Goodbye, Garden of Eden | Bible Notes 3

In the Book of Genesis, the first home of mankind was in the Garden of Eden.

It was a fairy-like abode, planted with trees of various colors, the trees bore fruit, food was within reach, and there was no pressure to survive.

This suddenly gave me the feeling that humans are God's pets .

When modern people raise pets, they will prepare beautiful nests and sufficient food for them. They are even afraid that their pets will be lonely and find them a companion.

God does it too. Seeing that Adam was alone, he brought the animals (equivalent to toys) to him and asked him to name them; and while Adam was sleeping, he took a rib from his body, made a woman to accompany him, and also It's Eve.

In it I feel like there are several layers of power relations .

Adam (man) is created by God in his own image and is subordinate to God; Eve (woman) is created by God with Adam’s rib and is subordinate to God and Adam; animals are created by God, named and governed by human beings, subordinate to To God and man and.

That is, God > Adam (man) > Eve (woman) > animals, the Bible establishes a pyramid of power .

Back to the Garden of Eden.

That carefree place is the paradise God created for his "human pets." But there were also taboos in the Garden of Eden —there was a tree in it, the fruit of which, when eaten, would make one know good from evil. God used death to frighten Adam, saying he would die if he ate the fruit. However, a serpent told Eve that eating the fruit will not kill you, but will gain wisdom.

So, under the temptation of the serpent, Eve ate the fruit of good and evil, as did Adam. Their eyes have since opened up (distinguishing right from wrong), and they have become ashamed of being naked.

Humans were disobedient, God was angry, and he punished those involved :

• Snakes can only walk on their stomachs
• women and men hate each other
• women suffer from childbirth
• A woman will love her husband and be subject to her
• Men have to endure the pain of labor

From then on, Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden.

Let's look at these punishments one by one.

First, snakes can only walk on their stomachs in the future . Does this mean that the snake had feet before punishment, or did it have wings? In this way, many paintings of the Garden of Eden are wrong.

Second, women and men are enmity with each other . It's not that God wants to engage in "gender opposition", but that when people eat fruit, they have the concept of right and wrong, which is what Buddhists call "discrimination", contempt for others, envy of others, greed for others, and since then People hate each other, not only men and women.

Third, women have to bear the pain of childbirth. In the past, people were created by God and did not reproduce sexually, so women did not have to conceive or give birth, and indeed suffered a lot less sin (oh, why did I use the word sin naturally). But is a woman's fertility really a punishment?

Fourth, a woman must love her husband and be subject to her husband . I don't know if it's because Eve was the first to eat the fruit, or because God favored the first man (Adam) that he made, the power relationship between man and woman is emphasized here again.

In the end, men have to bear the pain of labor . I'm going to mention my "pet theory" again. Before stealing the fruit, Adam and Eve were equivalent to God's "pets" in the Garden of Eden. They didn't have to work hard, and the owner would prepare the food. But after being driven out of the Garden of Eden, he was left to fend for himself.

Before driving Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden, God clothed them with skins .

This detail is so interesting, one can feel a complex feeling: If God has no feelings for human beings, and drives him away with a broom, does he still need to sew clothes like an old mother before leaving? But since God has feelings for human beings, why can't he forgive them, but drive them away?

My understanding is that human beings stole the forbidden fruit, and when they have a mind of discrimination and their own thoughts, they cannot return to that pure state (irreparable mistake). God’s intention in driving mankind out of the Garden of Eden is probably like what many parents say to their children: “After you go outside, you will know how good your family is to you.”

So why does God not want humans to have the ability to distinguish between good and evil ?

​I guess it’s like many leaders who are very controlling and don’t like their subordinates to have too many ideas. God is the master of almighty, if you obey him wholeheartedly, you should bless you; if you have other ideas, it is hard to say...

In addition to the tree of good and evil, the treasures of the Garden of Eden also have the tree of life. Eating its fruit will give you eternal life .

After the expulsion of Adam and Eve, God set up a barrier in the Garden of Eden to guard the way of the tree of life and prevent human contact. He said, "The man has become like us, knowing good and evil. Now I fear that he will stretch out his hand and eat the fruit of the tree of life, and he will live forever."

That is to say, God created man according to his own image, and man and God have one layer of similarity; human beings eat the forbidden fruit and have a second layer of similarity with God; if they eat the fruit of the tree of life and gain eternal life, then Are you getting closer to God? This is overstepping .

Humans are originally God's pets. Because they disobeyed their masters (stealing the fruits of good and evil), they lost their privileges and were exiled from "domestic care" to "the wild", the so-called "Paradise Lost". Adam and Eve lost the Garden of Eden but gained freedom, but freedom comes at a price.

So the question is, a carefree pet dog or a self-supporting wild dog, which one would you like to be ?

Finally, I would like to talk about the snake. In my opinion, it is only telling the truth, but it is regarded as "the temptation of the devil", and it has been spurned by people for generations. That's horrible.