Adam and Eve naked. It sounds like some make-believe myth, not to say a joke. But no, it’s real and has significance for the Bible story of humankind.
Adam and Eve naked from the Biblical Hebrew word aram. Last week we saw it refers to the positive wisdom of Adam and Eve, as well as to the negative guile of the serpent. How does positive nakedness refer to Adam and Eve naked? And negative nakedness to the serpent?
(Agony of Humankind, chapter 1.2)
Naked is much more than just the absence of clothing
In the Bible, nakedness has to do with one’s character. We have seen that both King James Version (KJV) translations for naked and subtil derive from one Biblical Hebrew root: aram (H6191).
We also saw that aram, whether translated subtilty‘ (Pro 1:4) or wisdom (Pro 8:5), has a POSITIVE connotation
Likewise, aram, whether translated guile (Ex 21:14) or wilily (Jos 9:4), has a NEGATIVE connotation
NB Use the Bible tools at UnlockBibleMeaning to find the Bible reference: Jos 9:4 or the Word: wilily and check for yourself; this also lets you practice and get used to using these tools. The key is for you to see this for yourself, don’t just take my word for it.
Adam and Eve naked (Gen 2:25), at this juncture in the Genesis story, at the end of the seventh day of Creation, had POSITIVE wisdom and subtilty. They were newly created and had only been in the presence of God at this point.
NB Please remember, this is not a question as to whether you or I believe this to be reality or even whether this episode really took place. All we are doing is looking at the Bible as literature written by an author and doing a literary analysis of the use of vocabulary. The subject of belief is a personal issue that is independent of our study here.
Belief is personal, dependant on each one of us and to be respected no matter what the belief is. On the other hand, if you’ve been reading The Explanation, you know where Sam Kneller is coming from, and you know the theological basis for studying Genesis based on Biblical Hebrew.
A contrario, the serpent (Gen 3:1), at this juncture in the Genesis story, with his presence in the Garden of Eden, had NEGATIVE wisdom and subtilty. Please read the beginning verses of Genesis 3 to see that the serpent twisted the words of God and whether we call it a lie or a white lie, it was not the truth. I’ll be expounding this.
NB Please remember that who or what the serpent is, or how he obtained this shameful and ignoble character is not the point in this context. The context reveals the serpent’s true character. I agree that these other points are vital, and they are addressed elsewhere in the Bible. We addressed them in Genesis 1:2 and will be returning for more details.
Here we are dealing with the conundrum I had some 30 years ago; this is ONE piece in the Bible puzzle that has thousands and thousands of pieces. For now, we’re staying focused on this one piece. Stay with me; we’ll get to the other parts in due course.
Concerning subtility, we’d agree it’s a more obvious synonym for wisdom than nakedness. We have seen that it is both positive and negative.
Adam and Eve had a POSITIVE NAKEDNESS
The Serpent had a NEGATIVE NAKEDNESS
Yes, not only is the serpent naked (quite ridiculous as I pointed out), but it’s qualified at negative nakedness.
I still want you to think about this. But here’s a clue. Ask yourself specific questions. :
- What dirty clothes were Adam and Eve NOT wearing that gave them wisdom and positive character?
- What clean clothes was the serpent NOT wearing that made him such a negative character?
To make this clearer let’s write it down as an equation:
- Adam & Eve = naked = absence of dirty clothes = presence of clean clothes
- Serpent = naked = absence of clean clothes = presence of dirty clothes
>> Do a word search and study at UnlockBibleMeaning.com for the words: clothed, raiment, clean, arrayed, put on. Yes, I could give you the answer, but the purpose is for you to learn the Bible study method. Go and dig for Bible meaning. I’ve given you the tools to do this. Find The Explanation for yourself.
This study involves the principles of the second and fourth keys to master Biblical Hebrew. The SAME word or concept can have opposite meanings. Nakedness can be positive and negative wisdom. The SAME vocabulary can also have both a literal and a figurative sense. Figurative nakedness and figurative clothing can also refer to positive and negative wisdom.
- In what way were Adam and Eve clean — void of dirt?
- In what way was the Serpent void of cleanliness (the naked serpent) — covered with filth?
Exercise >> Do a search and study the words clothed, raiment, clean, arrayed, put on.. This can be quite time-consuming. To guide you, I suggest limiting your study to just two books, Ephesians, Colossians and Revelation. If you’re do inclined, you can extend this study to both the Old and New Testaments.
The remainder of this post includes a video presentation about nakedness and cleanliness.
To learn the most, do the above exercises before reading the rest of this post. Your goal is to DISCOVER and work out the solutions, follow the process, it’ll take a little longer, but it’ll be so much more rewarding. Learn how to master Biblical Hebrew and unlock Bible meaning.
Practice looking at the Biblical Hebrew origin of English words, using Strong’s Concordance at UnlockBibleMeaning.com
Adam and Eve’s positive nakedness/wisdom = clean clothes.
On the other hand, the serpent’s negative subtlety and guile = dirty clothing.
Dirty clothing and clean clothing, What have they got to do with nakedness? Strange concepts. Sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction.
This short video opens a whole new vista on nakedness.
Above, I asked you to think about the word naked as it refers to Adam and Eve naked in Genesis 2:25. There it talks about Adam and Eve naked and in the next verse (Gen. 3:1), the serpent being subtle. And concerning that, I asked you to do a word study using words like clothed, clothe, raiment, garment, and put on, put on referring to putting on clothes.
Sometimes the relationship between those words and nakedness isn’t obvious, so I created an equation to help you. When it says that ADAM AND EVE naked, remember that’s referring to their positive nakedness and in relationship to the clothing that means, absence of dirty clothing. With their positive nakedness, they did not, or they were not wearing dirty clothes. Metaphorically, positive nakedness implies the presence of clean clothes. The clean clothes are related to positive subtlety, Adam, and Eve’s wisdom. We’re going to find that in most cases, the reference in the Bible, to clothing and the proper type of nakedness, is the presence of clean clothing.
Contrarily, when it comes to the SERPENT and its negative nakedness, it’s referring to the absence of clean clothing and the presence of dirty clothing. And in the case of the serpent, what we’re going to find is that the emphasis is on the presence of dirty clothes.
Let’s go to UnlockBibleMeaning.com, where you’ll find the Bible tools. See the above video and take the time to practice by looking up those particular words and finding verses that are related to the Adam and Eve naked and the Serpent.
The first one that we’re going to look at here is Revelation 3:8.
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white raiment, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness do not appear...
This context refers to the proper clothing so that the shame of your nakedness does NOT appear. That we get rid of the bad nakedness with the appropriate clean clothing.
This context encourages us to return to the proper, positive Adam and Eve naked by having the presence of clean white raiment.
There’s another concept here that you can study. At the end of the verse, it indicates that you may see; this refers figuratively to spiritual sight, the contrary is spiritual blindness, with which biblically we might be more familiar. Spiritual blindness is parallel with negative nakedness. That nakedness characterizes the serpent.
We go on to the next verse in Revelations 19:8, which says:
And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints.
This fine linen and I’m not going to go into the details of the context here, is referring to righteousness, and at this juncture in Genesis 2:25, where it talks about Adam and Eve naked positively, they were righteous. Once again, we see the parallels here.
For our third passage we’re going to go over to Revelations 17:4, for an example of negative nakedness:
And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:
Here’s a description of the serpent filled with filthiness. What’s interesting to note is that the serpent looks pretty good on the outside. Its garments are purple, and scarlet decked with gold and precious stones, but there are filthiness and fornication. You can’t get a better description of the serpent than that.
The fourth word-phrase we’re going to look at is put on, and we’re going to look at a few verses in the New Testament here in Ephesians 6.11
Put on the whole armor of God.
The term put on is a term about clothing, and here it is put on the clothing Adam and Eve had initially. The presence of clean, proper, pure clothing. I’m not going to explain what this armor of God is, but you can understand that it is positive clothing.
While we’re in Ephesians 6:11, I’d like you to notice the end of this verse: Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. We saw the word wiles previously when we discussed the word subtlety in Proverbs 1.4. There, the Hebrew root ARAM is translated wilily, and that is the negative nakedness, the wrong wisdom; this is the guile that personifies the serpent.
We have to realize that this is the King James translation that in Ephesians, we’re discussing Greek, whereas, in Proverbs, it was in Hebrew, but we can still grasp the meaning. The author is saying here is to put on the positive nakedness, the armor of God, that we would be able to stand against the wiles, the negative nakedness. We need to have clean clothes on to withstand, or stand up against, the tricks, ploys, and maneuvers used by the serpent.
Here’s a final passage in Colossians:
Put on the new man.
Here, it is talking about putting on the spiritual man, the positive man, and that, once again, characterize Adam and Eve naked. Verses 12 and 14 detail what we are to dress ourselves with: Put on, therefore, as the elect of God holy and beloved, bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering. Above all of these things put on charity which is the bond of perfectness. You see this bond of perfectness once again that is the perfect state of positive nakedness in which we find Adam and Eve. That’s why Adam and Eve were not ashamed, not in any confusion.
To recapitulate. The single Biblical Hebrew word aram (H6195) has revealed the pure wisdom of Adam and Eve and the negative wisdom of the Serpent. Both parties possess wisdom; however, there is no comparison in the type and result of this characteristic. Biblically, like light and dark, day and night, they represent opposite ends of the spectrum of God’s Plan. Genesis 3 is devoted to the Dark Night, just how dark that night is and how the Serpent plunged all of humanity into this sad state.
To learn how to raise up humankind, we must also learn what caused their downfall. What are the ongoing forces that affect planet Earth and its population? That’s the subject of Agony of Humankind.
This blog post is an excerpt from chapter 1.2 of the book Agony of Humankind.
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