The Strand Study Bible

GENESIS GENESIS strengths (her mental capabilities and intelligence), Satan succeeded in convincing the woman to question God’s Word and His motives. In essence, he attacked her faith, for “ whatsoever is not of faith is sin ” (Rom 14:23). Harold W. Tribble in From Adam to Moses notes: 61

There are the first two steps in the temptation that wrought the downfall of man. The first was the awakening of the desire for something more than God permitted. It was unholy ambition, the desire for something that did not rightfully belong to man. The second step was doubting the goodness and justice of God. Eve was led to believe that God was deliberately keeping her and her husband in an unhappy condition of limitation, whereas if she would disobey his will she would enter into a freedom through experience that she could not have otherwise. 1

NOTE - Satan attacked Eve in three areas: 1. Eve’s desire to possess things (vs. 1) Satan’s goal here was to cast doubt on God’s goodness by appealing to the woman’s desire to have things. In so doing she caved into her feelings and saw that the tree “ was good for food .” 2. Eve’s desire to experience things (vs. 4) Satan’s goal here was to cast doubt on God’s Word by appealing to the woman’s past experiences. Because Eve had never seen death before or experienced it, she concluded that God didn’t really mean what He said in Genesis 2:17. In doing so, she caved into her feelings and saw that the tree “ was pleasant to the eyes .” 3. Eve’s desire to know things (vs. 5) Satan’s goal here was to cast doubt on God’s character by appealing to the woman’s desire to acquire knowledge. In so doing she caved into her feelings and saw that the tree “ would make her wise .” Yet the wisest man to ever live (King Solomon) concluded in Ecclesiastes 12:12-13 that the quest for knowledge is overrated at best. The Apostle Paul agreed. A thousand years later he warned believers in I Corinthians 8:1 that the desire for too much knowledge is dangerous because it can lead to pride. 3:1b This statement ( Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? ) was meant to cast doubt on the goodness of God; for if Satan can get us to second guessGod’s goodness (God allows us to eat fromevery tree but one…badGod), thenhe can get us to distrust God andHisWord, which leads us to repentance and salvation (Rom2:4). JosephM. Stowell in Radical Reliance notes:

By getting Eve to doubt God’s goodness, Satan kicked the door open to the second disconnecting impression–the inference that life would be more meaningful, satisfying, and sustaining if she had unrestricted access to the world around her, even if it meant disconnecting from God. God plus all that He had put in her legitimate reach would not be enough. After all, Satan suggested, God was the One who wanted to hold her back. Surely she could find complete satisfaction and sustenance in the created order around her. What is important to note here is that Eve didn’t commit an act of blatant denial of God. She simply came to believe that He wasn’t enough for her . The disaster that was about to happen was motivated by the belief that she could find more satisfaction in herself and the created order around her than in God. God wasn’t enough. Nor was Adam. The important thing in life would be herself and her surroundings… God had already offered her all the sustenance, satisfaction, and security she could ever need, but she traded it away for what she thought would be more. In her shortsighted exchange Eve was like the dog in the fable who, carrying a juicy steak across a bridge, looked in the water and saw his reflection. Thinking it was another dog with a better steak, he lunged to snatch the other steak and got neither. 2 Adam and Eve’s story is not just a “once upon a time” story; it is also the story of every human being. The beginning of all sin–the origin of all that is unloving–is a judgment about God. We embrace a picture of God that is less loving, less beautiful, less full of life, less gracious, and less glorious than the true God really is. From this, everything that attaches to sin, everything that characterizes life “in Adam” (1 Cor. 15:22) and life in “the flesh” (Rom. 7:5; 8:4-8) follows. When our picture of God is distorted, we can no longer trust God to be the source of our life. It is impossible to live in God’s love if we don’t believe God is love. 3

Greg Boyd in Repenting of Religion agrees. He notes:

What we humans need to remember before swallowing this line of reasoning is that Satan is the father of lies (Jn 8:44). He lied to himself first; then to those who would “listen.” Ironically, the father of lies enjoys accusing God, who cannot lie (Titus 1:2), of lying. The great accuser (Rev 12:10), not only longs to accuse God before man ( Yea, hath God said - Gen 3:1), but he also enjoys accusing man before God ( Doth Job fear God for nought - Job 1:9-11). NOTE – Weakening the foundation of the faith in the form of questioning the Bible’s validity is as old as the Devil himself. 3:5 According to world-renowned classicist Edith Hamilton in her book called Mythology (regarded by many as the greatest volume ever written on the subject), mythology began in Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization. Interestingly enough, Hamilton’s findings concur with the Sacred Scriptures, for according to Genesis 3:5, Satan sold the first “myth” to Eve in the Garden of Eden, which was located in Mesopotamia, when he told her, “ ye shall be as gods ” (ye shall be as Elohim ). According to Hamilton, long before the Greeks made their gods in their own image, Mesopotamia and Egypt were producing gods never seen except in their own minds. Hamilton notes:

In Mesopotamia, bas-reliefs of bestial shapes unlike any beast ever known, men with bird’s heads and lions with bulls’ heads and both with eagles’ wings, creations of artists who were intent upon producing something never seen except in their own minds… 4

According to Hamilton, mythology is the result of men’s first attempt to try and explain what they saw around them and before them. Although greatly exaggerated, what early man from the cradle of civilization attempted to explain was the tales of a celestial