{"id":4349,"date":"2016-07-30T13:30:05","date_gmt":"2016-07-30T19:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=4349"},"modified":"2023-07-01T16:21:55","modified_gmt":"2023-07-01T22:21:55","slug":"genesis-215-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/?p=4349","title":{"rendered":"Genesis 2:15 \u2014 Part Five"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Here\u2019s another response from one of my reviewers.<\/h3>\n

At first glance, I think the interpretation is a little speculative \u2026 The interpretation of \u201cdress\u201d bothers me, because in the English text, the object of it is \u201cit\u201d \u2014 the garden. However, you indicate the object of \u201cdress\u201d (worship) is God, not the garden.\u00a0 The only way this would work is if \u201cit\u201d is not in the original Hebrew.\u00a0 Is it? My thought is that you are hanging too much on this \u2014 i.e., the whole point of the lesson.\u00a0 That might be too risky.\u00a0 <\/span><\/h3>\n

You know that I deeply respect you and your knowledge of Scripture \u2014 and your ability to write.\u00a0 This one seems to me to go a little too far.\u00a0 But I\u2019ll listen to a rebuttal.<\/span><\/h3>\n

I responded:<\/h3>\n

When I look up “to dress it” in Strong’s, the three words translate into Hebrew as just one word, “abad,” one of the meanings of which is “worship.” My guess is that the translators added the “it” to make it clearer according to their understanding of the verse. But I’m no Hebrew scholar and could be wrong.<\/h3>\n

I didn’t come up with this idea on my own. I heard it from [a professor] who taught an adult Sunday school class at my church. He went on to say that the translators used the words they did because they had a works-based theology and couldn’t deal with the fact that God didn’t require anything from man. I thought he made a lot of sense.<\/h3>\n

The clincher for me is that the verse seems to be a purpose statement.\u00a0 It just makes more sense to me that God put man here to worship and obey Him rather than that He put man here to trim the trees, or whatever. Otherwise, there’s no statement (before the fall) that explains man’s purpose or what his relationship with God was supposed to be.<\/h3>\n

The reviewer\u2019s reply to my reply<\/h3>\n

I still don\u2019t buy it.\u00a0 For me, a critical issue is what is said in Genesis 3:17<\/span><\/a>.\u00a0 You\u2019ve written the lesson, based on the premise that work is the curse of that passage, but I don\u2019t read it that way; I think that the curse is pain and sweat in work, not work itself. Throughout the Bible, work is considered to be a good thing.\u00a0 In what you say below, I don\u2019t get [the professor\u2019s] connection between the more traditional interpretation and a works-based theology. There is a huge difference between \u201cwork\u201d and \u201cworks\u201d \u2014 as a means of pleasing God.<\/span><\/h3>\n

In looking at my Strong\u2019s, I don\u2019t see \u201cobserve the rules\u201d as you say is there as a meaning for \u201cshamar.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cObserve\u201d is there, but in the sense of \u201cwatch out for\u201d, rather than \u201cobey\u201d.\u00a0 I also don\u2019t see the redirection of the object in regard to \u201cabad\u201d; both terms seem to have the garden as the object, not God.<\/span><\/h3>\n

I see this statement as specifically addressed to Adam, and not applicable to all humankind.\u00a0 I agree that there is no statement as to God\u2019s purpose for all of us found in the first chapters of Genesis.\u00a0 But let\u2019s not make one out of something that isn\u2019t clearly seen in the text.\u00a0 Other passages can be used to clearly support that we are all here to worship and obey God; but a critical issue that many will wrestle with is, \u201cbut what does that look like for me?\u201d\u00a0 I see that this command to Adam is more closely parallel to God\u2019s calling on Moses\u2019 life to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt, Paul\u2019s calling to take the gospel to the Gentiles, etc.<\/span><\/h3>\n

I have to admit that was a decided speed bump on the RWO interpretation. Obviously, I had to find out if \u201cdress\u201d and \u201ckeep\u201d could refer to Adam\u2019s relationship with God.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s another response from one of my reviewers. At first glance, I think the interpretation is a little speculative \u2026 The interpretation of \u201cdress\u201d bothers me, because in the English text, the object of it is \u201cit\u201d \u2014 the garden. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genesis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4349"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8044,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4349\/revisions\/8044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/versebyverse.carpelibra.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}