Question Two:
Growing up in a Catholic family who regularly went to church and invited to go to Bible school by a strict Mennonite church next door, I was always exposed to the teachings of the Bible at a very young age. I still go to church even to this day, but when I reached the age where I could not go to Bible school anymore, I rarely continued to study the Bible, and started to become less familiar with the readings.
Reading Genesis for the first time, in a long time, was quite amusing for me since I was viewing them in a academic respect , rather spiritual.
In Genesis 1, God’s narrative is very commanding on how he created the earth. Listing one thing after the other, he creates everything out of nothing in a meticulous order. I felt he was being extremely spontaneous pulling these names for everything right out of his pocket. In Genesis 2, he is more personal about breathing life into man, creating him out of dust, making the earth more spiritual and soulful. He details earth with the seasons and light it will have. Genesis 2 is a bit more poetic and I think it made sense that is was because Genesis 1 was like a rough draft. It was God starting something new, not ready to be revised yet.
Question Five:
The things we humans desire will most likely to be appealing, even things that might consider to be “bad” or “sinful”, otherwise how could a person be pulled into temptation if the image of it was not entrancing? If the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil were fruitless and lacked the informing power of temptation, Adam and Eve had a wide range of other lively things to pick from something like a banana bush or a patch of grass or of course pick the fruit from the Tree of life.
I find knowledge to be a most wonderful and powerful gift, but I think the lesson other than “don’t fall into temptation because it can lead thee to original sin” was simply testing their faith in God. Working for their desires rather then accepting them by the “unknown” would help them rely more on God and build a faithful relationship with him. God wanted Adam and Eve to fear him, because to fear the Lord means you hold reverence and belief in him.
Question Six:
Adam and Eve were set up to fail because they were given the freedom of choices they were not capable of. God said he provided everything “good”, from the seas and vegetation to the animals and the light, to create an earth’s version of heaven for Adam and Eve. And within in this lovely environment, one tree out of many consisted of evil, and God made sure it was known that Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil was not to be picked from. Even though Eve did pick from the one tree God said not to pick from, I don’t consider that she was completely ignorant. Since she didn’t really have any knowledge in the first place, she didn’t know what the hell evil was and obviously was never taught about manipulation. This shows the punishment was indeed inevitable, because God did not educate the new couple enough. If he did, they would have been able to enjoy their sweet life in the Garden of Eden a little bit longer.
