Genesis 3

[abaris]

People trust you with paint?

They even trust chimps and elephants with paint, so....

[robvalue]

Quick question for theists. How did you determine that God is the "good" one and the devil is the "evil" one?

Especially as we only hear what God has to say.

[Cyberman]

People trust you with paint?

They even trust chimps and elephants with paint, so....

Exactly. I had no idea he was so advanced.

[Drich]

So this god offered all the trees except one which it pointed out specifically not to eat from, diverting attention from the other magic tree of which no mention is made until after the choice, then locks it away to make sure nobody eats from it

Yep, that positively screams "offered" to me.

Imagine a game show. In the final round I show you a hundred identical boxes, or at least similar enough to be identical for practical purposes. Unknown to you, most of them are just plain boxes, nothing special. I tell you to pick any box you like - except that one over there, which you absolutely must not touch.

I go away for five minutes then come back to find you opening the forbidden box. I get so angry that I kick you out of the studio, throw your clothes after you and lock all the doors. Then I take the other special box containing the grand prize of eternal life, one that I never mentioned before, and lock it in an electrified safe so nobody can have it.

Was that prize freely offered? Did I over-react? After all, if I behave like that because you chose the box I manipulated you into choosing, what would I have done had you accidentally picked the star prize? Especially given the disparity between them (realisation you're naked vs eternal life).

Choice was always apart of God's over all plan, otherwise the forbidden tree would not have been put in the garden to begin with.

However, just because they had the ablity to choose didn't mean they were free of the consenquences of their choices. For instance if we/they want to remain on your game show then we/they have to play by your rules. If we choose to play, we are subject to whatever rules the game mandates. Fairness is not apart of the equasion because the term can be manipulated to fit any situation, and besides with the choice they have been given they weren't looking at identical boxes with one being forbidden. They were looking at boxes that brought life and one box that brought death.

[IATIA]

Were Adam & Eve even aware of the 'tree of life'?

[Natachan]

According to the text, no, probably not. God never mentions it and only mentioned the tree of the knowledge of good and evil explicitly.

A note: god doesn't seem to be bothered by them eating it so long as they lack knowledge. It is the knowledge that makes men like god. This is rather telling of how these people viewed gods. It does fit with other cultures as well. Remember the story of Prometheus. Fire was a power of the gods, and Prometheus was punished for giving it to men.

[watchamadoodle]

(Sorry if somebody has already mentioned this.) In response to the question in the OP:

One of the Sumerian myths had the gods rebelling against the ruling god, because they didn't like working. To solve this problem the gods created humans who would have the bodies of gods but not the immortality. These humans could do the menial labor that the gods didn't want to do, but they would be too weak to rebel.

Regarding the Garden of Eden, this referred to the gardens associated with ancient near eastern temples. The four rivers referred to building temples near natural springs.

Also, apparently the earliest city dwellers saw themselves as slaves to their city's god and temple. All the land was owned by the temple. The food was processed through the temple. People received food rations from the temple. This was the way the Israelites thought about Yahweh. Yahweh was the slave master of the Israelites. Other nations had their own slave masters.

So the puzzling things in Genesis like "in God's image", "don't let them eat the tree of life and become like us" make more sense after learning these things IMO.

(Sorry if my historical facts are somewhat wrong. Hopefully they are accurate enough for discussion.)

[abaris]

It does fit with other cultures as well. Remember the story of Prometheus. Fire was a power of the gods, and Prometheus was punished for giving it to men.

Were you ever under the impression that judaism or christianity had any original thoughts. You can find the whole tree story, snake included in the Gilgamesh epic. They just remodelled it a bit to suit their own needs.

[FatAndFaithless]

Gilgamesh was the shit, yo. Real original gangsta. Held his breath for like 7 years or some shit.

[IATIA]

The babble-book also states that Adam's purpose was to tend god's garden.