A Modern Parable

Originally posted by Phlabibit
But would we be on an internet chess site? Or would we be more like sheep grazing fields all day. Would we play games, have fears, enjoy highs and lows... or would we just be a bunch of happy sheep?

Jesus died on the cross, and he's a hero. Adam and Eve gave us love, hate, war, peace, art, music, joy, fear, and the you you are today, and the me I am today... and they were somehow 'wrong' in what they did.

RX

really a world full of people that didn't know good from evil .. would be a world full of criminally insane psychopaths.

Whatever that story is meant to convey, it' not meant to be taken literally because it literally makes God look stupid.

Originally posted by kirksey957
Visotzky is one f the contributors in Bill Moyer's Genesis, a Dialogue.

Another way of looking at this is from a developmental perspective in which one witnesses the growing independence of man, even in disobedience. The framework of "paradise" is somewhat womblike in that they have no responsibilities or problems other than loneliness. Being "ca ...[text shortened]... someone who is broken and knows this aspect of life and can still find something lovely in life.

Visotzky is one f the contributors in Bill Moyer's Genesis, a Dialogue.

I saw that on the book cover, but I’ve never seen the series. Is it on DVD or videotape?

Another way of looking at this is from a developmental perspective in which one witnesses the growing independence of man, even in disobedience. The framework of "paradise" is somewhat womblike in that they have no responsibilities or problems other than loneliness. Being "cast out" is the real world

I wonder if that development perspective can be applied to the whole OT—Exodus, for example….

Originally posted by KellyJay
It is comparing apples and oranges, the way that people are trying
to make them look the same only shows that they don't have either
a clue what the Biblical story is, or that they have preconceived
ideas about God and are going to force them into the their
conclusions no matter if they fit that story or not.
Kelly

only agnostics don't have a preconceived view of god.

Originally posted by frogstomp
really a world full of people that didn't know good from evil .. would be a world full of criminally insane psychopaths.

Whatever that story is meant to convey, it' not meant to be taken literally because it literally makes God look stupid.

I don't think it was going to be like that, where people did what they
wanted no matter what with simply the knowledge of good and evil
not being part of the equation. Instead, our nature would always be
the right action, the right thing to do would always be done. Good
can exist without evil, evil is simply a warping of that which is good.
My beliefs on that.
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
Visotzky is one f the contributors in Bill Moyer's Genesis, a Dialogue.

I saw that on the book cover, but I’ve never seen the series. Is it on DVD or videotape?

Another way of looking at this is from a developmental perspective in whi ...[text shortened]... ent perspective can be applied to the whole OT—Exodus, for example….

A strictly anthropological interpretation:
The story is an allegorical lament about losing the hunter/gatherer culture.
Considering human nature, its very easy to see how a hardworking farmer ,standing in the half plowed field, wiping sweat off his sunburnt brow, squinting as he looks up at the bright midday sky ,might be thinking about "the good old days", before his ancestors left the forest.
Of course , the farmer wouldn't know that the "Good old Days" always seem better to people that didn't live in them ,than they did to the people that did.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I don't think it was going to be like that, where people did what they
wanted no matter what with simply the knowledge of good and evil
not being part of the equation. Instead, our nature would always be
the right action, the right thi ...[text shortened]... imply a warping of that which is good.
My beliefs on that.
Kelly

So you are saying the fruit mutated Man's genetic structure and produced an evil gene.
So what did Man need a good gene for , if he was already good?

Originally posted by frogstomp
A strictly anthropological interpretation:
The story is an allegorical lament about losing the hunter/gatherer culture.
Considering human nature, its very easy to see how a hardworking farmer ,standing in the half plowed field, wiping sweat off his sunburnt brow, squinting as he looks up at the bright midday sky ,might be thinking ...[text shortened]... m better to people that didn't live in them ,than they did to the people that did.

A strictly anthropological interpretation:
The story is an allegorical lament about losing the hunter/gatherer culture.

I thought that was Cain and Abel? (Well, at least I know enough of what you’re talking about to ask the question!) 😉

Originally posted by frogstomp
So you are saying the fruit mutated Man's genetic structure and produced an evil gene.
So what did Man need a good gene for , if he was already good?

I'm saying that man's structure was polluted, either spiritually or
DNA, maybe both.
Kelly

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]A strictly anthropological interpretation:
The story is an allegorical lament about losing the hunter/gatherer culture.

I thought that was Cain and Abel? (Well, at least I know enough of what you’re talking about to ask the question!) 😉[/b]

Didn't the hunting part last longer? Nimrod the great hunter before the lord.

wasnt Cain a farmer and Able a herdsman ?
sounds like somebody's sheep ate somebody else barley.

Originally posted by KellyJay
I'm saying that man's structure was polluted, either spiritually or
DNA, maybe both.
Kelly

it also had the effect of speciation on serpents and Man.
before that they were the same species.

Originally posted by frogstomp
it also had the effect of speciation on serpents and Man.
before that they were the same species.

If you believe that, you believe that.
Kelly

Originally posted by frogstomp
Didn't the hunting part last longer? Nimrod the great hunter before the lord.

wasnt Cain a farmer and Able a herdsman ?
sounds like somebody's sheep ate somebody else barley.

That's the way I heard it, and the agricultural encroachment was over a long period. If you add in industrial encroachment, some would say it's still going on. Later the story may have "flipped"--e.g. Jacob and Esau, indicating at least a partial shift from hunter/gatherer/horticulturalist and herder (both nomadic occupations). But that's all I "know."

Originally posted by lucifershammer
I think the author missed the point of the Genesis account.

Which was?

Originally posted by KellyJay
The wages of sin is death, I'm not disputing that they fell when they
ate of that tree and death was the result. I'm not disputing that man
was formed from the dust of the earth where God said man would
return, what I'm saying was it was the wages of sin that did it.

Spell out the exact words you want to use to clear up this,
God killed them how, ...[text shortened]... utside of telling them
what was going to happen to their bodies God didn't kill anyone.
Kelly

Genesis 3:19. Please tell me where it was said in your Holy Book that anybody would ever die before then.

Originally posted by no1marauder
Which was?

That it is an allegory about the origins of original sin in a wilful act of disobedience by Man.