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The Bible is my sole authority for God's truth .. as HE gave it, not as how we percieve or desire to understand it, and just because we have the scriptures blocked off in sections (authors, times etc.), they shouldn't be construed as having been given to man as piecemeal data.

Remember that God created all things and that HE said after each creation, it was good.

2 Timothy 2:15 tells us that we are to study the word of God, that we might be complete and capable of properly understandinf what God is telling us.

We also know that in 2 Timothy 3:16, scripture is Given to us by God FOR our good (and by extension, the good of others .. through us and our acting on what we know to be good for us).

Revelation 22:19 cautions us to be careful how we handle the scriptures ... not to add nor take away from what God has given us.

Now ... waaayyyy back in Genesis 1:15 & 16, we're told that God had put Adam into the Garden and Adam's job was to dress it and keep it.

I like to garden, and I know that 'dressing and keeping' is a lot of hard and hand's on work ... and I believe both God and Adam understood what dressing and keeping meant.

God also cautioned Adam not to EAT of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil ... 'cause if he did ... Adam would die.

There is nothing to indicate Adam could'nt touch it.

Beginning in Genesis 1:18, God makes a helper for Adam .. Eve .. and that they two would become one flesh.

There aren't too many happily married people that don't have a line of communication that surpasses the spoken word, and I have no doubt Adam and Eve, living in an unscathed Paradisical garden, enjoyed a relationship everyone of us would envy.

I believe that relationship included Adam teaching/telling Eve what God had said regarding the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

In Genesis 3, we have the account of Eve being approached by the serpent, which we find out later is Satan, and asks a very simple question ... "Is that really what God said?"

Yea, hath God said?

And Eve replied .. "Yup, we're not supposed to eat the fruit nor touch the tree" (paraphrased, of course .. Gen. 3:3) .. or we'll die.

The serpent said, "No you won't"

Here is insidious cleverity ...

Satan was correct!

Satan responded to what Eve had replied (don't eat, don't touch) and because her reply was not what God had demanded, Satan could (with plausanle deniability) respond that Eve was wrong ... and in the letter of the law .. he was correct.

So Eve ate the fruit because of evil's urging, and enticed her husband .. (Pleeeeze honey ... just for me ... pleeeeeezzzze) .. to eat also ... and the rest is His story.

Now ... all of this boils down to .. "question authority" .. and if we look at our nation today, there are more confusing, tributarial doctrines about what is right, wrong. good, bad or indifferent .. that there is no truth.

And without truth, there is no authority .. and without authority, there is no direction ... and without direction ... man is led to his death.

If this doesn't answer your question Just mythoughts .. it's all I have.

It Is how I understand the English language by which I read and know the scriptures.