What if Adam & Eve didnt eat the fruit?

[artybloke]

The Scriptures would seem to indicate otherwise.

Only if you take them literally. If you don't, it makes no difference.

Secondly, Luke (under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit (2Tim.3:16-17; Heb.4:12-13)) tells us that God created the entire human race from one man (Acts.17:26). Is God, through Luke, attempting to mislead us (Num.23:19)?!

God's not allowed to use a little poetic licence?

And besides which, Luke wrote Luke (or someone who identified himself as Luke, at least). Not God.

 

[Simonline]

Wouldn't Christ still be necessary for my and your real decisions to disobey God, not to mention every other human to exist.
I think to necessitate the existence of Adam and Eve being real people, takes away some of our personal culpability in sin. As if we feel if they hadn't messed up we wouldn't have messed up either.

This fails to grasp the true nature of the relationship between the first and second Adam.

The Biblical doctrine of Imputation and Impartation

The Scriptures teach us that death was introduced into the creation by Adam as a result of his sin (Rom.5:12-20) and God with regard to sin and condemnation has used this to condemn the entire human race by association [Adam's guilt is imputed to our 'moral accounts' and his fallen and rebellious nature is imparted to each and every one of us (though, on judgement day, we will only be held accountable for our own specific sin, not Adam's as well.)]. Just as in competition the individual competitor or team either attain victories (or suffer losses) on behalf of the community that they represent (be it either a school, a village, a town, a county, a state, a country or the entire human race) so in this case, Adam, as our representative, suffered the loss of being in that righteous relationship with God, because of his sin, the consequences of which, in turn, have been passed on to us.

This might, at first sight, seem incredibly cruel and unfair of God to do this but his reason for doing this is so that he can use exactly the same principle with regard to salvation in respect of Christ [In order for God to use the principle with respect to redemptive salvation he has also to use exactly the same principle with respect to moral guilt ('sin') and condemnation, otherwise God is violating his just nature and God cannot do that]. This means that salvation can actually be attained solely by Christ, but its benefits can be credited/imparted to us as the community (in this case 'the human race') that Christ represents.

If God did not use this principle then each one of us would individually, have to attain salvation for ourselves, which, for a sinner to try and do in the face of an absolutely holy and righteous God is absolutely impossible (and even that is the biggest understatement ever in the entire history of the human race!)

In other words, God has to condemn the entire human race ['in Adam'] in order that he might then be able to redeem them ['in Christ'] (Rom.11:32). This is what Paul is talking about in his letter to the Romans (Rom.5:12-20) and his first letter to the Corinthians (1Cor.15:20-23).

God could not leave the entire human race in a state of perpetual 'innocence' since it was necessary for us to 'grow up' morally speaking so that we would truly be 'in the image of God' in the fullest and most mature sense. For this reason humanity has to go through the experience of sin and all it's consequences (this is what human history is really all about - the whole of human history has a salvific [salvific = relating to salvation] dimension to it) in order to then experience the saving grace of God which is the means by which we attain spiritual maturity and take our place along side God as 'heirs with God and joint heirs with Christ' (Rom.8:17). How would we ever know of God's grace, mercy redemption etc. unless we had first experienced sin?

If we do take the story of Adam and Eve literally I think it was intended for them to live forever. I think if we went all this time without sinning many off us would be carted up to heaven like Enoch. That said I'm pretty sure God knew by surrendering free will to us we would all at some point take the wrong path.

It was/is indeed intended by God that Man should live forever. However, it is also intended by God that Man should take a circuitous route through free will, sin and redemption in order to get there (and more fully appreciate both the Creator and His Creation in the process).

Simonline.

 

[Simonline]

Half the fundagelicals would have heart attacks.

Not necessarily. As a 'fundagelical' as you like to refer to us, I am quite open to the possibility that the early chapters of Genesis are a mysterious combination of literal and symbolic that will only fully be comprehended (if at all) upon the literal return of the Messiah.

It wouldn't make any theological difference though. I'm not responsible for anybody's sins but my own. Thankfully, God's already forgiven them.

Au contrare, one's attitude to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as the revealed Word of God makes all the difference since one's everlasting destiny depends on it?! I am not advocating an absolutely literal attitude in entirity toward it but I am advocating that the Bible be taken seriously and interpreted correctly according to sound hermeneutics.

Personally, I think if they hadn't eaten the fruit, they'd have not had one of the five a day vegetables/fruit necessary to a fully balanced diet, so they'd probably have got fat and died young.

You must be British (or a visitor to Britain who has been watching British tv)?!

Simonline

 

[artybloke]

Au contrare, one's attitude to the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as the revealed Word of God

Stop right there. The Bible is not the revealed Word of God. That would be Christ.

I am not advocating an absolutely literal attitude in entirity toward it but I am advocating that the Bible be taken seriously and interpreted correctly according to sound hermeneutics.

A literalist interpretation of Genesis is not sound hermeneutics.

 

[Simonline]

Only if you take them literally. If you don't, it makes no difference.

I don't think so. If you don't take them literally (where appropriate) then that means that you are not taking them seriously either?! That could prove to be a catastrophic mistake?

God's not allowed to use a little poetic licence?

God doesn't do 'poetic licence'. He just communicates absolute Truth in relative terms so that we have an opportunity to finitely comprehend it (else why bother to communicate at all?).

And besides which, Luke wrote Luke (or someone who identified himself as Luke, at least). Not God.

Not true. All Scripture (from Gen.1:1 to Rev.22:21) is given by inspiration of God (or 'God-breathed') 2Tim.3:16-17; Heb.4:12-13. Just because the Judeo-Christian Scriptures have dual authorship (Divine and human) does not make them any the less authentic as the inerrant Word of God.

Furthermore, the apostle Luke is reputed to be a man of unimpeachable integrity, a first class historian, who wrote his two accounts, his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, addressed to Theophilus, as a written defense for the benefit of his friend, the apostle Paul, who was on trial for his faith.

It is clear from your comments that you have a somewhat low view of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as 'just another text to be subjectively interpreted according to one's own personal predilictions'.

Simonline.

 

[Simonline]

Stop right there. The Bible is not the revealed Word of God. That would be Christ.

Excuse me?! You are obviously not aware that there is more than one revelation of the Word of God.

The Judeo-Christian Scriptures and the Messiah are two different temporal revelations of the same Absolute Truth. One is written, the other is Living. Both affirm each other (Isa.8:20; Jn.1:1,14; 14:6; 17:17).

A literalist interpretation of Genesis is not sound hermeneutics.

If a literalist interpretation of Genesis is not sound hermeneutics then a purely symbolic interpretation is even less so?!

Simonline.

 

[artybloke]

I don't think so. If you don't take them literally (where appropriate) then that means that you are not taking them seriously either?! That could prove to be a catastrophic mistake?

(where appropriate) indeed. But there's a lot of things that I take very seriously but don't take literally. The poems of TS Eliot, for instance. I don't expect a poem to be literal, but I do expect it to communicate, or to at least have some relationship with, philosophical or spiritual truth.

God doesn't do 'poetic licence'.

Why not? What's wrong with the idea of God as a poet? Why should God be your idea of "literal" all the time? If Jesus is allowed to tell little stories (parables) why can't God?

Not true. All Scripture (from Gen.1:1 to Rev.22:21) is given by inspiration of God (or 'God-breathed') 2Tim.3:16-17; Heb.4:12-13.

Unfortunately, it doesn't tell us what texts are scripture and what are not. And the Bible tells us that it is inspired, not written by God. So is Shakespeare, or anything that is creative.

Furthermore, the apostle Luke is reputed to be a man of unimpeachable integrity, a first class historian, who wrote his two accounts, his gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, addressed to Theophilus, as a written defense for the benefit of his friend, the apostle Paul, who was on trial for his faith.

No doubt, by the standards of 1st century historical writing, he is eminently reputable. That doesn't make everything he says historically accurate, nor does it mean that he didn't embroider his stories in the same way as every other historical writer of the time did.

It is clear from your comments that you have a somewhat low view of the Judeo-Christian Scriptures as 'just another text'.

I think they're great human literature, and they have great wisdom to impart. But if you put them onto a pedestal and regard them as divine, all that wisdom atrophies into endless disputes over whether Adam & Eve really did exist or not. And frankly, who cares? Do they represent our own human frailty and tendency to sin? Of course they do, whether they existed or not.

Calling the Bible the Word of God just turns the scriptures into another idol. And we know what the Bible says about idolatry.

 

[artybloke]

If a literalist interpretation of Genesis is not sound hermeneutics then a purely symbolic interpretation is even less so?!

Any interpretation of the Bible that conflicts with the reality of the world in God's creation is a bad interpretation. Now, if you wish to believe that there was a real historical Adam & Eve then fine. Science can't prove it wrong or right. But it has shown that a literalist interpretation of the Genesis myths of creation cannot be supported by any evidence.

So symbolic it will have to be.

 

[Concetta]

If Adam and Eve had not eaten the forbidden fruit, someone down the line eventually would have. God did not predestin the eating but gave us Free Will and is saddened when we do wrong.

 

[Cash80]

Do you think mankind, during creation, was meant to be mortals or immortals? God said "on the day you eat of this fruit, you surely will die" Adam and Eve ate of the fruit and their spirits died instantly..their flesh, however, died many years later.

so if they didnt eat the fruit, would they have lived forever or eventually die a physical death anyways?

if they were immortals from the beginning and they didnt eat of the fruit, then how would this earth fit the population which would have kept growing until today? would we be on mars if Adam and Eve didnt sin from the beginning?

Then, we would probably be always happy and never had to worry about paying bills