Eve is curious about why she exists. She chooses to educate herself. And just like you, she wants to know:

Why am I here on Planet Earth?

So she visits the Tree of Knowledge and encounters the serpent. Adam is not mentioned at this time; and it is Eve who is 'tempted'.

By depicting a woman as the first 'sinner', the Bible is telling us that women have a lower status than men. As if to underline this, it is Eve and not the serpent who urges Adam to bite into the apple.

Here we see the Bible deliberately undermining women. A woman is Mother Earth (she nurtures Earth's natural goodness) and as such is vital to the wellbeing of the planet*. The Bible makes it clear the Lord would not allow women to have this loving role, even though it was meant for them.

When Eve bites into the apple, she is Mother Earth eating her own produce! Is that sinful?

(How does the apple represent knowledge? Apple is Fruit. Fruit is the product of Nature. Nature is God. God is the Creator. The Creator is All There Is. All There Is is The Knowledge.)

Serpent: Did God forbid you to eat the fruit of the trees of the garden?

Unless it is acting as a double agent for the Lord, the serpent is clearly not on the Lord's side. And given the Lord is capable of wiping out whole communities of people (in 'retribution') we can conclude the serpent, in revealing the secrets of life to human beings, must have been against the Lord. We know the Lord did not want the truth to be revealed; it was his greatest fear.

Why a serpent? Throughout history, serpents have been portrayed as sly creatures, which is not to say they are.

Are you getting the impression the Adam and Eve story is all upside down? Portrayed as good, the Lord is actually bad. Portrayed as bad, Man is actually good.

Serpent: You will not die. God knows that the day you eat of the fruit your eyes shall be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.

"You will not die". The serpent is revealing to Eve that if she eats the fruit she will know life is eternal. As we saw in part one of this presentation, there is no death, just transition. The serpent knew: we are all fragments of the universe; we are all part of the whole; we are all One.

"God knows that the day you eat of the fruit your eyes shall be opened ..." In other words, when she learns the truth about life, Eve will experience a Spiritual Awakening. The Lord will do anything to stop this from happening. He does not want the truth to be revealed; it is his greatest fear.

"... and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil." Like gods? Or like God?

In the Bible it clearly says: "gods". What gods?

Let us go deeper.

Next

* Planet Earth has not been in balance for a very long time. There is an ever increasing dominance of the negative (masculine) aspect over the positive (feminine).

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