Lord Emsworth

(How) can she know it is wrong withouth the knowledge of Good and Evil?

dado

you've hit on it exactly. before the ToKoG&E, there was not even an expectation of morality, there was only an expectation of blind obediance. this was touched on in another thread: Adam was essentially a slave. according to the story it never occured to A&E to eat from ToKoG&E until someone suggested it to them - again in accordance with the notion of slavery. there are many ways to read the story, from G-d screwing up (blind obediance requires 24-7 vigilance of the master) to A&E being jealous of G-d to etc etc etc. if there is a bottom line it's that free will may be bitter fruit, but for us, it's better than no fruit at all.

Dean Anderson

No he didn't. He warned them that eating it would kill them that very day (see this thread for a discussion of the meaning of 'die this very day'). This warning was a lie, since they did not die the day they ate the fruit. Nowhere in Yahweh's lie was any kind of moral judgement. He didn't say "Don't eat the fruit because I say so and not doing what I say is morally wrong." He said "Don't eat the fruit because it will kill you."

Since they were not told that it was morally wrong to eat the fruit, and since they had no sense of morality (because they hadn't eaten the fruit and gained it yet), there is no way that they can be said to have 'understood' that eating the fruit was morally wrong.

She told it the lie that Yahweh had told her - that eating the fruit would kill her. The serpent corrected her and told her the truth: that she would gain moral understanding.

As usual, this is a partial verse taken out of context. She knew what Yahweh had said, but had no understanding that...

1) What Yahweh had said was a lie.

2) By Yahweh's standards, not doing what he says is morally wrong.

Somewhere in the New Testament. The Hebrew Bible (OT) does not have the concept of 'sin' except where Christians have re-interpreted it to insert that concept.

You mean in Genesis 2:19 where Yahweh parades the animals in front of Adam and asks him what he will call them.

"What will you call this one, Adam?"
"Beetle"
"What about this one?"
"Another Beetle"
"And this one?"
"Another Beetle"
"How about this one?"
"Yet Another Beetle"
"And this one?"
"Ooh - A Shiny Beetle"

Except that the concept of sin is nowhere in the story and Eve doesn't know right from wrong yet.

The serpent is not Satan. The 'Satan' character is not introduced until a lot later. The serpent is your standard mythological talking animal.

Oh - and Yahweh was bluffing when he told them they would die that day. They didn't die until many years later.

Dean Anderson

Are you sure?

Pretty much every English translation has Genesis 3:22 saying something like this (taken from the KJV):

GEN 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

They all say (to paraphrase in modern English) "...in case he reaches out and also eats from the Tree of Life, and lives forever...", rather than "...in case he continues to eat from the Tree of Life and continues living forever..."

Can any of our Hebrew scholars shed any light on the accuracy of the translation of this verse, and whether it implies beginning to eat the Fruit of Life or implies continuing to eat the Fruit of Life?

dado

it's not just a question of translation accuracy, the problem is we know for a fact the "original" texts have been corrupted. taken as a whole it can be defensibly read either way. similary the warning about dying - my best translation is "you must die", which doesn't have the same implied immediacy of "will die". again, imo both interpretations are defensible.

i realize it's not the norm for theists on IIDB, but i trust when i offer an interpretation it is understood i offer it as *my* interpretation and i do not begrudge differing opinions.

edited to add: i should add there is also no implication A&E were mortal in the passages, so a middle ground might be that they hadn't eaten of the ToL because they didn't need to - it was only after eating from the ToKoG&E that it became necessary and hence the phrasing as commonly presented.

penumbra

All this hullabaloo over a simple misspelling. It wasn't the original SIN, it was the original STING.



God, the first con man and still the best.

Magdlyn

Just to interject one more problem, God actually did not prohibit any tree in Gen 1:

Gen 1:29 And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.

Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food." And it was so.

"Every tree." Not every minus one. Or two.

Unless he changed his mind later. Somewhere in between when he changed his name from El to YHWH.

Chris Weimer

The former frontman for the Police? That Sting? Man, was he ever good.

El is the Canaanite fatherly god, opposite to Yahweh, the god of war. The confusion is seen in semantics where a thousand year of history is condensed into five books (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus etc...) that were not supposed to be taken seriously, but instead were moral stories to live by, like parables! Moral of Adam and Eve, you all die because of two people, but mainly women are at fault. No joke.

Perhaps it would be wise to take a refresher course on Hebrew mythology? (Ashara, El, Yahweh, Baal, and their pantheon comes to mind...)

Oh, and as for sin, Satan, and hell, all are Christian concepts, except maybe Sheol, which really means just a falling away from God, such as what the Hebrews did many times over.

Chris Weimer

from another thread, by another author
Actually, it is very much like the Prometheus myth, and more Greek - Hebrew myth relations include the deluge, different types of humans nephilim, and a pantheon of gods where one reigned supreme (Hebrews had a pantheon but held El (earlier)/ Yahweh (later) as supreme, much like Athena at Athens, Iuppiter at Rome, Amon-Ra at Egypt, and other gods and goddesses at their respectve city-state, although the more time went on, the more traditional myth was incorporated into the city's beliefs, and so the traditional pantheon grew but people began to lack conviction. Thus fell the gods and goddesses of antiquity. Surprisingly, the Christian revival of Yah, not to be confused with Yahweh, which Yah only had male qualities, and the association of Yah to Allah has lead to a dominant belief in a singular god in the area.

Javaman

Very true and lending more credence to the different authorship of Gen 1 and Gen 2.