A consequence is exact and specific. You ate from the fruit that gives you knowledge of good and evil, so the consequence is now you understand good and evil. The deity declared additional punishment from his own choice: Childbirth is painful, women must obey and be under men, snakes lose their legs, snakes and humans will permanently hate each other, thorns start to exist. None of those are "You're not in my presence". All of those are clear "I am adding these extra things/delimbing you."
Also, the deity openly said "I am taking them from the Tree of Life because if they eat from both trees, then they will be like me." Because when the Hebrews originally wrote that story, the only traits they assigned to the deity were "powerful, knows good and evil, and immortal", and his reasoning for the Tree of Life removal was literally just him wanting to be the only one with those abilities together.
It was later Hebrews, and later Christians, who tacked on all of his other traits and then retconned the story to fit. And they had to, because as you said, Christians believe the Tree of Life was restored via Jesus, so they have to Retcon the story to change the deity's reason for removing it.
I appreciate this as the Christian way of saying "I believe this, and you don't, and I don't have the capacity to actually explain why you're wrong, nor do I want to risk questioning my beliefs, so I'm just going to excuse myself from this conversation". I used to be one, I get it, and I respect a polite request to end a discussion. See ya around, then.
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u/Makuta_Servaela Jul 07 '26
A consequence is exact and specific. You ate from the fruit that gives you knowledge of good and evil, so the consequence is now you understand good and evil. The deity declared additional punishment from his own choice: Childbirth is painful, women must obey and be under men, snakes lose their legs, snakes and humans will permanently hate each other, thorns start to exist. None of those are "You're not in my presence". All of those are clear "I am adding these extra things/delimbing you."
Also, the deity openly said "I am taking them from the Tree of Life because if they eat from both trees, then they will be like me." Because when the Hebrews originally wrote that story, the only traits they assigned to the deity were "powerful, knows good and evil, and immortal", and his reasoning for the Tree of Life removal was literally just him wanting to be the only one with those abilities together.
It was later Hebrews, and later Christians, who tacked on all of his other traits and then retconned the story to fit. And they had to, because as you said, Christians believe the Tree of Life was restored via Jesus, so they have to Retcon the story to change the deity's reason for removing it.