The two trees in the garden.

[Heneni]

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, was the tree of the LAW.

Good vs bad
Right vs wrong

etc.

The law basically tells us the same thing.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a kind of tree that did not GIVE life, but took life.

Whoever would eat from it, it would take its life in order to sustain itself and live.

Hence....when adam and eve ate from it....they did eventually die. They would have lived forever. Man, they must have been AWESOME beings of life! So the tree of knowledge of good and evil has been sustaining itself with the living souls on this planet. But the souls here on this planet, have subsequently been drained of eternal life.

Anyway...the tree of life...was a different kind of tree. This tree would give you life if you ate from it, and not take your life to sustain itself.

The one tree, would suck the life out of you, the other would give you life.

The one tree requires you to sustain it. The other will sustain you.

If you are a branch on the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it will drain you of life. If you are connected to the tree of life, it will give you life.

Jesus died when he gave his life to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and it no longer requires our life to sustain it. Jesus came to 'fullfill' the law..thereby fullfilling its hunger.


Comments? Ideas?

 

[doppelganger]

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, was the tree of the LAW.

Good vs bad
Right vs wrong

etc.

The law basically tells us the same thing.

Yes. Right on, so far. Though I would add that it's not just "right vs. wrong" but fundamental dualism that's really at issue: the tree of knowledge represents the birth of self-consciousness, the ego, in separation from, and conflict to survive amongst, all else that is ("God").

The tree of knowledge of good and evil was a kind of tree that did not GIVE life, but took life.

Excellent observation.

Hence....when adam and eve ate from it....they did eventually die. They would have lived forever.

They wouldn't have experienced death, but that's not quite the same thing as "living forever." Death is experienced in the anticipating, and that requires dualism - knowledge of good and evil. It is a natural product of having an "i am" - a self that experiences its being and thereby must necessarily contemplate and non-being and experience it through anxiety.

Anyway...the tree of life...was a different kind of tree. This tree would give you life if you ate from it, and not take your life to sustain itself.

The tree of life is the mystic path. Love. It keeps the balance between being and not-being. It sustains life without the anxiety of judgment and death.

Jesus died when he gave his life to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and it no longer requires our life to sustain it. Jesus came to 'fullfill' the law..thereby fullfilling its hunger.

Only to the extent you find Jesus in you and die in the same way.

But that's the ideal. There's nothing inherently wrong with separation - its the hysterical anxiety of non-being that's the problem. Separation goes hand in hand with the wonder of being. Controlling the anxiety and balancing being and loving is what the cross is about.

 

[ChristineES]

Let's use the tree of knowledge symbolically with the idea of a child. The tree of knowledge could be self awareness. A tiny newborn doesn't know anything except if he/she makes noise, mom and/or dad will comfort him or her and so on. Eventually, the child begins to realize that he is a person, same as his parents and starts to want (a little at time) whatever his parents want. That would be symbolic of becoming self aware and "eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge".
Since I believe it is symbolic, then Adam and Eve went from being like a baby- not knowing anything outside of instinct to learning more. They realized that knowing more meant they had some power. Think about it- animals do not know they are naked

 

[Watchmen]

I was going to respond, but caught myself staring at your avatar.

 

[Heneni]

I was going to respond, but caught myself staring at your avatar.

Yeh i like her tattoo as well.

 

[Heneni]

If one could keep the law, in other words not break the law, then the tree of knowledge of good and evil would not draw life from you. But if you break the law, even in the slightest detail you would be guilty of transgressing against the entire law, and the tree would require life from you.

And since we were 'dead' in our trespasses its clear we had no more life in us, because we broke the law.

Cain murdered his brother, because I believe he was not happy with the fact that his life would be required for breaking the law, and instead took his brothers life. Cain slew his brother as a sacrifice to the tree hoping that its hunger would be satified with his brothers life instead of requiring his own. He was terribly afraid to die. He couldnt keep the law and the more he slipped up the more his life was required from him. The lord said to him (paraphrasing here) 'Why are you depressed (that already a lack of 'life'), sin is crouching at your door, and it DESIRE is for YOU. You must learn to master it (the law)'

If cain could master not breaking the law, he would not slowly loose his life. An eye for an eye. If you break the law in this part, the a part of your life is required. The law was suppose to be life, but it could only be life to those who kept it, if you broke the law, it required life from you.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil had a DESIRE for cain. He knew it and killed his brother as an appeasement to the tree. That is probably where sacrifice started. Sacrificing the living to appease the anger of gods. Its was quite common in pagan religions.

Heneni.

 

[Heneni]

Hebrew 9:22In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.

Cain must have known this... perhaps as I said..this is why he killed his brother.

 

[Heneni]

Gal 3:21Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.

The law..cannot impart life..rather it REQUIRES life.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, required life, if any part of it was broken.

 

[Anthropic_Principle]

Mankind dies because of our betrayal to God, not because we ate some fruit. If God had said "do not sit on my sofa" then the serpent would have said "hey, Eve...comfy sofa...yeah!?"

God made us mortal to forever create a dependency for HIM.

Mankind already knew of Sin, we were quickened with the holy spirit and the holy spirit gives us the "discernment of sin". So we knew right from wrong...good from evil.

The nature of the tree of knowledge as it pertains to Genesis is less about "good and evil" and more about knowledge.

 

[danny vee]

I would just like to comment on God making us mortal and on Hell and Heaven and stuff. A lot of people have said that Heaven is here on Earth, but recently I thought, what if Earth is Hell? It makes sense. There is so much uncertainty, disease, torture, humans are incapable of divine love, all we are capable is of showing love through the flesh. Christ said that I tell you: "He who does not hate this world, his parents and his siblings, he will not have treasury in Heaven." I take this as what if by trying to enjoy this world we are really serving satan, and evil itself. The definition of evil is satan, and the definition of perfection is God. God is divine love and as a punishment for eating from the tree of knowledge we are condemned to a lifetime in Hell where nothing is certain. However God wants to collect us back and we need to recognize that. I think that simply by acknowledging God and loving Him, and doing good we are saved. I don't think it personally matters whether you're Muslim or Christian, as long as you do good in God's name. For Christ is God so by loving God we love Christ too. We all know that good is good and evil is evil. Please comment on this because they're just my thoughts and they mightn't be correct and I want to see what you think. Love is good. Forgiveness is right. I'm only 14 but I have dreams of changing the world. Perhaps naive but what would the world be if we weren't allowed to dream?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Biblically, the Tree of Knowledge did not kill anyone. It seems that it was the banishment from the Tree of Life that caused death.

 

[Katzpur]

I would just like to comment on God making us mortal and on Hell and Heaven and stuff. A lot of people have said that Heaven is here on Earth, but recently I thought, what if Earth is Hell? It makes sense. There is so much uncertainty, disease, torture, humans are incapable of divine love, all we are capable is of showing love through the flesh. Christ said that I tell you: "He who does not hate this world, his parents and his siblings, he will not have treasury in Heaven." I take this as what if by trying to enjoy this world we are really serving satan, and evil itself. The definition of evil is satan, and the definition of perfection is God. God is divine love and as a punishment for eating from the tree of knowledge we are condemned to a lifetime in Hell where nothing is certain. However God wants to collect us back and we need to recognize that. I think that simply by acknowledging God and loving Him, and doing good we are saved. I don't think it personally matters whether you're Muslim or Christian, as long as you do good in God's name. For Christ is God so by loving God we love Christ too. We all know that good is good and evil is evil. Please comment on this because they're just my thoughts and they mightn't be correct and I want to see what you think. Love is good. Forgiveness is right. I'm only 14 but I have dreams of changing the world. Perhaps naive but what would the world be if we weren't allowed to dream?

My only comment is that you sound like every mother's dream of a 14-year old.

 

[Katzpur]

I see the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as being exactly what its name implies. Its fruit would give whoever ate it an understanding of the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, sickness and health, etc. There was nothing wrong with this fruit, per se. It would have been impossible for Adam and Eve to have progressed without this knowledge. The problem was that they had been commanded not to eat from it. It was their disobedience that caused them to fall from grace, not the fruit of the tree. It was a necessary step, though. Sure, they could have remained in the perpetually perfect Garden, but without a knowledge of what was on the outside, they'd have never even realized how good they had it. Besides, until they ate the fruit, they did not have a knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, they knew they'd been told not to eat the fruit, but they didn't really understand that disobedience was "evil."

 

[Heneni]

. We differ greatly differ in our views of this tree.

The tree of knowledge of good and evil, is food for the mind, or the soul. The mind being the intellect, reasoning, will and emotions.

The tree of life was food for the spirit.

I think god intended adam and eve to know him, which is not the same as having knowledge of good and evil. There was no reason to know evil, it would mean only sorrow and not blessing, as history has shown. There was only reason to know God, which is good. Knowing evil, would introduce into her life, all that would make her, if she accepted and acted on that evil, a stranger to god.

Its interesting though that satan tempted eve, by using her reasoning, her mind, and enticing her mind for more knowledge, which he said, would make her like a god. But they were a prototype of god already. And thinking that there was something god was holding out on them, made her reason that it would be a good idea to eat of this tree, because it looked good. Her mind overruled her spirit, and that led to her fall. Adam in his mind, made eve a type of idol. And idols usually leads to disobedience and rebellion. He deliberately disobeyed. Eve was decieved into eating of the tree. Hes mind was captivated by eve.

And so it still is. Satan presents us with knowledge of good and evil. God intended for us to know only good. And there is only one that is good, and that is god. There would be no reason to know evil, because knowing about evil, would mean your enticed by it, tempted by it, led astray by it. Your mind being constantly bombarded by ideas that would usurp your attention from god. Hence we are to flee from evil. Resist it with all our might.

What eve didnt know and what satan did not tell her, was that by having knowledge of good and evil she wouldnt necessarily have the ability to withstand evil. Her mind overruled her spirit. And so her mind would be the overruling power regarding what she was going to act on and what she wouldnt act on. Instead god wants us to act on what the spirit prompts us to do. If the spirit does not rule the mind, the mind will tell the body to do all sorts of things. If the spirit rules the mind, the mind simply communicates that which pleases the spirit to the body.

Our minds would have been full of only good if we didnt have knowledge of evil, and communication and communion with god would be an ongoing thing.

Satan has always been after power, recognition and fame. As long as eve did not have any knowledge of his true identity and his workings he would not have access to her mind or her spirit, and hence he would have no power over her or authority. He would have remained unknown. He would have had no stage. Evil would have remained unknown, not acted upon, and not in our lives at all. Adam and eve was given authority over this place. He wanted it. And he got it. He is not our friend. He betrayed us...and still does. He still dupes people into giving their authority to him. How does the beast in revelations turn into a dragon? Humans have fed it. Given their authority over to him. Given their minds and spirits over to him. Do they do this in full knowledge? No mostly they dont. He still decieves them to get the authority. Still tells them lies of godhood and entices them with secret knowledge and power.


I guess hes still saying...follow me..im going places.

Not that you ever get any real power..its all a deception. All you get is a mark on you, that will ultimately be your mark of slavery.

You sell your soul by getting something in return. Promises of power and grandeur, self-governence, freedom from god, sexual bliss etc..etc...

And while people feed on this rather bad deal...they become more and more debased in mind. Until their mind and that of satan has no distinction. At that point you have been marked. Your mind unable to comprehend anything other than what he tells you. Thinking that your doing the thinking, when in fact he is training you how to think like him.

People think that god is the one who cramps their style. Who takes away their freedom. Its actually the other way around. Satan, like a virus, invades the mind, until its completely infected and under his control. Does that mean man doesnt think anymore? No it means that man has become a beast. A student when he is fully trained becomes like his master in all things.

Heneni

 

[danny vee]

Such a delusional world we live in. On the last day, God will pull the veil from our eyes.

 

[cardero]

Such a delusional world we live in. On the last day, God will pull the veil from our eyes.

..and possibly use that veil to teach us how to wipe our own....noses.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

The tree of life was food for the spirit.

That's not a Scriptural position. The spirit never dies, it returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7),therefore the need for the spirit to refresh at the Tree of Life is unnecessary.

 

[lunamoth]

I see the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil as being exactly what its name implies. Its fruit would give whoever ate it an understanding of the difference between good and evil, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, sickness and health, etc. There was nothing wrong with this fruit, per se. It would have been impossible for Adam and Eve to have progressed without this knowledge. The problem was that they had been commanded not to eat from it. It was their disobedience that caused them to fall from grace, not the fruit of the tree. It was a necessary step, though. Sure, they could have remained in the perpetually perfect Garden, but without a knowledge of what was on the outside, they'd have never even realized how good they had it. Besides, until they ate the fruit, they did not have a knowledge of good and evil. Therefore, they knew they'd been told not to eat the fruit, but they didn't really understand that disobedience was "evil."

I agree to a large extent katz. Without 'The Fall' life would not be anything like we know it. I don't think that disobedience was the main problem though. The Fall was not the eating of the fruit, but what happened immediately after: shame, blame, alienation and pride.

 

[Heneni]

That's not a Scriptural position. The spirit never dies, it returns to God (Ecclesiastes 12:7),therefore the need for the spirit to refresh at the Tree of Life is unnecessary.

Jesus is the way the truth and the life. And so he is the only tree of life. And the other tree is a tree that brought a curse.

And everybody that lives by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, therefore the law, right and wrong, is under a curse.

Gal 3:10All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law."

 

[Katzpur]

Without 'The Fall' life would not be anything like we know it.

From an LDS perspective, without the Fall, life wouldn't be. Period.