ABSTRACT
A lthough various literary methods have shown how the multidimensionalityof the Eden story can be explicated in different ways, indeed in competingways, there is hardly a reading that does not leave a remainder. If no single reading perspective can account for all the data, the only question is whether one reading can account for more of the data than another in a coherent way. In any case, it may take multiple readings to account for all the data. The claim to significance of the following reading lies in its capacity to minimize the remainder by providing a structure for illuminating the narrative that explains its overall thrust, accounts for the interaction of its characters, and sheds light on interpretational difficulties.2 Although the reading is primarily synchronic, focusing on the narrative as a whole, it takes into account literary issues raised by a diachronic reading. 3
Minimally, a reading worthy of the name has to deal with the reasons for the Bible beginning its account of human history with a tree of knowledge, humans seeking to acquire divine-like knowledge, and serpents talking to women. In doing so, it must focus on the role of sexuality and birth pangs, blaming and guilt, nakedness and clothing as part of the human debut on the stage oflife. Such a f()Cus needs to account for the shift in the relationship between man and woman from parity to domination and for the link between morality and mortality within a revised divine-human relationship. Any reading which deals with a lesser range of issues is inadequate.
