In the “How many people did God kill in the bible?” thread, there was a brief sideline about whos fault Man’s mortality was. Which brought to mind a question I had about the whole fall-of-man buisness.
Allow me to summarize:
God: “See this tree. Its the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (TKGE). Don’t eat from it or you’ll die.”
Adam: “OK”
Eve (to Adam): “So this snake just told me that not only will the fruit of the TKGE not kill us, but we’ll be able know good and evil”
Adam: “Well then, what the heck, lets try.”
God: “Oh, so you know good and evil now. Well, now you’re gonna get it…”
(summary based on the NIV, Genesis 2 & 3)
So what bothers me about this is the implication that Adam didn’t know good from evil before eating from the TKGE. That would mean then that he had no way to judge Gods commandment from the serpents suggestion. I.e., he had know way to know that God was more good than the serpent, and that he ought to obey.
If this is the case, how is Adams decision to eat from the TKGE different from, say, a rabbit or a monkey that was just passing by the tree and noticed some tasty fruit. And so why aren’t rabbits and monkeys cursed with painful childbirth and thorny weeds (and IIRC, Original Sin) like we are?
I’m sure great theological minds either laugh at this being a real problem, or have have discussed it and considered it answered; but whatever the prevailing thought is, we sure didn’t cover it in sunday school (where 90% of my religious education came from, sad to say)
Adam and Eve were created by God with a little bit more on the ball than your average rabbit or monkey.
God told Adam and Eve that they were the bosses in the Garden of Eden. They got to name the animals and things like that.
However, God didn’t give them the ability to tell right from wrong. He decided to just tell them one thing: Don’t eat from that tree over there.
That’s all God expected. They didn’t live up to their end of the bargain. So, out they went and if you try to get back to the Garden of Eden there’s that nasty angel standing guard.
Right, I can see that more was expected of humans, being created in Gods image and all. But they were presented with a moral dilemma (believing God or believing the serpent), without being equipped with the facilities to make a proper decision (i.e. the knowledge that God is good)
How would that be different from me saying “hey you, make sure you do whats gubby, or you and your decendants will be forever cursed”, without ever telling you what “gubby” means?
According to my KJV, God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil they would die.
However, I have to question the assumption that Adam and Eve were immortal before this happened. Genesis 3:22-23: “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: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.”
The tree of life is mentioned before that, but no prohibition of eating from it. Possibly the fruit of the tree of life ‘renewed’ the eater in some way, and Adam and Eve were allowed to eat from this tree and continue to live as long as they remained innocent. However, once they disobeyed and lost their innocence, they were kicked out of Eden and denied access to the tree of life.
Sacred cows make the best hamburgers. - Mark Twain
From what I understand about Christianity, the fall of man had nothing to do with an apple.
From my recollection of the writings of C.S. Lewis, he speculated that Adam was what we might consider a demi-god. With the ability to heal himself, control animals with his mind, as well as the ability to ‘create’, Adam certainly knew Good from Bad and that God was Good.
Lewis went on to hypothesize that it was Adams’ desire to be worshiped and admired for his own creations rather than giving honor to the true creator that lead to the fall of man.
Well, if you were a god, and you said that and also said, “The onlyy ungubby thing to do is to throw a rock through the sacred window over there”, I would consider that a fair deal.
Seriously, the Tree of Good and Evil isn’t a magical knowledge tree. It’s just that, they weren’t supposed to, and after they did, they had a standard: Everything else I’ve done so far=good, eating that fruit=bad. Before that, they only knew good, because they hadn’t sinned.
My reading has always been that it is an allegory for man’s becoming sentient. In other words, the fall of man occurred at the moment that man became self aware and was differentiated from other animals.
This point is impossible to pin, but it clearly happened as we shifted from ape to man.
Rabbits don’t know right from wrong becasue they don’t even know that the question exists. They just accept what is. The moment they see themselves (as apart from the whole) then they have fallen. Then they make choices, and not simple reactions.
First off, it’s certainly NOT an apple. That was either a Medieval or Renaissance rendition, I’ve forgot which. No specific fruit is mentioned in the text, but early rabbinic speculation would have it a pomegranite.
Second: the term “knowledge of good and evil” is open to several interpretations. The one I like best is that it’s an expression of two poles to mean all in between, like saying “from soup to nuts” or “from A to Z.” Doesn’t mean knowing right from wrong, that’s sort of assumed.
Another interpretation that I like is that it means self-awareness. This is why the first thing Adam and Eve do is try to hide from God, to hide from the sheer terror of knowing that they are self-aware, knowing how insignificant they are in the cosmos.
Third: I think it’s very hard to take this story literally. Far better to take it as a poetic expression of humankind striving for knowledge (or self-awareness). Ignorance (life in the garden) is blissful; gaining knowledge is painful, involves struggle and hardship. Mankind chose the latter path, despite the cost.
IMHO, I think this is a lost detail, and maybe not something we are meant to know… Without knowing their exact limitations, how can one make a judgment call? Maybe they knew right and wrong but not why (data but not knowledge or understanding). Like a child who knows he/she is not supposed to take a cookie but doesn’t really know why. Only God really knows the circumstances.
Recall that the serpent told them they would be like God, and presumably they ate toward that end–to be equal in power. One can certainly argue that they liked God and perhaps they thought being like him would be a good thing, but if God is who the Bible says He is, He was able to see their inner motives and dictate the appropriate punishment.
Not that I would try to get by that nasty angel with the flamin’ sword, but can you tell me just where he stands. I’ve never actually seen an angel. I think seeing him(her?/it?) could be the answer to the “Could you believe?” thread.
I like CKDextHavn and mrblue92’s interpretations, that knowledge of good and evil means something else, or that Adam 'n Eve were punished for hubris.
I was taking “knowledge of good and evil” as pretty straightforward “having morality”, in which God punished Adam for making an incorrect moral choice, which just didn’t seem fair (not that Gods gotta act fair, but it would suck if were were cursed for all eternity because of a damn trick question).
Now, an almost-vaguely-related aside:
Is there a difference, in the original hebrew, between “the serpent” and “Serpent” (as in some generic snake vs. proper name)? It seems like most stories like this that I’ve read (i.e. myths from other cultures) would have used the proper name Serpent.
I guess I never worried about the OP because I see a difference between “good and evil” and “right and wrong”. If you’re 3 years old, and you eat the cookies you weren’t supposed to, you may have done something wrong but you’re not evil. Just because something in general is wrong doesn’t make it evil either.
As for the Garden and cherubim, I heard that the Garden was removed by God during the Flood and is part of the ole Heavenly Kingdom. Or else it was destroyed in the flood and the cherubim went back home. Now that you mention it, I don’t think Jophiel is attributed to anything post-Noah, so maybe he took the early retirement option on his contract and is kickin’ it back with a couple of 40 ouncers and a tape of 1989 NFL highlights.
“I guess one person can make a difference, although most of the time they probably shouldn’t.”
The Hebrew does not distinguish between proper names and common names, as such… so there is no answer to whether it is Serpent or serpent, per se. I don’t have the text handy, I think it is “the serpent” as opposed to “a serpent”. Early Christian theology identified the serpent with Satan, but there is no such identification in the Hebrew text or in the Hebrew Bible.
Thanks. It just sounds so much more fun if you say “Then Snake told Woman, go ahead and eat the fruit…”, I was hoping that the hebrew didn’t distinguish between the proper and common names.
