Bible in a Year Thread: 339 days left: Genesis 46-50

[Stark]

Originally posted by: callmesteve
Oh man angels!! WOOT, if it wasn't 5:30 haha. I'll be back in a bit

i have to go get some lunch...

malak, leave gurck and his thread alone and tell us all about angels! 😉

 

[Malak]

Angels.

Angel comes from the greek angelos, meaning messenger. In hebrew it was mal'ak(ahem). It is a job description, given to both supernatural beings and regular humans alike. They did not have wings, nor were ever described to have wings. Cherubim and Seraphim are supernatural beings, but not necessarily angels.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: malak
Satan is also not the name of the devil 😛

Satan is hebrew for enemy, which is also applied to angel's of the Lord in the bible, and perhaps even God himself. As far as I can tell, the devil has no name mentioned. I'm still not sure what he is.

More properly, Satan means "the accuser", in context similar to that of the prosecutor in a criminal trial. In 1 John 2:1, Jesus is referred to as the paraclete or "the advocate", basically meaning the defense counsel in similar context.

 

[Lorn]

Jeez, all of this over a religion post? Even though I entirely despise all organized religion, at least this post is a bit more interesting than the majority of them in OT - including my own. It's off topic, folks. Agree with it or not, the actual action of posting it here is perfectly legitimate even though its content may not.

P.S. Sorry if this has already been addressed. I didn't feel like going through 4 pages of flaming.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: Vic

Originally posted by: Gurck
I don't feel threatened by it at all, this is guesswork on your part and quite wrong. I find it annoying that at this point in our evolution as a species there are still hooks holding us back. I see religion as a lot like our inclination toward fatty foods; formerly useful and not only no longer needed, but actively detrimental to us.

Knowing what a fictional deity told a fictional man named Matthew (or whatever) in a fictional book is not knowledge.

It must have been very difficult for you to post without calling me names, I guess we should celebrate all victories big and small. It's a good first step, at any rate.

Now, now. We already established who starting calling people names first, and that was you. Pointing out my faults without acknowledging that you share those faults as well is not wise (Matthew 7:3-5 btw 😉 ). But then that's the philosophy in the book that you choose to ignore, probably because it is inconvenient to your destructive agenda.

Your 2nd paragraph simply illustrates your ignorance on the issue, and that I am actually quite right in my "guesswork". God as God never spoke to Matthew. Nor was Matthew a prophet. He was a tax collector. Nor is the book fictional -- I suggest you talk with archeologists who dig in Israel and use the Bible as an accurate guide for their work.

Addressing your first paragraph, that is because you don't understand evolution either I would say. Humans evolve more than just physically, but behaviorally as well. In fact, I would argue that the majority of the evolutionary possibilities left to human are behavioristic. Inside the Bible is a history and a guide to that behavioral evolution.

Er... denying reality doesn't make it untrue. You, unable to deal with someone not sharing your enthusiasm for religious dogma on a tech forum, began calling names.

From "sinner", "heathen" and "pagan", to the more modern and palatable "he with a destructive agenda", some things never change ... that finger's looking pretty callused-looking buddy, you should rest it a bit 😉

I don't care who the bible says spoke with whom; my example was just that, an example. It's of no more importance than what someone says in a fictional book or television program.

Where's the disagreement on evolution?

 

[Caveman]

Intersting sidenote is that when you research back through the original Hebrew, it becomes apparent that there could be billions of years between V1:1 and V1:2. That really opens the doors to so much understanding...

 

[IAteYourMother]

Jeez... I'm still waiting for the day that Gurck gets banned.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: Gurck
Er... denying reality doesn't make it untrue. You, unable to deal with someone not sharing your enthusiasm for religious dogma on a tech forum, began calling names.

From "sinner", "heathen" and "pagan", to the more modern and palatable "he with a destructive agenda", some things never change ... that finger's looking pretty callused-looking buddy, you should rest it a bit 😉

I don't care who the bible says spoke with whom; my example was just that, an example. It's of no more importance than what someone says in a fictional book or television program.

Where's the disagreement on evolution?

Eh? I'm not denying reality. Nor would I be upset if all you did was lack enthusiasm. Was it your lack of enthusiasm that caused you to complain about this thread to the mods? :roll: Quite the contrary, it is not enthusiasm that you lack...
And how about the already demonstrated fact that you began the name-calling long before I entered the thread? It seems that your reality is "I"m rubber and you're glue... "

Nor do I care about about "sinners", "heathens", or "pagan". You misunderstand me entirely. In fact, you remind me of the drug threads that pop up here where I post in favor of legalization, and then misunderstanding "drug warriors" accuse me of being a drug abuser in order to falsely advance their argument, when that is so far from the truth as to be laughable. I post here as an advocate for religion for the same reason I advocate drug legalization. Which is, I believe in freedom and free expression of personal belief and choice, and will defend those ideals from ignorance and senseless hatred whenever and wherever I can.

And like I already said, ignorance is not an argument. Nor even an excuse. If you don't know enough to understand a subject, then you simply don't know enough to argue that subject, either pro or con.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: IAteYourMother
Jeez... I'm still waiting for the day that Gurck gets banned.

Difference of opinion simply isn't grounds for it. Seems all you can come up with in most posts is some variation of "plz ban gurck plz ololololo", I wonder if that is? 😀

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: Caveman
Intersting sidenote is that when you research back through the original Hebrew, it becomes apparent that there could be billions of years between V1:1 and V1:2. That really opens the doors to so much understanding...

you have to wonder what a "day" meant if the sun and moon weren't even created yet. Even the creation of all the animals could have taken millions of years (if you believe virtually all of modern science)

So I finished my Bill Bryson book at lunch and was reminded of this part of Genesis 1:

26 God spoke: "Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature So they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, And, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth." 27 God created human beings; he created them godlike, Reflecting God's nature. He created them male and female. 28 God blessed them: "Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living thing that moves on the face of Earth."

Here's how Bryson ends his book:

I mention all this to make the point that if you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn't choose human beings for the job.

But here's an extremely salient point: we have been chosen, by fate or Providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It's an unnerving thought that we may be the living univere's supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.

Because we are so remarkably careless about looking after things, both when alive and when not, we have no idea--really none at all--about how many things have died off permanently, or may soon, or may never, and what role we have played in any part of the process. In 1979, in the book "The Sinking Ark," the author Norman Myers suggested that human activities were causing about two extinctions per week on the planet... A few interpreters think most extinction figures are grossly inflated.

The fact is, we don't know. Don't have any idea. We don't know when we started doing many of the things we've done. We don't know what we are doing right now or how our present actions will affect the future. What we do know is that there is only one planet to do it on, and only one species capable of making a considered difference. Edward O. Wilson expressed it with unimprovable brevity in The Diversity of Life: "One planet, one experiment."

If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here--and by "we" I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in the universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privledge of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.

We have arrived at this position of eminence in a stunningly short time. Behaviorally modern human beings-that is, people who can speak and make art and organize complex activities-have existed for only about 0.0001 percent of the Earth's history. But surviving for even that little while has required a nearly endless string of good fortune.

We really are at the beginning of it all. The trick, of course, is to make sure we never find the end. And that, almost certainly, will require a good deal more than lucky breaks.

I thought that was a fitting passage for a discussion starting in Genesis. 😉

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: IAteYourMother
Jeez... I'm still waiting for the day that Gurck gets banned.

Difference of opinion simply isn't grounds for it. Seems all you can come up with in most posts is some variation of "plz ban gurck plz ololololo", I wonder if that is? 😀

again, thanks for all the free bumps. 😛

Another quesiton to throw out:

if Adam and Eve were the first Homo sapiens (aka Cro-Magnons), what should be made of Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, and all the other Homos that scientists have found fossil evidence for?

The latest scientific theory on the rise of Homo sapiens based on mitochondrial DNA claims that all living europeans can be traced to a population of seven women who lived between 10,000-45,000 years ago in the Paleolithic era (source: "The Seven Daughters of Eve by Bryan Sykes, 2002).

In 2000, Nature reported a study that all modern humans emerged from Africa within the past 100,000 years and came from an original base of 10,000 people.

update: new studies are placing the earliest Homo sapiens fossils in Africa at almost 200,000 years old (8,000 generations ago).

Does anyone have any good theories of the rise of man and our connections to other "Homo" species? Anyone care to speculate on whether the first modern humans came from Africa or Mesopotamia?

Looking back at the text, if you allow that God designed the "template" for man first (2:7) and based all other animals off that master DNA model, it's not too suprising to think that we were the last thing to develop from that model. Sure that's an incredibly Homo sapien centric point of view, but it seems to be one supported by what is known in science.

 

[callmesteve]

Originally posted by: Caveman
Intersting sidenote is that when you research back through the original Hebrew, it becomes apparent that there could be billions of years between V1:1 and V1:2. That really opens the doors to so much understanding...

Oh yea, also wanted to reference that before I go into angels, because this is the Genesis 1-3 thread 😉

Day... the earth was not created within 6 days. This my friends is a misconception many people have. Looking up the Hebrew word day, the one that is used like 50 times in Genesis refers to "period of time" How long is that period, it can literally be THOUSANDS of years. Need verification, no problem. 1 Peter .... no no 2 Peter..... yea 2 Peter 3:8, check it out. Not only that if you read Genesis 2:4 very carefully he speaks of ALL SIX DAYS as one day, such as a period of time. So Caveman, very well noted!

While I'm at it, we're still living in the 7th day. That's pretty insane too.

For Gurck, regarding how is this educational. It seems many historians now are turning to the Bible's historical records kept in the book of Genesis. This is not a lie. One guy off the top of my head is....

the geologist, Wallace Pratt. Knowing that the book of Genesis was written say like 6,000 years ago, during a time when people didn't have much knowledge of the world he stated this

He said something along the lines of he could hardly find anything better than the book of Genesis.

hold on, lemme give you a more accurate record....

"If I as a geologist were called upon to explain briefly our modern ideas of the origin of the earth and the development of life on it to a simple, pastoral people, such as the tribes to whom the Book of Genesis was addressed, I could hardly do better than follow rather closely much of the language of the first chapter of Gensis."

 

[callmesteve]

Oh man Spark... cuz of you I'm doing a lot of note digging. Haven't done this since high school. Thanks!

more on the days

Day 1 and Day 4 (connection)

Day 1 speaks of Light. If you read it says let there be light in Genesis 1:3. Some translations say like the one translated by J. W. Watts Let there be light, and gradually light came into existence". Interestingly he used the word gradually. Why would he do that? In day 4 is when the Sun and Moon appeared (Gen 1:14-19) which signifies that there must've been a lot of vapor and dust, gases surrounding the planet and it blocked the view of the sun, which is verified by 1st day when land was uninhabitable, speaks of darkness etc. (gen 1:2). Thus not a day day but more like a period of time.


Also whats very interesting is the way the days fall. How it falls very scientifically, and HAD to be inspired by a higher being. I only say this because, lets say we're writing Genesis, and we didn't have any prior scientific knowledge, we'd probably make a messed up planet. Or if a more knowledgable person came and read our documentation (BIBLE), they could probably find many errors.

However, the Bible is purely scientifical in this matter. The first is the clearing of the dust/gases/vapors. Creation of LIGHT. Then the second and third day, he creates an expanse, heaven and the surfaces of the water. Heaven here meaning the sky, where the winged beasts take flight (birds). So after he created that he didn't go straight into animals, etc. but created grass.(Genesis 1:11). 4th day coming, he still doesn't create animals but he creates the Sun and the Moon. Why? PHOTOSYNTHESIS maybe? <~ thats not in the Bible but it works out no??

 

[callmesteve]

One more for Gurck, if you take a looksee at 1988 Newsweek magazine, they have a report called 'The Search for Adam and Eve." The studies showed that based on the type of mitochondrial DNA, genetic material passed on only by the female, that ew all have a common ancestor. Not only that, a more recent study reports a research on the male DNA which point to the same conclusion. "There was an ancestral 'Adam', whose genetic material on the Y chromosome is common to every man now on earth." (Time magazine, 1995)

I think that illustrates the credibility of the book of Genesis, and the Bible itself.

 

[Gurck]

As I mentioned, studies often show whatever those funding them want them to. A researcher seeking only the truth may find himself out of research funds before long 😉 There's still a lot we don't know, but far more evidence supports a mundane history than one crafted by a deity.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: malak
Pop quiz.

What's an angel?

They referred, symbolically, to the priests. There were no rosy-cheeked beings with wings. That's purely a figment of some artist's imagination.

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: callmesteve
One more for Gurck, if you take a looksee at 1988 Newsweek magazine, they have a report called 'The Search for Adam and Eve." The studies showed that based on the type of mitochondrial DNA, genetic material passed on only by the female, that ew all have a common ancestor. Not only that, a more recent study reports a research on the male DNA which point to the same conclusion. "There was an ancestral 'Adam', whose genetic material on the Y chromosome is common to every man now on earth." (Time magazine, 1995)

I think that illustrates the credibility of the book of Genesis, and the Bible itself.

The Seven Daughters of Eve: The Science That Reveals Our Genetic Ancestry - Bryan Sykes

Also, check this one out:
The Journey of Man: A Genetic Odyssey - Spencer Wells

 

[Stark]

I pulled out Walking the Bible this morning to brush up on the other takes on creation (similar to Who Wrote the Bible?). If you haven't heard of this book before, Feiler basically goes all over the middle east with the famous Israeli archaeologist Avner Goren (the Hebrew Indiana Jones) and analyze the Books of Moses in the places they are thought to have happened.

For the creation story, they go to Turkey and the Tigris and Euphrates rivers (Iraq would have been a more preferred location, but Saddam was still in power).

From the book:

"Listen to the words closely,"[Goren] said. "Listen for the sound of the rivers: 'When God began to create the heaven and the earth, the earth was unformed and void.' " These words suggest a vast emptiness, Avner noted, but the next line is more evocotive: "And darkness was upon the face of the deep." "In Hebrew,," he said, "the word for deep is tehom, which means chaos. In Mesopotamia, chaos was represented by a sea monster, Tiamat. Tiamat is the root for tehom. We're only in the second line of Genesis, and already we have a direct link to the cult of water in Mesopotamia."

We continued reading. For the next chapter and a half, the Bible tells the story of how God created the world. On the first day God creates light and dark. On the second day he generates an amorphous mass, "an expanse in the midst of the water," and also forms the sky. On the third day he divides this expanse into the earth and seas and brigs forth vegetation. On the fourth day he creates the sun and the stars; on the fifth, birds and sea creatures; on the sixth, cattle and animals that creep. Also, on the sixteh day God, using the plural, announces, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness," and creates an annamed male and female. Finally, on the seventh day, having "finished" his work, God declares the day holy and rests.

In many ways, this story, which appears without preamble at the beginning of Genesis, seems completely removed from time and place. But in other ways, the story is deeply rooted in a particular time--the second and third millennia B.C.E.--and in a particular place, Mosopotamia. Specifically, Genesis draws on the Mesopotamian obsession with water. Considering the importance of rivers, it was inevitable that water would play a vital role in ancient creation stories. The unanimity across cultures, though, is striking. The earliest stories date from the third millennium B.C.E and come from Sumer, in today's southern Iraq. Living in an area the size of New Hampshire, the Sumerians gererated a vast literary outpouring: Over fourty thousand lines of Sumerian script have been found, compared with twenty-three thousand lines of biblical script. The root of the Sumerian woldview was a primeval sea, which split into a vaulted heaven and a flat earth, an almost identical to that of Genesis. The Sumerian universe was controlled by humanlike gods, the most important of whom was Eniki, the god of water, who created light, plants, animals, and humans.

The Babylonian creation story, also from Mesopotamia, is even closer to Genesis. In the story, the world is presented as a water chaos, represented by the moster Tiamat. During a rebellion, another god, Marduk, slays Tiamat and slices her carcass in two, creating heaven and earth. After his triumph, Marduk proceeds to create, in succession, light, the firmament, dry land, heavenly lights, animals, and man. Afterward he rests and celebrates.

"So you see," Avner said, "in both stories, water precedes everything, a struggle ensues, and everything else emerges from that."
"But when Westerners imagine God creating the world," I said, "they don't imagine a struggle."
""Yes, but the struggle is still there," he said. "The Bible states very clearly, 'And God says, "Let there be light." And there was light. And God saw the light: that it was good.' Here you ahve the start of good things and bad things. On the third day God says twice that something is good. There is clearly an echo of struggle here, getting rid of evil."

"So how does that echo get there?" I asked. "The biblical story was written down in the first millennium B.C.E. These stories come from the third millennium."

"Ah. That's the story of the Bible. Though it was written down later, large pats of it consist of oral traditions that were passed down for hundreds of years, many with the same words. The Bible, like The Illiad, combines large amounts of ancient texts."

In the story of Adam and Eve, for example, ideas like the tree of life, the snake, and man being made fro clay were well known in Mesopotamia. The nave Eve is derived from a Sumerian pun on the word for rib. Even the Garden of Eden has ancient roots. In one prototype, the god Eniki summons water from the ground to create a garden, which the mother-goddess fills with plants. When Eniki eats these plants without permission he is ostracized and cursed to die. In the story, the garden is located "east of Sumer."

Genesis also places its garden "eastward, in Eden" and begins with a watering: "There went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." The Bible seems to place Eden near Sumer specifically, saying the garden is located at the junction of four rivers. One of those rivers is the Euphrates, another the Tigris. Though we are only in the second chapter, and clearly in the realm of allegory, already the Bible is rooting itself firmly in the ground, in actual places, in geography. The stories seem to be reaching out, saying: These are not merely tales--this is not recreation--these words are as indispensible to you as the landscape, the soil, even water itself. Stories, like rivers, give life.

"All of which raises a question," I suggested. The light was mostly gone by now and a green haze had settled over a bank. The cows had wandered away, leaving only a stir of mosquitoes. "If these stories draw so heavily from Mosopotamia, how are they different?"

Avner removed his glasses and smiled, as if he had been waiting for the. "The difference is God." he said. "He's much more abstract. There's no biography, no mythology. He just appears and begins to create the world, using only words as tools. Yet from the beginning, he's soley in control--at least of nature. His ability to control man is much less complete" (pp. 19-22)

 

[Stark]

Ok, I guess the mods want this kept to one thread... fine with me, but this could turn into a big, big thread. If you PM me with guidelines, I'll try to follow them. Maybe a new thread for each different book (Genesis, Exodus, etc?)

I was working on my cliffs notes when the other thread was locked. Nevertheless, here's Day 2:

Genesis 4-7

1 Adam slept with Eve his wife. She conceived and had Cain. She said, "I've gotten a man, with God's help!" 2 Then she had another baby, Abel. Abel was a herdsman and Cain a farmer.

3 Time passed. Cain brought an offering to God from the produce of his farm. 4 Abel also brought an offering, but from the firstborn animals of his herd, choice cuts of meat. God liked Abel and his offering, 5 but Cain and his offering didn't get his approval. Cain lost his temper and went into a sulk.

6 God spoke to Cain: "Why this tantrum? Why the sulking? 7 If you do well, won't you be accepted? And if you don't do well, sin is lying in wait for you, ready to pounce; it's out to get you, you've got to master it."

8 Cain had words with his brother. They were out in the field; Cain came at Abel his brother and killed him.

9 God said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "How should I know? Am I his babysitter?" 10 God said, "What have you done! The voice of your brother's blood is calling to me from the ground. 11 From now on you'll get nothing but curses from this ground; you'll be driven from this ground that has opened its arms to receive the blood of your murdered brother. 12 You'll farm this ground, but it will no longer give you its best. You'll be a homeless wanderer on Earth."

13 Cain said to God, "My punishment is too much. I can't take it! 14 You've thrown me off the land and I can never again face you. I'm a homeless wanderer on Earth and whoever finds me will kill me." 15 God told him, "No. Anyone who kills Cain will pay for it seven times over." God put a mark on Cain to protect him so that no one who met him would kill him.

16 Cain left the presence of God and lived in No-Man's-Land, east of Eden. 17 Cain slept with his wife. She conceived and had Enoch. He then built a city and named it after his son, Enoch. 18 Enoch had Irad, Irad had Mehujael, Mehujael had Methushael, Methushael had Lamech.

19 Lamech married two wives, Adah and Zillah. 20 Adah gave birth to Jabal, the ancestor of all who live in tents and herd cattle. 21 His brother's name was Jubal, the ancestor of all who play the lyre and flute. 22 Zillah gave birth to Tubal-Cain, who worked at the forge making bronze and iron tools. Tubal-Cain's sister was Naamah.

23 Lamech said to his wives, Adah and Zillah, listen to me; you wives of Lamech, hear me out: I killed a man for wounding me, a young man who attacked me. 24 If Cain is avenged seven times, for Lamech it's seventy-seven!

25 Adam slept with his wife again. She had a son whom she named Seth. She said, "God has given me another child in place of Abel whom Cain killed." 26 And then Seth had a son whom he named Enosh. That's when men and women began praying and worshiping in the name of God.

1 This is the family tree of the human race: When God created the human race, he made it godlike, with a nature akin to God. 2 He created both male and female and blessed them, the whole human race. 3 When Adam was 130 years old, he had a son who was just like him, his very spirit and image, and named him Seth. 4 After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, having more sons and daughters. 5 Adam lived a total of 930 years. And he died.

6 When Seth was 105 years old, he had Enosh. 7 After Seth had Enosh, he lived another 807 years, having more sons and daughters. 8 Seth lived a total of 912 years. And he died. 9 When Enosh was ninety years old, he had Kenan. 10 After he had Kenan, he lived another 815 years, having more sons and daughters. 11 Enosh lived a total of 905 years. And he died. 12 When Kenan was seventy years old, he had Mahalalel. 13 After he had Mahalalel, he lived another 840 years, having more sons and daughters. 14 Kenan lived a total of 910 years. And he died. 15 When Mahalalel was sixty-five years old, he had Jared. 16 After he had Jared, he lived another 830 years, having more sons and daughters. 17 Mahalalel lived a total of 895 years. And he died. 18 When Jared was 162 years old, he had Enoch. 19 After he had Enoch, he lived another 800 years, having more sons and daughters. 20 Jared lived a total of 962 years. And he died.

21 When Enoch was sixty-five years old, he had Methuselah. 22 Enoch walked steadily with God. After he had Methuselah, he lived another 300 years, having more sons and daughters. 23 Enoch lived a total of 365 years. 24 Enoch walked steadily with God. And then one day he was simply gone: God took him.

25 When Methuselah was 187 years old, he had Lamech. 26 After he had Lamech, he lived another 782 years. 27 Methuselah lived a total of 969 years. And he died.

28 When Lamech was 182 years old, he had a son. 29 He named him Noah, saying, "This one will give us a break from the hard work of farming the ground that God cursed." 30 After Lamech had Noah, he lived another 595 years, having more sons and daughters. 31 Lamech lived a total of 777 years. And he died. 32 When Noah was 500 years old, he had Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

1 When the human race began to increase, with more and more daughters being born, 2 the sons of God noticed that the daughters of men were beautiful. They looked them over and picked out wives for themselves.

3 Then God said, "I'm not going to breathe life into men and women endlessly. Eventually they're going to die; from now on they can expect a life span of 120 years."

4 This was back in the days (and also later) when there were giants in the land. The giants came from the union of the sons of God and the daughters of men. These were the mighty men of ancient lore, the famous ones. Noah and His Sons 5 God saw that human evil was out of control. People thought evil, imagined evil - evil, evil, evil from morning to night.

6 God was sorry that he had made the human race in the first place; it broke his heart. 7 God said, "I'll get rid of my ruined creation, make a clean sweep: people, animals, snakes and bugs, birds - the works. I'm sorry I made them."

8 But Noah was different. God liked what he saw in Noah. 9 This is the story of Noah: Noah was a good man, a man of integrity in his community. Noah walked with God. 10 Noah had three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

11 As far as God was concerned, the Earth had become a sewer; there was violence everywhere. 12 God took one look and saw how bad it was, everyone corrupt and corrupting - life itself corrupt to the core.

13 God said to Noah, "It's all over. It's the end of the human race. The violence is everywhere; I'm making a clean sweep. 14 "Build yourself a ship from teakwood. Make rooms in it. Coat it with pitch inside and out. 15 Make it 450 feet long, seventy-five feet wide, and forty-five feet high. 16 Build a roof for it and put in a window eighteen inches from the top; put in a door on the side of the ship; and make three decks, lower, middle, and upper. 17 "I'm going to bring a flood on the Earth that will destroy everything alive under Heaven. Total destruction. 18 "But I'm going to establish a covenant with you: You'll board the ship, and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives will come on board with you. 19 You are also to take two of each living creature, a male and a female, on board the ship, to preserve their lives with you: 20 two of every species of bird, mammal, and reptile - two of everything so as to preserve their lives along with yours. 21 Also get all the food you'll need and store it up for you and them."

22 Noah did everything God commanded him to do.

1 Next God said to Noah, "Now board the ship, you and all your family - out of everyone in this generation, you're the righteous one. 2 "Take on board with you seven pairs of every clean animal, a male and a female; one pair of every unclean animal, a male and a female; 3 and seven pairs of every kind of bird, a male and a female, to insure their survival on Earth. 4 In just seven days I will dump rain on Earth for forty days and forty nights. I'll make a clean sweep of everything that I've made."

5 Noah did everything God commanded him. 6 Noah was 600 years old when the floodwaters covered the Earth. 7 Noah and his wife and sons and their wives boarded the ship to escape the flood. 8 Clean and unclean animals, birds, and all the crawling creatures 9 came in pairs to Noah and to the ship, male and female, just as God had commanded Noah. 10 In seven days the floodwaters came.

11 It was the six-hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month that it happened: all the underground springs erupted and all the windows of Heaven were thrown open. 12 Rain poured for forty days and forty nights.

13 That's the day Noah and his sons Shem, Ham, and Japheth, accompanied by his wife and his sons' wives, boarded the ship. 14 And with them every kind of wild and domestic animal, right down to all the kinds of creatures that crawl and all kinds of birds and anything that flies. 15 They came to Noah and to the ship in pairs - everything and anything that had the breath of life in it, 16 male and female of every creature came just as God had commanded Noah. Then God shut the door behind him.

17 The flood continued forty days and the waters rose and lifted the ship high over the Earth. 18 The waters kept rising, the flood deepened on the Earth, the ship floated on the surface. 19 The flood got worse until all the highest mountains were covered 20 - the high water mark reached twenty feet above the crest of the mountains.

21 Everything died. Anything that moved - dead. Birds, farm animals, wild animals, the entire teeming exuberance of life - dead. And all people - dead. 22 Every living, breathing creature that lived on dry land died; 23 he wiped out the whole works - people and animals, crawling creatures and flying birds, every last one of them, gone. Only Noah and his company on the ship lived. 24 The floodwaters took over for 150 days.

Cliffs notes below...

 

[Stark]

cliffs notes

Genesis 4-7
Adam and Eve got busy. No word if this was the first time the dirty deed was done, but apparently this is the first time it resulted in male offspring. They named their boys Cain and Abel. Not having any Dr Spock books to raise their firstborn, they did a pretty lousy job in the first ever attempt at parenting. By modern standards, A&E failed miserably when "raising Cain" (but not as miserably as Brian De Palma and John Lithgow).

Cain was a farmer, Abel was a rancher. They both brought offerings to God. God preferred meat over vegetables, prompting protests from PETA and Cain. God warned Cain to chill out, but he just couldn?t get over losing out to his little brother, so Kip had Napoleon pull him out to the LLama field and b- slapped him to death.

God asked Cain where his brother was, and he answered back (in olde King James English accent) ?I know not: Am I my brother?s keeper??

Capital G, not pleased with being lied to by a little vegan wuss, told Cain to hit the road and wander around for the rest of his life. Not to be too harsh, He offered Cain protection from other people who might do him harm. No mention is made of who these other people were, since it appears that only Adam and Eve were left.

Nevertheless, Cain took his sister/cousin/wife, went Steinbeck and traveled East of Eden. He and his sister/cousin/wife got busy and started a family. One of his grandsons, Lamech seemed to inherit his grandpa?s psycho gene and killed some guy. Like a little punk, he claimed diplomatic immunity to escape prosecution.

Adam and Eve liked to get it on, and had a new kid to replace Abel. They named the boy after one of the greatest TV characters in recent memory, Seth Cohen of the OC (or maybe it?s the other way around). Seth obsessed over a girl named Summer, then tried to get with a hot blonde lesbo, then went back to Summer after making her a comic book superhero and they had a kid named Enosh. Viewers were so happy they all bought the soundtrack (featuring a new genre of music called ?praise and worship?).

Then Adam and his boys continued to pump out kids into their 900?s ("Every sperm is sacred.... every sperm is great... if a sperm is wasted, God gets quite irate"). In an age before Viagra, this was a noteworthy feat. Literalists say that they were able to live this long because of some protective layer of water in the atmosphere. Others compare old guys in the Bible to old guys in other ancient literature and conclude that old age is more a measure of a man?s greatness and importance than his actual time on Earth. The older a guy is and the more kids and cattle he has, the more important his role.

Eventually Noah was born and when he was 500 he had three boys: Shem, Ham and Japheth...

In chapter 6 things get weird...

Apparently the "sons of God" were hard up, so once hot women started to propagate on Earth, they started taking them as wives, creating mutant giant offspring. One theory I?ve heard links this story to the legends of alien abductions and earth women being impregnated by extraterrestrials (no word if Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis, or Julie Brown were involved).

According to wikipedia, these Nephilim (?sons of God?) were probably ?fallen angels? and have made guest appearances in the X-Files, Wing Commander: Prophecy, and Diablo2. They also have their own goth band and role playing game.
wiki

Left to its own devices, humanity quickly spiraled out of control. Everyone sucked except for Noah and his boys. God decided to start the human race over again, using Noah and his genes to reseed the planet. God?s plan? To flood out humanity like Bill Murray vs the gopher in Caddyshack.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Man, I hope this thread gets locked up soon...:roll:

 

[conjur]

Originally posted by: Stark
I pulled out Walking the Bible this morning to brush up on the other takes on creation (similar to Who Wrote the Bible?).

Not similar at all.

Nice try.

 

[Ilmater]

I tried not to, but I have to crap in this thread. If you want to preach religion, go to a fvcking street corner and bother people there. I don't even want to SEE this post here, and I especially don't want to see it every day.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: JulesMaximus
Man, I hope this thread gets locked up soon...:roll:

Originally posted by: Ilmater
I tried not to, but I have to crap in this thread. If you want to preach religion, go to a fvcking street corner and bother people there. I don't even want to SEE this post here, and I especially don't want to see it every day.

:thumbsup: x2

 

[Stark]

Originally posted by: conjur

Originally posted by: Stark
I pulled out Walking the Bible this morning to brush up on the other takes on creation (similar to Who Wrote the Bible?).

Not similar at all.

Nice try.

ok, it's been 5+ years since I read Friedman's book, and less than a year since I read Feiler. I thought they both touched on other creation stories (maybe that was another book in the same class).

So what i'm i missing that Friedman touches on... The J and E source stuff?

PS,
thanks for the bumps guys... only 363 days left to go! 😛