Yebra, you're so fun. Keep the questions coming. I love it!
The whole Garden of Eden thing always seemed to me a story about enlightenment - gaining knowledge and the burden that comes with that. The fact that it's generally treated as a 'bad' series of events always seemed bizarre to me. Slim, am I right in thinking the 'Garden of Eden not a bad thing' is generally the Mormon take? How widely is this shared?
I, although, not a Mormon know (or believe I know) that Mormon's believe that Adam and Eve could not have children unless the Fall happened. And I don't think any other religious group believes that.
The reason why others don't believe that is because God gave Adam and Eve two commands: Do not eat from the tree and have children. Why would he give them two conflicting commands. You either break one or break the other. Most religions don't believe God would do that. Why?
Would it be just or loving to condemn a person for doing what you planned for him to do? God is a God of love. (1 John 4:8 ) All his ways are just. (Psalm 37:28; Deuteronomy 32:4) It was not God's will for Adam to sinl he warned Adam not to do that. (Genesis 2:17) God did allow Adam the freedom to choose what he would do. Adam chose to rebel against God, despite the warning that death would be the result.
And Slim, you mention Jesus' can come back from the dead because of his immoral father, but resurrection isn't a unique event even within the Gospels, am I missing something there?
There are only a few resurrections recorded in the Bible. Elijah, Elisha, Jesus, and Paul resurrected people. (Peter may have but I don't think he did.) Jesus' resurrection was different in that he would never die again. (Romans 6:9) Everyone else who was resurrected eventually died again. That is why his resurrection is unique. Another reason for that, too, is that Christ earned his resurrection for himself by proving his integrity. Everyone else was resurrected mainly for the comfort of other people.
Naturally we're getting some crossed signals from different beliefs here, an interesting division I think I'm seeing is whether or not Jesus was always part of the plan.
Jesus was always part of the plan from the moment Adam and Eve sinned. Jehovah God told Satan "I shall put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will bruise you in the head and you will bruise him in the heel." (Genesis 3:15) That is the first prophecy recorded in the Bible immediately after the Fall.
My question is if he was always part of the plan, why was there a delay between the fall and Jesus' appearance? Jesus seems a clever loophole to get around the rules about sin. I can understand God not wanting to break his own laws, but why, given infinite knowledge, would He create a rule that later on he'd have to twist around? This only really makes sense to me if Jesus wasn't part of the plan but required later - which Rei, if I'm reading you right (and there's every possibility that I'm not), you're saying Jesus' appearance is only necessary because the covenant with Abraham was broken? That would work nicely for me.
I don't want you to think that I'm ignoring this but I can't answer because I don't know the answer. I can only give my own opinions and I
don't want to do that! Maybe Luet can help here.
I've got a few questions on a different area if anyone's feeling helpful. What is the general feeling on Hell? How integral is it to your theologies? A place of suffering or merely of sadness like Hades? Or nothing at all? I'm assuming that Aquinas's notion that heaven is a more enjoyable place because those in it can watch the suffering below ("That the saints may enjoy their beatitude and the grace of God more abundantly they are permitted to see the punishment of the damned in hell.") has gone out of style, although I'd be interested in any takes on that quote.
See my post about hell here:
It's closer to the bottom of the page[/quote]
I ask because I have difficulty accepting Jesus as even a good person while he seems to be walking around threatening people with violence. Take the end of the parable of the Sheep and the Goats:
"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." (Matthew 25:46)
I'll take this in sections. Eternal punishment doesn't have to mean that the person being punished is conscious at all. Eternal death is punishment enough. The reason people nowadays do not feel that way is because it has been indoctrinated in them for years that there has to be some type of physical punishment or else it isn't punishment. Just because they believe that doesn't mean it is true. The Bible even teaches that "The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all..." (Ecclesiastes 9:5) Also notice that Jesus did not say that the righteous will go away into eternal
bliss but eternal
life. We can also look at it as opposites. The "eternal punishment" is the opposite of "eternal life". Therefore, the "eternal punishment" can be "eternal death".
Although I believe that to be true, I am not flaunting it around as absolute truth because not everyone will agree with my assessment. Therefore, I ask that you don't attack me for it!
Anyway, in one of those verses you quoted, Matthew 5:21-22, says "fire of hell". However, the original Greek word there is "Gehenna". That word did not mean hellfire, as many believe today. Gehenna was a garbage dump outside of Jerusalem where the bodies of people considered too worthless for a proper burial were thrown. Either they would fall all the way to the bottom (where it was on fire) and their bodies consumed, or they would fall on a ledge where bugs and other creatures would consume their flesh.
At one point, Jesus said something like "And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell,
where 'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' "-Mark 9:47, 48
While many claim that this verses supports the doctrine of hell. However, this is a quote from Isaiah 66:24 which says, "And they will actually go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that were transgressing against me; for the very worms upon them will not die and their fire itself will not be extinguished, and they must become something repulsive to all flesh.â€
Now, if you look closely, Jesus was not talking about hell, he was speaking of Gehenna! We see that from Mark 9:47 where he literally says, "Gehenna" (as said above, many translate this hellfire). However, what happens in this Gehenna, which Isaiah 66:24 is talking about and which Jesus applies the Scripture to?
The carcasses of the men are being consumed by worms which do not die. Also in Gehenna, the fire which was to consume the trash thrown in there was never put out, they kept it going 24 hours a day. The men do not keep going on but the worms and fire do! This cannot be used to prove the doctrine of hell. However, what about other Scriptures that talk about eternal torment in fire?
Well, in Jude 7 it says, "So too Sod´om and Go·mor´rah and the cities about them...are placed before us as a warning example by undergoing the judicial punishment of everlasting fire." Sodom and Gomorrah are not literally burning today but they are completely destroyed. So evidently, "everlasting [or eternal] fire" is eternal destruction, as many Bible scholars have come to realize.
So, do not look down on Christ Jesus or God Jehovah because of what
men teach.