Jeffrey Niehaus: Talking Snakes? Magical Trees? “We can’t even touch it!”, & Other Eden Q&As

Join us as we pick the brain of Old Testament scholar Jeffrey Niehaus on Genesis 3:1-3 (and more):

“Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’”

In this episode we discuss:

- What was the nature and location of the garden in Eden?

- Why did God want to plant a garden in the first place?

- What’s the deal these trees that God has placed in the garden?

- Why would God have even put a tree in there for them specifically to not eat?

- Why the punishment of death if they ate the fruit?

- Who, and what is this, “serpent” thing, and how did it get in God’s good creation?

- In what ways would their eyes have been opened?

- What’s so bad about “Being like God knowing good and evil”? And what would that look like?

- At what point did Eve actually sin?

-Did Eve add to God’s prohibition by saying “neither shall you touch it”?