And why does he punish his own creations for that? Why did he put the tree there to begin with? And why did he lie about the tree? He said that they would die if they ate the fruit. Only the snake tells them that this isn't the case.
God never said a thing about it being an
instant death--not at all. Given that, for them not to instantly die is not at all a lie. If we opt for the interpretation that what's being spoken of is the death of the body, causes of death can either be instant, or they can take many, many years--one can in effect be a "dead man walking" if the cause is something incurable. It happened after a long period of time had passed, but eventually did come to pass.
Now the other option for interpretation, which is also quite valid and I think BOTH may actually be in play, is that the death in question is a spiritual death, that our souls will suffer death. I saw one speculative fiction author of a spiritual bent put this postulate forward too--her terms were the "lesser death" (that of the body) and the "greater death" (that of the soul). This may also be what's going on there too, that the "greater death" was the subject of discussion.
Again, not entirely sure which--or if both--were going on here, but either one presents a valid understanding in my opinion.
I'm going to hold on my next remark because it actually ties into what I was about to say...
It is a tale of superior powers oppressing the masses. Preventing them from getting educated, because if they are educated they can't be controlled anymore. And if they can't be controlled, they are a risk, and you need to punish them even harder or even get rid of them. I find it very funny that this is right at the beginning of the Bible, especially when you think about how the church controlled the masses for a long time (people couldn't read, they didn't understand Latin, so they were forced to believe what they were told. Until snakes came by and told them they had a choice. Gutenberg, Luther, Descartes, Kant, for example).
The forbidden fruit of the Tree of All Knowledge, or the Tree of Knowledge of Good And Evil, that's education. Even better: it is science.
I think that the sin wasn't that we came to know all these things--I think it's as simple as choosing to get ahead of ourselves and like I said, I do not see anything to suggest that a full curriculum wouldn't have been in store for us had things continued without making the choice to jump ahead of plan. Given how early in the process we interrupted things, we never did find out if this was the case. However, I do see early evidence that we were indeed being taught.
It's quite interesting when you look at the passage where God doesn't just drop Adam into the Garden with Eve already there...He lets Adam figure out that he has a need for a companion like him but not himself--lets him understand that he cannot connect with the animals at the level he requires, lets him observe the relationship of the animals to each other, and then, once Adam understands this, ensouls a companion for him. Adam may be at the very beginning of the process, but he
is actually being taught how to observe and to reason. (Which does put a rather funny image in my head of Adam and Eve eventually getting to the point of lab experiments and having to turn in a lab report to the Almighty...who knows?
) There's no telling just how many more lessons might have been prepared for us in this fashion, such that our learning and our moral understanding would have kept pace with each other.
One of the other interesting things I notice is that while upon expulsion from the Garden the Tree of Life was put under guard--that Life is exactly what we are offered by Jesus. Given that we messed up before yet a way was still found for this to happen, it doesn't seem at all implausible that the plan we interrupted wouldn't have included knowledge. (It also demonstrates to me that even when we did mess up, God's prime focus was on helping us
fix it, whereas you are only seeing the aspect of punishment.)
As for humans controlling each other--you bet that's a bad thing because frankly, we do not have the wherewithal to handle that level of power over each other. But, I have no reason to think God has the same problem.
See, that's my basic problem with the whole "God" concept. Any being who really knew everything and had no questions left to ask would have gone insane with boredom eternities ago.
Not with an
infinity of activity going on within Him that by definition doesn't run out.
