Did Adam and Eve Partake of Literal Fruit or is it Symbolic?

by Stauros 71 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Stauros

  3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’? ”

  Satan is likened to a serpent, the attributes of a serpent. It does not mean that satan appeared as a snake and then begin talking to Eve.

  2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

  The soul that is sinning, it itself will die.......

  Just an example...........

  Estephan
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  Doug Mason

  If someone thought that either creation myth was to be taken literally is to completely misunderstand Jewish storytelling, mysticism, and such.

  Like any other parable or retold history, they were used to convey a message. Modern people make the mistake of taking any of the bible literally; the stories, the histories, the speeches, and so on are not literal verbatim accounts. They are religious histories designed to impact the immediate community they were read out to. (Only a small part of 1 per cent could read, even fewer could write). Propaganda?

  The myth of the Tree of Life carried a message that has to be understood in terms of the people who wrote it and heard it. The myth at Genesis 1 was written about the time of the neo-Babylonian Captivity (6th Century BCE). The Garden Creation myth was written earlier, at a time when - as the writers recount - Asherah and her poles dominated the religious scene. Is it possible that they used this familiarity with the trees in the temple as a mechanism for conveying a message. The bulk of the people worshiped Asherah along with her husband, Yahweh.

  Doug