Of course! The Gemara is argumentative and dialectical. As with the interpretation of other texts a definitive interpretation is anathema to interpretive practice. The presumption of a definitive interpretation forestalls investigation. This does not mean, however, that even if possible, we should not interpret the texts.
So God lied!? Why do you think that God lie to them?
No, God didn’t lie. God meant they will die when they get old, which was true.
God certainly said to them that you die if you eat the fruit.
Good point. Yes I see your point. But in real life, it would be impossible to recreate the Garden of Eden situation.
The point attempted to emphasis was creator is not responsible for everything happens with the created or by the created.
They could have died on the spot, but God let them get away with it, and let them die when they get old?
Or maybe they didn’t eat the whole fruit. Just had a wee bite, which saved them from instant death, and allowed to die when old.
Absolutely. Everyone is free to interpret it according to their own views.
Where do you take that from? No verse in Genesis indicates that.
It is inference from the story.
Or maybe God lied! Anyhow, God punished them as a result of eating from the tree. The question is whether God is right or wrong?
But the OT doesn’t say God lied. It just says Adam and Eve disobeyed God, which made God angry. Hence God was right to do what he did. God is right.
Adam, Eve, and Satan committed the original sin, because Satan convinced Adam and Eve to sin, and they willingly followed along, despite being in regard of the consequences. An analogy is that, in regards to a large bank heist being committed, Satan would’ve been the mastermind of the heist, who wrote all of the plans, contingencies, and backups necessary for the heist to follow through, while Adam and Eve would’ve been his cohorts, since they decided to follow along with Satan’s plan to commit the heist, even if it would’ve been possible for them to have done otherwise. How God would play into this, is that he is the bank himself. In the same sense as God, as the bank, could’ve closed himself off completely, and so make it impossible for others to rob himself, God could’ve made it possible for Satan, Adam and Eve to not be able to rob the bank, and so to commit a crime. But this would create greater consequences, for if the bank was shut down entirely, it would create worse outcomes by making it impossible for other people to store and collect their money, which is a worse outcome than to leave the bank open, but make it possible for the bank to be robbed. This is how I see it; if we are not granted the ability to sin freely, despite its consequences, then greater consequences will follow, namely, that no rational minds, such as Satan, Adam and Eve, would have free choice, and so all three of them would become string-puppets to God’s benefit, which sounds (to me at least) far worse than any evil that any human, or non-human, could have the power to commit. I don’t know if you’ve discussed this matter anywhere at the moment (This thread is long, and what I’ve read of it so far seems to be rather unproductive dialogue), but this is my two cents on the matter.
Also—and I don’t know if you’ve discussed this yet—But infallible foreknowledge of outcomes does not equate to caused outcomes. For example, if I told my friend to flip a coin 10 times, and I knew in advance that the coin would get heads all 10 times—Even if my friend checked, and confirmed, that the coin was fair and unweighted—then it would indeed be very strange that I knew that the coin would get heads each time. But since the coin was fair, I played no part in the coin’s outcome—even if I knew the outcome—and so I cannot have been responsible for the final result.
If you are astute, I would expect you to reply something like, “Sure, it is true that mere foreknowledge of a future event doesn’t entail a direct responsibility of said future event. But God, who is described as the greatest possible being in Abrahamic Monotheism, and so is the grounds for everything that exists—including every background factor that would influence a rational being’s decision-making—is therefore the one responsible for your decision, rather than yourself.” But if you thought this to yourself, then I don’t think this argument follows, because it assumes an extremely strong form of determinism, which I don’t hold to, and many proponents of quantum mechanics don’t do so either, and have, through the field of quantum mechanics, found indeterminacy in physical systems, even in those where they can account for the causal factors for indeterminate effects. So, not only do I think there is room for free decision-making to take place in an indeterministic manner, but also, I would reject the premise that God is in any way the cause of someone’s free decision, merely the grounds of it. How I will analogize the distinction is that, if we are looking at a particular house, God would be the foundation of the house, and we (And other rational beings) are the walls of this house. One big thing that can be done using house walls is to install hanging shelves onto them, and for the purpose of analogy, we shall say that these shelves represent sinful actions. So, what would happen to the walls if the foundation didn’t exist? The walls would collapse, and so lose their use, which in this case represents the need for God to exist for rational beings to exist. But at the same time, if the walls didn’t exist, then neither could the shelves (Which represent sin and sinful actions) exist; they need walls, not simply the foundation, to hang. Then this tells us something interesting; the existence of the shelves’ ability to hang is not found in the foundation, but in the walls through the foundation. Therefore, the shelves have their abilities because of the walls, and not from the floor, and so the wall is the cause of the hanging, while the floor is the ultimate explanation, or grounds, for the hanging, while not being the cause of the hanging. By analogizing God, man, and sin this way, one can see how God explains the ultimate existence of sin, while not being the cause of it; man, instead, is the cause, and so is the one to blame for instances of sin being committed, such as the original sin in the garden of Eden, rather than God.
I am sorry that this is longer than it should’ve been; I am mildly hungover, but this should suffice for discussion’s sake.
That is not true. You should read the conversation between the Serpent and Eve one more time carefully.
Yes, they disobeyed God, but they were fooled, God lied, etc. So this line of reasoning does not follow.
Did you read my line of reasoning in the OP? I would be happy to know your opinion about it.
But it is common sense. Why would you read the serpent and eve conversation trying to find out if God lied? The serpent is not God’s side or Eve’s side. The serpent tried hard to convince Eve to listen to him with all the lies and deceit.
There is no logical link that God lied from above statements.
They disobeyed God. They were fooled by the Serpent. Therefore God lied? That doesn’t follow at all.
The Serpent said that you certainly will not die if you eat the fruit, and your eyes will open, you will become like God, knowing the knowledge of good and evil. Eve ate the fruit; she didn’t die, and whatever the Serpent said came true. Now, tell me who lied and who told the truth?
Ok, I think I will take out the Bible, and have another read tonight when I get home. Thanks.
Sure, the Serpent told the truth according to what is written in Genesis.
What is the fact? What did God say instead of the fact?
Lying means telling something different from the fact for the purpose of dishonest financial personal gains or other inappropriate and immoral motivations.
Also please let us know what did God try to gain from the lying?
It is pretty simple: God said you will die, and the Serpent said that you will not die. They didn’t die, so what is the conclusion?
God of the OT does all sorts of Evil according to the scripture, so who knows what His real intention was!