A Modern Parable

Originally posted by frogstomp
That really isn't the case , the OT defines the OT god /
just like novels define characters, you read the book and you get an impression of who the character is. That is of course, the novelist writes it well enough to convey what he wants you to think about the character.

I do realize Moses wasn't exactly Sabbatini, but then God isn't exactly Scaramouche

Originally posted by KellyJay
So what is it your saying? We really are not talking about the
creation and fall of man with Adam and Eve, but the other parts of
the OT? My point is that you are not reading what is there, instead
you are forcing things into that story that have nothing to do with
that story. nr1 has said God killed them after they ate of that tree,
and I said no Go ...[text shortened]... ne and only thing! God warned
him, man understood, man did it anyway and paid the price.
Kelly

Originally posted by frogstomp
In that story Man didnt know good or evil , so how would man understand?

Originally posted by KellyJay
It is like I said earlier, Adam did know, do not eat or you die.
How that plays out good or bad is meaningless, it was clear
death was going to occur if he ate of the tree, the serpent said
no, do not trust God. There was choice, God or the serpent and
the serpent gave the impression that Adam would become like
God right away, while walking with God that was going to happen
anyway.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
It is like I said earlier, Adam did know, do not eat or you die.
How that plays out good or bad is meaningless, it was clear
death was going to occur if he ate of the tree, the serpent said
no, do not trust God. There was choice, God or the serpent and
the serpent gave the impression that Adam would become like
God right away, while walking with God that was going to happen
anyway.
Kelly

Originally posted by telerion
But Eve did not understand that it was wrong to disobey God. The serpent provided her with new information which mitigated the consequences of eating of the fruit. She did not know that it was wrong to trust the serpent over God. How could she know that the serpent was bad? She had no moral judgement.

Punishing them with death in this story is like executing some one for not guessing what's behind your back. Wrong! Hell and Damnation!

Originally posted by frogstomp
Try and understand ,,Adam wouldnt have any way to tell what he was doing was wrong, no way of knowing if the serpent was lying or that it was wrong to want to be like god , or even what dying was (since he never seen it) until AFTER he ate the fruit.

Btw who was the us God spoke to?

Originally posted by frogstomp
Try and understand ,,Adam wouldnt have any way to tell what he was doing was wrong, no way of knowing if the serpent was lying or that it was wrong to want to be like god , or even what dying was (since he never seen it) until AFTER he ate the fruit.

Btw who was the us God spoke to?

Since KellyJay continues to insist that God was some kind of innocent bystander and that the mere eating from the Tree condemned Man to death, here's the relevant passage of Genesis 3:16-19

16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy conception; in pain thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.

17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in toil shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;

18 thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;

19 in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

Now is God passing out punishments or not? Read verse 19 and tell me again that God doesn't punish all men with death? You can keep parroting the "Goddidn'tdonothing" defense all you want, KellyJay, but it's right there in the plain words of your Holy Book. God is the killer, not the Tree.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Since KellyJay continues to insist that God was some kind of innocent bystander and that the mere eating from the Tree condemned Man to death, here's the relevant passage of Genesis 3:16-19

16 Unto the woman he said, I wil ...[text shortened]... he plain words of your Holy Book. God is the killer, not the Tree.

Originally posted by KellyJay
The wages of sin is death, it was the warning and it happened.
I have not for one minute suggested that because of what Adam
and Eve did that death was not the result. How did they die?
With you and your story you kill someone, they die ...[text shortened]... h?
Kelly

I'm also not saying that God does not kill, He does.

A “MIDRASH” ON THE ADAM AND EVE STORY

Preliminaries

There is a Talmudic story: Some rabbis are arguing over an interpretation of Torah. Rabbi Eleazer (if I recall correctly) put forth an interpretation that all the other rabbis disagreed with. R. Eleazer therefore called forth a series of miracles to prove his point—“If I am correct, let this stream run backwards!” etc.—but the others were not impressed. Finally, R. Eleazer cried: “If my Torah is correct, let a voice from heaven descend and declare it so!” Whereupon a holy voice said: “Why are you arguing? The Torah has always meant what Rabbi Eleazer says it does.” At that point, one of the other rabbis jumped up and shouted, “It is not in heaven!”

Meaning? Torah was given to men to interpret without any heavenly meddling. Later, one of the rabbis died and met Elijah in heaven. He asked Elijah what God’s response was when the rabbis declared, “It is not in heaven”? Elijah said, “The Blessed Holy One just laughed and laughed, saying ‘My children have bested me! My children have bested me!!’”

“Why are the words of Torah like fire? A fire is built of many logs and the words of Torah survive only through many minds.” (tractate Ta’anit)

“Whenever a man studies words of Torah, he is certain to find a meaning in them.” (tractate Eruvin)

Rav Hisda said: “To learn Torah…it is better to go to several teachers. The many different explanations will help to give you understanding.” (tractate Avodah Zarah)

“The words of Torah are fruitful and multiply!” (tractate Hagigah)

“He who toils in Torah and discovers in it new meanings that are true contributes new Torah which is treasured by the congregation of Israel.” (the Zohar)

“A place has been left for me to labor in it [the Torah].” (tractate Hullin)

--Talmudic quotes from The Talmudic Anthology, Louis I. Newman, ed.

***********************************

Just a note on Hebrew

“To avoid the trap of idolatry—the illusion of possessing the meaning—Hebrew tradition has introduced the idea of levels of meaning.” (Marc-Alain Ouaknin, The Burnt Book: Reading the Talmud) This is based on the language itself. Hebrew is more of a “depth language” than a “precision” language. Words have layers of meanings, which deepen and expand in association with other words, phrases, etc.

In the context of the A&E story, it might be kept in mind that, with regard to etz ha tov ha ra—the tree of good and bad—tov and ra are not specifically moral terms, but encompass the full range of whatever you could use the words “good and bad” for (a good meal, a bad storm, etc.), not excluding the ethical.

****************************************

“Midrash”

So, what parent does not want their children to grow up? To discern life for themselves, to make decisions, even to rebel? To become a full human being? What parent really wants their children to obey them for life? “Do this, don’t do that.” “Yes Mom, yes Dad.” “Now bow down and sing our praises….And don’t you ever dare believe you can think for yourself. Now go shave!” Or the parent who keeps her child home all her life: “You don’t dare ever leave me!”

What a terrible parent we turn God into when we read these stories! And if you say that God is above and beyond our ability to speak about God thus, in human terms; I reply: “Then we cannot speak of God at all, and we had better keep quiet.” But—as it is not in heaven!—we press on.

And what would God want with such children! Children who never grow up, who never leave home. (The child who never leaves home can never return home; the primary Hebrew word for “repentance” is t’shuvah, return.) I do not think that is the kind of children the God of this story wants—but it is hard to let the children go.

So God does what it is difficult for any parent to do: shoo the kids out of the house! It happens like this…

God says, “You can have all the food you want, but just don’t eat from that tree over there.”

“Which tree?”

“That one, over there.”

“The one with the different-colored fruits hanging all over it?”

“Yes, that one. That one right there. See it?”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t you want to know why you shouldn’t eat any of that fruit?” (You see, “why” is a tov and ra question; how could they understand “why”?)

“Yeah, okay.”

sotto voce “Because if you do, you’ll surely die!”

“Die? Is that….?”

“Bad. It’s bad.”

Adam and Eve, walking away confused: “’Bad?’ What does bad mean?”

Generations and generations later, Moshe says to the people: “I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life….” (Deut. 30:19) But Adam and Eve do not yet know how to choose for themselves.

Enter the serpent. Now just who is this serpent? “Now the serpent was a more crafty and prudent counselor than any other wild animal that YHVH God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden'?" (Gen. 3:1; I have brought several meanings of the Hebrew arom, generally translated as sly or crafty, into play here.) So this serpent is a creature made by God. Symbolically and metaphorically this whole image of the serpent can be expanded and expounded on greatly; but I’ll let you do that to keep this midrash from becoming even longer….

To make a long story less long, Adam and Eve eat the fruit, their eyes are opened, etc., etc. They now understand the concepts of good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant, right and wrong, and so forth.

And God scolds them, describes to them the perils of adulthood, helps them (clothing), and sends them out of the house (garden) into the world. And lest they try to flee from their own full humanity back into the house before they’ve even lived, God hires a butler (with a fiery sword) to keep them out.

And only after they’ve been in the world, and learned to make decisions for themselves, become fully persons can a real relationship begin….

************************************

“The proposition that we ought to remain the same and never leave our ‘father’s house’ is more than indecent: it does violence to a person. To remain the same means that we keep on doing what we have done in the past….The son who makes the break, who does not take up his father’s profession or his culture…listens to the demands of the future and is detached from the past.”

“Adam makes a break with nature; Abraham a break with society; and Jacob, a break with family.”

Rabbi Nilton Bonder, Our Immoral Soul: A Manifesto of Spiritual Disobedience (italics mine)

Originally posted by no1marauder
Let's see: at point A, they couldn't die.

At pont B, they were certain to die.

When is Point B? At Genesis 3:19 when God gives the punishment. They did not die from eating from the Tree, they died because God made it so. You just keep parroting the same statements over and over again and never dealing with the ac ...[text shortened]... Coletti, that's his gig.

EDIT: In response to your last sentence, bully for your killer God.

Originally posted by KellyJay
God made it all, everything, nothing that was made was made by
another. This would be no different that God saying don't walk off
the a mountain cliff or you will die, they walk off and die. So then
you would say that God killed them because they walked off a
mountain cliff that God had made. Death entered the picture
because of the way the universe w ...[text shortened]... e they died, death entered into the human race where it was
not before by our own hands.
Kelly

Originally posted by Moldy Crow
KJ - Reading the logic of your last several posts reminds me of a dim labrador who is he11-bent on catching his tail !