One of the earliest posts I did on this site was about the story of Adam and Eve. I argued that if eating the forbidden fruit was really what gave Adam and Eve the ability to distinguish right from wrong, it was unjust for God to punish them for actions taken before they had such knowledge, and if the fruit did not grant them such knowledge, it seems completely bizarre and arbitrary for God to have set up this strange game in the first place.
The Christian blogger Canterrain has addressed some of my points in the post Apples, Death, and Punishment. (A while back, I found and commented on his earlier post on the topic, which started this back-and-forth.)
The first thing Canterrain discusses is an aspect of my summary. I wrote:
God lies to Adam and Eve and tells them that eating the fruit will cause them to die that day. (We know it’s a lie, because they do eat the fruit and that’s not what happens.)
I don’t think this is at all a central aspect to my key complaint about the story, the unjustness (or, alternatively, arbitrariness) of God’s response. However, Canterrain’s answer to my parenthetical note is actually a common excuse Christians offer for scriptural oddities, and I think it’s ultimately very telling, so I’ll take a moment to respond to it.
Canterrain writes, “The problem herein lies in that NFQ is working from an English translation of the Bible.” And that is undoubtedly an issue. I certainly can’t read the Bible in its original Hebrew. The fact that most of the people reading the Bible today are reading a translation of a translation of a translation is definitely a problem, as far as conveying the (alleged) word of God is concerned.
If we agree on this much, though, we should move on to the next natural question: why is anyone reading the books of the Bible in anything other than the languages in which they were originally written? Teaching people the contents of the Bible in their own native languages seems like asking for trouble; you’re bound to misrepresent things and give them the wrong idea about God. Is it ever okay for me to read the Bible without the oldest known texts in front of me, and without years of training in ancient cultures and their languages’ idioms? It would seem not. It seems that only a very small percentage of people on the planet, real Biblical scholars, are at all qualified to read the Bible.
Remember also that even the Hebrew texts we have today are understood (by these same scholars) to be assembled from several different versions of the stories that make up the Bible. Only written down after generations of oral tradition, they were then lost and rewritten and edited numerous times. Sections were added in, and sections were tossed out. Even if you accept that God revealed the stories in the Torah directly to someone using Hebrew words, there’s really basically zero chance that the Hebrew we have today is perfectly representative of that original revelation. Even the most learned scholar couldn’t truly glean any certain knowledge from it.
But Canterrain wants to argue about the Hebrew anyhow. He says that the Hebrew corresponding to the last few words of Genesis 2:17 (KJV: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”) is more like “dying you shall surely die.” That string of words doesn’t actually make sense to me, but he says it essentially means that they became mortal, that they were now the sort of people who would die. Perhaps. I’ve heard this angle argued before. However, if this is the case, what’s up with Genesis 3:22, where God basically says, “We’d better get these humans out of Eden before they eat from the tree of life too, or they’ll be immortal!” — doesn’t this make it sound like they were mortal already?
Anyhow, he builds his case for this interpretation by also arguing that the word “day” in the Bible sometimes doesn’t mean a real day, and points to Genesis 2:4 as an example; here, “the day” seems to refer to six days. Except Genesis 2:4 is actually the first line of a second creation story in Genesis. You might notice that God already made people back in Genesis 1:27 — in fact, made man and woman at the same time — but for some reason apparently has to recreate the first man and later the first woman in chapter 2. (This is a good example of how the Hebrew we have reflects different stories, pieced together.)
Ultimately, I do think I get what Canterrain is going for, and I appreciate the fact that ancient languages sometimes have idioms that don’t translate well and which modern readers might miss. I’m not sure, though, how we’re ever supposed to be able to tell the difference between a “day” in the Bible that’s an actual day and a “day” that means something like the modern expression “back in the day.” (I’ve explained before why I don’t think “context” is a satisfactory solution.) It’s clearly quite a difficult problem.
The key difference between Canterrain and me here is that I actually think the millennia of retranslation and the impossibility of interpretation are grounds to reject the entire text as any kind of reliable basis for religious beliefs; it’s pretty clear to me that we can’t discern any definitive facts from it.
Nevertheless, people still do base their religious beliefs on the Bible, including Genesis. And even if those people have found a way to justify for themselves that God was not in fact lying to Adam and Eve, this is really separate from the real question I was raising about the Adam and Eve story: whether or not God’s reaction to them can be considered just.
I’ll continue with that question in my next post, Is God unjust?.
Jojo the hun on 
Aristarchus
/ June 20, 2010 at 10:39 am“Ancient Hebrew is incredibly hard to interpret correctly” is a good reason why lots of ways of reading the Bible are a bit dubious, and it’s definitely a reason why doctrines/practices based on a very particular passage are questionable, but it’s not really a reason why the thing can’t be true.
This is illustrative of the problem you posted about before where you’re arguing with lots of different versions of Christianity. This reasoning definitely refutes literalists very well, but I could easily imagine someone saying, “It’s really hard to interpret, and might have been copied wrong, and we can’t really rely on any of the details being correct, but clearly the original version, properly interpreted, did claim God existed, was very powerful, wanted people to be good, etc.” That would be enough for some of the more liberal versions of Judaism/Christianity. I don’t really know where Canterrain is on that spectrum, but it might be worth being more clear about what versions you are addressing in particular posts. (I know it’s hard – a big disclaimer before each post seems dumb… I’m not sure what the solution is.)
Canterrain
/ June 20, 2010 at 10:59 amAristarchus,
“It’s really hard to interpret…” etc. is not what I said at all. Which is among my many problems with this particular post. I don’t think it reflects any of what I -really- said at all. NFQ cut the substance to the point of turning my words into something else entirely, something I discussed on my own site.
NFQ,
In regards to your comment on my latest post,
I realize you split it in two, but the parts I say you ignored are the parts directly dealing with the section you put in your first post. I realized you intended to hit on the ‘not God is a liar’ sections with your next post.
Debate doesn’t upset me. Deep debate isn’t offensive to me. I’ve been in and around it for much of my life.
Accusing me of something, while doing that exact something is what I can’t agree with. And when I see it, I’m done. That’s what I saw here. Your tone often comes not off as, “You’re wrong.” but rather, “You’re an idiot.” And there’s no point in continuing that conversation. If that isn’t your intended tone, then I’d have to say there’s probably equal blame on both our parts for the tone coming across. (Along with the internet’s lack of tone).
Aristarchus
/ June 20, 2010 at 11:19 amCanterrain, the thing I put in quotes was my characterization of NFQ’s argument, not yours. I did however go back and read what she was responding to, and it seems totally fair of her to claim it’s implied by what you said. If something as seemingly obvious as the word “day” can actually mean something very different because it’s part of an archaic idiom, then fine. Maybe that line means something very different than it seems. But if that’s true, then you must certainly think it could be true other places too. If anything that seems to have obvious meaning can’t really be trusted until we check the ancient Hebrew for archaic idioms, then yes, the Bible is extremely difficult to interpret and we shouldn’t really trust that our interpretations don’t have many errors in them. As I said, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t believe it at all (I don’t think we should, but for other reasons), but it does mean we shouldn’t hang a lot of what we believe on very precise details of the interpretation.
NFQ
/ June 20, 2010 at 3:07 pmAristarchus: I see your point. I think my sweeping conclusions about the Bible as wholly unreliable aren’t ultimately based on quite this problem, but on the clear human (political, cultural, fallible) motives behind the Bible’s history. That’s closely related to the problems of translation, and the idioms, and the intermixing of different stories. But I do see how someone might conclude that the ancient texts of the Bible are enough to suggest that there is some sort of deity, etc., without staking that many claims on the precise words of the Bible. … I saw a really good documentary on this political history stuff a while back. I’ll see if I can find it online to post here.
Canterrain: I answered you where you left the very similar comment on your own blog.
prophet
/ October 21, 2011 at 4:25 pmi must agree. the bible was originally written in greek and hebrew so how can we know read the bible in a anglo saxon text and still get an accurate translation.this is my question though. Eve acted out of ignorance which god says is no excuse. the serpant came, is it possible that the serpant did not want worship for itself but to lead humankind out of the darkness that is ignorance? Adam followed his wife knowing what it meant but still chose his wife. this showed such a great amount of love why would God punish one for such an act. also, why would god punish anyone for trying to be delivered from ignorance and into the light of knowledge. why is it that he who increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. i know that these are a lot of questions but i really would like to finally know the truth. im a 17 year old kid that has asked the people in my town these questions but been branded a heratic for it. so pleas help me discover the truth. Does God Hide something behind the tree of knowledge?
joni
/ April 1, 2012 at 2:32 pmYou ask why does increased knowledge lead to increased sorrow i would say have you never heard ignorance is bliss. I personally believe that Genesis talks about Adam and Eve and their state of mind like that of a child who is still innocent and has no concept of nakedness or good or evil. And also of the difference of when suddenly they are aware. Once you are aware you can never go back to innocence. I would also argue that even a young child can know right and wrong and be held accountable for their actions and yet have no concept of good and evil yet and therefore still be innocent just as Adam and Eve. Did God hide something behind the tree of knowledge? No, God merely sought to have them remain innocent as any parent wishes for their own children. I would support my theory by Genesis chapter 4 verse 1 speaking of Adam knew Eve his wife and she conveived. No where prior to eating of the tree of knowledge was there mention of this type of behavior between the two which would be consist with innocence verses knowledge.
joni
/ April 1, 2012 at 2:33 pmmeant to say And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived.
joni
/ April 1, 2012 at 2:39 pmalso meant to say would be consistent