Tree of Knowledge; the Fall; Pain in childbirth?

Greetings ATS,

I am bringing some thoughts which occurred to me recently, a bit off-topic from the chaos of the Coronavirus pandemic & all the hostility, chicanery, corruption & deception.. I bring some thought which takes us right back to the very beginning, the very start of our mortal soul journey, regarding the origin story of our Western mindset.. The words which we all are familiar with, even if we do not understand them, or even if we do not embrace any part of what they provide to our thinking & reflection, on the nature of our existence.

We hear them - these words, and of this origin story, we are aware.

I wish to suggest an interpretation of Genesis 3:16 in particular (we can note also an uncanny correlation by 'coincidence' that this verse describes the beginning of what went wrong, whereas John 3:16 describes how to right that wrong..) And before I begin I should state that I believe, after many years of uncertainty & reflection, that the Scripture is God-breathed, as the apostle stated.. I believe it was written by prophets with the help of angels, protected by Heaven's messengers & presented to various rulers & men of influence down the course of history, whenever & wherever it was necessary. I believe it holds unfathomably great secrets & mysteries yet to be gleaned, and I hold it sacred, with reverance. I wish to state clearly for the interpretive record, that Scripture is truth, but not necessarily entirely 'factual' in the detail of the peoples & their stories. The historiography has an element of artistic license, and who are we to deny that license? It is allegory which reveals great mysteries.

Scripture is truth, but then we are told that the Holy Spirit leads us into all Truth.. Thus ultimate Truth, is not something which is entirely contained within the Scripture itself, except in the case that it is some mathematical function thousands of years beyond our understanding, capable of revealing all eternity within its apparently enclosed & entirely hidden equations. People will say that it is the inerrant word of God & thus cannot be anything but 100% truth - & I more or less agree with that belief. Why though are we instructed to listen for the Holy Spirit who will lead us into all Truth? Clearly to find Truth, we must journey. Our beginning may be in the Scriptures, but our summation is in the mind Of God, and His revelations directly to us, in whichever form He has deigned to communicate.

Genesis 3 vs 13-16

13 Then the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?”

“The serpent deceived me,” she replied. “That’s why I ate it.”

14 Then the Lord God said to the serpent,

“Because you have done this, you are cursed
more than all animals, domestic and wild.
You will crawl on your belly,
groveling in the dust as long as you live.

15 And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head
and you will strike his heel.”

16 Then he said to the woman,

“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy,
and in pain you will give birth.
And you will desire to control your husband,
but he will rule over you.”

I have highlighted part of 3:16, and I hope to give a small portion of what may count as insight, by way of explanation helping us to understand what is being taught herein. It always struck me as a mystery that childbirth should have its pain sharpened - it seemed a curse in excess to what was merited by the act of the Fall through eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good & evil.. Why did God feel the need to curse the entirety of the human female lineage for all time, over this simple transgression? What does the second part of this verse represent? It represents the upending of the natural order, desire that leads to ruinous calamity through argument that will never cease, desire that cannot be tamed.

I believe that what we are being presented with in Genesis 3 overall, is that the Fall was a mystical event, magical one might say - or even, that in some ways some very advanced science had been employed, at some point in the 'supply chain' of the actions & events which constituted the Fall. We already know that angels (messengers) were involved, and it's no great leap to suggest that they were incredibly technologically advanced, using the stuff of dreams to enact changes on the material plane, perhaps cloud-nanoparticulate under control through will.., But whatever these original circumstances were, whatever our relationship with the Divine - this world was forever changed by those actions which amounted to the Fall.

I believe, that the pain of childbirth is sharpened, precisely because the frontal lobes of the human child, the advanced & large portions of the brain which permit higher order thought processes, are now - post-Fall - in fuller control of the development of the mind of each human child, rather than that base instinct which would rule the animal aspect of our unevolved humanity. If our brains had been enlarged beyond what would be accounted for as the natural evolution of the human lineage - as it had been, up until the events of the Fall - then surely our lilneage would be forever changed in grand & momentous leaps & bounds, which would be both wondrous & catastrophic, dependent on how the new gift of an advanced brain, with higher order rationality, is applied - having the discernment between good & evil, between one action, one choice, and the other.

I believe that the brain was enlarged by some highly technological or alternatively some purely organic, mystical action which is referenced with the allegory of forbidden fruit - exactly what transpired I cannot say - but I am certain that the enlarged brain, the higher functions for to provide, gave us the keys to 'the knowledge of good & evil' - the ability to rationalise regarding the world around us, and to determine which way we should take as a rational choice, between two poles - left or right, based on the merits of the situation. We had the knowledge of good & evil provisioned for us by the advancement in size & complexity of our brains, and the human female at that time was not evolved to the point of accommodating this change - the pelvic structure simply would have been too narrow to accommodate the birth of a child with the brain enlarged as we see plainly in our understanding of the natural order in the natural world - only with greatly increased pain would she deliver her child.. We are the only 'animal' which suffers this strange & often deadly 'failure of evolution' (or rather, this unfortunate side effect of the Fall - some grand event which changed our biology in one fell swoop, delivering insight & innovation, along with desolation & destruction). The Fall from grace, from the natural order, from the natural path of our intended evolutionary advancement. Throw in some bad hombres, in the form of the fallen Watchers, who give us a shedload of advanced technology without having had the benefit of thousands of years gentle advancement with tools & understanding - and we have a powder keg of a situation - it went from bad to worse in a mere shake of the serpent's tail.

And so, the world was begun, and our human condition set in its course. Miraculous & terrible in equal measure.

Thanks for taking the time to read & reflect.


FITO.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment
Just for once, I won't bother with my standad theological explanation (knowledge of good and evil means defining the boundary line between them).
Instead I'll offer you this clue towards your own theory. Several decades ago, I read a paperback in which the author argued that the forbidden fruit was the human brain, eaten as part of cannibalistic meals. Mankind "fell" when they became cannibals. Expansion of the baby's head with pain in childbirth was supposed to be one of the conseqences. I can't recall that he offered any evidence whatsoever.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

I believe, after many years of uncertainty & reflection, that the Scripture is God-breathed, as the apostle stated.

Then he said to the woman,

“I will sharpen the pain of your pregnancy,
and in pain you will give birth.
And you will desire to control your husband,
but he will rule over you.”

Not what it says. I don't know what version you're going from, but this is the "God breathed" NIV

“I will make your pains in childbearing very severe;
with painful labor you will give birth to children.
Your desire will be for your husband,
and he will rule over you.”

God, in Genesis, did not curse women with a desire to control their husbands, and curse them again with "their husbands will control them".

a reply to: Sookiechacha

I don't know what version you're gong from, but this is the "God breathed" NIV.

Only the KJV is the true "word of God".

On topic: OP have you been reading some of member Undo's work? There are small elements of your theory that sound similar to her writings. Not identical, but reminiscent. You may want to check out some of her threads and posts.

You believe words in Gospel are truth! I have different feelings. That the only truth is God. Everything else is just noise. So instead of opening our minds to words, we should instead, open our hearts to God.

Only from the heart can you touch the sky.

If you believe Biblical scriptures follow an Evangelical
fundamentalist historical LITERAL perspective.

In your literal interpretation of the scriptures, God
did not create the two great lights in the heavens
(Sun & Moon) until the 4th day.

So please explain in your literal interpretation
how you can get to a 4th day in the Genesis
account without the Sun?

In the creation account, Adam & Eve had two sons.
In your literal explanation, please explain where
Cain found his wife?

Also in your literal interpretation of the scriptures,
The 12 tribes of Jacob cataloged all the cities they
conquered, and recorded them in the book of Joshua.


Look in the Old Testament, and you will find no
biblical references to a village called Nazareth.
Why is the village of Nazareth not in the catalog?

In the Genesis chapter 6 account, God becomes
angry, because the earth was filled with violence.
Can you prove this is God? How is one to accept a
God that is not omniscient? Or are people
to believe in the distant past, God omniscience
witnessed himself getting angry with
his own creation?

By the way, anger are emotions of fallibility,
and not perfection.

I've stated this before, and state it again.
Christians do not know their Bible. What
they do know is what has been
taught to them from the denominational
sisters birthed from Catholicism.

I always took that verse as proof Eve (and other women) had babies prior to being evicted from the Garden of Eden. How many? Who knows? Enough so that when their children left home there were cities to go to.

a reply to: MrBlaq

Clearly you have completely misunderstood me, your reading comprehension has let you down in this particular case. I'm a bit busy so wom't bother with a point by point response. Thanks for stopping by.

originally posted by: MrBlaq

In your literal interpretation of the scriptures, God
did not create the two great lights in the heavens
(Sun & Moon) until the 4th day.

So please explain in your literal interpretation
how you can get to a 4th day in the Genesis
account without the Sun?

Light already existed, the sun came later. The light of God is brighter than the sun

In the creation account, Adam & Eve had two sons.
In your literal explanation, please explain where
Cain found his wife?

"After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters."

Look in the Old Testament, and you will find no
biblical references to a village called Nazareth.
Why is the village of Nazareth not in the catalog?

Nazareth is from the Hebrew word 'Netser' which means the Branch (of Jesse). The branch of Jesse is said by Isaiah to grow off the dead stump of Israel and form a new tree. The plural form of Netser is Nazeroth (Nazareth). By calling it Nazareth, they were essentially saying this is the place where Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled in upbringing the Christ who was of the lineage of Jesse.

By the way, anger are emotions of fallibility,
and not perfection.

There's such thing as justified anger.

a reply to: cooperton

Light already existed, the sun came later. The light of God is brighter than the sun

You do realize in the Genesis account the Sun was not created until the 4th day?
Therefore just using common sense based on a literal interpretation, it
would have been virtually impossible to have a night and day, until after
the Sun was created.

Your statement concerning the light of God does not explain the inexplicable
box a literal interpretation falls into.

"After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters.

Hypothesis & Theory is not fact.

Nazareth is from the Hebrew word 'Netser' which means the Branch (of Jesse). The branch of Jesse is said by Isaiah to grow off the dead stump of Israel and form a new tree. The plural form of Netser is Nazeroth (Nazareth). By calling it Nazareth, they were essentially saying this is the place where Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled in upbringing the Christ who was of the lineage of Jesse.

What you forgot to mention, is that the majority of the events based
on Isiah's prophesy have never come to pass. If Christ were the
fulfillment of Isiah's prophesy, a literal interpretation should
witness everything he foretold. None of what he foretold has.

No ancient historian or geographer mentions the village Nazareth.
The Talmud, although it names 63 Galilean towns,
knows nothing of Nazareth, nor does early rabbinic literature.
The city was not even in existence until the 4th Century.

Therefore that would indicate a conspiracy to link the
Jesus with a nonexistent city via pseudo-metaphorical
transliteration between Hebrew and English,
over 300 years after his Historical record.

I commend you on your effort, but seeking to justify anger in God,
places God on the level of man. He's either God perfect, as an
imperfect God would imply no God at all. At least based on the
corpus of modern day theology.

originally posted by: cooperton

"After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters."

Wasn't Cain expelled immediately after Abel's death and before Eve bore daughters, and then went to dwell in the land of Nod where he carried on his wicked ways?

Carried on with whom, I have no idea...do you?

originally posted by: MrBlaq
If Christ were the
fulfillment of Isiah's prophesy, a literal interpretation should
witness everything he foretold. None of what he foretold has.

Isaiah predicted the Messiah would be:

1) born of a Virgin (Isaiah 7:14) - fulfilled via the Virgin Mary

2) Ministry would begin in Galilee (Isaiah 9:1) - Shown in Luke 2:34

3) Eternal Kingdom (Isaiah 9:7) - Stated in Luke 1:32-33

4) Descendant of Jesse's son David (Isaiah 11:1, 10) - Fulfilled in the lineage of Matthew chapter 1

5) He would be followed by the Gentiles (Isaiah 11:10 and 56:6-8) - See John 10:16 and Acts chapter 10

6) He would be called the chief cornerstone (Isaiah 28:16) - see 1 Peter 2:6-7

7) He would heal the sick (Isaiah 35:5-6) - many examples

8) He would be preceded by a messenger who would prepare the way (Isaiah 40:3) - fulfilled by John the baptist

originally posted by: fromtheskydown

Wasn't Cain expelled immediately after Abel's death and before Eve bore daughters, and then went to dwell in the land of Nod where he carried on his wicked ways?

Carried on with whom, I have no idea...do you?

The book of Jubilees has more detail on some of these ambiguities:

"And Cain took Awan his sister to be his wife and she bare him Enoch at the close of the fourth jubilee."
Book of Jubilees

Cain's wife Awan was apparently born even before Cain killed Abel.

It goes on to say that Cain was the first to start building cities. From the way I see it, Cain seemed to be an agriculturist whereas Abel was a nomadic herdsmen. Abel's way of life was closer to God's plan for humanity. This is exemplified by Abraham and Moses being called to a life of nomadic living - the way of Abel. Cain's way is epitomized by Egypt, Babylon, etc, which led to the buildup of cities around an agricultural society.

a reply to: cooperton

Great post, thank you.

a reply to: cooperton

The Book of Jubilees is extra Canon? I am not religious at all and interested in reading between the lines of the material excluded from the Bible. I have my own interpretation of things but that is irrelevant to this thread.

a reply to: fromtheskydown

Text Wasn't Cain expelled immediately after Abel's death and before Eve bore daughters, and then went to dwell in the land of Nod where he carried on his wicked ways? Carried on with whom, I have no idea...do you?

a reply to: fromtheskydown

Wasn't Cain expelled immediately after Abel's death and before Eve bore daughters, and then went to dwell in the land of Nod where he carried on his wicked ways? Carried on with whom, I have no idea...do you?

Yes Cain on his own recognizance left the Adam family with his sister as his mate. We are told through tradition that both Cain and Able had twin sisters and that Cain desired his own twin sister as a mate while Adam desired that Cain’s mate should be the twin sister of Able. This rift became so decisive that Adam asked the Creator for the answer. The Creator declared that each one of the boys bring an offering to His alter and the offering that was accepted would favor the correct answer.

The Creator rejected Cain’s offering and settled the matter in Adam’s favor. Cain then took the twin sister of Able as a mate. This is the mate he took as he left the family and which the bible calls “wife”. Cain's seed was not counted as the seed of Adam but was forever counted the seed of a Satan.

a reply to: MrBlaq

In your literal interpretation of the scriptures, God did not create the two great lights in the heavens (Sun & Moon) until the 4th day. So please explain in your literal interpretation how you can get to a 4th day in the Genesis account without the Sun?

I am satisfied with using both biblical and archaeology science as my understanding. Firstly I subscribe to NASA science which states that this world was spinning about 6 times faster at its inception This is a very controversial theological subject and it depends entirely upon how you want to believe how it was then compared to now. This would mean [to me] that a 24 hour day of today was about 4 hours day in that era,. I do not know the math used in this calculation but it could be a good post for someone to examine.

Secondly, I then use the science of archeology to gain more insight into this biblical problem. We have a number of cuneiform tablets that tell us of the fallen angels who ruled this earth for thousands of years. You can Google this king list on internet and believe as you will. Adam was created thousands of years after the fallen ones were expelled from the first creation and found this planet. This tells me that a day was actually an era of various lengths during the first 4 eras.
If NASA is correct, a day is but from one light to the next light without a marker of time. It could not be our understanding of a 24 hour length because time was not known in these first four eras. Our understanding of time came into play during the fourth biblical light. That light was a pillar of ethereal light or traditionally known as the creation light. At this point we had no death or time. Both death and time are created for our understanding in this second creation.

The Sumerian King List clearly states that this Kingship descended from heaven and that five cities and eight kings ruled for 385,200 years. The angel Ubara-Tutu was the ruler when Adam was created and ruled for a total of 18,600 years. Tradition states that Adam was placed in protection in the garden of the Eden area as a creature of light and as he sinned against the Creator was then reformed as a terrestrial creation of corruption. Death was created at this time in the sixth day of time.

a reply to: fromtheskydown

The Book of Jubilees is extra Canon? I am not religious at all and interested in reading between the lines of the material excluded from the Bible. I have my own interpretation of things but that is irrelevant to this thread.

Jubilees is an interesting book that agrees both with Enoch and Genesis and offers some additional information to both Enoch and Genesis. Jubilees was written by a Hebrew Jew according to scholars who have made a life's work of this Little Genesis. The MSS is dated between 161 to 140 bce and is somewhat agreed upon by most scholars. Now the amazing part of this is that the Hebrew Torah does not have a set date of its writing but instead is a gradual evolution of redacted entrances. the last redaction was shortly before the translation from Hebrew to Greek. Others contend that its present form today was the last redaction and dated from 450 to 350 bce.

Nevertheless the point made here is that Jubilees is very near the completed date of Torah but this is not intended to say that Torah was written 450 to 350 bce. Torah was written in the 2nd millennial and gradually redacted many times to its accepted form today. Scholars are not in agreement as to exactly how it appears to us today. Jubilees does not seem to have that problem and for this reason many people will read Jubilees because of its clarity.

Primitive Masonic Anomalies:

Cain (Cultivation And Irrigation Nourishes)...
note: C = Compass

Æbel (Animal Bearing Enriches Life)...
note: Æ = Eye (Or Eheieh) aka I Am [Mason]...

Seth (Soldiers Establish Their Households)
note: S = Square

Seth Can Be Pronounced As Seven In Spanish aka 'Sieteh'. The Mechanics Of The Name And It's Phonetics Amount To This Seven Conclusion In Spanish. Gives An Understanding Of The Purpose Of A City.

7 Seven Stars Of The Lesser Lights In The Lodge:
• Sustenance (Thirst & Hunger)
• Release (Urination & Defecation)
• Sanitation (From Filth, Odor, Bacteria, Germ & Disease)
• Recuperation (Sleep Meditation)
• Suits (From Nakedness, And Seasons)
• Shelter (From The Wild And The Elements)
• Assurances (Safety From Attacks)
[Sun Is Obedience, For The Force(s) Of The Seven Are Real]...
[Moon Is Repetition, For The Force(s) Of The Seven Are Thus]...
note: This Is Your Household... Serve.

The Metaphorical Lesson In The Slaying Of Æbel, By Cain, Is Not So Much An Aggravation (Green Jealousy) Story... But A Matter 'Of Trust.'
Who Is Entitled To It Is Beyond My Ability To Express... Guard Your Mannerisms. They May Be Your Last. 'Be Thou Thine Own Brothers Keeper!'
Trust No One With Your Charge... You Are His Brother. Keepsake. And... Like The Brotherhood Of Masonry You Are Thus Gifted To A 'Trestle', A Divine Plan Of Sorts. It's True Pronunciation Is Cryptic But Self Evident. aka 'Trust All!' Beware This Charge, His Blood Cries Out'...

The Mother Of All Living Is An Acronym For:
• Every • Virtue • Examined •
note: This Is Of Grandeur Importance... For Your Merits Are Not As Necessary To Consider As Is The 'Woman' You Thus Inherit For Such Merits.

A.D.A.M. (Ancient Design & Accepted Mandate)
note: Not To Be Confused With Masonic 'Ancient Degrees & Accepted Mason'.
Adam's Name Is A Story Of Civility [Governance] And Progression. You Are Your Father's Son...
Gen. 1:26:
~ Let Us Make Man In Our Image... An Image Looks Similar To This --> 🇵🇷 Or Theirs 'Á 👁️V'

Yes, Tis True!... I Have Told You A Lie! Again!

I like this version better. It has better character development.

The Default of Adam and Eve