Author Topic: Bible in a Year! v. February  (Read 46081 times)

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Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #175 on: January 05, 2011, 07:40:41 PM »
Just caught up from yesterday.

Gen 14 is really confusing for me.  I'm going to have to map it out...way too many proper names of nations and kings for me to follow naturally.

I've always wondered how a just God could lead his nation to utterly destroy other nations...it just seems violent and cruel to command the deaths of the women and children...but I think that the answer lies at the end of Genesis 18, that God would have spared those cities if but a few people were righteous.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline GuineaPig

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #176 on: January 05, 2011, 08:24:20 PM »
Well he's already wiped out most of the world once, so all in all a couple towns is small potatoes.
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Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #177 on: January 05, 2011, 08:48:07 PM »
 :lol pretty much.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline GuineaPig

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #178 on: January 05, 2011, 09:28:54 PM »
Also, reading the OT reminds me of reading a fantasy novel with all these strange names and places, but the author didn't include a map of the region.  So frustrating.  It's like, "Damnit Tolkien!  If so much stuff is going to happen at Angband, include it in the damn maps!"  Exact same sentiment.
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Offline sneakyblueberry

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #179 on: January 05, 2011, 10:45:08 PM »
Sorry guys, festive season has been amazingly drunkenly awesome for me.  Will catch up tonight.

Offline Fiery Winds

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #180 on: January 06, 2011, 02:17:21 AM »
Just caught up from yesterday.

Gen 14 is really confusing for me.  I'm going to have to map it out...way too many proper names of nations and kings for me to follow naturally.

I've always wondered how a just God could lead his nation to utterly destroy other nations...it just seems violent and cruel to command the deaths of the women and children...but I think that the answer lies at the end of Genesis 18, that God would have spared those cities if but a few people were righteous.

I agree, it seems very heartless and cruel.  However, when you realize that those nations all trace their roots to the family of Noah who were the only righteous people on earth upon exiting the ark, it becomes clear that they have rejected God.  They aren't simply other nations that have always been there and here comes big bad God to rain down hell for no reason whatsoever.

Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #181 on: January 06, 2011, 03:56:33 AM »
Just caught up from yesterday.

Gen 14 is really confusing for me.  I'm going to have to map it out...way too many proper names of nations and kings for me to follow naturally.

I've always wondered how a just God could lead his nation to utterly destroy other nations...it just seems violent and cruel to command the deaths of the women and children...but I think that the answer lies at the end of Genesis 18, that God would have spared those cities if but a few people were righteous.

I agree, it seems very heartless and cruel.  However, when you realize that those nations all trace their roots to the family of Noah who were the only righteous people on earth upon exiting the ark, it becomes clear that they have rejected God.  They aren't simply other nations that have always been there and here comes big bad God to rain down hell for no reason whatsoever.
It really is scary to think that out of all the people that were alive during Noah's time, only eight were spared judgment.  I know that if I was born back then I would pretty much be screwed.  It's things like this that make me really thankful for living in a day where God pours out grace and not wrath...
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline hefdaddy42

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #182 on: January 06, 2011, 04:29:55 AM »
If God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then why did he pour out so much wrath back then and pours out grace now?

I'm just sayin'.
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Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #183 on: January 06, 2011, 04:58:48 AM »
Cause we have the cross and they didn't.  We deserve judgment of death and suffering in Hell but Christ took the blow for us.

Reading for January 6 is Genesis 19-21.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline ReaPsTA

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #184 on: January 06, 2011, 05:04:08 AM »
WARNING:  This is long.  It's hopefully my first attempt at reading through the whole Bible, so I want to capture the experience of reading through it for the first time.

In fairness to potential readers, I ruthlessly edited this post so as few words as possible are wasted.  On the other hand, anybody who reads the Bible for the first time will have lots of dumb thoughts and questions, which might be tough to sit through.

MY PRIOR BIBLE BACKGROUND:  I don't see The Bible as the inerrant word of God.  Too many inconsistencies that make too little sense.  On the other hand, that doesn't make it an invalid religious document.  From a secular perspective, I understand little if any of the archeological and historical background the Bible exists in.

THE PURPOSE OF THIS READING:  Too find out what purpose The Bible serves in understanding that which cannot be understood on purely human terms.

Inevitably, there will be many parts of this post that are variations of "This is actually in the Bible!?  What!?"  But I don't want to pick at every little thing.  That's what the skeptics Bible is for.

Version will be NRSV.

Let's go.

Genesis 1

Right away, I'm forced to wonder how I'm supposed to take this literally.  This text evokes many of the same myths as the Greek Myths I read in grade school.

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"[6] And God said, ‘Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ [7] So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so. [8] God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day. "

If I'm reading correctly: The dome is the sky, and there's water above and below the dome, meaning there's water above the sky.  I don't see how there's any room for interpretation.

I don't see how this is supposed to be literally the word of God.  This isn't an issue of our scientific classification not squaring with poetic language.  God understands there isn't water above the sky, so why would his divine word make such a fundamental factual error?

I wonder if somewhere up in Heaven god's thinking "I can't even be disappointed by this kid.  I knew it would happen because I'm omniscient."

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[26] Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind* in our image, according to our likeness;

Oh boy.  This is just strange and confusing to read.  I guess passages where God refers to himself as "us" or "we" are why the idea of the Trinity exists.  Hopefully future passages will elaborate on this.

Genesis 2

I'll ask a common question:  Why is the second creation story different from the first?  These kinds of internal logical inconsistencies make me wonder how Fundamentalist Christianity manages to exist.

On a positive note: One of the most prevalent literary techniques I've seen in the Bible is stating events in summary before they're described in detail.  I like this.  Foreshadowing is effective and builds expectation.

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7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being. 8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east;

Two comments:

 - What is Eden east of?

 - I've heard that some groups interpret this to mean a Fetus is not a person until it breathes Oxygen outside the womb.  I'm not sure we should go this far, but I wonder if "life begins at conception" is too simple.  Maybe I'm post-modernistically interpreting this too much.

I wonder about the preachers who say you won't believe the Bible is truth if you don't try.  But if you do try, you'll believe.  IKEA instruction manuals aren't open to interpretation, and the stakes are far lower than Heaven vs. Hell.

I need to keep going.

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10 A river flows out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it divides and becomes four branches. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold; 12 and the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it is the one that flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

I can't even articulate my thoughts about this section properly.  Was the name of the Tigris river even the Tigris river in the language of the time?  Or did we determine through archaeology what river the author was referring to?

I feel way more frustrated with this reading than I believe I should.  Am I doing this wrong?  We've found no archeological evidence I'm aware of that the Garden of Eden exists.  The Bible doesn't say it would eventually disappear over time.  So what is the author describing?

Perhaps unwisely given my current emotions, I'll continue.

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So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.

These couple passages have always struck me as confusing.  For a reader of the book now, it seems purposeless.  It feels like one of those Greek Myth stories that tries to explain something rather mundane in cosmic terms.

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21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,
‘This at last is bone of my bones
   and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,*
   for out of Man this one was taken.’
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.

I'll talk about the nudity next post.

This implies woman is inferior to man.  A lot of the Bible seems to say the same thing.  It makes me wonder why more Christians don't say our modern understanding of gender equality is wrong.  Bad PR I guess.

Also, this verse, by itself, seems to be a rock-solid endorsement of monogamous marriage, and implies divorce is not good.  What this means for polygamy, sex before marriage, and many other things?  We'll find out later, I guess.

Questions I have about Genesis 1-2
1.  I've commented a lot on how I don't see this at all literally.  What are the arguments for understanding it as a literal and/or inerrant document?
2.  What was the purpose for which this document was written?  To what degree can we say it was divinely inspired?
3.  What purpose does this serve in the context of a modern understanding of Christianity?
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Offline Jamesman42

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #185 on: January 06, 2011, 05:13:09 AM »
If God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then why did he pour out so much wrath back then and pours out grace now?

I'm just sayin'.

He is always just and merciful, wanting righteousness/holiness in His children. HE is the one who stays the same...His plan may change over time. By your logic, He should have been sending Jesus into the world every second. Though He is not bounded by time, His plans change over what we perceive as time.



Also, even if I don't post in here, I have been reading. FYI.

Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #186 on: January 06, 2011, 06:07:31 AM »
Ok Reap I'll take a stab at a couple things.  Correct me if I'm wrong but you are critiquing theological viewpoint?  If not then disregard the following, since my answers are how these problems you address are theologically explained (well, at least by me).

Version will be NRSV.

Steeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrike ONE! 

Just kidding.  But seriously, that will limit how much I can respond to since we are using different versions...the NRSV is a nondevotional academic translation that tends to make the Biblical words "fit" into common academic views of where the Bible came from, whereas the devotional translations will of course be influenced by theology...so pick your poison.  ;D

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If I'm reading correctly: The dome is the sky, and there's water above and below the dome, meaning there's water above the sky.  I don't see how there's any room for interpretation.

I don't see how this is supposed to be literally the word of God.  This isn't an issue of our scientific classification not squaring with poetic language.  God understands there isn't water above the sky, so why would his divine word make such a fundamental factual error?

I don't know of a translation other than the NRSV that uses the terms "dome" and "sky."  So right away we have problems.  ESV calls them "expanse" and "Heaven," respectively.  Theologically the first term is usually described (from my experience) as "the firmament," which I believe comes from the KJV.  But at the end, we grasp that there is a barrier of sorts that separates Earth from the waters above.

The way I justify this, thelogically, is that there are different "levels" or "layers" to heaven.  Paul says over in 2 Cor 12:2 that he was called up to the "third heaven," which is paradise.  The first and second heaven are not too difficult to deduce....they are the earth's air, and outer space, respectively. 

So, now that we understand that the earth is round, we can lay out the universe using the Bible.  I like to think in terms of shells.  First we have the Earth.  Take a rocket ship with unlimited fuel and travel outward.  First, we are caught up in the first heaven, the earth's atmosphere.  Travel further and we hit the second heaven, outer space.  Travel even FURTHER and I reckon we'll hit the third heaven where God dwells.  (I anticipate the question, "Well why can't we see the brightness of God or the details of the third heaven if we look out in space with a telescope?"  The answer lies in Ps 97:2--God surrounds himself with darkness.)

So, where's the water?  Well, we learned that Heaven (the three heavens combined) acted as a barrier between the two waters.  The lower waters became the earth.  The upper waters must therefore be stored beyond the third heaven.  (As a side note, I believe that God used these upper waters for the Flood.)

Jamesman, if you read this, do you have any design tools to map this out?  I don't know if I'm communicating the picture in my head across properly.

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Oh boy.  This is just strange and confusing to read.  I guess passages where God refers to himself as "us" or "we" are why the idea of the Trinity exists.  Hopefully future passages will elaborate on this.

Bingo.  EDIT:  I'd actually like to revise this a little bit.  It could either be referring to the Trinity, or it could be a speaking/writing style.  Kings and leaders often spoke in the third person.  I vaguely vaguely recall seeing a verse somewhere, or maybe even an extrabiblical source, where a king said things like "let us" and "we."

Quote
I'll ask a common question:  Why is the second creation story different from the first?  These kinds of internal logical inconsistencies make me wonder how Fundamentalist Christianity manages to exist.

Have you ever seen a movie which displays an event, and frequently revisits that event in a flashback?  And during those flashbacks, more and more information about that event is revealed?  That's what the Bible is like.

An example of a common "inconsistency" that is pointed out by critics is that Gen 1 says animals were created before man, and Gen 2 says that man was created before animals.  The Fundamentalist answer is that he did both.  Just because God created animals on one day doesn't mean he can't create some more another day.  It is just a simple process of synthesis on the theologian's part.

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- What is Eden east of?

I don't really know, but at this point I believe that land was still in its Pangean, singular form.  Perhaps it is on the eastmost side of the continent.

Quote
- I've heard that some groups interpret this to mean a Fetus is not a person until it breathes Oxygen outside the womb.  I'm not sure we should go this far, but I wonder if "life begins at conception" is too simple.  Maybe I'm post-modernistically interpreting this too much.

This is a big debate but I would reckon that life begins with the soul.  All that really matters is how to identify when the soul begins in The Bible...I would like some more light on this too.  But after rummaging through my memory I came across Jer 1:5 which indicates that the soul exists before birth.

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I can't even articulate my thoughts about this section properly.  Was the name of the Tigris river even the Tigris river in the language of the time?  Or did we determine through archaeology what river the author was referring to?

Adam and Eve may or may not have known these landmarks, but I believe Moses wrote Genesis.  The audience of Israelites he wrote it for probably knew the landmarks.

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We've found no archeological evidence I'm aware of that the Garden of Eden exists.

That's because there's a flaming sword and a Cherubim to prevent its discovery. :P

Quote
This implies woman is inferior to man.

No it doesn't.  At least, the passage you referenced doesn't.  Just by saying Woman was created out of Man doesn't tell you anything about gender status.

Hope you find some of those views interesting...again if it wasn't the type of response you were looking for, I apologize.  It just seems like you wanted to see how these things were theologically explained.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 06:46:52 AM by BrotherH »
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline ReaPsTA

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #187 on: January 06, 2011, 06:14:00 AM »
WARNING:  Like the one before, this is long.  And it’s about one chapter, so the depth will be more ridiculous.  But Genesis 3 addresses fundamental questions about the nature of free will in a powerful way, thus being worthy of in-depth analysis.

Genesis 3

The Serpent is an interesting character.  From what I understand it’s a snake.  It feels like the Greek Myth thing again.  We don’t like snakes, so someone writes a story showing how it’s a result of the proper cosmic order.  And why can’t snakes talk anymore?

The argument for the Serpent being Satan or controlled by Satan isn’t completely invalid.  Otherwise, what it’s motivation?

The way the Serpent convinces Eve to eat the apple is actually genius.  He doesn't merely say God is lying.  She'd never believe that.  He appeals to humanity's natural jealousy, desire for power, and tendency toward projection.  

He says that God would be jealous if there were others around with his power.  She projects her jealousy of God and desire for power onto him.  Now she wants to attack that which represents her worst qualities, and thus she eats from the tree.

I’d ask why God would make humanity when he knows humanity will fall from grace, but I don’t live outside the bounds of time.  I can’t answer the question.

But what aspect of the purpose of humanity calls for us being able to make the choice to fall from grace in the first place.  Maybe because being in God’s good graces is meaningless if it isn’t a choice.  But that isn’t satisfactory.

Quote
8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ 10 He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.’ 11 He said, ‘Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ 12 The man said, ‘The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.’ 13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, ‘What is this that you have done?’ The woman said, ‘The serpent tricked me, and I ate.’

Why doesn’t God teleport Adam, Eve, and the Serpent to him, explain their transgression, and dole out the punishment?  It’s odd to me than an omniscient god would ask these rhetorical questions.

He sounds like parents who know their child did something wrong, and are leading him to see what he reveals in covering up the deed.  But since God already knows everything, isn’t this a bit sadistic?  Why is a perfect God portrayed this way?

More confusion:

- Isn’t death punishment enough?  And really, we’ve figured out pain in childbirth and plowing fields.  Shouldn’t divine justice has more ompth?

- This book implies we just die.  Which actually makes more sense than heaven and hell the way original sin is explained.  

I’m going to use Dogma’s theory of the universe here.  Let’s say God does something imperfect.  His existence and the universe’s existence are predicated on his perfection, so without that everything would die.  He does go to Heaven or Hell.

By eating the forbidden fruit, we are now like God because we have an understanding of good and evil, though an imperfect one.  We die as punishment for our imperfection, like God.

Of course, I’m sure I’m missing much much other context, so I don’t want to commit to this theory too hard.

- Why does God choose to keep the Garden of Eden around?  It has no purpose to anyone after we leave... Are we fated to return some day?  Will it be repopulated with something else?  Do the animals get to stay there?

With all that out of the way, let’s discuss free will.

The book contrasts Adam and Eve’s view of Good and Evil with God’s.  They see their nakedness as indecent, even though God defaulted them to nakedness.  And then God makes clothes for them to exit the Garden with.

Though in simplistic terms, we see God has a better understanding of morality than man.  In theoretical terms, this is true.

But really, we don’t understand morality at all.  Without religion, from where does it derive?  Intuition?  Genesis shows us our intuition is simplistic and wrong.  I think the state of the world shows us the same thing.

No matter what we’d like to think, our conception of morality comes from one thing - who has the power to enforce their version of it.  We don’t have access to the ineffable order of the universe to find out otherwise.  We aren’t God.

This tortures us.  Even when we’re certain we’re right, something lingers and tells us otherwise.

Before eating the Fruit, humanity experienced none of this conflict.  If we didn’t die, but didn’t know how to act perfectly (Eve clearly didn’t), then something had to keep us from sinning.  (I haven’t seen the word used in the Bible itself yet, but we’ll go with it).

Either it didn’t matter what we did, or God made sure we did the right thing at all times.  Since I doubt the first is true, because God’s law codes apply whether you know of them or not (if I remember the rest of the Bible correctly), then the second is true.

What this means is you weren't responsible for your actions, but you didn't have free will.  Also, you were literally incapable of understanding the why behind God’s will, you just had to trust it was correct.  The Serpent broke that fundamental trust between humanity and God.

I wonder how that made God feel?

Plus, naive and innocent babies and children seem pretty happy and blameless.

Do we prefer perfection that's forced upon us or do we prefer the imperfection of our choice?

I almost prefer the second choice.  But maybe that’s humanity’s fundamental flaw, or at least related to it.  Now we’re thinking of humanity beyond humanity’s terms.  At this moment I feel like the Bible is accomplishing its purpose.  I appreciate this genuinely edifying moment.

Still, I’m not sure why we have to die for our sins.  You can call it justice, but only if you see cosmic justice in legalistic terms, which are a product of human thought.

If the author of this book thinks there’s water in the sky, then I’d like to think for the moment that God has something better in store for us than death or hell.

I feel right now like things just are, which might be the highest form of experience possible.

I feel like God does matter, even if we don’t quite know why.

And I think that’s good.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 07:10:38 AM by ReaPsTA »
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Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #188 on: January 06, 2011, 06:35:13 AM »
Oh boy, I really hope I'm not making a fool of myself by responding to these...


The Serpent is an interesting character.  From what I understand it’s a snake.  It feels like the Greek Myth thing again.  We don’t like snakes, so someone writes a story showing how it’s a result of the proper cosmic order.  And why can’t snakes talk anymore?

The argument for the Serpent being Satan or controlled by Satan isn’t completely invalid.  Otherwise, what it’s motivation?

Eze 28:13 refers to the enemy as the one in the garden.  Whether it was Satan possessing the serpent or Satan himself, I do not know.  An interesting thing I thought about is that this serpent must have had legs, since it wasn't forced onto its belly until after God busted him. 

What would you call a serpent with legs?  I would call it a dragon.  And Satan is referred to as the "red dragon" several times over in Revelation...


Quote
The way the Serpent convinces Eve to eat the apple is actually genius.  He doesn't say God is lying.  She'd never believe that.  He appeals to humanity's natural jealousy, desire for power, and tendency toward projection.

Yes truly a crafty creature.  I believe Satan is the wisest of God's creatures...such a shame.  Plus he's been around since creation, so he's acquired quite a library of knowledge, I'm sure.  What's interesting is that Satan does not use his potential as "the prince of the power of the air" (Neal Morse reference, anyone?) and cause a bunch of earthquakes under every Christian church, but rather, as Paul says, he works through subtlety, as the "author of confusion" (another NM nugget for ya).  Satan is often portrayed by society as the polar opposite of Jesus, but I believe that Satan's ultimate desire is to be God.  Satan's end is not destruction, malice, and evil...his desire is to rule as king of the universe.  Check out Isaiah 14 which says he desires to be just like God.  Ezekiel 28 also gives tremendous insight on Satan. 

As for your free will questions, I do not feel qualified enough to answer or comment.  :-\
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 06:48:44 AM by BrotherH »
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline ReaPsTA

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #189 on: January 06, 2011, 07:04:18 AM »
Quote
Hope you find some of those views interesting...again if it wasn't the type of response you were looking for, I apologize.  It just seems like you wanted to see how these things were theologically explained.

This is exactly the kind of response I was hoping for.  Even though I disagree with much of it, there was one part I had to concede and the rest of it at least made me think.  That's the idea here... I think

[All the stuff about the Water]

I feel like what all you're saying is possible, but it feels like it's on the wrong side of Occam's razor.

I checked a bunch of translations.  All the wordings are different in some way.  To me the common thread of all of them is the water above the sky.  They seem to differ in whether the stuff in between is the water or the sky or whatever.

So to go with your explanation, we have to make a very specific assumption amongst a whole mess of translations.  Then there's the assumption that the water above space went into heaven.  This feels like an assumption heaven is part of our physical universe, which I feel is inaccurate, but I'm not an authority on that.

But that's seemingly yet another assumption.  Unless the water was teleported into the next realm, which is still an assumption on top of the text.

I'm not saying your theory is invalid.  In the broader context of your beliefs it works just fine.  But as I look at the text and what it means it doesn't seem to mean that.

Plus, I go back to my broader thing, which is that God's word, given the stakes that are supposed to be at play, should not be this open to interpretation and and difficult to understand on such a basic level.

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Oh boy.  This is just strange and confusing to read.  I guess passages where God refers to himself as "us" or "we" are why the idea of the Trinity exists.  Hopefully future passages will elaborate on this.

Bingo.

Excellent.  I am clearly a genius.  ;)

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I'll ask a common question:  Why is the second creation story different from the first?  These kinds of internal logical inconsistencies make me wonder how Fundamentalist Christianity manages to exist.

Have you ever seen a movie which displays an event, and frequently revisits that event in a flashback?  And during those flashbacks, more and more information about that event is revealed?  That's what the Bible is like.

Fair statement.

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An example of a common "inconsistency" that is pointed out by critics is that Gen 1 says animals were created before man, and Gen 2 says that man was created before animals.  The Fundamentalist answer is that he did both.  Just because God created animals on one day doesn't mean he can't create some more another day.  It is just a simple process of synthesis on the theologian's part.

Unless someone has anything better, I might need to concede this point.

The "second creation account" doesn't really describe all of creation again.  It's more about the creation of the Garden of Eden.

The description of the plants at the beginning is about the whole Earth, but we go from them to the animals for a logical causal reason:

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In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens, 5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground; 6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground— 7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.

Although that's strange in its own way.  We exist because the Earth needed groundskeepers?

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- What is Eden east of?

I don't really know, but at this point I believe that land was still in its Pangean, singular form.  Perhaps it is on the eastmost side of the continent.

Not impossible, but does this implication match how long we have scientifically determined humanity has existed?

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- I've heard that some groups interpret this to mean a Fetus is not a person until it breathes Oxygen outside the womb.  I'm not sure we should go this far, but I wonder if "life begins at conception" is too simple.  Maybe I'm post-modernistically interpreting this too much.

This is a big debate but I would reckon that life begins with the soul.  All that really matters is how to identify when the soul begins in The Bible...I would like some more light on this too.  But after rummaging through my memory I came across Jer 1:5 which indicates that the soul exists before birth.

Well, okay.  We'll assume that passage can be literally taken as the word of God.  I'm still not sure where it says that his soul existed before the biological materials in his mother's womb did.  Or when his soul was created.  

God knew him before he was born because God knows everyone before they're born, he's omnipresent.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong because of my own biases, but I'm not seeing it.

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I can't even articulate my thoughts about this section properly.  Was the name of the Tigris river even the Tigris river in the language of the time?  Or did we determine through archaeology what river the author was referring to?

Adam and Eve may or may not have known these landmarks, but I believe Moses wrote Genesis.  The audience of Israelites he wrote it for probably knew the landmarks.

This is maybe an overly anal question.  It's just weird to describe the location of something that doesn't exist, or at least something the author's not supposed to know exists.

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We've found no archeological evidence I'm aware of that the Garden of Eden exists.

That's because there's a flaming sword and a Cherubim to prevent its discovery. :P

But in literalistic terms, doesn't this just mean we can't go in?  Considering we have satellites that can see every inch of the Earth, how does it manage to not be seen?  Is it in a cave?

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This implies woman is inferior to man.

No it doesn't.  At least, the passage you referenced doesn't.  Just by saying Woman was created out of Man doesn't tell you anything about gender status.

A major aspect of the Bible is the idea that creation of something implies authority of it.  Man didn't create woman, but we supplied the parts.  Plus, it says woman comes from man, robbing women of their own distinct identity.
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Offline ReaPsTA

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #190 on: January 06, 2011, 07:34:47 AM »
Oh boy, I really hope I'm not making a fool of myself by responding to these...

I don't think so.

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The Serpent is an interesting character.  From what I understand it’s a snake.  It feels like the Greek Myth thing again.  We don’t like snakes, so someone writes a story showing how it’s a result of the proper cosmic order.  And why can’t snakes talk anymore?

The argument for the Serpent being Satan or controlled by Satan isn’t completely invalid.  Otherwise, what it’s motivation?

Eze 28:13 refers to the enemy as the one in the garden.  Whether it was Satan possessing the serpent or Satan himself, I do not know.  An interesting thing I thought about is that this serpent must have had legs, since it wasn't forced onto its belly until after God busted him. 

What would you call a serpent with legs?  I would call it a dragon.  And Satan is referred to as the "red dragon" several times over in Revelation...

All interesting.  Not sure how it adds up, but worth thinking about.

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The way the Serpent convinces Eve to eat the apple is actually genius.  He doesn't say God is lying.  She'd never believe that.  He appeals to humanity's natural jealousy, desire for power, and tendency toward projection.

Yes truly a crafty creature.  I believe Satan is the wisest of God's creatures...such a shame.  Plus he's been around since creation, so he's acquired quite a library of knowledge, I'm sure.  What's interesting is that Satan does not use his potential as "the prince of the power of the air" (Neal Morse reference, anyone?) and cause a bunch of earthquakes under every Christian church, but rather, as Paul says, he works through subtlety, as the "author of confusion" (another NM nugget for ya).  Satan is often portrayed by society as the polar opposite of Jesus, but I believe that Satan's ultimate desire is to be God.  Satan's end is not destruction, malice, and evil...his desire is to rule as king of the universe.  Check out Isaiah 14 which says he desires to be just like God.  Ezekiel 28 also gives tremendous insight on Satan. 

I think I'm not getting something.  Both of these chapters seem to be about fallen kings and princes.
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #191 on: January 06, 2011, 08:01:54 AM »
Wow.  I just typed a lengthy response, clicked "post,"and my log-in timed out.  Ahhh.  Forgive me if my responses are too curt.

Anyway Reap, I really appreciate you being open-minded and everything.  Sometimes it seems that P/R can get pretty hostile, and even though we are on opposite sides of the spectrum it is refreshing to have a polite debate.  Thank you! :)

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I checked a bunch of translations.  All the wordings are different in some way.  To me the common thread of all of them is the water above the sky.  They seem to differ in whether the stuff in between is the water or the sky or whatever.

It's like bosk was saying earlier about the sunrise, and it being a matter of linguistics and colloquialism...what is the "sky," exactly?  More importantly, what was the "sky" to the original audience, the ancient Israelites?  Well, the "sky" is what we see when we look up, isn't it?  And, if we assume that heaven is part of the universe (which I'll address next) and that heaven consists of atmosphere, space, and paradise, well....that's what we see when we look up, isn't it?  So I think it isn't a far cry to say heaven IS sky.

As far as heaven being in this universe or being a part of a different dimension, I have not seen any verses that indicate heaven is in a different dimension.  Moreso, when we look at the list of thing God did create, we can identify them as part of our universe that we can interact.  So when something comes along like heaven, that we can't easily define or observe on instinct....well, since pretty much all the created things we know about are part of our universe without exception, it seems likely to me that heaven is also a part of the universe.

And I'll just mention what is called "Jacob's Ladder" in Gen 28, which serves a physical connection between heaven and earth.

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Oh boy.  This is just strange and confusing to read.  I guess passages where God refers to himself as "us" or "we" are why the idea of the Trinity exists.  Hopefully future passages will elaborate on this.

Bingo.

Excellent.  I am clearly a genius.  ;)

I actually edited my original answer, I think you might be right, but then again maybe not.  :-\

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We exist because the Earth needed groundskeepers?

There are a lot of verses I am forgetting at the moment, so forgive me.  But Gen 1 tells us that we are created to have dominion over the earth and all its inhabitants...that concept appears multiple times in the Bible.  God likes hierarchy...you see it all over the place.  Elders as head of the assembly, husbands over their wives, wives over their children...even in Job you can see that there is a hierarchy of angels!  So I dunno, maybe God just likes keeping things organized?

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- What is Eden east of?

I don't really know, but at this point I believe that land was still in its Pangean, singular form.  Perhaps it is on the eastmost side of the continent.

Not impossible, but does this implication match how long we have scientifically determined humanity has existed?

Could you elaborate on this a bit more?

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This is a big debate but I would reckon that life begins with the soul.  All that really matters is how to identify when the soul begins in The Bible...I would like some more light on this too.  But after rummaging through my memory I came across Jer 1:5 which indicates that the soul exists before birth.

Well, okay.  We'll assume that passage can be literally taken as the word of God.  I'm still not sure where it says that his soul existed before the biological materials in his mother's womb did.  Or when his soul was created.  

God knew him before he was born because God knows everyone before they're born, he's omnipresent.

Maybe I'm reading this wrong because of my own biases, but I'm not seeing it.

I am not quite sure if God knew Jeremiah before birth or before conception, but either way it is before birth, which supports the pro-life stance.

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We've found no archeological evidence I'm aware of that the Garden of Eden exists.

That's because there's a flaming sword and a Cherubim to prevent its discovery. :P

But in literalistic terms, doesn't this just mean we can't go in?  Considering we have satellites that can see every inch of the Earth, how does it manage to not be seen?  Is it in a cave?

Well there's two events that greatly deface the earth--the flood with Noah, and the division of Pangea.  I'm sure you've heard a lot about the former, but people don't ever talk about the latter as a Biblical event, even though it's there.  Just check Gen 10:25.  Eden along with the tree of life was probably destroyed.

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This implies woman is inferior to man.

No it doesn't.  At least, the passage you referenced doesn't.  Just by saying Woman was created out of Man doesn't tell you anything about gender status.

A major aspect of the Bible is the idea that creation of something implies authority of it.  Man didn't create woman, but we supplied the parts.  Plus, it says woman comes from man, robbing women of their own distinct identity.

I agree that the Bible subjects women to men, but this is a result of the curse at the end of Gen 3 and not the creation.  Besides, men don't have much of an identity anyway if we came from the dirt.

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I think I'm not getting something.  Both of these chapters seem to be about fallen kings and princes.

Common writing style...first the king is criticized, and then Satan through the king is criticized.  You know it's talking about Satan in Isa 14 once the king is addressed as Lucifer, and you know it's talking about Satan in Eze 28 once the garden of Eden is alluded to.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 08:16:20 AM by BrotherH »
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Offline ReaPsTA

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #192 on: January 06, 2011, 08:07:10 AM »
WARNING:  As always, it's long.

Genesis 4

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Now the man knew his wife Eve

I keep forgetting how awesome a way this is to talk about having sex.

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‘I have produced a man with the help of the Lord.’

Interesting...

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Abel for his part brought of the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions.

Connects with Leviticus.

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6 The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

I could be wrong, but this is always the most ineffective way to motivate people possible.  The only solution I can think of is that unless God interfered, nothing would stop Cain, so he made sure he said what would make Cain aware of the consequences of his actions.

I might need to stop doing these kinds of asides.  One of the most maddening aspects of this text is how it depicts an omniscient being acting in human temporal terms.  The Gospels actually do a much better job presenting Jesus as all-knowing.

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Cain said to his brother Abel, ‘Let us go out to the field.’

Love this detail.

Really, I appreciate the whole Cain story.  It's just good.  It shows a lot about God's personality, and the imagery is kinda chilling.  Lots of potential lessons to take from it.  Jealousy leads to wrongdoing.  God will punish you.  Murder messes up the entire order of the universe.  Your wrongs don't justify other people's wrongs.  Plus, it's the first murder, a notable event.

Plus, it gave us Kane from Command and Conquer, one of the greatest video game characters ever.

I don't understand the Genealogy sections of the Bible.  To what extent can they be assumed to be accurate?

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23 Lamech said to his wives:
‘Adah and Zillah, hear my voice;
   you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say:
I have killed a man for wounding me,
   a young man for striking me.
24 If Cain is avenged sevenfold,
   truly Lamech seventy-sevenfold.’

Awesome, the first appearance of polygamy, and we're only four chapters in!

I'm going to assume for now that polygamy isn't quite endorsed by God, but on the other hand I haven't seen a decree that you can't do it yet.

That aside, I don't understand the point of this story.  Is it to say that killing a man out of blind impersonal rage in the moment is worse than pre-meditated murder for personal reasons?

I guess I can actually agree, because at least Cain's situation is understandable.  There's a reason.  But I'm not sure if I'm reading it right in the first place.

Genesis 5

Question to Hef and all Bible not-necessarily-literalists:  What do the heavily extended lifetimes of the Old Testament Biblical characters mean?  Exaggerations for story-telling?  Possibly a real thing?

Genesis 6

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3 Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide* in mortals for ever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’

Jeanne Calment disagrees.

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6And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart.

Why do it in the first place then since you know it would happen?  Wait, I said I would stop doing these.

It's interesting that the only evil of humanity listed was violence.  Granted, this is a theme of the material so far, but still interesting none the less.  Makes sense to me because doing evil involves doing something to someone else, and unjustified violence is the most evil version of that.

In a general sense though, I can't believe there's one righteous person and family on Earth.  I mean, jeeze.

I'm not sure the ark works in purely scientific terms.  At the very least it indicates limited biodiversity on Earth.

At this point, God is still talking to people.  Why isn't he communicating with everyone else on Earth and telling them to get it together?

Genesis 7

Technical Question: What's the difference between a clean and an unclean animal?

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On that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.

Yes!  Yes!!!!!!!!!  The meaning of the words "Biblical Destruction"!!!!!

I think I'm ceasing to be entirely lucid.  (BTW BrotherH, I see where the water from heaven theory comes from in terms of the wording of the text).

This theme will inevitably come up many times.  As much as I find damning all non-believers to hell inexplicable, I still really appreciate the violence of God.  I'm not a pacifist or really even uniformly anti-violence.  I'd like to think that violent acts are justified, but it's not necessarily some evil horrible crossing of the line.  For instance, the plagues of Egypt are one of the Bible's finest moments.  Pharaoh had it coming.

While in this case I'm not convinced the entire Earth needed to be wiped out, it makes for good reading.

And I think we need to stop here for today.

General Questions about Genesis 4-76
1.  Could someone please explain the Genealogy stuff?  It's really confusing.
2.  What's God's motivation throughout all this?  It seems to be casting aside the unfaithful.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 08:27:50 AM by ReaPsTA »
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #193 on: January 06, 2011, 08:14:18 AM »
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6 The Lord said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is lurking at the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.’

I could be wrong, but this is always the most ineffective way to motivate people possible.  The only solution I can think of is that unless God interfered, nothing would stop Cain, so he made sure he said what would make Cain aware of the consequences of his actions.

I don't know if I buy the following theory on this, but it's an interesting take.  Remember when God made skins for Adam and Eve?  Well, in doing that, he actually taught them to make animal sacrifices...and that's why Abel's sacrifice was honored and Cain's was rejected.  It seems plausible but I dunno.  At any rate it seems like Cain should have known to bring an animal sacrifice based on God's chastisement toward him.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 08:29:17 AM by BrotherH »
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #194 on: January 06, 2011, 08:38:01 AM »
I don't understand the Genealogy sections of the Bible.  To what extent can they be assumed to be accurate?


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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #195 on: January 06, 2011, 08:39:05 AM »
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1.  Could someone please explain the Genealogy stuff?  It's really confusing.
From the Documentary Hypothesis perspective, it was added in by P to connect all the stories together.

From the theological perspective, one of the major purposes I can see is that it allows the reader to construct a calendar, because these genealogies give the age at which they bore their child.  I don't know how accurate it is but I made a calendar one time and got 1657 years between the creation of Adam and the Flood.  Unfortunately, the genealogies after Noah don't tell you how old they were when they had children so unfortunately you can't keep track anymore...

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2.  What's God's motivation throughout all this?  It seems to be casting aside the unfaithful.

I'm not sure.  You see this happen a lot.  First, Eve is the "mother of all living."  God narrows it down to only Noah and his descendents.  Then he narrows it down to Abraham and his descendents.  Then he narrows it down to the believing remnant within apostate Israel, beginning with John the Baptist.  And all the while more and more information about his ultimate goal to redeem the earth from the hands of corruption is revealed.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline bosk1

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #196 on: January 06, 2011, 08:41:58 AM »
*makes a mental note to come back and try to revisit Reap's questions later*

In the mean time...

If God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then why did he pour out so much wrath back then and pours out grace now?

The OT is full of grace.  A few examples from text we've already read:
1.  When Adam and Eve had disobeyed the simplest of commands, rather than destroy them and start over (which would have been easy to do since we still would have been at the beginning with presumably only two people to wipe out and start over with [although, again, it's possible that by the time they were thrown out of the garden, they had children already.  It doesn't seem like it from the way the text reads, but it also doesn't really tell us how much time has passed when that occurs, so we don't know), God spared them.
2.  God demonstrates grace toward Noah and his family by sparing them (and affording an opportunity for anyone else who was willing to listen to Noah to be spared as well).
3.  Same with Sodom.  Abraham pleaded for the city to be spared to preserve the innocent.  God relented somewhat, and yet still couldn't find even 10 righteous in the city.  Still, despite Lot's own imperfections, God extended grace toward he and his family by sparing them.
4.  God extended grace toward Abraham and Sarah by granting them a child through whom an entire nation would come.

Grace, boiled down to its simplest definition is simply "unmerited favor."  God certainly granted favor that was not merited by its recipients in the examples above.  And if we keep an eye out for them, I think we'll see many, many more examples as we continue our readings.  Crossing over just a bit into Opinion Land, I think it is necessary to have such concrete examples of both judgment and grace in such a physical sense so that we can truly appreciate how judgment and grace ultimately work in a spiritual sense.  If I don't see concrete physical examples of how God did it in the real world, how can I possibly understand some abstract concept of a final judgment in the afterlife?  And without these physical examples of grace in the real world, how can I understand that God will extend grace to the faithful in the afterlife?  These examples are certainly very helpful to us even if, culturally (and in other ways), they may seem very foreign.
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #197 on: January 06, 2011, 08:49:45 AM »
Wow.  I just typed a lengthy response, clicked "post,"and my log-in timed out.  Ahhh.  Forgive me if my responses are too curt.

Pro-tip:  Don't compose epic posts in the reply box.  I've been burned before on this too.

Curt language does not bother me.  Wasted words are worse.

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Anyway Reap, I really appreciate you being open-minded and everything.  Sometimes it seems that P/R can get pretty hostile, and even though we are on opposite sides of the spectrum it is refreshing to have a polite debate.  Thank you! :)

Eh, don't worry.  At some point you'll tell me I'm going to hell and I'll tell you you're repressing people's sexuality and causing gays to kill themselves.  The natural order will re-assert itself in good time.

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It's like bosk was saying earlier about the sunrise, and it being a matter of linguistics and colloquialism...what is the "sky," exactly?  More importantly, what was the "sky" to the original audience, the ancient Israelites?  Well, the "sky" is what we see when we look up, isn't it?  And, if we assume that heaven is part of the universe (which I'll address next) and that heaven consists of atmosphere, space, and paradise, well....that's what we see when we look up, isn't it?  So I think it isn't a far cry to say heaven IS sky.

None of these things are necessarily wrong.  From the perspective of understanding the Bible as a piece of Hebrew culture, I find it interesting.  It shows how they viewed the world, and makes you wonder how that world view influenced their belief system in a broader sense.  Like, the Hebrews clearly believed God was omnipresent in their lives and had law codes reflecting this.

But the point I always come back to is that Christians today see the Bible as an eternally relevant infallible word of God.  Why was it written with seemingly so little foresight?

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As far as heaven being in this universe or being a part of a different dimension, I have not seen any verses that indicate heaven is in a different dimension.  Moreso, when we look at the list of thing God did create, we can identify them as part of our universe that we can interact.  So when something comes along like heaven, that we can't easily define or observe on instinct....well, since pretty much all the created things we know about are part of our universe without exception, it seems likely to me that heaven is also a part of the universe.

This isn't impossible, and maybe lines up with ideas about Heaven being some kind of crazy state of existence within our universe.

If that's not true though, then where's Heaven?  Can astronomers find it? I sound kind of short because mentally I'm running on fumes, but I feel these aren't invalid questions.

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And I'll just mention what is called "Jacob's Ladder" in Gen 28, which serves a physical connection between heaven and earth.

It was used as the title of a Rush song, so I'll definitely be paying attention to that when it happens.

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[God in third person]

I looked back at your post.  I find the Kings in third person explanation interesting, because it pertains to the culture in which the material was written.

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There are a lot of verses I am forgetting at the moment, so forgive me.  But Gen 1 tells us that we are created to have dominion over the earth and all its inhabitants...that concept appears multiple times in the Bible.  God likes hierarchy...you see it all over the place.  Elders as head of the assembly, husbands over their wives, wives over their children...even in Job you can see that there is a hierarchy of angels!  So I dunno, maybe God just likes keeping things organized?

It just all feels so utilitarian to me.  Where's the love and togetherness and companionship?

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Could you elaborate on this a bit more?

I don't claim to know much of anything about how humans evolved in a broader historical context, but it seems to be in natural conflict with The Bible.  What if fossil records really do conclusively show we evolved from some kind of lower order mammal?  What does that mean?  Can the Bible still be made to fall in line with it and be literally true?

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I am not quite sure if God knew Jeremiah before birth or before conception, but either way it is before birth, which supports the pro-life stance.

It seems you're going with the argument that any fetus that's conceived has a potential plan from God that we're then snuffing out?

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Well there's two events that greatly deface the earth--the flood with Noah, and the division of Pangea.  I'm sure you've heard a lot about the former, but people don't ever talk about the latter as a Biblical event, even though it's there.  Just check Gen 10:25.  Eden along with the tree of life was probably destroyed.

Didn't think of it that way.  I can still nitpick for a number of reasons (lack of archaeological evidence for... well... any of this), but in a broad sense this explanation satisfies me.

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I agree that the Bible subjects women to men, but this is a result of the curse at the end of Gen 3 and not the creation.  Besides, men don't have much of an identity anyway if we came from the dirt.

But we're directly from the Earth!  Women are like a second generation VHS copy of men. o_O

Debating this point seems unproductive though.  Only women ramble about topics they don't agree on like this instead of doing other more useful things.  And we shouldn't emulate the inferior sex.

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Common writing style...first the king is criticized, and then Satan through the king is criticized.  You know it's talking about Satan in Isa 14 once the king is addressed as Lucifer, and you know it's talking about Satan in Eze 28 once the garden of Eden is alluded to.

Good times.  When my brain works again I'll recheck these.


I don't understand the Genealogy sections of the Bible.  To what extent can they be assumed to be accurate?

Sarcasm green?

Maybe they aren't accurate at all, but they were put in the books for a reason.  I'd hate to just ignore them or dismiss them out of hand.  The point of this thread is to take it seriously.
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Offline Ħ

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #198 on: January 06, 2011, 09:02:31 AM »
I have to go to class (History of Rock  :metal) so I'll just answer this one:

Quote
If that's not true though, then where's Heaven?  Can astronomers find it? I sound kind of short because mentally I'm running on fumes, but I feel these aren't invalid questions.

Ps 97:2 says God surrounds himself with darkness.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #199 on: January 06, 2011, 09:03:45 AM »
Yes, I'm being selective in what points I address at the moment, but there's been so much posted that I don't know how I can get to it all.  Regarding the Pangea argument, I'm not so sure that is biblicly supported.  I could be wrong, but I think the statement about the "earth being divided" in 10:25 is merely referring to what we read happening in 11:1-9.  I don't get the sense it is talking about the earth itself being literally divided.  

I know I great many people who believe the earth was completely reformed during the flood and that a lot of statements made in Chs. 7-8 about the flood (e.g. "springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened") refer to cataclysmic events that accompanied the flood.  Highly possible.  I tend to lean in that same direction myself.  But I'm not sure that's what 10:25 is saying at all.
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #200 on: January 06, 2011, 09:17:56 AM »
Ok one more post and I'm gone.

Yes, I'm being selective in what points I address at the moment, but there's been so much posted that I don't know how I can get to it all.  Regarding the Pangea argument, I'm not so sure that is biblicly supported.  I could be wrong, but I think the statement about the "earth being divided" in 10:25 is merely referring to what we read happening in 11:1-9.  I don't get the sense it is talking about the earth itself being literally divided. 

I know I great many people who believe the earth was completely reformed during the flood and that a lot of statements made in Chs. 7-8 about the flood (e.g. "springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened") refer to cataclysmic events that accompanied the flood.  Highly possible.  I tend to lean in that same direction myself.  But I'm not sure that's what 10:25 is saying at all.

If the Flood is what caused the Pangean split, then there would be no Babel because the people wouldn't be able to unite.  So I think it was after Babel.  I believe the Flood is certainly related in that it primed the Earth for this rapid movement, but I do believe Gen 10:25 (reiterated in 1 chr 1:19) is a separate divine event.  I hate to be nitpicky, but it does say that it is the earth that is divided...I know it is tempting to think of "the earth" as a colloquialism for "the nations" but I would rather err on the side of being too literal than supposing the verse means something different that what it say.
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges

Offline GuineaPig

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #201 on: January 06, 2011, 09:23:00 AM »
Ok one more post and I'm gone.

Yes, I'm being selective in what points I address at the moment, but there's been so much posted that I don't know how I can get to it all.  Regarding the Pangea argument, I'm not so sure that is biblicly supported.  I could be wrong, but I think the statement about the "earth being divided" in 10:25 is merely referring to what we read happening in 11:1-9.  I don't get the sense it is talking about the earth itself being literally divided. 

I know I great many people who believe the earth was completely reformed during the flood and that a lot of statements made in Chs. 7-8 about the flood (e.g. "springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened") refer to cataclysmic events that accompanied the flood.  Highly possible.  I tend to lean in that same direction myself.  But I'm not sure that's what 10:25 is saying at all.

If the Flood is what caused the Pangean split, then there would be no Babel because the people wouldn't be able to unite.
  So I think it was after Babel.  I believe the Flood is certainly related in that it primed the Earth for this rapid movement, but I do believe Gen 10:25 (reiterated in 1 chr 1:19) is a separate divine event.  I hate to be nitpicky, but it does say that it is the earth that is divided...I know it is tempting to think of "the earth" as a colloquialism for "the nations" but I would rather err on the side of being too literal than supposing the verse means something different that what it say.

Please stop treating the Bible as an authority on geological history.  The Himalayas didn't form overnight.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #202 on: January 06, 2011, 09:45:21 AM »
If the Flood is what caused the Pangean split, then there would be no Babel because the people wouldn't be able to unite.  So I think it was after Babel. 

???  I don't follow you at all.  Why not?  All people were in one location immediatley after the flood.  Shortly after, they begam to spread out somewhat, but not a lot, and were united in the plain of Shinar.  Whether there was one supercontinent or were many continents at the time does not matter at all.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #203 on: January 06, 2011, 09:55:16 AM »
Please stop treating the Bible as an authority on geological history.  The Himalayas didn't form overnight.

Again, I'm not opposed to debating that topic.  But, really, I think those kinds of debates should be in a separate thread.  If we don't limit this to what the text actually says and means, the thread will be out of control and probably won't be any use by the end of the year.  

But as far as what the text actually says, whether referring to Gen 1, or a theory that the flood or some other event caused shifting of the earth, I think the implication from the text is that, yes, they actually did form overnight (or, at least, in a day).

Again, though, as far as what the text says, I don't think 10:25 refers to a cataclysmic event at all.  I think you can infer one from the flood (aside from the flood itself), but even that is just an inference.  I really don't think BrotherH's theory has textual support.  The text doesn't contradict such a thing, so I'm not saying it didn't happen.  But I don't think anything in the text even attempts to address such a theory either.  Beyond that, I don't think I want to debate it much further.  No point in being dogmatic about what boils down to interpretation of one verse that, IMO, doesn't matter much either way.
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Offline bosk1

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #204 on: January 06, 2011, 10:01:59 AM »
@Reap re "what is Eden east of?" (because this one is easy and I can answer it with a short response):  From the point of view of the first recipients of the text (the Hebrews), it would have been east of whereever they were when the account was first given to them.  Whenever you believe that was, they would have been somewhere in the western middle east.  So Eden was somewhere east of there.

Re the rivers (because I think this is a fascinating question that I have thought about myself):  Not sure, but here's my opinion on the subject:  It refers to four rivers that existed before the flood; that part is certain.  Likely, those rivers, at least to an extent, did not exist in the post-flood world.  At the very least, their paths would have changed somewhat.  But, in my opinion, at least some of them probably no longer existed in any recognizable form.  But (and this is still opinion), they were very well-known rivers before the flood, so either (1) they were still partially identifiable after the flood, and the names that are recorded are merely the names the people would have been familiar with when the flood account was passed down, or (2) those were the actual pre-flood names of the rivers, and whether those same rivers existed or not after the flood, people assigned the four biggest rivers in the region those names.  Pure speculation on my part, but I thought they are interesting thoughts that I'd share.
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 10:07:28 AM by bösk1 »
"The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie."

Offline Jamesman42

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #205 on: January 06, 2011, 10:52:18 AM »
Since these kind of long debates (which are great to read) may spawn periodically throughout the year, is it possible to snip them out into a separate thread to keep this one from being too convoluted with all kinds of posts?

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #206 on: January 06, 2011, 10:59:50 AM »
I was thinking about that as well.  But I think the stuff Reap' raises, while lenthy and detailed, are really direct discussions of the daily reading material.

Maybe one thing that will help a little bit is starting a new thread each month. 
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #207 on: January 06, 2011, 11:05:22 AM »
I like that idea as well.

But what am I, but one person amidst a sea of posters. I'm on a forum.

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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #208 on: January 06, 2011, 11:18:25 AM »
:lol  Nice.  :imonahorse:
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Re: Bible in a Year! v. January
« Reply #209 on: January 06, 2011, 11:19:49 AM »
Since we are in close in proximity to the creation chapters, I think discussion about the creation is relevant in this thread.  It should obviously not be brought up once we hit Exodus, but as for now I think it is ok.

If the Flood is what caused the Pangean split, then there would be no Babel because the people wouldn't be able to unite.  So I think it was after Babel. 

???  I don't follow you at all.  Why not?  All people were in one location immediatley after the flood.  Shortly after, they begam to spread out somewhat, but not a lot, and were united in the plain of Shinar.  Whether there was one supercontinent or were many continents at the time does not matter at all.

Back up for a second...

I think we are having trouble understanding each others points.

Here's what I'm saying:

All the people in the world in were in one place in Genesis 11: Babel.  If the earth was physically broken up by this point due to the flood, a uniform meeting would have been impossible...crossing the oceans between each continent to unite in one place would be impossible with their poor transport technology.  Therefore, at Babel, Pangea must have been whole.

Since Pangea was whole at Babel, the flood did not cause the breakup of the supercontinent.  Nor could one of the side effects of the flood have caused it--Peleg was Noah's great great great grandson.  That's far too removed from the original event.  Something else must have been the cause of the physical split.  The only thing I can think of is 10:25.

What are you saying?
« Last Edit: January 06, 2011, 11:34:55 AM by BrotherH »
"All great works are prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night." - A. G. Sertillanges