This is one where I have my own views that I know run against the tide, but I have never heard alternative explanations. The forbidden fruit...literal? figurative?

It seems (by inference in the popular culture) that most people assume the forbidden fruit is sexual sin. Is that what most of you think? I personally am not convinced that this is the meaning, since I take the last verses of Genesis 2 to mean that God married Adam and Eve in the garden, making his command to multiply and replenish the earth possible. I also don't think that this meaning holds when Eve first partakes of the fruit, then gives to Adam.

I'd like to explore this a little more, what are your thoughts?

The tree they were forbidden to "eat the fruit" of was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The downfall of the "first men" (literal meaning of Adam) was finding out that they could also do or be evil in addition to doing or being good. Man (generic) came of age when he (generic) no longer was innocent, and began to use his free will to do evil in all forms.

http://www.forbiddenfruit.com/

There are innumerable answers to this post.

So, I'll just toss out what comes to my mind!

First, is the GOE a metaphor or a real place? I dunno. I tend to think real place, but I know that metaphor is possible.

Second, if it was a real place, how long did Adam and Eve live there?

It could have been thousands of years.

Thirdly, the possibility of evil is a necessity for real relationship. God wants real relationship with us, so the tree had to be there.

Finally, I can see how Adam and Eve, after thousands of years of bliss, might try the forbidden fruit.

So, there were my thoughts.

I agree FtTxAg, there are a million ways to interpret the Garden of Eden story. I'm with you, I think it was a real place, but the account we have is so laced with metaphor it's hard to be sure. I am pretty much aligned with your line of thinking, that a real choice between good and evil was in God's plan from the beginning, and that He intended for Adam and Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit.

I have wondered alot about the nature of the fall. Was it the simple fact that Adam and Eve transgressed the commandment of God that caused the fall, the fruit having nothing directly to do with it? It seems to me that this makes the story seem much more literal, which is interesting. I also wondered if perhaps there was an actual fruit that somehow caused Adam and Eve's bodies to become mortal and subject to death by its very nature, an activating chemical or something.

I do not think that the serpent aspect is literal, and I wonder about the tree of life, since it is used symbolically in revelations and elsewhere.

Perhaps this was a silly question to ask because there can be no definite answers, but I think it's cool to hear what speculations are out there.

Boy yugo, thanks for nothing!

The forbidden fruit was disobeying God, who told them they could have EVERYTHING, except for the fruit from one tree.

satan told them that they would "be like gods" if they ate of the tree. Sounds suspiciously like today, where the message is "do your own thing"..

An important point...

After they partook of the fruit, God Himself said that Adam and Eve had become as the gods, in that they knew for themselves the difference between good and evil. That was the truth in Satan's half-truth. The lie was that Adam and Eve wouldn't surely die.

So....

Is there nobody who thinks there was not a literal fruit? I sort of lean towards literal fruit too, but I didn't know that there would be plenty of others who thought the same way.

If literal, it was more likely a pomegranate instead of the popularly pictured apple.

Is that a joke? I always pictured something like a pomegranate too. Weird....

The forbidden fruit taken from the tree of life might have been the point when some angels descended to Earth and conducted sexual liaisons with human females, thus awakening a new consciousness.

quote:

---

Is that a joke? I always pictured something like a pomegranate too. Weird....

---

I'm pretty sure it would have been a banana or a peach.

No joke. Pomegranates are a common fruit in the middle East ( Iraq may have been where the Garden was, "between the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers" ), apples aren't. Not enough cold weather at the right times to grow good apples.

[This message has been edited by SWOSU (edited 4/28/2005 10:14p).]

Ha ha! I always assumed our rivers were named after the bible names, not vice versa. But hey, why not a pomegranate?

BTW, from where is all the fascination with the idea of perverted angels coming to earth? Boy, if anything just reeks of falsehood it's that story. A piece of aprocryphal wandering right in our own OT.

quote:

---

Boy, if anything just reeks of falsehood it's that story

---

Aren't you one the beleivers that professes the Earth is 4000 years old, more or less? If so, why couldn't nephilim exists?

[This message has been edited by terata (edited 4/29/2005 10:31a).]

The key to this story is that Adam and Eve where given the choice to eat from the Tree of Life, God's will; or the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, our carnal nature or self will. Eve CHOSE to be dominated by her own will and not the Will of God. That is the original sin.

It matters not that it was a real peice of fruit.

Bryan

Good call, Bryan.

terata,

Do I think the earth is 4,000 years old? Absolutely not, where would you get that idea?

So where is the fruit of the tree of life offered to Adam and Eve? I don't find that reference. I don't think it can be assumed just by reading that all of the trees could be freely sampled except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I don't see the logic of God offering them the fruit of the tree of life. Any thoughts?

Ahh... but it does matter. Is all of the story literal, all of the story figurative, or is there a mix? If the fruit is real, for example, there is no need to attempt to understand what it was that Adam and Eve did to bring about the fall. If, as you imply, the story is a figurative representation of each man's decision between his own will and God's will, was there such thing as the fall of man? Because without Adam, there is no need for Christ. If Adam did not bring about the fall, Christ was not needed to redeem man from the fall. Placing the garden of eden in the imagination only calls into question the very fundamentals of Christianity. To me, that matters!

I might have misinterpreted some of your posts, if so, I apologize. I think Biblical passages are metaphorical. The "Tree of Life" is something akin to a higher level of cognitive conscious, the sin of eating from the tree is to become more sentient, or sapient. To paraphrase more "God like". But then there's the mystical references to super/supra natural events that seem to defy explanation. I am not a religious study scholar, but I do have an abiding interest in this field of study.