Cheryl Schatz

bgk,

Cheryl, you put up a straw man.  I did not say God gives permission and then withdraws it.  I said God can make exceptions and that not all exceptions are necessarily recorded in every place.

You have a big problem with what you have stated because God gave no exceptions.  God said that they were given permission to eat every plant that was seed bearing and every tree that had seed bearing fruit.  Every is the Hebrew word “kol” means totality, all in its entirety and the whole.  It cannot mean that there are exceptions unless they are specifically stated because the word in its normal meaning means everything with nothing left out.  If you have a specific biblical example where God said “everything” that is given by permission but he didn’t mean everything and the exception is not listed, then please instruct me.  Otherwise I will have to take the bible as it is written with the inspired words.

You seem to be arguing with me about Adam’s motives.

I can’t argue with you about Adam’s motives because I don’t read hearts and I know nothing about his motive except for what the scripture says.  The bible says that Adam dealt treacherously against God and that is the only thing that I can find anywhere that hints at what was in Adam’s heart.  I believe God that Adam dealt treacherously against God.  Any other “how come” questions will have to remain unanswered, I would suppose, until we get to heaven and can ask God.

You brought up Hosea to refute my suggestion that Adam was influenced by his wife to take the fruit.  Another straw man.   Being influenced by his wife (I did not say coerced.  I did not say she begged him.) did not make him guiltless.

The bible doesn’t say that Eve “influenced” Adam.  How could a woman who was completely deceived influence someone who was not deceived even a little bit?  Clearly Adam ate because he chose to eat and his excuse that she gave it to him (influenced him to take it) was rejected by God.  I don’t buy it either.

Please note that I said it SEEMS Adam was influenced by his wife.  That is what it seems to me.  It may not seem that way to someone else.  Adam took the fruit his wife gave him, not one he plucked himself.

I appreciate that you clarified that this is what it seems.  I like biblical facts to base my belief on and I find nothing in the text that supports the contention that Adam (one who completely knew that the serpent was not telling the truth because Adam was not deceived) was influenced by his wife.  Adam did not need to pluck the fruit himself.  It was his heart motive that was tested by God, not the fact that he didn’t pluck the fruit himself.

I must have touched a nerve there without realizing it.

Not that I know of.  I do think that we should lay blame where God lays blame and not blame the one who Satan attacked.  Adam did not defend God when the serpent attacked God’s motives and his loving source of supply for Adam and Eve.  Adam also did not defend Eve from a spiritual attack that he identified.  I know when I first brought this up to a seminary professor he was blown away because it was a thought that he had never considered before.  He said that he blamed Eve for things because this is what he was taught.  However looking carefully at scripture, he could see that what he had been taught was to be prejudiced against women and specifically against Eve.  I get great joy in my life to help people see what scripture actually says and to help them step outside of their bind spots that have come from tradition.  This is how I would want someone to treat me if I had blind spots that came from the tradition that was taught me.  I too was taught that Eve was to blame as she was the one who tempted the man, who disobeyed the man by making a spiritual decision without his approval and who was the weak one because she was deceived.  The inspired words and the inspired grammar have done much to open my own blinded eyes.

That has nothing to do with my contention that you are making an assumption when you say that scripture is bound to record in chapter one the exception to what was edible.

That is not what I was passionately contending for.  There is no doubt that Adam was given the exception to the fruit that he could eat.  What I was contending for was that there was no exception given to Eve regarding the full permission given to both her and Adam to eat any tree that had seed bearing fruit.  If the tree of the knowledge of good and evil did not have seed bearing fruit then there is no exception necessary, correct?  It is ONLY if the fruit on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil had seed bearing fruit that a specific exception MUST be given.  The fact that God told Eve that they (plural) were not allowed to touch the fruit made the acceptance that this particular tree did not have seed bearing fruit a matter of faith.  I happen to think that it is wonderful that throughout the entire bible, our actions are judged by faith.  Abraham was justified by faith.  We are justified by faith.  Adam and Eve were to be justified by faith if they only believed God and acted on that belief.

Are you saying aquatic plants are not edible because they are not upon the face of the earth?

I am not saying any such thing.  “Face” means on the surface.  It can also mean on the surface of the water. (See Genesis 1:2)  Earth can mean the entire globe not just the dry land.  I would think that most seed bearing plants are on dry land, but if they are in the water, that too would be given to us to eat.

I take the phrase that Adam ”was not deceived” to mean that his sin was willful.

I agree with you that Adam’s sin was willful, but “not deceived” means exactly that. The Greek word means not seduced into error.  Adam did not buy the lie that the serpent told Eve.  He understood the truth while his wife was being led away into seduction.  No wonder God was upset with Adam and cursed the ground on his behalf.  The one who knows the truth is responsible for doing something about that truth and not burying it in the ground.

Don, my point was precisely that scripture does not contradict itself.  So we look at all of it, not parts.

You are so right in that the scripture does not contradict itself.  This is why we need to verify what we understand and test scripture by scripture.  If what we believe to be true is contradicted by a part of scripture, we need to look to see what the problem is.  It isn’t scripture that will be the problem, but our misunderstanding of scripture.  When our view is without contradiction in the parts as well as the whole we can know that we have the truth.

Lots of people will say that we need to look at the whole of scripture.  They usually say this when I show them a scripture that contradicts what they believe.  I have had a lot of experience with this because of the support group that I led for to help former Jehovah’s Witnesses come to faith in Christ by learning sound doctrine and unlearning the error that the Watchtower teaches them.  I helped them to see that scripture is all true, but it must be taken in its context.  When they told me that their view was true in the big picture of the scripture, I told them that the big picture is also made up by the details.  If the details contradict one’s “big picture”, then the big picture is wrong.

Have a good night.  We can all check our teeth in the morning to see if any of us had a hankering for eating seaweed.  🙂