And the serpent said unto the woman, You shall not surely die:
Genesis 3:4.
If Adam and Eve were created to be in fellowship with God and one another, what happened? Genesis 3 explains the initial source of the conflict between women and men. The devil, in the form of a serpent, tempted the first woman, Eve, to eat what God had forbidden her to eat. Personally, I don’t think this was the first time the serpent had approached her. First, she didn’t seem surprised to see him or to hear him speaking. Second, I believe they had talked earlier about God’s instructions because of the way the devil phrased his crafty question: “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”. He wanted to cast doubt on Eve’s understanding of what God had said. Eve replied, “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’”. She had most of her information correct, so the devil’s next ploy was to try to undermine God’s integrity in her eyes. “You will not surely die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’”. Eve succumbed to the temptation, Adam joined her of his own free will, and they both ate of the fruit of the tree. This decision to reject God’s purposes resulted in the spiritual deaths of the man and the woman. It was the beginning of the conflict between man and God and men and women that we are still dealing with today.