The very first man was called Adam, and he lived in the Garden of Eden, which was right in the middle of the place we now call Iraq. In those days there weren't so many wars, and no Muslims were around, so it seemed like a good idea to put it there.

God was still tired after making the universe in only six days, so he told Adam to give names to all the land animals and birds. Even though Adam knew that everything he saw was a vegetarian, he still came up with some curious names like 'anteater', 'frog-eating bat' and 'fish eagle'. However, God decided to keep quiet about the subject because he had recently given names to all the sea creatures and had come up with 'killer whale' for one of them, so he was hardly in a position to criticise.

God wanted to make sure that Adam had more work to do, so he told him that his job was to take care of the Garden. There wasn't really that much to do, and anyway there were no such things as knives for pruning, or lawnmowers for cutting the grass, so it looked like it was going to be a pretty easy life for Adam.

For God, the most important thing of all was that Adam should always, always be ignorant. Knowledge was considered a very bad thing, so he told Adam not to eat the fruit growing on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Of course without knowing why, Adam just had to do what God said. He wasn't allowed to decide for himself because God was in charge. And he didn't understand it would be a bad thing to eat the fruit because he didn't know what good and bad was - that was the whole idea.

Adam didn't realise it at the time, but God soon told him the first lie there had ever been. "If you eat from the tree you will surely die," said God. Remember what God said, and see what happens later.

Even though God had made the whole universe from nothing, with all the billions of stars and galaxies and planets, and all the atoms and chemicals inside them, he decided that the best way to make a woman would be to take out one of Adam's ribs and make her from that. He'd already made Adam from dust, so perhaps he just wanted to try something different.

God didn't ask Adam for permission to take his rib because God can do whatever he likes, but at least he put Adam to sleep so that it wouldn't hurt. Or maybe God thought Adam wouldn't want to lose one of his ribs, so he knocked him out to stop him struggling. Either way, Adam didn't have chance to complain because God just took out the rib anyway. He had to make the rest of the woman's body from nothing, so he didn't really need the rib at all, but that didn't matter because soon God had made a woman from the rib, and he called her Eve.

Eve's job was to be Adam's helper in the Garden, but soon she committed the greatest crime ever in the whole history of the world (which wasn't very long at the time). It was so bad that God decided to punish everyone, everywhere, for all time. What could possibly be so terrible? Well, Eve's awful crime was this: she ate an apple.

This is how it happened. Of all the animals in all the world, the snake was the strangest. The first strange thing was that he had legs. Have you ever seen a snake with legs? That would be a very funny looking thing wouldn't it? But God's ideas are perfect so we don't need to know why he made a snake with legs.

Even more strange than that, when God made the snake he decided that it would be able to talk. A talking snake with legs is the weirdest animal ever. Adam and Eve were the only other living things who could talk, so one day the snake walked up to them both for a chat.

"Those apples look nice," he said, nodding at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Eve agreed, but said she wasn't allowed to touch them because God said they would die if they ate the fruit. But the snake knew that God was lying, and told her the real truth.

"God just wants to stop you knowing the difference between right and wrong. Why would he do that? I mean, if you two ever have children won't you want them to know what is good and what is bad?"

Eve thought that made a lot of sense, and the apples did look particularly tasty, so she took a bite out of one of them, and gave some to Adam, who ate it too.

Straight away both of them realised that the snake had been telling the truth, and God really had lied to them. God said they would die if they ate the fruit, but they didn't die at all. All that happened was that Adam and Eve learned some important things, just like people learn from their parents, or when they go to school. And everybody knows that learning things is good, so why didn't God think so too?

The first thing they learned was that it's not a good idea to walk around with no clothes on. Adam and Eve had only just met, so they were very shy, and they sewed some leaves together to cover up their rude parts.

Soon they heard God walking around the Garden. Remember that God had made the whole universe, so he was absolutely enormous, but if he wanted he could shrink himself down to the same size as the people he'd made. God could do all kinds of magical things like that.

Adam and Eve knew they were in trouble, because now they knew what trouble meant - the fruit from the tree had taught them. Of course they didn't know it was wrong at all. How could they, when God didn't want them to know? That's what happens when you try to hide things and keep secrets, it just causes more problems. Maybe they should have done what God said, but they didn't know it would be bad to listen to the snake did they?

God found them hiding in the bushes, looking scared. He asked Adam why he had eaten the fruit from the forbidden tree. Adam pointed at Eve. "It was her, she gave it to me."

Eve didn't want to be blamed, and anyway it wasn't her fault, so she tried to explain that the snake had told her to eat the fruit. But God was very unhappy. His plan had been to stop Adam and Eve knowing about good and evil, but now the snake had spoiled it all.

In a rage God amputated the snake's legs and said that from now on he would have to crawl on his belly and eat dust. But really that wasn't much of a punishment because snakes can move very easily on their bellies, and actually none of them really eat dust, so God's power wasn't enough to make the snake do that. Or maybe God was lying again when he said it.

Really it was all the snake's fault because if he hadn't talked Eve into eating the apple none of this would have happened. So the snake should have been given the worst punishment, right? Well, that wasn't how God saw it.

God told Eve that when she had babies it would be very very painful, and in fact until we had modern hospitals a lot of women would die, just because of the problems they had while giving birth. What a terrible way to punish a woman, and all for eating an apple. God brought a lot of pain and suffering into the world, just like that.

Of course Eve's daughters and grand-daughters hadn't eaten the apple, so why were they punished too? But that was just how God said it had to be. All that pain and punishment, all because they didn't know it was wrong to eat the apple in the first place.

Adam was punished too. Instead of living an easy life in the Garden of Eden, he would have to work in the fields and grow his own food. But that wasn't much different when you think about it because it was already his job to look after the Garden of Eden.

Both of them were punished a whole lot more than the snake had been, which might not have been fair, but God wanted it that way, and it wasn't a good idea to argue with him.

God was still in a very bad mood, and he killed some of the animals, who hadn't done anything wrong either, and made their skins into clothes for Adam and Eve. He didn't really need to do that because they had already sewn some leaves together, but God wanted to show them who was boss. So not only had God told the first lie, he was also the first one to kill innocent living creatures for their fur.

Adam and Eve were told they couldn't stay in the Garden of Eden because they might be tempted to eat from the tree of life, which would let them live forever, but God was forgetting that now they knew right from wrong they would know it was wrong to eat from the other tree. However the subject never even came up, and Adam and Eve were thrown out into the world. Just in case they thought of coming back, God put a flaming sword in front of the Garden gate, which would have chopped them into little pieces if they tried. God also put cherubs at the gate as guards, so there was no way they would ever make it back in.

Adam and Eve really knew about good and evil now, but there were a couple of things they couldn't quite work out. If God hadn't wanted them to eat the fruit, why had he put the tree right in the middle of the Garden of Eden where it could be seen so easily? God could have put a big wall around it to stop them, and in fact there didn't really have to be a tree at all. Putting it there was just asking for trouble, especially when Adam and Eve didn't know the difference between right and wrong. And whose fault was that?

Surely God knew that the snake would try to trick Eve. Why didn't he warn her? After all, God had made the snake and even gave it a voice, so he must have had some idea that it was going to cause trouble.

God made it so very easy for Adam and Eve to do the wrong thing, and then punished them hard for it without even giving them a second chance. All that fuss over one little apple. Oh well, that's just God's way isn't it?