Review by cnrd6812 -- Who Told You That You Were Naked?

[cnrd6812]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Who Told You That You Were Naked?" by William Combs.]

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3 out of 4 stars

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Who Told You That Were Naked: A Refreshing Reexamination of the Garden of Eden, by retired Presbyterian minister William Combs, is a clever and thought-provoking analysis of Genesis chapter 3 and the Christian concept of original sin that seems to stumble in a few places but nevertheless provides a compelling read for people interested in this topic. To get some important stuff out of the way: this book is not only specifically Christian, it also assumes a literal interpretation of the Bible, thus people who aren’t Christian Evangelicals or biblical literalists will probably find little of interest here unless they are specifically interested in critically engaging with the Christian doctrine of original sin. In the interest of laying out my own biases, I personally identify as a Christian, but with a somewhat skeptical view of biblical literalism; I believe there literally is a God and a risen Jesus who saved everyone from sin, but that the Bible itself is also interwoven with a large amount of cultural myths, some of which, like the Garden of Eden, probably preceded Judaism.

With that out of the way, one of the first things a reader will notice with this text is the presentation: Dr. Combs makes the compelling choice to contextualize his arguments with imaginative reenactments, essentially, short story segments intended to illustrate the theme of the chapter. Personally, I felt that this was both the biggest strength and one of the biggest weaknesses of the book. On the plus side, Dr. Combs is actually a pretty good storyteller, and my feeling is that if he were to polish his skill somewhat, he might even have a future as a writer of Christian fiction, but for the time being, his story illustrations go a long way towards making material that would otherwise be dense and abstract approachable for the average reader. The downside, however, is that trying to create a fleshed-out setting from the sparse descriptions provided in Genesis leads him to take creative license that could potentially cause confusion with people schooled in Christian doctrine. For example, one of his first illustrations has Adam witness a predatory animal kill another animal for food and experience fear of meeting a similar fate—this might seem natural on the surface, but for Adam to witness a killing while living in the Garden of Eden would imply that the concept of death existed before God imposed it as a punishment. Without getting too much into the philosophical implications of such an idea, there is a risk here that the questions such scenes raise could also be a distraction from the point Dr. Combs is trying to make. That being said, though, I feel this stylistic approach basically works and prevents the book from feeling like a sermon in prose form.

For the meat of the book though, my feelings were somewhat mixed: Dr. Combs’ presentation of the central argument is eloquent and direct, but the argument itself didn’t feel completely sound, which is a bad feeling to have when you’re discussing sensitive issues of theology. The essence of his argument concerns the issue of “nakedness;” the connection between feelings of shame and inadequacy and eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, and how those feelings cause a spiritual separation from God based on subjective comparisons. One of the major issues I had is that his argument doesn’t seem to draw a hard distinction between the “knowledge of good and evil” as it applies to humans, and the same phenomenon as it applies to God—obviously God must have this knowledge, or else He could not be omniscient, but if the substance of this knowledge is the same for Him as it is for humans, then the reason humans are mired in sin and God is not, is that God always comes out better in the subjective comparisons that he makes. In essence, God is righteous because He is stronger and smarter than us.

This leads to a second problem I had, which is that if the root cause of the separation from God that resulted from eating the fruit is subjective and not hereditary, then this opens up the possibility that with sufficient personal development (i.e. “works”) humans are capable of throwing off the bondage of sin without the intercession of Christ. This point is somewhat more difficult to explain, but if mankind’s separation from God is based on the fact that God is simply better than us and we have the ability to perceive this discrepancy, this implies that God’s attributes are quantifiable, and therefore capable of being matched, assuming a long enough lifespan and sufficient technological development. In the year 3512, when humans have conquered death and have computers that can map the atomic arrangement of entire galaxies, we will be able to save ourselves from sin without recourse to Christian doctrine, or something to that effect.

Of course, I hardly expect that Dr. Combs meant to undermine the very foundation of Christianity. My personal feeling is that he chose simplicity and accessibility for the average reader over technical specificity and theological rigor, and in the process crafted an argument that effectively communicates the core of what he’s trying to say, but in the process left a number of loose ends hanging that some more skeptical or cautious readers might misinterpret. In any case, I feel that Who Told You That You Were Naked is a solid but flawed analysis of Genesis, that I would generally encourage curious Christians to read, but with the recommendation that they also seek out alternate analyses from other theologians, for which I give this book a strong 3 out of 4 stars.

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Who Told You That You Were Naked?
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Like cnrd6812's review? Post a comment saying so!

[Jeremie Mondejar]

Wow, nice review. You noticed as well the things I noticed, too. I also rated 3 stars. It is my first review and I agree with you, he is a good story teller.

[cnrd6812]

Thanks!