(Written 5.September.2013)
In lieu of a certain peaked curiosity elicited by my blip about this chapter in my book, I’ve decided to give a short blog post containing excerpts from the chapter, blips about the themes discussed, an outline of ideas and conclusions, and just where I gleaned what I have about judgment, ours and Gods, and what was going on in the garden.
Here it is:
There’s always this same humorous reaction that people give me when I’ve tried to explain to them that—according to the Bible, mankind (nor, in fact, animalkind for that matter) was not originally created to eat meat, but rather: fresh fruit. There’s this sort of disconcerting demeanor until I tell them to get out their books and look it up.
It’s true.
Meat was not “given” by God as something to eat until after the flood; all the way in chapter 9 (v.3).
Cue “Mind Blown.”
When in all fact, the only mention of food for mankind—up until that point, is found in verse 29 of the first chapter of Genesis. Here God instructs both the man and woman (take note of that as it’ll play a part in the whole “complimentarian”/“egalitarian” bit later on…) that they have been given “every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it,” for food.
Here’s the thing that stands out to me about this, and it is not that we should go back to eating raw fresh fruit only, cause that may lead to some unwanted consequences…
But that—within the given “command” is an unspoken negation that I think we tend to look over. If every seed bearing plant and every tree with fruit that has seed in it is good for food, then every plant that isn’t seed bearing and every tree that has fruit without seed is not good to eat.
I’ve heard it put best with this explanation that Adam and Eve effectively became “fruit inspectors.” They interacted with what was provided for them, inspecting each to see if it bore seed or didn’t.See it was then that they had both a free will, and a good free will—for they only wanted to good, namely, seed bearing food, but were free to interact and choose the good. Yes, given in the command is also a judgment—that only seed bearing plants and fruits are good for food (given by God), but that same judgment was wired into them. They only wanted the good, because they trusted the judgment, and so they too looked, “inspected” and—in effect, judged which were seed bearing and which weren’t.
And this–if I had to state it, would be where the most concise expression of the overarching idea of this chapter is” that I believe we were made to judge from the moment we were created. I believe it was wired into our being. I believe (as was stated by a man far more articulate and brilliant than me) that originally, we had a free will, yes, but it was a good free will.
Every judgment made was a free choice that only desired the good. I believe that after the fall, this judgment was corrupted and tainted, because we gained an intimate knowledge of both good and evil–note, NOT good from evil. Now our judgment is screwed up. And the only solution is to do what we were originally wired to do: trust God’s judgment, not our own.
Mind.
Blown.
This is just a “taste” of what I get into in “The Fresh Fruit Diet” chapter. The implications of what I’ve read (and this point in itself) are vast, and this is something only a big chapter in a book can get into, including the following:
***The serpent asks if God said the man and the woman can’t eat from ANY tree. This line of questioning leads directly to their interaction, their fruit inspection job, their own judgments about which is good and which isn’t to eat, given God’s command. See, the serpent wasn’t questioning the prohibition of the one tree, but specifically the judgment of God on that tree. Making man’s judgment seem greater than God’s. That is, if Adam and Eve weren’t to even go near it, it meant that they were to trust God’s judgment that this tree’s fruit had no seeds, it was not good (at least for them). They had to trust that judgment without making their own. They had to trust without “inspecting” it for themselves. The serpent dared them to “inspect” for themselves. See whether or not God was lying.
And what was the fruit but “pleasing to the eye”? What else could this random description mean given the context except that—upon inspection, this fruit may have indeed seemed to have seeds?
***We tend to read and assume that the serpent stated that we would know—intimately (yada) good and evil, as distinct. And that is where the idea that “judgment” came into being. That we would know good from evil.
Yet there’s no distinction or distinguishing between the two—Good and Evil. We tend to see it that through the fall, through the eating of the forbidden fruit, we’d be able to know good, and separately know evil, mutually exclusive. This isn’t stated by the serpent nor by God later in Gen. 3 that the consequence of breaking God’s command has imbued us with the ability to categorize good and evil separately, good from evil—judgment, BUT RATHER, we would “yada” (know intimately, based on experience, relationally) BOTH GOOD AND EVIL. Which we now do.
***Eve is always portrayed as making stuff up.
Stupid woman. She was deceived because she was silly and ignorant and childish and naïve. She added commands to what God had originally instructed Adam. This is what happens when you let a woman in charge…
all that bullshit.
Really, Eve displays a coherent knowledge and the text expresses her own personal relation with God. She makes a clear statement of their charge, and a declarative statement of what God said to them both: they are both to not eat, and not touch it (that is, inspect it).
Adam was told that there was only one tree that had fruit that was not given by permission. God did not say the location of the tree but that would not have been needed since Adam was there when God created and named the trees including the tree at the center of the garden. While these trees were created after Adam was placed in the garden, the woman was not there to see the creation of the trees. She was the one who needed to know where this special tree was located.
The woman identifies that the location of the tree was given to her by the words of God. It is her testimony that “God has said,” not “the man told me that God said.”
…
Aaand more!
Hope this clears some things up—or at least opens minds up for discussion, thought, your own pursuit, etc. But if even some of these notes are unclear, or—you wish to discuss some of the points (or the main point) leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
UPDATE (20.February.2020): You can now find my official book proposal and finalized introduction (as well as a free chapter–THIS completed Chapter, in fact, by visiting the valuable resources, links, reads, and views link)
Leaving La Mancha 