Death before the 'Fall'?

jar, Do you see any indication of a change in the nature of man in this verse?"And Jehovah saw the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And Jehovah repented that He had made man in the earth, and it grieved Him in His heart .... And Jehovah said, I will blot out the man whom I have created from the surface of the ground ... for I repent that I have made them." (See Gen. 6:5-7)When you compare that to God seeing that the man made in His image was "very good" (Gen. 1:26,27, 31) do you still not notice any change in the nature of man? Do you still see no Fall away from God of man in the Bible?This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-04-2006 04:19 PM

jar, So I don't have a sense of wonder at the universe like you?

jar,All I really hear you saying from your last post is "I don't believe it. It is a fairy tale."Your comprehension of the intent of the writer is clouded by your skepticism of the validity of the what is written. It is not a matter of there being no fall in the Bible to see. It is that your understanding even on a literary basis is so subjectively colored by your unbelief that you can't see the obvious.You are so ruled by skepticism you can't even grasp the main facts even if it was a fairy tale.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-04-2006 09:16 PM

If you will notice I referenced (Gen.1:26,27,31) Notice Verse 31 is included? The other verses were in relation to man being made in God's image. I have noticed when and when not God pronounced His creation good. However, verse 31 certainly includes man. Man is the climax of the creation. And all the things were created for man. So in saying that God saw "everything that He had made, and indeed, it was very good" it should be obvious that humanity is included.Beside pronouncing everything that He saw "very good" God specifically blessed man in verse 28. And to "bless" means to speak well of. So there is quite a gulf between what God speaks concerning man in Chapter 1 and what He declares about His sorrow for making man in chapter 6. Denial of a fall of some sort I do not take as a serious interpretation of Genesis even on a basic liturary level.The firmament above was not procounced good. Probably because the evil angels were hovering above. However, it was good that all was to be under man's deputy authority as the one appointed to head up all creation. That was "very good" in spite of the fact that Satanic hosts seemed very much present.I am aware of the theory that Satan is not in Genesis, but is the friendly neighberhood prosecutor who appears after the Babylonian Captivity - God's handy little opposing attorney, etc. I don't know where you see this. There could be other explanations for the animals seemingly made after Adam is made. It could be that this was done that Adam might witness what he was not in existence to see beforehand.Then again, It could be just a general description of what God did without regard to time sequence. I haven't visited that issue in many years because I see no serious contradiction between the two summaries of creation. I think there is no need to exclude Enoch. The first signal is that whereas man fellowshipped with God without fear before he disobeyed, he cowardly hides himself afterward. His eyes were also opened and he knew that he was naked.When God asks Adam "Who told you that you were naked?" the strong implication that I get was that Adam was [now] taking in information from someone else. God didn't tell him he was naked or that it was wrong to be so. So WHO told him? The work of the slanderer had begun to accuse Adam in his conscience.The Devil temps man to sin against God. Then after sinning the Devil accuses man in his conscience that he has done so.Anyway, it is obvious that man's relationship with God has drastically been altered. The firstborn son, Cain, struggled with suggestions from sin crouching near the door. He could not master it. It was too powerful for him. And he became the first murderer. He also became the first one to invent a human religion.Man's being was poisoned. Something of a foriegn element was received into man's being, transmuting him, corrupting him, and changing his nature, constituting him a sinner. Genesis 6 has God pronouncing that man has become flesh. And this should be taken in this instance as a negative diagnosis. Man's spiritual nature has been made very dormant and comatose. He is ruled by his flesh. He has become flesh. All of this decline of man started with his eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. I think it requires considerably more gymnastics to argue that there was no alteration in man's nature or in his relationship with God after his disobedience.That many aspects of the fall are mysterious, I will grant anyone. And that we do not totally understand the nature of the alteration, I will concede that that is true. But we know what we need to know in order to be saved by God. That is what counts.And that God has packaged the creation and fall account in terms which even a fourth grader can grasp is not a reflection on the unsophistication the written material. On the contrary, I think it reveals the wisdom of God in making important and profound historical matters of a spiritual nature accessible to the greatest number of typical people.Some see a fairy tale. I see rather God's wisdom in communicating to us in accessible and near universal terms. I see the command concerning the two trees as a line in the sand, so to speak. Whatever man did, as long as he stayed on the right side of the line, he was innocent. When he ate of the forbidden tree, he lost his position of innocence.Arguments about man's weakness or tendency to want to do otherwise, I feel are not important. God is the one who has the authority to pronounce man justified, innocent, guilty, or whatever other status concerning man's morality.In short, I see "pre-fall" sin of man as just a human philosophical plaything. When God said to do this will be your sin, and to do that will be okay for you, that is the business of the only one who has the authority to pronounce man's true moral condition. As long as Eve had not eaten the wrong tree, whatever else she thought, felt, imagined, was not pronounced as the sin. It was the act of eating which crossed the line and brought them under the authority of God's enemy.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:02 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:06 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:09 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:11 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:14 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:23 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 10:24 AM

The problem is that though man now knows the good he does not have the power to carry out the good that he knows. He is very proud of the knowledge of it though.Many "good" people will be cast into the eternal punishment. And there is a saying "The road to hell is paved with good intentions."So I recognize that both good and evil were on the same tree. What man needs is the uncreated Person of God to be life to him. His justification and righeousness is in the hands of God according to God's standard of righteousness.The tree of the knowledge of good and evil was a ploy to make humans independent from God. But in trying to become independent from God man came under the authority of Satan the Devil. So man needs a salvation from the guilt of sin and the power of sin. He needs to become dependent upon God fully as Christ was dependent upon the Father.

Ramoss,Do you feel that a Jewish concept of personified righteousness is seen in Jeremiah 23:6?"I will raise up to David a righteous Shoot; And He will reign as King and act prudently ... and this is the name by which He will be called, Jehovah our righteusness" (See Jer. 23:5,6)Doesn't this Jewish prophet, when speaking of a Person of the Shoot of David having the name of "Jehovah our righteousness" indicate a concept of personified righteousness?This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 11:56 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 11:57 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-08-2006 11:58 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 12:01 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 12:02 AM

I'm not sure if it is possible to be completely neutral and unbaised about the Bible. I think one eventually has to make some decisions. Eventually one has to confront it claims and what they mean personally to the reader.I think eventually the reader has a stake in accepting or rejecting its cardinal claims. One can be neutral about Mody Dick or the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire or War and Peace or Biographies of many many great people. But when it comes to the Bible I think a person has to get off the fence and decide where she or he stands in relation to its claims.This is probably more the case with the New Testament Gospels than with Genesis. One method of softening its impact is to slice and dice the Bible up into supposedly unrelated segments such that one believes one part has nothing to do with another part. Modern intellectuals do a lot of that.Then if that doesn't provide sufficient refuge from the conviction of the Holy Spirit they go on to segment up books. So there are now five Isaiahs rather than one. There are now two, three, or more Genesis' rather than one. The tendency to "divide and conquer" goes on to slice and dice up chapters into different writers for different purposes.Then there are those who go to hide from God. The best place to hide from God is in Theological Seminary. The hiding one often assumes that if they can hide from God in a Theological Seminary then they can hide from God anywhere. And in a free land such can always pose as experts to lead others to adopt their dubious interpretations - "the blind leading the blind".This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 12:34 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 12:34 PM

God told Adam that in the day that he ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he would die. In the following chapters the Bible adds to the end of each descendent "and he died... and he died...and he died... etc."We are still dying.While we are all on our way to melting back into the dust physically and coming to God's judgement, some take comfort in going with a smirk on their face.As for me I have learned not to take simplicity in the Bible for naivete. God has the job of communicating with the human race profound things concerning our origin and purpose. I believe that it reflects God's wisdom that He has done so on the most basic things in a manner in which is nearly universal comprehension. Discovering that one is naked upon disobeying God may sound childish to some. But I think somehow God has chosen an aspect of our self consciousness which is easily understood by most people, to communicate more profound matters.Cain, the one on whom Adam and Eve set their hopes for some deliverance, turned out to be a murderer. If being naked seems trivial to us, murder should not be. I'm sure it was no laughing matter to the first family to lose two children in a single day. I'm sure it made them consider their ways deeply. It would have been better to have listened to God and not doubt His intelligence and the love in His heart for them.Most people, when they come winding down to the last moments of their lives, I think are reaching out for God. Some hold outs may melt away with a whimsical smirk to the end, jesting at God's word. Anyway, I think simplicty should not be mistaken for childishness in the Bible - "The foolishness of God is wiser than the wisdom of man"This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 03:10 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 03:11 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 03:13 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-09-2006 03:14 PM

Rrhain, The serpent said ”You shall not surely die!” (Genesis 3:4)
Genesis 5:5 says “And all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred thirty years, and he died.”Did he ”surely die” or did he not ”surely die?".You may object that he didn’t die within 24 hours so the serpent told the truth. But this is not the case because Adam did ”surely die”. And it is likely that the process of dying began as soon as Adam disobeyed. This fact would dispense with the objection that it took over ninehundred years for death to have its full effect. It could be that in the eyes of God entering into the degrading and irreversable process dying was what Him meant by ”in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (2:17)I think it is terribly twisted and self deceiving to argue that God lied and the serpent told the truth. The most major tenets are repeated from many different angles and in many different ways. I think that some rather not very significant copyist errors are to be found. None of them effect any major aspect of my faith. And the greater weight of evidence is to me that the Bible is amazingly carefully written.There are contradictions which are not really contradictions. And there are contradictions which I admit are difficult to reconcile according to our limited human logical powers.As for incredulities, they manner in which they come in pairs suggests that their inclusion is quite diliberate. For instance many of the miracles mentioned in the Bible come in pairs. There are two instances of the same type of miracle or something very similar. It is as if the writer is saying “That’s right. That is what I said.” This dileberate scheme of repeating occurances of astounding things led me to believe that there was some higher intellegence directing the writing of the Bible.Plus the fact that if you take a book like Exodus and notice that miraculous things of an encredible nature are mentioned along with other things which obviously called for both a high degree of intelligence and integrity to write, my impression is that the whole book is not to be taken frivolously.The detailed discription of the priesthood, the ceremonies, the dimensions, measurements, and physical characteristics of the tabernacle are extremely intricate. The writer was no dummy. Some parts of it could be compared to a description of a modern computer operating system in detail.Does this kind of detailed care given to discribing ordinance after ordinance in Leviticus reveal a sloppy minded writer? I think it does not. So the dismissal of the Bible as “poorly written” is not satisfactory to me. I concede that there are copyists errors to be noticed in the transmission of the original writing down through the centries. None of them are very serious as to the overall message of the Bible. I somewhat agree with this. Aside from being fruitful and multiplying to replenish the earth, they were only told to be careful what they eat. I agree. What is your point? They understood what they were not supposed to do. They were not suppose to negate God’s authority and disobey His command. Whatever else they did or did not understand was not attributed to them as a transgression. It was the action of eating which they understood they were not to do. They understood the authority of the One Who created them.I don’t think that we can rescue them from this responsibility by any amount of philosophical, theological, or psychological arguments. I don’t know what their first thought was. I know what the Bible records for us to know. There may have been many more things which constituted their reaction or details surrounding what happened. What is recorded is economically selected by God’s wisdom to teach us what we need to know that we may partake of God’s salvation.I believe that what we are told indicates that another source of knowledge began to tell Adam and Eve of their condition. Throughout the Bible Satan is a slanderer. He slanders God toward man. And he slanders man towards God. He attempts to character assinate God in the mind of man. And he also accuses man before God. God asked Adam ”Who told you that you were naked?” God did not tell him. God had not said anything was wrong with them being naked. So under whose authority are they now? And who has informed them that they should be clothed.I believe that the answer lies in the fact that they stepped out from under God’s authority and came under the authority of Satan the accuser, the slander, and the enemy of God. First he slandered God by questioning God’s motive and God’s heart of love. He insinuated that God was the enemy and that God was jealously withholding some blessing from them. When they took the fruit they crossed the line of God’s command.As I wrote before, the action of the eating was the transgression. It is not important what they knew or did not know as long as they obeyed God not to eat the fruit, which command they failed to obey. We may speculate on the nature of their weakness to even listen or reason along with the serpent. But it is the action of transgressing the command at which the Bible traces the loss of innocence. And it is at that point the spirit of the authrity of the air began to operate in the sons of disobedience (Eph. 2:2). That evil spirit became parasitically attached to man’s being constituting people children of wrath - an Satanic spirit operating within them:”And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, In which you once walked according to the age of this world, according to the ruler of the authority of the air, of the spirit which is now operating in the sons of disobedience . and were by nature children of wrath . ” (Eph. 2:2) Don’t you see indications of the same? They ran away and hid from God. Previously they enjoyed sweet communion. Now they hide themselves in fear and shame. God comes asking Adam “Where are you?” God knew everything. He knew where they were. God was giving them a chance to realize where they now were. Their sweet fellowship with their Creator was now totally altered. And God spoke in a way of love to cause them to realize from what they had just fallen. The account is economical. I think other things happened in connection to the story. I think the Spirit of God selects certain matters in an economical way to pass on to us. This is what God wants us to know. They became aware that they were naked and they tried their own inventions to cover that nakedness. And they hid from God. These are the events which God passed on to us in the account. Other things could have happened. God deems it best that we all know of these things.We do have various devices to cover our failures, shortcomings, mistakes, wrongdoings, sins, trangressions against both God and man. Very many of us react at the Bible with the thought that God is the enemy out to get us. We doubt His heart of love. We doubt His motive. We count His perfection and holiness as contrary to our existence. And we regard His authority as oppressive.Satan job is aways to switch man’s understanding of the universe around 180 degrees. He seeks to convince man that God is the Devil and that the Devil is God. History will eventually prove this fact. Ultimately history will come to a terrible climax in which Satan will tried to persuade the world that God is the enemy of man and that Satan the Devil is the friend and savior of man. These lies are of course the complete opposite of reality.When you teach people as you have that it seems that God lied and that Satan told the truth, this plays right into the Satanic scheme of world deception. This is a dangerous thought to even toy with. Had they not eaten, they would not have had any problem of either a dilemma of being unclothed or fear of facing God. The problems all are traced back to their disobedience in eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The feeling that nakedness was not right, the feeling to dew fig leaves for a covering, the feeling to run and hide from God, the feeling of passing on responsibility to someone else, as in the case of Adam saying that it was the woman whom God gave him who was the culprit, or the woman passing the responsibility on to the serpent, etc. all is traced back to their eating the forbidden fruit. I don’t think it is sloppy. I rather think that you would be hard pressed to find such an economical account of the major matters about human existence.Can you point to another book which in 10 chapters of typical biblical length tells us these things:
1.) The origin of the universe
2.) The origin of matter
3.) The origin of life on the earth
4.) The origin of man
5.) The purpose of man’s creation
6.) The origin of man’s disharmony with the Divine Creator
7.) The origin of marriage
8.) The names and history of the first human beings
9.) The history of the first religion
10.) The history of the first murderer
11.) The history of the first human city
12.) The origin of industry
13.) The origin of music
14.) The origin of shepherding
15.) The events causing world judgement
16.) The events constituting salvation from world judgement
17.) The origin of human government
18.) The origin of the spread of human being across the earth.These matter are all covered in the first ten or so chapters of the book of Genesis. Can you think of another book in which so many major and important themes about human life are covered in such an economical fashion?So I don’t think the concisesness nor the economy of what is written in Genesis reveals “sloppiness” at all. I perceive a divine Author behind the writing communicating with the world in near universal terms in which the most number of people can get the important points. It mentions three. Why do you assume that there were only three because it only mentioned three? The focus of the story only requires Cain and Abel to be mentioned. I think the sloppiness is in your assumption that the account is not logical because it is not exhaustive, i.e. the names of the hundreds of possible other people born at that time were not mentioned.Obviously Cain married one of his siblings, which God permitted at that time. It has always surprised me that people make a big deal out of Cain’s wife.Only two sons were mentioned because the account of the first murder only needs the focus of these two people - Cain and Abel. Genesis 5:4 says that Adam begot more sons and daughters. Cain married one of these. Even if Cain had no contemporary sister at the time he murdered Abel he could have married a sister younger to himself by decades latter. There is no problem here. No I don’t think it is poorly written. I think your analysis of a problem surrounding Cain’s marriage might be classified as a little sloppy with a little sloppy reasoning about a supposed biblical "problem." And I read through the entire Bible and don’t stop at one or two or more problems.I don’t think the author of Leviticus was sloppy at all. Rather the writer was meticulously careful and evidently very intelligent. And if I do encounted problems in the Bible, I put them aside to be dealt with latter, as I would would any other book with difficultites. I don’t stop reading, throw up my hands and say “Its all just too sloppy. I won’t consider it.”Did you do that with Origin of Species or A Brief History of Time?This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:19 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:27 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:29 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 07:06 AM

Phat,I am answering posts somewhat in random order today. I think one should come to the conclusion by reading the Bible with an openess to God. I came to the conclusion. But I originally came to the Bible with a very large “filter” of skepticism.To answer your question, yes, I believe Genesis was written for people of ages ago. And the record of Genesis contains enough indications to me that skepticism was not invented in the 2rst Century by any means. I agree that a Creator of infinite power, ability, and knowledge could create the univese and life in any manner desired.My opinion is that since I have been a child I think I have seen cosmology inch closer to what I see in the Bible concerning Destruction / Reconstruction. In the future science may move away from this closeness again. But when I was young I don’t remember so many popular theories about what may have caused mass instinctions of species. I don’t recall that much talk about killer comets and killer meteors or catatrophic release of gas or mass volcanic cataclyisms. If one these theories are true, it may have something to do with why the earth was found waste and void in Genesis 1:2. God could use such things to bring judgement to the earth in pre-Adamic times. You don’t really have to. I like to heed the New Testament exhortation to be ”ready” to give an answer to someone who asks for the reason of your hope:”But sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, being always ready for a defense to everyone who asks of you an account concerning the hope which is in you” (1 Peter 3:15) I think that God knows how we will do. I agree with you insofar that He allows things to happen that WE may see and understand what He already knows. That we will all stand before Christ is inevitable.”Therefore God highly exalted Him and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, That in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, And eery tongue should openly confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:9-11)So I believe that it is inevitable that every human being ever created will confess Jesus is Lord, bowing the knee - acknolwedging that all authority as been put into the hands of this Lord Jesus.So I like to practice daily by calling on His name and telling Him that I love Him - thanking and praising the Lord.As you spoke before about God being able to create the universe in any time span He desired - so also I believe that God could in one second hold billions of people simultaneously before Himself in Christ, to judge the entire human race in an instant all at one time. I believe He is powerful enough to do that if He wished to.The short answer is, yes you will meet Jesus. By all means introduce yourself to the Lord Jesus as soon as possible. He loves you and died for you that you may have eternal salvation. You can simply thank Him for doing this and receive Him by faith.Things will then occur within you which will confirm that you have indeed touched something real and genuine.

Phat, Do you mind if I let the Bible speak for itself in that issue?” O Lord, You have been our dwelling place, In all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, And before You gave birth to the earth and the world, Indeed from eternity to eternity, You are God” (Psa. 90:1,2)Here Moses says that God not only pre-existed before the earth but from eternity to eternity He existed. God always ways and God always will be.”Thus says Jehovah the King of Israel, And his Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts, I am the First and I am the Last, And apart from Me there is no God.” (Isa. 44:6).He is not only ever existing from eternity. He is the First Being period. And apart from Him there is no God.” . Is there a God besides Me? Or is there any other Rock? I do not know of any” (Isa. 44:8)God informs us that He is the unmovable One, a "Rock" upon which we all can rely our trust and depend. He knows of no other God. He has not known that another God is in existence like Himself.”Surely You are a God who hides Himself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isa. 45:15)Though He is the only pre-existent and ever existent God, He hides Himself. He does not reveal Himself cheaply or superficially,”For thus says Jehovah, Who created the heavens - He is God Who formed the earth and made it; . I am Jehovah and there is no one else” (See Isa. 45:18)There is no other God but the Creator. He is uncreated. No one preceeded God and created God.And He incarnated in the form of man - Jesus of Nazareth. He declared that He is the ever existing and self existing I AM (John 8:58). Only He is. Only He is independent of all things and dependent upon nothing. He the self existing I AM THAT I AM (Exodus 3:14) He is the ground of being itself.Probably time and space are matters created by Him for our existence. We need the realm of time and space. It is prepared for our existence as those contingent upon the Ultimate. Only He IS eternally, perpetually, self existingly, and the ground of all being.To me, by definition “God” means that there is nothing greater. There therefore is no one greater who is responsible for the existence of God. If we walk by sight and not by faith we would be swallowed up in insignificance. I agree and the Bible agrees. According to the apparent appearance of things we are microscopic and insignificant. The Psalmist says:”When I see Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, What is mortal man, that You remember him, or the son of man, that you visit him?” (Psalm 8:3,4)But we are not to walk by sight but by faith. And this is what faith should respond to:”For I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor things present nor things to come nor powers nor height nor depth nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38,39)Nothing can separate us from the love of God manifested in the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and exaltation of Christ Jesus the Lord. Height itself in its infinite possibilitites cannot separate us from the love of God. Depth itself as an infinite entity cannot separate us from the love of God.By sight, yes, we are dwarfed into insignificance. But by the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ we are led to believe that God’s unbreakable and unseparable love transcends and overspowers the sheer magnitude of the universe and all its creatures and issues. Our God came in the Man Jesus Christ and laid down His life for us. As much as it is possible for us to comprehend - the ever existing God laid aside His life because of His undying love for man.As for Eve coming out of Adam as a rib built into a woman? That is too profound for me to address in this post. But it is very significant. It is a window into the heart of God desire for an other to dwell with Him who comes out of Him. The Bible ends with a marriage of this corporate city that is the Bride and Wife of the Redeeming God brought back to Him to be His romantic counterpart for eternity, the New Jerusalem.The story of the man’s wife coming out of the man is also a window into the heart of God. He desires that He would not be alone but would have a counterpart as His Wife. I would encourage you to read Genesis 1 and 2 and then read Revelation 21 and 22. Read them with prayer asking God to reveal something of His eternal purpose to you.That is all I will write in this post. But I think your other questions are good ones to be discussed latter.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:23 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:23 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 06:25 PM

I see no need to try again.God: “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, of it you shall not eat; for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:17)The Serpent: “And the serpent said to the woman, You shall not surely die!" (Gen. 3:4)The serpent lied. Adam and Eve did ”surely die. It simply says that he would surely die. It is a fact that from the time we are born we begin to surely die ourselves. That Adam embarked on a downhill inescapable process in which he must surely die is enough of the indication of the truthfulness of God’s word.Besides Genesis 2:4 [/d] says ”These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven” (1901 American Standard Version). The Hebrew word for ”day” is the same as is used in Genesis 2:17 - “for in the DAY that you eat of it you shall surely die”. Preceeding 2:4 we are told that God made the heaven and the earth not in one day but in six days (Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). So the usage of the word ”day” in 2:4 is general time span not necessarily one sunrise to sunset span. My Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary for entry # 3117 - yowm, - is not restricted to this meaning for that Hebrew word, as you would like to have it. Other usages are:

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”(a space of time defined by an associated term), [often used aqdv.]:- age . presently . season . space . process of time . These words appear in addition to the definition - ”(from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next).” [Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance - Hebrew and Chaldee Dictionary, pg. 48].Accordingly, you cannot insist that because Adam’s heart did not stop beating before that day’s sunset, therefore the serpent told the truth and God mislead Adam. I don’t have a interesting logical fallacy term to defind this statement, like “non sequitor.” I’ll just say that it is wrong.You lose the case because you insist that sunrise to sunset could be the only valid usage of yowm. You lose the case because you insist that sunrise to sunset could be the only valid usage of yowm in Genesis. I don’t see anything “sloppy” in the narative. I did notice your sloppy insistence that yowm can only mean one thing when the Hebrew Dictionary in Strong’s Concordance shows that that is not the case. I wasn’t refering to spelling mistakes. Like errors concerning how many horses Solomon really had. While you are concerned about things being turned around to made the opposite of what they really are, you might consider this passage:”Woe to those who call evil good, And good evil; Who put darkness for light, And light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, And sweet for bitter!

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Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!” (Isaiah 5:20,21)
I think you should consider this passage in the light of how wise it is for you to teach people that God lied and the serpent told the truth. I think this is calling evil good and good evil, putting darknesss for light, and making the bitter the sweet. You are twisting things around terribly.quote:And there are contradictions which I admit are difficult to reconcile according to our limited human logical powers. I don’t think that most serious Bible readers would not want to admit that there are deep paradoxes in the Bible which are hard to reconcile. For example God as one God yet Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Or perhaps free will and predestination are difficult to reconcile. These matters are difficult to reconcile.
quote: Do you think the writer meant the entire planet? I’m not sure. I think he could have meant where all the human beings were living. At any rate whatever Moses meant Genesis 1:1 indicates that it should not be a problem for God to carry out what He wants to do. He created the heavens and the earth. His power has no limit.I came to believe Genesis indirectly through trusting Jesus Christ. It is because I came to the conclusion that the integrity of Jesus was without question, that I gradually began to take seriously in the Hebrew Bible what Jesus Christ seems to have taken seriously.
Knowing and trusting Christ was my intrance into accepting the rest of the Bible as reliable.Sometimes we do have to determine what is actually said and what is not said. I guess some who are insistent that a globe wide flood engulfing the whole planet might want to take up a debate on it. I’m not sure what Moses meant. But judged is judged. All the people and animals were wiped out except for the 8 souls in the ark. I think that is the important point of the record. I don’t know if Moses meant that South America or Australia were under water.The queen of Sheba ”came from the ends of the earth” (Matt.12:42) to hear the wisdom of Solomon. But by modern standards of travel that really wasn’t that far away. The census of Ceasar Augustus was commanded to go out to all the world (Luke 2:1). I don’t think the writer meant the Chinese were taxed by Ceasar or the American Indians on the North and South American contenient. So the language of the Bible is sometimes imprecise according to modern standards of science or geography.One thing does seem pretty clear. The account of a large flood wiping out human populations seems to have surfaced in cultures in many places. I think as the survivors multiplied and spread through the earth, some collective memory carried along embelishments of one kind or another of a great flood story. I think this explanation is a conspiracy theory. I am not talking of miracles mentioned in the same story. I am talking about pairs of miracles where each instance appears in a different history.For example: The parting of the Red Sea in Exodus paired with the parting of the Jordon River in Joshua. It is as if God is saying “That’s right. You heard what I said. The waters I parted to make a path through the middle.”Or consider the miraclous feeding of the Israelites in the wildreness with manna in Exodus with the miraculous feeding of Elijah the prophet in Second Kings, as of God is saying “That’s right. You heard me. There was no food and I miraculously provided some.”Or consider the translation of Enoch in Genesis with the rapture of Elijah in Second Kings. Or the intepretation of dream by Joseph in Genesis with the interpretation of dreams by Daniel in his book. Or there is the filling of the transitory tabernacle with the glory of God in Exodus with the filling of the temple of God with God’s glory in First Kings. Or pairing the darkening of the kingdom of Pharoah in Exodus with the darkening of Antichrist’s kingdom in Revelation.These uncanny pairing seems a deliberate attempt to make sure that we really did get it as to what God was able to do. Conspiracy theories stretched over 1,600 years don’t make plausible explanations of this design to me. Calm yourself Rrhain. I lose interest in conversing with people who go from showing off their mastery of logical fallacies to ridiculing laughter.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:19 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:20 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:22 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:29 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:30 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:31 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:34 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-12-2006 09:37 PM

Garrett, I think you meant Cain's offering.Your posts are very good. I have been limited in participation lately. Glad to see you contribute. I have more reading of posts to do to catch up with the discussion.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 11:21 AM

Rrhain, Yes, the possibility of God lying is not worthy of my consideration.I am opened to the possibilty of God fulfilling His word in a way which may surprise us. I think it may be correct that Adam was expecting to die immedietly. The slain animal/s that were used by God to provide coverings for Adam and Eve, he might have viewed as dying in his place. All the things surrounding God’s promise of a retaliation against the serpent could have been surprising to the couple since all they expected was the punishment of death.But it is correct that I am quite closed to your accusation of God lying and Satan speaking the truth. You can classify that refusal in any terms you wish.As to Adam and Eve surely dying, you say: Yes they did - surely die. And he died. He had no reason to before. I don’t think you can insist on that being the only possible way that God could keep His word that they would surely die in the day that they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. I don’t think that God said that it must and only happen before sunset. Can you point to another passage anywhere in the Bible which says that God lied? That would be a strong argument that He lied.However, I can point out that the Devil was a liar ”from the beginning””You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He . does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks the lie, he speaks it out of his own possessions; for he is a liar and the father of it.” (John 8:44)I’m not opened to your slander that God lied. And concerning the Devil I trust the word of Jesus Christ over yours.Concerning God saying that they would surely die you quote again in Genesis 2:14:quote: I think they started to die the moment that they ate of the tree’s fruit.
In 3:17 God goes on:”Beause you listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree concerning which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it; Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil will you eat of ot all the days of your life . ”God indicates that there will be days of Adam’s life spent in toil. I see no reason why God would promise Adam that his heart would stop before sunset and then turn around and tell him that he would spend days of his remaining life toiling.At best I would say that a merciful God postponed the inevitable consequences as long as He pleased to. If you want to come at me from that angle that God became lenient, I might agree. But I won’t entertain your argument that God lied.Furthermore, even in God declaring that Adam would have days of his life remaining before he turned back into the dust, I don’t think He introduced any possibility that He did NOT already have in mind when He said ” . for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”You want to make Satan the teller of truth and God the lying one? You go ahead and believe that if you want to. The rhythm in Genesis one is ”evening and morning” - one day. But I think you are exploiting a technicality to force the accusation of a lie from God. In 2:4 the word does not mean the interval between one sunset and another. And that is in the same chapter as verse 17. So YOWM could have more than one significance, to which the Hebrew dictionary already informs us.Hebrew has about 1,000 times less the number of words as English. So much flexibility has to be taken into consideration in interpreting the Hebrew Genesis. I believe that even in our formative years the process of dying has already begun on a miniscule level. The process picks up more and more as we age. But I will check with a biochemist or two out of curiosity, to see what present day science knows about it. You insist on that. But I don’t agree. The Bible says of God ”I, Jehovah, speak righteousness, Declaring things that are right” (Isa. 45:19)You are insisting that God lied and that the serpent spoke the truth. You are beating a dead serpent. You are furthuring the serpentine slander that what God spoke was not to be trusted. Why do you want to perpetuate the slander aimed at God by the seprent? Why should I remember that? The two sections may look at the matter of creation from different angles with different emphasises. I think the writer of Genesis put them together because they were related. Besides the two usages of yowm that I mentioned are both in Genesis chapter two - (2:4 and 2:17). There are indeed many myths about creation. I am presently studying some of them. But there are common elements. They all seem to emphasize the centrality of human beings.Genesis alone has God creating the heaven and the earth out of nothing. So I think that the many verbal versions of what was passed down and embellished from Adam and Eve was in the case of Moses, supervised by the Spirit of God. In short, I believe that the Genesis version is the one version which we should pay attention to as God’s version.But I do not argue that many creation myths were circulating. Genesis is the one divinely inspired. The others are merely interesting. Genesis is the word of God. I think God corrected all the distortions in inspiring Moses what to write.(I don’t think that Moses wrote about his own death in the Penteteuch).Contrary to your belief, I don’t think that God would be sloppy about His word. He meticulously maintains the design molecule. Why would He be much less careful in His communication of His verbal oracles to man? I think you’re attributing sloppiness to the account is like scientests attributing the inwards of a living cell to be just a mesh of insignificant goo five hundred years ago.quote:Preceeding 2:4 we are told that God made the heaven and the earth not in one day but in six days (Gen. 1:5,8,13,19,23,31). I think we are told generally that God made man in His image and created them male and female. This is general and overall with time sequence not mentioned other than the fact that it occurred on the sixth day.”And God said, Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness . And God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them . ” (See Gen. 1:26,27). This is general.In the next chapter we see God breathing into the man’s nostrils the breath of life and man becoming a living soul. Then God warns Adam of the tree. And then after Adam names the animals God builds Adam’s rib into a Woman. This is more specific. And I believe that the woman was finished by the end of the sixth day. At the time she was finished God could say that He created them male and female by the end of the sixth day.There need be no contradiction, only difference in focus and details of emphasis. I think that the second account is more local to the garden. Details are elaborated on in the second account concerning the local garden of Eden which are left out of the first account. Apparently there seems to be contradictions. But I don’t think these differences reflect anything but the selection of details to emphasize varying matters.Could it not be that animals were created first but in Eden? Could it not be that God reserved the making of some animals in Adam’s garden so that Adam could witness how the creatures prior to him had come about? I think it is possible. Quite correct. The Dictionary explains that the word can have different conotations. Either God meant that beginning to die was virtually to surely die or starting with that day they entered into the realm of “surely” dying.God lying is not an option for me. And you believe that the serpent was truthful that they did not surely die?The Ancient serpent is called the one who deceives the whole inhabited earth.”And the great dragon,... the ancient serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan, he who deceives the whole inhabited earth . ” (Rev. 12:9)Your insistence that the serpent told the truth and that God lied is a testimony that the Ancient serpent has truly deceived the whole inhabited earth, including you. You are fighting to vindicate the serpent and fighting to slander God. So you must be deceived.Do you think the couple made the right choice? I don’t believe that a lie issued from God. I believe that God spoke what was true. Sometimes I think they may have included a note that was in the margin of a previous copyist. This is textural criticism of which I am no expert. But Giesler and Nix’s book “A General Introduction to the Bible” discussed varies kinds of copyists errors. I think I recall that spelling and punctuation were not the only types of errors. I do recall that none of them amount to any significant damage to the central tenets of my faith.That discussion belongs on the Innerancy Board. Concering the example of Solomon’s horses: I don’t recall saying that I was quoting you. And it was relevant to my pointing out that I recognize some types of copyist’s errors are in the texts of both the Old and New Testaments. Many things. Particulary I don’t think that it is within the possibility of human imagination to concoct such a character as Jesus Christ. I don’t think anyone would invent such a Person even if they could.It was my initial trust in Jesus Christ that gradually convinced me that the whole Bible must be reliable. I did not start with Genesis. I ended with Genesis.The Bible taught me many things about where I came from and what my reason for existing is. It has taught me of the love of the Savior and how He deals with the problem of my moral imperfection, the need for forgiveness, and the power to overcome sin. It has also brought me into a family all over the globe of sisters and brothers who share the experience I have with great joy and hospitality. It has given me a practical way to be involved with God’s eternal purpose. It has put me on a team that must win, on the side of One who can only be totally vindicated, and the gift of eternal life. It has also given me a way to participate in bringing in the salvation of the whole earth. I can participate in the redemption of creation. I know why I was born and why I breath. I know where I am going and Whom I have believed in to conquer all that plagues the human race. I know the Lord Jesus and eternal life.Now if I drop my belief and pick up your philosophy, what do you offer me? Let me compare the two.This message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 01:50 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 01:57 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 01:57 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 02:04 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 02:08 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 02:20 PM

Rrhain, So far it seems that you are the one being suckered very badly.As for the coup for the forces of evil. God who transcends time has already shown us where the forces of evil are destined to spend eternity. John saw the little lying snake in the lake of fire. From the divine viewpoint it is already accomplished.And the New Jersusalem of the sons of God is already built, from the transcendent viewpoint of God. Ah, Unitarians. Those who pray to “To Whom It May Concern”The only problem is that the Son is called God, The Father is called God, and the Holy Spirit is called God. Yet there is one God. So the Unitarian concept has to ignore Scripture. So their “solution” doesn’t work. I am a disciple of Jesus. And I believe that there is only one God. I believe that if there could not be “son/s of God” then the universe itself would not exist. I think that the only reason that the time and space exist along with the univese, is that God could have sons of God. I believe that that is what the Bible teaches. I don’t know. If God knows what my choice will be, I don’t know if that means I have no choice.
Anyway, He knows but does not tell you what your choice will be. So you just freely choose. And of course some theologians would argue that God does not know.It is not a debate that I have ever felt to engage in. I have learned that the greatest blessing lies in just saying “Amen” to whatever the Bible says. I have found that that way has led to the greatest peace and the most intimate communion with God. And aside from the purpose of communing with God in intimate fellowship, the is little use for the Bible to me. If it does not lead me to know God and experience God personally, then it is a vain and useless writing.
Jesus told the religionists ”You search the Scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is these that testify of Me. Yet you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life” (John 5:39)
When I come to search the Scripture, I always want to simultaneously come to Jesus Christ in order to have the life of Christ. I don’t want to search the Scripture while not being willing to come to Jesus. I am not fully arrived at this yet. But I am getting there. The purpose of the Scripture is to convey a Living Person into my heart, into my spirit.
We should come the the Scripture coming to the Living Person of Jesus Christ at the same time. From Genesis 1:1 to Revelation 22:21 we should come to the Scripture and come to Jesus Christ together.
Whenever we open the Bible we should have a willingness to be touched and to be changed by the Son of God. If one does not have this willingness she or he should ask God that s/he would be willing to be willing for this. Possibly it means every high hill on the face of the planet. But if the writer was writing something that he was seeing in a vision or in some kind of communicated divine seeing, he could just be recording what he saw, i.e. he saw in the vision every single hill covered.The other thing to consider is whether there was a wave of water sweeping around the globe so that all hills were not covered at one time. I really don’t know. And I don’t have heavy scientific arguments about Flood Geology.I take it that Judged is Judged. This reminds me of the news people who were interviewing a farmer after a hurricane. His entire crop of plants had been flattened, destroyed. They asked him is the wind was going 50 miles per hour or more like 80 miles per hour (paraphrase). He responded that it didn’t make any difference to him, Flat was flat! His whole crop was FLAT, destroyed.Similarly, the Noah story informs me that judged is judged, period. That’s the point. Of course the point also is that eight humans were saved through the flood in the ark, a sure type of Christ and His salvation. I think it communicates that judgement was total.
I would not want to make a case that judgement was not total. That part must have been written by someone else. It is a minor problem for me. It should be a minor problem. I think we may very well live to see some acts of judgement which scientists will be hard pressed to explain.There’s a number of Flood Science Bible books which would take you on that it could happen. I don’t have much interest in them anymore. I read one called “The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch.” The writer discibed a comet dumping ice on the polar caps, knocking the earth out of orbit, and a wave of water slushing around the globe, as responsible for the biblical flood.I don’t know how God did this. My attitude is that the Bible is God’s revelation and science is man’s invention. If there is a descrepancy between the two the error must be on the side of science because God knows all the facts. That is just the way I see it.A Man rising from the dead is also hard for science to explain. Oh by the way, one other miraculous couplet that I failed to mention. That is the stopping of the sun and moon in Joshua with the moving of the shadow on the sun dial back a few degrees in Isaiah with Hezekiah. Here again it seems that the couplet suggests that the Creator is saying “That’s right. You heard it right. The solar light was altered by supernatural intervention.” You have to decide whether or not you want to believe the account of the flood of Noah. I have made the decision that God was able to do what He says He did. Just what He says happened may be a discussion. You seem to think that there is no discussion about. Maybe you are right. Maybe you are less than right and we have a catastophy thay was virtually universal according to modern standards of geography and physics. At any rate, I think the Bible has the approvedness as a book such that I am not persuaded to doubt the message because modern man says “Wait, now we know this could not have happened because of thus and such. Impossible.”I think I’ll run with what the Scipture conveys. Jesus seemed to rely on the account of Noah. If it was good enough for Jesus it is good enough for me. Thanks. And the Titanic was also supposed to be unsinkable.
Or was that “unsinka-bubble-bubble-bubble !” Makes no sense ?The Jews that came out of Egypt thought to accept Moses was to deny Judaism. They wanted to stone him and elect another leader to lead them back to Egypt, which they ironically called not “the iron furnce” but the land of milk and honey.Saul murdered scores of priests because to not kill young David was also to deny Judiasm.The Jews remaining in the good land who were not taken away to Babylon wanted to kill Jeremiah. To not do so was to deny Judaism.At many places in the Old Testament the Jews got it completely wrong thinking that they were serving the interests of Judaism.Jereboam thought that not making the two calfs for the Northern Kingdom to worship (instead of going down to Jerusalem’s temple) would be an act of denying Judaism. I do not want to argue that the flood of Noah was not universal. I take it as universal or virtually so (according to modern standards of geography and physics). I think the more important point is what are we to do with this information in light of how Christ used it:”For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as they were in those days before the flood, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the dau in which Noah entered into the ark, And they did not know that judgment was coming until the flood came and took all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.” (Matt. 24:38)These final words of Jesus on the flood of Noah are the most important words to me about the flood in the Bible. As it was in Noah’s day before the flood so it will be at the coming of Christ.What happened then was something that no one had ever seen before. And with the second coming of Christ also what will happen upon this planet will be things which no one has ever seen before. I had a Christian friend who was an MIT student. Very smart in science he was. He laughed one day that one of the lecturers said that science proves that the moon does not exist. Or that for certain known scientific reasons the moon, the earth’s nearest satallite should really not exist. But we know it does.I have no evolution arguments pro or con for you about Noah’s flood on this board. I think that if God communicated his salvation to man in terms that only physicists and geology Phds. could comprehend then He would be very narrow. I think that God did not ask that to be saved we master fluid dynamics or be thoroughly conversant in zoology, biology, biochemistry, etc.I think God did things in a way that we either believe or do not believe. If His plan of salvation offends your education level, that is something that you have to take to God in prayer to work through.I just don’t think that packaged His actions in ways that only those with advanced scientific education levels could find credible. What you might want to first react to as naivete, I would caution you to spend at least an equal amount of time contemplating as God’s way of universality. That is doing things in a way that many peoples from many phases of human history can relate to and understand.Do you insist that God must come up to our 21rst Century standards of scientific credibility to carry out His salvation? Do you insist that His actions must pass muster of our modern knowledge of science? I can only suggest that you spend some time to consider God’s job to reach people from all corners of the globe from all periods of history.If Christ should tarry for another 800 years and science advance 10 fold in its knowledge, God still has the task to reach as many people as He can in terms which as many as possible can understand. Don’t be so cock sure that God could not do what the Bible says He did. I only have difficulty with the thought that Jesus Christ, for whom the story of Noah was not a joke, cannot be trusted that the account is to be taken seriously. I think that Jesus has the approvedness, the sterling credentials, the moral perfection, the trustworthiness, the commitment not to His own well being but to the absolute truth of His Father, such that if it was real for Him it needs to be taken seriously by us.If Jesus casted doubt on the story then I cast doubt on the story. You have to trust someone in this life eventually. I have placed my trust in Jesus Christ.”For just as the days of Noah were, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.”
I don’t believe that He was talking about a myth. I think He was talking about history. So I believe Genesis because it was believable to Jesus Christ and the apostles. Maybe it was the whole planet. I think you are attempting to make me want to admit that what is said is impossible. I think that I derive the spiritual benefit from the Genesis Noah story without having to prove that the whole planet was or was not under water.There is no line of the account that I would write differently. What is written and how it is written is what I believe stands.Now you have grilled me quite a bit on this point. Let me ask you now. Do you believe this:”And Jehovah saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only eviul continually . And the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked on the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had courrouted its way upon the earth . (See Gen. 6:5,11,12)Do you think that is important? Do you think that is something worth paying attention to along with the matter of fluid mechanics and climatology? When you consider the video games of violence and he corruption in man’s entertainment, do you think that the wickendess of man is insignificant?Does it surprise you that we may need a salvation from our imagination? Does it concern you that our thoughts might be an abomination to God and a cause of His judgment to come down on us?I think you should spend at least an equal amount of time contemplating this - ”But Noah found favor in the sight of Jehovah.” I think that this is important too, that we find grace in the eyes of a righteous God Who is about to judge the world for its wickedness. The publication and distribution of the Bible argues more for its universality than your observation here. It is still the top best seller of all time. It is probably the most translated into the world’s languages also.
Why should I believe that your opinion exceeds the Bible in universality. Your type of skepticism envariably makes the number of people who can know the truth of life more and more stinted and narrow.Do you have children? I raised two who are now in their early to mid twenties. I will never regret selectively exposing my children to the wisdom of the Bible. I will never regret reading them the words of Jesus or telling them the stories of the Old Testament.I trusted that the Holy Spirit would speak to their hearts the crucial things which they should gather from those stories. And I would tell an adult the same things. I can come up with just as many questions as you can if I wanted to. But the economical accounts are there for our salvation. And I believe that we should accept them and believe them while seeing their place in the whole scheme of God’s revelation.I am into teaching people how to believe the Bible. I don’t want to live a life of teaching people how to disbelieve the Bible. I do not think that that is a worthy pursuit of my brief life here on this earth. I think a profitable pursuit of my life is teaching people how to believe the Bible and touch the God of the Bible. I think that the most important thing is not the acceptance of the Genesis account of Noah’s flood. I think that touching and and experiencing the Lord Jesus Christ is more important. I think everything flows from that. And Jesus is believable and attractive. I think He has no rival . I think Christ occupies a class alone. Once you experience Jesus Christ you open to the words of the Bible more and more.If you notice all my discussions about various Bible Study topics in this Forum have all mentioned Christ again and again. I try to keep Christ as the center and the circumference of whatever I may be discussing because Christ is the main theme of the whole Bible.I have to go now.This message has been edited by AdminPD, 02-14-2006 06:48 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 02-14-2006 07:36 PM