From the beginning of human history, involving our distant-but-not-unrelated-to-us ancestral parents Adam and Eve (precursors of Noah and Company, who were even more closely related to us all), the existence and imposition of mis-speech has been horrendously problematic and disasterous.

Ever since The Tempter uttered the mis-speech of insufficient and misrepresentative mis-wording (The Tempter being one of the stumbling blocks God created along with the lethal and diabolical Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil for which He was responsible but not to blame and not at fault for), cults have omitted vital wording -- against which crucial forthrightly-declared semantics would have saved everyone a lot of perplexity and pain as properly qualified and adequately clarified characteristics, parameters, operations, and descriptions of what was originally intended and desired.

To wit, Satan was deceptively and sadistically overbroad concerning (and not "regarding") his query to Eve of: " "Has God said that you shall not eat of ANY tree in the garden?" The innocently-all-nude preacheress corrected the Devil (but added her own additional concocted clause) by her not-directly-derogatory-against-him response:

Genesis 3:2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden;
Genesis 3:3 but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'"

The "neither shall you touch it" part, which Eve added, I do not recall being said previously in the Genesis chapter-two record, but merely:

Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
Genesis 2:17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die."

The legalistic additions to God's actual precise command to Adam (supposedly then precisely conveyed verbatim by Adam to his wife Eve, which Adam and not Eve it was who got the word from the Lord) of "neither shall you touch [the fruit]" reminds this author of the many legalistic rules which orthodox and other jews have added to the original Law, Prophets, and Writing - including the Talmud (which are simply commentaries on the Torah and so on) which they adhere to "as gospel," the additional Book of Mormon of those of "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints," the Old-Testament pseudo-canonical Apocryphal books of the catholics, anglicans, episcopalians, and some lutherans, the drone mantras of those who have enslaved themselves to eastern religions, the cow-worship rules of the Hindu, the antisemitic axioms and blurbs within the Qur'an (or Koran) of the islamic, and so forth.

There is a fearful, strict, no-nonsense, Spirit-enforced Divine copyright in the Bible applying not simply to the exact autographically-faithful words of the New Testament book of Revelation:

Revelation 22:18 I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,
Revelation 22:19 and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

. . . but even the remainder of the entire Holy Bible:

Proverbs 30:4 Who has ascended to heaven and come down? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name? Surely you know!
Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God proves true; He is a shield [ sorry about the figurative/symbolic euphemism] to those who take refuge in Him.
Proverbs 30:6 Do not add to His words, lest he rebuke you, and you be found a liar.

Jeremiah 27:15 "I have not sent them," says the LORD, "but they are prophesying falsely in my name, with the result that I will drive you out and you will perish, you and the prophets who are prophesying to you."

Jeremiah 29:8 For thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: "Do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you, and do not listen to the dreams which they dream,
Jeremiah 29:9 for it is a lie which they are prophesying to you in my name; I did not send them," says the LORD.
Jeremiah 29:22 "Because of them this curse shall be used by all the exiles from Judah in Babylon: 'The LORD make you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire,'
Jeremiah 29:23 because they have committed folly in Israel, they have committed adultery with their neighbors' wives, and they have spoken in my name lying words which I did not command them. I am the one who knows, and I am witness," says the LORD.

The non-authorized-speaking-for-God and putting-words-in-God's-mouth-which-He-never-said-nor-wanted-to-say syndrome at that time and since then caused untold difficulties and demise by and against (and not "for") humankind.

A few recent examples along the same devious mis-rationale of Satan's question: "Has God said that you shall not eat of any tree of the Garden" would be:

(1) Abstinence only - forever. NO sex - ever!
(2) Support ALL marriage (including homosexual sodomy unions?)
(3) "Minnesotans" voted for Amy Klobuchar (All Minnesotans - or only some Minnesotans voted for Amy Klobuchar?)

The Tempter's reply of "You shall not die" to Eve was not "a half-truth" but rather a dastardly half-lie.

In fact, it was a lie on two counts:

(1) Immediately after Eve ate the forbidden fruit (whatever that was, and certainly not what it was not), her body went from "non-decaying-for-continuing-immortality" mode to the "promptly-begin to degenerate" mode.

(2) True, she did not drop dead on the spot. But I guess that she finally completely die, even though it apparently took a while:

Genesis 5:5 Thus all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.

Nothing said about Eve's lifespan, to my knowledge. Perhaps she is still around. I doubt it. Where is she now?

"You do not support marriage? What kind of a nut are you?"
"No, I do not support same-gender homosodomy-unions nor same-gender homosodomy-unions licensing or certification mis-named "same-sex marriage."

Notice that the Tempter made up his own warped, concocted, and misrepresentative type of "scripture" to persuade Eve:

Genesis 3:5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

There the Devil went again . . . speaking for God when he himself was not God and is not authorized to speak for the Lord!

Notice the irrationale Satan used against Eve - the same one he himself vainly made up when he tried in futility to take over God's Divine position and authority, indicated by his statement: ". . . you will be like God." A satanic competition against the Lord! - and it did not work then when Satan was defeated in heaven, it did not work for Eve, and it won't work for us . . . even though we might deceive ourselves to presume the superstition that "this time it might work."

Illusionary with ambitious greed engaging in the insanity of presuming that we can bypass or conquer God, his Word, and His specified and exact will only results in painful and humiliating devastation, as does taking matters into our own carnal hands apart from the commands of God while presuming that that will instead will satisfy our immediate cravings -- a delusion which never has worked and won't work.

"Why do I need to wait for marriage? I cannot be sure she will have sex during marriage unless I test her out now first."
"No one would ever marry me, so I might as well resort to quickie and lucrative prostitution, because I have to pay monthly bills."
"Porn is a delight to my eyes, and something I can experience now when I need it, and can easily control it by myself on my own when I want it without resorting to some woman who might refuse to strip and pose for me."
"Why should I work hard for a job when the IRS takes most of my paycheck? No one will ever know it if I steal a little cash now and then from the stash, or do some "creative" bookkeeping using the excuse of non-accounted-for petty cash."
"Why do I have to wait in back of this slow driver? No one is coming in the opposite lane over the hill."
Etc. - ad nauseum.

Genesis 3:6 So when the woman saw that the tree "was good for food," and that it was "a delight to the eyes," and that the tree was to be desired to make one "wise," she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, and he ate.
Genesis 3:7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons (and not for cooking, either).
WAS the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil really "good for food" - as Eve presumed?

Who said that the forbidden fruit "was desired to make one wise?" Moses, the author of Genesis? The Holy Spirit who inspired him to write that? What Eve herself actually mis-thought in her own hallucination?

Satan lamentably was correct in predicting, or maybe prophesying, that the eyes of disobedient eaters Eve and Adam (in THAT order, by the way) would be "opened." Too bad that the Tempter did not warn them or elaborate on what "eyes opened" would entail, which obviously included not simply the awareness of being totally naked, but also automatically becoming ashamed by being aware of being naked, and being naked itself. They should have first conferred with God to get a reliable and complete explanation, although it would have been a neat trick for God to discuss nakedness as a consequence when they previously were in a state of mind where they had no idea what that was nor accompanying resultant feeling about it.

Did Satan get himself brownie points for salvation by so prophesying about the eye-opening?

Matthew 7:22 On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and throw out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?'
Matthew 7:23 And then will I declare to them, 'I never knew you; get away from me, you evildoers.'

"Eyes being opened" gets us to the subject of the plethora of irritating but sometimes-useful? euphemisms, figurative semantics, allegories, metaphors, and symbolism.

Now, don't get me wrong. Symbolic words and figurative speech does certainly mean and refer to something - whatever the duce that is, instead of whatever it is not.

Often during wartime, conveying alpha-numeric symbolic or figurative codes is the only reasonable and safe way to convey both tactical and strategic messages to an ally which the enemy cannot decipher and fortunately finds both hopelessly useless and meaningless.

But do not lay on me the excuse crap that:

First Corinthians 2:3 And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling;
4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glorification.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him,"
10 God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might understand the gifts bestowed on us by God.
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit.
14 The non-spiritual man does not receive the gifts of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.

. . . and that is supposed to be self-righteous justification for confusing, disturbing, harassing, and angering people with who-knows-what-the-hell-the-symbolic/figurative-words-actually-mean imposed by "spiritual" pompous-ass know-it-alls?

Genesis 49:26 The blessings of your father are mighty beyond the blessings of the eternal mountains, the bounties of the everlasting hills; may they be on the head of Joseph, and on the brow of him who was separate from his brothers.
Habakkuk 3:6 He stood and measured the earth; He looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills sank low. His ways were as of old.

"Eternal" mountains? "Everlasting" hills? That certainly does not jive with:

Second Peter 3:10 But the Day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be incinerated.

Psalm 17:8 Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings
Psalm 36:7 How precious is your continuous love, Oh God! The children of men take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
Psalm 63:7 . . . for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

I did not know that God's eye contains an apple inside, nor that the Almighty has wings, nor that His wings cast shadows.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; and there is nothing new under the sun.

Nothing new under the Sun? How about vacuum tubes, enriched plutonium, transistors, lasers, radar, microwave ovens, TV? Those did not "always" exist, did they?

Ecclesiastes 9:5 For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward; but the memory of them is lost.

"The dead know nothing? Flies in the face of:

Matthew 17:3 And hey, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with Him.
Luke 9:30 And hey, two men talked with Him, Moses and Elijah

Luke 16:19 There was a rich man, who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day.
20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, full of sores,
21 who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table; moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
22 The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham's bosom. The rich man also died and was buried;
23 and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes, and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom.
24 And he called out, 'Father Abraham, have mercy upon me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame.'
25 But Abraham said, 'Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in anguish.
26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.'

John 6:53 So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you

. . . which is verifiably a thoroughly disgusting and obnoxious violation against:

Leviticus 7:27 Whoever eats any blood, that person shall be cut off from his people.

and:

Acts 21:25 But as for the nations who have believed, we have sent a letter with our judgment that they should abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity.

John 10:9 I am the door; if any one enters by me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture.

Is that a cedar or pine wood door? Where's your door latch, Jesus? Got a key if you the door gets locked? And why would I want to find pasture? I am not into farming nor livestock breeding.

John 11:11 Thus He spoke, and then He said to them, "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awake him out of sleep."

That seems a ridiculous contradiction against reality - eventually explained (after questionable wasting of time imposing what seems mentally-challenged semantical derangement):

John 11:12 The disciples said to Him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will [wake up]."
John 11:13 Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep [ of course! ].
John 11:14 Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus is dead" [ so why didn't Jesus say that in the first place right off . . . instead of semantically screwing around? ]

John 15:1 I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser.

So are you a tomato or a potato plant vine, Jesus? And thanks for relegating the Almighty Creator of the Universe to a menial-labor gardener, Jesus. Have any grapes on you the vine? Do you, the vine, need occasional pruning? Should you the vine be protected with pesticides? Are you a creeping vine?

No wonder "unable to see" Nicodemus "did not get it" in the following verbal dialogue with Jesus:

John 3:1 Now there was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews.
John 3:2 This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do, unless God is with him."
John 3:3 Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

The apparent goofiness of what Jesus uttered was logically objected to with Nicodemus replying:

John 3:4 Nicodemus said to him, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Jesus kept on, with more off-in-left-field references to non-related? physical phenomena of nature, which did not disclose nor reaffirm the Divine Source of His miracle-working powers evident to Nicodemus:

John 3:5 Jesus answered, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
John 3:6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
John 3:7 Do not marvel that I said to you, 'You must be born anew.'
John 3:8 The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with every one who is born of the Spirit."

WHAT has going fetal again (an impossibility, for all practical purposes), and blowing wind, have to do with the ability of Jesus to do miracles and that astute and nearly-patronizing observation of Nicodemus regarding Christ's ability to do "signs" [ "signs?" ] because "God was with Him?"

Such asinine-to-regular-listeners speech probably began to seriously tick Nicodemus off, and (from a human perspective) Nicodemus had a point, in responding: "How can this be?"

Jesus seemed to be going off on some lala-land tangent about fetal re-entry and wind blowing which did not logically relate to the statement and logical follow-up which Nicodemus started out with.

It got worse.

Jesus then "rubbed it in" with apparent non-called-for, cruel, and impatient hostility, with His remark (concerning the seemingly-stupid allegorical/metaphorical references to repeated-fetality and wind-blowing Jesus had imposed against Nicodemus):

Jesus answered him, "Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand this?

Perhaps Nicodemus could have responded: "Duh! Of course I am well aware of wind blowing, though obviously no one, maybe not even you, knows the meteorological mechanics of what makes wind, how wind happens, where it starts from, where it goes to, - and, besides, references to wind blowing knowledge is understandably irrelevant to my first statement to you. I do not know what you are getting at, you goof! It makes no sense to try to re-enter some mother's womb.

Jesus continued His apparent tirade:

John 3:11 Truthfully, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen; but you do not receive our testimony.
John 3:12 If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?

Thanks a lot, Jesus, for being so kindly complimentary. As a young-squirt rabbi, you sure have a lot of disrespectful belligerence! And are you crazy? Are you ready for The Funny Farm? I am no dummy. I have eyes, and a brain. I believe earthly things like impossible fetal re-entry and wind blowing. Contrary to what you said, I certainly believe in the earthly thing of wind-blowing. So what? What has wind-blowing to do with anything?" Are you comparing the Spirit to a wind generator or some gigantic bellows usable by some blacksmith for forging hot metals?

As the reader can readily ascertain, fetal re-entry, wind-blowing, blood-drinking, dead people merely sleeping, human doors, human vines, everlasting hills, God having wings which give shade, and a proverbial ton of other nearly-pathetically-laughable oddities of figurative wording, symbols, and the like are within Holy Writ . . . which (it can be assumed, and not presumed) are there for some purpose or purposes.

What that purpose is, or those purposes are, is largely beyond me.

What their occurrence does do is cause potential misunderstanding and misrepresentation and nearly insurmountable difficulty discerning and distinguishing exactly what should be taken literally in the Bible in stark contrast to what instead should be understood NON-literally, and if that is not done, you can be sure that those who comprise false cults will readily capitalize on that to make the sane and sensible rightly call them "cults."

Why Scripture does not merely contain what should always be taken literally is kind of a mystery to me. There is a place for imaginatively-cartoon-like words of descriptive poetry, but frequently there is NO place for figurative/metaphorical/symbolic poetry words to be randomly mixed in with literal words. Right?

And is dangerous. Possibly even lethal. Certainly abhorrent and noxious.

You agree?

Well, I gotta go, and will "step on the gas" to get out of here faster so that I get home before "the Sun rises" tomorrow. Hopefully, my foot won't stink and won't get wet after I "step on the gas," and I surely hope that no one tosses a lit match by that foot, as I plan my homeward-bound departure in anticipation of my arrival within my solar-movement NASA-substantiated-geocentric (?) fantasyland.