You can't change scripture just so you can disagree with it. It says knowledge of godd and evil and that is what it means.
What is knowledge if it is not knowledge of good and evil, up and down, black and white, safe and dangerous? The primary words were "the tree of Knowledge." Even if one tries to limit knowledge to good and evil, my point remains rational. The story was used by ancient warlords to keep people ignorant, submissive, and never to question the wisdom of the warlord. Genesis was an allegory perhaps deliberately intended to cower the mass of the people to the will of those in power. Good and Evil can simply be metaphors for obedience versus dissent. Either way, it was a political tool of oppressive rulers, from warlords, barons, dukes, princes, and kings.
God was simply the mythical monster who would eat children who disobeyed their fathers. Noah's flood was another example implying that the human race was guilty of sin (i.e. disobedience.)
Without this knowledge we would be like animals
Breaking news!
We are in fact ANIMALS. We lack green leaves, roots into the ground, or asexual reproduction. Separating humans from
other animals was due to ignorant Christian Superstition. Their arrogance led to thinking that humans have souls (making them little immortal gods.)
Having this knowledge is what marks us out as different, with all the weight of responsibility that implies.
Evolution led to a line of primates leading to Apes 15 million years ago. Further evolution by natural selection favoured apes with bipedal gait, tool using hands, and selected cleverness that led to us. It was not magic. It was real and is preserved in Hominid fossils for millions of years.
We were not special. We were just smarter. We became dominant because of vocal language communication and social grouping. Individually a lone human faced predation by lions, hyenas, and crocodiles. Our dominating characteristics were intelligence, learning, communication, inventiveness, and the group tendency already typical of all hominids from Australopithecus to Homo sapiens. We were smart enough to invent gods to use as social tools and religions as rules of obedience and submissiveness to the leader.
Dinosaurs ruled the Earth for 160,000,000 years. Top predators like T. rex were at the top. Group hunting raptor dinosaurs were the most intelligent. One wonders how smart they would have evolved in social group if the dinos did not go extinct. Some other animal better adapted to changing conditions will some day replace humans.
We lost our innocence and gained wisdom, and there is no going back.
We lost our pre-hominid ignorance and gained the more adaptive abilities of inquiry, knowledge, analytical reasoning, and social skills. Of course, we could not go back. Put any one of us in a wilderness with predators, he or she is unlikely to survive.
As will all good myths, the Eden story is always open to new applications and interpretations. The clash between livestock and arable certainly gets a mention in the story of Esau and Jacob.
Sure it is. It is allegory not history. We can only assume or speculate how those early humans prior to 200,000 years ago developed magical myths that today seem silly but not to the earliest Homo sapiens. The meaning of Genesis is best seen in retrospect and applying known history and events.
We can look back and see Original Sin was the sin of seeking forbidden knowledge (forbidden by warlords.) The penalty was to be thrown out of the magical garden where food was aplenty and work unnecessary. We now see that it was the transition of humans from hunter-gatherers to pasturalism and later to agriculture. Like all of us, stories of the "good ole days" are elaborated to seem like some precious way of life now lost.
We can listen to Elizabethan songs played by fancy string instruments and people dancing and it seems like a wonderful age. Americans see the cowboy as the greatness of America. He rode his horse, carried a gun, and herded cattle from Texas to Dodge. It is romantic. However, the reality is far from wonderful. The Elizabethan peasant lived in squalor and drank filthy water. Homeless people died in the streets of London with carts to carry them away before that stank too much.
Old Times are viewed with rose coloured lens. We see the few good parts and forget the misery.
Men and their families following the goat or caribou herds and fending off lions, wolves, bears, and human raiders did not think it was nice. Their stories are about a magic garden created by some god. In the garden food was everywhere and no work was required. How did we loose that...original sin against God? That sin was violating the ban on seeking knowledge.
Agricultural groups were advanced from pasturalism. They planted crops that could be stored and prevent famine. Populations could grow and form towns and cities with enough time on their hands to become artisans, blacksmiths, bakers, carpenters, house builders, and priests. However, pushing the plough in the Sunlight with temperatures from 40 degrees to 50 degrees centigrade was felt to be miserable. Why were we expelled from the Magic Garden?
It must have been an offence against the Gods. What would offend the gods? The major offence would be a mere human seeking the knowledge of the gods. Gods reportedly said, "Gen 3:22 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of
us in knowing good and evil.
Humans socially and intellectually evolved from 200,000 BCE through hunter-gatherer to pasturalist, to farmer, to manufacturer, to space explorer. However, they still believed in the myth of the magic garden (hunter-gatherer.) The delusion of a Golden Age grew with time, as people were ignorant of the ways of their remote ancestors.
Amergin
) because the moment one has clothes one has something that is yours and yours alone. Thus I agree with your assertion that there is an element of compromise in any lifestyle.