Not to puff you up, but you are just a wealth of kowledge ^_^. Of the threads I’ve been a part of, I can honestly say that this has been my favorite thread thus far. (Possibly because most other threads develop into intense debates. I love debating, but sometimes a good layed-back discussion is just… better.)
Not precisely lust – no. I’m perhaps reading into it the view that the popes have articulated in the past. “Lust” and “Domination” being the things that marriage is marred by since the fall. When a man see’s a naked woman, there is a reaction which he often can not control. There is (of course) a variation in the intensity, and there are eunuchs by birth (so to speak).
But loosely speaking, this is the feeling of lust – if not the act of it.
I think that is quite insightful. I’ll keep this in mind.
Adam and Eve were trying to repent, in a sense, of the Evil which they brought on themselves. Their bodies no longer appeared to be fully under their control.
Fig leaves aren’t supposed to be comfortable… A bit of penance, perhaps?
I think this is a wonderful and insightful observation, but there is still something that makes it problematic for me. If the leaves were put on for repentance, why did neither of them repent when God confronted them. There was no apology, only blame. I guess I just don’t know how Adam and Eve’s dialogue with God matches repentance if that’s what they intended by being covered in fig leaves. Or maybe the fig leaves were to represent repentance in that they were repentant to eat the fruit, but did not want to receive responsibility or punishment for their actions?
Not a strong thought, but also a complex one I’ll work out: “bear” with me.
The scripture reads: “he has become like one of us”; so, which one? Even the devil, a fallen angel, is a son of God – and is “one” of us. (The so called divine assembly).
I am fond of this observation.
It is also said, later in scripture – (paraph) “He was a murderer from the beginning (Genesis/Beresheit?)” Note: Beginning is also the letter “Aleph” or “el” in English, which means 1st; Ancient languages enumerated by letters, before they enumerated by numbers. Eg: Genesis is Book “A”.
This letter A/aleph is so loaded, it is found in “alpha and Omega” or “aleph and Tav”; A is also a letter of usage, eg: “The” first definite article.
Consider, examples from Scripture: God is called Aleph shaddai or (el)Shaddai “The almighty” or “First almighty”; whence also comes “beth-Aleph”/“beth(el)” “THE-house” or “house of God.”
When it is said – “murderer from the beginning”; it does mean Genesis, but it also implies “from God.”. I’ll leave the letter at that… but comment on its potential:
I think this is great stuff. I had a friend from the D.R. who told me an insight he had. God is the beginning in the end. God- Through Him and in Him all things consist. In Him. When my friend, Billy, read “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” he remarked that this could be rephrased to say “In God, God created the heavens and the earth.” I only bring it up because I think it compliments what you’ve posted above. I think my caution would be that B’resheit does not literally mean “In the beginning” it actually means “in the head.” This is basically like us saying “From the top.” Now of course this is an expression that is intended to mean the beginning, but I wonder if the literal translation of the word might be problematic for the insights posed by Billy. That being said, I do NOT think that poses a problem for what you have proposed, so I would encourage you to continue to formulate this.
Often throughout scripture – gibbets, torture devices, even crosses – are uniformly called “wood”; A tree is not a separate word – it too is just “wood”. (I speak of the Greek.)
This tree of Good and Evil, then, is also a Governmental device of justice.
In that light, I hear an echo of an idea in my mind. God’s view of the tree is “Good” in the sense of justice and “Evil” in the sense of loosing loved ones; in the devil’s, it is Good in the sense of a way to exploit for an Evil he wanted to perpetrate. In man’s it was Good for gaining knowledge – and pleasing to the eye. ( a lust? ) – but evil in the sense of a conflict w/ God.
That’s interesting. The thing is I’ve never heard of “wood” being used that way in the Hebrew. Of course, I could be wrong. The closest thing I can thing of is when Scripture talks about one dying on a “tree” being cursed.
I think, by the time the hand was reaching out – the sin had already been committed in the heart.
This would only be speculation for intrigues sake, but do you think there, hypothetically, could have been the possibility of mortal and venial sin in the garden? If Eve were to go to take a bite, than stop right before she bit into the apple and drop it… would “the fall” be the same? This being the case for either Eve or Adam. Sin would have still entered the world I imagine, but would it have been the same?
But, for all this – something eludes me at the moment. In everyone’s eyes – there was Good and Evil in the tree. But what, do you think is meant by the saying “he did right in his own eyes.” ?
Well I’ve always known that expression to mean that morality was based not on the objective/the commands of God, but what you equated to be right. I suppose you could say relativism. I do what I think is right, even if what I call right is really wrong. The same goes for “He was wise in his own eyes.” This in contrast to “He was righteous in the eyes of the Lord.”
Thought. I can do good in my own eyes, but because I am evil the good I think I am doing is not truly or fully good. In the same way I can do a great evil with good intentions… of course that still makes it evil. Maybe this is a possible reason or a partial reason for why it is called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and not just one or the other?
Also, I am wondering if this could be a merism. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil implying everything in between.“shades of gray,” perhaps a type of relativism. So instead of having strict lines of Good and Evil we have blurred those lines and now we do what we think is right. I believe this phrase was also used before the establishment of the Israelite Monarchy to show that there was a need to establish law and order.
Tangent: Did you ever notice the brilliance of the Mad Hatter, who despised Alice’s bad manners of coming in uninvited – and subtly got his way by making her
want to leave?
So who is the Mad Hatter? Adam, the serpent, or God? Some argue that since God would have to have foreknowledge of the Fall, the fact that He even put the tree in garden was with the understanding and intentionality of Adam and Eve eating it. I am inclined to reject this argument for its double predestination undertone, but I cannot logically deny its assertion :-/. Unless God does not have foreknowledge or His foreknowledge is uncertain, which becomes a different problem.
What do you think; their eyes were not opened until Adam also ate; And God said – “In the day you all eat of it, you will die the death (2nd).”
Even if it is you
all I think that could be reconciled. For Adam could be an eponymous character. Or even if Adam was a literal historical individual, he is still often used as an eponymous character because his name means “man” or “mankind.” Adam is used for man like Jacob is used for Israel. More still because Adam is actually a word that means man or mankind. I do not know if this necessarily points to Adam and Eve both both eating the fruit as being required for the second death. I think it is just God’s for-warning of original sin. Do you think this, though in the form of a commandment, could even be prophetic?
, I never got that far in the thought – I was only remarking about Lewis Carol on account of your use of the phrase “the rabbit hole”. a hyperbolic “Tangent”…