Were there 2 liars at the fall or just 1?

[Guest Biblicist]

If my 3 year old tells my 7 year old,"dad said be quiet" because I told him, "go tell your brother 'dad said be quiet'", my 3 year old is not lying when he says, "dad said be quiet" because that IS what dad said, he heard it from me. He believed me to be telling the truth.

I love your analogy, however. What if your son tells his brother "Dad said be quiet, or you will get a spankin". Would that be a lie?

If your children normally receive spankins for misbehaviour or disobedience, then he would not be lying, only assuming the normal outcome of failure to obey Dad's command.

For Eve to say, "don't even touch it" is a normal assumption on her part [if it was indeed made] that even touching the fruit could cause them to fall into sin. She had to touch it to pick it, she had to pick it to eat it. Adam had to touch it to accept it from her.

Satan made a broad sweeping generalization, Eve corrected him with one of her own.

tsth, you are exactly right, if she had refered to her husband in the conversation, instead of trying to speak to Satan alone there would have been no confusion. Well put!

[EricH]

I think there a another possibility here that the context, and other passages that address this passage might indicate. So far, 2 options have been offered:

1. Eve was lying - that she purposefully misrepresented what God said

2. That Eve had another unrecorded conversation with God, where He added the stipulation not to touch the fruit

There is a 3rd possiblity. Namely that Eve was beginning to show signs of being deceived

The serpent (Satan) begins his conversation with Eve with the following statement:

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'?"

Genesis 3:1 HCSB

Notice that Satan is attacking God's character here. He adds to the restriction that God gave, making him seem unreasonable. Eve's reponse, it seems to me, indicates that she has begun to buy into this deception. She is not willing to go as far as the serpent, but she has begun to see God as stingy. She adds to the restriction. In other words Eve was not lying, she was falling prey to deception. She had started down th path of seeing God as being more strict than He really was. Not only could they not eat, they were not even allowed to touch. God was holding out on them (Thats what Satan wanted her to believe)

It also shows that she had begun to focus on the tree. When people begin to focus on something that they know is bad for them, there initial response is always to over react, then to focus unduly on the object (which Eve did in 3:6)

The idea that Eve was deceived is affirmed all through out scripture.

So I think Eve was not lying. She was a victim of deception.

[Guest lnj]

Hopefully this hasn't been mentioned before but I have heard that Eve's first downfall in the garden was doing something "before" consulting Adam. Would this have made any difference? Not sure but it's something worth thinking about but will probably make women libbers cringe....

[tsth]

Hopefully this hasn't been mentioned before but I have heard that Eve's first downfall in the garden was doing something "before" consulting Adam. Would this have made any difference? Not sure but it's something worth thinking about but will probably make women libbers cringe....

I guess you missed my posts?

In His Love,

Suzanne

[Guest lnj]

I guess you missed my posts?

In His Love,

Suzanne

Oopsie daisy ...sorry!!

[methinkshe]

I think there a another possibility here that the context, and other passages that address this passage might indicate. So far, 2 options have been offered:

1. Eve was lying - that she purposefully misrepresented what God said

2. That Eve had another unrecorded conversation with God, where He added the stipulation not to touch the fruit

There is a 3rd possiblity. Namely that Eve was beginning to show signs of being deceived

The serpent (Satan) begins his conversation with Eve with the following statement:

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'?"

Genesis 3:1 HCSB

Notice that Satan is attacking God's character here. He adds to the restriction that God gave, making him seem unreasonable. Eve's reponse, it seems to me, indicates that she has begun to buy into this deception. She is not willing to go as far as the serpent, but she has begun to see God as stingy. She adds to the restriction. In other words Eve was not lying, she was falling prey to deception. She had started down th path of seeing God as being more strict than He really was. Not only could they not eat, they were not even allowed to touch. God was holding out on them (Thats what Satan wanted her to believe)

It also shows that she had begun to focus on the tree. When people begin to focus on something that they know is bad for them, there initial response is always to over react, then to focus unduly on the object (which Eve did in 3:6)

The idea that Eve was deceived is affirmed all through out scripture.

So I think Eve was not lying. She was a victim of deception.

That makes so much sense - and nor does it require that one has a degree in Hebrew grammar to understand what God would have us learn from the passage. It's what I've been trying to express but never quite managing. Thanks for explaining so simply yet succintly. I really appreciate it. It's going down as a margin note in my Bible.

In Jesus,

Ruth

[Guest Biblicist]

I think there a another possibility here that the context, and other passages that address this passage might indicate. So far, 2 options have been offered:

1. Eve was lying - that she purposefully misrepresented what God said

2. That Eve had another unrecorded conversation with God, where He added the stipulation not to touch the fruit

There is a 3rd possiblity. Namely that Eve was beginning to show signs of being deceived

The serpent (Satan) begins his conversation with Eve with the following statement:

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'?"

Genesis 3:1 HCSB

Notice that Satan is attacking God's character here. He adds to the restriction that God gave, making him seem unreasonable. Eve's reponse, it seems to me, indicates that she has begun to buy into this deception. She is not willing to go as far as the serpent, but she has begun to see God as stingy. She adds to the restriction. In other words Eve was not lying, she was falling prey to deception. She had started down th path of seeing God as being more strict than He really was. Not only could they not eat, they were not even allowed to touch. God was holding out on them (Thats what Satan wanted her to believe)

It also shows that she had begun to focus on the tree. When people begin to focus on something that they know is bad for them, there initial response is always to over react, then to focus unduly on the object (which Eve did in 3:6)

The idea that Eve was deceived is affirmed all through out scripture.

So I think Eve was not lying. She was a victim of deception.

That makes so much sense - and nor does it require that one has a degree in Hebrew grammar to understand what God would have us learn from the passage. It's what I've been trying to express but never quite managing. Thanks for explaining so simply yet succintly. I really appreciate it. It's going down as a margin note in my Bible.

In Jesus,

Ruth

That's just what I've been saying!

[firehill]

So when the woman quoted God she was really quoting Adam even though the verse says that she was quoting God?

Exactly. Eve was not around yet when God told Adam not to eat of the fruit. Genesis gives only the account of God telling that to Adam.

So if Adam told her not to touch the fruit yet she meant 'Adam said' not to touch the fruit verses verses God therefore 1) Adam added to God's word and 2) Eve was incapable of saying 'God said not to eat', and 'Adam said not to touch' even though the serpent asked her what God said?

If my 3 year old tells my 7 year old,"dad said be quiet" because I told him, "go tell your brother 'dad said be quiet'", my 3 year old is not lying when he says, "dad said be quiet" because that IS what dad said, he heard it from me. He believed me to be telling the truth.

Do you think Adam and Eve had the understanding of 3 and 7 year old's? I believe God made adults in that garden.

I'm going by her mental decision to do it, just before she did it, combining them both to be the sin. It took faith to believe that God was telling the truth about what would happen if they ate of the fruit. When she believed the snake, rather than God, she lost her faith in God, at that moment. THEN she ate the fruit. She didn't fall, mouth first, onto the fruit, she thought about it first, decided to do it, then did it. It was a combined action sin. I suppose you could say she had to "lust" after the fruit first, in order to be able to eat it but it could have just been the curiosity of this whole "like God" business the snake was talking about.

Because there was no sin in the garden before these events, their was only faith in God in it's purest form.

Eve broke that shield of faith when she doubted God and believed the snake. She was decieved.

If she decided to eat out of having been deceived then it was NOT a mental decision of rebellion like was Adam's. She was deceived. Adam was NOT.

[firehill]

I believe that this is case in point why women are supposed to go to their husbands as the spiritual leader, rather than trying to debate something that should not be debated. Eve should have gone to Adam when Satan came with his "doctrines of demons" (See 1 Tim. 4:1)

Did you know that Adam was right there with Eve when the serpent lied to her?

This was not something to be debated and clearly she needed to be talking to Adam and they needed to come together as one with regard to obeying God's commands.

Are you saying she was trying to debate satan while her husband stood right there with her?

It goes back again to proving out why God ordained a structured authority with regard to the family and the church.

(Would the event have happened differently, if the serpent had approached Adam, rather than Eve?)

The serpent asked the woman his question and since Adam was right there with her he asked, 'did God really say that YOU...'. The Hebrew YOU is in the plural. In other words the serpent asked the woman if God had said such and such regarding BOTH of them. So in an indirect sense the serpent asked Adam the same question because he said YOU as in 'you both' but his question was directed to the woman.

[firehill]

I think there a another possibility here that the context, and other passages that address this passage might indicate. So far, 2 options have been offered:

1. Eve was lying - that she purposefully misrepresented what God said

2. That Eve had another unrecorded conversation with God, where He added the stipulation not to touch the fruit

There is a 3rd possiblity. Namely that Eve was beginning to show signs of being deceived

The serpent (Satan) begins his conversation with Eve with the following statement:

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You can't eat from any tree in the garden'?"

Genesis 3:1 HCSB

Notice that Satan is attacking God's character here. He adds to the restriction that God gave, making him seem unreasonable. Eve's reponse, it seems to me, indicates that she has begun to buy into this deception. She is not willing to go as far as the serpent, but she has begun to see God as stingy. She adds to the restriction. In other words Eve was not lying, she was falling prey to deception. She had started down th path of seeing God as being more strict than He really was. Not only could they not eat, they were not even allowed to touch. God was holding out on them (Thats what Satan wanted her to believe)

It also shows that she had begun to focus on the tree. When people begin to focus on something that they know is bad for them, there initial response is always to over react, then to focus unduly on the object (which Eve did in 3:6)

The idea that Eve was deceived is affirmed all through out scripture.

So I think Eve was not lying. She was a victim of deception.

So you are saying that part of her having been deceived was adding to God's word?