That's a whole other arguement that has been in repeated more times than I care to recall. This question stems from after this question is answered or at leasted trusted.
Why the need for trust ? Is it the absence of facts and why should we trust a number of disparates documents written in various labguages, much of the writing done a long time after the events it describes. Much of the bible relies on oral tradition which is known to be unsatisfactory when it comes to matters of detail. There is also the consideration that the authors were concerned to put across a point of view which supported their beliefs,
Also, why should god use this one document to reveal himself to a small number of people while apparently ignoring others.
No reasearch can be complete untill you discover or are given full disclosure. But you can attempt to embrace an understanding in order to appreciate the different side. I believe wisdom comes from knowing both sides of the fence. It doesn't require you to become one with the other side but wisdom does seek understanding. As long as one resist understanding they can not claim to be wise in my thinking.
We all seek understanding. Some of us however require our beliefs to underpinned by empirical evidence. What you call research would better be described as making the bible fit your meaning. Don't take my word for it; chexk it out with any of the numerous sects which have a different take on things.
Genesis 4:15 mentions seven times (meaning complete) that anyone killing Cain would suffer vengence or divine justice. it continues to say that God
"set up a sign for Cain in order that no one finding him should strike him. With that Cain went away from the face of jehovah and took up reisdence in the land of Fugitiveness to the east of E'den."
How do you know that seven times means complete ? And what evidence have you to show that genesis is any more than mythology, given the state of human knowledge at the time it was written. Consider also that there are numerous creation myths and tell us why your version is the right one.
Later Cain had a child, Enoch, who had children, La'mech, who inturn had children.
La'mech composed a song song aobut his grand father.
"Hear my voice, you wives of La'mech: Give ear to my saying: A man I have killed for wounding me, Yes, a yound man for giving me a blow.
If seven times Cain is to be avenged, Then La'mech seventy times and seven."
All very poetic but what guarantees of truth are there ? To say that children had children is stating a fact of life. How do you know Enoch existed. Have you evidence to support your belief that he did ?
La'mech says 70+7
Which is of course 77.
That 70 +7 = 77 is no great revelation. So is 72 + 5 and so on. So what's the point of stating this unless you have a prior belief that 7 has a particular significance. Have you never come across books on numerology in which numbers are juggled in such a way as to mean whatever the author wishes them to mean. Numbers can have any significance we wish to attach to them and cannot, therefore, be regarded as reliable evidence for the veracity of the bible. Remarkably, Joshua marched around Jericho seven times seven. Does this mean that 49 ( 7x7 ) has a special significance . Or might it be meant to convey 7+7 =14.
As has been mentioned previously, details of the construction of Noah's ark give a wrong result for pi. Do you claim that the value of pi has changed since Noah's time.
Two. The number two frequently appears in a legal setting. Agreement in the accounts of two witnesses adds to the force of the testimony. Two witnesses, or even three, were required to establish a matter before the judges. This principle is also followed in the Christian congregation.
Again we have another number with your personal interpretation placed upon it. Agreement of 27 witnesses would have served better to establish a matter before the judges.
Some examples of Two:
(De 17:6; 19:15; Mt 18:16; 2Co 13:1; 1Ti 5:19; Heb 10:28) God adhered to this principle in presenting his Son to the people as mankind’s Savior. Jesus said:
“In your own Law it is written, ‘The witness of two men is true.’ I am one that bears witness about myself, and the Father who sent me bears witness about me.”—Joh 8:17,*18.
This is not an example of two as you claim; it's an example of one man claiming knowledge of the existence of another based on his word alone. By your own token, this makes the testimony weak.
So, here again, we have an example of how numbers can be used to suit an argument. It's not very convincing , unless you want it to be. Maybe more research and wisdom is needed.
"If I kill a man for attacking me...If Cain would be avenged completely then I would be avenged (judicially or lawfully) or you verified as my killer.
I cannot for the life of me understand the significance of a man saying one of two things insofar as the veracity of the bible is concerned. Had he said one of three possible things , you would have claimed significance for 3. One the other hand, as he only said one thing, maybe 1 should be significant.
The repatition of something two times in bible writings is duality and often refrences something in rulership or establishing something as verified and true.
I can find no clue as too this being another creation point.
That seems to fall in line with Abel and Cain being a product of Adam and Eve as well as confirmed by lineages throughout the holly writings like that of Lukes.
Have you looked beyond the bible ? There is other knowledge available to those who wish to learn.
There were no other races of humankind—no family of humans predating man, or having a separate origin, as some have conjectured in trying to answer the question about the origin of Cain’s wife. The statement of Adam and the name Eve itself preclude this. For the Bible says:
“After this [after God’s passing of sentence] Adam called his wife’s name Eve [meaning “living”], because she had to become the mother of everyone living.”—Gen. 3:20.
Yet again, you are using a circular argument. It explains nothing
The inevitable conclusion is, then, that Cain married one of his sisters
You have not shown that there is an inevitable conclusion. You have not even shown that Cain existed.
The Bible statement, in
Acts 17:26, that
“[God] made out of one man every nation of men, to dwell upon the entire surface of the earth” is acknowledged by John Peter Lange’s Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, a work that considers the arguments of a great number of scholars in an analytical and explanatory discussion of the Bible, says on page 191...
More circularity. How much of what these scholars claim is based on knoledge external to the bible. ? You are simply talking of men analysing the bible to arrive at what they regard as a satisfactory conclusion. How many addressed the basic question of why we should believe the bible in the first place.
“That the Scriptures neither know nor will know of pre-Adamites . . . nor of various primitive aboriginal races, appears not only from Genesis i. and ii., but also from the consistent presumption and assertion of the entire Holy Writ; for example, Matt. xix.4; Acts xvii.26; 1 Cor. xv.47. . . . The original unity of the human race coincides with the doctrine of the unity of the fall of man in Adam, and the unity of the redemption in Christ. . . . The greatest naturalists have mostly declared themselves against the originality of different human races . . . in regard to the alleged fruitfulness of sexual combinations among the various races, the proof of such fruitfulness is justly pronounced one of the strongest proofs of unity. . . . The autochthonic theory [that living things (in this case humans) were formed or occurred in the places where they were found] [can]not deny the fact that the origin of the various types of men points back to a common home in Asia.”
Essentialy it is resolving the issue by aligning two different understandings.
Origin of MAN and the Saving of Man, two seperate events. If their were two differnt creations then that would mean that there was also two different original sins and that Jesus was sent to Earth as God's representative to die for both lines. However...
Romans 5:12
That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men because they had all sinned—
I think there is more...I could have gone further but I think this is enough, this can be crossed refrenced some other ways through key words in the scriptures you provided.
Your entire argument is circular because you quote the bible to support the bible. You have, therefore, said nothing that will convince anyone other than those who already share your views. Perhaps if you supply some external evidence to support your views, you may get a more sympathetic hearing
