The "way" in which Adam and Eve, before, in the "Garden", before being expelled and also possibly maybe even all of Genesis some say, is "true", and the important truth to it, and about it, all of it, and maybe the "big picture" of all of it, right now, maybe anyway, is or may be "beyond our comprehension" right now...? And it is only distant in that way, "Heaven" (or the Kingdom, or Paradise) that is at first likened to and presented to us as an Earth-like "Garden" to us at first, and other likenesses later on, I believe in order to try and convey the common thread, anyhow...
The way in which Adam and Eve and The Garden Paradise is "true", may be beyond our comprehension right now...
It could be talking about another kind of reality, where things are very different... What is being conveyed to us, meant to be a symbol of something higher and better and greater...
Comments?
God Bless!
Is this what really happened?
It was a dark and stormy night. Lucifer, enjoying the destructive actions of the storm, could almost forget the pain of his banishment from the regions of light to this God-forsaken planet. It was a lot better than being cast into hell. Fortunate was he to possess the stewardship title to this place, issued before the unfortunate incident that the so-called good angels called his rebellion. Few and meager were the spoils left him from before his fall. He did have, still, an invitation to convene with the other sons of God at a far future time in heaven, and he was relishing how his appearance there would cause general consternation. It would be good to get off this planet for a moment at least . . .
Lucifer's musings were interrupted by a demonic visitation.
"Greetings, excellent son of the dawn, lord of our light, wisdom of the world, chief of the powers of the air, great dragon", muttered a craven Beelzebub, rushing through the required honorifics. "We have stumbled upon a region on this planet we are not allowed to enter".
"WHAT"? roared the fallen lord of this earth. "That's contrary to my entitlement! Show me the place!"
In a moment, Lucifer and Beelzebub were there. Sure enough, guardian angels barred them from going past a hedge that surrounded the garden of Eden. Every time they tried to force their way in, they were turned back.
Nursing his hurts, Lucifer pondered the irony; he had been so proud when Divine Omniscience had instructed him to share his new, unheard of ideas about defense and attack with Michael back in his days before his banishment. Now his own lessons - Michael knew everything about war that he did - were being turned against him.
He decided to try reasonable debate.
"Why, Michael, are you hindering me from walking on this part of my lawful estate?" he bawled out.
"Oh, its the universal law of justice. You damned and unlawful spirits are not allowed to deal with a free willed creature who bears the image of God."
"WHAT?" roared Lucifer. "That's a blatant violation of my contractual rights to this place! Don't you know I'm the sole proprietor here? You can't bring one of those half breed animal - spirit things to MY domain!"
"Silly demon", sniffed Michael, "Nobody imported this creature here, he evolved naturally, and therefore is rightfully here on his own. And his rights to an uncontaminated spiritual bond with God trump your rights to the place. "
Lucifer looked around, abashed. Sure enough, while he had been brooding for the past 65 million years, ever since he first expressed his rage on the life of this planet on his arrival, hominids had evolved a surprising amount of intelligence. There were lots of them all over the middle east and Africa, but none had any souls . . . yet.
He had spent much time, recently, admiring beetles. Such elegant, endlessly beautiful forms . . . They had been a distraction all along, to keep him from noticing the hominids!
"This man", continued Michael, "started thinking there must be a creator and God. This automatically entitled him to complete protection from such as you and we made this garden for him. He has become an immortal soul. He has a wife now, taken from his own flesh, they two are going to reproduce, enlarge the garden, awaken to understanding eternity their brothers and sisters after the flesh, and when there is no place left on earth for you and your ilk, you will go to . . . . "
He merely pointed in the extra dimensional direction to the place prepared for Lucifer and his followers. No more needed to be said.
Lucifer quailed. His doom was sure. He remembered the clause in his title to the planet - that from the earth itself a life could come that would redeem the planet from his rule and cast him out to his prepared destiny. Not that he was happy now, he definitely wanted to postpone such an event. This monstrous improper blend of animal and spirit - if he merely started sharing his ideas of eternity, God, the spiritual realm . . . the other homo sapiens would awaken to become immortal souls! The whole planet could become infested with enough spiritually able residents to banish him from his only refuge! As for the time it would take - in just a hundred generations, even less, spiritual humanity could fill the globe, leaving him no place to roam! Clearly his time was short.
Back at his lair, he brooded. So long ago, it seemed an eternity now, but he clearly remembered the committee meeting the holy angels had devoted to the creation of this planet. It had taken them six days to design the world and its life forms, how it would be, and they had set up the initial conditions to make them come about through the natural operation of God's laws. As part of the divine allocation of angelic responsibilities, the earth had been assigned to him. When he had been cast out of heaven, the assignment was still valid, because it had been an unconditional assignment. And now . . . it must not escape him!
Finally Lucifer came up with a plan. If he could not enter Eden directly, he could enter Eden, perhaps, by remote control. And if even an angel such as myself can rebel, perhaps the new creature - what was its name? Adam? could be induced to rebel. Maybe even then could be remotely controlled!
He tried remote control on various species, and found it could be accomplished. Soon, a nearby tree snake wandered across the hedge about Eden and began to have conversation with the inhabitants. The plan was simple - get them to sin. Of course, since this naive couple had all their needs met, were perfectly happy, it was a minor difficulty to even figure out how they COULD sin. They didn't seem to have been given any moral guidance he could use to coax them to rebel with. He tried getting Adam to hit Eve. Adam approached it as an experiment to see if pain was still possible. Eve reported it was. But that was the end of that, and they didn't feel shame or guilt, Eve didn't hold a grudge, they seemed just as happy as before, not even knowing what sin even was.
Meanwhile, a truly terrible set of events was taking place. The couple was being educated. Fruit had been prepared with special nerve pattern altering compounds . . . they only had to eat a fruit and learn. Already they had learned a lot about language, mathematics, how to till the ground and raise crops, how to domesticate animals . . . . it wouldn't be long before the present boundaries of Eden would be enlarged or bypassed.
Then one day Eve happened to mention something about a certain tree that carried the knowledge of good and evil. But it wasn't time to eat it yet.
What if they learned it out of sequence?
Lucifer suggested to the woman she should eat the fruit NOW. Eve was reluctant. “The teaching fruit has to be eaten in the correct order”, she objected, “and its not the right time for this one yet! If we eat teaching fruit out of order, bad things can happen, we can even die!”
“You will surely not die”, whispered the snake. “You will merely become like gods, knowing good from evil.”
Eve took a bite. The neural changing chemicals began to do their work. She wasn't fully ready yet. The adjustment process was painful. She had strange, disturbing dreams about sins people could commit . . . sins of violence, sins of lying, sins of adultary, sins of sloth, sins of turning from God, and disobeying God's word . . . .
A vast sense of guilt overcame her. She was downcast, ill, hurting, and looked up to see Adam running over.
“What did you do”? He asked. Are you alright? Are you going to die?
“I ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil”, she said. “I don't think I'm going to die . . .” and she began to cry.
Adam wanted to help her feel better. “You would do well to eat of it yourself, Adam, so you will know how to help her”, suggested the snake.
Adam looked at him in anger. Then at his poor wife. She lifted up her hand, which still held the rest of the fruit. Adam took the fruit and ate the rest all at once.
Once again, the neuron changing chemicals did their thing. Adam had a tremendous headache, then he also experienced visions of people doing terrible, evil deeds. Killing each other over food. Stealing. Arsonists. Solders. Swearing. Lying.
Satan slithered away as fast as he could. His evil work was done.