I am currently reading Milton's Paradise Lost. In Book 9, we receive the narration of the fall - the deception of Eve and Adam's decision to eat the forbidden fruit. (I carefully craft that, for, according to Milton, Eve is deceived and Adam is not, but instead willingly chooses to partake of the fruit Eve offers).
It opens to me a pivotal question. See, Adam was created by God from the dust of the ground and thereafter Adam sees God face to face and joins in dialogue with God (We are not informed of the frequency of this conversation, either in the Genesis narrative nor in Milton's depiction, at least not from the parts I have read for class. Yet, we are informed that Adam had dialogue with God at least once in the naming of the animals).
Yet, when he discovers that Eve has eaten of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he chooses Eve over God. He chooses "death" (whatever that is, I'm not sure that either Adam or Eve would have been able to understand what death was at this point) with Eve over continuing in Eden with God. How could he do this?
I think the answer lies in the type of relationship which Adam had with God. I think the answer is quite simply that we have created a heaven out of Eden, painting a picture of Adam having complete and unhindered access to God. Yet God is not present when the serpent comes to deceive Eve, nor when Adam discovers Eve's offense. I think this requires us to re-imagine what Eden was like so that we can better understand why Adam chose Eve over God.
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