Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
The problem is that insisting on either is not supportable, therefore not a basis for claiming a superior theology or ministry.
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I won't go into everything I've already said about this, but from the verses I do think it is thoroughly supportable. ("It" being that there wasn't any bad element in the fruit).
The TOTKOGAE is described as 1) in the center of the garden, 2) being good for food, 3) pleasant to the sight, 4) makes you like God, and 5) forbidden to eat.
That's the information we are given. I don't know about you, but "good for food" simply cannot be said of something that is bad/death/poison, etc.
It also cannot be said that the TOTKOGAE was actually the "tree of death". To hold that view means that God was deceptive in referring to it as the TOTKOGAE, if it was actually a TOD. Not only that, but reading a few verses later shows where death came from - not from the TOTKOGAE, but it was punishment from God for their sin, by cutting them off from the tree of life.
I am a church kid who believed Lee's interpretation for decades. I went looking for support of his teaching - that there was some negative element in the TOTKOGAE - and found none.