Who Ate the Forbidden Fruit?

One of the most talked about occurences in the Bible is when “Eve” ate the forbidden fruit.  Pretty much everyone knows that story.   But the part I find very interesting is that Adam was with her there in the Garden at the tree, and Adam was as big a part of the sin as she was.

As you recall, God made Adam first.  And after creating Adam, God gave a command to him saying, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you will surely die.”   So isn’t it interesting that here they are, Adam and Eve, in the middle of the Garden, next to the tree that God said to stay away from?  And here is Eve, having a conversation with a serpent.   And here is Adam nearby.  You know Adam was nearby, because the Bible tells us that he was with her.  And here at the tree, is a serpent talking to the woman – that same woman that Adam was supposed to love and protect, and yet Adam does nothing.  It’s not like there was city traffic to drown out the conversation. He heard it.  But Adam never corrects the serpent when he is falsely telling Eve that she would not die, which was completely contrary to what God had told him.  As a matter of fact, Adam does nothing but willingly join her in her sin.

If you look further into the man and his behavior over in Chapter Three verse twelve of Genesis,  we see God in the Garden calling to Adam, not to Eve.  When Adam explains he was hiding because he was naked, God asks Adam a question.  He says, “Have YOU eaten from the tree that I commanded YOU not to eat from?”  Then Adam, still not protecting his wife or taking any kind of responsibility, blames not just Eve, but he blames God.   He says, “The woman YOU put here with me – SHE gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”

See, Adam is given a woman as a suitable helper for him, specifically created by God.  Adam is so happy with the woman he says, “This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called woman, for she was taken out of man.”  Then God gives Adam a command, “Don’t eat from that tree.” (Paraphrased).  ADAM was the person God directed the command to.  So Adam must have told Eve, because she acknowledges she knew the “rules” when she is having her conversation with the Serpent.  Then God asks ADAM a question, “Have you done what I told you not to?” (Paraphrased), and Adam turns the tables on BOTH God and Eve.  Do you see that?

If I could take liberty with his words, he is, in effect, saying, “Well, partly this is your fault, God.  I mean, after all, YOU are the one who put her here with me.  I really didn’t have a say in the matter.  Then SHE deceived me and gave me some fruit.  You see, I had no idea where she got the fruit from, so I ate it.  So I am not at fault in any way here.”  But Adam did know where she got the fruit.  He knew the entire time.  He was with her.  He did not intervene to stop the sequence of events.  He did not own up to his sin.  He did not obey God.  That is why God punishes Adam.  Because he was no better than Eve.

So the next time someone blames Eve for the fall of humanity, remind them who was supposed to be her protector.  Remind them who was with her.  Remind them that it was both Adam and Eve who disobeyed God.  Adam was not dragged along a road.  He walked down it willingly and knowingly.  It was him and his disobedience along with Eve’s disobedience that led to the fall of humanity that fateful day in the Garden of Eden.

 

 

 

Bone of my Bone, Flesh of my Flesh

The creation of Eve calls into question why God chose to make her from Adam’s flesh, when He could just have easily created her in the same manner in which He created Adam – from the dust of the ground. How is it that the creation accounts of Adam and Eve are so very different, yet the Creator is the same?

Looking at the verses in Chapter 2: 18-20, we see that Adam was busy naming the animals that God had caused to come to him after He formed them out of the ground. Did you catch that?  Did you catch that God formed the animals in the same manner in which He formed Adam – from the ground?  And although God formed the animals from the ground, the Bible never tells us that ‘He breathed into their nostrils the breath of life and they became a living being’ , as it does for the Creation of Adam.  So what gave the animals their life?  The Bible doesn’t say.  It simply says they were formed from the ground, and as living creatures, they were brought to Adam for him to name them.  So God could have breathed into them, or He could have caused life to come into them in another way.  We simply don’t know.

But what does it say about Eve? Is the Bible telling us that her creation was somehow inferior since she was not formed in the same unique and creative manner as Adam and the animals?  Far from it.  When a rib was taken from Adam to create Eve, God was using the very DNA from his best creation, His perfect creation of a human, and replicating that in the woman.  Yet, he was doing more than that.  He was showing the woman that without the man, she would not be in existence, and therefore, creating an order for the family.  Just as a woman is very protective of a baby that comes from her womb, I think that by creating woman from man, God was creating something for Adam to care for, love, and protect.  It was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh.  Just as an infant is that to the mother and the bond of love in an unbreakable one.

The part of Genesis Chapter two that is most intriguing is in verse 24, when it states “for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife…”  Why would this be here in this spot?  There were no fathers and mothers at this point.  In fact, if we believe the Creation account, there were no other beings on the face of the earth except for Adam and Eve.  And while I believe every word in the Bible is inspired from God,  there is also a human element to it.  And here is where I believe that is evident.   For how can it state anything about fathers and mothers, and leaving them to be with a wife? There had been no marriage?  Therefore, there could also be no wife.   There was simply man and there was simply woman.  The terminology of wife and marriage had not yet come.  And to me, the placement of that sentence here makes no logical sense because immediately after the statement, the writer turns his writing back to the creation saying, “the man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.”

Regardless of the reasons why the writer placed that there, this part of the Chapter is dedicated to woman being created to be a suitable helper for man.  And I think it is setting up the “fall” in the Garden of Eden, because as we will see next time, Adam is with Eve in the Garden when she eats of the fruit.  He did not intervene, did not protect her, in fact he joins her, and that is why God also punishes him.  And the animals?  Well they would also have to suffer because of man.

 

 

The Trees of Eden

 

Did you ever stop to think about the trees in the Garden of Eden?  We all hear about THE tree.  The one that Eve took fruit from and shared with Adam.  But what about the OTHER trees?

Take a look at Genesis Chapter 2: 9 – “And the Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground – trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.  In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

Did you notice the adjectives that are used to describe the other trees:  pleasing and good.  Did you notice the placement in the Garden for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life?  Why do you suppose that God put these two trees in the middle of the Garden?  Why didn’t He place them in an obscure location, like maybe on a mountain?  Why did He make them so easily accessible?

I think it is very interesting that in order to get to the two trees in the middle of the Garden, Adam and Eve had to pass by all the other trees.  The ones that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.  In other words, those trees that they walked by were appealing to the humanness of the newly created man and woman.  They were beautiful trees to look at and enticing for nourishment.  There was no need for Adam and Eve to pass by them.  They could have stayed on any of the perimeters of the Garden and been satisfied for life.  But that isn’t what they did, is it?

Do you further notice that the Bible does not include the two trees along with the other trees when the words pleasing and good for food were used?  The Bible talks about the two trees separately.  I wonder why?  Were they not pleasing to the eye?  Hard to say.  Were they not good for food?  That I would say a definite no.  The food that was offered from these two trees was not food for physical nourishment, but a different kind of food. Food for wisdom, food for life, food that would lead to death.  These trees were never meant to be food for nourishment to the physical body.  These trees had other purposes, and obedience and free will were tied to them.

Note that they co-existed in the center of the Garden.  I have always wondered –  why, after eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, did they not just turn quickly and eat of the fruit from the tree of life?  They knew that God had told them that they should not eat of  the tree of the knowledge of good and evil “for when you eat of it, you will surely die”, and if God had told them they would die, wouldn’t the next natural reaction be to eat the fruit from the other tree that would give them life?  The tree of life was so important that God, in Genesis Chapter 3:24, placed a cherubim with a flashing sword to guard it because He did not want Adam and Eve to partake of the tree after they had eaten from the other. But God did not do this until after he banished them from the Garden.  So they had time to eat from the tree of life.  So why did they not do it?

I further think that once they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they must have had some kind of a noticeable physical or mental change.  Why do I say this?  Because the Bible tells us in Genesis Chapter 3 verse 7 that “the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized they were naked”.  I think this could be a partial explanation as to why they didn’t just turn to eat from the tree of life.  I think they were frightened by the change they had just experienced.  I think they ran away in fear.  After all, God finds them hiding later that evening.  So I can only imagine that something interrupted the thought process that would have logically said, “eat from the tree of life and counteract the death that God said would happen.”  Or  maybe it was God who caused the “fruit” on the tree of life to shrivel up.  The Bible does not go into explanation.  But one thing is for certain.  When they ate from the tree that they were not supposed to eat from, it began the countdown to their death.  Life for them would never be the same.

 

 

 

 

The Creation of Man

Just writing the title for this Blog stirred in me all the scientific hub bub I have heard thru the years about how man came into being.  From the Big Bang creating the earth and seeding the planet for life, from fish leaving the water to live on dry land, to alien beings experimenting with animals to create a race of slave laborers.  I have heard quite a bit!  And I believe none of it.

It isn’t that I am just closed minded.  I look and listen to the other theories and there are just so many things that don’t have answers in order for me to believe it.  For example, how many fish have you seen in your lifetime that suddenly decide that it is time to stop swimming and crawl or swim up to shore, take a deep breathe of that rich oxygen atmosphere and begin a new life?  I am 51 years old and haven’t seen it happen in my lifetime.

Besides, if the fish did decide to do that, and if it were even possible for them to breath until their little fish lungs evolved to accept oxygenated air, how would they have procreated?  Did their entire body suddenly morph into the bodies we have today? Not likely, in fact, not even possible.  The human body is so complex in each and every area that we have doctors who specialize in one particular area and still say they don’t know about some things.  And take the issue of human procreation.  Do you know how many things have to go right and match up exactly in order for a child to come into existence?  In fact, it is surprising there are not more miscarriages.  If you ever really studied how life forms, it would change you evolutionary view forever.  Everything works together in such a way that there had to be order to the design.  The only way to have order is to have someone put things in order – a Creator.

So in Genesis Chapter 1 verses 26-31, we see God’s creation of man.

Michelangelo – The Creation of Adam – Sistine Chapel

 

I want to focus on the first thirteen words in verse 26.  ‘Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, …”   Do you remember one of my earlier blogs when I wrote about Genesis Chapter 1 verse 3?  If not, I focused on the first three words, “And God Said….”  We know from that verse that God was speaking to be heard by someone.  He was not alone.  And here we see God saying, “Let US, make man in OUR image, in OUR likeness…”

Most scholars believe this is an indication of the Trinity being present at Creation.  Do you notice the template that God uses for His creation of man?  –   “OUR image, OUR likeness.”

You are the descendent of the first man, Adam, who was created as a replication of God’s image and God’s likeness.  In fact, you are a replication of that same image and same likeness.  So what is the “image”?  What is the “likeness” ? Many believe this  means that man possesses the elements of personality similar to those of God, such as thinking, feeling, and having a will, and that man has a moral nature, and is made up of a body, soul, and spirit.  Others believe that is refers to the physical attributes of man.  I think it is a combination of both.  But is this really a point of debate? Whatever God’s image and likeness is, is better than anything I could imagine or create on my own.

It doesn’t really matter to me which is actually correct, or if either are correct.  I am not sure in our finite minds that we can even understand the wisdom that had to go into the creation of man with all his intricate parts, both physically and mentally. I know that there is not one person, living or dead, that can take dust from the ground and created a living being.  We can take from a living being and create another living being, but we cannot take from the non living and create the living. The fact that is important to me is that I was created, in some form, from the template of a Holy God and that He caused me to come into being and breathed the breath of life into me as Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 states, “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, AND man became a living being.”

This conjures up an image in my mind of doing CPR on someone who is non responsive and not breathing on their own.  You use your breathe to circulate and oxygenate their lungs.  You are helping to keep them alive.  But God’s breathe created the life.  It brought it to life.  And that is an awesome thought!

I will leave you with a little joke I heard once that puts things into perspective for me.

So man, in his arrogance, decided to challenge God because man did not believe that God could create a better human than him.  So they both decided to start from scratch and create the “perfect” man.  So God reached down and grabbed some dirt from the ground and man began to gather some dirt from the ground.  Then God said, “Wait a moment.  Go create your own dirt first!”

Evening and Morning – The First Day

There is so much debate about the actual Creation timeline.  Some have said it is literal days – as in seven 24 hour days.  Some have said that the days are figurative and each day really indicates a 1,000 year period.  Still others think that the creative day was a period of time simply marked by a beginning and an ending or a cumulative period of time, not necessarily 24 hours.

So let’s start with the 1,000 year period theory of time for creation days.  Where are people getting this from? Take a look at 2 Peter Chapter 3, verse 8.  It states, “But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”  So people who hold to the theory that the seven day creation listed in Genesis is actually 7,000 years based on the verse in 2 Peter.   But, in my opinion, to believe that it to take the verse in 2 Peter out of context.  Read the entire passage in 2 Peter chapter 3.   It is not talking about creation days.  It is talking about God’s patience when it comes to the destruction and punishment of man.  It is almost as if the writer is trying to convey the idea that God is giving the people every possible chance to turn away from their wickedness and turn to God for repentance and salvation.

But if you look at the actual account of creation in Genesis Chapter 1, verse 5.  It states, “God called the light “day” and the darkness he called “night,” and there was evening, and there was morning – the first day.  Well, I think that is pretty clear.  We have a day and we have a night, and they are referred to as evening and morning, the first day.  When you and I refer to evening and morning, we understand that to be a 24 hour period of time aka day and night.  We don’t think anything other than that.

Now some debate this and state that it couldn’t be actual days because the sun wasn’t created until Day 4 and that is when time began to be documented.  But what the Bible actually states is that the sun was created to mark the seasons and days and years, and to give light to the earth.  The sun was given so man could track time, not for God to track time.  And why would man need to track time?  Well, if you think about it, the earth was going to rotate around the sun causing changes to occur on the earth.  With the markers of the sun and the moon in the sky man would be able to relate the rising and the setting of the sun with different changes that were to occur at different times, affecting life on the earth.  It states that the light was to “serve as a sign to mark seasons……”.   Let us not forget what Adam’s job was going to be.  He was going to care for the Garden until his fall and then he would work the ground wherever he went.  Any farmer knows that there is a time to plant and a time to sow.

And God Said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years……….”

And God saw that it was good………

 

“Let There Be Light”

‘And God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.”  Genesis Chapter 1, verse 3.

To look at this verse at face value, we immediately create a picture in our own head that is similar to standing in a dark room and flipping on a light switch.  And this is partly true.  But before we get to this part of the verse, did you notice that you completely skipped over the first three words? – “And God Said’.  Have you ever stopped there and contemplated those three little words?  Does that make a difference to you?  Did you ever give though to God speaking at Creation?

Let me ask you – Who was God speaking to?  Was he just speaking to Himself?  Why does the Bible record the fact that God was speaking?  Certainly an all powerful God could have simply “thought” something into creation, couldn’t He?  Those three words are extremely important, yet most people gloss right over them.  They are important because as we get further into the study of God’s word, we will come to find out that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all present at Creation, and God was speaking because He was not alone.  How can I be sure of this?  Jump ahead to Genesis Chapter 1 verse 26.

Here we see those same three words, “And God Said,”  ….but pay careful attention to the next two words, “Let us…..”  So, if God was alone at the Creation, he would not have said anything to anyone.  He would have simply went about the business of creating.  Isn’t that interesting how three little words can have so much meaning?

Now, If we go back to Chapter 1 verse 3, ‘And God Said, “Let there be light.”  This kind of gives me the impression tht He spoke and boom – there was light.  How awesome is that?  Bu what was that light?  Was it Him and His glory as some have suggested?  Can or does God turn Himself on and off like a firefly?  I don’t believe that is the case here.  I don’t believe God flipped His “internal switch” to light the heavens.  I think it is more of God spoke the light into existence by causing the darkness to depart.  How?  I have no idea.  But there was a light source, because the Bible tells us there was.  It was not the sun, because the sun had not yet been created.  That wouldn’t occur until creation day 4.

Some claim that the sun was there “at the beginning” and it was hidden by vapor.  I don’t believe this either.  That is not how the Bible reads.  It states that the sun was clearly created on day 4.  It doesn’t say that God caused the “vapor” to clear revealing the sun.  It says, he created the lights in the expanse of the sky .  Verse 16 says, “God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night.”  This was on day 4.  So the claim that the original light in verse 3 is the sun is, in my mind, not accurate.

What I also find disturbing about all these “other” theories in creation is that some are willing to acquiesce to the fact that God created man from dirt, but cannot believe He could speak or create light into exsistance.  It is kind of limiting Him to what his powers can and can’t do, in my mind.

Personally, I believe it as I have written it.  God Said, “Let there be light,” and there was light, some kind of light, some kind of illumination that was there until He created the sun to rule over the day.

I don’t know about you, but this amazes my finite mind.   I read the words and they make no logical sense to my simple human brain, but the God I serve is not human. And just because I can’t understand it, doesn’t mean it didn’t occur or doesn’t exist.

There are many things in creation that are inexplainable, like the earth hanging in a solar system in the middle of a galaxy, surrounded by other planets, never colliding, but circling the sun, without being drawn into the gravitational pull of the sun.  I could go on…..it makes no sense, but nevertheless it exists.

PATHWAYS

READING WITHOUT SEEING –

Have you ever read something, almost mindlessly, and then when you got to the end, thought, “I have no idea what I just read?” Then you went back and re-read it?

For many people, the Bible is just like that.  First of all, it is a huge book with very tiny print.  There are no graphics jumping off the page at you.  There are no hyperlinks, unless you are on a website, and honestly, it takes a great deal of mental effort to think through it.  In addition, don’t forget all the different versions, and if you attempt the King James Version with the old English, it could be even more mentally taxing. I believe those are among the biggest issues people have with really reading and studying the Bible.

I like to teach others to take a few words at a time and really thing about what is being said.  Take for example the second verse in Genesis Chapter 1.  It states, ‘Now the earth was formless and empty, …’  Big deal right?  Do you know that by the process of critical thinking, you can break that up into segments and really put into perspective its parts?

For example, think about the adjectives – formless and empty.  Break it down further, just think about the word “formless”.  What does that mean when it states, the earth was “formless”?  The exact definition states, Without a clear or definite shape or structure.  So, to me it means that there was not a giant ball or globe or mass of rock floating in space just waiting for God to come along and plant things and add to it.

Why do I say that?  Because the current Earth is round, and round is a form.  So if the earth was “formless” that means it had no form or no shape.  It was not there – period.  It was nothingness – a large vast space.  The second word, ‘Empty’ is also a state of being.  It means containing nothing, not filled or occupied.  So empty is well…empty, containing nothing, having nothing, no life, nada, zip, nilch.

So here we see the writer of Genesis stating, in effect, ‘There was nothing out there, only emptiness and darkness, not one single solitary thing, and from THAT God created the heavens and the earth.”  So out of nothingness, it was created.  Is there any other situation, ever, that you can come up with, that from nothingness something was created?  Of course not!  You have to have materials or building blocks on which to create something.

In addition, there has to be order to a created thing.  Take for example, lemonade.  It is not sophisticated or intricate in its design.  I could add refined sugar, filtered or purified water, and the juice of fresh sliced lemons, in any order, in a glass and the end result is still going to be lemonade.  However, if I wanted to make that same glass of lemonade, and I just threw an oblong unsliced and unpeeled lemon along with a piece of sugar cane into a glass of water drawn from a pond, your end result is not going to be too thirst quenching.

So it is with the creation of the world.  The right things had to be put together in such a way, and placed at the exact location from the sun, with the exact atmosphere, with the right nutrients in the soil, etc., in order to sustain any type of life.  God had to create things systematically.

So when reading that the earth was formless and empty, you get a greater sense of the creation of something from nothing, and you get a deeper insight into the immense power of a Holy God.

In order to really serve this God, you have to really understand this God.  You have to know who HE is and why He does what he does.  The only way to do that, is to really think about the words that are written in the Bible.  Join me for an in-depth study in the book of Genesis, where we will look at the Bible thru a fresh perspective.  You can learn to know God in a deep and intimate way.

You can follow this blog or you can go to my website, marysfingerprint.com and look at the section titled “Pathways”.  Here you will find the Bible study we have just started.

Take ten minutes a day to learn like you have never learned before.  In this way you will begin to know the awesome power of the Creator and the God we serve.