Okay, so Eve messed up pretty bad, but where in paradise was Adam when all this was happening? I know a lot of people say that he must have been else where while Eve was talking to Satan (via the snake...which is weird) so let's talk about that for a second. So, say you're hangin out in the world's most beautiful garden ever....in the history of mankind. By that I mean, imagine the most beautiful place you ever seen and multiply it by infinity. Whenever I want to think of Eden I picture the rolling hills of northern California with no roads cutting through them, no sign of industry marring the landscape, and produce growing readily available from the nutrient rich black soil. Okay, you get the picture, now add God's custom made partner, Eve. Adam's only companion, and she's apparently smokin hot. Have you ever seen those old cartoons from the 40's and 50's where the beautiful woman walks by a cartoon wolf and the wolf's eyes pop out of his head, his jaw drops to the floor, and his tongue rolls out of his mouth like a red carpet. Yeah, that word in Hebrew kind of means that. I say kind of because there was no inappropriate carnality in Adam's reaction. Here was the perfect partner, drawn from his side while he was unconscious. Just take a minute to think of your significant other, and then imagine them without any faults or sin. Yeah, that would be a beautiful thing, marriage is overwhelming enough even with the shortcomings of the post-fruit lifetime...just imagine it before then. Anyway, before I get off track here, Adam is in paradise, with his perfect partner... Do you think he would ever be far from his wife? The flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones. Their marriage relationship was perfect up until that day. Adam wasn't far from his wife at all, in fact (despite the teaching) the Bible actually mentions in Genesis 3 that Adam was right there with his wife (Gen 3:6 ESV).
So, let's pause at the creepy talking snake scene for a second, and go back to what God actually said to Adam about this tree that Satan is referring to. Before he created Eve, God took Adam aside and said the following "You must surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you must not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die." Gen 2: 16b-17(ESV). You may be thinking "I know the deal....don't eat the fruit, why are we wasting time here?" God said you shouldn't eat the fruit, he didn't say anything about touching the tree. What's the difference? Glad you asked, eating involves plucking, biting, chewing, swallowing, and digesting....touching involves well....touching, that's it. When Satan tried to get Eve to eat the fruit, her response was that she wasn't to touch the tree. She didn't say anything about not eating. Now, did God tell her something that was wrong....probably not (He doesn't usually make mistakes). So, if you were Adam, and you had this awesome wife in this awesome garden and you knew that there was something nearby that if she plucked accidentally would kill her...what would you say? I know what I would say "Honey, I love ya, maybe you should just leave this tree alone....don't even touch it, because God said it would kill us" Sounds like a problem in communication to me, and I don't think the almighty Lord of all creation was the one that dropped the ball. In Romans 5 the Apostle Paul says that sin has been passed down through the disobedience of Adam, not Eve. Interesting, because Eve gave the fruit to her husband, not the other way around.
So what's the deal here? Here's how I see it, I think there could have been a communication problem between Adam and Eve regarding the tree, and when she was deceived Adam was there. Problem number one....there's no other account of a talking animal in the book of Genesis, so if the serpent was the only one why didn't Adam interrupt the conversation? I don't know to be honest, but you can be sure that he didn't discourage Eve from eating the fruit...because she ate it, and then fed it to him. There was no mention of Adam saying "Hey sweety...remember that tree I told you not to touch, yeah this is it. See ya later serpent dude." So Adam, watching his wife get duped, sees that she doesn't die automatically when she eats the fruit. I wonder what went through his mind when he took his bite.
Fortunately for him, we don't get to see that, we just know that Adam ate the fruit in full disregard/rebellion to what God had directly told him. That just sucks. Because Eve didn't really put up all that much of a defense, the curse regarding her involves mostly women, and relationship. Because Adam directly ignored God's command, knowing that it was completely wrong to do what he did the whole land (Earth) was cursed. So now we have broken relationships, and toil.
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