It is interesting when you get into the arguments and theories concerning the meaning of the OT and of who wrote Genesis, why they wrote it, and to whom it was written. Wycliffes Bible Commentary says this about Genesis:
The discovery in modern times of such ancient records as the Amarna Letters, the Ugaritic (or Ras Shamra) literature, and the clay tablets from Mesopotamia (Mari and Nuzu), has enabled scholars to reconstruct the historical and cultural background of the Biblical record, and to discover what life was like in Egypt, Palestine, and Mesopotamia during the Biblical epoch. Very likely many oral and written records, reaching far back into antiquity, were available to the distinguished Hebrew scholar, whose Egyptian schooling and whose graduate study in the region of Mount Sinai made him aware of significant world movements. According to Jewish tradition, when the great scribe Ezra came back from Babylonia to Jerusalem, bringing the Hebrew manuscripts of the Old Testament, he set to work with prodigious energy preserving, copying, and editing the old materials in his possession.(from The Wycliffe Bible Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1962 by Moody Press)
From a Dispensationalist perspective, Judaism began with the giving of the Law in Exodus. Thus, Genesis was recorded by Jews who had just incorporated their existance as Jews in relationship to Yahweh. Notice the people that were building the ziggurat in Mesopotamia:
NIV writes:
Gen 11:1-9 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there. They said to each other, "Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly." They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth."
But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel--because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world.
Well, we know Mesopotamia from studies to be a culture of pessimistic, brooding, often conquered people. When this part of Genesis was written, it was written as from the perspective of one who was there. Of course the world around this individual had a common language, until more and more nomads passing through were drawn to this building project and the languages became muddled. Interesting from a perspective of how cultures relate to each other. Languages are different for the same reason that teenagers have a slang all their own....they want to make themselves a seperate identity from that of their parental culture around them. Ok, Rrhain, getting back on topic, if we assume that this OT God is actually real, which of course I do, we must look into the context of the verses which you quoted.
NIV writes:
Isa 45:1"This is what the LORD says to his anointed,(...)Isa 45:7- I form the light and create darkness,I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things.
Was the author God or man? Certainly, a man wrote this. So was he inspired? This brings up issue #1:
Is the issue black and white? Are humans either inspired supernaturally by a preeminant and Monotheistic Holy Spirit...or not?
Many who argue against this supposition claim that human inspiration is very much a relative concept. Perhaps this claim could be reinforced by Genesis 1:11 since languages were increasingly diversified, perhaps cultures and groups of civilized people were distancing themselves one from another and, fittingly, showing different forms of inspiration. This brings up issue#2:
Are we to believe that Biblical Israel was inspired by a unique source of inspiration apart from their own relative culture?
Well, we know what the Bible says about this. The author of Isaiah seems to believe in the same God that the author(s) of Job believed in. Job talks of God talking to Satan, allowing Satan to mess up Jobs life. Notice how the author is careful to explain that it was not Gods fault.
NIV writes:
Job 1:20-2:1At this,(the destruction of his property and death of his kids) Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said:
"Naked I came from my mother's womb,
and naked I will depart.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised."
In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
Are the authors of these verses inspired by God or not?
Now on to Ezekiel 20:25 The author is transcribing how God is relating to His people, Israel.
Job was a blameless man who suffered what one witness said was the fire of God from above, while the author points out that God allowed Satan to wreak destruction.
In Exekiel, the destruction occurred because the people were trying to worship whatever they wanted to worship and party it up rather than relate to God.
NIV writes:
Ezek 20:20-26 Keep my Sabbaths holy, that they may be a sign between us. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.But the children rebelled against me: They did not follow my decrees, they were not careful to keep my laws-although the man who obeys them will live by them-and they desecrated my Sabbaths. So I said I would pour out my wrath on them and spend my anger against them in the desert. But I withheld my hand, and for the sake of my name I did what would keep it from being profaned in the eyes of the nations in whose sight I had brought them out. Also with uplifted hand I swore to them in the desert that I would disperse them among the nations and scatter them through the countries, because they had not obeyed my laws but had rejected my decrees and desecrated my Sabbaths, and their eyes [lusted] after their fathers' idols. I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts-the sacrifice of every firstborn-that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD.'
This brings us back to square one. Is the human author making up a God so as to control the people with fear? Some would suggest this, while others would stick to the premise that the author was inspired to write what was written for altruistic motives.
Is the inspiration of writing a relative concept? Is inspiration a spiritual reality? Is Spirit absolute, or relative?
Some believe that God is invented by man as a product of our imaginations, be the motive altruistic or be it manipulative. Others believe that God is, Himself, the source of inspiration and that basically reality is either His way or our own way.
Back to square one, is reality defined as In the Beginning, God created or is it defined as In the beginning, man wrote...?
Were the authors inspired by a source apart from their own imaginations?
This message has been edited by Phatboy, 08-09-2004 11:02 AM
First of all, none of us can comprehend what the lack of such knowledge would feel like. We DO know from the commandments that God wants our undivided attention.
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