“Listen up, Adam; let me put it this way. If you don’t take a bite I’m cuttin’ you off’” A slanderous, vile canard, a calumny has been raised against me. I did not accuse Eve of threatening Adam with having to sleep on the couch if he did not cooperate with her and the Serpent in eating us out of house and home. I simply raised the possibility. A far greater possibility, to my mind, was a threat to Adam’s “manhood.” I think it far more likely that Eve appealed to Adam’s ego, his sense of “superiority” as the “High Mucky Muck” of the Garden. “What kind of wimp are you, anyhow, Adam? scairty cat, scairty cat, afraid of God. The Serpent and I aren’t afraid. I took a bite and nothing happened. Big man, afraid to do something to stand up to The Boss. The Serpent’s really got your number. If you were any kind of a ‘Real Man’ you wouldn’t have to let a woman go first!”
Ah, gentle reader, the possibilities are really there. You men, what would you have done in Adam’s place? Taken “Abiola’s“ advice and given Eve a punch in the mouth? Or, like Adam, possibly, let the “Real Man” in you feel threatened and “rise to the occasion?” Or, would you, as Adam should have done, as a truly Real Man would do, obey God and let Him handle the consequences?
Well, in any event the possibilities are fascinating but the bottom line is that Adam “hearkened” to Eve and we live with the results of his rebellion to God and his failure toward his wife. I do wonder if Adam became the first Wife-beater as a result. Perhaps this would account for their first son, Cain, becoming a murderer. Adam did try to blame God and Eve for his own failure. That was a poor beginning for a relationship. It may be the reason that God finally had to destroy the world by a flood and start over again with Noah. Unhappily, Jesus was correct in pointing out things weren’t going to get any better until God calls an end to this age.
Now if Eve had been smart she would have moved to California before all this took place. If poor, old Adam tried that “Rulership” nonsense here, then she would have divorced him and her lawyer would have made sure the “Mine” was “equitably divided” so she would have gotten the gold and he would have gotten the shaft. She would have wound up in Mink instead of “leaves and skins.” But, alas for poor Eve, there was no California at that time and lawyers hadn’t been invented back then unless you count this as one of Satan’s areas of expertise, something that comes readily to mind.
In any event, Adam could hardly have been looking for a suitable companion among the beasts of the field. So I think it possible the Serpent described as beautiful and intelligent may have been in the running; and if a female we know “Hell hath no fury…” So when God came up with Eve, the Serpent having been rejected by Adam may have laid plans for an ambush. She gained Eve’s confidence, invited her to Tupperware parties and so on, all the while plotting revenge. The Biblical account infers Eve was used to visiting with the Serpent so there was no surprise by the creature striking up a conversation with Eve when the Serpent felt the time was right to initiate her revenge.
Jewish theologians came up with a “first wife” of Adam called Lilith in an attempt to make sense of things. But I think the Genesis account has it right with the Serpent playing the hypotenuse in the Eternal Triangle. Whatever the truth of the matter, God’s curse fell most heavily upon Eve and the Serpent. The curse of sex and the ruler ship of men over them would be most harsh on women.
Since the curse of death took quite a while to come about for Adam and Eve, it may be the Serpent didn’t immediately start crawling on its belly but may have gone off to the land of Nod and waited for Cain’s arrival, the two of them producing children of the Devil leading to violence filling the earth. This may explain the commingling of the “sons of God and daughters of men, the further progeny of Adam and Eve and those of Cain and the Serpent. But things got so bad God was sorry He made man and he could only find Noah worth sparing. But there would be the perverted son of Noah, Ham, who would start the whole thing of violence all over again and we live with the results today.
Well, it isn’t to be wondered I have had more than a little difficulty finding a church “home” when I speculate about the things of the Bible.
