Genesis Discrepancy?

Great Debates
1

Wow, I just noticed this:

…And, of course, they didn’t. Go figure.

If I’m reading this correctly, my question is this: Didn’t God lie? The serpent didn’t deceive anyone! The snake was telling the truth! He was framed! How do modern Christians reconcile this seemingly blatant mistake (or deception) on God’s part? Literalists notwithstanding, isn’t much of Christian theology based on the few chapters of Genesis? I’m sure I’m not the first to catch this.

Is there a different translation of the Bible I should be using?

Thank you, and Goodnight.

2

While I’m no theist nor biblical scholar (and thus feel a little silly being the first to respond), but perhaps he meant a figuritive death, not a literal one.

The blissfully ignorant and happy Adam ceased to exist, replaced by a more knowledgeable and shamed Adam, a changed man.

3

They did die - eventually, of old age, after they got kicked out of Eden.

As for “In the day…”, we’ve discussed before that “divine” day may not be the same as a mortal one.

4

There are two issues here: the truth of G-d’s threat, and the truth of the serpent’s statement. Let’s deal with the serpent first.

Back up just a wee bit from your first quote:

Genesis 3:2 - 3:3 - The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, `You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

The woman misconstrued G-d’s commandment not to eat of the fruit, and thought she was not to touch it either. To this, the serpent responded, “You will not die.” This was true…she would only die from eating it, not from touching it.

Now, to deal with G-d’s threat of punishment. It can be understood two ways. Firstly, we can simply say that the threat was that “on the day you eat of it, you shall be condemned to death.” Man was originally intended to be immortal, but eating of the fruit caused him to begin the process of dying.

Or, we can rely on the following verse, Psalms 90:4 - “For a thousand years in your (G-d’s) sight are like a day that has just gone by.” In other words, when G-d said “day,” he meant one of his “days”, i.e., one thousand years.

For what it’s worth to you, the Midrash says that G-d originally intended to kill them on that day (i.e., within 24 hours), but Adam and Eve then repented of their sin, so he decided to be merciful on them and allow the punishment to be carried out in the span of one of his days (within 1000 years).

5

Actually, they did die – just not right away.

If I recall correctly, the way this is interpreted is that they would have been immortal. Instead, they chose to be immoral.

6

cmkeller:

So the serpent’s deception was in syntax? When the bible was written was this the intention? “And God spake saying thus: shun ye the indeterminate clause, and woe be to thee who respondeth without regard to conjunction.”
Seriously…is that what the big deception was all about? Cursed for all time for that? Pretty harsh.

DavidB and others along this vein:

Adam and Eve were NOT immortal pre-fruit-of-knowledge (it would seem)…

Genesis 3:22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing 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”

So it looks like God was saying “Sheesh, now they have the knowledge of Good and Evil (Step One in God school) I’d better kick ‘em out before they get immortality (Step Two)!”

It’s also interesting that God says “like one of US…” I just noticed that He uses the plural. Is this like the royal “we”?

I understand, BTW, the reduction to metaphor argument for all sorts of biblical references…I just have trouble with figuring out which are metaphorical. (are miracles metaphors? Noah’s Ark? Abraham? King David? The Crucifixion?)

7

Sorry about that…I’ll confine this particular debate to the Book of Genesis.

::stuffing worms back into can::

8

Jingo:

I’ll respond to this by saying that Orthodox Jews such as myself believe so. We believe that the Tanakh (the Old Testament, to Christians) was divinely written very precisely, to the letter, and the Talmud and Midrash derive many laws and lessons from specific phrasings and cross-references between uses of specific language, apparent redundancies, apparent discrepancies and/or “extra” words or letters.

Naturally, those who don’t believe it will say that this is merely creative backtracking by religious leaders who wish to justify their belief and/or their power over the masses. I can’t make you believe one thing or another.

There are a number of different explanations of what the “Tree of Life” was, and what that verse meant. Probably the simplest (but by no means the only) is that prior to the Tree of Knowledge incident, man did not age, but death was not impossible…accidents, traumas, etc. could still happen, but barring those, the person would be immortal. Once the Tree of Knowledge was eaten from, death was something that would occur to everyone. The Tree of Life would have been a preventative for any sort of death.

Two explanations: 1) You’re correct, it’s the “Royal We”, or 2) he was talking to the angels (although since according to the Orthodox Jewish religion angels are nothing but heavenly automatons, one could argue that these two are pretty much equivalent to one another).

Chaim Mattis Keller

9

It is a fairly common form of deception, after all – saying things that are technically true, but phrased in a manner that conveys deception.

The deception was Satan’s, and he had already been cursed. Adam and Eve were cursed for their disobedience, which is a different matter altogether.

10

Well, Chaim, while I’d certainly buy into the Elohim (pl.) – “we” usage as being simply a “royal we” or, alternatively, a “fullness of godhood” pluralization, there are conservative Christians who see the idea of the Trinity in those usages. One person in the godhead is saying to another…

Just FWIW.

11

They died spiritually.

12

Larry Niven’s science fiction novel ‘Protector’ had an interesting interpretation of this bit of Genesis. In it humanity originally had three life stages, child, breeder, and protector. The breeder stage was pretty much homo erectus, but when they got older certain physiological changes would begin, and the breeder would have the instinctual compulsion to eat the roots of a certain plant, which would trigger a transformation where the brain would expand drastically, the joints would expand (to create greater leverage to increase strength), the teeth would fall out and be replaced by beak-like hardened gums (well suited for their new diet, which consisted solely of the roots of that plant), the genitals would shrivel up and a second heart would develop in the groin, and the person’s skin would get wrinkled and tough enough to turn a copper blade. After transformation to the protector stage the being was far more intelligent than a modern human and would live until killed violently. They also had a strong instinctual drive to protect the breeders related to them and kill those that were different. Their homeworld was in a constant state of warfare as these supergeniuses were constantly fighting each other for territory for their breeders to live on and as they tried to exterminate each other’s breeders (if all of a Protector’s relatives die, then they almost always stop eating and die themselves). This instinct drastically slowed their evolution, as any breeder that was slightly different from it’s relatives was killed.

Anyway, a group of Protectors that had lost their breeders figured out they could keep their will to live by transferring their protective instinct to the race as a whole. They build a colony ship to settle a world towards the edge of the galaxy, freeze a few thousand breeders, and head out. They set up a colony but soon learn that the plant they depend on won’t grow properly there. The Protectors all die out, and the breeders are left to, well, breed.

Over a couple million years the breeders evolved to become more intelligent, though not as intelligent as the Protector stage. When they get to the age where they should transform to Protectors they feel restless, wanting the root but not knowing what they want. They even go part way through the transfomation without the root, but it doesn’t make them stronger, only weaker - the skin wrinkles but does not harden, the teeth fall out but the gums don’t develop into a beak, the joints swell but the muscles and tendons don’t adapt to the changes, the genitals lose functionality but the second heart never develops there, so they develop circulation problems. They are modern humans.

In the story a Protector on their homeworld finds records of the colony ship that disappeared 2 million years before and realizes what must have happened (he has isolated the chemical that is needed for the root to grow, and knows that it is only common near the center of the galaxy). He decides to go see if any of the breeders survive and ‘rescue’ them. This leads to some serious problems.

It’s one of my favorite Niven books, even though there are a ton of holes you can pick in it, it has some really interesting ideas and is told very well. I highly recomend it.

13

And, of course, Adam was going to live 1000 years, but he chose to die earlier so David could survive.

14

This is what the people in the Pentagon refer to as a “pre-emptive strike.” :smiley:

Oh, so God talks to himself… :eek:

15

Captain Amazing said:

Hey, don’t blame me for this!

16

Other examples:

“I did not have sex with that woman…”

“It depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.”

“I did not inhale.” :smiley:

But I’ve heard it argued that A&E did not know it was wrong to disobey God because that is what evil means; since they had not yet eaten the fruit, they did not know what evil meant. It would be like me telling you “You are allowed to giurhgieru, but you cannot fnisudnvaiu.” You have no idea what I just forbid and what I just allowed, do you?

Next point: God NEVER told them, “Don’t listen to the serpent.” So why should they not listen to the only other creature they had ever heard speak? How were A&E, in their innocence and ignorance of right and wrong, know they were supposed to obey God and ignore the serpent?

17

Well, I think that’s why the obdience test was something so simple. Adam and Eve understood “DON’T” even without obedience.

Ex:

G-D: Adam, do you know where Eve is?
Adam: No, I don’t.

And they knew what eating was. G-d shows them the fruit and said “DON’T… EAT… THIS. Or you’ll die.”

On a guess, G-d didn’t warn them about the serpent because
a) if he had Satan would have simply found another way to communicate with Adam and Eve.
or perhaps
b) He was allowing Satan to function in his role as ‘adversary’ by tempting humanity.

–John

18

cmkeller was able to reconcile the perceived inconsistency. Extra points for pointing out that logic has nothing to do with it! :slight_smile: Just kidding. I don’t want nasty ‘ol logic fouling up my poetically metaphoric scriptures anyway.

I was unaware that the precise linguistics of the Tanakh are so important. Thank you very much for the informed and eloquent answers.

I shall leave it to someone else to re-open the can of worms that is the metaphoric nature of Biblical miracles.

And, Yue? We’ve already covered the fact that they were going to die anyway. We’ve moved on to “how long was God’s ‘day’ in which they would die, and was it a metaphor for spiritual death?”

Thank you, and Goodnight.