We will begin this analysis in the same manner as we did for our Jewish brothers by establishing the Christian perspective of God. This task may prove to be time-consuming. The Christians like the Jews say that they are Monotheistic. But, unlike the Jews, Christians don’t have a single universally accepted concept of what God is.
The majority of Christians are Trinitarians. (1) They believe that God exists in a Godhead (2) consisting of God the Father, the Creator of all, God the Son, Jesus Christ (p.b.u.h), and God the Holy Ghost, the promised Comforter.
There is another group of Christians called Binitarians; (3) they reject the Trinitarian view of God. Their claim is that God exists in a dual godhead namely God the Father, and God the Son.
They say that while Jesus (p.b.u.h.) was alive he had no divinity. They say, after his resurrection, he became a part of the Godhead as a dual God. It is also their belief that The Holy Ghost is a part of God the Father, not an individual entity. The third group is the Unitarians. (4)
Their belief is that God is one, not two, or three in a godhead. Their belief is the closest to true Monotheism. However, there is another group that believes that there is only Jesus. They exert that Jesus is the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Each of these groups rejects the other’s views.
These views are also rejected by the Jews and Muslims with the only exception being that of the Unitarians. The Unitarians say that Jesus never claimed divinity, nor did he teach Trinity or Binitarianism.
At the core of all these beliefs is that God is the Creator, He is Love, He is Kind, and He is Merciful, Omniscient, and Omnipotent.
The questions that arise here are, is He just, all Knowing and or Forgiving? We will examine these questions according to Christian’s view of the events of the Garden of Eden.
Seeing that the Christians and Jews follow the same scripture, some of the verses used to analyze the Jewish perspective will now be analyzed to bring forward the Christian perspective. Where the Chumash was used to analyze the Torah the King James Scofield Study Bible 3rd edition (5) will be used to analyze the Bible.
One of the differences that will be realized is that the Jews view a situation as metaphorical the Christians may view it as literal. A good example of this can be found in the following verse:
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. (6)
Here she says, “they heard the sound of the LORD God walking” We established earlier that our Jewish brothers believe any physical mention of God is only to be taken metaphorically, however, the majority of our Christian brothers believe that God literally walked through the Garden denoting God has a physical body.
This is one of the main reasons that Most Christians don’t have a problem with saying God came to earth as a man. Now that we have that out of the way we will begin this discourse. The first verse that we will discuss will be the same one that began the Jewish discourse.
And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” (7)
According to the Scofield commentators, Man was created in innocence, placed in a perfect environment, subjected to a simple test, and warned of the consequences of disobedience. He was not compelled to sin but was tempted by Satan; he chose to disobey God. (8)
This is very interesting. According to the commentary Adam freely chose to disobey God. Nowhere is it mentioned that mankind made the same decision on their own.
However, Adam’s eating of the tree was the cause according to Christianity that made man become an inherent sinner. Continuing with the commentary, “the seeds of death were planted” with the eating of this fruit, this again implies that men were made to live forever. We will use the same verse in this instance to refute this claim that was used in the Jewish discourse.
The verse (9) that Adam must be expelled from the garden lest he “put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever. Why would there be a need for a tree of life if in man’s creation it was determined that he would live forever?
The commentators have said, “There was, evidently some virtue in the fruit of this tree which would prolong physical life indefinitely.
There would be no need to prolong a life that was eternal, to begin with. The other verse that was examined was: “from dust, you were made and to dust, you will return”. (10) The commentators say that this is a physical death, (11) but the Bible itself gives no distinction on the type of death that was being discussed.
Adam was made from dust as a needy being. In the Garden of Eden time did exist and we must ask the question again was a man the only creation destined to live forever or did his sin cause all to die?
This “original sin ideology” seems to be a fallacy when it comes to death because God is the only living that will not die. Keeping with the format we must discuss the serpent and its role according to our Christian brothers. The same verses will be used to discuss the Christians’ beliefs on the matter.
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ “4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (12)
The commentators here unlike the Rabbis go right to saying that the serpent was used by Satan. Here we have a problem because the Bible never gives the time of Satan’s fall. According again to the commentators, they say, for the fall of Satan refers to:
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, You who weakened the nations! 13 For you have said: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High”.(13). (14)
Where do these verses establish the fall of Satan? Again they don’t know when Satan was expelled but they keep persisting that the serpent was used by Satan. That too should be questioned because according to them Satan was only called “serpent”(15) “And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him”.
Now, this is amazing, the Christians are saying that in all of the Old Testament and all the way up to Revelations chapter 12 in the New Testament there is no mention of Satan being referred to as a serpent and this was in a dream. Where did this come from?
None of the Prophets nor did Jesus Christ himself while he walked this earth make such a statement. It would make perfect sense that Satan used the serpent because it would explain how the serpent became so knowledgeable about God and how to use deception.
But that still leaves the question of, why was Satan so interested in Adam’s disobedience to his Lord. From the Bible all we can do is speculate, this will be addressed later. The verses on punishment are what will be looked into now. I hate being redundant but these verses are pretty straightforward. The first to be punished was the serpent:
And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: 15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel (16). Christian scholars have stated that the serpent was Satan. (17)
We are faced with a problem here. At the end of this section, you will find that everyone that participated in the act of Adam and Eve eating from the forbidden tree was punished. Or so we think. If the serpent and Satan were one and the same why didn’t God announce the punishment of Satan? Was the serpent a willing participant in cahoots with Satan? The Bible answers this beautifully: Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’? (18) This verse shows that the serpent was the most cunning beast, furthermore, it says, “he said to the woman”, showing that the serpent acted on his on. If not the verse should have read like this: And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel (19).
This is the “word” of God. Why would God put emphasis on Satan provoking David to number Israel and not on him using the serpent for his evil bidding? This makes no sense. The serpent was forced to go on his belly and eat dust and Satan if he provoked him gets away without even being mentioned for the part he played, this is unjust! The next to be punished was Eve, and again a part of her punishment was to be shared with the serpent:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow, thou shalt bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee” (20)
As if this was not enough for a punishment Adam blamed Eve for their disobedience, and the early Church Fathers took it to the worst extreme. (21)
They place all the blame on Eve for evil entering the world. There are many references that can be read to confirm this allegation from priests such as St. Jerome (347 – 419 AD); Ambrosiaster (4th Century AD); St. Chrysostom etc…
I will only quote here from one priest in the interest of time that priest is Tertullian (155-245 AD) who said, “(“Every woman should be …) walking about as Eve mourning and repentant, in order that by every garb of penitence she might the more fully expiate that which she derives from Eve,-the ignominy, I mean, of the first sin, and the odium (attaching to her as the cause) of human perdition.
“In pains and in anxieties dost thou bear (children), woman; and toward thine husband (is) thy inclination and he lord sit over thee.”
And do you not know that you are (each) an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too.”
- are the devil’s gateway!
- are the unsealer of that (forbidden) tree!
- are the first deserter of the divine law!
- are she who persuaded him (Adam) whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack!
- destroyed so easily God’s image, man!
- On account of what you deserved-that is, death-even the Son of God had to die!”
“And do you think about adorning yourself over and above your tunics of skins?”
Even after all of this, God never mentioned anything about Eve passing the “sin” to her children while meting out punishment.
This opinion, like others, is beginning to show who their true authors are. They are the imaginations of the Church. All praises are due to God because it is virtually impossible to find a Church that still holds on to this erroneous opinion.
The last to be punished was Adam, And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt, thou eat of it all the days of thy life; 18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; 19
In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. (22)
Continued on the next article http://The Fall of Adam in Christian Perception 2
By: Hanif Mohammad
NOTES:
_____________________________
- Trinity http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinity
- Godhead- Webster Meridian- divine nature or essence of God.
- Binitarian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binitarianism
- Unitarian http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarianism
- King James Scofield Study Bible 3rd edition Oxford University Press Inc. New York, NY 2002…on web 1917 edition http://www.studylight.org/com/srn/
- Gen. 3:8
- Gen 2:16-17
- Scofield page 5
- Gen. 3:22
- Gen. 3:19
- Scofield page 8
- Gen 3:1-5
- Isa. 14:12-14
- Ibid
- in Rev. 12:9
- Gen. 3:14-15
- Rev. 12:9
- in Gen. 3:1
- 1 Chron. 21:1
- Gen. 3:15-16”
- http://www.womenpriests.org/traditio/sinful.asp
- Gen. 3:17-19
