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[This is an excerpt from a revisited post that is so long that perhaps readers don’t bother reading to the very end. Except that this was at the beginning of the discourse, and if you’re curious, here’s the link for the complete discussion which is worth your patience and time, promise:
What prompted culling this excerpt out of the complete post is a judgmental attitude prevalent in the ‘self-righteous’ among us who posit that they would have done better than the first couple had they been the ones tested in Eden. Oh yeah? Easy to say in hindsight, with wisdom gained from mistakes of others.
The Rabbis teach that one should not judge another unless one has walked in that person’s shoes; meaning, we should never compare ourselves and presume how much better we would react under the same circumstances because there are many factors involved in any peculiar situation; then, factor in the personalities involved the story/incident. Perhaps I should write a sequel to this post titled “What if I were Adam or Eve?” Well guess what, Mark Twain has done exactly that. Check out his ‘take’ on the progressive education of the first male and female in : The Diaries of Adam and Eve which we will soon feature in our MUST READ category. Meanwhile, learn from this excerpt— it drives home our point about the universality of human curiosity and not listening to wise words even if the source is YHWH Himself! Just look at the state of affairs all over the world today, does it look like we have learned from the lessons of history, or the Bible, eh? And that today’s generation is wiser than all our forbears?—-Admin1]
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Why did the Omniscient Creator have to give the first couple a commandment He knew would be disobeyed?
Specific instruction such as that given to Adam and Eve was intended to test that gift of free will they might not even have been conscious of at that time.
If everything in Eden was perfect, who could possibly want more than that ideal life?
Name the animals, tend the garden, eat only seed-bearing fruit, interact with this invisible Presence Who speaks to us. That should be simple enough and easy to do. What a life!
But the problem is, Adam and Eve knew no other kind of life, they probably hadn’t even realized that they had it so good!
You know that saying “the grass is greener on the other side?” In fact, food tastes better at our neighbor’s dinner table even if it isn’t so, it’s just different from what we’re used to. It is part of human nature to be curious, and think “what else am I missing?” Until we fall or lose what we had, we don’t appreciate.
So Adam and Eve are given so many do’s and only one don’t, with an ‘or else’!
Strangely, this early on in the unfolding biblical story, there was no mention of blessing for obedience, understandably, for what else could they possibly need or want in Eden? Presumably, they had already dealt with all the ‘do’s’!
The one and only ‘don’t command was specific regarding not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We know how that story ended, so the simple lesson to be learned in hindsight is obey whatever God commands, no ifs and buts!
If the Creator says so, DO SO! For more discussions of the first couple’s disobedience, check out these posts:
- An Inconvenient Truth for Adam and Eve – 1
- Adam the First Father
- The Tree of – ‘the Knowledge of’/’the Knowing of’ – Good and ‘Evil’/Good and ‘Bad’
- Revisit: The Serpent, the Tree, and the ‘I’
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And now to 2nd generation Cain; why could Cain not have learned from the mistakes of the First Parents?
If the first couple shared their loss of Eden [and why] to firstborn Cain to teach him that hard-learned lesson, Cain failed to ‘get it’. Why?
- To begin with, he couldn’t relate to the tree that got his parents in trouble; he was born and raised out of Eden where life is difficult. Besides, what kind of tree is called “knowledge of good and evil” and what kind of fruit does it bear? Who would believe there is even such a tree?
- Secondly, Cain had to deal with his own personal circumstances—back-breaking toil to get something growing to offer his parents’ God. Remember, that is part of the curse on Adam, out of Eden where everything is provided, no more easy life, work for your food from now on!
- Thirdly, that same God who expelled his parents out of their original home was now showing favoritism, not appreciating the fruit of Cain’s toil from the soil as He was with the offering of Abel.
- Fourthly, he’s now struggling with resentment, even anger toward this younger brother who obviously outshone him. Ever experienced those two hard-to-overcome emotions? Sibling rivalry was born here and continued through the next generations.
- The warning God gave Cain would be a general teaching not only to Cain but to all humanity, about uncontrolled sinful tendencies that could and should be curbed if only we would.
- For a more thorough discussion of Cain, heres’ a post:
Did disobedience of the Creator’s commands end with Cain? Meaning, everyone else lived happily ever after, having learned hard lessons from Adam & Eve & firstborn? At that time, the instructions were quite simple, right? What’s so difficult about ‘do not eat the forbidden fruit’ and ‘watch out for sin crouching at your door’? Alas, those two basic instructions have been violated from the first generation to our times, six millennia later.
Ask yourself:
- What ‘forbidden fruit’ are you struggling with?
- Have you opened the door to ‘sin crouching out there’?
- If you had kept the door shut, would you have been much happier?
- Or still curious?
NSB@S6K
