The hypothesis proffered in this essay is that the text of Genesis 3:16 can illuminate compelling evidence that a hermeneutic of reconciliation may do away with questions of inconsistency in scriptural moralizing by showing that 1) the text speaks about the reconciliation of humans with God or that 2) the same text speaks about the reconciliation of humans with one another. To support this claim, I use the text of Genesis 3 as a case study in the sort of exegetical framework I aim to defend. The study does not serve to propose a normative content of interpretation, but rather is exemplary of the formal structure of a hermeneutics of reconciliation; one by which a canonical exegesis can reasonably tell of remediation as clear and distinct from other interpretations which view God and salvation as disciplinary.

Mark puts it so poetically that the women were watching from a distance (Mark 15:40). The distance written into this story, inspired by the Spirit, calls to mind the distance between now and the primordial past. The women gazed into this distance, perhaps not knowing that what they witnessed here, what they followed to Calvary, was a promise being fulfilled.

…so that when we are called upon to do so, we may preach the Gospel with courage and steadfast faith in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Clearly, even in all of creation, God’s eyes are not only on the sparrow, but even on the humble donkey. Not more than a beast of labor, it holds the attention of God’s eyes. God indeed raises up the lowly in this way, even the beasts. So it is unsurprising that God chooses to make his way into the world on the back of a donkey as well. What an honor it must have been for that animal to have borne on its back the king of all creation!

That latter point is important. What does it mean to love others in the same way we are asked to rely disinterestedly on God? If I can indulge myself in borrowing ideas from my go-to philosopher Emmanuel Levinas, the responsibility that originates from an “immemorial past” in the face of the Other is analogous (or perhaps synonymous, if we take Jesus at his word in Matthew 25:40-45) to the relationship of responsibility towards the demands of God.

Christian charity is grounded in obedience to the law of love that emerges from the particular face-to-face relationship with another. For Levinas this otherness contains a trace of the divine; for the Christian, it is the face of God. Penance is reconciliation then, both turning a person back to God and likewise does turning them back and reorienting them towards other individuals.