The Garden of Eden - What's Your Interpretation?

The story of the Garden of Eden and the creation of man and woman. Cosmic fruits, persuasive serpents and 'His & Her' fig leaves; the Biblical version of our origins is a tale that has intrigued - and puzzled - Christians and non-Christians alike throughout the ages. The interpretations of the story itself are many and varied. Here's just a few:

Literal story: God made a garden in Sumeria or wherever and in it grew magical trees, the fruit of which could bestow knowledge of good vs evil, and eternal life on those who ate it. There was an evil, talking snake in one of the trees that convinced Eve to eat the fruit. God was in the dark about all this until taking a stroll in the garden one day, he noticed Adam and Eve covering their private bits with leaves. God got pissed off and he kicked them out of Eden, and placed a flaming sword and Cherubim at the entrance to stop anyone sneaking back in.

Parable: The story of Adam and Eve is a fable intended to provide us with some sort of understanding regarding our creation and our relation to God. All of the objects and creatures mentioned in the story are symbolic. The actual truth of the creation of man is far beyond our ability to conceptualize, so God had to "dumb it down" for us.

E.T: God and the angels were/are extraterrestrials from another planet/galaxy/dimension. They created Adam and Eve through uber-advanced genetic engineering technology, possibly by altering the DNA of existing prehistoric man. The trees of Life and Knowledge are ancient man's interpretations of some sort of technological/metaphysical secret that we stumbled upon while playing in E.T. God's laboratory. The serpent was possibly a Reptilian E.T.

Chinese Whispers: The original story has been so changed and diluted by retellings, translation and alterations that there's no telling how little of what really happened is still left in the text.

Hogwash: There never was a Garden of Eden. The entire story is a complete myth passed down over time and altered with each retelling until it was finally "penned" to become the current biblical version. There is no God.

Combination/Other: ...?

So, I'm curious, what's your take on the Garden of Eden?

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
So, I'm curious, what's your take on the Garden of Eden?

Scientific:
Eden was a puddle of water.. Adam was a single celled organism which split to form Eve.. and so starts the story of evolution..

Common misconceptiions about the Adam and eve account:

There were two important tree's bearing fruit. One was the tree of life, the other was the Tree of knowledge of good and evil.

God commanded you could eat from the tree of life, but if you ate from the Tree of knowlege you could no longer eat from the tree of life and would die.

The fruit from the tree of knowledge was not an apple

There was no fig leaves, adam and eve only covered them selves after eating from the tree of knowledge and realised they were naked and "Covered" themselves.

There was a serpant not a snake, and the serpant was able to move without dragging it's body on the ground.

THere is evidance to suggest that Adam and eve never ate meat while in the garden of Eden.

God was able to walk amoung them

Scientific:
Eden was a puddle of water.. Adam was a single celled organism which split to form Eve.. and so starts the story of evolution..

I give Hogwash 99% and Scientific 1% purely because we know the little organisms names were "larry and moe"

Originally posted by Jehosephat
Common misconceptiions about the Adam and eve account:

THere is evidance to suggest that Adam and eve never ate meat while in the garden of Eden.

God was able to walk amoung them

Evidence??? Please provide me with any information source that claims "evidence" of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.

I'll have to say it's all hogwash...

The first men and women existed in Africa -- a place barren of gardens.

This tale is stained with mans sexist ignorance. It has a loose translation of men thinkin they're superior to women. As the bible was compiled in a time where, even more than now, men thought themselves better than women. Also evident in the fact that the Chistian God is a man, not a women. Awfully sexist to me.

If there isn't any Female Gods to hit on -- than why does he have a sex at all????

It blames women for all of mans pain. If you look just historically at some of the most devestating events -- men are responsible.

First off, Riley...nice one!

Ok, I am going to have to side here with Kalibur ans I_s_i_s.

Josemoron...what in the hell do you mean there is evidence that adam did not eat meat? You are completely out of your tree even suggesting that there is evidence that this fictional person even existed, let alone only ate meat. Heres a hint, use propoganda to try and convince stupid morons that this story was real if you want...but do it one step at a time.

No evidence exists anywhere that adam and eve exist. Use your freeking heads (directed at those who buy into this stuff). If you had no way of scientifically studying the earth, you would have made up the same BS stories that you find in old texts such as the bible.

To be quite honest, these stories are impossible by all measures. Scientifically, most of the old testament could not have occured. Especially the main BS that is spewed from that miserable wreck of murder and lies you call the bible.

But impossible isnt the main problem. The main problem is the fact that you would want to believe this crap. Your god loves you so much... Thats why in one of his famous impossible stories, he murdered EVERYONE on earth with the exception of one family. He murdered them all, innocent or guilty. Painful and awfully. What a sick pig it would take to do that. Someone akin to Hitler or Stalin.

Parable: The story of Adam and Eve is a fable intended to provide us with some sort of understanding regarding our creation and our relation to God. All of the objects and creatures mentioned in the story are symbolic. The actual truth of the creation of man is far beyond our ability to conceptualize, so God had to "dumb it down" for us.

That's my opinion, i'll leave it at that.

This thread got real ugly real quick: "use propoganda to try and convince stupid morons that this story was real if you want."Seapeople

Much as i love being called a "stupid moron" i'll bow out of this particular debate
:shk:

I think the whole story of Adam and Eve and their defiance of God is just a metaphor or symbol of humanities defiance of God. I dont really care if it happened or not. It doesnt make sence after they left the garden any way.

Im starting to understand how it will all come abuot now.

Adam and Eve represent all men and women. The garden of eden is a place you can live in peace and free of hunger forever. To me this represents a real garden that exist today right in your own hometown that produces food to live. There is also the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This represents technology. Things like cars, power plants, tv, computers... God told us that we could eat anything in the "garden" and it would provide us with everything we would need to be happy. But we didn't. We ate from the tree that he warned us about and we try to improve on God's garden with technology and it will only destroy us in the end. The good part is that its not to late to spit out the fruit and return to the garden. God is a little pissed right now but he does forgive and will love us if we could only stop stuffing our faces with the one fruit he asked us to avoid. If you do decide to return to the garden don't think you can bring along a little of the forbidden fruit tucked away in your pockets. You have to give it ALL up to live in harmony again. As hard as it may seem its really not.
peace.

Well I belive there was this "Eden" place, only it was inhabited by more men and women than just Adam and Eve. If you look at the way it's described in the Bible, all of the humans on Earth are supposed to be decendants of Adam and Eve. If this was true, we'd have all been a bunch of psychosematic drool monkeys by the 4th or 5th generation due to the sheer amount of inbreeding that would have to occur to produce 6 billion people of today's life.

More than likely, there were many couples living on a large "Eden" and once "Eve" made the mistake of eating the apple from the Tree of Knowledge she ruined it for all the inhabitants. It's just that when the Bible was written, it probably sounded more dramatic for Adam and Eve to be the only two people on Earth. And as everyone knows, drama sells books. A good reason why the Bible is the MOST SOLD book in the world. Eden existed, just not in the same form as what we've been taught to believe. At least that's how I see it.