Question about Eve's knowledge of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

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This has nothing to do with evolution. This is neither in support of it, nor against it. It is simply a conclusion based on a misunderstanding and streching the text to mean what you want it to mean.

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Its not a misunderstanding or stretching. Anyone can interpret the bible in any way they want. It's not like one interpretation is correct. It's the bible its not fact or science.

of course there's logic to the bible! it wasn't written by mental patients (coughcough).the problem is that genesis, exodus, and numbers is one anthology, composed of (at least) three separate sources which have been inter-spliced into chronological order, and then re-cut onto three scrolls.the separations between these stories seem to have been lost, but textual clues make them pretty obvious in some cases. much of the divisions seem to have been lost because of the tradition of writing the torah as one continuous word -- originally, there was no punctuation, or spaces between words. it's not a mark of not being logical, it's just the way people wrote at the time.things like verse numbering and chapter headings were added later. some rudimentary chapter headings seem to exist in the originals, even (psalms likes to credit who wrote the psalms -- these were obviously not part of the original). so argue this is the work of p, or even ezra. order, yes, but most literalists/fundamentalists/whatever recognize that they are two independent stories, although maintaining that they do not contradict, and that one elaborates on the other.the division in good modern bibles happens between the first and second half of genesis 2:4. in the kjv, this is one sentance.genesis 1:1 - 2:4 focuses on the creation of the world and everything in it. genesis 2:4 - 3 focuses on the first man, and the garden. they are certainly not the same train of thought, though both contain many of the same ideas.

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and it's also not like every interpretation is neccessarily correct, either.

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Actually I am sure that anyone who lived 2000 years ago who claimed to have contacted god would be considered a mental patient in todays times.I have a friend who claimed to have been a prophet at one point in his life, saying he had been contacted by god and told this. He was sent to the psych ward for a few months.The majority of people who claim to have directly contacted god in todays world are deemed crazy.This message has been edited by carini, 03-29-2006 07:19 PM

and yet, the person we put in charge of this country talks to god too.people who claim to talk to god because they're interested in power are generally quite sane. it turns out to be a pretty good technique, actually.

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Please allow me to correct this minor misconception. According to the Bible, God is quite capable of interacting with humans on a regular basis. In fact, the very chapters of Genesis which you have brought into question refer to God walking in the garden of Eden (Gen 3:8). The Bible even admits that it is not an exhaustive record of God's dealings with His creation (John 21:25). Therefore it is very probable that God simply expects man to use the brain He gave him, and deduce from the text that if Eve knew what God had said, then she either heard it from her husband as he repeated for her his conversation with God, or she heard it from God Himself in one of her own conversations with Him. Did you know that God intended for the Bible to be taught and memorized? There are many passages which teach this (Deut 6:4-9, Josh 1:8, Job 22:22, Psalm 37:31, Psalm 119:9-11, etc.). In order to facilitate this memorization of His Word, God included certain memory aids in the text. For example, in Psalm 119 each of the first 8 verses begins with the Hebrew letter aleph. The next 8 verses each begin with the letter beth. This pattern is kept through the entire Psalm so that it was very easy for the Jews to memorize.There are many of these memory aids used all throughout the Bible, but one of the most common one is found here in Genesis 1-3. In these chapters we see a pattern of introduction (Gen 1:1), content (Gen 1:2-1:31), conclusion (Gen 2:1-2:3), introduction (Gen 2:4-15) {Gen 2:4-7 is a review used as part of the introduction for this chapter}, content (Gen 2:16-24), conclusion (Gen 2:25), introduction (Gen 3:1a), content (Gen 3:1b-19), conclusion (Gen 3:20-24).Any teacher would recognize this pattern as a classic means of teaching with lectures. Such a pattern fits perfectly with God's command to the Children of Israel that they teach these things to their children (Deut 6:4-9). The Bible is not a reference work; it is a text book, and when viewed as such its structure makes perfect sense. Actually, the Bible never states that Adam and Eve gained a knowledge of good and evil by eating from the tree. The only knowledge that they gained from their experience was a knowledge of their nakedness (Gen 3:7). It is my personal opinion that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was so called because its very presence gave Adam and Eve a knowledge of good and evil. To obey God and not eat of this tree was good, but to disobey God and eat of the tree was evil. There was no need for the fruit of the tree impart some mystical ability. That was just a lie told by the serpent. Adam and Eve already knew the difference between good and evil. Good is to obey God; evil is to disobey God. This is the same definition for good and evil that God uses today (Mal 3:6). Those that obey Him are doing that which is good, and those who disobey Him are doing evil.

And Adam told Eve. Simple as that. In fact, it is so easily not a discrepancy whatsoever, the fact you seem to think it suggests something about your reasoning process.

How do you know Adam told her?Isn't it equally possible that God told her?Brian.

God DID, but it really doesn't matter. What matters is that we know someone did. She knows she shouldn't do it, so someone must have told her.Johny is walking home from school with his friends. They want to stop and grab some ice cream. Johny says "I can't stop on the way home; that's what my mother told me."We don't need a sentence at the beginning saying: Johny's mom told him not to stop on the way home.Eve says:

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Gen 3:3 -- ... God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

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It's pretty obvious that God told both of them together. God wouldn't have use "ye" to refer to just Adam. He only would use it to refer to both of them. God was talking to both of them, and Eve received her instruction directly from Him. Also, there is a little bit added here, because previously it says nothing about touching the fruit.Eve said God said it; that means she knew one way or the other. End of story.Jon

On the off chance that you are not yet clear on this:In ancient times there were no breaks between words, sentences, or paragraphs. There was no capitalization of letters. There were no periods, commas, quotation marks, question marks, colons, semicolons, ... you know; nothing but letters strung together. This may make it difficult for moderns to read but things are still done that way in military orders. (last time I checked)Perhaps because writing materials were expensive (and they were); Perhaps because scribes were expensive (and they were); or perhaps because writing had not evolved very far (which it hadn't); the older the manuscript the more primitive the format; if you can even call that format.I don't believe we can invalidate the text based on the difficulties encountered in decoding it. In many ways it is not much worse than reading instruction manuals written by foreigners who mistakenly believe they have mastered Engrish.The anthology has provided many people with a lifetime of entertainment value. Especially, perhaps, those of us who participate in this forum as if we didn't have a life outside the arguments which rage herein.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

Here is my opinion, I'm not sure if it has ever been thought of before, but when I first heard about the "Two creation stories" from Penn & Teller, this is what I concluded.3And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.^Here, God creates light^14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
15And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
18And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.^Here, God utilizes the light^ Now.. back to the Adam and Even Creation.26And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
27So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.
28And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.^Here, God has created man^ He has thought man up, he hasn't formed man from the ground yet.7And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
8And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.^This is where God "Forms" man^ In fact two different words are used,
"created" and "formed"This seems logical to me, I used to do computer programming. in C++ you often have to create something before you use it, such as a class or a structure. Maybe thats why it makes sense to me.I was using the King James Bible, if you are curious.

We have a whole topic on that.Strictly speaking, this topic is not about the two creation stories. It's about whether or not Eve knew she was forbidden to eat the fruit.You can use the "Peek" button in the lower right-hand corner of each post to find out how quote boxes, etc. are done.Welcome to EvC. Fasten your seat belt.

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