Who told the first lie? (page 28)

KalebOutWest

TonusOH;

I can keep up with discussions to some degree only because that version isn't too different from mainstream Christianity, at least as it developed in the west.

I understand what you are trying to say, but technically someone with a theological bat might swat you for this statement. But there are some similarities, especially with the latest changes.

Actually Jehovah's Witnesses are closer to what is called "Adventist" Christianity. It also shares some views with "Unitarian" Christianity due to its rejection of the Trinity.

The mainstream churches are traditionally the Baptists, Congregationalists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, the Disciples or Churches of Christ and Reformed Churches.

The Witnesses are also known as Restorationists, a group of Christians that sprung from the Second Great Awakening claiming to be chosen by God to "restore" the Church with Apostolic purity, centering around Millerite calculations which are believe that the book of Daniel can be used to calculate the Return of Christ.

Of these, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) has proven to be probably the most successful by creating its own book of holy writ.

The Mormon "God" is one of the most similar inventions to "Jehovah" I have ever seen, even though this one has sex with a divine wife. Most Witnesses are unaware that officially, according to Watchtower theology, even though it is made of spirit, "Jehovah" has a body too and literally lives in a place and is subject to time and space exactly like the "God" of Mormonism.

KalebOutWest

MMM

In conclusion, even if the story is borrowed... err... stolen.... err... culturally appropriated, it's still God lying about the fruit.....

That depends on your point of view and how you interpret the story.

As Maimonides taught, God doesn't really speak or walk or talk or get jealous.

God doesn't lie any more than God tells the truth. To do claim such things is to make God in the image of humans. To do that is to make an idol out of God. Remember these are just stories.

In the story is God lying? Do Eve and Adam die?

Remember, the Hebrew does NOT read: "In that day you will die." That is just JWs being used to the NWT and a few English translations that used literal word-for-word King James English. In more modern versions, like the NRSVue and similar translations it just reads "you will surely die." No mention of a "day."

So where is the lie? They did die, right?

Or did Adam and Eve ever exist? Does God exist?

If none of them exist, did anyone lie?

Or if God does exist and like Maimonides teaches, God is not anthropomorphic, God is not a person and neither lies or tells the truth, what then?

Thus it depends. It's just a myth there to teach. You can say God lied and you can say God did not. But in reality both are true at the same time.

peacefulpete

Kaleb are you then suggesting the two introductory stories were,by design, supplementary and the work of the same hand?

Or simply that source critical approaches are uninteresting (and and perhaps futile) therefore assessing the final product is preferable.

nicolaou

KOW: it just reads "you will surely die." No mention of a "day." So where is the lie? They did die, right?

Everyone dies. If some thug threatens you with death you aren't going to assume they're referring to your old age demise.

Equally if someone says you won't die you aren't going to assume they mean you'll never die, that's just ridiculous.

Sophisticated theology can be fascinating but if it's arguing that black is white it's worthless.

KalebOutWest

peacefulpete:

Kaleb are you then suggesting the two introductory stories were,by design, supplementary and the work of the same hand?
Or simply that source critical approaches are uninteresting (and and perhaps futile) therefore assessing the final product is preferable.

Neither.

I just wasn't talking about the source/authorship in my explanation. I also wasn't saying that the critical approaches were uninteresting.

Consider the recent book that also talks about the meaning of the creation myth of Genesis. Entitled Feh (which is a Yiddish expression a Jew uses for something that they find contemptible), it is basically a humorous commentary "origin story" written by Shalom Auslander, reflecting on his recent brush with death after taking one of those so-called weight-reducing drugs that so many of the rich and famous have been taking.

Having been friends with the late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman who died of a drug overdose in 2014, his own recent brush with the Grim Reaper by means of a pharmaceutical that Auslander sought out as a fat-reducing and life-changing panacea was not lost on him.

But what Auslander focuses on is neither whose hands were involved in writing the myth of Genesis to begin with or even God and his instruction regarding the forbidden fruit. The problem is that not only "God" but philosphers and scientists themselves all seem to want to tell Auslander and the rest of us that we come from dirt.

Dirt.

We were made from dirt.

God and men who supposedly know better than the rest of us have come to agreement without our permission or consensus that you and I are no better than dirt--feh.

You don't even have to join a religion to self-loath yourself and want to die. You just have to be fat like Auslander was and take a prescription drug that didn't agree with you to look like some guy on the Internet because you genetically cannot possibly look like someone who spends 72 hours a day in a gym and who eats nothing but chicken breasts and raw egg yokes and is made of marble and has a 12 inch penis and dates models and drives a sports car...and die, because this drug can kill you.

Who gives a f*ck about who lied and and ate what fruit because a snake had legs? God, philosophers, and 9 our of 10 scientists agree you are made out of dirt. That is why you hate yourself. You don't even have to be a Jehovah's Witnesses. You will never be pretty. You are dirt. Don't you want to die too? It's more than religion. It's science.

Of course, the above is just a somewhat morbidly/humorous take/interpretation on the Genesis story by another Jewish writer. The point is that there is no room in Auslander's take for which redactors wrote what part of the story in Feh. His commentary is meant to reflect on how society is self-destructive in its behavior, no better than dirt, treating other people like dirt, and that perhaps there is an essential "truth" in this mythology (unfortunately).

My commentary was similar. You don't always lean on "who wrote what" to make your point.

KalebOutWest

nicolaou:

If some thug threatens you with death you aren't going to assume they're referring to your old age demise.

But if you "threaten me" it's okay, right?

Equally if someone says you won't die you aren't going to assume they mean you'll never die, that's just ridiculous.

This is a myth. I think it's ridiculous to assume that what anybody says in a myth will ever happen at all.

Sophisticated theology can be fascinating but if it's arguing that black is white it's worthless.

That's meaningless. Who's arguing that?

ExJWs, taught by "reading two years of Awake!...It's like going to college" and believing crap like that.

This is why I hate this place.

I hope I get "removed" from here. I hate you all. You remind me of Jehovah's Witnesses! Arrggh!

I give up. I give up. I give up. I give up.

Yes, I am wrong. I am evil. I told the lie.

You are are right. I am wrong. I give up. J wrote P, I believe you all. God lied. The snake is true. Whatever. I don't care. I believe whatever you all say.

peacefulpete

I can't relate, I get better looking each day.

nicolaou

Kaleb, of course it's a myth. Of course it didn't happen at all, I acknowledged as much earlier.

The discussion is for the benefit of an exJW audience who, like myself at any rate, we're indoctrinated on this stuff and some find it more difficult to let go than others.

Stop being such a smug drama queen.

MeanMrMustard

That depends on your point of view and how you interpret the story.

Doesn't matter. Pick one.

God doesn't lie any more than God tells the truth. To do claim such things is to make God in the image of humans.

That's word salad. Utter nonsense.

To do that is to make an idol out of God.

More obfuscatuon.

Remember these are just stories.

So? It's just a story then. IN THE STORY, the character of God, completely fictional, lies.

NRSVue and similar translations it just reads "you will surely die." No mention of a "day." So where is the lie? They did die, right?

No. There is an implied causal relationship, such that if they had refrained from their action, they would not have died. You have turned the verse into no more than a phrase such as: "do not eat from it or the sun will rise tomorrow."

Unless you offer a different definition of "die" .....

Or did Adam and Eve ever exist? Does God exist?

If none of them exist, did anyone lie?

Yeap. In the story God lied.

The boy who cried wolf is a fictional story. Are you saying he didn't cry wolf because we cant point to a real boy crying wolf? Good lord.

ukpimo

If the Garden of Eden was a myth because a serpent spoke, why are we missing an obvious fact? Eve had the first case of schizophrenia! It's bloody obvious!

Who told the first lie?

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