In the Beginning

I have  tried to read Genesis a handful of times over the years and always manage to get distracted with all the so-in-so begat so-in-sos. I finally finished the entire book recently and once you can get past the genealogy, it's full of great stories!

Today I want to talk Adam and Eve. First God makes the Heaven and Earth and fills it with creatures and plants and all the  good things. Then he creates Adam and puts him smack dab in the middle of the most beautiful place and gives him authority over everything. He tells Adam, don't eat from that one tree over in the middle, it's the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and if you eat it, you will die.  He tells Adam he can eat from ANY of the other trees, including the tree of life that's planted right next to the tree of knowledge.  Then He presents all the animals to  Adam.  Adam checked them all out, gave them all names, but didn't really find one he wanted to hang out with all the time. God put Adam to sleep, took a rib and created woman. He gave her to Adam and this made him happy.  

Life. Was. Good.

It's summertime and the livin's easy. ...oh, sorry, I'll spare you my singing!

Adam and Eve are naked, frolicking in the most beautiful garden that God had made for them. They get to walk and talk with God when He comes down to hang out and check on things in the cool of the day. How stinkin' cool would this life be?

Then it happens.  The Fall.

Eve is just chillin' in the garden and the slithery serpent comes along.  He says "Hey girl!  Did God really tell you not to eat from any of the trees?"

Eve:  "No silly.  We can eat from any of the trees except this one.  If we touch it, we'll die."

Now, did that little lie come up like a game of telephone?  Say it enough times and eventually the story gets bigger?  I guess we don't really know, but the serpent gets in there and plants his doubt.

Serpent:  "Noooo. You won't die.  God just doesn't want you to know all the things He knows so He doesn't want you to eat that fruit."

What'd she do?  She ate the dang fruit and then fed it to her husband.  Ol' Adam didn't fight her on it either.  The tree of life and the tree of well, death essentially, were right next to each other and Eve went for the serpents tricks and chose death.

You know the rest.  They get kicked out of Eden, it hurts for us ladies to have babies and we have to work for our food.  We can blame Eve all we want, but really, would you have been any stronger?  She probably didn't actually believe that anything bad would happen, after all nothing bad had ever happened at that point.  God gave us all free will and from the beginning He made sure we had the ability to express it.  This is what makes us human.  Besides, if Adam and Eve hadn't have got kicked out of Eden, the bible would be a much shorter and maybe less interesting book and we know how much I like books!

It's not too late, I just got started!  Read along with me and chime in.  I'd love to hear from you.

Before I go:

Ha! Sorry guys, couldn't help myself!