Rereading my Bible Reviews.

[kattey]

Here are a few points you may be interested in.  I had forgotten the articles.


Bible Review  Summer 2005  Jack M. Sasson

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve did not eat the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.  If they had they would have died instantly.  They ate from the Tree of Knowledge in the Center of the Garden.  It seems, though, Eve mistakes this tree for the one that is
forbidden, but they broke no divine injunction.   What angers God is that they have taken the Serpent's counsel over His own.

It's true that some scholarship, fed for millennia of homiletics in which the fruit partaken is the forbidden fruit, has erroneously identified the tree from which she ate as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Bad.  The fruit results in their "opening their eyes" and seeing that they are naked, don loincloths.   Adam lies to God about his transformation into a guilty person.  They are now immortal and knowing, approaching the diviness of God.  Enough is enough.  God makes them mortal, clothes them in animal skins (which in some cultures was a humiliation),  and bades them to leave in case they again eat from from the Tree of Life and become immortal again.

The article states Wisdom was present during Creation.  Was this entity a Goddess?

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Jesus did not eat sitting at a table.  He reclined while he ate, just like everybody else.  We have to reimagine the last supper.  I believe it's doubtful that the "Holy Grail" was anything more then a clay cup.  Jesus and the disciples had no money and depended upon well-to-do women followers.

Then there is Jesus' brother James.  The Church calls him the First Bishop of Jerusalem.  I think that would be news to James.  After Jesus' death he was the leader of Jews who believed in Jesus' preachings.  He was pushed off the Temple Mount in 62 CE and killed by his enemies.  As far as I know, these Jews still worshipped in synagogues.  I don't think the Greeks and Romans had yet formed Christianity.

[Moses]

Bible Review  Summer 2005  Jack M. Sasson is wrong.

Is it based on Hebrew reading of the text or some translation.

And the LORD God commanded the man, saying: 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'

And the woman said unto the serpent: 'Of the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;
 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said: Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.'
4 And the serpent said unto the woman: 'Ye shall not surely die;
5 for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil.'

Here its clear that knowing Good and Evil is directly relates to the tree in the midst of the garden, so the tree of knowing good and evil is the tree.
All that woman was saying is that the location of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is in the midst of the garden.

 

11 And He said: 'Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?'

This is clear that the tree that God forbids to eat from is the :
"And the LORD God commanded the man, saying: 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.'"

Adam as we know before eating the the forbidden fruit did die, what we have now is a different Adam, he is no longer the same he has the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

The same as Jesus saying unless you born again.
What is Born again? in this case you become a christian not that you come out of mothers womb again.

[kattey]

"Adam, as we know, before eating the forbidden fruit did die."  We do you get this impression?  They did not eat the forbidden fruit or they would have been buried in the Garden.

I know there are two versions in the Torah of the creation story. I don't read the Torah, primarily because I don't think I'm capable of making the correct interpretation.  It's only in reading the scholars' interpretations that I know the depth of what's going on.  One need only look at the extreme religious right of America to see their interpretations don't always conform to the written word.  A former governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, once said "If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me. "

Finally, when a Jewish scholar, interpretating the creation story from the original Hebrew, gives a version of the story different from other translations, I tend to believe his version.  His translation wouldn't have been published in Bible Review if he was full of beans.

[Moses]

Well there are many interpretations.

Did you ever hear a living dead?

Adam was innocent he didn't know or care that he was naked.
But he was changed after eating of the fruit.
He was no longer the same Adam he became knowing Good and Evil just like God.

The Adam that was before eating the fruit is no longer, new Adam who had to hide from God.

I will give you another interpretation.

WHo is Nahash - the serpent?

Did you know that when Adam KNEW Eve they had a child. I Hebrew to KNOW is also to to make love.

Why there will be a hate between woman's seed and the serpents seed?

The Trees in the Garden are sons of God.
The Psalms confirm that the Righteous person is like a tree among streams of water in Gods garden i.e three that has plenty of water to water it and to have strong roots.

There are many "scholars" that came to reinterpret the Bible.
I would humbly challenge him as his theory is not supported by scripture.

[kattey]

Hi Moses

When you compare the woman's seed with the snake's seed, aren't you being discriminatory?  Why are you even comparing the two?  Perhaps Eve was a blond.  She mixed up the difference between the trees.  If it had been the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, she would have dropped dead.

The palm trees are the sons of God?  Then why did God bother to create Adam?

[Moses]

For some questions you better ask God not me.

I think God created Adam to be in the garden for his own purpose.
As to eve she did die.
One psalm states that a day of the lord is like 1000 years.
If this is so then no human lived more then 1000 years.
Well Enoch and Elijah didn't die so they are 1000's of years old.
But the rest died and a sleep until the judgment day when some will rise for everlasting life wile other to fire.

You can also understand that tree of life was readily available for Adam and Eve to eat from. So they wile in the garden never died.
It was not forbidden to eat from the tree of life.

But they when ate from the tree of knowledge of good end evil got thrown out of the garden with no way to return and so no longer could eat from the tree of life.

That is until Jehovah - YHWH gave the Torah to his people.
It is written that she is tree of life for these who behold there.

And the Tree of life in the garden of the lord was Jesus/Yashuah the Word who was with Father.

[kattey]

Obfuscation and poppycock!!

[Moses]

The pearl is rejected. :-(
Maybe the core of an apple will do.
(..)