Dr Abdur Rahman Bhutta, Germany
Section 3 – Adamas in the Garden of Eden (Gen. 2 & 3)
(3a) The Biblical story of Adamas, Eve and the Serpent
In Genesis, chapters 2 and 3, we are told that Adamas and Eve were living in the garden of Eden, which was somewhere in the East. They were allowed by God to eat the fruits of all the trees of the garden but they were forbidden to eat from “the tree of knowledge of good and evil,” which was in the middle of the garden. God had warned them that “the day you eat of it, you will die.” So they obeyed God and did not even go near that forbidden tree. (Gen. 2:15-17)
Then one day the Devil approached Eve in the form of a serpent and began to persuade her to eat the forbidden fruit, saying, “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” When the serpent drew her attention to the tree, she looked at its fruit and “saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and was desired to make one wise,” so she got deceived by the devil and ate it. (Gen. 3:1-6)
Then, later on, she also gave that fruit to her man and he also ate it. “Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked.” (Gen. 3:7) They sewed aprons for themselves from the leaves of a fig tree and hid themselves in the trees of the garden.
Then the story goes that they heard the ‘footsteps of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.’ Seeing them nowhere, God shouted, “Where are you?” The man answered, “I heard your sound in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” God said, “Who told you that you are naked? Have you eaten of the tree I told you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman you gave me to be with me, gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate it.” Then God asked the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman answered, “The serpent beguiled me and I ate.” (Gen. 3:8-14)
(3b) Critical analysis of the story
Now even a cursory look at this story is enough to show that it is full of metaphors; and that in order to understand its real moral and message, we will have to interpret its symbolic language. First of all, let us analyse the above-mentioned biblical story.
(3b-i) The tree of ‘knowledge of good and evil’
There is no tree in the world that bears the fruit called “the knowledge of good and evil.” Even if we suppose that there is one: How could God stop them from eating from such a good tree that gives “the knowledge of good and evil” and raises man from the level of an animal to that of human beings?
(3b-ii) Adamas did not die after taking the fruit, despite God’s claim
According to the Bible, God had told Adam that he would die if he took the fruit of that tree but the serpent assured them that they would not die, but rather they would become wise like God. When they took the forbidden fruit, they did not die; rather, they became wise like God, knowing “good and evil.” So we see that the serpent proved to be correct and God turned out to be wrong. How can we believe that God had lied to Adamas and that the very first practical lesson that God taught the newly married couple was to tell lies? (Tafsir-e-Kabir by Hazrat Mirza Bashir-ud-Din Mahmud Ahmadra, Vol. 5, Surah Maryam, Ch.19: V.2, 1986, London, pp. 42-43)
(3b-iii) Did God need to ‘walk in the cool of the day’?
Then we are told that God walked in the garden in the cool of the day. Now, God could not be walking with physical legs and feet, making sounds with His footsteps, which were heard by the couple while they were hiding from God’s ‘eyes’ in the bush. God could also not be disturbed by the heat of the day so that He needed ‘a walk in the cool of the day’; nor can we believe that anybody can hide from the ‘eyes’ of God, making Him shout, “Where are you ?”
Obviously, the story is told in symbolic language and cannot be taken literally. We will have to interpret it in order to understand its real message.