
Should they have got off with a warning?
BBC Radio 4 and World Service are now broadcasting a lot of Christians singing in Church and a vicar reciting bits of The Bible. To give us a sort of festive feel I expect.
However, rather than selecting the story of the birth of Jesus which one might think appropriate for the time of year the vicar has told us of Adam and Eve. I quote from the good book (for those that came in late, God said don’t east the fruit, a snake told Eve she could eat it so she did, Eve then told Adam to eat and so he did. God has now discovered that they have been eating his magic fruit)
3:14 And the LORD God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life.
3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.
3:17 And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
3:18 Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field;
3:19 In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
The vicar finished off with “Praise be to God”.
Praise be indeed. How very festive. Personally I think that God overreacted. If he’d asked me I would have advised him to give them a warning and move the fruit trees away so that they couldn’t be tempted again. Or take it away completely. Put it somewhere else. On Jupiter maybe. That’s how I would have designed the universe. Put all the things that you don’t want near each other a long way away from each other so to speak.
Better still, if he’d used a bit of psychology he could have given them all some kind of magic temporary illness and then said: “Ha! Ha! I warned you? But oh no, you’d rather listen to snakes than the Lord thy God. Now look at you.”
I guess he would have had to reverse the effects of the magic fruit too but….Oh, well…obviously I’d need more detailed information to say exactly what God should have done in the circumstances and he didn’t ask me anyway but I still think he overreacted.
|
Snake |
Eve |
Adam |
General |
Comments |
Cursed above all cattle |
Y |
|
|
|
Bad |
Cursed above every beast of field |
Y |
|
|
|
Bad |
Forced to move on belly |
Y |
|
|
|
Bad |
Eat dust all days of life |
Y |
|
|
|
Bad |
Snake / Woman Enmity |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Inconvenient |
Snake seed / woman seed enmity |
Y |
Y |
|
|
Inconvenient |
Bruised head |
Y |
|
|
|
Bad |
Sorrow & conception multiplied |
|
Y |
|
|
Bad |
Children brought fourth in sorrow |
|
Y |
|
|
Bad |
Desire husband |
|
Y |
|
|
Personal preference |
Ruled over by husband |
|
Y |
|
|
Bad |
Not eat of it (the tree of knowledge) |
|
|
Y |
|
This is odd as they were not allowed to do this anyway and now it only applies to Adam. |
Ground cursed |
|
|
Y |
Y |
Bad |
All eating in sorrow |
|
|
Y |
|
Bad |
Land to bring fourth thorns & thistles |
|
|
Y |
Y |
Bad |
Eat herbs |
|
|
Y |
|
Good |
East bread in sweat of face |
|
|
Y |
|
Bad |
Mortality |
|
|
Y |
|
Bad |