin stories are all about.

Alright, so while we're on the topic of language and euphemism, let's talk a little bit more about that. As a language, Hebrew has fewer words than many other languages have, at least Biblical Hebrew, and so they got a lot of mileage out of the words that they did have. So there is no specific term for genitals in biblical Hebrew, so if you're trying to reference genitals [00:16:00] or the genital area or nakedness or something like that, you're going to need to use a euphemism to do that.

Two of the euphemisms that are used in Biblical Hebrew are thigh and foot, but quite often you just have the general term of nakedness used, just like we see in Exodus 20, verse 26, which says, quote, and you shall not go up by steps to my altar that your nakedness be not exposed on it, end quote.

So nakedness can be used very directly, but it is also used very frequently in figurative ways.

In Genesis 42, 9, it says, quote, And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them, and he said to them, You are spies. You have come to see the nakedness of the land, end quote.

And nakedness there refers [00:17:00] to the undefended aspects of the land, like the unprotected parts. Now, speaking of Joseph, we have an incident of Joseph with nakedness, right? In Genesis 39, we have Joseph and Potiphar's wife. And that's how Joseph ends up in prison, actually. And because he's put into prison, that's how he ends up being the second in charge of all of Egypt.

So, it's really interesting in the Book of Genesis that we have two kind of bookend stories of nakedness. In the Garden, they are naked and not ashamed, they sin, they discover they're naked, they hide. In the story with Joseph, he is assaulted by Potiphar's wife, she disrobes him, and he runs away, but he's still caught and he is put into prison. So, in both stories, we have the idea of [00:18:00] nakedness and shame, we have hiding or running away, but in Joseph's case, it's not a bad thing, whereas in the garden, they weren't supposed to be running away from God.

So there's just a couple of really interesting points that you can kind of think about and flesh out on your own. And again, the concept of shame isn't mentioned in the story of Joseph either. But, shame and nakedness are very intimately connected in many, many biblical passages beyond Genesis 2.

But there are also some exceptions. We have prophets who are naked. And they are not ashamed. However, their nakedness is probably something that is pointing to the seriousness of their message, right? And nakedness is very much connected to judgment in the Prophets.

Hosea chapter 2 is a judgment text. This is one of those [00:19:00] places where we have the metaphor of God and His people being married, and the people of God have left God to follow after other gods. And so we have the context of idolatry, and following other gods, and God judging against them.

In Hosea 2, verses 2 and 3, it says, quote, Plead with your mother, plead, for she is not my wife, and I am not her husband, that she put away her whoring from her face, And her adultery from between her breasts, lest I strip her naked, and make her as the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst. End quote.

Okay, so there we have nakedness associated with judgment. It's also associated all over the place in Ezekiel, where we have idolatry that is related to harlotry. And, of course, there is a good bit of shame wrapped up [00:20:00] in all of that as well. So again, these are metaphorical, figurative images to describe what's going on with the people of God who have forsaken God.

So digging a little bit deeper into this idea of shame, we see it quite often also in the New Testament. I want to bring out an association with shame and glory. Let's look at Mark 8, 38. Quote, For whoever is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. End quote.

So the idea of glory can be one of clothing. Here's a passage that we often talk about in regards to modesty. First Corinthians 12, 23 says, And on those parts of the body that we think less honorable, we bestow [00:21:00] the greatest honor, And our unpresentable parts are treated with greater modesty, which our more presentable parts do not require.

The point of this passage in chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians is the body of Christ. So yes, absolutely, we can talk about modesty here. But the larger point that this is making is about people.

Verse 24, goes on to say, But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to that part that lacked it, that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together. If one member is honored, all rejoice together. Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

Is the point here that we're trying to decide who's more or less dishonorable? No, the point is that we all have honor. All right, there are so many other [00:22:00] passages I could talk to you about this. This is a really big topic. But we really need to cover some information about shame and honor culture.

For those who want to have a little bit of reading to get your minds into this shame and honor culture of the past, I highly recommend a book like Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes, Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. This is by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. O'Brien. And this gives a lot of really good examples of things that we don't quite understand because we are reading with our cultural blinders on. Really useful book.

There is also the book, Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes, Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World. This is also by E. Randolph Richards, and also Richard James.

Both of those are going to give you some really key [00:23:00] stories to help kind of wrap your mind into an ancient mindset rather than our modern one. Now, honestly, it's not really necessarily even that difficult. Like, if you watch Star Trek, you already understand shame and honor if you see, like, the Klingons, right? They live according to honor and glory, and shame is a really bad thing that happens in their culture, right? So we have a lot of examples in modern day that really can help us understand this idea.

So, it's not really that we are completely disassociated with it, but from a modern standpoint, we've kind of shifted from a cultural and societal and collective view of things to one that is very individualistic. And that might have some negative connotations, but it doesn't necessarily have to.

What we have to do, at bare minimum, is take what we see in the [00:24:00] Bible and its culture and try and translate that into what we have today. Like, maybe it is the case that having a little bit of an ancient mindset in today's day and age would be really helpful to us. But it's really not on us to change culture necessarily. That's not something you can just intentionally do just because you feel like it. So to some degree, we really do need to take these ideas and try to translate them into what we are thinking of today.

One thing I want you to notice is that very specifically, I have been talking about shame. Now, Jason's question that I talked about at the beginning of this episode, part of his question was about shame and guilt. And notice that I really haven't been talking about guilt from the perspective of the biblical mindset..

Now, that doesn't mean that there is no concept of guilt, [00:25:00] okay? What we have are different terminologies and different frameworks for looking at things. So, for a second, I kind of want to look at this from a modern psychological standpoint. Now, I'm not a psychologist. I've just read a good bit about this, and I like to hear people talk about things like this.

But basically, today from a psychological perspective, we have two different things going on, shame and guilt, and they're related, but they're not necessarily the same thing. Okay, so keep in mind, this is from a modern mindset. We can't just pick up this information and plop it back down into scripture. We need this understanding in order to bring the exegesis of scripture forward into today to enlighten our modern understanding.

Okay, alright, so I actually got this from the website BetterHelp. com, in an article called Shame vs. Guilt, [00:26:00] The Key Differences and Understanding Their Emotional Impact. And it says that, quote, Shame and guilt are two words that many people use interchangeably. Both describe a negative, self conscious emotion that can have a significant impact on how we view ourselves, each other and the world. However, these terms have subtle but crucial differences in meaning and implications. The main difference, whether the negative feelings are aimed at an action or at oneself as a whole. The American Psychological Association defines guilt as a conscious emotion characterized by a painful appraisal of having done or thought something that is wrong, and often by a readiness to take action designed to undo or mitigate this wrong. It is distinct from shame in which there is the additional strong fear of one's deeds being publicly exposed [00:27:00] to judgment or ridicule. End quote.

It further goes on to say that shame is defined by the APA as a highly unpleasant self conscious emotion arising from the sense of there being something dishonorable, immodest, or indecorous in one's own conduct or circumstances. It is typically characterized by withdrawal from societal intercourse, which may have a profound effect on psychological adjustment and interpersonal relationships. End quote.

So if I can kind of put that into my own words, Guilt and shame are both emotionally based, but guilt is more a feeling within yourself that you notice that something is wrong and you want to take action to correct if you can, or at least that emotion is pushing you to that. And shame is the self conscious emotion [00:28:00] that is associated with judgment in community.

Okay, so I hope those are pretty good definitions that we can take. I've also heard it said from psychologists that there is a distinction in Action versus being, or identity, right? Like, you can feel guilty for your behavior, but shame is something that is about your identity. Like, you feel bad for being the person that you are. And that kind of tracks on the fact that our identities are built in societal and communal ways, right? We don't just get to decide who we are by ourselves, even if some people think that we can.

Like, the reason that people insist on you calling them the right thing, either the right name or whatever, today, you know, all of that political stuff going on. The reason that we want people to address us [00:29:00] in the correct way, whatever that is, is because our identity is not just an individual thing, even if we want to develop an individual identity, we need it to be a communal identity, because identity is in dialogue with other people.

And as I pointed out when I listened to Jordan Peterson talk, it's not really clear where you end and where others begin, because everything that you do is associated with some other people in some form. And we have identity in relationship, in family, in culture, in our jobs, in every way that we interact with other people, we have some form of identity.

All right, so, now, like I said, the biblical world does not have a distinctive difference like we do, with shame versus guilt. And as I said, that doesn't mean that we don't have that distinction there, necessarily. [00:30:00] I mean, because you can read the Psalms, for instance, and it's a very internally emotive expression and many of the Psalms are internal emotional cries out to God, right? And so there is a sense in which our emotional state is wrapped up in our cry of repentance to God. And so I don't think it's really correct to say that there is no individuality in the Bible. I think there is. But it's less defined than it is for us today. For us today, it is very, very explicit and very defined.

And I do think it is the case that when you go to the Bible, often it is not real clear where the emotions are in the people. You can go to the poetry and see emotional outbursts all over the place. So it's not like it's not there. But in a lot of the narratives, [00:31:00] what you have is the main concern being that of the community, not the individual. And as I said, occasionally you'll still have, even in the narratives, the outcries and the outpourings of what we see as individual emotion. But that's not necessarily what we see every time we see the term shame.

So when we're asking about, where is the shame and where is the guilt showing up here? We're really asking in a very modern mindset, which again, that's fair enough because that's where our minds are. That's where we have to be asking our questions from. But we're not necessarily going to see a real focus on internal guilt.

Now, we do see things like the hardness of the heart, the unrepentant heart. We have people like Cain, who God comes and says, look, if you have a good heart relationship with me, we're not going to have a problem here. [00:32:00] And Cain decides, I don't want that, and I'm going to go my own way, and I'm going to maintain the hardness of my heart, and I'm going to maintain my desires over God's desires.

But we don't really see a whole lot of early examples of heartfelt repentance like what we see with David in the Psalms. And honestly, this makes me think so much about the way that I was raised in a real focused environment of thinking about repentance from sin and repentance to me meant that I felt really bad. Like, yes, I'm supposed to do something about what I did wrong to fix it, right? So that's kind of a really biblical way of looking at it. If you do something wrong, you need to make it right in the way that you can. But for me, it was very, very wrapped up in my feelings. Like, if I didn't feel guilty enough, then I could not be repentant. And I think [00:33:00] that's the wrong way to see it here, at least from a biblical standpoint.

Now again, that's not to say that our emotions don't play a part in this. You have David, who was kind of not really the best person in the world, right? He did a lot of bad things. He was an adulterer. He was a murderer. He wasn't the best dad by any means. But he was still a man after God's heart because he did have that heart repentance towards God and that's what God is searching for, right?

Like you can do the right thing and you can do the sacrifices, not that those are going to absolve you of guilt, but they are part of that relationship with God that he sets up in the Torah, right? So if you're an ancient Israelite, and you're in this culture where you're supposed to be doing those sacrifices, you can't just be like, well, those sacrifices are fine and it doesn't matter where my [00:34:00] heart orientation is.

But, the point isn't really about feeling bad. That's not what God is searching for in our hearts. He is searching whether or not we are turned towards Him. Like, how is our orientation? And that can involve feelings of guilt and feeling bad about what you did, but the major thing beyond that is not, oh, woe is me, but, Oh, hallelujah, God, for saving me, right?

Like there, there's a difference in that. And even if you did something wrong and you can't quite make yourself feel bad about it and you think, well, that must mean I'm not repentant. The question you really should be asking is, am I giving myself to God? Am I offering my heart to God in the ways that I can, right?

Because, to be frank, we cannot always, maybe [00:35:00] hardly ever, control our emotions. Our emotions are part of us, and again, we can go back to what Jordan Peterson said about God's calling and conscience in us. Our conscience and our bad feelings can be a kind of warning that is supposed to keep us on the right path, but we don't all have that all the time.

Like, if we all heard the same warnings, and we were able to heed them, then nobody would have the path of sinfulness, right? We wouldn't be struggling against our flesh, because we would just be listening to the warning and staying on the path that God would have us be on.

That's not how things often work, though, is it? it might be easier if we all felt insane amounts of guilt for every little thing that we do, but apparently we don't. What happened with Adam and Eve in the garden? They hid not because they felt guilty, but because they [00:36:00] felt afraid.

That's literally what the text says. I was afraid, so I hid. Now, maybe Adam was afraid because he felt guilty, but that's not really what it's saying, I don't think. It seems to me that the fear was something other than the guilt or the conscience that is going to push us to the right thing. The fear that Adam and Eve were experiencing in the garden was something that made them hide from God, which is very opposed to what we have with David crying out to God for forgiveness, right?

That's a heart orientation turning to God and asking for forgiveness versus Oh darn, I did something wrong, I'm going to hide now. And quite often, what our guilt drives us to is the hiding, right? We don't want to face up to it. So I don't think our guilt necessarily [00:37:00] lines up with the conscience that Jordan Peterson is talking about, that God is warning us to stay on the path.

I mean, it might be, but it isn't necessarily. And if we associate our subjective feelings with our relationship with God, and if we are categorizing our relationship to God with how we personally feel in the moment, that is quite the path of pain and heartache. Because we don't always feel the right thing.

Now, it seems to me that we really don't have a whole lot of guilt in the beginning of Genesis, and that includes leading up to Genesis 6. It's interesting that we don't really see the word shame show up again in the Torah beyond Genesis 2. That makes it a little bit hard to really kind of grasp exactly what's going on because you have to look at the [00:38:00] concepts instead of just the specific word.

Okay, so I said I wanted to get to a little bit of the history of interpretation for things here. So let's go ahead and do that. We have the Book of Jubilees. Which, again, that's like a rewrite of Genesis, basically. And it uses shame as a euphemism for nakedness. And it points out that Gentiles go around naked.

The incident in the garden, according to Jubilees, says, quote, and the woman saw the tree, that it was pleasant. And it was pleasing to the eye, and its fruit was good to eat. And she took some of it and she ate. And she first covered her shame with the fig leaf, and then she gave it to Adam, and he ate, and his eyes were opened, and he saw that he was naked, and took a fig leaf, and made an apron for himself, and he covered his shame. End [00:39:00] quote.

And then Jubilees goes on to talk about the day of expulsion, and a sacrifice made, and the law of covering shame. It says, quote, And he made for them garments of skin, and he dressed them, and sent them from the garden of Eden. And on that day, when Adam went out from the garden of Eden, he offered a sweet smelling sacrifice, frankincense, galbanum, stactete, and spices, in the morning with the rising of the sun from the day he covered his shame. On that day, the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds, and whatever walked or moved, was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak with one another, with one speech and one language. And he sent from the Garden of Eden all of the flesh which was in the Garden of Eden, and all of the flesh was scattered, each one according to its kind, and each one according to its family into the place which [00:40:00] was created for them. But from all the beasts and all the cattle, he granted to Adam alone that he might cover his shame. Therefore it is commanded in the heavenly tablets to all who will know the judgment of the law that they should cover their shame and that they should not be uncovered as the Gentiles are uncovered. End quote.

So, that's quite interesting, right? It's kind of talking about how the reason we wear clothes is because of this incident in the garden.

And, oh, by the way, even Jubilees has Noah's nakedness as incest. Jubilees says, quote, Therefore it is written and ordered in the heavenly tablets that a man should not lie with his father's wife. And he should not uncover his father's robe, because that is defilement. They shall certainly die together, the man who lies with his father's wife, and also the wife, because they have made a defilement upon the earth. And there shall be no defilement [00:41:00] before our God, among the people whom he has chosen for himself as a possession. And again it is written a second time, Let anyone who lies with his father's wife be cursed, because he has uncovered his father's shame. And all the holy ones of the Lord said, So be it, so be it. End quote.

Let's read how the Sibylline Oracles describe the Fall. It says, quote, To these did God then address commands, And instruct them not to touch the tree. But a very horrible snake craftily deceived them to go to the fate of death, and receive knowledge of good and evil. But the woman first became a betrayer to him. She gave, and persuaded him to sin in his ignorance. He was persuaded by the woman's words, forgot about his immortal creator, and neglected clear commands. Therefore, instead of good, they received evil, as they had done. And then they sowed the leaves of the [00:42:00] sweet fig tree, and made clothes, and put them on each other. They concealed their plans, because shame had come upon them. End quote.

Okay, another text, let's read the Apocalypse of Moses, otherwise known as the Life of Adam and Eve, says, quote, And I opened the gate for him, and he entered into paradise, passing through in front of me. After he had walked a little, he turned and said to me, I have changed my mind, and will not allow you to eat. He said these things, wishing in the end to entice and ruin me. And he said to me, Swear to me that you are giving it also to your husband. And I said to him, I do not know by what sort of oath I should swear to you. However, that which I do know I tell you, By the throne of the Lord, and the cherubim, and the tree of life, I shall give it also to my husband to eat. When he had received the oath from me, He went, climbed the [00:43:00] tree, and sprinkled his evil poison on the fruit which he gave me to eat, which is his covetousness. For covetousness is the origin of every sin. And I bent the branch toward the earth, took of its fruit, and ate. And at that very moment my eyes were opened, and I knew that I was naked of the righteousness with which I had been clothed. And I wept, saying, Why have you done this to me? That I have been estranged from my glory with which I was clothed and I wept also about the oath, but that one came down from the tree and vanished. I looked for leaves in my region so that I might cover my shame, but I did not find any from the trees of paradise since while I ate the leaves of all the trees of my portion fell, except those of the fig tree only, and I took its leaves and made for myself skirts. They were from the same plants of which I ate, and I cried out with a loud voice, saying, Adam, Adam, [00:44:00] where are you? Rise, come to me, and I will show you a great mystery. And when your father came, I spoke to him unlawful words of transgression, such as brought us down from great glory. For when he came, I opened my mouth, and the devil was speaking, and I began to admonish him, saying, Come, my Lord Adam, listen to me and eat of the fruit of the tree of which God told us not to eat from it, and you shall be as God. Your father answered and said, I fear lest God be angry with me. And I said to him, Do not fear, for as soon as you eat, you shall know good and evil. Then I quickly persuaded him. He ate, and his eyes were opened. And he also realized his nakedness. And he said to me, Oh, evil woman, why have you wrought destruction among us? You have estranged me from the glory of God. End quote.

Okay, so with Jubilees and the Sibylline Oracles, The nakedness and the story here seemed quite [00:45:00] straightforward, basically. But here, in the life of Adam and Eve, we have a loss of glory, and so, again, they're covered with glory, they take the fruit, and that covering of glory is removed.

And that is an idea that really stretches into the church and its interpretation. I want to read another text. This is from the History of the Rechabites. It's probably a medieval text, but we're not really sure exactly when it was written. It is a Christian document, but there might be a Jewish core to it.

Let me go ahead and read a little bit about what Charlesworth has to say about this text in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. He says, quote, the history of the Rechabites in its present form recounts the visit of a virtuous man named Zozimus in some passages, to the island of the blessed ones. [00:46:00] For 40 years, this man has entreated God to show him the abode of the blessed ones. God answers his prayer, and with the guidance of an angel and supernatural assistance from an animal and two trees, he is able to journey over the great ocean and a dense cloud to an island that resembles paradise. This is chapters 1 through 3. The man meets the Blessed Ones, who become to oppressively inquisitive about him that he asks his assistant to inform his visitors that He is not here. This request causes a mild sensation and an assembly, asks this liar, a man of sin, to go away. After pleads for forgiveness, the man receives mercy. And then he asks the blessed ones concerning their history, and this is chapters four through seven.

The blessed ones inform him that they are the Rechabites, who by the help of the angels of God, [00:47:00] departed Jerusalem for the present island in the time of Jeremiah. This is chapters eight through 10. They describe themselves, their occupation and their blessed state, and report that angels dwell with them in chapters 11 through 12 verse nine. The account also mentions the virginal birth of the word and lent, chapters 12 nine through 13 five. It describes the paradisaic state they enjoy, and with considerable detail, defines the death of the body and ascent of the soul, chapters 14 through 16. The traveler then returns to the shore of the sea, and with the help of the two trees, passes over the cloud and the sea, and finally the same animal carries him back to his cave in chapters 17 to 18.

Charlesworth later says, The island of the Blessed Ones is an intermediary state between the corruptible world and [00:48:00] the heavenly realm. There's no resurrection, but rather a separation of soul from body, an ascent of the former with the aid of angels. When in heaven, the soul resides in the mansion, awaiting the resurrection of the rest of the Blessed Ones. This thought is rather unique in biblical and quasi biblical literature. End quote.

Okay, so I'm going to read just a little bit of this text, starting in Chapter 1. Quote, There was a certain amazing and virtuous man who, while dwelling in the desert for forty years, did not eat bread, did not drink wine, and did not see the face of a mortal. His name was Zosimus. And he earnestly was entreating God by night and by day to show him where he had translated the Blessed Ones, the sons of Jonadab, who were taken away from worldly life in the days of Jeremiah the prophet, and where God had made them dwell. And when the Lord saw the self [00:49:00] humiliation of this Blessed One, Zozomus, for the sake of these Blessed Ones, then God heard his prayer and granted his request. And on one of the days while he was praying, a voice came to him, and an angel came toward him, and said to him, Zosimus, O man of God, I have been sent to you from the height of heaven to guide you and to show you the way, so that you may journey and see the blessed ones, as you petitioned the Lord. However, do not boast in your mind, thinking thus, Behold, for forty years, bread I have not eaten, and wine I have not drunk, and the face of men I have not seen, but only the face of angels. Now, approach.

Okay, skipping to Chapter 4. And this is when he is in the Isle of the Blessed Ones. Quote, while observing the beauty of that land, I approached a little ways and saw a certain naked man who was seated, and I was afraid because of his [00:50:00] appearance. But said, Peace to you, my brother. Then he replied and said, Come in peace and joy be with you, for I know that you are a man of God, otherwise you would not have been allowed to enter here.

Okay, skipping to chapter 5. And again he asked me, Have you come from the world of vanity? Then I said to him, In truth, I come from the world of vanity in order to see all of you. However, tell me, Why are you naked? But he said to me, You are he who is naked, and you do not discern that your garment is corrupted, but my own garment is not corrupted. If you wish to see me, however, come gaze toward the height of heaven. And while gazing above, I saw his face to be like the face of an angel, and my eyes were dimmed from fear, and I fell upon the land.

Okay, skipping to chapter 12. But there is among us no one who [00:51:00] measures the years, for the sake of those who daily lived in purity and holiness, the years of their life shall increase, but the years of sinners shall decrease. And no one among us computes months and years, but we are naked, not as you suppose, for we are covered with a covering of glory, and we do not show each other the private parts of our bodies. But we are covered with a stole of glory, similar to that which clothed Adam and Eve before they sinned. We are nourished by the fruits of the trees at the ninth hour, not that the hours are distinguished among us, but when the time for our nourishment arrives, the fruits of the trees come among us, although they do not fall by our will, and thus we are nourished from them sufficient to our need. And afterward, we drink from the exceedingly good, sweet, and delightful water, which comes out to us from the roots of the trees, and then the water returns and is gathered [00:52:00] together in its original place. End quote.

Okay, so, sorry that was a bit long and involved, but I think it shows really well this historical interpretation that Adam and Eve weren't really naked, they were just kind of naked, because they were clothed in glory.

Now, Genesis doesn't say that, and Jubilees doesn't say that, and the Sibyline oracles doesn't say that, but we do have the idea in the Apocalypse of Moses. And, if you go and look at some really earlier icons from the church about the expulsion of Adam and Eve, you might notice some really interesting things in some of those regarding when and how Adam and Eve are clothed.

Okay, let's read a few more quotes. We have Origen. He lived in the 3rd century. And even though Origen [00:53:00] isn't everybody's favorite early church writer, he does write about how Adam was stripped of his glory and put on garments of skin. And Origen argued that these were a symbol of the mortality which Adam fell prey to.

Okay, so let's talk about the idea of garments of glory versus garments of skin. Because I know that a bunch of you have listened to the Lord of Spirits podcast, or you are Eastern Orthodox yourself, or however you come across this idea, you've already heard this idea, at least many of you have, about the garments of skin having something to do with mortality, right?

And look, there's a couple of different ways to see this. And I don't think it's necessarily consistent across what everyone talks about here. And that's okay, but you [00:54:00] should be a little bit aware of what position people have versus other people. Okay. And what do I mean by that? Well, what I mean is that there are people in history and today that really think that the garments of skin that Adam and Eve are given is specifically mortal bodies, right? Like they didn't have mortal bodies before and now they do. That is one idea that people have. But that's not always what people mean when they're talking about the garments of skin and mortality.

So, there's two different ideas here that are related, and they sound an awful lot alike, but they're not necessarily the same. The question is, in this specific corner of interpretation, did Adam and Eve have mortal bodies before they sinned? Some people say yes. Other people say no, and [00:55:00] it depends on who you're talking to, and sometimes you can't tell what somebody's position is if you're reading something from the past.

Now, if you are curious about The Lord of Spirits, which is an Eastern Orthodox podcast, and what they say about it, there's two episodes, I believe, about the fall and the garments. There's a part one and a part two. And then they also address this issue in an episode called Pantheon and Pandemonium 4. Okay, so if you listen to what they say, it can sound like what they're saying is that Adam and Eve did not have mortal bodies before the fall.

But I don't think that's the case. So they talk about mortality in relation to this whole thing because that's what happens, right? They get kicked out of the garden. They're no longer accessing the Tree of Life. And they do eventually die.

Now, if you want some historical Christian talking about this very same [00:56:00] thing, you can go find what St. Maximus the Confessor says, who also talks about the garments of skin. And pretty much, I think he's talking about it as a metaphor for the physical bodies that Adam and Eve receive after transgression. But you'll hear Father Stephen DeYoung and Father Andrew Damick in the Lord of Spirits podcast say, well, look, Adam was created out of dust. He actually had a physical body. And I'm sorry, I don't have a specific quote from the Lord of Spirits podcast that I have right in front of me, but I know that they are still acknowledging that they have physicalness to them. Like they weren't spiritual beings that became physical beings. I don't think that's the point of this at all.

Although it is a point that sometimes has been brought out in historical interpretation. You also see the idea of being clothed in glory. Or, clothed in light, in Jewish [00:57:00] interpretation as well. There is one Jewish interpretation, at least, that says that Adam and Eve didn't receive garments of skin, they received garments of light. And they can make that conflation because the word skin and the word light sound alike. They're not written alike, but they sound alike.

So, I'm sorry, it's not super helpful to really go into historical interpretation and say that there's only one answer, because there isn't just one answer. Sometimes they're given actual flesh. Sometimes they already have flesh. Sometimes they had angelic flesh and then they're made mortal. Sometimes the mortality is a physical body, and sometimes the mortality is just the ability to die. Right? Like, are they incorporeal or corporeal? Well, the term corporeal is related to the term corpse, [00:58:00] and if you are immortal, you cannot be a corpse.

And so, it just, you know, it all gets really convoluted and confusing with the terminology. That's what I'm saying. What we have, I think, a lot of times is wanting to make the nakedness of Genesis 2 kind of go away, right, because that exists before the Fall, and that makes us uncomfortable, right, because how can they be naked and not ashamed, and yet they're not sinful yet, and that confuses us and we think, well, is our native natural good state to actually be naked and not clothed?

Well, this is where we can have the comfort of knowing that Adam and Eve were not made perfect, and that they were intended to grow and [00:59:00] mature, and it's really common to see in the early church this idea that they are going to be maturing, and that was, or at least that was the intention. The problem was that they had decided to mature on their own versus waiting for God to mature them in the right kind of way as a proper disciple would mature.

Then you combine that with the idea of the image of God that we've talked about before, right? We've talked about the image of God being the proper idol of God. And in the ancient Near East there is a ceremony that an idol is enlivened by.

An idol has the opening of the mouth ceremony where the idol becomes able to see, able to hear, the idol is even dressed. And so what I think we have happening in the book of Genesis here at the beginning is that God is creating his proper [01:00:00] idol and he is doing it in spite of ourselves. So Adam and Eve try to clothe themselves like an idol should be clothed, and God says, No, that's not the right way to do it, you guys. Even though you have sinned and you have gone against me, I am still going to treat you like the idol that you are, and I will still clothe you properly.

Personally, I think that is what's going on in this narrative. Now, what's up with the shame? Well, there's a lot of layers there, and I think that's why it maybe is not brought up again. Because it's brought up as a point that the author knows you are going to be thinking of because these two people in the garden don't have clothes on. And in a society, you see that as shameful.

So I want to go back to Vivian's question about how could they fellowship with God in a sinful way? And [01:01:00] you know, God created them, and so we can be naked in front of God without shame because we are his creation, right?

And remember my specific question about whether or not this has to do with sexual immorality or something of that nature. Well, how do we know that the nakedness isn't about sexual impropriety? Well, they weren't hiding from each other, were they? They were hiding from God. So I don't think the major point here is about modesty. Because if it's modesty, well, Adam and Eve sin, and what do they do? They cover themselves. So, nobody's trying to be immodest.

The end of Vivian's question, she says, A child feels no shame or guilt when naked. But as adults, we cover up. Is it because of temptation?

I think that can be part of it. But, [01:02:00] again, Adam and Eve are hiding, and they're hiding from God, not each other. The immaturity of Adam and Eve, and their need for growth and discipleship, I think that's what we have going on here. Really, the major thread of interpretation throughout history is that there is a loss of innocence here.

And Jordan Peterson calls that self consciousness. When there is something that you did that you know is wrong, suddenly you are aware of yourself in a way that you weren't before. And you wrap that up further with the metaphor of being clothed in glory or righteousness kinds of these ideas that we've seen in the texts I've read today, and you have the loss of, not the image, but a loss of glory instead.

And there is a loss of innocence as they learn about the knowledge of good and evil. Which, again, the [01:03:00] other time that is mentioned in the Pentateuch, it is about the growth and maturity of children. They reach an age where they know the knowledge of good and evil.

So does this mean that there is nothing at all about modesty about this?

Well, I don't think so, but if we're just going to restrict it to the idea of modesty, then we're missing out here on a larger picture that we could be seeing in what God is doing with humanity.

Okay, so, trying to wrap this up a little bit. Nakedness seems to be a type of communal knowledge, like, yeah, you can be naked by yourself in a room. But you're really not focused on that, and that's not causing you to hide. Nakedness is really only a thing when other people are around, right? And they are affected by your appearance in some form. So even if nakedness here in [01:04:00] Genesis is about literal nakedness, it's centered on the idea of community, which has shame attached to it.

And that is about the effect we have on others. We hide because there's something we don't want someone else to see. In the case of Adam and Eve hiding, they were hiding from God, but they'd already clothed themselves, so they were hiding their nakedness from God by clothing themselves, but they were further hiding even beyond that for God to not see them at all.

Really, it's our relations with others that tell us something about ourselves and our self conscious identity isn't just a mental imagery, but it's something that we actually live out in the world. Being naked or even dressed in front of each other communicates something essential.

Like I said in my episode about gender, and talking about that book, The Genesis of [01:05:00] Gender, the body reveals the person.

Jordan Peterson says that when we hide in shame, we are at war within ourselves, and that threatens our wholeness.

And I didn't even mention further the idea of Adam and Eve as priests, and how priests need proper clothing. And clothing reflects maturity and position. And so it makes sense that the early church and many others will talk about how Adam and Eve were already clothed in proper garments for their position because God had planted them in the garden as his priest.

But at the same time, I think we can see that there is a clear progression of something happening here and that the image of God in the garden wasn't just an instantaneous thing, but rather is a process.

Was the problem with Adam and Eve really that of shame? or was the problem that they [01:06:00] were hiding and turning from God?

Isn't it the case that we should be open about ourselves and honest? And so, if we see sinfulness in ourselves, we should be ashamed. And there should be a disconnect between what we have going on because of that. Shame isn't necessarily a bad thing. It can kind of drive us to the right thing. Does it drive us to hide? Or does it drive us to turn to God in honest behavior and repentance?

I mean, if you want to have a sermon on modesty, there's quite a few places you can go to for that kind of a thing. Because modesty is not just about our dress, but about our behavior and our orientation to one another.

If you want the Bible to be explaining things and laying it out in ways that we psychologically would expect to see, with everyone cowering in guilt, well, you're gonna be a bit disappointed [01:07:00] there. But the honor and shame society of the past kind of fulfills that same exact niche, in a way. Whether or not you feel bad about something, you are going to be shamed in a society if you are not fitting in in the right way.

And there can be healthy shame as well, something like keeping women safe, for instance, in a type of world where women had a whole lot of reason to be a little bit worried about their safety.

I mean, really, it's such a strange thing that we think of Eden as an ideal, and we're starting out naked, but there's not a whole lot of us who think that, hey, that means that we should all just be naked.

If, on the other hand, we loop in the idea of maturity and growth, that kind of helps us make sense of what's going on here, I think. So, is nakedness in and of itself totally wrong? No, [01:08:00] but there is a maturity factor that we can have in that, right? There is a position factor. Have you developed yourself to understand your position? Have you dressed yourself to the position that you are, in fact, in? That God has put you in? And we don't get to make up our own standards for that either.

I am going to go ahead and end with a couple of quotes. This is Victor Hamilton from the New International Commentary on the book of Genesis. Quote, With the exception of this verse, nakedness in the Old Testament is always connected with some form of humiliation. The three major uses of nakedness are 1. As a description of the poor, Job 24, 7, verse 10, and 31, verse 19, and Ezekiel 18, 16. 2. As a sign of shame or guilt, Genesis 3, 7, [01:09:00] 10, and 11, even though shame is mentioned there, and Ezekiel 16, 22, 37, 39, Hosea 2, verse 3, Amos 2, verse 16. And number 3, in reference to birth, Job 1, 21, and Ecclesiastes 5, 15. A full documentation of all passages would show that nakedness as a symbol of guilt is most frequent, and perhaps such a connection between nakedness and guilt was suggested by the abbreviated dress of slaves and prisoners of war. End quote.

Now, I want you to note he's snuck in the term guilt there, even though that's technically not really a biblical term, right? But again, we do need to see what we have in the past and bring it forward to the way that we're thinking today, so we can forgive him there.

Now, in the Word Biblical Commentary, [01:10:00] it says, quote, The two of them were nude, but they were not ashamed. This verse has an important narrative function. It closes Scene 2, thereby creating a parallel with the end of Scene 6 in 321, and it also explains the background to many of the actions in Chapter 3. After eating the forbidden fruit, the couple notice their nakedness, make fig leaf aprons, cover themselves, and hide in the bushes when they hear God approaching. 2. 25 points out that originally men did not react this way. They were not ashamed. The Hebrew root to be ashamed does not carry the overtones of personal guilt that the English shame includes. Hebrew can speak of shame triggered by circumstances completely extrinsic to the speaker, like in Judges 3 25 and two Kings two 17. [01:11:00] Perhaps then it might be better to translate here that they were unabashed or that they were not disconcerted. They were like young children unashamed at their nakedness. End quote.

Now, what do we do with all of these extra biblical ideas about being clothed in glory and things like that? Are those just bad exegesis? Well, possibly. The question is, does it change what we see in the biblical text? Or, does it align with the concepts that we see?

Like, if we're trying to picture this clothing of glory, for instance, And we're trying to see that in our mind's eye, so to speak, as this physical reality. I think we're kind of missing the basic point there. Like, yes, they physically look like something there in the garden, didn't they? But the theological message of [01:12:00] being clothed in glory versus being clothed in mortality is a pretty strong one that kind of correlates to what we have with, not a loss of image, but a loss of glory.

And so thematically, this kind of tracks along with what we see in the New Testament with shame and glory and being clothed. And I didn't even get to talk about resurrected bodies here, right? So, that's a lot. I'm just kind of gonna toss it all out there for you, and if you guys have further questions, you know I love that. So let me know if you do. I would love to hear any of your responses to this episode in particular, or if you have any other topics you'd like me to talk about.

I really hope that kind of answered the questions, even though it was kind of a lot, and really my point here is to try and wrap a lot of this [01:13:00] into a broader way of thinking rather than trying to fit it into our narrow compartments. Not that we can't do that to some extent, but we can't presume that when we're reading the Bible, that it's putting things exactly in the same categories that we have them. And that's what makes it pretty difficult to read at times.

So for that, I hope this was helpful. I hope this kind of twisted your brain a little bit, because that was a bit of my intention here. And if you're listening to this on the release date of Valentine's, I hope you're enjoying some chocolate or something, I don't know.

Thanks you guys for listening, thanks for rating my podcast. For giving it reviews wherever you listen, for engaging in the content, because that does help algorithms, and you are welcome to come join me on my Facebook group, or to sign up for my newsletter at GenesisMarksTheSpot. com. Thank you guys [01:14:00] for supporting me in those ways, and thank you to those of you who support me financially. You guys absolutely rock, and I really am so blessed by you. Thank you guys. I wish you all a blessed week, and we will see you later.