Interview with Eve-Why Did You Eat The Fruit?

HOST:

Eve…there’s one question I imagine people have wanted to ask you for thousands of years.

EVE:

I think I know what it is.

HOST:

Why did you eat the fruit?

EVE:

I knew what God had said. And I still ate.

HOST:

Then let’s talk about why.

Welcome to The Bereans Podcast. Today, we’re imagining a conversation with Eve—the first woman described in Scripture. This is a re-imagined conversation based on the biblical account.

Eve, welcome.

EVE:

Thank you.

HOST:

I imagine people usually want to begin with Genesis 3. The serpent. The fruit. The fall. But that’s not where your story begins.

EVE:

No.

HOST:

It begins in a world none of us has ever known. Genesis repeatedly describes God’s creation as good. And after creating humanity, God looks at everything He has made and calls it…“very good.” What do you think we’ve forgotten when we begin your story with the fall?

EVE:

That there was a before. Before the hiding. Before the blaming. Before death. Genesis describes Adam and me as naked and unashamed. It’s difficult to explain that to people who have never known a world untouched by sin.

HOST:

No shame.

EVE:

None.

HOST:

No fear of one another.

EVE:

Not until afterward.

HOST:

Genesis tells us God said: “It is not good that the man should be alone.” Then God caused Adam to sleep and fashioned you. And when Adam saw you, his first recorded words were: “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.” What do you hear when you hear those words?

EVE:

Recognition. “This at last.” He knew I belonged with him.

HOST:

And there wasn’t another woman in the world to compare yourself with.

EVE:

There wasn’t another person besides Adam to compare myself with.

HOST:

That’s almost impossible for us to imagine.

EVE:

So is being unashamed.

HOST:

Before Genesis records your creation, God gives Adam one prohibition. He may freely eat from every tree of the garden…except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God says: “In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” When the serpent later approached you, you knew there was a prohibition.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Before we get to what he said…I’ve always wondered what the serpent looked like.

EVE:

I imagine everyone has.

HOST:

We have to be careful here because Genesis doesn’t describe his appearance. So what I’m about to give is my interpretation, not something Scripture explicitly tells us. After the fall, God tells the serpent: “On your belly you shall go.” I’ve wondered whether that suggests the creature originally moved differently—perhaps even with limbs. 

Then there are other passages. Isaiah 14 directly addresses the king of Babylon, yet Christians through the centuries have also seen in its description of the fallen “Day Star” echoes of Satan’s pride and fall. Ezekiel 28 directly addresses the king of Tyre, but its imagery is extraordinary. It speaks of one who was “in Eden, the garden of God,” an “anointed guardian cherub,” whose heart became proud “because of your beauty.” And Revelation later explicitly identifies “that ancient serpent” with the devil and Satan. Putting those passages together, I’ve sometimes wondered whether the creature in Eden might have been magnificent rather than frightening.

Beautiful. Perhaps extraordinary. Again, that’s my reconstruction.

EVE:

And Genesis doesn’t tell you whether that’s what I saw.

HOST:

Exactly. So I don’t want you confirming my theory just because you’re sitting across from me.

EVE:

Good.

HOST:

But Genesis does tell us what the serpent said.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

His first recorded words were: “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” That’s interesting. God had given you abundance. Every tree except one. But the serpent begins with what you couldn’t have.

EVE:

And I corrected him. I told him we could eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.

HOST:

But then you said: “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.’” There’s been considerable discussion about your addition: “Neither shall you touch it.” Do you remember why you said that?

EVE:

That’s one of those questions your Bible doesn’t answer.

HOST:

Fair enough. We don’t know whether God subsequently gave you that instruction, whether Adam communicated the command that way, or whether those were your own words. So we’ll leave it there. But then something changes. The serpent stops asking questions. “You will not surely die.”

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

A direct contradiction of what God had said. And then: “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Did you believe him?

EVE:

I ate the fruit.

HOST:

That’s quite an answer.

EVE:

My actions answered the question.

HOST:

And Scripture gives us another answer. First Timothy says: “The woman was deceived and became a transgressor.” And Second Corinthians says: “The serpent deceived Eve by his cunning.” You were deceived.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

What did you see when you looked at the tree?

EVE:

Genesis tells you exactly what I saw. The tree was good for food. It was a delight to the eyes. And it was desirable to make one wise.

HOST:

Was that the moment?

EVE:

I took the fruit. And I ate.

HOST:

So now I’m going to ask you the question from the beginning again. Why did you eat the fruit?

EVE:

Because what the serpent offered became desirable enough for me to disobey what God had said.

HOST:

You knew God’s command.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

You heard another voice.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

And you listened to it.

EVE:

I did.

HOST:

Do you regret it?

EVE:

How could I not?

HOST:

That’s not something Genesis explicitly records you saying.

EVE:

No. But look at what Genesis records happening afterward.

HOST:

Your eyes were opened.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Wasn’t that what the serpent promised?

EVE:

It was.

HOST:

So technically he told you something that happened.

EVE:

Our eyes were opened. And the first thing Genesis tells you we recognized was our nakedness.

HOST:

Not exactly the enlightenment the temptation seemed to promise.

EVE:

No.

HOST:

What did you do?

EVE:

We sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for ourselves.

HOST:

And then you heard God.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

What had changed?

EVE:

We hid. Before we ate, Genesis says we were naked and unashamed. After we ate, we covered ourselves and hid from God. Whatever else you want to understand about what changed…Genesis gives you that contrast.

HOST:

That’s striking. Before…naked and unashamed. After…covered and hiding.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Now I have to ask about Adam. Where was he?

EVE:

Genesis says I gave some of the fruit to my husband who was with me, and he ate.

HOST:

People debate whether “with her” means Adam was standing beside you during the entire conversation with the serpent. The text doesn’t settle that question as clearly as some of us might like. So I won’t ask you to. But this much is clear. You gave him the fruit.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

And he ate.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Did he resist?

EVE:

Genesis doesn’t record any resistance. It simply says: “He ate.”

HOST:

Then God confronts Adam. And Adam says: “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” What was it like hearing Adam say that?

EVE:

Think about what Genesis has just told you. Before this, we were naked and unashamed. Now Adam was standing before God saying: “The woman whom you gave to be with me…” Something between us had changed.

HOST:

Did you feel blamed?

EVE:

He pointed to me. And I pointed to the serpent.

HOST:

Because when God asks you: “What is this that you have done?” you answer: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

You didn’t deny eating.

EVE:

No.

HOST:

You didn’t say God misunderstood what happened.

EVE:

No.

HOST:

“The serpent deceived me…and I ate.”

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

There’s something else I want to make clear because Eve has taken a lot of blame over the centuries. First Timothy calls you a transgressor. So Scripture doesn’t excuse what you did.

EVE:

No.

HOST:

But when Paul explains humanity’s fall in Romans 5, he doesn’t say: “Sin came into the world through Eve.” He says: “Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin.” Adam.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Romans 5:19 calls it: “the one man’s disobedience.” So Scripture holds you responsible for your transgression while placing humanity’s representative fall upon Adam.

EVE:

That’s what Paul wrote.

HOST:

Then God pronounces judgment. And something fascinating happens in what He says to the serpent. “Because you have done this…on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.” Again, this is where I infer that the serpent may have moved differently before the curse. 

But then comes something even more important. God says: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

Christians have historically called Genesis 3:15 the protoevangelium—the first announcement of the gospel. How much did you understand about what God was promising?

EVE:

I can’t tell you something Scripture doesn’t tell you.

HOST:

That’s fair. And I shouldn’t ask you to interpret Genesis 3 through knowledge you weren’t given. But we have something you didn’t have then. The rest of Scripture. And looking backward, we can see something extraordinary. Romans 5 ultimately takes us from Adam…to Christ. “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Adam disobeyed. Christ obeyed. Sin brought condemnation. Christ brings justification. Death entered. Christ brings life.

But before we get there, I want to talk about something that happened in your own family. You became a mother. Cain was born.

EVE:

And I said: “I have gotten a man with the help of the LORD.”

HOST:

Then Abel.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

And then one day Cain killed him.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Your son murdered your other son.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

What did that do to you?

EVE:

How could a mother describe it? Abel was dead. And the one who killed him was my other son.

HOST:

Cain was then driven away.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

So in a terrible sense…you lost both sons.

EVE:

In different ways. Yes.

HOST:

You had already heard God’s words to Adam: “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” But now death wasn’t simply something God had warned about. Your son was dead.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Did you think back to the Garden?

EVE:

How could I not think about everything that had changed?

HOST:

Did you blame yourself for Abel’s death?

EVE:

Genesis doesn’t say that I did. And I don’t want to give you an answer God didn’t give you.

HOST:

That’s an important distinction. Grief is a natural response to what happened. But assigning yourself a particular theological responsibility for Abel’s murder would go beyond the text.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

Then Seth was born. And Scripture records your words: “God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him.” After everything that had happened…you still spoke about God.

EVE:

Yes.

HOST:

There’s something about that statement I find moving. You didn’t say Abel had been replaced as though he didn’t matter. You specifically named him. “Instead of Abel…for Cain killed him.”

EVE:

Those are the words Genesis records.

HOST:

Eve, when you look at everything Scripture tells us about your life—the Garden, the serpent, the fruit, hiding from God, leaving Eden, Cain and Abel…if someone reduces your entire story to: “She ate the fruit”…what are they missing?

EVE:

Perhaps they’re missing that Genesis isn’t only telling you what happened to me. It’s telling you what happened to humanity.

HOST:

And that’s where I think Romans helps us. Because Romans doesn’t leave us pointing backward at Eve. It points us forward to Christ.

EVE:

Then perhaps that’s where you should leave your listeners.

HOST:

I think you’re right. I began this conversation asking you: “Why did you eat the fruit?” And perhaps part of me wanted to sit safely outside the story. To look backward thousands of years and ask: “Eve, how could you?”

But the serpent’s first recorded strategy wasn’t to persuade you that God didn’t exist. His opening words were: “Did God actually say…?” And that question didn’t remain in Eden. Did God really say? Does He really mean it? Can I trust what God has said when another voice offers me something I want?

So perhaps the hardest question isn’t: “Eve, why did you eat?” It’s: “When God has spoken…whose voice do I trust?”

EVE:

That’s a question only you can answer.

HOST:

It is. Eve, thank you for allowing us to revisit your story.

EVE:

Thank you for letting Scripture have the final word.

HOST:

And thank you for joining me today.

EVE:

Thank you for having me.

HOST:

Thankfully, Genesis 3 isn’t the end of the Bible. The story that begins with human disobedience ultimately points us toward the obedience of Jesus Christ.

Romans 5:19 says: “For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.”

Before we close, a reminder. The conversation you’ve just heard is a re-imagined interview based upon the biblical account. It is not Scripture, nor is it intended to add to, subtract from, or replace the Word of God. Where the Bible speaks, we’ve sought to remain faithful to what it says. Where Scripture is silent, some of the dialogue, emotions, and personal reflections you’ve heard are imaginative reconstructions of how these biblical events might reasonably have been experienced. They are presented as possibilities, not as biblical fact. Any theological interpretations or artistic depictions beyond what Scripture explicitly reveals should likewise be understood as interpretations, not additional revelation.

Our hope is that conversations like this encourage you to return to Scripture for yourself and, like the Bereans in Acts 17, search the Scriptures to see whether these things are so. For Eve’s story, I encourage you to read Genesis chapters 2 through 4, Romans chapter 5, 1 Timothy chapter 2, and 2 Corinthians chapter 11.

Love and trust the Lord; seek His will in your life.

If this spoke to you, I’d love to hear what you’re carrying.

Until next time, may God richly bless you.

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