Novum Christianitatis Studium Bibrum

Bereshit 3:5

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5 כי ידע אלהים כי ביום אכלכם ממנו ונפקחו עיניכם והייתם כאלהים ידעי טוב ורע׃

Commentarius in hunc versum  

By Brian David

This relief, showing Eve taking fruit from the serpent, is on the Palazzo Ducale in Venice, dating from the 14th century

Here we see the great lie people offered themselves, whispered from the seductive power of their senses to the vulnerable desire they had to live from themselves. What if the forbidden fruit -- applying their minds, their logic to the ultimate questions of faith – would actually unlock the door to all the secrets? What if it would let them decide right and wrong for themselves? What if it would make them like God? It is the same question that seduces so many today; because they love themselves so much, they turn their logic to proving that there is no God. And if there is no God, then they themselves are as gods, deciding about life in the power of their own minds.

In positive cases – such as when angels and people are called gods, or when the Lord is referred to as the God of gods – those gods represent true ideas that come to us from the Lord. In negative cases – such as when the people of Israel repeatedly adopt the gods of their neighbors – those gods represent false and twisted thinking that attacks what is good and true.



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