What is the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil Really About?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 3 ต.ค. 2024
- I interview Nathan French (Ph.D. Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East) about his Ph.D. Dissertation on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. He shares the history of how the tree has been interpreted, walks us through his research strategy, and then shares his unique contribution to this area of research. He traces the phrase "knowledge of good and evil" throughout the Hebrew Bible and ancient Near East to show how Genesis 2-3 is about more than just "God told Adam and Eve not to do something, they did it, and so they sinned." There is another dimension to this story that has a big impact on how we interpret, preach, and teach the foundational story of the Bible.
Nathan's Dissertation: www.amazon.com...
Nathan's Bio and Publications: aberdeen.acade...
God said “you can eat of the tree” then He said “But I command you not to eat” that is a Big contradiction a dichotomy that needs to be resolved first to understand the point of it all.
Here we are now functioning by this knowledge in reasoning that God did not want us to have but said we could have it. So what is it that God wanted from man then. And don’t say not eat of the tree.
The allegorical 'Apple' in the allegorical Garden represents Thought/Ego/Duality!
Life/death, good/evil, time, mortality... all duality, is all brought to us in thought!
Of course they would 'live' and 'die' now that thought is practiced!
Excellent answer!
I had a teacher that explained it this way: They wanted to be like God apart from God.
Scripture says that Eve was deceived. It never says Adam was. He knew exactly what he was doing.
This revelation of divine retribution makes perfect sense in line with that and deeply enriches this foundational narrative. Great interview!
I really like your teacher's encapsulation: They wanted to be like God apart from God.
49:05 You said had they obeyed. They would have been able to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
This is wrong.
I don't understand how you can even think that. This shows you don't understand what the tree is. The tree of knowledge of good and evil was knowledge of good and evil apart from God's knowledge of good and evil and man is never meant to have that. God made the tree so mankind could have choice. To have choice, you must have the option of going against the other side. They became enemies of God by eating of this tree. In essence, by developing their own judgement of right and wrong made them their own gods. The temptation was true. They followed satans way.
I'm perplexed by your thinking.
Awesome
Satan,s apple s have worms in them 😮...
And he has still got us all picking them😮...
Jesus is the new adem he is a tree of life ✨️ and we are his vines...
Jesus words spoken he who believes in me has eternal life and prosperity ✨️ 🙏.
I choose Jesus. Who do you choose 👀 🤔...
What was the test for Adam?
God wanted to know if he listen to his wife. He listen to her voice God said with a smile. So he did the right thing. They didn't sin at all. They did exactly what God wanted but of free will. They did a huge mitzvah. Thank God for Eve.
I would love Dr. French to return and do a full treatment of divine retribution. Seeing more instances of this in the text and in religions of the period would be enlightening.
Nope, that's not it. Eating the Fruit means becoming attached to our concept of right and wrong. Attachment is the eating part and judgement is the Fruit produced by the knowledge of good and evil, the tree's namesake. Forgiveness is spitting the Fruit up and grace is leaving it in the Tree; reserving judgment or at least our attachment to it. Mercy is staying offended but handing out a pass, usually with some kind of trade.
The Fall happened to serve the purpose
to reveal i
God to us. The moment there happens sin, Gods charcter come to light.
The story of Samson and Delilah was a Greek story and it was the great God Zeus who gave him his strings
I THINK HE'S LOOKING AT IT COMPLETELY WRONG I THINK THE TREE REPRESENTS KUNDALINI ADAM ON ONE SIDE OF THE TREE EVE ON THE OTHER SIDE THE APPLE HELD IN THE MIDDLE REPRESENTS THE MAGNETIC FIELD THE SNAKE ON THE TREE UP THE TRUNK IS THE SERPENTINE ENERGY I DON'T THINK HE REALLY LOOKED AT IT RIGHT
It represents condolences nothing less nothing more
This guy really needs to go talk to Paul Wallace
Why didnt God simply forgive them
They didn’t repent he tried talking to them they blame everyone and their mother
Nice.
Also seems to me in Eden there was the first food law "thou shall not".
Perhaps the 10 commandments became necessary since eating the forbidden fruit.
@nameless-yd6ko
0 seconds ago
The allegorical 'Apple' in the allegorical Garden represents Thought/Ego/Duality!
Life/death, time, mortality... all duality, is all brought to us in thought!
Of course they would 'live' and 'die' now that thought is practiced!
Plug that in and see what happens! ;)
The tree of knowledge of good and evil was Lucifer
And it was never one God it says let us create man in our image after our likeness after our kind us an hour is more than one
We are an Us, We are all God.
One God.
We are all features of One Consciousness/Mind.
When Consciousness speaks, using We, the Royal We, the aggregate We is appropriate.
Hope that helps. ;)
Not a clear explanatian.
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Why don't they go back and tell the real truth that the Bible is eclectic it is not written by God it is not written by Moses if Moses would have written the Bible why wouldn't it be in Coptic
I'm becoming more and more convinced that God was warning us not to eat psychedelics. This is access to knowledge (seemingly into another realm if you go deep enough,) that humans can't comprehend and allows God's adversaries to penetrate and manipulate one's mind. When you partake in these fruits you think you know something, but you don't truly understand. We feel connected to everything and feel one with God, not created by him. We, much like Satan, raise our self up to God status. We think we are good, the light and the truth, and that the Christian religion is a manipulation of the truth. We don't reject Christ per say, but we think we are just like him and we do not believe in his resurrection or the ultimate creator father God. The deeper one goes on this journey, the more delusional one becomes. By eating of this fruit we allow Satan and his sin into our minds, arrogance followed by rebellion. We can see the spirit of delusion growing, as is the use of such drugs and the spreading of the teachings we learn from the beings we encounter in these realms. Satan masquerading as an angel of light. Thank God for his Grace and bringing me back home to him.
Eating from The Tree of Life (Jesus) was NOT forbidden; so perhaps if Adam and Eve had eaten from that permitted Tree FIRST, then subsequently God would have lifted the prohibition against eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
Also, as Joseph Prince has pointed out, after Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden Tree, ‘their eyes were opened’-improperly, because they were to have had their eyes (properly) opened by eating food from the permitted Tree of Life.
And that phrase, ‘their eyes were opened,’ is not seen again until another (MUCH later) couple, those who walked with Jesus on the road to Emmaus after his resurrection, took food from him (The Tree of Life): “Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight” (Lk 24:31). Finally!
The tree of knowledge of good and evil is decision making, judging according to our selfishness or thinking about others. The snake is our mind. Just follow up what Bible is teaching us, through prophets and stories, to love, not to steal, not to lie, not to blame someone. To understand that our actions have consequences, if we want to be with Gods( spiritual, higher realm) , we should be like them, or at least understand the rules by heart
Beautiful explanation
It is pretty simple if we look at the name and see what the affect was. We see that prior, they were naked and unashamed yet after they were naked and ashamed. The knowledge of good and evil apart from Gods perfect knowledge of godd and evil is clearly what is going on. It changed their very identity. Shame is an identity issue. After eating, they thought of themselves as evil, as worthless. This is shame. Prior, their identity came directly from God, and they had value and no shame, but after eating they tied their value to their behavior.
For them to eat this and develop judgement, that they can judge on their own, this sets them up for being like God, verse 22 confirms. Now they have become enemies of God and either need to be destroyed OR they need a sacrifice for sin. God established this with an animal covering first, pointing to the future death of a perfect Human/God man....Jesus. jesus was the death for sin and Adam and Eve experienced Gods grace and mercy. Amazing God!
הללו את יהוה
Thank you for an amazing interview!!!
And thank you dr Nathan for an amazingly worked topic!
Glory to our Higher Power!
A worker 👷had a tattoo saying 'Jesus' on his forearm. "What's this,?" I asked. My Lord. He's always with me. "And where's God?" He looked up to the sky with a smile.
God is perfect. He never can sin, but man has a weakness inherent that brings him to sin and death.
Genesis teaches us this, the Holy Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit.
To me the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is a warning on knowledge itself. Everything now is a trade off like we have tech like ipod and now we don't have albums anymore. We lose something when we gain something. Wisdom is knowing if it's worth it. Once we have knowledge we can't live in paradise anymore.
Jesus Christ said " I am the true vine whoever abides in me will have eternal life " but unfortunately people have rejected the true vine choosing the tree of knowledge of good and evil instead which whoever abides in it will end up in eternal torture.
When Jesus spoke about how to recognize a true Godly man, he had a very definitive example.
Jesus taught, a tree is known by its fruit. A good tree will yield good fruit and an evil tree will yield evil fruit. He often referred to man as a tree.
I've been asked many times, why did God put the tree of knowledge and the tree of life in the garden, when he knew what would happen. This is my answer and you may not agree but, to me it makes the most sense. When God made Adam and Eve, he had created the two fruit bearing trees of mankind. Adam, the tree whose seed bearing fruit provides the intellectual side of reproduction, the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Eve, the tree whose seed bearing fruit provides the life gestation side of reproduction. This is why, after they sinned, no where in Genesis or the Bible does it state that either tree was ever destroyed. Why did God place a flaming sword before the fruit of tree of life? Why didn't God just destroy or remove it from the earth? Because doing so meant killing the women Eve. The flaming sword was the physical alteration God made to Eve's anatomy which changed her child bearing process and the flaming sword menstrual cycle which sheds her unfertilized eggs in blood.
That's why no where in scripture will you read that the two trees were destroyed. The sin first committed by Eve was oral sex on Adam which she shared, and they realized they were naked.
Shall we not receive good and evil from God in Job
Lord God and God are not the same can't believe all preachers can't see that
Great stuff! Couple thoughts.
I had heard of the sexual knowledge interpretation, and I'm no Hebrew scholar, but was aware that "to know" can carry this meaning. To me that shade of potential meaning actually helps clarify bc in this sense the "knowledge" of good and evil isn't just a head knowledge -- the discernment angle as your guest put it. No this is something much more intimate -- it's the ability, with unclean hearts, to decide for ourselves thank you very much what good and evil is. Boy is that ever a problem in our day -- even something so basic as what male and female is (something Genesis is a little clearer on).
The other thought I had is that the divine retribution ironically comes through humanity, in that the Seed of the woman crushes the serpent's head, and brings his "spiritual progeny" back to the garden. ✝️
And maybe that's why Paul says that someday the Lord's children will judge angels?
Hey Jimmy! This response is directly from Dr. Nathan French:
Thank you for your comment and kind words, Jimmy! We are glad that you enjoyed the episode.
You are correct to focus on the word in Hebrew that means “to know,” as it appears with a sexual connotation in Genesis 4:1, thus adding support to the sexual knowledge interpretation of this phrase. As it pertains to deciding for oneself what is “good” or “bad,” Dr. French argues that this ability to choose and decide is already inherent in humanity before eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad/evil. The woman and the man both have the ability to decide for themselves to eat from the tree (before doing so), which would suggest that the knowledge received from eating of the fruit is not presented by the author as a sort of knowledge for self-autonomy. Finally, you make an excellent point regarding retribution as coming through humanity. Dr. French did not deal with this motif at great length in the interview, but certainly does do so in his book, as it is very important to the argument. At certain moments in the Hebrew Bible, it does seem that human retribution is interpreted as the materialization of divine retribution. Yes, the apostle Paul’s comment is certainly interesting in light of this discussion.
Wonderful reflections here, Jimmy! Thanks for listening and engaging with us!
Alright it sounds very plausible, however have have one remaining question. Why is it that the knowledge causes them to realise their nakedness?
Boring ....
Still got it wrong most part. The name is confusing for sure. Why the heck God did not want you to know what is good or evil? It's in plain sight. Don't think too hard and you will see it. Hint: Why do you think Adam and Eve did not know what is good and evil before they ate the fruit? They lived to 900 years old and have more knowledge than you and me, and why do you think they did not know what is good or evil. Silly, isn't it? It's in plain sight. it's playing out in clearly in our time about the knowledge of good and evil. Do you see it yet? Look at the evil in the world today and you see the meaning. May God bless you.
Definitely an interview for scholars..as a lay person 90% of this is lost on me.
No one ever find out????? Well sir, look at the rabbi’s. They already found out.
57 minutes of yada, yada, yada saying NOTHING!
He needs to really change his thinking because if you're going to study something in the past you have to go into the mindset and situations of that passed and that's why a lot of movies on different countries and cultures and history wasn't that great the reason the movie color purple what's such a good movie is because they not only showed the language and use the language of French with the black slaves they also show the oppression of the white man oppressing the black man and manipulating and controlling them too personally I don't think the real God would condone slavery
He's not a very deep thinker it's obvious
You do not sound like a happy person.
How's all your thoughts, criticisms... working for you?