Is Satan being present in many places at once Biblical?

[Politesse]

The woman did die, though.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Reading Genesis 1 - 3, God created Adam as a gardener, stoop labor.
Adam was not allowed to eat of the Tree Of Knowledge Of good And Evil,nor the
Tree Of life to gain immortality. To become as a god himself. The serpent
was not Satan, unknown to the Torah. All of this was a silly myth, designed to
explain why life was hard and man was mortal.

Listening to Christians huff and puff nonsense about all of this is stupid.

Adam was created to dress God's garden, suggesting Eden was not a big affair.
Why God did not send his angel to guard his magic trees suggests God was
not very smart either. And apparently, God's lout sons (Genesis 6) were not
good gardeners. Nor was this supposedly omnipotent God.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The woman did die, though.

Is there an 80s sitcom episode in the Book of Genesis, I'm unaware of, with the serpent desperately trying to convince man and God the woman is still alive?

 

[Elixir]

@Learner, let’s suppose it matters somehow to someone whether your imaginary devil can be everywhere at once or not. You have made it clear that you think not. Yet you believe your the devil has been “all about”, laying traps.
So my question is:
Did he lay them all one at a time?

If so he must be capable of FTL travel. We all know that’s impossible.
If not, he must be capable of being in multiple places at one time. So my question is,
HOW MANY places can he be at once?
13?
666?

I would think that this is the FIRST thing you need to determine, for the answer to your question to have any importance to anyone ever.

Oh, wait! Maybe the devil has a remote control trap-laying device? Or a whole horde of them? Everywhere? Wouldn’t it be cool to find one?

 

[steve_bank]

Al literary interpretation of the fall I read is a story of the transition of a free roaming carefree nomadic culture to a fixed agricultural culture that required daily labor.Metaphorically kicked out of a a paradise.

 

[Learner]

I was listening to a youtube video in which a rabbi explained why the snake wanted to make man and woman fall. We are not told till Revelation that the snake was the devil, and since Jews don't accept the book of Revelation as scripture came to a different conclusion about what the snakes grievance was. The snake was jealous that Adam did not pick it as its mate. The snake was intelligent and had a personality and though it would have been a perfect mate for Adam. When Adam didn't choose it became enraged and bitterly jealous of Eve and wanted to destroy her.

Well that's vastly more sensible and reasonable. I am astonished that the Christians didn't pick up on this obvious truth.

Just a quick mention and also responding to BHs post.

The clue to this has been most obvious and as it's written in Genesis: The serpent was the "cleverest of animals" (not angels) cursed to crawl on its belly etc and etc. telling us this is not the devil.

 

[Politesse]

The woman did die, though.

Is there an 80s sitcom episode in the Book of Genesis, I'm unaware of, with the serpent desperately trying to convince man and God the woman is still alive?

The death of Adam is described in the following chapter, and the major theme of that chapter is a gradual decrease in human lifespans, from Adam's nine centuries to Noah's five only ten generations later. As though we've all caught some sort of communal plague.

 

[steve_bank]

Interpreting Genesis is akin to those who interpret and derive life meaning from the Star Wars and LOTR mythology.

Both Star Wars and LOTR are traditional forms of epic mythic battles between good and evil.

The final battle at the end of LOTR is an apocalyptic end of days battle. In the tale Gandalf The Grey falls down a deep underground abyss battling a demon. He emerges transformed into Gandalf The White. Cleansed.

In Star Wars Hans Solo is a grey not completely good or completely bad character. In the end he chooses good, and as in all good human tales and mythology the guy gets the girl.

It is inserting that Lucas said there were two inspirations for Star Wars. One was western cowboy serials he watched as a kid. Solo is a gunslinger with his native Wookiee crossbow slinging sidekick.


He also said the Vietnam War inspired the conflict between the technologically superior Empire and the rebels.

The point being you can not understand biblical metaphor and allegory without a cultural context of culture that wrote it. From the Oxford bible commentary Job was probably a story related to assimilation, and it woud have ben obvious in the day to Jews. And it was probably part of greater set of lsot teching materials.

 

[Politesse]

The final battle at the end of LOTR is an apocalyptic end of days battle. In the tale Gandalf The Grey falls down a deep underground abyss battling a demon. He emerges transformed into Gandalf The White. Cleansed.

That is not an accurate description of the Lord of the Rings, either literally or figuratively. The final battle at the end of Lord of Rings is the skirmish at Bywater, a tiny battle with some local gangsters over a hedgerow in the Shire, and it was very, very important to JRR Tolkien that this was so. The books are not fundamentally about the clash of great armies, but about the perserverance of the good in unexpected times and places.

 

[steve_bank]

As usual you nitpick past the meaning. Its been 40 years since I read it. I read his biography.

In WWI Tolkien was gassed in the trenches and lost college friends. He was part of literary group at Oxford.

The Inklings were an informal literary discussion group associated with J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis at the University of Oxford for nearly two decades between the early 1930s and late 1949.[1] The Inklings were literary enthusiasts who praised the value of narrative in fiction and encouraged the writing of fantasy. The best-known, apart from Tolkien and Lewis, were Charles Williams, and (although a Londoner) Owen Barfield.

The apocalyptic battle at the end bloody, brutal, the smell of death. Fire and smoke. Ghastly. WWI trench warfare.

The Hobbits the insular British country folk ignorant of the the looming German threats from across the water.

Plus his expertise in mythology and folk tales. He liked to wander around Europe drinking and smoking in local taverns listening to stories.

Point being again understand 3000 year old scripture requires understand the cultural context and who the writers were and who they were writing for.

Trying to imagine a historical Jesus and interpreting his alleged sparse words and unconnected sound bites requires a cultural and geopolitical context.

As an aperture analyst without any special seduction in mythology it seems obvious.

 

[DBT]

A lot of it was probably concocted weeks, months and years after whatever may have really happened, of which we know nothing.

 

[Politesse]

As usual you nitpick past the meaning.

And yet, I'm right and you're wrong.

 

[Politesse]

Point being again understand 3000 year old scripture requires understand the cultural context and who the writers were and who they were writing for.

Very true. But alas, very little of that context is now known with any certainty. Indeed when the various sections of Genesis were written is not known and cannot be certainly known.

 

[EricH]

The final battle at the end of LOTR is an apocalyptic end of days battle. In the tale Gandalf The Grey falls down a deep underground abyss battling a demon. He emerges transformed into Gandalf The White. Cleansed.

This is not correct. @Politesse is correct. There are larger battles before that, and the "climax" of the book is when the ring is cast into the fire of Mount Doom following a fight between Frodo and Gollum leading to the fall of Barad-dur.

 

[EricH]

Point being again understand 3000 year old scripture requires understand the cultural context and who the writers were and who they were writing for.

Very true. But alas, very little of that context is now known with any certainty. Indeed when the various sections of Genesis were written is not known and cannot be certainly known.

Unless we can invent a time machine that allows us to view the past, and Christianity vanishes in a puff of smoke when the video of the viewing hits YouTube.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The woman did die, though.

Is there an 80s sitcom episode in the Book of Genesis, I'm unaware of, with the serpent desperately trying to convince man and God the woman is still alive?

The death of Adam is described in the following chapter, and the major theme of that chapter is a gradual decrease in human lifespans, from Adam's nine centuries to Noah's five only ten generations later. As though we've all caught some sort of communal plague.

The death of Adam is an aside in Chapter 5. There is no exclamation about the death being the result of any past transgression.

The language used in Genesis 2 indicates immediate death, not gradual death. The woman's exaggeration (can't even touch it... assuming this was an intended exaggeration by the author and not poor editing) to the serpent also implies an immediate calamity. Also, the Tree of Life appears as a fragment near the end of the narrative of The Fall. It isn't mentioned when God is showing Adam the digs.

Regarding the age of people post Adam, I haven't read anything that really has a strong explanation for the reasoning behind it. It isn't even really taken with any notable consequence either. They just list it out as the lives get shorter and shorter, even past The Great Flood. Like the Nephilim, it reads more as a pop culture reference lost to time.

 

[Politesse]

The language used in Genesis 2 indicates immediate death, not gradual death.

Are you new to metaphor or something?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

The language used in Genesis 2 indicates immediate death, not gradual death.

Are you new to metaphor or something?

Nah, he's been posting here a while. So I don't think Metaphor has posted in this thread.

I'm not seeing it as a metaphor, especially in context of the written narrative. As long as one reads the story knowing the character of Yahweh, it isn't a stretch to suggest the serpent is a quasi-hero here.

The initial command indicates the moment he eats from it, he will die. That seems clear, but what makes it clearer is Genesis 3:1-4 when the serpent asks about the trees. The text indicates the serpent is quite clever. It becomes difficult to parse whether he is tricking woman or freeing her. The serpent asks about all the trees first, perhaps setting the woman up. The woman indicates that they can't even touch the fruit lest they die. Again, implying a quick death. The serpent responds that:

• they wouldn't die
• they would know all things

Both of these things happen. She doesn't die. The serpent doesn't rejoice. In fact, that is the last we hear from them. God finds out and is pissed! Punishes them all, none via death, nor banishment. And it isn't until after God talks to himself and whomever else he lives with at the Beach House, if they stay in the Garden and eat of the tree of life, they'll be like he is. Kind of a dickish thing really. And again, Yahweh is a dick, so this does offer an interpretation that God was lying to man about the fruit in order to hold man back, to be his servant, not his equal. There is no reason why man can't be like he is. There is no prohibition. So if you pull that string, the serpent can be a protagonist. Does God make snakes and man enemies because they were allies, much like with Babel, he confuses man because they are working too well together.

 

[ideologyhunter]

Isn't it nuts, in 2024 CE, to be deciding the virtues/defects and qualities of invisible beings from writings that go back 5000 years? (Or 2500 years back, depending on which scholar you prefer.)

 

[Elixir]

I read that story when I was a tot. My mind was a relatively blank slate, and I think I saw it correctly the first time.
When the snake promised death, it meant that lifespans would be newly limited, or that people would be aware of its limits, not that apples were lethal poison.
Before A&E succumbed to temptation, death wasn’t a “thing”, nor was fear of death. But with knowledge came an awareness of the limited duration of a life, and all the attendant anxieties and fears.
Made sense to five year old me, and still makes the most sense.

Isn't it nuts, in 2024 CE, to be deciding the virtues/defects and qualities of invisible beings from writings that go back 5000 years?

Hey, someone has to do it. Oh wait - no they don’t. But there are whole groups of sites and discussion groups to similarly parse LOTR, so …