“And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife, garments of skins, and clothed them”
Genesis 3:21
In the previous chapter, we read: “And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed” (2:25). This is the last verse of Chapter 2.
The opening verse of Chapter 3 – the very next verse on the scroll – introduces the serpent:
“Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made…
The Hebrew term for naked in 2:25 is arom.
The Hebrew term for subtle in 3:1 is arum.
In fact the terms for ‘naked’ and ‘subtle’ derive from the Hebrew root aram: ‘to make bare, to be subtle, crafty or cunning’.
Arom is contranym (a word that is its own opposite – an English example is ‘cleave’, which can mean to cling to, or to separate; ‘dust’, which can mean remove dust from, or apply dust to).
There are both Jewish and Christian sources that hold that before the fall, Adam and Eve were clothed in light. This became intermingled with Hellenic speculation to say that the Primordial Pair were creatures of light only, purely spiritual beings, rather than creatures of spirit and matter, this despite the clear indication to the contrary, and this despite the union of spirit and matter was seen by God to be the finishing act of creation, the act that was not simply good, as were the works of the five previous days.
Even Origen, who taught himself Hebrew (one of a very few Fathers to do so), held that the soul was enfleshed to arrest its fall – based on Platonic thinking.
Hebrew is a mythopoeic language, very idiomatic, metaphoric, and figurative. Contranyms, homonyms (sound alike words), a range of literary forms and devices are used to help explain spiritual concepts. Hebrew speaks to the senses whereas the Hellenic appeals to the intellect.
Note: Hebrew is neither deficient in intellectual rigour nor lacking in spiritual insight, to assume that is to make a gross mistake. Rather, the Hebrew mindset knows “a picture is worth a thousand words” and if I labour this point, it is for two reasons:
1: Christianity lost touch with its Hebrew roots and this was a great loss;
2: The modern tendency to read ‘esoteric’ meaning into Hebrew texts, based on an Hellenic mindset, leads to error, rather than enlightenment.
In this case, it is neither coincidence nor chance that the Hebrew word for light and the word for skin sound the same: ohr:
אוֹר Light (aleph)
עוֹר Skin (ahyin)
The only difference is the first letter (reading from right to left). Light begins with aleph, a letter heavily associated with God, and skin begins with ahyin, the letter that also means ‘eye’.
Both aleph and ahyin are silent letters. They have no sound aside from the vowel associated with them.
In our words above, the vowel is shown by the letter vav with the dot on top, which is called a cholem vav. The last letter is a resh, an “r” sound that pictographically means “a man’s head.”
By simply looking at the pictographic meaning of these words, both have a heart that connects. Vav means ‘to link, connect, or hook together’. It is also the number 6, the creation day for both beast and man. In the verses above in Genesis, the text presents us with a beast (snake) that speaks like a man.
The other Hebrew letters for each word reveals what light and skin connects or links one with. In the case of light, the head (resh) is connected to God (aleph), the Father. But in the case of skin, the head (resh) is connected to only what one’s eyes (ahyin) can see (flesh/natural).
“Rabbinic insight is that the clothing of Adam and Eve was glory, or radiance … The white light is the same covering of the Bride of Messiah in Revelation. The Bride reflects the Lamp of the New Jerusalem, the Lamb. In terms of the menorah, there was a spiritual covering over the first couple’s earthly bodies, a covering or radiance pictured when Moses spoke with Adonai on the mountain, receiving the Torah covenant for Israel. Like the Holy One in whose image they were made, they had corresponding covers of light like garments.” (Dr. Alewine in The Creation Gospel Workbook Four: The Scarlet Harlot and the Crimson Thread, p. 175).
Again, this light is of great significance to the Essenes, it figures in the Transfiguration of Christ, and is used in the Johannine writings.
“The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (3:4-5)
The serpent implies that Adam and Eve are ‘blind’ in some way. They were (outwardly, or physically or materially) naked but had no shame, because they saw with ‘spiritual eyes’ that looked beyond the surface to the truth and hearty of things, they saw with understanding and insight in the light of Elohim.
This was the serpent’s deception, a minor truth to cover the greater lie.
The eyes of them both were opened to the material world because they lost that spiritual luminescence, that insight. They saw only the surface of things, they saw themselves as separate, as other, as distinct, as naked … and felt shame, and hid.
In their disobedience, they forfeited the Light, the Grace of God.
More to be uncovered here
(Posted by Thomas August 23 2021)
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https://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/19820/
