Adam was not deceived but chose to eat of the forbidden tree. Why?

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Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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There is an implication in the Bible that women can be more easily deceived than males by Satan.
Because of this, and also because He created a male first, God has given the responsibility of leadership in marriage, and in the church, to men.
I understand that this comment originated from the OP's suggestion that the leadership in marriage is shared, although that might have better been left for an entirely separate thread even if there is more argument for your position than there is mine. My position comes from original Hebrew word understandings of those for father, 'abba,' and mother, 'em.' Both begin with the letter 'alef,' the symbol of leadership. But again, this particular discussion could well generate enough interest for its very own thread.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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i gave you a link to a page with the definition of the Hebrew word in Genesis 3:6
so you can read it "with me"


does that 100% indicate you have been sitting in my lap for the last 2 hours?
that is what you are arguing it means.
i am arguing that "with" can refer to common action, possession, thought, purpose etc
as the definition of the word says it does, in fact, says it most commonly means.


so who is the one who is wrong about this?
I remember when "with it" meant hip slick and cool :unsure::giggle::giggle::giggle:
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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1) The serpent told her. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your
eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”


2) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil."

The serpent did not say, for instance, you will become like God to be omnipresent.
Or you will become like God to be all powerful. No. He said as I have quoted many times.

And God agreed that they had become like Him ("one of Us") in that way.
In knowing good and evil, yes.
God said of everything in the garden, 'it was good,' right? So, do you think it is not so much 'not good' that we know good and evil as it is not good that death comes to us by the knowledge of it?
 
May 7, 2022
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Yes Adam chose to eat, Eve was deceived. Remember the walking, talking serpent was a trickster. He convinced eat she could be like unto God. So she partook and sometime later gave to Adam, how much time, we don't know. Could have been days she was under the serpent's influence.
My question is, what was the fruit? How could a tree have the knowledge of being both good and evil?
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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i gave you a link to a page with the definition of the Hebrew word in Genesis 3:6
so you can read it "with me"


does that 100% indicate you have been sitting in my lap for the last 2 hours?
that is what you are arguing it means.
i am arguing that "with" can refer to common action, possession, thought, purpose etc
as the definition of the word says it does, in fact, says it most commonly means.


so who is the one who is wrong about this?
I remember when "with it" meant hip slick and cool :unsure::giggle::giggle::giggle:
Is post saying that Adam was hip to her or cool with her? or being slick?
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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In knowing good and evil, yes.
God said of everything in the garden, 'it was good,' right? So, do you think it is not so much 'not good' that we know good and evil as it is not good that death comes to us by the knowledge of it?
What is not good is deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong
aside from/in opposition to God's explicit instruction on the matter :)
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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Is post saying that Adam was hip to her or cool with her? or being slick?
I do see post's point that "with her" has multiple meanings. Particularly in regards to "with" connoting
being in agreement with. Yet in that regard, Adam was not with Eve, for she was deceived and he was
not. I take it that Scripture saying Adam was with her meant he was right there as she ate.
"She took the
fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it."
Sounds like location to me :)
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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What is not good is deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong
aside from/in opposition to God's explicit instruction on the matter :)
True, we seem to continuously misconstrue the difference between knowing it all and judging it all rightly.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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1) The serpent told her. “For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your
eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”


2) Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil."

The serpent did not say, for instance, you will become like God to be omnipresent.
Or you will become like God to be all powerful. No. He said as I have quoted many times.

And God agreed that they had become like Him ("one of Us") in that way.
yes, but the serpent told Woman that they way to become like God in that aspect was to eat from the forbidden tree; i.e. to trespass.
God did not say this. i am suspicious about everything the serpent says, because of John 8:44
God did say they had become like Him in that aspect but i take the time He chose to say it to be very significant: the order of events


  • Woman eats
  • Adam eats
  • they make garments of fig leaves
  • they hear God
  • they hide
  • God elicits Adam's response
  • Adam confesses he has sinned
  • Woman confesses she has sinned
  • God curses the serpent, giving the protoevangelion, promising the Seed of the Woman
  • God judges Woman, then Adam
  • Adam changes Woman's name to Eve
  • God clothes them
  • God makes the pronouncement of having become like Him in a certain aspect

to my understanding God clothes them & makes this pronouncement as a response to Adam calling his wife Eve, changing her name.
if God was making this pronouncement simply on account of their having sinned, then i would expect this pronouncement to come before Adam speaks. it's a judicial setting; God presides, hears testimony, then gives judgement. typically this is where the gavel is struck. but then Adam reacts to what the Judge has decreed, and God speaks again.
if that makes sense?


i have also the point that, Satan wants to be "like the Most High" ((Isaiah 14:14)), and part of his persuasion of Woman is telling her she can be 'like God' specifically by committing sin. he is a murderer from the beginning; he is murdering Woman. he convinces her that she can achieve a sort of divinity through wickedness - if what he tells her is true, then there it raises big theological problems about the goodness of God and what it means to be like Him in any aspect. the thing that solves that potential line of heretical implications is that it isn't eating from the tree that causes God to make the pronouncement of deity-likeness, but Adam's changing his wife's name.

IMO Adam changes her name because he hears the gospel, believes it, repents and acts in faith.
he calls his currently-dead-wife "life" because he trusts the promise God made in the cursing of the serpent.
God responds to this by accounting their faith as righteousness, shedding blood, clothing them, and pronouncing them 'like Him'
in a certain aspect





i may of course be wrong, but 'that's my story and i'm sticking to it'
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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yes, but the serpent told Woman that they way to become like God in that aspect was to eat from the forbidden tree; i.e. to trespass.
God did not say this.
After Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, this is exactly what God said:

Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil.
And now, lest he reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...”


So what does it mean, "to know good and evil"?

I have thoughts on it :D
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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I do see post's point that "with her" has multiple meanings. Particularly in regards to "with" connoting
being in agreement with. Yet in that regards, Adam was not with Eve, for she was deceived and he was
not. I take it that Scripture saying Adam was with her meant he was right there as she ate.
"She took the
fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it."
Sounds like location to me :)
I've always looked at it that way also, although I'm interested in new perspectives. Perhaps Adam was with her, as well as 'cool with it,' and so she was like, 'here, ...' and he ate. No hesitation, not long consideration for or against it, he just took it and ate.
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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After Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, this is exactly what God said:
some time after!

as an absurd example, i could say 'after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, Adam begat Seth' -- it's true in terms of timeline, but that doesn't necessarily imply causality. there are a bunch of intervening events.
what often does imply causality is proximity in time, in the record.

God says this in proximity to Adam changing her name to Eve, and Adam changes her name in proximity to the cursing of Satan and the pronouncement of their judgement.
 

Mem

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
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from original Hebrew word understandings of those for father, 'abba,' and mother, 'em.'
just wanted to edit this part to say the word for father is "ab,' and that for mother is 'em.'
Abba and Emma are closer to a translation of 'daddy' and 'mommy.'
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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she partook and sometime later gave to Adam, how much time, we don't know.
long enough for her to speak to him -- because God said he 'listened to her voice'
what she said isn't recorded for us, so there is clearly an intervening time between her eating and her giving some to him.


as long as a Woman who has just done something enormously significant might talk :LOL::giggle:
 

posthuman

Senior Member
Jul 31, 2013
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"She took the
fruit and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it."
Sounds like location to me :)
"who was" is in italics. it's not part of the text.

it's,
"
she also gave some to her husband with her"


all i am saying is that the text does allow for the interpretation that he wasn't standing there while she was being deceived and taking the fruit. it does not demand the interpretation that he stood behind her shoulder as a silent witness unwilling to act to help her or hold her back from poisoning herself over while he, undeceived, knew that she was essentially being murdered, or committing suicide right in front of him.
 

Magenta

Senior Member
Jul 3, 2015
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We don't know his thought process.
some time after!

as an absurd example, i could say 'after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree, Adam begat Seth' -- it's true in terms of timeline, but that doesn't necessarily imply causality. there are a bunch of intervening events.
what often does imply causality is proximity in time, in the record.


God says this in proximity to Adam changing her name to Eve, and Adam changes her name in proximity to the cursing of Satan and the pronouncement of their judgement.
It does not matter how long it took. Their knowing good and evil was a direct
result of eating from the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
 

JohnDB

Well-known member
Jan 16, 2021
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"who was" is in italics. it's not part of the text.

it's,
"
she also gave some to her husband with her"


all i am saying is that the text does allow for the interpretation that he wasn't standing there while she was being deceived and taking the fruit. it does not demand the interpretation that he stood behind her shoulder as a silent witness unwilling to act to help her or hold her back from poisoning herself over while he, undeceived, knew that she was essentially being murdered, or committing suicide right in front of him.
No it doesn't. It's because of the grammar construction that it's this way.
Hebrew doesn't work like English. You are putting modern westernized mindset again on Ancient Near Eastern literature whose grammar mechanics are completely different than the way you think.
 

JohnDB

Well-known member
Jan 16, 2021
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There is no misogynistic lesson to be had from the way you are interpretating the scriptures...it would be out of line with what scriptures teach.

Adam sinned just as Eve did and Adam committed more sins than Eve did.

It's not hard to see that unless you have a healthy case of misogyny.
Did God form Eve the same as Adam? Personally and intimately create her?
(Which implies that God cares for women the same as men)

Jesus treated Mary and Martha the same...both got equal love even though they both were on different behavior levels...Mary was learning just like as if she were one of the men. Jesus had no issue with it whatsoever. Martha did and was chastised for her issue.
 
Jan 12, 2022
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I think you may be getting close to the right idea but miss it here by trying to fit the three frogs into it.

In posing the first question to Eve, it seems to me that the serpent's intention is to suggest that Eve question God's word. Then, he outright 'reveals' to her that God is a liar. And finally, he offers her 'the truth,' and she bites the hook.

I'm mot sure how you've come to the conclusion that she is possessed tho. The frogs again mebbe?
The main reason to see clearly woman is possessed by the Devil is in the Fatal Verse of Genesis 3:6. It's a quick verse yet it is loaded with importance. Right after the serpent breaks the Spirit, his own breath of life, into the first Three Lies, and casts them into the woman's mind, we actually see the effect of the Lies in the woman's mind and how she is looking at the fruit way different than she was before. She eats and even after eating and knowing Good and Evil gives it to the man who just simply eats not knowing that she is possessed by the Devil. This is driven home in their confessions because when Adam confesses to eating he says the woman gave it to him, that's all he knew. Just the same the woman when she confesses admits the serpent had bewitched her into doing his bidding, literally to be a possession a solider in his spiritual kingdom that was created that day from the Three Lies, the kingdom of Pandemonium.

Genesis 3:6
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.