Creation

Just for the record since nobody else will point it out:First you accused me of making ___up and adding to the Bible, then when I proved what I said really is in the Bible, instead of admitting you were wrong you switched to accusing the Bible itself, Paul its writer, of making ___up. And for some reason time and time again you get away with your anti-Christian assertions.

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Yes, "from Adam to Moses." I emphasized Adam, obviously, because you denied that it was his sin that was the origin of death. Moses is in the passage because Paul is talking about how sin -- and death its result -- reigned even before the Law was given to Moses. But I suppose you like to sling accusations because, even if they are lies, if nobody opposes them somebody will believe them.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

And I pointed out that no honest reader of the Bible can provide any support for what Paul claimed.Paul (or the author of Romans) is a classic example of apologists simply making shit up which is the actual point we were discussing.In the creation myth found in Genesis 2 & 3 is there or is there not a Tree of Life and a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil?If there is a Tree of Life (that the god character feared Adam and Eve would eat from) then Death already existed.It really is that simple.Death may have entered through the acts of one person but that person would be the God character.

The New Testament interprets the Old Testament, that's what Christians have understood from the beginning. Paul was one of those appointed by God to teach us the meaning of the Old Testament. Your reading is false and irrelevant.

As usual you've got it all twisted. The Tree of Life was available to Adam and Eve UNTIL they sinned and brought death into the world. If they ate of it AFTER the Fall they would never have been able to be saved, they would have been immortally evil like the devil. THAT is why God took it away from them. It will be restored to those who are saved through the Messiah He promised to send, who has now arrived.

Except, of course, the Bible itself says you are just making shit up.The Tree of Life existed only because death also existed. If death did not exist then creating a Tree of Life was just stupid.So death exited, it did not come into the world because of anything Adam did.Paul, like you, was just making shit up.There was no Fall. The Bible itself says you are just making shit up.Adam & Eve did not get run out of the Garden of Eden because they were evil, in fact they got run out of the Garden of Eden for becoming more like God and the God character being afraid they would also become immortal. I know you are simply parroting the Part Line but unfortunately reality says you are simply wrong.That is the issue with both of the Creation Myths. Not only do they contradict each other (which is why folk have been trying to find any possible way to make them align and always fail) but they are also both simply wrong about the actual order of creation period.As an honest devout Christian I simply have to acknowledge the fact that the two stories are mutually exclusive, that neither of them are factually correct or even anywhere near factually correct, that even the God character in the stories are described as two entirely different personalities and that they are simply the result of ignorant authors.

It's figurative. There was never a time when living things didn't die. There was never a time when there were only two humans.

Reading the stories as consecutive seems a bit of a strain, but if you're committed to the Bible being literal and accurate that comes with the territory.The idea of humans before Adam is hardly new, and has a somewhat mixed history.
( e.g. Pre-Adamite )As far as resolving the conflict between evolution and creationism, even if you take an old Earth view and assume that evolution is the primary means of creation there is a lot more to do. The order of creation in the seven-day account is hardly in line with scientific conclusions. And the implicit geocentrism would seem to be a problem.

Perhaps the actual text from Genesis 3:22-24, KJV would stop some of the Creationism (i.e. "testa-lying") in telling the story. Not that you are doing that... And not that this point has not been covered in many past discussion.

quote:

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And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

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Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

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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

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So apparently, the Tree of Life could make Adam immortal even after the Tree of Knowledge incident. That was the impetus for God driving Adam out of the garden. At least that is what Genesis quoted God as saying.Yet there was no apparent restriction on Adam from eating from the Tree of Life prior to disobeying God. One might conclude a few things1) Immortality ended with the placing of the angel with the flaming sword.
2) The serpent deceived Eve with something very close to the truth.
3) The idea that eating of the Tree of Life after Adam sinned would have been fatal is completely non-Biblical.
4) Discussion elsewhere regarding death entering the world with this incident can be reconciled with the text only through the use of metaphoric speaking.Almost certainly that latter point describes how Paul spoke, and his contemporaries, who most likely were not prone to interpreting Genesis literally would well have understood. Historically we know that the Rabbinic Tradition of literal translation is from a period hundreds of years after Paul lived. I know it is popular to ignore the fact that Paul and Jesus were Jewish, but such ignorance is simply not reasonable.

Absolutely. Jesus was certainly never a Christian. Paul was most likely still a Jew but a proselytizing Jew, one who believed that people could become a Jew by choice as well as birth. Paul, and Paul's writings, show an evolution of a faith; an acknowledgement of his early conversion (and likely pretty common set of beliefs among the early followers) beliefs were simply wrong and so a changing set of writings over time.But the fact as written in the story show that the author of Genesis 2 & 3 understood that death existed before Adam and Eve. Also Paul often used known stories as a base for creating a broader narrative.The editors and redactors and Committee of Canon are also essential to the broader narrative.Why did they include two mutually exclusive and contradictory creation tales and why put the much younger creation tale before the much older creation tale?I believe those are actually valid and important questions.At the time of Jesus the order and acceptance of the Torah was fairly well established BUT there really is a major division on how the works were seen.At the time of Jesus the Torah (including the oral tradition and the interpretations) were understood as describing a way of life of a Peoples. The stories were seen in a far different light than what modern Christianity portrays; they were seen as folk tales, as stories meant to show the origin of different groups, tribes, nations; stories that outlined behavior and community, as legislature, as tribal genealogy, as markers of identification and separation from other societies.Within that context the creation stories and their ordering begin to make sense.The first creation myth (which is far later and more mature than the earlier tale) involves what really separated the Jews from the rest of society, the Sacred Week of six work days and then a Sabbath, a Holy Day. But it also describes a far more mature vision of God, and all powerful overarching God, something supremely competent that creates simply by an act of will without hesitation. But that God is also aloof, separate from the Creation and has no direct contact with what has been created.The much, much, much older tale found in Genesis 2 & 3 also works on multiple levels. It is a classic "Just So" story that hearkens back to a Hunter Gatherer life style and explains some of the things that set humans apart from all the other animals. It explains why we fear snakes, why childbirth seems more painful for humans than the other animals, why we don't live forever, why we farm instead of just eat what grows naturally, why we have a society based on laws and rules and importantly, why men take precedence over women. But the story also shows a different God, and earlier more primitive God; one that has human characteristics, is friendly, often unsure, learning by doing, sometimes fearful but also approachable, caring, but also powerful and controlling an army.By including both stories the order begins with the single most important factor, the Sacred Week and then goes on to begin the narrative about the creation of the Hebrews and also begins with the picture of an overarching God and then allows the story to show that God evolving along side the People.It is only the Fundamental Christian need to make the stories "God Breathed" and to pretend they are a single narrative instead of an anthology of anthologies that requires the machinations of the legion a apologists.Paul is marketing a new religion that he and a few others are creating. Neither Christianity as it has evolved or the Rabbinic Literal Tradition would be anything likely to be recognizable to either Jesus or Paul.

Men and woman in chapter 1 ("daughters of men") were created prior to Adam and Eve ("sons of God")in Chapter 2. Men and women in Chapter 1, I speculate, we created by God are part of the normal evolution process, just like all the other creation in Chapter 1

In Chapter 1 men and women were created, it Chapter 2 Adam and Eve were created, this is not a great stretch and I believe a logical conclusion if you simply reading Genesis as if for the first time. There is actually scientific data published in reliable sources that align with this theory. 1. Nature (Callaway, Ewen, Genetic Adam and Eve did not live too far apart in time, Nature, 6Aug13) 2. (Mozambican Grass Seed Consumption During the Middle Stone Age, Science, 18Dec 2009).
More detail in the book, if you contact me you I will send the manuscript or you can get online.

So you apparently agree with others here that Paul was lying when he said in the Romans passage I quoted in Message 280 and Message 283 that death entered the world as a result of Adam's sin?Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Referencing Romans 5:12 and even 1 Cor 15:45 are valid and good points. What I am proposing does not contradict that we are all descended from Adam and Eve, as "Noah was perfect in his generations" meaning he was a direct descendent of Adam and Eve.Through Adam's sin we are all "from a corruptible seed" (1Cor15) and are subject to sin and death. Through Christ's death and resurrection we can receive eternal life just through faith in Him.What Paul is describing in Romans 5:12 is Spiritual Death and Spiritual Life. Adam did not die when he ate the fruit, he experienced spiritual death or separation from God. This is more clear through the references below:"that even as the sin did reign in the death, so also the grace may reign, through righteousness, to life age-during, through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 5:21)John 11:25-26 (YLT)25 Jesus said to her, `I am the rising again, and the life; he who is believing in me, even if he may die, shall live;
26 and every one who is living and believing in me shall not die -- to the age; - similarly to Paul regarding this subject, Jesus is describing spiritual life and death.