Re "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; 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" (Genesis 2:16-17). ":
Precisely! Man didn't die so God was telling porkies! (Spare me the bollocks of saying man dying "spiritually".) The early Gnostics were right in seeing the Serpent as the true friend of mankind. The Serpent wanted us to see that we are immortal (we're *really* the One Self - "Christ Consciousness") but "God" wants us to remain slaves. Of course, we're using mythological language here, but the God of present-day Christians still doesn't want people to become seers - ie, those who see clearly. ---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com, <punditster@...> wrote: The Fall of Man myth is a universal story that teaches by means of a confidence trick. And the Lord God said, "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the Tree of Life, and eat, and live for ever... therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden ..." (Genesis 3:22-3). And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat; 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" (Genesis 2:16-17). Clearly, humankind did not die on that day of the Fall, but instead became mortal. We can see how the creation of man from clay, as related in the Jehovistic account of Genesis, belonged to one branch of the world's universal clay-man myths springing from Southeast Asia. According to Oppenhiemer: "In these stories a malign creature, originally either a devil or snake, interfered with the attempted animation of the clay models by the creator. A a clear reference to human creation is in the Austronesian cultures of Southeast Asia as totemic props for mythic drama" (Oppenheimer 356). Work Cited: "Eden in the East" The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia. By Stephen Oppenheimer, M.D. Phoenix 1998 p. 355-382 On 10/19/2013 2:14 PM, Share Long wrote: Richard, do other cultures have a myth about the fall of humanity that centers around acquiring some forbidden knowledge? And in other cultures is the fall blamed on the women? On Saturday, October 19, 2013 2:04 PM, Richard J. Williams <punditster@...> mailto:punditster@... wrote: It seems obvious that the stories and myths gathered in the Bible were assembled from immortality and fertility myths which were in common circulation at that time, that is, about 3000 years ago. Stephen Oppenheimer, writing in "Eden in the East" notes that many of these same mythic elements are still to be found in lands stretching from Egypt to India, Southwest Asia, Melanesia, and America. This Levantine creation myth is closely allied to other older myths concerning creation, and as Harris points out, every known culture expresses social values and religious views through myth (Harris 101). A clear reference to human creation is in the Austronesian cultures of Southeast Asia where the idea of creation from clay or red earth is also used "as totemic prop for mythic drama" (Oppenheimer 356). Work Cited: Oppenhiemer, Stephen, M.D., "Eden in the East." London: Phoenix, 1998 On 10/19/2013 11:56 AM, emptybill@... mailto:emptybill@... wrote: According to the Orthodox, "Ancestral Sin" caused the reversal of paradisaical deathlessness by creating the consequential mortality that we all inherited. Obviously a mythologized explanation but this is how they explain why humans are prone to concupiscence and deviance of will. Better yet is this explanation of the Orthodox view of "original" sin. http://oca.org/questions/teaching/st.-augustine-original-sin ---In fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com mailto:fairfieldlife@yahoogroups.com, <authfriend@...> mailto:authfriend@... wrote: Thanks, this is great. For the moment, one question: "The expulsion from the Garden and from the Tree of Life was an act of love and not vengeance so that humanity would not 'become immortal in sin.'" What does "immortal in sin" mean, and how would that happen? emptybill wrote: Read this and then see if you have questions. http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/ancestral_versus_original_sin http://www.stmaryorthodoxchurch.org/orthodoxy/articles/ancestral_versus_original_sin
