Hello again Jay.
Thank you for your prompt and thoughtful reply.
jaywill writes:
I was very careful to specify that this was only my speculative imagination. Do you recall me writing that?
I must confess that I sometimes miss your point. I am sure that a part of the difficulty for me is that you write so many arguments in a single post, coming at it from many different directions at once. Most of what you say is familiar to me given the years I spent in Bible College and the time I spent conducting worship services. Even so, you come up with a few thoughts which I haven't heard and these, I think, sometimes get lost in the landslide of
standard (i.e. 'pat') answers which you put forth. By
standard answers I mean those common to most, if not all, Christian apologists. These I have heard way too many times to want to read them all over again and so I tend to skip them while scanning for something unfamiliar; like your personally reasoned gems. Which, apparently, I sometimes overlook.
I personally do not expect ever to fully appreciate the impressions this story left on the minds of those ancient Jews who heard it read aloud in the original language, in their native tongue, during its first ever public presentation by the author.
However ...
I am equally convinced that I cannot entirely trust another man's opinion over my own prayerful meditation on what is being said and what it means. I'm sure you understand that I can no longer trust the opinionated pablum I was force-fed as a Seventh Day Adventist ministerial student. Yes?
You can be sure that I have re-examined and attempted to falsify all of the indoctrination I received as a member of
The One True Church. Believe me when I tell you that I do not automatically trust any new idea, no matter the source. I may be considered a skeptic now but there was a time, and still is, when I was, and am, skeptical of skepticism.
But I digress.
Now then ...
- If I warn you against eating a plant which will kill you inside a day ...
- If another guy tells you the plant isn't deadly but will make you wise ...
- If you eat the plant, get wise, and die of old age nine hundred years later ...
I think you get the point.
Plus:
If Adam was created with the intent that he should live forever, then why is there that
other tree in the garden? The Tree of Life. Eat from it and you will live forever. Why is it even in the Garden? Who is supposed to benefit from it? Why doesn't the serpent tempt them to eat
that fruit first? God takes them out of the garden so they can't get to the Tree of Life. Why not simply take the Tree of Life out of the garden?
Too many questions. Not enough answers. All my life I have heard silly speculations, none of them satisfying many of them mutually exclusive. What's a thinking man to do? Ask God? Do you imagine I haven't done so? Do you imagine I gave up easily? Seriously, I think it doesn't matter. My God isn't trapped inside an old Jewish legend. He's out and about and working on better books than this one. No offense. I simply don't believe what they told me in Sabbath School, or what they tell you in Sunday School, or what some cockamamie preacher imagines in his wildest dreams.
I have the book. I have my brain. I have your attention.
What more do I need?
In Closing ...
As to the last bit you wrote, regarding "spiritual death" I have one question.
Does this apply to
"The Resurrection?"
Theology is the science of Dominion.- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -