In my Bible, this chapter is entitled "the fall of man." The fall is considered essential to the understanding of why God became the man Jesus and died on the cross, which was supposedly to reverse the effects of this so called fall. It is worth noting that this idea is not present in the book of Genesis, or in the entire Old Testament.
In verse 22, God says,"the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." Beside question of who the "us" is, notice he admits that the man is now like him, which is what he wanted to avoid. In order to keep the man from living forever, like him, he is banished from the garden. How is becoming like a god, a fall? Notice also that Eve is not said to have become like God.
Why should Adam and Eve have been punished? How would they have known that disobeying God was wrong, being as innocent as children. After all, they did not know good from evil till after they ate. Did not God have the power to keep them in that innocent state? Did he not plant the trees himself knowing what would happen? Well so far, Genesis has not claimed that God is omnicient or omnipotent. There are no real explanations available for God's actions here, only extra-biblical ones people have developed over time.
This story, and the ones that follow, appear to be etiological. In other words, they are myths developed to explain the natural world, why things and people are the way they are, and how civilization got to the point that the storytellers were at. Most civilizations around the world developed their own myths to explain their own existence.
None of that really matters, though. There was no historical Adam and Eve. The human race evolved gradually over time from ancient primates. Modern humans invented the concepts of good and evil, just like they invented gods. There was no fall. There is no need for a God to sacrifice himself to reverse its effects. We are responsible for the good and evil that exists in the world today and can not blame Adam, Eve, or the devil.
Edited.
In verse 22, God says,"the man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil." Beside question of who the "us" is, notice he admits that the man is now like him, which is what he wanted to avoid. In order to keep the man from living forever, like him, he is banished from the garden. How is becoming like a god, a fall? Notice also that Eve is not said to have become like God.
Why should Adam and Eve have been punished? How would they have known that disobeying God was wrong, being as innocent as children. After all, they did not know good from evil till after they ate. Did not God have the power to keep them in that innocent state? Did he not plant the trees himself knowing what would happen? Well so far, Genesis has not claimed that God is omnicient or omnipotent. There are no real explanations available for God's actions here, only extra-biblical ones people have developed over time.
This story, and the ones that follow, appear to be etiological. In other words, they are myths developed to explain the natural world, why things and people are the way they are, and how civilization got to the point that the storytellers were at. Most civilizations around the world developed their own myths to explain their own existence.
None of that really matters, though. There was no historical Adam and Eve. The human race evolved gradually over time from ancient primates. Modern humans invented the concepts of good and evil, just like they invented gods. There was no fall. There is no need for a God to sacrifice himself to reverse its effects. We are responsible for the good and evil that exists in the world today and can not blame Adam, Eve, or the devil.
Edited.
No comments:
Post a Comment