Six Weird Things About The Adam And Eve Narrative

There was a time I believed this story verbatim. As a child, I had heard it told probably hundreds of times, having attended church three times a week and for two weeks every year for Vacation Bible School. In my teen years, I also attended Christian Fellowship Club at high school three times a week and Youth Group every Friday as well as Christian roller skating every Monday night. I was well indoctrinated into the belief system.

Much later in life, when I read the story again, with fresh eyes, a glaring problem jumped out at me. I was shocked I had never seen it before. Later, other problems also popped up that I had never noted before.

I have been seeking answers from Bible-believers, but the ones I am getting are far from satisfactory, so I decided to get back to the blog and write.

If anyone has the answers, please do share them. I do not have a need to be ‘right’. I want to be in the truth – or as close as I can get in this lifetime.

Since I hesitate to call the entity in the Old Testament known as God, I will go by what scholars are now calling him – Yahweh. (Incidentally, when I was growing up, the name Yahweh was never used in church circles, but it certainly is now. I am not sure why that is but it’s worth exploring another time.)

The Narrative – Condensed

The story about Adam and Eve that I am critiquing comes from the Bible and can be found in Genesis 2 and 3. The narrative is as follows.

Yahweh creates the world as we know it – the sun, the water, land etc and then creates a man – Adam, and later, his companion Eve. Yahweh puts them in the Garden Of Eden where they are told they can eat of any tree in the garden except for one tree – The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Geneses 2:16-17 reads like this… “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”.

A serpent tempts Eve into partaking of the fruit of that tree, and Adam also partakes of the fruit. Their eyes are opened to good and evil and they realize they are naked. They hide their nakedness with fig leaves. When they hear Yahweh walking in the garden, they try to hide from him, to no avail. Yahweh is angry with Adam and Eve and the serpent and then curses them all. He kicks Adam and Eve out of the garden and instead of living in comfort they must work the land in order to live. The serpent is cursed with having to live out his days crawling on his belly eating dust.

I’m not delving into the fact that there happens to be a talking serpent in the story or a god creating a man from dust or any of that or why create a tree that is nothing but temptation and ‘bad’ or any of that. For the sake of argument, let’s just assume that it all happened. I don’t know what is going on here, but the idea that some loving father did this is difficult, like many Biblical concepts the followers simply accept without question.

The Problems

1) Blame The Woman

If you read the entire story, you will see that although Eve was never warned directly by Yahweh about taking the fruit from the tree, she somehow takes most of the blame. Genesis 2:16 clearly tells us that the warning went to Adam alone. Eve had not even been created yet. Why does she seem to take most of the blame in Christian circles?

As well, while being tempted by the serpent, Genesis 2:6 tells us that Adam was right alongside her. Although it says that the serpent spoke to Eve, we know that he was right there and also partook of the fruit with her.

In Christian circles, man is supposed to be the spiritual leader. Heck, women are not even qualified to to speak in a church! So why does she seem to get more of the blame if they both took part of the fruit together?

2) A Pet Might Be As Good As A Woman

Genesis 2:18 tells us ^” The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

How lovely. A helper and companion for the man. Great idea! But wait! I know you’re thinking that Yahweh then created Eve, right? Nope! Yahweh created animals to be a suitable helper or companion for Adam first, and when that did not suffice, he then decides to create a woman.

It was not until after Adam names all of these animals, it is realized that no suitable companion among the animals was found. Now some men may argue that Adam could have found a suitable companion in a dog, but where would humanity have been without Eve? We would not even exist. Didn’t Yahweh think this all through?

3) Who told the Truth? Yahweh or the Serpent?

If you read the story verbatim, this problem is glaring. It is the first one that finally jumped out at me after reading it several times and never having noticed it previously. If you read it with rose-colored glasses, you may not have seen it before. But here it is.

Yahweh lied and the serpent told the truth. Bam! Yes indeed. That is what happened. Yahweh told Adam that they would die if they ate the fruit. The serpent told them they would not die, and that their eyes would be opened to good and evil. And look what happened. They did not die. They continued living for hundreds of year and their eyes were opened to good and evil.

I’ve tried to point this out in Christian circles and I get the same tired “answers” over and over. But none of them make sense, and none are mentioned in the actual texts and all are fabricated to make the story sound better. Here they are:

“Well, clearly Adam and Eve died a spiritual death!”

Where does it say that? No where! It is completely fabricated in order to make the story ‘work’. First off, becoming aware of good and evil is an awakening, not a death!
As well if they died a spiritual death, what would that even look like? They were two humans walking around without spirits? Your answer makes no sense.

2) “Well, clearly Adam and Eve were meant to live forever and ever in the garden, but, because they ate the fruit, they suddenly became mortal and subject to dying a physical death!”

Oh really? Okay again, where does it say that? Nowhere! And ironically, this answer is basically the opposite of the first “answer”. The first says they died a spiritual death that day and this is saying they immediately were capable of dying a physical death…..but the death was later – much later – like 930 years later. Yes, it is mentioned that Adam went on to live to be 930 years old. In conclusion, then the threat of Yahweh, if a real threat at all, actually becomes,
“If you eat of the fruit, you will surely die in about 900 years”. What kind of threat is that?

Also note that there is no mention as to how long Eve lived.

3) “Clearly, when Adam and Eve ate of the fruit that day, they died that kind of “death” where they lost communion with Yahweh”.

Alrighty then. And where does it say that? Once again – nowhere! They claim that Yahweh and Adam and Eve had some kind of relationship where they communed with him in the garden.

Where do they get that idea?

Believe it or not, they garner their position based on a single verse that says, “Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord. “(Genesis 2:8) We are not even get into the fact that the story tells us that Adam and Eve hide and this all-knowing Yahweh doesn’t seem to know where they are hiding.

Honestly, this is the verse they use to ‘prove’ that point. There is nothing about this verse that tells me that they had some kind of close relationship or communion together.

If you’re not convinced, it’s because you are indoctrinated. Here is an example I hope you will ponder. Let’s say you are on the jury of a court case where a woman was killed by a man. A friend of the accused takes the stand insisting that the accused man and the victim had a relationship because the man walked around her yard one afternoon, she heard him and she hid from him. ??

This one verse in no way implies a ‘relationship’ where Yahweh, Adam and Eve communed together.

In reality, going by what we can actually read, before eating the fruit, there was only one time that Yahweh spoke to Adam. He never even spoke to Eve, as stated above. Genesis 2:15, Yahweh ‘commanded the man” not to eat of the fruit and threatens him with death. There are no more conversations until Yahweh finds out the sinners and curses them.

To prove the opposite and an obvious indicator of a lack or relationship or communion with Yahweh is in Genesis 2:8. “The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.” The whole reason Yahweh created Eve in the first place was because Adam was alone. The man needed some company and Yahweh was not it. So you can not logically or honestly take that one verse that Yahweh walking in the garden after they sinned as a reason to believe that Adam, Eve and Yahweh ever communed together -ridiculous mental gymnastics.

4) Why did Yahweh want humans to be naked an unaware?

Most Christians view the story of Adam and Eve, also known as “the fall”, as a colossal failure where humanity was doomed as soon as Adam and Eve became aware of good and evil. They regard humanity as being better off with our eyes closed and ignorant and naked – without a moral compass. Bizarre….. Twisted actually. And what kind of god punishes generations forever and ever due to the so-called ‘sins’ of one or two? The punishing of many due to the ‘sins’ of one or two is a resounding theme from this supposed ‘god of love’.

5) The man became like god? That is what it does say.

Genesis 3:22 states “And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” According to this verse, humans became god-like once Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and realized good from evil. That is what it says.

The Christian narrative is that this god knows all and certainly knows the future. But this verse seems to fly in the face of that dogma. If this god is all-knowing, why did he not realize this would happen? So many questions that never really get answered adequately. Even later, in Genesis 6:6 after having humans around for many generations, this god says ⁶ The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. So this god who is all-knowing and sees the future has regrets? Does that make sense? I’ll answer. “NO!”

6) So humans do not live forever?

The second half of Genesis 3:22 continues with this god speaking and saying “and now, lest he (the man) put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever”.

According to the scriptures directly after this, the man was kicked out of the garden and the tree of life was guarded by cherubims with flaming swords so that he could not eat of the Tree of Life and then have the ability to live forever.

So why is the Christian narrative stating that humans live forever and will face eternity upon a physical death?

I can see why this verse is largely ignored or glossed over.

In the story, who really is the bad guy here?

On one hand you have Yahweh for wanting to keep humanity naked and naive, who puts temptation in the garden for them, albeit with a stern warning, only to curse them with hardship when they succumb to the temptation – again put in front of them by Yahweh?

After they eat of it, Yahweh curses not only the ones who succumbed to temptation, but also all of humanity – forever and ever. Further, if he is the good guy, is it just and fair to curse all of humanity with pain and suffering due to the ‘sins’ of two people? Of course, that is not right and that is not fair.

Is the serpent the good guy? The one who informed them that they would gain insight? No matter what, even Christians will agree that the serpent was correct in that eating of the tree did give them insight into knowing good from evil. Why Christians feel we would be better off naked and unaware is beyond my understanding.

In order to truly solidify the narrative that the serpent was the bad guy, the Christian narrative has decided that the serpent was actually the devil, merely appearing in the form of a serpent. But it doesn’t say that. It does not say that anywhere in the story. So how do they reconcile the idea that the serpent was the devil? They take another verse, literally written thousands of years later, in order to make it fit.

The verse they use is Revelation 12:9, which is supposed to tell us the future fate of the devil. “ And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.”

Even though the verse also refers to him as a ‘dragon’, that reference is completely ignored. That is how it is done. Ignore verses that do not fit with the narrative. Just ignore them. Since the verse in Revelation also calls him a “serpent” they just go with that and voila – this serpent is clearly the very creature that tempted Adam and Eve. More mental gymnastics at work.

For those who don’t know, Genesis was the first book of the Bible, written around 1450 BC, and Revelation was the last, written in 95 AD. So, anyone reading the scriptures for the 1500 years in between would not have known about this reference and would not have even known that the serpent was supposedly the devil!

Can we swap out serpent for Satan every time we see it? Did Moses brother Aaron cast down his rod before Pharoah and the rod became Satan, as in Exodus 7:10?

Moses made a a serpent of brass that people gazed upon and were saved. So Moses made a depiction of Satan from brass that saved people?

Of course, it makes no sense to simply swap out “serpent’ for ‘satan’, but that is what is done, when convenience justifies it.

One more thing. It does not actually fit that the devil appeared to Adam and Eve unless you believe that the devil is still crawling around on his belly and eating dust, because that was the curse and his fate forever, as found in Genesis 3:14. “And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” Ask any Christian if the devil is still crawling on his belly eating dust.

One last case in point is that Jesus told his followers to be wise as serpents. Matthew 10:16 ¹⁶ Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.

It’s an interesting comparison.

So many issues with so much of this.

See it for what it is, not for what you want it to be.