This page was migrated in August 2022 from my older website, biblicalambiguities.net.
1 August 2022 Navigate 'up to the Genesis index: index-genesis.
And the serpent said to the woman, You will not really die. For God knows that on the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil.
Oddly, the serpent seems to be right here. The woman and the man go on to eat the fruit, and they do not, in fact, die on the day they eat of it. They do find themselves immediately excluded from immortality, so one could read that as an indirect fulfillment of God's threat. The serpent says that they will be "like gods." And God does, in fact, go on to acknowledge that the man and woman have become "like one of us." It does not work out nearly as well for the humans as the snake's promise might suggest, though. It's a complicated story.
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