This particular verse has bothered me for quite some time. I don’t know for sure, but as I read the verse, it isn’t out of the realm of possibility that Adam and Eve were already parents living the grand life in the Garden of Eden. And on the day of judgement, God says to the woman, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.” I can only surmise that prior to the eating of the apple, childbirth was no big deal. In a like manner, I can only surmise that there may have been the occasional morning sniffles or some other such maladies. No big deal, right? But anymore, and especially over the past week as I’ve been dealing with another terrible cold/flu, I’m pretty certain that God must have had an ace up his sleeve as to the punishment handed when kicking the original inhabitants out of the Garden of Eden by way the common cold. Yeah, the typical coughing, sore throat, runny nose, sneezing headaches, fatigue and fever. Hopefully I have only a few more days of this punishment for A & E’s exhibiting a sinful nature. And I seem to get at least two of these things each year – one in the summer and one in the winter. What were you thinking, Eve? Apples aren’t all that good anyway unless one incorporates cinnamon and sugar with a top and bottom crust. Not sure why I hadn’t thought of Gen 3:16 as an incomplete verse before now. But there it is. I’m convinced that the early scribes must themselves been dealing with colds and were not at their best when writing down this verse. My $0.02 – and I’m sticking to it!
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my brief interpretation of this verse (my .02 cents worth) is that this is pure fiction as opposed what might sometimes be referred to as a fable… just sayin’