Fleeing the Garden: Reading Genesis 2-3

Proceedings of the Mormon Theology Seminar

by Adam S. Miller

The papers collected in this book are the product of a Mormon Theology Seminar dedicated to generating close, theologically informed readings of the second and third chapters of Genesis. Though participants in the seminar employed a wide variety of methodological approaches, the results clearly show a common core of understanding won through months of close collaborative effort. Essays explore the nature of appetite, the role of community, the necessity of ecology, and the persistence of paradox in one of the Bible s most human stories.

Genres: Theology

120 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2017

Reviews

[Christopher Angulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

I caught wind of the Mormon Theology group when they published their first three works (they were on a stand at the front of Pioneer Book, when that store went through its awkward teenage phase of moving to Orem and changing its name). I instantly fell in love with the Alma 32 book. This caused me to browse their blog for further works. At the time, the group was currently working on this text (weird that it took many years later to publish?). This was the first time that I got tee see them organically grow their ideas together, and to deepen one another's studies through a shared experience.

This book is a prime example of what this group was possible of creating (I feel some of the magic was lost when it was incorporated into Maxwell Institute).

Smith starts the book off with a banger of an essay that pikes holes in the Eve and the wise choice theory. These holes cause us to expand our reading of the text and view it through a new lens. From there, the book keeps plowing. Most notable is Miller's "theoscatology." Who would've thought that "We are, in truth, waking colonies of compost. We are brightly burning engines of decomposition" could reform the way I view the partaking of fruit, and the ordinary mundane task that we all pass through everyday (hopefully....). Spencer piggybacks off of Miller's essay with his own creative look on the Book of Mormon's phrase "and it came to pass." Spackman brings the clouds, Welch brings the wind and lightening, Faulconer brings the eye, and Wendt closes the book with the warm rays.

Each essay is unique and will add more depth and understanding to the familiar Eden story. More importantly, the book will help you learn tools and techniques that you can apply to your own personal reading of the scriptures. These tools have greatly enhanced my personal studies over the last decade. You will not be disappointed with this gem of a book!

[Liz Busby · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the idea of a deep reading of scripture, going through one or two chapters and giving them the thought and weight they deserve. Some of the essays were definitely more striking to me than others. I don't know that this is the particular fault of the essayists but perhaps of the reader.

I particularly loved Julie M Smith's "Paradoxes in Paradise," which delves into the complications of the Mormon doctrine of the fortunate fall. We can be quite glib about this idea, acting like the book of Moses solves all the problems of the Genesis story, but Smith really digs in and shows how basically all readings of the fall (positive, neutral, negative) are problematic. At the end of her essay, I came to the conclusion that the inability of the fall story to be simplified is what makes it important and true to me as a believer, a foundational mythos worth thinking over and returning to again and again.

Ben Spackman's close analysis of the naming conventions in Genesis 2-3 was a good follow-up to what I'd previously read about the concept. It makes it clear that it's not clear, that it isn't *just* a symbolic tale with a metaphorical protagonist or a concrete history about a real person, but some blending of the two. Adam Miller's essay on "theoscatology" (use your Latin roots for that one) had really insightful points about the nature of mortality, once you get over the ridiculousness of the topic.

I will definitely be picking up the other volumes from the LDS Theology Seminar as they fit into my scripture study.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Few books have so thoroughly made me reexamine a passage of scripture. The breadth of the contributors' disciplines and experience is the factor that sets this seminar apart, and their work demonstrates the strength in this approach. I strongly recommend this book.

[Larry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly Thought Provoking

A fascinating and captivating collection of curious, diverse, unique, and faith-deepening insights, put forward in a framework which invites shared curiosity and by contemplation pushes my love of God and faith in Him yet deeper in my mind and heart.

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I especially loved Ben Spakeman's article as well as Adam Miller's offering.

[Nancey · Rating 5 out of 5]

I got the most out of Julie M. Smith’s “Paradoxes in Paradise,” but also enjoyed Welch and Miller’s papers. So much in one little book. I look forward to taking on the other books in the series.

[Erneilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting essays

[Bryan Sebesta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It’s a set of seven essays (or eight, if you count Adam Miller’s introduction), each taking theological dives into Genesis 2-3. It was produced when, in either 2017 or 2016, six scholars–three women and three men–came together and spent months going over every verse, discussing it and all it could mean. They call this the Mormon Theological Seminar, and each essay has the scholar take their interests and training round again to the text of Genesis 2-3.

Now, with any anthology or compilation of essays, especially when they’re each by different people, there will be essays that resonate more strongly than others. Because I have only recently discovered the joys of exegesis, Ben Spackman, Jim Faulconer, and Julie Smith’s essays were particularly fascinating to me. Ben Spackman’s deep dive into the translation of “Adam” was revelatory for me; Faulconer’s essay helped me more vividly put myself in the place of ancient Jew, reading Genesis; and Julie Smith, in perhaps my favorite from the collection, helped me see how Eve’s “wise choice” theory, propounded by prophets from Joseph and Brigham to today, is both a wonderful and problematic reading, and offers other holistic frameworks for making sense of the ambiguities, though ultimately pointing out that no one explanation explains all of the text. All of these essays pay close attention to the text and invoke it often. Spackman and Smith’s essays also felt like different kinds of reception history. (Julie Smith’s footnotes tracing what different LDS leaders have interpreted the “wise choice” theory were, for me, worth the price of the book.)

(I also loved Adam Miller’s introduction about how God accommodates to our worldview when he reveals himself, though he makes the same points in more accessible language in his “Scripture” essay in Letters to a Young Mormon, which I was grateful I had read first.)

The other essays were also good readings, though it seemed to me that they were either drawing from the text of Genesis 2-3 less (using verses or scriptures as a springboard for theologizing) or drawing from the text in ways I doubt the original author of Genesis intended, or at least that weren’t the primary points of the text. Which isn’t to say they were bad, but they were different. The two essays on Genesis and the environment–Welch’s essay on Wendell Berry and localism, and Wendt’s essay on eco-literacy–touched me profoundly, since I’m living in a generation wrestling with the problem of poor planetary stewardship (aka climate change) and a deep disconnection with the land. These essays helped me see what Genesis might have to say about those modern-but-also-ancient problems.

Adam Miller’s main essay “on dirt, dung, and digestion in God’s garden” was extremely thought-provoking. I will never think about “bowels of mercy” the same way again, nor will I take for granted the messiness of embodiment. Importantly, he asks a question (twice in the chapter) that acts as a quiz, asking what we think the role of digestion will be in a resurrected state, that was arresting. (I still don’t know how I would answer it.) Joseph Spencer’s essay begins with a fascinating theology of the phrase “and it shall come to pass.” I was impressed by, and even enjoyed, how much he could draw from that simple phrase. But while I have found a lot of Spencer’s work profoundly accessible and interesting, I had a harder time connecting with this essay. Still, I trust there is something for me in there, and I intend to return later to re-read it again.

So again: I really enjoyed this book. A fun mix of theology, exegesis, reception history, and novel interpretation from one of the most challenging chapters in history.