The Serpent told the truth, God lied. (Page 2)

ghostgeek: OK?

TheDoctor394: Actually, God meant they would die spiritually. That's the number one theme throughout the Bible - humanity's spiritual death, and eventual life through Christ. When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they became separate from God; they had died spiritually.

ghostgeek: That's an interesting idea Doctor. It's certainly something to ponder on. There's just one problem, as I see it, with the notion. If Man becomes like God, knowing good and evil, and suffers spiritual death as a consequence, does this not imply that God also is dead spiritually?

TheDoctor394: That's an interesting question. :-)

To be honest, I've never quite understood what's meant by God saying that man now becomes like God, understanding good and evil. That's something I'm still workin gon. However, the notion of human beings becoming spiritually separate from God, due to sin, is a basic Christian one and, as I said, constant throughout the Bible, and is what is meant by being dead when God spoke to Adam. Without sin, we are perfect, and are pleasing to God, who is also perfect. But when we do wrong (which we all do), that puts a barrier between us and the still-perfect God. When perfect, we have full life (physical and spiritual), but when we sin, we are still alive physically, but die spiritually.

In John 3, Jesus talks to Nicodemus about this concept. He says that no-one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again. Now, no-one can be born again unless they die first. Nicodemus is confused, picturing a physical birth, and wonders how someone can go back into their mother's womb and then come out again. Jesus then explains that He is referring to a spiritual rebirth. And, again, to be spiritually reborn, we must have had to have died spiritually first. This teaching then leads to believing in Jesus Christ as Saviour to gain that spiritual rebirth.

There are many other examples I could give, but the number one theme of the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, is man's fall from perfection, due to sin (spiritual death), and our eventual salvation through Jesus, the Son of God.

moofy: @Ghostgeek:

"....History proved the Serpent correct..."
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Technically the story proved the serpent correct, not history.

"It was not because they sinned that they were expelled from the Garden of Eden but because G-d feared they would take of the Tree of Life and gain immortality.

"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever."
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This isn't the reason why they were expelled from the Garden of Eden, but I already touched up on this within another post.

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"And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, *- to know good and evil*- and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever." Adam and Eve were created mortal and did not die when they broke God's commandment. God lied.
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"Has become like one of us," meaning having the ability:

Man is unique among earthly beings, just as G-d is unique among heavenly beings and what is this uniqueness? To know good and evil, unlike the cattle and the beasts.

— [Targum Jonathan, Gen. Rabbah 21:5]

"And now, lest he stretch forth his hand, etc."

Meaning, and if he were to live forever, he would likely mislead people to follow him and to say he is also a deity (Gen. Rabbah 9:5).

ghostgeek: "Then the LORD God said, 'Look, the human beings have become like us, knowing both good and evil. What if they reach out, take fruit from the tree of life, and eat it? Then they will live forever!'"

I take a pretty literal interpretation of the meaning of this passage Doctor. To me, it suggests that there is essentially no difference between God and Man. Man is supposed to have been made in the likeness of God, after all. It's like the connection between parent and child. Also,one can read it as saying that God is mortal. Otherwise, it would have been the act of eating from the Tree of Life as well as the Tree of Knowledge that would make Man like God.

"In the cool of the evening, the man and his wife heard the Lord God walking around in the garden. So they hid from the Lord God among the trees in the garden. The Lord God called to the man and asked him, 'Where are you?'"

Again, this passage seems to reinforce the view that God possessed the attributes of a man. Somebody walking around in a garden when it's cool seems a very human thing to do. And the fact he has to ask Adam where he was suggests God was far from omniscient.

To me, irrespective of how later generations viewed Him, it seems the writer of this story saw God as being essentially human.

ghostgeek: I stand corrected about history Moofy. I wonder though, did the Serpent know of good and evil?

moofy: Not necessarily. He was just telling it like it was.

TheDoctor394: When the Bible talks about God walking in the Bible, that's an example of anthropomorphism. It's used at other times as well, like when it speaks of God changing His mind, or remembering people. It's not to say He was literally walking, or that God actually had second thoughts, or ever forgot people. It's a method of writing which sometimes uses a human term to refer to something like a diety, or even an animal - something non-human.

Certainly, the Bible does say that we are made in the image of God, meaing that we have emotions like Him, thoughts like Him. We are living beings, as He is a living being. But it's obvious that the Biblical God is not exactly like humans; He's invisible, He appears whenever and wherever He pleases, He knows people's thoughts - things that humans cannot do. There are endless examples in the Bible which make it obvious that God, while sharing some attributes with human beings, is still very different from us in many ways.

ghostgeek: Are we sure that when the Bible speaks about God walking it's being anthropomorphic? It might seem that way to us now but did it seem that way to the people who wrote the Bible? This story of Creation must be near on three thousand years old. Given that the people who would become the Jews were probably polytheists at this time we must assume that their thinking on God might have changed over the years. Why is it so easy to believe that God made the universe but so hard to accept that He walked on the face of the Earth? Personally, I am of the opinion that the writers of Genesis believed the literal truth of what they were recording. These stories almost certainly belonged to an oral tradition that was written down sometime in the Eighth Century B.C or later. If the scribes were told God walked in the Garden of Eden then that's what they probably believed happened.

TheDoctor394: I think people back then were probably more familiar with anthropomorphism than we are today, bearing in mind most believed in various gods of some kind, so it was probably a very common thing in many writings of that time.
Of course, maybe He did literally walk in the garden. I don't have a problem with that, and don't think that suddenly makes God out to be exactly like us. But since such a writing style is legitimate, then there have to be examples of it throughout history, and this seems to be a pretty likely one in my view.

ghostgeek: That's the problem, isn't it, we're so far away in time from these early story tellers that we can only guess what was in their minds. When Genesis talks of God we assume it's referring to a monotheistic deity, but this could well be wrong. There seems to be evidence that the early Israelites were polytheists. Have you ever wondered why God is always referred to as "He?" It seems He may have had a consort, Asherah. This would change the meaning of sayings such as "Behold, the man is become as one of us." Most people assume God is talking to angels but this may not be so. The story might be telling us that God was in fact talking to other Gods, similar to Himself. Back then, peoples' idea of what a god was appears to have been of a very human like figure, but endowed with vastly more power. Even immortality was not a god-like quality. There are many myths of gods dying. I think it is wrong of us, today, to project our conception of God onto those early stories. They come from an entirely different world.

TheDoctor394: I think the general view (it is certainly a view) is that when God talks about "us", that's a Trinitarian reference (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). I used to think maybe it was a reference to angels or other heavenly creatures, but the Trinity view is more consistent with what the Bible speaks of in the New Testament.

Certainly, during Old Testament times, there were beliefs in many, many, many different gods, but the Israelites were completely separate from them. We can see evidence of this throughout the Law, as time and again, laws were given to differentiate the Jews from other nations - they were to worship one God, not many. Other statements to the Jews include a couple from Deuteronomy... Deut 4:35, " You were shown these things so that you might know that the Lord is God; besides him there is no other." and Deut 32:39, "‘See now that I myself am he!
There is no god besides me."

It is true that a people believed in a whole pantheon of gods at that time, and would have had different concepts of them, and the Israelites would have been influenced by certain writing styles, like anthropomorphism, but that's not to say were polytheists, as there are many OT references that make it clear they were not.

moofy: Trinitarian Doctrine didn't come into existence until much later theologically. Also, the Doctrine of Original Sin within the context of Christianity didn't happen until much later on with Augustine of Hippo.

The responses I posted were from the same questions posited well over 1,000 years ago.

ghostgeek: Were Abraham and Moses real people? Was there ever a David or a Solomon? Clearly, the answer would be yes if you accept the word of the Old Testament. What though if you look outside of the Bible? If you do that you will find almost no reference to these figures. Did Joshua attack Jericho? The available archaeological evidence suggests that the city had been abandoned well before his time. Finally, what about the early Israelites themselves? Were they invaders, like the Bible says? Maybe not would seem to be the answer. It is now considered possible that they were part of the existing Canaanite population who, for some unknown reason, went their own way. It is therefore quite possible that the early Israelites held the same polytheistic beliefs as their Canaanite neighbours. The commonest distinct items discovered in excavations throughout Israel have been small clay figurines of large breasted women. No one is certain what they are but for many they suggest an Israelite fertility goddess. It is here that the link to Asherah comes in. She was a Canaanite fertility goddess and the consort of the chief god El. Maybe, for the early Israelites, she was also the consort of Yahweh. Two inscriptions have been found that seem to link Yahweh and Asherah. They say, in part, "Blessed by Yahweh and his Asherah." True, this is not a lot to go on, but surely it must raise doubts about the accuracy of the biblical narrative. Quite possibly, later Old Testament writers "adjusted" the earlier narrative to fit in with their evolving monotheistic beliefs.

ghostgeek: The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion
By James George Frazer

"The notion of a man-god, or of a human being endowed with divine or supernatural powers, belongs essentially to that earlier period of religious history in which gods and men are still viewed as beings of much the same order, and before they are divided by the impassable gulf which, to later thought, opens out between them. Strange, therefore, as may seem to us the idea of a god incarnate in human form, it has nothing very startling for early man, who sees in a man-god or a god-man only a higher degree of the same supernatural powers which he arrogates in perfect good faith to himself. Nor does he draw any very sharp distinction between a god and a powerful sorcerer. His gods are often merely invisible magicians who behind the veil of nature work the same sort of charms and incantations which the human magician works in a visible and bodily form among his fellows. And as the gods are commonly believed to exhibit themselves in the likeness of men to their worshippers..." (Chapter 7. Incarnate Human Gods.)

ghostgeek:

ghostgeek:

TheDoctor394: I always find it a bit puzzling when people say things like, "only the Bible speaks about that!", as if that means it could not possibly have happened. In regards to the Gospels, some people seem to be of the belief that, if there is no other mention of Jesus and things He did, then they never happened, since the Gospels can't count, because they're... well, they're the Bible, I suppose.

Just because a certain Biblical figure isn't mentioned outside the Bible does not necessarily mean he or she did not exist. Whatever we might think about the Old or New Testament, the fact remains they are historical documents, and need to be considered as seriously as any other historical documents, and I don't think there is an offical number where we have to reach before we accept that someone did or did not exist, or an event did or did not happen.

I confess to not being a great historian. In regards to suggested contradictory views on certain events, there's a limited amount of what I can say. I think the validity of the fall of Jericho has had varying views throughout the years, with some eras viewing it with more cynism than others, but I won't pretend to be an expert on this subject when I'm not. I hope to study such things in more detail someday but, for now, I simply cannot make much of a comment on these matters.

In regards to the Jews' polytheistic or monotheistic views, I probably did not express myself very well. Ideally, they were polytheistic, meaning that was what they were meant to be. That was God expected of them. But the Old Testament itself makes it clear that they did not always follow these commands, and it was a big reason why God sent prophets to warn them. Jeramiah 7:18 says, "The children gather wood, the fathers light the fire, and the women knead the dough and make cakes to offer to the Queen of Heaven. They pour out drink offerings to other gods to arouse my anger", while Jeremiah again alludes to the Queen of Heaven and the Jews' worship of her in chapter 44. It has been suggested that this god might be Asherah, but whether it was or not, the Bible does state that the Jews were indeed sometimes polytheistic. However, it also teaches that they were not meant to be - they were commanded to worship one God alone. In that respect, they were monotheistic.

ghostgeek: I am no historian myself so I rely upon the work of others. Up until recently I accepted the Biblical account where it refers to figures such as Moses and Solomon. Now, well, things seem much less certain. As the creation stories in the Bible are likely to be very old, I think it more than reasonable to assume that whoever compiled them had a different religious outlook to those we now term Jews. Monotheism as a doctine can only have evolved over a long period of time from something like polytheism. As you say, the Old Testament records plenty of instancies where the Israelites were castigated by the prophets for going back to the old gods. This makes me think, that in interpreting the story of Adam and Eve and the Serpent, one should see it in the context of some sort of polytheistic belief system. This is certainly my approach.

TheDoctor394: :-) Alright, that's fair enough, but my view is that "our image" is referring to the Trinity, not multiple gods.

TheDoctor394: There are various NT examples that could be given that support the doctrine of the Trinity (such as John 1). While it's true the word never appears in the Bible, the concept certainly does.

The New Testament writings in themselves testify to such beliefs in the early Christian church, but outside that, there is also evidence that they did exist. Certainly, the early church viewed Christ as God, so much so that some Jews as well as pagans accused them of having two gods. In the second and third centuries, such writers as Irenaeus and Tertullian attempted to offer an "economic" Trinity to try and explain it, meaning they spoke about the relations between Father, Son and Holy Spirit in terms of a divine "plan for the world", more than the internal life of God in eternity, but they remained attempts to explain an established belief.

It is true that Arius doubted the divinity of the Son around 318; he did that because of the Trinitarian view that was already part of the church for some time. This lead to the Arians, who fought against the view, and it was at the Council of Nicea in 325 where it was indeed "officially" confirmed. However, the belief was certainly around well before that.

TheDoctor394: Well, regardless of what the early church thought, looking at it in the context of the whole Bible, the "our image" reference in Genesis, I think, has to be a Trinitarian reference. That makes the most sense.