I've mentioned on my other blog that I love to play around with my photos using the online photo editors. I think it's cool what you can do these days with a photo by manipulating it into something different or even nearly unrecognizable.
Not that new is necessarily better. I learned about heliogravure and collotype which produced stunning photographs and reproductions with clarity, tone, and detail almost unsurpassed by today's digital photos. But I digress.
The colors of fall are spectacular. Once the summer haze and humidity clears out the night sky becomes ablaze with stars and the day sky is a deep blue like a sapphire. Years and years ago, I took this photo of a fall tree in Maine, its leaves having dropped and its bare arms crookedly reaching under an azure sky. I've always liked the picture.
I monkeyed with the picture and made this:
I like the altered photo too. Are they the same picture? The same scene? Do they depict the same reality?
They do ... and they do not. By blocking out some tones and colors, it brings forth others. By reversing some aspects, it shows others.
I enjoy reading and studying the first three chapters of Genesis. I spend a lot of time there. In this instance, I was thinking about the moment when Eve and then Adam ate of the fruit.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 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 who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:4-7)
Their eyes were opened? Of course we know that isn't literal. They were not blind before, they could literally see. Eve "saw the fruit was good for food". In chapter two of Genesis, God brought the animals to Adam, who obviously saw them before he named them. Adam saw which tree not to eat from, because he instructed Eve likewise after she was created. So they could see.
As Albert Barnes' Notes state,
As the two photos above showed, a new aspect of things that had been there all along but now were in the forefront. The happy blue sky is gone, it is now darkened. The glory-white clouds are now ponderous boulders in the sky, scudding ominously. The tree which was of good AND evil, now shows the aspect of evil and ghostly death that the pair could not see before.
Gill's shows us the depth of the loss:
They had been naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25) but also unaware. Now they were aware. Their eyes had been closed to evil and thus only glory filled the lamp of their eye. Upon eating of the fruit (disobeying God) the eye's shutter that had excluded all sin and evil was now opened, allowing its full flow into their eyes, heart, and mind.
When we're glorified, the shutter of our eyes that was opened in the garden will be closed once more. We will never look upon sin again! We will only see the glory of God, unfiltered and fully Bright. As His children with childlike faith, we will see with eyes closed. Did you ever think that our eyes being closed will be a good thing?
Not that new is necessarily better. I learned about heliogravure and collotype which produced stunning photographs and reproductions with clarity, tone, and detail almost unsurpassed by today's digital photos. But I digress.
The colors of fall are spectacular. Once the summer haze and humidity clears out the night sky becomes ablaze with stars and the day sky is a deep blue like a sapphire. Years and years ago, I took this photo of a fall tree in Maine, its leaves having dropped and its bare arms crookedly reaching under an azure sky. I've always liked the picture.
| EPrata photo |
I monkeyed with the picture and made this:
| EPrata photo |
I like the altered photo too. Are they the same picture? The same scene? Do they depict the same reality?
They do ... and they do not. By blocking out some tones and colors, it brings forth others. By reversing some aspects, it shows others.
I enjoy reading and studying the first three chapters of Genesis. I spend a lot of time there. In this instance, I was thinking about the moment when Eve and then Adam ate of the fruit.
But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 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 who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. (Genesis 3:4-7)
Their eyes were opened? Of course we know that isn't literal. They were not blind before, they could literally see. Eve "saw the fruit was good for food". In chapter two of Genesis, God brought the animals to Adam, who obviously saw them before he named them. Adam saw which tree not to eat from, because he instructed Eve likewise after she was created. So they could see.
As Albert Barnes' Notes state,
It must therefore mean that a new aspect was presented by things on the commission of the first offence.
As the two photos above showed, a new aspect of things that had been there all along but now were in the forefront. The happy blue sky is gone, it is now darkened. The glory-white clouds are now ponderous boulders in the sky, scudding ominously. The tree which was of good AND evil, now shows the aspect of evil and ghostly death that the pair could not see before.
Gill's shows us the depth of the loss:
And the eyes of them both were opened,.... Not of their bodies, but of their minds; not so as to have an advanced knowledge of things pleasant, profitable, and useful, as was promised and expected, but of things very disagreeable and distressing. Their eyes were opened to see that they had been deceived by the serpent, that they had broke the commandment of God, and incurred the displeasure of their Creator and kind benefactor, and had brought ruin and destruction upon themselves; they saw what blessings and privileges they had lost, communion with God, the dominion of the creatures, the purity and holiness of their nature, and what miseries they had involved themselves and their posterity in; how exposed they were to the wrath of God, the curse of the law, and to eternal death:
They had been naked and unashamed (Genesis 2:25) but also unaware. Now they were aware. Their eyes had been closed to evil and thus only glory filled the lamp of their eye. Upon eating of the fruit (disobeying God) the eye's shutter that had excluded all sin and evil was now opened, allowing its full flow into their eyes, heart, and mind.
When we're glorified, the shutter of our eyes that was opened in the garden will be closed once more. We will never look upon sin again! We will only see the glory of God, unfiltered and fully Bright. As His children with childlike faith, we will see with eyes closed. Did you ever think that our eyes being closed will be a good thing?
| Source |
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