Makes you wonder really, if good and evil were already in existence, but man was simply ignorant to it, what was the concept behind not being defended from evil?

What was the microcosm of protection from evil, represented by the garden of Eden?
What was its mechanism? If the story was a metaphor for trusting God and ignoring evil, it could be seen as a sign from God against free thought.

Even animals recognise an evil of a threat to their existence, and protect themselves by flight or fight strategies.

A confusing story to deal with, outside of superficial acceptance.

Peter,

<<Scripture must be read through the lens of theology.>>

I consider this is an imposition on the biblical text of one's own theology.

Theology often is divided into ...

1. Biblical Theology where the facts of God's revelation in Scripture are classified from the era of the apostles. This theology comes FROM the text and is not read through a lens into the text.

2. Historical Theology pursues the development of biblical doctrines from the apostles to the present, and deals with the impact of this development on the life of the church.

3. Systematic Theology includes the material from Biblical and Historical Theology and arranges this in an organised structure to provide knowledge of God and His relations with the universe, including all people.

4. Practical Theology is a gathering the truth of Scripture to assist human beings in growing in their faith by renewing the mind and sanctification (being set apart for God's use). This is theology put into practice in one's life.

<<It is generally accepted that the first narrative from Gen.1-4a was written by the Priestly writer whose focus was on the six days of creation and the Sabbath rest.>>

That is the modernist view of JEDP authorship, supposedly based on sections of the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible) authored by J = Jawist (Yahwist); E = Elohist (Elohim); D = Deuteronomy; P = Priestly. No ancient Hebrew or Christian scholar has mentioned such a view of authorship.

JEDP is refuted by the NT:

a. Jesus (Mark 12:26) stated that He was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that the account of the burning bush (Ex 3:1-4) was in the book of Moses.

b. In Acts 3:22, Luke records Deut 18:15-19 and states that Moses was the author of the passage.

c. Paul, in Rom 10:5 speaks of the righteousness Moses described in Lev 18:5.

If the JEDP theory of Pentateuch authorship is true, it makes Jesus, Luke and Paul liars or mistaken in their understanding of the OT.

Instead, JEDP is an invention of modernist theology.

If God wanted humans to behave well why forbid them to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil? It is unfair to punish humans for doing wrong when they had not the knowledge of Good and Evil.

It is a fairy tale like the story of Bluebeard who forbids his bride to go into a room knowing full well she will go into the room. The fairy tale was to set the scene for that which follows.

I think we know good from evil if never ever having read a bible or holy scripture.

Good as we know and understand it has its foundations on love. Evil produced at all levels by similar if converse levels of hate?

The Christian Bible and the lessons as espoused by the Rabbi Jesus, was very-very different from the one reinvented, revised and massively edited by the cronies of Constantine and Constantine at the first synod, around 350 AD?

And relied on mainly four, non-eyewitness, plagiarised and systematically embellished gospels, for its Alleged authority?

And used as Authority to rape small children and mass murder whole ethnic communities, in the name of God! And without Question inherently evil, as is excusing or protecting any of it.

The sacrament of the confessional is clearly a manmade contrivance to exercise absolute control and was only invented by men/mere mortals some 700 hundred years A.D. Not by Jesus or any of his apostles!

No man/mere mortal, has any right whatsoever, to forgive or relocate pedophiles so they can continue with their evil and defile the very Church they claim to serve!

If the church needs to do anything?

It needs to surgically excise this inherent evil from its midst and stop protecting it with the alleged sacrament of the MANMADE confessional.

One is quite capable of confessing to an all powerful, everywhere present supreme being without a possibly conflicted or also tarred with the same brush, evil personified, eavesdropping!

Get your head out of books of alleged theological text and back into the real world, the one you seem trying so hard to avoid looking at with clear eyes?

Then do something real inside your political organisations to clean out the evil at its very heart. The time for covering it up/excusing/justifying it? Is well and truly over!

The cleanout a thousand years overdue!
Alan. B.

In only 1 special limited case , s74 of Australia constitution allows appeals to UK monarch in privy council. Then in only 1 case did Adam have to accept higher authority , the tree in the middle of the garden among all other plants available to him.

Many object to the single limitation in both cases . The motives are very alike.

Dear Dan,

Good questions indeed:

«if good and evil were already in existence, but man was simply ignorant to it, what was the concept behind not being defended from evil?»

Evil exists, but only in the mind, so if one (presumably Adam and Eve) has no mind then where can evil enter?

Yes there is death, yes there is physical pain and disability, and yes, the brain functions as best it can to prevent those, but if one doesn't MIND about pain, disability and dying, then this is their defence from evil.

Needless to say, this specific defence is no longer available to us.

«If the story was a metaphor for trusting God and ignoring evil»

No, there was not yet a trust of God at the time, because having no mind, no preferences, what would an animal-like primitive trust God to do (or not to do)?

If you are so innocent as not to differentiate between gold and hot coals (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_in_rabbinic_literature#Removes_Pharaoh%27s_crown), then evil cannot touch you.

«Even animals recognise an evil of a threat to their existence»

Animals certainly respond to threats, but do they have and recognise some abstract concept of "threat"? I doubt it.

Galaxies collide, whole stars are squashed, torn up and swallowed by black holes, but is this evil? No, because they do not mind.

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Just an error I spotted in the article: the tree of life was never forbidden to Adam and Eve, only the tree of knowledge.