Hope Kremin Taft
· Lehi, UT ·"The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat."
Dr. Aschenasy, a Hebrew scholar said: "In Hebrew, beguiled does not mean "tricked" or "deceived", as commonly thought. Rather, the Hebrew word is a rare verb that indicates an intense experience evoking great emotional, psychological, and/or spiritual trauma. It is likely that Eve's intense, multilevel experience, this "beguiling" by the serpent, was the catalyst that caused Eve to ponder and evaluate what her role in the Garden really was."
Satan's [deceptive efforts] were not enough to deceive Eve into blindly eating the fruit. What it DID do was beguile her: made her question, made her doubt, and sent her on a soul-searching journey.
(Taken from WomenInTheScriptures.com)
I can honestly say that I can relate to this. My wife agonizes over doctrinal implications of some things; all of the subtle nuances. In the case of the virgin birth, it sends her into a tail spin due to her experience as an abuse survivor at the hands of her step-father. Me? Stuff like that is mostly "meh".... I am probably just too big, dumb and happy compared to her. Same thing with polygamy. Much angst. For me - same reaction, but much less muted (due to logistics of how do you pay for all that - when I can barely afford one family in a non-agrarian scenario...). But, still I am like "Whatever - God is all-powerful, so who am I to question motives or reasons..... Just get confirmation from the Spirit and roll with it." Maybe an STD check thrown in there for good measure if the woman was previously married?? Again - simple dumb and happy conclusion and response. Just the way I like it. My wife? Days, weeks, months, or years of agonizing over the implications.
So it is easy for me to picture the exact scenario portrayed in the endowment presentation. Adam - big dumb and happy and probably hanging out in the garden for quite some time because he was just too content to give it a second thought. Eve parsing the details over and over until she figured it out.
Mars and Venus, baby. It is what makes the world go around. A magnet (motor) will never spin, if stuck at it's null point. You have to have something to kick it into motion. A woman may just provide that spark in the relationship. After she has what she is driven biologically to (kids and a safe and stable nest), then it is usually the guy who kicks it in and is out always looking for the new Horizon (most of the explorers out there are guys, if you have not noticed). That is the stupid drug - go sail on an uncharted sea just so you can say you did it even though there is a 30% chance of returning alive.
I have to say that, if there were one person to get the job done of figuring out how to bring the house down based on human emotion, it would be our older bro, satanas. No veil over his mind to cause him to forget all of our weaknesses and quirks observed over billions of years. That, my friends, is an unfair advantage. In 24 years of marriage, I definitely cannot say that I have seen it all, but I can pretty closely tell you how any particular event will cause my wife to react. Imagine billions of years of interactions. It would be a perfected science - both on a macro (societal) scale and on a micro (individual) scale. Thus the need for discernment in order to know where any given action will lead us - before it happens. That gift is a powerful gift.
So, is this like saying, that Satan planted Anti-Mormon propaganda seeds into her mind, essentially challenging her testimony?
ReplyDeleteNo...imo just doing what he always does: trying to take control of the earth by attacking the Lord's plan. How little he knew, that he was just playing the part that the Lord needed him to play. God does not tell us to break commandments (except on rare occaisions, such as Nephi killing Laban, etc.) and could not have created an world with death and sickness and temptation, event though it was His plan for us to be tested in such a place. It's almost like he's already read "the book" or something....
DeleteNephi killing Laban was not breaking the commandments. The commandment directly translated is "thou shalt not murder", not "thou shalt not kill". Murdering someone is vastly different from killing someone. Else, every soldier who has ever fought in battle would be condemned.
DeleteLaban started it with actually murderous intentions, Nephi finished it, under the Lord's sanction, after being robbed and attempted murder on his and his brother's lives. Justice was served. Fantastic point about the soldiers too. They too were following orders under defensive combat situations. Either kill or be killed. Laban probably would've come after them, buried them in the desert, so they couldn't tell about their loss of property.
DeleteI got into a little tussle with my MIL, who I consider a spiritual giant , over a correlated idea. We got out of the temple one day and she was going on about her thoughts and impressions and she said more or less that she gets the vibe that since this mortal experience is the main reason that they were placed in the garden in the first place that If Adam had not partaken of the fruit then Eve would have gone on and progressed and been given to another. That was the basics of her hypothesis. I personally can see it as possibly correct but there is just no scriptural or even revelatory evidence for such a line of though, in my pathetically myopic opinion which could likely easily be proven wrong. I feel like that it is a lot of conjecture and looking way outside of the material that we have been presented. However, an interesting thought? Would staying in the Garden then be considered damnation as Adam would have remained forever in his state? Worthy to enjoy the presence of the father from time to time but unable to partake of his fullness while Eve and some other worthy spirit would then send everything into motion? A little pointless as well considering that what happened did indeed happen as it is and not as in this "What if".
ReplyDeleteTwo thoughts:
Delete1. Eve was not given the commandment to not eat of the tree. Only Adam. - At least that is how it is presented in the scriptures (Genesis 2, Moses 3, Abraham 5). So did she sin? If not, I can see your MIL's point.
2. And if she was commanded (by God or Adam) and did sin, since when is disobedience progression? Not just progression, but progression worthy of eternal glory?
Adam was commanded to stay with Eve. They were married. Adam and Eve 101. Eve did too KNOW the commandment. She admitted to the serpent, "of every tree we may eat EXCEPT THAT ONE or Father says we'll die".
DeleteThe one who promised Adam life in disobedience was the great deceiver. The first sermon ever preached upon the immortality of the soul was preached by the serpent to Eve in Eden - "you shall not surely die". "Your eyes shall be opened" proved to be true on in the sense that after Adam and Eve partook of the fruit, they were now fully aware they had sinned. Nothing short of an "oh crap" moment for allowing themselves to 1. Disobey Father's counsel to not eat the fruit and 2. for believing someone else was smarter than Father and 3. for being duped into thinking Father was hiding something from them and didn't want them to be as wise as he was, restricting their liberties in some manner. AND I fully believe Lucifer was chowing on that luscious fruit in front of Eve making it look so good. "See, look how wise I am and I'm not dead."
Yet as soon as Adam and Eve partook, it was like, "Hey wait a minute! Do you feel wise and godly Eve? "No, do you?" "No! I feel dirty and exposed, let's hide our exposure to disobedience."
After that Adam had no power to pass on immortality to his posterity. Hence being kicked out and the Tree of Life guarded so sin didn't become immortal. Only Jesus Christ who had been foreordained to be the Savior could do that.
The "Savior" is the key word here. Father's wisdom is such that HE KNEW and SAW the Fall was going to take place and provided for it ahead of time.
Eve's mistake was falling into an argument with the serpent in the first place. Even for a moment considering anything OTHER THAN FATHER'S WILL IN ALL THINGS!
Adam was being obedient, leaving the serpent to give it a go with Eve. And who's to say Eve wasn't fascinated that she could see animals multiplying and having babies? Did that cause her to sin? NO! It was the lure of "You've been duped and forced to follow a plan and disobedience brings freedom and wisdom and immortality."
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Ezekiel 18:20
"The wages of sin is death" Romans 6:23
If the wages were paid immediately, I think there'd be a lot LESS sinning.
"In as much as Eve was the first...." That seems to pertain to this sphere and family. Perhaps on other worlds Adam was the first to partake of knowledge and some things are ordered a little differently.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see a post about this subject as I've always been fascinated by this word and it's meaning. As a female I have never believed that Eve was "tricked" into the plan of salvation. That precept is completely contrary to agency. She was only deceived by who presented the message. It's unfortunate how much of the original content of our scriptures is lost to translation and the modern application of a single word. Satan went to the female for a reason. NOT because she was naive and suggestible. But because she was the only means to convince Adam that they weren't doing everything asked of them. She was the one willing to do what needed to be done. This is the first of many examples of the divine nature of women outlined in the scriptures. Now why it was Satan that had to convince her rather than God is perhaps the bigger mystery to this.
ReplyDeleteMy niece posted this on her FB page earlier this month & the article that it led me to was AWESOME! Here it is: http://www.womeninthescriptures.com/2013/08/what-does-it-mean-that-eve-was-beguiled.html?m=1
ReplyDeleteIt was written well & gave me better insight into the meaning of that word & what Eve may have felt/gone through.
Does anyone have a reference to confirm Dr Aschenasy's claim. Strong's Concordance is pretty clear: Beguile = deceive, delude, utterly deceive.
ReplyDeleteWe know that the bible may not have been translated correctly, but this same word is used in the Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 9:9), and Pearl of Great Price (Moses 4:19). These other accounts do not add anymore "experience" than stating a fact.
I have pondered this. I do believe Eve thought her choice through. Knowing how a great many women are thinkers, I believe she didn't make this decision spur of the moment. She realized that something needed to change in order to fully fulfill God's plan. Satan's deceit wasn't in that the effect of eating the fruit would make them like the Gods. That was true. I believe the deceit came when Eve asked Satan, "Is there no other way?" Satan's response was, "There is NO other way." That was the lie. There was another way. After realizing that something needed to change in order to further God's plan, if Eve, perhaps together with Adam, had consulted God, she would have been told the better way. Since she didn't, there were consequences for the choice made which affect us all. I don't say this to condemn her in any way. We all make choices at times that do fulfill a good purpose, but that had better options than the one we chose. Good, better, best.
ReplyDelete