Roach Clips

I'm in a debate with a christian on another forum about the Garden of Eden narrative.

I put forward my interpretation of the story that the Serpent, who is not satan but a sentient animal, didn't decieve Eve into eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil but instead exposed God as liar. The Serpent was freeing man from God who didn't want man have the knowledge. The serpent was cunning enough to see this and didn't want man to be held back by God's jealousy of what he could become. The Serpent said that they wouldn't die, they didn't, and that God would see that their eyes had opened, which he did. God kicked them out of Eden, not because they disobeyed him but because they had Become Godlike. I concluded, that these actions show that God's motive was jealousy.

God wanted obedient servents to tend the Garden of Eden. After man and woman had their eyes opened, they could no longer be under his control. And God, not wanting them to eat from the Tree of Life, kicked them out of the Garden of Eden before they could eat from it and become Gods too.

He responded;
I told him that he has to make alot of assumptions for his "explanations."

Then I listed that facts from the story:

1) The Narrative says nothing about Satan controlling the Serpent and gives no reason to believe it had anomosity towards man
2) Serpent is spoken as being the most cunning of creatures
3) Christians assume the serpent must be against man, but it is the serpent that sees through God's lie.
4) The serpent never lied to the woman... though the woman would later claim that she was deceived, over what, the story never tells.
5) God does not throw man from the Garden because he broke the prohibition
6) God throws man out because man had become like God.

I concluded "This is a jealous God's reaction. The truth of the story is quite obvious. God wanted obedient servents that would follow whatever he said. Once the man and woman obtained knowledge of all things, they could no longer be under his thumb. Had they ate from the Tree of Life, they would have been Gods and not servents. God was jealous of the power they then had and fearful of what they would become had they eaten from the Tree of Life."[/i]

He responded;
I then said "You are giving explanations based on nothing but your own conjecture. They have no scriptural basis, which means you are accepting them as true without proof, a.k.a. an assumption. And I never said the Bible is factual. The facts I brought up are drawn from the narrative itself. They are based on what is known to have happened in the story."

He responded;
I'd appreciate a critique of our debate so far.

Joan of Bark

A few points:

1) Why did God create the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the first place?

2) Your explanation reads like that of some gnostic writers. This is just an observation, not a criticism.

3) The Eden story always reminds me of the Greek myth of Prometheus. And Prometheus is generally considered to be a hero.

Dean Anderson

It sounds like you're doing well so far. Here is a recent post by me that agrees with your position and goes into more detail about how the text supports it over the usual Christian version.

I'm a little confused by your opponent's statements at the end. He seems to be complaining that you are forming an impression of God's character by reading what the Bible says - and that this is somehow a bad thing since it assumes that the Bible is somehow factual. This is a very strange position for a Christian to take.

lpetrich

I think that Joan of Bark is right about that snake being a Prometheus figure, bringing to humanity what the Ruler of the Universe had wanted to keep away from humanity. And in both stories, this ruler not only punished that bringer, but also humanity. The aforementioned Wikipedia article also points out the connection, though I agree with it that the two stories are likely independent inventions.

I also note that the Gnostics had believed the God of the Old Testament to be a wicked demon, Yaldabaoth; in their telling of that story, that snake was a hero rather than a villain.

Roach Clips

And that's where I became confused, too. That's why I decided to bring this up here. I don't really know how to respond to that. I mean, if I can't use the wording of the story as a basis for interpretting its meaning then what's the point in even having the story?

I should note that he's an agnostic Christian. Note he's not a literalist and I think that's his point when he says the Bible is not factual.

Malachi151

Might want to look into this thread as well, and visit the links:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=184529

Basically, the Garden of Eden story comes from the Sumerian and Babylonian creation story, where humans are created by the gods to do their work for them. I argue that the Sumerian story is really describing a real earthly early civilization where the leaders were worshiped by slaves as gods.

Read the linked thread for the rest, but this really seems to be the case IMO, and the links give views of scholars who think that the Hebrew telling of the story was in some ways written in opposition to the Sumerian story, i.e. in the Sumerian story the city is good and "Edin" bad, in the Hebrew story "Eden" is good and the city is bad.

In the Sumerian story the gods eventually bring humans the knowledge that being naked is bad, in the Hebrew story the humans break the rules to gain knowledge.

In the Sumerian story people are "bad" (misbehave) because they have been created with the blood of a rebellious god, in the Hebrew story they are bad because of "free will", leading to "original sin" (i.e. in the Sumerian story its not humans fault that they are bad, but in the Hebrew story it humans fault that humans are bad )

darstec

One obvious and glaring mistake, and one made by almost every reader of the Genesis story is that you wrote, "God kicked them out of Eden." But a careful reading of the story shows that god did not kick them out at all. God kicked the man out. The story says nothing about the woman being kicked out of the garden.

LoungeHead

Here's some notes from a debate I had recently had that might be of interest:

I argued that God was actually a sinner, which he admits in Genesis. I argued on the basis that to be considered a sinner, a person must know what sin is; and God knows. A criteria and category he admits to this in Genesis 3:22 And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us [a sinner], to know good and evil.

Also, eating the forbidden fruit was not against God's will, because right and wrong were not a feature of human experience at the time. Humans could not understand the choice. So they could not be doing anything against God's will i.e. sinful. For example, many Christians claim homosexuality is against God's will, but animal homosexuality is not included in this, because animals are not bound by the same moral conditions. Adam and Eve were also not bound by those moral conditions.

Also, if it was really God's will that they not eat fruit, God would not have created the option, especially as his omni-temporal vision would allow him to see they would. It's like releasing an unremorseful criminal back into a community without supervision, whom you know is likely to commit crime again, and the denying responsibility by claiming it was against your desires and command that he commit more crime. When it was obviously inevitable he was going too. God is either stupid, irresponsible or both.

Adam and Eve also may not have had free will. They had no system by which they could decide whether to obey or disobey God's command, because they would understand right and wrong in following his command, which removes the purpose of the tree. Further illustrating the fuck up of placing a tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden. That was God's error; he commanded his zombies to do something and they failed to obey or had a malfunction when ordered by another entity.

Loomis

Why?

Gosh, how do you think it will end?

Who will win?
If you just base your arguments on “interpretations” and ”creative exercises” then you will never get anywhere because everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. You’re just jacking off.

The only effective way to argue about these things (if there is any effective way) is to find the sources and imagery that the original author (or sometimes authors and redactors) was drawing from.

I admit that that is hard to do. It requres a shitload of time and research. But if you are just making shit up, then how are you any better than the Christian?
If you are genuinely interested in this stuff you might want to read what Leolaia has to say about this:

The Tree of Life, Asherah, and Her Snakes.

I think that that link is a great example of someone who understands the issues and is willing support their claims with facts.

P.S. Sorry to be so negative. I’m not really a foul-mouthed prick. Just foul-mouthed.

Good luck with your debate.

LoungeHead

Sure, but he gets to perfect his technique.
You can, however, learn a lot about argumentation by engaging in meaningless discussion.
What does being better have to do with it. If you're relying on moral superiority to make your arguments, then you are in bad position to begin with.