![[#40] Genesis 3:1-5 – Eve and the Serpent](https://redeeminggod.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/The_Serpent_eve-150x150.jpg)
Was it wrong for Eve to engage in dialogue with the serpent in Genesis 3? If not, what was her mistake? What can we learn from this conversation between Eve and the serpent that will help us face temptation in our own life? This is what we look at in this discussion of Genesis 3:1-5.
The Text of Genesis 3:1-5
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”
And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; “but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’”
Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
In this discussion of Genesis 3:1-5 we look at:
- The serpent’s first question
- Why Adam and Eve should have responded to the serpent together
- How Eve imitated the serpent
- Why the serpent spoke truly, but offered what was good in a time and way that God did not want
- The four dangers of fencing around the law.
Resources:
- Get BibleWorks at Amazon
- Zevit, What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden
- Luke 4:1-4 – Passing the Temptation Test
- Luke 4:5-13 – Defeating the Temptation to Sin
- Subscribe and Leave a Review on iTunes
Downloadable Podcast Resources
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There’s always so much information in the podcasts, and I want to comment on everything. But one area of teaching that has helped me to understand religion better, is the concept of fencing the law. It was always a major part of the theology of the bad churches I have been involved with in my life. It causes pride, and it makes people think they’re being very spiritual, without realizing they’re being misled. Listening to this episode reinforced my understanding of how the deceiver uses it as a tool – keeps us from trusting the Lord which prevents our spiritual growth.
Yes, these fences around the law do exactly as you describe. Pride and self-righteousness are two results. Thanks for the input!
If Adam had enough knowledge to intelligently name all the animals, either he had already eaten of the fruit of knowledge, or God didn’t need to forbid him the fruit.
Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, entry under “Genesis”
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The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then Adam and Eve would have eaten the serpent.
Mark Twain
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When Adam “named all the birds of the air and beasts of the field,” how thorough was he? Not every species can be distinguished by a casual glance. Maybe he only came up with a dozen or so names to cover every species on earth, or maybe only two? “Bird” and “Beast?”
Eve (upon seeing a cow): Adam, what’s that?
Adam: That’s a beast.
Eve (points to the sky): And what is that thing with feathers?
Adam: Some say it’s “hope,” but it is actually a “bird.”
Eve (now looking at the hippo): And that thing is…?
Adam: That’s a beast.
Eve: Didn’t it have spots before?
Adam: They change. A lot. Sometimes they change dozens of times, beasts can even sprout horns and antlers. But not while you’re looking at them. They go away, change, and come back looking different. Same beast though. And the beasts taught this trick to the birds.
Eve (shakes her head slowly in disbelief): Here, Adam, eat this… (hands him the Apple)… we’ll talk more, later…
Wes “Duke of Doubt” Anderson
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If an all-wise, all-powerful, all-loving Father failed to teach his kids to keep their paws off a piece of fruit, what chance do ordinary parents have to teach their kids right from wrong?
E.T.B.
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God threw his first two children out of the house (in this case a garden) after their first mistake, and barred their way back with a flaming sword? How many fathers would treat their children that way after their first mistake? And what a way to treat “newborns” who were also “newlyweds.” Maybe Adam and Eve simply forgot to floss after eating God’s precious fruit, and no father will stand for that, not if He’s a dentist.
E.T.B.
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The best minds will tell you that when a man has begotten a child he is morally bound to tenderly care for it, protect it from hurt, shield it from disease, clothe it, feed it, bear with its waywardness, lay no hand upon it save in kindness and for its own good, and never in any case inflict upon it a wanton cruelty. But God did not forgive the ignorant and thoughtless first pair of juveniles even their first small offense and say, “You may go free this time, I will give you another chance.” On the contrary! He elected to punish their children, all through the ages to the end of time, for a trifling offense committed by others before they were born. He is punishing them yet. In mild ways? No, in atrocious ones.
Mark Twain, Letters from the Earth
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He went to all this effort to make a perfect creation then loaded it with a big self-destruct switch… Adam’s action had no effects in and of itself, save that it angered God. God took the situation further and cursed creation and thereby created the circumstances for all future misery and hardships. Had God responded just a little differently (to say nothing of more maturely and judiciously), He could have spared billions of people, not to mention Himself, a whole lot of trouble and heartache. The sin of Adam was nothing compared to the sin of God in cursing creation. If you want to blame anyone, blame God for overreacting and for rigging his own creation to fail.
Bruce Wildish
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The reason Adam ate of the fruit of knowledge was that he didn’t know any better. Had he had just a little more knowledge, he would have known enough not to do such a damn fool thing!
Can we return to the Garden of Eden? Well, if we returned completely, if we entered again into the complete state of innocence, we would no longer have the knowledge to prevent us from eating the apple again. And so again we would fall out of grace. It seems, therefore, that to regard the Garden of Eden, the state of innocence, as the perfect state is simply a mistake. It has the obvious imperfection of being internally unstable and self-annihilating.
Too bad there weren’t two trees of knowledge in the Garden of Eden, a big tree and a little tree. The only knowledge to be imparted by the little tree should be, “It is a mistake to eat of the big tree.”
Raymond Smullyan, “The Fruit of Knowledge,” This Book Needs No Title
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What I cannot help wishing is that Adam and Eve had been postponed, and Martin Luther and Joan of Arc put in their place–that splendid pair equipped with temperaments not made of butter, but of asbestos. By neither sugary persuasions nor by hell fire could the serpent have beguiled them to eat the apple.
Mark Twain
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The story of Adam and Eve made no sense to me. Eve is responsible for the entire decline of humanity because she was tempted by an apple. Don’t you think God overreacted just a tad? It’s not like Eve ate God’s last Oreo.
Margot Black (comedian)
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I have a sneaking suspicion that Adam and Eve vomited up the fruit of the tree of “knowledge” as soon as they were cast out of Eden. That would explain a lot.
E.T.B.
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POLITICALLY INCORRECT (TELEVISION PROGRAM, AIRED 1/6/99)
Bill Maher: You say animals don’t have souls.
Brad Keena: Right.
Bill Maher: I take it by your comment that you don’t believe in evolution.
Brad Keena: I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in creation.
John Fugelsang: So the serpent talked to Eve and Eve talked back to it. I guess snakes used to be able to talk back then.
Elayne Boosler: Snakes talked and dogs don’t have a soul?
[Laughter]
Brad Keena: If you read the scriptures, things changed after the fall of Adam and Eve. And the serpent wasn’t the same. Part of his punishment was that he had to crawl along the Earth.
John Fugelsang: Right, and part of women’s punishment was that they have to have monthly menstruation, painful child birth and crappy wages for doing the same job as a man.
[Laughter]
Brad Keena: Men work by the sweat of their brow. Right.
Elayne Boosler: So on the whole the snake came out okay.
[Laughter]
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The snake was cursed to go on his belly.
How he went before, the story does not say.
And Adam was cursed to work.
That is why we have to work.
That is, some of us–not I.
Clarence Darrow, “From Rib to Woman”
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The story of the fall of man in Genesis seems originally to have been one of the sardonic folk tales of the Near East that explain how man once had immortality nearly within his grasp, but was cheated out of it by frightened or malicious deities [i.e., Adam and Eve were hustled from the garden by such deities before they could eat of the “fruit of the tree of life” and “live forever” like them]. We have earlier versions from Sumerian times on that are less rationalized than the one in Genesis…The Genesis account permits itself a verse (3:22) in which God seems to be telling other gods that man (after eating of the “fruit of the tree of knowledge”) is “now one of us,” in a position to threaten their power unless they do something about it at once, with a break in the syntax that suggests genuine terror.
Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature
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Genesis (chapters two and three) depicts Adam and Eve being hustled from the garden by a frightened or indignant deity after they have tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge “and become like one of us” (like “gods,” or like “God,” depending on your translation). Better evict them before they also take a bite out of “the fruit of the tree of eternal life,” and become even more like gods.
Such myths were invented to explain why man was superior to the animals in having god-like knowledge and amazing creative abilities like speech, yet still suffered the ignominy of death along with all the other animals. Hence, myths arose about man being cheated out of the other god-like quality he wished he had along with his intelligence, namely eternal life.
Speaking of “god-like” qualities, Genesis plainly states, as many theologians have pointed out, that man was created in God’s physical image. Some verses make this connection abundantly clear: “When God created man, He made him in the likeness of God…[And then when] Adam became the father of a son [it was] in his own likeness, according to his image.” (Gen. 5:1,3)
Ancient peoples even spread fables about how the gods found human females “beautiful”–nearly as beautiful as the gods themselves were depicted as being. Such fables are echoed in Genesis 6:2: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.” In short, the ancient Hebrews believed that humanity was made in the physical image of “God,” even in an image that the “sons of God” found irresistibly attractive. In a similar fashion the ancient Greeks believed that they bore a physical resemblance to their gods, Zeus, Apollo, etc.
Speaking of the Hebrew Lord resembling Zeus, see the section “Lightning (A Heretic Makes a Shocking Discovery)” which explains how both the Hebrew Lord and Zeus liked to “cover their hands with the lightnings” and “restrain” or “loose” it; and how the roar of thunder was viewed as their “voice.” Moreover, nothing pleased both their noses better than the aroma of flaming sacrificial livestock. As it says in the Bible, “…the Lord smelled the soothing aroma.” (Gen. 8:21; Ex. 29:18; Lev. 1:17, 3:5; Num. 15:13,24; 29:28)
E.T.B.
You have a picture on your web site of a young woman with a snake. I am starting a Christian owned snake breeding, education and rescue business in the Cleveland Ohio area. Although I changed the snake side of the picture to better represent Eve’s encounter with the Serpent, I have used her image representing Eve.
My question is: Do you know this female and would she be willing to sign a model release to use her image? Would she want any compensation for use of the image? If you want, I can send a rough draft of the image being used.
I’d be more interested in copyright permission to use the picture in memes, such as:
“Trust me, you can believe everything you see on the Internet.” or
“The King James Bible does not say, ‘Thou shalt question what you read on the Internet’ does it?
Where did the picture come from with “Eve” and the Serpent? I want to use part of the image and do not want to violate copyright laws or model credit and possibly compensation. Could you email me with contact information? The image will look nothing like yours.
Thank you.
Jamie