John concludes his Gospel on a tantalizing note, implying that he has only scratched the surface in reporting the deeds and words of Jesus. Now there are also many other things that Jesus did, he writes. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (Jn 21:25).

Here John reminds us of something important about the Bible.

Its narratives give summaries of what was said and done rather than exhaustive accounts of events or detailed transcripts of conversations. Biblical narratives are what scholars call “laconic,” a word meaning brief or concise.

Several passages give additional evidence that biblical narrative is laconic. For example, in Genesis 20:13, Abraham confesses to Abimelech of Gerar that he has asked his wife Sarah to pose as his sister every place to which we come. His statement suggests the possibility that they had used this ruse not only in Egypt and Gerar, as recorded in Genesis, but in additional locations as well.

A second fascinating example appears in Genesis 26:5, where God tells Isaac, Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. The Hebrew terms for “charge,” “commandments,” and “statutes” also appear together in Deuteronomy 11:1, where Moses uses them to describe the divine instruction that he expounds to Israel in the book of Deuteronomy. This parallel language may suggest that God gave more teaching to Abraham than is mentioned explicitly in Genesis 12-22, perhaps including commandments later recorded in Deuteronomy.

There is a third example in Genesis 31:7, where Jacob reminds Rachel and Leah that their father Laban changed my wages ten times. His statement implies Laban continually practiced deception in his dealings with Jacob, even beyond the examples already mentioned in Genesis 29-30.

These three examples have a similar structure. In each case, a laconic third-person narrative is followed by a first-person statement adding new information to the earlier narrative.(1)

This special structure is not confined to the book of Genesis.

In Acts 9:3-8, Luke describes Paul’s confrontation with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Then in Acts 22:6-11, Paul gives his own account of the event, adding details to the original narrative about the time of day, the brightness of the light, and what his companions saw and heard. Finally, in Acts 26:13-20 Paul recounts the episode again, giving additional information about what Jesus said to him during the encounter. Paul’s retellings hint at how much was not mentioned in Acts 9:3-8 and enhance that original narrative.

Keeping in mind the laconic nature of biblical narrative and the preceding instances, consider one further example. In Genesis 2:16-17 God tells Adam, You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. Later, when the serpent questions Eve on what God has said to them, she replies, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die” (Ge 3:2-3).

When we compare these two passages, one difference stands out. Eve says that God had told them not even to touch the fruit of the forbidden tree, a detail not mentioned in Genesis 2:16-17. Usually, it is assumed that Eve in Genesis 3:2-3 has added something to what God told Adam.(2)

Commentators who make this assumption try to imagine why Eve would attribute to God a stricter prohibition than he had given. Does her remark, for instance, betray a feeling that God was being overly restrictive in withholding one tree from them?

While pondering this possibility, we should remember that the Bible cautions against making additions to, or deletions from, a commandment of God (Dt 4:2; 12:32; Pr 30:6; Rev 22:18-19). Doing so indicates a disagreement with God, implying that one does not have complete faith in him. The Bible says that whatever does not proceed from faith is sin (Ro 14:23).

One can argue, then, that if Eve added to the prohibition that she and Adam received from God, then she was sinning already, even before she was deceived by the serpent. However, we read in 1 Timothy 2:14 that Eve was deceived and became a transgressor. In other words, her sin came when she was deceived and ate the forbidden fruit, not beforehand.

Therefore, there are problems with simply assuming Eve added to God’s original prohibition in Genesis 3.

It is also quite possible, though Gen 2:16-17 does not mention it, that God told Adam not to touch the fruit. If that is the case, it is another instance of the structure described in this article. The narrator used Eve’s first-person remarks to convey new information about what God previously told Adam.

This last example suggests that since a biblical narrative is laconic, we should be wary of drawing conclusions based on what the Bible does not say. When the text is silent on a matter, it is wise to consider all possibilities in light of the entire witness of Scripture, keeping in mind the Bible’s literary patterns and structures.

(1) Jeffrey J. Niehaus identifies and discusses this structure in When Did Eve Sin? The Fall and Biblical Historiography, Lexham Press, 2020.

(2) Niehaus surveys the history of interpretation of these passages in chapters 2 and 3 of When Did Eve Sin?