The Serpent tempts woman by telling her show won't die if she eats
the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, but instead become like
God, know the difference between good and evil. She then gives the
fruit to her husband, who also eats, and they see that they are naked
and make aprons of fig leaves to cover themselves.
Gold
walks through the garden and cannot find them. Again, God does not
appear to be omnipotent and omniscient, as He walks instead of appearing
where He wishes and is unable to find those that hide. Yet later, we
are told he knows every thought of every person.
Upon
finding man and woman and learning what they have done, God curses the
Serpent to crawl upon its belly and eternal enmity between it and the
offspring of the woman. He then curses the woman to increases pain in
childbirth and gives her to her husband to rule over her.
He
then curses the ground, interestingly not Adam who is named in this
chapter for the first time to toil the ground. As Adam had already been
laboring at tilling the garden in the last chapter, toil appears to be
something different. One type of labor is divine, tilling, but another,
toiling, is a curse. The notes and Asimov do not posit on the
difference. Further, God curses Adam to no longer be able to eat of the
Tree of Life, which eventual death and to return to the dust from which
he came.
Finally, God gives Adam and Eve (who has
also been named) clothes made of skins and banishes them from the
garden. The gate of the garden is guarded by a "cherubin" and a flaming
sword so that man may never return. There is another reference by God
to Himself as "us", leading to the question of where the other gods are.
Asimov
notes there is only one other talking animal in the Bible and there
aren't many human like animals in other Jewish traditions. Perhaps the
story of temptation is also borrowed?
God's law: Don't eat of the Tree of Knowledge
My ability to follow: I don't know where the Tree of Knowledge is, but would probably grab a snack from it if I did. It seems to me that God is playing a head game with his creations and eating of the Tree of Knowledge would be a way to refuse to play.
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