-
†. Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden
of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of
knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for in the day you eat of
it, you shall die.
Obviously God's warning wasn't a threat of summary capital punishment
because Adam wasn't put to death on the day he tasted the forbidden tree.
In point of fact, he went on to engender Cain, Able, and Seth-- living 800
years beyond the birth of Seth; having sons and daughters along the way
(Gen 5:4-5). Contrary to popular opinion; Adam wasn't sentenced to death
for eating the fruit; no; he was sentenced to death for listening to his wife.
(Gen 3:17-19)
So then, seeing as how Gen 2:15-17 wasn't a threat of capital punishment;
then what was it? It was fair warning that the tree was a health risk; viz: it
was unfit for human consumption and the reason being that its chemistry
was powerful enough to cause permanent brain damage; and it wasn't long
before symptoms of that showed up.
†. Gen 2:25 . . Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither
of them felt any shame.
That was the first couple's mental condition prior to tasting the forbidden
fruit.
†. Gen 3:7 . .Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized
they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons for
themselves.
That became their mental condition after tasting the fruit. What happened?
After tasting the fruit, Adam and his wife became painfully conscious of their
appearance in the buff and immediately covered up their pelvic areas. They
didn't even want to be seen naked by each other, though they were a
married couple and no doubt the picture of health and beauty.
†. Gen 3:8-10 . .The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as
He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the
Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the
man: Where are you? He answered: I heard you in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked; so I hid.
†. Gen 3:11 . . He said: Who told you that you were naked?
Linguistically Gen 3:11 is an accurate translation. However, it's not what
God meant. He wanted to know who told Adam that nudity is indecent. You
see; man's creator isn't offended by nudity. In God's mind; the naked
human body is not just good; but very good (Gen 1:31) but in Adam's
altered consciousness, the naked human body is obscene. The chemistry in
the forbidden fruit had really done a number on Adam's perception of right
and wrong; and all of his perception took place in the 3-pound lump of
flabby organic tissue housed in his bony little skull sufficing for a mind.
It is very humbling to realize that all of us are the persons that not we; but
that our brains make us; and our brains can very easily make us into
another person without our consent.
A touching movie based on this very subject is "Regarding Henry" starring
Harrison Ford. He plays a hard-boiled, callous attorney who, after being shot
by a punk in a mom and pop store robbery, comes out of a coma with a
totally different personality. The hard-boiled, callous attorney is gone. One
of the two bullets he was hit with had damaged an important vein in his
shoulder area that supplied blood to his head.
I once read the true story of a woman who was in a very bad auto accident
that left her in a coma for a while. When she came to; the woman was
someone else. Her favorite foods were no longer her favorites. Her favorite
colors were no longer her favorites. She preferred different fashions,
different kinds of music, different hair styles, different kinds of
entertainment, and even her mannerisms were different. She came out of
the coma with a whole new personality. The woman was so unlike her
original self that neither her own children nor her own husband recognized
her. They could legitimately ask: Where is our mother; and what have you
done with her?
Well; after his eating that fruit, one could ask: Where is Adam, and what
have you done with him?
That Adam-- the innocent Adam --was dead and gone; replaced by an
altered Adam who had a whole new set of proclivities and he got neither his
altered consciousness nor his new proclivities from God nor did he get them
from the Serpent either. He acquired them as a direct result of eating that
fruit.
A new study led by Chen-Yu Zhang, of Nanjing University, found that
fragments of plant genetic material survive digestion and wind up swimming
in the bloodstreams of humans and cows. Those tiny strands of RNA that
somehow make it through the toxic acids and enzymes in the gut come from
rice and the plant family that includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower
and cabbage. Zhang found that they can muffle or amplify human gene
expression in various ways. The discovery could lead to ways of designing
plants that act as medicine or even change our own genetic structure for the
better (or the worse).
And it's well known what happens to kids when they move into adolescence.
Hormonal chemicals kick in, and their childish innocence vanishes; right out
the window. They lose interest in kid's toys and begin to take an interest in
things more appropriate for their age; including a very noticeable interest in
themselves, and in the opposite sex; and most especially in what others
think about them. In other words: they become self-conscious; which
Webster's defines as uncomfortably aware of oneself as an object of the
observation of others.
Those adolescent changes aren't miraculous changes, nor are they spiritual
changes-- they're totally natural, hormonally induced, organic changes. So if
kids undergo a natural kind of metamorphosis because of the chemicals
generated by the glands in their own bodies, then there is good reason to
believe that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil actually did contain
something harmful that caused Adam to undergo some very significant
biological damage; resulting in the termination of his original self; and it
happened not centuries later; but right then and there on the very day he
tasted that fruit.
NOTE: Though Adam and his wife had done a wrong of such magnitude; God
still looked out for them. His first act in a support role was to show them
how to make durable clothing with leather; and people went on making
clothing out of leather for a long while afterwards until somebody invented
weaving.
Now; God didn't do that because He is offended by nudity; no not at all. In
point of fact, I have yet to encounter a single line in the Bible prohibiting
nudity per se. God did it not for His sake; but for theirs. After tasting the
forbidden fruit, they became very uncomfortable with being seen in the buff
and God was sympathetic. But more importantly; God wanted them to stop
hiding out when He dropped in in on them for a visit now and then. I mean,
after all, God made human beings for fellowship, and if they were going to
hide out every time He dropped in, then what's the point?
=================================
†. Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the garden
of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying:
Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but as for the tree of
knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it; for in the day you eat of
it, you shall die.
Obviously God's warning wasn't a threat of summary capital punishment
because Adam wasn't put to death on the day he tasted the forbidden tree.
In point of fact, he went on to engender Cain, Able, and Seth-- living 800
years beyond the birth of Seth; having sons and daughters along the way
(Gen 5:4-5). Contrary to popular opinion; Adam wasn't sentenced to death
for eating the fruit; no; he was sentenced to death for listening to his wife.
(Gen 3:17-19)
So then, seeing as how Gen 2:15-17 wasn't a threat of capital punishment;
then what was it? It was fair warning that the tree was a health risk; viz: it
was unfit for human consumption and the reason being that its chemistry
was powerful enough to cause permanent brain damage; and it wasn't long
before symptoms of that showed up.
†. Gen 2:25 . . Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither
of them felt any shame.
That was the first couple's mental condition prior to tasting the forbidden
fruit.
†. Gen 3:7 . .Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized
they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made aprons for
themselves.
That became their mental condition after tasting the fruit. What happened?
After tasting the fruit, Adam and his wife became painfully conscious of their
appearance in the buff and immediately covered up their pelvic areas. They
didn't even want to be seen naked by each other, though they were a
married couple and no doubt the picture of health and beauty.
†. Gen 3:8-10 . .The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as
He was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the
Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the
man: Where are you? He answered: I heard you in the garden, and I was
afraid because I was naked; so I hid.
†. Gen 3:11 . . He said: Who told you that you were naked?
Linguistically Gen 3:11 is an accurate translation. However, it's not what
God meant. He wanted to know who told Adam that nudity is indecent. You
see; man's creator isn't offended by nudity. In God's mind; the naked
human body is not just good; but very good (Gen 1:31) but in Adam's
altered consciousness, the naked human body is obscene. The chemistry in
the forbidden fruit had really done a number on Adam's perception of right
and wrong; and all of his perception took place in the 3-pound lump of
flabby organic tissue housed in his bony little skull sufficing for a mind.
It is very humbling to realize that all of us are the persons that not we; but
that our brains make us; and our brains can very easily make us into
another person without our consent.
A touching movie based on this very subject is "Regarding Henry" starring
Harrison Ford. He plays a hard-boiled, callous attorney who, after being shot
by a punk in a mom and pop store robbery, comes out of a coma with a
totally different personality. The hard-boiled, callous attorney is gone. One
of the two bullets he was hit with had damaged an important vein in his
shoulder area that supplied blood to his head.
I once read the true story of a woman who was in a very bad auto accident
that left her in a coma for a while. When she came to; the woman was
someone else. Her favorite foods were no longer her favorites. Her favorite
colors were no longer her favorites. She preferred different fashions,
different kinds of music, different hair styles, different kinds of
entertainment, and even her mannerisms were different. She came out of
the coma with a whole new personality. The woman was so unlike her
original self that neither her own children nor her own husband recognized
her. They could legitimately ask: Where is our mother; and what have you
done with her?
Well; after his eating that fruit, one could ask: Where is Adam, and what
have you done with him?
That Adam-- the innocent Adam --was dead and gone; replaced by an
altered Adam who had a whole new set of proclivities and he got neither his
altered consciousness nor his new proclivities from God nor did he get them
from the Serpent either. He acquired them as a direct result of eating that
fruit.
A new study led by Chen-Yu Zhang, of Nanjing University, found that
fragments of plant genetic material survive digestion and wind up swimming
in the bloodstreams of humans and cows. Those tiny strands of RNA that
somehow make it through the toxic acids and enzymes in the gut come from
rice and the plant family that includes broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower
and cabbage. Zhang found that they can muffle or amplify human gene
expression in various ways. The discovery could lead to ways of designing
plants that act as medicine or even change our own genetic structure for the
better (or the worse).
And it's well known what happens to kids when they move into adolescence.
Hormonal chemicals kick in, and their childish innocence vanishes; right out
the window. They lose interest in kid's toys and begin to take an interest in
things more appropriate for their age; including a very noticeable interest in
themselves, and in the opposite sex; and most especially in what others
think about them. In other words: they become self-conscious; which
Webster's defines as uncomfortably aware of oneself as an object of the
observation of others.
Those adolescent changes aren't miraculous changes, nor are they spiritual
changes-- they're totally natural, hormonally induced, organic changes. So if
kids undergo a natural kind of metamorphosis because of the chemicals
generated by the glands in their own bodies, then there is good reason to
believe that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil actually did contain
something harmful that caused Adam to undergo some very significant
biological damage; resulting in the termination of his original self; and it
happened not centuries later; but right then and there on the very day he
tasted that fruit.
NOTE: Though Adam and his wife had done a wrong of such magnitude; God
still looked out for them. His first act in a support role was to show them
how to make durable clothing with leather; and people went on making
clothing out of leather for a long while afterwards until somebody invented
weaving.
Now; God didn't do that because He is offended by nudity; no not at all. In
point of fact, I have yet to encounter a single line in the Bible prohibiting
nudity per se. God did it not for His sake; but for theirs. After tasting the
forbidden fruit, they became very uncomfortable with being seen in the buff
and God was sympathetic. But more importantly; God wanted them to stop
hiding out when He dropped in in on them for a visit now and then. I mean,
after all, God made human beings for fellowship, and if they were going to
hide out every time He dropped in, then what's the point?
=================================
