I found it interesting how God initially comes across as human, in that He walks in the garden and that He asks Adam and eve where they are; He surely knew where they were? Also the verse about limiting human years to 120, only one person is thought to have lived past 120 (Jeanne Calment). anyways thx

> Genesis and the origins of suffering (including wasps)

Any rational human has to have a coherent explanation of why the world is in such a total state, why people are so evil, so many innocent people suffer, on this tiny, fragile, difficult world fraught with dangers, pestilence, disaster. Of course there is no simple answer, but I always find myself drawn back to Genesis and the so-called Fall. 

Like many I don't believe it literally - a snake, garden, fruit. But I do believe it is true - or at least a reflection of truth, however dimly seen. 

And the answer for me comes in the form of a single question that has taken me to the edge of heresy (and back a bit): What on earth went so wrong in the relationship between God and humans? What caused a rift so deep it dragged the whole universe into it? What opened Pandora's box: madness, evil, shame? 

For, I believe that all else that follows, all the evil under the sun, flows from that bitter spring. This one act sets in motion the events that see the creator sacrificed for the created - that sets the price that must be paid. 

I do see evidence that God takes responsibility for the consequences of the Fall. It is he who curses the land, causes work to be hard, childbirth to be painful. And dangerous. Yet I can't help feeling it is somehow out of his hands, a painful but inevitable consequence of human actions.

So I do not believe that God wills suffering, chaos and disaster. Nor that he causes it for some higher good. In particular I cannot accept simplistic views that God judges people by sending disaster - as some thought after the Boxing Day tsunami in Asia. (On a visit to film the aftermath of the tsunami we witnessed a local Christian telling a traumatised man the disaster was God's punishment on Hindus.) 

Yet often I hear people asking odd questions like: Why does God allow suffering? Or even more specifically: why did God let that happen to me. As though he's up there pulling all the strings. 

I believe that suffering, earthquakes, disease (even wasps, which appear to be pointless, evil creatures) all stem from this one act. That somehow the world IS out of God's control, not because he is powerless, but because he has chosen not to act, not to overcome the free choice that led to this state of affairs.

And I believe that whatever we did in the garden, we all carry as guilt. And the only redemption possible is the life of Jesus.     

My related questions: 
1. What was so wrong with the knowledge of good and evil?
2. What does it mean that God knew good and evil? If God created angels, including the ultimate evil that is called Satan, does that mean that God has a capacity for evil?    
3. Is this story exclusive? Where do all the other people come from? So many cultures have a flood myth. Do we really believe that we are all descended from Noah.  
 

In response to the question regarding prevalent stories in the work place it made me think of a book that my father-in-law introduced me to. Now I haven't read all of it, in fact only a few pages, but essentially it takes this approach of drawing upon familiar stories, even biblical stories but putting a twist on them so as to speak freshly to us, make us consider the true consequences of such stories. It is called The Orthodox Heretic and is by Peter Rollins. To give you a taster for the book, in one of the chapters he starts to tell the story of Jesus and the 5,000. Jesus and his disciples are hungry and don't know what to eat, they find a boy with a small pack lunch of loaves and fishes, they then wonder who else has a packed lunch and find that lots of people do so they gather it all up and then sit down in front of them and eat all of the food, there turned out to be far more food than they could eat and so they end up throwing some of it away!

Obviously no-one would expect this of Jesus but then on examining ourselves we find that this is not far away from western behaviour, exploiting those with less and being gluttonous and wasteful with what we have, and when we really consider it, probably not far from our own attitude. If we're shocked at considering Jesus doing this, why do we tolerate it in our lives and in the institutions we find ourselves in?

Thanks for your comments Tim and ricvic. I will go away and ponder them lots...