The forbidden fruit

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The forbidden fruit

Why did God say not to eat from the tree of knowledge? Is it simply so they dont become like God (as the bible mentions)? If thats true then why?
 
The Bible’s Viewpoint

What Was the Original Sin?

WHAT was the original sin? “Sex,” many people will answer. They believe that the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden was a symbol of sexual relations and that Adam and Eve sinned by committing a sexual act.

The idea is not new. According to historian Elaine Pagels,*“the claim that Adam and Eve’s sin was to engage in sexual intercourse” was “common among such [second-century] Christian teachers as Tatian the Syrian, who taught that the fruit of the tree of knowledge conveyed carnal knowledge.” Also, to Christendom’s Church Father Augustine of the fifth century*C.E., sin had its beginnings in sexual desire on Adam’s part. In fact, Psychology Today said “Adam’s sin was carnal knowledge.”

Others have taken the position that the tree of knowledge of good and bad represented knowledge itself. The Encyclopædia Britannica asserts that the “knowledge of good and evil” was “a classic expression for all knowledge.” That would mean that God wanted Adam and Eve to be ignorant and that they rebelled against him by seeking to expand their knowledge.

Both interpretations certainly paint a picture of an unfair and capricious Creator. Why would he create man with both sexual and intellectual needs and then allow him no means of fulfilling those desires without incurring a death penalty? Who would feel drawn to love and serve such a God?

Was Sex the Original Sin?

Many do not know that both these interpretations flatly contradict the context of the Genesis account. Let’s consider first the idea that God’s prohibition in Eden was really one against sexual relations. The law in question is recorded at Genesis 2:16,*17: “From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction. But as for the tree of the knowledge of good and bad you must not eat from it, for in the day you eat from it you will positively die.”

Was that really a veiled reference to sex? Well, as recorded at Genesis 1:27,*28, God commanded the man and the woman to “be fruitful and become many and fill the earth.” How were Adam and Eve to obey that command without having sexual relations? Are we really to suppose that God gave them a command and then sentenced them to death for trying to obey it?

Besides, the Genesis account shows that Adam and Eve sinned separately, not simultaneously. Chapter 3, verse 6, makes it clear that Eve was seduced to eat of the fruit first and that “afterward she gave some also to her husband when with her and he began eating it.” So eating of the forbidden fruit would make an inept and farfetched symbol of sexual intercourse.

Was It Knowledge?

What about the claim that the forbidden fruit was a symbol of all knowledge? Actually, both Adam and Eve had already taken in plenty of knowledge before they disobeyed the law at Genesis 2:16,*17. Their Creator, Jehovah himself, was directly involved in their education. For instance, he brought all animals and birds to the man for him to name them. (Genesis 2:19,*20) No doubt Adam would have had to study each one carefully in order to give it an appropriate name. What an education in zoology! Eve, although created later, was also not ignorant. When questioned by the serpent, she showed that she had been educated in God’s law. She knew the difference between right and wrong, and she even knew the consequences of wrong actions.—Genesis 3:2,*3.

Interpretation of original sin as either sex or knowledge is just that—human interpretation, nothing more. Its weakness is shown up by the question of the faithful man Joseph: “Do not interpretations belong to God?” (Genesis 40:8) The Bible is much easier to understand when we do not impose human ideas on it but, rather, let it interpret itself. What, then, was the original sin? Well, the Genesis account gives us every reason to believe that the tree of knowledge of good and bad was an actual tree. We are told where it was in the garden, and it is spoken of in relation to the other trees. Its fruit was real, and Adam and Eve actually ate the fruit.

Was It Disobedience?

By eating of that fruit, what were they doing? The New Catholic Encyclopedia timidly suggests: “It could have been, simply, an open defiance of God, an insolent refusal to obey Him.” Is that not what Genesis clearly says? Romans 5:19 confirms the point: “By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners.” (The New Jerusalem Bible) The original sin was an act of disobedience.

While a sin of disobedience may seem simple on the surface, consider its profound implications. A footnote in The New Jerusalem Bible puts it this way: “It [the knowledge of good and bad] is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence .*.*. The first sin was an attack on God’s sovereignty.” Yes, “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad” symbolized God’s prerogative to set the standards for man as to what is approved or what is condemned. By refusing to obey God’s law, man was calling into question God’s very right to rule over him. Jehovah justly answered the challenge by allowing man to rule himself. Wouldn’t you agree that the results have been disastrous?—Deuteronomy 32:5; Ecclesiastes 8:9.

That is why the Bible’s theme, God’s Kingdom, brings so much hope. By means of that Kingdom, Jehovah promises to end oppressive man-rule soon and replace it with His rule—a government that will restore an earthly paradise—something Adam and Eve forfeited.—Psalm 37:29; Daniel 2:44.
 
Although it is an intriguing question, I don't think it really matters why God forbade them to eat of the tree. The point is that they were given a direct command, and they willingly chose to disobey that command. An equally intriguing question could be why did God put the tree there when He knew in His omniscience that they would disobey. Could it be that He was offering man the chance to make a choice? Possibly, in which case, man chose poorly.
 
Why did God say not to eat from the tree of knowledge? Is it simply so they dont become like God (as the bible mentions)? If thats true then why?

I'd just like to mention that if it were true that it would make them become like God, why didn't they become like God? That was just a lie Satan told Eve.
 
The Serpent is Prometheus, Loki, and Enki, while God is Zeus, Tyr/Odin, and Enlil, in the early Bible.

Enki was given dominion over Africa, while Enlil was given dominion over the Middle East - as a result, Semitic religions (i.e. Judaism, old Christianity, and Islam) all favour Enlil over Enki, while non-Semitic religions often favour Enki over Enlil.

Enki is the God who first helped to shape Man into what Man is today. Enki gave Man fire, the wheel, agriculture, civilisation, medicine, religious practice, writing and language, and many other things. Enlil is the God who seeks to keep Man in his place, subservient to God - he gave Man the deluge (Biblical Flood), the destruction of the first civilisation (Sodom and Gommorah, which actually ended up destroying the entirety of the Middle Eastern civilisations, excluding Babylon), the confusion of language, and so on. Enki and Enlil are eternally at war with each other, even though they are brothers.

The parralels to Greek mythology should be clear - Prometheus teaches Man to confuse Zeus as to which of the potential offerings has the most good meat in it; Prometheus teaches Man the secret of fire; Prometheus acts as a friend to Man. As a result, Zeus, the "King of the Gods", punishes Prometheus, the Elder and more ancient being. Exactly the same thing is happening in the Enki/Enlil story (Enki arrived on Earth before Enlil, but, because of his slow process in extracting gold from the Earth's crust for use by the Gods [this is never explained], Enlil was sent down to rule over the Earth instead, at a much later date). We can't be sure how the Norse saw Loki, for, although he is portrayed in the surviving literature as an enemy of the righteous Gods, we must understand that the surviving literature was written by Christians, not Pagans, and so is more likely to favour the "Gods" over the "Titans/Giants/Elders", as Odin/Tyr corresponds to God/Allah/YHVH. Loki is always the one who ends up helping the Gods out, in the end - for example, he tricks the Dwarves into creating Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer, one of the most powerful weapons of the Gods.

If we take the Sumerian myth and transpose it over the relevant bits of Genesis, we get a distinctly interesting view of Eden. Rather than the fabulous paradise created by God, E.DIN (the Sumerian name - Genesis, and the Bible in general, takes almost every single one of its stories from Sumerian myth, excluding the huge family trees, which are simply historical recordings) was a fertile land where Enlil took some of Enki's humans and put them to work planting the seeds of every tree and plant known to exist in the world. Enlil tells the humans that they may eat of every tree in the land, except for two - the "Tree of Life" and the "Tree of Knowledge". Enlil threatens Death to those who attempt to do so. Enki ("the Serpent", "the Adversary", "Shai'tan") comes along and tells his humans that this is, actually, a complete lie - Enlil doesn't have the power to kill the humans in such a way. He tells Man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge freely, without fear. Man does this, and Enlil is enraged at their disobedience - he throws Man out of E.DIN, sending them all back to Enki's land (where they came from originally, anyway).

And so you have it - our Biblical story of the Garden of Eden is a pro-Enlil rewrite of the original Sumerian myth of Enki's men being stolen by Enlil, to work for his benefit rather than Enki's. Given other descriptions of the differences between Enki and Enlil throughout the Sumerian histories, Enki was a far kinder and more caring "God" than Enlil - mainly because he was, in effect, the "father" of all humans, seeing as how he and his half-sister, Ninti, had taken the primitive Homo Erectus and worked some magic [i.e. genetically modified them] so that they evolved at an unnaturally fast rate, to become Homo Sapiens. This curious Sumerian myth actually explains the "missing link", and also explains how millions of years' worth of Evolution could happen in the 100,000 year period between the emergence of Homo Erectus and the supremacy of Homo Sapiens. For all you Atheists - basically, God did it!
 
The Serpent is Prometheus, Loki, and Enki, while God is Zeus, Tyr/Odin, and Enlil, in the early Bible.

Enki was given dominion over Africa, while Enlil was given dominion over the Middle East - as a result, Semitic religions (i.e. Judaism, old Christianity, and Islam) all favour Enlil over Enki, while non-Semitic religions often favour Enki over Enlil.

Enki is the God who first helped to shape Man into what Man is today. Enki gave Man fire, the wheel, agriculture, civilisation, medicine, religious practice, writing and language, and many other things. Enlil is the God who seeks to keep Man in his place, subservient to God - he gave Man the deluge (Biblical Flood), the destruction of the first civilisation (Sodom and Gommorah, which actually ended up destroying the entirety of the Middle Eastern civilisations, excluding Babylon), the confusion of language, and so on. Enki and Enlil are eternally at war with each other, even though they are brothers.

The parralels to Greek mythology should be clear - Prometheus teaches Man to confuse Zeus as to which of the potential offerings has the most good meat in it; Prometheus teaches Man the secret of fire; Prometheus acts as a friend to Man. As a result, Zeus, the "King of the Gods", punishes Prometheus, the Elder and more ancient being. Exactly the same thing is happening in the Enki/Enlil story (Enki arrived on Earth before Enlil, but, because of his slow process in extracting gold from the Earth's crust for use by the Gods [this is never explained], Enlil was sent down to rule over the Earth instead, at a much later date). We can't be sure how the Norse saw Loki, for, although he is portrayed in the surviving literature as an enemy of the righteous Gods, we must understand that the surviving literature was written by Christians, not Pagans, and so is more likely to favour the "Gods" over the "Titans/Giants/Elders", as Odin/Tyr corresponds to God/Allah/YHVH. Loki is always the one who ends up helping the Gods out, in the end - for example, he tricks the Dwarves into creating Mjolnir, Thor's Hammer, one of the most powerful weapons of the Gods.

If we take the Sumerian myth and transpose it over the relevant bits of Genesis, we get a distinctly interesting view of Eden. Rather than the fabulous paradise created by God, E.DIN (the Sumerian name - Genesis, and the Bible in general, takes almost every single one of its stories from Sumerian myth, excluding the huge family trees, which are simply historical recordings) was a fertile land where Enlil took some of Enki's humans and put them to work planting the seeds of every tree and plant known to exist in the world. Enlil tells the humans that they may eat of every tree in the land, except for two - the "Tree of Life" and the "Tree of Knowledge". Enlil threatens Death to those who attempt to do so. Enki ("the Serpent", "the Adversary", "Shai'tan") comes along and tells his humans that this is, actually, a complete lie - Enlil doesn't have the power to kill the humans in such a way. He tells Man to eat of the Tree of Knowledge freely, without fear. Man does this, and Enlil is enraged at their disobedience - he throws Man out of E.DIN, sending them all back to Enki's land (where they came from originally, anyway).

And so you have it - our Biblical story of the Garden of Eden is a pro-Enlil rewrite of the original Sumerian myth of Enki's men being stolen by Enlil, to work for his benefit rather than Enki's. Given other descriptions of the differences between Enki and Enlil throughout the Sumerian histories, Enki was a far kinder and more caring "God" than Enlil - mainly because he was, in effect, the "father" of all humans, seeing as how he and his half-sister, Ninti, had taken the primitive Homo Erectus and worked some magic [i.e. genetically modified them] so that they evolved at an unnaturally fast rate, to become Homo Sapiens. This curious Sumerian myth actually explains the "missing link", and also explains how millions of years' worth of Evolution could happen in the 100,000 year period between the emergence of Homo Erectus and the supremacy of Homo Sapiens. For all you Atheists - basically, God did it!
 
The above is a wisdom all discerning Christians should seek. When you look at the Sumerian 'myths' as fervently and honestly as Jesus would and did, the disconnects in the Old Testament fall away.

Enki and Enlil were half brothers, and their saga is repeated in most cultures and religions on Earth in different names with subtle cultural nuance but the same story.

Understanding their story doesn't diminish or make G-d abstract, it clarifies everything. Enki was the one that tipped Noah off to the coming deluge, Enlil was happy to let it wash away all of the homosapiens and start over to name just one example.

It's dangerous because Truth is hard to trust. But Enlil realized early on that a pound of PR is worth a ton of Truth and the story has been twisted and edited (The Synod at Nicaea 325AD) in favor of Enlil. If you ask yourself What would Jesus Do? In certain situations, try applying it to stories in the bible when that mighty entity acted like anything but Jesus.

My research into these origin tales that predate the bible by millennia have only made me more intrigued with Jesus and Enki and Shiva and Prometheus/Poseidon and others who are the perpetual archetype of mankind's champion.

Jesis said he is the myth made real and these are those myths.

We were fashioned by Enki to dig for gold and other tasks but while Enlil preferred us docile and worshipful and easily lead like so much cattle, our Fashioner, the clever Prince Enki had an epiphany of compassion for us, believed his creation deserved to have consciousness and a path to enlightenment. If you can challenge your mind and trust that your Lord allows for discerning wonder, you can grab onto that disconnect in logic and gut feeling posed in this thread's opening question.

And if you are not lost in the fog - the martrix that has been built by Vicars for centuries, you will realize the serpent is wise. The serpent is good. And our champion. The alternative is a souless existence unaware of our mortality and chance for everlasting life. If there is any mindset that can truly grasp this Truth, it is the Christian. The rebel soul that throws out moneychangers and faces down Cesar's lions. When you understand the Sumerian origin tales and the Book of Enoch and all the Apocrypha that was edited away in 325ad, suddenly the people who know only this version of the bible are like fans of the 1970s Hobbit cartoon who have no idea there is a Lord of the Rings trilogy.

There is no devil save our failure to question. And if you've read this far without dismissing me as a heathen or blasphemer you're either seeking s weakness to eviscerate my logic or you are awake. Fearless. Thus a true believer in Christ. For a pretender holds a shield. A believer, a sword. And I assert here as your fellow human an unending loyalty to our kind and our mission to usurp the Liar, Enlil with forgiveness first and a coup second.

If thousands of years of history were suddenly unveiled in the past 100 years that rebelled against everything the established religions had been telling us, what would Jesus do?
 
I'd just like to mention that if it were true that it would make them become like God, why didn't they become like God? That was just a lie Satan told Eve.

To become like God.....Knowing good and evil. God did not want to keep Adam and Eve ignorant as some say, who created them innocent, free from sin knowledge. They did not know what being evil meant. They had free will, but we're innocent minded like children, not knowing what it meant to be evil. They were created perfect in a perfect world. Sin was not a part of that world, until they disobeyed. Satan in his arrogance wanted to further challenge God, by destroying what God had created. He beguiled Eve, because she, being a woman was more susceptible to the influence of Satan. Satan used her to influence Adam. He reasoned with Eve.... because they had no understanding of dying. They had no knowledge of what death actually meant. Satan used this, to set in motion his plan to defy God through God's own creation. Their innocence of knowing what was evil. It is this direct disobedience that brought on the death of mankind. God's plan for man... was clearly stated. The consequence for for the act, was put in place, when God told them... not to eat of the trees fruit. The moment they disobeyed.... the consequence existed.
 
Eve was no more susceptible to the wiles of Satan than Adam was, and that holds true for both females and males of the human race.
 
The forbidden fruit

Why did God say not to eat from the tree of knowledge? Is it simply so they dont become like God (as the bible mentions)? If thats true then why?

How else could the Lord God test man's moral character to see if he would be obedient. They already knew what was good, and it would not be until after they became disobedient that they would know what was evil. Becoming "fearful" as fear hath "torment" was the first sign of spiritual death in after sinning. They were already created in the image of God, so to be like God would not have been the temptation, but being deceived that God alone by himself eats from this tree, and maybe God was hording this tree just for himself would cause Adam and Eve to do like wise. If it was good for God why not also good for us. The tree of the knowledge of good, and evil had no "poison" in it that would kill anyone it was just another tree in the garden that he picked out to test them in which God had already said after creating every thing that it was good. It was in their disobedience, and their own "conscience" that brought "condemnation", to them self's which Adam, and Eve never experienced before. Now they knew what was evil by their own actions. Sin brings forth death.

Eve's deception would have been....

Gen 3:4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die.
Gen 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

Wait a minute, If God knows good, and evil, that must mean God eats from this tree, and that is how he knows, so why not me and husband eat from it to?
 
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