Good Morning everyone and thank you Shelby for saying I could post your comment/answer from Quora. I am not sure if anyone read it over at Quora but I thought your answer was thought provoking and worth posting here.
The question was:
What is the lesson learnt from God driving Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden?Shelby's answer was:
Quote:
Answered Mar 8
Was a lesson learned? If you mean, what lesson SHOULD HAVE BEEN learned, my personal position is that it is that one should respect another’s house and property or not complaint when they’re shown the door (and perhaps even barred from coming back in!). Seriously - the liberties people take with others’ domains can be mind blowing. I don’t think the MOST Holy is the one who coined the phrase “Mi casa es su casa.” Or if He did, I don’t think He meant for others to take it SO literally… any more than we do. You certainly can’t come into MY house and just do what you please. Well, okay, unless you’re my child (those never listen to their mothers, anyway - LOLOL!).
But… that is my position as to what SHOULD have been learned. The truth, though, is that nothing has been learned, per se, as people in large part still tend to do whatever they want with others’ domains and property.
If you were to ask what was the MOST Holy’s purpose, though, for driving Ad’Ham and Eve out, then the answer is simple: to save the creation from utter destruction at the hands of these two… until it could be brought BACK to what it was when it was initially created. Meaning, a place where there was NO death. Had those two been able to get back to the Tree of LIFE… and eat from THAT tree… well, let’s just say the havoc we, as a species, have wreaked thus far doesn’t even compare. THEY would not have died… and so THEIR havoc would have had NO end.
But, let me ask you by means of the following scenario:
You have planted a lovely garden on your land. In the middle, you plant two special trees: one, if eaten from, grants the consumer eternal life. Can even undo death. The other allows the consume to know life (good) AND death (bad). YOU know life (good) AND death (bad)… and you know how to handle both. Your guests don’t, though, as you’ve not yet taught them. You intend to but it will take some time.
You invite some folks over and show them your garden. You tell them, “You can eat from ANY tree in this garden” (and that includes the Tree of Life), “except that tree there (the Tree of Knowing Good/Life AND Bad/Death). Don’t eat from that one because if you do you WILL die.” NOT, “I will kill you”, but “You WILL die.”
S,okay, s’your garden so you should be able to say, “Leave that one tree alone,” yes? Regardless of whether or not touching it causes death? (And for those who think not and would say planting a tree then telling guests they can’t eat from it “isn’t fair,” I would offer a change in the scenario to, say, a man who grows orchids, some of which are of minimal value, some of more value, and one or two exquisitely beautiful ones of GREAT value… and his right to ask visitors to his garden to NOT pick the most valuable bloom, but feel free to just admire it, please. Should such a man HAVE to lock his precious blooms away, say, behind a fence and out of natural sunlight… just because his visitors are boorish and rude? Or is it upon his visitors to respect his love for his vocation (horticulture - Genesis 2: 8, 9; John 15:1) and his plants… and just do as he asks and look… but not touch?).
With all of that SAID…
The problem with the account is religion’s very false interpretation, and thus humanity’s misunderstanding (and “science’s” ridiculing), of it… and what is represented. It is a VERY true account; however, the “trees” are not vegetation; they are PEOPLE.
The “person” that ONE of them is is pretty easy to know:
Genesis 2:9b
Psalm 80:14–17
Isaiah 1:1, 10; 53:2;
John 14:5
John 15:1, 5
Romans 11:16–18; 15:12
Knowing the first one makes it a bit easier (although not necessarily) to know “who” the second “tree” is.
Stop listening to religion and it’s false teachings. John 10:27
I hope that helps.
Peace to you!
P.S. This comment is false:
“The lesson of Genesis on a theological level is that obedience to God is THE commandment, above anything else. The punishment suffered by Adam and Eve (and humanity thereafter) stems solely from the idea that one must obey God at all costs, irrespective of the command.”
There was absolutely NO punishment involved in the events. EVERYTHING that occurred was for a protection of someone or something. Whether it was removing two people who, if given the chance to live FOREVER (i.e., without dying), had already proven they had no regard for the owner OR the garden (imagine, then, if such people were permitted to continue, completely unfettered, unrestricted, and immortal!)… or protecting them (with a “long garment of skin”) for their new environment, which THEY cause to come to ruin.
STOP listening to religion and its VERY false teachings as to these events. Their goal is to foment FEAR and so put mankind under THEIR control. Which is the last place mankind needs to be, as proven by the wars and other atrocities committed BY religion “in the name of God/Jesus.” They are false… which is why their interpretations and teachings make absolutely NO sense (except to the nonsensical).
Peace!