The tempter plucked the fruit and passed it to Eve. She took it in her hand. Now, said the tempter, you were prohibited from even touching it lest you die. He told her that she would realize no more sense of evil and death in eating than in touching or handling the fruit. Eve was emboldened because she felt not the immediate signs of God's displeasure. She thought the words of the tempter all wise and correct. She ate, and was delighted with the fruit. It seemed delicious to her taste, and she imagined that she realized in herself the wonderful effects of the fruit. {SR 34.2}

She then plucked for herself of the fruit and ate, and imagined she felt the quickening power of a new and elevated existence as the result of the exhilarating influence of the forbidden fruit. She was in a strange and unnatural excitement as she sought her husband with her hands filled with the forbidden fruit. She related to him the wise discourse of the serpent and wished to conduct him at once to the tree of knowledge. She told him she had eaten of the fruit, and instead of her feeling any sense of death, she realized a pleasing, exhilarating influence. As soon as Eve had disobeyed she became a powerful medium through which to occasion the fall of her husband. {SR 35.1}

Eve was before him, just as lovely and beautiful, and apparently as innocent, as before this act of disobedience. She expressed greater, higher love for him than before her disobedience, as the effects of the fruit she had eaten. He saw in her no signs of death. She had told him of the happy influence of the fruit, of her ardent love for him, and he decided to brave the consequences. He seized the fruit and quickly ate it, and like Eve, felt not immediately its ill effects. {SR 36.2}

A fall happens when there is a willful sin - an act of rebellion. But a sinful act is always preceded by a selfish desire - which is also a sin. So Adam and Eve sinned before they fell. They sinned in thought before they sinned in action.

James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust (lusting thoughts) , and enticed (tempted).
1:15 Then when lust hath conceived (lusting thoughts are accepted and implanted in the mind) , it brings forth sin (the person either acts on it or fantasizes on it): and sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.
1:16 Do not err, my beloved brethren.

I asked the question earlier?

The question concerning thoughts?

When do thoughts (temptations) which lead to sin actually become sin? When does a person "cross the line"?

Temptation isn't sin -- yet the sinful thought has entered the mind during a temptation. It won't be temptation if it didn't enter into our minds with its suggestions and appeal.

When does a person "cross the line"?

When do those thoughts stop being a temptation beckoning us to start sinning and when does the sinning start?

You should be able to post an inspired passage which says, Adam and Eve sinned before they ate the forbidden fruit.

Do you think Jesus would have had to implement the plan of salvation if A&E stopped short of eating the forbidden fruit?

Why do you divert into another field asking a different question and ignoring mine?

Exo 20:17 Thou shalt not covet

Eve coveted the thing God had forbidden. {CTr 22.4}



No, because they wouldn't have fallen - they wouldn't have taken the decision to go directly against what God had said (i. e., they wouldn't have sinned willfully).