UGFH 1000F Reflective Journal --- Bible

Name: Leung Lok Wai Louis

SID: 1155092495
Question number 1

The sacred place “Garden of Eden” is an ideal place for living. From the description
of Genesis, Eden is full of fruits and supplies, while man should only work and take
care of the garden for God. For reality life like ours, Eden is a very ideal place for
living as we do not need to worry about food, resources and shelters in the first place.
For example, we will choose our profession or career base on how it can earn money
easily and sustain our quality of life. In Hong Kong, many teenagers already worried
about their living and start queue for the public estate once they got 18 years old. We
can see that how living resources affects our future career and living strategy, and the
life in the garden is very ideal.

Secondly, man become the second owner of the garden and have control over all
living creatures and live with them together. Nowadays, humans are just trying to
“control” over the nature, but not “living together” since we somehow produced many
wastes and pollutants that affect the environment. The way of living described in
Genesis is the ideal form of living not just focusing on human our own, but also care
the other creatures as well and live together peacefully.

In the story of Adam and Eve, God told them not to eat the fruits from the tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, or else they would die. At first, Adam and Eve did
listen to God and eat fruits from other trees in the garden. However, the serpent
tempted Eve to try the forbidden fruit, and claims that the fruit will open their eyes
and become as wise as the God to knowing good and evil. Eve at last trusted the
serpent and share some of the fruit to Adam, which was finally noticed by the God
and got banished from the garden.

From the description of Genesis, Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and noticed
they were naked then feel ashamed. After that, they tried to hide away from God
inside the grasses. From Genesis 3:10, when God was looking for Adam, he
answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
From this sentence, we can see that actually the serpent is not telling lies actually.
After they ate the fruit, their eyes opened and realized that they were naked, but being
naked is not the main reason that they feel ashamed. They have the feelings of
ashamed is because they have gained the knowledge of categorizing what is good and
evil. Another example is that Adam and Eve chose to hide in the trees and grasses to
avoid meeting God, they would behave like this also due to the power to
distinguishing good and evil. Adam and Eve do know that God has been reminding
them not to eat the forbidden fruit but they ignored the reminder and tried it. They did
notice that they have made a mistake and not confident enough to face God.

Another question arises is that why God would put the Tree of Knowledge of Good
and Evil in the middle of the garden. If God do not want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit
from the tree, he could have removed the tree when he was building it. If the tree was
not there, they would not have the chance to get in touch with the fruit, and the
serpent would not have the chance to tempting Adam and Eve as well, then Adam and
Eve could have lived in the garden happily. About this question, there are many
interpretations of what is God’s intention of doing this. In my opinion, God put the
tree in the middle for Adam and Eve and to see whether they will obey God or not. If
the option was not provided, they would be obeying God in the robotic way, which
reminds me about the novel “The Giver” by Lois Lowry. In the novel, every citizen
only follows orders from the giver, like their jobs will be assigned. However they do
not have the chance to think by themselves but just to obey every orders, in which
God definitely does not want Adam and Eve obey him without any considerations and
reflections.