Bible & Human Potential
This is an idea that may get called new-agey or heretical or something like that. I’m fully aware of that and I no longer care. A heretic is someone with a question other people are afraid to ask or hear the answer to. The world is changing and we have an opportunity to be a part of that or be changed by it and not in a good way.
With the success of the Left Behind series of novels and the ongoing study that many in Christendom engage in concerning the final chapters of Biblical history, the anticipatory furor over the coming of Antichrist and the one world government takes up a lot of the consciousness of people, especially here in the United States. The subject I am about to get into here has nothing to do with Antichrist or where he will pop up or the rapture or when any of that will take place. My only answer to those questions is I don’t know and it’s not my place to know. Over the years I have noticed some curiosities in the Bible and have never gotten a straight answer from Christians about them. I have found many events talked about in the Bible to be interesting and have wanted to know more than just the brief sketch given in the text. I once asked a former pastor what he thought happened at the Tower of Babel and his response was “What difference does it make?” He said this because the only thing that concerns him is “salvation,” wading people through the baptismal pool and filling pews. Sorry. No one told me I was supposed to walk around holding bibles upside my head like blinders on a horse and only looking “straight ahead.” I don’t run everything I read through the filter of does that get anyone “saved.” I leave that word in quotes because the understanding in the Orthodox church is that salvation belongs to G-d.
I’m going to be connecting a few dots to support my position that one may not be used to seeing connected. I believe that though many say they don’t believe the literal reading of the creation chapters, the way they conduct themselves and the way whole societies operate on the surface shows that people believe quite a lot of it, if only subconsciously, exactly as it is written. I wasn’t raised in church and many might say that is the reason I question things more than many people. That could be true. I can’t do anything about that. I’m just used to things making sense and these clipped, allegorical skits raise a lot of questions for me.
For this study I’m looking at chapters 2, 3 and 11 of Genesis as they pertain to who we really are. When I was scribbling notes about this the other day my notes came off rather snarkily. I will try to keep that tone out of this post.
In chapter 2 of Genesis G-d creates the woman out of the man’s rib. The man calls her Eve or Khava. And G-d tells them not to eat of the tree in the middle of the garden or they’ll die. So we zip ahead to the serpent in chapter 3:
4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Gen 3:4-5 NKJV
For anyone who feels their knee jerking and is about to shout, after a fierce intake of air, “That’s the big lie!” Hold that thought so we can qualify a couple of things. What I am about to say is not to defend the serpent but to clarify our understanding of the text. It is also not to give anyone delusions of pending godhood or anything like that. The popular reading of this passage takes all that the serpent says and calls it “the big lie.” There is a lie here. Perceptions of size do not matter. The lie or contradiction of what G-d says is only the statement “You will not surely die.” In chapter 2 verses 16 and 17 we see that G-d tells Adam that he’s not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil or he’ll die. The formation of Eve doesn’t begin until verse 18.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Gen 2:16-17 NKJV
As we’ll see shortly in chapter 3, the serpent is not lying when it says to Eve that they’d be like gods knowing good and evil. So that’s not the “big lie.” Now to hit the fast-forward button again. Eve looks at the tree and the fruit and reasons that it’s good for knowledge and she eats and hands the fruit to Adam and he eats. Then God finds out about it all, curses the serpent, curses the woman, curses the ground and we arrive at verse 22:
22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”— 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the man; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.
Gen 3:22-24, NKJV
The question I have starts here. Verse 22 reads like the writer of Genesis was eavesdropping on a conversation between G-d and one or more other beings. It’s almost like G-d had been on the phone with the writer of Genesis and forgot to hit the speaker button again after they were done talking. The popular explanation is that it is Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Some say G-d and the angels. I say, we don’t know. What it does look like here is that G-d is dealing with something he was not expecting from Adam and Eve. Whatever these two were they had transformed into something that lacked immortality but was sufficiently god-like that they had to be evicted and the way to the tree of life guarded. By the way I always wanted Lucas to do Indiana Jones and the Tree of Life. I wanted to see some more Nazis go up against the cherubs and get fried and have Harrison Ford get to the Tree of Life, but anyway…
Moving ahead to chapter 11 and the Tower of Babel, everyone spoke the same language and they were all in the one spot and decided to build a tower. G-d says something I found curious which relates to the nature of humans.
4 And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. 6 And the LORD said, “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language, and this is what they begin to do; now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them. 7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”
Gen 11:4-7, NKJV
What I find curious is the phrase in verse 6: “…now nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.” This and the discussion earlier in chapter 3 tell me that there is a lot more to humankind as far as potential is concerned than we’ve been able to achieve. In saying that I am not talking about cracking the genetic code or any of our pop-culture intellectual or technological pursuits. I think we need to explore it but I am not entirely sure how to go about that. Some might say that yes we have the potential but it has to be channeled through our current church structure. Some others might say we have the potential but it is a sin to do anything with it at all. Whatever it is we’re not going to find out anything from within the confines of religious compartmentalization. Our perception was transformed when realized that the Earth was not the center of the universe. Like it or not, we’re overdue for more transformation.
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This entry was posted on Sunday, June 8th, 2008 at 21:35 and is filed under RogueSun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Debra Masters (
I’d like to know what the original Greek (or is it Hebrew?) says.