The fall

I'm going to stick my neck out and say that Adam and Eve didn't have any awareness of the difference between good & evil prior to eating from the tree. Hear (or read) me out on this:

God is the ultimate standard of good. He is the bar against which ALL other things are measured. And everything/everyone falls short of God by default, because they are merely created.

Adam & Eve indeed disobeyed God, but they had no knowledge or awareness of the existence of evil as such (before they ate the fruit). The Scripture say that their "eyes were opened" once they ate.

What it comes down to is that Eve believed the serpent instead of God (although she didn't perceive that the serpent's words were deceptive). And Adam chose to eat the fruit that his wife gave him. They both were effectively choosing that day whom they would serve (cf. Joshua 24:15).

Eve also "added to" what God had said when she answered the serpent. God never said (at least according to Scripture) that they should not touch the fruit; only that they should not eat it.

$0.02

Definitely an invitation to speculate the simplicity out of the narration

You need to make a panel for this one

Well why did you/we sin today or the other day? Satan is not just another angel. He is full of wisdom. Look what one fallen angel has done. Satan rebellion against God. Man gave in to temptation... a lie.

God told Adam he could 'freely eat' from the garden except for the one tree. clearly Adam had free will and was able to decide for himself what he considered 'good' to eat.
Adam named every living soul. clearly Adam had an intuitive sense of what was a 'good' name vs. what was a 'bad' name.
Woman saw the tree of knowledge of good from evil was 'good' for food. clearly she knew what 'good' meant vs. 'bad'
Woman considered the tree 'desirable for wisdom' -- clearly she knew the difference between undesirable/desirable and discerned the goodness of wisdom vs. the evil of folly. she was deceived about which was which at this point, but the text makes it inescapable that she 100% had these concepts and understood them.
God gave Adam the job of tending the garden. clearly Adam knew what was good for the garden and what was not good, or he would not be able to do 'his job'
God gave them commands and held them accountable for transgressing those commands. clearly they had the capacity to understand these commands and the understanding that obeying God was good but disobeying Him was evil. clearly God does not punish them for disobedience when they are such mindless idiots that they can't even comprehend whether disobedience is wrong or not.

i'm sorry but your view that they are mindless imbeciles with no comprehension of even the most basic ethics, less understanding than a toddler, is ridiculously absurd. it contradicts the scripture and makes God unjust & evil. it's basically the lie of Satan. it is a most regrettably common view taught all over in the vast majority of todays modern churches, and i'm not surprised you're repeating it here, but it's absolutely rubbish IMO

What caused Eve to take the fruit of knowledge?


Curiosity?

Genesis 3:6 doesn't say "who was with her" it says she ate, she gave to her husband "with her," and he did eat.
there are 3 events there -- her eating, her giving fruit to Adam, and Adam eating. there may be any space of time between these events, and in fact we know there are spaces of time and unrecorded events because God judged Adam because he listened to her -- but gave no record of her speaking to him.

compare this -- God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants 'with him'
does this necessarily mean that everyone descended from Noah was standing beside Noah when God said this? that includes me & you -- were we there? so 'with your seed after you' isn't saying we're all congregated together on Mt Ararat; it's saying we are all joined together in the covenant. it's 'with Noah' in the inclusion of the covenant, not 'with Noah' in space & time.

so i think that knowing Adam wasn't deceived, he can't have been standing beside her when she was, or when she ate. she eats, and death enters into her. she goes to Adam. she says something to him. he makes a decision and she gives him fruit. now he has fruit 'with her' - and he eats, and then he is in transgression 'with her' -- the 'with her' doesn't necessarily have reference to being in proximity to her while she is deceived by the Serpent and taking from the tree; it can be referencing 'joining her' in eating the forbidden fruit, and i think that all the other details we know about this indicate that he wasn't.

not arguing that Adam didn't sin; of course he did. but for Adam to be standing right beside his wife watching the serpent deceive her, watching her take and eat the fruit, and say or do nothing about it, Adam has to be either a enormous idiot or equally deceived, and he is neither. Woman was first in transgression, and Adam was not deceived. if Adam is guilty of failing to stop her, then Adam is first in transgression because in that case he would have failed before she ate: she thinks she can't even touch the fruit, so if we accuse Adam of allowing her to eat, then he's guilty from the moment she reaches out her hand, but she's not guilty until she eats. this contradicts scripture, because we know she was first in transgression -- and we know Adam wasn't fooled.

but God does not hold him accountable for Woman's sin -- tho Adam himself in his confession takes her sin on himself ((a figure of the last Adam who was to come)). God holds the Serpent responsible; that is who is cursed. Adam & Eve are both guilty of transgression and suffer the results of their transgression, but He does not curse them.

I quoted gen 3 v 6 using the KJV, with a bit of my wording, in a conversational manner.

Genesis 3:6 doesn't say "who was with her" it says she ate, she gave to her husband "with her," and he did eat.
there are 3 events there -- her eating, her giving fruit to Adam, and Adam eating. there may be any space of time between these events, and in fact we know there are spaces of time and unrecorded events because God judged Adam because he listened to her -- but gave no record of her speaking to him.

compare this -- God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants 'with him'
does this necessarily mean that everyone descended from Noah was standing beside Noah when God said this? that includes me & you -- were we there? so 'with your seed after you' isn't saying we're all congregated together on Mt Ararat; it's saying we are all joined together in the covenant. it's 'with Noah' in the inclusion of the covenant, not 'with Noah' in space & time.

so i think that knowing Adam wasn't deceived, he can't have been standing beside her when she was, or when she ate. she eats, and death enters into her. she goes to Adam. she says something to him. he makes a decision and she gives him fruit. now he has fruit 'with her' - and he eats, and then he is in transgression 'with her' -- the 'with her' doesn't necessarily have reference to being in proximity to her while she is deceived by the Serpent and taking from the tree; it can be referencing 'joining her' in eating the forbidden fruit, and i think that all the other details we know about this indicate that he wasn't.

not arguing that Adam didn't sin; of course he did. but for Adam to be standing right beside his wife watching the serpent deceive her, watching her take and eat the fruit, and say or do nothing about it, Adam has to be either a enormous idiot or equally deceived, and he is neither. Woman was first in transgression, and Adam was not deceived. if Adam is guilty of failing to stop her, then Adam is first in transgression because in that case he would have failed before she ate: she thinks she can't even touch the fruit, so if we accuse Adam of allowing her to eat, then he's guilty from the moment she reaches out her hand, but she's not guilty until she eats. this contradicts scripture, because we know she was first in transgression -- and we know Adam wasn't fooled.

but God does not hold him accountable for Woman's sin -- tho Adam himself in his confession takes her sin on himself ((a figure of the last Adam who was to come)). God holds the Serpent responsible; that is who is cursed. Adam & Eve are both guilty of transgression and suffer the results of their transgression, but He does not curse them.

in the KJV you will notice "who was" is italicized, indicating it is not part of the actual text but an interpretive addition by the translators. i.e. it is not translation it is inserted words they thought would make the text flow better in English.

if you have a paper copy of the KJV it's a good idea to get yourself a black marker and cross out everything italicized.

Genesis 3:6 doesn't say "who was with her" it says she ate, she gave to her husband "with her," and he did eat.
there are 3 events there -- her eating, her giving fruit to Adam, and Adam eating. there may be any space of time between these events, and in fact we know there are spaces of time and unrecorded events because God judged Adam because he listened to her -- but gave no record of her speaking to him.

compare this -- God makes a covenant with Noah and his descendants 'with him'
does this necessarily mean that everyone descended from Noah was standing beside Noah when God said this? that includes me & you -- were we there? so 'with your seed after you' isn't saying we're all congregated together on Mt Ararat; it's saying we are all joined together in the covenant. it's 'with Noah' in the inclusion of the covenant, not 'with Noah' in space & time.

so i think that knowing Adam wasn't deceived, he can't have been standing beside her when she was, or when she ate. she eats, and death enters into her. she goes to Adam. she says something to him. he makes a decision and she gives him fruit. now he has fruit 'with her' - and he eats, and then he is in transgression 'with her' -- the 'with her' doesn't necessarily have reference to being in proximity to her while she is deceived by the Serpent and taking from the tree; it can be referencing 'joining her' in eating the forbidden fruit, and i think that all the other details we know about this indicate that he wasn't.

not arguing that Adam didn't sin; of course he did. but for Adam to be standing right beside his wife watching the serpent deceive her, watching her take and eat the fruit, and say or do nothing about it, Adam has to be either a enormous idiot or equally deceived, and he is neither. Woman was first in transgression, and Adam was not deceived. if Adam is guilty of failing to stop her, then Adam is first in transgression because in that case he would have failed before she ate: she thinks she can't even touch the fruit, so if we accuse Adam of allowing her to eat, then he's guilty from the moment she reaches out her hand, but she's not guilty until she eats. this contradicts scripture, because we know she was first in transgression -- and we know Adam wasn't fooled.

but God does not hold him accountable for Woman's sin -- tho Adam himself in his confession takes her sin on himself ((a figure of the last Adam who was to come)). God holds the Serpent responsible; that is who is cursed. Adam & Eve are both guilty of transgression and suffer the results of their transgression, but He does not curse them.

in the KJV you will notice "who was" is italicized, indicating it is not part of the actual text but an interpretive addition by the translators. i.e. it is not translation it is inserted words they thought would make the text flow better in English.

if you have a paper copy of the KJV it's a good idea to get yourself a black marker and cross out everything italicized.

Er, which translation? I copied these from biblehub just a couple of moments ago;








I learned that doin Old testament studies. Very early;

. 3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. 4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. 5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

why would I cross out any of the text in the KJV. ?

because the italicized words are not part of the scripture, they are part of someone's interpretation of what should be in the scripture.
scripture isn't written in English. Hebrew and Greek do not have the same grammatical structures as English. sometimes translators 'fill in' words that aren't actually part of the original text as God gave it, because in order to translate there are necessarily phrases and words that cannot be put 1-to-1 into the strange foreign language that we speak. kjv does a good job of pointing out most of this by putting words in italics that have been added to God's original word.
if you would like to read scripture in as close to it's word-for-word form as you can, but you would not like to learn the original languages and you would not like to read any other version than kjv, then it would be advisable to cross out everything in italics. none of it is literal translation. the kjv translators thought you might like to, in fact, and that's why they were kind enough to identify the words that are not part of the Bible with italics.

up to you. just saying it would be a good idea IMO.

because the italicized words are not part of the scripture, they are part of someone's interpretation of what should be in the scripture.
scripture isn't written in English. Hebrew and Greek do not have the same grammatical structures as English. sometimes translators 'fill in' words that aren't actually part of the original text as God gave it, because in order to translate there are necessarily phrases and words that cannot be put 1-to-1 into the strange foreign language that we speak. kjv does a good job of pointing out most of this by putting words in italics that have been added to God's original word.
if you would like to read scripture in as close to it's word-for-word form as you can, but you would not like to learn the original languages and you would not like to read any other version than kjv, then it would be advisable to cross out everything in italics. none of it is literal translation. the kjv translators thought you might like to, in fact, and that's why they were kind enough to identify the words that are not part of the Bible with italics.

up to you. just saying it would be a good idea IMO.

It's important to have extra words when translating from one language to another because language say things differently. I can't think of a single time where any italicized words are misleading and should be removed.

Adam...trusted eve and serpent

how about John 8:24, John 18:5, etc?

there is no 'he' in the text; Jesus is identifying Himself as I AM THAT I AM, the YHVH

Joh 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am he, ye shall die in your sins.

This makes sense in English.

Joh 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am, ye shall die in your sins.

This doesn't make as much sense because it is broken English. To remove "he" the verse would have to read this way to make sense:

Joh 8:24 I said therefore unto you, that ye shall die in your sins: for if ye believe not that I am THE I AM, ye shall die in your sins.