ADAM and EVE
Come - let us look a little closer into the story of Adam and Eve and the creation. Let us look a little closer and see the things we should see, instead of the "beliefs" which have been fabricated in our imaginations. Come, let us look a little deeper through the dense fog of prior learning and see what has been hidden in plain sight on the pages of the Bible.
The book of Genesis opens the Bible with GOD 'creating' by speaking things into existence (Heb 11:3) and by 'making' other things.
God 'creates' the male and female in God's image (Jn 4:24). God gives the male and female dominion over all life on earth - to subdue it, to be fruitful and multiply, to replenish the earth: "and God saw that everything that he had made, and behold, it was VERY GOOD." (Gen 1:31) The heavens and the earth were finished.
"It was finished! - but no mention of Adam & Eve; no mention of 'woman'; the word 'man' refers to male & female; there is no Serpent, no soul, no garden, no Eden, no trees of life and death, and there is no LORD God.
In the Old Testament (Tanakh), just as in the New Testament, there are records of communications from Jesus and God, and there are records of communications from the Serpent, that devil called Satan, who can appear as an "Angel of Light" just as easily as he can appear as LORD God - or any other deity of time and legend.
"And the great dragon was cast out, that serpent called the Devil and Satan which deceives the whole world - he was cast out into the earth (and his angels were cast out with him.)" - Rev 12:9.
And so we fear that just as the Serpent deceiveth Eve by his craftiness, so too our minds may be corrupted from the simplicity that is in the teachings of Jesus. Remember: we are inside Satan's Trap to become conditioned to worship Satan (Mtt 4:9).
The two trees in the story are abstractions; not even the 'fruit' is mentioned because the two trees are symbolically, metaphors: man is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; whereas God (Jesus Spirit) is the tree of Life.
The tree of death is man, the beast of the field ..... and here is wisdom, the number of the beast is 666, the number of man (Rev 13:18).
The tree of life is God (Jesus Spirit), reading in 1Cor 15:22, "for as in Adam all die, in Jesus all are made alive again. As it is written in 1Cor 15:45, "the first man Adam was made a living soul, but the last Adam is made a quickening spirit." The first man is of the earth, earthly, a dying beast. The second man is of heaven, spiritual, a spirit made in the image of God (Jn 4:24).
Now let's look at the story of Adam & Eve, not as a genesis of creation - but let us look at the "outcome" of the story as it relates to cause and effect.
The tree of death is a metaphor of man, a beast with the knowledge of good and evil. That having or knowing information (words arranged in various combinations) changes the consciousness and changes the identity. Eve was deceived by the subtil words of the Serpent - and Eve's new altered state of consciousness, from that first experience of cunning mischief, and then subsequently her imagination speculating on all sorts of permutations and combinations from that initial experience further altering her consciousness and identity.
The story of Adam & Eve is our appearance here on earth and our subsequent altered states of consciousness resulting from various experiences. We see how man can be "effected" by fear, guilt and shame; that by living in a world of pain, suffering and sorrow, all life long believing that death is the end, man can be conditioned.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for the 'human generation' into which we have incarnated, with its' various experiences of physical, mental and emotional activities. We are tempted by the Serpent just as Adam & Eve were tempted, just as Jesus was tempted by the Serpent; by the lust of the flesh, by the lust of the eyes, and by the pride of life (1Jn 2:15).
Now let us look even closer at the temptation of Eve. The Serpent is more subtil than any beast of the field; including man. The Serpent knows about the tree that brings death. The Serpent approached the woman about the tree; not the man. The Serpent learns that the woman "believes" that if you even "touch the tree", you will die (Gen 3:3); to which the Serpent tells the woman, "you shall not surely die, but you shall be as gods" (Gen 3:4-5).
The Serpent beguiles the woman with his words (Gen 3:13), and the woman sees that the tree is pleasant to the sight (lust of the eyes), that the tree is good for food (lust of the flesh), a tree to be 'decided' to make one wise (pride of life).
And the woman ate and gave "her husband with her and he did eat and the eyes of both were opened" (Gen 3:6-7). Again, "the eyes of both were opened" is a metaphor about a change in consciousness that brings about a different viewpoint and identity.
Now let's look a little closer at this story and delve a little deeper. It appears that LORD God has staged a play that doesn't end well for man - a life of pain, suffering and sorrow, ending in death.
LORD God makes Adam "from the dust of the ground, and makes him a living soul" (Gen 2:7) - and then LORD God confines him to a fruit garden that has a beautiful tree of death in the center of the garden and a deceptive Serpent of guile. (There is no woman, nor Eve. Gen 2:20)
In LORD God's made earth and heaven (the reverse order in God's creation) LORD God makes the plants before rain; as a matter of fact, it says that LORD God made the plants before they were planted and grew (Gen 2:5).
Adam lived in the garden, with the Serpent, and Adam didn't eat from the tree of death. As a matter of fact, Adam named the beast - "the Serpent", but Adam didn't select the Serpent as his help meet.
After the woman is made from the man as his help meet, the Serpent deceives the woman into eating from the tree. Until then the man and the woman were just a couple of caretakers in a garden of fruit trees - Gen 2:15. (The woman is given the name Eve, after she marries Adam.)
LORD God has made this beautiful tree of death; "pleasant to the sight and good for good" (Gen 2:9) ..... and the Serpent portrays the fruit of the tree as good; physically, mentally and emotionally.
LORD God speaks in Gen 2:17 in such a manner that it was just as if he knew that Adam would eventually eat from the tree, reading Genesis 5:5, "for in the day (2Peter 3:8) that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die" (Gen 5:5). Death and the fear of death entered into their minds, wondering almost a thousand years, if next year was the year.)
The man and the woman knew not evil, so the woman could not understand the evil nature of the Serpent until after she ate the fruit saying, "the Serpent beguiled me" (Gen 3:13). LORD God had made the Serpent with guile.
In Genesis 2:25 we are told that the man and the woman "were both naked and not ashamed". However, after eating from the tree, "the eyes of them both were opened and they knew they were naked" (Gen 3:7). Again this is a metaphor about reproduction; Adam & Eve as creators of life.
NOTE: Genesis 2:24 is out of place or has been added into the story: there were no fathers, no children, and Adam and the woman (not married) didn't even know they were naked.
LORD God comes, "walking in the garden" - literally? ..... and he can't find the man and woman? LORD God finds them hiding, and wearing fig leaf aprons, and he asks the man if he ate from the tree he 'commanded' not to eat; and the man blames the woman ... and LORD God, who made "the woman thou gavest to be with me". LORD God asks the woman and she blames the Serpent. LORD God doesn't ask the Serpent anything but changes the Serpent into a new creature.
Now the punishment for breaking LORD God's commandment was death - but LORD God increases the punishment to include hard labour, labour pains, plus a lifetime of hardships, not to mention they were to live in sorrow all the days of their lives. (Gen 3:14,16)
LORD God kills some beasts of the field to make "coats of skins" for Adam and Eve. This would have been their first introduction to "death", and to animal sacrifice or blood sacrifice: enter Jesus.
Jesus talks extensively about people as trees: "a good tree brings forth good fruit"; that we should "make the tree good"; that "every tree is known by his own fruit" (Lk 6:44). And there was the blind man which Jesus healed, who said, "I see men as trees, walking" (Mk 8:24).
Jesus is the tree of life that LORD God keeps man away from. That is worth repeating, Jesus is the tree of life that LORD God keeps man away from.
Jesus says, "I am the bread of life; the way, the truth and the life. I came down from heaven to give Life unto the world," (Jn 6:35, 14:6, 6:33) Jesus goes on to say, "to him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life" (Rev 2:7).
Jesus tells us plainly in John 6:63, "the words I speak unto you, they are Spirit and they are Life: it is the spirit that quickeneth - the flesh profiteth nothing" ..... and so Jesus tells us to, "lay the axe unto the 'root' of the tree, dividing asunder soul and spirit" (Lk 3:9; Heb 4:12).
Jesus is the tree of life, and, "of his own will begats us with the word of truth" (James 1:18). Know this: the only true God, and Jesus, whom God sent (Jn 8:42) - whereby one man's obedience, many shall be made RIGHTEOUS unto eternal life.
Read closely what Jesus tells us; "I am NOT of this world. My kingdom is NOT of this world. The works of this world are evil. I was sent by God, into this world, that I might destroy the works of the devil." (Jn 8:23, 7:7, 18:36, Lk 3:8) And just as Jesus is not of this world, we are NOT of this world (Jn 17:16).
Jesus, whose root is in the Living God - as testified by the Spirit says, in Matthew 10:16, "Be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves."
Come. Eat from the tree of life, the teachings of Jesus, and overcome that last enemy - death - become born again of spirit and enter into the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5).
CAIN and ABEL