Creation and the Fall

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. But since the earth could not be seen, being hidden in thick darkness, and a wind moved over its surface, God commanded that there be light. When it had come into being, he looked over the whole mass and separated the light from the darkness. The one he named Night, and the other he called Day; and the beginning of light and the time of rest he named Evening and Morning. This was the first day — though Moses said it was “one day.” I could give the reason for that even now, but since I have promised to give the reasons for all such things in a separate treatise, I will put off explaining it until then. [a]

After this, on the second day, he set the heaven over the whole world, separated it from the other parts, and determined that it should stand by itself. He also fixed a covering of crystal around it, fitted it to the earth, and made it able to give moisture and rain and to supply the benefit of dews. On the third day he made the dry land appear, with the sea all around it, and on that same day he made the plants and the seeds spring up out of the earth. On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with the sun, the moon and the other stars, and appointed their motions and courses, so that the changes of the seasons might be clearly marked. On the fifth day he produced the living creatures that swim and those that fly, the one kind in the sea and the other in the air; and he joined them together in partnership and mating, for breeding, so that their kind might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed animals and made them male and female; on the same day he also formed man. So Moses says that the world and everything in it was made in just six days, and that on the seventh day he rested and took a release from the labor of these works. That is why we too rest from our labors on that day and call it the Sabbath, a word that means rest in the Hebrew language.

After the seventh day, Moses begins to speak as a philosopher, and about the forming of man he says this: God took dust from the ground and formed man, and put into him a spirit and a soul. This man was called Adam, which in Hebrew means “red,” because he was formed out of red earth kneaded together; for that is the color of virgin and true earth. When God had made the living creatures, male and female according to their kinds, he also brought them before Adam, who gave them the names they are still called by. But when God saw that Adam had no female companion and no partner — for none had been created — and that he wondered at the other animals, which were male and female, he put him to sleep, took away one of his ribs, and formed the woman out of it. When she was brought to him, Adam recognized her and acknowledged that she had been made from himself. In Hebrew a woman is called issa; but this woman’s name was Eve, which means “mother of all.” [d]

Moses says further that God planted a paradise in the east, flourishing with every kind of tree. Among them was the tree of life, and another, the tree of knowledge, by which one would know what was good and what was evil. When he brought Adam and his wife into this garden, he commanded them to take care of the plants. The garden was watered by a single river that ran around the whole earth and divided into four parts. The Pishon, whose name means “multitude,” runs toward India and empties into the sea; the Greeks call it the Ganges. The Euphrates and the Tigris go down into the Red Sea. The name Euphrates, or Phrath, means either “dispersion” or “flower”; the Tigris, or Diglath, means “what is swift and narrow.” And the Gihon runs through Egypt; its name means “what wells up for us from the opposite side,” and the Greeks call it the Nile. [h]

God commanded Adam and his wife to eat from all the other plants but to keep away from the tree of knowledge, and he warned them that if they touched it, it would be their destruction. At that time all the living creatures had one language. The serpent, which then lived together with Adam and his wife, grew envious, thinking they would live happily if they obeyed God’s commands; and imagining that if they disobeyed them they would fall into misfortune, he maliciously persuaded the woman to taste from the tree of knowledge. He told them that the knowledge of good and evil was in that tree, and that once they had it they would live a happy life — indeed, a life no less than a god’s. By this means he overcame the woman and persuaded her to despise God’s command. When she had tasted from the tree and was pleased with its fruit, she persuaded Adam to eat of it too. [k]

Then they realized that they had become naked to one another, and being ashamed to be seen like that, they thought of something to cover themselves with — for the tree had sharpened their understanding. They covered themselves with fig leaves, holding them in front of their private parts, and thought they were happier than before, since they had discovered what they lacked.

But when God came into the garden, Adam, who used to come and talk with him, was conscious of his wicked behavior and kept out of the way. God was surprised at this, and asked him the reason for his conduct: why he, who had once delighted in talking with him, now ran from it and avoided it. When Adam made no reply, knowing that he had broken God’s command, God said, “I had determined for you both how you might lead a happy life, without any affliction or care or distress of soul, and that everything that could contribute to your enjoyment and pleasure would grow up by my providence, of its own accord, without your labor and toil — and with all this, old age would not have come on you quickly, and your life would have been long. But now you have abused my goodwill and disobeyed my commands. Your silence is not a sign of your virtue but of your guilty conscience.”

Adam made excuses for his sin and begged God not to be angry with him. He laid the blame for what had been done on his wife, saying that she had deceived him and so he had become an offender; she in turn accused the serpent. But God punished Adam for having weakly given in to his wife’s advice. He said that the ground would no longer yield its fruits of its own accord: when they toiled and were worn down by their labor, it would bring forth some of its fruits and refuse to bring forth others. He also made Eve subject to the hardships of pregnancy and the sharp pains of childbirth, because she had persuaded Adam with the same arguments the serpent had used to persuade her, and so had brought him into misery. He took away the serpent’s speech as well, in anger at his malice toward Adam. Besides this, he put poison under his tongue and made him an enemy of mankind, and he instructed people to aim their blows at his head, since that was where his harmful designs against them lay, and there those who fought back could most easily kill him. And he took away the use of his feet and made him go wriggling along, dragging himself over the ground. When God had laid down these penalties for them, he moved Adam and Eve out of the garden to another place.