by Samuel Sanders

Created on: August 20, 2010

When considering the idea of "the temptation in the Garden of Eden," care should be taken to read beyond English versions.  Anyone, interested enough to dig deeper, can use "The Interlinear Bible: Hebrew English" and "Strong's Concordance," a lot of time in contemplation of what is found there and a willingness to go beyond preconceived ideas and notions about this subject.  However, this article is too short to go into all that is found there.

Consider Genesis 3:1. The serpent was a beast of field.  The field was outside the Garden of Eden.  Grammatically, this places the serpent or whisperer (Hebrew) in the field and not in the garden.  It was more subtle than any beast of the field, grammatically making it a beast of the field.  The Hebrew word for "beast" means "animation."

Genesis 2:4 is clear that what follows is about the generations of the heavens and the earth.  Every animation, everything formed, came from the ground, including Adam, but formed Adam was taken from the field and placed in the garden Yahweh Elohim planted.  Verse 9 goes on to state that Yahweh Elohim made every tree to grow out of the ground.  Included here is the tree of life which was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  This verse does not say that both trees were in the garden, only that they were caused to grow out of the ground.  Tradition has placed both trees in the garden in error, along with the serpent.

Now, the woman had a conversation with the whisperer which asked a question, basically, did Elohim (male plural), not Yahweh (female singular) Elohim, say that you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?  The woman responded by saying that both she and the man had permission to eat the fruit of the trees of the garden, but the fruit of the tree which was in the midst of the garden (the tree of life) should not be eaten or touched.  The consequence of doing so was "lest ye die."  A big maybe.

Genesis 2:17 clearly states that it was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that should not be eaten.  The consequence of doing so would be certain death.  She got it wrong, but she was blind and possibly hard of hearing.  Check out Genesis 3:5: the serpent states "God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods (Elohim), knowing good and evil."

Was she blind?  the next verse says "when the woman

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