The Adam & Eve Story Does Not Say What You Remember

We dive deep into the Garden of Eden creation story from Genesis, analyzing the location, context, themes, interpretation and hidden meanings. We discuss the curses put on Adam and Eve, the tree of knowledge of good and evil, original sin, the serpent, and more.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] I had read this story as like a child I had, and I think this was pushed by like Bible conspiracy theorists and stuff like that. We didn't know where the Garden of Eden was. It like gives an exact location for the Garden of Eden.

But then the two other things that really like just chilled me when I was rereading it is why wouldn't God want man to have the knowledge of good and evil? Mm-Hmm. If it was evil to be nude, Then God would not have let them walk around the garden nude.

Is being nude really evil? No, it's not really evil. It is a social construct that man Tell the other man about what is evil.

knowledge of good and evil, Is not knowledge like a perfect knowledge of what's right. And what's wrong because that's obviously something man does not have, Instead. Knowledge of good and evil in this context means man's ability to make decisions about what is good and evil So in [00:01:00] eating from that tree, Man took unto himself Through making a decision for himself. About what was good and what was evil? The tree did not need to be magic to impart the knowledge of good and evil and demand. It was him making a decision independent from God.

Malcolm Collins: So, when I read this, one of the curses that I could have sworn was put on man. And there is a reading of this, that this is one of the curses that was put on man, was to die. That before this, man would have lived forever. Not being allowed to

Eat from the apple that makes you live forever. It's not one of the punishments. It is a consequence

would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I am so excited to be here with you today, Simone. Likewise. You had done this thing recently where you're like, I'm going to go back through the Bible and reread it with this new context I have.

While also recognizing that when we've gone back and read scripture recently, it doesn't say what we remembered it having said, [00:02:00] like what I read growing up. It's almost like a Mandela effect thing. Like I am certain. That the, the, for example, the story that we're going to go over today, the story of Adam and Eve, I am certain I remember it saying that Adam didn't have to work in Eden.

And yet it very explicitly says Adam had to work in Eden. Yeah,

Simone Collins: his job was tilling the land.

Malcolm Collins: God breathing the life into Adam's Mouth, but he breathed it into Adam's nose. I, there are so many aspects of this story where I was like, what is

Simone Collins: going on? God doesn't do CPR right. Oh my goodness. Well,

Malcolm Collins: no, speaking of CPR, another thing I was amazed about was how similar the removing of the rib felt to modern surgery.

So, yeah,

Simone Collins: he sedated him, yeah. So it

Malcolm Collins: put him, he put him into a deep sleep. Yeah. . Then he cuts him open. Mm-Hmm. . He removes the rib. He takes out the [00:03:00] rib. Then he reseals the area that he cut with flesh. Yes. Yes. It was so weird. I, and I, and I read that and I was like, I remember like something more animalistic, like pulling it out or something like that.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Or just, yeah, just, you know, you know, like whatever.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Not okay, we put him under sedation. We removed the rib. We so there were, but, but actually. It's not just that. The larger themes weren't the themes I remembered. And this is something that we get into in the next, in the upcoming track that we're doing this, this Friday.

Where you wanted to dig deep into the subject on the track, and I just haven't read it in a while, so I need to go back to it. Which is what's really going on with this story. Because, basically, the gist of the story, as I remember it, is Adam is in Eden with, with Eve and Adam doesn't have to work or anything like that, and a snake comes to Eve and Adam and tells them you should really eat this, apple of knowledge that you've been told not to eat.

And then Adam goes and he eats [00:04:00] the apple of knowledge. And God is mad about that. And then God kicks them out and curses you know, women to have pain and childbirth and. Men to have to work all of their lives for, for food. That was a gist of, of the story I remembered. That was not the story that I read for a number of reasons that I'd love to go deep.

But I'm happy to have you, you take a shot at this first, Simone. What really surprised you in your interpretation of it when you re read it?

I was, I was definitely surprised by a lot of the things you were, I just thought that they walked around this perfectly maintained garden and just picked fruit off the trees and kind of enjoyed that.

Simone Collins: So that was surprising to me. And I was also surprised by God's warning as to why one should not. Eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In that, like he says, if you do it, you'll die. Whereas before I thought it was just like, no, no, no, don't do that. So that was interesting to me.

I was also surprised that there are kind of two big deal trees, right? There's [00:05:00] the tree of life and there's a tree of knowledge of good and evil and.

No one, no one really

Malcolm Collins: talks about the other tree. And there's another thing, so I had vaguely remembered the Tree of Life, but I had understood that the way it worked is that the Tree of Life kept a man alive forever, so long as he lived in the garden and was eating for the Tree of Life. It's implied in the story that that is not true, and that is not how the Tree of Life works.

If man ever once ate from the tree of life, he would live forever. So man never ate from the tree of life. He never touched the tree of life. Which also to me kind of implies that this being kicked out of Eden happened almost immediately within the context of the story. And that he had never eaten from that other tree either.

That he wasn't banned from eating from. Well yeah, I mean at the

Simone Collins: end it's kind of implied. that god is worried about him now eating from the tree of life because then he could

Malcolm Collins: live forever. No, but yeah, change that. Okay, so I'll go into the larger context of the story here as I re understand it. So first I want to give some quotes here that people might be surprised about.

The wet man had to work in the garden of eden. The lord god [00:06:00] took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it, to work it. He even, it even uses the word work very explicitly. He was tending this garden and it wasn't a garden that grew automatically. Another thing that was really interesting is it pointed out that plants, even magical plants in the Garden of Eden cannot grow without water.

And because it did not rain in those days, God had the water spring up from under the ground and then secede a number of times like a global flood almost, but like a small watering level before man was brought into this garden. To get it ready for man, but then after that man had to take care of it and it implies that at least part of taking care of it was the watering of it because this water rising and automatically watering seems to have stopped when man came into the garden.

So that was really

Simone Collins: Oh, I didn't pick that up, but I mean te