The serpent did not act alone. Behind the serpent stood a jealous angel -- and behind the angel stood a grudge older than humanity itself.

Eve gathered all her children and grandchildren and began to tell them the true story of how the Adversary had destroyed Paradise. Not the simple version. The full version.

"Hear me, all my children," she said. "I will tell you how the enemy deceived us."

In the beginning, God had divided Paradise into portions. Eve guarded the west and the south. Adam guarded the territory where the male creatures lived. God had given all the males to Adam and all the females to Eve, each tending their own domain.

But Ha-Satan, the Adversary, went to Adam's territory. Not to Adam directly. He went to the serpent.

"Rise up and come to me," the Adversary whispered to the serpent. "I have a proposition for you." The serpent came. It was, after all, the wisest of all the beasts.

"I hear you are cleverer than every other creature," the Adversary said. "So why do you eat Adam's scraps instead of the fruit of Paradise? Rise up. Help me, and together we will have Adam cast out of the garden -- just as we were cast out because of him."

This is the key to the whole story. The Adversary did not rebel against God. He was cast out because of Adam. When God created the first human, He commanded the angels to bow before this new creation -- a creature made in the divine image (Genesis 1:27). But the Adversary refused. "I was created first," he argued. "Why should I, a being of fire and spirit, prostrate myself before a creature made of dust?" His refusal was not a war against Heaven. It was jealousy. Pure, seething jealousy that God had elevated a being of clay above the angels.

And so the Adversary had been expelled from the divine presence -- not for rebelling against God's authority, but for refusing to honor what God had made. Now he wanted revenge. If he could not be restored, Adam would be dragged down too.

The serpent hesitated. "I fear the Lord will be angry with me."

"Do not fear," said the Adversary. "Only be my vessel. I will speak through your mouth. You will say the words, but they will be mine."

The serpent agreed. And so the Adversary draped himself over the wall of Paradise and waited for his moment. When the guardian angels ascended to worship God -- as they did every day at the appointed hour -- he appeared to Eve in the form of an angel. He sang hymns like the heavenly host. He shone with borrowed light.

Eve looked over the wall and saw what appeared to be a radiant being. "Are you Eve?" he asked. She said she was. "What are you doing in Paradise?" he asked, as if he did not know.

"God placed us here to guard it and eat from it," Eve answered.

Then the Adversary, speaking through the serpent's mouth, delivered his trap: "You do well. But surely you do not eat from every plant?"

Eve answered honestly: "We eat from all of them, except one -- the tree in the center of Paradise. God commanded us not to eat from it. He said: on the day you eat of it, you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:17).

The hook was set. All the Adversary needed now was to reel her in.