Problems with the biblical Genesis story (split)
- Thread starter Arioch
- Start date
billvon,
It might be, but it might NOT be.
You mean from Gen. 2.4?
Just give me a brief idea of how you see it using the texts.
I have to disagree there. We have learned a lot about the Bible by understanding how people have translated idiom into literal language. Take the fat man and the needle parable, for example; we now understand that a lot better than we did because we now understand what that idiom was referring to.[/QUOTE]
''fat man and needle parable?
jan.
It might be, but it might NOT be.
You mean from Gen. 2.4?
Just give me a brief idea of how you see it using the texts.
I have to disagree there. We have learned a lot about the Bible by understanding how people have translated idiom into literal language. Take the fat man and the needle parable, for example; we now understand that a lot better than we did because we now understand what that idiom was referring to.[/QUOTE]
''fat man and needle parable?
jan.
'' When used with singular verbs and adjectives elohim is usually singular, "god" or especially, the God.''
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elohim
jan.
ok read that wiki reference. doesn't appease me. went to britannica:
Elohim, singular Eloah , (Hebrew: God), the God of Israel in the Old Testament. A plural of majesty, the term Elohim—though sometimes used for other deities, such as the Moabite god Chemosh, the Sidonian goddess Astarte, and also for other majestic beings such as angels, kings, judges (the Old Testament shofeṭim), and the Messiah—is usually employed in the Old Testament for the one and only God of Israel, whose personal name was revealed to Moses as YHWH, or Yahweh. When referring to Yahweh, elohim very often is accompanied by the article ha-, to mean, in combination, “the ... (100 of 173 words)
so maybe we can agree on "plural of majesties"?
uh... I'm sometimes skeptical of modern imposition of meaning on ancient words. Suppose I were speaking to you in Spanish and I wanted to say you were pulling my leg. I would literally say you are drinking my hair. Now suppose we just agree these are idioms to be left in a special box to draw from when we go back and forth between English and Spanish. Now suppose four thousand years passes and the box is long gone, and future archaeologists uncover this scribbled message in Spanish and determine that there once existed a cult which liquified hair and consumed it to demonstrate a reaction to a practical joke.
I fell like the Wiki author is biased, but I'm willing to learn more. I feel like the ambiguity between singular and plural is intolerable in actual practice, so the cult, especially one that eventually developed writing, would tend to escape this ambiguity and nail down the difference between singular and plural.
I am still convinced that the ancient Jews were polytheists and did not change until the Yawist cult took over. I also am skeptical about the -im ending ever inferring singular because I believe it survives in languages derivative of Hebrew as a plural.
If you want, we can pick an easier metaphor to debunk, such as Eden. Where is it? Why does the river flowing out of the Kush (Somalia) intersect the Tigris-Euphrates? There's a ton of material like this that is quite glaringly in contradiction with reality,
Elohim, singular Eloah , (Hebrew: God), the God of Israel in the Old Testament. A plural of majesty, the term Elohim—though sometimes used for other deities, such as the Moabite god Chemosh, the Sidonian goddess Astarte, and also for other majestic beings such as angels, kings, judges (the Old Testament shofeṭim), and the Messiah—is usually employed in the Old Testament for the one and only God of Israel, whose personal name was revealed to Moses as YHWH, or Yahweh. When referring to Yahweh, elohim very often is accompanied by the article ha-, to mean, in combination, “the ... (100 of 173 words)
so maybe we can agree on "plural of majesties"?
uh... I'm sometimes skeptical of modern imposition of meaning on ancient words. Suppose I were speaking to you in Spanish and I wanted to say you were pulling my leg. I would literally say you are drinking my hair. Now suppose we just agree these are idioms to be left in a special box to draw from when we go back and forth between English and Spanish. Now suppose four thousand years passes and the box is long gone, and future archaeologists uncover this scribbled message in Spanish and determine that there once existed a cult which liquified hair and consumed it to demonstrate a reaction to a practical joke.
I fell like the Wiki author is biased, but I'm willing to learn more. I feel like the ambiguity between singular and plural is intolerable in actual practice, so the cult, especially one that eventually developed writing, would tend to escape this ambiguity and nail down the difference between singular and plural.
I am still convinced that the ancient Jews were polytheists and did not change until the Yawist cult took over. I also am skeptical about the -im ending ever inferring singular because I believe it survives in languages derivative of Hebrew as a plural.
If you want, we can pick an easier metaphor to debunk, such as Eden. Where is it? Why does the river flowing out of the Kush (Somalia) intersect the Tigris-Euphrates? There's a ton of material like this that is quite glaringly in contradiction with reality,
Agreed. Which answers your question - since the original authors might not have been aware of how significant it would later become, they didn't take the time to make sure it could be understood.
Genesis 1 describes the seven day creation story, in which God creates:
Day 1 - light and darkness
Day 2 - separates sky and sea
Day 3 - dry ground; plants and trees
Day 4 - Sun, moon, stars
Day 5 - Fish and birds
Day 6 - First livestock and wild animals, then man (later that day)
Genesis 2 describes the end of the first story ("He rested on the seventh day.")
Then the second creation story starts - "This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown."
Day 1 - Rain and man created
Later - Man moved to the Garden of Eden
Later - Trees created
Later - Rivers created
Later - Livestock and birds
Later - Woman created
This story describes livestock coming after man, whereas in the Genesis 1 story they come before. (There are a lot of other differences but that's the clearest one.)
Sorry, "rich man." From this:
"Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”
Confusing unless you know that the "eye of the needle" was a gate in the walls of Jerusalem that was open at night; it was purposely made very small to make it more defensible. Camels had to be dismounted and unloaded to fit through it, and indeed bigger camels had trouble fitting at all. Once you know that the parable makes more sense - it is difficult but not impossible.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
There is one week in the exiestience of conciouness. day 1 starting with God's realization of self. Now we are a half past 10 on the 7th day. The 7th day's beggining would be marked by Abraham bringing the world to modern times. When God "creates" he creates in Heaven, not on Earth. Anything God "creates" can evolve naturally on earth.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
It really isn't. You have no idea what you are talking about, and you lack faith, why are you even here?
@Knowledge --
Because unlike you I can both consider new ideas which don't fit with my current worldview and I can admit when I'm wrong. This thread is demonstrably not about our own personal interpretations of scripture, it's a discussion about the problems with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation myth. Your interpretation is not literal and therefore is off topic.
"Quod erat demonstrandum" said Arioch like the big literary nerd that he is.
Because unlike you I can both consider new ideas which don't fit with my current worldview and I can admit when I'm wrong. This thread is demonstrably not about our own personal interpretations of scripture, it's a discussion about the problems with a literal interpretation of the Genesis creation myth. Your interpretation is not literal and therefore is off topic.
"Quod erat demonstrandum" said Arioch like the big literary nerd that he is.
LIGHTBEING
Registered Senior Member
The only reason you can is to satisfy a desire. The reason I can't is because we can measure the diameter of the observable universe as 28 billion parsecs.
@Jan --
It might seem like a reasonable length of time to you, and maybe it is(not really, just saying it for effect), but we know that it didn't happen that way. The Earth was barren of life for the first point five billion years or so and since then it's taken us about four billion years to get from abiogenesis to where we are now. How is the Genesis myth not in conflict with science over that?
It might seem like a reasonable length of time to you, and maybe it is(not really, just saying it for effect), but we know that it didn't happen that way. The Earth was barren of life for the first point five billion years or so and since then it's taken us about four billion years to get from abiogenesis to where we are now. How is the Genesis myth not in conflict with science over that?
kx000
Valued Senior Member
My interpretation is great. You have no faith, i doubt you can even see the wrods.
kx000
Valued Senior Member
As I said, God meassures everything in one week, 7 days time. We are a half past 10, its saturday night, time to rage. At the end of the week will be the begining of forever.
Yeah, but very little you say makes sense and nothing you say has any validity.
Billions of years of numbingly slow and mindless events have gone by up to now for us to become what we are because that's how evolution must proceed, as there is obviously no Designer.
And, too, we nearly didn't make it, as shown by Marine Isotope Stage 6 when we were perhaps down to less than a thousand hardy souls.
There seems to be no end of the ways to show no God, and zippo ways to show any.
And, too, we nearly didn't make it, as shown by Marine Isotope Stage 6 when we were perhaps down to less than a thousand hardy souls.
There seems to be no end of the ways to show no God, and zippo ways to show any.
Jan:
Even with your artificial "make/create" distinction, there is no reading of Genesis that says the Sun and the Moon were revealed on the 4th day or "appointed".
Absolutely. All of science is inference based on evidence.
There are many reported miracles in the bible, and supernatural occurences. So, yes.
No. You referred to god's "associates" and explicitly to "other gods".
Since you are not forthcoming on this simple question, let me as it again directly:
Do you believe in more than one god? A simple yes or no will suffice.
And, if the answer is "yes", then how can you claim to believe in the literal truth of the bible?
No it doesn't. Because "make" doesn't mean "reveal" or "appoint". It means "create" or "construct" or similar.
I don't accept it because it "backs up my belief". I guess you're used to going out looking for things that back up your belief, and accepting or rejecting them on those grounds. Also, I assume you're used to looking at who says something before you consider what they said.
I am not like you.
While I think that the people at answersingenesis are, indeed, crackpots and religious nuts, I do not think that everything that appears on the answersingenesis site is wrong. In fact, a large problem with that site is precisely that it so often mixes fact with misleading fiction in order to advance a particular political/religious agenda.
In the current instance, I am not accepting the answersingenesis interpretation on their authority, but because it accords with the interpretations of many other people and also with common sense.
Here I am stating a fact, not a perspective.
Maybe. What's a Purana?
And I'm sure you'll agree that anything can be made to seem in accordance with one's preferred views using the wrong approach analysis, too.
What God does in Genesis is create the world ex nihilo by calling it into being bit by bit. That is a supernatural act by a supernatural being.
Are you saying that Nature existed before God?
Can God create things, according to you? Or can he only "reveal" what already exists?
A straightforward reading of the text says that's exactly what he (supposedly) did.
You're now reduced to falling back on some global conspiracy that includes both scientists who believe in evils such as evolution and the pious types at answersingenesis who are mostly on quite the opposite side from the scientists. Who else is in this sweeping conspiracy of yours? And, more importantly, why?
The further you go with this, the more you strain credulity.
Even with your artificial "make/create" distinction, there is no reading of Genesis that says the Sun and the Moon were revealed on the 4th day or "appointed".
Absolutely. All of science is inference based on evidence.
There are many reported miracles in the bible, and supernatural occurences. So, yes.
No. You referred to god's "associates" and explicitly to "other gods".
Since you are not forthcoming on this simple question, let me as it again directly:
Do you believe in more than one god? A simple yes or no will suffice.
And, if the answer is "yes", then how can you claim to believe in the literal truth of the bible?
No it doesn't. Because "make" doesn't mean "reveal" or "appoint". It means "create" or "construct" or similar.
I don't accept it because it "backs up my belief". I guess you're used to going out looking for things that back up your belief, and accepting or rejecting them on those grounds. Also, I assume you're used to looking at who says something before you consider what they said.
I am not like you.
While I think that the people at answersingenesis are, indeed, crackpots and religious nuts, I do not think that everything that appears on the answersingenesis site is wrong. In fact, a large problem with that site is precisely that it so often mixes fact with misleading fiction in order to advance a particular political/religious agenda.
In the current instance, I am not accepting the answersingenesis interpretation on their authority, but because it accords with the interpretations of many other people and also with common sense.
Here I am stating a fact, not a perspective.
Maybe. What's a Purana?
And I'm sure you'll agree that anything can be made to seem in accordance with one's preferred views using the wrong approach analysis, too.
What God does in Genesis is create the world ex nihilo by calling it into being bit by bit. That is a supernatural act by a supernatural being.
Are you saying that Nature existed before God?
Can God create things, according to you? Or can he only "reveal" what already exists?
A straightforward reading of the text says that's exactly what he (supposedly) did.
You're now reduced to falling back on some global conspiracy that includes both scientists who believe in evils such as evolution and the pious types at answersingenesis who are mostly on quite the opposite side from the scientists. Who else is in this sweeping conspiracy of yours? And, more importantly, why?
The further you go with this, the more you strain credulity.
It sure is! So is everyone else's - and yours is as valid as anyone else's.
At the end of the day, if your religious beliefs work for YOU, then you're doing pretty well. Too many people, though, make the mistake of thinking "well, if they work for me, they must work for everyone."
billvon,
There's no reason to consider this, as the bible CAN make sense with what is written.
We should explore this before speculating the authors probable state
of mind.
This section starts with...
This is dealing with the introduction of Adam, not the introduction of man and woman in the plural.
I don't find it confusing at all. It just spells out the impossible (our perspective) odds of a rich man's entrance into the ''Kingdom of God''.
jan.
There's no reason to consider this, as the bible CAN make sense with what is written.
We should explore this before speculating the authors probable state
of mind.
This section starts with...
This is dealing with the introduction of Adam, not the introduction of man and woman in the plural.
I don't find it confusing at all. It just spells out the impossible (our perspective) odds of a rich man's entrance into the ''Kingdom of God''.
jan.
It say the ''Earth'' was created ''IN THE BEGINING''.
The universe must have been created before.
It gives no time no reference.
The six days you refer to, involves a earth which was already created, and was chaotic and empty. The request to replenish the earth indicates that the earth had previously been inhabited by former civilisation(s).
The moon, stars, and sun, were obviously created before the fouth day of this particular appointment.
jan.