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How could Adam and Eve sin if they didn't know sin yet?

Adam and Eve were born sinless I assume. So how could it be considered wrong for them to eat of a tree if they had no knowledge of right and wrong in the first place?

Jeremyeatworld86 4 Dec 5
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0

the argument goes that they were told to not "eat" from that "tree" though, that was like basically the only thing they were forbidden to do. But imo don't make the mistake of reading literally, like believers; its a mythology, that contains valuable wisdom.

you might ask yourself what "eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge" even means, practically speaking; the terms in there are symbolic, and the symbols are defined elsewhere in the Bible, if you have any trouble deciphering them, but really its just kinda common sense ok. "eating the fruit" would be something like "accepting a concept as viable, and utilizing it personally," a "tree" is "a certain school of thought" say, and etc

6

I asked a christian this one time, and their brain literally exploded; it was pretty gross, but hey...one less christian!

6

If you're looking for fairness, Yahweh is the wrong tree to be barking up. This is the same dude who condemned all of humanity to death for this original sin, the same guy who told Abraham to sacrifice his son as a test of loyalty, the same insecure prick who tortured Job just to impress Satan, the same jerk who hardened Pharaoh's heart and then punished him for said hardened heart, the same asshole who exterminated two cities because he heard there was utter wickedness yet favored Lot who offered his daughters to be gang raped by a small mob (but turned Lot's wife to salt for looking back toward their home as it was being destroyed).

5

Considering that 'Eve' was cloned from the material extracted from 'Adam' then logically and scientifically Eve would have been a Steve.

5

There are so many holes in that story. If god knew the future, why would he tempt them by putting the tree there to start with, and if god is unable to lie, why did he tell them they would die that very day if they ate of the fruit? Why would he condemn every descendent of A & E just for disobeying one arbitrary rule?

And why was the snake invited?

@Jk1960 -- That's possible. I'll have to check around.

4

Because ‘god’ told them not to eat it - their ‘sin’ was disobedience to ‘god.’. He didn’t want them to eat it because then they’d ‘have knowledge of good and evil.’ Wanted to keep them in the dark...ignorant and foolish...kind of like is still happening...brain washing still works.

4

I know a lot of people take Genesis literally but I've always considered it an allegory that's deeply flawed. If we are to assume this "god/creator" has the power to create all life, then we would have to see his Adam and Eve creations as defective. Why did he have to "test" them in the first place? And if he is all-knowing of all things at all times, wouldn't he have known how this "test" would turn out?

I have always considered the real purpose of Genesis was to establish and justify male dominance with the message that women will deceive and manipulate men if men do not control them. It took no less than the figure of Satan himself who had to work at manipulating and persuading Eve but it took Eve very little effort to persuade Adam. Personally, I see this as depicting the woman as the superior intellect. Satan is portrayed as equally god-like so it is significant that he chose Eve and not Adam as the one he would have to convince himself. He left Eve to persuade Adam.

We see it today in how many of the world's religions subjugate women and even how evangelical Christians use the Bible to claim male dominance over women.

4

They had to sin all the time since the bible never mentions Santa bringing them a single present.

4

Excellent question and one the ones I asked as an 8 year old that got me EXPELLED from Sunday School BUT only after I was chastised in front of the entire Congregation.

In religion, doubt is the greatest sin.

3

How could they sin if they didn't exist, and there was no god to sin against?

3

Just one of the Christian conundrums. One of my favorites is labelling some act 'unnatural'. If it's being done, it's natural. And, what about the old chestnut -- "God doesn't make mistakes". So explain to me babies born with horrible deformities; children who starve to death or are trafficked or killed; or any of the terribly cruel things that happen in this world.In the case of Adam and Eve, isn't it a really nasty trick to create something as appealing as possible, make it forbidden, and set it in front of innocents. Is God just the ultimate sadist?

3

Makes zero sense...
God ( not real) was a sociopath telling Adam and Eve not to touch the fruit on the tree of knowledge...and if they did they would have committed the first sin....lmao...meanwhile logic would be wanting to obtain knowledge ...

That is a very good point. So the Bible starts out by criminalizing their desire for knowledge...Thats a great start to stockholm syndrome!

3

That's the problem ? I wanna know who their sons had sex with ! Quiet some busy people they all were 😂😂😂🦇🦇🦇🦇

Adam was the furthest back they could remember. The word Eve means life bearer and the Sumerian word for rib also means life bearer. Looks like the play on words got transferred into Hebrew after they forgot (or almost forgot) what it was all about. It's just possible Adam had fled the infilling Black Sea or Gulf. Eden may have been near lake Urmia and the area may have been called Aratta. And yes the details are mostly in the form of fables. Yes they had known sin before and there were more people to kmkarry / couple up with.

The first few pages of the Bible could cover less than 10 % of human history. The story called "creation" is literally neither creation nor evolution but some incident of land reappearing (oceanologists have looked into this). Scripture was meant to be visual aids or coat hooks on which a teaching was hung. Fundamentalists forget the teaching. Moreover they are not supposed to be haranguing the general public. Reconstructing hypotheses from the past is never going to be 100 %.

We need to keep hypothses on the table. It's our world and our humanity. If we aren't interested in the teachings we don't have to worry about them. The teachings have their own basis that needn't concern who doesn't want. Reading the text basically doesn't oblige. The teachings are usually mangled up totally so we should get church authorities out of our hair if we want. I knew bad dynamics in churches and that upset me as well as twisted teachings.

3

The only reference to an Adam and an Eve comes from an unbelievable document.

Sin? What is sin? One man's "Sin" is another man's holy act.

If you don't believe in religion, or are Christian, the entire question is pointless.

3

You've heard of Catch-22? Adam and Eve fell for Catch-1.

3

Your asking the wrong people. If you want to trip people up you ask people who believe in it. My favorite is this
Q: God knows everything right?
A: Yes
Q: so he knows the Future?
A:Yes
Q: With 100% accuracy?
A: Yes
Q: So he knew that Adam and Eve would eat the fruit even if he told them not to there by letting sin into the world?
A: Yes
Q: Then why make the Tree or sin at all?

@Gwendolyn2018 he does not need to cause the future as I see it. The very fact that there is a future to know removes a way for you to act in any other way. The implication of 100% certainty of future events means those events will necessarily happen other wise god would be wrong. If god could be wrong that would circumvent this but then he doesn't have omniscience. The very fact that some one knows the future will happen in one way and one way only means you can’t act in any other way than you were programmed to act. My second problem is Adam and Eve never knew right from wrong in the story. And if you don’t really know what is right and what is wrong how could you know you were makeing the wrong decision. At the same time god also created the serpent again knowing what it would do. And if humans were graced with free will then that decision really should have been ours to make without bias or with counterknowledge. There are a number of problems with this each being able to be explored further.

@Gwendolyn2018 precisely but if he is claiming to have created the very paradigm in which he knows the future then he did cause it full stop. How ever if he could not stop then he is not all powerful and there is no true justifiable reason as to why our sin is our fault. Nor is there any reason to be saved as we were all doomed from the very beginning. Either way we spin this it is a problem that Christians must work around and I’m not sure that can be done.

2

Fairy tales.

2

According to the Genesis story, they were instructed by their creator not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. But they chose to disregard this command, and immediately thereafter felt a sense of guilt, so the story goes. Bottom line, much like children they knew what they were doing wasn't allowed, but they did it anyway, and they felt awful afterward. In other words, they had knowledge of right and wrong. All of this is, of course, a fable ... but one that is worth discussing.

2

This is easy. God said "don't" and they did. The hard part was coming up with that talking snake.

2

Sticking to the biblical text, Adam and Eve's "sin" was disobedience. One way or the other, the tree was the source of "the knowledge of good and evil." It gave humans a conscience. Without knowing right from wrong they were obviously unable to establish that what they did, (disobey God), was wrong. The culpable one in this story was God himself (itself). Being omniscient (all knowing) he knew in advance what the outcome would be. He set the first lady up by placing her in temptation's way. It was a little like placing a bowl of jelly beans in front of your two year old with the unreasonable expectation they could avoid grabbing a fistful. You as a parent would be guilty of setting your child up for a type of test. One you knew they would fail. Then you punish them. Shame on you. This fantasy was written by Moses. He was truly ignorant, judgemental and very misogynistic.

2

When you go to a movie, you know that it is fiction and it is your job to leave your disbelief at the ticket window. If it is the job of the movie maker to make the plot reasonable enough that you don't inadvertently retrieve your disbelief in the middle of the movie. It would be a gross understatement to say that the bible is deficient in this respect.

IOW --- The bible is so full of holes that it would be laughable if it wasn't so sad.

Did you ever hear the term -- Great Awful -- ? Something, book or movie, that's so bad that it's hilarious. Or like the English Bulldog, so damn ugly, they're cute. That's what the bible would be if nobody took it seriously.

2

There are a lot of holes in the whole creation story anyways.

Mr_Dj Level 5 Dec 6, 2017

As a Theologian and a Life-Long Atheist I can safely state categorically that the bible has more holes in the any Kitchen Colander.
Take Genesis for example, Trees and plants are 'created' days before the Sun is, so how do the photosynthesising plants survive and grow WITHOUT sunlight to stimulate photosynthesis in the first place?
God says, ( in the plural form btw), "Let US make man in OUR own image." Ergo God is speaking BUT to whom and why is god speaking in plural IF there is, as the 'Faithfool' believe, ONLY ONE ( 1) God and No others exist?
Then later in Exodus, God is purported to say to Moses, "I ( note here the SINGULAR) am the Lord, your God." How did God suddenly change from the Plural to the Singular?
Was there a wee bit of a "Clash of the Gods" and the rest were exiled leaving the Judaeo-Christian- Islamic God as the 'new' Zeus/Jupiter perhaps?
Ask this of any 'Faithfool' and watch the tirades of drivel/threats and curses spew forth in an endless torrent.

So how did we come to be?

2

Dude it was a setup. God is all knowing. 🙂

2

They could not sin because such an idea is a fallacy.

2

what will be god without a "Got Cha".

1

If Adam and Eve, Adam's second wife, did not eat the apple then their story has no content. Without the apple the story stops.

i guess eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is something we all do, at least in the west. Its strictly an analogy, eh?

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