The First Questions In The Bible

According to the NKJV version of the Bible, these were the first questions ever asked in the Bible:1) (serpent asks Eve) Gen 3:1
"Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?"2)(God questions Adam and Eve) Gen 3:8-118 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"10 He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."11 And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"Is it significant that the serpent was allowed to ask the first question? Were we meant to question God from the very first day?In other words, was the entire scenario meant to happen?Faith/Belief

Many say that genesis is in fact, literal. Many others say that it is a literary parable. Lets assume, for the purpose of this discussion, that the story is a parable.....We are still left with God asking "Who told you you were naked?"Some would argue that humanity does not actually hear from God directly, but merely writes about what we think God may be saying.So when God asks this question, we have several possible answers:
1) He was getting them to admit that they listened to a snake (or to themselves)
2) He was implying that He certainly never told them they were naked.
3) (My interpretation) He was asking a deeper symbolic question (or rather the literature speaks to me this way) in that the question was basically this:Who told you you lacked anything?
Who told you that you were not covered?The symbolism of the story is, in my opinion, a loss of relationship.
Adam and Eve saw that they were naked because they initiated what was and is a prime characteristic of human behavior: They compared themselves to each other and to an arbitrary competitive construct in the human psyche.They ceased allowing God to tell them who they were.As a species, we have a unique obsession with continually comparing ourselves to each other and comparing others. We watch sports because we want to see one team be better than another team.We have reality shows that seek to crown the best bachelor. The longest survivor. The best chef.We rate ourselves endlessly, comparing ourselves against each other.I believe Gods question was to allow us to ask ourselves why we tell ourselves certain things.

Do you mean to suggest that God, Creator of all seen and unseen, has in reality never talked with Man? These so-called mythological stories are the only records we have where God talks with us.I realize that we cannot prove the stories to be true any more than I can prove to you that the aliens abducted me or that God talks to me occasionally through inner unction.To say that the myths are entirely human created negates the potential human opportunities to understand God. All we are left with is our vain and controversial attempts to understand ourselves.Its all a matter of belief, but I don't envision God as some Cosmic absentee Father who expects his young whippersnappers to grow up without Him having to show them any love.In conclusion, I would say that it is a bit of a stretch and quite bold (and even a wee bit arrogant) to assume that the Bible is entirely a work of fiction.There are some literary moments where human authors seek to explain and understand God as they know Him. It is vain to assert that nobody knows God, just because some of us don't.

Is not belief by definition a bare unsupported assertion?How do you test God?

PHAT: How do you test God?JAR: You test God against reason, logic and reality.PHAT: But arent those human constructs? How can you expect to put God in a box within the context of human wisdom?JAR: _______________________________________________

Man! Methinks that you think as you write! Let me ask you some questions, simply for the purpose of discussion.1)In order to be a Christian, must we accept the Bible as literally written?2) Were there no Bible, would it therefore be impossible for a person to get saved?3) If God foreknew how we humans would act and react, did He expect us to question Him or did He expect us to tow the line?4) Do you ever find yourself at odds with your logical mind versus what you have been taught to believe?

Interesting!
Here is my speculations on these symbolic stories.

IF God has ultimate foreknowledge, He surely would have known that there would be a talking snake and that Adam and Eve would ultimately have chosen the knowledge route.

If God has limited foreknowledge of potential human decisions not yet made, an argument known as Open Theism then it places responsibility for proper baehavior on all of humanity rather than on an Original Sin

Wikipedia writes:

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Judaism rejects the concept of the original sin altogether and stresses free will and men's responsibility of their actions rather than religious obedience or faith. Why, they ask, would God, who is, by dogma, universal unconditional Love, create sentient and sapient beings, then intentionally let them become corrupt”and then punish them from generation to generation with eternal torture for simply just being born in the world and for nothing else”and judge people not on their actions but by their faith or its lack”and then by whim save the beings from nothing else but from his very own wrath.

These doctrines and historic dogmas focus around the doctrines of faith alone and unmerited grace versus personal responsibility and human potential.

Just a short note:
I was always taught the dogma of the Holy Trinity: God, Jesus, and The Holy Spiritand then the unholy trinity:
Me, Myself, and I.The knowledge of good and evil would be the knowledge of self apart from God. True freewill would only happen once a choice became available.God know they were going to disobey and eat the fruit. The very definition of freewill in the context of alternatives to God means becoming like god.Its like Clint Eastwood said----I'm a Legend In My Own Mind! Human nature seeks to do things our own way. Its like Ringo says...we don't want blind obedience.The trick is wanting to obey once you see that you don't have to!

come to chat, if you are able...I'll be up for ten minutes