The point of the tree of good and evil?

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Moral knowledge and naming are not even in the same category. The English language fails here. In the Bible, knowing is also sex. The word is pregnant with connotations, some of which cannot abide in Eden. Observing that something is subordinate is not a call to throw it out, but it is an argument from removing it from the center.

It's a terrific myth, but you're cutting it's heart out with syncopated theology.

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Moral knowledge and naming are not even in the same category.
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You did not explain to me what you meant by missing the point. So I made my best assumption.

Now that you have clarified your thoughts we can discuss them.

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The English language fails here. In the Bible, knowing is also sex. The word is pregnant with connotations, some of which cannot abide in Eden.
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So in Genesis3:22 when God says "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; now, lest he put forth his hand ... etc." God's concern was that man gained some kind of sexual knowledge that only God possessed?

Are you saying that the Creator alone wanted to have sex and forbad man from having sex ? That is a whole lot of connotation Wulebgr.

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Observing that something is subordinate is not a call to throw it out, but it is an argument from removing it from the center.
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When God said "Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil ..." does that sound to you like the matter of knowing good and evil like God is subordinate and not central ?

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It's a terrific myth, but you're cutting it's heart out with syncopated theology.
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At the present time the only sexual matter I see is that the possible loss of self control and the emerging of unbidled lust may have been a factor in making them feel ashamed.

I think by isolating the account from the rest of the revelation of the Bible you are arriving at some perculiar interpretations.

If sex was a forbidden matter why did God tell Adam and his wife to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28) Was God expecting them to do that without sexual activity?

Why also does the writer accompany the account with a reminder that a man and his wife are to be "one flesh" in (2:24)? For a man and his wife to become "one flesh" surely needs not much esoteric wisdom to understand that a most intimate union in love is being discribed.

I welcome your defence of your "mythology" analysis.

Originally posted by jaywill
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Moral knowledge and naming are not even in the same category.
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You did not explain to me what you meant by missing the point. So I made my best assumption.

Now that you have clarified your thoughts we can discuss them.

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love is being discribed.

I welcome your defence of your "mythology" analysis.

I cannot read these cut up posts--too much violence against the context and thought process. Too fragmented. My mind does not work from these fractions of memes.

I read enough to know that you are wrong concerning what I said. You're still confusing wissen und kennen.

There's not much point in defending what has not been attacked. Are you so wholly unfamiliar with Ragtime, Jazz, and Blues that the word syncopation blew entirely past you?

I gather from your remarks that you lack cognizance of the meaning of the word myth, too. The literal truth or falsehood of any given myth is never as important as the service it renders in through enabling a belief system.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
I cannot read these cut up posts--too much violence against the context and thought process. Too fragmented. My mind does not work from these fractions of memes.

I read enough to know that you are wrong concerning what I said. You're still confusing wissen und kennen.

There's not much point in defending what has not been attacked. Are you ...[text shortened]... iven myth is never as important as the service it renders in through enabling a belief system.

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I cannot read these cut up posts--too much violence against the context and thought process. Too fragmented. My mind does not work from these fractions of memes.
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You seem to lack the skill or the enthusiam today to dialogue about Genesis.


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I read enough to know that you are wrong concerning what I said. You're still confusing wissen und kennen.
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It seems that my direct and simple questions concerning your interpretatation just expose that you're going down a highly questionable road. I could assume that they are somehow beneath you. But I think they rather just show your case to be not too strong.

I was open to hear something new. I was open to learn something new. But I have been in this book for about 30 plus years. But I have not exhausted its wisdom.

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There's not much point in defending what has not been attacked. Are you so wholly unfamiliar with Ragtime, Jazz, and Blues that the word syncopation blew entirely past you?
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I am an amatuer composer and music teacher. I can't read your mind here. If you want to compare something I did with syncopation you better elaborate. Of course I know what syncopation is.

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I gather from your remarks that you lack cognizance of the meaning of the word myth, too. The literal truth or falsehood of any given myth is never as important as the service it renders in through enabling a belief system.
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Quite aside from the literal or historical question I don't think you even touch the biblical symbolism with much clarity.

I am confident that I can defend my understanding of much of the thought of God in early Genesis. What I have shared I can stand by and defend.

Originally posted by jaywill
You seem to lack the skill ...

Ad homs are not effective here.

Scissors don't contribute much, but from time to time they highlight contradictions.

You're still compounding the errors that stem from seeing a shift in emphasis as an obliteration of what needs decentered. I never asserted that good and evil are unimportant in the myth, only that it is their knowledge (wissen not kennen) that is central. Likewise, carnal knowledge is not something you will get looking at porn.

The tree is a myth. As a near eastern myth, it is neither a fable, nor something rooted in Platonic dichotomies.

The original poster's question has not yet been addressed in this thread.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Scissors don't contribute much, but from time to time they highlight contradictions.

You're still compounding the errors that stem from seeing a shift in emphasis as an obliteration of what needs decentered. I never asserted that good and evil are unimportant in the myth, only that it is their knowledge (wissen not kennen) that is central. L ...[text shortened]... nic dichotomies.

The original poster's question has not yet been addressed in this thread.

There may be a difference in how you and I view the Holy Bible. I take Genesis as a part of the whole. I know some scholars regard the Old Testament simply like a jewish religious scrap book.

I see a Divine mind overseeing the 66 books of the Bible. And to comprehend the Genesis account of the fall of man to whole Bible is needed.

I regard the Bible as a revelation from God to man. The teaching of the apostles and prophets of the New Testament to me is crucial in knowing deeply what is being conveyed there.

I did speak to the matter of why the two trees were in the garden with man inbetween staged to choose. I take the text seriously. I think the kind of frustration you display is characteristic of someone who doesn't take what is actually said there word for word as seriously as some liturary commentary.

You will be annoyed conversing with me on the Bible because I go over exactly what is said with a kind of "electron microscope". If you begin to make your case based on what is said, you will get my attention. I may not agree but I will sit up and take notice because the WORDS of the Bible are meaningful to you.

Originally posted by jaywill
There may be a difference in how you and I view the Holy Bible. I take Genesis as a part of the whole. I know some scholars regard the Old Testament simply like a jewish religious scrap book.

I see a Divine mind overseeing the 66 books of the Bible. And to comprehend the Genesis account of the fall of man to whole Bible is needed.

I regard the Bible ...[text shortened]... agree but I will sit up and take notice because the WORDS of the Bible are meaningful to you.

When you work through any translation word for word without linguistic and cultural knowledge of the original, you manufacture self-magnifying errors.

Originally posted by jaywill
There may be a difference in how you and I view the Holy Bible.

just one?

Originally posted by menace71
My question is what was wrong with man knowing good from evil?









Manny

Good question. I should've thrown that in there too. I have yet to read all these responses, but I also have wondered:

Many say the point of life is a "test" of sorts (I'm sure we've all heard that at some point in our lives). Well, why would god not inform us of the test and tell us point blank what we need to do to pass said 'test'? Why keep it a secret--or rather, make it so only some select few come to 'figure it out'? These are more rhetorical questions because I personally think the idea of life being a 'test' is silly, but I am always curious to see what believers have to say in response to questions like these.

Originally posted by menace71
My question is what was wrong with man knowing good from evil?

Man must know evil to know good. Knowledge in this sense is not theoretical, but practical: it is experience. In the garden, knowledge of good and evil meant that Eve came to understand the world of Adam's first wife, Lilith--a woman that had expected equality. Adam cast her off without quite descending to the knowledge of evil--how he cast her off without acquiring such knowledge is a mystery of such profound consequences that this part of the story was excluded from the canon. Lilith then became the first vampire (called serpent in some translations) and lured Eve into the knowledge Adam had averted. (The suggestion that Lilith seduced Eve carnally is rooted in the falsehood that lesbian love is evil.) After Eve tasted, Adam devoured. Humans have been practicing evil in order to know good ever since.

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When you work through any translation word for word without linguistic and cultural knowledge of the original, you manufacture self-magnifying errors.
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It is good to be able to read it in the original language. I do not have that skill. I do have the tools to aid the non-ancient Hebrew reader.

But I do not automatically regard someone with that skill as necessarily more qualified to grasp its revelation. So I am willing to converse with any native Hebrew speaker on Genesis and do not feel intimidated or inferior to such a student.

Knowing the original language of Hebrew didn't stop Korah and his companions from attempting to stone Moses and lead the Israelites back into Egypt. King Saul had good ancient Hebrew reading and writing skills. It didn't help him from not trying to kill David who was so used by God as a godly national leader.

I am happy to accept that you may have some Hebrew grammer under your belt. You have my respect for that. But I am more interested in what insight you have into God's eternal purpose revealed in Scripture. That is what is important.


There is a word beyond the Greek and the Hebrew. That is the word of God.

Originally posted by jaywill
There is a word beyond the Greek and the Hebrew. That is the word of God.

In point of fact, the first word for God employed in the Bible is the Palestinian Elohim, which is plural. In a sense it is beyond Greek and Hebrew, but that creates another set of problems for your theology.

Your interpretation must be inferior to one that is grounded in Hebrew. Alas, I do not know Hebrew either, so I cannot claim this higher ground. I can only recognize certain problems in any and every approach that sees a level landscape where there should be no doubt there are hills.

Originally posted by jaywill
But I do not automatically regard someone with that skill as necessarily more qualified to grasp its revelation.

The issue is not more or less qualified, but a certain minimum that must be met in order to address certain questions. It seems that neither you nor I achieve that minimum competence.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
The issue is not more or less qualified, but a certain minimum that must be met in order to address certain questions. It seems that neither you nor I achieve that minimum competence.

After seeing you embark on your discourse about Lilith I am really disappointed.

I can do that too. It is no big deal to scour the legends of the Jews for embellishments and throw them into the story to confuse, dilute, and corrupt Scripture.

Who cannot search non-conanical sources for fanciful apochryphal tales and use them to pollute the pure word of the Scripture?

"Yea did God really say ...?" I see you just rejecting the Scripture. It is no wonder that you talk about myth making. That's exactly what you intend to do to nullify the Scripture, by way of adding frivolous non-canonanical Jewish legends to it.

Originally posted by Wulebgr
The issue is not more or less qualified, but a certain minimum that must be met in order to address certain questions. It seems that neither you nor I achieve that minimum competence.

"To the law and to the testimony! If they speak not according to this word it is because there is no dawn in them." (Isa. 8:20)

You have nothing as long as you are eager to throw in stuff about Lilith. You seem to know enough about Hebrew to corrupt the details. That is ironic.

Originally posted by jaywill
Who cannot search non-conanical sources for fanciful apochryphal tales and use them to pollute the pure word of the Scripture?

How do you know the canon contains all the texts authored by G-d, and excludes all those that are not? The Canon has been maintained by human institutions. These institutions disagree on a few texts, admittedly not the ones concerning Lilith.

Your faith in the "pure word," in addition to side-stepping the cultural void between what you bring to the text and the world of the ancient Near East, relies upon the resolution of certain historical questions concerning the transmission of oral to written, and the preservation, transmission, and authenticity of the written.