Cosmetic Surgery (Revisited)
“For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5 NASB
Like God – The serpent doesn’t tell Havvah that she will be God. He doesn’t even tell her that she will be like God. He only says that she will have one faculty that he ascribes to God – knowing good and evil. Havvah isn’t going to become omniscient or omnipotent. All she is supposedly going to gain is the knowledge of good and evil. Apparently, this must be very, very important since it was by itself enough to entice Havvah. But is this really what the serpent says? Let’s take another look.
Maimonides points out that the Hebrew word here is elohim. In most contexts, this is a plural noun used to describe the singular God (like Genesis 1:1). But elohim also means gods (like the false gods of idol worship), judges and princes. Yeshua uses this homonym when he quotes the Psalms, “You are gods” (John 10:34). Perhaps the serpent only suggests that Havvah will be elevated. It is not that she will become God but rather that she will be better than she currently is. She will be royalty, the Queen of the cosmos. The appeal implies a subtle discontent with the way things are. God made her a little less than the best and now Eve can rectify that situation by improving on God’s design.
The subtlety of sin is found in our discontent with the way things are. We don’t really believe that God is completely in control. From our perspective, He didn’t do things quite right. There is room for improvement. I just need a little spiritual plastic surgery to make my world (and me) a better place. I just need to help God out by rearranging His design.
Everything about the creation of Havvah announces God’s careful and deliberate handiwork. The verb implies a purposeful design, executed according to plan. The fact that she is taken from the man underscores her uniqueness. Her designation as ‘ezer kenegdo tells us that God had a very specific role in mind for her. That she is the last of creation speaks to her place as the crowning achievement. But Havvah is not content.
It isn’t that she is restlessly searching for the “new” Havvah. She hasn’t read the latest book on hard bodies or fashion make-overs. She isn’t chasing the “best life now” prosperity nonsense. She just wants to be all that she can be – and that’s why the serpent only needs to suggest one small addition to her capabilities. If she could just add this, then she would really be the best at what she does.
Have you ever heard this offer made to you? All you need is just this one small addition and then you will be complete. It is an offer that offends in two ways. First, it rejects the sovereignty of God. It calls into question His design and purpose. Secondly, it offends His omniscience. It assumes that God didn’t quite know exactly what He was doing and, consequently, things need a bit of improvement. Furthermore, the suggestion places Eve (and you and me) in the role of the Creator. Now we determine what is best. We decide what is good – for us.
Don’t object that contentment leads to stagnation. If no one ever attempted to improve things, we would still be living in caves, but that is not the issue here. The serpent does not appeal to improving the world around me. This is an appeal to improve God’s design in me. It is an assumption that God has not equipped me to accomplish what God has called me to do and to be. This is about a personal design flaw, not an improvement in my environment.
Maybe you’ve heard the serpent hissing in your ear. If you have, it’s time to remember that when God rested, nothing more needed to be added.
Topical Index: gods, elohim, Havvah, serpent, improvement, design, Genesis 3:5
The text is quit clear what it would be to “be like Elohim”. Knowing-determining-good and evil. It is no coincidence, then, that Torah is given as the antidote to the notion that man would now create his own ideas of good an evil.
Also in text, the suggestion that God’s promise of death was only a possible word, not a sure word. In the world of chance posted by the tempter, God’s words are no better than anyone else’s and subject to verification by man. When Eve should have trusted (believed) God and his word, she failed. And the rest, as they say, is history.
I think I may have spent more time in the past few years in the first three chapters of Genesis than I have in the rest of my life! It seems every essential question that has come up about the bottom essence of anything has me scrambling back there.
This TW speaks to a vast majority of my life. It wasn’t that I was tempted to improve a little; my whole world had crashed and burned and nothing worked; not the loved ones in my life, not the people in my church, not even my earnest child attempts to do good and obey everything I had been taught was right. My prayers, such as they were, seemed to bounce off the ceiling. I was sick, and desperately tired, and nothing I did seemed to touch that either. All the people I loved were in serious danger in all dimensions – everything seemed lost.
40-odd years later, as I am working out the whys and wherefores of disaster, and how it could have been handled differently, I have kept going back to the admonitions in scripture about diligently guarding the door of my heart. Well, yeah! It is such a helpless feeling to just stand there and watch the train wreck coming at you! How do you keep the devastation OUTSIDE?
How did the enemy just sally right on in to my real estate and help himself to everything I had? And against my will, too, mind you.
When I broke down that fateful encounter with that snake, I finally noticed something. BEFORE any of the lies could take root, one or more beliefs had to change. And to get those beliefs in the truth to change, there had to be ACCUSATION. When I look back at my life now, the open door, every time, was where I listened to accusation of some sort, either against God, myself, or others. I had to believe accusation FIRST. And that is where my faith fell. And the door of my heart lay open to the enemy. I think that his name, The Accuser, must be given to us so that we could see, as plainly as possible, his modus operendi.
So I decided that to be able to obey that admonition to guard the door of my heart, I must understand everything I could find about how Accusation works, and what it looks like, and how it hooks me. And what have I found? When I can see Accusation coming, recognize its voice, understand the areas of my life where faith is not strengthened enough to resist believing it, then I can know how to pray, and how to stand, so that I do not have to fall into the temptation of any other lies. If I have not believed an accusation of some sort FIRST, then the lies just look like stupid lies.
This has been my biggest recent epiphany, y’all! Just wanted to share it.
Thank you so much. This is why the blog is so important. We all learn different things that become the community pool of understanding. I am so glad you shared this.
Wonderful! I’ve been working through slander with a similar epiphany in community powerlessness. Taking our words and thoughts captive appears to be as important as James says they are.
Everything about the creation of Havvah announces God’s careful and deliberate handiwork. The verb implies a purposeful design, executed according to plan. The fact that she is taken from the man underscores her uniqueness. Her designation as ‘ezer kenegdo tells us that God had a very specific role in mind for her. That she is the last of creation speaks to her place as the crowning achievement. But Havvah is not content.
My problem with this interpretation of Genesis is this; Adam and Eve are the first two people but the “carefully deliberate plan” very quickly goes wrong. Or does it? Was this just part of the “plan”? God tells Eve she has free will but “knows” that she will go wrong. Not only that but so does Adam, quite easily it seems. No first person, “I am in control” family leadership here with Adam, just another human doing what humans do. Err. Stray. Wander. Wonder. Sin.
As humans there is no doubt that we want, we need to learn about everything. That takes time. What is the point of dominion over the world with an enquiring mind otherwise? We were created with inquisitiveness. That means making considerations, choices. That means mistakes inevitably will be made. So Eve may not have made the “right” choice but she made the obvious choice. She was human. The only alternative to this would be to specifically define her role in the “crowning achievement.” What could it be? If it was “only” to procreate more humans similar to herself then it was “only” to postpone the inevitable “free choice” of someone else’s mistake, sin, and eat the apple. She made the obvious choice that God had already known she and Adam would both make. How we got here (evolution/creation) is irrelevant. Why we got here “in God’s image” was not.
As Skip says, we need to “learn to obey” and do as we children are told.
But what was God’s “very specific role” for Eve as an alternative?
Some assumptions in your analysis leave you with questions that are difficult to answer and perhaps impossible to reconcile. First, let’s start with the assumption that God “knew” Havvah would make the choice to take the fruit. While this seems to follow from the idea of God’s omniscience, I believe I have shown that the usual interpretation of that doctrine is flawed, not in concert with the biblical worldview and philosophically untenable. God does not know that future free will choices of human beings as ACTUAL choices. Possibilities, yes! Actualities, no! This means that Havvah’s decision is truly free and while the consequences could be anticipated, they did not exist and do not exist until they become real by action.
This means that the careful and deliberate plan is employed to provide Havvah with purposeful guidance regarding the commandment and expressed desire of God. She chooses not to follow those instructions. She is not inevitably destined to do so. Furthermore, it seems apparent that Adam communicated more than the requirement of God, leaving open the door for the consequent seduction. This, by the way, does not imply that Havvah was not content. It implies that once the serpent demonstrated the falsity of part of the commandment as she knew it, she was encouraged to disregard the rest of the commandment and consequently make a decision about what was good and what was evil WITHOUT the expressed will of God. This does not make her inevitably human. It means that being human is defined by the ability of CHOOSE more than one path. The right choice is the path offered by the loving Father. The wrong path is the path offered by deciding what the loving Father says must be qualified by what I consider good for me.
As a result, we are all challenged to listen and obey, not to listen, evaluate and choose. Havvah’s method is our, but it wasn’t DESIGNED to be like that.
It may not have been DESIGNED to be that way ideally but the reality was that it DID. Immediately!
Your position might be somewhat reasonable for Eve to get to first base, but degenerates rapidly under the reasonable man test with the second and third generation children trying to advance the runner to second or third base. God’s admonition is doomed to fail rather more quickly than not and it does, never mind forever. Adam seems like a reasonable man. He failed. God 2 for 2, Humans nothing. You’re out!
The argument reminds me of a film that where some bozo says to his buddy that he wants to marry some dream woman. The buddy says he has no chance. Bozo says what do you think my odds are? Response is “one in a million” and bozo replies “so I DO have a chance!
The main issue/flaw in our lives continues to be that of listening and obeying the wrong voice/s, be that literal or from our own spirits.
That is where accusations, slanders, false prophecies and false witnessing arise.
I am presently undergoing such a situation of oppression, from folks who have not the slightest knowledge of me whatsoever. I have cried to ABBA, and I know His hand is upon the situation, and, that most crucial to my own well being, that HE is well in control!
We are so far from knowing, in spite of Havvah partaking the fruit, what is good and what is evil. The choices and decisions we often make points to that. We take good for evil and evil for good : -( blinded by our discontentment.
I have always believed that this verse does not imply that Adam nor Eve suddenly became aware of right from wrong by eating the fruit. I believe eating the fruit signifies disobedience, and disobedience is the practice of declaring (by your actions) that what God has determined is good or evil is now supplanted by what a person themselves determines is good and evil.
I think that Ian Hodge intimated correctly in his comments that to be like God – to “know” good and evil”, means to be(come) the one who determines right from wrong for ones-self. If this isn’t true, then the concept or “knowledge” of right and wrong was foreign to Adam and Even until after they disobeyed – their disobedience being what exposed them to the concept in the first place. How could God hold them responsible for sinning when they had no concept of right and wrong until after they committed the act?
I believe we also commit the same sin with the same consequence each time we disobey the will of God. We die – separated from the Giver of life – by deciding that we will become our own source of life (like God) – and determine for ourselves what is right and wrong.