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Author
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Topic: The location of the Tree of Life
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Message 159 of 302 (217409)
06-16-2005 1:24 PM
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Reply to: Message 144 by Faith
06-14-2005 6:32 PM
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Re: Surely Die?
According to what the Bible says this is the inescapable conclusion. The serpent/Satan said "You will not surely die" and Arach believes that is the truth, and disbelieves what God said "You will surely die." Nothing ambiguous here, no matter how Arach interprets it. did they die when they ate? if they did not die when they ate, then the serpent told the truth. however, he still MISLEAD them. and i'm not saying decieved, i'm saying "lead in the wrong manner." he told them to do something god had told them not to do. and in that respect, he was wrong. whether or not a serpent has a good point, we're still supposed to only follow god.
it is the correct term to describe God's lying in the context of His commands against lying, according to Arachnophilia's interpretation. yes, it is. so long as you're ok with calling him a hypocrite too for telling us not to kill, and then killing people himself.
אָרַח
| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 144 by Faith, posted 06-14-2005 6:32 PM | | Faith has not replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: Surely Die?
Some translation actually have relented instead of repented. In this sense it appears as if God simply had mercy on humanity and held back before delivering the final blow. II Peter seems to pick up on this concept and implies that just because God relented from destroying the earth by water there still remains the final stage where it will be cleansed by fire by the exact same word. relented? that doesn't even make sense. the story is very clearly saying that god was sorry he'd made man, that he considered it a mistake. even if the word itself were not there (and it is, btw, and it's the same word in the numbers verse in hebrew, NChM) the idea of it still is. the idea of god letting some of stick around doesn't come up until we meet noah, two verses later. (the next verse repeats the idea that god was sorry he'd made man) and so the entire earth is saved for noah's sake.
While I agree that God is portrayed as being very human, I would be cautious about the other things. Anger is fine -- and so is jealousy to some extent -- so long as they are a kind of righteous form. For example, if someone were to come along and try to take my children away from my wife and me, we would be very angry and jealous (and rightly so). So too with God, if indeed he is the father of humanity as he claims -- he's got a right to feel this way if we are indeed his children. yeah, i agree. that's fine. what if your children outdo you at something you're good at? is that jealousy fine too?
After having read a good portion of the Scriptures, I've yet to encounter God repenting -- although relenting is certainly within the scope of his actions (holding back from inflicting the full measure of what we deserve). But, even then, God hasn't repented -- he's simply held back and apparetnly will give in good measure in his time. except in that genesis verse. it does say that god was sorry he had made man. it says it greived him. but i do agree that god does hold back a lot. and i think genesis 3 is a good example of that -- god holds back the death sentance.
Similarly, I do tend to believe that God is held accountable to his own law. absolutely not! god is not a man, that he should repent. what do you think that verse means? god defines the law, god makes the law, god IS the law. and the law is for us to follow and obey, not god. when we look at the law itself (the set of rules, not the 5 books) it follows a set format. it's a treaty, actually. in the ancient mid east, when one power conquered another, or a big country formed an alliance with a little country, they made a suzertainty treaty. these start out by saying "this is who i am, i did this and this and this for you" and then goes to on to list what the smaller country owes them in exchange. now look at the ten commandments. identity of the larger party: "I [am] the LORD thy God," what the larger party did: "which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage." what the smaller party owes them in exchange: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me...." [etc]. the whole law is based on the condition of the indenties of the twi parties. the law only applies to hebrews. and god is not held to the conditions of the smaller party (israel). god makes the law, but he does not need to follow it.
For example, if God is holy then he can't by definition lie. by definition? by definition "holy" means "not human" or rather "separate [from us]." any time you have a sentance that starts "god can't ___" it's wrong. god can do whatever he wants to do. including lie. i don't believe that god DOES certain things, but he CAN if he wants to.
In other words, I don't think that God can contradict his own nature. and what is god's nature? what can we say about who god is, if he is truly holy? how can we know god, and what the nature of deity is?
What I find interesting (and it's something which I highly respect) is that you are trying very sincerely to grasp what it would have been like to have lived in this time -- and employ only what is revealed from the earliest chapters of the book of Genesis alone. I find it actually an interesting challenge to see where things point toward a future development of theological ideas based solely on the information available in this one book. well, i also see how it fits with other texts, and see if it really says what those other texts indicate it does. for instance, i don't think paul's views on it hold any weight. i don't see the attitude of death entering the world, or any of the pre-original sin stuff he talks about.
It might be interesting to do a study on the Samaritan churches that still exist today. They only accept the first five books of Moses as being divinely revealed. it might, yes. iirc the strictest judaic interpretation is that the torah was divinely revealed, but that each next section is less and less holy. (the nevi'im being less divine than the torah, and ketuvim being less divine than the nevi'im) personally, of course, i don't agree. i think god inspires somewhat sparingly and in different ways.
Yes, but are you trying to develop these thoughts without recourse to the other four books of Moses. Regardless of whether they were written in 1400 BC or 600 BC, people are generally agreed that they were more formerly grouped together and codefied at the same time with slight alterations along the way as new evidence (or revelations) became available. well, when i said i read them for what they are, i do. i'm not ignoring the other books, because some of the sources do carry over. bits of genesis seem to have the same author as some bits in other "mosaic" texts. but genesis never says it was written by moses.
In some cases, where the author has passed away, obviously someone else has written it. For example, I don't think Moses wrote the Scriptures where it talks about his death (not unless he came back from the dead to finish writing them). Common sense dictates that someone else editted this part. the bit in deuteronomy? no, the whole book was written by someone else. i was talking about sources earlier, and deut. is it's own source. it's the one book of the torah that was written as a book. and it's well after moses. in fact, i'm rather certain that it's a forgery. if you look at how the book is setup (know that it's one book), it starts out on the other side of the jordan from moses. moses is delivering a speech. so at the very, very earliest it was written, it had to have been taken down by someone besides moses on the same side of the jordan as the israelites. but not moses.
The Scriptures indicate that God will wipe away all life during the great deluge much later after the account found in the early chapters of Genesis. Even then he seems to have relented from totally destroying the earth. But I don't recall God saying that he would kill Adam and Eve. quote:
Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
He seems to be warning that their death will be a natural consequence of their rebellion -- not that he's personally going to eliminate them in an Arnold "terminator" Schwartzenegger style. well, i agree, to an extent. he DOES indicate that they will die immediately, but only implies that either he or tree itself will do it. however, the later punishments he DOES give them are all natural consequences of the knowledge.
The most accurate translations by the way do not say, "The man has now become like one of us..." If we're going to get technical about translations, the actual translation in Bereishis 3:22 says, "man has become like the Unique One among us to know good and bad, and now, lest he send forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever." Some have noted that this reference to the Unique One may not actually be a reference to God himself, but rather more likely a reference to Helel-satan dwelling "among them". Incidently, for one to conclude that this reference to the Unique One is a reference to God alone, one has to rely on the Judeo-Christian tradition itself. In other words, assuming this phrase "unique one" is a reference to God is something that itself is not explicitly stated in the text itself -- it needs to be read into the text by others with a pre-conceived Judeo-Christian background. that's the most interesting thing i've read all day! i'll give that some thought, and look it up.
What many Christians do not seem to realize is that God allowing death to come upon humanity was his way of being merciful to them -- it was a blessing in disguise. In other words, God saying that Adam and Eve would surely die is not necessarilly a way of God punishing humanity (which many assume), but is more likely a way of God protecting humanity however cruel it might seem. As Moses Maimonides notes, nullifying man's free will amounts to destroying him, because the ability to determine his own choices is not one of the facets of man; it is his very essence. As God was not prepared to destroy man, he was forced to transport him to an environment where he could be allowed the fullest freedom of will and yet still not be able to eat from the Tree of Life. Thus, man's free will is his human essence (according to the Torah view). To be human is to be free to make up your own mind and implement your decisions. A restriction on human freedom is a negation of humanity itself. i totally agree with this. i think (and you'll probably find me saying this earlier in the thread) that the tree of life was withheld from man because he was not ready for it, with implication that one day we might be. so in a sense, it was protective. this of course, is not in the simplest reading of the text, only jealousy is. but i think it adequately fits into the literal text.
Yes, I agree that the text does not necessarilly imply that they would live forever -- but you seem to be feeling free to select when you will use the Judeo-Christian traditional understandings. At some points you accept them and then reject other points at other times. It seems like a double-standard to be honest. i've been accused to picking and choosing before. and in a sense, i am. but so is everyone. one of the consequences of free will.
For example, I've already noted how the literal text does not actually say, "The man has now become like one of us..." It actually says, "like the Unique One among us..." The translational understanding you are using is actually a translational bias that has been super-imposed over this translation. The reference to the "unique one" may not actually be a reference to God at all. i as unaware of this, actually, until now. but i'll look into it. i'm also going to start learning hebrew in the fall, so that i can actually read the text myself without any translation bias. the translation i have and use most often right now is the jps, which can only be accused of having a judaic bias. it removes references to "sons of god" for instance, because that's too pagan for it. this could be another instance, even though i've never seen any other way of rendering it until, well, just now.
However, you seem to turn around and be unwilling to accept that the concept of the "snake" representing satan (or at least "evil") also predated Judaism. no no, don't get me wrong. i know that the serpent is a religious symbol. remember the flying fiery serpents from numbers? moses made an idol of one, to heal the israelites. josiah later destroyed it as a symbol of foriegn religions. pretty good biblical evidence, if you ask me. there's been talk here before relating the tree of knowledge to fertility cults too. genesis is mildly isolationist, and pokes fun at other religions (the tower of babels, the idol's under rachel's butt? they're laughing at these things. not openly condemning them, but condemning them as ridiculous. the message of genesis may well be that we should follow god, and not pathetic little snake religions. even if there really are snakes around and their faith looks true. the snake does, and HAS to represent evil in some respect, because he convinces adam and eve to stray from god's commandment. but he has to also be a snake in the literal reading of the story, because when he's punished, his punishment is about the things that make snakes what they are. he can symbolically represent satan, if you like, but he cannot BE satan. the symbolic cannot contradict the literal.
Let me explain it another way. If we're going to look at the cultures around the Israelites then we have to look no further than the Canaanites to see some images of how the surrounding cultures conceived of snakes -- because Israel's neighbors did associate the serpent (snake) with an Earth Mother (and the snake played a beneficial role in fertility cults). and genesis 3 might indeed have something to do with that. "know" as in "knowledge" is a euphemism for sex. the words are related da'ath (knowledge, or secret knowledge) comes from yada (to know/to have sexual intercourse). which makes it a pun, sort of. and whoever wrote genesis LOVED puns. and like i said above, i've heard talks about the tree relating to fertility cults. so the snake/earth mother/fertility connection serves to affirm. but i've only really been looking at one tiny bit of the story.
It seems unfair to overlook the context from which Judaism emerged from in order to read the Scriptural accounts of the snake as being only a "talking snake". In fact, I think it's basically impossible to divorce the earliest parts of the Genesis account from the cultures that the Israelites emerged from -- especially when many religions which pre-dated Judaism either venerated the snake as a sign of divine wisdom or else a source of demonic inspiration (with some religions actually concluding that snakes were demons in disguise well before Judaism emerged from their own culture). you're right. but i think to a degree, it's also mocking those religions. genesis can be very mocking.
To be fair, it seems to appear to be meaningless because you've already interpreted it to be a superfluous warning. well, the meaninglessness comes from "don't drink that orange juice. you'll die." it doesn't really mean anything. of course you'll die. but not from the orange juice. and not anytime soon. (i hope at least)
I basically agree with Faith here -- although we probably disagree on the amount of hyperbole that the Lord would employ to get his meaning across. sure. i'm ok with that. i don't think god DOES lie. i think genesis is just a bad interpretation of god, or god was using a hyperbole, or terms adam and eve would understand. or maybe even holding back punishment. there are a ton of other ways of reading it, without inserting words.
Now bearing these two different perspectives in mind, why was Pharaoh's heart hardened? Did Pharaoh harden his own heart? Or did God harden Pharaoh's heart for him? i think that the bible is indicating the god is manipulating pharoah to a certain extent. he's exagerating the qualities that are already there.
I suppose, according to the text here, it looks like God specifically chose for this man to be deceived -- and even put the deception into the mouths of the false prophets who were simply telling the King of Israel what he wanted to hear. well, it seems to be that god wanted the prophets to be decieved too. they weren't false prophets, they were just telling ahab what they thought god was telling them. god was using a spirit to lie to them to decieve ahab.
In arachnophilia's mind the Scriptures indicate that God sometimes allows lies (or even causes lies to be brought forth) so that his will can be accomplished. I disagree with arachnophilia's interpretation of this (and am addressing it now). we could probably spin this off into another thread. i believe very strongly in providence. god gives us exactly what we need, and god uses everything at his disposal in a favourable manner somehow. even evil and lies. look at hitler's antisemitism, for example. had he trusted and properly funded his jewish-lead atomic program, they would have had a bomb. so in some essence the holocaust happened so a bigger nuclear holocaust would not have.
we reading the same book? i don't see this satan character anywhere. ... See my points above about the cultures from which the Israelites' emerged from. yes, but satan is also a more recent invention in hebrew mythology. he first appears in chronicles, but not the corresponding chapter in samuel.
you're reading some other mythology into the story here. But aren't you doing the same thing arachnophilia? aren't we all?
First of all, see my points above about the cultures from the Israelites' emerged from. In my opinion the only way that you can fairly conclude this is by totally divorcing the Israelites' emergence from the cultures around them -- which is virtually impossible. All these culture held some type of of sacred symbolism in connection with the idea of a snake -- some saw the snake as good, some saw the snake as bad, and some saw the snake as....um....well.....demons. You reject the claim that the idea of a snake is completely incompatable with satan yet you seem to have no qualms about connecting the concept of the leviathan in the Scriptures with that of Tiamat(?) or other concepts which pre-dated both Christianity and Judaism. What's up with that? i'm ok with it referencing earlier mythology. i think it probably does. i think it also mock and makes fun of earlier mythology to some extent. but satan is not earlier mythology, and in the context of the story, it still has to literally be a snake. in fact, it's probably claiming that the other religion's god's aren't real: they're just snakes. it likes to make fun of current peoples (at the time of writing) by making fun of their ancestors. in this case, they might be making fun of current "other gods" by making fun of that god's ancestor. a lowly snake.
Second of all, when I read the passage I see a few interesting statements. I wonder how can the snake be cursed "above" all the animals yet be crawling the "on his belly"? I think this passage easilly jives with the idea of "satan" going about on his belly when compared to his former glory in heaven. In one sense, when I read "Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals!" I'm seeing the standard Christian theology of satan being flung from heaven yet still retaining a significant portion of power as the "prince of the power of the air". In other words, he seems to be quite literally cursed "above" all life since he is still able to reside in the spiritual realms above us -- yet is locked out of the "highest heavens" so to speak. yeah, see, this is where you lose it. you;re missing another word too: "livestock." it identifies him as among, but ABOVE livestock.
quote:
Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made.
so does the beginning. now he's cursed above the livestock. but still an animal. there's nothing about satan crawling on his belly anywhere in the bible (not even when he's portrayed a dragon, in revelation). similarly, there's nothing about satan being cast out of heaven (until revelation's end times). the whole story is unbiblical.
Third of all, the adversary is descibed as being likened to a [edit]dangerous yet subtle and cunning [edit] beast when trying to deceive others and "devour them" -- which conforms with the idea of "satan" being like an "animal" in a metaphorical sense. However, one could even go further with this. the serpent is never described as eating adam and eve, or wanting to. he merely leads them astray.
Fourth of all, you said that satan, "...does not lick the ground. not even in a manner of speaking or from a certain point of view." However, technically speaking, he does not just lick the ground, he eats the dust as well. When Genesis says, "and you will eat dust all the days of your life," I think it's refering forward to the final state of man which is almost immediately described as,"...until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." In other words, "the snake" now has to live off of the "dust" of man in order to stay alive -- and this can be read solely from this chapter of Genesis alone. and grasshoppers don't have four legs.  but yes, the symbolism is there.
i'll get back to the rest of this post later. i have to go out now and whore some artwork to some visitors at my school. it's been a busy week, sorry if i was slow before.
אָרַח
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: Surely Die?
Well...I personally think that the adverary usually uses half-truths to deceive others -- incorporating just enough truth to make his lies believable. That's my opinion anyway. that's fine. they're more appealing because they appear to be true. just like the snake's appears to be true. it is, in some respect. the point however, is that we should follow god however true the adversaries position may be.
Well...there are different levels of lies in my opinion. One might lie to save their own lives -- which might be easilly forgivable. But when someone outright lies so has to cause harm to others, then you're talking about a whole new level of lying. agreed. one of the views of the "she's my sister!" stories in genesis is that it's ok it lie when your life is in danger. but try and make your lies as close to the truth as you can.
By the way, I'm Catholic so I don't accept the claim that all sin is the same in the eyes of God. Someone who "steals" a paper clip from work is not going to be punished as severely (if at all) when compared to someone who "steals" the innocence of a child by sexually abusing them. also agreed. i think god is very forgiving and understanding for certain things, and a lot less forgiving of others. does he forgive everything, do you think? i don't know, personally.
But the question comes back to the main point: did God actually lie? I don't think he did. technically speaking, he didn't. just like technically, sarah WAS abraham's sister. and just the same as "don't drink that orange. you'll die!" is also technically true.
Well...no. Abraham questioned God. Moses questioned God. Gideon questioned God. In many ways they were blessed for it -- and Abraham actually talked God down to the possibility of finding 10 righteous people. I can do a search and find many more examples in the Scriptures if you like. I think that God especially likes it when we question him in order to understand his plan better -- and he doesn't seem to mind other forms of reasonable questioning either. one interpretation of the abraham-isaac sacrifice story (possibly my own idea, but i'd be suprised if no one thought of it before) is that abraham actually failed god's test of faith, and that he was supposed to question god. i can explain more if you like, but it's just an idea, really, to toy with. but questioning, and challenging are different things, in the respect i meant "challenge." maybe adam and eve were supposed to come back to god and say "this snake told us that we wouldn't really die, but we'd be more like you, is that true god?" instead of just obeying the snake.
Do you know what they did on those ziggurats? They most likely practiced astrology in connection with some kind of fertility religion which incorporated religious prostitutes (and may have even included children in this religious prostitution -- which has been demonstrated in many of the Asherah and Baal worshipings). I think you better do some research on what took place on top of those ziggurats -- and then get back to me on this one. let me reword my question. according to the bible, did they break a commandment? i think you should also do a little research on bab-el in particular, becuase it's a real place. nebuchadnezzar (heard of him?) finished it in 623 bc, which was just before the hebrew exile. there's a wonderful inscription on it too. genesis, is basically challenging nebuchadnezzar by bringing up the older legend. the bible's report is somewhat true. bab-el was an ancient tower (ziggurat) that had failed to be completed, and the story in gen 11 is almost the same as the babylonian legend regarding it. many people over the years tried to rebuild it, and failed. the difference between the actual babylonian legend and the hebrew one is that bab-el ("door/ladder of the gods," el having the same meaning in hebrew) in babylonian SOUNDS LIKE balal ("to confuse") in hebrew. so it's a pun. the "lucifer" taunt in isaiah is also probably playing of bab-el, describing nebuchadnezzar falling from his throne in the heavens.
If God is going to do something wrong, then it is our right to question his will. I do it all the time. sure, but on what authority can i say "god can't do" something?
Nah...I don't think God has any control over evil. I don't think he's "all-powerful" either. He's actually quite a limited God since he can only do good. He can't even look upon the face of sin according to the Scriptures. ok. i believe in an all powerful god.
cool way of explaining it...but i tend to not fear demons because God exists...not because demons do not exist... faith was referencing another post that i made where i said that even if demons are real, i don't believe in them. i was able to explain a little more here.
guys...I don't think the usage of the word "hypocrite" is strengthening anyone's argument here. if god tells us not to do something that he does, according to faith, that would make him a hypocrite. if god tells us not to lie, and god lies, that makes him a hypocrite. if god tells us not to kill, and then kills, that makes him a hypocrite. if god tells us not to covet, and god covets, that makes him a hypocrite. i'm merely saying that i don't agree with this logic. god is the larger. he tells us what to do. but he can do whatever he likes.
Actually, I think God is held accountable to his own law. He even asks us several times to remind him of his law in the Scriptures. One case in particular strikes me: Moses arguing with God about his decision to destroy the Israelites and start over. is god forgetful? certainly would fit with the two different sets of commandments.
I think God was saying that if they partook in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would have to take away the tree of life -- which would be "good" for them since being trapped forever in their sins like the adversary would not be good. In other words, I think God was saying that the only way they could live forever was by dying "to this world". i don't see that at all.
I kind of agree with you here arachnophilia. I think that in the "new heavens and new earth" that God will "substantially recreate everything from scratch." But I think that death was an actual part of the world outside the garden. . and maybe inside. but there are evidently things in the garden that are not in the outside world. like the two trees.
Again I agree. However, I still don't think it was originally God's plan for them to die. His plan was for them to live forever. sure, otherwise why put a tree called "life" there? however. i'm gonna go out on a limb here, and say that god didn't have a plan. and that maybe i only believe god is all powerful to an extent, and that extent is our free will. (however, i'll read that link you gave me a little later) i think god gave us a choice.
But the tree wasn't necesarily "fast acting" poison. If you smoke you can dramatically reduce your life-expectancy (and yes, I'm a smoker ). It seems to me that when God created Adam and Eve, they were created not knowing sin -- like God himself. However, when they partook in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they basically exposed themselves to sin. Like a smoker who continues to smoke (and I'll quit one of these days), the sinner dramatically reduces their life-span via the sins they're exposed to. ok, i'll agree to that, to an extent. i still need to think about the "unique one" argument. if it refers to god, it means that god does know sin (knowing good AND evil) and that shoots down part of that argument. i think god does know both.
Actually, I'm with Faith on this one. God doesn't lie. I think we simply misunderstand him. ok, i'll agree to that too.
Isn't this switching the debate arachnophilia? I thought you were trying to read Genesis simply on it's own merit. yes, i am. but it doesn't mean i have read a good portion of the rest of it. i was commenting here on how genesis in this regard (read on its own) is inconsistent with numbers, and other various verses.
If we're allowed to introduce the development of the Scriptures from previous sources and authors, then there are questions above that I would like answered if possible: why do you insist that the "snake" in Genesis is only a "snake" even though other cultures around the Israelites (and pre-dated them and influenced them) did attached spiritual significance to the "evilness" or "goodness" of the snake? well, i don't insist that. i just insist that literally, in the story, it is a snake. it could represent all kinds of things, but literally, it has to remain a snake for the punishment to make sense.
I think God relents -- which is different from repenting. it's the same word in genesis and numbers. feel free to check, of course.
I've kind of addressed this above with the concept of relenting in connection with the passage in II Peter. no, it doesn't fit. if god is not sorry he created man, there is no reason to destroy man, and unmake creation. god can relent all he wants, but that word does not fit into the sentence. "god relented that he had made man." doesn't work. it says that it greived god, to his heart.
I never noticed that one before. I thought I'd check it in the NIV. it's a standard example. i'll explain below.
Keep in mind that the word commonly translated as "fool" in our modern era actually originates from teh Hebrew word for "wicked". I think this Psalm 26:4-5 passage is kind of like Christ's statement in Matthew 10:16, "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." In other words, we have to outsmart the adversary without succumbing to his sinful ways -- in my opinion. not quite. christ speaks of doing something somewhat singular. this is saying do not do something, and then the very next verse saying the exact opposite, and to do that same something. the words are all the same. there is a contradiction there. the simplest answer is that one verse is replying to one before it. proverbs is a collection of proverbs, not god's personal advise for us on how to live our lives. they're old sayings, chestnuts. and one seems to be the traditional reply to the other. if i were respond to your post, calling you a fool, and said "don't respond to crackpots in their own terms, or you'll become crazy yourself" the obvious reply from you or others is "yes, respond to crackpots in their own terms. otherwise, they'll think they know what they're talking about."
There's also no mention of the word "God" when God says, "Now man has become like the Unique One among us..." but you don't seem to mind inferring that God is implied to the point that he is "actually" saying, "Now man has become like us..." yes, well, i was unaware of this. i'll look into it. i don't know everything, and i still can't read hebrew. but i'm working on that.
Actually, I tend to think that the serpent was probably munching on the fruit saying, "See? Look at me! I'm eating the fruit and I'm not dead." i don't think so. it says the serpent was the smartest, which implies he was created that way. although, i concede this is possible that the serpent had also eaten. but the bible never mentions it.
Actually, if God lies then he is not holy. Neither is he infinitely good. holy just means "separate." god can lie and still be separate from us. infinite goodness... well. math question. if you have an infinite set, and you remove a finite set from it, how big is your infinite set? if god is infinitely good, and commits some finite sin, is he still infinitely good?
Actually, I think God expects us to play by the exact same rules as he does, at least accoridng to what we are capable of grasping. i think god is playing in a whole nother ballpark.
So did God harden Pharoah's heart? Or did Pharaoh harden his own heart? yes. and yes.
ote: Wow...this thread just seems to go on and on. I've step back now and see what happens with my input here. You can check out Message 99 (in this thread) for some of my thoughts about the nature of God -- and the "creation of sin"... will do.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: General reply for all to consider
Let's go one step further and pretend that the fruit of this vine actually had something called ergot on it as well. ergot is a hallucinogen. but i see you're going there.
Indeed, if Adam and Eve contrated some form of gangrene from consuming the fruit, then there bodies would surely begin to die from within. In fact, they would start to immediately die -- but it would take some time before the gangrene would overtake their "perfect bodies" and they would die. If Adam and Eve somehow passed this gangrenous condition genetically to each generation thereafter (like a disease), we would probably see a gradual drop in the life-span of Adam's roughly 900-something years to man's current state of around 70 years on average. the restriction on human life is a something the bible documents.
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Gen 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also [is] flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
the limiting of human life (according to the bible) has nothing to do with the garden. it's more likely related the noah story. of course, it's also contradicted by gen 11. shem lives to be 600, and his son lives about the same. etc.
Apparently Adam and Eve had a very bad trip. apparently. i doubt the story is actually recording a hallucinogenic experience, though. it's too much a traditionalized story, with too much intent of explaining other things.
Another question that comes up is what about the fallen angels? When did they fall? Were they involved in this at all? no. i see very little biblical reference to fallen angels. and THIS is not one of them:
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Son of man, take up a lament concerning the king of Tyre and say to him:
it uses that imagery, sort of, yes.
Remember too this: If God cannot look upon the face of evil, and if he can't even think an evil thought, then it may very well be likely did God did NOT know what the adversary was up to -- he may have only been aware of some kind of danger of death but not sure exactly how it would come about. i don't agree with this at all. i think god is very much aware of everything. how can he know us, if he can't look at evil? we do evil, and our hearts are sometimes wicked. how could god have dealt with pharaoh? or anyone?
Consequently, if this is true, then the adversary totally went against his assigned duty and did the exact opposite of what he was supposed to do: he led them into temptation instead of leading them away from it. one might note a few things: 1. "the adversary" (ha satan) is not in the story. his image is never equated with a serpent, except in revelation (written much, much later) and even then it's a different serpent. a much bigger one. 2. "the adversary" describes his position. angels are named by their function. his job is to test the hearts of men. now, the theme of a test *IS* in gen 3. and the serpent, if he were an angel, would be named "satan." in fact, calling him "satan" as a title is even appropriat, since the serpent is tempting or testing man. so if it's satan -- the angel/fallen angel/demon/etc -- he IS doing his job, and very well i might add.
One might note that the adversary having to "eat dust" could apparently be in someway symbolic of him having to feed off the life-force of humanity in order to live -- because, as God himself said about man, "for dust you are and to dust you will return." symbolic, maybe. but it doesn't indicate the presence of the late-judeochristian satan. literally, the "eating dust" seems to refer to licking the ground, the way snakes smell. and the crawling on the belly describes the way snakes move. this story is basically an explanation of what makes a snake a snake. i mean, they call it a snake, and then describe a snake. it's a snake. symbolically, it could mean anything. it probably does apply to other snake-cult religions. but they're not portraying the snake as a deity, demi-god, son of god, angel, fallen angel, demon, or anything other than a snake.
In other words, apparently demons cannot live without God's grace -- however, since they are now cut off from God's grace, their only access to God's grace is through humanity. Plants live by photosynthesis -- and maybe demons live by hamartanosynthesis (the sins commited by humanity)? interesting, yes. but i think it is god's will for us to have satan around. he performs tests for god. he's also a rather later appearance in the bible. he appears sometime between samuel and chronicles. look:
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2Sa 24:1 And again the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.
numbering israel, of course, is a sin. it's defying god's will. in this context. apparently in numbers it's fine.
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2Sa 24:10 And David's heart smote him after that he had numbered the people. And David said unto the LORD, I have sinned greatly in that I have done: and now, I beseech thee, O LORD, take away the iniquity of thy servant; for I have done very foolishly.
it's a sin because of this:
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Gen 13:16 And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, [then] shall thy seed also be numbered. Gen 15:5 And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be.
so according to samuel, the lord himself made david sin. when chronicles tell this story, it fixes this inconsistency, since it's a BIG one.
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1Ch 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.
the traditional reading for thousands of years has been that satan does god's dirty work, testing men, etc. had the author of chronicles rewritten genesis, we might see satan asking abraham to sacrifice isaac to the lord, or satan visit sodom to test the city before its destruction.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: Surely Die?
Sure it does. When one relents, one can easilly express remorse in doing so without "sinning" in the process so as to need to "repent" from it. And even if God is sorry for creating man, and even if he admits that he made a mistake, it still doesn't mean that he's "repenting". what of "repent" connotates sin? i think this is a translation issue. in hebrew, there's just one word. repentance just means you're sorry. it doesn't mean you've sinned, like it seems to modern english. who would god repent TO? who would he have sinned against? he's god. there's no one above him. but he can still repent, in the aspect of being greived to his heart over something he feels is a mistake. according to genesis. numbers is simply saying that god doesn't have to apologize to us. genesis is simply saying that god thought he'd made a mistake.
I think the NIV captures this concept better by translating Genesis 6:6 as... quote:
Genesis 6:6 JPS And the LORD regretted that He had made man on earth, and His heart was saddened.
same difference, really. but the word used is still one translated "repent" elsewhere. even in numbers. they mean the same thing.
My 6 year old is already outdoing me in math. But to answer your question, I'd be very proud of them, and I am very proud of my boys. as well you should be. but if you were jealous of their achievements, would you be a good father? of you struck them because they did something that challenged your abilities as a man, would you be a good father?
No. If I became jealous of the acheivements of my own children, then I would be a real dickhead. Consequently, I don't see in the Scriptures where God is jealous of the acheivements of his own children. Its seem to be better understood that God is jealous of when "false gods" try to claim his children as their own. except in genesis 11. there's no connotation of "other gods" unless one reads on in. on the simplest, literal level, that aspect is not there.
Yes, and why is this so important? Expressing remorse and changing one's mind is not the same thing as sinning and repenting. actually, they are. like i pointed out, it's the same word. repenting after you've sinned is basically just saying you're sorry, and then trying to turn it around. both express the idea of doing something wrong, acknowledging it, and then fixing it. and that's exactly what god does in gen 6, isn't it?
In my opinion God has expressed moments where he has been deeply grieved by creating humanity. But this doesn't mean he has "sinned" in the process to the point that he needs to repent. repentance need not relate to sin, as in sin of man against god. god has nothing and no one to sin against. just himself. yet, apparently, he can still do something he later considers wrong. and that considering of wrongness is repenting.
It means, in my opinion, exactly what I've been saying above in regards to the idea of God expressing remorse and relenting from totally destroying us: God doesn't sin. And if God doesn't sin, then he doesn't need to repent like we do. moved your bold.
Sure he does. Whenever God makes a covenant he is setting the parameters within which those he has chosen must act. If they fail to act a certain way, then God is not held accoutable to perform his duties. However, if one upholds the law then God is held accountable to fulfill his duties in response to their faithfulness. In other words, God is held accountable to the contracts he makes. but the conditions for the law have already been met: he already saved the israelites from egypt. it is a singular act they owe him for. not a continued expectation from god. it's not an even treaty at all.
Some passages say that God cannot look upon the face of sin. To be fair, I'm not sure if he is unwilling or incapable of doing so. unwilling. which passages?
Other passages seem to say that God will discover sins by searching them out -- which begs the question, why would an omniscient God need to "search out" anything if he already knows everything? why did god call for adam and eve in the garden? did he not know where they were? had they successfully hid from god? i think the idea that god cannot see evil is just plain silly. sorry to be blunt there.
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Psa 64:5 They encourage themselves [in] an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them? Psa 64:7 But God shall shoot at them [with] an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
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Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.
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Num 14:35 I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.
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Deu 29:21 And the LORD shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written in this book of the law:
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Deu 31:29 For I know that after my death ye will utterly corrupt [yourselves], and turn aside from the way which I have commanded you; and evil will befall you in the latter days; because ye will do evil in the sight of the LORD, to provoke him to anger through the work of your hands.
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Jdg 2:11 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served Baalim: Jdg 3:7 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves. Jdg 3:12 And the children of Israel did evil again in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD strengthened Eglon the king of Moab against Israel, because they had done evil in the sight of the LORD. Jdg 4:1 And the children of Israel again did evil in the sight of the LORD, when Ehud was dead. Jdg 6:1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. etc (the book is downright full of "evil in the sight of the lord")
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1Sa 15:19 Wherefore then didst thou not obey the voice of the LORD, but didst fly upon the spoil, and didst evil in the sight of the LORD?
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2Sa 12:9 Wherefore hast thou despised the commandment of the LORD, to do evil in his sight? thou hast killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and hast taken his wife [to be] thy wife, and hast slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.
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1Ki 11:6 And Solomon did evil in the sight of the LORD, and went not fully after the LORD, as [did] David his father.
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1Ki 16:25 But Omri wrought evil in the eyes of the LORD, and did worse than all that [were] before him. etc. in factm any reference from kings or chronicles regarding the sin of jeroboam
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Isa 65:12 Therefore will I number you to the sword, and ye shall all bow down to the slaughter: because when I called, ye did not answer; when I spake, ye did not hear; but did evil before mine eyes, and did choose [that] wherein I delighted not.
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Jer 7:30 For the children of Judah have done evil in my sight, saith the LORD: they have set their abominations in the house which is called by my name, to pollute it.
and the idea that the lord is incapable of thinking evil, creating evil, or using evil (or being sorry for it) is also silly:
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Exd 32:14 And the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.
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Deu 30:15 See, I have set before thee this day life and good, and death and evil;
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Jos 23:15 Therefore it shall come to pass, [that] as all good things are come upon you, which the LORD your God promised you; so shall the LORD bring upon you all evil things, until he have destroyed you from off this good land which the LORD your God hath given you.
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Jdg 9:23 Then God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the men of Shechem; and the men of Shechem dealt treacherously with Abimelech:
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1Sa 16:14 But the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the LORD troubled him.
1Sa 16:15 And Saul's servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. etc. chapters 16-19 or so.
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2Sa 12:11 Thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and give [them] unto thy neighbour, and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of this sun.
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2Sa 24:16 And when the angel stretched out his hand upon Jerusalem to destroy it, the LORD repented him of the evil, and said to the angel that destroyed the people, It is enough: stay now thine hand. And the angel of the LORD was by the threshingplace of Araunah the Jebusite.
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1Ki 9:9 And they shall answer, Because they forsook the LORD their God, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil.
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1Ki 14:10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, [and] him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.
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1Ki 21:21 Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel,
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1Ki 22:23 Now therefore, behold, the LORD hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the LORD hath spoken evil concerning thee.
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Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].
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Jer 4:6 Set up the standard toward Zion: retire, stay not: for I will bring evil from the north, and a great destruction.
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Jer 6:19 Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, [even] the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words, nor to my law, but rejected it. Jer 11:11 Therefore thus saith the LORD, Behold, I will bring evil upon them, which they shall not be able to escape; and though they shall cry unto me, I will not hearken unto them. Jer 11:17 For the LORD of hosts, that planted thee, hath pronounced evil against thee, for the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have done against themselves to provoke me to anger in offering incense unto Baal. Jer 11:23 And there shall be no remnant of them: for I will bring evil upon the men of Anathoth, [even] the year of their visitation. Jer 18:11 Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good. Jer 19:3 And say, Hear ye the word of the LORD, O kings of Judah, and inhabitants of Jerusalem; Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will bring evil upon this place, the which whosoever heareth, his ears shall tingle. Jer 23:2 Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD. Jer 23:12 Wherefore their way shall be unto them as slippery [ways] in the darkness: they shall be driven on, and fall therein: for I will bring evil upon them, [even] the year of their visitation, saith the LORD. Jer 25:29 For, lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished? Ye shall not be unpunished: for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabitants of the earth, saith the LORD of hosts. Jer 26:13 Therefore now amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God; and the LORD will repent him of the evil that he hath pronounced against you. etc
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Lam 3:38 Out of the mouth of the most High proceedeth not evil and good?
[qupte]Eze 5:16 When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, which shall be for [their] destruction, [and] which I will send to destroy you: and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread: Eze 5:17 So will I send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee. I the LORD have spoken [it]. Eze 6:10 And they shall know that I [am] the LORD, [and that] I have not said in vain that I would do this evil unto them.[/quote] quote:
Dan 9:14 Therefore hath the LORD watched upon the evil, and brought it upon us: for the LORD our God [is] righteous in all his works which he doeth: for we obeyed not his voice.
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Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done [it]?
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Amo 9:4 And though they go into captivity before their enemies, thence will I command the sword, and it shall slay them: and I will set mine eyes upon them for evil, and not for good.
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Mic 1:12 For the inhabitant of Maroth waited carefully for good: but evil came down from the LORD unto the gate of Jerusalem.
now, in support of your opinion, we have one reading of one verse verse, nearest as i can tell (i just looked through every "evil" reference.
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Hab 1:13 [Thou art] of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity: wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, [and] holdest thy tongue when the wicked devoureth [the man that is] more righteous than he?
so basically, i think that view is nearly completely unbiblical. the bible seems to support god not only seeing, but doing (or at least USING evil).
It also bring up another question too: why would God need angels if he was already omniscient and omnipresent? why would god need man? why would god need anything? i think he's lonely, personally. angels were sort a first-draft, so to speak. we're the current project. also. you're misunderstanding the function of angels. they're not our messengers to god, they're god's messengers to us. because god is so foreign to us, there was to be something between god and mortal humans (lest we die, etc). very rarely does god himself communicate with man with his physical presence. only (possibly) in genesis, and to moses. nearly everywhere else, it's angels, or visions.
The mere concept that God would give us a free-will seems to indicate -- from my Judeo-Christian background -- that God willingly and lovingly relinquished some degree of control over things so that people could have free-will. I suppose one could say that our very existence leads to God's humiliation -- and that he did this of his own free-will out of love. yes, i agree, i think.
Summing this up, I simply believe he's omnibenevelant to the point that he's not aware of evil. Either evil doesn't exist to him, or maybe his presense destroys evil (and thus he keeps at a distance for our safety?). more likely the second.
Also, although I don't think he's omnipotent (as carefully desribed above), I do believe he is omnibenevelent and also eternal. i do think, i think, that maybe god gives up some omnipotence by allowing free-will. i think this is a very kind gesture of god.
i don't believe that god DOES certain things, but he CAN if he wants to. Hmmm...could you exlain this further? similarly, god COULD be omnipotent. he just chooses not to be. god CAN lie, he just chooses not to. god CAN do evil, he just (usually) chooses not to (and if he does, he works it for good).
Interestingly, if God indeed already knows the future, then technically speaking, God didn't really have a choice did he? If you've ever read Watchmen published by DC, then you might be familiar with Dr. Manhatten -- the all-knowing, watchmaker who is unable to change the future he's already seen. I haven't finished reading the series yet, but I think I know where the storyline is going. Similarly, some have suggested that God is akin to an eternally good spiritual automation that created man with a free-will so that he could learn how to be alive vicariously through humanity -- he created man so that he could be truly alive. interesting. not sure if i agree or not. i think god gave us free will to be like him. i don't think he learned free will from us. i think a sense of the reason for creation is given very early in genesis. god sounds almost sympathetic to mean when he says "it is not good for man to be alone." god recognizes that something is not right in his creation. like god, adam has a bunch of things under him, the animals. but like god, there is no suited mate. what's good for adam may be what's good for god. like i said, i think god's lonely.
More often than not, these apparently contradictory terms coexist within one conception of God, both involved with us and above us. i think that god has some way to relate to us, but that we can never really totally understand him on this level.
Well...if you're already convinced that the book is a forgery, then I guess there's really not much else for us to discuss then. We're on totally different playing fields here in regards to how we feel the Scriptures were divinely inspired. not totally.
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Deu 6:16 Ye shall not tempt the LORD your God, as ye tempted [him] in Massah.
jesus quotes this passage, btw. i think that's inspired. don't test god. the book's a forgery, and nearly completely un-needed (it repeats other texts for the most part, much like chronicles). but there's still something of value in it. i expressed this to faith earlier. part of my belief in god allowing and even using evil is that he works good through the evil of others. and so the evil of this forgery -- used as a weapon during the civil war between judah and israel, to accuse israel of idolatry and having a temple in the wrong place -- contains something good, of worth, and from god. i think a god who works good in the evil of others is more powerful than a god who doesn't even see evil.
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| Replies to this message: | | | Message 295 by Philip, posted 06-28-2005 6:04 PM | | arachnophilia has replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: Surely Die?
Hmmm...interesting. I took a look at this passage in the NIV. It read as follows:
NIV writes: This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens-
So apparently this is two different sentences like you said. it also splits genesis 1 and genesis 2. try reading it as two opposite bookends. it makes more sense, i promise.
Would the NIV be acceptable? my feelings are mixed on the niv, but sure. if i find something that looks way out of place, i'll point it out.
So if I found examples where the first condition is short but the final condition is long (or vise versa), would this be considered an acceptable reason not to think that the first condition necessarilly needed to match the length of time of the second condition? possibly. a delay might be more appropriate. i'd also like to point this bit out:
This is the account of the family of Aaron and Moses at the time the LORD talked with Moses on Mount Sinai. the account, in the day that. grammatically, here, the "day" correlates to the account. not sure if that was the way it was before.
Yes, there's an immediate "recognition" of their duties, but the "effects" of this recognition are still potentially very long term. Again, I realize that the passages of God's warning to Adam in Genesis is applying to death and not vows -- yet here I am showing a passage which does show an "immediate" recognition of their condition followed by a long period of having to deal their "long term" effects. Is this not what many are saying happened when talking about Adam and Eve? not quite. "death" does not correspond to the long term effect. it corresponds to the "forbid." on the day that her father hears about it, he forbids her. then the effects come in later, of the forbidding or not forbidding. but the "in the day" part is just refering to when the father hears, and forbids when he hears. bother actions are singular, but have longer effects. similarly, in genesis 2, it's on the day they eat, they die. both singular actions. death becomes a longterm effect too, but it still happens only once. just like being forbidden.
I'm just reading through these passages to glean what they say about the time-scales involved. I'll have to get back to this when I have a chance. However, just with a cursory inspection, while I agree that the passage in Samuel could debatedly be considered an immediate "recognition" followed by immediate "effects", the passages found in Ezekiel do not lend themselves so easilly to this strict interpretation. well, "you will surely die" pretty clearly CAN mean later in the future. what i'm saying is that "in the day that" indicates the immediacy. on the day they eat, they die. it may not literally be the same day, but the idea of the sentance is that it happens quickly. we'll look at one example:
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Exodus 31:14
" 'Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you. Anyone who desecrates it must be put to death; whoever does any work on that day must be cut off from his people.
should the person who does work on the sabbath be cut off from his people 900 years later? or somewhat immediately?
Likewise, if one is talking about a longer term than an "immediate effect", the phrase "in that day" seems to be utilized. It is shwon below as follows, and seems to indicate something happening well into some unspecified time in the future: yes, but effective immediately.
1 Samuel 8:18
When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the LORD will not answer you in that day."
1 Samuel 8:17-19 (in Context) 1 Samuel 8 (Whole Chapter) will the lord still answer for 900 years before he stops? or will he stop immediately? now look at genesis:
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Gen 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
will adam die immediately? or will he live for 900 years?
I find it odd that the NIV used neither the phrase "on that day" (for immediate effects) nor the phrase "in that day" (for long term effects) to describe the account of humanity's fall in the garden. yes, it uses the word "when" like i mentioned it should it mean. it says "when you eat of it, you will surely die." when they eat.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: Surely Die?
I can identify with this even if I don't agree with some parts of it. It seems as though, basically, that you're trying to read the earliest chapters of Genesis without any outside bias influencing your thoughts -- and I respect that. But I would add that I think it's a virtually impossible task, especially since the Israelites themselves were most likely already influenced by other cultures before God stepped in and clarified his revelation to them. At the very least it seems possible that both God and other cultures influenced the earliest Scriptural accounts. well, not exactly. i'm trying to read in the context it was written in. which is not totally possible, either. some of the other books of the bible had already been written by the time genesis was compiled. i try to understand its influences too, i just don't think this idea of a devil -- or even satan -- really plays much of a role except thematically.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Message 168 of 302 (217498)
06-16-2005 11:01 PM
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Reply to: Message 152 by Faith
06-15-2005 9:55 PM
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Re: Surely Die?
Genesis was written by Moses, who was raised in the Egyptian court. well, like ramoss pointed out, textual evidence indicates multiple authors of the original texts. (at least 3) it also indicates a date well after moses.
At what point does this other cultural influence enter in? even if moses wrote it, he's recording stories he's heard from his (newer) culture. that culture is influenced by its (former) surroundings. however, we see a LOT mroe babylonian influence in genesis that egyptian. so it's more likely it was written under or near babylonian authority than egyptian. (for instance, gen 11 is mock a babylonian legend).
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 152 by Faith, posted 06-15-2005 9:55 PM | | Faith has not replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: General reply for all to consider
Again, the King of Tyre is not a guardian cherub. Neither was he ever sitting on the mount of God. Obviously, God is using imagery to describe the King of Tyre. However, one has to wonder who this gaurdian cherub in the garden of eden (and who's "heart became proud on account of" his "beauty" -- and who "corrupted" his "wisdom because of" his "splendor", etc. etc. etc.) exactly was? In other words, who is this gaurdian cherub in the garden of eden who was thrown to the earth that the King of Tyre is being compared to? good question. who's lucifer that nebuchadnezzar is being compared to? keep in mind also that these references need not be hebrew. and it also need not have existed prior to the writing. one thing is pretty certain though. satan is not the guardian cherub. because satan is not a cherub, nor a gaurdian. he's recorded as being a son of god, and is traditionally thought of as an angel, which are basically human in form. contrast this with seraphs - majestic beings with four wings, that appear in fire, and cherubs - winged babies, the things on the ark of the covenant, and the tapestries in the tabernacle. satan also does not gaurd. his name means that he tests.
Well...I think the Scriptures indicate that God cannot look upon the face of sin. see the buttload of scripture cited above.
But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear. grammar problem. your sins have hidden god from you. not vice versa.
No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. god is avoiding them to punish them because they've been bad. it's not that god can't see them, but that they can't see god. look at all the other verses i cited. the ones that show god not only seeing and acknowledging evil, but USING it.
Don't get too literal here. God could still know where our bodies are at for example. He would still be aware of every single electron, proton and neutron in the universe. Contrary to the bogus gnostic claims to the contrary, the raw material that we are made of is not inherently sinful or evil. However, what he wouldn't know is the depths of our inner most souls, because this would be darkened by our sins. don't get too yoda here: "hard to see, the dark side is."
So here we have the concept very similar to the devil employing "snakes" as his servants around the time (or before) Judaism recorded the concept of the the "snake in the garden" -- testing humanity much like an adversary would go against God. sure, ok. but the adversary, in traditional judaism, is not against god. but against man. see above (all the citations of god controlling/using evil)
now, the theme of a test *IS* in gen 3. and the serpent, if he were an angel, would be named "satan." in fact, calling him "satan" as a title is even appropriat, since the serpent is tempting or testing man. so if it's satan -- the angel/fallen angel/demon/etc -- he IS doing his job, and very well i might add. So you're saying that Judaism was not at all influenced by Zoroastrianism -- a religion which perceived snakes as being the messengers and servants of an ultimately evil deity? not sure how you got that from there. i was saying that "satan" as a title can apply to serpent, as "satan" really is just a title that can apply to anything. jesus even called peter satan once, didn't he? yet peter is still literally peter. and the snake is still literally a snake. the passage could indeed be influenced by zoroastrianism. it might even be mocking it. but it might not be. i'm just saying that the snake is still a snake. and as a satan, he does his job very well.
Or maybe just as a snake uses it's tongue to sense variations in thermal temperatures, perhaps satan uses his tongue to sense out where one's soul will be most vulnerable to temptation? literally? no, i doubt it. figuratively, maybe it applies to satan. but literally it does not. literally, the reference to eating dust is an explanation of a snake's peculiar behavious of sticking out its tongue.
Yes. And satan is desribed as going "to and fro" throughout the earth in Job. but not on his belly. the implication is that he's doing it among men, as a man. or disguised as one. "sons of god" may not be implying angels, i must point out. "son of god" appears to be a hebrew idiom meaning "king." for instance, in david's coronation psalm (psalm 2) god calls him "my son" and describes begetting him that day. (when he was crowned) similarly, the "sons of god" in genesis 6 could be human kings. i'm not sure if this is the case, but it's a possibility.
Well...I guess we disagree on this then. uh, i was sort of agreeing with you, actually.
It doesn't matter if the concept of Satan (employing snakes and demons) can be displayed in a relegion which both predated and influenced the development of Judaism. In fact, I don't think any of these quotes matter if Zoroastriaism indeed influenced the development of Judaism. yes, well, look at them for a second. it indicates pretty strongly that satan is a relative late-comer to judaism. perhaps from zoroastrianism. zoroaster dates to close to writing of genesis -- and chronicles. it's a very likely source for him, actually. but some texts appear to have existed before the idea of satan did in judaism. like i said, there's a lot of text that indicates GOD testing man, which would later be satan's job.
So are we trying to read the earliest chapters of Genesis by itself -- or are we relying on the traditional reading for thousands of years? i think maybe i lost you. i'm not really relying on it, i'm just stating what it is, and then that this interpretation is not present in genesis. possibly because genesis predates it, or because the editors did not see fit in editting it into the older sources, or maybe they just didn't agree with it. i'm not totally looking at genesis alone, but what it says and doesn't say in the context of the other books.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Message 174 of 302 (217738)
06-17-2005 5:55 PM
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Reply to: Message 171 by riVeRraT
06-17-2005 9:10 AM
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Re: the god of genesis
Your kidding right? 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." Unless Eve was lying. she said the serpent deceived her. and adam says it's god's fault for putting the woman there, who decieved him. guess what? they'll all punished.
WOW! I never heard that before. I am definately not a fundamentalist then, nor have I ever meet one.
What I do hear people claim is that the bible is infallable, and contains the Holy word of God. well, stick around. someone's bound to claim it again sooner or later. it's actually a pretty common thing around here.
I would even agree with that, but it depends to what degree of infallable are we talking about? To say that Genesis was probably written by Moses, or 2 people, and is a dream, or a vision given by God, and that it is just a summary of what happened, then I would agree.
There obviously is way more that happened, and many more details that aren't written down, but this does not make it untrue. you'll find that if you read genesis closely, it's full of gross distortions. it's actually racist in some parts (it essentially makes arabs out to be "bastards" for instance)
What I can't stand is when people read the bible, and interpret it for themselves, and then say, if you do not believe in my interpretation, then you are wrong. but at the same time, there ARE wrong interpretations of the book. people assert all the time that it says stuff that it just plain doesn't. they're not right. for instance, mr. ex said above that the bible said god was incapable of looking at evil. i posted a few dozen verses that not only described "evil in the sight of the lord" but instances of god using evil, or sending/allowing evil. in this case, that interpretation is based on a poor reading of a few verses, with the grammar reversed, and is easily refuted. similarly, mr ex has shown that there is good reason to connect the serpent and satan, at least figuratively if not literally.
Right, so in our trying to understand the first five, we can seek how the people of that day were refering to it, by studying the rest of the books. You cannot just disregard the other books. paul ≠ people of the day. paul wrote at least 600 years after the compilation of genesis, and many of the stories genesis compiled are very likely much older. paul is a later writer, from a different religion. we don't really have much from the period, except a few of the books of the bible people aren't so interested in: samuel/kings, etc. and we certainly have next to nothing from the period that originated the stories. so, as mr. ex pointed out, we have to look to other cultures that we do have. the ugarits and sumerians are especially helpful and similar.
You give me the feeling that you just want to disagree with me, for the sake of disagreement. I never said it wasn't an about page. well, i just want you to think about this. who wrote the about page? god? moses? or some editor down at the publisher? do you think a translator or historian wrote it? or are they just emending tradition into the text? it is tradition that has moses writing genesis. but study has shown otherwise.
But they are born innocent with pure hearts, but dead spirit. so they are condemned, then?
Both. I see how much love God has for us by being obedient to him. The trick to hearing from God, and being blessed by him, is all in the obedience to him, and hearing and obeying his Holy Spirit, and Holy word. When I am disobedient to him, I pay for it. Its not rocket science. This however does not protect me from going through trials and tribulations. But I have come to know the difference. you have some kids yourself, right? how do you relate to your parents now? do you think they expect your obediance?
Yes, I and I agree with that, I never said we are condemmed. I have learned by studying God's word, and listening to his Holy Spirit, that it is not our job to convict or condemn. God will condemn you in his timing, and the Holy Spirit will convict you. It only my job to love. i don't think a father could ever truly condemn his children. punish, but not condemn and disown.
This is why I also believe that we are judged based on what we know. Yes we may commit sins, inour inherent sinful nature, but if we do not know and understand in our hearts that it is a sin, then how can we be condemned for it? then how could eating of the tree of knowledge be a sin? what you're speaking of relies on a knowledge of good and evil: you have to know the difference to understand why what you did was wrong. similar, do psychopaths who think it's ok that they kill and molest people sin?
Point me to Pauls take please. quote:
Rom 6:23 For the wages of sin [is] death; but the gift of God [is] eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
quote:
Rom 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:
Rom 5:13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.
Rom 5:14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.
etc. i'm sure you've seen these before. paul thinks that we are mortal because of adam. we are mortal because god made us that way.
Just to make sure, I will say it again, I do not think God hates us, or condemns us from birth. But we are however born into sin. Remember we are forgiven. i agree with most of this statement. but i don't think we are born into sin. i think we are born with a blank slate. it is our tendencies as human beings, and our surroundings that cause us to sin, but we are not born with or by sin.
Does this make us God? no didn't say we were. but we are like god in some respect. god says so a few times.
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 171 by riVeRraT, posted 06-17-2005 9:10 AM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 176 by riVeRraT, posted 06-17-2005 6:59 PM | | arachnophilia has not replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: General reply for all to consider
First of all, have you looked up the "unique one" yet? working on it. been busy lately. thus the reason for my slowness of replies.
Second of all, you never replied to the idea of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil being akin to the Israelites participating in foreign religions which employed hallucinagens in order to "open their eyes" and gain "spiritual wisdom". i thought i agreed that was highly plausible?
Well...I think it's more than a good question. I think it tends to point out that the adversary was sitting there in the garden of eden -- and that his fall occured in the garden of eden. We don't see any reference to a cherub in Eden before the fall. However, we do see the snake testing man and leading him away from God. Bearing the symbolism most likely borrowed from Zoroastrianism, many would simply conclude that the snake was the fallen guardian cherub in disguise. doesn't follow.
quote:
Gen 3:24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
these are cherubims, in eden, who protect.
Consequently, later we do see God placing a cherub gaurding the way with the flaming sword which "points all ways". However, this cherub is not evil in any sense since he seems to be placed there to prevent humanity from returning to the garden -- which is exactly what God desires after Adam and Eve are aware of the knowledge of good and evil. neither was the king of tyre, originally. the poem is about someone designated by god to protect something turning against the thing he's supposed to protect, and god striking him down. the king of tyre was ordained by god to protect tyre. these cherubs were in eden to protect eden. see?
I may be wrong, but I tend to believe that the cherubim and the flaming sword placed here after Adam and Eve's expulsion were [Note: plural] the replacements for the original guardian cherub that was cursed "above" all life. except that's not a cherub, it's a snake. and it's not cursed above all life, it's cursed above all beasts of the field (possibly meaning domesticated animals). the tyre poem gives a very eloquent discription of something that's not a snake.
who's lucifer that nebuchadnezzar is being compared to? keep in mind also that these references need not be hebrew. and it also need not have existed prior to the writing. I'm not following you here? king nebuchadnezzar is called "heylel" in isaiah, which is rendered "lucifer" in latin, since both seem to refer to the planet venus. it's possible that the name is an older mythological character. since it seems to be an astrological reference ("bringer of light", son of the dawn) it's likely a babylonian myth. so it's very possible that ezekiel was referencing a phoenician legend, and they just happen to share a myth of a place called eden. (there are similar myths around, no doubt)
Are you actually agreeing with me on this point? sort of. i agree that they might have common origins, and that the story is probably mocking fertility and snake cults, and that the serpent represents something that would in later traditions become satan -- but i don't agree that it IS satan, literally.
Yes, I've read most of them before actually. But it seems to me that it comes back to the idea of either Pharaoh hardening his heart or else the Lord hardening his heart. You think that God directly caused Pharaoh's heart to be hardened -- which basically means that God made Pharaoh sin against Pharaoh's own free will. I think that Pharoah's heart was indirectly hardened by his rejection of God's will -- which basically means that Pharaoh was in full control of his own will and was capable of choosing his own path. except for the bits about god saying "I will harden pharoah's heart." i mean, god pretty clearly indicates that he's in full control of the situation. this is a very, very similar to point the samuel/chronicles point i brought up earlier. one text has god provoking sin, and the later text has satan. had the author of chronicles written exodus, it might be satan hardening pharoah's heart, not god. at some point, the idea came about that it wouldn't be fair for god to provoke sin, or tempt men into it. they seem to have decided that god would only be capable of good, and would use his various agents (satan, etc) to induce evil. but earlier texts still represent a god who is capable of, in control of, and created both good and evil. as referenced by all of those verses. this is a pretty solidly scriptural position.
Which of these two situations above sounds more like what one would expect from a God who has given us the capacity to freely choose? granted, your point does. however, free will vs. god's omnipotence doesn't seem to be an issue in the text, does it? the pharoah example is probably the toughest in the bible for thise debate, but let's look at another one: the one we're talking about already. god makes a garden for adam. in it, he puts two trees, knowledge and life. he's not supposed to eat from knowledge. he gives adam a wife, for company. and he puts a snake in the garden to tempt eve in to tricking adam into eating from the forbidden tree. kind of a rigged game, isn't? especially with the human frailties god created man with. there are any number of ways eve could have gotten adam eat -- he might not have even known what he was doing. so adam thinks he's right when he challenges god, it's not his fault: "the woman YOU put here made me do it." adam is still punished. and pharoah is still punished. it seems that even though god is clearly manipulating every step of the game, people are still treated as if they had a choice. because they usually do. god didn't make pharoah decline the let moses go, did he? he just took away pharoah's compassion. which was something he lacked already.
In other words, the entire buttload of Scripture can be swept under the rug with a single statement: God has given man the free-will to make his own choices. as long as we're ok with striking several dozen chapter of the bible. but it does, at the very least, evidence that god can see evil, and knows evil. and if god can see and know evil, and also presumable sees and knows good... well that "unique one" would have to be god. otherwise, he wouldn't be unique. (besides, come to think of it, "unique one" sounds like a reference to god. it sounds like "most high" to me)
But that's not what it's saying. It's saying that our sins have inevitably resulted in God not hearing us. no no, read it again. you have it reversed. their sins have caused them to not hear god, and so god has forsaken them.
I have no doubt that God uses evil to bring about good. I've never disagreed with you on this point. For example, I think one passage of Scripture displays this quite remarkably as follows: NIV writes: As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life... However, if one is suggesting that God does evil in order to bring about good, then the Scriptures have something to say about that. yes, and i cited a rather large number of them. just look again:
quote:
Amo 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done [it]?
evil in the city, and the lord has done it. the lord has done evil. see?
Actually, "easy to see, the dark side is. if darkness mistaken for light, light hard to understand." As an example of this, please read the following simple message (most people perceive the seven characters and grasp an incomprehensible message which could be made to mean whatever they want it to mean). bad example. i'm an art major, and negative space happens to be my forte. i figured that one out the second time i saw it, at about age 8.
I've never said that God cannot see the people. I've said that God cannot see into their hearts. moving the goalposts a little here. but i'll play.
[quote]Jer 17:9 The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it? Jer 17:10 I the LORD search the heart, [I] try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, [and] according to the fruit of his doings.[/quote] who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? the lord know.
A very Catholic definition of evil is the "absence of God" -- and I'm using this analogy as a way in which God might perceive the world. and this definition, as i've shown, is erroneous. do i need to go through the rest of this? it's pretty clearly refuted by the scriptures i've already cited.
Likewise, the Babylonian Talmud (Bava Bathra 16a) states that the Evil Inclincation (Yetzer ha-Ra), the Angel of Death and Satan are identical. yes, one rabbi's opinion. the talmud is not the strongest source of definitive information. most of it's contradicted by something else: sometimes there's even debates.
In a midrash (Genesis Rabbah 19) Samael, the lord of the satans, was a mighty prince of angels in heaven. Satan came into the world with woman, that is, with Eve (Midrash Yalkut, Genesis 1:23), so that he was created and is not eternal. Like all celestial beings, he flies through the air (Genesis Rabbah 19), and can assume any form, as of a bird (Talmud, Sanhedrin 107a), a stag (ibid, 95a), a woman (ibid, 81a), a beggar, or a young man (Midrash Tanchuma, Wayera, end); he is said to skip (Talmud Pesachim 112b and Megilla. 11b), in allusion to his appearance in the form of a goat. If this is true, it doesn't seem outside the scope of the Talmud to conclude that the adversary could assume a serpentine form. strictly speaking, "satan" is a title, as i said. technically, "satan" can be anything that tests or attempts to mislead people -- even peter, the rock of the christian church.
Yes, but I'm fairly sure that Christ was rebuking Satan who was trying literally to enter into Peter and lead him astray in Luke 22:31... We also read in Luke 22:3... and luke is a much later recording of the things christ would have said. so even if his words are accurate (and they are fine according to the traditional jewish view jesus would have had, btw), luke is still retelling the story with a decidedly christian bias and interpretation. and they view satan a much different way than the jews do, and jesus probably would have.
One rabbi notes that Satan was an active agent in the fall of man (Midrash Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer 13, beginning), and was the father of Cain (ibid, 21), that would be adam. you can sort of see how he's being read into the places i said he would be: including the test of abraham's faith. and yet he's not in the bible there, is he? these are all later opinions on the mater, and more subject to having him in the stories.
Ultimately, if the references in Genesis which state,"You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life." are only a reference to a "literal" snake, then why do the Scriptural passages in Micah 7:16-17 use language very similar to this when talking about God's defeated enemies being totally humiliated as follows? It seems to me that this passage in Micah is clearly marking God's adversaries as being like snakes, trembling and crawling before him --licking the earth and crawling on the ground -- and shamefully stripped of their power as well. it's pretty clearly referencing genesis, isn't it? it's not using something that's part of the language from another source, it's using the genesis legend. just like the king of tyre is not REALLY a cherub, and nebuchadnezzar is not REALLY the planet venus. (come on, seriously).
As satan the accuser, he goes well beyond his original assignment of "testing" others to strengthen them -- and instead "tempts" others to sin in the sight of God. He does this with his forked toungue, his native tongue that is: ie., lying. I think in this regard he often uses half-truths to seditiously lead others astray a little bit at a time. Other times he just outright lies. liar = devil. just so we're keeping track. tempting and testing are really the same thing. tempting is testing men to break the laws of god. that's satan's job, and according the traditional interpretation (and the only way to rectify samuel and chronicles), he does this for god.
As lucifer the bearer of light, he then attempts to reveal their sin to them in order to cause shame, shame which he hopes will cause those that he's exposed to flee from God's presence. One might note that his light is actually more akin to a shadow, because he is actually occulting (or eclipsing) God's light. One might also note that he attempts to reveal this sin only to the individual so that he might have some bargaining power over them. lucifer, son of the dawn, is an astrological reference. it's the planet venus, and the ONLY time it appears in the bible it's talking about nebuchadnezzar. well, almost the only time. what's another name for the planet venus?
quote:
Rev 22:16 I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, [and] the bright and morning star.
jesus, apparently, is also lucifer. i'll leave you to figure that out, but the answer is suprisingly simple.
I'm not sure what else to say regarding the idea of the snake only being a snake. If, after reading what I've presented before you here, you still feel that the snake was only a snake, then you're welcome to that opinion. I don't see it that way though -- and I've clearly explained why. no, i think it may be metaphorical of something, but in the literal storyline, it's literally a snake.
At this point I'd rather discuss the nature of man's free-will in relation to the buttload of Scriptures that you quoted earlier -- because this is ultimately what it comes down to: does man even have a choice? Is it ok if we set aside the "satan" discussion to focus more on the idea of God doing "evil" in order to accomplish his will? I think it will inevitably led back to the whole concept of the serpent tempting Adam and Eve in the garden -- and the whole nature of evil for that matter. uh, sure, go ahead. but my stance will not change because of one very simple fact: god created the snake.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Message 198 of 302 (218107)
06-19-2005 6:00 PM
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Reply to: Message 196 by ramoss
06-19-2005 5:10 PM
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Re: Surely Die?
it might be the two ones that are relavent only if you are a biblical literalist, which the writers of Genesis most certainly were not. That is evident if you understand some of the Hebrew and the puns/political commentary that is imbeded into it. sure, i totally agree. but there is an element of literalness to the stories, and i think we need to get THAT reading correct first, and then move on to the funnier stuff.
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 196 by ramoss, posted 06-19-2005 5:10 PM | | ramoss has not replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Re: General reply for all to consider
No offense arachnophilia, but it's hard to understand exactly which position you're taking. On the one hand you're saying that it's highly plausible that the snake was symbolic of other things -- but then you turn around and insist that the snake is still a literal snake. is this hard to comprehend? "no passage loses its p'shat [simple meaning]." the literal meaning must always stand, and make sense. and literally, it's a snake. it might be symbolic of satan, or fertility or snake cults, but literally, it's a snake. not ha-satan, not cherub, not a fallen angel, not a demon or demi-god. it's still a snake. the symbolic does not override the literal.
That's because basically you don't want to follow it. You want to be able to insist on a literal reading of the Genesis text, something which many fundamentalist Christians do yes, because at the heart of it, there IS a literal story. unlike fundamentalist christians, i'm not asserting this stuff actually happened. i'm rather certain it did not. it's like reading swift's "gulliver's travels." to fully understand it, you do have to look at the metaphors, and themes, and where they came from in swift's context. you have to know what it's about to REALLY get the jokes. and yes, genesis is full of very, very similar jokes, it might even be viewed as a satire by some. but at the heart of "gulliver" is a story that still has to make sense if you read it as just a fantastic tale. so we can read it, and understand that the lilliputian court is a mockery of king george 1, without thinking that king george 1 actually did these things, or was six inches tall.
Don't get me wrong. Like you, I too started with the intial assumption that the snake in the garden was a reference to the devil based on what other people had said. However, unlike you, after having investigated this more thoroughly, I've basically come to agree with what the other people have already concluded -- that the snake is a reference to the devil (and this was achieved without recourse to the Christian revelation). a reference -- maybe. but not literally. what christian readers tend to do is mix up which bits are which. the symbolic gets entangled with the literal, and we end up with the devil eating dirt. and anyways, i'm not entirely convinced that satan, the devil, and the serpent were equated at the time of genesis's writing. these stories are older than final publication date, so integral parts of the story are likely to be very old. and satan is relatively young in judaism.
You seem to have been deeply inspired by the early Talmudic writings which concluded that the snake was a snake -- and that's fine if that's what you adhere too. However, if you're using this as a basis to conclude that this is the only validly possible interpretation, then I disagree. no, i'm using the assumption that genesis makes sense if you read it literally, to a child who has no understanding of theology. because it does. the talmud had very little to do with, actually, other than the fact that i had heard not everyone read "serpent" as "satan." but for genesis to make sense literally, the story is partly ad explanation about snakes.
I tend to think that it's pretty clear that the snake is more than a literal snake -- but rather was something in disguise that was originally assigned to protect, but instead deceived others and led them astray. no. there is no indication of that in the text. it may be symbolic of something else, but it is NOT something else. there is no aspect of disguise. the bible calls the serpent a "beast of the field." it's an animal, not a spirit. when god curses him, he is forced to do things snakes do. and he's called a snake. you're essentially asserting that i can call something by name, and describe it in depth, and still mean something else. which basically makes the bible out to be deceptive -- a devil -- itself. the bible is not misleading.
Yes, and the Genesis account is about someone designated by God to protect something turning against the thing he's supposed to protect, and God striking him down. oh really?
The serpent was in Eden to protect Eden. See? book, chaper, and verse, please? look, ezekiel describes a cherub designated to protect eden. genesis describes a snake to tricks some newborns. when the snake is punished, then genesis describes some cherubim designated to protect eden. you're looking for something that IS there, but in the wrong place. there's nothing about the serpent protecting eden. he's an animal, the smartest animal in eden. he leads adam and eve astray. he's not an angel, a seraph, or a cherub. he's a snake. if it had meant "cherub" it would have said "cherub" like it does a few verses later. i'm sorry, you can't just change what's there in black and white to suit your needs. and simplest conclusion is that ezekiel is talking about the cherubs that genesis actually describes, not the one it calls something else.
Yes, except the people who Micah is describing in these passages are not snakes either, but it doesn't stop Micah from drawing an analogy: yes. let's look at the important word in this sentance: analogy. micah is comparing the people to the serpent in garden. it's really that simple.
Furthermore, if this is indeed referencing back to the incident in the garden, then it is also indicating that the serpent was not simply doing his job -- rather it indicates that the serpent did something worthy of shame, punishment, and the deprivation of his power. which would indicate that he's NOT satan, in the traditional jewish sense. but we didn't need micah to draw that conclusion -- the snake is punished in genesis. so either god punishes things for the way he made them, or the snake is not satan, or satan was not created by god (so god didn't create everything). i'm fine with either of the last two, but most christians essentially assert that god punishes people for their nature, the very way god himself made them. which i do not feel is the case.
So now you're saying that the reference to Eden in Ezekial may not be a reference to Eden in Genesis, but rather a reference to Eden from another Phonecian culture which apparently had nothing to do with the Genesis accoun i said it was a possibility. cultures in the area tended to share a lot of the same mythology. for instance, the ugarits had a lot of characters from hebrew mythos in their religion, including el, yahweh, leviathan (lothan), etc. in fact, i'll go out on a limb here for a second, and assert that it's very probable that the phoenicians did have an eden myth: this was a taunt against the king of tyre. doing so in a mythology unfamiliar to him wouldn't have been very effective. for instance, if i were to taunt you, and called you apasmara, and told you that i am dancing on your back, would you have the slightest clue what i mean? (without google, i mean)
even though it bears some amazing similarities to the idea of the serpent being punished for reasons similar to Nebuchadnezzar yeah try again. it bears amazingly similarity to the cherubim that genesis actually talks about protecting eden. the only similarity is that both are punished. want me to find a few thousand bible verses about things being punished? heck, i can even find you another serpent being punished.
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Isa 27:1 In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that [is] in the sea.
see? god punishes lots of things. the aspect of the serpent protecting eden is something you're reading into it. it's not there. but there is something else in the story that protects eden. and, suprise, it's cherubim. what are the chances, do you think, that ezekiel is talking about those cherubim?
even though the serpent is punished in almost the same exact way that Micah describes the nations that rebel against God being punished? you're really good at getting things backwards, aren't you? the nations micah describes are punished in a way similar to the serpent. it doesn't make them serpents, or the word "serpent" debatable. it's a metaphor.
Besides your insistence that the snake is literally a snake, what exactly are you saying here? that the bible is actually a pretty easy, uncomplicated read. and this infusion of external ideas, theologies, and ad-hoc mental gymnastics doesn't really help it. it just confuses the stories, so they can mean whatever people want them to.
Before I go any further, do you actually personally believe in a literal satan? Just curious. not totally sure. i believe that there are temptations and tests, things that hold the office of satan, if not the name. but i think that these are essentially from god, neccessary to human growth, and that he only gives us what we can handle. as for the demon bit, i think i mentioned before that i do not believe in demons.
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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Message 207 of 302 (218140)
06-19-2005 10:14 PM
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Reply to: Message 175 by riVeRraT
06-17-2005 6:19 PM
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Re: Dead Spirits
This is funny. I really can't believe you guys interpret the story this way. So, lets see, God was a liar, Eve was a liar, but the devil was telling the truth. let's look at adam's statement, when god asks him to explain himself. "the woman you put here made me do it." is adam lying? no, he's not. he's telling the truth. the woman god put there really did make him do it. in fact, it's quite probable that he had no idea what he was doing. you have to be stupid to accuse god of your own sins. eve was tricked. but she was tricked with the truth. we are to follow god, even if his words sound like lies, and the things someone else says sound like the truth. god knows what's best for us, but he doesn't always tell us everything. so god may have told an untruth, or he may have exagerated punishment. if he did, it he did it for a reason, and that reason we are not to question. i'm just merely pointing out that god's words were not the strictest sense of truth in the story, nor did he follow through on his word. but it's also possible he didn't follow through out of compassion. which doesn't make him a liar, it makes him a loving and forgiving god. and i, personally, like that option.
Our souls are born first, then our spirits. and these are different how? the closest in the torah to a spirit, or soul, is the breath of god in life. all life is described as breath. that breath is not of us, but of god. it's not -our- soul.
Yes, they are completely adorable. Their innocents is a blessing. I have 5 kids, and it was my first one they made me start to look for God. 13 years later I think I found God. But there is no more a spirit, than them knowing how to say mama, or daddy. i'm pretty certain my cats have souls/spirits. that breath of life, conciousness, is not something adam and eve developed, or even stole with the tree, it's something they had before, when god made them. and it's something i think we all have.
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| This message is a reply to: | | | Message 175 by riVeRraT, posted 06-17-2005 6:19 PM | | riVeRraT has replied |
| Replies to this message: | | | Message 211 by riVeRraT, posted 06-20-2005 8:25 AM | | arachnophilia has replied |
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1374 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: 05-21-2004
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let's just change what the bible says.
I never said he wasn't in control of it. I said that he wasn't directly doing it. I think that that God employs good to corral evil into certain predetermined paths. In others words, in my opinion, while God is not directly causing it to happen, it seems more appropriate to say that he is restraining it so that it doesn't get out of control -- or, when it does get out of control, he redirects it so as to do the least possible damage possible. what about the examples where it's used for good? for example, any evil in the bible could be taken as a lesson. and what about the examples were it talks about god creating and sending evil?
Yes, but I don't think it's just as simple as saying it's unfair. It seems more likely to me that many concluded that a God who is all-good would never employ these methods directly. one group, later on, did. yes. but the stance of other biblical authors (including the ones who wrote genesis) is that god is fully capable and understanding of evil.
Instead, whenever there is a passage that implies that both God and satan (or man in the case of Pharaoh) are doing the exact same thing, people tend to read this as representing a tremendous struggle of wills between good and evil. both actions are provoking sin. the same sin. there is no struggle here.
If this is correct, then we see that David may have been indeed inspired by God's anger to take a census for whatever reason, but that David was also moved by satan to abuse the census that God ordered him to partake in. In addition to this, God's initial anger may have even been the result of the temptation that David was undergoing in the first place. look again:
Joab did not include Levi and Benjamin in the numbering david's sin is not joab's. joab's practive might have been wrong, but david's sin is the census itself. that's why they changed it. notice in the very passage it says the bit about joab not counting certain groups? why didn't he?
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because the king's command was repulsive to him. This command was also evil in the sight of God; so he punished Israel.
david is not being punished for missing some people, or including the wrong people. he's being punished for trying to test god's promise of not being able to number israel.
Well...I disagree with God creating evil and being capable of evil then you disagree with the bible.
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Isa 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these [things].
Solid scriptural position or not, do you honeslty think this is how God operates? yes. it has to be. who else created evil? or if you want to define evil as "absence of god" or "... of good" who stepped back his presence? god created evil, and he did it for a reason. he did it because without evil, we don't have a meaningful choice. and without evil, he can't test our faith.
Like I said before, which of these two situations above sounds more like what one would expect from a God who has given us the capacity to freely choose? ibid.
Well...God may have made the garden for himself -- but allowed Adam to be a steward. the indication of the text is that garden was for adam. god makes adam, then a place for him to live, puts him there, and gives him something to do: name and care for other creations.
Well..there's a few more trees than these two -- but these two seem to be the important ones. well, yes. there had to have been more than two tress. actually, god indicates there's more than two.
True, but he calls it both good and evil. The tree still probably had a good purpose for man, but only after they were mature enough to eat from the tree of life. yes, but god told adam no. it might be "not yet," which i too think is the case. but it was still "no. you eat, you die."
Uh...well...no. I think God places a cherub in the garden to protect Adam and Eve in Eden when God is away. I think the cherub then desires Eve and tries to get close to her by assuming the form of a snake book, chapter, verse?
(and it's not a normal literalsnake, unless you're suggesting that snakes literally talk). why don't snakes talk, do you think? according to genesis, for a second. divorce this notion of reality too. if snakes talked before, and they don't now, why not?
The cherub realizes that he won't be able to get to Eve without Adam being nearby, so he includes Adam in his scheme to get closer to Eve. ok, now we're into the realm of "making stuff up as we go along." as far as i know, this isn't even in any apocryphal books. or paradise lost, for that matter. the indication (and the way everyone else here reads it) is that the serpent used eve to get to adam. not vice-versa.
Yes, but this all assumes that your previous assumptions are correct. I don't think they are. alright, assume my assumptions are wrong. who got adam to eat?
Yes, because God saw that it was not good for Adam to be alone. Despite opinions to the contrary, woman is the final crowning glory of God's creation. sure. like i said, for company.
Adam is not punished by being driven out of the garden. Adam is protected by being driven out of the garden. have you really not read the story? god curses adam, eve, and the serpent. those three bits in verse, those are curses. i would call working the ground until you return to it a curse after living in a garden where food grows on trees. and eve's? pain and suffer, and a dominating husband. you think these are protections?
Pharaoh, on the other hand, is utterly decimated for challenging God. pharoah is also not god's firstborn, is he?
Or perhaps you're clearly manipulating every step of the translation process so as to conclude that Adam and Eve didn't have a choice. you're the one reading it completely backwards here, making stuff up, and forcing your interpretations into places they don't fit. your thoughts are pretty clearly contradicted by the bible. all i'm arguing for is the simplest reading. when we get that right, we'll move on to what it means. but first we have to established what happens in the story. and you're not doing so good here.
Or maybe they are depicted as having a choice because they had a choice. yes, and my point is that adam's excuse of "eve made me do it" and eve's excuse of "the serpent made me do it" are invalid. they sinned, and it's their fault. even if god set the game against them. even if god lied. their choices are still their choices. and that's what god grades on.
Yes, that's exactly what God was trying to do -- allow Pharaoh and his kingdom to become so full of pain and suffering (which is less then what Pharaoh and Egypt were doing to the Hebrews) that any sane person would have let them go in round one. But nooooooooooooooooooo... Pharaoh had to make things difficult because his pride and vanity wouldn't allow him to give up the Israelites. In the Egyptian scheme of things, Pharaoh was the son of a divinity. To let the Israelites go would mean him having to admit that he wasn't a god -- certainly not a Supreme God -- or at least a weaker god than the Israelites' God. you're missing it. and it's the answer to your question. god manipulated pharoah. he messed with his emotions. but even thought god set the game against him, pharoah still could have said "just go." if pharoah did not have that choice, then god is unjust in his punishments. (and yes. the punishments did outweigh egypt's treatment of the israelites. pharoah couldn't conjure plagues, darkness, or kill every firstborn)
I think by now most people grasp that this isn't just a snake. stating you've won your case doesn't make it so. you haven't. the story very clearly explains the literal qualities of snakes, and uses the word "cherub" elsewhere in a literal sense. genesis is not told from adam's perspective, it's third-person. if it was a cherub in disguise, it could have easily said that, like it does elsewhere -- genesis 19 for example has two angels in disguise. and it makes that fact very clear.
I also think that most people by now grasp that the cherub in the garden (who fell and became satan) was actually the snake, and that the cherub was created good before he choose to become evil. and you've based this on what, exactly? you haven't shown any reason anyone should read that in the story. it's simply not there. wanna take a poll?
Whenever there is a passage that implies that both God and satan (or man in the case of Pharaoh) are doing the exact same thing, people tend to read this as representing a tremendous struggle of wills between good and evil. not when they're doing the same thing. if man does something, and then god does the same thing, they're obviously... doing the same thing.
But see, I'm not trying to change your stance arachnophilia. I'm just making sure an alternative explanation is presented so that others that read through this thread won't read your thoughts unchallenged. i don't call this a challenge. most of the explanation you presented is just complete ad-hoc fantasy. there's nothing in the text to suggest it, and A LOT to refute it. so it's a safe bet that that alternative explanation is wrong. my interpretation may not be THE right one. there may not BE a right one. but there are wrong ones. i could read "frankenstein" to about the glories of genetic engineering, for instance. but i'd be wrong: it's a cautionary tale.
fair emotionally detached presentation don't post here much, do you? lol. i can't remember the last emotionally detached debate. but honestly, it doesn't keep me up at nights.
Clearly, we've already made up our own minds. It's others who may be in doubt that I'm concerned about. seriously, wanna take a poll?
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