Is Eve in Hell right now?

[Brakeman]

No, As a matter of fact He didn't reveal this by ring or hook or prayer. you sound bitter.

Believers get things wrong . Don't you?

Genesis was never meant as a scientific belief. But at a time when science did not exist ,..until about 200 years ago.

well that was all anyone had to go by..We know better now ..

Do we deserve a liitle understanding ?

If god didn't reveal anything to you then that means both that you are just spewing your "version/interpretation" of the story that you dreamt up yourself, and that you are not important enough to god for him to even talk to or acknowledge, which makes for a real asshole of a loving father. Did your real father love you enough to acknowledge you with attention and conversation? Why is you real father a better father than god?

As for the bitterness, I am not bitter at all toward god, I can't be. He's just a very silly fictional story to me, but the "christians" that shit all over society, using a scary god story to wield a club to bash social progress does make me bitter. As a former southern baptist "preacher's kid" in the south, I met very many "men of god" preachers and knew of their home life behavior though their children and I can say that of those, without exception, they were some of the most evil controlling men I have ever seen. If god were good and "made-o'-love," then the mere contact with him should have made them better men as a whole, not dregs. Their kids should have been the most well adjusted and upright having been led by the scripturally guided preachers, yet they were suicidal (3 PK's I knew killed themselves before adulthood) and had great emotional scars. So I am a bit bitter toward the con-men of religion.

You say that genesis was never meant as a scientific belief, yet many men were tortured and executed by the majority in history that did believe it to be and they were closer contemporaries of the authors of the scriptures than you. If the genesis account is supposed to be taken another way than by direct reading then the authors failed in communication which is the purpose of the writings in the first place. You would need to explain why the authors of the scriptures were not writing for their contemporary audience, instead trying to cryptically reach with the true meaning to so some silly bloke in the year 2014.

[Confused Ape]

I'll try to clear things up, first of all I do not know if snakes were in the Garden or not. The Genesis account mentions serpent, not snake and no plural was ever given to the serpent.

In my earlier post I linked to a dictionary where it says that serpent is another word for snake.

As far as the punishment of crawling around, it may represent a punishment on Lucifer that reduced him to the lowest of stature.

Throughout the rest of scriptures we see that Lucifer has no more power than God allows him, God has placed man above him, that must have outraged him.

Can't resist saying this but Lucifer must have had a hissy fit.

Who are Lucifer's descendants supposed to be, though? And why, if the serpent was really Lucifer, did the writers of Genesis deliberately confuse the account by not saying that he was an angel?

After a couple of hours looking up different views of what the serpent's meant to be, it's obvious that it's whatever people want it to be. Christians who want Eve to have been tempted by Lucifer will find ways of interpreting the text to fit their views. I'm going to finish this post with an article from the Jewish Virtual Library - Paradise

The Serpent

The text is at pains to point out the creatureliness of the serpent, describing it as one "of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made" (3:1, 14); it is distinguished from the other beasts only by its shrewdness (3:1). Its insignificance is underlined in 3:9–19, where God interrogates Adam and Eve, and both respond, while the serpent is not questioned and does not respond. In view of the prominent role played by serpents in ancient Near Eastern religion and mythology this treatment of the serpent amounts to desecration and demythologization, quite possibly intentional. As a result, the source of evil is denied divine or even demonic status: evil is no independent principle in the cosmos, but stems from the behavior and attitudes of God's creatures.

From early times the serpent has been seen as a symbol, whose meaning is widely debated. Some have stressed the serpent's well-known phallic symbolism and fertility associations, taking the narrative to reflect an attitude toward human sexuality, fertility cults, and the like. Others see the serpent as representing man's own shrewdness. Since in ancient Near Eastern mythology the forces of chaos which oppose the forces of creation and cosmos are widely represented as serpents, many see the serpent here, too, as a personification of the forces of chaos. According to this view, disobeying God undermines the cosmic order. Alternatively, the serpent may represent ethical evil in general, a meaning that serpentine mythological motifs are given elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Isa. 26:21–27:1).

The bolded bit makes sense to me because religious humans have often taken a negative attitude towards other religions' deities. A modern example is some Christians saying that the Horned God of Wicca is the Christian Devil.

[Godscreated]

I'll try to clear things up, first of all I do not know if snakes were in the Garden or not. The Genesis account mentions serpent, not snake and no plural was ever given to the serpent.

In my earlier post I linked to a dictionary where it says that serpent is another word for snake.

Yes I know, I went to the original Hebrew and serpent in this passage and others is not a physical description but the description from the hissing sound snakes make which is linked to enchantment. I have a book that breaks down the Creation and Garden of Eden stories word by word, I've loaned it out several times and need to find where it's at, it would be very useful in these discussions.

---

As far as the punishment of crawling around, it may represent a punishment on Lucifer that reduced him to the lowest of stature.

Throughout the rest of scriptures we see that Lucifer has no more power than God allows him, God has placed man above him, that must have outraged him.

---

Can't resist saying this but Lucifer must have had a hissy fit.

That's a good one and yes I bet he did.

Who are Lucifer's descendants supposed to be, though? And why, if the serpent was really Lucifer, did the writers of Genesis deliberately confuse the account by not saying that he was an angel?

Lucifer has no descendants, angels can not procreate, I do not know the verse in the NT that tells us this, but I will find it if you wish.
Angels are not mentioned in scripture until the Abraham story, this is a couple thousand years after the temptation of Eve by the serpent. The book of Genesis was written by Moses as revealed to Him from God and possibly through stories preserved through time.

After a couple of hours looking up different views of what the serpent's meant to be, it's obvious that it's whatever people want it to be. Christians who want Eve to have been tempted by Lucifer will find ways of interpreting the text to fit their views. I'm going to finish this post with an article from the Jewish Virtual Library - Paradise

I agree as far as people have made different meanings out of the story, I hope I can find my book and give a better account of the individual words and how they are used with each other.

The Serpent

The text is at pains to point out the creatureliness of the serpent, describing it as one "of all the wild beasts that the Lord God had made" (3:1, 14); it is distinguished from the other beasts only by its shrewdness (3:1). Its insignificance is underlined in 3:9–19, where God interrogates Adam and Eve, and both respond, while the serpent is not questioned and does not respond. In view of the prominent role played by serpents in ancient Near Eastern religion and mythology this treatment of the serpent amounts to desecration and demythologization, quite possibly intentional. As a result, the source of evil is denied divine or even demonic status: evil is no independent principle in the cosmos, but stems from the behavior and attitudes of God's creatures.

From early times the serpent has been seen as a symbol, whose meaning is widely debated. Some have stressed the serpent's well-known phallic symbolism and fertility associations, taking the narrative to reflect an attitude toward human sexuality, fertility cults, and the like. Others see the serpent as representing man's own shrewdness. Since in ancient Near Eastern mythology the forces of chaos which oppose the forces of creation and cosmos are widely represented as serpents, many see the serpent here, too, as a personification of the forces of chaos. According to this view, disobeying God undermines the cosmic order. Alternatively, the serpent may represent ethical evil in general, a meaning that serpentine mythological motifs are given elsewhere in the Bible (e.g., Isa. 26:21–27:1).

The bolded bit makes sense to me because religious humans have often taken a negative attitude towards other religions' deities. A modern example is some Christians saying that the Horned God of Wicca is the Christian Devil.

I understand that the serpent or snake was used in various ways during ancient times. It's even used as a symbol of healing today. But this serpent was a different creature all together and must be looked at as different than all other references of the word serpent.
As far as what the Wicca deity looks like I couldn't care less, I try to focus on Christianity.

GC

[RaisdCath]

Is Eve, from the Adam and Eve story, in hell right now?

She disobeyed god and started the whole sin trend in humans, so did god put her in an everlasting lake of fire?

If she repented, and god forgave and decided that he did want her to live with him forever why did he continue to expel her from his garden and continue to condemn her children?

If she is in hell, does she really deserve it? 6000 years of torture is a pretty stiff sentence served for unwittingly listening to another supreme being that you had no previous reasons to mistrust.

Aside from the facts that there is no "hell" and there is no "eve".....

It does bring up an interesting questions....since the god of the christians is all-just, all-merciful, all-compassionate, all-powerful, all-everything......can god release a soul from hell??

[Brakeman]

Who are Lucifer's descendants supposed to be, though? And why, if the serpent was really Lucifer, did the writers of Genesis deliberately confuse the account by not saying that he was an angel?

Lucifer has no descendants, angels can not procreate, I do not know the verse in the NT that tells us this, but I will find it if you wish.
Angels are not mentioned in scripture until the Abraham story, this is a couple thousand years after the temptation of Eve by the serpent. The book of Genesis was written by Moses as revealed to Him from God and possibly through stories preserved through time.

GC

Genesis 6:1-22 ESV

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown. The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

Many, if not most of the christians of old believed that the angels did have sex with humans and procreate successfully by their interpretations of these Genesis verses. Why wouldn't they have gotten it right?

[archangle]

If eve is alive ... she is in hell.

but the eve story is a great example of bible not written by god. Eve was deceived, not evil. She may even have been stupid .... she was not evil. She may have been embarrassed by the "flesh". God told her she was beautiful.

end of story.

[Tonus]

Omniscience would not prevent him from taking any particular action, it only means that he had all of the information he needed in order to act.

His perfect love and justice would, it seems to me that people believe God can do anything He desires, that's not true and scripture reveals this if one would just take the time to search out the truth. God has no desire to do things against who He is.

What I mean is that god is not restricted from taking any action he pleases. His particular nature may mean that he does not take certain actions, but he is capable of them if he wished. I may occasionally get angry enough with a person that I'd like to hit them, but I it's extremely rare that I even yell at another person. I am capable of hitting someone, but it's against my nature to do so. If god was somehow incapable of taking certain action, then he is more limited than I am, and that doesn't make sense to me.

Nothing stops god from doing something wicked if he chooses, aside from the willingness of others to accept his actions as "good" regardless of what he does. In that sense, his treatment of Eve is "just."

His decisions with Eve were through His just nature, His decisions are made with no regard to what you and I believe. Scripture says God can do no evil because God is not capable of sin.

But is that because any action god takes is by definition good, or is it that he cannot do certain things because he is somehow limited? If god avoids sin because he is incapable, then it seems as if he is good not because he chooses to be good, but because the choice is denied him for some reason.

Eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was not 'bad' in any other sense than that god told them not to do it, and told them what the penalty would be.

I disagree, if God had not put the Tree off limits through His commandment they would have eventually eaten from it. They then would have the knowledge that would lead to sin eventually, so eating from the Tree would have been disastrous. God had a reason for putting the Tree of limits, to preserve mankind in a sinless state and a continuous relationship with Him unbroken by sin. God placed a penalty on disobeying so they would understand that this specific action would result in wrong doing.

But if that is the case, then he could have simply put the tree out of reach, or not created it at all. Thus the tree needed to serve some purpose besides being a stumbling block for mankind. The command to not eat from the tree made the tree serve as a symbol of god's sovereignty over humanity-- he could command humans because he was god, and that should be good enough for man.

The Bible makes pretty clear that the most important rule is to do as god commands. Adam and Eve did not, and paid the penalty that god promised, with only moderate changes.

What moderate changes, the penalty was death and death they did experience. The ultimate penalty of death was separation in a relationship with the Creator of the universe.

Originally, god tells them that if they eat, they will die. Some versions of the Bible even imply that it would be the same day. Only after, when he is condemning them, does he add the pains and suffering that they would experience before death (woman's birth pains, the cursing of the land, etc).

There are two issues with this, as I see it. Boru already covered one of them, in that without the notion of good/evil or right/wrong, Eve could not have understood the ramifications of breaking the rule given by god.

She knew right from wrong, why, because she understood what the punishment meant, that being so she had to understand it was wrong to disobey God. Why would God give them a consequence for disobeying, knowing they did not understand, He wouldn't, just as a parent tells a child that there will be a punishment for disobeying, they know the child understands. Eve couldn't have understood the greater picture, she was not God and could not see the future, she had one simple commandment to obey, it was all she needed to know.

But the story tells us that until she ate from the fruit of the tree, she did not have knowledge of good or evil. God gave a command (do not eat from the tree) and a punishment (or you will die) and there seems to be no additional explanation.

Her only motivation would have been the selfish desire to avoid death, and having that concern removed by the serpent's lie, she was easy prey.

Don't disregard the fact that they spent time each evening with God in the Garden, do you believe they were just passing time, I think God was teaching them many things about Him, things so wonderful we can not begin to understand.

We can at least infer that she understood, on some level, that death was not desirable, that it was something she did not want. Otherwise the command has no motivating value-- if Eve did not understand death, then the threat of death would not dissuade her from disobeying. What she understood about right or wrong is unknown, but my understanding (based on my comment just above) is that she would not have understood this. If she did, then the tree is kind of superfluous aside from serving as a test of loyalty.

The fear of death wasn't removed from Eve by the serpent, the offer of being like the God they spent time with each evening was more than she was able to resist, self greed overrode her sensibilities to love God, same thing the serpent fell to, only difference is he made his own temptation through self pride.

In this case I'm just going by the story. Eve replies to the serpent's question by explaining the rule-- do not eat of the fruit of this one tree or you will die. The serpent tells her that this is not true-- she will not only not die, but she will gain some sort of additional insight that god has. Thus the fear of consequence is removed and a temptation is added. Now she thinks there is only an upside to eating of the fruit.

This does make me wonder about the time spent with god and being taught directly by him. If Eve was this easily deceived, then god did not prepare her well enough, it seems.

The second issue I referred to in my first post, which is that the rest of humanity forever and ever would not get the same opportunity that Adam and Eve got-- they would be born in a world that had been twisted to work against them, and with bodies that had been twisted to work against them, to the degree that they could not possibly determine for themselves whether or not they deserved to continue to live.

What do you think salvation is about, it's to have the opportunity to live in a relationship with God forever, same as Adam and Eve had, it cost God a terrible price but, one He was willing to pay for us and in that I believe we can never be grateful enough. It's true man has to pay a price for sin being allowed into the creation, God did not abandon us and payed a greater price to gain a new relationship with us and give us the same chance at eternal life with Him as they had, it's about choice. I want try to influence your thought process about this but, take what I have just presented and compare it to Abraham and Issac and the sacrifice they were going to. The stories are intertwined as threads in a woven carpet. Will talk to you next week hopefully Monday, thanks for the good talk.

But it was god who chose to curse the land and make humanity imperfect. That was not his original warning to Adam and Eve-- his original warning would have made them pay the price for their own misdeed. Even if humanity was now unable to live forever, why make us disease-prone? Why curse the land, that it would no longer produce in abundance? If a perfect man and woman in the perfect setting could not remain faithful to god, why make the obstacles even more difficult for their offspring? This would guarantee that most would fail, if not all, and that is what we see happen before long-- god decides that mankind has become almost completely evil and he decides to kill all except for Noah and his family.

Imagine if god had said to Adam and Eve "your offspring will not live forever. They will grow old and die, yet they will not become sick and the world will produce all the food they need and I will offer them the chance to enjoy the life that you denied them through your disobedience. All they must do is prove themselves loyal, as you did not, and I will give them the rewards that you rejected by your rash actions." Why would that not have been more just?

[Confused Ape]

I have a book that breaks down the Creation and Garden of Eden stories word by word, I've loaned it out several times and need to find where it's at, it would be very useful in these discussions.

Do you remember what it's called and who wrote it? I could then look it up and see what, if any, religious beliefs the author had or has.

Lucifer has no descendants, angels can not procreate, I do not know the verse in the NT that tells us this, but I will find it if you wish.

I'm going to use the Complete Jewsish Bible for a change.

The Complete Jewish Bible was translated by David H. Stern, an Israel-based Messianic Jewish theologian. Published in 1998 by Jewish New Testament Publications, the CJB claims to be “Jewish in manner and presentation.” The names of the books are Jewish along with their English names (if different). Semitic names are used for people and places. It also incorporates Hebrew and Yiddish expressions that Stern refers to as “Jewish English.”

Restoring the "Jewishness" of the Bible is a good thing. The Bible was written predominantly by Jews and to a Jewish audience. The Complete Jewish Bible should be commended for recognizing those facts. Overall, the CJB is a good and accurate translation of the Bible. It does tend to be too "free" in its renderings, sometimes interpreting instead of translating. Also, although it was in no sense the purpose of the Complete Jewish Bible, the idea of there being a separate Bible for Jews can lead toward division in the Body of Christ.

So back to Genesis 3

3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any wild animal which Adonai, God, had made.

14 Adonai, God, said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, you are cursed more than all livestock and wild animals. You will crawl on your belly and eat dust as long as you live. 15 I will put animosity between you and the woman, and between your descendant and her descendant; he will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel.”

Other translations use the word 'seed' instead of descendant. For example, Genesis 22 - King James Version

17 That in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies;

18 And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

The question, then, is what was God talking about when he referred to the serpent's descendant/seed?

Genesis 6:1-22 ESV

When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose.

Many, if not most of the christians of old believed that the angels did have sex with humans and procreate successfully by their interpretations of these Genesis verses. Why wouldn't they have gotten it right?

A good point. I found an interesting article about this on Got Questions Org which is a Christian website - Who were the sons of God and daughters of men in Genesis 6:1-4?

The three primary views on the identity of the sons of God are 1) they were fallen angels, 2) they were powerful human rulers, or 3) they were godly descendants of Seth intermarrying with wicked descendants of Cain.

View 1) is the most likely position. Yes, it is an interesting “contradiction” to say that angels are sexless and then to say that the “sons of God” were fallen angels who procreated with human females. However, while angels are spiritual beings (Hebrews 1:14), they can appear in human, physical form (Mark 16:5). The men of Sodom and Gomorrah wanted to have sex with the two angels who were with Lot (Genesis 19:1-5). It is plausible that angels are capable of taking on human form, even to the point of replicating human sexuality and possibly even reproduction. Why do the fallen angels not do this more often? It seems that God imprisoned the fallen angels who committed this evil sin, so that the other fallen angels would not do the same (as described in Jude 6). Earlier Hebrew interpreters and apocryphal and pseudopigraphal writings are unanimous in holding to the view that fallen angels are the “sons of God” mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4. This by no means closes the debate. However, the view that Genesis 6:1-4 involves fallen angels mating with human females has a strong contextual, grammatical, and historical basis.

So, was the serpent in Eden a talking snake or a fallen angel who was going to have descendants?

[Godscreated]

His perfect love and justice would, it seems to me that people believe God can do anything He desires, that's not true and scripture reveals this if one would just take the time to search out the truth. God has no desire to do things against who He is.

What I mean is that god is not restricted from taking any action he pleases. His particular nature may mean that he does not take certain actions, but he is capable of them if he wished. I may occasionally get angry enough with a person that I'd like to hit them, but I it's extremely rare that I even yell at another person. I am capable of hitting someone, but it's against my nature to do so. If god was somehow incapable of taking certain action, then he is more limited than I am, and that doesn't make sense to me.

Scripture says God can not lie, this seems to indicate He is incapable of lying, scripture also says God can not do evil or sin (both I see as the same), this to me means He is incapable of these actions. I do not see God as a being who has to live a perfect life but, One who lives a perfect life because that is who He is, He's not capable of living ant other way. If God could do evil that means evil existed before creation, thus Satan could not have been said by God to be the father of lies.

---

His decisions with Eve were through His just nature, His decisions are made with no regard to what you and I believe. Scripture says God can do no evil because God is not capable of sin.

---

But is that because any action god takes is by definition good, or is it that he cannot do certain things because he is somehow limited? If god avoids sin because he is incapable, then it seems as if he is good not because he chooses to be good, but because the choice is denied him for some reason.

Again I refer to scripture, it says God can not lie or do evil, so by this explanation I see that there are things God is not capable of doing. It is because of this explanation of who God is that He can be defined as absolute good.
Who would be denying God, something of greater abilities would have to exist and again I go to scripture, it says no one is above God. God is the supreme creator of all that exists. Evil has no part with God.

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I disagree, if God had not put the Tree off limits through His commandment they would have eventually eaten from it. They then would have the knowledge that would lead to sin eventually, so eating from the Tree would have been disastrous. God had a reason for putting the Tree of limits, to preserve mankind in a sinless state and a continuous relationship with Him unbroken by sin. God placed a penalty on disobeying so they would understand that this specific action would result in wrong doing.

---

But if that is the case, then he could have simply put the tree out of reach, or not created it at all. Thus the tree needed to serve some purpose besides being a stumbling block for mankind. The command to not eat from the tree made the tree serve as a symbol of god's sovereignty over humanity-- he could command humans because he was god, and that should be good enough for man.

No I do not think so, obedience and love go hand in hand, this is a theme throughout the scriptures, the scriptures show them to be locked together. The tree was not meant as a stumbling block, it was there to show love through obedience.
Agreed the tree did symbolize God's sovereignty over man, I'm not sure God would say that should be enough for man, He did create us with feelings such as love and it is love He desires from us. So choice has to be a part of the relationship or it is just sovereignty.

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What moderate changes, the penalty was death and death they did experience. The ultimate penalty of death was separation in a relationship with the Creator of the universe.

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Originally, god tells them that if they eat, they will die. Some versions of the Bible even imply that it would be the same day. Only after, when he is condemning them, does he add the pains and suffering that they would experience before death (woman's birth pains, the cursing of the land, etc).

Yes, those were added as far as Adam and Eve were concerned.
The death on the same day is the spiritual death, God does not look at the physical death as we do, it's the spiritual heart God is concerned about, that lives on forever.

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She knew right from wrong, why, because she understood what the punishment meant, that being so she had to understand it was wrong to disobey God. Why would God give them a consequence for disobeying, knowing they did not understand, He wouldn't, just as a parent tells a child that there will be a punishment for disobeying, they know the child understands. Eve couldn't have understood the greater picture, she was not God and could not see the future, she had one simple commandment to obey, it was all she needed to know.

---

But the story tells us that until she ate from the fruit of the tree, she did not have knowledge of good or evil. God gave a command (do not eat from the tree) and a punishment (or you will die) and there seems to be no additional explanation.

No additional information is given, I do think it is implied by the walks they took, regardless the story doesn't tell us one way or the other.
I look at it this way, parents do not tell there children not do do something unless they know that child understands going against their will is wrong.

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Don't disregard the fact that they spent time each evening with God in the Garden, do you believe they were just passing time, I think God was teaching them many things about Him, things so wonderful we can not begin to understand.

---

We can at least infer that she understood, on some level, that death was not desirable, that it was something she did not want. Otherwise the command has no motivating value-- if Eve did not understand death, then the threat of death would not dissuade her from disobeying. What she understood about right or wrong is unknown, but my understanding (based on my comment just above) is that she would not have understood this. If she did, then the tree is kind of superfluous aside from serving as a test of loyalty.

To dissuade would to be gain loyalty. I was taught this was a story of love and after studying this story many times I agree with what I was taught, it is a love story, not a story to gain loyalty. The theme of love runs throughout scriptures, it is actually the most important thing in the scriptures and to God. When we view scripture through the light of love they take on a meaning of wonder. Why so many here want to only see evil and hate in the scriptures is beyond me, love is the greatest theme in scripture. So in the end I believe Eve knew that to disobey God meant she was not giving Him all of her love.

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The fear of death wasn't removed from Eve by the serpent, the offer of being like the God they spent time with each evening was more than she was able to resist, self greed overrode her sensibilities to love God, same thing the serpent fell to, only difference is he made his own temptation through self pride.

---

In this case I'm just going by the story. Eve replies to the serpent's question by explaining the rule-- do not eat of the fruit of this one tree or you will die. The serpent tells her that this is not true-- she will not only not die, but she will gain some sort of additional insight that god has. Thus the fear of consequence is removed and a temptation is added. Now she thinks there is only an upside to eating of the fruit.

I have to disagree, I believe you've missed part of the story, Eve not only told the serpent they were not to eat the fruit, she added they were not to touch the fruit. Why would she add to God's commandment? Was she intimidated by the serpent, was she trying to reassure herself, was she trying to show the serpent of some authority she had over it, was she unsure what God had told her? Regardless what she was thinking I believe the serpent knew he had her on the right track to tempt her, not with the death want happen, but that there was power in that fruit which would make her like God. I believe she thought of only good things happening because she did not know what evil resided in the knowledge she would receive. Children who disobey their parents know there's a punishment coming (or at least I did and knew it would be very unpleasant, the worse part was waiting to find out what would happen), they how ever like I did, convinced themselves that the pleasure gained was worth the punishment.

This does make me wonder about the time spent with god and being taught directly by him. If Eve was this easily deceived, then god did not prepare her well enough, it seems.

I believe she was prepared, I can't believe God would throw them to the wolves so to speak, that would not have been part of a loving relationship. Love comes through choice and God couldn't deny them the choice, that would be to deny love.

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What do you think salvation is about, it's to have the opportunity to live in a relationship with God forever, same as Adam and Eve had, it cost God a terrible price but, one He was willing to pay for us and in that I believe we can never be grateful enough. It's true man has to pay a price for sin being allowed into the creation, God did not abandon us and payed a greater price to gain a new relationship with us and give us the same chance at eternal life with Him as they had, it's about choice. I want try to influence your thought process about this but, take what I have just presented and compare it to Abraham and Issac and the sacrifice they were going to. The stories are intertwined as threads in a woven carpet. Will talk to you next week hopefully Monday, thanks for the good talk.

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But it was god who chose to curse the land and make humanity imperfect. That was not his original warning to Adam and Eve-- his original warning would have made them pay the price for their own misdeed. Even if humanity was now unable to live forever, why make us disease-prone? Why curse the land, that it would no longer produce in abundance? If a perfect man and woman in the perfect setting could not remain faithful to god, why make the obstacles even more difficult for their offspring? This would guarantee that most would fail, if not all, and that is what we see happen before long-- god decides that mankind has become almost completely evil and he decides to kill all except for Noah and his family.

No not at all that choice was determined by what Adam and Eve did, the consequences of disobedience. Sin made man imperfect, once it was introduced into creation it would be hard to fix, the fix cost God more than it has cost man. As far as the original warning goes, no one knows all the consequences of their disobedience, the warning was put into creation and the consequences followed, as they always do. Sin came with all that we suffer. the curse on the ground was that man would have to work it to receive from it and that there was going to be thorns and weeds to deal with, the ground still provides plenty of food for the world, we only need to remove the greed in our lives and the world would be feed.

Imagine if god had said to Adam and Eve "your offspring will not live forever. They will grow old and die, yet they will not become sick and the world will produce all the food they need and I will offer them the chance to enjoy the life that you denied them through your disobedience. All they must do is prove themselves loyal, as you did not, and I will give them the rewards that you rejected by your rash actions." Why would that not have been more just?

Wait God has done this, even though He did not tell them, as I said above the land will produce enough to feed the world and Christ will give us that life as I stated before. God is not after our loyalty first, He wants us to love Him above all things and after that all things will fall into place.

GC

[Minimalist]

.We know better now ..

Some of you do. Don't speak in absolutes when G-C is around.