Garden Of Eden Thesis

In Genesis 3, the first man and woman are in the Garden of Eden. They have been placed under strict order by God not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. A serpent initiates conversation with the woman, informing her that God had lied to them: she wouldn’t die if she ate from the Forbidden Tree. Instead, she would become aware of all the good and evil in the world. The serpent was very clear about how the lives of the humans would change after eating the fruit from the Forbidden Tree, and was therefore absolutely honest.

As stated in Genesis 1:27, from Genesis, translated by Robert Alter, “... God created the human in his image, in the image of God He created him, male and female He created them.” To be created in the image of God means

This is a major indicator their loss of innocence, because they are now aware of what it means to do something and feel shame for it. They have experienced desire, which leads to sin. Their desire to disobey God to gain knowledge resulted in the creation of evil by humans. “[T]he Lord God said, ‘Now that the human has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he may reach out and take as well from the tree of life and live forever’”(Genesis 3:22). As punishment for their actions, the man and woman are banished from the Garden of Eden. God intended for the Garden to exist free from sin, but this was no longer possible. As we discussed in class, death did not exist in the Garden, but it was present outside. When they were banished, the man and woman were from then on susceptible to death. When God warned Adam, He said he would be “‘…doomed to die’” if he ate the fruit. This is certainly a death sentence, but not an immediate one. Again, the serpent didn’t lie – the fruit itself did not kill the humans, but the consequence for eating it resulted in eventual