I took lots of notes here because I had forgotten how totally amazing the Ginzberg book is!
God gave "man" dominion over all the earth and every creeping thing. But then it says that man is male and female, so man just means human there (some people read this as when he created Lilith, right?). He told them both to subdue the earth, to have dominion... and to be fruitful and multiply. And he tells them he has given them all the herbs and trees (everybody is vegetarian apparently).
Then comes the SECOND creation story where God makes man, just a male man, and he made the man a gardener but told him not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then he felt bad that the man was alone, so he made a helper. Adam named all the animals, but he found no helper. So then he took one of Adam's ribs and made a woman.
We move right into the serpent (more subtil than any beast of the field) and the woman; the serpent tels her "ye shall be as gods" if they eat the fruit, so she ate, and gave it to her husband, and their eyes were opened, knew they were naked, made clothes. They hid from God, so he knew something was up. The key passage for my story is this one:
And he said, "Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?"
And the man said, "The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
And the LORD God said unto the woman, "What is this that thou hast done?"
And the woman said, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
Note that the serpent does not say anything at this point; God just starts punishing them all, starting with serpent.
Adam's name comes from Adamah, the dust of the earth.
Satan rebukes God for making Adam from dust, and God says, "Yet this dust of the ground has more wisdom and understanding than thou."
I love this story with God giving Adam hints about the names of the animals so he can win the contest with Satan!
Michael the archangel bows down to Adam as God commands to do homage; Satan refuses.
I like the idea that the earth is afraid of what will happen if Adam multiplies: "I have not the strength," it said, "to provide food for the herd of Adam's descendants."
Here is what he says about Lilith: "To banish his loneliness, Lilith was first given to Adam as wife. Like him she had been created out of the dust of the ground. But she remained with him only a short time, because she insisted upon enjoying full equality with her husband."
Then God sent three angels (not named) to make her go back to Adam, threatening that 100 of her demon children would die each day: "But Lilith preferred this punishment to living with Adam. She takes her revenge by injuring babes--baby boys during the first night of their life, while baby girls are exposed to her wicked designs until they are twenty. days old The only way to ward off the evil is to attach an amulet bearing the names of her three angel captors to the children, for such had been the agreement between them."
The idea that Adam originally had two faces is so cool and weird: "Adam originally had two faces, which were separated at the birth of Eve."
It mentions that Adam did not love Lilith because he saw her created; Eve was made in his sleep, and he fell in love with her when he saw her upon waking.
More on tree of life and tree of knowledge: "In Paradise stand the tree of life and the tree of knowledge, the latter forming a hedge about the former. Only he who has cleared a path for himself through the tree of knowledge can come close to the tree of life, which is so huge that it would take a man five hundred years to traverse a distance equal to the diameter of the trunk, and no less vast is the space shaded by its crown of branches."
I also like the idea that Adam and Eve fed all the animals by hand: "They were wholly under his dominion, and their food they took out of his hand and out of Eve's. In all respects, the animal world had a different relation to Adam from their relation to his descendants. Not only did they know the language of man, but they respected the image of God, and they feared the first human couple, all of which changed into the opposite after the fall of man."
about the serpent: "Like man he stood upright upon two feet, and in height he was equal to the camel."
About touching the tree; that was Adam's command: "Adam had forbidden Eve to touch the tree, though God had mentioned only the eating of the fruit."
The serpent pushes her against the tree to show her she will not die.
The serpent even shakes the tree to knock down the fruit!
Eve is cautious: "First she ate only the outside skin of the fruit, and then, seeing that death did not fell her, she ate the fruit itself."
As soon as she did, the Angel of Death appeared! Eve wants Adam to eat and die too so that he won't get married to someone else after she dies. She gives it to all other living creatures, except the bird called malham (immortal, lives in paradise; more regularly called milcham).
THE FIG was the forbidden fruit, and that's why they covered themselves in fig leaves!
I like the idea that God wanted Adam to apologize: "At the same time, God wanted to give Adam the opportunity of repenting of his sin, and he would have received Divine forgiveness for it. But so far from repenting of it, Adam slandered God, and uttered blasphemies against Him."
But instead, Adam blames Eve: "O Lord of the world! As long as I was alone, I did not fall into sin, but as soon as this woman came to me, she tempted me."
He also gave Eve a chance to apologize, but NOT the snake. That's why the conversation stopped and he punished the snake without speaking to him: " for the serpent is a villain, and the wicked are good debaters"
The serpent screamed when they cut off his hands and feet!
Wow, the earth is punished too: " the earth did not do its whole duty in connection with the sin of Adam. God had appointed the sun and the earth witnesses to testify against Adam in case he committed a trespass. The sun, accordingly, had grown dark the instant Adam became guilty of disobedience, but the earth, not knowing how to take notice of Adam's fall, disregarded it altogether."
And so also the moon because she laughed at Adam and Eve in their shame: "The moon alone laughed, wherefore God grew wroth, and obscured her light. Instead of shining steadily like the sun, all the length of the day, she grows old quickly, and must be born and reborn, again and again."
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