Was Adam a caveman? Was Eve a cavewoman?

[Enoch07]

You're saying God shouldn't take responsibility, though, so pot-kettle. How come we have to be but He doesn't?

Because God did not force Cain to murder. Cain chose to do it.

 

[gnostic]

Because God did not force Cain to murder. Cain chose to do it.

But if God was all-knowing, then God should have known that by not accepting Cain's sacrifice, would lead to Cain to murdering his brother, but God did it any way.

God could have accept both sacrifices from the two brothers and there would have been no jealousy, no murder, but instead God chose to play favoritism.

 

[Enoch07]

But if God was all-knowing, then God should have known that by not accepting Cain's sacrifice, would lead to Cain to murdering his brother, but God did it any way.

God could have accept both sacrifices from the two brothers and there would have been no jealousy, no murder, but instead God chose to play favoritism.

No, Cain could have chosen to to give a better sacrifice but did not. Which is why Ables was chosen. Cain had options, he made the chose wrong.

 

[gnostic]

No, Cain could have chosen to to give a better sacrifice but did not. Which is why Ables was chosen. Cain had options, he made the chose wrong.

What’s wrong with growing crops? You think it is easy life?

Abel was a shepherd who owned and tended sheep and goats.

Cain was a farmer who grew crops.

Of the two, whose job is the hardest?

Perhaps the hardest work Abel could possibly do is shearing.

Cain’s job would be to till the earth, sow it, water it through irrigation, and then harvest the crop. The tilling and irrigation are hard work, and even harvesting a lot more time and effort than whatever Abel had to do.

Cain’s job is far more back-breaking than Abel’s job.

God could have accept both sacrifices. He didn’t. If he as all-knowing, then he should have known the consequences of rejecting Cain, and god could have prevented, but he didnt.

But clearly god is not all-knowing. And that’s the story of life, he didn’t know, and he couldn’t have foreseen what his own action would have result in.
L
For instance, he didn’t want Adam and Eve, so he forbids them. How is that going to stop them, when the Tree of Knowledge is right in the middle of Eden?

A better preventive measure would be God not planting the Tree of Knowledge in Eden in the first place.

Wisdom come from the decision made by weighing the possible outcomes. God didn’t show wisdom in the Cain-Abel story any more than he did, in the Eden story.

So the title of being “all-knowing” is rather an empty title. A better title for god would be “Oops! I should haven’t done that”, because a talking serpent had better brain than god.

Sorry, but if anyone is wrong, then god is responsible for his own poor decisions.

 

[Enoch07]

What’s wrong with growing crops? You think it is easy life?

Abel was a shepherd who owned and tended sheep and goats.

Cain was a farmer who grew crops.

Of the two, whose job is the hardest?

Perhaps the hardest work Abel could possibly do is shearing.

Cain’s job would be to till the earth, sow it, water it through irrigation, and then harvest the crop. The tilling and irrigation are hard work, and even harvesting a lot more time and effort than whatever Abel had to do.

Cain’s job is far more back-breaking than Abel’s job.

God could have accept both sacrifices. He didn’t. If he as all-knowing, then he should have known the consequences of rejecting Cain, and god could have prevented, but he didnt.

But clearly god is not all-knowing. And that’s the story of life, he didn’t know, and he couldn’t have foreseen what his own action would have result in.
L
For instance, he didn’t want Adam and Eve, so he forbids them. How is that going to stop them, when the Tree of Knowledge is right in the middle of Eden?

A better preventive measure would be God not planting the Tree of Knowledge in Eden in the first place.

Wisdom come from the decision made by weighing the possible outcomes. God didn’t show wisdom in the Cain-Abel story any more than he did, in the Eden story.

So the title of being “all-knowing” is rather an empty title. A better title for god would be “Oops! I should haven’t done that”, because a talking serpent had better brain than god.

Sorry, but if anyone is wrong, then god is responsible for his own poor decisions.

God did Eden the way He did for a reason. If you can't see the valuable lesson learned from Adam and Eve and their children's decision, that's on you. This is part of what's wrong with today's world. Everyone wants to point the finger at someone else, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

 

[Deeje]

Except that Adam never had eternal life, BECAUSE he was never made immortal AND he had never eaten fruit from the Tree of Life:

Adam and Eve were not created to be immortal. If they were immortal, the prohibition and the penalty for disobeying it would have been meaningless. An immortal cannot die.

Adam could only live forever, if he had eaten from the Tree of Life. Instead they ate from Tree of Knowledge.

Just because the first humans were created to be mortal doesn't mean that they HAD to die....only that that COULD. The only mention of death however was for disobedience. Their continued existence was dependent upon their obedience and access to the one means to keep them living forever in their mortal flesh.

Let’s say for a moment that there are 3 possibilities:

1. If they had eaten from the Tree of Life, then outcome they would have live forever.

Yes, as long as they did not disobey the only negative command they had from their Creator, death was not inevitable. As long as they had food to eat, air to breathe and water to drink, there was nothing inherent in them to cause death. Cell renewal in the human body was designed to be perpetual. Sin stopped that process and aging set in, leading to eventual death. Humans would never have aged if they had just obeyed their Creator. They would have stayed forever young....reaching maturity and remaining there indefinitely.

2. We already know the outcome from eating from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3), because he would eventually die, as seen in Genesis 5:5.

First of all, it wasn't the "tree of knowledge" per se. God had educated the man personally for a long time before his mate was created. The tree represented God's prerogative to determine what was good and what was bad and to set reasonable limits as to their use of free will.

In their sinful state, humans began to lose the ability to tell the difference. This is why Cain killed his brother.....to him it seemed like a good idea to get rid of "the good son" in order to make himself and his activities look better. Jealousy clouded his thinking so that in just one generation a murderer was produced.

Genesis 5:5 applies only after they ate the forbidden fruit and were evicted from Eden and denied access to the tree of life. It wasn't an instant death but a slow descent into aging, sickness and eventual death.
If God hadn't denied them access, then they would have been sinful AND had the ability to live forever. Imagine people like Attila the Hun and Hitler or Pol Pot never dying?

And the 3rd possibility is not eating from either Trees (so both Life and Knowledge), the outcome for Adam would still die, perhaps even at the same age as verse 5:5.

The original plan was to have them avoid eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil so that they could partake of the tree of live to live forever on earth where God put them in the first place. They had a mandate to fulfill....populating the entire earth with their kind, and "subduing" it. Not something they were going to accomplish in the short term....they had forever to accomplish it. There was no death in God's original purpose for mankind....there will be no death when it is restored. (Revelation 21:2-4)

The only differences between dying for (2) having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, and (3) dying for not eating from the Tree of Knowledge, is that if point 3 happened, they wouldn’t need to suffer.

Not so. Humans were not designed to die....death is not natural for us even though it is all we have ever known. We have a natural desire to go on living....in paradise, which is what Eden was. They were supposed to spread the boundaries of their paradise to encompass the whole earth. Their disobedience led God to make a detour in order to accomplish all that he set out to do. (Isaiah 55:11) It will come full circle.

No where in Genesis 2 & 3, did it ever say that god made them to live forever. They would only live forever, if Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of Life at the beginning, instead of from the Tree of Knowledge.

That is true. Eating from the "tree of life" would have guaranteed them everlasting life on earth...not in heaven.

Genesis 3:17-24
"And to Adam he said: “Because you listened to your wife’s voice and ate from the tree concerning which I gave you this command, ‘You must not eat from it,’ cursed is the ground on your account. In pain you will eat its produce all the days of your life. 18 It will grow thorns and thistles for you, and you must eat the vegetation of the field. 19 In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For dust you are and to dust you will return.”
20 After this Adam named his wife Eve, because she was to become the mother of everyone living. 21 And Jehovah God made long garments from skins for Adam and for his wife, to clothe them. 22 Jehovah God then said: “Here the man has become like one of us in knowing good and bad. Now in order that he may not put his hand out and take fruit also from the tree of life and eat and live forever,—” 23 With that Jehovah God expelled him from the garden of Eʹden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken. 24 So he drove the man out, and he posted at the east of the garden of Eʹden the cherubs and the flaming blade of a sword that was turning continuously to guard the way to the tree of life."

If they didn’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they would still die, but Eve wouldn’t need to suffer any pain when she’d give birth, and Adam would die but without suffering or pain.

If they had not eaten from the tree of life, it would have been because God had punished them. Had they not sinned, no punishment would have been necessary. So yes, no pain in childbirth and no suffering or pain from diseases caused by a compromised immune system leading to ill health, aging and death.

 

[DennisTate]

How does a person fit prehistoric man into Christianity?

Where there any references anywhere made for Neathandrals and Cro-Magnon humans?

Yes... Adam and Eve were cave people!

Forgotten Books of Eden: First Book of Adam and Eve

Chapter IV - Adam mourns over the changed conditions. Adam and Eve enter the Cave of Treasures.

1 But Adam and Eve cried for having come out of the garden, their first home. 2 And indeed, when Adam looked at his flesh, that was altered, he cried bitterly, he and Eve, over what they had done. And they walked and went gently down into the Cave of Treasures. 3 And as they came to it, Adam cried over himself and said to Eve, "Look at this cave that is to be our prison in this world, and a place of punishment! 4 What is it compared with the garden? What is its narrowness compared with the space of the other? 5 What is this rock, by the side of those groves? What is the gloom of this cavern, compared with the light of the garden? 6 What is this overhanging ledge of rock to shelter us, compared with the mercy of the Lord that overshadowed us? 7 What is the soil of this cave compared with the garden land? This earth, strewed with stones; and that, planted with delicious fruit trees?" 8 And Adam said to Eve, "Look at your eyes, and at mine, which before beheld angels praising in heaven; and they too, without ceasing. 9 But now we do not see as we did; our eyes have become of flesh; they cannot see like they used to see before." 10 Adam said again to Eve, "What is our body today, compared to what it was in former days, when we lived in the garden?" 11 After this, Adam did not want to enter the cave, under the overhanging rock; nor would he ever want to enter it. 12 But he bowed to God's orders; and said to himself, "Unless I enter the cave, I shall again be a transgressor."

Chapter V - Eve makes a noble and emotional intercession, taking the blame on herself.

Nachman of Breslov - Wikiquote

When a person falls from his level he should know that it’s heaven-sent, because going down is needed in order to go up, therefore he fell, in order that he arouses himself more to come close to Hashem. Advice for him - Begin anew to enter into service of Hashem as if you have never yet even begun (Ibid)

Whenever a person rises from one level to the next, it necessitates that he first has a descent before the ascent. Because the purpose of any descent is always in order to ascend. (LM 22)

There is a lot to talk about here (in the above topic). Because each person who fell to the place where he fell thinks that these words weren’t spoken for him, for he imagines that these ideas are only for great people who are always climbing from one level to the next. But truthfully, you should know and believe, that all these words were also said concerning the smallest of the small and the worst of the worst, for Hashem is forever good to all. (Ibid as quoted in LE)

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Because God did not force Cain to murder. Cain chose to do it.

Cain chose to vent. I don't see any evidence that "murder" was on the guy's mind. People are impulsive and short-sighted all the time. It's not like A&E had reasoned discussions about eating some forbidden fruit, they just saw it was yummy and BAM. It just seems funny to me that you are all into making Cain the bad guy when even God won't punish him with more than just a slap on the wrist (like how He spared A&E for being idiots too, actually). God is willing to kill for the most arbitrary of reasons in the bible, but I find it fascinating that the first three "sinners" get off largely scot free. And let's not forget that as God doesn't define what was wrong with Cain's offering, the displeasure seems arbitrary and if you REALLY want to anger your kids, you do something patently unfair. If Cain's offering was displeasing, that was a "Teachable Moment", not "You suck and don't bother Me again". God is like many human parents: create new life and then not want to put in the elbow grease to make sure things go swell. It takes GENERATIONS just for God to think "Hey, maybe I should dictate less than a dozen rules they should follow despite them coming from a far more advanced civilization with laws everywhere". How can Ra and Friends know people need laws and not Yahweh?

No, Cain could have chosen to to give a better sacrifice but did not. Which is why Ables was chosen. Cain had options, he made the chose wrong.

What options? The laws about what kind of things were acceptable sacrifices aren't invented until much later. There is no ... NO ... setup to justify what happened in the story. We call this "bad writing" and God, if He truly dictated the bible, should know better, unless He flunked literature class or something.

Of the two, whose job is the hardest?

And considering that anything more than a backyard small garden is going to require multiple people to accomplish, asking Cain to work entire fields or something by himself (how many other people were there?) is just plain mean. It's like Grimm's Fairy Tales where characters are asked to pick up millions of grains of rice by sunset or whatever.

God doesn't learn His lesson as Jesus, either, because when Jesus uses parables about agriculture, it's still clear (H)e doesn't understand squat, and I'm not even a green thumb and I know better than Jesus/God about how farming works.

A better preventive measure would be God not planting the Tree of Knowledge in Eden in the first place.

Or dragons. Even Hera has dragons guarding HER magic immortality fruit. Did God not have enough money to pay a dragon?

Wisdom come from the decision made by weighing the possible outcomes. God didn’t show wisdom in the Cain-Abel story any more than he did, in the Eden story.

Which is why, I think, ultimately God slaps the first three "sinners" on the wrist, because honestly, it's all due to God's neglect, but some posters don't want God to own up to His own contributions to the scenario.

God did Eden the way He did for a reason.

And sometimes that reason is "I'm too lazy". He won't even name the animals He made. He makes a kid "born yesterday" to do it. They're HIS creations, for God's sake.

If you can't see the valuable lesson learned from Adam and Eve and their children's decision, that's on you.

I think some of us have a better understanding of what the lesson is than others. The authors may not have intended the "lesson", but as they are terrible writers, that's not our fault.

Everyone wants to point the finger at someone else, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

Do you believe in Original Sin? How is that not shoving off your crap on Adam and Eve? Do you believe Jesus will cleanse you of your sins? How is that not shoving off your crap on Jesus? When do YOU take responsibility?

The only mention of death however was for disobedience.

It's worded like the fruit is poison and they will die "in that day", but they clearly don't, because God was less than honest. He just didn't want to share the God-given (fruit-given) powers.

In their sinful state, humans began to lose the ability to tell the difference. This is why Cain killed his brother.....to him it seemed like a good idea to get rid of "the good son" in order to make himself and his activities look better.

Again ... what makes Abel good and Cain evil? We are not shown any character development to judge such a thing. We are not shown any rules for one to adhere to and the other to break. It's a very stupid story. There's better writing in History of the World Part 1.

 

[Enoch07]

Cain chose to vent. I don't see any evidence that "murder" was on the guy's mind. People are impulsive and short-sighted all the time.

Sure but this does not qualify as a crime of passion or inclusiveness. Especially considering Cain lied to God, when He asked Cain about Abel.

Genesis 4:8

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

9 And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

There is no ... NO ... setup to justify what happened in the story. We call this "bad writing" and God, if He truly dictated the bible, should know better, unless He flunked literature class or something.

That should be a clue it's non-fiction.

Real life is much more disturbing than anything you can dream up.

 

[Kelly of the Phoenix]

Sure but this does not qualify as a crime of passion or inclusiveness. Especially considering Cain lied to God, when He asked Cain about Abel.

A kid who eats the cookies will do so on impulse and, with crumbs all over the fingers, claim it didn't happen. It's not that they know what they did was wrong: it's that they realize by your reaction that it's something they need to claim ignorance over. Besides, if all that is there is Abel's blood on the ground, where is the body? No word of a corpse. Cain might NOT know where Abel is.

Real life is much more disturbing than anything you can dream up.

Real life has reasons for being. Many stories in the bible don't.

 

[gnostic]

God did Eden the way He did for a reason. If you can't see the valuable lesson learned from Adam and Eve and their children's decision, that's on you. This is part of what's wrong with today's world. Everyone wants to point the finger at someone else, instead of taking responsibility for their own actions.

Sorry, but you are doing exactly the same thing, Enoch - you are pointing finger.

I read the Genesis Eden story, forward and backward, left and right, up and down, and between the lines.

Are they (Adam and Eve, Cain) responsible for their actions?

I’d say “yes”.

But I think god is also responsible for what had occurred, and he is to blame as they were.

I don’t know if you are parent or not, but when one parent tends to favour one over the other(s), support one more than other(s), love one one more than the other(s), and neglect the others, because he or she is not his or her favourite, then yes, jealousy would occurred.

I am not denying that jealousy is bad thing, but when the parent caused the jealousy of his or her own child, then that parent is as much to blame for the rivalry between siblings.

I would call that very bad parenting, when a parent cannot love all his or her children, equally and without biased.

God seemed to me, is a bad parent, and if he all-knowing as some Christians believed him to be, then he could have prevented it. He could have accepted both sacrifices without biased, god didn’t.

So yes, he is as much to blame as Cain.

The whole thing about god being a benevolent spirit is a myth. There is nothing benevolent about him in Cain and Abel story, and there is nothing benevolent god was towards Adam and Eve.

Yeah, he doesn’t want them to eat the fruit, but what did he do? He planted this Tree in the centre of Eden. Talk about being short-sighted. For god who supposed to be all-knowing, he planned badly to the point of being stupid.

 

[Enoch07]

Sorry, but you are doing exactly the same thing, Enoch - you are pointing finger.

The difference is, I am pointing it at everyone, as I said in my post. And everyone includes myself. See how I am taking responsibility for myself?

Whereas the vast majority of today's people like to point the finger at anyone else other than themselves, that's when it a problem.

I don’t know if you are parent or not, but when one parent tends to favour one over the other(s), support one more than other(s), love one one more than the other(s), and neglect the others, because he or she is not his or her favourite, then yes, jealousy would occurred.

Jealousy is not an excuse for murder. It's not like God smacked Cain around and called him a deragotry name.

God seemed to me, is a bad parent, and if he all-knowing as some Christians believed him to be, then he could have prevented it. He could have accepted both sacrifices without biased, god didn’t.

You forget, free will is at play here. God did not want to interfere with Adam, Eve, Cain, or Abels free will. Sure God could have prevented it, but He also would have denied them free will, which is the whole point for Eden even being made. A paradise with everything you need, perfect temperature, humidity, food plentiful, and free will! There was only 1 request by God. Don't mess with the Tree of Knowledge. Even then the 1 request was to benefit Adam and Eve. Because they did not know pain or misery until they after they failed God.

 

[Deeje]

It's worded like the fruit is poison and they will die "in that day", but they clearly don't, because God was less than honest. He just didn't want to share the God-given (fruit-given) powers.

The fruit was not poisoned....it was just clearly identified as God's property. It was the only fruit withheld from them in the whole garden. It was what the fruit represented....God's sovereign right to set reasonable limits for his free willed creation, that was the issue. It was a simple test of their obedience to their Creator and their respect for what rightfully belonged to him. It created no hardship for them in any way. And it would not have occurred to either of them to break that one command if a seed of doubt as to God's motives for withholding it wasn't suggested to the woman. She was deceived, and out of selfishness expected to "become like God" on the assurance that the penalty was a lie.....but the man wasn't deceived. He ate the fruit, but for an entirely different reason...but equally foolish because of the penalty.

They began to die physically from that day on, and spiritual death had already taken place. They knew that there was no forgiveness possible because there was no basis for it. It wasn't a mistake....it was the willful disobedience of both of them that earned them the stated penalty. They would degenerate into old age and death and return to the dust from which they were created.

God already knew that the knowledge unleashed by the eating of this fruit would cause humans lasting harm....but because they were free willed, he would not take that choice away from them.....he could only warn them and put in place a very severe penalty for breaking that command.....and now all of their children would face the same test. Once that knowledge was unleashed...there was no way to send it back, and eliminating the rebels would not address the issues that were raised.....
Was God a liar? Would humans be better off making their own decisions, independently? Was a knowledge of good and evil beneficial to humankind in the short or long term? Was the pretender a better ruler?

The Creator allowed ample time for these issues to be settled once and for all....but in universal time, not in earth years. Why? Because the first rebel was not an earth-bound human. Every intelligent 'son of God', both human and angel is involved in this issue. The end result will be a clear line between those who want to serve the interests of the Creator and those who only want to serve their own interests. Only one group will be permitted to retain the gift of life. You can guess which one.

Again ... what makes Abel good and Cain evil? We are not shown any character development to judge such a thing. We are not shown any rules for one to adhere to and the other to break. It's a very stupid story. There's better writing in History of the World Part 1.

God has the ability to read hearts and minds. Abel's motives were clear and jealousy was getting the better of him because he did not have an unselfish heart. His attitude was not right and the things he chose to sacrifice to God were not rightly motivated. His brother's were. Abel is named as the first "righteous" human.

God doesn't want mindless performance. He sees how we feel about things and where our loyalties lie. Our sacrifices to him are an indication of the genuineness and unselfishness of our worship.
He saw in Cain's heart that his jealousy was going to lead him to murder and he warned him about the consequences of his bad attitude. Instead of heeding the warning and lifting his game, he merely sought to eliminate the competition. Like his parents, he failed to do the right thing and suffered the consequences.

There are valuable lessons in all of the scriptures to help us to see our own attitudes reflected in the Bible characters whose stories are told. They aren't there as something mythological to mock.....if we learn the lessons, then we will see a reward, but if we entertain only our own view, then we disqualify ourselves from the future God has in store for this planet.

 

[gnostic]

The difference is, I am pointing it at everyone, as I said in my post. And everyone includes myself. See how I am taking responsibility for myself?

Whereas the vast majority of today's people like to point the finger at anyone else other than themselves, that's when it a problem.



Jealousy is not an excuse for murder. It's not like God smacked Cain around and called him a deragotry name.



You forget, free will is at play here. God did not want to interfere with Adam, Eve, Cain, or Abels free will. Sure God could have prevented it, but He also would have denied them free will, which is the whole point for Eden even being made. A paradise with everything you need, perfect temperature, humidity, food plentiful, and free will! There was only 1 request by God. Don't mess with the Tree of Knowledge. Even then the 1 request was to benefit Adam and Eve. Because they did not know pain or misery until they after they failed God.

I didn’t say murder is not abhorrent crime, especially that of a sibling.

I am not saying people shouldn’t be hold accountable for their actions, but god has to bear some responsibilities for his own actions.

You are saying everyone is to blame, but You don’t blame everyone...you left out god; if God is involved then it is everyone plus Him should be blamed.

As to the free will card and non-interference, it is hypocrital to play them

I see you put god in the blameless class, and that’s really hypocritical of you, when you are blinded of god’s actions.

My point is that if god was all- knowing, then such a crime could have been prevented if god had been more considered with the offers of sacrifices. Since, he wasn’t, then he did interfere.

When god chose to cause global genocide of every single beings, including babies and children in his Flood (only if the Flood did happen). That interference in a large scale.

And god is like a petty and arrogant tyrant, when he ordered genocide of

 

[kiwimac]

But if God was all-knowing, then God should have known that by not accepting Cain's sacrifice, would lead to Cain to murdering his brother, but God did it any way.

God could have accept both sacrifices from the two brothers and there would have been no jealousy, no murder, but instead God chose to play favoritism.

The first chapters of Genesis are myth not fact.

 

[gnostic]

The first chapters of Genesis are myth not fact.

Of course it is a myth. I know that.

I am expressing my view on the certain events of the literature from the literary stance, not the historical side, like on the logic and inconsistencies of its plot, or on the interpretations of the contexts of it’s contents, or how I see these characters.

I’d suppose that on some occasions that I do get carry away with my view that it would seem that as if I am treating it as history.

I didn’t mean that to happen.

 

[gnostic]

Or dragons. Even Hera has dragons guarding HER magic immortality fruit. Did God not have enough money to pay a dragon?

Oh, I would love a dragon.

I would bring him to work, and let him burn my boss.

 

[Enoch07]

You are saying everyone is to blame, but You don’t blame everyone...you left out god; if God is involved then it is everyone plus Him should be blamed.

I disagree. To me that's the same as holding parents accountable for the actions of their adult offspring. Just have to agree to disagree, my position is unchangeable.

When god chose to cause global genocide of every single beings, including babies and children in his Flood (only if the Flood did happen). That interference in a large scale.

Again I disagree, and my position is unchangeable. God created us and can take us out at anytime He pleases. The flood was a needed course correction caused by the Nephilim. Perhaps if the people of the time had listened to the Enoch (not me) of the time, the flood might have been avoided.

 

[Muffled]

Except that Adam never had eternal life, BECAUSE he was never made immortal AND he had never eaten fruit from the Tree of Life:


Adam could only live forever, if he had eaten from the Tree of Life. Instead they ate from Tree of Knowledge.

Let’s say for a moment that there are 3 possibilities:

1. If they had eaten from the Tree of Life, then outcome they would have live forever.
2. We already know the outcome from eating from the Tree of Knowledge (Genesis 3), because he would eventually die, as seen in Genesis 5:5.
3. And the 3rd possibility is not eating from either Trees (so both Life and Knowledge), the outcome for Adam would still die, perhaps even at the same age as verse 5:5.

The only differences between dying for (2) having eaten from the Tree of Knowledge, and (3) dying for not eating from the Tree of Knowledge, is that if point 3 happened, they wouldn’t need to suffer.

No where in Genesis 2 & 3, did it ever say that god made them to live forever. They would only live forever, if Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of Life at the beginning, instead of from the Tree of Knowledge.

If they didn’t eat from the Tree of Knowledge, they would still die, but Eve wouldn’t need to suffer any pain when she’d give birth, and Adam would die but without suffering or pain.

I believe I can speculate as well as the next person. There is no indication as to whether Adam was created with eternal life or not. However God does tell Adam he can eat from any tree except the tree of knowledge so that would seem to indicate that he could eat from the tree of life. After expulsion he could not.

I believe that is speculation. There is no way to know if Adam ate from the tree of knowledge first or not and there is no way to know how long after being created that Adam ate from the tree of knowledge.

I believe that is only true if eternal life is permanent after one ingestion and doesn't need to be renewed by continuous eating.

 

[gnostic]

I believe I can speculate as well as the next person. There is no indication as to whether Adam was created with eternal life or not.

Actually there is an indication that Adam couldn't live forever: The Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life was planted there for reason, just as there were reason to plant the Tree of Knowledge there.

If God didn't put the Tree of Life (and no Tree of Knowledge) in Eden, Adam still would have live a long life, but it would have been a life without toil, without suffering, without pain, but he still would have been "mortal".

The narrative in Genesis 2 and 3 made it quite clear that no "living forever" without the fruit from the Tree of Life. So yes, Muffled, there are couple of hints that God didn't make Adam immortal at the very start of creation.

I believe that is only true if eternal life is permanent after one ingestion and doesn't need to be renewed by continuous eating.

That's quite possible, but it is still speculation.