Take a look at the statement Joshua made, to which I agree;

" Domenic, I don't mean to seem simplistic, you see, when one searches for truth, you must take first what is said in scripture, and that must mean just as it says unless directly mentioned as metaphoric or guides you to another location.

You see in fact I am familiar with all of the esoteric ideas in modern culture such as magnetic levitation using vats of mercury under pyramids and past aliens and mental abilities lost over time. But you see, all of these things are chaff in the wind, they are meaningless. They make for interesting Scyfy movies, (of which I am a fan) however, if you really want truth, and want to understand what Jehovah really wants you to understand, then only take what is fact from the Bible. There is nothing we can do with worldly fantasy's...

The reason I answered you with Gen 11:3 is because the scripture says they built the tower with clay bricks and tar as mortar. That is what it was built from and how it was built, nothing more, nothing less, stacking one brick on another. Why??? Because that's what the Bible says, and anything outside the Bible allows itself to be influenced by any number of external forces. "

Now....what does the Bible say?

"If you EAT of the fruit....you you even touch it, you will die."


But, it also continues on...."If they get to the Tree of Life....and eat....they will live forever.'


Clearly, the tree of Knowledge of Good and bad was not designed to be a 'tree test'....but as it did precipitate knowledge of shame, and nudity as indecent, the fruit was designed to teach lessons without having to undergo the death sentence; BUT only at God's time, and his measured doses...(perhaps).

The 'breaking ' of God's command had no physical effect upon anyone; just as is true today; absolutely no effect...PHYSICALLY. Murder, fornication, drunkenness....do not bring an early death...although excesses in booze can cause liver damage...but one drink?

This is explained very clearly to us; if they got to the tree of life....the condition...ie...poisoning...would be remedied. That is what the Bible says. The trees were physically powerful...not symbolic, just as in the New Jerusalem's temple...again....trees of life are eaten from, along with curative water,...which just like Eden; real trees, real water must be a consideration.

Look at animals; they are devious, cunning at times,...even jealous, yet this does not 'kill ' them. Look at Satan;;;same...yet he and the demons are still alive and well.

No...it is stated as fact. The tree of Knowledge was poisonous, and yet could be used possibly in the future to impart needed wisdom without the pain, if Adam and Eve had waited.

Satan made a pass at Eve, which is clearly his plan, which he did carry out with his allies after the flood. He had a desire to entice her to bear HIS children, and start his own gene pool (which he did at Jehovah's allowance).

God told him he would fail in that endeavor, because humankind would hate Satan's offspring due to the fact they hated humans and sought to murder and enslave them which they did, fulfilling Father's prophecy.

'Sinning'....being disobedient to father, will get you a bad judgement when Christ returns, but it is not the judgement that killed Adam and Eve and destroyed a wealthy DNA. It was a large amount of poisonous fruit, I can see, as pointed out in Genesis.

Human perfection in no way MEANS they will not get angry, use immature and poor judgement, even try something God states is wrong. Some sins incur death....some don't, as 1 John says. WT taught any sin would 'break our perfection ' and cause immediate corruption; wrong.

Even Jehovah God gets angry, sad, has regrets, at times...and I do believe, learns from his past creations how to go about things differently next time.That may be a big pill to swallow, sorry.

We must stop thinking in such black and white terms, and achieve a balanced, realistic view of Biblical terms; 'perfection'...'sin'....and others.

Babies aren't born with ability to walk, talk, reason, and never be wrong, but must learn from failure, actually. ' Perfect' Adam and Eve were just babies, that is all, and had a steep learning curve to climb. Satan brought a lie in, and they naively accepted this as truth....not even knowing the concept of 'lying'. They got duped.....Eve more so than Adam, of course. They had no idea of the ramifications of eating in total.

And I don't believe Father saw it coming with Satan, as he obviously does not look into the future in time of persons he desires to exercise freedom of choice.

 

Bear Trap in Eden? How loving , or wise is that?

This is Satan's intimation: God is withholding knowledge, teasing you with it; flaunting it. Just grab it and get what you need...! Then the lie, "You positively will not die."

No, I know I would NEVER keep a loaded gun laying around my living room when I was raising my kids; and God didn't either. That tree had a noble purpose, and it would have worked for their knowledge if they had not made the dumb decision to get smart quick without God. Eve was desperate, as can be deduced from the pregnancy/frigidity remarks God made to her afterward.

Satan capitalized on this dilemma she faced, and introduced his plan to take over planet earth and start his own race instead.

 

Brother Joshua,

Thanks for the comment. I am thinking out loud, of course. Fishing....fishing.

I know our Father is brilliant, and his Son also. But I also know the truth must be arrived at through meditation, reason, scripture, and knowledge. I for one, cannot accept Father as a tempter...hiding in the bushes....waiting to see if Adam or Eve partook. Ridiculous.

On the other hand, taking the account at face value in its youthful innocence and inexperience may be the best after all. I just try to relate what I am reading in a way that puts a better 'spin' on it than what we were taught in churches; WT, included...which was/is also three-hundred year old tradition; 'The Tree of Knowledge was a test of their love and loyalty',....true....but what would that be saying about our father.? He is a tempter? Demanding total devotion or death? I cannot swallow this for a minute, especially as he provided the Ransom for forgiveness of all except practicing cardinal sin.

I also look deeper into comments made by the angel/Jehovah (whichever), in the sentencing stage of gen. 3:15.

I see clearly through God's statements (Gen. 3) that the motives and problem at hand with both Adam, and Eve...even Satan ...were disclosed by inference.

We, also...have serious problems in our characters we cannot seem to shake, right? mainly because we're cripples, sold into 'sin'. (weakness,...missing the mark).

We thus, are not expected to run a 9.50 second 100 meters.....or 2-hour Marathon. We are blessed with everlasting life for TRYING...and believing in God's mercy and love and release from Law of , "Death to sinners!"

This is why I can't stomach the thought the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was a 'test of loyalty' on two children unaware of; death and it's misery to a race of billions....that they were subjected to alien intervention and Diabolic schemes, (including rape, and murder)

This is all too horrible to contemplate about Father Jehovah, and his parenting technique, to me

 

Amen

 

Hi Joshua:

Where does it say and/or imply (other than in the Watchtower's reasoning) that Jehovah "chose" not to know that Adam and Eve would sin, could you show me?

Frank

 

Hi Joshua:

Am I missing something? He asks, although he hasn't chosen not to be able to see Joshua's point.

Frank

 

God know what we are going to do before we do it. He knows what we need before we ask for it:

In the garden:

God is the author of all life, and the author of what is right, and wrong. The author sets the rules.
God created man, and placed man in the Garden. There are two things man has to deal with, physical, and spiritual.
God told the man:
“From every tree you may eat to satisfaction. (physical food.)â€￾
The tree of knowledge of good & bad, are not include with the physical trees created for food. Good and bad are not physical food, but spiritual things. These had to do with Spiritual food.
Note: there is nothing said of the tree of life until after Adam, and the women take of the tree of good and bad? God wanted them put out of the Garden for fear they would take of the tree of life. How would Adam, and the women know of the tree of life?
Jesus spoke of spiritual food. He gave his followers bread, and wine. He said the bread was his body, and the wine was his blood. To eat those would give them life. Many people who do not believe in God, or Jesus eat bread, and drink wine, yet that will not give them life because the bread and wine were used as symbolic of his body, and blood…this is a spiritual taking in…spiritual food. Would spiritual food be on a physical tree?
The bible does not say he is the tree of life, yet he has the keys to life?
Trees were used to express spiritual things in religions long before Genesis was written. It is an old way of explaining things. To explain what a scripture means, we must know what it meant at the time it was written. If a letter was fount that was written in the year 1950 which read, "I met the President. He is gay." Would the reader of that old letter think the President of 1950 was homosexual? In truth in 1950 it was a common term to call a person who was happy, gay.

 

Trees of Eden

Hello all...

The trees were literal, fruit and all. The people were, too. Eating was not spiritual but literal. Jesus' and the Apostles' teachings all concur with our understanding, I believe.

Eating the fruit ...what would that symbolize? Surely not sexual relations. Eve was reticent about having sex/children in the first place...and was reluctant to 'obey' God (and most likely her husband in the matter of 'filling the earth' with her offspring. It is apparent to me, at least, that this is why she sat in the middle of the garden contemplating the 'Tree of Knowledge ' to begin with. That is just what Satan waited for; as he desired to start a seed with her ..and he did with her seed later. (Gen. 6)

Look for motive, that's what Gen. 3:15 is all about; the declaration of punishment discloses to the reader the intent in each one. Of course Adam's motive for eating to share in the wife's death/life is clear as a bell.

That the tree of Life, also in the middle of the garden, was not explained fully to them is certainly cleared up by Jehovah's words to Christ to cast the pair out so they wouldn't eat from it and get cured; immediately as anti-venin /venom for a snake-bite; same deal.

Yet that a physical effect, and a permanent one did occur from eating the fruit is also absolutely certain as we are dying, and sinning all the time.

 

What part of genesis says Eve was reticent about having sex/children in the first place?

 

Dig for it

When circumstantial evidence is examined closely, motive/intent, blame, amd a host of information can be gleaned.

Police departments/detective divisions all across the country will state this fact(I see a lot of sitcoms about criminal minds,lol)...."there are no coincidences in murder investigations."

In other words, DNA, gun barrel rifling, figerprints, etc...all can hang a murder rap on a man , even though no one witnessed the crime;


intent, motive, blame, all arrived at from inference, and deductive reasoning.

Eden and the Sentencing stage.

If you want to know the answer to why Eve really partook of the fruit, and what Satan's motive was, Just read Gen. 3 and think about it. Listen to Jehovh's pronouncements against Eve, and Satan.

Adam, of course is a no-brainer.

 

This is also deduced from 'Jehovah's' surprised question to Eve, "What have you done? From the tree of which I told you to eat ",...etc.

It is obvious to me, too. Father chose not to view their future so as to not cast their life into a certain course; hence ....no freedom to chose for themselves.

But, this, too....trying to pin our reasoning on God , may be vain and even dangerous. Thinking we know more than he, or can tell him what to do , think, or say.

That is exactly what Satan is doing.

So we must not think we can figure everything out, either, as that is presumptuous, too.

 

But we can try!

Enjoy speaking with you all. Thanks for allowing me to ruminate, ramble on, postulate, soap-box......yada, yada, yada.........

 

Hi Joshua:

You don't actually believe that Jehovah did not know that Adam and Eve had sinned from that scripture, did you? Joshua do you have children and grandchildren? You tell them not to eat any cookies before dinner. Your kid or kids is/are about 2-3 years old. Their faces are covered with chocolate chip stains and you ask them the question. Did you and your sister eat cookies when I said not to? After reading that question, would you come to the conclusion that I don't know whether my kids or grand kids have eaten the cookies that they were told not to simply because I phrased my expression as a question? You know that that is a teaching tool. It helps you draw them out and see how they will answer, it's not that you don't know what they did. Jehovah was drawing out Adam and Eve to see what they would say, even though he knew exactly what they would say well before they said it.

YLT Mt 6:8 be ye not therefore like to them, for your Father doth know those things that ye have need of before your asking him;

Even Jesus knows this. Unless of course he just forgot to say unless my Father decides that he doesn't want to know for some reason.

Joshua, I have a lot of respect for you, but that is one of the worst arguments about the meaning of a scripture that I have ever seen or heard. You are making a joke, right? I idid get a good belly laugh out of that though, thanks!

Frank