Back to the Garden

[Tcg]

We are often admonished by some to not take literally the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden. It is to be understood as a story that represents a deeper truth we are told.

What would it mean if we could go back to the Garden?

What would we gain back that we have somehow lost?


Tcg

[Divine Insight]

God supposedly created everything, so that would have included evil. It would have been an evil presence in that mythical garden.

Yes indeed. It seems that is what the serpent represents. It's easy to focus on the beautiful Garden and overlook the lurking evil God planted.


Tcg

Not only this, but in this theological paradigm this actually creates extreme problems.

Why would mankind need to be corrupted by an evil presence?

Was mankind himself not capable of becoming evil on his own?

For me this totally destroys the entire theology that tries to pin the blame on mankind.

I would have been far more impressed with a theology that had Adam and Eve plotting to reject and disobey God on their own. That would have placed the guilt squarely on them. Instead this utterly absurd theological myth needs to have an evil demon come into the picture and corrupt humans who clearly, on their own, would not have become corrupt at all.

This totally destroys any claim that mankind is guilty of "falling from grace" when this theology has an evil entity convincing mankind to do this.

This story even has Eve confessing everything to God and pointing out that fact that she was betrayed by an evil demon who had lied to her.

How was she even supposed to know lying was possible before her eyes had been opened to the knowledge of good and evil?

There is no way that Eve could have possibly expected that the serpent was lying to her since she would have no clue that lies are even possible.

The story is filled with extreme self-contradictions that only human authors who are making up ridiculous fables could have been ignorant enough to create.

The story also has Eve cooperating with God fully. She's not standing there screaming at God proclaiming that she refuses to obey him and is no longer interested in doing as he demands.

The story simply makes no sense. It's obviously just extremely poorly made-up fables.

Plus we know that it's false because we know that death, disease, and all manner of imperfections existed long before humans every showed up on Earth. Animals have been eating animals and dying of starvation for eons before humans ever evolved to be.

This religious paradigm is clearly false. When are people going to realize that no amount of making excuses for it could ever possibly justify it?

Theists are beating a dead horse

In fact, this horse has been dead for so long I prefer to say that they are actually beating the spot on the ground where the dead carcass of a horse had once been.

Any attempt to apologize for these ancient fables is futile. They are clearly false. When are theists going to realize this truth? How long will it take?

Are theists going to still be trying to defend these ancient flawed fables in the next century? I certainly hope not. This nonsense has already been perpetuated far too long already.

[Tcg]

I agree. What are we left with though? How do we determine the figurative truth the author intended to convey?

Determining a figurative meaning is not a difficulty unless we take the text to be some divine communication. If we do then we might be disappointed in God for his failure to be crystal clear.

I certainly don't take it as divine communication.

There are a number of ideas that have been presented as to it's meaning. One I have heard is that it represents childhood, a time we are dependent on a parent figure that provides for use. We face hardship when we choose to step into adulthood.

A poster on this forum felt the fall was the choice to enter into pre-marital sex. Eating the fruit, in their opinion, was Eve's first experience with masturbation.

I'm not sure that either of these fully explain all the details in the story. But how can we know if either matches what the author intended for us to learn? I agree that it makes no sense as a literal story, but once we move beyond that, how can we possibly understand it. It becomes clay for the interpreter to create most any pottery they want.


Tcg

[Mithrae]

A couple of years back I wrote a short story which seems relevant to this discussion:

viewtopic.php?t=33965

I'm not sure that either of these fully explain all the details in the story. But how can we know if either matches what the author intended for us to learn? I agree that it makes no sense as a literal story, but once we move beyond that, how can we possibly understand it. It becomes clay for the interpreter to create most any pottery they want.

I don't see any particular interest in masturbation in the rest of Genesis, so it seems strange to suppose that it would be the focus of such a pivotal story as the 'fall.' Of course we can't be certain what the original authors and readers really intended by the story, but some interpretations seem considerably more dubious than others

[OnceConvinced]

God supposedly created everything, so that would have included evil. It would have been an evil presence in that mythical garden.

Well according to the story Satan was able to wander around freely, masquerading as a snake. Who knows how many other demoniac creatures would be there pretending to be some kind of animal?

[sorrento]

Comedian Dave Allen has his own ideas about the Garden.

[Tcg]

Comedian Dave Allen has his own ideas about the Garden.

I don't often follow YouTube links. This one is well worth it. He brings up some thought provoking ideas amidst the humor as is often the case with good comedy.


Tcg

[Difflugia]

An interesting interpretation I once read (unfortunately, I don't remember where) is that the Eden story is similar to the Prometheus story with the serpent in the Prometheus role.

This is based on the idea that the original Levites were Leviathan worshippers before switching to Yahweh. In a straight reading of the Eden story, the serpent is actually the one telling the truth:

Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.�

[...]

The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.�

[...]

Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...�

The idea is that there's an original (and now lost) version of the story in which the serpent (Leviathan or Nehushtan) was the hero of the story. The humans were naive slaves created to tend the garden, in which the two trees grew that conferred immortality (perhaps requiring ongoing consumption) and wisdom to the gods. The serpent thought denying wisdom to the humans was unjust and gave them the fruit of knowledge. After the humans ate the fruit, the other gods punishged the serpent and removed the humans from the garden to prevent them from continuing to eat the fruit of life.

[Tcg]

An interesting interpretation I once read (unfortunately, I don't remember where) is that the Eden story is similar to the Prometheus story with the serpent in the Prometheus role.

This is based on the idea that the original Levites were Leviathan worshippers before switching to Yahweh. In a straight reading of the Eden story, the serpent is actually the one telling the truth:

Yahweh God commanded the man, saying, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but you shall not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.�

[...]

The serpent said to the woman, “You won’t really die, for God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.�

[...]

Yahweh God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand, and also take of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever...�

The idea is that there's an original (and now lost) version of the story in which the serpent (Leviathan or Nehushtan) was the hero of the story. The humans were naive slaves created to tend the garden, in which the two trees grew that conferred immortality (perhaps requiring ongoing consumption) and wisdom to the gods. The serpent thought denying wisdom to the humans was unjust and gave them the fruit of knowledge. After the humans ate the fruit, the other gods punishged the serpent and removed the humans from the garden to prevent them from continuing to eat the fruit of life.

I appreciate this response not only because it provides a different read on the ancient story, but also because it shows a possible evolutionary ancestor, so to speak, of the Biblical version. It would be interesting to know if it later morphed into other versions we don't recognize as being related.


Tcg

[JehovahsWitness]

There is no way that Eve could have possibly expected that the serpent was lying to her since she would have no clue that lies are even possible.

Could Adam and Eve be expected NOT to believe a lie, since they had never heard one before?



Some argue that it is inevitable to believe a lie if you have never heard one before and thus God was unjust in punishing them. Is this logical?

CONSCIENCE

• No. God Created humans with a natural inborn gauge of what is "right" and "wrong", we call this a conscience. It operates like an inner initiative alarm bell that sounds when we come in contact with something that "Isn't quite right" This explains why even quiet young children, with their limited life experience, know instinctively when they are being lied to. Adam and Eve were not children and were not imperfect, they had a perfect *inner voice*, intuition, spirituality... which would warn them of danger and promt ghem help them to properly examine a situation.
  

  To illustrate: never having seen (or even heard a law against) murdering a child, most normal humans of sound mind would reject the invitation to murder a baby(and recoil at the thought), why? because we somehow "know" its bad.

  When people lie, there is actually a physical reaction, our hearts beat faster, our breathing becomes irregular, we have a physical aversion to lying. When people lie TO us, there is usually (even in our IMperfect state) something that sits uncomfortably with it. True Satan was a "professional" but then they (Adam and Eve were perfect), they should reasonably have called on the information they had at their disposal - and indeed would have IF they had not been hearing what they wanted to hear.

WHAT THEY DID KNOW

• Adam and Eve had enough information to reasonabley recognise they were being lied to. God had said "eating the fruit = bad"; Satan claimed "eating the fruit = good" both could not be true thus one was a lie. Who should they believe? Their Father, someone that had only given them good things, provided for them loved them and cared for them? or a "total stranger"? At the very least they should have taken consultation - Eve should have consulted her husband BEFORE making the decision and both should reasonably consulted with God to hear what He had to say about the matter.

CONCLUSION Adam and Eve's siding with Satan in rebellion cannot be "excused" by the fact that they had hitherto been "innocent", they had enough information and help to protect that purity. Indeed scripture indicates Adam wasn't duped, he knew exactly what he was doing when he disobeyed God and both Adam and Eve were rightly held entirely responsible for their actions.

ORIGINAL SIN

Is God responsible for the original sin?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 524#967524

Why did God have a law in the first place?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 911#389911

Was the Edenic Law absurd or unreasonable?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 066#390066

Would God not EXPECT his law to be broken ?
http://debatingchristianity.com/forum/v ... 066#390066

[Tcg]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness]

You've obviously misunderstood the intention of this thread. You are arguing a literal interpretation of the Garden story. This thread was created to discuss the possible figurative meanings if it isn't taken literally.

You are certainly free to take it literally, but if you want to discuss that approach I suggest you start your own thread so as to not derail the purpose of this one.


Tcg