Why Eve sinned (WT 8/2013)

by EdenOne 154 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Island Man

  I think one of the greatest ironies of the bible is that ultimately, Satan's words to Eve have actually been vindicated as truth. At the very least, a good argument can be made for such a position. Check it out:

  "You positively will not die." - Genesis 3:4

  Adam and Eve did not die in the day of their eating from the tree. They lived for centuries! Not only that, but they went on to have offspring some of whom would eventually have the privilege of living forever in heaven. Note: Man would not have had the priviledge of having eternal heavenly life had Adam not eaten from the forbidden fruit! Adam and Eve vicariously live forever through their offspring! So in that sense Satan was right in saying they positively will not die. Also Satan's use of the plural YOU when speaking to Eve could be seen as him saying that mankind positively will not die, as opposed to just Eve or Eve and Adam. I know some would say that's stretching it, but Christians also stretch it when explaining how Adam and Eve did not literally die in the day of their eating the fruit as God had said they would.

  "For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad.” - Genesis 3:5

  This was indeed true as can be seen from what is said in Genesis 3:7,22:

  "Then the eyes of both of them became opened . . ."
  "And Jehovah God went on to say: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad . . ."

  So when one looks at the big picture, where exactly did Satan lie to Eve? Did their eyes not open? Did they not come to be like God in knowing good and bad as admitted by Jehovah himself at Genesis 3:22? And if you're going to accuse Satan of lying when he said they positively will not die (because they literally died centuries later), then can we not also accuse God of lying when he said they will die in the day of their eating the fruit (because they did not literally die in that day but lived on for centuries)? So show me how Satan has lied more than God. On the contrary, Satan's words to Eve have been vindicated!

  Sometimes I get the feeling that the whole account in Genesis 3 was just a fable meant to literally explain the origin of clothing and being ashamed of nakedness (Genesis 3:7,10,21), menstrual pain and painful birth (Genesis 3:16), why men dominate women (Genesis 3:16), why most women are afraid of / hate serpents / snakes (Genesis 3:15), why serpents / snakes have no legs (Genesis 3:14), why we decompose into dust / are buried in the ground when we die (Genesis 3:19), etc; and some early religionists took it way too seriously by seeing it as real history and coming up with the idea that the Satan mentioned in other books of the bible was behind the serpent of Genesis 3. Note: Neither "Satan" nor "Devil" is found anywhere in Genesis.
• 

  QC

  Eden: There simply was no hope, for there was nothing being offered.

  The offspring, blood mix of ape/man and Adam and Eve's children, are now offered hope for salvation since they have sin blemish in their blood, true?

  So, you've got the blue bloods, Adams direct descendants mixing with the ape/man, breeding children for salvation.

  Is that your position?
• 

  EdenOne

  Back from work.

  Cofty: are you saying that unless humans were created, their well being is no more important than that of a seal?

  No, that's not what I said. Perhaps i wasn't very clear. Let me try again:

  You sit on your sofa and you turn your television on the National Geographic channel. You watch as an orca slaughters a seal; a lion preys on a gazelle; a baby elephant gets trapped in a mud pool and dies; an Orix is killed by a crocodile; a cheetah cub dies of thirst during the dry season.

  I ask: Are you a moral monster because you're watching those animals suffer and die and you do absolutely nothing but perhaps feel pitty for them? Are the nat Geo film crew guys moral monsters because they are literally there at the scene, and they do nothing to interfere with nature? Or do you simply consider it the natural course of things, the so called circle of life?

  Now, my question to you, then, is: In a scenario of theistic evolution, why on earth would you qualify God as a moral monster if, by your own definition, the Homo Sapiens isn't but a sophisticated animal? Why does it seem so abhorrent to you this notion of a God that watches but doesn't interveine when you, yourself do exactly the same thing when you watch that Nat Geo documentary?

  Bottom line, if humans weren't created, if they are nothing but sophisticated animals, why are you ascribing to God the quality of a moral monster, when God doesn't de facto exist in your scenario? That's what i don't get it with your question.

  Eden
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  cofty

  are you saying that unless humans were created, their well being is no more important than that of a seal? - Cofty

  No, that's not what I said - Eden

  if humans weren't created, if they are nothing but sophisticated animals - Eden

  I think you have no idea what you are tryng to say.

  If you can't see why we value human lives more than the lives of seals I can't help you.
• 

  ablebodiedman

  It would be really ironic if Christians living in this post modern era could be deceived by Satan with the exact same things that deceived Eve!

  Genesis 3:4-5

  　At this the serpent said to the woman: "YOU positively will not die. 5 　For God knows that in the very day of YOUR eating from it YOUR eyes are bound to be opened and YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad."

  YOU positively will not die. .................... Lie, aka Unclean Expression ... ( out of the mouth of the Dragon )

  Millions Now Living Will Nevenr Die ......... Lie, aka Unclean Expression .. ( out of the mouth of the False Prophet )

  YOU are bound to be like God, KNOWING good and bad .............. Lie, aka Unclean Expression ... ( out of the mouth of the Dragon )

  You can know the truth! ... You can be .. "In the Truth" ............. Lie, aka Unclean Expression ... ( out of the mouth of the False Prophet)

  If I was Satan and wanted to deceive as many Christians as possible during this post modern era I think I would write a book with a title that goes something like; "KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO EVERLASTING LIFE"

  I think that would do the trick.

  It worked in the Garden of Eden, it should work just as well right now!

  I think it would be easy to corrupt peoples minds with a book like that!

  2 Corinthians 11:3

  　But I am afraid that somehow, as the serpent seduced Eve by its cunning, YOUR minds might be corrupted away from the sincerity and the chastity that are due the Christ.

  abe
• 

  adamah

  Thanks for discussing my article, Eden, where I talk about Adam and Eve, free will, and the paradox of Adam and Eve:

  http://awgue.weebly.com/the-paradox-of-adam-and-eve-and-how-the-new-world-translation-fruitlessly-attempts-to-keep-it-hidden.html

  Eden said-

  That's fine with him. That's why He gave humans free will, so that they could exercise it, as you are now.

  Maybe good to review the discussion on free will in the article, since free will is NOT a "thing" (that's a pet peeve of mine, since I heard so many JWs parroting it like mindless drones who lacked free will). Instead, it's PERMISSION to do something. God gives no human the right to commit blasphemy, per the Bible, so you and all other believers should say, "freedom of choice" instead of "free will" (it's one of the distinctions the JW's GB gets right).

  Adam
• 

  EdenOne

  braincleaned:

  Okay, here's me trying to get my questions organized:

  I'll go with your questions and try to the best of my ability to answer them, but remember this is an hypothetical scenario. I'm trying to speculate here within a framework that tries to conciliate evolution with the account we find in Genesis, and the Bible.

  Q: What was the purpose of creating then testing these 'new' humans?

  The purpose of creating this human couple directly was to generate a human couple fitted with a spiritual bond with God, truly, God's children. (Luke 3:38) In this scenario, they would be the very first Homo Sapiens that enjoyed that status. For some reason, the already existing Homo Sapiens couldn't be "retrofitted" with this spiritual bond, so God decided to make "Homo Sapiens 2.0", fitted with a "soul", that spiritual bond with their maker.

  God didn't test these humans. If taken literally, the two trees in the garden of Eden and their fruits were symbolic of gaining access and insight into the spiritual realm [tree of knowledge of good and evil] and the reward of everlasting life in said realm [tree of life]. In time, once Adam and Eve fulfilled their purpose on earth (breeding descendants) and enjoy a long, happy life in the garden of Eden, they would gain access to that spiritual realm and life forever. The commandment that Jehovah gave to the first couple was nothing more that saying: "I get to decide when and if you can eat from these trees. For now, you cannot as much as touch them, otherwise you will die." It wasn't intended as a test, it became a test only when Satan incited Eve to develop the ambition to "be like God". Literally, as James wrote, " each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire." (James 1:14) Satan simply fueled this desire with his ambiguous oracle, but it was Eve's own desire that betrayed her - not God.

  Q: Why would an Almighty God create a "slightly improved copy of the existing specimens of their time?"

  Well, I guess for the reason I said above - because the existing humans couldn't be "retrofitted" with the sonship with God unless they were directly created by him. The garden of Eden was some sort of a test lab, with a controlled environment, where God experimented if it was feasable to produce "sons of God" out of material beings. He simply chose as subject tests the animals that he considered to be the most intelligent and sophisticated available: the Homo Sapiens. So he went and created two of them from scratch, but accurate copies of the existent ones back then.

  Was God's Only Son a corresponding ransom to a "slightly improved copy of the existing specimen of their time", or was he perfect?

  God's Only Son [Jesus Christ] was a corresponding ransom (I prefer the term redemption) to the first human "son of God", Adam, not because he had matching "perfection" [Jesus was perfect], but simply because he was ... human AND a son of God, brought about with an identical spiritual bond as Adam had.

  If you " don't think they were fully aware of the consequences their disobedience would have", where is God's love for punishing them, and all humanity along with them?

  Jehovah gave stern warning and it was frivolously ignored / disobeyed. They fell prey to Satan's rebellious agenda without even realizing they were puppets in a much bigger game that they couldn't possibly understand. In any case, they had been clearly warned. Death came, not as a result of a punishment, but merely as a natural consequence of rejecting their sonship towards God. If they had remained faithful to God, they would have at some point overcome the natural cycle of birth / decay / death by eating from the two trees and be rewarded with everlasting life in the spiritual realm along with the other "sons of God" in the spiritual realm. (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7) Since they lost that spiritual bond with God, they could not henceforth generate children gifted with that spiritual bond. So, Adam and Eve and their descendants became no different than all other Homo Sapiens that existed outside the garden of Eden, and therefore, while God felt an obligation to look after his creations, there was no point in keeping them within the controlled envoronment of the test lab, the garden of Eden, and they were expelled, and forced to mix with the other Homo Sapiens.

  Q: how does God's justice work, that the non-adamic descendants are under the curse of Adam's sin?

  They were just not gifted with the sonship towards God. There was no "curse" upon the non-adamic humans. That's the "original sin" - the lack of spiritual bond with God that results in death without hope of an afterlife in the spiritual realm. After Adam and Eve, God wanted to extend to all Homo Sapiens the possibility to become his children and gain everlasting life in the spiritual realm. But since it wasn't possible for humans that lacked the said spiritual bond of sonship (the 'soul', if you'd like). Therefore, God felt it was appropriate that his only begotted spiritual son, Jesus, becamethe first human after Eve to be born with the said spiritual bond of sonship, teach others on how could they acquire this bond through faith in his sacrifice, and then offered his own life in sacrifice as a fitting matching life regarding the life that Adam and Eve had lost for them and for their descendants.

  I hope I have answered your questions reasonably to your satisfaction.

  Eden
• 

  cofty

  For some reason, the already existing Homo Sapiens couldn't be "retrofitted" with this spiritual bond, so God decided to make "Homo Sapiens 2.0", fitted with a "soul"

  It must be great to just make stuff up out of nowhere.
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  cofty

  Jesus, becamethe first human after Eve to be born with the said spiritual bond of sonship

  So Abraham had no soul.
• 

  prologos

  so are you saying eden, in your model, -- that Adam& Eve were created mortal, like the JW "anointed" destined for dying*to go to heaven?

  * actually the heavenly rulers will have to die a violent death, not in the book for A&E. ,