Javaman

Jumping back in to admit a mistake. I got caught up in the argument too much and thought Magus55 was referring to the tree of knowledge earlier. I think Calzaer made the same mistake. The passage...

Genesis 2:9
and Jehovah God causeth to sprout from the ground every tree desirable for appearance, and good for food, and the tree of life in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

Sorry.

judge

How dare you accuse me of being unbiblical...the hide of you!

Calzaer

So, since the tree of life was not forbidden until after we ate from the tree of knowledge, does that mean that had Adam eaten from the tree of life first, we'd all be immortal now?

What a nincompoop. Obviously he was, indeed, made in God's image.

xsquid

This has probably been discussed before, but...

Why do the inerrantists have their skivvies in a knot about this, anyway? Don't they realize that A&E were only trying to show their devotion? Think about it; when people deeply admire someone, they do whatever they can to emulate that person--the street kid who affects the mannerisms of his favorite rapper, or the golfer who buys the same gear Tiger Woods uses. God was, well, God. After the serpent told Adam and Eve that eating the fruit would make them like Him, well...of course they ate it! Wouldn't you?
I find it very strange that those who spend their lives trying to get "closer to God" condemn A&E for attempting to do exactly that.

Doctor X

It is a "just so story" in which the writer(s) have no problem with a god that wishes to prevent man becoming like him. One does not have to read malevolent intent into this--kings do not exactly encourage the peasants.

--J.D.

Magdlyn

Bumping.

judge

Here is one article whicxh examinations this subject. I don't know that it is exhaustive but it does have some references.


"The Rabbinic commentators studied the record of man's fall and though their reasoning is sometimes a little strange to our way of thinking, they nevertheless reached conclusions which have been shared by the Christian Church in all ages. First of all, they argued that angels are not propagated but are immortal, whereas animals are propagated and are destined to die. "Whereupon God said, 'I will create man to be the mirror of both of them, so that when he sins, when he behaves like an animal, death shall overtake him: but if he refrains from sin, he shall be immortal,'" (i.e., like an angel). * There is another form of this view which states more simply that "Every man could live forever if he should lead a sinless life." **

* Ginsberg, Louis, Legends of the Jews, Phila., Jewish Publ. Assoc. of Amer., 1955, Vol. 1, p. 50, quoting from the Midrash, Bereshith Rabba on Genesis.

** Ginsberg, Louis, ibid., Vol. V, p. 129.

Jacob Newman, in his edition of the commentary on Genesis by Nahmanides written in the thirteenth century A.D., translates the latter's comments on Genesis 2:17 as follows: "In the opinion of our rabbis, if Adam had not sinned he would never have died, for the superior soul gives life for ever." * But the Jews went further than this and, reasonably enough, postulated that, so long as Adam and Eve remained sinless, their married life would have been pure and they would have begotten immortal children. **

* Newman, Jacob, The Commentary of Nahmanides on Gen. 1-6:8, London, Brill, 1960, p. 71.

** Ginsberg, Louis, ibid., Vol. V, p.1-4.

Ginsberg states the early Jewish understanding of man's original condition: "Had it not been for the Fall, death would not have been so terrible and painful, but a joyful incident in man's career." * He gives several references where this view is clearly expressed in rabbinical commentaries.

* Ginsberg, Louis, ibid., Vol. V, p. 129.

Moreover, the Wisdom Literature of the Jewish people in pre-Christian times reflects the same view. In the apocryphal work The Wisdom of Solomon at 1:13-15 it is written: "God made not death; neither delighteth He when the living perish. For He created all things that they might have being and the generative powers of the world are healthsome, and there is no poison of destruction in them ...For righteousness is immortal." And in 2:23, "God created man for incorruption." Both are from the Revised Version of 1884. It is interesting that the word poison should have been employed here in view of what is to be said later in this volume regarding the nature of the forbidden fruit."

Jack the Bodiless

An update:

I have seen a couple of Christians (Spuleeah and WILLOWTREE) argue that Genesis portrays the Serpent (who they identify with Satan) as a liar in this story.

From here:
From here:
However, the context does not support this interpretation.
It is not apparent that the Serpent is promising immortality here: it's entirely reasonable to take this as a tip-off that God's warning of certain, immediate death, as a direct consequence of eating the fruit, was a lie. And indeed it was.

Furthermore, if we follow God's stated reason for expelling A&E from Eden, and the most natural interpretation of the "Tree of Life" reference (as A&E about to become immortal): then even a promise of immortality from the Serpent would not have been a lie. Eating the first fruit apparently triggered a sequence of events that would have resulted in immortality for A&E, if God had not intervened.

We're left with a scenario in which the apologist must make a case for the Serpent being motivated by malice and smarter than God: he foresaw God's intervention and manipulated God into harming A&E. However, God was apparently also manipulated into harming the Serpent:
...So now we are left with a nearly-omniscient-but-fallible malicious Serpent, or a Serpent so malicious that he didn't care what happened to himself as long as A&E were brought down...

...Or we could simply read the story as written, as the author intended, without all this imported baggage. Christians should remember that the rest of the Bible (particularly Paul and Revelation) wouldn't be written for centuries: in order to "get the message" that the author intended, they HAVE to disregard later interpretations.

We're left with a story in which the Serpent appears to be the good guy: a truthful (but not omniscient), benevolent friend of humanity, rather like Prometheus.

Dean Anderson

Indeed. This gives me a great opportunity to re-post my interpretation of what the Genesis 2-3 story says as written as opposed to what it says when re-interpreted by Christians...

God plants a garden. Gen 2:8

He needs a slave to look after it for him, since weeding is just too much like hard work. Gen 2:5, Gen 2:15

So he creates a toy man and puts him to work. Gen 2:7, Gen 2:8, Gen 2:15

Adam is allowed to eat anything he wants, such as all those nice opium poppies, psychaedelic mushrooms and cannabis and coca leaves - providing he doesn't touch God's special magical tree. Gen 2:15, Gen 2:16

God lies to Adam, telling him that if he eats from the magical tree he will die that very day. Gen 2:17

There is too much work for Adam to do, so God makes him some animal helpers. Gen 2:18, Gen 2:19

God makes Adam think up names for the animals, but Adam shows a lack of imagination, and calls most of them 'beetle' or 'bug'. Gen 2:19, Gen 2:20

Unfortunately, God fails to give any of the other animals opposable thumbs, so they turn out to be not much help with the gardening after all. Most of them just eat the cabbages or eat each other. Gen 2:20

Frustrated at this, God decides that all this creating of animals is not the answer, so he clones Adam instead, making him a twin sister - Eve. Gen 2:21, Gen 2:22

Adam is pleased with his new helper, and declares that because she was once part of him, children should leave their parents and get married to other people. This comes as a great surprise to Eve - and indeed to God - because children and parenthood haven't been invented yet and because there are no other people to follow Adam's declaration. Perhaps Adam knows something that God doesn't, or just had too many of those tasty coca leaves. Gen 2:23, Gen 2:24

Adam and Eve are both naked, but no-one cares since they are still young and pert. Gen 2:25

The talking snake asks Eve whether she can eat all the stuff in the garden. She replies that God said to leave the magical tree alone because if she eats it she will die the same day. Gen 3:1 - Gen 3:3

The talking snake points out that God was lying about them dying, and the real reason he doesn't want them to eat from the magical tree is that they will know right from wrong - and realise that being gardening-slaves is a bad thing. Gen 3:5

Adam and Eve eat the magical fruit, and realise that although there is nothing wrong with them seeing each other naked because they are a couple, God's watching them bend over to do weeding in the nude was wrong of him - so they make themselves some clothes to stop him perving. Gen 3:7

God turns up and Adam with his new-found wisdom immediately blames Eve, who similarly passes the buck to the talking snake. Gen 3:9 - Gen 3:13

God realises that his lies about the fruit killing people have been exposed and that his slaves will no longer be dumb enough work for him (especially not in the nude). Gen 3:22

Getting a really good sulk on, God pulls the legs off the snake (and invokes Lamarckian evolution so that its offspring will also be legless), curses Eve with childbirth, creates a few new types of plant just to make Adam's gardening more difficult, and kills a few random animals. He feels a bit sorry for killing the other random animals, though, and makes Adam and Eve some nice fur coats out of them so that they don't go to waste. Gen 3:16 - Gen 3:21

Finally, he kicks them out of the garden. Gen 3:24 so that they wouldn't eat from his other magical tree and become immortal like him as well as wise. Gen 3:22

may

[QUOTE=Jack the Bodiless]This, of course, did not happen: A&E went on to live very long lives indeed.

So God lied.


The effect of sin upon them might be illustrated by what happens to a piece of fine machinery when it is not used properly, according to the maker’s instructions. The machine will develop weaknesses and, in time, break down. Similarly, as a result of ignoring the instructions of their Maker, Adam and Eve lost their perfection. Their minds and bodies began to break down, and finally ceased to function, in death. That is what disobedience and removal from God’s favor meant for them. (Genesis 3:16-19) After Adam had used up the tremendous vitality of his once-perfect body, he died at the age of 930 years. This was within the symbolic “day� of one thousand years that God had set.—Genesis 5:5; 2Peter 3:8