The encounter with the Serpent is telling though.
If he really understood, he would have stepped in and done something to protect himself and his wife.
If you read the account carefully, more is revealed than you think…..
The serpent approached Eve whilst she was alone….the newby with little knowledge and experience….the devil’s favorite target.
Those who favor a YEC (Young Earth) perspective, lose a lot of that detail. If the creative days were not merely 24 hour “days” but as the word in Hebrew suggests, these “days” could have been creative epochs, perhaps hundreds of thousands of earth years in length, rather than just a 24 hour period, a wider picture emerges. Science corroborates this fact….the earth itself is provably, ancient.
Yahweh is a Creator….not a magician. His creation, down to the last detail, even in the microscopic world, is carefully and thoughtfully crafted….in absolute perfection.
Humans were not created until the 6th day and it appears as if Eve was created last.…at the end of that “day”. The question is, how long did Adam have to wait for the creation of his mate?
Gen 2:8-9; 15-17….NIV…
“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Note the order of events….man is created outside of the garden and placed there. All the fruit trees planted by God were at his disposal….except one that God had claimed as his own property….under penalty of death.
It was Adam who told Even not to “touch” that tree…..
God gave Adam an assignment, and that was to name all the animals….at that time, he had no mate.
“The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals. But for Adam no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and then closed up the place with flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman, ’for she was taken out of man.” (Gen 2:18-23)
Considering how many creatures God made to share life with us here on planet Earth, that is not something he would have accomplished in a mere 24 hour day. He had to observe each one in order to give it an appropriate name. It wasn’t until he finished that assignment that God stated his intention to give Adam a mate. Adam’s response was one of elation because now he too had “flesh of his flesh and bone of his bones” indicating that he had been alone for some time, observing how all other creatures had a mate, but he did not.
So getting a proper fix on the timeline gives us a wider view of the events and what God’s purpose was in placing mortal human beings, “made in his image”, on planet Earth in the first place.
That's a mystery.
It seems that most Christian are still in the dark on the subject as well.
Sadly “most Christians” are in the dark about a lot of things…..mostly by choice, because when the Bible suggests things that are out of their accepted belief system, they ignore them.…or explain them away as a “mystery”…..or heresy.
From the other thread….
Why was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
placed in the center (midst) of the orchard (garden) of Eden?
Interestingly, Adam and Eve had to be deceived to "eat thereof".
Yes, but it was only Eve who was deceived….Adam was not.
1 Tim 2:13-14…
”For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.” (NIV)
Now, how does that put a different spin on what resulted when Adam partook of the fruit. If he wasn’t deceived as Eve was, why did he do that, knowing it meant death for the both of them? He could not save her as she had already committed the crime.
Adam had waited so long for this mate and was totally besotted by her….he knew that she had committed a sin incurring death, and he knew what death was by observing it in the animal kingdom during the time he was working on his assignment. He chose to join her, rather than to lose her, so we now have a wider view of these events.
All three rebels in the garden chose their actions selfishly, but for very different reasons.
The devil knew how Adam felt about his wife and that is why he targeted her first whilst she was alone…he deceived her and used her as bait so that he could separate them both from the Creator, and then he could have them to worship him….which was his intention all along. He selfishly wanted worship, but that was reserved for the Creator alone.
Adam could have made a different choice…the human race was not the devil’s possession until he too separated himself from God through disobedience.
It is Luke who tells us what happened back then….
Luke 4:5-7….
”The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And he said to him, “I will give you all their authority and splendor; it has been given to me, and I can give it to anyone I want to. If you worship me, it will all be yours.” (NIV)
Who gave world rulership over to the devil? And why would he do so?
It seems they had no intention of eating from the forbidden tree.
They had no reason to question God’s direction until the seed of doubt was planted in the right partner, setting off a chain reaction that resulted in God handing the now defective human race over to the “god” they chose. He has been ruling them ever since, but death means he is constantly recruiting new worshippers. He has minions to help him do that……especially those ones who masquerade as dead people.
What was going on here?
Whether you take the story as literal or figurative, it begs many questions.
The questions all have answers if you read the Scriptures carefully and understand what it meant to those it was written to….Jews did not have a “Christian” view……until they came to Jesus…..who didn’t come to start a new religion…he came to clean up the old one and to lead those who believed him, out of that now corrupted one.
