What Should Have Happened in the Garden

There is a question no one seems to ask about the original sin in the Garden of Eden. We all know how it went wrong. Satan deceived Eve into sinning and she caused Adam to sin. But what should have happened instead?

When we understand the answer to that question we'll have a better understanding of what did happen and why it keeps happening, over and over.

Background

When God created Adam he was perfect. When God took a rib from Adam to make Eve, he also took part of Adam's nature. He didn't make a clone of Adam. He split the nature of Adam into two natures so that Adam and Eve could only be complete when they were "one flesh." If God had cloned Adam, the clones would both be complete individuals with no need for each other.

Therefore, Adam and Eve were perfect, as long as they operated as one flesh. There was nothing in the Garden that would pull them apart. Certainly they had different desires, we see that in Eve. Adam would have also. They had different natures, so different desires is to be expected. None of those desires was strong enough to pull them apart.

Their Natures

Satan arrives with the intent to cause them to sin. He understands the differences in their natures.

Adam is a builder. He thinks abstractly, models how things work and builds new things based on those models. He tinkers with what he has built until he gets what he wants and until he knows exactly what he wants. He likes organization and understands hierarchy. When he has built something, he rests, sometimes too much.

Eve is a nurturer / carer. She is built to care for Adam and for her babies. Though she doesn't have babies in the Garden, she still has that nature. She is more focused on practical matters and immediate problems. She detects situations and actions that could endanger her babies. When she sees these, she goes "mother bear" and quickly acts to protect.

Eve also has the role of attracting a mate, though that is not needed in the Garden. This role is supported by her nature to make herself pretty.

What Should Have Happened

What should have happened when Satan began to tell Eve things about God that she had never heard before? She was supposed to have gone to Adam. He would look into what she reported and, if necessary, he would go to God. That process didn't happen. The Bible doesn't give the slightest hint that she thinks of asking Adam about this. Why?

Eve's Problems

The snake has been watching Eve and has found she has some problems he can work with.

Working Independently

There are people who say Adam was there with her during the temptation, but that is wrong. There are a few evidences against that. One is that he says she tricked him into eating the fruit. He couldn't have been tricked if he had known what was going on and seen what she did.

When we see the snake act, Eve has begun working independently of Adam. She was supposed to be a helper to him but is doing her own thing now. She is looking at the tree and Adam is nowhere near.

The perfect life they lived in the Garden was a factor in Eve's deception. Adam and Eve needed each other in order to be complete. The desire for completeness pulled them together. But, being complete also pushed them apart because that was a restriction on their abilities' to choose. If they worked in unity, differences in desires could not always be accommodated. Sacrifices had to be made. But, Eve could engage her every desire by working outside that unity.

In the Garden, there was too little to gain from being complete. They had all the food they needed. They were always comfortable. There was no danger that faced them. In that situation, Eve didn't need the completeness that Adam offered. She could work without it with little loss and she could go too him when she felt the loss. That left her free to do what she wanted most of the time.

She had the time to see how pretty the fruit was that they were not allowed to eat, to imagine how it would taste, and to wonder why they were not allowed to eat it. Spending her time this way had become a problem. We see that through her answer to the snake.

God did not say the part about touching and she is not misquoting God. Those are someone else's words that were given to her to bolster her against a weakness that person saw in her. That person could only be Adam. He had seen her attraction to the forbidden fruit and tried to enhance the danger aspect of the fruit to counteract it. "Don't even touch it!". That's how his nature would deal with the problem.

Position

Eve also has a problem with being 3^rd of 3. She sees being a helper as being of less value than Adam, who is obviously lower than God.

This idea seems to come from Eve's nature for selecting the best mate. That in turn, seems to come from doing what is best for her babies. She sees that men are stronger, faster, taller, and heavier than her. She evaluates individual worth according to that "best-mate" standard and finds herself having none of the traits she values.

The standard was for use to evaluate a mate, not to evaluate herself. Therefore, it doesn't value her own attributes. Its misuse leaves her desiring nothing more than to be equal to or better than men.

Another reason for Eve not to involve Adam is that, if both of them eat the fruit, she wouldn't gain much in position. He might still be over her. So she doesn't go to Adam and say that the snake says they can both be like God. She doesn't plan to tell him about this.

More Sensitive to Stimuli

Eve gets more enjoyment from the stimulation of her eyes and nose than Adam does.

Pulling Them Apart

Satan knew he could use both these desires and Eve's protective nature against her. If he could present a situation to her that threatened her babies, he could get her to act to protect, on her own, without consulting Adam. He tells her she is being taken advantage of - she is in danger of getting less than she deserves and needs.

The Bible doesn't describe it that way but that is what Satan is doing. Eve may not have considered Satan's words in those terms consciously, but, deep inside, this would have been the calculation she made. What's better for Eve's babies than for Eve to be like God. That way she could protect them. What's good for Eve is good for her babies.

We can be certain this understanding is correct from what God says as he describes the future of Adam and Eve after the sin.

God is putting an end to Eve acting on her own. She will need Adam and he will control her. Surprisingly God implements his words by kicking them out of the Garden. But it makes sense. In the outside world life will be harsh. Adam will have to toil and sweat for his family to have enough food. Eve will rely on him to do that, she will help him where she can plus she will begin giving birth.

Note that there are other interpretations and translations of the above part of the verse. This article¹ describes those well. In short, difficulties in translation have resulted in very different translations.

Relative to that article, this study takes the view that God's words are to "reaffirm the creation marital hierarchy". The marital hierarchy was established at the creation of Eve but, due to the freedom provided by a perfect world, she was able to live outside of that hierarchy without significant consequence. In doing so she was open to sin and did sin and took Adam down with her. The consequence (judgment if you like) was that they would live outside the garden in an imperfect world where she could not live outside that marital hierarchy.

Lost and Found

In order to do all that must be done, God made different beings with different roles and desires that matched the roles. Inside the Garden, the desire to be complete in each other didn't offer much. Still they would have lived in this perfection eternally.

These differences made it too easy for Satan to pull them apart. Being complete didn't achieve enough to overcome the sacrifices, at least in Eve's eyes.

This goes to show that mankind cannot live in a perfect world with an evil being around.

God's judgment is not so much a punishment as a correction to the balance. Outside the Garden, they will have no idle time and will have real problems and dangers. They will need the advantages of being one flesh if they are going to survive.

The Dark Side of Eve's Nature in Our Time

Eve also has some desires that can become a problem. Her desire to escape from being 3^rd of 3 is impossible to requite because it is only a perception. Yet, that perception pushes her to become the ruler over men. She knows men enjoy titillation and sex. She may try to use those desires to control them.²

Her desire to out-compete other women for the man she wants knows no bound. Whatever other women are doing, she is likely to go a step further. She can quickly transition from making herself pretty to making herself sexy and to becoming sexually involved. She doesn't see that lines have been crossed.

Having broken her moral compass for sexuality and feeling free of the limitations of dependence on men leaves her to explore what must not be explored. Along with this comes the destruction of the family and a consequent feminization of male children.

Summary

Eve's nature is such that she becomes a danger if she begins to feel she is or can be self-sufficient. But, she is less able to think abstractly, as Adam would, and tends to make short-term decisions that are self-destructive and generally destructive.

It's heresy in feminist countries but there is an important truth. Eve needs to be harnessed to children and to her husband to keep her productive. This is what God says will be her fate.

If she becomes convinced that she does not need men, Eve will destroy civilization.

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Bible Study		May 26, 2024
What Should Have Happened in the Garden

Introduction