Who is the villain in the story of Adam and Eve? Christianity and Judaism will have you believe it’s the serpent, but I think a close reading without the blinders of preconception proves God is the villain.

To begin with, notice when in the narrative God forbids the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2.15-18

That second paragraph is crucial because it shows that God gave the command to Adam before Eve even existed. He told Adam, “Don’t eat of the tree.” He said nothing to Eve. In fact, if you read the text closely, he never talks to Eve at all.

The temptation occurs in the next chapter:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3.1-5

A few questions arise here:

1. Where was Adam? Since God communicated with him about the cursed tree, he should have been careful to prevent an unknowing Eve from approaching the tree.
2. Where is God? Since God never communicated with Eve, I’m assuming he assumed Adam would take this role. Now that it’s obvious that Adam is doing nothing, why wouldn’t a loving God step in.
3. Why the hell is the tree there in the first place? This is the fundamental question. It’s like putting a knife in a baby’s crib. What do you expect is going to happen?
4. Why did God allow the serpent to enter the garden to being with? Again, it’s like putting a circular saw in the nursery.
5. Why didn’t God do something to prevent this? He is all-knowing: he knew this is going to happen. He didn’t take a single step other than warning Adam. And of course this gets us back to the question of why the hell God made this tree to begin with.
6. Why is the tree of knowledge that’s forbidden? What’s so dangerous about knowledge. Oh, never mind…
7. How could God expect them to obey him (i.e., to realize it was a sin, i.e., to understand it was evil to disobey him) when they clearly didn’t know the difference between good and evil? Now we’ve got a knife and a circular saw in the crib of a blind toddler.

The narrative continues:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3.6, 7

First of all, we see that Adam was right there with her. What the hell was he doing? Why didn’t he stop her?

More significantly, we see that the serpent was telling the truth: “the eyes of both of them were opened.” But the didn’t die, despite God’s telling Adam that “in that day you shall surely die.” They didn’t die: God lied.

So let’s build the case for the serpent being the villain:

1. He encouraged the couple to disobey God. However, God only bothered to tell Adam, and Adam did nothing to stop Eve. More troubling, they didn’t even know what good and evil as concepts were, so there’s no way we can hold them accountable for that.

That’s it. One point, a point that’s really not significant at all. What’s the case for the serpent being the hero?

1. He was encouraging them to increase their knowledge.
2. He told the truth: they did not die when they ate the fruit.
3. He told the truth: they did receive knowledge when they ate the fruit.

There’s not much, but at least he has the truth on his side.

How about the case for God being the villain:

1. He put a tree in the garden that he decided was forbidden and chose to punish Adam and Eve for eating of it.
2. He only told Adam not to eat of it; he didn’t even bother to communicate with Eve.
3. He lies to Adam about the consequence of eating of the tree.
4. He expected obedience from
   • newly-formed creatures who
   • didn’t know what good and evil were.
5. Once Eve and Adam eat of the tree, he punishes all future generations for the crime (which they couldn’t know was a crime because they didn’t know good and evil). And according to Christianity, the punishment is eternal torment. Eternal torment for a finite crime committed by other people!
6. He turned Adam and Eve’s daily life to a relative hell of struggling for mere subsistence.
7. After having told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply,” he makes the act of childbirth painful and potentially lethal.
8. He creates Adam and Eve and the garden and everything else with complete foreknowledge of this catastrophe (for which he is responsible).

And the case for him being the hero? Well, I guess according to the text, we have him to thank for our existence since he made everything. But since that “everything” includes hell and a guaranteed ticket there for the vast majority of humanity, that one point in his favor is hardly significant and is in fact a point against him.

This all of course depends on the narrative being factually accurate, which of course it isn’t. But imagine trying to square all of this with a literal interpretation of this passage: anyone who worships this being is worshiping a monster.