Did you read Genesis One?

[OldWiseGuy]

Genesis Chapter One is interesting. It describes what is known as the 'Creation'. Very interesting.

oldwiseguy

 

[FreezBee]

Genesis Chapter One is interesting. It describes what is known as the 'Creation'. Very interesting.

Well, I've read it a few times, and - yes, it is interesting, but what exactly is your point?

- FreezBee

 

[Dannager]

Genesis Chapter One is interesting. It describes what is known as the 'Creation'. Very interesting.

oldwiseguy

Yep, Genesis One provides a fascinating allegorical creation tale designed to teach a moral lesson.

 

[On the Narrow Road]

Yep, Genesis One provides a fascinating allegorical creation tale designed to teach a moral lesson.

I'm curious which verse says it's an allegorical tale...

 

[DailyBlessings]

I'm curious which verse says it's an allegorical tale...

None.
What verse says that it is literally and factually true? This could go back and forth indefinitely.

 

[Breetai]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]"But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?" -Jesus Christ

Moses wrote that God literally created Adam, Eve, and all living creatures c. 6000 years ago. He also wrote that God sent a worldwide flood upon the Earth that destroyed every creature, save what was on the ark. I believe in Jesus, so therefore I also believe Moses.
[/FONT]

 

[KerrMetric]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]"But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?" -Jesus Christ

Moses wrote that God literally created Adam, Eve, and all living creatures c. 6000 years ago. He also wrote that God sent a worldwide flood upon the Earth that destroyed every creature, save what was on the ark. I believe in Jesus, so therefore I also believe Moses.
[/FONT]

The problem is that outside of conservative Christian circles almost no historian or theologian believes Moses authored the Pentateuch. If he did he certainly had a poor memory with respect to the doublets.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Well, I've read it a few times, and - yes, it is interesting, but what exactly is your point?

- FreezBee

My point is that based on the confusion over what is described in Gen. One few have bothered to actually study it, instead repeating the misinterpretations of others.

For example verse one states: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (KJV) Heaven is singular here, but many other translations read "heavens', plural. The chapter then goes on to describe exactly what this singular 'heaven' is: the atmosphere where birds fly, clouds gather, rain falls, and we breath.

The earth does not refer to the globe upon which he placed the 'earth', called 'dry land' in verse 9. but is the living soil from which all organic life would spring, watered by rain and dew continually purified by the distilling process of the water cycle created in the 'firmament' of the heaven and so described.

When this was ready land creatures and man were formed. Genesis One is the account of God 'preparing a place' for us, a living metaphor of things past and future, but completely accurate in it's literal meaning.

All other interpretations are confused by the scientific fact of a very old substrate of dead rock, with their ancient fossils, upon which God created the living heaven and earth.

oldwiseguy

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Yep, Genesis One provides a fascinating allegorical creation tale designed to teach a moral lesson.

Winston Churchill was once accosted by a detractor regarding his smoking habit. "You know that that cigar is really a phallic symbol", the person said.

Churchill replied, "Yes" (yep), "but it is also a cigar."

oldwiseguy

 

[Breetai]

The problem is that outside of conservative Christian circles almost no historian or theologian believes Moses authored the Pentateuch. If he did he certainly had a poor memory with respect to the doublets.

Now the problem is... Who and what was Jesus referring to?

 

[Breetai]

All other interpretations are confused by the scientific fact of a very old substrate of dead rock, with their ancient fossils, upon which God created the living heaven and earth.

oldwiseguy

How do we know that dead rock was very old? What is "very old"?

 

[OldWiseGuy]

The problem is that outside of conservative Christian circles almost no historian or theologian believes Moses authored the Pentateuch. If he did he certainly had a poor memory with respect to the doublets.

Moses most certainly would have had a team of scribes to do the actual writing. This is evident by the fact of his own death being recorded in his own writings. Differing writing styles do appear throughout the Pentateuch and are easily accounted for by the different scribes that wrote under his direction.

oldwiseguy

 

[OldWiseGuy]

How do we know that dead rock was very old? What is "very old"?

Genesis 1:2 indicates that there was a formless wasteland upon which he formed the living mantle called 'heaven and earth'. This alone indicates a past history complete with horrific events. How old that history is, is of course , debatable. How old do you wish it be?

I really don't care. I let the scientists piddle around with that.

oldwiseguy

 

[Breetai]

Genesis 1:2 indicates that there was a formless wasteland upon which he formed the living mantle called 'heaven and earth'. This alone indicates a past history complete with horrific events. How old that history is, is of course , debatable. How old do you wish it be?

I really don't care. I let the scientists piddle around with that.

oldwiseguy

I have an ego complex, so I wish it to be the exact same age as me.

I have a problem with death before sin though. I can't be convinced otherwise. I can deal with an old Earth if you don't add death to it. But, I'd say that the Bible implies otherwise, and I've never seen or read any evidence that's led me to believe that the any of the days in Genesis were longer than a day as we know them now.

 

[KerrMetric]

Moses most certainly would have had a team of scribes to do the actual writing. This is evident by the fact of his own death being recorded in his own writings. Differing writing styles do appear throughout the Pentateuch and are easily accounted for by the different scribes that wrote under his direction.

oldwiseguy

There is a little more to it than just having scribes. You need the writers to be separated by several hundred years in time as well. Of course, unless you are hung up on Moses having to be sole author this is no problem.

 

[Breetai]

The problem is that outside of conservative Christian circles almost no historian or theologian believes Moses authored the Pentateuch.

Those people sure aren't biased now, are they???

Why don't they believe that Moses wrote the Books of Moses? Jesus seems to think that he did. Up until a couple centuries ago, this wasn't even a question.


Another name for "conservative Christians" is "Bible-believing Christians". What a concept...

 

[KerrMetric]

Those people sure aren't biased now, are they???

Why don't they believe that Moses wrote the Books of Moses? Jesus seems to think that he did. Up until a couple centuries ago, this wasn't even a question.

Up until a couple of centuries ago people didn't analyse many things and accepted them dogmatically. Headaches were demonic posessions and phlogiston was the pinnacle of chemistry etc. etc.

Another name for "conservative Christians" is "Bible-believing Christians". What a concept...

Another concept that can be applied is Bible worshippers as well.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I have an ego complex, so I wish it to be the exact same age as me.

I have a problem with death before sin though. I can't be convinced otherwise. I can deal with an old Earth if you don't add death to it. But, I'd say that the Bible implies otherwise, and I've never seen or read any evidence that's led me to believe that the any of the days in Genesis were longer than a day as we know them now.

The solar year is our calender, the moon's orbit determines months, and the revolution of the earth determines a 'day', and was established in Genesis One. Prior need for a system of observing the passing of 'time' is not necessary, for us anyway. If science can use God's clock for their purposes, have at it.

God did not intend Adam and Eve to live forever as humans. The 'death' that came with sin was eternal/spiritual death; the cessation of being, of existing.

Animals, whether ancient or modern, have no promise of eternal life, and die. Prior to Adam there may have been billions of creatures that died a natural, physical death on a primevil earth. But there was no eternal life promised: therefore no eternal death.

The other entities, whether angels or demons, are composed of spirit and cannot die. The punishment for demons is eternal restraint. A fate worse than death for them.

Remember the demons that entered the swine and drowned in the sea? They weren't trying to kill the pigs. They were trying to kill themselves.

We are composed of flesh so that we can die, so that God can put us to death if need be, to satisfy His purpose.


oldwiseguy

 

[gluadys]

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]"But if you had believed Moses, you would have believed me because he wrote about me. And since you don't believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say?" -Jesus Christ

Moses wrote that God literally created Adam, Eve, and all living creatures c. 6000 years ago.

Did he now? Where does he say his stories are literal history?

He also wrote that God sent a worldwide flood upon the Earth that destroyed every creature, save what was on the ark. I believe in Jesus, so therefore I also believe Moses.
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And where did he say this was literal history?

Why do you assume that God did not inspire Moses to teach the children of Israel via mythology?

 

[gluadys]

For example verse one states: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." (KJV) Heaven is singular here, but many other translations read "heavens', plural. The chapter then goes on to describe exactly what this singular 'heaven' is: the atmosphere where birds fly, clouds gather, rain falls, and we breath.

I'm interested. Where in chapter 1 does it give this description of heaven? How do you reconcile this description with v. 8 which explicitly names the firmament as "heaven". (English translations say "sky" but in Hebrew the word for "sky" is the same as the word for "heaven".)

How can heaven be both a firmament and an atmosphere?