What if Eve had not transgressed?

[Jack]

In the Christian religion the story of Adam and Eve, whether taken literally or allegorically, is a story of mankind's choice to disobey their god, thus condemning all future generations to enduring a birthright of sin.

Supposedly Eve had a choice. What would have happened had she decided not to partake of the tree of knowledge between good and evil? What do you think god's plans were for mankind free of sin? Would Earth have differed at all from heaven, and if not, why bother creating Earth and humans at all? He could have just made everybody angels and dealt with rebellious angels the same way he chose to deal with satan.

Was humanity, according to Christianity and Judaism, a planned failure? Were we, in the body of Eve, destined or predetermined to be sinful?

[ShOuLdEr]

if Eve had not disobeyed "God" wouldn't there only be Adam and Eve?

Correct me if i'm wrong but i thought that children and labour only came about after she transgressed.

[ShOuLdEr]

I did a little more research and learned something new! I always thought having children was one of Eve's curses but its just the pain that is the curse.

If "God" is omnipotent then surely it was known that Eve would indeed transgress

[Thanatos]

I never got that story. Knowledge isn't a bad thing, is it? Also, what's his plan if he's infinite but couldn't predict the actions of his creations? If he can see everything at once, he must have seen Eve thinking about it and walking up to the tree...

Judging by just the Bible and not what people generally believe about it, I'd say that the concept that fits the greatest number of stories about him is that god is powerful in ways that approach but are not equal to infinite might or knowledge.

However, the concept that fits the entire Bible at once is that god is as mythological as Zeus and Odin.

[Athena]

Your question is well asked as it stimulates thinking. Children were not born before Adam and Eve ate the fruit, and ever sinse, those who have held this belief, have tied nudity and sex with sinfulness, making the religion rather morbid. I find the bible, as well as other holy books and myth written by men, unpleasantly sexist, with warnings of the evilness of females. What would have happened without the this story and similar ones?

I prefer the Summerian story that Hebrews translated into the story of Adam and Eve. The Hebrews changed the story from a story of many God's to a story of one God. In the original story, a river over flowed its banks and destroyed a Goddesses plants. She was so angry she cursed the river to death. The river was almost dead when a fox convinced the Goddess to let the river live, and one of the Goddess who helped heal the river was both "the lady of rib" and the "lady who makes live". She was the original Eve, the woman made of the rib and "lady who makes live".

When the river was healed, it asked for helpers to help it stay within its banks, and the great Goddess, created a man and woman from mud and breathed life into them. Many primitive people have believed it is our duty to help nature, and a sin to destroy it. Here the fault was the river or nature if you like, not humans who are created to help nature.

I also perfer the Greek version of the story, known as "Pandora and the Box". In this version of the story, men existed in a very primitive state and a God feeling sorry for them gave them fire against Zues's will. Here the forbidden knowledge is not good and evil, but technology. Zues feared with the technology of fire, man would discover all other technologies and forget the gods. This is what happened isn't it? However, this story is also sexist, saying woman was created to torment men. They are a mix of all that is desirable so men would desire them, and all that is irritating, so Zues gets some revenge.

When Pardora opens the box, all the miseries are released. This was Zues's way of slowing down the progress of mankind, so that they might remember the gods and depend on them longer. This whole story is more reasonable than the Adam and Eve story.

[Cephus]

Since Eve is nothing more than a fictional character in a story, it's a little silly to ask 'what ifs' about it. That's like asking "What if Harry Potter didn't go to Hogwarts?" Well then, there wouldn't be a 7-book series about his adventures there, would there?

[Jack]

Since Eve is nothing more than a fictional character in a story, it's a little silly to ask 'what ifs' about it.

It's a thought experiment. One doesn't have to believe in the premise to examine what it implies. I'm attempting to deconstruct the story and consider what would have happened if Eve had not tasted of the knowledge of good and evil. I don't have to think the story of Little Red Riding Hood is true to consider what might have happened had the wolf been trapped before he got to grandma's house.
We don't always have to be so literal when asking, "what if".

[Lullaby Chainer]

Humanity was most definitely a planned failure.

Premise: There are choices God could have made that would avoid a cursed humanity.
Premise: There are choices God could have made that would entail a cursed humanity.
Premise: God is omniscient.

God chose the details of which entails a cursed humanity. He was fully aware of this.

When you're omniscient, everything you do has a reason. You don't put a magical fruit in the Garden of Eden just to see what will happen. You know what will happen.

[Jack]

Yet Christians maintain there was choice involved in her decision to disobey god. If indeed there was, what would have happened had she chosen differently, to obey god?

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: Isherwood Yet Christians maintain there was choice involved in her decision to disobey god. If indeed there was, what would have happened had she chosen differently, to obey god?

Beats me.. maybe God would explode.

[Milton Bradley]

Well, for one thing, the garden of Eden was created for God. Adam, and Eve were only there to tend Gods garden.


So it stands to reason that Heaven would look an awful lot like Earth, as God created ( Earth ) the garden for His own enjoyment.

[freefallife]

I suppose we would never have known the difference between good and evil. We'd all be walking around nude. So much for the fashion industry.

Thank goodness she didn't eat from the tree of life either. We'd have a serious population problem!!

[Athena]

I suggest if we want truth, we look for what is common in religion and myth, and study human nature.

[phoenix_fire]

I feel it's once again necessary to clear up a few traditional misconceptions about the Adam and Eve business.

First, "eating the fruit" is not a metaphor for having sex. It's not about that at all...no matter what certain Catholic schoolteachers want to say. Incidentally, sex itself is not inherently sinful. It just depends on the context.

Second: it was the "tree of knowledge of good and evil". The fact that it was forbidden does not at all mean that God was forbidding all knowledge and science...no matter what certain Darwinists and Big Bangers want to say. So long as the pair did not eat from this tree, they maintained their innocence and were incapable of committing the conscious cruelties that we see. Paul puts it this way:

Quote by: Romans 7:11 What shall we say, then? Is the law sin? Certainly not! Indeed I would not have known what sin was except through the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, "Do not covet." But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.

Basically, once you know the difference between what you're supposed to do and what you're not supposed to do, you become accountable to that law. What Adam and Eve had in the beginning was kinda like political immunity.

Third, and this one is a lot more complicated than the previous two, God does not experience linear time on a fixed vector like we do. Mathematically speaking, He is in a higher dimension that occupies all points in our dimension of time simultaneously, being throughout and above. Like a sphere with a 2D plane through it. God is there right now as Adam and Eve are disobeying Him, He's here right now with us, and He's there right now at the end of things when everything's played out. (Incidentally, that is how the redemption of the cross can be seemingly retroactive) He allows people choice, but He can still take those bad choices and make something good out of it. So basically, and this is really going to bake your noodle later on:

Quote by: Morpheus What happened, happened and could not have happened any other way.

[phoenix_fire]

Now that that's outta the way...

I suppose that you could say that humanity would have lived on in blissful ignorance of the War going on outside. They would have had everything they needed. They wouldn't wonder whether God existed because He'd still be walking with them in the Garden. There wouldn't be pain or pointless toil or sickness or hunger or anything like that.

Or, another possibility is that the serpent would've just tempted Adam instead. A lot of male supremacists like to say that the serpent went after Eve because it was picking off the inherently weaker of the two (woman), but I think that's utter b.s. I think it just went after whichever was closer at the time. There was a 1 in 2 chance that it would've been Adam instead. Point is, regardless of order, they both ate the fruit. But I digress.

I think, however, that if Adam would have eaten the fruit first, the male supremacists would say that the serpent just picked the more intelligent and influential of the two. Men are men, no matter how you look at it. Sexual psychologists would say that no matter how you looked at the ancient traditions, men would still have used it to oppress women and call them inferior, historically. This is due to the nature of their respective roles in sexual intercourse. The shrinks are probably right.