Eden Fruit. Bitter or Better? by Bruce C. E. Fleming
We have a problem. Men women and children across the world have a problem. The whole church has a problem!
Know what it is? The problem is that the Good News of salvation announced immediately after Satan’s attack in the Garden of Eden has been watered down. Worse! It has been polluted.
God promised Eve she would conceive the Offspring who would crush Satan’s head. But the modern language translations Bible publishers are selling us don’t say that. The Good News given to Eve is covered over by word pollution. And this pollution is the problem. It is hindering our growth. It is sickening our thoughts. And it is planting bad ideas that ruin our interpretation of Genesis 2 and 3 and key New Testament passages as well.
So what is the answer? You are part of the answer!
True story. In Zongo village in the Ubangi Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo, some years ago, several well-intentioned Christian women served as midwives for a young first-time mother in their church. The baby had taken more than 36 hours in coming which is not unusual for a first-time birth. These women all had had many children. They expected a faster birth. Maybe they had forgotten their first deliveries.
How did these women size up the situation? They yelled at the struggling mother-to-be. “You are a bad woman! You are holding in that baby instead of handing it over to its father. He is outside waiting with his friends to receive it. Shame on you! Hurry up!”
Then, they took juice from a tiny red hot pili-pili pepper and smeared it into the young woman’s eyes. It created shock and agony. Next, they began to beat her on her swollen belly while shouting, “Pay attention! Hurry up!”
These women justified all this by quoting the words they found in their language’s version of Genesis 3:16. They said, “You deserve this suffering because God promised sinful women like you to have “pain-in-childbirth!”
Cases like this, and other wayward actions, are why we need to “true” the verse of Genesis 3:16! Let’s update translations and beliefs in our churches and spread the positive insights of Eden because God didn’t curse Eve (or Adam) or limit woman in any way.