Adam & Logic, Genesis 1, 2, 3, CCC teachings

[fhansen]

Well, 1st, he wasn’t pope. 2nd he’s not speaking ex-cathedra. 3rd, we have no guarantee the Holy Spirit was protecting his translation from errors not related to teaching. His translation is “good” enough for the basic teachings necessary for salvation; but that doesn’t mean that alternate meanings weren’t omitted which were known in the “originals” or in other translations. The church has never definitively stated that God meant one and only one thing in every passage of the bible.

The existence of a translation which does not teach error doesn’t mean that translation has precedence over other languages which the bible was written in at the time Jesus walked the earth. Both Hebrew copes of the bible and the Greek Septuagint were always considered inspired by the church in a constant tradition from the time of Jesus. St. Paul even quotes variations only found in the Septuagint and no Hebrew variant, yet Paul still calls the quotes “scripture.” etc. although the Septuagint is a translation of early Hebrew.

I do not know the history of the Vulgate in any detail. I don’t know enough to make a judgment. I am merely intended to answer your question as to the origin of the word “wisdom” by pointing out that the NAB chooses to translate from the Hebrew, and that’s exactly where the idea of the word “wisdom” comes from.

I am unsure. The difference in translation of the Hebrew word for “wisdom” doesn’t seem to me as something which affects any church doctrine. Even if it was somehow “wrong”, I don’t see that it introduces an error in faith or morals. As I am not a Hebrew scholar, I am also unsure if the word might have multiple connotations that could have been translated multiple ways. That’s why I recommended checking the contexts in which the word is used to see if the typical lexicon definition is misleading. That does happen more often than I would like to admit.

I’m looking at the Septuagint.

The main ideas in the Greek is that (1) she recognized the tree (not the fruit) as a particular kind/species of tree which was “good” (eg: perhaps she ate from another tree of the same species, before.) (2) Then she notices that the tree itself was beautiful to the eyes / eg: healthy, well formed, shapely. (3) then she considers in her mind, not in her eyes or senses about the tree ( κατα-νοη-σαι ) I haven’t studied the final word in Greek, but it looks suspiciously like it might be a variation of “nous”, which is a kind of knowing; eg: not of sensing or seeing physically. I see most Greek translations say “contemplate” which also indicates use of the human intellect to consider or grasp the meaning of something. So I am pretty sure you are mistaken about the sensory part of the word’s meaning. It is assuredly going to be more about “wisdom” or mental intellectual grasping, than to merely “beholding”. kata-naous, would indicate something like “comparing against the intellect”, or “agreeing with the intellect.”

Where do you get the idea that it means to “behold” ?

I will spend a little time, perhaps Monday, seeing if I can figure out a more precise translation for the word. But as a cursory guess, read up on nous:
nous: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous

Yes, three is a significant number; but I’m not sure how it applies here.
What significance do you attach to the number three in this particular passage?

It might be significant as well to note that our wayward first couple had been told that knowledge, at least, would be imparted by the eating of the fruit.

 

[simpleas]

No, they can not be shown to be of each other at the time of the original sin. :dts:
The first woman was taken from the man, not the other way around.
He is the source of their flesh, she is not.
The revelation of the origins of man’s flesh is unpleasantly asymmetrical.
I intend no offense to women’s rights movements.

Once Adam and Eve began having sexual intercourse, and ONLY then, did Adam receive anything back from Eve. I will agree that a woman gives her flesh to a man in sexual intercourse today, and in light of 1Cor 7, what you are saying could be argued now; but it absolutely was NOT true at the time of the original sin.

In terms of the body, even, we can still scientifically identify that a normal/nominal woman is a subset of a man’s body and not the other way around. A man has a “part” which a woman does not; the Y chromosome. In revelation, the same symbol is revealed when woman is created; God takes part of the man (not all of him), and forms the woman. She is demonstrably (on average) a subset of his flesh, no matter how that historically/scientifically arose.

( That’s not to say there can’t be exceptions, or that Eve absolutely could not have been a genetic exception. There are even some good reasons to believe she had to be genetically diverse from Adam; but in our present day understanding of what makes a male and a female, the preponderance of evidence is that the bodies of men and women are in general asymmetrical in terms of genetics. Their way of approaching the word is affected by the Y chromosome or lack of it. Man and Woman are Equal, but physically different and complementary creatures. )

So they weren’t part of each other until they had sex?

Yes men and women are physically different and complement each other, spiritually I think they are equal.

 

[simpleas]

Ok, but then you have to be ready to answer the question, did they want to die? And, again, their brave new world, out of Eden, would be a rebellious one, in a state of separation from God. They and all humanity would know (by direct experience) both the good of God’s creation and the evil of sin intimately, continously, thereafter. We all share this knowledge. We all lack innocence, manifested by a certain age, universally.

Yes, but I can’t answer that question because it seems strange that they having knowledge of this consequence they would go ahead and eat. The only answers I’ve found is they wanted to be like God, they were prideful, yet they were supposed to be innocent.

If they were innocent and good, and had knowledge, they still needed to grow closer to God, they loved only God, they would not want to listen to lies, they had no need to be prideful as the only human creatures around.

Seems they were not innocent.

 

[fhansen]

Yes, but I can’t answer that question because it seems strange that they having knowledge of this consequence they would go ahead and eat. The only answers I’ve found is they wanted to be like God, they were prideful, yet they were supposed to be innocent.

If they were innocent and good, and had knowledge, they still needed to grow closer to God, they loved only God, they would not want to listen to lies, they had no need to be prideful as the only human creatures around.

Seems they were not innocent.

So, they weren’t God. As I mentioned before they were limited, they were creatures; their knowledge and wisdom were relative, not absolute, as God’s is. So apparently they needed to taste death, taste evil, in order, ultimately, to find out that God is trustworthy and true. The problem now is that they were lost. All humanity would depend on a Savior to rescue them from the pit of ignorance, darkness, sin, and death.

 

[Trevor_Dewey]

Translation

Re: Jerome Vulgate. The Masoretic text is not from when Jesus lived it was compiled between the 6th and 10th Centuries, the laws of probability say it should be as error ridden as any copied text, as such it should not be preferred over Jerome’s Vulgate simply because the one is Hebrew and the other Latin. We should expect roughly just as many errors to crept into its text (and potentially more, as during the period from 100AD-400AD a lot of deliberate messing around with texts was going on (at least on the Christian-Greek side of things, so I’m going to guess probably on the Jewish-Hebrew side of things as well) ).

In fact, given that we probably have more early copies of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate than early Hebrew copies of Old Testament books it’s easier for us to recover something closer to Jerome’s actual Vulgate of 400 AD than it would be to recover the Hebrew text as of 400 A.D. All of which is again to repeat that preferring a copy of the biblical text because it is in Hebrew, just because it is in Hebrew, without taking anything else into account isn’t a very good idea because it has lead to the problems with Genesis 3:6 and 3:15.

Where do you get the idea that it means to “behold” ?

Douay Rhimes Translation from Jerome Vulgate. Clementine and the Glossa Ordinaria read: “et pulchrum oculis, aspectuque delectabile.”

I will spend a little time, perhaps Monday, seeing if I can figure out a more precise translation for the word. But as a cursory guess (don’t quote me on it), I would read up on nous: nous: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nous

Yes, three is a significant number; but I’m not sure how it applies here.
What significance do you attach to the number three in this particular passage?

There is no reason to repeat, in three different ways, Eve “looked at the fruit and found it attractive”. I tend to look at it as an emphasis that our trusting our senses will lead us to unchasity which leads to disobedience, and specifically that of all your senses it is your eyes that can deceive you the most.

Or perhaps you can contrast Eve’s three looks at the Fruit in sin, with the three times Behold in Luke 1:31, 36, 38 is said to (or by) Mary, (Behold thy shall conceive, Behold thy cousin Elizabeth, Behold the handmaid of the Lord).

Or perhaps you can allegorically match it to Peter’s denials of Christ, Each time Eve looks at the fruit and finds it wanting she is preferring herself to God (and this denying God).

Must run, but good question, I’ll have to meditate on it more.

 

[simpleas]

So, they weren’t God. As I mentioned before they were limited, they were creatures; their knowledge and wisdom were relative, not absolute, as God’s is. So apparently they needed to taste death, taste evil, in order, ultimately, to find out that God is trustworthy and true. The problem now is that they were lost. All humanity would depend on a Savior to rescue them from the pit of ignorance, darkness, sin, and death.

I didn’t say they were God, I’m discussing what becoming like God meant.

Here is an interesting take for anyone interested, it’s not Catholic (still haven’t found a source yet)

From :

jtsa.edu/Conservative_Judaism/JTS_Torah_Commentary/Bereishit_5773.xml

The snake also knows “that as soon as you (Adam and Eve) eat of the fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil” (3:5), and the its words are confirmed by the narrator in 3:7: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened.” The snake’s words are also confirmed by God in 3:22: “And the Lord God said, ‘now the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’” One false hint we get that the snake might be evil comes in Eve’s claim to God that “The snake duped me, and I ate” (3:16), but of course she is trying to deflect blame for disobeying God from herself and onto the snake, so why should we believe her? Also, the snake’s opening question seems to be designed to deceive her—this doesn’t mean the snake is purely evil, but only that it’s capable of evil, just like Adam and Eve after they taste the fruit. The snake is morally complex, but not one-dimensional.

Adam and Eve do nothing wrong when they listen to the snake and disobey God by eating the fruit, since God’s command to them was an attempt to keep them in their place, to keep them basically the same as the animals but clearly distinct from God, thereby preserving God’s special status. Only after Adam and Eve eat from the tree are they capable of fear and deception. But they are also able to show initiative for the first time, and discover they can do things for themselves, such as make clothes (3:7). Before the snake enabled them to acquire the knowledge of good and evil, they just did what they were told; now they have something of God’s creativity in them.

Such powerful wisdom leads to a heightened ability to experience the pain of these evils, which is another way in which Adam and Eve become like God when they eat the fruit, since the God of the Bible experiences emotions on a grand scale. Only a few chapters later, the story of the Flood begins with the grief of God and his anger toward his own creatures: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man upon the earth and it grieved him to His heart . . . and God determined to make an end of all flesh” (Gen 6:6–7).

The verb translated “grieved” here (ayin/tzadi/bet) is exactly the same root used in the words for “pain” in the curses of Adam and Eve in chapter 3 (verses 16–17). This passage helps illustrate the point that God in the Bible is a God who is capable of suffering as men and women suffer. This seems to be what the Garden of Eden story is saying: the snake’s wisdom brought power into Creation, but with it came a heightened sensitivity to suffering. In this respect also we’re like God.

Thanks Fhansen for your conversation

 

[fhansen]

I didn’t say they were God, I’m discussing what becoming like God meant.

Here is an interesting take for anyone interested, it’s not Catholic (still haven’t found a source yet)

From :

jtsa.edu/Conservative_Judaism/JTS_Torah_Commentary/Bereishit_5773.xml

The snake also knows “that as soon as you (Adam and Eve) eat of the fruit your eyes will be opened and you will be like divine beings who know good and evil” (3:5), and the its words are confirmed by the narrator in 3:7: “Then the eyes of both of them were opened.” The snake’s words are also confirmed by God in 3:22: “And the Lord God said, ‘now the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil.’” One false hint we get that the snake might be evil comes in Eve’s claim to God that “The snake duped me, and I ate” (3:16), but of course she is trying to deflect blame for disobeying God from herself and onto the snake, so why should we believe her? Also, the snake’s opening question seems to be designed to deceive her—this doesn’t mean the snake is purely evil, but only that it’s capable of evil, just like Adam and Eve after they taste the fruit. The snake is morally complex, but not one-dimensional.

Adam and Eve do nothing wrong when they listen to the snake and disobey God by eating the fruit, since God’s command to them was an attempt to keep them in their place, to keep them basically the same as the animals but clearly distinct from God, thereby preserving God’s special status. Only after Adam and Eve eat from the tree are they capable of fear and deception. But they are also able to show initiative for the first time, and discover they can do things for themselves, such as make clothes (3:7). Before the snake enabled them to acquire the knowledge of good and evil, they just did what they were told; now they have something of God’s creativity in them.

Such powerful wisdom leads to a heightened ability to experience the pain of these evils, which is another way in which Adam and Eve become like God when they eat the fruit, since the God of the Bible experiences emotions on a grand scale. Only a few chapters later, the story of the Flood begins with the grief of God and his anger toward his own creatures: “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man upon the earth and it grieved him to His heart . . . and God determined to make an end of all flesh” (Gen 6:6–7).

The verb translated “grieved” here (ayin/tzadi/bet) is exactly the same root used in the words for “pain” in the curses of Adam and Eve in chapter 3 (verses 16–17). This passage helps illustrate the point that God in the Bible is a God who is capable of suffering as men and women suffer. This seems to be what the Garden of Eden story is saying: the snake’s wisdom brought power into Creation, but with it came a heightened sensitivity to suffering. In this respect also we’re like God.

Thanks Fhansen for your conversation

OK, but the above explanation doesn’t resonate well at all for me. God doesn’t need to protect His status, as if He had to keep something good away from them in order to do that. God is just the opposite-He’s humble, kind, and giving; He always wants the absolute best for man, while man may well foolishly shoot himself in the foot. God wanted man to be like Him, or more like Him, but according to His wisdom, obviously superior to man’s.

And I didn’t say that you said they were God. I said that they were *not *God in answer to your question about how they could sin, gifted as they were.

At any rate, knowing good and evil would only be a tiny fraction of what it means to be God-an unavoidable consequence of omniscience. The fullest expression of God would be to love; for man this means to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. To give and to know this love, to know God, is the ultimate perfection and happiness for man.

 

[Trevor_Dewey]

Adam and Eve do nothing wrong when they listen to the snake and disobey God by eating the fruit, since God’s command to them was an attempt to keep them in their place, to keep them basically the same as the animals but clearly distinct from God

This is flat wrong and basically a defense of the Serpent’s actions (i.e. a defense of evil) using the same argument as the Serpent.

I will add that a Catholic Hermetic view (reflected in an interesting way in C.S. Lewis’ The Magician’s Nephew with the two ways the magic apple is acquired from the middle of the garden towards the end of the story) is that at some point Adam and Eve could have eaten of the fruit if they had first asked God and then waited for His permission to eat the fruit. The problem wasn’t that eating fruit grants forbidden knowledge, it was that they took the fruit and ate it without permission and expressly contrary to God’s command, instead of asking. Thus the expulsion from the garden to prevent them from taking the fruit from the Tree of Life without permission. Under this view, God always intended for Adam and Eve to eat from both the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and from the Tree of Life, but at the right time and with His express permission.

 

[Trevor_Dewey]

Yes, three is a significant number; but I’m not sure how it applies here.
What significance do you attach to the number three in this particular passage?

My brief thoughts are as follows: as you know you can’t understand the Old Testament without the New. Genesis 3 is where we see a lot of prefiguration of Mary (e.g. 3:15).

This is how it looks to me, I wish I had more time today to research this further, but I have to get going on work due tomorrow, so my apologies for any errors.

Eve is “born” out of Adam (with God’s help)
Christ (2nd Adam) is “born” from Mary (2nd Eve) (through God’s power)

Eve beholds the fruit three time (saw tree, fruit fair to the eyes, delightful to behold)
Eve is cursed three times (serpent shall bite heel, conception shall be painful, subject to her husband). Alternatively, there are three major curses: Serpent, Women, Men.

Mary is told by Gabriel behold twice and the replies “Behold, the handmaiden of the Lord”. Alternatively, we can note three different beings tell Mary Behold: Gabriel, Elizabeth and Simeon.
Mary is given three blessings (Immaculate Conception, Conception of Jesus, Assumption) alternatively from Luke (Grace, Conception of Jesus, Knowledge of Jesus’ Greatness).

So again, I don’t think the “eating it for wisdom” makes as much sense as the original Jerome Vulgate with the three versions of “beholding” the fruit leading to disobedience contrasting with “Mary” beholding her destiny and freely submitting to God’s plan for her.

As I said, this was rather hurried, so perhaps I’ve made some glaring error in the analysis.

Best

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Re: Jerome Vulgate. The Masoretic text is not from when Jesus lived it was compiled between the 6th and 10th Centuries, the laws of probability say it should be as error ridden as any copied text, as such it should not be preferred over Jerome’s Vulgate simply because the one is Hebrew and the other Latin.

I will be the first to agree that it ought not, on the basis of being Hebrew, be preferred over the Latin. Reread what I said, as my point was not to prefer Hebrew but not to prefer any of them.

a lot of deliberate messing around with texts was going on (at least on the Christian-Greek side of things, so I’m going to guess probably on the Jewish-Hebrew side of things as well) ).

sigh Most of that “messing around” was merely grammatical polishing which had absolutely nothing to do with changing meanings. Those “messing around” were also restricted to specific churches, and are easily identified. I really don’t care if someone makes changes like “it was a tuesday night” or “It was an Tuesday Nite”; those kinds of changes are great for pompus scholars to get all angry about, but are totally irrelevant to meaning. I get very tired of “scholars” trying to make mountains out of mole hills out of ignorance.

In fact, given that we probably have more early copies of Jerome’s Latin Vulgate than early Hebrew copies of Old Testament books it’s easier for us to recover something closer to Jerome’s actual Vulgate of 400 AD than it would be to recover the Hebrew text as of 400 A.D.

I doubt that. Recovery is a subjective activity… and the people doing the recovery are often extremely proud. No offense, I’m just feeling very cynical at the moment…

There is no reason to repeat, in three different ways, Eve “looked at the fruit and found it attractive”. I tend to look at it as an emphasis that our trusting our senses will lead us to unchasity which leads to disobedience, and specifically that of all your senses it is your eyes that can deceive you the most.

Let’s speak a moment about the most common kinds of errors which happen when hand copying a bible or making a translation: Duplicating and eliding words are the most common errors. The person copying/translating has to focus their eyes back and forth between the original and the copy, and often their eyes either skip over a word, or jump back part or complete sentences. Hence, things from St. Elizabeth show up in some bibles right after “Hail Mary, full of Grace” said by Gabriel. I’m not bothered that duplication happens; sometimes it’s a happy accident and gets turned into a prayer.

But, here you are telling me that the passage in question has duplication of the same meaning more than once. Right away that’s a red flag that a copyist or translator likely made an error. Jerome sometimes translates a word one way, and in another passage will translate the exact same word a different way. I hardly find it surprising that if his eyes (or someone copying the original Vulgate) were to accidentally read the same word twice, in a moment of tiredness, that they might have used synonyms thinking they was reading Hebrew poetry. (But Hebrew poetry always uses doublets, never triplets.)

What I’m trying to point out to you is that two distinct witnesses, the Hebrew and the Greek Septuagint, indicate that an idea having to do with a mental process of some kind was the third thing in the sequence. That’s an alternate possibility of what God might have inspired Moses to talk about. Now, the LXX was owned by the church and the Hebrew was owned by Jewish priests. When enemies from totally different time periods agree that a text says the same basic thing, that’s a very strong indicator that it really did originally say what they agree it says.

I can believe enemies would change the meaning of a text where it suited a theological interpretation that they disagree on. But in this particular text, I don’t see how the word could possibly have been a point of contention. It doesn’t prove Christianity, or disprove any claims in the Jewish religion. As far as I can tell, it’s a neutral passage. Hence, the only motive I can think for changing it is either a translator wanting to make it more aesthetic in their personal taste, or a simply copying mistake due to damaged originals or tiredness.

You’re free to use the Latin Vulgate’s version in making an interpretation as one way God meant the passage. But please don’t deny the validity of the LXX (and agreeing Hebrew) based on some idea that the Latin Vulgate can be “reconstructed” better than the LXX can. The Catholic Church, in the East, before the schizims around a thousand years later… have always used the LXX (Septuagint) as an inspired text free from error. Those churches have never used the Latin Vulgate, and have never been condemned of heresy or error containing bibles by the Catholic Church. The Septuagint is every bit as valid as the Latin Vulgate.

 

[grannymh]

I think CCC#396 which I quoted in a previous post answers your question pretty well here. God created human beings in his own image and likeness which includes the power of free will. But, human beings are not free to the extent of complete moral independence by which they are not subject to God their creator. God alone is subject to no one. So, the CCC#396 says: man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. The prohibition of eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil symbolically represents the limits of man’s created freedom as the CCC#396 also says.

The comment in the New Jerusalem Bible on Genesis 3:22 says this: By constituting himself arbiter of what is good or evil, sinful man has usurped God’s prerogative.

The footnote in the same Bible on Genesis 2:17 (But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you are not to eat…) has this informative comment: This knowledge is a privilege which God reserves to himself and which man, by sinning, will usurp, 3:5, 22. Hence it does not mean omniscience which fallen creatures do not possess [nor is it possible for a creature]; nor is it moral discrimination, for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being. It is the power of deciding for himself what is good and what is evil and of acting accordingly, a claim to complete moral independence by which man refuses to recognize his status as a created being. The first sin was an attack on God’s sovereignty, a sin of pride. This rebellion is described in concrete terms as the transgression of an express command of God for which the text uses the image of a forbidden fruit.

I am grateful for this information. It makes sense, more common sense than I have seen. However, would you please explain this out of context bit? I am not sure what the “it” refers to.
“for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being.”

What do you think about this additional explanation for the Knowledge Tree? It seems some, not all, people get hung up on the word “knowledge” as if Adam were incomplete.

When we take the human words good and evil knowledge at face value, there can be no other knowledge for the human Adam to know. Good and evil encompass the two extremes for a true human which is Adam. (CCC 1730-1732) I am not talking about God eating the fruit. I am referring to the human creature created by God. The human creature, with the fully-complete human nature, which is who Adam is.

In a sense, “good and evil” would symbolically evoke the completeness of all human knowledge. That in itself would not necessarily tempt Adam because of his mastery of self. (CCC 377) It is an “outside” tempter (Genesis 3: 1) who proposes that Adam could be literally like a god. (Genesis 3: 1-6)

*CCC *396 gives the essential basic knowledge. CCC 397 presents the temptation. CCC 398 is Adam’s action. What is fascinating to me is the way CCC paragraphs work together. The words “creaturely status” in CCC 398 brings us back to *CCC *396.

 

[fhansen]

I am grateful for this information. It makes sense, more common sense than I have seen. However, would you please explain this out of context bit? I am not sure what the “it” refers to.
“for unfallen man already had it and God could not refuse it to a rational being.”

What do you think about this additional explanation for the Knowledge Tree? It seems some, not all, people get hung up on the word “knowledge” as if Adam were incomplete.

When we take the human words good and evil knowledge at face value, there can be no other knowledge for the human Adam to know. Good and evil encompass the two extremes for a true human which is Adam. (CCC 1730-1732) I am not talking about God eating the fruit. I am referring to the human creature created by God. The human creature, with the fully-complete human nature, which is who Adam is.

In a sense, “good and evil” would symbolically evoke the completeness of all human knowledge. That in itself would not necessarily tempt Adam because of his mastery of self. (CCC 377) It is an “outside” tempter (Genesis 3: 1) who proposes that Adam could be literally like a god. (Genesis 3: 1-6)

*CCC *396 gives the essential basic knowledge. CCC 397 presents the temptation. CCC 398 is Adam’s action. What is fascinating to me is the way CCC paragraphs work together. The words “creaturely status” in CCC 398 brings us back to *CCC *396.

If I may: “It” refers to “moral discrimination” which A&E had to begin with since God had implanted the natural law in their hearts. They already knew right from wrong; they just weren’t the ‘determiners’ of right and wrong which is God’s province alone.

 

[grannymh]

If I may: “It” refers to “moral discrimination” which A&E had to begin with since God had implanted the natural law in their hearts. They already knew right from wrong; they just weren’t the ‘determiners’ of right and wrong which is God’s province alone.

Thank you.
:doh2:

Moral norms are in the last line of* CCC* 396. Dang! My secret is discovered. Natural law is not my strong suit.

 

[simpleas]

OK, but the above explanation doesn’t resonate well at all for me. God doesn’t need to protect His status, as if He had to keep something good away from them in order to do that. God is just the opposite-He’s humble, kind, and giving; He always wants the absolute best for man, while man may well foolishly shoot himself in the foot. God wanted man to be like Him, or more like Him, but according to His wisdom, obviously superior to man’s.

And I didn’t say that you said they were God. I said that they were *not *God in answer to your question about how they could sin, gifted as they were.

At any rate, knowing good and evil would only be a tiny fraction of what it means to be God-an unavoidable consequence of omniscience. The fullest expression of God would be to love; for man this means to love God with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength and our neighbor as ourselves. To give and to know this love, to know God, is the ultimate perfection and happiness for man.

Thanks, yeah the link in post 102 does make God sound very human, which doesn’t relate to me. It was the only piece I could find that attempted to explain the line become like one of us.
I can accept that they became like God knowing good and evil, just unsure still as to what the author meant, IE, in terms of “head” knowledge and/or emotional knowledge, that would compare even the slightest to God.
I was thinking if this knowledge was a tiny source of Gods at the very beginning of mankind, in a way we are still growing, in that we are still learning about God, because we can’t know everything, but each generation/century changes and grows.

 

[fhansen]

Thanks, yeah the link in post 102 does make God sound very human, which doesn’t relate to me. It was the only piece I could find that attempted to explain the line become like one of us.
I can accept that they became like God knowing good and evil, just unsure still as to what the author meant, IE, in terms of “head” knowledge and/or emotional knowledge, that would compare even the slightest to God.
I was thinking if this knowledge was a tiny source of Gods at the very beginning of mankind, in a way we are still growing, in that we are still learning about God, because we can’t know everything, but each generation/century changes and grows.

IMO you’re looking to make this knowledge out to be a good thing-and I don’t think it was. It was not man’s place to have it even as God allowed him to reach for it. Again, no matter how we might want to specifically define the term, “knowledge of good and evil”, the only merit in having it is in our finding out that God was right in denying us the right* to* it. He had already destined man to an “ultimate perfection”, to a state of divinity, without the need for an act of disobedience.

 

[simpleas]

IMO you’re looking to make this knowledge out to be a good thing-and I don’t think it was. It was not man’s place to have it even as God allowed him to reach for it. Again, no matter how we might want to specifically define the term, “knowledge of good and evil”, the only merit in having it is in our finding out that God was right in denying us the right* to* it. He had already destined man to an “ultimate perfection”, to a state of divinity, without the need for an act of disobedience.

Not at all, I was more interested in discussing what it meant to become like God with this knowledge, which I think we have covered.
I can only understand what I experience of the world around me and my own life on this human journey toward God, which seems to be quite different to how the first humans experienced the world and their lives.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

So they weren’t part of each other until they had sex?

Yes men and women are physically different and complement each other, spiritually I think they are equal.

1st – They were asymmetrically, and incompletely part of each other before intercourse (sex is slang). But: They were always equal in dignity, both in body and soul.
2nd – Original sin is propagated via the flesh, NOT the soul.
3rd – Adam named her “woman” not because she was in perfect unity with him, but rather because she was “taken OUT” of her man. (separated/divided).

Please Note: Division or separation is a form of death or propagation; eg: in the first three days of creation, only the act of cutting/dividing which is not a direct creation but of multiplying places where “water” exists, only that divisive act did not receive God’s explicit blessing of being “good.” All other days of creation receive the explicit comment “God saw that it was Good.” But not the second day, which is the only day dealing with division and separation instead of formation.

6Then God said: Let there be a dome in the middle of the waters, to separate one body of water from the other. 7God made the dome,* and it separated the water below the dome from the water above the dome. And so it happened.d 8God called the dome “sky.” Evening came, and morning followed—the second day.

When God Created Eve, he put Adam into a deep sleep (eg: the sleep is a kind of death which will lead to new life); Then God cut Adam, separated a rib and some flesh, and made a woman out of a man.

The same image and pattern applies to the cross, where Jesus dies and from his side flows forth the substances needed to create a wife, the church, from his body. God put Jesus into a deep sleep in order to be able to form a wife from a death, which in some ways is “not good.”

Again, When God decided to make woman he said “it is NOT GOOD that man should be alone.”; God focuses on something being “not good” in creation; and notice how the passage on marriage says, “For this reason a man leaves his father and mother, and cleaves to his wife so that the two become one flesh.” which is the remedy to the division.

But what I am trying to get you to notice is that reproduction has a division step. Division is a point where the original life undergoes a loss/death/transformation in order than “another” may come into existence.

Poetically the point is made by Jesus himself: “Unless a grain of corn fall into the ground and die, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it will produce a rich harvest.”

This lack of perfect unity, or this becoming of “two” is part of why “woman” is taken out of man and given a name signifying the division or ejection from his body; but that is not the whole story, for after intercourse, the woman is renamed, “Eve.” She has indeed come back to her origin, her man, and become united with him again; she has also become the mother of “all” the living, and in truth she even donated herself back to Adam.

But there is a tension that exists before intercourse, where the first woman is independent of Adam to a certain degree. Consider: A person’s name signifies the power the caller of the name has over them. Adam called her first by a name signifying her removal from his body, a separation. Also, their spiritual union is clearly NOT perfect, and that’s why St. Paul witnesses that the “woman” was deceived but Adam was not. Hence, their souls did not perfectly communicate with each other. They were vulnerable to attack.

Consider, in church teaching today – a couple can be engaged to be married, but until they have joined sexually they are still free to separate. This is a mystery which I think also reflects back on Adam and Eve. God divided the man in order to create the woman, but until they were joined AGAIN by God in a new way – they were vulnerable.

Therefore, what God has joined let no man separate. Everything else is negotiable.

 

[Huiou_Theou]

I apologize that my writing is so difficult to follow. I find the task of translating the ideas in my mind into concise statements daunting. Being as I don’t have someone checking my English, discussing these points, etc. before I hastily write them for you; please bear with me patiently. I simply am not very good at condensing all the points down in a way that is easy to read.

 

[fhansen]

Not at all, I was more interested in discussing what it meant to become like God with this knowledge, which I think we have covered.
I can only understand what I experience of the world around me and my own life on this human journey toward God, which seems to be quite different to how the first humans experienced the world and their lives.

I see. IMO we might be able to see how the knowledge changed them by looking at their descendants-and considering how* innocence* might compare. For example, Adam & Eve didn’t even know they were naked before the Fall-but consider that their previous state was superior to ours. Their so-called knowledge may not have yielded much other than shame. But I don’t think their experience in general before the Fall was totally different from ours-we share a basic human nature in common at least.

 

[Trevor_Dewey]

You’re free to use the Latin Vulgate’s version in making an interpretation as one way God meant the passage. But please don’t deny the validity of the LXX (and agreeing Hebrew) based on some idea that the Latin Vulgate can be “reconstructed” better than the LXX can. The Catholic Church, in the East, before the schizims around a thousand years later… have always used the LXX (Septuagint) as an inspired text free from error. Those churches have never used the Latin Vulgate, and have never been condemned of heresy or error containing bibles by the Catholic Church. The Septuagint is every bit as valid as the Latin Vulgate.

In a rush, so apologies for brevity.

Septuagint is not every bit as valid as the Vulgate in the Catholic Church. The issue with the Jerome Vulgate is not that the relevant language is different from the Hebrew/LXX but that Jerome rejected the LXX and looked at the then existing pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts and at the then existing Greek texts (in the Hexapla) that derived from different non-LXX sources and gave us the reading that we have now. Of the three sources: St. Jerome’s, Masoretic and LXX, the only one I trust, and which the Council of Trent deemed authentic is St. Jerome’s. I can’t speak for why the Council said this, but I say it because St. Jerome had access to multiple sources we don’t have known in both Hebrew and Greek.

Best