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Why Did God Even Bother?

blü 2

Veteran Member
Premium Member
My question is, what purpose did it serve to put the tree of knowledge in the garden?
Maybe it was already there when the Garden was made.

Or maybe it needed animal manure, and the Garden was where all the animals were.

Or since the Garden was the source of four major rivers, maybe it needed reliable water.

Or maybe these things can happen when you try to be your own landscape consultant.
And if you believe the story is only an allegory, what is its message?.
The only sense I've ever been able to make of it is a story of infancy (innocent nakedness), adolescence (knowledge as discovery of sexual arousal), and maturity (dad chucking the kids out of the house and telling them to get a bloody job).

The infancy, as it were, of mankind.
 
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Skwim

Veteran Member
. . . I suspected that this might have been a version intended for younger readers, so I think it's to be expected.
My source, Bible gateway, said,

"It was originally published as the English Version for the Deaf (EVD) by BakerBooks."

.
 
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Desert Snake

Veteran Member
If he didn't put the tree there, then Adam and Eve couldn't have sinned by breaking his one commandment.

As fiction goes, it was poorly executed. It's not the only illogical inconsistency, but only those willing to think critically can see the discrepancies.
What discrepancies? The fact that the tree was in the garden? How is that a discrepancy?
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Not understanding.
You asked me how I know. I know because it says so in Jewish sources and I read them.


So, from the very outset god meant for A&E to bring sin into the world and all its consequent suffering. Nice guy. Gotta wonder what all the Eden melodrama was for.
Sorry for not being clear: They were supposed to eat from it and it wouldn't have been a sin. The world would have entered its final rectification and curtains close.

how about a link?
I don't have the Midrash Rabbah in English, but [here is a commentary quoting it](Genesis 1:29).

images
Okay.

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Why is that their fault??? They didn't tell the Nazis do to it...
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Personally - I believe it is just a teaching story about intent and consequence.

But - like a lot of people I have to ask, - if It is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and they thus don't have that knowledge of good and evil, yet, - how then can they have sinned, - regardless of the idea they didn't listen to YHVH? They don't have the Knowledge that it is evil to disobey YHVH.

*
There's a few different explanations in Jewish sources, but they all more or less revolve around the same basic idea: before eating evil was abstract or foreign for them and and afterwards it became experiential or personal.

So I understand that it wasn't the lack of knowledge that was the problem, they had that. What was different was the relationship with the knowledge, which was altered through ingestion, ie. internalization.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Why is that their fault??? They didn't tell the Nazis do to it...
Perhaps Jews look at The Fall differently than do Christians, but as I understand the fall from the Christian perspective, which I assumed is also the Jewish perspective, it is responsible for all the pain, suffering, misery, and death in the world. If A&E had not eaten the apple there would be no wars and no famine. There would be no stress, sickness, disease or distress. The world would be exactly as God intended it to be if Adam and Eve had not sinned. So, under this understanding if it wasn't for The Fall the Nazi atrocities would not have taken place. Therefore, the responsibility ultimately lies with A&E.

.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Perhaps Jews look at The Fall differently than do Christians, but as I understand the fall from the Christian perspective, which I assumed is also the Jewish perspective,
That's never a good assumption. Honestly.
it is responsible for all the pain, suffering, misery, and death in the world.

Where does it say any of that? It says is that Man was cursed to have to work for his food instead of finding it ready for him and Eve was cursed to have labor pain. Yeah eventually man would die, but by the fact that Adam had to eat from the tree of life in order to live forever (3:22) the implication is that Adam would have otherwise died eventually even without having eaten from the tree. Eating from the tree of knowledge just made it that he would die earlier "on the day (2:17)".

If A&E had not eaten the apple there would be no wars and no famine. There would be no stress, sickness, disease or distress.
In Jewish theology, I think if Adam and Eve wouldn't have sinned, there would be no world. Adam and Eve would have accomplished the purpose of creation, entered "heaven", the world would have ended and none of us would be here.

The world would be exactly as God intended it to be if Adam and Eve had not sinned.
Maybe Christians don't believe that G-d runs the world the way he wants it? I don't know.

So, under this understanding if it wasn't for The Fall the Nazi atrocities would not have taken place. Therefore, the responsibility ultimately lies with A&E..
That doesn't leave a lot to free-will though.
 

Sanzbir

Well-Known Member
And God is an allegory for man as he continually approaches an asymptotic state of perfection, and the resurrection of Christ refers to the rebirth of reason beginning with the Renaissance, which literally means rebirth.

Once one opens the door to unrestricted, freestyle interpretation of the meaning of scripture and allows oneself to assign it meaning other than what it says, one takes a ride down the slippery slope that allows the elimination of every supernatural aspect of it.

And yet no one argues that Luke 10:25-37 refers to a literal Samaritan man who existed and helped a man in need. That particular book already has a clear standard of prophets talking in parables and that particular passage about Eden was written by a prophet, Moses, who lived thousands and thousands of years after the claimed event. If people are willing to accept Jesus' sayings as mere parables why not the stories written by other prophets in that same book?? It's a weird double-standard. :p

Now in my Faith we don't think the Bible is 100% authoritative. But just realize that if we are to hold the Bible to the standards you propose, that means the Bible claims that the Good Samaritan was a literal person who existed, and that God made Moses into a literal God (Exodus 7:1), and that we are all literal Gods (Psalms 82:6). There's plenty of stuff in the book that is obviously not intended to have a literal meaning. :D You aren't arguing for a literal interpretation, you're arguing for a vacuous one.

But in the case of my religion, the Bible, especially the old testament, is not considered authoritative but books that have corrupted and their meaning lost over time. And furthermore authoritative texts from recent messengers of my Faith outright state that the meaning of Genesis was as I stated. Your criticism might work for someone else, but I'm using a technically literal interpretation based on my own scriptures, as that is what is literally written within my scriptures. :p

Now if I was a member of a faith that said "the Bible is literally true" you might have a point. But in this case I'm part of a faith that says different books are literally true, and that's what those books say on the subject of that story. Literalist figurativism, if you will. ;)
 

Thief

Rogue Theologian
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-16
8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East,in a place named Eden. He put the man he made in that garden. 9 Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden. In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.

15 The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden. 16 The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. 17 But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!”​


My question is, what purpose did it serve to put the tree of knowledge in the garden?

Why did god bother to tempt A&E anyway? Did he not know they would eat its fruit and bring all kinds of calamity upon themselves and everyone who followed?


And if you believe the story is only an allegory, what is its message?



.
I suspect the event has a place in reality
Man has a divergence 'point' somewhere in the past

I believe the event was an actual, deliberate alteration of body and mind
performed on one individual (chosen)
and then cloned and
released into the environment AFTER a test

would Man seek knowledge even if death is pending?
(for it is)

and Man IS that creature seeking to know.....even as death is pending
 

Grandliseur

Well-Known Member
My question is, what purpose did it serve to put the tree of knowledge in the garden?

And if you believe the story is only an allegory, what is its message?
.[/QUOTE]
The story is not an allegory, but describes events that took place. This is corroborated by a second independent source, a fascinating study in its own right.

Let me stress an important point at first: God does not know all things that shall happen in the future. This would make free will impossible. This is why God is so angry at satan and his angels because they are the reason all these things happened. On her own, Eve would not have paid attention to the tree, but because of satan and his use of an animal to make it seem as it it could talk, she was thoroughly deceived.

Since there was an abundance of food, fruit bearing trees, in the garden, the edict was about rulership, who has the right to determine what is good and bad. By refraining from touching and eating the forbidden fruit, they acknowledged their submission to Theocracy. When they disobeyed, they thereby claimed their right to determine for themselves what is good and bad, in other words, the right to rule themselves.

There was no hardship involved in obedience of God's edict.
Some people think that before eating the fruit, Adam and Eve were innocent moron like beings. The fact is, the eating of the fruit only imparted shame on them; in today's psychology this feeling is called the hiding emotion. Thus they hid and felt unclean because of their disobedience. This is why they felt they wanted to both hide from God and clothe their bodies. They couldn't bear God looking at them (God's representative) since they had become unclean.
Why We Hide | World of Psychology
 
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DavidFirth

Well-Known Member
Let me stress an important point at first: God does not know all things that shall happen in the future.

Do you have scripture that supports this claim?
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-16
8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East,in a place named Eden. He put the man he made in that garden. 9 Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden. In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.

15 The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden. 16 The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. 17 But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!”​

My question is, what purpose did it serve to put the tree of knowledge in the garden?

Why did god bother to tempt A&E anyway? Did he not know they would eat its fruit and bring all kinds of calamity upon themselves and everyone who followed?

And if you believe the story is only an allegory, what is its message?
.
First, for anyone who reads the Bible (especially this part of the Bible) as history, the story impossible.

To read it as allegory, but then to ask "what is its message" is assuming that there is, in fact, a message requiring some belief or action on the part of the receiver.

I believe neither of those things. In my view, belief in God precedes any writing about God, but must obviously inform what is then written. And there, the writer has an immense problem:
  1. There's a really powerful, wonderful God, who loves us
  2. The world we live in is actually pretty tough, and doesn't look as if point 1 is true
  3. That really wonderful God can't be to blame for point 2 (that would be too shocking a thought to entertain), but surely there's blame somewhere
  4. Therefore, you either have to assume another powerful but not so nice object of blame (a "devil," which many religions have), or find some way to blame ourselves
And that's the explanation for the story of "the Fall."
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
Where does it say any of that?
Nowhere I've ever seen, but maybe I missed them. However, assumptions abound in Christian theology, and these particular things are commonly claimed by Christians, so I take them as a given within the religion. Hence my remark.

In Jewish theology, I think if Adam and Eve wouldn't have sinned, there would be no world. Adam and Eve would have accomplished the purpose of creation, entered "heaven", the world would have ended and none of us would be here.
But in Genesis god says that he created man to rule over all the animals.

Genesis 1:25-27
25 So God made every kind of animal. He made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling things. And God saw that this was good.

26 Then God said, “Now let’s make humans who will be like us. They will rule over all the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. They will rule over all the large animals and all the little things that crawl on the earth.”

27 So God created humans in his own image. He created them to be like himself. He created them male and female. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Have many children. Fill the earth and take control of it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. Rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.”​

.
 

Tumah

Veteran Member
Nowhere I've ever seen, but maybe I missed them. However, assumptions abound in Christian theology, and these particular things are commonly claimed by Christians, so I take them as a given within the religion. Hence my remark.
I see.

But in Genesis god says that he created man to rule over all the animals.

Genesis 1:25-27
25 So God made every kind of animal. He made the wild animals, the tame animals, and all the small crawling things. And God saw that this was good.

26 Then God said, “Now let’s make humans who will be like us. They will rule over all the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. They will rule over all the large animals and all the little things that crawl on the earth.”

27 So God created humans in his own image. He created them to be like himself. He created them male and female. 28 God blessed them and said to them, “Have many children. Fill the earth and take control of it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the air. Rule over every living thing that moves on the earth.”​

.
For 36 hours, I guess. There doesn't seem to be a minimum time here.
But you could probably also say that plan B was already in place for the eventual sin.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
First, for anyone who reads the Bible (especially this part of the Bible) as history, the story impossible.

To read it as allegory, but then to ask "what is its message" is assuming that there is, in fact, a message requiring some belief or action on the part of the receiver.
If there's no message or meaning to the allegory then why bother creating it?

.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
If there's no message or meaning to the allegory then why bother creating it?

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I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "message." In my personal view, the "meaning" of the allegory of the Fall is explanatory, not an exhortation to some good. We humans have been trying to explain our beginnings since we first started communicating, and as our understanding of the world grew larger, and as our acceptance of some sort of "spiritual part of our nature" took larger precedence, the explanations became much more difficult.

Think back to a small, nomadic, hunter-gatherer group long ago in Africa. Perhaps they were more successful than other groups around them because they had a particularly effective leader. One day, though, that leader dies. It's pretty easy, if you have beliefs in spirits of all kinds, to suppose that the "spirit" of this great leader goes on, even though his body doesn't. And maybe even you suppose that your spirit leader, your shaman, your priest, can find a way to talk to him, and get his guidance.

Well, if you get that far, then you are going to have to face a much more difficult problem -- sometimes that "guidance" will appear to work (hey, we all make good decisions sometime -- even the shaman), in which case we can thank the spirit of the defunct leader, but sometimes, they fail. Then you have the problem of trying to explain why the spirit of that leader has abandoned us, or led us astray. What have we done wrong?

But the real answer to your question -- "why bother creating it" -- is because we are human. Being human means being intelligent communicators. Being intelligent communicators means telling stories -- and we do that compulsively, each and every one of us, all the time. But the really good stories, no matter who told them first, get remembered and passed on.

And I think that's all it is...
 

Ingledsva

HEATHEN ALASKAN
And yet no one argues that Luke 10:25-37 refers to a literal Samaritan man who existed and helped a man in need. That particular book already has a clear standard of prophets talking in parables and that particular passage about Eden was written by a prophet, Moses, who lived thousands and thousands of years after the claimed event. If people are willing to accept Jesus' sayings as mere parables why not the stories written by other prophets in that same book?? It's a weird double-standard. :p

Now in my Faith we don't think the Bible is 100% authoritative. But just realize that if we are to hold the Bible to the standards you propose, that means the Bible claims that the Good Samaritan was a literal person who existed, and that God made Moses into a literal God (Exodus 7:1), and that we are all literal Gods (Psalms 82:6). There's plenty of stuff in the book that is obviously not intended to have a literal meaning. :D You aren't arguing for a literal interpretation, you're arguing for a vacuous one.

But in the case of my religion, the Bible, especially the old testament, is not considered authoritative but books that have corrupted and their meaning lost over time. And furthermore authoritative texts from recent messengers of my Faith outright state that the meaning of Genesis was as I stated. Your criticism might work for someone else, but I'm using a technically literal interpretation based on my own scriptures, as that is what is literally written within my scriptures. :p

Now if I was a member of a faith that said "the Bible is literally true" you might have a point. But in this case I'm part of a faith that says different books are literally true, and that's what those books say on the subject of that story. Literalist figurativism, if you will. ;)

I agree with you that the books of the Bible, - and most other ancient sacred texts have been misunderstood, mistranslated (purposely, or in error,) etc.

However I would add the Baha'i texts to that list. Every time we bring in a text considered negative to Baha'i, - we are told it is not an accepted translation, or not from an accepted site, or meant for a later date, - but we are not directed to the actual "accepted" Baha'i translations. We are just told to go to the Baha'i site, which is huge and includes many works, making it near impossible to find the text, especially if we don't know the "accepted" translation. As well as things that are negative might be purposely made impossible to find. Not being able to find the negative texts that actual speakers of the language are bringing up - to verify them, or not, - leaves the texts in question, and thus Baha'i.

I also wanted to add that the Tanakh texts are not calling Moses or the others actual Gods. The word Elohiym has multiple meanings including JUDGE. Moses would be the Judge over Pharaoh.

In Psalm 82:2 they also are talking about human JUDGES.

Psa 82:1 A Psalm of Asaph: The Elohiym/Magistrates/Judges stand to assembly before El (Almighty) the Elohiym He to judge.

Psa 82:2 For how long will you judge unjustly, and by reason of, advance the wicked?

Psa 82:3 Defend the weak and bereaved, needy and destitute, be righteous!

Psa 82:4 Deliver the weak and destitute from the hand of the wicked.

Psa 82:5 Of a truth, they observe and don't understand. In misery they walk. Rotten is the whole foundation.

Psa 82:6 I said Elohiym/Judges thou are; and sons elevated above all others!

Psa 82:7 Nevertheless as human beings, shall die, and of a certainty, as all leaders, fall.

Psa 82:8 Arise o Elohiym/Judges, execute judgment on the land/nation; for you shall inherit the whole nation/people.

*
 
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idav

Being
Premium Member
Genesis 2:8-9, 15-16
8 Then the Lord God planted a garden in the East,in a place named Eden. He put the man he made in that garden. 9 Then the Lord God caused all the beautiful trees that were good for food to grow in the garden. In the middle of the garden, he put the tree of life and the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil.

15 The Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden to work the soil and take care of the garden. 16 The Lord God gave him this command: “You may eat from any tree in the garden. 17 But you must not eat from the tree that gives knowledge about good and evil. If you eat fruit from that tree, on that day you will certainly die!”​


My question is, what purpose did it serve to put the tree of knowledge in the garden?

Why did god bother to tempt A&E anyway? Did he not know they would eat its fruit and bring all kinds of calamity upon themselves and everyone who followed?


And if you believe the story is only an allegory, what is its message?



.
The message in the Adam and Eve story is about humans position in the world where they find themselves working for what they feel should be a gift from god. For example humans find that they have to hunt and farm and for some strange reason Genesis suggests it used to be different. As if humans didn't always struggle just to survive.
 

Skwim

Veteran Member
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "message."
The message would be the meaning of the allegory.

Allegory
An allegory is a story, poem, or painting in which the characters and events are symbols of something else. Allegories are often moral, religious, or political.

In my personal view, the "meaning" of the allegory of the Fall is explanatory, not an exhortation to some good.
So if the story is explaining something else as an allegory, just what is this something else?

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