Does the Bible's parable of Adam and Eve mean that the acquisition of knowledge will always lead to death?

Answer 1

No - the parable means that disobedience to God results in death.

Answer 2

Number 1: The story of Adam and Eve is NOT a parable. It is an event recorded by Moses, dictated by God himself on the mountain in the wilderness of Sinai.

The knowledge of good and evil was reserved by God to teach his creation, not by experience, but demonstration. Man circumvented the process through succumbing to temptation and disobedience. So, the process was prolonged. God know, of course, what device satan would use and what Adam was about to do, but He had the Plan of the Ages already predestined.

God promotes the acquisition of knowledge through His process and not through any 'shortcuts' that may be devised by His creation.

Answer 3

The story of Adam and Eve was not a parable.

The point of the tree was that there was only one thing that was required to live in unity with God, and that was trusting him that he made the right decisions for you. Even then, you had to have "faith" in God.

If you have the knowledge of good and evil, then you now know the opposite of what God is... giving you more opportunities to fall away from God. God knew that evil is very enticing, and so he gave man the choice to choose to know the difference, or to choose to trust him that he would take care of them.

Obviously, the chose to know the difference.

Answer 4

Not exactly, but close. The womb is the garden of eden home to adam, red earth or the body and eve, the soul.

It is a steady state existence with no opposites. You come out of the womb, garden of eden into the world of the knowledge of good and evil and shure nough by and by you die. Everyone hits that exit.

The story of Adam and Eve was told by Moses to a simple slave people. He was trying to bolster them spiritually so that they could face the coming difficulties. It isn't appropriate to our time or level of development but it certainly was right for them.

The snake was the symbol of the intellect and the brain of the fetus secreted a hormone called pitosin into the mothers bloodstream to start the trip down the birth canal into the world of the knowledge of good and evil.

Answer 5

To gain a greater understanding of the Fall in the Garden of Eden, you need to truly read and study Genesis. It was not the "acquisition of knowledge" that created the Fall. It was eating of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." God was protecting us from the evil part of life which is why that was the only tree they could not eat from.

The death you refer to is not physical death, it is spiritual death. God put angels around the "Tree of Life" in order to keep man from eating of that tree as well. For if they did, they would be condemned to everlasting separation from God and there would be no opportunity for salvation. And they were sent out into the world to further protect them and to set up God's plan for salvation.

Very simplistic synopsis of Genesis, but it gets the main points across. It is very interesting reading if you are interested.

Be blessed.

Answer 6

No, the account of Adam and Eve shows us that braking God's commands lead to death.

Answer 7

I believe the knowledge being referred to here is more of a carnal knowledge, because in other books of the bible knowledge (biblical/spiritual) is referred to as "life" both here on earth and afterlife or as important and necessary. See the book Proverbs and even Psalms and even some of the New Testament.

Answer 8

Out of context again... It is the knowledge of good and evil.
Since that time, we have been responsible for what we do; right or wrong.. good or bad. It speaks of the death of our relationship with God, face to face, and with our relationships with one another. When we offend anyone, the relationship suffers and dies without the forgiveness by the one who is wronged. It requires repentance, a heartfelt desire of the one who did the wrong to make amends, to change their ways so as not to do it again and a genuine sorrow for causing the harm or hurt. God has provided a way to restore our relationship with Him, through His Son, Jesus Christ. There is no other name by which we can be redeemed and come to the Father.

Answer 9

That's one way of reading it.

I think that the question ought to be, why did the authors (or editors) of this creation myth choose the snake/serpent as their symbolic representation of "evil" temptation?

To understand that, we'll have to look at some other religious symbolism...the snake was a holy symbol for some of the polytheistic religions of the time; a symbol of rebirth, and sometimes fertility, associated with Goddesses. A very famous statue of a Minoan Goddess shows her snakes:

http://witcombe.sbc.edu/snakegoddess/...

Snakes are associated with prophecy and wisdom - and Goddesses - in several places, such as Egypt, Sumer, Crete, and Greece. In Egypt, the female deity of pre-dynastic northern (Lower) Egypt was the cobra goddess Ua Zit. Egyptian deities and royalty has a uraeus emblem - a head and hood of a cobra. Some Sumerian Goddesses, such as Inanna, were associated with snakes. In Minoan-era Crete, we find some statuettes of goddesses or priestesses with snakes. In one case, the snakes are cobras. In Greece, in what is most likely a Minoan legacy, Hera and Athena were associated with snakes, and the shrines of Delphi, Olympia, and Dodona were originally associated with goddesses. However, they were taken over by the followers of the male gods Zeus and Apollo, who were depicted as snake-killers. Even then, the greatest wisdom was associated with priestesses.

The snake (together with the cup or chalice and the raven, and still associated with new forms of old Goddess-worshiping religious practices) is also resident in the sky as a constellation

AND fruit tress have been sacred to Goddesses rather than Gods in many cultures.

Examined in light of this, the Adam and Eve story is quite interesting, and it answers the question of why the snake/serpent in this creation story tempted Eve rather than Adam. In a struggle to establish a male tribal God as the only God of a people, it would naturally be women who were most reluctant to give up religious practices and religious thought that gave them the same rights to holiness as men, and an equal place in society. And it also makes perfect sense that the snake or serpent would be symbolic of the Goddess-oriented religions that posed a threat to the establishment of the Hebrews' tribal God as the only God.

The Adam and Eve creation myth clearly sets men up as being superior to women. The resistance of women to embracing both a religion and a society in which they were inferior to men can be seen as the theme of this creation myth. In the symbolic language of myth, this is a story about how women rejected the tribal God of the Hebrews and the limitation on their freedoms.

Of course, since it is written from the point of view of enthusiastic followers of the religion of the tribal God of the Hebrews, this rejection had to be portrayed as something evil, with dire punishments falling on the women who didn't submit to the authority of this tribal God or the societal rules of a male-dominated culture.

Answer 10

It was the acquisition of the knowledge of evil that lead to their fall.

Answer 11

it means primarily that if you dosobey God, this will lead to a spirtual death..and eventually a physical one.

it never said that God designed Adam to die....Adam had a glorifed body and could have lived forever.

when he sinned, he experienced a spiritual death (separation from Goda0 and finally a physical death. God showed some mercy and let him live awhile though before this happened.