Story of Adam & Eve

That's fasinating stuff Straw.

Toon,
Relax, its just that God given imagination streching some.

 

Don't get me wrong here.

I love it when humans make a movie of my story but I just wish that the actors who played Adam and Eve didn't have a navel.

 

The Garden of Eden story, because it has no definite answer is therefore a pointless conundrum. If one enjoys mind games then they should enjoy this fable as well. Otherwise the story should be viewed as a tantric message which talks about kundalini and the way of raising their consciousness. A good place for getting to the meat of the matter is www.gnosis.org

 

Also, it's quite certain that the Tree of Life is the Eleocarpus ganitrum species otherwise known as the Rudraksha or Blue Quandong. It's also known as the Vedic Kalpa Vriksha or wish fullfilling tree. Check into it.

 

Hi Chodpa. I checked into it and it turns out you are silly.

But seriously for a minute. There is no reason to believe it was this plant you are talking about , other than, because it was a suggestion someone made.

As to the account being a 'conundrum' I dont know what to tell you?
It is pretty much self-explanatory.
There really isn't a lot of 'mystery' to what it presents.

Obviously there are lots of unanswered question or detail that were left out.
Thats ok.
We don't necessarily need to know all the specifics, like - what kind of fruit it was or if they had navels etc.

 

Well actually, Satan can only do what God allows him to do. God allowed him to tempt Eve to test man. Not only to test him, but I believe he knew what would happen once Eve was tempted. He knew Eve would give in to the fruit, and therefore it was all in God's plan. I like to think of the game Sim City when questions like these arise. We are like God's very own Sim City. I have faith that some day we will know answers to these questions that rack our brains, but for now we are just supposed to love Him and enjoy life.
Peace,
Moonjava

 

Thanks for the gnostic link.....I'm listening to the lecture on "The Matrix" right now....(It gets interesting around 20 minutes into the lecture

Here's a few I gathered this evening that you may, or may not, find interesting...

Note: I am writing this from a severe learning curve brought about by my leaving my cosy UK (have not travelled extensively for 20 years...busy raising off spring and coping with the little details of life....) new abode in the high desert plains of a minute town in the USA.....

http://www.atlan.org/new/

http://www.activemind.com/Mysterious/Topics/Atlantis/

Thanks again...

MarkN...Thanks for not shooting me down in flames...
Good luck and I hope you enjoy your quest.

Strawpuppy

Peace harmony and love...

 

The more perturbing question, I believe, is, "How could God have commanded them if they did not yet possess knowledge of good and evil, given by the tree?" The nature of this problem lies in the distinction between the law of man and the law of God and the relationship between man and God, and man and the rest of God's creation.

God's Will is insubordinate to His Reason, or, rather, both are perfect. God's Will, since it is infinite, dictates the actions of all of His creation. Even if God were to not will an event, it would be God's choice (choice being an act of will) not to will it; and, because in God's perfect reason, all contradiction is resolved and all things are possible, God's action (or inaction) is always good, even when it may not appear so to me.

However, there is one being in God's creation which God chose (of His Own Will) to have a will of his own - man. Everything about man is weak, not including the sole exception of his faith (and, even, in rare specimens, his love). God, appearing to Adam, commanded him not to eat from the forbidden tree. Through such revelation, Adam understood, as it was the Will of God. But Eve, driven by her own desire for power, perhaps the most human sin, certainly the most natural, ate of the tree and understood.

Understood what? Nothing at all, I argue. Rather, it was only an illusion of understand, behind which hid pride. It was the knowledge of universals, the truth that knowledge alone can unlock their mystery, and the truth that we are the keepers, the yardsticks, of knowledge. Perhaps they already understood universals; but, upon tasting of the tree, it was the belief that universals are superior to the Will of God, the belief that the reason of man is superior to His that spawned the two aforementioned truths. I maintain that these truths are false and that their source is pride, a sin far more diabolic than the sin of Eve. Her sin was acting upon the desire to match the Power of God; the sin of pride is the sin of believing we already match His Power. In this way, it is terrible and pitiful.

Before the eating of the fruit, it was surely a simple thing to know God’s Will, simpler still to obey It! Now, there is so much confusion. But I maintain that there is something noble in our struggle, that through each struggle we can remain faithful, and our faith grows more unshakable at the end of every conflict. This is a gift granted to us by birthright, which Adam did not receive his first night in the garden, but cursed many nights after. Remember, God could have obliterated Adam, Eve, and the human race with them, which would have been a most just and righteous punishment, but He chose not to, and thus not to was just.

This is a fitting interpretation of the allegory.

 

WHAT???

em...God does not over complicate...He gives His Spirit to help childlike ones to understand...

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed. 9 And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground-trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

15 The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." (spiritually) (Gen. 1)

(Gen. 2) 1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"
2 The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' "
4 "You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman

 

No, God does not overcomplicate. In God, all things are understood; I believe this to be true. But to my feeble mind, He is a mystery and I cannot make sense of His creation, including myself. Children never question their faith precisely because they have never experienced anything challenging to it (or because they do not understand the relationship of the challenge to faith). I make it a point not simply to passively wait in patience for a crisis of faith to come along. I make it a point to look for one, to search them all out. This is the task of the faithful - to believe in the absurd. Do you honestly never question your faith? To never do so seems such an act of perfection that it is not fitting of a human being.

My interpretation is only one of many possible interpretations. The allegory is vague for this very reason, improbable so that each generation (each individual, as well) can relate its own experiences to it. Scripture must be understood in its historical context, but allegory possesses the unique ability to transcend context. And so, I have arrived at a conclusion that crushes a stumbling block of faith through ignorance, and, in this way, have strengthened my faith through virtue of the absurd.

Faith is not simply a gift from God. It is that, but it is much more. It is a conscious act of will to believe what is ridiculous (and you cannot, in honesty, tell me that faith has not been ridiculed). I do believe that it is possible for God to forcibly put faith in Him into one who has done nothing to earn it, but I also believe that beings whom God favours so greatly are rare. Indeed, I also question if they are so greatly favoured. God's love of us is proved in our struggle because one day He may set before us a trial which only a person of great faith can accomplish, if any of us be so blessed to be tried as such.

 

why do you need to ''make sense'' of His creation?
We just need to accept (humbly) that He is Creator (Father), and we are the created (children).
Jesus is the link...if you don't want, or won't bow the knee to, Jesus, then I can understand your problem.

 

Because I want to know, in the most intimate sense of the word, Him, Whom I worship. Is that unreasonable? But I maintain that such knowledge is possible through revelation, no matter how impossible it may seem, because in God all things are possible.

But our relationship to God is far more complex than that. God is subject and His creation is object; however, we are also subjects which can view that creation. God is infinite and we are finite, but Schopenhaur proved, "The world is my idea," and Kierkegaard wrote likewise, "Truth is subjectivity." If this is so, then would this not require that our selves are, in some way, infinite? If we are temporal, then how is it we can be faithful; it was Nietzsche who wrote that men are the only beings "who can make promises," and Marcel who realised the full significance of Nietzsche's insight. If we are just creation, then why is faith an act of our own will and the act of a Will stronger than our own?

All of these paradoxes defy reason, and they are all present within man. But, to have faith is to be faithful, faithful to the absurd, the unknown, God. It is to have faith that in Him these paradoxes are dissolved, and to believe against reason that such paradoxes may be dissolved within myself, through Him and in Him.

Christ, because of His very nature, is the only Being where the paradoxes of man have been solved (though perhaps not dissolved, as in the Father). He, to me, is the greatest paradox of all, for, while I can understand the paradoxes within me, I cannot understand them solved. Christ Himself is the greatest Paradox, the greatest Mystery, the greatest Miracle.

 

Uh...I find it very compicated. The story of adam & eve. The key word here is "story". ok....here is how I view it. The bible (old and new testaments) were written by MAN. I hope we can agree on that. This "story" of creation was not burned into a mountain, or quoted from a burning bush. Yes,yes I hear you. "but it was "divine thought" that was given to the writer. A very common claim. Their are people straping themselfs with bombs and walking in to public places that think they have that "divine thought". MAN ( the writer) in his wickedness is incapable of comprehending divine thought. He is not God. Only Jesus (in the bible) could express divine thought. I see the bible as a guide book for living. A basic idea of right & wroung. It is through these parables or storys that these morals are reveled. I don't take everything in the bible, word for word as fact. As far as creation, I "lean" more towards darwin's idea. The reason I say "lean", is because I am just a man. I can admit that I don't know. I can keep an open mind without tying myself to a set of beliefs that was created by MAN. (both darwin & bibical scribes). AH!! your thinking I have no "faith". I have great faith in the Mystery of it all.

The orginal question was " why of all places on the planet, did God put the tree of life in the garden.?"
Is God the tempter?
What is the "story" suppose to teach us?
Forget everything you "think" you know about the Bible. Try reading it as you would a novel. Without all the baggage of things you have learned in later verses in the bible. For example, Why assume that satan was in the Snake. There is no mention of satan, wars in heaven, free will, any of those ideas .
It starts, "In the begining........"

 

For clarification purposes..

The alleged 'key-word' being 'Story' is made by readers not by the author of Genesis or expressed by the pages.

Genesis never claims to be a 'story', allegory or poem.
You can discover this for yourselves by reading it.

Its also worth mentioning that Jesus refers to same events 'as fact' and never intimates Genesis as a 'story'.

Yes, you certainly can suppose it is.
I just wanted it to be clear that this is a readers judgement and not in the text itself.

 

Brocktoon,

I believe that Genesis is factual, but not necessarily literal in every detail. I think the essential truths are the ex-nihilo creation of the universe and the historical fall of man. I'm not convinced that the "days" of creation, the trees of life and knowledge, or the talking serpent must be taken literally.

 

Where does Lucifer come into the bible? I mean the old testament; which book and stuff.

 

Lucifur applys to all pussy. Its about gods love which you wont recieve. The light bringer- wanna fuck? Damn if God aint the hottest bitch i ever did see.

 

Black is white, up is down, ignorance is strength, war is peace, hate is love. You're just supposed to accept it.

What I really want to know is, Why did God create atheists? Or I guess we just chose to be atheists on our own... and therefore... we're stronger than God! Let's get him!

---Ack... he heard me... *gasp* choking me... *wheeze* very powerful... hands... that God fellow...

Nah, I'm just joking. He's not really choking me. However! I do wish to pose the following challenge:

I, Vae Victus, hereby challenge God to a no-moves-barred break-dancing tournament. If he declines, or refuses to show up, let it be known throughout the land that I shall be considered the Christians' new master and owner.

 

hmmmm...
maybe god should challenge you to a universe-creating contest...
heh...

 

I gracefully accept.