Biblemania: The Garden of Eden

Last night, I was watching one of those “religious history” shows on the Smithsonian Channel. The Garden of Eden of the bible was mentioned in an earlier portion of the show. If you haven’t read the book (I know it’s long and has a lot of ridiculous stuff in it, but apparently it’s popular, though not widely read), two young naked kids named Adam and Eve are told by God to not put on any clothes. Or eat from the Tree of Knowledge. But while he’s out (Where did he go? Does God really have errands to run? Groceries? Our town has that thing where Kroger can bring you your groceries after just a few clicks online. I’d figure God could hook something like that up.), the silly kids eat from the Tree of Knowledge when a talking snake (pinned on Satan) tells them to.

Tree of Knowledge? I mean, that sounds like something you’d want to be involved with (despite the talking snake, I would have thought that would actually have been a deterrent – As a general rule, I specifically don’t do anything that a talking snake tells me, unless it’s “stop eating those mushrooms”). Who doesn’t want knowledge? I mean, besides George Bush?

If God had told them, “don’t eat from the Tree of Poison”, I think he would have gotten better compliance. Isn’t he omniscient anyway? So he certainly knew that the kids would eat from the tree beforehand, especially since he actually allowed the talking snake into the garden to tempt them. And when they eat from the tree, he acts so upset that he would be forced to cast them out for their betrayal. Even though he know they would do it.

What is this guy’s problem?

I tried a similar thing with my kids. I left them alone with a Tree of Candy. And you know what happened? They ate the candy! But I didn’t kick them out of the house for it. Because, well, kids like candy. What did I expect? I just hid the Tree of Candy next time.