Well, the serpent did present an untruth in the form of a question when he asked Ishah: "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden?' " when in fact God did not. The presupposition is false, though the statement is not technically a lie since it is phrased as a question. Also Ishah (the woman) tinkers with the wording of the commandment. She adds a prohibition of touching to it, she reduces the severity of the punishment by deleting the part about dying "that very day," and represents God's generosity as mere permission. Her rewording ironically gets God off the hook, since in her version what God predicted did come to pass (being banished from the Tree of Life, she did die, but just not immediately).
To the modern reader familiar with statements like "God is love" and "the devil is the father of the lie" God would seem to be incapable of lying. But the inherent division between good and evil in the nature of God and Satan is characteristic of later Judaism and Christianity, not of primitive pre-exilic Israelite religion. The Yahwist story of the Fall, like other primeveal legends in Genesis, is very much in the same spirit of other contemporary Near Eastern stories about the gods, where invariably they are presented as jealous, arbitrary, and intent on withholding man from divinity. This is the overarching theme in the Epic of Gilgamesh, where the hero's search for immortality is stymied by divine interventions. The myth about Etana similarly details the gods' prevention of the hero from flying to the vault to heaven.
The seeming dishonesty of God in the story may be a thread of latent paganism in the story. In fact, the entire story smacks of Near Eastern mythology: the talking serpent, the winged figures guarding a sacred tree in Babylonian art, a garden of the gods, the plural "us" which God uses, the name Havvah "Eve" which is West Semitic for "serpent," and the title "Mother of all living" for Eve (cf. Aruru, the female creator of Adapa, the first man; KIB vi.1 Aruru zi-ir a-mi-lu-ti it-ti-shu ib-ta-nu "Aruru, together with him [Marduk], created (the) seed of mankind," vs. Gn. 4:2, "I have created a man with (the co-operation) of Yahweh"). In the original Canaanite/Phoenician version of the myth, God likely issued the commandment as a jealous ruse to withhold divinity from man instead of as a good-natured safeguard on the life of Adam. The serpent's motives were to disrupt the natural order and create conflict between man and the gods.
One precursor of the tale may be the Babylonian legend of "Adapa and the South-wind," which incidentally was recorded in the 15th-century B.C. Tel el-Armana tablets and so the story was already well-known in Palestine prior to the emergence of Israel. Adapa, the son of the god Ea, was endowed by him with the fullness of divine wisdom, but denied the gift of immortality. Note that this is the reverse of Adam's status, who was given the fullness of immortality but denied divine wisdom. While plying the trade of a fisherman on the Persian Gulf, the south-wind overwhelms his bark, and in revenge Adapa breaks the wings of the south-wind. For this offence he is summoned by Anu to appear to appease the anger of Anu. Then the gods, disconcerted by finding a mortal in possession of their secrets, resolve to make the best of it, and admit him fully into their society by conferring on him immortality. The offer him the fruit of the tree of life so he may eat, and the water of life that he may drink. But Ea, who did not want Adapa to become a god like himself, deceived Adapa by telling him that what was being offered was really food and water of death, and strictly cautioned him to refrain from eating and drinking. He did refuse, and so missed immortal life. Anu asked him, "Why, Adapa, why have you not eaten nor drunk so you may live?" And Adapa replied, "Ea, my lord, commanded me, 'You must not eat nor drink, for I will die.' "
Note how the commandment against eating is in fact a lie and is a self-serving ruse to deny divinity to man. The withholding of divinity is in fact a repeated theme in the primeveal stories of Genesis. In Gn. 6, the semi-divine Nephilim demigods introduced an element of disorder into the Creation which had to be eliminated by the Flood. In Gn. 11, the construction of a tower "with its top reaching heaven" threatened the domain of God and Yahweh saw that
"this was but the beginning of their enterprise and now nothing will be impossible to them which they purpose to do," and the confusion of speech again prevents man from attaining equality with God.
Within the context of pre-exilic Judaism, such stories were divested of their cruder polytheistic elements in order to make them impressive lessons on the folly of human pride and the supremacy of Yahweh in the affairs of men.
Leolaia
