How did Adam and Eve know good from evil?

This might be a silly speculation; nonetheless I want to ask what you guys think about these thoughts.In Genesis; when Adam and Eve eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge their eyes are open and they know good from evil, however, to me all of this seems kind of fishy in the first place.Adam and Eve did not know good from evil: right from wrong before they ate fruit from the tree of knowledge, but they were told not to eat from it, however; how should they know it was wrong to disobey the LORD God?To me it seems like we can ask the question "how did they know it was wrong/evil to (...) and eat the forbidden fruit?" forever. Looks like a Paradox to me.These speculations also started some thoughts on why gold is good, why it is bad to be naked (why should they be ashamed?) etc. but my question is:How did Adam and Eve know good from evil before they ate the fruit?I look forward to hearing from youHotjerEdited by hotjer, : grammar

Interesting answer.I wonder why it is not good for mankind to decide for themselves and be independent?Actually, this reminds me of one of my first microeconomic lectures: the assumption that people are rational.If we assume Adam and Eve are rational beings, they are able to fully understand the consequences for eating fruit of that specific tree. However, this assumption leads to another assumption; they must be all-knowing in regards of at least this specific issue. Before you can make a rational decision you must be able to understand how it is to live in Eden forever in peace and harmony or to die and everything else that follows afterwards.
This is only true if we assume pure rationality.
If this is not true, then they are irrational and will eventually decide to do something Stupid.
All of these are just thoughts and I could be more precise if I wanted to. However, I will be more precise if it is required, for explaining why there is no paradox.Anyways, Basically Adam and Eve and every Christian are expected to accept the absurdity of God’s will and nature? I know Sren Kierkegaard had that kind of view (more intellectual expressed than I do thou).

Personally, I do not think the bible make sense, I just wanted to know what people might think of my speculation, especially believers. However, thanks for your respond. I agree with your conclusion as I pointed out in the start of the respond.

I suspect you to assume that absence of God cause Chaos. I disagree with you; however, that is a whole other discussion. It does not matter whether we obey God or the spaghetti monster if you did assume that. I think we should focus more on some of the things we talked about just now. I look forward to see your responses from the other attendances.Regarding your second point; God could just destroy the tree and there would be no troubles. Anyways, I like this discussion to be about before Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the tree. Some disagree with you; what is your respond?

In view of Christianity Adam and Eve cannot sin by their own will. There must be externalities for Adam and Eve to lead them to sin — in this case the snake/devil. Jews would probably say they had it in them already since the devil is more like an inner thing human being have. It might still be called an externality though.
If above statement is, more or less, correct it is because of God’s creation of the snake that is the reason why Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the fruit. It is not like they wanted to sin, but it happened since they were nave and incapable to understand how badly their action would be. After all, they had no idea of right and wrong so how can God blame them?

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because up to that point, they had accepted Gods knowledge of right and wrong. God was the law maker, he was the one who decided what is good and bad and they were completely dependent on him. They were not independent prior therefore they did not think for themselves or decide for themselves....they relied completely on God for information.

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Hi again PegIn above quote you say God was the law maker and therefore you agree with the Divine Command Theory. Is that correct interpreted?If you in fact do so I believe you are familiar with the criticism of that theory. If that is not the case I recommend you to read up on it both for and against the theory. Personally, I believe it is a very interesting discussion. However, I also have an opinion in regard of this theory. The theory implies that humans are morally blind and need direct orders from God to know good from evil. However, Genesis 3:22 says: And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. I think it is very safe to assume that humans know what is good and bad since they have become like Gods. That is what the text says, but I am aware that you say humans create their own sets of moral standards, but that is in contradiction to the Divine Command Theory which you seem to agree with.I am not sure whether I have made myself clear enough, but I hope so. Of course I know that this is just my opinion, but that is no excuse to disagree; there are not many things that is not opinions, but opinions differs in whether they are informed opinions (build upon, many, arguments) or not.Furthermore, I would be very disappointed if morality was what God commanded. I want to be a good person by doing good action towards other people because I want to make people and myself of course, happy. I do not want to do it because someone commands me to do so or to acquire access to Heaven. If I am in a situation where a person is about to kill my fellow students, and I can stop it by killing him I would feel very bad to follow the Command not to kill just because God said so. If it just the command of God it seems like morality losses it meaning and is just more like obedience rather than goodness.I hope you can follow my thoughts.Edited by hotjer, : text structure

If morals are not independent of God, then morals are just meaningless expression of God? You probably heard the statement if God command that rape I moral, would you then do it or at least accept it as moral?. I know it is kind of rough and often used question to believers, but logically you should answer yes to that question since you believe morals are dependent of God. Otherwise you are inconsistent in your opinion and therefore irrational. I am not saying it is a bad thing to say yes and be irrational; I simply want to know what your opinion is and how you interpret my first question, since I am still a little confused about your argument.I have a little question: can you imaging the world without god to explain morals?I know my questions now leads to a discussion on morality instead of how Adam and Eve could differentiate between right and wrong, but I think it is important to talk about morals separated from my other question now.You say of course there are consequences. If we use my previous example; should I face the consequence of eternal damnation? I know it is extreme to use only one action to determine my fate, but I think the assumption is useful to come to a correct result. Furthermore, the situation is possible in the real world and not just in a model.

I think it is different whether we use moral standard on our selves or on other, so no, I will not say they are meaningless. They might be counter-productive in some manners but they are not meaningless. The circumstance here is God commands us to obey morals that essentially are meaningless expressions of God.I still like to hear your thoughts on this and not just a question. When I ask a question, it should not matter whether I know the answer or not for you to answer the question or at least express your opinion.Regarding morals and animals:
Environment - The Telegraph
Page not found | The Chicago Blog
Just to point out to links. Animals do have morals. If we for a moment accept our intuition; think about a dog and how it cares about its owner’.Before I answer; it is not a trick question to make you judge me — a sin in Christianity. The question is only hypothetically. I would like to hear your answer to this.
It does not matter what I rather want; I want to know the truth whether it is god that condemns me or not or no god and all other possibilities. I cannot see this as a proper answer to my question. I will claim it is more rational to ask the question what would you prefer; die now or live forever.

So let us go back to the question:" if God commands X is moral, therefore it is moral" where X can be anything, e.g. rape. The point is: it is just expressions of God and not necessarily beneficial or whatever you might consider attributes of morals.You say creatures now. So do you think animals have morals now and it is consistent with the bible? Afterall, the bible says animals have no souls. Why would he create them with moral standards; where can you find anything about that in the bible?I want you to answer the first question - should God condemn me of I murder a man who is about to murder my fellow students?Regarding my last question "die now or live forever"; it was not an important question in this context, but when I said die I mean like vanish and forever like forever in this universe (not heaven). My question purpose was to illustrate that I think your question was kind of extreme.Anyways, I feel like you start to avoid explaining what your evidences are. We can stop the discussion if you want. After all, I just want to acquire some knowledge, and if you do not bother help me with that then it is okay, no hard feelings.EDIT: I saw your answer to animal-stuff now.
The researches on this subject do not support your belief on this matter, just to state the consensus. Animals can choose who they like, who they want to help — of course this depend on how intelligent the animals are. What about an animal such as dolphins? Is that just instincts?Edited by hotjer, : No reason given.

What about Genesis 9:4
But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.As far as I know the word "life" is translated from a word meaning soul - do not eat flesh with soul. If animals have souls we may not eat them... I might be wrong about the translation, but it seems pretty obvious to me. Furthermore, I hardly believe animals have a concept of God.You say God's morals are for the benefit of others, but we do not need God to explain that......Argh, I am to sleepy now, I write back later xD

I am probably a little off-rail since I was damn sleepy. But my thoughts were just on animals and morals. Your opinion just seems to be in contradiction with many other Christian I have encountered. I am pretty sure if you look at the Hebrew the words life and soul does not originate from the same word and therefore they are not souls as human souls. Furthermore, consensus about the interpretation of G9:4 nowadays is not that you must not eat blood but more like do not shed blood — on flesh with soul (humans). I might have misunderstood you, but it seems like you do not agree with on this. One of the reasons why it seems unlikely that the command in G9:4 should be about do not eat blood/living things is that the bible do not really contain any eating rules — compared to Judaism and Islam. I ask these things just to clarify your points so I can asses your argumentation. Might be a little jumpy and complex.And to be a bit jumpy:
I just read an answer to another person about the subject in similar manners:
Or one can assume (which I do) that to "know good and evil" is a Hebrew expression for obtaining active sexuality, just as the word "know" of course can mean "to have sex with." It can be seen already in 1 Genesis 4.1, where Adam, just after the human pair have been shown away from the garden, immediately have sex with Eve.
Hans Jrgen Lundager Jensen, professor in Religion.What do you think of this interpretation? I personally think it is a very likely explanation, however, then my question about how they knew good from evil to be about sex and we both are wrong it seems like xD

Okay, I had a misunderstanding about the soul in the bible. Problem solved.About the sex stuff: H. Jrgen does not say they have sex in the garden but after. Obtaining active sexuality does not mean to have sex (the translation from Danish to English might be wrong if you understood it as to have sex).But why should the Adam and Eve story not be about sex? We talk about nakedness and the Hebrew word can contain that meaning as he explains. I can easily see it as that.It also sounds kinda intuitive correct since you become more independent after you "obtain active sexuality" (puberty) and indeed you are very likely to do stuff you are not suppose to do compared to the norms.This would explain the paradox.

But why do they have a problem with nakedness? Well, probably because of sexual thoughts that they never had before. If we assume that "good from evil" is to obtain active sexuality it is not about right or wrong anymore since we just interpreted that as OAS.I am against the idea that they have "indecent" thouhgts about sex - though I understand what you mean (I think the word indecent is misleading). Children and people do in general have a positive view on their sexual organs.I think your last statement is wrong (the rejection). You say they obtained active sexuality because they rejected god and it was not that caused them to reject him. However, he wanted them to populate the Garden/earth and for that... you need to have obtained active sexuality.

This is what I have come to think now:Genesis 1:28
And 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.andGenesis 2:24
For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
This implies the need of sexual intercourses (reproduction).Genesis 2:25
The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
As the bible states: they do not feel shame about their sexual organs. Their view resembles a childlike innocence.Genesis 3:6
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
Here we have the action. Eve is tempted by the snake and she eats of the forbidden tree. Empirical evidence show that girls come into puberty before boys. If this is indeed the step into puberty, it makes sense and we do not need to make a lot of assumptions to explain what is happening.Genesis 3:7
And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
And now they feel shame — they have gained some sort of knowledge about their sexuality now. I think we can easily assume this is some sort of sexual tension between Adam and Eve — what else should it be? I believe the bible should be taken very literal here (except for the talking snake, burning swords etc.).Genesis 3:16
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
Now we are sure; Eve is indeed in puberty — and therefore I think we can easily assume Adam is also. Coincidentally, now she is able to reproduce, just as God spoke about in Genesis 2:24. It seems rather suspicious to me, that she came into puberty when she first sinned — and in the same time obtained the ability to give birth.Genesis 3:22
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:
good in good and evil can translated as physical good. Previous to the process good is very likely linked to their new obtained sexuality — and with evil as you said: sex can used to do bad stuff. They now good from evil: they can populate the earth or misuse their sexuality. As a side note/thought we could think of become as one of us meaning that Adam and Eve now could procreate just like the lord. That would be very consistent with the bible so far.
This is in agreement with Hans Jrgen, who is a professor in Religion and one of his specializations are the Old Testament. Of course this does not proof he is right, but with this explanation we do not need big assumptions to explain Genesis (Occam’s Razor).Genesis 4:1
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
I guess there is no doubt here: she had sex with Adam, unless we assume she had sex with the devil — which some believe, but we do not assume that here, and gave birth to Cain.
Before the Genesis was written by humans, the snake has been a symbol for fertility for a long time in a lot of different cultures. Just do a search and you will find information about that. I mention this because that historical information makes this explanation more likely. Furthermore, the apple has been associated with female sexuality, e.g. resembling breasts or with a woman’s vulva. It is kind of a funny coincidence to find the apple and snake in the same story. I think we need to make crucial assumptions to interpret the story wholly differently.Conclusion:
I do not think "sex in the context of the genesis account is going to be speculative".

I think I have reached my goal now.In response to evil — more specific paedophilia - regarding sex I like to show you this passage:Exodus 21:7-11
"7 "If a man sells his daughter as a servant, she is not to go free as menservants do. 8 If she does not please the master who has selected her for himself, he must let her be redeemed. He has no right to sell her to foreigners, because he has broken faith with her. 9 If he selects her for his son, he must grant her the rights of a daughter. 10 If he marries another woman, he must not deprive the first one of her food, clothing and marital rights. 11 If he does not provide her with these three things, she is to go free, without any payment of money.The Bible explicitly talks about sexual relationships between children and adults. Enyoj God's morality!Edited by hotjer, : No reason given.