Hebrew Bible from Genesis.
Since the very beginning of the world, there is a nature balance of creation from the God in the Hebrew Bible from Genesis.
Adam and Eve sinned in Eden
On first chapters of Genesis, the creating of Adam and Eve is the significant and the first signal of nature balance between human beings- men and women. Have you ever wondered why didn’t God create two Adams or two Eves or just only one of them? Not only this point, there are several evidences for the nature balance of this world. Genesis 2:17, mentions about the tree of knowledge, which contains the knowledge of good and evil. Even for the knowledge what makes human a human being, there is the opposite balance between good – evil. Also, there isa balance between reward and punishment. Adam and Eve could have lived in a wonderland without worrying about there lives if they didn’t eat the fruit from the free of knowledge. When they did so, they have to get punished for what they have done. The punishment itself contains the balance between the origin of man and woman’s responsibilities in society: As man has more responsibility,he has to work hard to make food for the family and woman has to suffer the pain of bearing children:
To Eve God said
” I will terrify sharpen your birth pangs,
in pain shall you bear children.
And for your man shall be your longing.
and he shall rule over you”
to Adam God said
“Cursed be the soil for your sake,
with pangs shall you eat from it all the days of your life.
Thorn and thistle shall it sprout for you
and you shall eat the plants of the field…”
Genesis 4
Not only can we see the balance in Adam and Eve story, it’s easy to recognize this balance concept throughout other stories. In Noah’s story, God wants to destroy the world because he sees how bad the people was; however, God also decides to save Noah’s family because of his personality. In Job’s story, God wants to test Job by taking away everything he has: his family, his health,…, however, Job still keep his faith on God and he finally got God’s favor. In this story, we can see the basic between losing and gaining: when Job loses something, he gonna get something in return. Typically, in Jacob and Esau story,the creation of their characteristics is anopposite equation. Esau is good at hunting – he is the man of field, while Jacob is good at domestic works – he is the man in tent. When Asau has his father ‘s favor, Jacob got his mother’s love.
All of the evidences above show the basic principle of creation. Everything needs to be balance in some certain perspective. There is nothing absolute right or wrong too, and in Genesis, this concept was obviously applied.
“In all perfectly beautiful objects there is found the opposition of one part to another and a reciprocal balance” – John Ruskin
I never really though about the book of Genesis in this way. Now that you explained it I can see exactly where you’re coming from and how there was basically always a balance between good and evil and sins and blessings (etc.,). However, I don’t agree that the purpose of this book was to have everything to be in balance. When you look at the book of Genesis, yes, there’s always a good and bad part to each specific story but in the end, the good tended to prevail ( over the evil). For instance, with Joseph and his brothers. Although there was a balance of Joseph being of good nature and his brothers wanting to sin against him and commit acts of evil, at the end of the story, Joseph ended up with the victory (because God’s favor was upon him). Ultimately, I think that there are both good and evil and other examples of balance in this story but the purpose was to show the trails God’s favored people went through in order to get the victory at the end.
Mi, I agree with you that in the book of Genesis there is a balance of good and evil, right and wrong. I think that you explained the points very well. Also I see what you mean when you said that there is a balance between wrong doings and punishment. But I also believe that many of these situations were put in the paths of these people as a test of their loyalty and faith in God. The first example being Adam and Eve, they disobeyed God and did not believe in his greatness which is why they were punish and according to the Catholic Church everyone is born into this world with that sin from Adam and Eve that mush be washed away through baptism. A point that you should also consider is that because the bible was used to govern societies many centuries ago, this is also a source of how they determined that for every crime committed there should be a punishment and ideally make people not want to commit that crime in fear of the punishment.