Everybody has an idea of a "paradise." It's usually some mystical place where one can escape the so-called "real" world and most would prefer to live.The notion or desire for paradise will ever disappear for one simple reason - people like it.They want Paradise to be everything they search for: freedom, a nice cottage by the lake or a house on the beach, health, security, pleasure, comfort. But something always happens to pop the bubble, as it did way back for the owners of the "real" paradise.In the traditional story, humanity was fooled or seduced into giving it up by a mysterious agent of evil hiding within a snake. Many religions hold out the promise of finding it again one day, which is another reason the search for Paradise will not go away anytime soon.The beginning of the end for biblical Eden starts when Satan, hiding within a serpent, tempts Eve, the first woman, into eating "the forbidden fruit."That was the fruit of knowledge of good and evil that God told Adam not to eat, and in turn, Adam told Eve. She didn't listen to him, ate some and then gave some to Adam to eat. Only after Adam ate the forbidden fruit did all hell break loose, as it were.The resulting punishment by God was humanity's expulsion from Eden... paradise lost. The world we live in now, therefore, is a long way from "home."I thought about this one day, and certain questions popped into my head. Was Adam angry with God for being booted out of Eden? What did he say to Eve about it? Did he blame her? If he was a real man, of course, he blamed her. And if she was a real woman, I'm sure she found a way to blame him but probably didn't say it to his face right away.What would life have been like for them, knowing that they had just sold paradise for a lousy piece of fruit?How did Adam experience the severe changes he surely underwent after being thrown out of the garden of delights? It must have been like walking away from a Hawaiian beach party right into a Minnesota snowstorm.And what was the deal with the serpent, a.k.a. "Satan"? Did he know the secret of the forbidden fruit? Did Satan lie or was he telling the truth? Why was that particular fruit, the fruit of knowledge of good and evil, forbidden to Adam and Eve? Did God want them to stay dumb? Were they that dumb in the first place? Was Eve right to take it?There are two stories of creation in the Book of Genesis, which are chapters 1 and 2 of Genesis respectively.The first chapter has the more commonly heard tale of God creating the world and everything in it in six days; that's the "creationist" story. On Day Six, man and woman are created together in the image of God and given the task of multiplying and subduing the earth.There is no mention of any fruit they must eat or avoid. There is a clear though unspoken equality between man and woman; they are obviously meant to rule the world together.The second story of creation, which is much older according to some biblical scholars, has the man, Adam, being created alone on an empty earth. Only after Eden and the animals have been created does God create the first woman, Adam's so-called "helpmate." She is called Eve and sequentially is the last creature made.What that means is that Adam was alone in Paradise for a time, and he never needed any help to stay there. He only needed the woman's help to get thrown out... just kidding. Adam wouldn't have lost Paradise without the help of Eve, the first woman, the one he later had children with, the woman I assume he loved and probably hated for a time and then loved again.The story says that when God confronted Adam about eating the forbidden fruit, Adam complained to God, "It was the woman you put here with me!" He blamed God!His excuse failed and he and Eve were kicked out of Paradise, and we've been looking to get back there ever since.This book is a series of reflections that Adam may have had.I hope you enjoy reading my book as much as I did in writing it.Sincerely, Francis Test