Adam & Eve to be blamed, or god!

looking at the english text, it seems to me that curse is applied to "the man" and "the woman" and "the serpent" in specific. while it may be intended to refer to everyone symbolically, i don't think god is punishing us in particular.in fact, i think it's almost a blessing. without the fall, there would be no mankind. an since immortality doesn't seem to have been bestowed on adam and eve, it wouldn't have lasted very long.but moreover, i think the story is symbolic, not literal. it's meant to show that god has given us free will, and so we are responsible for our own actions.

satan also appears elsewhere in the ot, and they actually use his name. the correlation between him and a serpent doesn't appear until, i think, revelation. and then it's comparing him to a different serpent, tanniyn (leviathan?). the serpent in genesis is nachash -- the same serpents that torment the hebrews in the desert until moses makes an image of one and nails it to a stick.the standard view of the serpent being satan comes from the aspect of tempting man.

not sure. i'm gonna go with snake though.

most of my views are.the opposite view is pretty popular. see "paradise lost." how many people believe in that, without realizing that it's nowhere in the bible?

i think you misinterpretted my meaning a little. actually, i do believe "that old serpent" is refering to ANOTHER serpent that is breifly mentioned in genesis. it's a bit of a spotty connection, but there's an old "my god beat up your god" mythology going on.

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Psa 74:13 Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters.
Psa 74:14 Thou brakest the heads of leviathan in pieces, [and] gavest him [to be] meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

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this refers back to the great dragons in the seas which genesis mentions very briefly in the first chapter, tanniyn. most bibles translate this as "whales" even though it literally means venomous serpent. it's the same word used for what moses' stick turns into, and is seen in correlation with other venomous snakes throughout the old testament.so i think what john is doing in revelation is combining and confusing the imagery of the great sea serpents, leviathan (who was a seven-headed sea serpent) from job and that psalm, and satan. i doubt he's speaking literally, especially since he's combined every form of evil he could possibly think of into a huge devil-antichrist heirarchy. i imagine he's probably writing an allegory (or maybe a coded message) about something during his own lifetime, probably involving rome.but i used "a serpent" instead of "the serpent from genesis 3" because i was aware of this fact. the terms "serpent" and "dragon" are more or less interchangeable; it's only the size the matters. and although the serpent in genesis 3 appears to have had arms and legs (hey, don't ask me), it's also a different word than the one typically used for dragon. i wasn't trying to say i agreed with the logic. i don't. it is clearly wrong. there STILL is no concept of "The Devil" in judaism to this day, actually. however, satan does make appearances in the old testament. his role is that of temptor, and tester of men, ultimately serving the will of the lord.to suggest "The Devil" as an opposite or opponent to god, as john does in revelation, is actually outright blasphemy to jews. you cannot challenge the omnipotence of god.the actual correlation of the serpent in gen 3, satan, and "The Devil" doesn't appear in widely-read literature until the 1600's, with milton's "paradise lost." i think it may have appeared earlier in the apocryphal "book of adam and eve" however. i'll have to check.but either way, it ain't in the bible.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 08-01-2004 02:06 AM

it's tough questions for the christians time. did god lie?let's look a little closer:

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Gen 3:2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
Gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which [is] in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

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eve assumed god meant that if they ate of the tree, it would be poisonous, and they'd die. immediately. the serpent corrects that:

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Gen 3:4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
Gen 3:5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

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so they're not gonna die immediately. this is evidenced by the text. they eat the fruit, and... don't die.maybe god meant that it will cause them to die eventually. well, this implies that before the eat the fruit, they're immortal.

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Gen 3:22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

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which obviously isn't the case. we can rule out the eventual physical death part because that was going to happen anyways.and besides, god said:

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Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

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so... did god lie?personally, i think it's silly to assume that god didn't know they'd eat from that tree. if he really didn't want them to, he would have put it somewhere else. genesis promotes nudism. i'm gonna bring this up the next time we have a literalist debate: that if we're to really take genesis seriously, we need to abolish clothing.

show me the verse were the serpent lies. i bet you can't. he said they wouldn't die, and they didn't. uh, not to point out what a silly point that is, but even god says "behold the man is become as one of us." god said that man was like god. so far, by the word of god, the serpent's "lie" checks out as truth. ...and they didn't die. god said they'd die the day ate from the tree. the serpent said they wouldn't. the serpent was right.where's the lie? historical researchers do. but, here. we'll do a test. where's the first place the word devil, even lowercase, appears in the text? matthew. not genesis. more than a thousand years later. satan appears a few times... but never as "the devil," just an angel, a son of god who tests the validity of men's faith.

well, yes, but i don't think it neccessarily translates to ALL of man, ALL women, and ALL serpents. although most serpents do go about on their stomachs, i know of none that eat dust. and the woman's seed could be read in specific. the apocryphal "book of adam and eve" treats it this way. seth and the serpent run into each other, and the serpent bites his heel, and seth bashes his head.but yes, clearly an animal, not a supernatural being. well, the point was that man was not originally created immortal, and the sin caused the eventual death. man, in his original state, was subject to death. yes, all he had to do was eat from the tree of life. but he hadn't. no neccessarily. it think it's still possible to read it as if eden were in the heavens somewhere, and earth was the barren wasteland given to man as punishment. but it's probably mroe likely it was meant to be a physical place on earth, yes. probably deliberately referencing the fertile cresent, actually. the story might be an explanation of why the hebrews ended up in the desert.

well, see, i'm not sure if seed means just the next generation, or every successive one. but i imagine you're probably right. (that's certainly the way i read it the first time) no, it isn't really. lol. there is however a creature that goes about on it's belly, and does in fact eat dust. well, soil, anyways. but i don't think the verse is talking about an earthworm i don't think it's a punishment, actually. i think it's kind of a gift, but god is explaining the compromise. it is afterall the act that gives us free will, according to the theology. a good point.