Waneta Dawn

Concerning blame-shifting, sometimes looking at the meaning of individual words will get you a different meaning than you would arrive at if all the words are put together. The words Adam spoke give one a sense that he was also pointing a finger. “The woman thou gavest me, SHE didst give me the fruit and I ate.” The reader can hear the same type of blame and finger pointing children use. “See that boy that you said I couldn’t run off the playground? HE did it.”

Adam’s “The woman whom thou gavest with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.” is not at all similar to Eve’s explanation.

For Eve’s explanation to be anywhere as responsibility shifting as Adam’s, she would have said, “The serpent thou didst put into the garden didst speak to me and beguile me, and the man thou didst put in the garden with me, he didst hold his silence. Therefore, I ascertained that the fruit was good to eat and would give wisdom that is pleasing to thee, and I ate.

This answer would have clearly been blaming God, serpent, and husband, just as Adam’s answer clearly blames God and Eve.

Notice that Adam does NOT claim to have been beguiled. When Eve said she was beguiled, she was admitting to feeling stupid. If you have ever been conned by a con artist, you know how a person thus conned feels so totally foolish that he she didn’t see through the con. Usually, people would rather not admit to having been so stupid as to have been deceived. Eve admits her stupidity, and admits what she did.

Although Adam says what he did, he does not admit to having been conned. He speaks as if Eve is his Lord and he has to do what she says. This, too, was a lie. He tries to shift the blame onto God and Eve.

Eve’s statement is more of a sheepish admission, while Adam’s is so defiant as to blame God.