Carnivores and the Fall

[Assyrian]

You still refuse to see that it was spiritual death that was immediate?

Good grief, did you miss the post where I told you:

Exactly. He did die spiritually and he died instantly, the same day he ate the fruit, just as God had warned. That is what Gen 2:17 was talking about.

That is my whole point.

Then you go quoting a passage I used in the very post you are replying to.

Ephesians 2:1
"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins."


Ephesians 2:5
"made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved."​

I don't see the problem about the verdict. It was the same verdict the Ephesians had, they were dead in the trespasses and sins in which they walked Eph 2:1&2 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. It is the same verdict Paul faced when he first sinned Rom 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.

I think I can see where you have gone wrong.

You should have looked at the quote from ChristianSoldier85 in my post to see what he said that I am replying to.

But see God didnt say death would be instantaneous but rather it would be inevitable.

God did not say it would be instantaneous, he did say occur the same day. Gen 2:17 for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die. It wasn't just that Adam would surely die, he would surely die in the day he ate the fruit. I would disagree with The Barbarian (sorry) on one thing, the text does say Adam death would be inevitable, that is what the 'surely die' mean, but it is saying that it was inevitable he would die on the day he ate the fruit.

See how I am repeating what ChristianSoldier85 said? That part of what he said was technically quite true. God did not say death would be instantaneous, he said it would happen the day Adam ate it. Now Adam's spiritual death was instantaneous, as instantaneous as we can understand spiritual death anyway. But an instantaneous death is the same day he ate the fruit. While God did not say instantaneous, but instantaneous spiritual death fulfilled the warning God gave. Dying of old age years later did not.

Men who are unregenerate are spiritually DEAD. Jesus said so.

Luke 9:59-60
"He said to another man, "Follow me."
But the man replied, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father."​

Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

​

Jesus covered both deaths. Let the dead (spiritual death) bury their own dead (physical death).​

OK... You may be reading more of a distinction into it than Jesus gave, but it is a reasonable interpretation.

That is why the Hebrew states... ..."eat, in dying, you shall die." First came the immediate spiritual death of Adam, and then the physical death much later, as a result of the first death.

"death" + "death" = "in dying you shall die."​

I am waiting for an evolution in your thinking.

I hope to study your progress.
.​

Nah you are back to the mistranslation of the Hebrew construction which means 'surely die' not some weird two stage progressive process. Tell me, when Jesus said "Truly Truly I say to you..." Did he mean there was some sort of two stage progressive truth? Or was he simply using an Aramaic and Hebrew idiom emphasising the truth of what he said?

 

[Assyrian]

Amen.

1 Corinthians 15:21-22 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all made alive. Yes, and Adam did die that day in a both spiritual and physical fashion. The wages of sin is death. But permitted to live and procreate under the grace of God, to live out the remainder of their mortal lives. One can see a foreshadow and type of God's plan of salvation and atonement in the animals slain to provide Adam and Eve clothes.

They didn't did physically that day, it was many years later. Surely the warning that they would die the day they ate the fruit actually refers to the death they did die that day, not a physical death they didn't die that day. I don't think the suggest God was simply being merciful and postponing the sentence works. If God had meant physical death and had carried out the sentence he warned, there would have been no human race multiplying and filling the earth. God must have known when he gave the warning that he could not carry out that sentence or his plan to populate the earth would be ruined. Does not make sense.

Absolutely, I was speculating on taking that bit of Genesis ultra-literally about "thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" if it had been carried out as a divine judgement.

So it took billions of years worth of earth history and millions of years of evolution before God could fellowship with humanity before we could praise our heavenly father. That God created a savage earth, an near endless cycle of constant brutality and death. One could ask in theory "God, what took you so long?" "Why did it take you so long, Lord?" "So death passes onto..... death?"

You think billions of years would be too long for God? 2Pet 3:8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness... Do you think there is a time limit to how long it is alright for God to provide prey to young lions and ravens, or velociraptors? He could get away with the moral ambiguity of feeding them prey for a few thousand years but a billion years is really pushing it? God thinks his creation is wonderful, all his creatures give him praise. I don't think he was in a hurry, or embarrassed by dinosaurs eating each other. Father God is a gardener. They take their time.

Because evolution flagrantly contradicts both the scriptures and the love of God, demonstrated here.

Roman 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.

Romans 5:17 For if by one man's offense death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

I don't see anything that contradicts evolution here. Paul is talking about a death that spread to all men. What has that to do with animals dying? In fact the death he is talking about could not spread to animals. It spread to all men because all sinned. Animals don't sin. Animal death must have a different source from the death Paul is talking about here.

Whenever you think animal death started, the bible does say it was God's will Rom 8:20. So whether you believe it was part of God's creation from the beginning, or God brought it in to punish animals as well humans when Adam sinned, it was still God's will, God's decision. Why do you think animal death contradicts God's love if he willed it from the beginning, but not if his will was to punish innocent animals after the fall? It seems a real contradiction in Creationism. On the other hand, I think a biblical view sees creation as good, there is no contradiction between the amazing diversity of life we see in nature now. It is all God's wonderful creation and he cares for it. The rabbit that dies is a rabbit God created and watched over as he watches over the sparrows. When the rabbit has fulfilled the time on earth God gave it, it becomes part of God's care for a fox and its cubs. The only love this contradicts is sentimentalism.

Yes, Adam once fellowshipped with God and it was very good. Before sin entered world and death by sin.

Again nothing to do with animal death which went on for billion of year before Adam sinned and carried on after. There is nothing in scripture to suggest animal death is the result of the fall or only came in after Adam sinned.

 

[shernren]

He wasn't. You're thinking of George Washington.

You can't possibly know for sure! You weren't there to observe it!

(My bad )

 

[Assyrian]

Those living things that died, did so not as part of the present creation. Just as there will be a new creation on this earth to replace the one we now see.

I am not sure it makes any difference how many creations you think there were in the first few verse of Genesis. You admit there was death on earth before Adam sinned, while your claim there was no death later on in Gen 1 has no basis in the text.

Isaiah 65:17-20
"Behold, I will create
new heavens and a new earth.
The former things will not be remembered,
nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in what I will create,
for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight
and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem
and take delight in my people;
the sound of weeping and of crying
will be heard in it no more.
"Never again will there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days,
or an old man who does not live out his years;
he who dies at a hundred
will be thought a mere youth;
he who fails to reach a hundred
will be considered accursed."​

Physical death will not be the norm in the next creation. Only those who are cursed by God will die before the 1000 years of the Millennium is up.

Only those who do not reach 100 are considered cursed, while those who are not curse still die when they 'live out their days'. Not much support here for the no death before the fall idea.

Animal life will be transformed,too. It will not be done by evolution.

Isaiah 65:25
"The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD."
​

The first time this concept is mentioned it is in the context of Messiah growing out of a tree stump wearing righteousness and striking the earth with an iron rod in his mouth. Are you sure it is meant literally? It sound very apocalyptic imagery to me.

Isaiah 11:1 There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.
2 And the Spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the LORD.
3 And his delight shall be in the fear of the LORD. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide disputes by what his ears hear,
4 but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth; and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist, and faithfulness the belt of his loins.
6 The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf
7 The cow and the bear shall graze; their young shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.
8 The nursing child shall play over the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den.
9 They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Yes. Adam was the first to bring spiritual death into all creations. Fallen angels can not stop being spiritual. Yet, he was the first to physical bring death to this creation.

The physical death you speak of took place prior to this creation. God said that what he produced in this creation was "very good." Yet, death is the Lord's enemy. He could not say "very good," if death were a part of the initial life he created for this creation before Adam fell.

Or God really did create the wonderful natural world we see around us and you are insulting his creation and disagree with his verdict that creation really is very good.

Genesis 1:31
​

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day."
​

So why do you disagree with him?

Death could not have been initially part of this creation, and God say that what he created was very good. .

1 Corinthians 15:25-26
"For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death."
​

God could not say that this creation was "very good" if death was at that time a part of this creation's function. Physical death entered this creation after Adam fell. The past deaths you speak of were to be found in prehistoric worlds.

Just because death is God's enemy now does not mean it was always God's enemy. You believe God created Satan don't you? Was Satan God's enemy when God created him? If not, it means something that is God's enemy now may not have been God's enemy in the past. There is no reason God could not have created death as part of the natural world and it only became a problem when man sinned. 1Cor 15:56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. If there was death before the fall, it was death without a sting. Why would a stingless death be God's enemy?

Of course the alternative if creationists are right, is that God created a death that was his enemy. That does not sound biblical to me.

If you are interested, you can learn about what I speak of here:
http://www.custance.org/Library/WFANDV/index.html#TableofContent
Grace and peace, GeneZ

The Gap theory was a good attempt to reconcile Genesis with the discoveries of geology, predating Day Age and Framework. A good idea at the time. When we learned the earth was older than Ussher's literalism said, the church needed to go back to Genesis and church fathers to see if there was any other way to approach the text. But Gap Theory is too speculative and required taking a lot of texts out of context, nor does it fit later developments in geology. It made more sense when catastrophist geology was a suggesting a series of global floods.

But really I think it is a digression in this thread. While you think there was death in previous creations, you still present the standard creationist arguments against death between Gen 1:2 and the fall. Why not start a new thread on Gap theory and see if anyone bites.

 

[juvenissun]

If both are valid why would you consider one more true? I am not sure what debates about the pre-existence of the soul have to do with the issue. What we can say is that the 4.45 billion years is valid within the universe God created. Should be good enough for us. OTOH, the validity of the shorter framework depends on correctly understanding the statements and very experience of one who said, Isaiah 55:8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD. One who has been know to use the odd metaphor in communicating with us timebound humans.

Agree with everything you said. It is only a perception from different view point. Before we were born AND after we die, we are not bounded by the time system we know while we live. Everyone can sense the worldly time system (the billion years old system) only when we are alive on the earth.

 

[GenemZ]

I am not sure it makes any difference how many creations you think there were in the first few verse of Genesis. You admit there was death on earth before Adam sinned, while your claim there was no death later on in Gen 1 has no basis in the text.

I was being VERY SPECIFIC about when the first deaths took place. I was also SPECIFIC about the first death in regards to this current creation. I was making a distinction that you have missed entirely.

I have been patiently waiting this out. You are continuously missing my points.

Its as if you have a mental filter switched on automatic. Anything said that would pull you away from making your point of view the only topic, you simply filter out, or respond as if something else was said.

I'm sorry. This is get's tiring. This dialogue makes me want to reach out and grab someone's hearing aid to see if the battery is dead.


Backing out unless you can start having a real dialogue. Which probaly what you want. Because making the GAP Understanding a part of the discussion will draw attention to something you must dread becoming accepted and understood. Understood.




In Christ, GeneZ



.

 

[Assyrian]

Agree with everything you said. It is only a perception from different view point. Before we were born AND after we die, we are not bounded by the time system we know while we live. Everyone can sense the worldly time system (the billion years old system) only when we are alive on the earth.

I doubt many scientists would disagree with the idea that the earth's 4.45 billion years is time as measured within this universe, within the earth's time frame anyway. As long as you believe God's creation is real, then this is the real time measurement.

 

[Assyrian]

I was being VERY SPECIFIC about when the first deaths took place. I was also SPECIFIC about the first death in regards to this current creation. I was making a distinction that you have missed entirely.

I have been patiently waiting this out. You are continuously missing my points.

Its as if you have a mental filter switched on automatic. Anything said that would pull you away from making your point of view the only topic, you simply filter out, or respond as if something else was said.

I'm sorry. This is get's tiring. This dialogue makes me want to reach out and grab someone's hearing aid to see if the battery is dead.


Backing out unless you can start having a real dialogue. Which probaly what you want. Because making the GAP Understanding a part of the discussion will draw attention to something you must dread becoming accepted and understood. Understood.

In Christ, GeneZ

.

Dread???

Speaking of mental filters and missing points, you only quote the first paragraph of my post, while I discuss the relevance, or lack of it, of the Gap Theory to this discussion in the last two paragraphs.

You could address my whole post, or you could reiterate the points you think we are missing, it would be more productive than wanting to reach out and disassemble my mp3 player.

 

[juvenissun]

I doubt many scientists would disagree with the idea that the earth's 4.45 billion years is time as measured within this universe, within the earth's time frame anyway. As long as you believe God's creation is real, then this is the real time measurement.

A reality is valid within a domain. So, the truth is that there are "realities".
The one from God's view is "more" true than all others.

So, 4.5 b.y. old earth is one reality (for scientists to learn as a homework from God). A young earth is a better reality, which is only inspired by His word and His Spirit.

Well, I think this idea is clear enough and is sort of not arguable. So, this is it.

 

[The Barbarian]

Genez explains his philosophy:

Ignore the ones that you can not deal with. Only deal with the ones that has as much weakness in reasoning as your own.

If so, why did you let yourself get drawn into that thing about death? And the idea that physical death is God's enemy is just unscriptural imagination. The death He saved us from was a spiritual one.

And likewise the idea of separate creations is completely unscriptural. There was one, ex nihilo creation, from which all other things were created.

 

[GenemZ]

Genez explains his philosophy:


If so, why did you let yourself get drawn into that thing about death? And the idea that physical death is God's enemy is just unscriptural imagination. The death He saved us from was a spiritual one.

And likewise the idea of separate creations is completely unscriptural. There was one, ex nihilo creation, from which all other things were created.

Barbarian has spoken.

.

 

[Jig]

Serpent: Did God really say He created the heavens and the Earth is 6 days?

 

[ChristianSoldier85]

Serpent: Did God really say He created the heavens and the Earth is 6 days?

Nice twist on that piece of scripture. I came to a point in my life where I just basically tune evolution out. The theory of evolution beats a strong heart of humanism.

I stated in another thread, secular history from the neolithic age on and bible history from Genesis are wonderously compatible. So much so I reject any notion of prehistory beyond the secular neolithic age.

I was watching a documentary on the Garden of Eden and one individual speculated that the garden's locale using satellite imaging what is left of it may lie buried beneath the Persian Gulf a condition wrought on by the flood. An interesting notion and from there sprang up agriculture. Once again an interesting notion supported indirectly by secular neolithic history as agriculture is one of man's earliest advancements to civilization (c.f. Nimrod the hunter).

 

[ChristianSoldier85]

See the neolithic age:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_world

See civilization:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Earth

 

[ChristianSoldier85]

*bump*

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Stone_Age

Bear in mind I using wikipedia for a general overview as the site has been sited frequently enough for misinformation and regarded by the masses as a poor place to gain accurate information from.

However I feel the links I have provided dont have any noticeably erroneous information.

 

[Assyrian]

A reality is valid within a domain. So, the truth is that there are "realities".
The one from God's view is "more" true than all others.

So, 4.5 b.y. old earth is one reality (for scientists to learn as a homework from God). A young earth is a better reality, which is only inspired by His word and His Spirit.

Well, I think this idea is clear enough and is sort of not arguable. So, this is it.

More true? Not unless you deny the reality of God's creation. It is either true or it is not. You can say the reality in God is more important, but not more true.

 

[Assyrian]

Serpent: Did God really say He created the heavens and the Earth is 6 days?

Did God really say it was a serpent?

The very snake you misquote to support your literal interpretation of Genesis was itself a metaphor for Satan deceiving the world (Rev 12:9).

 

[GenemZ]

There are some spontaneous transforming adaptations that have taken place and observed by man. So, certain scientists ran with this as being the means for how we got life on this earth. After all, it only makes sense how we got ancient creatures to become what we got today. That's the reasoning.


Now...

The earth is only about 6-7000 years old. Because some Bible scholar many years ago use genealogies found in the Bible to trace back to the time of Adam. Yet, scholars latter on discovered that the genealogies do not contain every single generation in the chain, but only honorable mentions, so this world might be closer to 20-30,000 years old.


There will be no evolution taking place to get us to the following new world.

Isaiah 65:25
"The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD."
​

That will be the next new creation, not evolution.



That's how God will work in the future, and it how he did work in replacing previous creations. God simply replaces one creation with another. In the mean time, any given generation may experience micro evolution to reveal God's omniscience, his knowing the future before it happens, by having provided for his creation the means to continue living in some unforeseen event that he always knew would happen, for God has willed it to be so. For the creation reveals the nature of the Creator!


Now, Evolutionists I find are usually proud intellectually arrogant types. They see themselves as our superior, and that they know better. In contrast.. Young Earthers usually take on a bunker mentality where they will not allow the city slicker to have his way with them. But, they are both fighting a war that is over. They have become like the Japanese soldier found on an island still fighting WWll after the war was over for many years.

Its over. God will created new worlds in the future to replace this one. God has created prehistoric worlds in the past. Bible scholars had long seen past creations presented in the Bible, but it was not until Darwin came along that what they had been finding made sense as to why its to be found in the Bible.



I will be quoting from "Without Form and Void" by Dr. Arthur C. Custance.

The following excerpts reveal that long before the Theory of Evolution became manifest in the world, that men having no position to prove, or disprove, concerning the theory of evolution, simply expounded on what was to be found in the Hebrew text on creation. Many saw that the world we now live in was not the first creation to grace this planet.

"Origen, for example, who lived from 186 to about 254 A.D., and to whom the original languages of the Bible were very familiar, has this to say in his great work, De Principiis, at Gen. 1.1:



"It is certain that the present firmament is not spoken of in this verse, nor the present dry land, but rather that heaven and earth from which this present heaven and earth that we now see afterwards borrowed their names."

And that he saw verse 2 as a description of a "casting down" of the original is borne out quite clearly by his subsequent observation that the condition resulted from a "disruption" which is best described, he suggests, by the Latin verb dejicere, ‘to throw down’."
​

Now, that is only a tip of the iceberg. There are many more examples to be found in this book. Another was that Jewish Bible scholars who had lived long before Origen had concluded that God had destroyed past creations and that what we now find ourselves living in is the most recent creation from the hand of God.

Why did these Jews conclude this? The Hebrew text was their native tongue! They understood the accurate meanings of Hebrew words that we find today only in generic renderings into English.

Here is another example...

In his great work, The Legends of the Jews, Louis Ginsberg has put into continuous narrative a precis of their legends, as far as possible in the original phrase sand terms. In Volume 1 which covers the period from the Creation to Jacob, he has this excerpt on Genesis 1:

"Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several other worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours."
​

http://www.custance.org/Library/WFANDV/chap1.html
​

The war is over. Yet, the pride of the city slickers and the country bumpkins still rage in a battle. Similar to what we find amongst sects of Muslims who are both following a false religion, yet will fight each other because their side has to be right. Its so far gone that neither side is able to accept correction, for their determination to win blinds them from seeing the truth that is needed to be made free.






.

.

​

 

[shernren]

I will be quoting from "Without Form and Void" by Dr. Arthur C. Custance.

The following excerpts reveal that long before the Theory of Evolution became manifest in the world, that men having no position to prove, or disprove, concerning the theory of evolution, simply expounded on what was to be found in the Hebrew text on creation. Many saw that the world we now live in was not the first creation to grace this planet.

"Origen, for example, who lived from 186 to about 254 A.D., and to whom the original languages of the Bible were very familiar, has this to say in his great work, De Principiis, at Gen. 1.1:



"It is certain that the present firmament is not spoken of in this verse, nor the present dry land, but rather that heaven and earth from which this present heaven and earth that we now see afterwards borrowed their names."

And that he saw verse 2 as a description of a "casting down" of the original is borne out quite clearly by his subsequent observation that the condition resulted from a "disruption" which is best described, he suggests, by the Latin verb dejicere, ‘to throw down’."
​

Ooh, abusing Origen. Let's start from the top.

"To whom the original languages of the Bible were very familiar" - really? Have a look at De Principiis 4.1.17:

And if we are to inquire regarding the impossibilities of the law, we find an animal called the goat-stag, which cannot possibly exist, but which, as being in the number of clean beasts, Moses commands to be eaten; and a griffin, which no one ever remembers or heard of as yielding to human power, but which the legislator forbids to be used for food. Respecting celebrated ob[wash my mouth]servance of the Sabbath also he thus speaks: You shall sit, everyone in your dwellings; no one shall move from his place on the Sabbath-day. Which precept it is impossible to observe literally; for no man can sit a whole day so as not to move from the place where he sat down.
​

Goat-stag? Griffin? Those are Septuagint mistranslations of the originals in Hebrew, which are "mountain-goat" and "vulture" respectively. And regarding observance of the Sabbath, the original (and most sensible interpretation) in Hebrew is that "you shall stay, everyone in your dwellings ... " Quite strange for someone to whom "the original languages of the Bible were very familiar".

Another example is given here:

In his second Homily on Exodus Origen finds a problem with Exodus 1:21 which reads in his Bible: "Because the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves." This leads him to comment:

This statement makes no sense according to the letter. For what is the relationship that the text should say, "Because the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves."? It is as if a house is built because God is feared. If this be taken as it stands written, not only does it appear to lack logic, but also to be inane. But if you should see how the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, teaching the fear of God, make the houses of the Church and fill the whole earth with houses of prayer, then what is written will appear to have been written rationally."

Of course the solution becomes obvious when one translates the Greek word oikias correctly in this context as "families" instead of "houses". The verse then reads: "And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." (NIV).​

As for what Origen's actual views were, this site spells them out quite nicely.

Okay, I've done Origen, who wants to do the rest?

 

[GenemZ]

Ooh, abusing Origen. Let's start from the top.

"To whom the original languages of the Bible were very familiar" - really? Have a look at De Principiis 4.1.17:

And if we are to inquire regarding the impossibilities of the law, we find an animal called the goat-stag, which cannot possibly exist, but which, as being in the number of clean beasts, Moses commands to be eaten; and a griffin, which no one ever remembers or heard of as yielding to human power, but which the legislator forbids to be used for food. Respecting celebrated ob[wash my mouth]servance of the Sabbath also he thus speaks: You shall sit, everyone in your dwellings; no one shall move from his place on the Sabbath-day. Which precept it is impossible to observe literally; for no man can sit a whole day so as not to move from the place where he sat down.
​

Goat-stag? Griffin? Those are Septuagint mistranslations of the originals in Hebrew, which are "mountain-goat" and "vulture" respectively. And regarding observance of the Sabbath, the original (and most sensible interpretation) in Hebrew is that "you shall stay, everyone in your dwellings ... " Quite strange for someone to whom "the original languages of the Bible were very familiar".

Another example is given here:

In his second Homily on Exodus Origen finds a problem with Exodus 1:21 which reads in his Bible: "Because the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves." This leads him to comment:

This statement makes no sense according to the letter. For what is the relationship that the text should say, "Because the midwives feared God, they made houses for themselves."? It is as if a house is built because God is feared. If this be taken as it stands written, not only does it appear to lack logic, but also to be inane. But if you should see how the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, teaching the fear of God, make the houses of the Church and fill the whole earth with houses of prayer, then what is written will appear to have been written rationally."

Of course the solution becomes obvious when one translates the Greek word oikias correctly in this context as "families" instead of "houses". The verse then reads: "And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own." (NIV).
​

As for what Origen's actual views were, this site spells them out quite nicely.

Okay, I've done Origen, who wants to do the rest?

I am not sure what you found is even a valid criticism. The "house of Abraham" is a way to speak of a family of men. Besides.. Every scholar has his critics. Let's not get diverted away as you desire to.

What Origen did discover was an example of what many others also saw long before Darwinism was born. That is the point.

Now, put your tongue back in your mouth. Its a sign of not being filled with the Spirit.


In Christ... GeneZ




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