Adam and Eve do not passively listen to the snake’s temptation.
It is clear from Eve’s response to him that she has
been thinking about this all along. The snake says, “Did God
say, ‘You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?” Eve answers
by enlarging and elaborating on the original simple command,
adding that they were also told where the tree was and that they
were not even to touch it, or they would die.

The snake tells them they won’t die. He hints that the God
who has provided them up to this point with everything they
need now holds out on them to keep them from becoming like
God. Perhaps their thinking that God has secret motives is their
ultimate temptation.

Sure enough, Adam and Eve eat the fruit and don’t die.
The great knowledge God has been holding back from them,
however, seemingly turns out to be no more than to notice that
they are naked and to feel shamed by it. Rather than preparing
a confession to God about their action, they sew some makeshift
clothes to hide in.

When God comes to find them in the garden, the man does
not take responsibility for his own actions. He blames Eve, and
even God’s own self for giving him Eve. Eve, meanwhile, plans
to blame the snake. The result of all this blaming signifies more
than symbolic death. All human relations, divine relations, and
relations with the animals are forever broken as we humans fail
to take responsibility for our actions and, instead, try to save
ourselves by turning against one another.

If only this story had no relevance to us now! But this broken
human state is what we will seek to recognize during Lent
with the promise of a coming Easter.