Welcome back to back to the basics where you will get to learn about the basic building blocks of Christianity. I am Ashley Pearse – your host. Please note that what you are about to hear has been paraphrased from the holy Word of God and is NOT a direct translation of the Bible. For the purpose of learning and information, I want to make it simple and easy to understand what the Bible says. (I HAVE TAKEN MORE THAN JUST CREATIVE LIBERTIES – IF YOU WANT THE ACTUAL ACCOUNT PLEASE READ GENESIS 3)
In Tuesday’s episode we learned about the six day creation, rest and the creation of man. It was a rad story filled with lots of really cool things and good vibes. We left off with man and woman watching over the gardens and animals, living without death and having a really good time. Since we’re all cynics at heart – surely you knew there was more to the story than that?
In today’s installment, we are going to learn about where everything went wrong, Satan came to join the party, and the first marital divide resulted in Death – other wise known as the Fall.
We open to the sneaky serpent. Now later in the chapter the serpent is cursed to slither on the ground – so it is widely believed it did not in fact slither but likely had many legs like a centipede or had legs and arms like a human. Terrifying? Yes.
*Gasp* Satan is the serpent. He saw Adam and Eve with their good vibes, chilling in the garden, and because he’s a spiteful old man (he will have his own episode) he decides to poop on their parade.
Satan is no stupid serpent. No he’s a sneaky serpent. He waits until Eve has left her husband to gallivant in the meadows of the garden, probably picking flowers and singing like a Disney Princess, before he makes his appearance.
He leaned up against a tree, scanning her, probably standing like a dude bro and said, “did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’? That’s totally bonkers.”
Eve – poor innocent, stupid Eve – twirled her what I would assume was very thick, black, long, curly hair and shrugged as she grabbed a fruit from the tree the dude bro is leaning against. “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.”
Now this is where Eve SHOULD have realized she dun goofed. If you tuned in for the last episode, you know God did NOT in fact say they should not touch it. In fact, His exact words were:
“You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Genesis 2
Eve, allegedly innocent, added to the Word of God and by doing broke the honesty of it and dramatized it. She probably huffed the ‘neither shall you touch it’ as she ripped a petal off a flower, threw it over her shoulder and dropped dramatically over a boulder.
Mr. Sneaky Dudebro otherwise known as Satan otherwise known as the serpent comes sneaking over, his face probably very similar to Peter Pettigrew’s when he sees the wand tiptoes over to the boulder. Running his finger over the stone, he shrugs his shoulders and inspects his finger. “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Now, there are three truths you must know. A) eating the fruit would not and did not make Eve and Adam like God – the serpent lied, B) Satan had attempted his own little coup up in Heaven and failed miserably and C) Satan is a liar above all else and a master at manipulation.
However, Eve – poor, sweet, naïve, selfish, easily deluded – Eve saw the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and probably bit her finger as one does when apparently one desires something. She glanced sideways at the serpent, wiggling his eyebrows and came closer to the tree. “It does look mighty good.”
“Yes eat it my precious–“
*The Bible does not say this, I just like to imagine Satan as Gollum but twice as stupid looking and awful.*
So Eve, seeing that the tree was pretty and would supposedly making her wise like God, took the fruit and ate it – thus introducing the first sin to the world AND beginning the fall of humanity from grace (wooo). Yet, somehow, the fact that she did not gain earth-creating powers did not deter her from sharing the fruit with Adam. Now my dear tuner-inners, I assume the conversation went as follows.
“Hey Adam.”
“Yes dear?”
“Eat this.”
He takes the fruit from his wife and cocks his brow at her. “Isn’t this the fruit we are not supposed to be eating?”
“Yeah but I ate it and I’m not dead, so you can eat it too.”
He shrugs and eats it.
Now dear reader, it is important to consider two things in this interaction that we have no physical proof that existed. We know for one that Eve did give the fruit to Adam and he did eat it. Some argue that Eve deceived Adam and that he ate it unknowingly and thus woman mislead men….
BUT on A Light in the Darkness we are intellectuals. Intellectuals who understand human nature in that we are fascinated by what we cannot have. Obviously this is not a product of the fall considering the fact that it took like two words from some random serpent to convince Eve to eat something that could have KILLED her. My point being – Adam knew what the fruit was and decided to eat it.
On another note, it is completely possible that Adam was even with Eve when the serpent approached. Meaning he witnessed the WHOLE thing and still decided to eat the fruit.
Why did they not question this talking serpent? Could be because all animals talked? Could be that they were just used to things being created and were still getting the lay of the land. After all, we don’t know how much time passed between the creation of the world and Genesis 3 when the serpent arrives. Obviously enough time for Eve to seriously screw up and Satan to try ‘viva la revolution’ it up in Heaven.
Back to the story though.
Adam now having ate his fruit and chewed on it, realized he was NOT in fact dead either. However, man and wife looked at each other like it was the first time, and realized ‘omc we’re naked’. Yes dear reader, as you would know if you tuned into the last episode, humans were created naked. There was no Gucci or Prada to doll them up.
I would recreate what I imagine the interaction going like but I doubt it is very appropriate for this blog.
One second they’re just chewing on what I personally believe is a tomato because tomatoes are the devil’s ‘fruit’ and the next, their eyes are ‘opened’ and they’re like ‘oh dang, we do be naked’. Freaked out by extremities they had already seen for X amount of years they had existed, they ran and they started feverishly putting leaves together to cover them.
It should be said we do not know how they sewed together the leaves. However, as a people that never had the necessity for the skill, I imagine Eve and Adam were becoming well acquainted with the newly introduced pain as they likely stabbed themselves more than once in the interim.
“You did this,” Adam probably said to his wife as he stabbed himself for the eighth time. She sent him a dirty look, attempting to use a rose thorn to stab through a thin leaf and crying as the leaf broke for the hundredth time. She looks down in dejection at the growing pile of rejects.
Then they hear it. The Wind.
See, God liked to take strolls through the garden. Why wouldn’t He? Spending time with His homies, chillaxing with the lavish wildlife, kicking it with dinosaurs and sun tanning. Alas – coming down for His normal daddy-kid bonding time He found no one in the garden.
Or so they thought.
See Eve and Adam seemed to suffer from the worst human condition of mankind – stupidity. Where they somehow believed that if they jumped behind the bushes and used their newly made leaf clothing to disguise themselves, the Creator of the Universe who is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient would not be able to see them – they were wrong.
Still God, loving His Creation and giving them a chance to own up to their wrong, placed what I would assume are very large hands on His hips and pretended to squint His brow to find them. Now – evidently confounded 😉 – He called, “Where are you?”
Adam, finally using that newfound ‘knowledge’, stepped out from the bushes, contrite and slightly embarrassed. Who’s to say how well the leaves were working to cover his embarrassment? Made only more embarrassing I am sure by the volume of animals watching him. He scratched the back of his neck and glanced down at the ground where he played with a speck of dirt using his toe. “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
God, being the real dudebro, sighed and crossed his big burly arms. “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
Adam in his best petulant voice pointed at Eve standing in the bushes, accusation contorting his face. “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
This is where Adam should have realized he dun goofed – if you are hoping he did, I am going to have to disappoint you dear reader.
God looked to Eve, that great Fatherly look of understanding on His face, and waited until she slunk out of the forest probably with her chin dropped and her shoulders slumped. “What is this that you have done?”
Eve searched the forest and found the serpent, trying to get away by hiding behind a pair of hippo’s. Pointing at him in her own accusation she whinily said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
This is where Eve made her… fourth (?) mistake of the hour. See, there are few things God does not like and fewer He hates, but blaming other people for what you do? Not a fan. Adam not only blamed Eve, he also blamed GOD (bad move). Eve, of course never at fault, blamed the serpent.
Now we all know fairytales and myths have a crumb of truth and that all ideas must come from somewhere. Well tales as old as time have ripped off the ‘poisonous’ fruit and this next thing – curses.
Yes, God put a curse on the serpent, the man and the woman, just like you’d see Maleficent – however, this curse at time it was placed did not seem to have an end. There was no prince to kiss.
So, the serpent was cursed. To slither on his belly. To eat dust for the rest of his days. So that people would hate snakes and hate people and that people would crush snakes and they would bite them.
The woman was cursed. Child birthing pain became a thing (yes it did not exist before, so we have Eve to thank for that) and the ability to have children and bring them forth would become painful (yay for periods and ovulation). ON TOP of that, because of her betrayal of her husband, women will always toil with their husbands and they will rule over them.
The man was cursed. Whereas to this point he was a hedge fund baby, given everything he needed to survive and able to leisurely chillax by the waters with a pina colada, the Earth became cursed. Thorns, thistles, rocks in the soil came forth so that man must toil with the hearty conditions of the Earth to reap a harvest.
AND as a nice addition to the aforementioned curses, death fully came into swing. No it was not an immediate death in retribution of eating the fruit, but a slow, labourous march towards a certain end…
From this the first life was taken. Often chapter 4 of Genesis is where people consider the first murder to take place and it is. Murder meaning the forceful taking of a soul-filled life (IE a human being).
However, the first death is said to have come due to the animal who God supposedly killed to create the furs and skins for Adam and Eve to wear. Beginning the first of the sacrifices made to clothe (physically) the humans. However, the motif continues about animal sacrifice to spiritually clothe.
Now clothed and cursed, the humans were unsure of their fate as God convened with Himself. (Well Himself in three parts, the Trinity – Father, Son, Holy Spirit – The Trinity: God , The Trinity: Jesus , The Trinity: Holy Spirit ).
God to Himself goes “oh man, now that man knows about good and evil and pain and depression have come into the world, man can’t eat from the tree of life. If he does he will be stuck in misery as the entire Earth decays from his curse.”
So God summons big bois from heaven who come down, wings and thousands of eyes and feet, and the humans have to do the walk of shame out of the Garden of Eden. Which at this point would likely be overwrought with violence from the animals who no longer co-existed peacefully but instead probably started an all-out slaughter.
Now out of the garden, they watched what had been handed to them being taken away, and the big boi with a flaming sword stood at the entrance and watched them. Now – it is not said that the Angel had the flaming sword. Instead it says AND a flaming sword. Meaning there was probably a disembodied flaming sword just floating there.
So I imagine that going a little something like Adam and Eve walking away and this sword dancing in the air taunting them because these big kahuna’s are now no kahuna’s and are being forced out of the garden by a literal flaming weapon.
Episode 2 has thus concluded, tune in next time to learn about Satan – the serpent – the grumpy old man – and his revolution that sucked worse than Sultan Khalid bin Barghash in 1896 and lasted even less than that guys.
A Light in The Darkness 