Is the story of Adam and Even real...or allegory?

Frank you are a Christian...

You just pretend to not be, so you can play the devil's advocate... I can and always have seen through you... Your protest of God seems to at times preach more God than my faith... Even non believers are willing to climb aboard your happy train... Twisted Evil

This is why I like you...

Yet even as a Christian your knowledge of the epistles of Paul are leaving much to be desired...

You may deny that you're a Christian and then start your rant about cartoons and barbarians... but you are still a Christian... You my friend are what we in the field call (and the Bible refers to) an "unbelieving believer"... They are caused by either lack of knowledge or wrong teaching... You suffer from a bit of both... But I can see you are born of God and you cannot fool a brother...

You claim to not know... Either you are fooling yourself or it is your own little secret... You have tunneled under ground with this secret and you burrow deep into your own enigmas in silence.

Get real... people would like/love you more... Smile

Get right with the God of the Bible...

Peace with God

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neologist wrote:

Does the term 'dead man walking' mean anything to you?

I'm tempted to say, no, because we don't have the death penalty, but the influence and/or knowledge of American culture is far more pervasive than some people are willing to admit.

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Adam and Eve lost their right to life on that very day. And, since a thousand years is as a day to God, they fell within that period of time as well.

BTW, the bible never mentions the end of the seventh creative day, does it?

Being sentenced to death, and being told that you will die that day, are two different things.

The words that God said are very clear. You will die the same day you eat the fruit. (And why on Earth do people think the forbidden fruit was an apple? I could have sworn that theologians had agreed that the fruit was a banana).

He didn't say, you will die spiritually. He didn't say, you will be condemned to death. He said, you will die. What's so hard to understand about that?

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Wolf,

One point is He did not say when they would die. He did not say you will die the second you eat the fruit. He said you will surely die, yes. He did not say you will physically die. He did not say you will spiritually die.

It just is not that black and white, as I think is very evident.

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

He didn't say, you will die spiritually. He didn't say, you will be condemned to death. He said, you will die. What's so hard to understand about that?

God did not say that they would die spiritually God left that up to Adam and Eve to decide what was more important their spiritual life or their physical life...

They did not die physically on that very day as God specifically warned so they must have died spiritually... They had this spirit (image of God) upon them with the condition that they not lean toward the understanding of their five senses over God's revelation...

But they "looked" and "saw" that it was good to "taste"...

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Momma Angel wrote:

Wolf,

One point is He did not say when they would die. He did not say you will die the second you eat the fruit. He said you will surely die, yes. He did not say you will physically die. He did not say you will spiritually die.

It just is not that black and white, as I think is very evident.

ACtually, no. Only in the New International Version does he say, "you will surely die".

In the other versions of the Bible, including the King James Version, which I find to be the most heavily quoted by American Christian fundamentalists, God clearly states "For in the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." He said you would die and he gave a time-span.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202:17;&version=31;45;9;48;15;

Even if he did mean spiritually, you know full well that they didn't die spiritually after eating the fruit. The only change that occurred was that they knew the difference between good and evil. If that is a spiritual death, then you are stating that God is spiritually dead.

However, when you tell someone that they are going to die, that means physically.

When a fundamentalist Christian told me I was going to Hell, I'm pretty sure they didn't mean it in the metaphorical sense. When a doctor tells a patient that they will die if they continue smoking or drinking or eating too much, I'm pretty sure they don't mean a spiritual death.

Does it matter if God is more concerned about our spirituality?

The fact of the matter is, the words he used, don't mean "you will die in a spiritual sense" and have never, in their history of use, ever meant anything other than, you will die a physical death.

Even Jesus was careful enough to make the distinction between spiritual and physical death in his preachings.

EDIT: I've just checked a few more versions:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%202:17;&version=49;77;16;74;65;

Notice the last one? In that one, God says you die instantly if you eat the fruit.

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Wolf,

I guess we will just have to agree to disagree on this issue because my view of it has not changed and I don't think yours has either. I appreciate the conversation.

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It's interesting to note that wandelw's statement about the paradoxes is true.

However, I think the most important question has yet to be answered.

What exactly *WAS* the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? (I'd also like to know the original Hebrew name for it).

I heard somewhere that it was supposed to be a banana.

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Wolf,

I don't think the fruit was ever named. I could be wrong but I really dont' think it was. I also do not believe that fruit exists today.

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Quote:

The Book of Enoch 31:4, purporting to be written by the antediluvian prophet Enoch, describes the tree of knowledge as follows:

"It was like a species of the tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!"

Jewish thought contains additional options. Rabbi Meir says: "The fruit of (the Tree of Knowledge of Good-and-Evil) was a grape..."; Rabbi Nechemia says: "It was a fig..."; Rabbi Yehuda says: "It was wheat..." Talmud, Brachot 40a.

Some commentators, then, hold that the fruit might have been a grape, and they suggest that Eve actually made, and drank, wine.

I hope God isn't really Dionysus in disguise. Dionysus was born twice... (technically like Christ), and I think he might have been crucified too. He was also mad.

Some people think the fruit might have been a fig, though, because Adam and Eve in the story used fig leaves to cover themselves.

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Ethno-botanists have proposed the iboga plant (Tabernanthe iboga) as the Tree of Knowledge. The ground up bark contains a dissociative substance, ibogaine, which has been traditionally used in Bwiti religious ceremony in Central Africa. Other hallucinogens, in particular the Fly agaric mushroom, have also been proposed as the Tree.

Christian sects like the Coptics of Jamaica, and other peoples of faith, especially the Rastafarians believe it to be the Marijuana plant.

All quotes taken from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Knowledge_of_Good_and_Evil

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Wolf_ODonnell wrote:

Quote:
The Book of Enoch 31:4, purporting to be written by the antediluvian prophet Enoch, describes the tree of knowledge as follows:

"It was like a species of the tamarind tree, bearing fruit which resembled grapes extremely fine; and its fragrance extended to a considerable distance. I exclaimed, How beautiful is this tree, and how delightful is its appearance!"

Jewish thought contains additional options. Rabbi Meir says: "The fruit of (the Tree of Knowledge of Good-and-Evil) was a grape..."; Rabbi Nechemia says: "It was a fig..."; Rabbi Yehuda says: "It was wheat..." Talmud, Brachot 40a.

Some commentators, then, hold that the fruit might have been a grape, and they suggest that Eve actually made, and drank, wine.

I hope God isn't really Dionysus in disguise. Dionysus was born twice... (technically like Christ), and I think he might have been crucified too. He was also mad.

Some people think the fruit might have been a fig, though, because Adam and Eve in the story used fig leaves to cover themselves.

Quote:
Ethno-botanists have proposed the iboga plant (Tabernanthe iboga) as the Tree of Knowledge. The ground up bark contains a dissociative substance, ibogaine, which has been traditionally used in Bwiti religious ceremony in Central Africa. Other hallucinogens, in particular the Fly agaric mushroom, have also been proposed as the Tree.

Christian sects like the Coptics of Jamaica, and other peoples of faith, especially the Rastafarians believe it to be the Marijuana plant.

All quotes taken from Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tree_of_Knowledge_of_Good_and_Evil

The fruit was from a tree of earthly knowledge that stood in contradiction to the revelation of God's heavenly knowledge.

God's revelation produces fruit too...

It was earthly knowledge that they ate and they produced the fruit thereof.