Coats of Skins

“Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.” This statement (Genesis 3:21) is made immediately after Adam has named his wife Eve. Before this we read of the terrible consequences of the Fall, of the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and God’s curse upon the Eden couple and the serpent. What follows is the expulsion from Eden, before Adam and Eve can reach the tree of life, eat its fruit (which apparently is the antidote), and so regain their immortality.

Artists' interpretations can have a profound influence upon our thinking. This 20th-century version by Stephen Gjertson of the expulsion from Eden perpetuates the misinterpretation of the original Hebrew texts and keeps the coats of skins determinedly literal.

In all different versions of the text in English, the phrase is either ‘coats of skins’ or ‘garments of skins’. And in this single three-word phrase is a world of difference: the difference between a pedantic [1]literal reading of scripture and a seeking for deeper meanings, for a greater understanding of what is actually being expressed. A pastor’s comment which I came across on a [2]webpage makes it clear that the pastor is left rather puzzled about what kind of nakedness is being referred to. He presumes that, being post-Fall, God covers their shame with those coats of skins before sending the couple out into the hostile world. But this puzzlement arises from a literal reading of the words – and from ignoring what the original Hebrew text says.

This picture postcard of the expulsion from Eden also follows the literal scriptural text.

If we take the phrase at its most literal, what we are asked to believe is that God slaughtered one or two of the animals which he had recently created (thus promptly making them extinct, because this was before they went forth into the world and multiplied), dressed the hides, and did a spot of bespoke tailoring in order to clothe Adam and his wife in suitable cave-man attire. Really? But ‘coats of skins’ is not what the original Hebrew texts actually say.

The 19th-century symbolist Franz von Stuck shows us a line in the sand which cannot be recrossed, and an Eden couple wearing their own 'coats of skin'.

The original Hebrew word used is not ‘coats’. It is kethorneth, conveying the idea of an all-covering tunic-like garment of some description. The word lavash implies an act of covering. Already things are looking rather different from the cave-man clothes scenario. The couple’s own solution to the awareness of their nakedness – the ‘aprons of fig leaves’ (Genesis 3:7) – apparently was an inadequate penance for their transgression (think about it: fig leaves are pretty scratchy things with which to cover one’s genitals). God’s solution was infinitely more final, and more profound. He equipped the couple with some sort of all-covering apparel that was fundamentally different from their appearance while in Eden. Their actual appearance – their very state of being – was altered in some way.

Another 19th-century symbolist, Max Klinger, powerfully conveys the expulsion as it is intended: a stony road into the world which now must be trodden. Radically original as always, Klinger shows us an Adam supporting a swooning Eve as they both struggle to come to terms with their new bodies of flesh.

Eden was not in the world. It was a state [3]beyond the physical realm, in which Adam and Eve were immortal as long as they did not eat of that forbidden fruit. Their transgression denied them their immortality. They now had no option but to live out an earthly life, with death waiting at the end. The bodies which they had in Eden were now changed. But what was this change? Only one letter’s difference separates the Hebrew words for ‘light’ (rut) and [4]‘skin’ (rug). The first couple’s transgression in Eden ensured their descent into the world of matter, of an incarnation into an earthly existence. Their non-material light bodies became transfigured into material bodies covered in skin, and all the joys and sorrows, all the pains and ecstasies of a life on Earth were now theirs to experience.

Hawkwood

Notes: 

[1] When it comes to uncritical statements of faith on which I can shine a questioning spotlight, my Zondevan King James Study Bible is a gift which just keeps giving. In the editors’ annotation to Genesis 3:21, page 9, they explain that: “God graciously provided Adam and Eve with more effective clothing to cover their shame. God’s act of clothing them with skins, thus requiring the deaths of innocent animals, is symbolic of the merits of Christ’s future sacrifice… It is possible that it is here that God instructed Adam and Eve concerning the need of animal sacrifice as a part of worship.” WTF?? So let’s get this straight: God actually appreciates us killing the animals he has created, as long as such killing is done as a needful part of an act of worship to him. We know this, because God himself set an example of animal sacrifice when he clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins. Seriously?

[2] http://m.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Genesis-3-21/

[3] Whole books have been written about the possible location of Eden, and many theories have been put forward. Scripture appears to tease us with a specific geographical location. The four rivers which flow out of Eden are named, two of which are given as the Hidekel (Tigris) and the Euphrates. It must then be somewhere in the Middle East. Other theories place it in the Hindu Kush, or in a location which is now underwater, or in the Persian Gulf region, or even in the Americas. Still others (clinging to literalism) reason that it cannot be found because it would have been covered by the waters of the Flood. I would maintain that it cannot be found because it never was an earthly location in the first place. One cannot have a non-corporeal immortal body and live a life in the material world.

[4] The familiar phrase 'coats of skins' is therefore more accurately translated as; 'covering of skin', and the change from the plural ('skins') to the singular ('skin') becomes critical.


Sources:
The top image is a detail from the painting So He Drove The Man Out, by Stephen Gjertson, private collection, 1982. The artist with the initials R.L. for the postcard is unidentified. The Expulsion from Paradise, by Franz von Stuck, 1891, is in a private collection. The work by Max Klinger comes from his Eve and the Future cycle of etchings of 1880, appearing in Graphic Works of Max Klinger, Dover Publications.