Creationists False on Key Point

[-57]

The garden of Eden was an expansion of the creation story, what is featured are domesticated plants. The waters prevailed upon the earth for about a year which would seem to have put quite a strain on the ability of even plants and sea life to have survived. Assuming that the seeds for wild and domesticated plants endured they would have adapted in a couple of generations after the flood.

Apparently the tree of life was either transplanted or somehow recreated in the New Jerusalem according to the Revelation:

On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. (Rev. 22:2 NIV)
​

Grace and peace,
Mark

Perhaps there are several tree's of life. At least two considering they stood on each side of the river.

 

[mark kennedy]

Perhaps there are several tree's of life. At least two considering they stood on each side of the river.

Indeed, I had not noticed that. The context seems to indicate a new creation, the fate of the one in the Garden of Eden is something the Scriptures are silent about.

Grace and peace,
Mark

 

[-57]

deleted

 

[miamited]

Hi all,

Just wanted to note a correction in one of my posts. I wrote in post #40:

About 1500 years ago God parted a sea to provide an escape route for His people.

That should actually read 'about 3500 years ago'. I was thinking from the time of Jesus and not from today.

I imagine most people figured it out for themselves or just didn't read it closely, but I did want to correct the error.

God bless you all,
In Christ, Ted

 

[PeterDona]

In the story of Noah and the Flood, the Ark lands on Mt. Ararat. Ararat is actually a range of mountains, now in Turkey. There is no doubt why Noah wound up on Mt. Ararat. The ancient Hebrews thought that Mt. Ararat was the tallest mountain in the world. The idea is that as the waters recede, the tallest mountain would be the first to be exposed. When the story of Noah was composed, Israelites thought Ararat was the tallest mountain, so it would be the first to be uncovered.

The story of Noah is about obedience, the kind of obedience that God wants. God favors the man who keeps His ways when the entire world is going the wrong way. The story ends with God laying down basic laws of morality and giving a promise for the future.

As a parable about obedience and morality the story of Noah is excellent. As a guide to geography or history it bogs down. If the Israelites had known that Mt. Everest is the tallest mountain, Noah would have landed on Everest instead of on Ararat.

In all of Scripture we have to make a decision if these verses are meant to have a literal or a figurative interpretation. Often there is a little of both. But most likely, in a historical book like Genesis, the interpretation should be heavily literal. I think you should consider to give more emphasis to the literal side in your interpretation. It is a trait that I see in more of your posts, that you weigh heavy on the figurative side.

If you doubt whether Genesis is a historical book, I would point to the fact that archeology has proven (or at least corroborated) the Bible all the way back to at least Genesis 9. See example this resource: http://www.icr.org/article/modern-archaeology-genesis/

 

[dougangel]

Creationists have clearly picked a fight with the wrong enemy. Why is science is the enemy. At a time when Christianity seems to be under attack from every direction, Creationists have picked a fight that Christians don't need

At the moment the whole universe is running on science . We are biological creatures made from the elements of the earth. That is made from dust. God invented, instigated science. I believe God created us with science and gave us a spiritual nature. How exactly, he did this ? and how many miracles he used. I don't really think anybody knows. If it was purely done hands off just by design and using science with him adding the spiritual God like nature to man that is possible too.

 

[Dale]

“So God created man in his own image,


in the image of God he created him;


male and female he created them.”

--Genesis 1:27 NIV



“--the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

--Genesis 2:7 NIV



I am being told that I must believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Very well, take a look at the two verses I just quoted. These are very important since they deal with God's creation of humans.



God creating man “in His own image” can't be literal unless God has a physical body. If God literally created “male and female” in “His own image,” I'm not even sure what this means. What I do know is that God making people “in His own image” means that people have souls—but this isn't literal.



Since God is invisible, if people were literally made in the image of God, people would be invisible too.



God creating man, or Adam, from dust, by breathing “into his nostrils the breath of life” sounds like reviving someone who has almost drowned, if God has a physical body. It is clear from context that this isn't what is intended. God breathes the breath of life into all animals and plants. Breathing in the breath of life is an analogy, not a literal fact.



If two of the most important verses in the first three chapters of Genesis are not literal, why should we believe the rest of it is?

 

[Dale]

I accept it. Of course species change..there was a rapid change in species after the 2 of a kind departed the ark and speciated into all the species we currently have on the planet.

You do know that the fossil record for the most part was deposited by the flood waters?

-57, if that is your name on CF:


“[God says to Noah,] Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”

Genesis 7:2-3 NIV




“Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.”

Genesis 7:8 NIV



If you're going to talk about Noah, take a look at these verses. In the first mention of bringing animals into the Ark, God commands Noah to gather seven of all clean animals, or maybe this is seven pairs. For unclean animals apparently one pair is enough, but then seven (pairs?) of all birds. In this first mention, Noah is ordered to go out and get these animals.


The second time bringing animals into the Ark is mentioned, the notion of seven clean animals or seven pairs of clean animals is overlooked. We are down to pairs. No longer is Noah ordered to go out and get these animals, God has the animals come into the Ark.


Genesis doesn't mention Noah taking plants into the Ark. Yet if this story is to be taken literally, none of this would have worked without plants. I have noticed that in movies based on Noah, there are plants aboard the Ark.


Maybe God is telling us that every detail of this Noah story is not to be taken literally.

What else could these discrepancies mean?

 

[ScottA]

“So God created man in his own image,


in the image of God he created him;


male and female he created them.”

--Genesis 1:27 NIV



“--the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

--Genesis 2:7 NIV



I am being told that I must believe in a literal interpretation of Genesis. Very well, take a look at the two verses I just quoted. These are very important since they deal with God's creation of humans.



God creating man “in His own image” can't be literal unless God has a physical body. If God literally created “male and female” in “His own image,” I'm not even sure what this means. What I do know is that God making people “in His own image” means that people have souls—but this isn't literal.



Since God is invisible, if people were literally made in the image of God, people would be invisible too.



God creating man, or Adam, from dust, by breathing “into his nostrils the breath of life” sounds like reviving someone who has almost drowned, if God has a physical body. It is clear from context that this isn't what is intended. God breathes the breath of life into all animals and plants. Breathing in the breath of life is an analogy, not a literal fact.



If two of the most important verses in the first three chapters of Genesis are not literal, why should we believe the rest of it is?

God is not invisible, but spirit. The flesh sees the flesh, but the spirit sees the spirit: Those who have "eyes to see" see in the spirit.

Everything that God has made is manifest - an image in the likeness of what He has in His mind (imagination). Every word is as literal as He has imagined - this is the meaning of manifest: "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." But "all things come in parables" so the words are both figurative and literal, but can only be discerned spiritually.

 

[Dale]

Hello! I found this thread because it was featured.

We do hear more about Eden in the OT, such as in Ezekiel. In chapter 28 Eden is described as the garden of God, and also as a mountain, which fits in with other ANE thinking as a well-watered mountain being the earthly abode of the gods.

In literalist thinking (which is usually my thinking) the garden would have been buried in the Flood, which is said to have covered even the mountains. So the trees of Eden would be buried, too, obviating the need for any cherubim to remain there. This burying is alluded to in Ezekiel 31, including:

The tree of life itself isn't mentioned. Perhaps it was translated to heaven because it can be seen in New Jerusalem in Revelation 22. Or, perhaps it was buried and God will have created a new one for New Jerusalem (he does say "Behold, I am making all things new" in Revelation 21:5).

So, I think that a literalist view of Eden can be maintained consistently throughout the OT.

I'm a little curious about your beliefs: if you believe the original tree of life was a myth, do you believe the future one will be real, or not?

ChetSinger,




I'm glad you came across my thread.




You say that Eden is mentioned in Ezekiel 28, and described as the Garden of God. Speaking of a King of Tyre, the passage says:

“You were in Eden,

the garden of God,

every precious stone adorned you ...”




The problem is that this passage isn't talking about a literal Garden of Eden. It seems to be saying that this King of Tyre walked with God in his youth but fell away later. It isn't completely clear if the passage is talking about a person, a city or a nation that showed promise but fell away into materialism.




Trees, maybe even Eden's Tree of Life were buried in the Flood, just as Ezekiel 31 talks about trees being buried, you say. An actual reading of Ezekiel 31 shows that the trees are symbols. Assyria is described as a beautiful cedar that has fallen and Egypt is described as a tall cedar that is about to fall.

“-all the great nations

lived in its shade.”

--Ezekiel 31:6

We are talking about geopolitics here, not God's creation of the earth.




“The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it ...”

--Ezekiel 31:8




These verses don't tell us anything about a literal Garden of Eden. They are what I call a hypothetical mention of Eden.




There is no doubt that this section of Ezekiel is a series of prophecies about the destruction of cities and countries. Take a look at the chapter titles in my Disciples Study Bible.

Chapter 28: A Prophecy Against the King of Tyre

Chapter 29: A Prophecy Against Egypt

Chapter 30: A Lament for Egypt

Chapter 31: A Cedar in Lebanon

Chapter 32: A Lament for Pharaoh

As I have already pointed out, in Chapter 31, the Cedar in Lebanon actually stands for Egypt, whose doom is predicted.

 

[Dale]

God is not invisible, but spirit. The flesh sees the flesh, but the spirit sees the spirit: Those who have "eyes to see" see in the spirit.

Everything that God has made is manifest - an image in the likeness of what He has in His mind (imagination). Every word is as literal as He has imagined - this is the meaning of manifest: "If you have seen me, you have seen the Father." But "all things come in parables" so the words are both figurative and literal, but can only be discerned spiritually.

ScottA,

Hello. You say “God is not invisible, but spirit.”




Let's see what the Bible says about “invisible.”

“He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”

--Colossians 1:15 NIV




“Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.Amen.”

--1 Timothy 1:17 NIV




Your use of “invisible” is too limited.

 

[Speedwell]

Hi speedwell,

There is an ongoing debate as to whether or not the Iliad is an historical account or not or whether, like Gone With the Wind, it's just a fictional story of the days of the helenic wars.

Sounds rather like the ongoing debate about the Bible. But the Trojan war really happened and Troy was a real place. Using Creationist reasoning that should be enough to prove the literal inerrancy of the text of the Iliad.

The other two writings I'm not familiar with but... The tale of King Arthur has never been verified as an actual historical person or any of the events attributed to him is writings about him.



Regarding the John Brown story, I really couldn't find any information on the story. Most everything that came up was regarding the prose you mentioned and how it had been changed by others many times over the decades to follow.

You appear to be confused about the difference between real people and events and stories about them in a book. This is a common problem with creationists, who make claims about the texts of the Bible, and regard any criticism of those claims as being a denial of the reality of the people and events described therein.

However, I don't think that any of these are really considered by those who measure literary works as necessarily being historical in their accounting of what they are about.

You may not, but others do. The line between historical and literary narrative is not a hard-and-fast one and never has been.

 

[Armoured]

Creationists False on Key All Points

FTFY

 

[ScottA]

ScottA,

Hello. You say “God is not invisible, but spirit.”




Let's see what the Bible says about “invisible.”

“He [Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.”

--Colossians 1:15 NIV




“Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever.Amen.”

--1 Timothy 1:17 NIV




Your use of “invisible” is too limited.

On the contrary, "invisible" is the term that was preached to men of flesh, for the flesh does not have eyes to see. But I have spoken to the spiritual man, the born again of the spirit of God, who do have eyes to see and to whom the spiritual kingdom is no longer an invisible mystery, but a new reality, the only reality.

 

[-57]

-57, if that is your name on CF:


“[God says to Noah,] Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.”

Genesis 7:2-3 NIV




“Pairs of clean and unclean animals, of birds and of all creatures that move along the ground, male and female, came to Noah and entered the ark, as God had commanded Noah.”

Genesis 7:8 NIV



If you're going to talk about Noah, take a look at these verses. In the first mention of bringing animals into the Ark, God commands Noah to gather seven of all clean animals, or maybe this is seven pairs. For unclean animals apparently one pair is enough, but then seven (pairs?) of all birds. In this first mention, Noah is ordered to go out and get these animals.


The second time bringing animals into the Ark is mentioned, the notion of seven clean animals or seven pairs of clean animals is overlooked. We are down to pairs. No longer is Noah ordered to go out and get these animals, God has the animals come into the Ark.


Genesis doesn't mention Noah taking plants into the Ark. Yet if this story is to be taken literally, none of this would have worked without plants. I have noticed that in movies based on Noah, there are plants aboard the Ark.


Maybe God is telling us that every detail of this Noah story is not to be taken literally.

What else could these discrepancies mean?

....and the bible doesn't tell us there were ladders, steps or ramps connecting the decks. I believe it ws safe to assume they were included in the plans to build the ark.

How about food? Do you think Noah brought food on the ark?

 

[-57]

ChetSinger,




I'm glad you came across my thread.




You say that Eden is mentioned in Ezekiel 28, and described as the Garden of God. Speaking of a King of Tyre, the passage says:

“You were in Eden,

the garden of God,

every precious stone adorned you ...”




The problem is that this passage isn't talking about a literal Garden of Eden. It seems to be saying that this King of Tyre walked with God in his youth but fell away later. It isn't completely clear if the passage is talking about a person, a city or a nation that showed promise but fell away into materialism.

I believe this contains a pre-fall description of Lucifer.

14You were anointed as a guardian cherub,

for so I ordained you.

You were on the holy mount of God;

you walked among the fiery stones.

15You were blameless in your ways

from the day you were created

till wickedness was found in you.

 

[ChetSinger]

ChetSinger,

I'm glad you came across my thread.

You say that Eden is mentioned in Ezekiel 28, and described as the Garden of God. Speaking of a King of Tyre, the passage says:

“You were in Eden,

the garden of God,

every precious stone adorned you ...”

The problem is that this passage isn't talking about a literal Garden of Eden. It seems to be saying that this King of Tyre walked with God in his youth but fell away later. It isn't completely clear if the passage is talking about a person, a city or a nation that showed promise but fell away into materialism.

Trees, maybe even Eden's Tree of Life were buried in the Flood, just as Ezekiel 31 talks about trees being buried, you say. An actual reading of Ezekiel 31 shows that the trees are symbols. Assyria is described as a beautiful cedar that has fallen and Egypt is described as a tall cedar that is about to fall.

“-all the great nations

lived in its shade.”

--Ezekiel 31:6

We are talking about geopolitics here, not God's creation of the earth.

“The cedars in the garden of God could not rival it ...”

--Ezekiel 31:8

These verses don't tell us anything about a literal Garden of Eden. They are what I call a hypothetical mention of Eden.

There is no doubt that this section of Ezekiel is a series of prophecies about the destruction of cities and countries. Take a look at the chapter titles in my Disciples Study Bible.

Chapter 28: A Prophecy Against the King of Tyre

Chapter 29: A Prophecy Against Egypt

Chapter 30: A Lament for Egypt

Chapter 31: A Cedar in Lebanon

Chapter 32: A Lament for Pharaoh

As I have already pointed out, in Chapter 31, the Cedar in Lebanon actually stands for Egypt, whose doom is predicted.

Sure, I have no problem if you believe Eden was a symbol. But I hope I've shown that Eden needn't be a symbol, and that a literal Eden can be supported from the Biblical text.

Just because Eden is used as a literary symbol in Ezekiel doesn't mean that the original Eden wasn't an actual place. For example, ancient Rome can be used as a literary symbol, yet ancient Rome existed.

I'm a believer in attempting to determine the original genre of ancient texts. To that end, I enjoy reading how the ancients themselves applied their texts.

In the case of Jewish history I'm drawn to Josephus. He wrote as a historian, not a theologian. And in Antiquities of the Jews he presents an account of Jewish history to the Gentile world, making great effort to link his people's history to the history of nearby nations.

So what does Josephus think of Eden? Most of the Tanakh, afaik, he considers historical, including clearly Adam and Eve. When he's suspicious of the historicity of something, such as Jonah getting swallowed by the fish, he's not afraid to distance himself from it.

So I think belief in a literal Eden is on solid ground. The Jew of Jesus' time accepted it, the early church accepted it, and the rejection of it is pretty much a modern phenomenon afaik.

Btw, have you noticed the parallels between Eden and New Jerusalem? They're both mountains, both flowing with water, and both containing the medicinal Tree of Life. New Jerusalem has Eden-like features, but is upgraded. Do you consider New Jerusalem to also be symbolic? If so, why?

 

[Dale]

@Dale
Have to say this though:
The flat earth model which is consistent throughout the Bible seems to be impossible.
So who am i to say that Genesis 1 is to be taken 100% literally?
However, creationism / I.D. still provides the answers that naturalistic thinking can not.
The evidence for special evolution is also weak and often disingenuous.

Thanks for that thought, Hieronymus!

Take care.

 

[Dale]

One thing that Creationists should consider is that Creationist doctrine is very damaging to Christianity. No one has ever become a Christian because Creationism made any sense. Every day people are leaving Christianity because it doesn't make sense.




I have talked to people who were taught, as children, that there is nothing between Creationism and atheism. When they found out that Creationism is nonsense, they became atheists, agnostics or humanists. I have talked to at least one person who avoided this fate after a lengthy religious crisis, finally making the transition to being a non-Creationist Christian.




The Gospel doesn't make unthinking belief in a literal Creation a condition of salvation. Why would modern Christians want to add a new condition for salvation unknown in the Bible?

 

[Dale]

You are a "theistic evolutionist", who is struggling with many Biblical concepts that you must distort and misinterpret in order to conform to your false belief. Almost half of Christians accept evolution this way because they either don't understand it, nor do they understand scripture.



It is not the foundation of our religion, but the origins of man are a foundation of who we are and where we came from. If you distort the origins, then who we are and where we came from is up for speculation. Hence Darwin speculated and was wrong. He speculated that we evolved from a primordial goo. Genesis says God created man, plants and animals complete with no evolutionary process -- a finished product. A peacock was always a peacock, a rose, a rose and man always man.




You misunderstand the Jewish style of writing; what appears to be chronological to you, is in fact a typical writing style used where the first chapter is an outline summation and then the second chapter goes back and fills in details. Let us make man in our image ... so God created man (which was Adam at that moment and shortly after Eve).
See you later guess it when you suggest this: "Either Genesis backtracks and inserts more material into the account of the sixth day, or Adam and Eve aren't part of the six day creation."



You are assuming there was a wall. It doesn't say anywhere about a wall. God kicked them out of the Garden and placed Cherubim to guard the garden. "Probably square ..." Another assumption.


Do you read anything about a wall here?


You are right, the Bible doesn't say anything about destroying the Garden or removing it. We don't add to the Bible in this regard, we just discern that the Garden slowly lost it's perfection due to sin. When sin was introduced, it began to change and distort the genetic code, and things began to die - not instantly, but in a cellular, biological way. Diseases, viruses, bacteria all began on that day sin was introduced, thereby distorting what was perfect. So the paradise just got corrupted and eventually turned into what we see today.
You see, the Garden was really the whole planet. It was all beautiful and we still see beauty today, it's just when we look close, we see the defects and of course where there were lush gardens, we see deserts that have expanded. That area, which contained four rivers (two exist today, the Tigris and Euphrates), is in Iraq and now desert.
This is the key point you overlook: What God was guarding was not so much the lush region of lush green land filled with fruits and vegetables that we still have abundantly today, it was the Tree of Life. They ate from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, so if they had then eaten of the Tree of Life, they would have remained in that sinful state forever - this is what God saved them from -- so He guarded it until whenever.
He would later send a Savior to rectify the problem. So we can assume that eventually that the of Tree of Life withered and died. However in Revelation, we do see a Tree of Life in Rev. 22, so He could have removed it or created a new one.??

Ronald in post #44:

<< You misunderstand the Jewish style of writing; what appears to be chronological to you, is in fact a typical writing style used where the first chapter is an outline summation and then the second chapter goes back and fills in details. Let us make man in our image ... so God created man (which was Adam at that moment and shortly after Eve).
See you later guess it when you suggest this: "Either Genesis backtracks and inserts more material into the account of the sixth day, or Adam and Eve aren't part of the six day creation." >>




You need to read the text of Genesis 1&2 more closely. Genesis 2:4 says, “This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created.” It sounds like the creation account is starting all over again.




In Genesis One, God creates life in the sea and on the land before creating people. The Garden of Eden isn't mentioned and neither are Adam and Eve.

“And God said, 'Let the water teem with living creatures ...'” --Genesis 1:20 NIV

“And God said, 'Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds …'” --Genesis 1:24 NIV

“Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over ...” --Genesis 1:26 NIV




In Genesis Two, God creates life on the land after creating Adam.




“When the Lord God made the earth and the heavens—and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the ground, but streams came up from the earth and watered the whole surface of the ground—the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.”

“Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.”

--Genesis 2:4-8 NIV




Everything points to these stories as parables, teaching stories. They have meaning but they are not literal.