So, one one of the weird things that in in the the original sort of, you know, eating the apple story is that when you read just the text of it, one of the things that you see is that the snake actually doesn't lie. At no point does the snake lie. He actually tells a series of truths, right? He says, "If you eat from this apple, then you'll be like God. You'll be able to distinguish good from evil." Which is something that God later repeats, right? He says if they they've eaten from it, now we have to banish them from the from the tree of life because they'll they'll be like us. Distinguishing good from evil. He says you won't you surely won't die, right? They've been told they'll die. And the snake says you won't die, which is true. God doesn't immediately just kill Adam and Eve. Instead, he allows them to live. This caught my attention from Ben near the end of the video because as a devout Jew he studied the Torah (the first 5 books of the OT). The Serpent did not talk to Adam but to Eve because she was the weak link. He knew he couldn't get away with his subtilty with Adam because he had named the serpent earlier, so he knew he was crafty. Plus, Adam was alone when God told him about not eating of that tree of knowledge of good and evil. That means the serpent knew her answer was second-hand knowledge from Adam.
I believe he wanted to step into the authority gap left by the dead humans. Contrary to Ben's statement, he lied when he told her that they wouldn't die. In order to sell it, he impugned God's character by implying he was selfish with the knowledge the tree contained. It worked on her because now in her mind if God is in the wrong, he lost his right to condemn them for eating. The serpent seemingly set her free to rebel.
She was tricked into eating, but Adam was deliberate in eating it. What Adam didn't know was by what means he would die. Turns out he would die by loss of access to the Tree of Life which would extend life indefinitely. His pristine genes and flawless makeup took 930 years to wear down absent that tree’s effects. What Ben didn't think of was that the “day” in which God told him he would die in wasn’t the 24 hour one, but God’s Day of 1000 years. This alternate reckoning of a millennium-long day is found in Moses’ Psalm 90, and 2 Peter 3:8. (I'm indebted to Irenaeus from 185 AD for this insight in Against Heresies - Book 5, chapter 23.)
No one ever reached a thousand years. Methusaleh the oldest died at 969. Adam and all his descendants died in that "one day" God had said. Jesus, we’re told in Revelation 2, grants access back to that tree for his people which we lost by rebellion. |
