The Ethics of the Fall: Restoring the Divine Image through the Pursuit of Biblical Wisdom

Abstract

God's displeasure with the primordial couple for seeking the knowledge of good and evil in Genesis 3 is often explained as the result of humanity's transgression of a divine boundary intended to restrict human understanding. For some, this reflects the tyranny of God's character. However, the encounter between God and Solomon in 1 Kings 3 suggests an alternative reading. There, God approvingly equates the “listening heart,” which is able “to discern between good and evil,” that Solomon requests with a “wise heart” (vv 9, 12). Taking an intertextual approach informed by A. Giddens' work on the nature of social power and by a relational interpretation of the imago Dei, I propose that Genesis 3 asserts that it is humanity's drive to take possession of knowledge in isolation and without a listening heart that results in the collapse of the divine image. Consequently, the creation narratives that introduce the Bible make an ethical claim regarding the wisdom of constructing social relations in the context of diverse, power-sharing communities that reflect God's own interactions with humanity in such texts as Genesis 18 and John 20.