heretical thoughts on human origins

[granpa]

heres a legal size pdf of the chart above

http://www.mediafire.com/?3gy9v94eztzpx

 

[mark kennedy]

I noticed when reading through the first chapters of genesis again, that the account of the Tower of Babel seems to be stuck in the body of the text rather randomly, like it was an old legend that someone had remembered, or was on clay tablets perhaps, and then written into the bible when it was finally written down.

Why is it the modern skepticism will attribute Scripture to anyone or anything other then Moses scribing the narrative from communications from God at Sinai? The Tower of Babel is anything but random, after the flood the descendants were told to spread across the face of the earth but they decided to gather together and build a tower. When the languages were confused they decided to go an build 'the City', Babylon being the earliest attempt. To date while spiritual Babylon has continued uninterrupted it will not be completed until the Tribulation when it will be destroyed by the Beast.

It fits perfectly in the narrative and dovetails seamlessly with the rest of Scripture.

There is no indication that the account is talking about before or after the flood.

Nonsense, common sense should tell us that the narrative will follow the timeline unless there is some indication to the contrary in the immediate context.

It says that people settled in Mesopotamia, (a plain in the land of Shinar) but that they had migrated there from the east; Persia. They spoke one language. God (or the gods?) came down (presumably from heaven?), had a look around at the city and the tower (probably a Ziggurat), and didn’t like the way the population was getting uppity, so dispersed them around the world.

There isn't a shred of substantive reason anywhere in the statement, let alone a supporting argument. What is more the Scriptures are clear why the tower was destroyed and the people dispersed.

So this suggests that the population at some early time in history came from Persia, then on to Mesopotamia, then out into the world.
However in the genealogical account of the descendants of Noah, it lists a number of generations;

10 These are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. Sons were born to them after the flood.

2 The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah. 4 The sons of Javan: Elishah, Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim. 5 From these the coastland peoples spread in their lands, each with his own language, by their clans, in their nations.

Noah.. Japheth.. Gomer.. Ashkenaz. Four generations after the flood. each with his own language.

So where is the Tower of Babel account to fit.. if these tribes were all speaking their own languages?

The genealogy would be up until the time of Moses. The narrative follows the timeline while the genealogy follows the bloodline, it's as simple as that.

I’ve heard that the Tower of Babel account is after the flood (although it dosn't say that). It’s placed in the bible in chapter 11, right after the genealogy of Noah descendants, but it is probably placed there in the bible like that as it is a ‘stand-alone’ account of origins going back to east of Mesopotamia, (and it had to be put somewhere) and this convention has probably influenced what people think; that it is after the flood. But it is contrary to what was written before; that the early descendants of Noah were speaking different languages.

First you make a false assumption that because the descendants spoke different languages there was no universal language before Babel. The genealogy, if it were in a modern publication, would be like a chart or a graft, it's really nothing more then a list. The narrative itself continues unabated and there was no need to specifically mention that this happened after the flood, it's a common sense inference that requires no special provisions.

As it doesn’t say whether this account of Babel is before or after the flood, and it contradicts the other account in chapter 10, then this might be an independent memory, of civilisation originating in the east somewhere. It takes a while to chew over these things.

I went to the store.
I bought a pack of gum.
I went home.
I offered my wife a stick of gum.

Does this say whether or not I went to the store before or after I offered my wife a stick of gum? Of course not but so what?

Another thing I noticed, is that Cain is the son of Adam and Eve, and he kills Abel, and then he runs off in exile, out of the land where he was living, and he was worried that he would be killed by people when he went away on his wanderings.

But who were these people, if Cain was the original son, where did these people come from? I just noticed it as I was reading. If they were his brothers, that's possible I suppose, but it struck me that these other people were already out there, as he was running off into another land, after having killed Abel... a recent event... where did these other nations come from, if they were already out there as a population?

They came from Adam and Eve, this is also obvious from the narrative and the genealogies. The narrative is obviously an abbreviated recollection of nearly two thousand years. There was ample time for the descendants of Adam and Eve's descendants to spread out into fairly sizable populations by the time Cain slew Adam. That is about the same amount of time size Christ waked the earth, think about it.

It says a bit later that Adam and Eve had Seth, a replacement for Abel. So where is there mention of all these other sons, somewhere around the time of Cain; Seth might be the next notable person to come along, or Seth might be the next son after Cain, in which case, all these people out there near the land of Nod, would need to be Cain's sons and daughters.

The descendants of Cain are mentioned in chapter 4, the descendants of Seth are in chapter 5. I really don't see the problem.

Unless this is a record of the origins of one people group, going back to Adam and Eve. But there were other people groups out there as well.

That's only because you are making no effort to follow the timeline and confuse it with the complete genealogy. The assertion that there were 'other people' is baseless.

 

[hiscosmicgoldfish]

I realise that if you pick apart the genesis creation accounts, and genealogies, you destroy the foundation of Christianity. As Jesus believed in Noah and the flood, it must be true, because Jesus couldn’t have been wrong about all that. And then you see that geologists used to believe that everything was the result of the flood, back in those days of conservative Christianity, until it all didn’t seem to work out. What about the white cliffs of Dover? How did that entire fossilised crustacean accumulate in one year? Impossible. How did the animals find any plant food to eat when they got off the ark, as there would be a wasteland? Impossible. How did koalas get to Australia after the flood, and why are there extinct fossil marsupials in Australia particularly. Why don’t you get a carbon 14 date for coal, except for a trace reading of 40,000 years?

If the Garden of Eden is a myth, then how can you trace Jesus’ ancestry back to Adam, if Adam was actually Adapa, adapted from the Sumerian myth? And then how can Jesus be a restoration of the sin of Adam, if Adam is a myth? None of it works out, and the thoughts of Paul on the matter don’t work out either, the whole formula collapses, so that is why people maintain all the legends and myths of genesis, like their lives depend on it. And yet, the theistic evolutionary scenario requires that everything in genesis’ first chapters is not true, and they happily accept all that.

The Hebrews seemed to have laid over, some theological truths, on the myths and legends of the Sumerians. The serpent of the Garden of Eden was probably Ningishzidder, an anthropomorphic serpent. The serpent wasn’t the fallen angel of much later Christianity. Despite what it says in Revelation, which I don’t believe in anyway. But the truth is still there; the serpent saying that ‘ye shall be as God’ is a truth about the way fallen humans are, and what they end up believing, when separated from the Judeo-Christian belief system.

The YECs claim that there has been an antichristian conspiracy in the field of geology. I don’t believe that. If there was a global flood as the cause of everything, then you would have all the animals and humans mixed up together in one strata of rock, and you don’t get that. So people like Grady Mc Murtry, who say that you never get the standard geological column anywhere in the world, is true but it is deceptive, as you don’t get the YECs expected flood deposit either, and you do get specific groups of animals in specific types of rock.

I think there is a crisis in Christianity now. You have a group of people like Ken Ham, Kent Hovind and Grady Mc Murtry, stacked up against everyone else in the scientific community. Then you have theistic evolution, with my church now accepting evolution, which trashes everything like I have been talking about, the foundations of Christianity. In my opinion, there is no evidence for evolution, and the theory can’t explain such things as the physiology of bats. There’s nothing in the fossil record, showing intermediate forms of bats, because that is impossible. So they come up with punctuated equilibrium, or hopeful monsters.

People like Hugh Ross try to maintain that the accounts in genesis are valid, and it’s a matter of interpreting it all correctly. I don’t agree with the day age theory, as I don’t think the first account of creation in genesis is true. It is ancient world cosmology laid over with the Israelite inspiration. They got it from the Sumerians again. They could have said that they don’t know how creation occurred, which would have been more honest than just lifting the Sumerian myths and adapting them.

 

[granpa]

Granpa:>>firmament was created on the 2nd day
therefore the big bang happened on the 2nd day

Dear Granpa, This was the beginning of the first heaven, which was later destroyed by the water into which it was placed.

6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.
8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

See? The following is the formation of the beginning of our heaven and the third heaven:

Gen 2:4 ¶These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

These verses are adding information about the THIRD day. Notice that the account is speaking of heavenS (Plural). It's not a mistake, but the first time the plural term for heavens is used in Scripture. Notice also that the "earth" was made the THIRD day according to Genesis 1:9-10.

Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew:

This verse confirms the day again, since it was the THIRD day the plants grew according to Genesis 1:12.

Read on and you will see that man was formed of the dust of the ground on the THIRD day, after the first earth was made but BEFORE the plants grew on the 3rd Day. I realize that this goes against the traditional story, but it agrees in every way with God's Holy Word.

Man was formed physically on the 3rd Day but was not "created in God's Image" until the 6th Day. This shows that Adam was born again or born Spiritually on the 6th Day. Eve was also created in God's Image at the SAME time and Eve wasn't even made until the 6th Day. Genesis 2:22.

Adam, like all men was first made on the 3rd Day but was not born again until the 6th Day. This gives mankind preeminence or first place in the Creation. We are destined to have dominion over every other living creature in heaven. Genesis 1:28

In Love,
Aman

Good insight there.
I would encourage you to look at my chart now

Comparative mythology chart/Bible1 - Religion-wiki

Hey aman, take another look at my chart.

 

[Aman777]

Comparative mythology chart/Bible1 - Religion-wikiHey aman, take another look at my chart.

Dear Grandpa, Every time I go to the chart, there is a blank Ad covering the top portion of it. When I try to get rid of it, I lose my connection online, and have to reboot. I"m getting another 512mb of memory this weekend.

Before I get it, if you would tell me:

Where is the portion of the Chart you want me to see? Is it on top or down in the Chart? IF it's down in the chart, I can quit looking on top. Thanks for your help.

In Love,
Aman

 

[Calminian]

This is the beauty of the tablet theory. The Babel account actually has Shem's toledoth signature.

Gen. 11:10 This is the account of Shem.​

This couldn't possibly be pre-flood, and if it was a couple hundred years after the flood, Shem would be the perfect account giver. He of course live an amazing 500 years after the flood.

But to your point that the Babel accounts seems to pop out of nowhere, you are correct in a sense. Genesis is a compilation of ancient accounts put together by Moses. The Table of Nations is actually a toledoth composed of several toledoths, and there is some overlap between the Table of Nation accounts and the Babel account. But Moses rightly did not attempt to sort out the chronology, but simply placed the accounts consecutively.

There is a clue there as to the timeline of the division of the languages in this passage.

Gen. 10:25 Two sons were born to Eber:
One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.​

Many including myself believe the division of the languages and subsequent division of the earth's family clans were just prior to the birth of Peleg, which influence Eber in naming him.

 

[Calminian]

Why is it the modern skepticism will attribute Scripture to anyone or anything other then Moses scribing the narrative from communications from God at Sinai? .....

Most creationists wont either, at least those that are reputable—ICR, AIG, etc. The main reason is because 1) there's nothing in the text to indicate Moses received the Genesis accounts via direct revelation. 2) As Henry Morris rightly points out, that would actually be very abnormal compared to the way all other historical accounts in the Bible came about. 3) There is internal evidence that screams these accounts existed prior to Moses and were compiled by him.

Here are some excerpts from Henry Morris' commentary 'The Genesis Record.'

All creationists should have this commentary. The man truly was ahead of his time.

There's also a bit of paranoia the church really needs to be careful about in this area. Even though there is nothing in scripture even slightly indicating Moses received this account on Sinai, there can almost a cult following for this belief among a few. I would just urge cation. The evidence is overwhelming this was not the case, and there's nothing in scripture to support it.

 

[granpa]

Comparative mythology chart/Bible1 - Religion-wiki
Hey aman, take another look at my chart.

Dear Grandpa,
Every time I go to the chart, there is a blank Ad covering the top portion of it. When I try to get rid of it, I lose my connection online, and have to reboot. I"m getting another 512mb of memory this weekend.

Before I get it, if you would tell me:

Where is the portion of the Chart you want me to see? Is it on top or down in the Chart? IF it's down in the chart, I can quit looking on top. Thanks for your help.

In Love,
Aman

I'm not sure what ad you are referring to.
I dont see any such ad.
What browser are you using.
What system?
Try installing adblock plus.

Try turning javascript off.

the chart consists of columns which are divided by red lines into super-columns. The third super-column is the most interesting part. Especially the top part

 

[granpa]

if you cant get that to work then try one of these:

My Files


you can print out tabloid size sheets at kinkos.

 

[granpa]

Comparative mythology chart/Bible1 - Religion-wikiHey aman, take another look at my chart.

Dear Grandpa, Every time I go to the chart, there is a blank Ad covering the top portion of it. When I try to get rid of it, I lose my connection online, and have to reboot. I"m getting another 512mb of memory this weekend.

Before I get it, if you would tell me:

Where is the portion of the Chart you want me to see? Is it on top or down in the Chart? IF it's down in the chart, I can quit looking on top. Thanks for your help.

In Love,
Aman

there were 2 adams.
the adam most people think of is actually the second adam.
there was another adam 1000 years before him.

Comparative mythology chart/Bible1 - Religion-wiki

Spoiler: very large image