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The Dialectic - The Beguiling Of Eve

The verses in Genesis of the beguiling of Eve are as follows;

-- Click To Expand/Collapse Bible Verses -- Gen ch3:v1-6
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
Gen 3:6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. (KJV)

In verse 1 the serpent immediately brings Eve off the absolute position of the didactic commandment of God to avoid the tree altogether, (even not to look at it.) The serpent sets the pattern of the environment that the tree is just the same as all the other trees, (which it indeed is): but Eve then realistically examines that there is nothing in the environment in God's absence to stop her eating of this tree.

Firstly she reiterates the commandment to which the serpent replies that God is irrelevent to the matter of this tree; because Eve could eat from the tree and know for herself to decide not between good and evil, but what is good and what is evil. The serpent makes God irrelevent by stating that the commandment is null and void, since Eve wont die; Immediately Eve examines with her senses the act of coveting the fruit of the tree, then weighing up as to whether her senses would be harmed, then finally reasoning that after eating of the fruit she would continue as if it were any other fruit of the garden.

Environmentally (disregarding God) there is nothing to stop her checking those three tests off her carnal list and she has just been processed by the dialectic. She may as well have eaten from it already. These three steps are shown to be dialectically correct with the reiteration of "lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh and the pride of life." Equivalently we are given in the text that (i) upon coveting God's fruit from God's tree, she saw it was pleasing to the eyes. Then on examining the harmful state of the fruit (ii) saw the fruit was good for food , then (ii) she saw that she would continue on as before with some added "experience" that would make her able to deduce her own set of commandments (to be desired to make one wise.)

None of these steps were reached logically. One could state that Eve was completely irrational - but as we know the mechanisms of the senses in this carnal state that is strictly not correct, as we can see the process at work as it were under the bonnet! The real danger of this process is found in the serpents words that pull Eve off from the didactic position of God's commandment. Logic would have stated that Eve simply avoid the serpent also. However, Eve made the mistake of prolonging her relationship with the serpent and gave the serpents words weight, rather than none. A group consensus was reached.

It may be pointed out that Eve left knowing she was herself become "evil", and that at that moment she knew she was spiritually dead. The serpents promises that she would be "as god" and "shall not die" ring rather hollow in eternity. Adam however made the mistake that he went ahead as willingly disobedient and ate of the fruit of the tree, not out of 'love' or a similar beguiling, rather simply because he "could".

Adam and Eve both knew the difference between good and evil beforehand; they knew that eating of the tree would not give them special knowledge of good and evil in particular. Rather by eating from the tree and introducing the carnality of their senses to evaluate their environments with their own relative sets of commandments (issued by themselves only and apart from God) they knew they themselves were become evil - they indeed hid from God.

In breaking their obedience to God, God not only separated Himself from them (they became spiritually dead and cursed with death) and left them with their knowledge of good and evil completely untethered by further commandments from God that could be kept by them for conscience' sake, leaving them bastards. God, acted to prevent them becoming in good standing again as punishment for their sin. Their punishment was exclusion from redemption in the form of the tree of life.

The system (of evaluating for themselves) good and evil that Adam and Eve were left with rested upon knowledge of their own evil and nothing was gained from the tree, only that it left them without any extra knowledge of good and evil except that they were evil, and God was good.


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