Would You Adam and Eve it? [2]

"Adam and Eve It" : Believe it? (Cockney rhyming slang)

O.K. so you're saying that Adam and Eve were real people; not just a story?

I'm not taking sides at this stage. We do know that every single person alive today was descended from one woman so she can easily be called Eve. Presumably she had sexual relaions with some man whom we can all Adam. On the other hand many Christians are happy that Adam and Eve are an illustration of "man" and "woman" and their "fall" from the beauty and perfect that God intended.

I suppose, yet again, we'd better see what the Bible actually says. 

Yes we had; and I've used little snippets from that Lucas Cranach painting we looked at a few days ago, remember?

It's still weird.

Then the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man[c] out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live.

 From the soil? I came from mum's belly!

True. But the bits of you grew from the egg and sperm and those bits only exist because mum and dad ate food which does come from the soil. And when you die you go back to being soil - "dust to dust, ashes to ashes" (Words said in a typical funeral service!). So, in the "picture language" of the Bible ee are all made from soil!

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Then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the East, and there he put the man he had formed. He made all kinds of beautiful trees grow there and produce good fruit.

 So you would have everything you wanted

Precisely! God gave his special "creature" perfection. Remember the bit about the goldfish being given food and a nice clean bowl by creatures "outside" its universe? But, there was one small but important restriction!
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Then the Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it. He told him, “You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.”


Oooh! Spooky!

God gave his "creature" the freedom to choose and think for himself; but, warned him never to play with things that are bad. Keep clear of evil!

But they didn't die, did they? And where's his woman, wife, Eve, partner?"

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Then the Lord God made the man fall into a deep sleep, and while he was sleeping, he took out one of the man's ribs and closed up the flesh. He formed a woman out of the rib and brought her to him.

Is that what I think it is; God dragging a woman out of the side of a man? That is just gross!

It is only "picture language". Early people thought that a man had one less rib than a woman. So they tried to explain the difference - and give us a rather "silly" picture. But the idea behind the story is that woman is made exactly the same as man. An exact copy; but with certain differences in detail! Woman is just as special as man.

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So the scene is set for the big disaster ...

 Next Bible Blog : Tuesday 6th November