After the first 2 humans ate from the Tree God warned them, what happens? What we'll be exploring is the dynamic of God confronting people, and the people's natural reaction to doing something they knew was messing up. Humanities knee jerk reaction is to hide when doing something wrong. To either hide themselves, or hide their mistake.

One thing we can conclude is that they are convinced that they did the wrong thing, not the right. Otherwise, they would have been defensive of their case in eating the fruit, and the woman wouldn't have blamed the serpent; she would have defended him. Instead, they acknowledge their action but don't take full responsibility by directing the blame away from themselves. We discuss many more elements of the interaction between God and the people. and it will continue into the consequences that results in the next verses and episodes.

In this episode, we learn how the woman over-focused on her desires and the fruit she shouldn’t have. This is lust, and lust leads to coveting, which leads to committing regretful actions. We discuss, the correlation of the woman’s struggle of temptation with that of addiction and condition of our struggle as humans to be inclined and deceived by what we see and what we can attain from forbidden things.

One other them that I forgot to discuss is how the woman gave her man the fruit as well. This goes to show the power of suggestion and peer pressure. When one person we love gives in, others around begin dropping like flies.

This is a good link for studying more on the theme of nakedness in the Bible:

https://www.ligonier.org/learn/series/themes-from-genesis/noahs-nakedness

God and Nakedness by R.C. Sproul from The Intimate Marriage

We explore the nature of who the serpent in the story is. One note not mentioned in the show that gives an expanded definition of the serpent/נחש is in Isaiah 27:1 when Leviathan (an ancient sea monster) was referred to as a serpent, with the same term. What was Leviathan? A serpent, a sea monster, possibly even could be described as a sea dragon or dinosaur. In addition, we talk about the conversation between the devil and the woman.

Here also is a link to a video by the late Dr. Michael Heiser on the topic of what kind of creature was the serpent?

https://youtu.be/VqY_61Ziu8Q?si=hSPr6KYVdc3qcI3j

What is the serpent?

https://youtu.be/4Qxj2UQ8hP0?si=bJx-ocGsnhv1TK8Z

Pastor Chris Eldridge and I cover difficult questions on how Genesis can be scientifically and logically validated as a legitimate account of our world's origin. We also discuss the two trees in the garden and what they were, as well as the non-discriminative role of women in the Bible. Lastly, we discussed Chiastic Structure which is the Hebrews way of patterning stories and concepts. Here is a visual outline of Genesis 2-3's chiastic structure:

GENESIS 2:4-17 - Man, Ground, Garden, Tree

GENESIS 2:10-25 - God, Man, Woman, Animals, Relationship, Names

GENESIS 3:1-5 - Dialog

GENESIS 3:6-8 - The Fall

GENESIS 3:9-13 - Dialog

GENESIS 3:14-21 - God, Man, Woman, Animals, Relationship, Names

GENESIS 3:22-24 - Man, Ground, Garden, Tree

Below is a link to the video Arrow of Time referenced by Chris about the problem of time and order in our world:

The reference to the Distant Starlight Problem links are here:

https://youtu.be/BGvds-t5Jy0

https://youtu.be/GOXE_ILbGNU

The last clarification is on the topic of guilt vs. shame:

We review the conflicts of the creation account and discuss how it is very easily reconcilable with reality. Although science, history, and literature seems to pose the Bible as too hard to except as reliable, the opposite is true. It takes as much or more faith to except. To be honest my hope is you see the value in continuing to study the Bible even when it seems tough to understand and swallow, because in the end, Understanding the Bible is Hearing God’s Words!

In this episode, we have Dave Aldridge join us as an elder and ex-chaplain to men and women in Addiction Life Recovery. We start with an overview on the first 2 chapters, talking about the difference between the first 2 accounts. The first is the macro specific an literal, yet general and abstract. Then the 2nd account is the micro, focusing on the personal and intimate story and themes of God and his intentions for humans.

We also ask difficult questions like: how can we trust the Bible for telling us the truth, when it's trying to tell us things like God made us out of physical dirt?

When it comes to the topic of the man and the woman, we discussed how the Bible both describes/explains but also seems to be prescribes/imply a pattern for relationships, sex, and family all in the matter of the last verses of chapter 2.

**Correction: Multiple times it was quoted that in the episode that Genesis doesn't use the actual word paradise; however, in the Greek Septuagint, this actually is the word used to describe "garden/orchard" it is the word "παράδεισον", as paradise and garden are synonyms in the Bible because of the Hebrew/Greek interchange.

Why isn't it okay to be alone? Humans are built for connection, it's clear no human can function on their own. No animal can replace human relationships. God knew this. We spend the episode discussing if the drawn-out retelling of God making a man and taking woman from his side is metaphorical to prove a point, or whether it is the way that things literally happened.

Also, are men superior to women because they were created first? What does the Bible mean when it talks about a helper? Discover God's originally structure and plan for the family unit as we end the initial story of what and how God made the world!

A resource to the reference I made about why the man couldn't name himself until there was the woman, was from the course The Genesis Story: Reading Biblical Narrative.

In this episode God gives his first official command, which is better understood as instructions.

Here’s is a link to what the trees are and represent in scripture and what the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Is:

https://youtu.be/gNYcETwk4LY?si=PR34difd0hG_1LRj

In the Garden there were 4 rivers that branched from Eden! Where did it go? What happened to 2 of the 4 rivers? Was the land of Eden the lost city of Atlantis? We'll discuss and discover some of the details of the land of Eden and theories for where it could have been located.