Read Off-The-Chain Stuff Nobody Ever Told You About The Bible :: Good Job, Ya Screwed Up Immediately

Genesis 3 is the first appearance of our big bad evil guy for the story. He comes along to tempt Eve and talks her into making the one terrible decision that serves as the lynchpin for the story of The Bible. By the end of Genesis 3, the third chapter of the first book of The Bible, humanity will be kicked out of the garden and Eden won’t be showing up again until Revelation 22, which is the very final chapter of the entire Bible. The overarching plotline for the entire Bible, therefore, is about humans trying to get Eden back and God helping them do that despite their constant failures, screw-ups, and self-destructive actions. Really, then, everything else that happens in the sixty-six books that make up this work revolves around this exact moment.

To set the scene: We’re in Eden, that wonderful perfect garden where there’s fruit everywhere and all the animals are nice and friendly and God and humans can interact with each other face-to-face. Also, as we’ve established previously, there’s a natural sprinkler system and a big water dome in the sky. In addition to this, there are also two very special trees. One is the tree of life which allows you to live forever. The other is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God gives one very simple instruction to Adam and Eve: They can eat literally any fruit except the fruit of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Don’t eat that one. Everything will be amazing forever just as long as you don’t do this one specific thing.

Of course we all know where this is going. From Genesis 3:

Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

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.

So here we see a talking serpent, and within the greater context of the bible this is really weird. If you’ve ever listened to folk tales talking animals are pretty common, but in The Bible? Not so much. The only other example that comes to mind is Balaam’s talking ass (and yes, we will absolutely be covering that story once we get to the Book of Numbers). The lack of talking animals elsewhere in the bible has led certain people to believe that animals could talk in the Garden of Eden but that they lost that ability after the fall. Really, however, there’s nothing to indicate this. What is indicated, however, is far more interesting.

At the beginning of this chapter I said that we’d meet the BBEG of The Bible, and as most people are aware the BBEG of the bible is satan. You might have noticed, however, that the serpent is not called satan at any point. How do we know, then, that this isn’t just some snake? Well, first of all, the book of Revelation clearly states that the serpent was satan, but that book was written more than a thousand years later and if you’re not a Christian who believes in biblical inerrancy then that might not be a good enough explanation for you. The reason we know there’s something more afoot within Genesis itself is that the serpent is talking. You see, the only way for animals to talk in The Bible is because of spiritual power from an outside source, meaning that this serpent is being controlled by something with some serious spirit juice. God can make animals talk (he’s the reason for the aforementioned talking ass). Clearly God isn’t doing this, however, because the serpent is going against God’s specific wishes, and it can’t be one of God’s angels for the same reason. I suppose it could technically be some non-satan fallen angel, but they all work for satan anyway so at the end of the day this can only be satan at work. The only other spiritual creatures in Christianity are demons, but those don’t exist yet.

Also demons aren’t what you think. More on that in the next chapter.

Anyway, point is it’s satan. But that leads us to the question: If animals couldn’t talk in Eden then why isn’t Eve freaking out about this? Wouldn't it be weird for an animal to start talking out of nowhere? Why yes, in fact, it would. Unless, that is, you didn’t know any better.

And that leads us to the title of this chapter: Good Job, Ya Screwed Up Immediately. Nowhere in The Bible is it stated how long Adam and Eve got to live in Eden before the fall, but a lot of Bible scholars think that it was 24 hours or less and this is the reason. If you were born as an adult with a supernatural ability to talk then why would you have any context to know that animals can’t also speak? It’s the only reasonable explanation as to why Eve’s reaction was “sure, you seem like a trustworthy guy” rather than “AAAAAAHH A TALKING SNAKE!”

But is there any other evidence? Well, there is one little piece and it comes further along in Genesis 3.

And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

A flaming sword! You see why I say The Bible is cool?

Anyway, back on track. So the implication here is that you only need to eat the fruit of the tree of life once and you’re immortal forever. This means that because Adam and Eve weren’t immortal yet they hadn’t eaten the fruit of that tree yet. Adam and Eve were presented with two trees, one that would allow them to live forever and the other they were told by God himself not to touch, and they went for the one that would screw everything up instantly. And God didn’t even say they couldn’t eat of the tree of life. They could have gotten immortality for free and they decided instead to completely ignore that in favor of the only fruit they weren’t allowed to touch and screwed the whole world up as a result.

Humans, man. Isn’t that just typical?