TIL although the idea that Adam and Eve ate an apple is common, the Book of Genesis never mentions the identity of the forbidden fruit.
TIL although the idea that Adam and Eve ate an apple is common, the Book of Genesis never mentions the identity of the forbidden fruit.
You're viewing a single thread.
It's also not the Tree of Knowledge, it's the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And that presents a problem:
If Adam and Eve did not yet understand what is and is not a good thing to do, they could not possibly have understood that it was not good to disobey God. Eve did not know the serpent was evil. And yet he punishes Adam and Eve for doing what they did not realize was wrong of them to do.
And yet he punishes Adam and Eve for doing what they did not realize was wrong of them to do.
You say this like punishing people who don't understand the rules isn't a fundamental part of christianity.
Adam and Eve was pre-Christianity though.
Side note, and God created the tree of the knowledge of Good and evil. God created everything. Therefore, God created evil.
Further, God does evil.
After the flood, there is a line that says "and God repented of the evil he had done"
And to me, that just basically means that evil is circumstantial. Not that there is a pure drop of evil in the universe, but rather that a thing that is meant to be a good thing can be an evil thing based on its interpretation.
To whit: it wasn't evil that Adam and Eve were naked. God made them that way. And yet because they became aware of it and changed a innocent thing into an evil thing, that is what the evil was.
Which makes a lot more sense when you know these stories are adaptations of earlier myths. The polytheistic religions they came out of had no problem thinking the gods do evil things sometimes because they feel like it. As things transitioned to monotheism, and "God is good and merciful" was taken as a given, you end up having to jump through hoops to explain why this passage explicitly says God did evil. Even if the explanation is on some level convincing, it's going to be more convoluted than "these stories evolved from earlier polytheistic religions".
Consider that it is the knowledge itself that cast us down.
It doesn't matter. They were being punished for something they didn't know not to do.
Ignorance of the law is no excuse or whatever 🙄
Adam was told not to, but only afterwards did he know. These early part of Genesis are interesting in the way the world supposedly unfurled.
Yes, I realize he knew he did something wrong after he did the wrong thing. The point was he didn't know it was wrong before and when he did it. Which makes the god of Genesis supremely fucked up.
Also God kinda lied to them or at least deceived them by saying they'll die if they eat the fruit from memory.
He was saying they would grow old and die rather than living forever.
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die.
Sounds like a lie to me but I don't know the original Hebrew so maybe it depends on your translation. To be fair it would be on the mild side of morally objectionable stuff God does in the bible.
Found this online:
The Hebrew phrase in English is more literally:
“Tree knowledge good evil eat day eat die (dying) die”
The Hebrew is, literally, die-die (muwth-muwth) with two different verb tenses (dying and die), which can be translated as “surely die” or “dying you shall die.” This indicates the beginning of dying, an ingressive sense, which finally culminates with death.
You should check out the book Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. He points out the importance of the name of the tree and has really interesting anthropological theories regarding the origin of the Adam and Eve story.
The Gnostic interpretation always made more sense to me. The serpent being a form of Christ.
He mostly punishes Eve. The first few pages are sexist as fuck
"Eat the fucking fruit!"
This is excellent
Where's the piped bot?
Dunno, I blocked it a while ago.
Why? Please add it back.
No no, I blocked it so I don't see it. You'd still see it if it posted.