(July 28, 2014 at 4:04 pm)alpha male Wrote: So if the account recorded some internal debate by A&E you'd find it reasonable?That would depend on what it revealed. I find it an interesting story but the lack of detail allows for a broad range of interpretation.
I like the JW's explanation: they believe that the Tree of Knowledge was just another tree; its fruit did not contain some magic ingredient that would expand anyone's mind. What made the tree 'special' was that god commanded Adam not to eat from it on pain of death. The tree was a symbol of god's sovereignty. As long as they stayed away from it, Adam and Eve were making it clear that they respected god's right to make the rules and guide their actions.
When the serpent tells Eve that she will "become like god, knowing good and evil" he is really telling her that she would become like god in that she would be able to determine for herself what was right or wrong. Eating from the fruit would be her way of declaring her independence from god, and from his rules. Hence she would 'know' right from wrong because she would decide what was right or wrong.
It doesn't quite account for why the couple suddenly realizes that they are nude and decide to cover up, unless it's a metaphor for their guilt. But that wouldn't square with the idea that they had knowingly decided to reject god, nor does it explain their apparent lack of any emotional attachment to god. That one seems odd to me-- did the writers just not consider that at all, or did it simply not make it into the version that we have today?
"Well, evolution is a theory. It is also a fact. And facts and theories are different things, not rungs in a hierarchy of increasing certainty. Facts are the world's data. Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts. Facts don't go away when scientists debate rival theories to explain them. Einstein's theory of gravitation replaced Newton's in this century, but apples didn't suspend themselves in midair, pending the outcome. And humans evolved from ape- like ancestors whether they did so by Darwin's proposed mechanism or by some other yet to be discovered."
-Stephen Jay Gould
-Stephen Jay Gould