Board index ‹ Specific Bible verses, texts, and passages ‹ Genesis

[Tasty Soup]

A malicious genius is allowed in the perfect garden. He successfully swindles Eve and is punished along her husband for her innocence and naivete. Punishment fit the crime?

Here in the garden you have a supernaturally crafty and manipulative being who is allowed access to roam 'round where Adam and Eve are supposedly secure and safe from all manner of danger. So, first off, why on earth would the God of the Bible allow such a one with supreme malintent toward his beloved creation into a "perfect" garden?

Then you have Eve, delightfully oblivious to the then unknown ravages of age and death wandering about in the garden. She is approached by the conman and, lo and behold, because of her inexperience and innocence, is successfully swindled out of her God-given rights and privileges.

In civilized countries, conmen such as the one described above are dealt with severely for using their intelligence to deceive and steal from others what is rightfully theirs. It's called FRAUD.

This is the point of contention I am making. Civilized, law-abiding people hold the deceiver, think Bernie Madoff, accountable. The one who seeks to lie, cheat, and steal is the criminal and the one stolen from and deceived is the victim. The victim is entitled to remuneration financially, mentally, and emotionally. The predator is thrown in jail and must give back all they stole plus fines. This is how it works. If one is victimized, the victim doesn't deserve punishment as it was in the case of Eve.

Eve was punished because in her innocence she succumbed to the wiles and expert guile of her enemy, of which she knew not the nature of. It boils down to these points. Why was such a maleficent creature allowed to mingle amongst gods perfect humans in the first place? Secondly, why are they, being the innocent victims of crime, punished as though guilty of crime. Remember, they are without artifice, guile, or deceit.

Not knowing what deceit was at the time and not being forewarned against the malicious intent of the deceiver in their midst, I think god in this story failed to equip his children with the proper knowledge to defend themselves against the crafty genius. I mean, what real chance did they have?

So to sum it up, criminals are held liable for their guilt and punished accordingly. Victims are not punished for being victimized. Why the god of the bible was so negligent in preparing his children for the inevitable encounter between themselves and the deceiver is beyond me. Every parent tells their child, "don't take candy from strangers." You'd think he would of given them a heads up and at least given them a fighting to chance to defend against the enemy, the enemy they never knew was against them.

[jimwalton]

There are so many misunderstandings evidenced in your post I hardly know where to begin. First of all, the Garden was the place where God met with his people. It's best to understand the earth as God's temple, and the Garden as the Holy of Holies. The text says nothing about it being a perfect place, nor a secure and safe from all manner of danger place. It was the designated spot of communion between God and man. There is also no indication that the man and woman lived there. They were able to come and go as was necessary or desired.

Second, you perceive of Eve as roaming around in pure innocence and inexperience, but I fear this image comes more from cartoons than the Bible. Death was already in the system. If plants could serve as food, then plants died. And if plants died, there is no reason to draw a false line and say that insects and animals did not. Through sin came the *inevitability of death* for people. Because of sin, people lost access to the tree of life and *became fully susceptible to death*.

"She is approached by the conman and lo and behold, because of her inexperience and innocence, is successfully swindled out of her God given rights and privileges." In a sense you're right, but she was fully aware of actions and the consequences of them. Genesis 3.2-3 shows that she had been informed and she understood it. But she is deceived, for sure.

> Eve was punished because in her innocence she succumbed to the wiles and expert guile of her enemy, of which she knew not the nature of.

This is wrong. She was punished for willful disobedience and rebellion.

> Why was such a maleficent creature allowed to mingle amongst god's perfect humans in the first place?

Free will isn't free if there's only one choice. There's every reason to believe that maleficent spirit beings are always and have always been mingling among people. God doesn't protect us from them; he teaches us how to obey him instead of them. And that's clearly the point of Genesis 2.15-18, and the rebellious choice of Genesis 3.6.

> why are they, being the innocent victims of crime, punished as though guilty of crime. Remember, they are without artifice, guile, or deceit.

Read the text carefully. The serpent is cursed, the man and the woman are not; they are punished. The serpent is the most guilty perpetrator, so he is outright cursed. The man and woman, as victims of his malicious deceit, are told what the inevitable consequences of their decision will be. In their action they have acted in their own self-interest and therefore forfeit access to the path that God had in mind for them. But he has already generated a plan to create another path whereby they might achieve the same end: fellowship with Him.

> Not knowing what deceit was at the time and not being forewarned against the malicious intent of the deceiver in their midst

There's no reason to think they didn't know what deceit was. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was a common way in the ancient world of referencing wisdom. What God was forbidding to them (and the ancients would have understood this) was the power to decide for themselves what was in their best interests and what was not. "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" corresponds to the ability to decide. They had been informed and equipped to make the right decision. They had every realistic chance to do it right.

> So to sum it up, criminals are held liable for their guilt and punished accordingly. Victims are not punished for being victimized. Why the god of the bible was so negligent in preparing his children for the inevitable encounter between themselves and the deceiver is beyond me.

So, you are misunderstanding the entire scene. The criminal in this case, the serpent, was liable and punished accordingly—cursed. The victims here were not innocent but complicit. They knew the rules (don't eat from the one tree) and the reason (so that you continue to access to the tree of life), and they knew the consequences of defiance (separation from the presence of God). Yet they deliberately chose rebellion. Don't blame God. He gave them every tool they needed to stand against the wiles of the serpent, and they chose differently.

[Empire Perfect]

> Death was already in the system. If plants could serve as food, then plants died. And if plants died, there is no reason to draw a false line and say that insects and animals did not.

If you go pick an apple off a tree, the tree doesn't die.

Plants don't "die" in the same way animals do. Plants don't have a consciousness or awareness that terminates on their death. I feel saying death did not exist doesn't necessarily cover plants. I certainly see where you can draw a line between the deaths of plants and animals.

[jimwalton]

I obviously agree that apples trees don't die when you pick the apples, but the apple does. It is now separated from its source of life and has begun the process of "death". It will take some time, but that apple will rot in a way that the branches of the tree won't, because they are still connected to the roots, but the apple isn't. It's still death, and it's still death even if plants don't die in the same way animals do. Of course plants don't have consciousness, but when you pick a flower, it dies. When you prune a branch, it dies. Death is still death, though it doesn't necessarily happen in the same way for different organisms. But if there's death in the system, there's death in the system. Did Adam & Eve NEVER step on an ant? Did a tree branch never fall and kill some life form under it? Of course those things happened. While you can draw a line distinguishing between the consciousness of animals and the lack of it in plants, death is still death: the separation from the "life force."

[Sponge Man]

The moral of the story is what's important here considering the "Garden of Eden" is a traditional folklore myth originating well before an unknown author wrote the Pentateuch. So details aside, what do we have?

1. A God creates two people in a garden.
2. Said God puts something he absolutely does not want them to have in the garden.
3. God allows a being that he knows will try to interrupt his plan into his garden.
4. God is surprised when this being does what he does and his creation disobeys him.

These people God creates have little life experience. I will be generous and say they have the reasoning ability of a 3 year old. Why? Because knowing good and bad is a bit on the higher thinking skills and this is what God doesn't want them to have.

Now if you have a 3 year old and you tell them not to do something. They understood what you said. They do not know why, only that you don't want them to. Now if you put a gun in your living room and tell your 3 year old not to pick it up. If they pick it up and shoot someone, the law doesn't hold them at fault, it holds you at fault. You allowed your child (who doesn't know better) access to something that would cause harm and did nothing to stop it.

In the same way, I fail to see how this fable is anything other than a story of how God fails to be a good God.

[jimwalton]

You start off your argument with an a priori declaration that the story of Genesis 2 is all made up. You can't say "details aside..." because you have to give details to give evidence to substantiate your unfounded assumption. So you're off to a bad start.

Then let's look at your assumptions.

"God creates two people and puts them in a garden." I take the position that there were many hominids on the earth, as paleontologists tell us, and that God took two (or more than that, since the text uses words that indicate humanity, not a single individual), and revealed Himself and his will to them. Your first point may also be part of your bad start.

"Said God puts something he absolutely does not want them to have in the garden." Not so. The tree represents their moral choice to obey God or defy him. He doesn't have to "put" anything in the Garden for them to have a moral choice. "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the ancient world was an idiom for moral choice. The tree, though literal, represents a choice all humans would have to make. There is also no indication that they lived in the garden. The garden was where they could come to meet with God, but the text doesn't say they lived there.

"God allows a being that he knows will try to interrupt his plan into his garden." Those beings roam freely on the earth. They are free agents. God's plan requires free will. He wants people to love Him because they choose to. If they are forced, it isn't love.

"God is surprised when this being does what he does and his creation disobeys him." Not true. God isn't surprised in the least. Ephesians 1.4 tells us God's plan was in place before creation. He knew that humans would not be divine and therefore would need help to achieve eternal life.

"These people God creates have little life experience." I take Genesis 1 & 2 to be a functional account of creation, not a material account of creation. It's about their role and function on the planet (be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over it. And to serve as his priest and priestess [Gn. 2.15]). They have enough life experience to obey what God has asked.

"I will be generous and say they have the reasoning ability of a 3 year old." This is not generous at all, but a gross distortion. They are intelligent people with reasoning power (Gn. 2.19-20), competent moral reasoning (Gn. 3.2, 6), and a sense of responsibility (Gn. 2.15).

"Now if you put a gun in your living room." Again, a gross distortion of the text. It's more like the road of traffic out front than a gun in the living room. The road is already there; it is the parents' responsibility to warn the child about it and to teach them to avoid it. In Genesis, the ability to make a moral choice is already there. God warns them about it and teaches them to avoid it (Gn. 2.16-17). You're not reading this right at all.

No wonder you think it's a story of God's failure. It's nothing of the kind. You're reading the story with total misunderstanding, distortion of what it says, and superficial interpretations. A little bit of research would be of value.

[Dead Joker]

> Because of sin, people lost access to the tree of life and became fully susceptible to death.

As opposed to what? Just being a bit dead?

> Read the text carefully. The serpent is cursed

He has to crawl on his belly and eat dirt. He was a serpent, he already did that. Also, he wasn't cursed to not be able to talk to humans and yet they don't talk to humans anymore. Why don't they talk to humans anymore?

It is a silly story.

[jimwalton]

> Tree of life... As opposed to what? Just being a bit dead?

Humans were mortal ("out of dust" in Gn. 2.7. See also Gn. 3.19 and Ps. 103.14). Adam is an archetype (not a metaphor, mind you) of all humanity. Humans are all mortal. That's the point. The Tree of Life symbolizes that is only God's to give: Life. God is the source of life, which is given by Him and found in His presence (Deut. 30.11-20). By "eating from the Tree of Life" we are to understanding that a relationship with God characterized by obedience to Him is the way to life. As long as humans would be obedient and love God, they had access to the Tree of Life, and their mortality could be overcome. (See Proverbs 3.16-18. Notice also what God says after their sin in Gn. 3.22). The tree held out hope for something humans did not yet have, because they were mortal. Barring them from the tree of life ensured their death, which God promised if they disobeyed him (Gn. 2.17). So, as I said, because of sin people lost access to the tree of life and became fully susceptible to death. They were already mortal, but God was giving them a continuing gift if they would just live in love relationship with Him.

> "Serpent"...He has to crawl on his belly and eat dirt. He was a serpent, he already did that.

The Hebrew word for serpent is nahash, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, nahash is the same root as nehoset, which means "bronze." So the shiny, upright snake in Number 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So what if this "thing" (the nhs) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—the word for snake? Just a little bit of research changes the whole picture.

The serpent on its belly is non-threatening, while the one reared up is protecting or attacking. "Belly" and "eating dust" were a mark of deepest degradation. Instead of aggressive and attacking, this serpent is more docile and more fearful. The "eating dust" is figurative of the grave. The depiction of dust for food is typical of descriptions of the netherworld in ancient literature. Part of the curse is eventual death for these spiritual forces.

> It is a silly story.

Only if you haven't done your homework.

[Sponge Man]

> You start off your argument with an a priori declaration that the story of Genesis 2 is all made up. You can't say "details aside..." because you have to give details to give evidence to substantiate your unfounded assumption. So you're off to a bad start.

You're making the assumption that I hold my position as Truth. I hold it as most reasonable considering the creation myth is found in various older forms than represented in the bible. Not to mention there are numerous other creation myths from multiple parts of the world. Should I attribute likelihood to any of them too?

> "God creates two people and puts them in a garden." I take the position that there were many hominids on the earth, as paleontologists tell us, and that God took two (or more than that, since the text uses words that indicate humanity, not a single individual), and revealed Himself and his will to them. Your first point may also be part of your bad start.

Ok so if this is the case why is the bible misrepresenting what actually happened? Are you inferring we shouldn't take it literally? If so I'd have to agree with that.

> "Said God puts something he absolutely does not want them to have in the garden." Not so. The tree represents their moral choice to obey God or defy him. He doesn't have to "put" anything in the Garden for them to have a moral choice. "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the ancient world was an idiom for moral choice. The tree, though literal, represents a choice all humans would have to make. There is also no indication that they lived in the garden. The garden was where they could come to meet with God, but the text doesn't say they lived there.

Word games. If I have a child. I definitely want them to obey me. I have principles and standards. I make it clear. But then in the safety of our home I place within their grasp the ability to disobey me. Who is the actual bad guy here? Now if you don't hold to a concept of hell or eternal punishment I can see your view. But if the same God will turn around and allow his children to be tortured with no end because of these choices he wants them to have, he's the villian. How hard of a concept is this to grasp?

> "God allows a being that he knows will try to interrupt his plan into his garden." Those beings roam freely on the earth. They are free agents. God's plan requires free will. He wants people to love Him because they choose to. If they are forced, it isn't love.

Cop out. Pure and simple, again refer to above. If I'm given a choice but the alternative is unending torment, that's not a choice. In the court of law this would be considered making a decision under duress which is no choice at all.

> "These people God creates have little life experience." I take Genesis 1 & 2 to be a functional account of creation, not a material account of creation. It's about their role and function on the planet (be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over it. And to serve as his priest and priestess [Gn. 2.15]). They have enough life experience to obey what God has asked.

More assumptions. Why do you get to decide what part is real and what part is myth and how exactly did you come to these conclusions?

> "I will be generous and say they have the reasoning ability of a 3 year old." This is not generous at all, but a gross distortion. They are intelligent people with reasoning power (Gn. 2.19-20), competent moral reasoning (Gn. 3.2, 6), and a sense of responsibility (Gn. 2.15).

Yet they don't have the ability to determine right from wrong! Good vs Evil. This is a huge problem and I can't see how you don't see it. If I have no knowledge between good and evil. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. How do I know it's "wrong" or "evil" to disobey God? In this case, if I disobey God, the problem inherent is that I did not understand that I was committing a sin if I did disobey him. Why? Because in this scenario I have no knowledge of good and evil. Period.

> "Now if you put a gun in your living room." Again, a gross distortion of the text. It's more like the road of traffic out front than a gun in the living room. The road is already there; it is the parents' responsibility to warn the child about it and to teach them to avoid it. In Genesis, the ability to make a moral choice is already there. God warns them about it and teaches them to avoid it (Gn. 2.16-17). You're not reading this right at all.

Wrong. God put the tree there. The parents did not put the road or traffic out there. How do you avoid the fact that God literally wrote the script before all this plays out? You can't have an all knowing God and him be ignorant of his own creation and plans. Sorry, not how it works.

> No wonder you think it's a story of God's failure. It's nothing of the kind. You're reading the story with total misunderstanding, distortion of what it says, and superficial interpretations. A little bit of research would be of value.

Sorry. I'm not the confused one here.

[jimwalton]

> Not to mention there are numerous other creation myths from multiple parts of the world. Should I attribute likelihood to any of them too?

The Biblical account of creation varies in many distinct ways from the mythologies in surrounding cultures. Despite some incidental similarities, there are vast contrasts:

- The biblical narrative is monotheistic rather than polytheistic.
- In Genesis, God rather than primeval chaos is eternally existent.
- In Genesis, God creates everything, including what is "formless and void," then gives form to it.
- Ancient Near Eastern myths say virtually nothing about how anything was made. Instead, they describe how the gods organized pre-existing matter. In Genesis, God creates everything out of nothing by the word of His mouth.
- Genesis portrays a divine unity of purpose rather than the feuding deities of the pagan myths.
- Genesis pictures a good God making a good creation as opposed to selfish, murderous deities serving their own ends.
- Most of the creative work of the gods in the ancient myths involves bringing other gods into existence, which is clearly not the case in Genesis.
- In Genesis, man is created in God’s image to be in fellowship with Him rather than being a servant who exists for the purpose of feeding the gods through sacrifices and keeping them from having to do manual labor.

> Ok so if this is the case why is the bible misrepresenting what actually happened? Are you inferring we shouldn't take it literally?

I think "literally" is an inadequate term to describe a work like the Bible. The Bible is rich in literary forms like metonymy, simile, figurative language, parable, prophecy, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, and so many other. "Literally" doesn't really take us anywhere.

I don't think the Bible is misrepresenting what happened. I take Genesis 2 as a functional account of creation, accurately describing the role and functionality of humans on the planet. It's not a metaphor or mythography, but a theological interpretation and explanation of historical events.

> Word games. If I have a child. I definitely want them to obey me. I have principles and standards. I make it clear. But then in the safety of our home I place within their grasp the ability to disobey me. Who is the actual bad guy here?

Semantics matter. It's how we particularize our thoughts. God didn't "place within their grasp the ability to disobey." It was there already. The disobedience and rebellion of spiritual forces had already taken place, and those beings were active on the earth. God was teaching them how to conform to the right and the wise and avoid the trouble waiting around every corner.

> Now if you don't hold to a concept of hell or eternal punishment I can see your view. But if the same God will turn around and allow his children to be tortured with no end because of these choices he wants them to have, he's the villian. How hard of a concept is this to grasp?

Hell is a completely different discussion, but if you choose against life, death is the result. If you choose against love, absence of love is the consequence. If you choose against forgiveness, you can't be forgiven. Hell is your choice, not God's.

> Why do you get to decide what part is real and what part is myth and how exactly did you come to these conclusions?

We're all students of the text. We do our research and make our decisions.

> Yet they don't have the ability to determine right from wrong! Good vs Evil.

Of course they do. Their choice is as real as yours or mine is every day. They had a knowledge of good and evil. Their choice was to which they would conform.

> God put the tree there.

Yes, God put the tree there. It was symbolic of all the decisions they make, just as we continually make those decisions as well. The tree itself wasn't magical. It's what it represented. If you and I are fighting, and I draw a line in the sand and dare you to cross it, the line has no power. It's real, but it's symbolic of our conflict. So also the tree. Just because God "drew a line in the sand" doesn't mean he was setting them up for failure or asking them to do something of which they were incapable. They were both capable and culpable.

> How do you avoid the fact that God literally wrote the script before all this plays out?

God didn't write the script. Knowledge is never causative. Only power is causative. God knew what they were going to choose, just as I can pretty well guess you're going to disagree with most of what I am writing. But I am not forcing you to disagree with me. It's not scripted, but it can still be known.