Is God a Beneficent Provider or Cruel Oppressor?


by Daniel L. Sonnenberg

“[T]he snake…said to the woman, ‘Indeed! To think that God said you are not to eat of any tree of the garden!'” (Gen. 3:1)

“[T]he serpent…grossly exaggerates God’s prohibition, claiming that God did not allow them access to any of the orchard trees. Apart from this claim being unadulterated distortion, it is an attempt to create in the woman’s mind the impression that God is spiteful, mean, obsessively jealous and self-protective. [B]y this one statement of the snake God has moved from beneficent provider to cruel oppressor.”

Victor P. Hamilton, The Book of Genesis Chapters 1-17 (1990) Eerdmans 186, 188-189



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