Why was the forbidden tree in the garden?

[Brian_Millar]

Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut guys. I’m seeing the same story being told over and over again. We look into too many cases where people are tempted and they fall, we look to the original one that fell and it seems that he is constantly trying to get man to fall just as he. We have entire nations falling, then we run into cases, such as Job, where even though he was pushed into doing so, he did not, in fact, just the opposite and he is rewarded for persevering.

We look at modern times, mankind is falling yet again, it began clearly in the late 50’s, when we decided to move away from traditional thinking and core values, we are now smack dab in the middle of this movement and it’s gaining momentum. People clearly against Christianity, opposed to the Catholic church especially, the core values have been nearly obliderated, atrocities are abound and we should take note of where we are going as a race, for it cannot go on forever like this. The question is, how bad will it get before we come to repentance?

This movement, the same one that has happened over and over again throughout the entirety of mankind should be noted, we should learn from history, yet we don’t, so we are destined to repeat it. I vote to go back to tradition, back to the core values, and hold fast what is taught with the word of God, it’s there as a warning to us, to heed his advice and learn from the examples of others, otherwise, we too will be added to the list, the same list we can read in a literal sense today with his word. Do we debate literal, or non literal approaches towards what is taught? I say they are both, why not, they can be literal examples of real things that happen, yet still hold the same meaning in a symbolic way, this brings balance to the equasion, not leaning too far to the right or the left, but staying firmly planted dead center among understanding of it.

 

[fhansen]

Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut guys. I’m seeing the same story being told over and over again. We look into too many cases where people are tempted and they fall, we look to the original one that fell and it seems that he is constantly trying to get man to fall just as he. We have entire nations falling, then we run into cases, such as Job, where even though he was pushed into doing so, he did not, in fact, just the opposite and he is rewarded for persevering.

We look at modern times, mankind is falling yet again, it began clearly in the late 50’s, when we decided to move away from traditional thinking and core values, we are now smack dab in the middle of this movement and it’s gaining momentum. People clearly against Christianity, opposed to the Catholic church especially, the core values have been nearly obliderated, atrocities are abound and we should take note of where we are going as a race, for it cannot go on forever like this. The question is, how bad will it get before we come to repentance?

This movement, the same one that has happened over and over again throughout the entirety of mankind should be noted, we should learn from history, yet we don’t, so we are destined to repeat it. I vote to go back to tradition, back to the core values, and hold fast what is taught with the word of God, it’s there as a warning to us, to heed his advice and learn from the examples of others, otherwise, we too will be added to the list, the same list we can read in a literal sense today with his word. Do we debate literal, or non literal approaches towards what is taught? I say they are both, why not, they can be literal examples of real things that happen, yet still hold the same meaning in a symbolic way, this brings balance to the equasion, not leaning too far to the right or the left, but staying firmly planted dead center among understanding of it.

So, Brian, this sounds reasonable to me but I was wondering if you have more specific opinions yourself on the questions you’ve posed?

 

[Brian_Millar]

I have many opinions on it, in a literal and non literal sense, I can look at it from too many perspectives to specifically state just one direction, which is the main reason I posed them here. I’d like to know the current general consensus over these matters.

I’m off to work, I’ll chime in afterwards to read more upon what you guys have to say before I comment on my own. Thank you for participating guys!

 

[buffalo]

. Do we debate literal, or non literal approaches towards what is taught? I say they are both, why not, they can be literal examples of real things that happen, yet still hold the same meaning in a symbolic way, this brings balance to the equasion, not leaning too far to the right or the left, but staying firmly planted dead center among understanding of it.

Right on! and this is exactly what the Catechism states as to how we are to read scripture.

 

[patg]

The fact that this has been taught for the last 20 years does not trump the constant teaching of the Church for the last 2,000.

It sounds like you are denying the Chruch the ability and the right to enhance its understanding of scriptural interpretation. Why do we need scripture scholars if we already know everything we need to know? Why do popes contiunue to issue groundbreaking dogmatic intructions such as *Dei Verbum *if our understanding is a static fixed thing?

Were you careful in your teaching to clarify myth, for today’s society renders this as “made up”?

I’m not sure why that matters. Even if today’s society renders this as “made up”, that doesn’t change whether or not truth is being taught. Many works of total fiction teach profound truths and parts of the bible are no exception.

You yourself used the word imaginative. If I was in your class here is what I would come away with - Adam and Eve are a myth that was believed before we knew better (pre-scientific) to tell us certain things.

I don’t understand what you are complaining about here - the story is truth and that truth should be believed. Using an imaginative symbolic story to explore that truth is the author’s choice. My class wouldn’t waste time discussing whether the story literally happened, we would be discussing the truths being explored in the story.

Even in your retort you diss the passage by the sarcastic use of “talking snake” and “magic tree”.

Making note of the symbols is essential to understanding the story.

This pretty much let’s people believe it’s just a fable.

Once again you diss the ability of anything other than absolute literalism to express truth. That’s an extremely narrow view.

The end result is not a building of faith but a weakening.

No, the end result must be understanding the truth being expressed which can only build. There is no relationship bewteen understanding that humans suffer when they disobey God and believing that God once made a snake talk. One does not depend on the other.

The question I put to you is: Why teach in that manner?

Because understanding the literary form is essential to proper understanding. When you read a newspaper, do you assume every word is to be taken as literal objective writing? Do you understand and interpret the editor’s opinions, the letters to the editor, the weather report, and the comics as all being the same literary form? No, you interpret each differently because you know what the literary form implies about what is being written.

Likewise, you can’t, for example, fully understand the book of Revelations, the book of Job, Genesis, or Jesus’ Infancy Narratives unless you also understand the literary form they are written in and what that means about what you are reading. The Church has recognized this in its more recent dogmatic instructions.

 

[buffalo]

It sounds like you are denying the Chruch the ability and the right to enhance its understanding of scriptural interpretation. Why do we need scripture scholars if we already know everything we need to know? Why do popes contiunue to issue groundbreaking dogmatic intructions such as *Dei Verbum *if our understanding is a static fixed thing?

I’m not sure why that matters. Even if today’s society renders this as “made up”, that doesn’t change whether or not truth is being taught. Many works of total fiction teach profound truths and parts of the bible are no exception.

I don’t understand what you are complaining about here - the story is truth and that truth should be believed. Using an imaginative symbolic story to explore that truth is the author’s choice. My class wouldn’t waste time discussing whether the story literally happened, we would be discussing the truths being explored in the story.

Making note of the symbols is essential to understanding the story.

Once again you diss the ability of anything other than absolute literalism to express truth. That’s an extremely narrow view.

No, the end result must be understanding the truth being expressed which can only build. There is no relationship bewteen understanding that humans suffer when they disobey God and believing that God once made a snake talk. One does not depend on the other.

Because understanding the literary form is essential to proper understanding. When you read a newspaper, do you assume every word is to be taken as literal objective writing? Do you understand and interpret the editor’s opinions, the letters to the editor, the weather report, and the comics as all being the same literary form? No, you interpret each differently because you know what the literary form implies about what is being written.

Likewise, you can’t, for example, fully understand the book of Revelations, the book of Job, Genesis, or Jesus’ Infancy Narratives unless you also understand the literary form they are written in and what that means about what you are reading. The Church has recognized this in its more recent dogmatic instructions.

I will never deny thh Church the ability to grow in understanding. But, the Church herself understands that this understanding grows organically and does not reverse itself.

You -" Once again you diss the ability of anything other than absolute literalism to express truth. That’s an extremely narrow view." No, I never have and never will. I have always stated that there are layers of understanding.

You - “No, the end result must be understanding the truth being expressed which can only build” - we agree.

Have you read Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth? If so, what did you take from it?

You - There is no relationship bewteen understanding that humans suffer when they disobey God and believing that God once made a snake talk. One does not depend on the other.

Now here’s the crux. They really don’t depend on each other per say. However, they do point to higher truths. In the very first Chapters God is communicating His power and authority over all He created. The truth of the supernatural is infused all over these verses. I can tell from your arguments that the serpent could not speak to Eve. You believe it to be ridiculous. You might even be embarrassed to state in the classroom.

So bottom line - "Do you believe that in the garden there could have existed the “tree of life” and that there could have been a serpent that communciated with Eve?

It’s a yes or no answer.

 

[tessi]

My class wouldn’t waste time discussing whether the story literally happened, we would be discussing the truths being explored in the story.

The truth is that God made everyone rebel to use His Mercy on everyone.

 

[elvisman]

My class wouldn’t waste time discussing whether the story literally happened, we would be discussing the truths being explored in the story.

The truth is that God made everyone rebel to use His Mercy on everyone.

Excuse me?? Go MADE everyone rebel??
**God doesn’t make everybody do ANYthing.
**
Your profile says that you’re a Catholic. Free will is Christianity 101. What you are saying is definitely not Catholic belief.

 

[Starwynd]

If God made everyone revolting…

 

[patg]

ISo bottom line - "Do you believe that in the garden there could have existed the “tree of life” and that there could have been a serpent that communciated with Eve?

It’s a yes or no answer.

Yes that is possible for God (but highly improbable and definitely out of character).

and

No, I see no way of interpreting this story as a description of this actually occurring.

and

The Church does not require or condemn belief in either.

 

[buffalo]

Yes that is possible for God (but highly improbable and definitely out of character).

and

No, I see no way of interpreting this story as a description of this actually occurring.

and

The Church does not require or condemn belief in either.

Great - we are getting somewhere.

I wish I had your penchant for knowing the mind of God so well.

 

[fhansen]

The story of the creation and fall has the same meaning whether one takes the events to be figurative or literal- so long as we don’t get the idea that the main intent is merely to have us believe in the events without taking into account what they’re trying to tell us-and I doubt there are many people who don’t think there’s a spiritual message to be found in them.

In any case, for most of the narratives in the bible, I believe there’s rarely anything to be lost and often something to be gained by letting the text speak for itself and not over-critiquing it. I’m not saying that the various forms of scriptural criticism are invalid but if I had to choose between two methods, say strictly literal vs.strictly allegorical, I think my odds of understanding the authors’ intended meaning would rarely be decreased if I stuck with the literal. No one thinks Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale just so we’d end up with a great survival tale. I think these quotes from the CCC, which buffalo cited already, spells this out pretty well:

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

We need to be careful not to casually deny the reality of the events, especially where it’s not obvious that the author is speaking allegorically. Otherwise we might end up with people like some I know who claim the resurrection was meant as metaphor.

But this doesn’t mean one automatically assumes that Genesis intends that everything was created in six literal days, either. There are plenty of parts of stories which are peripheral to the meaning intended and may not even have any great significance.

 

[buffalo]

The story of the creation and fall has the same meaning whether one takes the events to be figurative or literal- so long as we don’t get the idea that the main intent is merely to have us believe in the events without taking into account what they’re trying to tell us-and I doubt there are many people who don’t think there’s a spiritual message to be found in them.

In any case, for most of the narratives in the bible, I believe there’s rarely anything to be lost and often something to be gained by letting the text speak for itself and not over-critiquing it. I’m not saying that the various forms of scriptural criticism are invalid but if I had to choose between two methods, say strictly literal vs.strictly allegorical, I think my odds of understanding the authors’ intended meaning would rarely be decreased if I stuck with the literal. No one thinks Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale just so we’d end up with a great survival tale. I think these quotes from the CCC, which buffalo cited already, spells this out pretty well:

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83
117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God’s plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

We need to be careful not to casually deny the reality of the events, especially where it’s not obvious that the author is speaking allegorically. Otherwise we might end up with people like some I know who claim the resurrection was meant as metaphor.

But this doesn’t mean one automatically assumes that Genesis intends that everything was created in six literal days, either. There are plenty of parts of stories which are peripheral to the meaning intended and may not even have any great significance.

…and it is good to remember that all Scripture is inspired.

 

[patg]

Great - we are getting somewhere.

I wish I had your penchant for knowing the mind of God so well.

I don’t claim to know the mind of God but I do know that if I took my child, put them in the presence of an almost irresistible temptation knowing that they would succumb to it and then punished them and all their descendants for all eternity I wouldn’t exactly be nominated for father of the year.

I’m not sure that is something that matters in this discussion anyway.

The basic question as I see it is: does the story in question support any claim of historicity or is it more reasonable to view it as a symbolic myth exploring the reasons for suffering in the world?

Here are a few observations:

• Lets say you walk into a library with your eyes closed and point to a randomly selected page in a randomly selected book. You open your eyes and start reading - you read about a tree with magic powers, a deity who walks and talks with 2 people, a garden which doesn’t now exist, and a talking snake. Do you assume that you are in the history section reading a narrative of a past event or might you more logically assume you stumbled into a more fictional area? The bible is exactly like a library - a large collection of different books by different authors on different subjects written at different times with different world-views and in many different literary forms (from myth to legend to poetry to history, etc). You have to know what you are reading. I’ve never heard anyone contend that the psalms are not poetry or that the book of Job is an actual debate between Job, God, and Satan. I wonder why there is such controversity over the story of the couple in the garden being a symbolic myth?
• The author does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know a historical explanation because he wasn’t there. The author does, however, make it very evident that his genre is not historical by his obvious use of symbols, objects which do not exist in the order of reality.
• As soon as you try to take the story literally, it is obvious that it does not date back to the beginning of time and that the author is not contemporary with the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth.
  Now you may try to criticize me all you want, thinking I am making all this up but actually NONE of this is my invention - it all comes from books by Catholic scripture scholars and teachers and it is presented in many, many bible classes in many Catholic parishes which use those books.

 

[buffalo]

I don’t claim to know the mind of God but I do know that if I took my child, put them in the presence of an almost irresistible temptation knowing that they would succumb to it and then punished them and all their descendants for all eternity I wouldn’t exactly be nominated for father of the year.

I’m not sure that is something that matters in this discussion anyway.

The basic question as I see it is: does the story in question support any claim of historicity or is it more reasonable to view it as a symbolic myth exploring the reasons for suffering in the world?

Here are a few observations:

• Lets say you walk into a library with your eyes closed and point to a randomly selected page in a randomly selected book. You open your eyes and start reading - you read about a tree with magic powers, a deity who walks and talks with 2 people, a garden which doesn’t now exist, and a talking snake. Do you assume that you are in the history section reading a narrative of a past event or might you more logically assume you stumbled into a more fictional area? The bible is exactly like a library - a large collection of different books by different authors on different subjects written at different times with different world-views and in many different literary forms (from myth to legend to poetry to history, etc). You have to know what you are reading. I’ve never heard anyone contend that the psalms are not poetry or that the book of Job is an actual debate between Job, God, and Satan. I wonder why there is such controversity over the story of the couple in the garden being a symbolic myth?
• The author does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know a historical explanation because he wasn’t there. The author does, however, make it very evident that his genre is not historical by his obvious use of symbols, objects which do not exist in the order of reality.
• As soon as you try to take the story literally, it is obvious that it does not date back to the beginning of time and that the author is not contemporary with the dawn of creation. This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development in prehistoric life, yet the fourth chapter of Genesis reports that Cain, who tilled the soil, married and built a town, all while separated from the family of his birth. This story, like the story in which God creates the world in a workweek, reflects a much more highly sophisticated society than would a story about the actual first human beings on the face of the earth.
  Now you may try to criticize me all you want, thinking I am making all this up but actually NONE of this is my invention - it all comes from books by Catholic scripture scholars and teachers and it is presented in many, many bible classes in many Catholic parishes which use those books.

Well your first paragraph may not be heresy, but blasphemy.

Toledoths show that indeed the author was there. That the second account is Adam’s “diary”.

The author does not have the option of giving an historical explanation. He doesn’t know a historical explanation because he wasn’t there. The author does, however, make it very evident that his genre is not historical by his obvious use of symbols, objects which do not exist in the order of reality.

Toledoths claim differently. The toledoths acknowledge the sources of the historical records Moses used. These were tablets that Moses had access to ( If I remember right they were kept in the Ark)

I do not doubt that some Catholic and Protestant scholarship as well subcrribe to the JEPD. It has been widely promoted, no doubt. I think you should be real careful here to keep promoting JEPD. I believe it has run its course and will fail the test of history.

And it is wise for all of us to remember, scholarship is not doctrine.

The more we chat the more you expose your doubt of God’s power. (do you beleong to the Jesus Seminar?)

This is a very sophisticated story. At the dawn of civilization society did not have a highly sophisticated view of marriage as expressed in Genesis 2:24. Neither farming nor the establishment of towns was an early development…

Now here you are forgetting or willfully ignoring Catholic dogma that Adam and Eve had supernatural knowledge and preternatural gifts. It is unwise to project our own knowledge onto this. It is laugable to suggest that humans that were by the accounts superior to us couldn’t do this.

We weren’t there to witness the capablilties of the first man and woman.

 

[fhansen]

It’s reassuring to me that, as Catholics, we recognize scripture as a source of authority but the Church as the authoritative interpreter of scripture as well as tradition. The Church defines truth. And the Church teaches that there were literally two people who were the ancestors of us all who literally disobeyed God, resulting in a very different reality than the one they started out in. No amount of biblical exegesis will alter that teaching, whether other aspects of the narrative involving trees and names and snakes were meant figuratively or not.

 

[buffalo]

I don’t claim to know the mind of God but I do know that if I took my child, put them in the presence of an almost irresistible temptation knowing that they would succumb to it and then punished them and all their descendants for all eternity I wouldn’t exactly be nominated for father of the year.

From the Baltimore Catechism

**Q. 257. Is it not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents?
** A. It is not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents, because their punishment consisted in being deprived of a free gift of God; that is, of the gift of original justice to which they had no strict right and which they willfully forfeited by their act of disobedience.

 

[Brian_Millar]

…and it is good to remember that all Scripture is inspired.

I keep hearing this from all together too many people, “inspired?” this places the word of God not into the context of his word, as clearly stated from John 1:1, but makes it where some writer decided to create a story, having God as his ispiration, or muse and is allowed to create what ever fiction they desire with it trying to tell a story in the process.

I can say when I help someone, that God has inspired me to write or say words towards them, is this scripture? No, not at all. Yet, it’s inspired non-the-less, I think in my mind and feel in my heart what he desires, for he has clearly stated these things in his word as well as conveyed it in my heart to show compassion. Do I go around telling people, this is inspired by God, so it must be scripture.

The bible, the “word” is not to be taken so lightly, it should not be scrutinized, it should not be second guessed, nor are any of us qualified to place it in and out of context to the point were we have deemed it only kinda the truth, or only something some guy wrote while he was thinking of God. He put these words down before pen was committed to parchment, the fact we have easy access to it in book form is his gift to us, and it is an awsome wonder to be able to take a peek into his mind on these matters, where he literally sais, this is what happened, this is what I was thinking, these are the lessons taught and these are the conclusions that we all should learn from. To go beyond this, we are speculating, and this is where I say, use extreem caution and catch yourself if you delve outside of these areas, we as man are quite obviously easily deceived, yet we have his word to keep us grounded, we must remain steadfast with it and recognize it as the ultimate authority reference wise in our lives and understandings.

What we get as a bonus as Catholics, we have the church and it’s leadership to help us further understand things, Peter being the rock, we should keep that within it’s context, since Peter no longer lives in the flesh, we have the church to rely upon, we have that rock which forms the foundation to it all to this day.

 

[patg]

…and it is good to remember that all Scripture is inspired.

Inspiration has to do with the truth being taught, not the literary form used to convey that truth.

 

[patg]

From the Baltimore Catechism

**Q. 257. Is it not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents? **
A. It is not unjust to punish us for the sin of our first parents, because their punishment consisted in being deprived of a free gift of God; that is, of the gift of original justice to which they had no strict right and which they willfully forfeited by their act of disobedience.

I’d tell you what you can do with the Baltimore Catechism but I don’t want to get banned from the forums…