The Forbidden Fruit
Read Genesis 2:16, 17 and Genesis 3:1–6 (see also John 8:44). Compare
the words of God’s commandment to Adam with the serpent’s words
to the woman. What are the differences between the speeches, and
what is the meaning of these differences?
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Note the parallels between God’s conversation with Adam (Gen.
2:16, 17) and Eve’s conversation with the serpent. It is as if the serpent
has now replaced God and knows even better than He does. At first,
he merely asked a question, implying that the woman had, perhaps,
misunderstood God. But then Satan openly questioned God’s intentions
and even contradicted Him.
Satan’s attack concerns two issues, death and the knowledge of good
and evil. While God clearly and emphatically stated that their death would
be certain (Gen. 2:17), Satan said that, on the contrary, they wouldn’t die,
stating that humans were immortal (Gen. 3:4). While God forbade Adam
to eat the fruit (Gen. 2:17), Satan encouraged them to eat the fruit because
by eating of it they would be like God (Gen. 3:5).
Satan’s two arguments, immortality and being like God, convinced
Eve to eat the fruit. It is troubling that as soon as the woman decided
to disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit, she behaved as if God were
no longer present and had been replaced by herself. The biblical text
alludes to this shift of personality. Eve uses God’s language: Eve’s
evaluation of the forbidden fruit, “saw that . . . was good” (Gen. 3:6),
reminds us of God’s evaluation of His creation, “saw . . . that it was
good” (Gen. 1:4, etc.).
These two temptations, those of being immortal and of being like
God, are at the root of the idea of immortality in ancient Egyptian and
Greek religions. The desire for immortality, which they believed was a
divine attribute, obliged these people to seek divine status, as well, in
order (they hoped) to acquire immortality. Surreptitiously, this way of
thinking infiltrated Jewish-Christian cultures and has given birth to the
belief in the immortality of the soul, which exists even today in many
churches.
Think of all the beliefs out there today that teach there’s some-
thing inherently immortal in all of us. How does our understand-
ing of human nature and the state of the dead provide us such
powerful protection against this dangerous deception?