CONTEXT!
From Wes White: Mad at the System Posting
Anonymous said...
"The system was from the tree of good and evil. Therefore it was doomed from the start. The splinters repeatedly try and regrow the system and blatantly ignore the tree of life way. The way being Jesus Christ"
Picky I know, and we get the point being made, , but it is "the tree of the KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil" in the context of scripture. One can make an analogy of anything but when using scripture, context must come first. Many a Church of God minister gives whole sermons and personal counsel to members completely out of context of the original meaning and intent of scripture. Dave Pack and Gerald Flurry are masters of this disaster.
The issue in the Garden of Eden tale is that the KNOWLEDGE of good and evil, as well as eternal life, were just for the gods and not humans. Just knowing the difference between good and evil, for humans, was risky and upsetting to El and the Council of the Gods (the Elohim) That is why they were not to partake of them. It is why when they did God is quoted as saying...
Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, "The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever."
"...Out you go!"
As well, in the story, humans were not only to ignore the Tree of Life, being eternal life, but they would die in the day they ate of it, which they actually did not.
And no cheating by using 2 Peter 3:8 as an apologetic! That would also be out of context.
8 Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day."
This issue was over the delayed coming of Jesus that observers, i.e. "scoffers" were inquiring about from the Apostles who said it was shortly and soon but was evidently not.
CONTEXT!
"Yeah, well Methuselah only lived to be 969 years old and so he died "in the very day" as do all humans now because of sin. He didn't live to be 1000 which is just one day with God." Ugh! The story is not about Methuselah and "in the day you do eat" was a threat about Adam and Eve dying, as if they knew what that was, that same day they disobeyed. It was the instant penalty for not knowing they should have listened, which they couldn't know...aw never mind! No wait! this needs exploring!...
I personally never could see what the problem was with humans having the knowledge of good and evil as it seems like it would come in handy, but I didn't write the story. But the idea of it certainly spooked Elohim and the Council of the Gods. And too, if Adam and Eve did not know good from evil before actually partaking of the tree of it, how can they be blamed for not understanding the instructions not to?
As a side note to the story, the Serpent, who only later evolved into "the Satan" of later fame, was correct in the CONTEXT saying...
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
It seems El was fibbing and the Serpent was telling the truth of the matter, go figure.
Personally, the story seems more an explanation by the Priests who wrote it as to why the people must not decide what is right or wrong themselves and think freely outside that which the Priesthood was introducing as the way all must be and the things all must do. This story is, after all, close to the first one in the Pentateuch which indeed are the instructions on how the people must live and who is in charge and it's not them. It was a bit of a warning to toe the line and stay within them. That's just me and snakes can't really talk.
Anyway, CONTEXT! CONTEXT! CONTEXT!
It is a concept that still escapes many of my former colleagues in ministry when declaring with authority how it all was, how it all is and how it all shall be.
