Garden of eden ? Flaming blade of a sword .? Were they not invented by men many centuries later .must have been symbolic then, otherwise god is the nasty dude who brought that warring weapon to mans attention tut tut......silly old god.LOL
Why would Adam or Eve choose the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life.
by smiddy 37 Replies latest watchtower bible
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galaxie
Garden of eden? Flaming sword ? Were they not invented many many centuries later by nasty warring men? Oh it must have been symbolic then otherwise it was god who came up with the sword design first!! Tut tut silly old god.LOL
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galaxie
OOPS .DOUBLE BUBBLE
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Separation of Powers
Good question...possible answer...neither tree existed. The story is an allegory, like Dickens.
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Apognophos
For some reason everyone is making the assumption that the fruit in the tree of life would immediately grant a person the superpower of eternal life the moment they ate one. This is a very modern, comic book way of thinking and is not stated in the account. A more reasonable assumption, keeping in mind that the story also does not state that Adam and Eve were perfect, is that they did eat the fruit of the tree of life, all the time. This is what God provided to them to keep their mortal bodies alive. It was the representation of God's blessing on them, to grant them life beyond the limited span of the animals. Once they were barred from the Garden, their natural mortality ran its course.
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Comatose
Well the account pretty clearly indicates they had to be barred from the garden so that they didn't eat from it and live to time indefinite. It doesn't say so that they could no longer eat from it. It very clearly gives the impression that it was important to remove them since they had just eaten of the one tree, then they also might eat of the other.
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adamah
Apo said-
For some reason everyone is making the assumption that the fruit in the tree of life would immediately grant a person the superpower of eternal life the moment they ate one. This is a very modern, comic book way of thinking and is not stated in the account.
You're arguing on the basis of being an anachronistic interpretation, when the account itself disproves that assertion.
Consider how eating the fruit of the TOK worked: they ate of the fruit that bestowed wisdom, and "their eyes were opened" afterwards. The first pair were ALSO blocked from eating it's fruit, too, so wouldn't that imply the first pair's cognitive capabilities slowly atropied until they reverted to their original foolish state?
There's so many logical errors with the account, it's laughable to believe anyone takes it as anything else but a fable (noting the prevalence of fools who still believe the story may SUPPORT Apo's interpretation of a reversion to their natural state, LOL!)
I wrote of the paradox of Adam and Eve, the continuity error that's been noted and swept under the rug by the JWs, attempting to bury the evidence of a problematic detail by use of a prior mistaken translation, in their New World Translation:
Adam
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Apognophos
You're arguing on the basis of being an anachronistic interpretation, when the account itself disproves that assertion.
Consider how eating the fruit of the TOK worked: they ate of the fruit that bestowed wisdom, and "their eyes were opened" afterwards.
That's a good point, but I still think it's more plausible that the tree of life represented a blessing, a continual provision to allow them to live forever, that was removed from them when they sinned, just as they were cursed in various ways. I don't see how that's anachronistic at all.
Why would they never have eaten from the tree of life if it was not forbidden to do so? And what purpose was it there for? Was God holding it in reserve until they were faithful a certain amount of time? I feel that a lack of explanation of these details indicates that the average listener in olden times was meant to assume that it was in fact a regular part of Adam and Eve's diet.
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adamah
Adam said- You're arguing on the basis of being an anachronistic interpretation, when the account itself disproves that assertion.
Consider how eating the fruit of the TOK worked: they ate of the fruit that bestowed wisdom, and "their eyes were opened" afterwards.
Apo said- That's a good point, but I still think it's more plausible that the tree of life represented a blessing, a continual provision to allow them to live forever, that was removed from them when they sinned, just as they were cursed in various ways. I don't see how that's anachronistic at all.
I think you're mixing my points, since you had suggested that some were anachronistically inserting a comic book version for the mechanism of the TOL, when I was pointing out how that WAS the mechanism presented in the story for the TOKOGAE, so it's not an anachonistic mechanism to the story, but actually a PART of the story, except for the other tree different. That was my point.
Now, you want to talk about which is more 'plausible', in a story with talking snakes and magic fruit that bestows wisdom, and another gives life?
We're into eisegesis land then, by adding elements to the story which aren't explicitly stated in the original. Most of the articles I've read on the original intent reflect the fruit of the tree of life isn't meant to be anything more complicated than giving the eater continued life (eternal life is implied, by God's statement that he'd have to tolerate mankind; the fruit of the TOKOGAE is also no mystery, since the Bible says it gives wisdom).
Here's an interesting article from the Jewish Encyclopedia of 1908, which suggests the original conception was of a "one-time dosage" for both:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/14492-tree-of-life
Apo said- Why would they never have eaten from the tree of life if it was not forbidden to do so? And what purpose was it there for? Was God holding it in reserve until they were faithful a certain amount of time? I feel that a lack of explanation of these details indicates that the average listener in olden times was meant to assume that it was in fact a regular part of Adam and Eve's diet.
Disclaimer: what we're doing here is engaging in deductive logic, and trying to harmonize the details of the story via use of reasoning.
Well, if you watched the video in my post on pg 1, they offer some possibilities. I also brought up the similarities to other parables/fables in the region, but within the context of the Bible, it's interesting to compare the Adam and Eve account to the example of young King Solomon, who was asked by God what he wanted, and he answered 'wisdom'. Eve took the fruit without asking, so it seems to be as if God wants to play a game of "Mother, May I?" with his creations.... Who knows, maybe God wanted to do some beta-tests (which is inconsistent with a "perfect" being who possesses Divine omniscience; why need to test anything, when he already knows what will happen?).
Adam
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DeWandelaar
Some must wonder... Why a snake?...why was a snake a known deceiver... I mean.. God created everything perfectly... So something was wrong already ;). The genesis account is a story... Nothing more... Nothing less. Sorry for the spoils x