Man was cast out of Eden in the story and forced to live elsewhere on Earth. What exactly was wrong with the rest of Earth that made that a punishment?
Why was it wrong? Did God just decide he was only going to make a small part of Earth perfect?
If there was nothing wrong with the rest of it then is it the nature of man that makes Earth imperfect?
If it is the nature of man that makes it imperfect then if we change our nature will we recreate Eden?
2006-08-03 06:15:29 · 12 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
In Judaism we have a term called Tikkun Olam which means repairing the world. It lines up with your last question
If it is the nature of man that makes it imperfect then if we change our nature will we recreate Eden? The belief is yes it will
2006-08-03 06:25:09 · answer #1 · answered by Quantrill 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
i'm afraid i don't realy understand ur question. God created Adam and Eve and they were perfect. They were in the garden of Eden which was full of trees and animals. Bible doesn't say if animals could die or not but it is possible that they died (otherwise how could God expect Adam to understand what dieing is if being disobedient). man sinned and so broght imperfection to him and the earth as well (read Genesis first chapters). imperfection is not something that man can cure (Romans 5:12, 23).
God's purpose as stated in Gen 1:28, was the the earth was full of perfect ppl. God has taken actions to fulfill his initial purpose, cause he fulfills all of his purposes. Through God's Kingdom (Dan 2:44) that purpose will b fulfilled.
2006-08-03 06:33:12 · answer #2 · answered by James Blond 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Eden was supposed to be paradise and the rest of the world was not. I guess it was to show mankind the difference. I feel that god made man, and therefore knew exactly what was going to happen. The big question is if he already knew the answer why did he bother?
2006-08-03 06:20:09 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Oh wow ignorance at its highest level I simply can not believe people still think Adam and eve where real people and that our religious leaders still promote all this crap, man has walked on this world long before the bible was even written, they lived and hunted together they had children they evolved to what we are today and by the way God was there then to, it was only the time of mosses that I quote "MAN" he made all the rules at that time and when the tribes split again "MAN" continued to make new rules and when Christ arrived as a "MAN" he made new rules and years and years later after the death of Christ, guess what another set of new rules, then religious leaders split and started new ministries there are so many today I can't count them all and they all have a set of rules for you, and their no 1 rule is power money and control it is simply using and abusing our creator for their benefit it saddens me that people buy into it, religion is the biggest money making industry in the world today.
2006-08-03 07:03:15 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are plenty of ways to view the story. Which makes it all very interesting until some people take it too seriously and say it's a science text or that we must live our lives according to their reading of it.
As I read it, the non-eden part of the world was imperfect to begin with, at least from a human perspective. Eden handed humans everything they wanted on a silver platter- trees that needed no tending to provide all the fruit they needed. The story implies, but doesn't state outright, that our digestive systems at the time made eating fruit all we needed nutritionally. Presumably carnivores got by just fine on figs at the time. Then when we were kicked out into the rest of the planet we had to do the work ourselves- plant and weed and harvest and hunt and kill. There must have been plants there already, just not easy to get food off of without a lot of cultivation by us.
Perfection's a tricky concept, though. Believers say we were made perfect. But we were made far less than God- we do not know what he knows and we could not understand much about him even if we had the facts. How can we have such imperfect knowledge and intelligence and still be perfect? It takes a warped sense of the word perfect to say that we were. God knew right from wrong in the story, we didn't. Yet we were still supposed to have been perfect. As Fezzik says in the Princess Bride when the Sicilian keeps saying "inconceivable": I don't think that word means what you think it means.
So you are, I think, right in reading the story to say that the rest of the world was less ideal (or perfect) than Eden to begin with. It wasn't just the sinful nature of man that ruined it, otherwise there would be no need to kick us out of Eden- we would have transformed Eden into a worse place.
But it couldn't be that man's sinful nature is what ruined things. Many Christians argue that God couldn't abide evil so once Man disobeyed he had to kick us out of Eden. But that's just bad reading comprehension. After all, God could abide Satan himself (in the Christian version of the story) to live and thrive in Eden. The Evil Tempter was there supposedly lying and talking against God and that posed no problem to God. Eden was still considered perfect even with the lies and blasphemy and evil of the serpent. So it can't be the presence of Evil that ruined Eden.
Which means it's more a matter of having to live in a place where you work for yourself and strive and struggle to make a living that makes this world so much worse than eden. That and the presence of all this death. Lions can no longer have a little fruit compote for brunch- they have to kill. And even if we change our natures so that we make things easier, we'll still have to work at our world to make it as we wish. Is that a bad thing? probably not. How much incentive was there in the story when humans lived a pampered life where everything was handed to them?
I see it as primarily a story of coming of age (but one that blames the child for maturing, not one that sees approaching adulthood as a good thing.) As adults, we could no longer live in our parent's house and get fed and have all our needs taken care of for us. So even if we change our nature you can't go home again- you have to remain adults looking after yourself instead of relying on god for everything. And that's a good thing. If only people would stop trying to please the god in the story so that he'd let us all move back into his attic.
sorry for the rambling, I don't feel like editing for coherence.
2006-08-03 06:53:26 · answer #5 · answered by thatguyjoe 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Eden was perfect and a place on earth where everything would be given to mankind and they would live a blissful life, but when kicked out of Eden mankind would have to do everything themselves. They would experience pain from then on.
2006-08-03 06:22:43 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
the metaphor is eden had the tree of life which when you eat the fruit you have the strength to stand in the prescense of god,
so thats whats wrong with earth is it doesnt have the tree of life
according to christians we need to believe in jesus so when we die we can get access to that tree of life
the tree of life is in genesis and in revelation and its very poetic
2006-08-03 06:21:30 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Here's a hint: Wyoming is east of Eden.
2006-08-03 06:20:13 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Eden was a paradise
2006-08-03 06:26:53 · answer #9 · answered by lucky 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There was nothing wrong with it, it just wasn't paradise like Eden.
2006-08-03 06:20:24 · answer #10 · answered by BeeFree 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋