Tree of Knowledge, Garden of Eden

[Sister]

14 hours ago, JohnR7 said:

Genesis 2: 16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 

There is a lot I do not understand about this tree of knowledge. Why would God plant a tree with fruit that: "was a delight to the eyes".  Then forbid them to eat the fruit from this tree?

Genesis 3 6"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate"

Genesis 1:31  31"God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

IF everything God made was good then where did the evil come from?  Why did God plant this tree if it was not good for them? If day means day then why did they not die the day they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  

Hi John R7

This is a question one has to find for himself.  I have a feeling you already know the answer, but since you asked the question, I will explain what I see personally.

In the beginning, before God started creating, he laid down all the foundations and included in his plan to "reveal" good and evil to not only Adam and Eve, but to all the generations after them so that we can know the difference and not take his goodness for granted.

Evil already existed but was "invisible", ...so for God to "manifest" this evil and show what type of fruits sin can bring forth, he started only with that forbidden tree to get his plan going.

In doing this, God set a trap for Lucifer to act on what was truly in his heart, and for man to learn what it means when God tells us to stay away from something, ...that it's for a good reason, because only God knows the enemy, as he formed him for a purpose, but willing to show us also through experience that sin separates us from God.

With Adam and Eve being so innocent, God cursed the serpent and not man, however God has made a way for us to be reconciled back to him, and to learn about this evil that exists and expose it to us so that we can see it's fruits visibly.

Adam and Eve unbeknown to most, were reconciled back to God eventually, because the devil did not leave them alone for even one day, and when God sent them out of the garden, he told them exactly where to go and what to do.  Satan continued with his cunning tricks by appearing in many different forms, and twisting God's word to make them disobey unknowingly because his trickery was so strong.  They kept finding themselves in trouble, experiencing more sorrow, and the Lord God, so merciful, was forever coming to their aid, and delivering them as he does for us today.  Eventually they gained understanding regarding all the tricks of the devil they experienced, and learn't how to trust in God's word, that his laws are only for our protection.  (The book of Adam and Eve)

Satan cannot work his evil in us unless man disobeys God.  Nothing happened by chance.  God knew what he was doing.  We can't all blame Adam or Eve, because we have the same gullible nature, but since sin has multiplied we became worse and we have more laws now covering every single angle the devil will come from.

So the tree had to be pleasing to the eye, because temptation always comes like that. Even though they were well provided for, Lucifer has a knack of making us feel we need more.  Plus I don't think it was only the fruit that they desired, but the trust in what would happen if they ate that fruit.  So the tree was not evil, but the sin in disobeying God was. 

That tree symbolises God's boundaries, and if we stray from that we are in for a ride.  The punishment of sin was not death on the spot, but only a short time on this earth, then the grave. A redeemer is now required to reverse this, as was always in God's plan, separating the children who come to the light, to the children who love to stay in darkness and believe sweet lies.

 

[Guest Butero]

7 hours ago, other one said:

So what caused them to understand that they were naked if the tree didn't do anything to them?

Of course the fruit of the tree was what opened their eyes to see they were naked.  It is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The lengths people will to through to prove their doctrine is amazing.  In order to try to show God doesn't create anything evil, now we are told the fruit of this tree did nothing.  That is just not true.  I suppose next we will be told the tree of life did nothing either.  It was a placebo effect that if you at of that fruit, you would live forever.  

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Yowm said:

Do you have a reference that says it was made by man?

Do you mean like the wiki article on apple trees?

The original wild ancestor of Malus pumila was Malus sieversii, found growing wild in the mountains of Central Asia in southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Xinjiang, China.^[4][8] Cultivation of the species, most likely beginning on the forested flanks of the Tian Shan mountains, progressed over a long period of time and permitted secondary introgression of genes from other species into the open-pollinated seeds. Significant exchange with Malus sylvestris, the crabapple, resulted in current populations of apples being more related to crabapples than to the more morphologically similar progenitor Malus sieversii. In strains without recent admixture the contribution of the latter predominates

[JohnR7]

19 hours ago, Yowm said:

No, Wiki is not my ultimate source of truth when it comes to creation

We are talking about science and evolution. The evolution of the apple tree.

The Bible does not say what tree was the forbidden fruit. The oral tradition says it was an apple tree. 

There are 6 references to apple trees in the Bible and they all seem to be good.  

[JohnD]

Eden was a proving ground.

Can't have proof / test without the catalyst to alter the situation.

If the tree of forbidden fruit had to be appealing to be a consideration / temptation.

Otherwise it was no test at all. And free will would be rather automaton intelligence.

What amazes me is how people overlook who the proving was being made apparent to.

God didn't need this information.

Man didn't.

 

[JohnR7]

19 hours ago, Yowm said:

Do you hold that the Bible is fully God's inspired Word???

I hold the books of Moses in the original Bible Hebrew language to be inspired. 

Even the Greek language is a step away from the Hebrew and the understanding we have with the Hebrew language. 

 

[JohnR7]

19 minutes ago, JohnD said:

Eden was a proving ground.

That is fine but do we have a scripture that tells us that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to test them? 

Deuteronomy 8:2

"You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

Edited March 11, 2018 by JohnR7

[JohnD]

17 minutes ago, JohnR7 said:

That is fine but do we have a scripture that tells us that God put Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to test them? 

Deuteronomy 8:2

"You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

 

Job chapters 1 and 2 are parallel texts.

Let me do some digging for a more direct example.

[Unfailing Presence]

On ‎3‎/‎9‎/‎2018 at 12:12 PM, JohnR7 said:

Genesis 2: 16The LORD God commanded the man, saying, "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; 17but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." 

There is a lot I do not understand about this tree of knowledge. Why would God plant a tree with fruit that: "was a delight to the eyes".  Then forbid them to eat the fruit from this tree?

Genesis 3 6"When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate"

Genesis 1:31  31"God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good."

IF everything God made was good then where did the evil come from?  Why did God plant this tree if it was not good for them? If day means day then why did they not die the day they ate the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?  

Also I wonder about Ezekiel when he talks about the Cedar trees of Lebanon. 

Ezekiel 31 "9'I made it beautiful with the multitude of its branches, And all the trees of Eden, which were in the garden of God, were jealous of it.

If all of the tree of Eden were Jealous of the cedar in Lebanon, does that mean Lebanon was better than Eden back in it's days of purity?  Also how can a tree be "Jealous", do they have feeling?  Could a tree talk like a snake could talk back in the days of Eden? 

It was all done that we might become children of the second Adam .

What we lost in the 1st Adam we have gained a gazillion times in Christ .

Even the angels are amazed and perplexed seeking to " look into "  what is our inheritance in Jesus . 

No angel in heaven right now has any privilege so exalted as to come into His immediate  presence to make intercession for our fellow man & woman .

                                                   " in your prayers make intercession for all men ."      ( 1 Timothy 2 : 1 ) 

[JohnR7]

1 hour ago, Yowm said:

2 hours ago, JohnR7 said:

 

Inspired by who? God or man?

Inspired by the very nature of the Hebrew language. Hebrew is not Phoenician and Phoenician is not Hebrew. Hebrew is a language based on symbols and not phonics. Like Chemistry is based on symbols. The very nature of the Hebrew language makes it infinite because God is infinite. Man is finite and science is finite. So if you use a Hebrew word like "beginning" you could study the meaning of beginning for your whole life and at the end you would just be beginning to understand. God has no end and no beginning. He is infinite. He is the alpha and the omega and He knows the end from the beginning. 

If man invented God then maybe man could write a book about it. If God created man then every book in the world would not be enough. This is the case: God is infinite, the Bible is infinite and every book in the world would not be enough to talk about what we can learn from the Bible. 

Hebrew is a true written language. Phonics based languages are a counterfeit forgery of the real thing.