I was just catching up on email, and of course, FLF Daily Digest.
This one on Adam and Eve, February 25, 2006, OBJECTION 29 -- "As a result of the Garden of Eden, we should be ashamed and are in need of covering."

"Who told you that you were naked?" was a question God posed to Adam. But I wonder, since it was written for all humanity to see and read, if God meant for that question to be asked of us as well?

How are we answering that question?



Boyd Allen
"May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may he allow us to be seen by those who will."

They just never related the difference between their skin and an animal's hairy one before they took of the fruit. It was only after that their brains were opened to the fact that they didn't have any covering like the other animals, that it was called being naked. Because of their sin, they wanted something to cover themselves from God. They weren't really ashamed of being naked. They just knew that they were uncovered before God, and they wanted covering to hide from him because of their sin. Initially, they tried hiding behind some bushes and some fig leaves sewn together.

What they were ashamed of was sinning. I would be, too, if I was the only human among two with God up there coming to walk with me every day, and I'd disobeyed him.

We've all sinned. Weren't you ashamed of having done it? Didn't matter whether you were naked or not. You were ashamed.

Ralph

My thoughts exactly. Why and how could they be ashamed to be naked when they had been all along? When there were no such thing as clothing? They were ashamed because they were naked in the sense that there sin was exposed. Maybe, Greg.

did God meant for that question to be asked of us as well?

Was that question posed for all humanity throughout history? This isn't about Adam and Eve any more, its about us.

How are we answering that question?

Boyd Allen
"May the Lord protect our nudity from the sight of those who will not benefit, and may he allow us to be seen by those who will."

This story reminds me sooo much of the time when one of our kids came in from school saying a swear-word that we absolutely never use around the house. The first thing that I said when I first him utter the word was something to the effect of "Who in the world taught you that word?!!! Do you even realise what you are saying?!!!"

I think that God, is saying loads in that short question. He is stating that the conceept of clothed-naked did not from Him and it did not come from them either. Just think about it. How could they come up by themselves with the concept of clothing? They did not need clothing to protect them from the elements; that only came after they were chased out of the Garden. There is no record of them being acquainted with clothing before that. So it is clear to me that if the concept of clothing had to be taught to them, it had to come from the only other one around; namely the serpent. I also find it interesting that they apparently would want try to hide their genital area. If what I suspect that it was in fact Satan that put it in their head that they should cover up, to me it makes sense that he would go to special lenghts for them and the human race after them to mess up what we, as humans have and that he doesn't - our reproductive capacity. It must irritate him to no end that we have such a great gift that he doesn't!

So right away he got to work to make A&E ashamed of this gift and to this day, humankind has had a strange relationship with it's own reproductive capacity or at least the part of it that we call our sexuality.

I think that in a subtle way, God is saying to us that obsession over clothing does not come from Him.