Not your typical Sunday Morning Bible study...

I'd like to begin at the beginning today... if you'd open your Bible's to the book of Genesis...

Call me a sceptic ("No!" you say, "surely not!"), but there seem to be certain inconsistencies in the opening pages of the Bible, specifically the first drama that takes place in the garden around a certain fruit tree, and a certain young couple...
Of course, what I'm about to say is purely my opinion and isn't endorsed by any Biblical scholar, so do with it what you will. My opinion isn't worth a bag of beans, although with the rising cost of food these days perhaps my opinion is worth more than it use to be!

If you read the story of Adam and Eve from a point of view seeking conformation of your currently held beliefs in "man's fallen state" then yeah, it all makes sense and the pieces seem to fit... but only if you take the story at face value and refuse to dig deeper. If, on the other hand, you carefully read the account with a basic working knowledge of some of the fundamental Christian beliefs, and if you study the elements and characters in the story, some red flags should pop up. Before I go through the account of "the fall" in the garden, I'd like to lay some ground work just so we're all on the same page.

There are many conflicting doctrines held by Christians. Some will read a passage and interpret it with a literal meaning, while another will read it with a metaphorical interpretation in mind, each drawing two completely different conclusions from the same exact verse. Some will even do a bit of both. There are some Christians who believe that there was a previous Earth age before the one written about in the book of Genesis, and others who would sternly denounce such an idea. Some Christians believe they will be raptured in the end days (May 21, 2011 for any of you looking to do anything special before you're raptured... I heard it from a reliable source on a Christian radio station) before the shit hits the global fan, while others believe that they will remain to endure whatever this life may bring so that they will be tested (refined by fire) and proved worthy of the Kingdom through faith. There are literally thousands of examples like this.
The point being, trying to represent a unified Christian perspective can be challenging, perhaps even impossible from one frame of mind, without coming off a little schizophrenic. This house is divided, on nearly every issue. But, if we zoom out it becomes easier to find congruences in their beliefs and thus, in a general way, there is a unified Christian perspective. It is from this zoomed-out perspective I would like to establish some thoughts. Not that these four points are a complete picture of the Christian perspective, but they are generally accepted by the majority of the "Christian" population and represent an accurate picture when it comes to the idea of "the fall of Man."
1) God placed the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the midst of the garden, so that Man could exercise his free will. In order for man to truly love and worship God, the opportunity to disobey and reject God had to exist.
2) It is from man's self willed action (disobeying and eating the forbidden fruit) that all the pain, suffering, sin, sickness and death exist today as part of the human condition. In essence, this one disobedience was the open door through which all manner of sin and evil has flooded mankind.
3) God - being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent - knew before the foundations of the Earth that this is how it was going to go down and in His infinite wisdom, He decided to go through with it anyway.
4) God allows all of this pain, suffering, sin, sickness and death in the human race so that  ultimately he can be glorified. His entire plan throughout the Bible - in order to save man - is ultimately that He might be glorified.

Now... the stage is set, the pieces are moving, enjoy the show!
Genesis 2:16-17
"And the Lord God commanded the man saying, 'From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.'" There is no Christian doctrine (that I'm aware of) that interprets the actual tree as a metaphorical tree. It was a literal tree, with literal fruit. I will not attempt to interpret whether this story or any of it's parts are metaphorical. As far as this conversation is concerned, each part is the plain, unaltered, straight from the Horse's mouth, literal story. This is an important distinction to make and I'll come back to it later.

Genesis 3,
The serpent, which was apparently more "crafty" than any other animal God had created, comes to discuss the forbidden tree and it's fruit with Eve. It asks her in verse 1 "Indeed, has God said 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" And Eve responds "From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat; but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, lest you die.'"

I would like to take this opportunity to say that nowhere in the book of Genesis does it state that the serpent WAS Satan. In fact it is crystal clear in the text that the serpent is simply and animal, a crafty animal, but an animal none the less. The interpretation of the serpent AS Satan doesn't emerge in scripture until much later. Thousands of years in fact. Also, as a side note, the image of a serpent in the old testament is symbolic of God Himself in many places. Moses' staff becomes a snake at the burning bush (Exodus 4), later Moses' brother-n-law Aaron throws down his staff which transforms into a serpent before the Pharaoh at the word of God, and when Pharaoh's magicians do the same, Aaron's staff (serpent) devours Pharaoh's snakes as a demonstration of God's supremacy (Exodus 7). And again, when the Israelites are wandering through the desert - and grumbling as usual - God sends a plague of snakes upon them and when they repent God gives Moses instructions to forge a bronze snake and fasten it to a standard (or rod) so that anyone who was bitten could look upon it and not die. If the serpent was such a cursed animal, the symbol of temptation, evil and original sin, why did God choose to use it so regularly to both represent Himself and as the manifestation of his power on Earth? God literally has Moses forge a bronze snake and fasten it to a rod for all to look upon for salvation! How does this not fall under the category of "graven images" that are so taboo just a few pages earlier? How is this bronze snake not an idol?

Anyway... I digress...

So, the serpent asks the question, Eve answers with a partial truth. "We cant even touch it or we'll die" which is not what God said. Maybe Adam in his desire to avoid the temptation altogether, instructed Eve that they shouldn't even touch it. Maybe this is a little something extra that Eve threw in for emphasis, like you do. At any rate, how was this first lie not an issue? God didn't say it, but He never even addresses it! Are we to glean from this that it isn't so much what we think or say, only what we do? Or did the sin of actually eating the forbidden fruit override the lesser sin of twisting what God said? Are we to glean from this obscure fact that there are levels of wrong or sin, grey areas that aren't as sinful as others, or not as important to God as others?

Again... I digress...

The serpent responds to Eve, saying "You shall not surely die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." So when she'd heard what the serpent had to say, and looked at the tree and it's delicious looking fruit, she took some and ate it and shared it with the man who was with her. When they ate, something began to happen. It was a burning that began in their guts, then moved up to their hearts. They both began to gag and choke, foaming at the mouth and as the poison reached their brains they seized and fell to the ground dead. "Oh shit!" Said the serpent and he slithered off into oblivion.
Wait...
That's not right...
Oh yeah, so... they eat the fruit and suddenly their eyes are open and they realize for the first time that they're naked.

(Up until that point it was purely eye contact)

So they sew some fig leaves together to cover their nakedness (which apparently is just... wrong. Someone should tell this to my children who have no problem parading around the apartment butt-ass-necked).
Then, when they hear God coming - walking through the garden in the cool of the day as He did then - they hid from Him among the trees. God calls out "Where are you?"

Side note: Why did He have to ask? Surely God knew where they were, was he just toying with them, testing them? Another test?

Anyway, Adam comes out and says "I heard you coming and I hid because I was naked." (I'm paraphrasing here, but read it for yourself, this is pretty accurate). God says, "Who told you that you are naked? Did you eat from the forbidden tree?" Here Adam does some fancy footwork-blame-shifting and says "The woman you gave me, she gave me fruit from the tree and I ate!" God turns to Eve and says "Is this true?" and the woman, not to be outdone, dances a bit herself. "It was the serpent! It deceived me and I ate." God looks at the serpent who was apparently still hanging around and curses it for what it has done. But that's not all. There's plenty of cursing to go around. There's a curse for the woman and yet another curse for the man.

There...

Now that all parties have been cursed appropriately, God has some thinking to do. This is where it gets interesting, but it happens fast so pay attention.

Genesis 3:22-24
"Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever' - therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So He drove the man out; and at the East of the garden of Eden He stationed the cherubim, and the flaming sword which turned every direction, to guard the way to the tree of life."

Let's return to something... what did God say in the beginning? "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die."
What did the serpent say? "You surely shall not die! For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
Well, what really happened? Adam and Eve didn't die that day. Their eyes were open knowing good and evil, like God. We know this because God says "... the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil..."
Christians like to explain this away by saying, "Well... God was referring to a spiritual death, not a physical one." Really? Because I don't recall reading where God says "From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you shall suffer a spiritual kind of death and it will take your body about 900 years or so to die, but when you do, you will surely be dead."
You might be tempted to say, "stop being so damn literal Adam!" Well I'm sorry, aren't we talking about a literal tree, with literal fruit? Isn't this a literal thing that happened with VERY literal consequences? So do we get to pick and choose when to make it metaphorical?

What did God say? "... the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil..." what does this mean? That they knew the difference between the two, that they could recognise the difference or that they suddenly became aware of each? Or did they "know" the way a man and woman "know" each other, as in, experiencing good and evil, intimately? This is another topic for another day...

The next part is, to me, the most interesting of all. God says "... and now, lest he stretch out his hand, and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever..." You mean to tell me, that even after man had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they could have eaten from the tree of life and lived forever? But wouldn't that completely nullify what God had said about them surely dying if they ate from the first tree?
I'm not making this stuff up people! Read it!
 And how is it that they had never eaten from the tree of life before? Didn't they know about it? Had God kept it a secret and not pointed it out the way he did the other tree? Isn't that kind of stacking the deck against them to begin with? There are many questions here and many more that I haven't even posed.
A Christian accepts these passages by faith, believing that God's purposes are pure and that the fault lies with man and with a certain serpent who may have been possessed by Satan, or perhaps Satan turned himself into a serpent, or whatever doctrine they wish to superimpose to make it make sense.

The whole thing seems a little fishy to me.
Everyone seems to be telling partial truths in this story, including God. God tells a partial truth about the tree to begin with ( in the day you eat of it you'll surely die...). Adam tells a partial truth when he blames the woman instead of taking responsibility (not to mention, we don't know if Adam is the one who twisted God's word to begin with by telling Eve that she shouldn't even touch the tree or they'd die). Eve tells a partial truth about not being able to even touch the tree, and also when she avoids responsibility by blaming the snake. The serpent on the other hand, is the only one who actually tells the truth! When Eve says "if we eat it or even touch it we'll surely die!" the serpent says "you wont die!" this is true. Not only did they live long enough to digest the poisonous fruit, if they'd taken and eaten from the tree of life they would have lived indefinitely! In fact, there is no verse in Genesis that says that Adam and Eve were created to be immortals. For all we know, they would have expired eventually anyway without the aid of the tree of life! The notion that they were created immortal is assumed and then implied by various other interpretations-turned-doctrine via Paul and other New Testament writers. Also, the serpent told the truth about them becoming like God and knowing good and evil. God himself confirms this when he says "... the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil..." So according to Scripture, the serpent is the ONLY one in this account who is telling the truth.
Weird.

FYI: This reasoning is actually the foundation of Satanism as a religion. Funny how one scripture can be the seed for many different - even opposing belief systems. I'm not a Satanist, but I thought it was an interesting piece of information.

So allow me to return to the groundwork for a moment.
1) God placed the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the midst of the garden, so that Man could exercise his free will. In order for man to truly love and worship God, the opportunity to disobey and reject God had to exist.
My question is, didn't man have free will, even without that damn tree? Didn't man freely twist what God had said about what not to do before they ate of it's fruit? Didn't Adam use free will to name all the animals? Aren't there a multitude of other things they did on a daily basis that required free will? What's the relevance? well... the point is, it didn't require a cursed tree with cursed fruit in order for man to have/exercise free will. It did however set the stage for his "fall" so that a need would be created for God to swoop in and save the day.
2) It is from man's self willed action (disobeying and eating the forbidden fruit) that all the pain, suffering, sin, sickness and death exist today as part of the human condition. In essence, this one disobedience was the open door through which all manner of sin has flooded mankind.
This is definitely one way of looking at it. But who is responsible for the tree? And as I already stated, was the tree even necessary? And to question a bit further, how was the purity, divinity, holiness of God not tainted by the creation of such a profoundly dark and pivotal force?
3) God - being omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent - knew before the foundations of the Earth that this is how it was going to go down and He went through with it anyway.
and...
4) God allows all of this pain, suffering, sin, sickness and death in the human race so that  ultimately he can be glorified. His entire plan throughout the Bible - in order to save man - is ultimately that He might be glorified.
So, let me see if I can summarize here and then I'll be done... thanks for stickin it out.
1. God creates man with free will because - and I agree here - a mindless drone is no fun.
2. He creates a tree with fruit that will separate him from his creation - and then He makes a point to highlight the tree with special conditions, knowing the whole time that his creation will find a way to taste it. In addition he created another very significant tree that yields eternal life to all who ingest it's fruit... but nothing is said about this one to Adam and Eve, at least the Bible doesn't say. One would think that if they knew about a tree that blessed it's eaters with eternal life, they would be all over it! But this is an assumption.
3. When man eats the forbidden fruit (which God knew they would do to begin with) God curses them and casts them from his presence and from the garden of Eden. In addition, he places an angelic guard with a fiery sword to dissuade anyone from trying to re-enter and eat from the tree of life. From this point on, it's a steady decline into the horror which is the "fallen state of man".
4. The rest of the Bible is the story of God setting the stage to save man from his fallen state (that He was instrumental in creating by the way) so that they will glorify him in the end.
Does anything about this seem a little funky to anyone but me? Is God really so narcissistic that he would set up this whole thing to get more glory? Is he really so needy? Would an eternal, Holy being really need to set things up like this to get man to glorify Him? Did Adam and Eve not already glorify their maker? Were they blind to his power such that they needed to be put through this sort of ringer so that they would recognise their own weakness and come crawling back to Daddy? This sounds like something a selfish man would come up with, not an eternal all knowing, all loving God.

Ask yourself, would an eternal God allow all the horrors we endure here on planet Earth just so He could be glorified? If God is God, immortal, eternal, Alpha and Omega, isn't He complete without our praise?Is the adoration obedience and worship for our infinitesimal period of time as finite beings really worth that much to an eternal being? Is this kind of behavior really worthy of a God?

You may glean many things from this account in the scripture. There are, no doubt, many lessons to be learned - not the least of which is, don't listen to talking snakes.

One thing I glean from this story is that men have had, and will always have many ideas about who and what God is. But listen to your heart and seek with your eyes wide open. Believing in "God" doesn't mean you have to believe everything people say about It.