Word to the Wise
Wednesday, February 8, 2017 - Wednesday in the 5th Week in Ordinary Time
[Gen 2:4b-9, 15-17 and Mark 7:14-23]WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2017 WEDNESDAY IN THE FIFTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME [Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17 and Mark 7:14-23] "You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die." [Genesis] Scripture scholars have long agreed that Genesis and much of the first five books of the Bible, known as the Pentateuch (or for Jewish faithful, the Torah) is the result of a melding of at least four traditions about the same subject. Those traditions were each given a letter to designate them: J for Jahwistic, E for Eloistic, P for Priestly, and D for Deuteronomic. The first two were named for the word used by each for God: Jahweh or Elohim. The reason I mention all of this is that we have in today's passage an alternative story of the creation of the world and the human being. But more importantly for our purpose we are introduced to the concept of evil in a world that yesterday's passage described as "good." Parents and authority figures of all kinds know that one way to get someone to try something is to tell them it is forbidden. God places the man (woman comes tomorrow!) in the "Garden of Eden" and says "Enjoy! But don't touch that one tree of the knowledge of good and evil! If you do, you're doomed." We can all see where this is going. At the root of the problem of moral evil is the problem of free will. Man is introduced to the possibility of evil by a divine command. Human beings are still kicking against God's command. The process we go through to reach evil will show up in the next couple of days. For the moment, we can see that even if the universe is placed in our lap, we cannot do anything we want with it and not pay a price. AMEN
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