Genesis Chapter Three: Adam and Eve

¹Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

¹One day the woman, whom no one had yet bothered to name, was approached by a peculiar snake who asked her if she were allowed to eat of every tree in the garden. Now this snake, possibly the first snake, was a very clever and subtle fellow. Also, he could talk, which also makes him a fairly unique member of the snake family. His motivations for engaging in this interesting conversation have been speculated upon for millennia, but they can ultimately be boiled down to this: he was bored.

²And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:

²And the woman said, "Yes".

³But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

³ "Except for that one tree over in the center of the garden. If we eat of that tree we'll die. I'm not really sure what dying is yet, as I've never seen anyone do it. But as I understand it you stop moving, Adam dumps you in the river, and you wind in Ethiopia . And while I would like to see what cattle look like, I'm not that eager to go to Ethiopia ."

⁴And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

⁴And the serpent said , "Nope, never happen."

⁵For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

⁵"God is messing with you. He told you that you'd die if you ate that apple, but that's not what's going to happen. Your eyes are going to open wide and you will see the world as God does. Not as the lamb in the field, but as the master of lambs. Now you are just another type of animal, much smarter and with more effective hands, but really nothing more than a dog on its hind legs. But take that apple, and you'll become something greater than an animal. You will become human. Really!"

⁶And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

⁶And the woman decided to eat the apple because a) it looked tasty, b) it was pretty, and c) she desired all the wisdom the serpent told her she would obtain if she ate the apple. It is interesting to note that pretty and tasty come before desire for wisdom in her desires, which tends to make one think she really had her priorities wrong. As did Adam, for shortly after her own trip down Applesauce lane, the woman convinced Adam to join her.

⁷And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.

⁷ And now Adam and the woman were filled with all the wisdom and perception of human beings. So naturally their first thought is to find something stylish to wear.

⁸And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

⁸As Adam and the woman were deciding what color of leaf was going to be the in thing this year; they heard LORD God walking around in the garden. Suddenly realizing they had bigger worries than leaves they quickly hid behind a tree. While perhaps not the best plan for concealing oneself from the creator of the universe, it seemed like a good idea at the time.

⁹And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

⁹And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, "Adam! Where are you! The Garden is a mess! Weeds everywhere! I gave you one job to do, make the Garden look nice, and you screw it up!"

¹⁰And Adam said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

¹⁰And Adam said, "Sorry LORD God, I'm just not very comfortable with you looking at me naked anymore. It's kind of weird, you know?"

¹¹And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

¹¹ And LORD God said, "What!? Why aren't you naked any more!? Who's been telling you what naked even means!? Get out here and get naked right now or I'm coming in there after you! Wait a minute! Did you two go and eat the one tree in this whole garden I told you not eat? When I gave you bananas and papayas and kiwis and those great big watermelons!? I spent a lot of time on those watermelons!"

¹²And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

¹²And the man said, "Look, I was minding my own business, doing all the gardening I'm supposed to be doing, when this woman thing comes up with an apple and told me to eat it. What was I supposed to do? I mean you gave her to me. Maybe she had special instructions or something regarding apples. I was just being agreeable!"

¹³And the LORD God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.

¹³And the LORD God said to the woman, "Why did you touch the apples, woman? I specifically told you not to eat the apples. And what did you do? You went ahead and did it anyway. This is why we can't have nice things! Why did you eat it?"

And the woman said, "The serpent told me it was what all the cool animals were doing".

¹⁴And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life:

¹⁴And LORD God said to the serpent, "Ok that's it. Consider yourself officially cursed. Forget those fancy wings, buddy, you're going crawl from now on. Hope you enjoy the taste of dirt!

(Of course the snake had wings, how else would he get around?)

¹⁵And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

¹⁵ "Oh and just to make sure the snakes and the humans never get chatty again, I herby declare you are enemies! War forever! Snakes will no longer be able to talk except with sharp, sharp teeth! And I hereby declare the humans will always be stepping on the snakes for humans will find them hard to see. And the humans will find you really freaky to look at and hate you for it. And the snakes will find that humans are the most fun thing to bite!"

¹⁶Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

¹⁶ And LORD GOD said to the woman, "You like apples? Here's an apple for you, Woman. Childbirth! Nine months of misery followed by couple of really fun days of hideous agony. And then several years of not being able to sleep through the night! And teenagers! You get those too! Hope you enjoyed the apple! Oh, and Man gets to run your entire life. Your Father until you marry and your husband until you die! How's about them apples?"

¹⁷And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

¹⁷And unto Adam he said, "Because you made the grave mistake of listening to your wife I herby condemn you to eat apples! That's right buddy! You're going to eat apples until you're sick of them! And then you're going to eat some more!"

¹⁸Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

¹⁸ "And not just apples, but vegetables. Oh, you're going to love vegetables! Carrots! Cauliflower! Broccoli! Spinach! How do you like that? You don't think that's so bad? Huh? Oh Ho! Just you wait! They taste like tree bark but not as appetizing!"

¹⁹In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

¹⁹ And just as Adam was beginning to think he gotten off pretty easy, God said "Oh, and one more thing. You get Death! You're going to love this one! It means that body of yours, which you're so busy covering in poison ivy (which I just invented), is going to rot! Yep, just like a fruit on the ground! Your teeth will fall out your bones will become frail, and that sex thing you enjoy so much? That won't last!"

"And that's just if you live that long! I also give you falling branches, hungry tigers, and a random shelf life on all your internal organs! Flood! Pestilence! Famine! A million ways to horribly snuff it!"

²⁰And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living.

²⁰And Adam, in his last bit of naming, finally got around to giving his wife a name. And it was Eve. And while Eve came to mean "mother of all living" at the time it was basically short for, "Thing I did not ask for, the reason I'm short a rib, and why I'm going on to exciting new career in struggling to live instead of light gardening and animal naming".

²¹Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them.

²¹Now having cursed the Adam and Eve quite thoroughly, LORD God felt that was enough for one day so he reached out to some nearby animals, ripped theirs skins off, polished them up a bit, and presented them to the unhappy couple, thus showing them the nature of Fashion. It also showed the animals that Adam, Eve and the snake weren't the only ones getting punished here.

²²And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

²²And the LORD God said, "Hey! Everyone come here and look at this! Mister Adam and his woman, now called Eve, who thought they were so smart, have traded paradise for apples! They didn't want to be naked anymore, so I killed some animals so they could have nice clothes! I hope you're happy Adam and Eve! "

"So congratulations to Adam and Eve! You got what you wanted. You now know something of the true nature of the universe, of good, evil, and the costs of each. Now wave bye-bye to the tree of life on your way out of the garden. If you had eaten of that tree you would have lived forever in paradise, but nooooo. You wanted wisdom. So enjoy!"

²³Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

²³And LORD God sent Adam out of Eden . And since Adam was apparently SO unhappy being a gardener, he would now be a farmer.

²⁴So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims , and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

²⁴So the LORD drove the apple biters out of the Garden and to make sure they didn't sneak back in, he appointed a divine security guard called a Cherubim to keep them out. Just to be extra careful, the LORD gave the Cherubim a flaming sword and made it quite clear to Adam and Eve where that sword would be inserted should they ever come back.