Who lied the Serpent or G-d?

Who lied, the Serpent or G-d? In the Christian Bible the snake says to Eve, before she eats the forbidden fruit, “Ye shall not surely die.”. This seems to some to make G-d a liar, because Eve does not die when she eats of the tree. However, death did eventually come to Eve and to all humans thereafter. Would death have come to her if she had never eaten of the tree of knowledge? Perhaps not. Therefore, we cannot say that G-d lied. Yet, it doesn’t seem that the serpent lied either. In fact, when read in the original Hebrew it appears the snake gave Eve the deepest most profound truth.

What the Serpent Really Said to Eve   

The snake did not say “You shall not die.” As Elizabeth Stanton stated in The Women’s Bible, a direct translation of the Hebrew would read “Dying, ye shall not die.” In other words, the snake is telling Eve that in dying she will live.  In other words, by eating the fruit her flesh may die, but she will gain knowledge and reproduce. In this way though she dies physically, she lives forever. This is just what history has shown to be true. 

What Does Eternal Life Really Mean?

Though Eve’s body died, she lives on in each of us. Thousands of years later, I am writing a blog about her. She lives in our stories, our hearts, and our minds. Whether we believe she literally lived and was mother to all of us or we believe she is a fictional character in a story, we know the name Eve.  Eve lives. 

G-d Lied?

Does this mean that G-d lied? No. G-d told her she would die. Physically, Eve did die eventually. G-d did not lie. However, he hid from Eve what benefit her death would bring. The serpent told her the whole truth, that in dying she would live.  

Choose Knowledge

Once given the full truth Eve made a decision to live with knowledge and reproduce. She chose life for the human race, though it would mean death for herself. Humanity became eternal even if each human’s life would be measured. Eve became the mother of humanity. The Christian New Testament tells us Greater love have no man than he that would lay down his life for another. A woman, Eve, was the first sacrifice for humanity’s sake. None of us would exist had she not chosen wisdom over safety and obedience.

Eve: Creator of Humanity  

Eve is the hero in this tale. While G-d tells a half-truth to keep his children innocent and Adam stands by doing and saying nothing, Eve makes a decision to grow the human race in both number and intellect.  Thus, woman becomes the creator of life. Though the story says Eve came from Adam, she made sure that would not be the story of women after her. From the time of Eve on, man has come from woman, and without her they could not exist.  

Gender Subjugation

There can be no subjugation of women, for without women the men of today could not exist. Without woman there would still just be ignorant Adam wandering about a garden. Without woman all of human history would not exist.  We are the bringers of knowledge, truth, freedom, and life. 

Though we see that neither the serpent nor G-d lied, one of them set free the enslaved. That was not G-d. By giving her the entire truth, the serpent gave Eve the power to become the creator of humanity as we know it. Eve, by choosing knowledge over obedience, found a way to live forever without eating from the tree of life. She freed humanity from ignorance. Before Eve ate the forbidden fruit, humanity was G-d’s pets. With that fruit, we became sovereign. 

For more information about mistranslations in the text see the Resources Page.  For more information about gender equality in the Bible please read Can Women Teach and Disobey Men? Biblical Evidence Says Yes!