Wednesday Bible Study: Ladies' Night part 2

 

In a Bible study with my son, I wisely said, "Studying a Bible character not named Jesus is a lot like paleontology.  Sometimes you get most of a skeleton, sometimes part of a jawbone.  Now if you can look at that fragment and say, 'this is like the same part on a 60 foot long, walks-on-all-fours dinosaur that lived in a swamp, we can extrapolate that it probably looked like this'. We can do the same with SOME tradition- but it's got to fit a character.  We can't randomly put a big sail, feathers, or a spiked tail on a piece that we've never known to have them."

And the fragment of a jawbone I have this week is a lady who's taken a bad rap over the years- Eve.  And I wanted to paint her in a more complete light, but there's just not a lot there.  I'm going to bring up some things that are opinion- that I will try to back- to get a better understanding of what she was like and what really happened.  I hope you'll indulge me here.

I want to start with my first, and lesser, extrapolation, to set the scene.   The bad guy of our scene is, of course, the serpent...

Gen 3:1  Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the garden'?"
Gen 3:2  And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
Gen 3:3  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.'"
Gen 3:4  But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
Gen 3:5  For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Okay, so we have a talking snake- or do we?  Go back just a wee bit to this convo with Adam:

Gen 2:18  Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him."
Gen 2:19  Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
Gen 2:20  The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him.

Now, consider this- none of these animals told Adam what they were called- HE named Them.  So we can suppose the serpent talking is a difference in the garden.  This would indicate that Satan had taken some possession of the animal.  But wait-look back at 3:1- it's the ANIMAL that's more crafty.  Satan was using an innate ability of the animal, perhaps.  Did Satan make a 'deal' with the animal?  Why else would God punish an otherwise 'dumb animal' at the end?

Gen 3:14  The LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life..."

Here, we see the serpent was something OTHER than the snakes we know and love.  The Jews tradition says it was more of a anthropomorphic dragon when it approached Eve.A stretch?  Maybe...

Rev 12:7  Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back,
Rev 12:8  but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven.
Rev 12:9  And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world--he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. 

And maybe not.  So say we've got what we might call a dragon, possessed by Satan and speaking in his voice.  Having established this, let me go on to our second bit of "tradition fill-in".  Step back to Eve's response:

Gen 3:2  And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,
Gen 3:3  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.'" 

 

Note that part I boldened- 'neither shall you touch it.'  Now, let's go back to what God REALLY said to Adam:

Gen 2:16  And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
Gen 2:17  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."

Two things here.  First, and not so obvious: If you keep track of the verses and chapters, you see that this conversation happened BEFORE God made Eve.  Second, you see that 'neither shall you touch' was not in God's statement to Adam.  So ADAM had to have added it first.  Why?

God had been instructing Adam, giving him the lay of the land, as it were. Eve, however, came later and had to be instructed by Adam for the most part.  Eve is naive, and Adam is giving her a child's treatment- "If I tell her not to even TOUCH the tree, she'll stay away from it", perhaps he's thinking.  Here's where we'll veer off the track a bit yet again.  From the Jewish Encyclopedia:

Satan, or the serpent, which then had almost the shape of a man (Gen. R. xix. 1), displayed great argumentative skill in explaining the selfish reasons which had prompted God's prohibition (Pirḳe R. El. l.c.; Gen. R. xix.; Tan., Bereshit, viii.), and convinced Eve by ocular proof that the tree could be touched (comp. Ab. R. N. i. 4) without entailing death.

In fact, one of my sources said that this serpent/dragon physically pushed her into the tree to prove she wouldn't die.  Convinced that this wasn't true- and again, to naive to figure out a dragon should NOT be able to talk to her, was easily tempted as we all are, by Satan's three big attacks:

Gen 3:6  So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food...the lust of the flesh;

...and that it was a delight to the eyes...the lust of the eyes;

...and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise... the pride of life;

So, where do we go from here?  We ask, why did Adam teach her that added bit- without which, Satan would have not gotten a foothold? Because he was teaching her like she was a child.  And why was he doing that? I'm guessing pride.  So he could be higher in her esteem than God.  That would, in turn explain 2 things.  One: Why he fell so easily into eating the fruit in the first place:  Now SHE looked smarter than God, he might as well, too.  Two:  One of the questions always asked about THIS part of the verse:

 

  ...she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 

 

The debate always being, does this mean Adam was with her the WHOLE TIME?  I say no, because HE would have realized that a) his addition had messed things up, and b) dragons shouldn't be able to talk.  He WAS with her, though, when she brought the fruit to him and said, "See you can touch the tree!  And watch this... (chomp)."

To finish out my speculation, this is why the Bible teaches us the fault was with Adam...

Rom 5:17  For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
Rom 5:18  Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.
Rom 5:19  For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

(he committed the trespass and disobedience)

...and the consequence came to Eve...

1Ti 2:11  Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness.
1Ti 2:12  I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
1Ti 2:13  For Adam was formed first, then Eve;
1Ti 2:14  and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. 

Get this- Adam was not deceived- he SINNED.  Eve did not SIN (at first)- she was tricked.  Had Adam stuck to just what God said, none of the Fall would have happened- THAT time.

So that is my reconstruction of a "dinosaur" named Eve.  Whether it is all the way right or not, God knows, not I.  All I know for sure, is it follows a familiar Biblical pattern.  Satan finds a chink in the armor, uses pride to pry it over, and you fall.  And the sin isn't the fall as much as the pride that allowed it.