CHRISTIANS: What do you think the "forbidden fruit" represents?

Question

some say that Adam and Eve gained knowledge of sex after being tempted, as a result, they lost their child-like innocence (paradise?) and entered the real world.
what are your thoughts?

is it a literal story or metaphorical?

Answer 1

I think that it is literal truth that they ate a fruit. The fruit was sin. It made them question God and not trust God. As a result many of us became fools. For the least of God's wisdom exceeds the wisest on earth.

Answer 2

Adam and Eve missed the point of the warning of the forbidden fruit. They should have taken the fruit of life first and then the forbidden fruit. At least, they would be still alive. And the world will be full of people so much so no child birth policy would be in place. You and I would never have chance of being born.

In fact, if Adam and Eve were fast enough they could have taken the fruit of life as well before they were driven out of Eden. You see after taken the fruit, they were so blind, or stupid which means the effect of the forbidden fruit did not help them to be wise as the Devil.

I think the Devil was also stupid. He should have asked Adam and Eve to take the fruit of life and then the forbidden fruit or plucked the two fruits and ate them up together. See how God would then respond. The Bible would then be written differently.

Anyway, I think God would certainly have a solution for that.

So the answer is it represents that the human race becomes more confused to know the differences between what is right and what is wrong. Do I need to highlights the confusions you see happening in the world?

Answer 3

I think Adam and Eve were real people, and DNA evidence says we're all descended from a single black woman from Africa. I remember seeing a show on basic cable about recent findings near the base of Mt. Arrarat were scientists think the Garden of Eden actually existed. So it was probably a real place too.

Eating the forbidden fruit was a metaphor for whatever it was Adam and Eve did to disobey God. It certainly wasn't just merely a piece of fruit. I don't think it was sex as some have speculated. I don't think the serpent had t be a literal talking snake, but it represented Lucifer (and no, Lucifer is not the same entity as Satan.)

Answer 4

I'll have to (partly) introduce myself first. I'm LDS (read "Mormon" or "member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints"), and we have the Word of Wisdom, which is a sort of health code, which elaborates on another commandment, like some do; in this case, that our bodies are the Lord's temple.

Now, this is obviously by no means the *whole* story, but Adam and Eve took something into their bodies that they shouldn't have (in a sense), and it shortened their lives, and made them mortal, just like smoking (say) shortens the life of the smoker.

That's it. Granted, it's a bit simplistic, but that's our belief.

Answer 5

Oh boy. I'm sorry I need to be alittle bit wordy. It is not only literal according to the manuscripts, but it is one of the most vitally important things you will read in the Bible. There is no apple in the story, however. Eve was beguiled by satan. Beguiled means "wholly seduced". Yes, she had sex with satan. Satan himself was the tree of good/Evil, and Christ was the tree of Life;
After Adam and Eve sinned, they sewed fig leaves together to make what? Masks to hide their mouths? Nope. They made aprons to hide their private parts - the parts they were ashamed of due to the sin. So, God told satan a few things, and then turned to Eve and told her that He (God) would multiply her conceptions. He did just that. She was pregnant. One pregnancy, two sacks, of two different fathers. It can even happen today, there have been cases where the two twins were even of different races - Anyway, she gave birth to twins - Cain and Abel. Abel was Adams Son, but Cain was satans son.
This was satans's first attempt (in the flesh) at polluting the pure blood line that womb to womb was to come the Christ child.
Cain was thrown out of the garden, and God placed a mark on him. Ever hear of the mark of the beast?? Well, this is the beginning of the mark right here in Genesis in the garden.
Cain went to the land of Nod, where many of the races of the 6th day creation were living, and he found and married his wife.
Cain had many children, and you can find them in the Bible - they are called "Kenites", and it means "sons of cain". They even made it through the flood of Noah, and you will find them doing scribe-work for the tribe of Judah, in 1Chronicles 2:55, alive and well. These decendants of Satan could not farm or grow anything, because of the mark, so they mixed in and around Judea and called themselves "Jews". Now, there are two legal ways that you can be called a "jew", which is just a short form of Judah. First, you can be born of the blood line of the tribe of judah, or second, you can live in the geographical location of the town of Judea. Bingo. thats what they did. They lived there, and became scribes, lawyers, judges, and even priests in the synagogues, if you can imagine that. Anywhere where they can get in a power position, you will be sure to find them. Yes, they are here today.
Do you see how deep this rabbit hole actually goes?
Check out Revelation chapter one and start reading; you will find that John is taken in the spirit to the Lords Day, which is the day that the Lord will return, future to where we are today. John is told to send messages to seven churches. Out of 7 of them, Christ only approves of two of them. Both of those churches teach the exact same thing: Who are the Kenites?????
When Christ was talking with the high priests at the Temple, and He told them: "If you were of God, you would love me, for I was sent from HIm, but you can't even understand my speech; You are of your father the devil, and the deeds you will do; he was a liar from the beginning (genesis) and the father of it." (quickie shortened form).
Also, God told a parable, and said that if you don't understand this parable, you won't understand any of His parables:
The parable of the Tares (God explains it to the apostles in plain language, not a parable) Matthew 13:18
He who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man
The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one;
the enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels.
They lost more than their childlike innocense; they were told that they would not live more than one day; In fact, if you check out how long everybody lived in the Bible accounts, you will see that nobody made it to 1000 years (one day with the Lord is as a thousand years). Everything in the Bible makes perfect sense.
Unfortunately, many do not hear the truth of what the Book says, they instead hear only what some pastor says. And thats a real shame. Again, sorry so wordy.

The

Answer 6

It represents a guilt trip for the religious leaders to use on their
followers at a moronic level characteristic of those times where knowledge was scarce...Look at the father of psychiaty and what he thought :
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
- [Religion] Sigmund Freud

Answer 7

The Bible tells us that God wants us to be "simple concerning evil." In other words, He doesn't want us crossing over any lines to experiment with, to test out, or to engage in any type of sinful activity - not even one time!

Instead of fruit being on this tree, imagine that there was a bag of pot, a bag of cocaine or a bag of heroin. God’s original plan and design for all of us was that we not even attempt to experiment, even one time, with anything that is sinful such as some of the above items. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death.

That is my thoughts on it.

Answer 8

The Almighty gave mankind a fantastic gift of sex love and marriage. When you take it apart, you destroy it. The temptation was to pride, selfishness, and worshiping (by obedience) the false mighty one, the serpent. They already had the gift of sex!

Answer 9

Knowledge without Love.

Which is the lack of Wisdom.

Answer 10

It is a symbolic presentation of the power that temptation brings to man's awareness and to his consciousness. Since we are tempted constantly to sin, in its multitude of ways, it brings us to the awareness that satan, whom Jesus called the "tempter" is around and about all of us, presenting and enticing us to succumb to these temptations.
But that is the only power satan today retains - all he can do is tempt now. Prior to Jesus's blood sacrifice of his own blood and body on the cross as the blood sacrifice the old testament required for sin to be removed, satan had much more power - he had access to heaven - he appeared before God like a prosecutor, so when deceased souls appeared before God, he could point out their sins, and demand their punishment in hell.
(Job 1-2, Zechariah 1-2). But when Jesus was going to the cross, he said "I see satan falling from heaven" - the meaning of which, is that Jesus defeated satan by His sacrifice of his own body for sin - something that had to be done and only be done by a sinless person - and since we all sin, no other man's death could accomplish that result. That's how satan became restricted to this world, left, no longer with the power to appear before God and condemn sinners, but only with the power to tempt. He uses that power ruthlessly, by leading men to sin thru that temptation, the same temptation he used to make Adam succumb to the beauty of the fruit and of the tree. All sin today is committed by satan's use of the power to tempt - for sex, for drugs, for crimes of all sorts, committed when men are victimized by satan thru his use of that power.