#this is gods fault because he cursed eve when she ate that apple

[thelastevilregal]

Wanna go commando but I'm on my period :(

[theheartspoon]

Genesis 3 - 4

Genesis Chapter 3

Chapter three is one that I really struggle within the Bible for a few reasons. I ask myself why the serpent chose to attack Eve in the first place. Was it random? Did it matter?

He makes Eve doubt the word of God with a “But did he REALLY say…” Eve reiterates what she has been told here – and accurately so.

He makes him doubt again by saying that SURELY you won’t actually die. Then she looks at the fruit and makes a bad call. She sees that the fruit would allow her to gain wisdom. Wisdom is the knowledge of what is good and what is evil. Here’s the real kicker for me: ADAM WAS WITH HER THE WHOLE TIME. Men like to say that the fall was completely on the woman, but Adam was with her and remained silent. He did not participate in the conversation or acknowledge what was going on. He remained silent in the face of evil. Which allowed Eve to face the serpent alone and fall into doubt. It is not the fault of one, but the fault of both that allowed the world to fall into sin. Not to mention that Adam ate the apple anyway. He was silently persuaded as well.

The first consequence that Adam and Eve experience regarding their disobedience is Shame. This is still in accordance with what we experience today when we disobey. We feel ashamed. Shame is the weight of Sin on the human Soul.

When Adam and Ever hear God walking through the garden, their first instinct is to hide their shame. I find God’s response here very interesting because the question He asks is revealing to what is going on in Adam and Eve’s individual souls at this point in time. The question he asks is, “Where are you?”

Sin drags us away from God and shadows us from communion and relationship with him. God knows where we are, but Sin makes our Souls less recognizable.

The second consequence that Adam and Eve bring upon themselves is blame. They try to pass the blame around. Adam hands it to Eve and Eve hands it to the serpent. They are trying to play Hot Potato with the sin they have just conceived within their lives. This is something that we see small children do. They LOVE to blame a fault or trouble on someone else. This is instinctive. You can watch a 2-year old child blame the dog for something you SAW them do two seconds ago. And the situation is laughably frustration for parents – I think that this is what God was experiencing at this time. He SAW these two idiots eat from the tree. He SAW them run to hide their nakedness. Yet, just like a parent who is trying to coax their child out of hiding, he asks “Where are you?” Even though He can plainly see them. Because of the basic principle of parenting. You want your children to come to you. You want them to own up to whatever it was they did on their own. You want them to simply tell the truth. We know that when we tell the truth the consequences are generally less severe.

This makes me wonder about our punishment:

Woman’s being that we will suffer during childbirth, “desire” her husband and that he will rule over you.

Man’s being that he will have to toil the earth for sustenance and the earth will resist being farmed, and that death will be introduced unto man.

Then, of course, we are banished from the Garden.

I wonder about the punishment of woman because what does it mean for her desire to be for her husband and that he will rule over us??? Man’s consequences seem so straight forward, but women’s punishment is unclear.

From some light reading, it seems that many people believe that the desire spoke of here is some kind of sexual desire – but others believe that it is the desire to dominate the man and see herself as more powerful or above the man. I can understand that because I am seeing some of that today where women believe that they are better than men. God sees this as a consequence of our sin of not consulting with our partner on certain decisions. God also says that man will rule over us. Now, this could be interpreted in a couple of ways. That Man was always meant to rule over Woman and thereby validating a patriarchal society. OR you could see it for what it is. The man’s desire will be to rule and dominate over the woman creating a power struggle between the two that would negate each other and create a nonfunctioning society.

The way that I see it: Men and women were made to be equal parts of a functioning society. We were to consult with each other about major decisions and reinforce within one another the goodness the positive choices. We cannot act alone or try to dominate one another. This attempt to dominate is a consequence of our sin. We should strive to act as partners as ONE FLESH. One body and become the people we were meant to be.

Genesis Chapter 4

So this is the Cain and Abel story. Abel brings fat portions of the first slaughter of his flock while Cain brings some fruits of the soil. Now, there isn’t any clarification on this part here. We are not told why exactly God chooses to reject Cain’s offering. I can infer there that it might be because Cain’s offering was half-hearted. He did not bring “first-fruits” which would be the first harvest and normally those are the best fruits. In contrast, Abel does bring the best of the best from his flock.

Instead of taking this admonishment from God and choosing to become better through this, he opts for jealousy and rage. God tells him to let go of these feelings because Sin is crouching outside his door waiting for the opportunity to strike. Cain does not listen and allows this rage to fester and eventually straight up murders his brother in a field.

God ask Cain, “Where is your brother?” And Cain, like his mother and father before him chooses to hide his sin. Even through God had given him multiple chances to change his ways and even to own up to this horrible deed. Cain literally SASSES God and says, “IDK. What am I The keeper of my brother?”

Like he actually thinks that he can fool God into just LETTING HIM GET AWAY WITH LITERAL MURDER.

God basically curses Cain for this – he will no longer be able to farm the land and he is forced to restlessly wander the earth. He even says that no one will kill Cain because he will place a mark on him. (This, again, implies that there are other people out there in the world. NOT JUST ADAM AND EVE). In the “Antiquities of the Jews”, it does happen to mention that Adam and Eve had daughters, but we have no idea what their names were.

Even Cain’s descendants murder people. His great-great-great grandson Lamech was a murderer too.

Cain’s descendants were some pretty industrious people through. They fathered some interesting industries: livestock, music, and blacksmithing. Kinda interesting.

Ooh – Cain apparently didn’t stop the sinning with murder. He just went and robbed/raped people and created the idea of property and weights and measures for selling things, and that he was “intolerable in war”. (Capitalism begins!) IN the “Antiquities of the Jews”, it even says that these people were innocent of these things until Cain came and corrupted them.

Cain’s descendants live in the land of Nod East of Eden.

Genesis Chapter 5

This just seems like a historical account of the first sons and their lineage. The only interesting piece of this for me is that one of Seth’s descendants was named Enoch (weird that it is the same name as Cain’s first son) who walked with God and didn’t die but was instead taken away by God.