Is Adam and eve a true story or is it a metaphor? If so explain the metaphor press
It's a story about a snake who tries to set humanity free and how thankless they are for it
>>323969
Can any Christians explain the used the tree of knowledge as a bad thing? Surely knowledge is a good thing?
>>323969
Basically the entire story is about why humans shouldnt think for ourselves. We were perfectly happy in God's nature preserve until eve the human actually starting thinking for herself and convinced adam to think for himself and god was so mad that his sex dolls were given reason that he removed the exhibit from the zoo and made childbirth painful. We have since done our own thing and fought for our own destinies and this is why humanity is evil.
Also a talking lizard that is then transformed into a snake because god thought it would be funny to make the nigga dryhump the eartg everywhere he went. Humans and snakes are essentially evil monsters that escaped from God's zoo and conquered the world in the name of evil reason and logic
>>323969
It's about how pre-humans first started to walk on two legs, instead of walking on all fours, all thanks to the reptilian alien "snake".
>>323987
"In much knowledge is much grief , and he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow"
Tayshaun 6:9
No but seriously that's actually from the bible
>>323998
The bible is antiintellectual because wisdom is the antithesis of faith
More at 11
>>324002
How is this anti-intellectual?
>>324002
Nigga do you need me to spell it out for you?
Wisdom is the antithesis of faith because the more knowledgeable you get the more God seems like total bullshit, that's why he told Adam to not eat them apples. He would have become too intelligent for his own good and stopped believing in god therefore rendering him null.
It's all a classy metaphor to highline the fact that God can only work with the ignorant idiots who live isolated from the real world in their private garden of illusion and serendipity, knowledge and wisdom may show you how truly bad the world is and how suffering it is to live but at least you're not a puppet playing on someone else's string.
Trust me nigga, I'm a Qabbalist©.
>>323969
Absolutely 100% true.
>>323969
A long time ago someone on /lit/ wrote an extended analysis that I don't have and can only somewhat remember, so take my hodge-podge with a grain of salt.
For what I remember, their analysis was about how the myth was hankering back when humans first started to ascertain a greater awareness of their surroundings. Will these greater level of awareness, they became more intelligent, and, suddenly, the "wilderness" wasn't this happy go luck place of instinct and animistic routine. Rather, with their "enlightenment" came not only a greater understanding of their surroundings, but of themselves, their peers, and the subsequent dangers to both.
tl;dr From what I remember it was a creative retelling of how humans became more "aware" and although the intelligence brought innovation and understanding, it also brought about a new realized fear of everything else (such as disease and predators).
It teaches us not to trust women, since they are the root of all evil.
>>324084
>because the more knowledgeable you get the more God seems like total bullshit,
It's funny you say that because people smarter and wiser than you have come to the exact opposite conclusion.
>>324127
Must not be very smart then.
Seems like a metaphor for growing up.
>>324156
>Adam, my son
>You are men now
>I give you waifu but seriously you must look for a job.
>>324002
>Bible
>Antiintellectual
You triple nigger like almost every European scientist from the middle ages up until the modern era has been christian.
>>324187
>>324127
>some guy convinced me that he was smarter than me so I believed everything he said and now whenever someone disagrees I just say "i met a guy smarter than me or you that agrees with me, so obviously Im right"
Christians take faith so seriously that it becomes the core of their "logical" arguments
>>324187
And 99% of Christians don't take the Bible seriously. The Bible is, in it's essence, anti-intellectual. But a lot of people belonging to the Christian faith aren't anti-intellectual.
>>323969
I personality interpret it as a story about the loss of innocence that comes with growing up and becoming an adult, basically. As one becomes an adult they leave the protective care of their parents, and also start to understand and comprehend the world more.
And it can't be undone.
>>323998
It is the same statement as "Ignorance as bliss."
It doesn't condemn the acquisition of knowledge, but merely recognize that knowledge can often be a burden. If you know every detail of every terrible thing on this earth, how happy are you likely to be?
>>323987
It is the tree of knowledge OF GOOD AND EVIL.
In it a metaphor for the loss of innocence.
>>324093
This is very true, an excellent understanding. However it doesn't explain the most important element; with this advanced knowledge gained from interacting with the world, early human beings become aware of their own mortality.
>>324187
It was a belief that the more you know about the world the more you know about God.
>>324210
That's interesting, anon. I don't know why I never considered it in this manner.
Although, I'm not sure how the snake would fit into that interpretation.
>>324383
Well, it's about loss of innocence more generally in my mind. And the snake is still a representative figure of temptation. By giving into temptations and doing that which you know to be wrong, you also lose innocence. And if it is something severe then you can lose your community, your home, and be exiled, just the same.
Ie. the consequences of committing any crime.
It can be interpreted many ways, which is one thing I enjoy about many biblical stories. You can look for the meaning that speaks to you most. After all, that is the beauty of art, is it no?
It does have an interesting commentary on the biological relation of all humans. I also think it spiritually has been misinterpreted. Whereas people think both Adam & Eve are individually made in God's image, I believe they were collectively made in God's image. God's image being the unity or oneness of humankind.
>>324084
>>324002
>>323998
>>324139
>>324156
>>324327
Which is similar to the anthropological story. We became aware of death with the development of sentience, wisdom is painful and scary, most animals dont get depressed because they dont make the connection to a dead corpse and themselves. They dont see themselves as a timeline from start to end, they live in the moment. The garden is nature, paradise of ignorance. The apple is the knowledge of death and the desire for more; it leads to individualism and it echoes agriculture, which gave people something-land- to fight over and measure against one another. Without the apple/will to power, people live for each other, they do not desire power, they are prey animals and have not yet become the predator. They only desire what fills their stomach and the stomachs of their group. Why would you need more? Property is this "more". The apple made man WANT, nothing else wants anything more than to fill its belly. Only people think about tomorrow, next week, next year. Only people see their life as a time limit within which they must do all they can for more, only people see themselves apart from nature, only people have a will to power.
The apple made them monsters, because they wanted to grow their own tree. Agriculture made us monsters because we wanted our own land. We broke from the pattern, created the concepts of "me" and "not me"
it's about mankind emerging from the ur-consciousness of nature/reality/god into free will, where by its very nature we become subjects in a world of objects, and so what was once a sublime whole is now individuated into this or that, mine or yours, concepts and categories. evil is only possible in the individuation of consciousness
>>324423
>leidisagreewithyou.gif
nvm you're right
Everytime I hear about Adam & Eve all I can think about is how all of humanity is the result of the biggest inbreeding of all times.
>>324187
>most of them were trying to subvert the ancient traditional christian wisdom one dogma at a time
>muh earth created 7000 years ago
>muh god created everything in 7 days
Darwin btfo God
>muh earth is the center of the universe because god
Galileo btfo god
>muh souls
>muh free will given by the gods
>muh agency
Neuroscience btfo god
HP. Lovecraft much?
>>324452
Every modern human is related to the same group of about 1000 people. There was a mass extinction and everyone is related to that group. Its why every single creation story in every culture has a cataclysmic event before the protagonists of the story(us) come to be. Its because theyre all offshoots of the same verbal tradition, because they all had this idea that everyone died except for a small group that spread out and became all the modern, and this idea has archaeological and anthropological evidence
>>324442
Go back to reddit if you wanna get a cookie every time you spew the same plebby, dawkins-tier trash you mong. and I'm not even christian.
It's metaphor for mankinds inherent disinterest in paradise.
Give humans everything they could ever want, they will find a fuck to fuck everything up because fuck you.
>>324461
Neuroscience hasn't proved shit. Explain how non-physical mental events can emerge from physical networks of neurons. I'm waiting.
>>324496
One man's happiness is another's sorrow. Your paradise is not mine. In a group of 10, one will always disagree for the sake of disagreement. The idea of paradise is collective consciousness, where everyone's idea of perfect is the same and enjoyed the same. People are the antithesis of collective conciousness, it is our differing opinions on things like this that make us human. Some people will always admire "human" qualities.
>>324521
See: every anthropology 101 textbook ever
Alternatively, google.
>>323969
What's great about Genesis is that literally no one really knows what the fuck is going on in it. There are multitudes of interpretations of every symbol, word, even the fucking number of letters and their numerological meanings, but there's always some part of it that throws a wrench in the whole thing. And the best part is that every elementary age child that's introduced to the story is able to pick up on the inconsistencies and oddities of the thing. And these aren't just problems of later orthodoxies being irreconcilable with the implications of it (which is of course an issue) but its internal logic, compounded by the fact that there are actually two origin stories.
To be clear I'm not saying it's not interesting or worth studying but, whew lads, what the fuck.
>>323969
>God creates man
>gives him everything he could ever desire on one condition
>don't eat the fig of Eden
>Lucifer comes in, offers Eve absolute power
>Eve aka Adam's Kryptonite convinces him to eat that fruit
>God finds out, kicks them out of Eden
Now follow me on this one, if man was created based on the image of God, and he broke the one rule, that proves that man is a flawed creature, meaning God created a flawed creature based on him, which means God is a flawed creature himself, which brings me to think that if God, the supreme concept is flawed by itself , then, God cannot exist(at least in the Christian definition)
>>323969
2 humans cannot successfully produce the human race. Inbreeding would cause too many genetic defects. Also, where did Cain's wife come from?
>>323969
Lucifer did literally nothing wrong
>>324548
>2015
>still taking genesis literally
jesus christ can we move on?
>>324568
Biblical literalism is a cancer that needs to die.
It's not true, and it's not a metaphor. It was the real explanation of the first humans according to the writers of the Bible, because they didn't have any scientific or historical knowledge.
This is the real answer which no one wants to hear.
>>324487
It's meant to be 10,000 people not 1000.
Also some people insist it's only humans out of Africa that are, and that black Africans were not affected by that bottleneck.
I like to take the bible as a great moral manual. But thinking it's a true story is completely stupid, even if it was,it doesn't really matter.
>>324568
The OP asked if it was true, and I was answering
>>324573
lmao ancient man has been explaining his world in myths, allegory, and symbol since the dawn of time, do you really think genesis is supposed to be a no-shit scientific account of the creation of man? go back to fucking reddit
>>324502
>science is lacking explanation, therefore god
kek
>>323987
>Can any Christians explain the used the tree of knowledge as a bad thing? Surely knowledge is a good thing?
The bad thing isn't the tree of knowledge.
>3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
>2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
>4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Notice verse 5? '...and you will be like God...'
The problem here is hybris and not the thirst for knowledge. The hebrew term used in this context does also not depict theoretical knowledge. It is more akin to experience. What is said here is that you will experience good and evil.
The bad thing here is the fact that humanity strives for the knowledge of God in an attempt to overcome their own weak selves and completely disregarding the fact that God said it was good, prior to this in Gen 1.
>31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Humans may be weak at times but that is no fucking reason to abandon our existence and grasping for the power of God to flee this existence. The only thing it does is that it ultimately proves our weakness. In God's embrace our weaknesses do not matter and we can simply exist without fear of failing.
>>324600
It's pretty obvious that it is. There's little myth involved in it, Adam and Eve aren't Gods, they're not in space or in another world. They're 2 humans created by God on earth. They believed it literally. Bible literalism is silly today but don't deny that the ancient Jews didn't take it literally, the only reason its not taken literally today is because it immediately falls to pieces if it is.
>>324632
Bible literalism is alive and well in protestant churches, mostly in the US. As a former christian I can attest to the fact that our pastor taught the bible literally and would deny any "devil's lies" trying to "carve away" at the moral integrity of God's word. Science was a conspiracy, true knowledge was in these stupid books with fancy covers that no-name "creationist" wrote about how modern science is a lie and facts show that our history is EXACTLY like genesis says.
This level of ignornance is what martin luther fought for, its the foundation pf protestantism, a return to extremely literal interpretations of the bible, which had up to that point recieved liberal updates/revisions/exclusions from the catholic church
>>323969
According to Catholic doctrine:
>all men inherit ancestral sin from Adam;
>God descended upon Earth as the Son in order to free mankind from this sin, was crucified, died etc.
From the Catechism of the Catholic Church:
>Adam and Eve transmitted to their descendants human nature wounded by their own first sin and hence deprived of original holiness and justice; this deprivation is called "original sin".
The theory of evolution states that we (as Homo Sapiens) gradually evolved from other creatures. This implies—if we don't misinterpret the theory—that Adam and Eve never existed. We evolved gradually as an entire population of tens of thousands over a very slow period of time. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdWLhXi24Mo
If Adam and Eve never existed, no one fell, and we cannot inherit ancestral sin from no one. Moreover, there wasn't any reason which Jesus had to be born for, anything he had to free us from.
The Catechism states, "The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents"
Pope Pius writes:
>The faithful cannot embrace that opinion which maintains that either after Adam there existed on this earth true men who did not take their origin through natural generation from him as from the first parent of all, or that Adam represents a certain number of first parents. Now it is in no way apparent how such an opinion can be reconciled with that which the sources of revealed truth and the documents of the Teaching Authority of the Church propose with regard to original sin, which proceeds from a sin actually committed by an individual Adam and which, through generation, is passed on to all and is in everyone as his own.
>>324723
>according to Catholic doctrine
Stopped reading there family
>>324667
>mostly in the US
Only in the US. European Protestantism developed exegesis and heavily criticized a literal understanding of the Bible. As a former Protestant myself, many catholic theologians have commented to me on how good Protestants are when it comes to this field of study.
>>324502
You presuppose that a thought is non-physical and can't simply be the synthesis of the states of your various neurons.
>>325075
well mix up some neurons and show me a thought if it's that simple
>>324723
Creation of human body != creation of immortal soul (aka creation of humans)
Why would a scenario where at some point during the hominin evolution, God gave two of them a human soul (Homo erectus probably, considering that this species created the first examples of human-like mind: art, aesthetics, sailing). They had children, then these children had children, etc, which would eventually lead to H. heidelbergensis coming out of this population, and so on?
>>325075
I could be wrong. So show me how it's done pointdexter
Orthodox Christian here.
I can't speak for other denominations but the Orthodox Church has almost always considered the story of Genesis to be a symbolic chapter, not a literal one. The entire Old Testament is really more of a book of historical context than something we draw dogma and facts from. I mean there are things alluded to that are historically verifiable (such as the Assyrians, Hittites, Ancient Egyptians, etc), but since the Torah was passed down in an oral tradition for thousands of years before it was written, it's impossible to know
I will note however that us Orthodox take the things in the New Testament to be quite literal. We believe that the Theotokos really did have a Virgin Birth and we believe that Christ literally rose from the dead, not symbolically .
>>325098
Your brain just did.
>>323969
>adam and eve are white
>>324488
go back to reddit if you will defend using a wacky reaction image in place of discussion
I didnt say a single anti christian thing itt
>>324547
This statement is wrong.
Your forgetting that God gave humans free will to act and do as they please. God is not flawed. Humans are. Therefore, your argument is invalid.
Think of it this way:
Parents tell a child the stove is hot
the child can touch it or not
in all likely hood the child will touch it
The child will get burned
Now the child knows stove = hot = pain
The parent warned the child but the child didnt listen due to his own free will.
TL:DR
Humanity is flawed and stupid.
>>325697
Free will does not exist and neither does god. Your argument is invalid.
>>325377
>adam and eve aren't white
>>325755
Then who makes your decisions? You? God? The Tree next to your house?
>HYPOSTASIS OF THE ARCHONS
Adam's rib (ribo nucleic acid) made Eve
Eve was tempted by the Serpent, serapenta, dna
Genesis is about being made by other creatures, fallen angels, annunaki, and was mistranslated on purpose so people would be stuck here on earth.
Obviously that is why Jesus is the Saviour because He brings us to the true God.
>>325952
They are part of a chain of causality. You do understand what 'free' means don't you? Saying you don't have free will doesn't mean you don't make decisions, it means you don't make them freely.
>>325755
>hurr durr no free will
Fuck off, dumbass.
>>326043
Thanks for your contribution /pol/! Now you have made you contribution you can nip back to a thread where you discuss which nations are white!
>>323987
It is not the Tree of Knowledge, it is the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. Consider for a moment that Tree means Source.
They were to tend to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but not eat from it. They would have had to know all about the "tree" to tend to it and care for it. "Eating of the fruit" implies that they indulged in what they knew was evil, and this opened the door.
Nachmanides gives much food for thought. He suggested that the name eitz hada’at, usually translated as Tree of Knowledge, would actually be more accurately translated as Tree of Desire, and he cites several biblical instances where da’at is thus translated.
Anyway the moral of the story is that man is innately flawed and must work to atone these inherent flaws. it demonstrates that human original sin is within every human and we are innately prone to corruption.
In paradise they were able to freely eat the fruit of the tree of life. Whatever the "tree" was, it turned humanity into an introspective, self-loathing species that questions the very cycle of life in which it lives.
>>324461
The 7000 year old earth and 7 day shit are literally American Protestant memes from the 19th century.
Nobody believed Galileo at the time because the definitive proof for a heliocentric system wouldn't be found until the early 1800s by Jesuits.
>>326079
>implying /pol/ believes that there is free will and not that genetics decide everything
You "muh /pol/ boogyman" kids are getting even more retarded by the second. Now you're not even calling opinions invalid because they're similar to one's /pol/ has, you're just calling everything you disagree with /pol/.
>>323987
Hubris. It isn't just knowledge, as other posters mentioned, it's about knowledge of good and evil - in other words, the ability to decide what's good and what's bad yourself. As the Serpent said: "[...] and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
>>326229
Actually I was calling a contribution invalid because it consisted of nothing more than "fuck off, dumbass".
>>323987
Think about what makes the human life so tragic. It's being fully aware of the fact that we are going to die. We are aware of evil in the world, and can't justify our existence. It's this knowledge that was our downfall in evolution. I love this story because it shows that evolution of intelligence is somehow something that was felt at the time of writing.
>>323969
It's true
It's true, we have so much proof of it :^)
>>323969
The serpent is yetzer hara, who tempts Adam and Chava. Adam and Chava, up to this point, have knowledge of true and false, but not good and bad. They choose eating the fruit and sensual desire over their intellect and gain innate yetzer hara, giving them free will over spiritual actions.
Rambam called Genesis a way to understand humanity's relationship with G-d and he universe. Here we see that it is through the conflict between morals and pleasure that humanity are agent who evaluate not only matters of existence, but value as well.
Every culture has a creation myth. This is just the one for Christianity.
Does anybody think the forbidden fruit was some sort of psychedelic? I've always pondered this. It would seem to make sense, realizing what one shouldnt.
>>329088
Why?
>>330894
psychedelics make a person realize things they would never imagine. Good and bad.
If you tell it in reverse, it makes more sense.
Air God?
Fiery/Venomous Serpent/Fiery Angel?
Earthly Paradise?
Primordial Waters?
A great fall of man?
Premeditated by knowledge?
Which was predated by unatural interference?
Say it isn't so anon.
Then it was mixed with allegory about "knowledge", "sex", "obedience" and "early civilization; farming"
It's the same basic myth in
Akkadian
Babylonian
Hittite
Hebrew
Sabean
Nabatean
etc.
Stolen from Neolithic African-Yemini roots.
>>323969
It's already impossible on paper. It would mean every generation existed solely because of inbreeding, and we were be a hairier, far more retarded race incapable of things like internet.
>>324221
Underrated post. This is the answer right here.
>>333928
The Tree of Knowledge
an
The Tree of Good and Evil
are two different trees.
This is agreed upon universally by academics.
It's a syncretic creation myth that barrows and mixes multiple myths together.
Again, this is universally agreed upon in academia.
There are no ORIGINAL beliefs originating in the Bronze Age.
They're a mix of Mesolithic, Neolithic and Copper Age traditions.
>>324002
>wisdom is the antithesis of faith
No, KNOWLEDGE is the antithesis of faith. Faith implies that you put belief and trust in an entity that you do not know everything about, but do so anyway because relying on something uncertain is, for some, better than not relying on anything at all.
>>323969
The metaphor is the apple. The apple represents the psychoactive catalyst that early humans ingested that moved us forward mentally as well as predisposing us to a psychosis for the divine.
>>323987
Why ask Christians , ask Jews it was their book first
We are all skipping over the most important issue here: How do you create a human out of a man's rib?
The real question is where the fuck does Lilith get to?
Does she get dicked by one of Adam's sons or does she chill in Paradise.
>>323969
Humans were happier when they were stuck in the State of Nature.
The apple is meant to represent consciousness.
>>334050
There are literally only 2 trees in the story and one of them is the tree of life. You are retarded.
