A
Ark Guy
Guest
The following was borrowed from the following site:
http://freespace.virgin.net/karl_and.gnome/genesis.htm
it show the authors lack of biblical knowledge and desperate attempt to make the book of Genesis into a myth.
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Two Creation Stories
This is the first clue that we are not dealing with literal narratives here. When the book of Genesis was put together, the compiler had a number of sources, and, clearly, at least two Creation stories. And it didn't matter too much to him that they were contradictory. Clearly, therefore, the truth he was concerned about communicating was not the simple factual description of how the universe came into being. He had other fish to fry. If both accounts are true, then they are not true in a literal sense.
I want to say a few words about another Red Herring here. This Red Herring is the tense of the verb 'make' in Genesis 2 v 19. Here God makes the animals - after man, in direct contradiction of the first Creation story, which says man was made last. Claiming that the verb can be pluperfect 'had (already) made' (as indeed the NIV translates it) does not answer the criticism. The motivation for the making of the animals is clearly stated in verse 18 - God wants to make a suitable companion for the Man He has made. This is a classic case of literalism suffering the death of a thousand qualifications. The clear obvious reading of the second Creation story is that God makes the earth, then Man, then the animals to be his companions, then finally the Woman because none of the animals are suitable. There is no escaping the fact that this contradicts the first Six Day story, except by doggedly insisting that both have to be literally true and tying ourselves in knots twisting the text to fit that supposition. By contrast, a figurative interpretation of the text requires no twisting, no qualification and frees us to understand what the text is realy saying.
Now, it's often said that the presence of two creation stories is a mere invention by us dodgy types to 'discredit' the historicity of the Genesis narratives. Only when we were seduced by evolutionists did we start to see this supposed contradiction, notwithstanding the obvious differences. Well, this is simply not the case. If it were so, then how was it that the German minister H B Witter first proposed the idea that the two stories had different authors as far back as 1711? How was it that Jean d'Astruc picked up on this work in 1753, identifying four sources in the book of Genesis? Earlier still the obvious discrepancies had been noted, and usually put down to the real meaning of the accounts not being the literal one. (See Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorised Version, Viking, 1991).
So what does the bible really say?
Perhaps the author ought to read the verses again.
In one verse we have the animals then mankind created.
In the other we have Adam, then animals then Eve.
What the author fails to tell you is that mankind wasn't established with just the creation of Adam. Eve was necessary.
So in both verses, Animals were created prior to Mankind..no contradiction.
Such a simple answer.
_______________________________________
http://freespace.virgin.net/karl_and.gnome/genesis.htm
it show the authors lack of biblical knowledge and desperate attempt to make the book of Genesis into a myth.
_____________________________________________________
Two Creation Stories
This is the first clue that we are not dealing with literal narratives here. When the book of Genesis was put together, the compiler had a number of sources, and, clearly, at least two Creation stories. And it didn't matter too much to him that they were contradictory. Clearly, therefore, the truth he was concerned about communicating was not the simple factual description of how the universe came into being. He had other fish to fry. If both accounts are true, then they are not true in a literal sense.
I want to say a few words about another Red Herring here. This Red Herring is the tense of the verb 'make' in Genesis 2 v 19. Here God makes the animals - after man, in direct contradiction of the first Creation story, which says man was made last. Claiming that the verb can be pluperfect 'had (already) made' (as indeed the NIV translates it) does not answer the criticism. The motivation for the making of the animals is clearly stated in verse 18 - God wants to make a suitable companion for the Man He has made. This is a classic case of literalism suffering the death of a thousand qualifications. The clear obvious reading of the second Creation story is that God makes the earth, then Man, then the animals to be his companions, then finally the Woman because none of the animals are suitable. There is no escaping the fact that this contradicts the first Six Day story, except by doggedly insisting that both have to be literally true and tying ourselves in knots twisting the text to fit that supposition. By contrast, a figurative interpretation of the text requires no twisting, no qualification and frees us to understand what the text is realy saying.
Now, it's often said that the presence of two creation stories is a mere invention by us dodgy types to 'discredit' the historicity of the Genesis narratives. Only when we were seduced by evolutionists did we start to see this supposed contradiction, notwithstanding the obvious differences. Well, this is simply not the case. If it were so, then how was it that the German minister H B Witter first proposed the idea that the two stories had different authors as far back as 1711? How was it that Jean d'Astruc picked up on this work in 1753, identifying four sources in the book of Genesis? Earlier still the obvious discrepancies had been noted, and usually put down to the real meaning of the accounts not being the literal one. (See Robin Lane Fox, The Unauthorised Version, Viking, 1991).
So what does the bible really say?
Perhaps the author ought to read the verses again.
In one verse we have the animals then mankind created.
In the other we have Adam, then animals then Eve.
What the author fails to tell you is that mankind wasn't established with just the creation of Adam. Eve was necessary.
So in both verses, Animals were created prior to Mankind..no contradiction.
Such a simple answer.
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