...Walking In The Garden To The Wind Of The Day... (Part 1)

שְׁמְעוּ אֶת־קוֹל יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִתְהַלֵּךְ בַּגָּן לְרוּחַ הַיּ֑וֹם וַיִּתְחַבֵּא הָֽאָדָם

וְאִשְׁתּוֹ מִפְּנֵי יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים בְּתוֹךְ עֵץ הַגָּֽן

Then they heard the sound of Yahweh-God walking in the garden to the wind of the day and they hid...

Genesis 3:8

You can never assume that what you think you understand about another culture is how they understand themselves unless you work to set aside your own cultural background and place yourself in their shoes, trying to understand theirs. Predominating attitudes, values, and behaviours that are unique to self-defined groups of people is the relational glue that they themselves have chosen to honour, and that provides meaning and gives people social cohesion around the world. As such, culture is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that it provides people with a sense of identity and belonging; it is a curse when it imposes itself on other cultures and creates strife between disparate peoples. Not all cultures are compatable; some are intentionally exclusive of people not like themselves. And psychologically speaking there are numerous reasons why not everyone wants to try and understand other cultures. Furthermore, opening oneself up to another culture can be seen as a betrayal by one’s own people. But most humans are capable of at least some level of understanding and appreciating cultures other than their own. And most importantly, it is possible to actually be imbedded in several cultures, which only broadens and enriches one’s own sense of self and the world, and provides the ability to care for and be compassionate toward others who are less like yourself. In today’s world this is great attribute both for personal enrichment as well as a critical attribute for simple survival.

All of this is what we have to deal with when we read both Hebrew and Christian scripture. Without doing so means that we impose ourselves upon people of another time and place, missing the meaning of what they were trying to tell us about their own values and attitudes and experiences, and more importantly, even potentially critical elements of reality that may both assist us in better appreciating life itself and be important for our own wellbeing.

As a part of any culture stories are important because they can funtion to both give insight and open up discussion about culture and the nature of the world itself. Ancient stories from traditional cultures are especially this way. Furthermore, it is critical to realize that ancient languages from these time periods are far more descriptive than they are prescriptive in character. Modern English is a language that seeks to define precisely what it observes; Hebrew, on the other hand, is far more evocative in character than either modern English, or Koine Greek, in which the Christian scriptures were first penned.

So as we read the above text we need to set our own assumptions aside about what we think we know about this passage in Bereishit/Genesis, and to try and understand what it is attempting to convey about how these first Hebrews experienced God, their understanding of the nature of the world, and human beings in general.