Answers to Anti's

In the course of earning my Bachelor's degree from a local Christian college, I took a course called "Management from a Biblical Perspective." One text for this course was The Maxwell Leadership Bible, by John C. Maxwell (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2002). The author presented a very condescending attitude toward Adam, along with the standard viewpoint of mainstream Christianity that Adam and Eve messed up God's original plan and now we're all paying the price. The professor for this course is a pastor, and although I understand that Mormons have a different way of interpreting many scriptures, I decided not to pull any punches. This is the relevant portion of my final paper for the course.

Concurrent with our readings from [another textbook], we studied stories and parables from the Bible that can be interpreted in ways that are relevant to management and leadership. One of the first, and finest, examples of leadership in the Bible would have to be that of Adam, although for reasons, I believe, opposite of what Mr. Maxwell points out in his commentary. His interpretation pegs Adam as the "First Leader to Drop the Ball," a bungler who "mismanaged his wife" and "blamed others." He suggests that the blame for Eve's partaking of the fruit lies with Adam not communicating God's command clearly to her. He uses the "telephone game" as an example of how messages can get distorted when they are passed from person to person. That game, however, is only effective with large groups! In the garden there were only 3 people- God, Adam, and Eve! Sure, that still leaves a tiny bit of room for error; however, God had only given them two commands: "be fruitful and multiply," and "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat." How could Adam forget the only two things he had been told to do? Clearly he did not forget, and he did inform Eve, although Mr. Maxwell suggests that Eve's response to the serpent was "muddled," because she, in Maxwell's words, "added the phrases, "nor shall you touch it," and "lest you die." " A careful reading of the scripture shows that God did say "you shall surely die," which is plainly the same thing as "lest you die," so there is no point discussing that, but what about "nor shall you touch it?" Does this phrase show a "muddled" perception of the situation, or does it, on the contrary, demonstrate a deeper understanding of the situation? God said, "Thou shalt not eat of it." What reason would they have, then, to touch it? Doesn't a faithful Christian avoid even a close proximity to evil things? We don't do drugs, so does that mean we can't touch them either? In letter, no, but in spirit, yes! We infer from the idea of avoiding drugs that we should also not touch them or have anything to do with them. Is it incorrect to infer, or read between the lines? Of course not! Even the authors of Business: Through the Eyes of Faith [i.e., the other textbook] say of some of their own suggestions: "Although these points do not relate directly to specific biblical passages, they do reflect the perspective of the Scripture taken as a whole." We might say that God tells us to take care of the Earth. I believe He wants that, sure. But did He say that? Not in those words, exactly... So am I wrong in saying that He did? No, as this method of deduction only shows a deeper understanding of the principles involved. It seems, then, that Eve knew exactly what she was doing. These weak arguments are the only point that Maxwell rests his disdain of Adam upon, and they have now been dashed to pieces. So, why did Adam and Eve partake of the forbidden fruit?

Consider, first, that God Himself placed the forbidden tree in the garden. This was not a creation of the Devil, but on the contrary, a creation of God. We must ask ourselves, at this point, why He would do such a thing? If His plan truly was, as tradition states, to create a perfectly obedient people to live forever on a perfect Earth (before Adam messed up His whole plan...), why did He place the forbidden tree in their plain view? Why did He create it at all? Why did He send Satan and his followers to the Earth even before that? If God meant us to be sinless, why was Christ appointed to be our Savior before the world even existed? Because, frankly, the plan all along was that God send His spirit children to Earth to learn from their experiences in a world of temptations. It was God's intention that Adam and Eve partake of the fruit. He knew that Satan would tempt them to disobey, and He also knew that disobedience was the only thing that could cause them to be cast out of the garden, which was necessary so that the remainder of His children could be tried in the refiner's fire. Modern prophets have declared that Adam and Eve knew precisely what they were doing when they partook of the fruit, and that although Satan may have enticed Eve to eat, Adam had to do so because they had been commanded, before anything else, to "be fruitful and multiply." Since Eve, through her transgression, would now be cast out of the garden, so Adam would have to follow in order for them to obey this prime commandment. Mr. Maxwell quotes Genesis 3:12 in the following way: "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." The italics are intended to support the claim that Adam was blaming God and Eve for what took place. However, I offer the same verse, with my own italics, in support of what I have just set forth: "The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I ate." He begins by recapitulating the command that he and his wife are one. Adam, then, becomes a true leader; one who lead by example in not partaking of the fruit initially, and one who accepted the consequences of the actions of one in his stewardship by partaking of the fruit so that he could remain with Eve, and so that "the knowledge of good and evil" could be spread abroad upon the Earth, for the eternal benefit of all mankind. For how else can we learn but through our choices and mistakes? And how can we gain eternal life save it be through Jesus Christ, who was sent to redeem us from our sins, which sin and redemption was so clearly God's plan from the beginning?

Final Clarifications

When I got the paper back (with an A, thank you very much), my professor said that he liked my comments, but that he thought it sounded like I was suggesting that God had tempted Adam and Eve. He referred me to James 1:13:

Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

My response is simply this: God was undoubtedly the originator of "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil," and He doesn't do anything without reason. As I mentioned in my paper, "He knew that Satan would tempt them to disobey." He would cease to be God if He personally tempted us to do anything evil, and that is the reason that Satan was allowed on the Earth then, and it is the reason that Satan is allowed to remain on the Earth even now. It is also the reason why Satan will be bound after the return of Christ - because his temptations will no longer be required to test the children of God.