Paradise Cafe Discussions - A Place For Bible Research And Christian Encouragement

That would be an interesting chat. Inspiration comes in many forms! :)

The tree of life was symbolic of the Humans ability to be like the creators in that they would be able to comprehend good and bad.
What was the purpose of it seeing as they were told not to eat from it? Was it only to look at?
Maybe in due time they would have been able to eat from it, and be like God, and be worthy of eating from the tree of life as well.
I doubt that they were real trees at all, just like today, our water baptism is an allegory for being reborn, like a sinless baby, because our sins have been forgiven.

S and M theory explains the connectivity between all things, and in my mind, this is scriptural. All things are made of God. God is what is!
"I am what I am", or, "I will be what ever I will be"
Present tense and future tense of God.
How can we ever explain God while standing in a 3 dimensional place?
We need to think outside our 3 D box.

1- The tree itself didn't: the scriptures show that it is God's spirit which is the support of life- and sustains it. So POSSIBLY, some element of the food added SOMETHING to the diet contributing to perfect health!
2- Christ's death was to ransom the death penalty we were under.
3- Be WILL be 'completely' human; no god-men

Yes! We will be completely Human as we were intended. Not imperfect human as we are now. We were intended to be God-men. Made in the image of God. :heartbeat:

GOTCHA! Sorry 4 the misunderstanding!

who guarded it? and why would they guard the tree to prevent perfect man eating from it.

God gave man free will. Preventing man from sinning is not free will, its like a jailor.

Hello Isoman,
I have done some reading on the string theory and can't even pretend to understand it, but there is one interesting thing that stood out, the number 496

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/496_(number)
496 is most notable for being a perfect number, and one of the earliest ... is that the dimension of the gauge group of type I string theory must be 496.

Multiply 400 by 90 and by 6=216000
Now divide 216000 by 600 by 60 by 6

Or alternatively multiply 600X60X6=216000
Now divide 216000/400=540 divide 540/90=6 divide 6/6=1

Interesting coincidence is it not?
coccus ilicis

Here’s my take on the tree of knowledge.

To answer your question, I believe it is an account of a literal occurrence but full of symbolic meaning. I also believe there were two trees, the tree of knowledge of good and bad and the tree of life.

Animal life on earth is largely hard wired to act in very specific ways. The more advanced the animal the more it can learn, but it is still limited in what it can learn. Whereas humans, although also hard wired with some basic survival instincts i.e. eat, drink, defecate, procreate etc., their main hard wiring in the brain is the need and ability to learn. A human baby raised by chimps (Tarzan) would only know chimpanzee ways. Children who are raised from babyhood with minimal human contact are difficult if not impossible to rehabilitate. Children learn behavior from their cultural environment.

Created in God’s image humans have free will as do angels, seraphs and cherubs. And it is precisely the endowment of free will that made the tree of knowledge of good and bad necessary. The tree was literal but its meaning was symbolic.

Let me explain
Bees in a hive work as a coordinated team, each fulfilling its function. There are no arguments, jealousies or wars. This is because they are hard wired to fulfill a specific function and cannot do otherwise. By this they survive and serve a valuable purpose in the ecosystem. So it is with all other creatures in the biosphere, but not so with humans.

In order for intelligent life to achieve anything collectively they need some form of organizational leadership, as do free-willed spirit creatures. How was this to be achieved unless there was a free-willed acceptance of the fulcrum (God) at the centre to hold it all together? God knew that inevitably at some point in time one or more of his free willed creatures would question his right to that position. To pre-empt this he placed the tree of knowledge of good and bad in the G of E on earth where it was accessible to both humans and spirit creatures.

The tree was symbolic of God’s right to ultimately arbitrate what was good and bad for intelligent life created in his images. The reason I say this is because man already knew what was good and bad in that he had been provided with a conscience. God did not have to tell Adam you must not beat your wife or kill animals wantonly because Adam inherently knew this was bad in fact the only negative law God that is recorded was that they must not eat from the tree of knowledge.

Satan spoke truthfully when he said that eating the literal fruit would not kill Eve, he also spoke truthfully when he said they would be like God, insomuch as they would make their own decisions as to what was right and what was wrong, but he lied when he gave the impression they would be immortal (their life not dependant on God). A literal word for word rendering of the Hebrew is ...not to death you shall die for God knows in the day that you eat from it you will be like God... Gen 3:5.

From then on they made their own rules and learnt by trial and error, the first law that was formulated had to do with murder, Cain suddenly realizing that others could do to him as he had done. Intelligent life, made in God’s image, now had no one to look to learn cultural norms. How should they behave toward one another; how did one raise children; how does one grow food and myriad of things we acquire from our parents and environment as we grow? So they looked to animal life and imitated animal ways, and their godlike human brilliance became dulled and increasingly degraded with each successive generation, a destructive deadly combination.

God knew all this beforehand but had to allow it to happen if there were to be free-willed intelligent creatures with whom he could share the joy of creation. Because only by allowing this process would they learn with their mind and cement in their heart the knowledge that there can and must be only ONE to whom they look for ultimate direction.

Love,
coccus ilicis