I've often been of the opinion that Satan is the true hero of the bible. Assuming the Christian idea that he was the serpent in the Garden of Eden, let's look at what happened:
1) God says, "Don't eat, or you'll die."
2) Satan says, "If you eat, you will understand the difference between good and evil."
Adam and Eve eat, and who turns out to be right? Satan. God, being omnipotent (or at least, cognizant of the nature of his creation (I mean the tree here), must have deliberately lied to Adam and Eve when he told them the fruit would kill them. Satan, on the other hand, told them the truth. Which one would you rather trust, again?
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I like this Bible quote because it reveals the all loving, judgmental, merciful, vengeful, forgiving, sinister, kind, cruel nature of the most mass-murdering genocidal deity that ever didn't exist.
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Blessed is the one who grabs your little children and smashes them against a rock.
--Psalm 137, verse 9
That's allegory -- the psalmist is speaking of Babylon, which is always referred to as a woman (the great harlot in Revelation). This psalm is called "The Song of the Exiles".
ReplyDeleteIts really a terribly sad psalm, but like all Scripture, reveals how the Lord loves His people and will exact judgment, for His glory. Its the old Mosaic Law of retaliation. Babylon was (and will be again) treated as Babylon treated Jerusalem.
Satan is the father of all lies. Don't listen to him. :)
Indeed, one of the rules in Judah was "an eye for an eye". This meant that if someone dug your eye out, you would dig his out. This was the rule in verse 9 of the psalm. The soldiers from Babylon killed many *Jewish children in 586 B.C. The psalmist says that the same will happen to the children in Babylon. They did not want the children to fight the people that killed their parents. So they did not want them to grow up. That is why they killed the children. This is what they usually did in war.
ReplyDeleteBut that's not the point I was trying to make. It's that such revenge should not be smiled upon, even if it is sanctioned by the invisible, bearded sky-daddy.
As for Satan, did he, or did he not, tell the truth in that instance?
Nope. Satan lied.
ReplyDeleteGod said "... but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."
Satan said "... You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
God said no such thing. And they did surely die!
This was the fall. Their eyes were opened, but only falsely felt shame over their nakedness. They sinned. There was one "law", and it was broken.
Let's see...god says that they will SURELY die.
ReplyDeleteThe serpent says that they won't.
They didn't.
Otter says that they did.
It was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
There eyes were opened.
The serpent told the truth.
Wow! What a SPIN you are putting on this! But I'm not surprised. Can't wait until next Sunday's sermon.
Are Adam and Eve still alive?
ReplyDeleteThey died. Satan told Eve they would not die. God said they would surely die, I don't take that He meant they would drop dead at that very moment.
They're dead, pushing up daisies, kicked the bucket, no longer with us.
Me too! Looking forward to next week's sermon I mean. :)
Oh brother! Let's s look at it again:
ReplyDeleteGenesis 2:17 (King James Version)
17But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
See that? "IN THE DAY THAT THOU EATEST THEREOF THOU SHALT SURELY DIE."
Seems pretty cut and dried to me. And just for the heck of it, here's another version:
Genesis 2:17 (NKJV)
17: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Case closed.
Howdy!
ReplyDeleteCase opened. Neither of us speak or read Hebrew (or Greek the primary language of the NT) and have to rely on the limitations of English. That's why I rely on trusted Hebrew and Greek scholars to clarify the language for me.
This is one of my favorites scholars, and he explains the phrase to my satisfaction.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2007/05/02/dying-you-shall-die
Checkmate. Whether you believe any of the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, its at least a lesson in Hebrew syntax.
Yeah, I've been to that site. I certainly DO NOT believe in the story of Adam & Eve, it's ridiculous, or anything else in the bible for that matter. But it's interesting watching Xtians finding ways out of the inconsistencies.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, it has also been claimed that death "on that very day" can mean "on a later date" due to a Hebrew idiom, citing 1 Kings 2:36-46 as support (Solomon eventually having Shimei killed): however, Solomon actually has Shimei killed on the first available opportunity, there was no deliberate, intended delay.
The actual Hebrew finishes with a repetition of the Hebrew "muwth", meaning death (i.e. muwth muwth). Young's Literal Translation renders this as "dying thou dost die". This is a form of emphasis in Hebrew: most Bibles render it as "surely die" or some variant thereof. Many Christian apologists, however, mistranslate this as "you will begin a process of dying", or "you will be doomed to death eventually": even though the same idiom is used in the previous verse to describe eating ('akal 'akal, "eating thou dost eat" in Young's), or "you can certainly eat" the other stuff. Yet the same apologists don't claim that Adam began a process that would eventually result in eating, or that doomed him to eventually eat.
The parallelism is obvious: yes, you can surely eat the other stuff in the garden. But, eat THAT, and you will just as surely die (that same day).
False checkmate.
Apparently, Otter believes that I have disrespected her.
ReplyDelete"I treated you with respect, but you did not respond in kind. I don't need that, a reasonable dialogue is great, but not rejecting facts because you reject the source is not dialogue."
I pointed out, rightfully, "Disrespecting your deity is not the same as disrespecting you. Insisting I hold your deity in the same high regard you do is disrespecting MY right to believe what I wish."
If you read all of the comments, you will see that there was no disrespect at all. Apparently, I was able to come up with an argument that even a born-again Xtian, like herself could not answer.
At any rate, don't expect to see her commenting any more. She turned tail and ran off. Oh well. It's unfortunate that she couldn't learn from a free thinker, even when presented with the way it is.