Greed is evil & greed comes courtesy of stupidity !
Stupidity evloved via courtesy of do-gooders.
Do-gooders evolved from successfully exploiting the good-natured.
It really is a viscious circle. Now that education has entered the ring of refining stupidity greed is getting out of hand.

Peter,

Throughout your article, you have given us your presuppositions, not based on the text, but from your philosophical/liberal theology. This is not a comprehensive list:

1. 'in the form of saga or legend, the relationship between God, humanity and the world'. That's not what the text of Genesis states. The 'legend' idea is your assumption.

2. 'Our heritage from this narrative [of Gen 1-4a] is that the world is an objective reality and not a dream and that it is natural ie does not contain spirit'.

To the contrary, it definitely does contain 'spirit': 'Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.' (Gen 1:26-27).

An attribute of God is: 'God is spirit' (John 4:24). So to state that 'our heritage ... an objective reality ... i.e. does not contain spirit' is false. It's your presupposition imposed on the text.

3. 'Eden is a paradise but a paradise with a contradiction at its centre, two trees, the fruit of which may not be eaten'. It's not a contradiction but human free-will in action, which is the power of alternative choice.

4. 'The second creation narrative is attributed to the Yahwist because the name for God that he uses is the unpronounceable tetragrammaton YHWE'.

Again, that's your theological liberal presupposition of JEDP authorship. You've done it again with 'the second creation narrative'. Why must you impose your assumptions on the text?

5. 'The narrative provides an explanation for the parlous state of our lives in the form of a legend with mythical elements ie not a history of what actually happened. It is not entirely incorrect to describe the story as a morality tale'. A 'legend with mythical elements' and not history amounts to your presuppositions again.

(continued)

(continued)

Peter,

Where was Eden located? I don't know the exact location in the 21st century, but it was located in a place at the beginning where rivers came out of Eden: The Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel (Tigris) and Euphrates (Gen 2:8-14). The exact location of them could have been changed by Noah's Flood.

For you to state Eden had 'legend and mythical elements' when it was historically a place, is to draw attention to who is promoting a myth.

6. 'After both have eaten they do not die but, unexpectedly, they realise that they were naked and felt shame and sowed clothes for themselves'.

Sadly, this is not an accurate assessment. Did Adam die physically? Adam lived 930 years and then died (Gen 5:3-5).

The apostle Paul confirmed that Adam was a man who died and brought sin/trespasses into the world:

'But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man, how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! Nor can the gift of God be compared with the result of one man’s sin: the judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!' (Rom 5:15-17).

If I read the Brisbane Courier-Mail or Encyclopaedia Britannica with the kind of interpretations you've imposed on the Bible and published them, I'd expect a knock on my door.

Jujutsu.

*…Evil exists, but only in the mind…*

Your theory of the recognition of evil as identifying the only evil is flawed.
What if one was to meet Hitler, or any other despot, on a sunny afternoon at a tea party.
Not knowing his history exempts him from evil?

Let's say we are in a vegetative state of awareness, therefor no evil exists because of our lack of awareness?

Evil exists on earth because God threw out the wicked angles from heaven to sojourn on earth awaiting judgement day.
One would need to argue the point from chronology. Which came first, the throwing out from heaven of the wicked angles, or Adam and Eve and the serpent?

This is the whole point of Noah and the flood story. So the point is, is the serpent the harbinger of evil on earth, OR is it the act of God himself, who deliberately implanted evil on earth to cleanse heaven, the source of evil?

So we can't argue the existence of evil, since it's always been on earth, (biblically speaking).

The sin of Adam and Eve was their acknowledgement of evil. They could suddenly classify it; categorise it even. Knowledge.

Ver strange indeed. So God intended (so it seems), for man to live in total ignorance of his surroundings. As a worm.

And maybe that is the point. This story is an argument against the evolutionary theory. An argument for creationism. Especially since genetics entered the picture at that point. We began the evolutionary period right then. We moved on from the worm; the way God obviously intended us to stay.

The Bible cites God as the source of both good and evil:

Isaiah 45:7

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil:
I the LORD do all these things.

Oh so suddenly you are a believer David f just because you think you have found a verse that backs up your very flawed narrative. Strange how god deniers desparately grab a verse to confirm their predujices.