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I found this article titled "What Happened in the Garden?" (November 29, 2021) posted to a blog called 'Ancient Insights'. The blog is run by an ex-Atheist and convert to Eastern Orthodoxy named Benjamin John. There are some things on the blog I agree with and some I don't agree with, but nonetheless I found this particular article interesting. I decided to post it here since the Genesis story of Adam & Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the Tree of Knowledge are all often discussed on this forum.
Because it's a long post, I will just take snippets of the most pertinent points to read here. The full article goes into more detail - you can feel free to read it yourself if you want to see the nitty-gritty of Benjamin's argument.
POINT 1 - "Knowledge of good and evil" means authority.
Quote:
If there’s any doubt about this, king Solomon puts it to rest. In 1 Kings 3:9, Solomon asks God for the ability to “discern between good and evil” in order that he might properly “govern” God’s people. This once again shows that having the knowledge of “good and evil” refers specifically to being able to make royal decisions; and this is why the word “discern” (לְהָבִ֖ין) is only used twice in Genesis, both of which are descriptions of Joseph in the context of his enthronement (Gen. 41:33, 39).
POINT 2 - God was going to let Adam & Eve eat from the tree; their sin was being impatient.
Quote:
Once we have a proper understanding of “the knowledge of good and evil,” namely that it refers to royal authority, we can begin to answer the question posed by Kristi: “why would God forbid His creation from having knowledge in the first place?” Well, first we must ask the question: was God’s prohibition on eating the fruit of the forbidden tree permanent? I don’t think so.
[...]
However, if God desired man to have the knowledge of good and evil, why the commandment against taking it? Recall the story of Joseph, someone who lawfully possessed this knowledge. What did he have that Adam and Eve didn’t? It’s quite simple, he had clothes. Whereas Joseph was fully clothed in a royal robe, Adam and Eve were naked (Gen. 2:25). Nakedness is a sign of immaturity, and clothing is a sign of maturity; man is born naked, but he’s buried fully clothed. Thus, man was initially forbidden from the knowledge of good and evil because he wasn’t ready for it yet, he needed to wait patiently and mature.
POINT 3 - Adam was smart enough to know eating the fruit was wrong already.
Quote:
With this in mind, we can move on to Kristi’s next point, which is an attempt to exonerate Adam from responsibility for the Fall. She rhetorically asks how high Adam’s “intelligence level” could have been, “[Adam] was not given the knowledge of good and evil, after all. So how deep could his natural ability to understand have gone?” However, as we demonstrated above, Adam didn’t possess no knowledge at all, but rather he was temporarily forbidden from the knowledge required for exercising royal authority. In fact, there’s plenty of evidence that Adam was incredibly intelligent, and thus fully culpable for his sin.
[...]
This point often goes missed, however in Genesis 2:7-8, we see that the Garden was planted after Adam was created. The implication seems to be that God planted the Garden in front of Adam’s very eyes, as if He were teaching His son how to do the same. Not only this, but Adam was tasked with “naming” all of the Lord’s creatures. Throughout Scripture, names are incredibly important; they signify the role that a given creature will play in God’s plan of history (as in the case of Abraham, cf. Gen. 17). Thus, in order to properly name the animals, Adam had to understand them, and indeed he does. Seeing that all of the animals came in sexual pairs, Adam discerned that he must as well, which is why Eve was created only after Adam had learned wisdom from the animals (all of this is confirmed in the book of Job).
POINT 4 - The devil did lie to Adam & Eve.
Quote:
Adam, had meditated on the word of the Lord. She states that God’s commandment was, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the Garden, neither shall you touch it.” Sorry, but where did God say not to touch the fruit? No where, He only said not to eat it (Gen. 2:17). However, Eve isn’t wrong. In the book of Leviticus (which is full of allusions to Genesis 3, see here), we see that the food you’re forbidden from eating, you’re also forbidden from touching (Lev. 11:8). What this means is that the woman, like her husband (probably even with his help), was beginning to grow in wisdom by meditating on the law of the Lord.
Hence, it’s at this point that the Serpent (who is, without doubt, Satan) truly begins his attack on the woman by lying to her; and this lie was twofold. First, the Serpent states that Adam and Eve wouldn’t die if they ate from the tree; contra Kristi, this is false because, as stated before, they indeed had to die through animal sacrifice (see here for more). Second, the Serpent implies that God didn’t want man to have the knowledge of good and evil, or to be like Him. This is ludicrous! As I explained at length above, the entire reason why God created man was in order for him to possess this knowledge! Man was literally made in “the image and likeness of God” (Gen. 1:26-27); this would be a pretty poor design if the Lord had no intentions on making us like Him! Indeed, as Seraphim Hamilton demonstrates, the entire narrative of Scripture revolves around mankind’s exaltation to the heavenly court to reign with God. Thus, the greatest lie Satan ever told was that God wanted anything other than our greatest possible end.
On this issue at least, I agree with Benjamin. Honestly I think the story of the Garden of Eden might be one of the most misunderstood stories in all of Western culture - both by people who believe it to be true as well as those who don't. Which is unfortunate.
It's a story. Actually it's two contradictory stories (Genesis one and Genesis two). They are not literal and not historical. They were written in part at least as a polemic against the other ancient Near East creation stories in order to give the credit for creation to the Hebrew God Yahweh.
It's a story. Actually it's two contradictory stories (Genesis one and Genesis two). They are not literal and not historical. They were written in part at least as a polemic against the other ancient Near East creation stories in order to give the credit for creation to the Hebrew God Yahweh.
Yes my first reaction is "what garden?" I mean this Eden place is fictional, so discussing "what really happened" there is kind of pointless IMO.
UNLESS you take it as an allegory or metaphor.
I must say I haven't heard the argument before that the author(s) of the story were writing it with awareness of the pre-existing creation myths, and just claiming them for Yaweh. That is an interesting possibility, though I don't know how one would verify it. I'm not sure we know, or can know, how widely known other versions were, and whether the author(s) literally cribbed from written copies or just were riffing on campfire stories.
Yes my first reaction is "what garden?" I mean this Eden place is fictional, so discussing "what really happened" there is kind of pointless IMO.
UNLESS you take it as an allegory or metaphor.
I must say I haven't heard the argument before that the author(s) of the story were writing it with awareness of the pre-existing creation myths, and just claiming them for Yaweh. That is an interesting possibility, though I don't know how one would verify it. I'm not sure we know, or can know, how widely known other versions were, and whether the author(s) literally cribbed from written copies or just were riffing on campfire stories.
The Hebrew Bible actually has a number of places where the writers pulled from other ANE sources. In Psalm 74 for example there is a brief creation story where in verse 14 Yahweh crushes the heads (that's plural) of Leviathan. That comes out of the Ugaritic text of the Baal Cycle where in Column 3 of Tablet 3, on line 40 the god Baal destroys the seven headed sea serpent. Baal speaks,
Didn't I snare the Dragon and destroy him?
I demolished the Twisting serpent,
the seven-headed monster.
Stories from Ancient Canaan, Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith
The biblical writers refer to Yahweh several times as 'the rider of the clouds.' That too is a title of Baal where in the Baal Cycle Baal is referred to as the rider of the clouds. The ancient Hebrews had problems with Baal worship which is reflected in the Hebrew Bible. For polemical purposes, to attack the idea that Baal was the rider of the clouds, the biblical writers gave that title to Yahweh. It was Yahweh who was the storm God and brought the rains . . .not Baal.
Israel was a part of the ancient Near East and breathed the same cultural air as the other ANE peoples. The biblical creation stories in Genesis have certain similarities both with Egyptian and Babylonian creation myths.
The authors of the book 'In the Beginning . . .We Misunderstood, Interpreting Genesis 1 in its original Context' Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden compare Genesis one with Egyptian creation accounts. For a time scholars thought that the Genesis creation account was taken directly from the Babylonian creation myth 'Enuma Elish' because of the similarities but eventually that view fell out of favor and it is thought that rather than directly borrowing from Enuma Elish (When on High) the Genesis creation story is just the result of the ANE peoples all breathing the same cultural air.
Whether or not the biblical writers had access to the written texts of the other ANE peoples or simply knew of the stories (the same cultural air), they attacked the other creation stories and they attacked the god Baal by taking certain aspects such as his title 'the rider of the clouds' and applying it to Yahweh.
The story is indeed true, but one part is not true as the seven solar day creation, as the sun and the moon were not even created until the fourth day is a contradiction of there was not a solar day for the first four days ................ Even though Adam and Eve were created by God to be the spiritual authority of the earth like Jesus Christ is the spiritual authority of the earth today, as Jesus came to take back this spiritual authority what Adam had lost to the evil spiritual devil and won it back at the cross of Christ ............ Still, the purpose of Adam and Eve have nothing to do with the theory of Darwinism, as there was life before Adam , as His one son Cain had a wife that was already there in the earth when Adam was created
It's amazing that scholars cannot agree on when the Garden Of Eden scenario took place, with estimates ranging up to 120,000 years ago, and yet we have posters here telling us exactly what happened in the Garden Of Eden.
The Hebrew Bible actually has a number of places where the writers pulled from other ANE sources. In Psalm 74 for example there is a brief creation story where in verse 14 Yahweh crushes the heads (that's plural) of Leviathan. That comes out of the Ugaritic text of the Baal Cycle where in Column 3 of Tablet 3, on line 40 the god Baal destroys the seven headed sea serpent. Baal speaks,
Didn't I snare the Dragon and destroy him?
I demolished the Twisting serpent,
the seven-headed monster.
Stories from Ancient Canaan, Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith
The biblical writers refer to Yahweh several times as 'the rider of the clouds.' That too is a title of Baal where in the Baal Cycle Baal is referred to as the rider of the clouds. The ancient Hebrews had problems with Baal worship which is reflected in the Hebrew Bible. For polemical purposes, to attack the idea that Baal was the rider of the clouds, the biblical writers gave that title to Yahweh. It was Yahweh who was the storm God and brought the rains . . .not Baal.
Israel was a part of the ancient Near East and breathed the same cultural air as the other ANE peoples. The biblical creation stories in Genesis have certain similarities both with Egyptian and Babylonian creation myths.
The authors of the book 'In the Beginning . . .We Misunderstood, Interpreting Genesis 1 in its original Context' Johnny V. Miller and John M. Soden compare Genesis one with Egyptian creation accounts. For a time scholars thought that the Genesis creation account was taken directly from the Babylonian creation myth 'Enuma Elish' because of the similarities but eventually that view fell out of favor and it is thought that rather than directly borrowing from Enuma Elish (When on High) the Genesis creation story is just the result of the ANE peoples all breathing the same cultural air.
Whether or not the biblical writers had access to the written texts of the other ANE peoples or simply knew of the stories (the same cultural air), they attacked the other creation stories and they attacked the god Baal by taking certain aspects such as his title 'the rider of the clouds' and applying it to Yahweh.
Eh, we really don't need modern-day armchair analysis of that. None of us could know any more than what scripture says and reveals, so we can dispense of the deluded pompousness of modern "experts".
Scripture is sufficient. Appreciate that in its completeness.
Eh, we really don't need modern-day armchair analysis of that. None of us could know any more than what scripture says and reveals, so we can dispense of the deluded pompousness of modern "experts".
Scripture is sufficient. Appreciate that in its completeness.
So you believe that Adam was created as a full blown adult and that God made a rib woman for Adam? And you believe that the earth is flat and that it is covered by a solid dome firmament in which the sun, moon, and stars are embedded, and that the earth rests on pillars? Because that's how the Bible portrays the earth.
How can you honestly say that we can't know any more than what scripture says and reveals? According to the Bible, because it's what the ancient Hebrews believed, the seat of consciousness is in the physical heart and the seat of emotions is in the kidneys. We know better than that today. And we know that the earth is not covered by a solid dome firmament. There is a lot we know today that the Bible doesn't say or that it is wrong about.
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