holmes responds to me:
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Whether or not the story in Genesis is supposed to be fiction or non-fiction, it needs to maintain internal consistency.
It does.
No, it doesn't.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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A story needs to maintain internal consistency or it becomes rambling.
If your problem is with consistency beyond the bounds of that specific tale, then what can I say?
No, the problem is with consistency within the confines of the tale, itself.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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Become rambling? The Bible IS rambling.
Then it is rambling literally from one sentence to the next. And if you look at the story of Noah, you find that it rambles even within a single sentence.
That's fine, but that doesn't get it off the hook.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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So god tried to kill Adam and failed? Or is it really the case that god made an empty threat...that god actively lied to Adam?
The fact that you asked this indicates you are not understanding me.
That's why I'm asking it.
You are claiming that Genesis 2 and 3 are an internally consistent story.
Well, it says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So how do we maintain consistency? God said Adam would die and he didn't. Why didn't he die? Was it because god was lying? Making an empty threat? Or is the story simply inconsistent?
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MY THEORY doesn't require an answer to any of the above.
Your claim is that the story is internally consistent.
That is shown to be false by inspection. It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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MY THEORY of what the allegorical tale might be--- based on OTHER SCHOLARLY THEORIES which state the Bible is a series of accumulated tales---
Irrelevant.
Whether or not the Bible was written by a single author or multiple authors, the story needs to be internally consistent.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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I offered the above explanations as something more literal interepreters might take his words to be and why they differed in how he used such words later on.
But every time those words are used, they are taken to mean a physical death and a literal, 24-hour day.
What's so special about this one time?
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Even if we assume that it's all metaphorical, that it's a discussion about the relationship between god and humans, the loss of innocence, and all that stuff you're talking about, the fact of the matter is that the story says Adam was supposed to die if he ate of the tree and he didn't.
You continue to impress your read onto my own. My read says nothing about the relationship between god and humans, or any real sense of innocence (except in an eastern sense).
Don't be disingenuous.
It doesn't matter one whit what the "point" of the story is. It could be a highly stylised recipe for chocolate chip cookies for all we know. The point remains that whatever it is, it needs to maintain consistency.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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Adam was told if he ate the fruit he would surely die. He sure as hell did according to the allegory.
No, he didn't.
He was told that if he ate the fruit, he would surely die
that very day. And not a spiritual death, either, but an honest-to-goodness physical death.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
Since the words used in the passage are used elsewhere in the Bible and are always used to mean a physical death, what's so special about this one time?
It's just like Genesis 19 and "bring them out so that we may know them." The word "yadda" is used hundreds of times elsewhere in the Bible in the exact same way as used in Genesis 19 and it never gets translated as meaning sex. So what on earth makes this one time so special?
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DEATH can mean an end to life as he knows it, or as it was supposed to be.
But that isn't what god said. He said Adam would die a
physical death. As Monty Python might say:
"'E's passed on! This human is no more! He has ceased to be! 'E's expired and gone to meet 'is maker! 'E's a stiff! Bereft of life, 'e rests in peace! If you hadn't nailed 'im to the perch 'e'd be pushing up the daisies! 'Is metabolic processes are now 'istory! 'E's off the twig! 'E's kicked the bucket, 'e's shuffled off 'is mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin' choir invisibile!! THIS IS AN EX-PERSON!!"
That didn't happen.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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Paradise was turned into hell for him as soon as he began to judge.
Irrelevant. God told Adam he would die a
physical death.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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When God found out he made it even more concrete.
Where? Where does god say, "And when I said that you would die a physical death, I really meant that you'd live for nearly another 1,000 years"?
You're absolutely right that god tells Adam that his punishment for eating of the Tree of Knowledge is expulsion from the garden, toil of the ground in order to feed himself and his family, etc., etc.
But that isn't what god said at the beginning. He originally told Adam that he would screw the pooch upon eating from the tree.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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Or in an allegorical sense some things flowed naturally from that act... a separation of people from happiness and greater pain in what is their natural condition.
But that isn't what god originally said.
Instead, it says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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Well, god has that knowledge. So by your logic, god can never be happy. God understands good and evil, thus god has no possibility for happiness.
This is proof you are refusing to read my posts.
Incorrect. It is proof of the exact opposite.
If you didn't mean what you wrote, then say something different.
Did you or did you not say:
Once they become "like Gods" they judge who they are and what he has done, and end any possibility for happiness.
How can this mean anything except a direct statement that knowledge of good and evil "ends any possibility for happiness"?
And since god has that knowledge, why doesn't it apply to god?
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I laid out quite plainly that while a GOD would have such knowledge, he also has ALL KNOWLEDGE and ALL POWER TO CHANGE THINGS.
What does this have to do with anything?
Besides, it contradicts the text of the Bible. The only thing separating Adam and Eve from being exactly like god is immortality to be gained from the Tree of Life. That's why god panics and kicks them out.
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In "eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge" humans gained only the ability to JUDGE.
So? The only thing left is immortality.
And even so, it is irrelevant to the original statement of god. He didn't say that if Adam ate from the tree, he'd become despondant over his ability to judge. He said he'd die.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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They gained no ability to know the workings of the world like WHY things have to be the way they are.
Yes, they did. That's what knowing good and evil is about. That was god's big mistake: He created a being with a will but an incapacity to understand why. If they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they would understand why.
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Thus their judgements will be made from very limited perspectives.
Then they wouldn't be as god.
But the Bible says they were as god.
So they had the same perspective. It's the only way to have knowledge of good and evil.
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It is more than simply "ignorance is bliss", but it's similar. Some things are better left unknown when it only raises more questions you'll never have answers to, and issues you'll never be able to affect.
But they had all the answers. They were as god. The only way to know good and evil is to have the full vision. Otherwise, you are only guessing.
And the text does not say that they would become capable of guessing. It says they would gain
knowledge.
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Your question that God would be unhappy in the longterm? Since he became enraged a little over a week into the creation of the world, then his first attempt to regain happiness was to drown all life, and his next attempt to regain happiness (as predicted in the Bible) will be to wipe out almost all life in order to start a new kingdom on earth, I'd say God has some longterm anger management issues.
So you're agreeing that it is impossible for god to be happy. After all, as you say, he has "all knowledge" and thus, he would know that Adam and Eve were destined to screw up, that he'd get pissed over it, etc.
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He says he is an angry and jealous God (oh yeah except those "consistent" parts which claim he isn't).
Irrelevant. We're not talking about those parts. We're only discussing Genesis 2-3 and whether or not there is internal consistency between god telling Adam he would die a physical death before the sun set on the day he ate from the Tree of Knowledge and the stubborn refusal of Adam to do just that.
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If so, then why the hell did he put the Tree of Knowledge in the garden where Adam and Eve could get at it?
It's a FREAKING ALLEGORY!!!!!
But it makes no sense! Even as an allegory, it is inconsistent.
It says that if Adam were to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, he would die a physical death before the sun set.
He didn't.
So either god lied or the story is inconsistent.
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This is like reading Aesop's fables and asking why a Fox wanted to eat grapes because no Fox would want that. It just doesn't make sense.
Incorrect. The fox talks, so why can't it want to eat grapes?
Problems in the story would be if we started off saying it was a fox trying to get at a bunch of grapes and by the time we got to the end of the story, we have the butterfly muttering that it didn't want the plums to begin with.
Excuse me? I thought we established that the main character was a fox who wanted grapes. What on earth is this butterfly and plum stuff?
I'm reminded of my reaction to the various
Nightmare on Elm Street movies. I always wondered what would happen if Freddy ever tried to enter one of my dreams because they never maintain any consistency for more than two seconds. For example, I had a dream where my college friends and I were going to go from our dorm to my friend's bank, so we took our bikes and drove down the driveway from my house in Las Vegas (weren't we at the dorm? And weren't we in California?) and walked up (weren't we on our bikes?) to my bank (weren't we going to my friend's bank) and then rode back (weren't we walking?) passing some oleander trees (they weren't there on the way up.) So I told my friends that those apples (weren't they oleander trees?) were delicious and we should pick some, so I went home and opened up the water softener and reached into the crisper of the refrigerator (wasn't it a water softener) to get a paper bag filled with cherries. I brought the plastic bag (wasn't it paper?) of plums (weren't they cherries?) back to my friends and we ate the grapes (weren't they plums?) in order to make room for the oranges (weren't they apples?) they were picking.
Even if we assign metaphorical meaning to the issue of picking fruit, the fact remains that there is no consistency in this narrative. Nothing remains stable from one moment to the next. If we're trying to say that the apples are symbolic of something, what use is that when there aren't any apples two seconds after we mention them? And it isn't like anything changed. When I came back to find them picking oranges, they had always been picking oranges. When I reached into the water softener, it had always been the refrigerator. When we left the dorms, we had always been at my old house in Vegas.
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But let's put that major point aside and let me turn it around on you, why on earth would he put the tree of knowledge in there anyway if he didn't want Adam or Eve to eat from it?
Dunno. The Bible doesn't say.
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And why did he make them capable of desiring or able to eat from it if in fact he did not want them to?
Dunno. The Bible doesn't say.
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THAT makes no sense either.
But it doesn't make sense because it doesn't say
anything about why those actions took place. Let's not equivocate on "makes no sense." There is a difference between wondering why god would do something that is seemingly cruel but not getting any information as to the motivation for that action and having a direct contradiction.
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The only one I can think of is it didn't happen. It's an allegory, a fable.
You mean "The Bible doesn't say" isn't good enough?
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Rrhain
WWJD? JWRTFM!
™ Version 4.2
