Genesis 3:3-4

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Faithfulservant

The Word (Christ as we know it) speaking creation...

Don't forget the Holy Spirit "hovering over the waters..."

[Faithfulservant]

Amen

[truthseeker]

Interesting.

The thorn and thistle thing - could it be symbolic as well as literal?

17 ...Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of you life. 18It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Even today for those men who don't work the fields - those who work doing any kind of business - is it easy to yield results? I mean, those who really want something good to come from anything have to put in hard work. Say, those men who want a sucessful business and have begun on their own often do eat by the sweat of their brow until they die. And for the women who love them,

16 ... Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.

Well, these business ventures don't stop because we need lovin', does it?

[mee]

Originally Posted by Mathghamhain

Adam comes from the Hebrew word for Earth but also means man(as in mankind), Eve comes from a Hebrew word meaning life so it could mean that through life they learned that they were nude & etc.

The snake has always been a symbol of knowledge. The Doctors symbol is 2 snakes wraped around a staff.

2:9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

2:9 the Tree of Life & the Tree of Knowledge comes from when it was a animism religion, most tribal cultures has a Tree of Life & in 1:26 God is talking to another God ???

1:26 And God said: 'Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth'.

Mathghamhain

let us make man....... here Jehovah God is talking to his only-begotten son in the heavens, who is Jesus christ in his pre-human existence, he lived in the heavens with his father before coming to the earth as a man

[mee]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Don't forget the Holy Spirit "hovering over the waters..."

yes ,Gods active force can accomplish great things

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by mee

yes ,Gods active force can accomplish great things

According to the Bible, to deny the Holy Spirit of God is blasphemy...not a good thing for anyone to do. You seem to be saying that the Holy Spirit of God is in fact a "persona non gratta"...(a non person). Mee, that does not sit well with most Christians. Since the majority (about 2.5 billion) believe the Holy Spirit to be a personal entity, you seem to be in the minority here on this particular issue.

And, it can cause people to become upset. Let's leave the Holy Spirit Issue alone for awhile.

Second, to continually insist that Jesus is not God, but a creation of God, is in keeping with non Christian theology. In fact it sounds like what our Muslim friends believe.

Third, Jehovah is merely one name given to God, but not one He ever said His name was. He identified Himself as "I AM", and was pretty adament about it. There were other names given to Him throughout time, but according to the prophet Isaiah, God personally identified Himself as "I AM". YHWH is an annacronym, not a name.

Just some thoughts.

v/r

Q

[truthseeker]

Not that I want to halt the wonderful conversation going on here, but I'm a bit concerned that I'm having a conversation by myself. I keep making comments and nobody's interested in what I have to say

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Not that I want to halt the wonderful conversation going on here, but I'm a bit concerned that I'm having a conversation by myself. I keep making comments and nobody's interested in what I have to say

Hold that thought...you are not being ignored.

v/r

Q

[mee]

Originally Posted by truthseeker

So is the fruit stil detrimental to mankind today?

the issue of universal sovreignty is still detrimental to mankind to day ,we make a choice even now ,is it satans rule or the true Gods rule ,our choice
Be wise, my son, and make my heart rejoice, that I may make a reply to him that is taunting me....proverbs 27;11yes if we make the right choice we make Gods heart glad if we dont then satan is taunting God

[bananabrain]

when i'm coming at this, i'm doing so without the need to find an original sin/salvation dynamic. with that said, it is instructive to make a close reading of the text.

for a start, the basic dynamic that we find in this story is that of "what makes us human?" the tension is thus between the edenic state as expressed in being "naked and unashamed" and being fully human. so, what does this "full humanity" imply? the picture that we are presented with is not the renaissance picture of two nice europeans with appropriate haircuts; for a start, midrashic sources deduce from the "spare rib" episode that adam and eve were originally one, hermaphroditic being (and they add 600 feet tall and covered in spikes, just to underline the point) who were separated into two. what they lack is the essential human quality of *free will* and choice. by disobeying G!D they make the first ever choice. animals do not make choices like this, nor are they ashamed. what adam and eve are doing is to define their *humanity*, but it is this very humanity which precludes their participation in an edenic environment, which is more appropriate for angels.

the ability to act based on your free will is also entirely dependent upon your "knowledge of good and evil" - the consequences of your actions and whether they are moral, legal, right, or whatever. but the concomitant of this knowledge is that you become responsible for your choices - you cannot claim you didn't know the consequences.

G!D, in fact, warns them of the consequences of their action - not a punishment per se, but simple outcomes. free will implies the possibility of being wrong, the essential idea of sin and the possibility of its counterpart, repentance - all ideas impossible without choice. the other defining feature of humanity is its mortality and its need to survive. so G!D was right, of course - humanity means that "you shall surely die"; not straight away, but at the end of your life. what the snake does is twists G!D's word. as we don't recognise that the snake would be able to disrupt G!D's plan if G!D did not permit it. so what we are talking about here is G!D actually participating in this cosmic drama as well. G!D is part of this process, which requires an apparent presence of "evil" - but if the snake is also part of the Divine plan, evil is also part of G!D. i need hardly point out that this isn't actually a problem for us. G!D Is All, after all.

incidentally, we never saw the fruit as an apple. i believe most authorities agree it was a pomegranate, but i could be mistaken.

b'shalom

bananabrain

[Nogodnomasters]

Originally Posted by truthseeker

Really, I like the way that the KJV reads better but at this time I have access only to the NIV.

I find this scripture to be interesting. This is the original sin, right?

Do you think that the fruit on the tree is a metaphor or that this is literal? Being a metaphor, does this still apply today?
I mean, could it be that there is information that we should not be trying to tap into ('fruit' of knowledge), and with uncovering some knowledge of certain things we could be setting ourselves up for death?

The words "original sin" does no appear in the Bible. In fact the word "original" is not in the Bible (There is nothing original in the Bible.) The idea of original sin most likely came along after developed by Pythagoras and was adopted to the story. Rabbis have commented the "sin" was actually sexual. I have heard "Oral Sex" from the evangelical crowd.

There is either two trees or a single tree with a dual nature. this is the Tree of life and Tree of Knowledge. In the NT the lore associated with the Holy Grail would give us the same powers, everlasting life and wisdom. This would likewise be symbolic as the Blood as Christ.

The tree of life/knowledge is used in other ancient cultures such as Egypt and Sumeria. There is an ancient "Adam and Eve" cylinder seal from Sumeria which shows the male, female, tree and serpent together.

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by Nogodnomasters

The words "original sin" does no appear in the Bible. In fact the word "original" is not in the Bible (There is nothing original in the Bible.) The idea of original sin most likely came along after developed by Pythagoras and was adopted to the story. Rabbis have commented the "sin" was actually sexual. I have heard "Oral Sex" from the evangelical crowd.

There is either two trees or a single tree with a dual nature. this is the Tree of life and Tree of Knowledge. In the NT the lore associated with the Holy Grail would give us the same powers, everlasting life and wisdom. This would likewise be symbolic as the Blood as Christ.

The tree of life/knowledge is used in other ancient cultures such as Egypt and Sumeria. There is an ancient "Adam and Eve" cylinder seal from Sumeria which shows the male, female, tree and serpent together.

If I didn't know you, I'd almost accept this. But since you are crasher (denounce anything God including Christ), I take what is said with a grain of salt.

However, the NT states that all fall short of the Glory of God. And the OT insists that there will be a "messiah", providing salvation for man.

Why would man need to be saved, unless he is in peril? Why would the OT convey the "sins" of the father unto his children, to the third and fourth generations no less?

Original sin, is the first time that man fell out of balance with God. In otherwords, man disagreed and then acted upon that disagreement. The sin wasn't disagreeing, it was the deliberate act fueled by the disagreement.

In the NT, we are told that the disagreement itself is sin (which I have a serious problem with). None the less, it means that even if no outward sin is committed, an inward one has been, therefore all fall short.

Your comment that there is nothing original in the bible is fact?...or your point of view?

Ancient cultures? They are all ancient. Egypt, Sumeria, and the Hebrews (semites).

The only "sin" I could possibly see sex being, is with a non mate, or with a mate wherein conception of a child was required (for what ever reasons), and seed was deliberately prevented from completing that conception. The "sex" would not be the sin. The thinking for having "sex" a certain way might be the sin. One would be for the continued Glory of God, and the other, for self gratification, hence no Glory to God, hence sin.

Interesting point about the "Adam and Eve" cylinder...perhaps you could expound on this more?

v/r

Q

[earl]

I have no problem with "original sin," depending on how it's defined and to some degree q I actually can accept some of what your interpretation is. As I understand it, in the original Greek version of the Bible the term for "sin" was "hamartia" which meant to miss the mark-mark meaning full realization of/union with God. My view is that perhaps unusual blend of Eastern Buddhism and Western theism. In Buddhism it is typically though that essentially only 2 types of beings are born into this human life: bodhisattvas-folks who've essentially been largely "enlightened," gotten it but choose rebirth to be of unlimited assistance the other group: everyone else who's still trying to get it. In other words, even within a non-theistic religion like Buddhism they would essentially say that for the vast majority of humanity typical human consciousness is "deluded" & their effort here in this life is to work to more clearly understand. "Original sin" is another way to describe how the nature of being born into humanity here seems to include a very basic "blinder" that separates us from "God" that 1 must overcome to start "hitting the mark." Only problem I have with some folks' definition of "sin," original or otherwise, is sometimes it can get rather parochial as to what constitutes a sin. Take care, Earl

[Quahom1]

Originally Posted by earl

I have no problem with "original sin," depending on how it's defined and to some degree q I actually can accept some of what your interpretation is. As I understand it, in the original Greek version of the Bible the term for "sin" was "hamartia" which meant to miss the mark-mark meaning full realization of/union with God. My view is that perhaps unusual blend of Eastern Buddhism and Western theism. In Buddhism it is typically though that essentially only 2 types of beings are born into this human life: bodhisattvas-folks who've essentially been largely "enlightened," gotten it but choose rebirth to be of unlimited assistance the other group: everyone else who's still trying to get it. In other words, even within a non-theistic religion like Buddhism they would essentially say that for the vast majority of humanity typical human consciousness is "deluded" & their effort here in this life is to work to more clearly understand. "Original sin" is another way to describe how the nature of being born into humanity here seems to include a very basic "blinder" that separates us from "God" that 1 must overcome to start "hitting the mark." Only problem I have with some folks' definition of "sin," original or otherwise, is sometimes it can get rather parochial as to what constitutes a sin. Take care, Earl

Well, I do like the "wiccan" approach. "And harm no one...do what you will".

To me that means "Stay in balance with God, and you shall be in balance with man". Hence no sin can be committed...

but then as NGNM states, what do I know?

v/r

Q

[earl]

Originally Posted by Quahom1

Well, I do like the "wiccan" approach. "And harm no one...do what you will".

To me that means "Stay in balance with God, and you shall be in balance with man". Hence no sin can be committed...

but then as NGNM states, what do I know?

v/r

Q

So Wiccan says that-interesting. I know little of Wiccan-but St. Augustine said, "Love and do what you will." Take care, Earl