Genesis 3. The Fall

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2 responses to “Genesis 3. The Fall”

1. 

   July 17, 2026

   Nathaniel Largo

   I have a lot of thoughts with this stretch of scripture. Gensis 3:5-6 says “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.” Was the tree always a delight to the eyes and they just hadn’t looked upon it out of adherence to God’s will? Was this an illusion created by the serpent to tempt Eve into defying God’s will? Did Man truly crave power so much in their base state that even being in the presence of their creator, so close to heaven itself was not enough in the face of the offer of more? When they go on to initially hide themselves from the presence of the Lord, was it really out of shame of being naked, but having the knowledge that they defied His wishes, and therefore knew shame in a whole different way; in a sense that becoming one flesh under the Father had been separated by the perceived need of modesty among one’s perfect creator? Are sewn together fig leaves the first attempt to separate ourselves from God out of shame of our lust for power?

   I feel like a lot of people have shared their thoughts on what God’s punishment for Eve was in pain in childbirth, and I could say a great deal about that as well, but I thought Adam’s punishment this particular read through was really interesting. In Genesis 3:17c-18 (I don’t know if we’d call it 17c because it’s after two commas, but it’s not the beginning of 17, so I wanted a distinction), it says “‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.” Is the curse our introduction to pain and disease? Did the fruit of Eden and living in the presence of God sustain our bodies in a way where we would have never died, never fallen ill, never aged, never felt injury? So our curse was to no longer have the sustenance of the garden that was created for us and instead had to live with thorns and thistles; injuries and maladies that would plague us for the rest of our lives because of our disobedience.

   In Genesis 3:22a, it says “Then the Lord God said, ‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil.’” We get another mention of us, implying someone in the presence of God who possesses the knowledge of good and evil. Jesus and the Holy Spirit? Angels with whom God entrusted with this knowledge? The assignment of the cherubim to guard Eden to prevent reentry is heavy. There are really varied images online as to what this angel realistically looked like based off other descriptions in the Bible, and while we will likely never know short of God allowing us this knowledge in heaven, was it something Adam and Eve had already been in the presence of? Could this have been a friend of theirs that was now tasked with keeping them expelled? God only commanded them not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but during their expulsion, He commands the angel to block them from eating from the tree of life so that they may not live forever. Was this not necessary before? I posed a similar idea earlier, but would the fruit of the garden and adherence of God’s will have kept them alive forever, but upon breaking away from God, only the fruit of the tree of life could grant them this? Or had they already eaten from it and then it was taken away from them, further connecting to the thorns and thistles we traded in as our punishment and then had to be relegated to the food of the Earth rather than the food of heaven?

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2. 

   August 29, 2026

   Nathaniel Largo

   I wanted to add to my above answer about their respective punishments after what you said about the translation of the word “pain” for Eve and Adam. I like your thought about the pain being continued bearing and raising of children; not to suggest that this does not bring men and women a great deal of joy, but to say that the pain that comes with it now is a result of our sin. Think about the anxiety we feel about letting our kids try new things, or worrying that they are going to get sick or hurt themselves doing something unsafe — those kinds of stressors would have been completely absent in the Garden. Maybe the pain that specifically Eve would feel goes beyond pregnancy discomfort and labor pains and an entire slew of other concerns that come with this territory, and extend into a spiritual ache that comes with raising children set apart from their true Father.

   Your questions:

   Why does the serpent approach the woman first?

   That’s a good question; I didn’t really think about it when I first read the verses in question. Operating without context of how the serpent came to be in its current state, perhaps it knew that Adam had been in the presence of God longer, and therefore would be harder to deceive?

   Maybe it was purely an act of opportunity. I realize this is a stretch, but go with me if you’re curious: because of how the story is being communicated to us, we don’t know if the serpent’s presence in the Garden has been an issue prior to this. Maybe it had been caught in the past and thrown out by God, only to sneak back in. I know I am saying maybe a lot, but maybe the area where the serpent spoke to Eve was a place it believed was safe from God’s sight because it had gotten away with being there in the past. So it could have just as easily been Adam in that situation, but all have boiled down to the opportunity of being in a particular part of the Garden. Lot of maybes, but…maybe.

   Why did God create man to be unwise? Why not give them the knowledge of good and evil before choosing evil? Could they still show the ability to trust God while also knowing what was evil?

   Maybe it wasn’t a question of wisdom and instead His wish for us to be spared of having to know what evil was. Given His love for us, I believe that He wanted to keep us from having to experience that which He wishes to distance himself from most. Again, I don’t know that it wasn’t them being able to trust God while knowing what evil was, but rather Him wanting to save us from everything that would come from this knowledge.

   Did snake have legs or wings originally? Like a little flying dragon?

   The idea of it resembling what we have come to think dragons looked like is really interesting to me. I am not sure of the exact sources, but there’s a bit in “The Guardian of All Things: The Epic Story of Human Memory” by Michael Shawn Malone where he talks about the origin of the image of dragons in human history. He traces back instances of it being depicted throughout history, and there are also connections that are made to “virtually all cultures around the globe” in terms of having images or representations of dragon-like figures. This is where I am not sure of the sources, but I have heard that – somehow – cultures that have never interacted with other cultures to learn of their representations of dragons (like some of these cultures that still live in extreme isolation) have created similar depictions of dragons. So it’s not like they were all reading The Hobbit and getting excited about this fictional creature; it’s almost like there is something deeply embedded in human’s genetic code that we have an idea of what this creature is. Could that be our basic understanding of a physical manifestation of sin, of Lucifer’s form in the garden? So fascinating.

   Is “desire” positive or negative? What about “rule”?

   I honestly don’t know! This one is tough, because I feel like my assumptions on what the passage is saying are battling with my beliefs about male and female roles in society today. It seems like it would negative; saying that her only desire would be to be with her husband, where as should she have remained obedient and stayed within the Garden, she might have been allowed to pursue whatever desires she wished? Purely speculative, obviously, but the idea of the husband ruling over her is what makes it seem negative. Again, this is operating at odds with how I view men and women today as being equals, but my assumption is that she is being made to desire someone that will never be able to reciprocate love in a way that God could. This could make it seem like the man is “ruling” over her, because she will continue to pursue that kind of Godly love forever and never really receive it.ew

   What does this mean – “Behold the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil”. We know evil existed before the fall due to Lucifer – but how? Did evil always exist? Or at least the potential to choose evil once He created angels with free will. Which means the taking of the fruit was not the first sin overall?

   This is one that might make my head hurt, so I’m not totally sure if I can give a good answer. I believe God created the universe and everything that we’ve discussed so far in the first few chapters of the Bible. This is true in my heart. But if I am believing that God is capable of doing all that, then where does evil come into play? If such a feeling / state of being exists, would it not be so because God defined its characteristics? Or do we say evil exists because it is the cosmic opposite to God’s goodness? But why do cosmic opposites exist if God did not create them? This is the sort of thing that makes me feel like I’ll go in circles forever on it. While I am not a Biblical scholar by any stretch of the imagination, I think this is one of those questions that might boil down to a leap of faith. Not leaping over the logical or leaping passed having to think too deeply about something, but leaping in the direction of God, because He is the only one that could really answer something like this. Perhaps the true nature of free will creates evil without His intervention, because choosing anything other than God is itself a sin.

   Why wouldn’t God want them to know good and evil?

   I already kind of answered this above, so I won’t go into a lot more detail, but I did have another thought that I felt like kind of tied in to previous observations you made and comments I made.

   I keep coming back to adding thorns and thistles to the Earth, and even now thinking about your question surrounding whether we were meant to eat animals. Try to stick with me, cause I think this could be a cool idea. If man was granted dominion over fish, bird, and beast, but they were not intended to eat them, did animals ever view humans as prey in any sense? Were lions walking among Adam and Eve without a thought of attack? Was this due to the lack of the knowledge of good and evil and therein the dangers the world could pose? Were these thorns and thistles added to the beasts of the land to no longer recognize man’s place above them? I think the knowledge element and the consequences from eating of the tree ends up being a lot deeper than we could possible realize as we were forced to leave paradise. Maybe it was always His sincere hope that we would never need to know of the dangers of the world and instead embrace living in the presence of perfection, rather than to stumble and potentially take the same path Lucifer did.

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