Genesis in Hebrew.

When I look at the Hebrew words used in Genesis and not the English translations which most base their knowledge of the bible on, I find it completely possible that there could be a slightly different interpretation of the text.

The phrase:
וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְעֹ֣וף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־ הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־ הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־ הָאָֽרֶץ

Literal translation (word for word):
And he said God done person (individual) in our own our image and decreased the fish sea and chicken(fowl) heaven and cattle and country and scythe (scythe can also be reptile or insect) scythe on (post, super, over, per), country.

After translating:
And God said, Let man in our own image, and decreased (lowered) the fish of the sea, fowl of the air over the country and reptile and insect per the country.
The word used for reptiles and insects is most often used for the English word scythe.

I think that the people whom first wrote the text had a reason for wording it the way they did. But many will argue that the translation is wrong or that because of something it means something else. I did not do this to disprove anything or to say that I am more right than anyone else. This is just to get a different look at the same thing.

I find it interesting that all the described life was considered to be “lowered” for man’s benefit so to say. What I mean, is what was decreased?

The phrase:
וּמֵעֵ֗ץ הַדַּ֙עַת֙ טֹ֣וב וָרָ֔ע לֹ֥א תֹאכַ֖ל מִמֶּ֑נּוּ כִּ֗י בְּיֹ֛ום אֲכָלְךָ֥ מִמֶּ֖נּוּ מֹ֥ות תָּמֽוּת

Literal translation (word for word):
And wood are good evil no eat from him that on consume you from him death themes

After translating:
And the tree of knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat from that day consume you it will surely die.

Before we get into this next one, everyone should research the definition of Knowledge and come to an understanding that we are not all going to agree on what it means. After looking at it and “meditating” on it I came to the translation…
And the tree of familiarity of good and evil you shall not eat from, that day consume you, it will surely die.

I find this significant because for the first two people, death was unknown. Being one with God (or the Force) was an eternal existence, devoid of regret. And Eve was not made till after the tree was made… according to our translations, she was made because, “it is not good that man should be alone.” Then, after Adam had named all the creatures he slept and God made Eve. “And they were both naked and they were not ashamed.” So man was made without shame or familiarity of good and evil, but was capable of it.

I think that man was made centered with the capability of great wisdom and purposefully incomplete! And the message he was given was (how I think he might have interpreted it), “There is a tree which I have named; you shall not eat of its fruit because something will happen that you do not understand.”

Thank you for sharing. I believe you have caught a truth here.

Thanks for sharing this.

I am an Orthodox Christian, began pursuing the faith in 2014 and was baptized last year. I've studied the Orthodox faith for about four years now, and I think you make a very Orthodox point here.

One, we welcome textual analysis/criticism of the Bible. That's how things are learned. But as to the point you make, yes, mankind even in this perfect state was incomplete.

In Orthodoxy, we have a concept called "theosis," which is closely interrelated with salvation. It basically means to become closer to perfection, and to seek unity with God. It was this concept upon which John Wesley formulated the Methodist concept of sanctification, from his own study of Orthodoxy. In our belief, Christ would have come even had man never sinned, because Christ's main job was to teach us about theosis. So yes, we were incomplete, in a sense, even then.

Thank you again for sharing this. Forgive me if I hijacked your thread. I did not mean to use it as a soapbox to preach Orthodoxy.

thank you for this thread

my personal view is that the eating of the fruit signifies the human cognitive leap whereby we became capable of comparative abstraction and valuation

"the knowledge of good and evil" TO ME is not a moral dichotomy, but simple valuation - for example, maybe it is "good" to have a lot of food, and "evil" to have no food
not because starving makes you an accomplice of the devil, but because the consequences of hunger are "evil" for us personally

this view is ALMOST totally void of moral implications
to me, it is functional, and its not even about BEING GOOD or BEING EVIL, but about the ability to think abstractly, and to judge things categorically

to be able to look at the world through the lens of "some things are good, and some things are bad"

but "bad" got turned in to "evil"

so, PERSONALLY, i see the eating of the fruit as a story of man's evolution into a being which is capable of rational abstraction and judgement - once we reached the level where we could see the world and ourselves and each other from this more analytical and abstract level, we became "aware of our nakedness" for instance

we realized that such a thing as nakedness "exists"

the text as i have read it always indicated that we really did become like the gods in some way after eating the fruit, and i think thats very important to remember when considering the story

heres a quote from one online source https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%203&version=NIV

“The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

so i dont think there has to be such an attachment to the idea of "evil" as a demonic force or something, necessarily

the word "sin", from what i understand, did not have to imply a moral violation

it was an archery term which meant "to miss the mark" or "to miss the mark, and not be allowed to share in the reward that was set for those who hit the mark"

it wasnt really an issue of being morally defunct, but rather an issue of having not quite met the standard or achieved the goal

i dont know if thats really accurate translating, but i definitely LIKE it lol and i think theres merit to seeing it that way

i do find it very interesting that the fish were "lowered" - maybe that has to do with our ideas about the value of life itself?

this is just a guess, but maybe its like at some point we are going to ask "is LIFE valuable?" or even "is life sanctified?"

and its kind of in our interests to say "yes", but then we have to ask "is ALL life equally sanctified - even the fish and the rats?"

and if we say "yes" to this, that puts definite restrictions on what we are allowed to do

but if we say "no" then we have to figure out where the line is, and we might not actually draw that line at "human" - and i think theres a strong case to be made that even if we dont want to say "ALL life is sanctified" that we at least draw that line (collectively) at "human" and say "HUMAN life is sanctified" and i think that its not difficult to understand WHY thats a smart place for us to draw that line, and i dont see any reason why peoples in ancient times wouldnt have been able to reach that same conclusion

i dont know if thats really what happened, its my best "modern person interpretation" of what may have happened

or maybe its just simple logistics - now that humans are here, the preeminence of the other creatures is lowered somewhat, if for no other reason because there will be places which were once inhabited only by the fowl and the cattle where now there will be humans ?

doesnt make sense for the fish i guess - except maybe for the ones we eat ??

what do you think?