Then the LORD God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Gen 3:22-24(English Standard Version)
Yes, those verses you quoted dont sit too well with me Im afraid, Jay Jay.
Genesis is my favorite book monti.
(1) The start there for instance, God is admitting that there are Gods (plural).
Well, in Gen 1:26 it also mentions "us".
"Then God said: Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, and let them have in subjection the fish of the sea and the flying creatures of the heavens and the domestic animals and all the earth and every creeping animal that is moving on the earth.
Who is the "us" in this verse? Some who believe in a trinitarian god attribute the "us" to the supposedly equal parts of the godhead. But seeing as how there is no trinity taught in scripture, there is another Biblically based answer.
The nation of Israel acknowledged only one God who had no equal. (Ex 20:3) He was not comprised of three parts but was "one Yahweh". (Deut 6:4)
In Gen 1:1 God is acknowledged as the Creator. But he was not alone. He had produced a son, his "only begotten" who was created before all other things.
This one was then used as the fabricator of the raw materials that the Creator brought into existence. (Col 1:15, 16) This divine "son of God" was identified in Proverbs 8:22, 30 as the first of God's creations and as a "master worker" at his Father's side, working under his guidance. The "us" therefore is God and his son. An awesome team.
In the Bible, the term "god" was not used exclusively of the Father. Jesus was also referred to as a god, (mighty one.) Names intermixed with appropriate titles identified what "gods" were being spoken about. "Almighty God" "The Sovereign Lord Jehovah" "The Most High" clearly identified Israel's one God.
This is why names are used in scripture. The Almighty is identified by his personal name YHWH. (Translated as Yahweh or Jehovah Ex 3:15, Psalm 83:18)
The title "Lord" when written in large and small capitals is an indication of where the divine name appeared in the Hebrew Scriptures. God's personal name (one that he revealed to man himself) was removed and replaced in the Hebrew texts by men, with no sanction or permission from God to do so.
Now there is confusion between the "Lord God" and the "Lord Jesus Christ". Christendom has merged them into one godhead. The Bible does not do that.
(2) He only drove out the man. Yet it was also the female who had "sinned".
When it said that "the man" was driven out, it was both the man and his wife. "Adam" means "man" not just in the sense of his name as an individual, but as an identification of "mankind" itself.
How was it that Adam and Eve had children if one of them was left in the garden?
Paradise was lost to them forever. Adam and his wife were sent back to where they came from. (Gen 3:17-19)
God sent a redeemer to rescue Adam's children from the inheritance of sin and death that resulted in them being born in sin through no fault on their part.
It is interesting to note that the Bible says that it was through the man that sin entered into the world, not the woman. (Rom 5:12) She was 'deceived' but the man was not. He willfully and deliberately made a choice to disobey his God and join his wife in a sinful act that clearly carried the death penalty. There was no other cause of death mentioned. Free access to the tree of life was available to them until they were disqualified from partaking of it.
(3) And God doesn't mention what was so problematic about the tree of knowledge and neither does God put a flaming sword to guard access to it (the problematic tree of knowledge) in the future, as is the case of the tree of life.
As free willed beings, man was free to make choices....even bad ones. God had one tree among a multitude of trees that served as food for the pair that was off limits. The prohibition imposed no hardship on them whatsoever. It was a simple test of their obedience and trust in their Creator as well as respect for what belonged to him. This tree was not theirs for the taking, so if the devil had not seduced the woman into thinking that God was holding back something that would benefit them, I believe that the tree would have remained untouched.
It was not just a tree of knowledge. God was Adam' s personal instructor in the garden, imparting much knowledge to him. This tree represented specific knowledge.....knowing "good and evil".
At first, a knowledge of evil was to be kept in God's jurisdiction. The Creator knew that a knowledge of evil would not benefit mankind at all, so he locked it away behind a penalty so severe that only a fool would choose it. Satan planned his move very carefully. He 'fooled' the woman into thinking the penalty would not apply. Adam, though was not fooled. He chose to sin in full knowledge of what he was doing.
Once a knowledge of evil had been released, there was no putting it back, so God allowed Adam's children to experience the world with a full knowledge and daily experience of what it meant in real life. He even allowed the god they chose to obey, to rule this world. That way an object lesson that will last forever was permitted to set precedents that would ensure that God's Sovereignty could never be challenged again. No future rebel will ever be permitted to rise up and spoil things for us again, either in heaven or on earth.
(4) Genesis as a whole is indeed full of holes when one reads it slowly and takes in what it is that is actually written therein. For instance there are three separate creations of man/woman.
It is only full of holes if you try to introduce pre-conceived notions into it.
There are no holes in it that I can see. All the problems are easily explained by other parts of the Bible.
Flavius Josephus puts many very important details in his works that should have been included the Old Testament. Example, he tells us that the gods taught Adams little known son Seth, Astronomy. He also tells us it was Seth who had been told by the gods to erect two pillars( and inscribe them) to warn future generations of the flood as was prophesied by
his father Adam. So you see, Noah was not the first to hear about the future deluge, it was Adam. Josephus spends a lot of time talking about Seth, more than he does any other member of Adams offspring. You should read his works.
It is good to remember that Josephus' works do not qualify as scripture. They add a bit of detail to history, but let's not get carried away. His writings are not those of an eye witness to events in the OT, nor were they inspired by God. His work does not dismantle God's written word. Why would it?
