mdarus

I am having trouble with your point. By saying, he did not know that disobedience was bad, are you saying:

1. He did not know disobedience would have undesirable consequences?
2. He did not know God would disapprove of disobedience?
3. He did not know disobedience is an evil?
4. He did not disobedience was a moral wrong?
5. He did not know disobedience violates God's moral law?

I think I could agree with some of these. It seems he would know that eating from the tree would be an act of disobedience to the command. He might not know all the moral ramifications.

Diogenes the Cynic

They couldn't know that disobedience was a moral "wrong" and God never told them that it was. God never even told them that HE would punish them for disobedience if they ate the fruit. He lied to them instead and told them they would die. Then the serpent (who was telling the truth) told them that God was lying, that they wouldn't die, and that they would be "as the gods, knowing good and evil." They had no reason not to trust the serpent, nor any knowledge that it would be "wrong" to do so.

nygreenguy

Yes, but if you believe in the bible as divine inspiration as many christians do, then you dont diffrentiate the authour and accept it as a whole book. And with Job, job ISNT a "historical" account like the other books of the bible. It is a work of fiction, meant to convey a moral message.

I wouldnt call them 'logical' holes, as its not really trying to debate or even prove a point. IT IS hower missing quite a bit of information and raises quite a lot of questions about the character of God. But Adam was warned of the concequences, and he chose to eat the fruit. So was this doing something wrong? Im wondering, did god actually COMMAND Adam not to eat, or did he just WARN him of the concequences of eating the fruit? IF it is the latter, God is absolved of responsibility.

Julian

So what? It still demonstrates the role that Satan was perceived to have in the eyes of the writers. Obviously, I reject divine inspiration since such a mechanism has yet to be demonstrated.
How could he be absolved? He put the tree there. He knows everything. He must have known that they would eat of it. And even if he didn't know, it is still irresponsible. Why put it where they could reach it? If I lay a bunch of bear traps in the house of blind man and tell him to be careful where he walks, I am now absolved once he inevitably steps in one?

Julian

Diogenes the Cynic

Julian and Amaleq have already addressed this. The interpretation of the snake as Satan is a much later, Christian retrojection. There was no such intent for the original author and, in fact, the serpent is still not identified with Satan in Judaism (Satan, in Judaism, is not evil. His job as "Adversary" is to challenge God- to play "devil's advocate," so to speak, but he is still a loyal servant, not a "rebel," not a "devil.").
Genesis says he didn't know right from wrong until after he ate the fruit. It's a genuine logical contradiction. The story attempts to blame Adam for bringing sin into the world even though the act of bringing it logically could not, itself, be a sin. If you have to be a sinner to create sin, then sin already exists and yoy din't create it. It's turtles all the way down. We are hardly the first to notice this conundrum. It's one of those classic theological problems that Christians have never been able to convincingly resolve.
I was actually just wondering what the story would mean to Christians who are not literalists.

mdarus

In one sense, I am trying to imagine how long the conversation would be to explain the intricacies of morality to a being who has only been conscious for a few hours. I think I can agree that "wrongness" and "evil" could be concepts that were clearer after the "knowledge of good and evil" is attained. But I still think the author of the story expects us to understand that Adam knew that obeying the command was right and disobeying was the wrong thing to do. God warned of a mysterious undesirable consequence of "death."

It seems that the purpose of this story is to set the framework of why rules should be followed in a community. If Genesis is the introduction to a suzerainty treaty which comprises law, you would expect some reasons for obedience to the law. I agree that the threat of death is differentiated between a punishment or a consequence (like a result of the fruit being poisoned) but it does seem to imply a moral choice.
It was important to decide who was lying and who was telling the truth. Eve agreed with your assessment and Adam consented. I think the author of the story intends for us to see the error of this conclusion. Even though death was not immediate, it is linked as a consequence.
I am intrigued by the claim, "They had no reason not to trust the serpent." The author of the story is not clear whether the "craftiness" of the serpent was known to Adam and Eve from previous encounters or his own observation that comes from living with snakes in the desert. The serpent contradicted God's warning about death. This set up a test of allegiance. If they trusted God, they should not have trusted the serpent.

Buster Daily

Well the LITERAL reading is that it's a walking and talking snake who catches El or Yahweh in his lie. Literalists are not always literalists. This story has it all. In a few paragraphs we have explanations for:

1. Knowledge of good and evil in humans
2. Shame over nudity
3. Origins of clothing
4. Why snakes have no legs
5. Why women and children seem to hate/fear snakes more than men
6. Painful childbirth
7. Male dominance over women
8. Thorns and thistles
9. Manual labor
10. Eventual death and decomposition

Presumably none of that existed before. Without derailing the originally posed questions, I wonder who believes any of this as explanations for the real world.

mdarus

I would guess that a lot of people believe the world is in a mess because of wrong choices made by our ancestors and that we tend to add to the mess.

Buster Daily

Well sure. Given that one thinks that the world is in a mess, wrong choices of ancestors is a pretty good explanation. I think the discord comes in when one defines "wrong choices" as obeying or disobeying the mysterious will of God.

Diogenes the Cynic

The author clearly states that Adam didn't know and couldn't know it. As a matter of fact, "wrong" didn't even exist yet. If no creature existed that was capable of sin (and Adam was incapable) then how could anything be "evil?"
A moral choice would require a knowledge of what is moral. Adam and Eve had none. Even if the author thought they were making a moral choice, then the author simply failed to recognize his own contradiction. He made a mistake. Storytellers make logical mistakes all the time (I just watched the French slasher movie Haute Tension the other night. It has a huuuuugggge plot hole).

There is no way out of this box. Either Adam knew he was doing something wrong or he did not. If he knew, then the tree of knowledge is pointless and redundant. If he didn't know then he can't be culpable.
I think the author makes it clear that God was, in fact lying and the serpent was telling the truth. What did the serpent lie about?
Why should they have had any allegiance to God? That would require some kind of knowledge that it was "right" to do so. Why shouldn't they have trusted the snake? How could they know it was "wrong" to trust the snake? How could the snake itself be evil if Adam had not yet brought sin into the world. What did the snake even say that wasn't true?