7 Images: The Serpent's Proposition

 

Alexander Sulimov: "Forbidden Fruit" (2019)

Scripture recounts that sin entered the world through a lack of faith in the goodness of God, which marred our faithfulness as his image and now compromises every act of goodness that we attempt. Adam and Eve, though tasked putting each creature in its appropriate place, allow the serpent to reverse roles and raise a fundamental question regarding their own place in the larger scheme of things. He sows doubt about the goodness of God by asking why God has surrounded Adam and Eve with food while inexplicably denying them to partake of any. He thereby maneuvers Eve into bringing up the subject of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil of which they have indeed been forbidden to eat. The serpent then sows additional doubt about God's goodness and their own self-fulfillment by claiming that God has deceived them because he does not wish for them to truly become like him. 

Now the serpent* was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-5)

The fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil does not of itself necessarily impart any knowledge, and other creatures of the garden may well have eaten some without incident. What imparts knowledge of good and evil is the act of defying God, though such knowledge might also have been gained by regarding the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil as a testimony of the absolute trustworthiness of God, which is exactly what the serpent seeks to undermine by conjuring a sense that they lack something essential that they deserve, which God has selfishly denied and which they have at hand to take. Such is the essence of all temptation.

The immediate consequence is that Adam and Eve feel vulnerable and seek to conceal themselves by fashioning coverings for themselves and by hiding from God. They thus forfeit their original intimacy with God and with each other for a counterfeit intimacy with each other based on shared complicity. 

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:6-11)

The more serious consequence is that Adam and Eve forfeit their status as faithful images of God and become creatures of the wilderness like the serpent. The man who was to subdue the earth by extending the boundaries of the garden while being sustained by the fruit of the garden must now spend his days laboring in the fields just to sustain his growing family. The woman who was blessed with the exhortation to be fruitful and multiply is informed that this labor will now involve pain: puberty and loss of virginity, pregnancy and birth, rearing and separation, etc. Moreover, she who was created an equal counter part to Adam will now become subject to him. The serpent, having assumed the posture of a man and presumed to speak more truthfully than God with a view to orchestrating the downfall of his images, must now go about on its belly licking the dust with the knowledge that a future progeny of the woman he deceived will one day crush his head.

So the Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head and you will strike his heel.”

To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”

Adam and Eve are also now subject to death and might well be tempted to eat of the Tree of Life, thinking this might remedy that predicament, but God blocks their access to the Tree of Life by expelling them from the garden, which he also closes to them, thereby eliminating the risk that they eat of that tree and thereby condemn themselves to eternal living death.

And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. (Genesis 3:22-23)

 Expelled from the Garden but still possessed of an innate impulse to order the wilderness around them, Adam and Eve and their descendants begin a slow slide into self-determination that soon results in Cain murdering his brother Abel. The history of humankind from this point forward is a series of fitful attempts to reestablish a sense of order in the wilderness and some sort of reconciliation with God. The entire period from Eden until now, during which God himself executes a plan of redemption, is a vast detour leading back to a new and even more magnificent garden. 

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. (Revelation 22:1-5)

[*The serpent is implicitly the cobra which goes upright like a person.]