Chili

But God did not create Adam. God created man in his own image and it was not until after they ate that their eyes were opened to see that they had an identity of their own and that identity was called Adam. The word Adam should not appear in any translation until "Adam where are you" in Gen.3.

Each and every man has the same power as God because without man God would no longer be. Our human condition, or Adamic nature wherein we look beside our self, distorts our view to see this.

The good thing about this is that we can improve Gods creation with our own handy-work wherefore consecration of "bread and wine" includes the work of human hands.

Chili

No, the first tree was the Tree of Life and the second was the Tree of Knowledge. The TOL is for the living and the TOK is to improve life in the TOL because it provides the TOL with a different persective on life . . . which is what the woman saw in the TOK who therefore said that the TOK was good for gaining knowledge, food, and beauty. Man still is created immortal to this very day. It is only in our human condition that we die because it is conditional to our existence as Man in the image of God wherein we are eternal as the continuity of God.

The TOK is needed to modify this image of God through the ages which itself is retained in the TOL. To accompish this the 'like god,' or human identity, is banned from Eden so he can have a better look at himself and decorate the image of God wherever he is with whatever is available where he is. It is called survival in a compettitive environment.

So for man to know what is pleasing to the palate he must be able to think and be able to reason for himself so he can decide what is and what is not good or bad and for that the TOK is needed. It is upon this TOK that our ego consciousness is built wherein we are said to be Adam, or just human, and that is what constitudes the fall of Man who is needed to do Gods dirty work until the Seventh day. This would be kind of like putting on coveralls when we go to work and dress our Sunday best to shine in the sight of God.

Helpmabob

Hi Chilli - I disagree. This appears to be eerily similar to what the the man thought he could gain by eating the forbidden fruit.

MJ67

I admit, you must be reading an entirely different version of the bible than I, for all of those which I have read claim the following in order of appearance:

then: meaning the above, which was followed by: You wouldn’t be misguided or trying to rewrite the chronology of the verses would you? And if you are, your attempt still does not explain the obvious—that if man was created immortal to begin with, (s)he would not require to feed on a tree to continue that immortality, nor would it be necessary for her/him to be removed rather than the tree, which to this day is not available to us?

Here again we are at odds with the understanding of the verses as put forth by Christianity, and I emphasize; Christianity, since no other of the Abramic faiths agree with this concept. If man is immortal and eternal to this day as in the “continuity of God,”, then this negates biblical god’s decree that we “shall surely die.” For what do we care that our mortal self dies when we will live forever anyway? for what is preached on a daily basis as being better, life on earth or the everlasting life of our souls?

Very good! And if he is to think for himself, then he could not do so unless he had knowledge, which apparently we are to believe he received from eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for without having done that, man, according to the bible, would have 1) been a blind follower of god’s wishes, ergo-no free will of his own. 2) no concept as to why god forbade the eating of the fruit. 3) no concept of anything known as evil, which, Christians looking to explain why god would just not create blind followers, unapologetically state that god created everything with an opposite aspect, and so, it was important to know both sides of the coin.

Chili

It cannot be without the capacity to think. If we are God's creation without an identity of our own it can be said that we are not. "The man" did not think because 'he' was not until 'after' he ate, which is why "the woman" was tempted and it was she who gave some to her husband to eat. He ate because she saw that it was good for her to make him to think for himself in the TOK so she could gather knowledge and beauty in the TOL.

It was not until after he ate that God called upon "the man" and asked him: "Adam where are you" and then first realized that he was no longer naked to wit.

Chili

The order is the same but not the words. Gen.2:17 NAB "From that tree you shall not eat; the moment you eat from it you are surely doomed to die."

Doomed to die means to know that you will die for which two identities are needed. One that dies and the other to know that it will die.Our immortality exists in the essence of God after which our body is formed = immortality in God. Our body is not us but our body is the manifestation of God on earth under the identity of Lord God (the material cause) as man in the image of God before woman was taken from man. Mortality was created when woman was taken from man to be his "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (formal cause) but had not found a final cause until man ate from the TOK with 'to eat' being in the efficient cause. God is infinite and man is immortal in Lord God as the continuity of God wherein God is limited to mankind for mankind.

It should not matter to us that we "shall surely die" except that we assumed the wrong identity when we ate from the TOK and became the imposter that we identify with in our every day life. This would be our persona wherein we have individuality that was built on our tabula rasa (blank slate) so we can make a name for our self and call it our own. It is to this identity we must die in effort to set our God identity free and have immortality once again. IOW our former identity that became known as our Christ identity must be redeemed. The Tree of Knowledge is needed to isolate knowledge and call it our own. It is in the TOL that we are omniscient after the image of God as far as it pertains to us ("I will never leave you") and this knowledge is always with us but because we took up residence in the TOK it is not available to us as rational beings with an identity of our own wherein only we think that we have free will -- while in truth we a slave to our senses and are not free at all; we sure are free to think but must think and that in itself is slavery to the TOK.

It is also true that to we must color our own heaven while we are on earth so we can enjoy the fruits of our labor while in eternity on this earth that is transformed into heaven in the conversion of the twain mind wherein we, at least potentially, are the father and the son.

Chili

Because the woman was taken from man and is not Eve. The serpent becomes Eve and the woman becomes the seraph that is stationned at the gate of paradise. Hence our idea that the woman is co-redeemer in "through Mary to Christ."

Eve is the lesser serpent in the TOK that is known as Magdalene in the gospels.

Jack the Bodiless

You're new here. You will come to learn that Chili's posts appear to emanate from a slightly surreal parallel Universe that regular folks have some difficulty perceiving.

Febble

I'm afraid I don't understand any of that. Could you explain?

Chili

The woman that was taken from man is knowledge (or truth) as an entity of its own but without an identity of her own. The woman is the sea that was first separated from the water above and later into basins below so that dry land would appear for us to walk on without knowing where we are going but only that we are going as if led by the nose.

This would be where our Tree of Knowledge (Tabula Rasa) is isolated from the Tree of Life which contains the water that we cannot walk on [just yet] but wherein we have son-ship with the father above once we know who we are down below. So the woman ours in betrothal because she contains the water wherein our reign of God is to be found and we will crown her queen of heaven and earth when we become one with the father above, once again, except now we have some water to add in the form of knowledge that must be raised before it is ours to enjoy (until then it is borrowed learning because we do not know who we are).

The above may not answer your question but it shows that Mary (the woman) is our inspiration to Love while Eve is the woman we take to be our wife. Eve is temporal in the illusion of life that is created in Gen.3 when we became rational beings while Sophia (Elizabeth) is eternal in truth with Mary being the mediatrix (beauty) between heaven and earth while we are on earth as human. We call her the HS until she is 'within us' to be our gate to heaven and key to the kingdom of God.