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Author Topic:   How Literal is Genesis
pbee
Member (Idle past 6027 days)
Posts: 339
Joined: 06-20-2007


Message 46 of 47 (413761)
08-01-2007 9:45 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Pete OS
04-27-2007 9:23 PM


quote:
Was Adam ever a real person? If he did exist, how many others were alive at the same time? Did someone named Cain ever kill someone named Abel? Was Adam the first man with a soul? Did all his contemporaries have souls? Was there a fall? Is the entire story just made up?
While the Genesis account of Adam and Eve does come across as simple. It does convey that God created Adam out of the elements of the earth and then proceeded “to blow into his nostrils the breath of life.” Later, with a part of man’s body as a basis, a woman was created, whom the man could appropriately describe as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh.
Now, if something adheres to facts it need not be complicated to be true. And many scientists admit that the Genesis claim that all humans had a single source, not several, seems indeed factual.
Of course not everyone will accept the Genesis account. A bible commentary written several years had also proposed alternate views to the Genesis account saying; “Whether the first human appeared at the end of a certain evolutionary process or was just one or a group, Genesis gives no definite answer.” Additionally, likewise some believe that Adam and Eve might be symbols for primordial mankind rather than the first human beings.
For the sake of argument, let us say that Adam and Eve were not real persons. How, then, would Bible references to them be understood? A rejection of the Adam-and-Eve account in Genesis starts a chain reaction that ends up in almost total rejection of everything the Bible teaches. But rejecting the Bible leaves us with some rather puzzling issues though.
Let us look at the case of badness and suffering for example. - The Genesis account states that Adam and Eve were given a commission. "To populate and cultivate the earth and to lovingly care for all things on it." Along with this, they were presented with a divine rule. "To remain in subjection to God." Obedience to His instructions would of been absolutely necessary for Adam and Eve to maintain perfect harmony with the order of things.
But Adam and Eve chose to do things their own way, ignoring God and his instructions. The resulted of there disobedience was death through sin, and thus death spread to all of there offspring because they were products of the first pair.” So, according to the Bible, the basic reason why people do bad things is through the inherited sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve.
Now, assuming that we do not accept the Bible account of Adam and Eve as factual, how then can we explain why people, despite the fact that they all want peace and happiness, continue to do bad things?
Why do we get sick and die? why God permits wickedness? Is there hope for the future? - The Genesis account provides us with a great wealth of information regarding the greater questions. And to this I say, it definately an account worthy of it's claims.
Edited by pbee, : typos and formatting.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Pete OS, posted 04-27-2007 9:23 PM Pete OS has not replied

  
macaroniandcheese 
Suspended Member (Idle past 3927 days)
Posts: 4258
Joined: 05-24-2004


Message 47 of 47 (413778)
08-01-2007 11:20 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Pete OS
04-27-2007 9:23 PM


I am finding myself struggling with Genesis.
i struggled with it for the other thread. join me over there if you like, no one else has
Was Adam ever a real person? If he did exist, how many others were alive at the same time? Did someone named Cain ever kill someone named Abel? Was Adam the first man with a soul? Did all his contemporaries have souls? Was there a fall? Is the entire story just made up?
i have no idea. but i don't think it matters. maybe that's just me. i've been a christian since before i can remember. i know my god and this book is not my god.
[qs]Was Noah a real person? If the flood was only local, did it kill off all of mankind? qs
noah may have been based on a real person. if it was local, it probably killed off a LOT of people, but there were loads of people living all over the place at that time and their cultures have survived.
[qs](and from a science perspective: do we have evidence that it is impossible that the whole human race hit an 8 person bottle neck just 5k years ago or so).
there is some evidence (mitochondrial) that only a very small group of women provided the source of the whole of humanity. this doesn't mean that there were necessarily so few women, but that the other women's children didn't survive.
Was Abraham a real person?
i have my doubts. maybe he was a chief early in hebrew history, but didn't necessarily do what they say he did. that's the thing. these stories may be based on real people, but it doesn't necessarily mean that those people did the things attributed to them.
If the first 11 chapters or so are entirely mythical, when does Genesis start becoming historical?
i don't think it does.
Did people really live into their 800s?
i'm willing to say that's impossible. there just aren't enough telomeres.
If not, why is this written into Genesis?
why do we think that Pecos Bill lassooed a tornado? because it made for a good story and because people passed it on for untold centuries before it was written down.
Is that part of the myth, or some translation mistake? (I know Dr. Meyers at Institute of Bible and Science suggests that the Hebrew is a translation of a mistranslation of another language where one little jot or tittle changes the number by a factor of ten, and if you decrease by a factor of ten you have very realistic ages for childbearing and death. I am not yet comfortable with this explanation though.
that sounds like an interesting theory, but i really doubt it.
I have absolutely no philosophical hang-ups to the reality of evolution. If God wanted to evolve me from slime, so be it. He can do whatever He pleases.
it's kind of nice to worship a truly all-powerful god, isn't it?
But I do have hang-ups to declaring parts of the Bible “aren't true”, or are myths.
i guess it depends on what role you think the bible has to play. when we suggest that the bible is full of myths, we aren't suggesting that god purposely lied to us, we're suggesting that a people's tribal history is just the same as every other tribal history... full of stories that have gotten compounded and confused and mixed up.
I have problems not believing Adam was a real person given his role in Romans 5.
Rom 5:1 Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
Rom 5:2 through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand; and we exult in hope of the glory of God.
Rom 5:3 And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
Rom 5:4 and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope;
Rom 5:5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
the old testament, whatever it is worth, is full of stories of men and women who won out against unbelievable odds because they trusted god to carry them through it and he provided them with what they needed. why does a man set into a trap of self-interest make this real? why is david crying out from a cave for protection and dancing in his underwear for joy at the wonderful god that he has diminished if some guy whose kids had sex with each other never existed?
the job of adam is to explain why we're screwed up. if people have always been screwed up, does that make us any less screwed up? if paul was wrong, does that make jesus and his unending compassion (which paul doesn't demonstrate) less amazing? hell. even if jesus never existed, his story demonstrates the desire of god to reach out to us. in genesis 2 or 3 or wherever when adam hid in the trees, it demonstrates that the reason we have issues with god is because we feel dirty and guilty and separate ourselves from him. the jesus story exists to tell us that god wants to be close to us and he's willing to do anything to find us, and we have to let go of our guilt and stop running away. it doesn't matter if the stories are true. all that matters is that we learn to live without worrying and just trust.
**
lol. this is an old topic and i didn't even notice.
Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Pete OS, posted 04-27-2007 9:23 PM Pete OS has not replied

  
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