Two Genesis Creation Stories

[hesalive]

A short thesis on the Bible

First of all, the collection of all the books of the Bible is called the Canon. It originally meant " measuring rule". So in general it means any law or rule of doctrine or principle accepted as true. Biblically it means the collection or list of books which are received as genuine and inspired Holy Scriptures.

The Protestant canon encludes 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The Roman Catholic adds 7 books and some additional pieces to the Old Testament ( See Apocrypha).The Jews receive as authoritative the same 39 books as do Protestants. Generally the O.T. was called by the Jews " The law and the prophets" or Moses and the prophets." All authors were prophets ( spokesmen for God ) and claimed their messages were from God Himself. If there had been any error in this cannon, Jesus who was God in the flesh, would have spotted as He studied it and condemned it.

All branches of Christiandom accepted as aurthoritative and inspired the current 27 books of the New Testament as authoritative. 99% of the New Testament was written by Apostles, Jesus's specially chosen disciples who were taught and eyewitnesses during Jesus's 3 to 3 1/2 years of ministry on the earth. Paul who wrote letters to churches, miraculously saw and heard the risen Christ and knew personally all the Apostles living in Jerusalem , wrote most of the New Testament. An Apostle by definition had to be someone who had actually seen Jesus. Dr. Luke, his missionary companion wrote the books of Luke and Acts. They also claimed they were inspired by the Holy Spirit in their writing. If there was any error they would have been the first to spot it amongst themselves.

Thus the Bible was written by known Prophets and Apostles and a few close associates of the Apostles. And both claim direct inspiration & or words from God in their writing. THe Bible specifically condems in both Old and New Testament adding or subtracting from the Word of God.

The Apocrapha is a group of books written about 150 BC to AD 70. They are: Baruch; Bel and the Dragon; the Wisdom of Jesus, the Son of Sirach; the First and Second Books of Sirach; the First and Second Books of Esdras; Additions to the Book of Esther; Epistle of Jeremiah; Judith; First and Second Maccabees; Prayer of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young Men; Prayer of Manasseh; Susanna; Tobit; and Wisdom of Solomon.

For a book to be the Word of God it should be consistant in its messages, truthful in its messages & there should be no contridiction in its messages. Geographical, historical, moral teaching should be accurate if God is inspiring or giving actual messages. The books of the Apocrapha contains all above problems.

Biblical scholar Dr. Rene Pache comments,

"Except for certain interesting historical information ( especially in 1 Maccabees) and a few beautiful moral thoughts ( e.g., Wisdom of Solomon), these books contain absurd legends and platitudes, and historical, geographical and chronological errors, as well as manifestly heretical doctrines ; they even recommend immoral acts ( Judith 9:10,13)

The Aprocrypha does not claim divine inspiration. None of the writers were prophets or apostles. 2Maccabees 15:37-38 actually denies inspiration. The New Testament never cites the Apocrypha. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from it-though they did quote from 35 of the 39 Old Testament books. The Jews, Jesus and the apostle clearly rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture.

All this helps explain why it required almost 1,600 years for the Catholic Church to officially accept the Apocrypha as Scripture. As a former Catholic, William Webster comments, " I discovered to my surprise that it was the Roman Catholic Church, not the Protestant which was responsible for the introduction of novel teachings verylate in the history of the church. " Historically, a book was considered canonical if it was written by a prophet of God, confirmed by an act of God, contained the power of God, told the truth about God, and was accepted by the people of God. The Aprocrypha, fails on all these counts.

Jerome, the honored translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible held that the Apocrypha was not Scripture.

SInce the New Testament explicitly states that Israel was entrusted with oracles (words) of God and was the recipient of the covanants and the Law ( Rom. 3:2), the Jews should be considered the custodians of the limits of their own canon. And they have always rejected the Apocrypha.

In 1546, the Council of Trent officially named and identified the specific apocryphal books it deemed canonical, noting, " If anyone does not accept as sacred and cononical the aforesaid books in their entirety and with all their parts,....let them be anathma (cursed, excommunicated)." But for more than a millenium, Catholics had not been required to accept these books as Scripture.

Catholics today believe , that the Council of Trent didn't add these books, but that the Protestant Reformers"dropped from the Bible the books that had been in common use for centuries"--that is, the Aprocrypha.

The Aprocrypha contains such teachings that oppose Biblical teaching, such as the idea that good works atone for sin and the doctrines of purgatory, invocation and intercession of the saints, angel worship, the Mass, the creation of the world from pre-existant matter, prayers for the dead, the expiatory sacrifice ( eventually to become the Mass); almsgiving with expiatory (atone for, make satisfaction for) value,purgatory; and the redemption of souls after death. These teaching are found nowhere else in the Bible. If they were true , they would be repeated somewhere. Instead, they contridict what is taught elsewhere.

Between the Old and New Testament days, a period of about 400 years God didn't talk to anyone. The Jews had failed as a nation and were scattered around the world. The John the Baptist was born and he pointed to the Messiah who was born shortly after him. And God started talking to His people again.

During that time between the Old and the New Testaments people made up books claiming it was from God. That group of books is called the Pseudepigrapha (pseuda-false;graph-writing) ascribed to earlier writers. They are: The Ascension of Isaiah, The Assumption of Moses, Book of Enoch, Book of Jubilees, Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, Letters of Aristeas, II and IV Maccaberes, Psalms of Solomon, Secrets of Enoch, Sibyliine Oracles, Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, Epistle of Baruch, and Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs. Their only value is their disclosure of Jewish ideas during the time between the Testaments.

 

[gluadys]

The Protestant canon encludes 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament. The Roman Catholic adds 7 books and some additional pieces to the Old Testament ( See Apocrypha).The Jews receive as authoritative the same 39 books as do Protestants. ... All authors were prophets ... and claimed their messages were from God Himself. If there had been any error in this cannon, Jesus who was God in the flesh, would have spotted as He studied it and condemned it.

Is there some kind of rule that Christians are must be such mental defectives that we cannot discriminate between what we know and what we believe? Articles like this which jumble together historic facts with received theology as if they were one and the same lead me to despair.

This thesis starts off well enough. A factual listing of the books held to be inspired by Protestants, Catholics and Jews. It even uses correct terminology for a bit. The prophets "claimed" their messages were from God. Not the unfactual statement that the messages actually were from God. The former is a statement of fact. The latter is a statement of belief.

But then this factual discourse is totally ruined by the final sentence.

1. It assumes as fact that Jesus was God in the flesh. This is not a statement of fact; it is a statement of faith. And Christians above all should be aware that it is a statement of faith.

2. It assumes, as fact, that in his human incarnation Jesus would have been able to spot errors in the Jewish canon. This is even more a statement of faith than the first, since even those who believe the first will not necessarily grant the second.

The second statement is also fallacious in that the Hebrew canon was only partially complete during the earthly lifetime of Jesus.

All branches of Christiandom accepted as aurthoritative and inspired the current 27 books of the New Testament as authoritative. 99% of the New Testament was written by Apostles, ... Paul ... miraculously saw and heard the risen Christ .... They also claimed they were inspired by the Holy Spirit in their writing. If there was any error they would have been the first to spot it amongst themselves.

Again a mix of factual statements and statements of faith that ought to be marked as such. This time the word "claimed" is omitted from the sentence "Paul...miraculously saw and heard the risen Christ". This is Paul's claim recorded in his letters and in the book of Acts. We may believe Pau's claim, but we have no way of knowing that it is fact. At least, concerning the evangelists, we have the correct statement. They claimed inspiration. But then we have the unsupported assertion that they would have spotted error. Not even those who accept their claim to inspiration will necessarily accept this statement.

Thus the Bible was written by known Prophets and Apostles and a few close associates of the Apostles. And both claim direct inspiration & or words from God in their writing. THe Bible specifically condems in both Old and New Testament adding or subtracting from the Word of God.

In fact many of the writings of the bible are anonymous, so how can we ascertain that they were written by prophets and apostles? They claim inspiration, but even if we believe that, we believe it by faith as a matter of trust. Not because we have knowledge that it is true. It does not always follow from inspiration that they received actual words from God. In fact, most of the time the prophets do not cite actual words from God, but rather an encounter with the Word of God. We should be cautious about saying the very words of the text came from God without explicit testimony from the writer to that effect. Even then, this is still a prophetic claim to be received by faith.

Finally, those instances which forbid the adding to or subtracting of words do NOT speak of adding to or subtracting from the Word of God, but of adding to or subtracting from specific books. These passages were written before there was a bible to be called the word of God, so they do not refer to the whole text of the bible. Only the book in which the passage is found.

The Apocrapha is a group of books written about 150 BC to AD 70.

snip list

For a book to be the Word of God it should be consistant in its messages, truthful in its messages & there should be no contridiction in its messages. Geographical, historical, moral teaching should be accurate if God is inspiring or giving actual messages. The books of the Apocrapha contains all above problems.

Again a factual statement followed by a theological argument. The first sentence of the second paragraph is a bald assertion without any discussion as to why anyone should accept it even as a matter of faith. The second sentence of this paragraph assumes that geographical and historical material is of the same sort of cloth as moral teaching.

This makes it incumbent on a moral teacher to have accurate geographical and historical knowledge as well as a good grasp of right and wrong. And it fallaciously gives to those well-versed in geography and history a moral credibility which they may not deserve.

God, we presume, is primarily interested in moral teaching. Why do we have to presume that those who are best at understanding God's teaching on right and wrong will also be given expertise in factual matters that belong to secular knowledge? Does sound teaching like the ten commandments fail to be sound if it can be shown that the writers of Exodus or Deuternomy mistook the location of a village or a river?

And to take the reverse perspective, should we allow ourselves to be bamboozled into dubious moral teaching because someone can demonstrate a high degree of expertise in secular knowledge? To place geography, history and morality in the same basket is to confuse knowledge (geography, history) with wisdom (morality). They do not necessarily exist in the same person, and there is no apparent reason why we should claim that divine inspiration will change that.

Biblical scholar Dr. Rene Pache comments,

"Except for certain interesting historical information ( especially in 1 Maccabees) and a few beautiful moral thoughts ( e.g., Wisdom of Solomon), these books contain absurd legends and platitudes, and historical, geographical and chronological errors, as well as manifestly heretical doctrines ; they even recommend immoral acts ( Judith 9:10,13)

And where can we find this citation from Dr. Pache, since there is no reference given? How can we judge the value of a statement without the supporting context?

The Aprocrypha does not claim divine inspiration. None of the writers were prophets or apostles. 2Maccabees 15:37-38 actually denies inspiration. The New Testament never cites the Apocrypha. Neither Jesus nor the apostles ever quoted from it-though they did quote from 35 of the 39 Old Testament books. The Jews, Jesus and the apostle clearly rejected the Apocrypha as Scripture.

The final sentence is a non-sequitor. The lack of citation does not constitute rejection. On this basis we could say that they also rejected the other four OT books which are not cited in the NT. We could go further and say that Jesus himself rejected more than half the OT since the gospels only record him quoting from 15 of its books.

As far as the Jews and apostles are concerned, it is also factually incorrect, for Greek-speaking Jews and Christians of the first century both used the Septuagint as their scripture and the Septuagint includes the Apocrypha. Whenever the OT is quoted in the NT, it is the wording of the Septuagint which is used.

All this helps explain why it required almost 1,600 years for the Catholic Church to officially accept the Apocrypha as Scripture. As a former Catholic, William Webster comments, " I discovered to my surprise that it was the Roman Catholic Church, not the Protestant which was responsible for the introduction of novel teachings verylate in the history of the church. "

This is a serious distortion of history. From the beginning the Christian church used the Septuagint as its OT and this included the apocrypha. No formal statement was made about it, as it was not in question. The concern of the church in the early centuries was to establish which Christian writings were to be included in the NT. The content of the Septuagint was not questioned until the Reformation. Then and only then, the Roman Catholic Church makes a formal statement at the Council of Trent in order to affirm the traditional usage of all the content of the Septuagint---because Protestant churches, following the example of Martin Luther, were putting these into question. In short, the Catholic church did not add the apocrypha at this time, but re-affirmed what had always been the Catholic usage. That was not done earlier because it had not been challenged earlier.

In a similar vein, Catholic and Lutheran/Reformed Christians did not devise arguments in favour of infant baptism until this practice was challenged by the Anabaptists. The Catholic church did not develop a full theological justification for all seven of its sacraments until Protestants rejected all but two of them.

Jerome, the honored translator of the Latin Vulgate Bible held that the Apocrypha was not Scripture.

reference? And what does it matter? Martin Luther held that the letter of James was "an epistle of straw" in his 1522 Preface to the New Testament. In fact, in addition to rejecting the Septuaging apocrypha, he practically created a NT 'apocrypha' of James, Jude, Hebrews and Revelation, none of which he valued as genuine scripture.

http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ325.HTM

SInce the New Testament explicitly states that Israel was entrusted with oracles (words) of God and was the recipient of the covanants and the Law ( Rom. 3:2), the Jews should be considered the custodians of the limits of their own canon. And they have always rejected the Apocrypha.

Not so. It was the Jews, after all who created the Septuagint translation of their scriptures and this body of writing included the apocrypha. What is missing here is an appreciation of the different schools within first century Judaism. Only in the second century CE did the rabbinic school set out the canon of 39 books which has become the Jewish and Protestant standard. And as rabbinic teaching prevailed and became the dominant form of Judaism, this more restricted canon also became the standard Jewish scripture.

In 1546, the Council of Trent officially named and identified the specific apocryphal books it deemed canonical, ... But for more than a millenium, Catholics had not been required to accept these books as Scripture.

True, but they had not been required up to that time to accept any of the OT as scripture. In fact, this was the first time the NT was officially named for the whole Catholic church too.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/03274a.htm

The Council of Trent made official what had always been Catholic practice.

The Aprocrypha contains such teachings that oppose Biblical teaching, such as the idea that good works atone for sin and the doctrines of purgatory, ... These teaching are found nowhere else in the Bible. If they were true , they would be repeated somewhere. Instead, they contridict what is taught elsewhere.

I doubt that the apocrypha teach any of these things. Rather the Catholic church teaches them and uses some passages in the apocrypha as scriptural support. Doctrines such as purgatory are derived from some passages of the apocrypha rather than contained in them. The statement that if they were true they would also be found in the other writings of scripture is an unsupported assertion. Truth does not have to be repeated to be true.

Between the Old and New Testament days, a period of about 400 years God didn't talk to anyone...

O come on. Do you really think that God doesn't talk to people just because no one made a written record of it? That statement is just plain silly. In fact the NT itself says that God spoke to Simeon during this time telling him he would live to see the Messiah (Luke 2:26). And the latest OT book (Daniel) is only about 200 years older than the first NT writing. (Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians)

During that time between the Old and the New Testaments people made up books claiming it was from God. That group of books is called the Pseudepigrapha (pseuda-false;graph-writing) ascribed to earlier writers. [list snipped] Their only value is their disclosure of Jewish ideas during the time between the Testaments.

And don't forget that the New Testament period was also a time in which many Christian apocryphal and pseudepigraphical writings appeared.

http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/acts.htm
http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/apocalypse.htm
http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/gospels.htm
http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/writings.htm
http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

Prior to the adoption of the current NT canon at the end of the 4th century CE, many churches accounted some of these as scripture, while rejecting some of the books now part of the NT, such as Revelation, Hebrews and Jude.

 

[hesalive]

Dear Gluadys,

I fully expected the regular posters of this forum to spend a large amount of time refuting the points of the thesis. I did not write it. A well respected associate did, but it just seemed too tempting not to throw out some targets for you all to shoot at. What do you do when you are not spending hours debating little points like this? I am continually amazed by the amount of grey matter and time that is expended here. To what end is all the debate?

 

[gluadys]

oops. browser problems. deleting double post.

 

[gluadys]

Dear Gluadys,

I fully expected the regular posters of this forum to spend a large amount of time refuting the points of the thesis. I did not write it. A well respected associate did, but it just seemed too tempting not to throw out some targets for you all to shoot at. What do you do when you are not spending hours debating little points like this? I am continually amazed by the amount of grey matter and time that is expended here. To what end is all the debate?

Well, thanks, it was fun. Feel free to pass it on to your associate.

I am not spending all that much time. On a typical workday, work, commuting, eating and sleeping take more than 75% of a diurnal cycle and I don't get more than 1-2 hours on the internet.

As for debate, does it need an end other than its own existence? Some people play golf, some people prefer chess, and some people enjoy debating.

Were you not looking for some amusement when you chose to throw out some targets to see who would take potshots at them?

 

[WildHeart75]

Dear Gluadys,

I fully expected the regular posters of this forum to spend a large amount of time refuting the points of the thesis. I did not write it. A well respected associate did, but it just seemed too tempting not to throw out some targets for you all to shoot at. What do you do when you are not spending hours debating little points like this? I am continually amazed by the amount of grey matter and time that is expended here. To what end is all the debate?

hesalive,

Now I was going to refute your copy/paste job but Sam and Gluadys saved me the trouble.

You contradict yourself here

You are amazed at the grey matter and time that is spent here yet you spent time 'trying' to shoot down a subject you obviously know nothing about. You had to copy and paste other peoples POV.Then to top it off you cannot even be man enough to accept when you've been proven wrong. If your little copy/paste job worked, you would've taken credit for it, am I wrong? Yet as soon as it was shot down you instantly throw the credit of the post to other people instead of taking it like a man.

I feel sorry for people who can't think for themselves so they rely on others

 

[hesalive]

hesalive,

Now I was going to refute your copy/paste job but Sam and Gluadys saved me the trouble.

I feel sorry for people who can't think for themselves so they rely on others

But you illuminate the fact that you are of the same cloth. It seems that there is no end to the contention that is displayed here. That was the point. Perhaps you missed it.

 

[AlHailThePowerOfJesusName]

Is there some kind of rule that Christians are must be such mental defectives that we cannot discriminate between what we know and what we believe? Articles like this which jumble together historic facts with received theology as if they were one and the same lead me to despair.

This thesis starts off well enough. A factual listing of the books held to be inspired by Protestants, Catholics and Jews. It even uses correct terminology for a bit. The prophets "claimed" their messages were from God. Not the unfactual statement that the messages actually were from God. The former is a statement of fact. The latter is a statement of belief.

But then this factual discourse is totally ruined by the final sentence.

I think that since 100% of Biblical prophecies have come true, it well establishes them as being from God.

1. It assumes as fact that Jesus was God in the flesh. This is not a statement of fact; it is a statement of faith. And Christians above all should be aware that it is a statement of faith.

As a thesis on the Bible that is not a bad assumption.

by the way, Genesis is literal, and there are not 2 creations.

http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_03_03.html

Have a nice day!

 

[ThePhoenix]

I

by the way, Genesis is literal, and there are not 2 creations.

http://www.tektonics.org/tekton_05_03_03.html

Have a nice day!

There is no contradiction, both books tell the same message, genesis is not literal. Thank you, and have a nice day.

 

[gluadys]

I think that since 100% of Biblical prophecies have come true, it well establishes them as being from God.

Oh, I wish I had time to deal with this one. But, I'll save it for another day.

As a thesis on the Bible that is not a bad assumption.

No, it is not a bad assumption provided you mean an assumption of faith. Even the assumption that the bible has any relevance or authority is a matter of faith not fact. I have no quarrel with those who believe in Jesus or take the bible as their sacred text. That is, after all, my own faith too.

But nothing can give these propositions the status of fact unless and until there is objective evidence (not faith) to support them as fact. Recognizing that my personal belief does not make something a fact is just being honest about the difference between knowledge and belief.

[by the way, Genesis is literal,

That is your belief. It is not fact. My belief is different, and my belief is not fact either.

and there are not 2 creations.

No one said there was. But there are (at least) two biblical stories of creation. And that is fact. There is linguistic evidence for this fact.