The snake was the most clever wild animal God had made. One day the snake asked the woman, “Did God really say you can’t eat the fruit from any trees in the garden?”
“We can eat from the trees,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we aren’t allowed to eat. God said, ‘If you eat its fruit, you will die. 100 percent. Dead.’”
“You won’t die!” the snake said. “You’ll obtain all the knowledge of good and evil. You’ll be able to make your own choices. God only wants you to look like him, not be like him. He thinks that will be too much power for you.”
If there’s one thing a naked woman that’s talking to a snake in the middle of a garden craves, it’s wisdom. She took the fruit and ate it. Then she told her husband about the hot new fruit spot in the middle of the garden and he ate some of the fruit too. At that moment, their minds filled with wisdom. And shame that they were naked. But they had also gained the knowledge to sew some fig leaves together to cover their genitals.
Later, the cool evening wind carried God’s footsteps to their ears. They hid from him in the trees. Then God called out, “Marco!”
The man couldn’t help himself, the fruit’s wisdom had given him an infinite knowledge of children’s games. “Polo!” he called in response.
God asked why he was hiding.
The man said “I heard you coming so I hid. I was naked.”
“Where did you learn that word? Have you eaten the forbidden fruit?”
And for the first, but certainly not the last time, man blamed woman. “She gave it to me so I ate it.”
Then God piled on and asked her what she had done.
“The snake lied to me,” she said. “That’s why I ate it. (Although the snake convinced her to eat the fruit, it hadn’t lied to her. Wisdom she sought and wisdom she found).
Then God cursed the snake. “For your actions, you are cursed more than all the other animals. You will crawl on your belly for as long as you live.” The snake thought about telling God that the fact he was a snake already meant he crawled on his belly, but figured he shouldn’t get too cocky. God continued, saying “And I will cause hostility between snake babies and human babies. They’ll try to kill you and you’ll bite their heels.” Then God told the woman, “You’ll experience pain before birth. And you’ll try controlling your husband, but he will rule over you.” (Now we know where toxic masculinity comes from).
And He said to the man, “Since you listened to your wife instead of me, the ground is cursed because of you. You will struggle to survive as a farmer. You’ll have plenty of food, but you’ll have to work around thorns, thistles and weeds until you go back into the ground. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.” (Why the redundancies?) The man held back a laugh.
Then the man, by this time named Adam, named is wife Eve, because she would be the mother of all who lived. (No, her last name wasn’t Duggar.) And God made clothes for them out of animal skins. (Two things. First, he should have left them in their naked shame. Two, did he plan on making them more clothes when those wore out?)
Then God said, “Look, the humans are like us (Us? As in Gods?), knowing good and evil. What if they eat from the tree of life? Then they will live forever!” (Because what’s the point in creating something to last forever? Also, I would have been pissed if the snake failed to mention the benefits of the tree of life.) So God banished them from the Garden of Eden and sent Adam to farm the land. Then God placed chubby winged babies to the east of the Garden. And he put a flaming sword that swung back and forth like a miniature golf obstacle to guard the tree of life.
Arsenio Franklin 