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Adam and Eve considerable basic
instruction, sufficient for their needs for
the momeot, only portions of which are
recorded.
Now chapter 3.
"Now the scrpent was more subtil
than any beast of the field which the
Eterna! God had made" (verse
1) •
Much of the Bible is symbols - but
the Bible explains its own symbols. Of
course it's very out-of-date to believe in
a devil today, but the Bible, to the con–
trary notwithstanding, plainly speaks of
tbe presence of a devil. In Revelation
12:9 and 20:2, the devil is called, sym–
bolically,
the Jerpmt.
It is, then, no
"guess" to say that this serpent is
intended to
be
merely a symbol for the
devil.
Notice the temptation. He subtly
went first to the "weaker sex" - ( the
Bible refers to woman as the weaker
sex, whether or not one wishes to
agree), to get to Adam through his
wife.
"And he said unto the woman, Yea,
hath God said, Y
e
shall not eat of every
tree of tbe garden? (Genesis 3:
l.)
"And the woman said unto the ser–
pent. We may eat of thc fruit of the
trees of tbe garden: but of the fruit of
the tree which is in the midst of tbe
garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat
of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye
lncreosed educotion ond odvonced technology hove not been o deterrent to
wor. Photo shows twelve M-16 rifles copped with helmets, representing 12
American soldiers killed in V ietnam.
die. And the serpent said unto the
woman, Yc shall not surely die: for
God doth know that in the day ye eat
thereof, then your eyes sball be opened,
and ye shall be as gods, knowing good
and evil" (verses 2-5).
The narration here attributes astute
subtlety to the dcvil. First he dis–
credited God. In effect, he said "You
can't rely on God's word. He Jied to
you. He knows you will not die- you
can't die - because you are an immor–
tal soul."
Next, this devil is represented as
clever enough to avoid saying, "Believe
me
instead of God. Let
me
be
your
teacher. Let
me
give you the
KNOWL–
EDGE
of what is right and wbat is
wrong." Instead the devil is repre–
sented here as saying, "You can't rely
on God, since He Jied when He said
you could die. But rely
on )'OIIrself!
If
you disobey God and
eat
this fruit, then
yo11r
eyes will be opened. You'll come
to realize what a great intellect you have.
You havc a perfect mind -
YOU
can
think and reason - You can observe
explore, discover - vou can decide for
yourseif
what is good and what is evil.
It is a Goo function to produce the
KNOWLEDGE
of what is good and what
is evil - what is right and what is
wrong. Your
MINO
is so perfect
yo11
can
supply this God function - and by
observation, experimentation and reason
JOII
can produce the
KNOWLEDGE
of
what is good and what is evil. You
have intellect so great
YOU
can assume
this God prerogative of determining
what is good and what is evil. You
can be as Goo
yormelf
.'
Forget that
tree of
UFE.
You already have that
- you are an immortal soul. You
have the tremendous intellectuaJ powers
of God. You cannot rely on the God
that Jied to you, but you can depend
with confidence on yourself, and
yo11r
ability to produce this knowledge."
What is impüed in this narrative of
the forbidden fruit is plain. This Satan
is represeoted as appealing to man's
VANITY -
his pride of intellect. The
narrative represents the man, Adam, as
having been just newly created, and
with perfect human mind. We know
that the human mind is superior to any–
thing else we can see
oc
know by our
five senses.
It
is easy to understand how
this newly created man and woman
could suddenly begin to realize they had