Theisitic Evolution

[Hoghead1]

C'mon. I just got done giving you a through explanation why 2 is not a recap of 1, and why then it is required for Adam to have a first wife.

 

[-57]

C'mon. I just got done giving you a through explanation why 2 is not a recap of 1, and why then it is required for Adam to have a first wife.

You seriously want me to address this so-called first wife Lilith...who like sex on top...[bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse]ed off Adam...ran anway and became a witch?
....NONE of which is in the bible... Don't give me the C'mon.

 

[stevevw]

Yes, true...but at the same time as christians we can't simply disregard other portions of scripture that explain original sin and the repercussion of that sin.

Can you give me an example of this so I can see what you mean.

 

[Hoghead1]

If you, as do many, hold that Gen. 2 is a separate creation from 1, then yes, you will have to deal with who the first woman was. If jot, then you have to address the issues I raised over the discrepant chronologies given between 1 and 2, whereby 2 cannot be a wrap-up of 1.

 

[stevevw]

No where does the bible mention Lilith let alone in Genesis. Nor all these other stories about children being cursed by Lilith. It doesn't mention Adam wanting to mate with animals. This is a good example of reading things into the bible. These are myths that were created outside the bible. Just because the bible states that Adam was alone then God created the animals for him be with and to name. Then Eve was created as a companion for Adam doesn't mean that Adam mated with the animals. That is a lot of reading into between the bible verses.

There is no contradiction between creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 2 is describing the 6th day in more detail.

Genesis 2:19-20 reads, “Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.” The text does not say that God created man, then created the animals, and then brought the animals to the man. Rather, the text says, “Now the LORD God had [already] created all the animals.” There is no contradiction. On the sixth day, God created the animals, then created man, and then brought the animals to the man, allowing the man to name the animals.
http://www.gotquestions.org/two-Creation-accounts.html

 

[stevevw]

I also don't know of any TE people who take literally teh Genesis account, that is, that we are all descended from Adam and Eve.

How do you see the chronology of Adam to Jesus. It mentions a line of great prophets and men going down through the ages and give their ages. We are suppose to be able to trace the time line here. Some say that there maybe periods missing as it only mentions certain men that are relevant to to holy line. But even so I dont think its a long period of time. Certainly not in the millions or even 100s of thousands of years. Could it be that this was the point in time where God created man into his image in the spiritual sense.

 

[stevevw]

You can do one better: If science ever thinks it has found a complete, consistent description of the natural world, it is wrong... provably. This was shown mathematically by Kurt Gödel. I don't know of any scientists who dispute this (which is not to say they don't exist, but if they exist, they are demonstrably wrong).

Yes and it seems that as science looks deeper into things they are finding something that is hard to reconcile with what they thought was reality. So they are coming up with far fetched ideas to explain things now. But because they say they can put some mathematical equation onto these ideas its not really classed as unreal. But some scientists are accepting that there is something beyond the science such as our consciousness maybe able to live on beyond what we see.

That said, it might be worth considering the idea of Karl Barth that we ought to find God in what we know, not in what we do not know. If we look for gaps in scientific understanding and try to stick God into those spots, it's possible we're mistaken... historically, we are likely to be shown wrong. "Okay," one will say, "let us be shown wrong when we're shown wrong." So, there is no natural explanation for the quantum world? And there we have found God? And if people find something natural in that place, no matter?

I agree. But some scientists want to loosen the criteria for verification because things such as multiverses can never be completely verified. So it seems good enough for them to have indirect evidence to prove their hypothesis. So why cant we propose a God hypothesis. Indirectly there is a fair amount of support for this.

It seems like the method of identifying gaps in our knowledge and putting God into them is a weak tool for attaining knowledge. Let me propose an alternative method: Whatever people find and describe in natural terms, let it be so. It is by faith that we know that God is present in all places at all times, and in all events. Instead of pointing to a gap in knowledge and telling the world, "He is there, to the exclusion of natural causes!" let us say, "Bidden or unbidden, God is present."

Yes I totally agree. This is the mystery of faith that should never be underestimated. But faith is never completely blind. Even to a believer who sees Gods creation in the universe or a new born child that is evidence to them but maybe not to others. But they are assured by God through the Holy spirit as though God Himself had stood before them. But we have to temper faith as well and use our minds and reason to lead us to the point where we can stand confident that we are on the right track.

Okay, I misunderstood what was meant by "early." Yes, in one sense that's early. In another sense, it's quite late. The Cambrian was closer in time to today than it was to the first (evidence we have of) life on Earth. Cambrian life is complex because it was the product of billions of years of development. If we're talking about self-replicating molecules, however, there is something much simpler.

maybe so but how do we really know where the Cambrian period is placed in the scheme of things. But if micro organisms were all there was in the beginning and micro organisms have a great capacity to share genetic info and connect with each other through the environment its easy to see how vast amounts of genetic material was spread through all life very early on. Its easy to see if all complex life stems from simple life that maybe all the necessary instructions were there already and waiting to be tapped into.

My problem is how do you reconcile darwinian evolution with God being the creator. If God was just needed to start things off by creating a simple organism and the rest created itself then God isn't playing much of a role. If the mechanism for creating more complex life is through a self creating process that doesn't need God at all then that is supporting a world view of things. Apart from the very first step Gods not needed because the rest can happen without any divine intervention. All a world view has to do is come up with an explanation of how life began and they have the complete package.

But if there needs to be some ID in all aspects of life then this is different. Each and every stage of life including things like eyes and other irreducible complex systems have to have had some pre existing code or instruction there. It couldn't have occurred from a random self creating process. Unless God put some pre determined instructions in how mutations and natural selection work. Because as far as I understand it mutations are a cost to fitness and cannot be the basis for all life being created from simple to more complex and fitter creatures.

We actually don't even need to go to HGT and such to talk about the inter-relations of creatures and their environments. Beavers build dams. We're heating up the environment. That creatures impact their environments was known in Darwin's time. His insight was that environments impact the creatures, too, over generations.

HGT can happen between creatures directly without the environment being involved. Genetic material can be transferred through micro organisms. Even cross breeding played its role in early development more than we realize. So what may be seen as a species today was the product of early mating of two different animals that were able to do so because their genetics were no so distant back then. Its only through long distances of time that they were isolated and created more species.

You're right that the Phylogenic Tree is fuzzy where organisms that do HGT are concerned. It's pretty useful for everything that doesn't require a microscope to see, but some tiny organisms freely transfer information. But the real problem here is that the term "species" is very hard to pin down. We have this intuition of what constitutes a species, but no matter how we define it, there are organisms and circumstances that don't quite fit. Natural selection still applies. The frequency of alleles is tied to how beneficial the alleles are in their respective niches.

Yes I think it was Darwin who said earlier on with his theory that a species is really great variety of existing animals. So when you talks about many different species of bats they are all still bats. Its just that some bats became more isolated from the others to be able to mate anymore. But that doesn't mean that the bat will become a completely different creature in time. The process that allowed the bat to differ in its genetics slightly form other bats is not going to keep going and make a completely different shaped animal. It make make a different variety of the same animal and that may entail some different features. But as with dogs we can see a great variety of features but the dog inst going to become an aquatic creature. As what we see with Pakicetus.

Your second link is about protein folding. They're talking about understanding what changes are possible based on how proteins are folded. It may sound like they are saying that what species will look like is a foregone conclusion, but they are actually talking about limitations on the kinds of proteins that can evolve.

From what I understand it is saying that because there are limits that proteins seem to have pre set shapes. There isn't this possible random amount of shapes we could end up with as a darwinian process proposes. Proteins are 3D in shape so they are very complex in a multiple ways. But out of all the possible millions of shapes that can be created there are only a set amount that are functional which are the basic forms for all life. So are the product of a random trial and error process that requires millions of wrong shapes to get the exact right ones. or are they the product of a purposeful creation that had pre set design. Its a bit like the fine tuning argument for life and the universe.

Be careful about your sources. The second one is an ID journal.

The dreaded ID journal. Though I am not a ID supporter I find some of what they say makes a lot of sense.

Most mutations are neutral -- they confer neither a benefit or detriment to the organism. Statistically, detrimental is more likely than beneficial. This is where natural selection comes in. A detrimental modification is likely to be selected against, whereas a beneficial one is likely to increase in frequency within a population. It's very intuitive, if you think about it. Interestingly, your third link has nothing to do with that! An important insight (that is less intuitive) is that a loss-of-function mutation is not necessarily a detrimental mutation. In general it is. But if it gets selected for, from the previous point about selection's tendencies, then it conferred a benefit. If you imagine a creature losing its eyesight, for example, it no longer has to produce the proteins necessary for eyesight. Those proteins are expensive. Now, one may observe that it's better to have the eyesight and pay the cost than not to have the eyesight... but what about in a deep-sea fish where eyesight is useless or almost useless? It's a loss-of-function mutation that, overall, confers benefit. In our own evolutionary history, we had nocturnal creatures who lost their ability to differentiate colors. We regained it, and so the genes we have to see color are different from other mammals.

The point is is that evolution gives way more creative ability to this than there is. As you have indicated there may be some benefit but most of the time there isn't and there is a slightly negative outcome. So somehow all the great variety and complexity we see now or that has ever been had to come out of something that seems so rare and unlikely. Even if there were more positives than negatives it still is hard to believe. The problem is even when a mutation is beneficial on its won it can become negative and in fact the trend is that things become less fit even with beneficial mutations.

Most of the evidence shows limits to mutations and natural selection. The tests have shown this. Any so called benefits are actually a loss of info and have a cost to fitness in the long run. Evolution is good at explaining how it could be possible and as you said it sounds good. It may work in a mathematical sense but when it comes to living things its a different story. They need precise instruction and code because there's a lot more involved.

 

[Aman777]

This is more of a philosophical problem and it has been highlighted by such thinkers as Thomas Nagel in Mind and Cosmos and in Alvin Plantinga's EAAN. We don't need a historical Adam for Plantinga's EAAN, one doesn't need to believe that there was a literal Adam in order to believe that naturalism is false. I personally think the EAAN has some strength, I don't think that a critique of naturalism necessitates that there has to have been a particular historical figure named Adam, albeit, I do think that there did develop in a particular species of hominids sense, rationality and self-consciousness. I think it was probably not magical, probably did not happen all at once and I don't think that there's anything more that I can say on the topic outside of pure speculation.

I notice that you can support your view only with other men's views. Can you support your views Scripturally? Of course not. All you have offered is your own speculation that Humans didn't inherit our superior intelligence since it just happened. Get real. Amen?

 

[Willtor]

Yes and it seems that as science looks deeper into things they are finding something that is hard to reconcile with what they thought was reality. So they are coming up with far fetched ideas to explain things now. But because they say they can put some mathematical equation onto these ideas its not really classed as unreal. But some scientists are accepting that there is something beyond the science such as our consciousness maybe able to live on beyond what we see.

I agree. But some scientists want to loosen the criteria for verification because things such as multiverses can never be completely verified. So it seems good enough for them to have indirect evidence to prove their hypothesis. So why cant we propose a God hypothesis. Indirectly there is a fair amount of support for this.

Where the multiverse is concerned, I tend to agree. They've found the most parsimonious mathematical model, but they can't test it. But the multiverse is an outlier. The reason the multiverse is different from other hypotheses is that it deals with something about which physics is not an applicable tool. There aren't other hypotheses like this -- even other hypotheses that may never be testable are not like this because they are limited by the amount of evidence that has survived, not by the tool, itself. So, it's probably a bad idea to generalize from the multiverse hypothesis.

I don't have any intrinsic problem with an idea being far-fetched if it can be defended with evidence, or maintaining a suspension of disbelief if it's made plausible by something closely related.

Yes I totally agree. This is the mystery of faith that should never be underestimated. But faith is never completely blind. Even to a believer who sees Gods creation in the universe or a new born child that is evidence to them but maybe not to others. But they are assured by God through the Holy spirit as though God Himself had stood before them. But we have to temper faith as well and use our minds and reason to lead us to the point where we can stand confident that we are on the right track.

Yeah, I think we're on the same page, here.

maybe so but how do we really know where the Cambrian period is placed in the scheme of things. But if micro organisms were all there was in the beginning and micro organisms have a great capacity to share genetic info and connect with each other through the environment its easy to see how vast amounts of genetic material was spread through all life very early on. Its easy to see if all complex life stems from simple life that maybe all the necessary instructions were there already and waiting to be tapped into.

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "instructions." If you're talking about codons that encode proteins, that's a development unto itself. The simplest self-replicating RNA doesn't code proteins. It simply duplicates itself... like a quine. RNA can fulfill the functions of DNA and proteins, adequately, in certain environments. DNA and proteins fulfill these functions better (they're a "useful adaptation") but they aren't essential. This is all long, long before the Cambrian.

As a side note: Bear in mind that none of this is ever in isolation from the environment. HGT is able to take place in some environments and not others.

My problem is how do you reconcile darwinian evolution with God being the creator. If God was just needed to start things off by creating a simple organism and the rest created itself then God isn't playing much of a role. If the mechanism for creating more complex life is through a self creating process that doesn't need God at all then that is supporting a world view of things. Apart from the very first step Gods not needed because the rest can happen without any divine intervention. All a world view has to do is come up with an explanation of how life began and they have the complete package.

But if there needs to be some ID in all aspects of life then this is different. Each and every stage of life including things like eyes and other irreducible complex systems have to have had some pre existing code or instruction there. It couldn't have occurred from a random self creating process. Unless God put some pre determined instructions in how mutations and natural selection work. Because as far as I understand it mutations are a cost to fitness and cannot be the basis for all life being created from simple to more complex and fitter creatures.

(emphasis mine)

Consider an alternate model to "God kicks it off" because this is going to be a problem in other sciences as well -- not just evolution. Consider weather patterns or orbits of planets and stars. None of these fields reference God in any of their publications. A deist might consider that God started the universe off and let it go. Weather patterns control themselves, mass attracts and so orbits happen on their own, etc. after God kicked it off. And it could apply to evolution, as well.

This is a possible model for thinking about God's involvement in the world. Typically, it is not the model that Christian thinkers have held. Thomas Aquinas proposed a model for thinking about the world that said that there were natural causes by which the universe could be described, but that the causes, themselves, were upheld by God. This is the model to which I subscribe. It applies to evolution as well as anything else.

HGT can happen between creatures directly without the environment being involved. Genetic material can be transferred through micro organisms. Even cross breeding played its role in early development more than we realize. So what may be seen as a species today was the product of early mating of two different animals that were able to do so because their genetics were no so distant back then. Its only through long distances of time that they were isolated and created more species.

(emphasis mine)

Just want to reiterate the note I wrote above about environments.

Yes I think it was Darwin who said earlier on with his theory that a species is really great variety of existing animals. So when you talks about many different species of bats they are all still bats. Its just that some bats became more isolated from the others to be able to mate anymore. But that doesn't mean that the bat will become a completely different creature in time. The process that allowed the bat to differ in its genetics slightly form other bats is not going to keep going and make a completely different shaped animal. It make make a different variety of the same animal and that may entail some different features. But as with dogs we can see a great variety of features but the dog inst going to become an aquatic creature. As what we see with Pakicetus.

"Bat" is a category that we, humans, made. We impose it upon the reality. It's like in Genesis, where Adam names all of the animals. In this sense, "bat" has the same problem that "spieces" does. Many species of bats differ more, genetically, from one another than humans do from chimpanzees. And this is not uncommon. The taxa we invent are not hard boundaries. If bats were the intelligent ones instead of us, they could say that "apes will never be anything other than apes" even though that grouping includes humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, etc. "Ape" and "bat" are just taxa.

From what I understand it is saying that because there are limits that proteins seem to have pre set shapes. There isn't this possible random amount of shapes we could end up with as a darwinian process proposes. Proteins are 3D in shape so they are very complex in a multiple ways. But out of all the possible millions of shapes that can be created there are only a set amount that are functional which are the basic forms for all life. So are the product of a random trial and error process that requires millions of wrong shapes to get the exact right ones. or are they the product of a purposeful creation that had pre set design. Its a bit like the fine tuning argument for life and the universe.

When we're talking about the shape of proteins, we're beginning to get into molecular biology. This is a tool used by evolution, but it isn't evolution, itself. This topic is neither pro nor anti evolution. It's something else that evolutionists will have to use and take into account, but it's another field.

The dreaded ID journal. Though I am not a ID supporter I find some of what they say makes a lot of sense.

The problem is that ID doesn't have the same standards as biology. This isn't an insult. You can see it for yourself. Consider the other case: an evolution journal. A journal of evolution gets started because there are too many papers to get published in the bigger bio journals. Evolution papers continue to get published in bio journals, but there's so much research in the field that the scientists start a new journal specially for researchers in that field. How is this different from the ID journals? They didn't branch for the same reason. They branched because they couldn't (or didn't try to) publish in the biology journals. Typically, a new field is begun with lots of papers being published in a related field or in the more general category. That didn't happen here.

They've begun something in contrast to biology and genetics. Until they can relate to other sciences, until they can subject their own work to the same scrutiny as other new fields endure (which is often quite a lot; but, then, they are disputing the models of modern biology as a whole -- not just evolution), I don't see how a scientist can hold their journal at the same level as the existing journals.

To put it another way, if I believed that crystals had power to cure diseases, I could start my own "crystals" journal. When scientists complain that I'm not subjecting my research to the same scrutiny as they are, I could cry persecution. But at the end of the day, if I'm right about the healing power of crystals, I need to relate that to the broader body of science. Going off and doing my own thing (and calling it "science") without relating it back to science is not conducive to finding truth.

The point is is that evolution gives way more creative ability to this than there is. As you have indicated there may be some benefit but most of the time there isn't and there is a slightly negative outcome. So somehow all the great variety and complexity we see now or that has ever been had to come out of something that seems so rare and unlikely. Even if there were more positives than negatives it still is hard to believe. The problem is even when a mutation is beneficial on its won it can become negative and in fact the trend is that things become less fit even with beneficial mutations.

Most of the evidence shows limits to mutations and natural selection. The tests have shown this. Any so called benefits are actually a loss of info and have a cost to fitness in the long run. Evolution is good at explaining how it could be possible and as you said it sounds good. It may work in a mathematical sense but when it comes to living things its a different story. They need precise instruction and code because there's a lot more involved.

A couple of things:

1. Some of the mutations are beneficial and cause an increase in function. It's rare, but when it happens it gets selected for. If you think about the kind of evidence this would leave, we'd see the results of the beneficial mutations more frequently than the negative ones (even if we see more negative ones, in total). After all, the negative ones don't last very many generations. The positive ones lived on and likely made their way into many species. This happens, not just in the math, but in real life. It's observed in the lab. It's observed in nature. If loss-of-function turns out to be more common, that's one thing. But increase-in-function does happen.

2. As I mentioned, the loss of function is a net benefit to fitness in these cases, or it would be selected against. I think it may be the term "fitness" here that is confusing. I used to be a creationist, and I remember creationist sources having a very intuitive (and very wrong) definition of "fitness" so I can see where the error comes from. Fitness, in evolution, is not like someone who goes to the gym and is "more fit" than someone who doesn't. Consider your teeth, for example: Very useful things. Very costly things, from a biological standpoint. Fitness, here, is better thought of in economic terms. We're paying for our teeth with the nutrients required to make and maintain them. Some animals have bigger teeth and some have smaller. Giant teeth wouldn't benefit us very much -- we don't need to eat bone. But they would cost us a great deal in nutrients. Some animals have giant teeth -- they live in environments where the giant teeth confer sufficient benefit that they are willing to pay for them. We've all made trade-offs... or, back in evolutionary terms, our ancestors' relatives who had much larger or smaller teeth didn't reproduce as successfully as our ancestors, themselves. This is what is meant by "fitness." Therefore, a loss of functionality may have equal or greater fitness, as in my example of the deep sea fish.

 

[Hoghead1]

Sorry, Stevevw, but that doesn't work for Gen. 2., for reasons I pointed out. Stated simply, in Gen. 1, first animals, then man and woman together; in Gen. 2, first man alone, then animals, then a woman. Also, as I pointed out, Lilith entered the picture because you have to account for two women if you assume Gen. 1 and 2 are one unified account.

 

[Aman777]

Sorry, Stevevw, but that doesn't work for Gen. 2., for reasons I pointed out. Stated simply, in Gen. 1, first animals, then man and woman together; in Gen. 2, first man alone, then animals, then a woman. Also, as I pointed out, Lilith entered the picture because you have to account for two women if you assume Gen. 1 and 2 are one unified account.

False, since it doesn't agree Scripturally. Here is the chronology of Gen 1 and 2:

Day 3 Adam is made before the plants herbs and rain. Gen 2:4-7
Day 4 The first Stars are made AFTER Adam is made. Gen 1:16 13.8 Billion years ago
Day 5 Life from the water (prehistoric mankind) is created. Gen 1:21 3.77 Billion years ago
Day 6 Land creatures are made and THEN Eve. Gen 2:22 12k years ago BOTH Adam and Eve are "created in God's Image" or born again Spiritually in Christ. Gen 1:27 This brings us up to today since God is STILL creating Adam (mankind) in Christ Today. Gen 1:28-31 tells us of future events AFTER Jesus returns to this Planet.

Notice that God's Truth in Genesis AGREES in every way with every discovery of Science AND History. Lilith is excluded before Eve is made because Adam was like the Angels in Heaven in his perfect body, when Eve was made. According to Jesus he had NO sex and could NOT marry anyone. Amen?

Jesus:>>Mat 22:30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

 

[stevevw]

Sorry, Stevevw, but that doesn't work for Gen. 2., for reasons I pointed out. Stated simply, in Gen. 1, first animals, then man and woman together; in Gen. 2, first man alone, then animals, then a woman. Also, as I pointed out, Lilith entered the picture because you have to account for two women if you assume Gen. 1 and 2 are one unified account.

There is no conflict and if you read these verses in context with the rest of the bible and with the meanings of what God had intended for a man and women relationship then you will see it is all in harmony. Genesis 1 and 2 are written differently. Genesis 1 is a general overview of the 7 creation days and Genesis 2 goes into more detail about the creation of man and women. Genesis 1 makes a statemnet about the creation of man and women as it had done about the rest of creation. It doesn't go into any detail about when each were made just as it doesn't go into any detail when the animals were made or say one particular creature was made 1st and then another 2nd ect. The same with Adam and Eve.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 2 then describes in detail about how Eve came about. The verse that mentions the animals does not say or mean that the animals were made after Adam. It states that the animals had been formed already and the commentary is referring to them in the context of showing how Adam was naming them and because he needed a companion. The animals were used as a comparison between animal companions to show the place of women as a companion for man.

Genesis 2:19 Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
As you can see God had formed in the past tense, and not formed in the present tense. The story teller was now focusing on Adam in more detail and the naming of the animals and the creation of Eve. So the animals are just referred in the past tense as already been created.

If you think its about the creation of the animals then compared to Genesis 1 God has left out a lot of animals and mixed the days up here as well. If you want to say that Genesis 2 is referring to the creation of the animals when Adam names them then it doesn't make sense.

In Genesis 1 the birds of the sky were made on day 5 with the sea creatures so Gods left out the sea creatures in Genesis 2 and has the wrong day for the birds. With every beast in Genesis 1 God also created everything that creeps and the beasts of the earth which He left out again in Genesis 2. So He's left out heeps of animals yet they are mentioned later anyway as being created. So the truth is the animals were already created and Genesis 2 is just going into some detail about Adam naming some of the animals and not all of them. Thats why only certain ones are mentioned in Genesis 2 and these were mainly the ones who Adam would have more contact with such as the beast of the fields which were things like the domesticated one ect.

Also if you notice that genesis 2 starts at the end of the genesis 1 creation story. Genesis was just a complete book without chapters and the chapters were put in later as that readers could have some points of reference. But some say that Genesis 1 should have finished on the 7th day when God rested and the Genesis 2 would start with the more detailed story of the creation of Adam and Eve. So someone could say that it also looks like Adam is created after God as rested on the 7th day if you read Genesis 2 on its own as a separate creation story.
http://www.compellingtruth.org/two-creation-accounts.html

The other thing that gives support to Genesis 1 and 2 being different versions of the same account is when Jesus referred to both stories as one when he was addressing the pharisees who were trying to trap him about the laws around Marriage and Divorce.
Mathew 19:4 and 5 Jesus replied
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who made" them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,"
This refers to Genesis 1 when God created Adam and Eve.

5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’?
This refers to Genesis 2 when Eve is made from the rib of Adam and it says that the women comes from the man and they become one flesh.

Genesis 2: 24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Jesus then goes on to say in
Matthew 19: 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

Jesus is referring to both the accounts of Genesis to make His statemnet about Marriage. He is stating that man and women should be as one and divorce or affairs or anything like that are wrong. He uses Adam and Eve as the example. If Adam was going off with another women called Lilith and having affairs ect then it makes Jesus to look like a hypocrite. Believe me if there was any hint of another women in Genesis who was sleeping with Adam then the Pharisees would have known and jumped straight on it to use against Jesus.

 

[BobRyan]

Sorry, Stevevw, but that doesn't work for Gen. 2., for reasons I pointed out. Stated simply, in Gen. 1, first animals, then man and woman together; in Gen. 2, first man alone, then animals, then a woman. Also, as I pointed out, Lilith entered the picture because you have to account for two women if you assume Gen. 1 and 2 are one unified account.

In Gen 1:2-2:3 we have a time-boxed chronological sequence.

In Gen 2:4-end - -there is no chronology at all -- and no reference at all to creation of dry land, atmosphere, birds, fish, sun, moon, ... because in Gen 1:1 we have the global statement about God creating all the universe -- then in Gen 1:2-2:3 the creation of our solar system and all life on earth... then in Gen 2:4-end the creation of the Garden and marriage and the context of law that is needed to understand the fall of mankind.

It is a drill-down sequence.

 

[BobRyan]

Where the multiverse is concerned, I tend to agree. .

Indeed multiverse fictions are not testable/observable -- nor even science.

 

[BobRyan]

Bob, I think to help clarify matters, you should address these questions:
1. What are the essential claims of panentheism? How does Mrs. White specifically repudiate them?

What does this have to do with the price of putty in New Zealand - other than the fact that you claimed panentheism???

 

[BobRyan]

5. Why do you assume Christians have to believe the Bible is inerrant?
.

That is not a battle I need to fight - as step one.

Step one is "What does the Bible say - no matter your personal bias one way or the other?"
Step two is "now what do you do about that as an actual Christian?"

 

[Hoghead1]

Stevewv, that isn't going to work. I pointed out before that there is no way the creation of animals in Gen. 2 is referring back to Gen. 1. I fully addressed that notion in my point about the pluperfect theory of Gen. 2.

 

[stevevw]

Stevewv, that isn't going to work. I pointed out before that there is no way the creation of animals in Gen. 2 is referring back to Gen. 1. I fully addressed that notion in my point about the pluperfect theory of Gen. 2.

I could say come on Hoghead1 I just spent a lot of time going through the reasons why this isn't the case. The thing is most of the expert scholars support that Genesis 2 is referring back to the animals and is more concerned with man and women in the Garden. So I have these people on my side as well and those who support the idea of some conspiracy between the Genesis 1 and 2 are in the very minority.I would rather trust an expert who has had years in the language, culture, history and study of the bible. Its like using a doctor to give you an expert opinion on something medical rather than some person without the expertise from some skeptical society with a vested interest.

The whole premise of trying to say that there are two different stories that is based on one word. There is nothing else that supports this notion. If it was about two different stories then there would be a consistent theme of two different stories. But as so often is the case people focus on the meaning of one word to make such a big change which seems out of context to the rest of the bible. You need to use a bit of logic and common sense as well.

Why would Jesus use both examples from Genesis 1 and 2 to illustrate the relationship between man and women if it wasn't referring to the same people in Adam and Eve. It would be hypocritical for Him to use something involving an affair or sex outside marriage or having two women at once. Nowhere else does the bible indicate or allude to Adam having a women on the side when it mention them having children and being together or being in the Garden.

 

[Hoghead1]

What "expert scholars" have you been reading, Stevewv? If you are using online apologetic sources, I would strongly urge you to look elsewhere if you are interested in sources truly scholarly and expert. I also don't know where you are getting this notion of two women at once. I think you should go back and carefully reread what I said about Lilith. I also don't understand where you are getting the notion that 5the idea of two stories is based on "one word." I never said anything like that. Again, I would encourage you to read more carefully what I had to say.

 

[BobRyan]

Stevewv, that isn't going to work. I pointed out before that there is no way the creation of animals in Gen. 2 is referring back to Gen. 1. .

Until you read the text -- and see that there is no chronology at all in Gen 2 and trying to shoehorn one in just to get the desired result of "contradiction" does not work.

In Gen 1:2-2:3 we have a time-boxed chronological sequence.

In Gen 2:4-end - -there is no chronology at all -- and no reference at all to creation of dry land, atmosphere, birds, fish, sun, moon, ... because in Gen 1:1 we have the global statement about God creating all the universe -- then in Gen 1:2-2:3 the creation of our solar system and all life on earth... then in Gen 2:4-end the creation of the Garden and marriage and the context of law that is needed to understand the fall of mankind.

It is a drill-down sequence.