quote:
Adam and Eve were punished because they became autonomous.
True, and because they disobeyed the command of God. The diabolical stategy of Satan was to operate via the smartest, most intelligent/subtile of God's creatures, the serpent (imo, then dinosaurs, the pre-cursed serpents) to begile the woman, the more easily beguiled of the sexes, to eat of the fruit. After eating and enjoying the taste, the woman brought it to the man to taste and eat. The text does not specify as to whether the woman told the man where she got the fruit. If that was the case, he should've asked before eating. The apostle Paul gives this accout of the woman being deceived as one of the reasons for forbidding women to teach or exercise authority over the man in I Timothy 2:12, 13.
So the mysterious tree poses the question as to why God put it there in the first place if it was not to be allowed for food or another useful purpose. At best, we can only speculate on that one. The Bible mentions elsewhere the "mystery of iniquity." Is there a bigger picture in which this all is involved? The Bible tells of this struggle in the universe between good and evil. In Revelation chapter 12 a final war is waged in which Satan is cast to earth with his angels. Things get real bad on earth before Satan is chained in the "bottomless pit" for a millenium, ultimately ending up in the "lake of fire."
Is this tiny speck called planet earth that designated final battle ground for the demise of the enemy of the universe? Could this mysterious forbidden tree in in the garden have a higher purpose known only by God in this celestial warfare between good and evil? Are we like Job oblivious to the real reason we find ourselves and our world in such turmoil, that reason being a bigger celestial struggle involving the spiritual dimension? I don't know. Just thinking out loud.
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