Chapter 3 · Rising action
Genesis
How does missing the mark begin?
Abstract
Genesis 2–3 is read through the conditions as an account of entering language. The human being names the animals, receives a goal and a boundary, and learns what to aim at. Soon the goal becomes something to secure, and the securing is where the missing begins. Read beside a child learning to speak, the sequence holds step by step: naming, the first “no”, and the moment of standing outside oneself and being asked “Where are you?” and “Who told you?”. Missing the mark, hamartia, appears here as a condition of the plot, and no one inside the story can yet see it.
Chapter text in preparation.
Figure 3. Entering language
Notes
- Genesis 2–3, translated from the Hebrew.
- Genesis 3:9, “Where are you?”; 3:11, “Who told you?”
Working material: Outside the Garden · The Same Passage, Told Twice (Genesis)