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Exam 1

E’Lasia Larkin
College of Arts and Sciences, Howard University
PHILO 0550: Intro to Philosophy
Dr. Goodin
September 28th, 2021
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The story of Genesis is the Christian explanation and description of how everything came

to be. Throughout the story, we are given subtle hints about why aspects of society are the way

they are today, for example why women experience pain during childbirth, why humans have to

work in order to live. After closely looking at the text the reader distinguishes the two different

accounts that are dealt with in the first three chapters. Chapter one deals with the first account,

the cosmological account, the creation of the heavens and the earth. While chapters two and

three looks at the second condition, the particularity of the human condition. The two accounts in

many senses are interconnected. The six days of creation discussed in Genesis have been alluded

to in many works, the idea of creation in relation to the human condition is something that may

never be fully understood, yet was as a species have the desire to know more about it.

The first account given in the bible is the creation of the heavens and the earth. One thing

to note before diving into the text is that information given in Genesis is never accredited to a

specific source as the narrator never reveals where the information came from. This is why it is

said that the only mystery in Genesis is the fact that we the readers are never told why God

decided to create the world we know today. Therefore no one really knows the meaning behind

the creation of the earth and all its inhabitants. This inherently means any information gathered

through Genesis and the bible as a whole is only what we make of it. Based on the text the

heavens and the earth were the first things created by God in the six days of creation. All

creations made in the second account were spoken into existence, God said and there was. The

action of doing such things as speaking things into life are actions that only occur in writing, we

see another example of this in the second account when we are introduced to the serpent who can

speak. Before our planet was what we now know as the earth it was void, essentially nothing but

a dark empty mass. Then there was the creation of light, but not light in the traditional sense
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seeing as the sun had yet to be created. Based on Genesis alone I was not sure what to make of

this light, many claim the light to be knowledge or wisdom, but my issue with that is, who was

this knowledge meant for, and knowledge of what? When the light was created there were no

creatures around to benefit from the knowledge, but I was not able to fully grasp what the light

was, since we are never directly told what it stands for or what it means, but what we do know is

that God deemed it to be good. This is the first thing that God claims to be good, he later goes

say the same about four other creations yet the condition of good or bad for other creations is not

mentioned. It makes you wonder what makes a creation worthy of being deemed good?

Looking back at the creation of light, along with this creation the darkness still remained,

the two separated into night and day. On the second day, the waters were divided from the sky,

and on the third day, God uses the words heavens and sky interchangeably, “Let the waters under

the heaven be gathered together unto one place…” (Genesis 1:9). One clue we have about the

state of the heavens is that on the fifth day, it’s mentioned that only creatures with the ability to

fly occupy the sky or the heavens. Meaning nothing truly lives in the heavens, contradicting the

theory that this heaven created is a place one goes after death. On the fourth day, the sun the

moon, and the stars were created. An issue that is overlooked with the creation of the sun taking

place on the fourth day is that plant life was created on the third day, another creation deemed

good. It’s common knowledge that plant life requires sunlight in order to grow and undergo all

the biological processes necessary for their survival. This inconsistency is never explained and

with the creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars, not once is there mentioning of these light

sources being driving forces in the survival of other creations, but only markers of time. God

then went on the create the creatures that flew and sea creatures on the fifth day, deeming them

good. The sixth day was when the creation of humans and other lands animals took place. The
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only difference mentioned between humans and other animals was that we were created in the

image of God, another contradiction due to the fact that God doesn’t have a body. Yet even

though we are “created in his image” humans were not deemed good, which could lead one to

believe that maybe God is not inherently good, even in his own eyes.

The second account is the creation of the human condition. The human condition is

essentially why is human life is the way it is now. Why do we work, why do women experience

painful birthing experiences, why are going to die, and why are we aware of the fact that we are

going to die. On a surface level, this all starts with the creation of the woman. When man was

created, Adam begging the first, there was a need for companionship, resulting in the creation of

women, Eve being the first. It was told to Adam by God that “every tree of the garden thou

mayest freely eat; But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for the

thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16-17). This information is passed on to

Eve through Adam, and it is important to note that while it is a pretty straightforward command,

there was never any confirmation of understanding on Adams’s part, meaning there could have

been a lack of understanding on Eve’s part. It’s made clear that Eve hasn’t fully grasped what

was conveyed to her when she stumbles upon the tree of knowledge of good and evil and we are

introduced to the serpent.

This particular serpent is an extraordinary creature because of the simple fact that it can

speak. There are three mistakes made by Eve when talking to the serpent, she mistakes the tree in

the middle of the garden, she claims that to even touch the fruit is not allowed contradicting

Gods command that they shall not eat it, She also says “at least ye shall die” (Genesis 3:3) when

God said surely you will die. The text shows how the serpent is aware of all of God’s commands,

if he wasn’t he wouldn’t have asked Eve about them to begin with. This was an opportunity to
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exploit the misunderstanding that took place between God and Adam, and Adam and Eve. The

serpent claims that the only thing stopping man from being equal to God was the knowledge the

fruit of the tree provided, which was convincing enough for Eve, so she eats from the tree of

knowledge of good and evil and also brings some for Adam to eat, all at once they became aware

of their nakedness and acquired the knowledge of good and evil. Shortly after eating the fruit,

God confronts the two about what they have done by asking rhetorical questions, which results in

Adam blaming Eve (and in some sense God himself), Eve blaming the serpent, and God

punishing them all. The serpent is to be stuck slithering around, While Adam and Eve are to

leave the garden, causing them to have to work for their livelihood, which in turn leads to a

separation of women and men’s roles, and Eve and all women to come having painful

experiences when birthing children.

The two accounts can be interpreted to connect in many ways. In my understanding, the

two accounts are there because humans cannot live in a meaningless universe. There has to be a

meaning behind what it all means, and even though nothing in Genesis gives us that meaning, we

still treat it as it does. Humans have the desire to acquire knowledge, as we saw with Eve as she

ate from the one tree she was told not to, we want to know more about our existence. There has

to be an explanation for how we came to be where we are today, and like with most religions, it

is through the direct creation of a God(s) of some sort. Overall man does not know what it all

means and in the end, we have to accept that there is no way of truly finding out.

Works Cited

King James Bible. (2017). King James Bible Online. https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/