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Tue 20 Mar, 2007 07:47 pm
I've already read the Bible twice, but hey, my mom's making me do it again due to me telling her I'm not Christian and all that.. different story, different time. Anyway.
So let's read some Genesis..
The book of Genesis tells us how everything was formed. It says that God first created the Heavens and the Earth, and he then created light.
"And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light." - Genesis 1:3
Later on in this chapter, God says that he created the Sun and the Moon for lighting the Earth.
"And God made the two great lights, the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also." - Genesis 1:16
So it could be understood that when he says "Let there be light", he does not mean he is creating the sun, because he would be creating the sun twice. He, I guess, means that he is creating "light in general". Whatever that means. Anyway, another verse says this.
"The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good." - Genesis 1:12
Nothing would normally be odd about this verse, except that it happened before verse 16 ( The one above. ). God created vegetation before he created the Sun? Kind of weird.. I also find it weird that in this verse..
"God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." - Genesis 1:5
It says that God created Night and Day, and yet he created the sun and moon after night and day. All sounds a bit odd, but then again, he is God..
Seriously, this will be awesome. I can't wait for the next post.
Cobbler, I think that first post is going to be a tough act to follow.
very secretly, very quietly , bookmarking....
Well, the spirituality and religion forum is quite long. Hard to tell with it, as some of the better arguing might have occurred early. Read the whole thing, page by irksome page, by page, by page, by page, by page. A lot of it isn't very intelligent, on either side, and some intelligent notes are marred by what we call ad-hominems, arguing against the person instead of the person's comment.
At this time, much has been argued before here on a2k..
This is not to suggest you not argue anew, but to give you a clue re various points.
To read early on (could be useful) and reading back to now, just look at the forum and pick the oldest date. By the time you finish, you'll have nice grey eyebrows.
i think that when genesis says God created light it is refering to God creating the word.... which is Him in physical manifestation....which is why later in the new testament Jesus is refered to as both the light and the word.... God manifested in physical form.... I think it is intended as a prophetic statement as well as an historical one.....but what do I know? I'm an azzhole....
Having read the bible cover to cover 3 times, I will still find this somewhat interesting..
even if it is to only gain a few more grey hairs..
The contradictions in the Pentateuch, (the Five Books of Moses) or Torah, are due to the interweaving of up to four different versions of early Hebrew tradition. The following is from the introduction to Genesis in the NRSV Study Bible:
Quote:Modern historical scholarship has customarily identified three main sources of Genesis - the pentateuchal sources "J" ('Jahwist' or 'Yahwist,' so named for its characteristic use of the divine name YHWH, "Lord"), "E" ("Elohist," for its use of the divine name 'Elohim, "God" , and "P" (or 'Priestly' source), dated respectively to the tenth (or ninth), eighth, and sixth centuries B.C.E. But these alleged sources are orchestrated so skillfully and meaningfully by a later editor that the book's true literary magic arises not from the sources in their original state - if such can be known - but from their assemblage in a unified composition.
The fourth tradition, "D", appears only in the Book of Deuteronomy.
The following explanation of the book of Genesis is from,
Understanding the Bible, an Introduction for Skeptics, Seekers, and Religious Liberals, by John Buehrens:
Quote:What we know as the Pentateuch, however, starting with the creation story in Genesis, did not come together in anything resembling its present form until the crisis of the Exile, and perhaps not until the time of Nehemiah and Ezra, around 450 B.C.E. The P traditions, with their concerns for law, ritual, and worship, emerge from the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the need to preserve its traditions...
Also from Buehrens and dealing specifically with the creation stories:
Quote:...the Bible has not one, but two, stories of creation - one about the creation of the cosmos and the creatures on earth, another about the creation of human beings. They come from different strands of tradition (P and J, respectively) and do not entirely agree....
Some people think of "the beginning," creation, as an event in time. And they want to make the first chapter of Genesis a literal account of its stages. But it isn't. Nor is it a theologian's creatio ex nihilo, a creation out of nothing....
Carefully read, Genesis 1 begins with matter already in existence. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." But before the beginning, it goes on to say, "The earth was without form and and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."
Never mind the inconsistency. The first chapter of Genesis is not a treatise in natural history. It is a poetic prologue to a sacred history in the form of a hymn, a liturgical poem exalting God for creating order out of primal chaos.
I didn't know that, but that's cool. I'll keep that in mind when I am reading it. I'll still post the verses for the heck of it, though. :wink:
Reading Genesis for the first time would have you believe God created humans twice. . . . that is, until, you see that one account is a summation of the other.
As for plants being able to exist without light, I thought that has long been accepted as fact.
I don't think it's any mystery that plants could survive from the third day to the fourth day.
There was light, so they didn't do without.
None of these so called contradictions that Cobbler or JPB have posted are new. They have been posted here MANY times and are just as shallow and unsubstantiated now as they were then.
i love that light was created before emitters were created - that's great
and plants before the sun? so what - there was already light
evening and morning before a sun and moon - i believe the hebrew words used for evening and morning can also be translated chaos and order or something like that - which, in that sense it reasons why evening would come first
there was chaos and order, a first day (simply a period of time)
I'm looking forward to this journey through the Bible. Recently I tried to read through again (I did when I was about 15 and it was a lot easier then) and every five minutes I wanted to smack it against something and scream: "This makes no sense!" or "That is just outright wrong, immorial, and vicious!". I didn't get too far this time. Mid Exodus, then i folded. The story of Rebeca and her son tricking their father that the son is his older brother in order to get blessings and good fortune, and God kinda shrugging and going along with it, kinda killed it for me. But there were plenty nails in that coffin prior to that. Maybe I'll revisit them as this thread gets to those points.
real life wrote:I don't think it's any mystery that plants could survive from the third day to the fourth day.
There was light, so they didn't do without.
None of these so called contradictions that Cobbler or JPB have posted are new. They have been posted here MANY times and are just as shallow and unsubstantiated now as they were then.
You're one of two types of Christians:
Literalists, in which you should allowing him to see for himself what the Bible claims and let the words stand on their own.
or you're a
Analyst, in which you must give creedance to any person's interpretation of the Bible.
Either way, your post only serves to tell someone else what to think.
real life wrote:None of these so called contradictions that Cobbler or JPB have posted are new. They have been posted here MANY times and are just as shallow and unsubstantiated now as they were then.
Who said anything about new? Cobbler found contradictions, I gave him a plausible explanation for them. What's your excuse? You want new? Then, how 'bout you stop with your own broken records.
Cobbler wrote: I'll still post the verses for the heck of it, though.
Post in Hebrew, it'll be more challenging for all, including yourself, to read.
Then when, we have time, we can branch off to Arabic. :wink:
You can probably afford to skip one or two.
The plan is for THE ENTIRE BIBLE to be reviewed here.
At my age, I'm afraid I won't make to Ephesians.
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