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Trees in the garden of Eden
- Thread starter fgm
- Start date
First of all it is not the tree of knowledge of good and evil... The tree itself was not good or evil... It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil... The reason is God told Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree... There was a law put on that particular tree not to eat of its fruit... Because in the day that you do My Law that is binding on that tree you broke... You disobeyed what I told you not to do.
Adam had two trees of the garden he could freely eat of... All the other trees and the tree of life... If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was represented by the Law Of God could not the Tree Of Life be represented by the Grace Of God... Some would say the Love Of God or the Son Of God seeing he is also refered to as a Tree Of Life... If the Tree Of Life could give him eternal life if he ate of that could he not have lived forever?... What were the other trees for just to sustain daily life?
The nature of man is to investigate... Could all those trees been in the garden and eventually one day Adam and Eve would not be curious as to what one of them was for?... Why would God withold something he created for us if he did want us to see what it was?... It is in our world and in our garden why not find out what it is there for?... Could it be their curiousity was eating them alive so to speak?... Little children are the same way... Don't touch that!... Why?... Because I told you not to!... God could have intervened and prevented them from breaking his Law but he didn't!... WHY?... Brother Glen
Adam had two trees of the garden he could freely eat of... All the other trees and the tree of life... If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was represented by the Law Of God could not the Tree Of Life be represented by the Grace Of God... Some would say the Love Of God or the Son Of God seeing he is also refered to as a Tree Of Life... If the Tree Of Life could give him eternal life if he ate of that could he not have lived forever?... What were the other trees for just to sustain daily life?
The nature of man is to investigate... Could all those trees been in the garden and eventually one day Adam and Eve would not be curious as to what one of them was for?... Why would God withold something he created for us if he did want us to see what it was?... It is in our world and in our garden why not find out what it is there for?... Could it be their curiousity was eating them alive so to speak?... Little children are the same way... Don't touch that!... Why?... Because I told you not to!... God could have intervened and prevented them from breaking his Law but he didn't!... WHY?... Brother Glen
John Wells
New Member
Tree of Life = eternal life / Jesus Christ
Tree of knowledge = unlimited knowledge / God
Tree of knowledge = unlimited knowledge / God
I Am Blessed 24
Active Member
(Commentary I found on the Internet...)
For reasons best known to himself, God singles out one particular tree -- called the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" -- whose fruit man is forbidden to eat. This, of course, is the famous "forbidden fruit," though you may be surprised to know that that phrase appears nowhere in the Bible. (It was coined in the seventeenth century; "forbidden apple" is even older). And despite all those pictures of a serpent tempting Eve with an apple, the Bible never tells us what kind of fruit the tree of knowledge bears. If anything, it was more likely apricots, pomegranates, or figs than apples.
LINK
(I found this analogy interesting also...)
The Mystery of Marriage
The Two Trees of the Garden of Eden
The fact that a good marriage is dependent on the abandonment of egocentricity is alluded to in the passage immediately preceding the description of the creation of woman (Genesis 2:9,16-18):
And God made grow out of the ground
every tree pleasant to sight and good to eat,
and the tree of life in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil….
And G0d commanded Adam, saying:
You may eat from all the trees of the garden,
But do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day on which you eat of it you shall surely die. And God said: It is not good for man to be alone; I shall make him a helpmate.
Evil takes root in man when he focuses on himself and his own desires rather than on God and His desires (or, on a deeper level, when he considers himself independent or separate from God). When so oriented, he evaluates all experience only in terms of his own subjective sense of good.
In Kabbalah and Chassidut, it is explained that good tainted by selfishness is represented by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, while true, unadulterated good is represented by the tree of life. By commanding Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was warning him not to mix good and evil by choosing the path of self-centeredness and self-
orientation.
Eating the forbidden fruit caused man's psyche to become overtly self-conscious and egocentric. His sensation of good is no longer pure and Divine but a mixture of good and evil; he considers something good only if it is self-gratifying. If this attitude is left unrectified, the evil will eventually swallow up the good, as in Pharaoh's dreams (Genesis 41:1-7); one's appreciation for good--and even belief that anything can truly be good--will evaporate. This in turn will engender a feeling of bitterness toward life as one comes to blame others for life's disappointments and suffering. Having thus placed the cause of his suffering outside his sphere of influence, a person views himself as a helpless victim of circumstance and malevolence.
The two states of consciousness symbolized by the two trees are primarily expressed in the way man relates to woman. In forbidding Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was teaching him how to relate to his soon-to-be-created wife: "Do not mix egocentric lust and desire for self-gratification with the experience of true, unadulterated good."
In the entire narrative of creation, the creation of woman is the only creative act described as righting an inferior situation. Furthermore, the previous situation is not described simply as "bad," but as "not good," implying that the preceding state appeared to be good, but really was not. In order to achieve the truly good state, God had to create woman.
In this context, "not good" is the incorporation into man's psyche of relative, apparent good. This apparent good is man's existential state of being alone, i.e., egocentric and solely concerned with himself.
A husband with this orientation is feeding on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Unless he reorients himself to true life and goodness, "on the day that you eat of it you shall surely die," that is, he will eventually say: "I find woman bitterer than death."
LINK
For reasons best known to himself, God singles out one particular tree -- called the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" -- whose fruit man is forbidden to eat. This, of course, is the famous "forbidden fruit," though you may be surprised to know that that phrase appears nowhere in the Bible. (It was coined in the seventeenth century; "forbidden apple" is even older). And despite all those pictures of a serpent tempting Eve with an apple, the Bible never tells us what kind of fruit the tree of knowledge bears. If anything, it was more likely apricots, pomegranates, or figs than apples.
LINK
(I found this analogy interesting also...)
The Mystery of Marriage
The Two Trees of the Garden of Eden
The fact that a good marriage is dependent on the abandonment of egocentricity is alluded to in the passage immediately preceding the description of the creation of woman (Genesis 2:9,16-18):
And God made grow out of the ground
every tree pleasant to sight and good to eat,
and the tree of life in the midst of the garden,
and the tree of knowledge of good and evil….
And G0d commanded Adam, saying:
You may eat from all the trees of the garden,
But do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for on the day on which you eat of it you shall surely die. And God said: It is not good for man to be alone; I shall make him a helpmate.
Evil takes root in man when he focuses on himself and his own desires rather than on God and His desires (or, on a deeper level, when he considers himself independent or separate from God). When so oriented, he evaluates all experience only in terms of his own subjective sense of good.
In Kabbalah and Chassidut, it is explained that good tainted by selfishness is represented by the tree of knowledge of good and evil, while true, unadulterated good is represented by the tree of life. By commanding Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was warning him not to mix good and evil by choosing the path of self-centeredness and self-
orientation.
Eating the forbidden fruit caused man's psyche to become overtly self-conscious and egocentric. His sensation of good is no longer pure and Divine but a mixture of good and evil; he considers something good only if it is self-gratifying. If this attitude is left unrectified, the evil will eventually swallow up the good, as in Pharaoh's dreams (Genesis 41:1-7); one's appreciation for good--and even belief that anything can truly be good--will evaporate. This in turn will engender a feeling of bitterness toward life as one comes to blame others for life's disappointments and suffering. Having thus placed the cause of his suffering outside his sphere of influence, a person views himself as a helpless victim of circumstance and malevolence.
The two states of consciousness symbolized by the two trees are primarily expressed in the way man relates to woman. In forbidding Adam to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, God was teaching him how to relate to his soon-to-be-created wife: "Do not mix egocentric lust and desire for self-gratification with the experience of true, unadulterated good."
In the entire narrative of creation, the creation of woman is the only creative act described as righting an inferior situation. Furthermore, the previous situation is not described simply as "bad," but as "not good," implying that the preceding state appeared to be good, but really was not. In order to achieve the truly good state, God had to create woman.
In this context, "not good" is the incorporation into man's psyche of relative, apparent good. This apparent good is man's existential state of being alone, i.e., egocentric and solely concerned with himself.
A husband with this orientation is feeding on the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Unless he reorients himself to true life and goodness, "on the day that you eat of it you shall surely die," that is, he will eventually say: "I find woman bitterer than death."
LINK
John Wells
New Member
To add: The serpent (Satan) told Eve that "the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." Satan (and his rebelious angels) were cast out of heaven for wanting to be like God, and Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden for wanting to be like God. Today the reason people reject coming under the lordship of Jesus Christ (surrendering their lives to Him) is because they want to be like God and be in charge of their own lives. Such is the case with someone has a sin in their life revealed to them and they consciously decide "to live with it," insisting on being "like God" and being in personal control of their lives.