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I think you need to preface your remarks above with "I think" or "it is my opinion."
One does not put a paradigm or figurative equivalent in their genealogy. The genealogies in the Old Testament and the genealogies in the New have Adam in their genealogies. He was a real person.
Also, in the New Testament, it is shown that Adam's one act caused death to be passed through into all mankind (see Romans 5:12,18 & 19. The apostle Paul, a Jew, did not believe Adam was an allegory or a fictitious character. There are many more verses in the New Testament where the Jewish writers took Adam to be a real living, breathing human. Maybe you should side with them who knew their bible and genealogies so well?
IMO, what really matters is the philosophical message of Jesus. ALL the other stuff is not important. It is basically the typical mythology of that era. Jesus genealogy is not important at all.
I think many become enthralled with the magic and forget the essential message of Jesus.
I ask you. What is the message of Jesus? Do you even know?
Since I was a child I was able to use reason and figured out the Adam and Eve story was allegorical.
However, it seems many actually believe in a real Adam and Eve. Some go through complicated hoops to explain different racial groups on the planet (white, black, asian, etc). This is difficult to explain within the context of just a few thousand years.
Sola Scriptura fundamentalists do not believe in evolution and yet they want people to believe Adam and Eve evolved into different racial groups over a very short time?
Dennis Venema, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Senior Fellow, BioLogos Foundation
Biology Department
Trinity Western University
7600 Glover Road
Langley, BC V2Y 1Y1
Researching The Human Genome
Venema says there is no way we can be traced back to a single couple. He says with the mapping of the human genome, it's clear that modern humans emerged from other primates as a large population
John Schneider
Calvin College
Location: Grand Rapids, MI
Department: Theology
Another one is John Schneider, who taught theology at Calvin College in Michigan until recently. He says it's time to face facts: There was no historical Adam and Eve, no serpent, no apple, no fall that toppled man from a state of innocence.
"Evolution makes it pretty clear that in nature, and in the moral experience of human beings, there never was any such paradise to be lost," Schneider says. "So Christians, I think, have a challenge, have a job on their hands to reformulate some of their tradition about human beginnings."
Intellectual Rift
That's only true if you read the Bible literally, says Dennis Venema at Trinity Western University. But if you read the Bible as poetry and allegory as well as history, you can see God's hand in nature — and in evolution.
"There's nothing to be scared of here," Venema says. "There is nothing to be alarmed about. It's actually an opportunity to have an increasingly accurate understanding of the world — and from a Christian perspective, that's an increasingly accurate understanding of how God brought us into existence."
Less than 1% of the world population, mostly non-educated Southern Baptist types from the deep South and Appalachia, believe in a literal Adam and Eve. Anyone with a decent education, unless they are completely brainwashed by their fundamentalist church leaders, doesn't believe in a literal Adam and Eve and talking serpent.
Someone pointed out on another thread on this topic that many educated Christians believe in a literal Adam and Eve. I failed to use William Lane Craig as a perfect example of this type. Craig is a philosopher with an IQ of like 300 or something---genius level x's 3. He professes belief in a literal Adam and Eve.
But Craig is on the lecture and debate circuit, like many others in his class of IQ who are similar fundamentalists on similar debate/lecture circuits, and they all earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year debating people like Bart Erhman, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens (dec) Sam Harris and a whole host of other non-traditionalists, atheists, etc . Check YouTube for William LC and see just exactly how many debates and lectures on liberal/fundamentalist topics there are and these are a fraction of the total. Craig clearly has a financial stake in preserving the status-quo. Whether he personally believes in such ridiculousness as a real Adam & Eve is not known, but he earns a heck of a lot of $$$$'s saying he does. Bottom line: believing in and debating Adam and Eve is nothing but a cash-cow racket for these well-educated Ph.D's who profess belief in Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark and other Bible mythologies.
IMO, what really matters is the philosophical message of Jesus. ALL the other stuff is not important. It is basically the typical mythology of that era. Jesus genealogy is not important at all.
I think many become enthralled with the magic and forget the essential message of Jesus.
I ask you. What is the message of Jesus? Do you even know?
The topic under discussion is" Were Adam and Eve real people?" It is not, what is the message of Jesus.
If the genealogies were not important God would not have had them included in the Scriptures. They are important as they prove the lineage to the promised Messiah.
The topic under discussion is" Were Adam and Eve real people?" It is not, what is the message of Jesus.
If the genealogies were not important God would not have had them included in the Scriptures. They are important as they prove the lineage to the promised Messiah.
Genealogy, Adam, Eve, ect are side shows. Abraham living to be 175 years and others nearly a 1000 years are also side shows that enhance the story.
The main character of Christianity is Jesus. Jesus remains the same whether Adam and Eve are real or allegoric characters.
Genealogy, Adam, Eve, ect are side shows. Abraham living to be 175 years and others nearly a 1000 years are also side shows that enhance the story.
The main character of Christianity is Jesus. Jesus remains the same whether Adam and Eve are real or allegoric characters.
Adam and Eve were told they would die in the day that they ate. They did Not die in any 24-hour day. Adam lived 930 years, or in other words, Adam died within that millennium-long day. Even the oldest person in Scripture died at 969 years underneath that thousand year time period or day.
After the Flood, mankind's life expectation was reduced. - Psalm 90 v 10
Adam and Eve were told they would die in the day that they ate. They did Not die in any 24-hour day. Adam lived 930 years, or in other words, Adam died within that millennium-long day. Even the oldest person in Scripture died at 969 years underneath that thousand year time period or day.
After the Flood, mankind's life expectation was reduced. - Psalm 90 v 10
Adam and Eve were told they would die in the day that they ate. They did Not die in any 24-hour day. Adam lived 930 years, or in other words, Adam died within that millennium-long day. Even the oldest person in Scripture died at 969 years underneath that thousand year time period or day.
After the Flood, mankind's life expectation was reduced. - Psalm 90 v 10
Yep, as man worries about the ozone layer today damaging life. The water canopy over the earth prior to the flood protected man much more than the ozone layer does and .... men lived longer until after it was gone.
Adam and Eve were told they would die in the day that they ate. They did Not die in any 24-hour day. Adam lived 930 years, or in other words, Adam died within that millennium-long day. Even the oldest person in Scripture died at 969 years underneath that thousand year time period or day.
After the Flood, mankind's life expectation was reduced. - Psalm 90 v 10
You actually believe people lived that long???
God Bless you! There is nothing I can say that will help you.
Do you have an explanation as to why the life span went from 900 years plus to about 75 today?
In fact, the lifespan was much lower in the 19th century.
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