My first one-off. Just something I wrote as a thought experiment when I was bored in English 101. I wanted to show how the Hebrew Bible would explain the anthropomorphic characters in the Darwin's Soldiers universe. This is the in-universe version of Genesis 3 from the Hebrew Bible.
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1 Now, the serpent was the most subtle of all the wild animals that God had made. It asked the woman, 'Did God really say that you were not to eat from any of the trees in the garden?'
2 The woman answered the serpent, 'We may eat the fruit of the trees in the garden.
3 But of the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden God said, "You must not eat it, nor touch it, lest you die."'
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, 'No! You will not die!
5 God knows in fact that the day you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like gods, knowing good from evil.'
6 The woman saw that the tree was good to eat and pleasing to the eye, and that it was enticing for the wisdom that it could give. So she took some of its fruit and ate it. She also gave some to the animals and her husband who was with her, and they ate it.
7 Then the eyes of all were opened, and the animals stood up and knew themselves, and the man and woman knew they were naked. So they sewed fig-leaves together to make themselves loin-cloths.
8 The man and his wife heard the sound of God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from God among the trees of the garden.
9 But God called to the man. 'Where are you?' He asked.
10 'I heard the sound of You in the garden,' he replied. 'I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.'
11 'Who told you that you were naked?' He asked. 'Have you been eating from the tree I forbade you to eat?'
12 The man replied, 'It was the woman You put with me; she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.'
13 Then God said to the woman, 'Why did you do that?' The woman replied, 'The serpent beguiled me, and I ate.'
14 Then God said to the serpent, 'Because you have done this, cursed are you above all animals wild and tame! You shall have no hind legs, on your belly you will go and on dust you will feed as long as you live.
15 I shall put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; she will bruise your head and you will strike her heel.' To the other animals He said, 'I did not wish for you to know your subservience, but you will still live in man's domain, and you will serve him.'
16 To the woman He said, 'I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you will give birth to your children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.'
17 To the man He said, 'Because you listened to the voice of your wife and ate from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat, cursed is the ground because of you; painfully will you get your food from it as long as you live.
18 It will yield you brambles and thistles, as you eat the produce of the land.
19 By the sweat of your face you will earn your food, until you return to the ground, as you were taken from it. For dust you are and to dust you shall return.'
20 The man named his wife 'Eve' because she was the mother of all those who live.
21God made tunics of skin for the man and his wife and clothed them.
22Then God said, 'Now the man has become like one of us in knowing good from evil, he must not be allowed to reach out his hand and pick from the tree of life too, and eat and live forever!'
23 So God expelled them from the garden of Eden, to till the soil from which they had been taken.
24 He banished the man and his animals, and in front of the garden of Eden He posted a cherubim and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
