Did The Writers of Genesis Goof in Story of Adam & Eve? (Holy Spirit, quote)
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Your assessment of the Genesis writer(s) was quite correct. It was written centuries beyond any "Eden," or even beyond Moses as a way of explaining how people "suddenly" appeared on earth. Unfortunately, the apple had not hit Darwin (or Moses) on the head at that point. Oops, that was Newton! Just shows how true and/or mythical stories can be merged and mixed with completely different stories to reach improper conclusions about how things came about. The four authors (minimum) of Genesis did a lot of that.
How do you know this? What makes you believe that you have it figured out?
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I am a Christian (fairly liberal one), and I have appreciation for several of the agnostics/atheists that choose to keep their hands on the table before reaching across to slap us!. Choosing to be rude and superior is something we Christians prefer to maintain as a sole (soul) practice!
But a few of us delusionals believe some of you would make quite good Christians.
Please note I kept my hands on the table. But you made a fair and balanced post.
If you claim to be a Christian but don't believe in a literal Adam....was Jesus lying when he referred to Adam and Eve in Mark 10? Do you even believe Jesus existed?
How do you know this? What makes you believe that you have it figured out?
I didn't figure it out. A lot of people who have studied the Bible a lot more critically than me did so about a century ago. Some of the material used to write the Pentateuch probably came from oral traditions handed down from Moses.
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This view believes that the Pentateuch represents the conflation of four different sources rather than the work of primarily one author, traditionally Moses. The results of Source Criticism first proposed two authors (or sources) for the Pentateuch supposedly distinguishable by the use of the terms Yahweh and Elohim. Two additional sources were later proposed as P for Priestly, and D for Deuteronomic resulting in the JEDP theory of authorship, most notably associated with German scholar Julius Wellhausen (1844-1918).
JEDP are initials representing the four hypothetical sources as follows:
Jawist (or Yahwist, from Yahweh) - describes God as Yahweh, starting in Gen 2:4, it includes much of Genesis and parts of Exodus and Numbers. It is dated around 850 B.C.
Elohist (from Elohim) - primarily describes God as El or Elohim. Starting with Gen 15, it covers material similar to "J". It is dated around 750 B.C. (J and E are said to be difficult to distinguish).
Deuteronomy - a different source (or author) is associated with Deuteronomy alone, and is usually dated around 621 B.C.
Priestly - this encompasses writings scattered from Gen 1 through the notice of Moses' death at the end of Deuteronomy. It is supposedly dated around 500 B.C.
If you claim to be a Christian but don't believe in a literal Adam....was Jesus lying when he referred to Adam and Eve in Mark 10? Do you even believe Jesus existed?
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Jesus was a man, and as a man His knowledge was somewhat limited to what people knew in His day and age. If His knowledge was unlimited in this world, then He could hardly be called "fully" man--He would be a supernatural man. His divinity was spiritual, not as a human. So as a limited man, He spoke in terms of what the people around Him knew.
I believe He exists---within the heart of every believer and within the hearts of those who will. Even preachers!
I don't think that the Genesis writers goofed, I think that a lot of people have subsequently goofed when interpreting what was actually a really fine allegory for the passage of creatures from the status of animals to humans.
They nailed the prime human dilemma perfectly...the price of consciousness and all the marvelous things which that provides, is awareness of our mortality.
Adam and Eve are ignorant but perfectly happy...then they eat from the tree of knowledge and learn how to be unhappy. The tree of knowledge represents consciousness, Eden represented the blissful age before consciousness introduced its torments and angst. And there was no turning back, the pair are expelled from the Garden because they cannot unlearn what they have learned, they cannot stop being conscious and revert to animal like state of no awareness.
A clever story.....followed by centuries of foolish literal interpretations.
Nicely recapped and eminently sensible - except to fundamentalists of course.
I didn't figure it out. A lot of people who have studied the Bible a lot more critically than me did so about a century ago. Some of the material used to write the Pentateuch probably came from oral traditions handed down from Moses. http://www.theopedia.com/JEDP_theory
Why do you choose to believe these particular theologians/scholars?
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Jesus was a man, and as a man His knowledge was somewhat limited to what people knew in His day and age. If His knowledge was unlimited in this world, then He could hardly be called "fully" man--He would be a supernatural man. His divinity was spiritual, not as a human. So as a limited man, He spoke in terms of what the people around Him knew.
I believe He exists---within the heart of every believer and within the hearts of those who will. Even preachers!
Jesus was a man, but he was also fully God. He did allow himself to be limited in some areas, but he also had knowledge that he wouldn't have had if he was merely a man.
Who do you say exists in everyone's heart? Jesus? So do you not believe that Jesus is literal?
In fairness, the commentary about leaving father and mother is by the author, not Adam or Eve. And the point is that god created the desire of men & women for each other that causes them to form their own families together. And the story is supposedly about how that came to be.
There are plenty of holes in the Bible without straining this hard to manufacture one.
You are absolutely right, mordant. The line is not in quotes. I blundered badly with that one. Not the first time. I disavow any previous comments, though I know I'm stuck with them.
You are absolutely right, mordant. The line is not in quotes. I blundered badly with that one. Not the first time. I disavow any previous comments, though I know I'm stuck with them.
I congratulate you. That is maturity. We all make errors and maturity is accepting them and learning more from them and understanding the subject better.
What is not mature is to refuse to admit that any error was made or that there is anything one needs to to learn and pretty much closing the mind.
Why do you choose to believe these particular theologians/scholars?
Because I majored in languages and critical study of literature. The hypothesis of those particular theologians makes sense to the brain God gave us to use.
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Originally Posted by Vizio
Jesus was a man, but he was also fully God. He did allow himself to be limited in some areas, but he also had knowledge that he wouldn't have had if he was merely a man.
Other than His spiritual knowledge, what other extra-ordinary human knowledge did He have and display---according to the Bible because we have no external evidence beyond the Bible.
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Originally Posted by Vizio
Who do you say exists in everyone's heart? Jesus? So do you not believe that Jesus is literal?
Even without the Bible, there is a certain amount of evidence that a man named Jesus had some sort of impact on the world. Most of that impact was by design, just as I posted on the Christian thread that George Patton created a legend about himself that lives on today.
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There is a mystique about Gen. Patton. Part of it comes from the things that Patton actually did. Part of it stems from stories, mostly exaggerated, told about him.
Part of it arises from the overwhelming awe he inspired and still does.
How did the Patton legend start? What nourished it? As Field Marshal Erwin Rommel once said, a commander can work wonders “if he has had the wit to create some sort of legend around himself.”
There is no doubt that Jesus was a great, great spiritual field commander. Those of us who reach the position that He was more than that do so on the basis of faith, not history, on the basis of personal experience, not scientific evidence. Trying to turn the Bible into a historical or scientific work runs contrary to the issue of faith. Tell me about the faith that is displayed in the Bible, I have no argument with that, and neither can any agnostic or atheist. They may disagree, but they have no factual basis for argument. Try to make the Bible into a fact book and you've lost the battle before you type your first sentence.
Kick the facts out of the Bible, get back to the faith part. It's the only thing that will mean anything in the long run. Making it a fact book goes against the textual and scientific evidence we have and simply makes Christians who claim Jesus as Savior look foolish---and that allows no opportunity of getting any skeptical person to even consider the claim faith might have on their life.
Our worst enemy as Christians is not agnostics or atheists, Muslims or Buddhists or Wiccans. It's US!!!
I don't think that the Genesis writers goofed, I think that a lot of people have subsequently goofed when interpreting what was actually a really fine allegory for the passage of creatures from the status of animals to humans.
They nailed the prime human dilemma perfectly...the price of consciousness and all the marvelous things which that provides, is awareness of our mortality.
Adam and Eve are ignorant but perfectly happy...then they eat from the tree of knowledge and learn how to be unhappy. The tree of knowledge represents consciousness, Eden represented the blissful age before consciousness introduced its torments and angst. And there was no turning back, the pair are expelled from the Garden because they cannot unlearn what they have learned, they cannot stop being conscious and revert to animal like state of no awareness.
A clever story.....followed by centuries of foolish literal interpretations.
Dear Grandstander, Please inform us exactly how the Genesis account of the animals and humans proves humans transitioning from animals.
How you can get that from the true, historical account is quite disingenuous to the account.
Adam was formed from the soil of the earth as a fully mature human in one day. Then later, Adam was put to sleep and God operated on him, took out the female sex organ (no it wasn't a rib, but a hollow angular organ) from him and built the woman around it from the soil. This is why, when their is coitus between a man and woman they are one. The two parts (one part of the man and the other taken from the man are joined as one again). He didn't use parts of animals to form her. She was fully human that day she was made.
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