The Genesis account doesn't tell us who was behind the serpent, either. It's not until we read
John 8:44 and
Revelation 12:9, that we find out with any surety.
Because as we all know, John was a time traveler and found himself bumming around Eden buck nekkid for "research".
We need to use the whole Bible, all 66 books, in order to understand and explain it, even small things sometimes.
It's an amusing outlook when quotes are brought up that flatly deny or at least criticize the other quotes.
Paul: Gays are sick! Women too!
Christians: Yay!
Jesus: Some people are born or made different than you. Accept it.
Christians: *ugh* Jesus, you just have to listen to the WHOLE story ...
That was why the Israelites had all those sacrifices, leading up to the annual Day of Atonement.
And it's never about filling the pantries of the priests, is it?
Rituals were made for man (especially certain men, like the ones telling the general public God said to do certain rituals), not man for ritual.
Scientists have noted that our telomeres, on our chromosomes, get shorter and shorter, as we age. What if perfect DNA results in our telomeres never getting shorter? I don't know.
We call immortal cells "cancer". I was under the impression it was bad.
All of our sin, being inherited, came from "one man" (
Romans 5:12), so what was needed was only 'one man's' sacrifice.
Whew! I'm so glad no one else has to pick up any responsibility for their actions! Jesus must be road paste what with how many people are happy to throw him under the bus.
Over 6,000 years later, and all forms of human government being tried, the issue is just about settled: humans are becoming more and more selfish, destroying society and harming themselves! There's more divisiveness between people than ever before.
Quote the stats.
Great technological strides have been made, but really, what good is it if we can send men 240,000 miles to the moon, but so many can't even walk 1/2 mile down their neighborhood road without getting mugged?
Israel and Judah were theocracies, led by Yahweh. Crime still happened and in fact, Israel lasted about 5 minutes before a civil war destroyed it for centuries. Not seeing how listing God as the President helps anything.
People's attitudes are worse than ever before.
I agree. We know now that murder and rape and genocide are grave sins, but there are those even today threatening to kill school children for protesting the fact people are trying to kill them. Killing "disobedient" children is BIBLICAL, I remind you.
The first sin was murder.
And that's arguable because murder as a sin hadn't been established yet. Cain is getting busted after the fact.
Also, what we learn is that righteousness is rewarded by God with murder, while the perp gets off scot free and can go become founder of civilization.
They believes the gods were human (athena etc) so they have flaws etc but what makes them deified isnt their character but that they live forever.
And even then, they required magic immortality fruit (sounds familiar, where have I heard that before?). If they decided to go on a diet, they'd die.