If there were another legitimate way to interpret the scene in the garden that wasn’t a sex orgy
version, I’d like that very much
—Bob Schlenker
Herein is the continuation of a review of Bob Schlenker’s article Who is Cain’s Father? Part One the subsequent portions of which we will get to as we continue this series which you can (eventually) find in toto here.
Bob Schlenker titled one section of his article “The Sex Orgy Version” wherein he writes, “let’s reconsider the activity in the Garden as more of a sex orgy than a light snack. Sex orgy? Yes. It’s time to put aside our naiveté.”
At least he is very consistent at this point which is that since Genesis 3:6 states that Eve “did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat” then logically, “Adam wasn’t deceived yet he was persuaded to join in” thus, Adam had homosexual sex with Satan.
From he tells us not where, Schlenker claims to know details as specific as that Adam “was stimulated to the point of ejaculation with the result that he ‘spilled his seed’ on the ground” which is not only a mere assertion, of course, but he is quoting from well, he tells us not whence.
Recall that he believes that Cain and Abel were twins, which they may have been, but that they were heteropaternal twins Satan inseminating Cain and Adam inseminating Abel. He then asserts, again without a source, that “Adam later ‘knew,’ or, had sexual intercourse with Eve, she conceived again.”
He then refers to “extra-biblical writings” and notes that “if we accept the testimony of the ancient witnesses” we could conclude that they could have been twins (he also references that “According to certain legends of the Jews, Lucifer lusted after Eve”). Texts such as the very late dated Palestinian Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel aka more accurately Pseudo-Jonathan (circa 600s AD) specify that they were twins.
However, there is another legendary folkloric extra-biblical apocryphal text titled Pirke De (chapters of) Rabbi Eliezer (circa 833 AD), for example, which has Cain being a twin born along with his sister and later Abel being a twin who is also born along with his sister. According to this text Adam states “We will join Abel’s sister in marriage to Cain, and Cain’s sister to Abel.” However, Cain is in love with his own twin sister and thus ends up murdering Abel so that he will not have her.
Interestingly, Bob Schlenker wrote a three part article which when I pasted it into the Word program amounted to circa 25 pages and yet at this point he writes, “Have I proven anything, yet? No. And, really, I won’t be proving anything. You may believe what you want about what happened in the Garden.”
At long last, Bob Schlenker gets to his point about punishment fitting crime, eye for an eye, etc. He writes, “Let’s consider the sin and what happened afterward…the next verse consistent with either the traditional ‘light snack’ version or the more adult ‘sex orgy’ version I proposed?” He quotes Genesis 3:7, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings” to the effect that, or so he reasons:
If what happened in the Garden was the “light snack” version, covering the loins makes no sense at all. If the activity was procreative, the part of the body you’d want to hide is where the reproductive organs are located, the loins.
Well, this need not be made mysterious or complex just because serpent seed of Satan theorists grasp desperately for anything that they twist towards their ends. Genesis 2 stated that Adam and Eve “were both naked…and were not ashamed.” However, after eating the fruit of the tree of both good and also evil, they seem to have recognized that there is good naked and evil naked and they found themselves nakedly exposed before God.
He then references the curse on the serpent and focuses on “Cursed are you more than all cattle, And more than every beast of the field; On your belly you will go.” His vivid imagination runs wild as he states, only in part mind you, “think about a reversal of roles, of the positions assumed during the sinful activity in the Garden.” So, of course, he thinks that this has something to do with sex. However, when we allow the Bible to define its own meanings we note that this phrase refers to being humbled. The “serpent was more subtil than any beast” but was then “cursed above” as in more than, any beast and so “upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life…” Psalm 72:9 has a very similar reference to consuming dust, “They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.” Likewise with Micah 7:17, “They shall lick the dust like a serpent, they shall move out of their holes like worms of the earth: they shall be afraid of the LORD our God, and shall fear because of thee.”
With reference to it being “good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the LORD” Lamentations 3:27-28 states that “It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sitteth alone and keepeth silence, because he hath borne it upon him” and the key phrase, “He putteth his mouth in the dust; if so be there may be hope.” Deuteronomy 32:24 states, “They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.”
Genesis 3:15 is quoted, “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.” In essence, Bob Schlenker notes that while Eve had been attracted to the serpent (“‘lust’ and ‘passionate desire’” as Bob Schlenker puts it) enough to have sex with it/him the curse is that now they would be an enmity. Of course, on Schlenker’s view Adam had been attracted to the serpent enough to have sex with it/him and yet, his curse has no such correlation.
As the Bible as a whole makes clear time and time again: there are two “lines” in a manner of speaking, but they are based on actions (such as God told Cain in Genesis 4:7) and not genetics. Thus, the serpent seed and Eve’s seed make perfect biblical sense as is: the serpent seed refers to those who, like the serpent, would commit Satanic sinful actions and Eve’s seed would lead to Jesus and so represents those who would repent and perform Godly righteous actions. Thus, Cain’s actions were sinful and Abel’s righteous.
Thus, when we come to texts such as John 8:44, to which Bob Schlenker directs us, his alleged privately personal revelation from God peppered with Rabbinic folklore has him understanding “You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning” as that “Cain was a murderer like his father. Adam was not a murderer.
However, when we understand texts with context (both immediate and greater) we understand that the text means what it says and says what it means, “You are of your father the devil” due to wanting to take actions commensurate with “the desires of your father.” For a detailed consideration of the entire John 8 statement, see Did Jesus teach the serpent seed of Satan theory in John 8?.
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