What's your opinion?

[Steven Wood]

A long time ago and I mean close to 20 years back, when I was a new Christian I messed up and shared my opinion with some people who grew up in the church. I completed my first bible study and it happened to be on the original sin and the fall of man and I was eager to share it with some friends I went to church with wanting to discuss what I learned, getting their output and opinion. When I did....HOLY COW. I got looks. Then I was told that I had a sick and twisted world view and I needed to pray more and attend church a lot more before I tried to study anything else. They were almost in their 50's and still were convinced that they literally both ate an apple and got kicked out and that was it. period. and nothing more. Needless to say This response made me fall out of church for a long time. I've grown a lot since then and have learned more but I wonder what others think. Just to make things a little clearer on the way I believed back then it had to do with where we got the term " The apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

 

[Todd Madruga]

A long time ago and I mean close to 20 years back, when I was a new Christian I messed up and shared my opinion with some people who grew up in the church. I completed my first bible study and it happened to be on the original sin and the fall of man and I was eager to share it with some friends I went to church with wanting to discuss what I learned, getting their output and opinion. When I did....HOLY COW. I got looks. Then I was told that I had a sick and twisted world view and I needed to pray more and attend church a lot more before I tried to study anything else. They were almost in their 50's and still were convinced that they literally both ate an apple and got kicked out and that was it. period. and nothing more. Needless to say This response made me fall out of church for a long time. I've grown a lot since then and have learned more but I wonder what others think. Just to make things a little clearer on the way I believed back then it had to do with where we got the term " The apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

Hi Steven,

Now is a great time to discuss this. Your post sounds like you believe the language in Genesis 3 is figurative. Is this correct? Certainly there is no mention of an "apple" in that chapter. This was supplied by tradition and it's incorrect Biblically, as most of us agree an apple tree is a good tree that we can all partake of. It's fruit God made for our body, and nothing to be refused. It certainly isn't the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So what's your take on that chapter?

 

[Kutte]

A long time ago and I mean close to 20 years back, when I was a new Christian I messed up and shared my opinion with some people who grew up in the church. I completed my first bible study and it happened to be on the original sin and the fall of man and I was eager to share it with some friends I went to church with wanting to discuss what I learned, getting their output and opinion. When I did....HOLY COW. I got looks. Then I was told that I had a sick and twisted world view and I needed to pray more and attend church a lot more before I tried to study anything else. They were almost in their 50's and still were convinced that they literally both ate an apple and got kicked out and that was it. period. and nothing more. Needless to say This response made me fall out of church for a long time. I've grown a lot since then and have learned more but I wonder what others think. Just to make things a little clearer on the way I believed back then it had to do with where we got the term " The apple doesn't fall far from the tree".

Hi Steven,

Regardless of what kind of fruit the Genesis report is talking about, it was supposed to be a fruit containing knowledge of good and bad. One may ask, why would the creator of Adam and Eve want them to remain ignorant? In this world of ours, it is usually dictators and tyrants attempting to prevent their subjects to gain knowledge of good and bad. It's called censorship.

Also, for what it's worth: Since Adam and Eve lacked any awareness of good and bad in the beginning, they were in no position to judge who was telling the truth.
Never stop asking questions, Steven

Kutte

 

[Miche_nz]

I remember asking about the "Apple" and was quickly told that it was the "fruit of knowledge" and that the confusion came when people associated the Latin word malum which meant both evil and apple ,,, my next question would have been ,, so was the bible originally written in Latin ? But felt at the time was best to sit quietly lol
I have many people who try to tell me that Adam and Eve is figurative but personally to me it's the beginning of where it all began. I take it literally so maybe I'm the one with much to learn.
I have always been Christian but it's taken till the last few years to actually start to try and learn and discover what this truly means,,, I love reading these post by the way, they help me grow,,, ah and sorry I got lost along the path as to what I was actually going to say

 

[Todd Madruga]

I remember asking about the "Apple" and was quickly told that it was the "fruit of knowledge" and that the confusion came when people associated the Latin word malum which meant both evil and apple ,,, my next question would have been ,, so was the bible originally written in Latin ? But felt at the time was best to sit quietly lol
I have many people who try to tell me that Adam and Eve is figurative but personally to me it's the beginning of where it all began. I take it literally so maybe I'm the one with much to learn.
I have always been Christian but it's taken till the last few years to actually start to try and learn and discover what this truly means,,, I love reading these post by the way, they help me grow,,, ah and sorry I got lost along the path as to what I was actually going to say

Hi Miche!

I'm replying via my phone and it feels a little awkward lol. Thought I'd chime in. I believe everything that unfolded in Genesis 3 is literal. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is literal in my opinion, and I believe it was unique. I disagree with people who make it out to be an apple, fig, or any other fruit we know today. There's no reason to believe it was one of the fruit trees we know and enjoy today, else, I think Scripture would've identified it as such. It didn't.

I saw you say you also take it literally. I agree! I think you made the right choice. Beware of people who will frown upon you for taking Scripture literally. Usually they will claim there's a deeper truth that you're missing, and how lucky are you to have them to explain it to you (lol). In my experience it's best to take Scripture literally unless there's sufficient evidence of figurative language.

Of course not all Scripture is literal, neither is it all figurative and this is where we must rightly divide the Word of God.

Oh, as for the Bible being originally written in Latin it wasn't. Hebrew and Chaldean/Aramaic for the Old Testament and Greek for the New Testament. However, I believe the Latin Vulgate was the first translation of both the Old and New Testaments into another language (if I'm not mistaken).

God bless, my friend! I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

 

[Steven Wood]

Hi Steven,

Now is a great time to discuss this. Your post sounds like you believe the language in Genesis 3 is figurative. Is this correct? Certainly there is no mention of an "apple" in that chapter. This was supplied by tradition and it's incorrect Biblically, as most of us agree an apple tree is a good tree that we can all partake of. It's fruit God made for our body, and nothing to be refused. It certainly isn't the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

So what's your take on that chapter?

My take on it is that the trees weren't trees but angels and the fruit wasn't physical fruit but the works of the angels, Adam and Eve tended the garden but were taken care of by the Angels ate the fruits of the trees aka learned from the works of the angels . When they learned from the works of the angels of good and evil that's when we became obsessed the idea of pleasing ourselves and selfishness came into play. We no longer plut God and others above ourselves, we had the what about us involved and that's basically the original sin (basically).

 

[Steven Wood]

Hi Steven,

Regardless of what kind of fruit the Genesis report is talking about, it was supposed to be a fruit containing knowledge of good and bad. One may ask, why would the creator of Adam and Eve want them to remain ignorant? In this world of ours, it is usually dictators and tyrants attempting to prevent their subjects to gain knowledge of good and bad. It's called censorship.

Also, for what it's worth: Since Adam and Eve lacked any awareness of good and bad in the beginning, they were in no position to judge who was telling the truth.
Never stop asking questions, Steven

Kutte

I can see your point but I remember as a kid my father telling me not to play in traffic and not to stick my finger in a light socket or I'd die and I've never been curious enough to question his word. I also remember a saying that that I do not know will not hurt me. That's not a bad saying when you pair it with a saying like hindsights 20/20.