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Author | Topic: The Serpent of Genesis is not the Dragon of Revelations | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jaywill Member (Idle past 1966 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: |
Ringo writes:
Do you think you could keep the pseudopsychobabble to yourself and address the topic at hand? You shouldn't be worried about this. The verse says the wisdom of the wise. I wasn't thinking of you when I quoted that.
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ringo Member (Idle past 437 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
The verse says the wisdom of the wise. I wasn't thinking of you when I quoted that. The wise can explain their wisdom for the understanding of others. So far, you have not succeeded in showing the connection between Genesis and Revelation - which is the subject of this thread. If Genesis has any value, it ought to have some value on its own, separate from what you perceive as connections to every other verse in the Bible. How about showing us how much you understand about Genesis in Genesis? Show us the "adversary" in Genesis. When/if you can establish an adversary in Genesis and when/if you can establish an adversary in Revelation, we can begin to discuss the relationship between the two. Until then, we are not talking about adversaries, we're talking about snakes and dragons. Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
RDG writes: its only speaks of one snake, and this snake also parallials tiamat or laviathen in someway, considering it sowed chaos into the system 1. It was not a snake. Read the account. Snakes have no legs. 2. All the descendents (seed) of this beast were cursed. Again read the account carefully and thoughtfully.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
1. It was not a snake. Read the account. Snakes have no legs. what logic!
quote: the story explains why snakes have no legs, and why they appear to lick the ground. the idea that "maybe it's talking about a snake" comes from the fact that it describes what a snake is, by means of this curse.
2. All the descendents (seed) of this beast were cursed. Again read the account carefully and thoughtfully. and so all subsequent snakes have no legs, and are too busy "eating dust" to tell us things to lead us astray.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
dinosaurs were not very smart, the smartest one was as intelligent as a turkey, more like the household dog.
and you do know what turkeys do when it rains right? that's a myth.
i think the writer was making parallials between satan and tiamat, being that both at that time represent chaos there are other tiamat legends. namely, the ones pd showed in the op. leviathan, and taniynm. the snake might be symbolic, but it's also clearly nothing special. more likely, it's employing something similar to later semitic and mesopotamian snake imagery: evil spirits. the snake is not clearly satan, however, in the tradition sense. in the operational sense, he IS a satan, because he attempts to lead man away from god, or is used to test man with a moral choice. but it is not symbolic of "the devil."
sadly its not a ver convencing one, there is nothing biblical to back any of this up. god has never changed the whole structure of anything after it was created, the only maybe was the age limits on people but nothing on over-all anything that's a botched interpretation. the ages of the patriarchs in genesis gradually decrease from ~900 years to just upwards of modern human lifespans, ~120 years. there is no sharp cut-off point. that "120 years" is the time until the flood.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
My vote is that the Apostle John was refering to Satan. And I don't think he meant that Cain was a little baby snake. It is too bad that some readers cannot spiritually ascertain certain themes in the Bible. read genesis 4 again, and tell me who tested cain.
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4135 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
1. It was not a snake. Read the account. Snakes have no legs.
because it got cursed?, buz you imposing your own views on the text, it says serpent which is another name for snake.
2. All the descendents (seed) of this beast were cursed. Again read the account carefully and thoughtfully.
there was only one snake spoke of. not more than one. you are adding to the text buz
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
I think the real "writer" of Genesis is the Spirit of God. That is the same writer of the epistle of First John. One God speaking through two different prophetic authors accross the span of many centries. then why the difference of opinion? why the revision and reinterpretation of ideas? if the spirit of god is the real author, wouldn;t god, i dunno, get it right the first time?
Secondly, the writer of Genesis did too think "Evil" inspired Cain to kill his brother. The writer called it "sin" "And Jehovah said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? If you do well, will not [your countenance] be lifted up? And if you do not do well, SIN is crouching at the door; and his desire is for you, but you must rule over him" (Genesis 4:6,7) (my emphasis) so let's break this apart. god is saying that cain's life is easy if he does the right thing. but if he doesn't do so well, he will be tempted. in this case, with jealousy. he is jealous of god's approval of his brother, abel. tell me how you read this? is satan physically crouching outside his door?
God warns Cain that sin is crouching. Only a living thing would be discribed as crouching, poised to attack, stealthily positioned to take advantage of the situation. Sin is discribed as a personified evil beast crouching and ready to dominate Cain's heart. you even used the word "personification." do you not understand how abstract ideas are sometimes metaphorically described as having personality?
Cain failed to excercise self control over his envy. And the evil crouching power of sin flooded his heart. He rose up and did Satan's will and murdered the true seeker of God, Abel. yet satan is never specifically mentioned in the story. i mean, even in harry potter, they let you know who "he who shall not be named" is referring to. why not, i dunno, include this character in the story? why only mention him 700 years later?
So the Apostle John says that Cain was of the evil one. John also rightly tells us that the Devil has sinned from the beginning: "He who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning." (First John 3:8) The devil has sinned continually from ancient times and begets sinners that they might practice sin with him. so they devil was created evil? there was no good period, and a fall?
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
In Hebrew “satan” is not used as a proper name until the word adversary is personified in the Book of Job. In this book the adversary works for God and does nothing without God’s permission. Within this book, the personified adversary is not described as a beast of the field. just for kicks.
quote: angel of the lord = satan.
quote: david = satan
quote: beni-zeruiah = satanim.
quote: one of solomon's sons = satan you know the difference? grammar. it's not easy to tell with a concordance. but those references are "l'satan" as opposed to "ha-satan," THE satan. even then, it's a title.
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AdminPhat Inactive Member |
Jaywill, while I respect much of your Biblical knowledge and personally respect parts of some of your insights, I might remind you that getting frustrated at other posters is not allowing the Light to shine through you!
(If you are right about your theology, you really ARE in a spiritual war as you speak) Lets be nice! (I know, because I have also been frustrated)
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purpledawn Member (Idle past 3482 days) Posts: 4453 From: Indiana Joined: |
quote:So "ha-satan" means "the satan" and "ha-satan" is the title? If we used the word adversary today, how would we use those two examples in a sentence? Gives me a more familiar visual to hold on to. How can you tell when it is used as a proper name in Hebrew? Yes it is difficult to understand the grammar and such from the concordance. I realize there is more to a language than just the possible meanings of the words, but I'm language challenged. That's why I'm glad you are around to enlighten me. "Peshat is what I say and derash is what you say." --Nehama Leibowitz
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1369 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
So "ha-satan" means "the satan" and "ha-satan" is the title? correct.
If we used the word adversary today, how would we use those two examples in a sentence? Gives me a more familiar visual to hold on to. we have have the additional problem with articles in english, we could easily say "the adversary" in war, and not refer to satan. i suppose you probably could in hebrew as well, but articles are used a little differently. it does denote a specific adversary, like it would in english. what seems to happen, however, is that any time it refers to a person or army or whatever that could be called "adversary," it uses "l-satan" which -- and i'm taking a guess here -- might be kind of like a gerund in english. lamed- is the usual prefix that denotes an infinitive verb in hebrew. "satan" curiously, is also a verb. in that zechariah verse i posted, it's used BOTH as a proper noun, and a verb. the noun seems to come from the verb, and the proper noun is a modification of the nouned-verb. anyways, the way we would use it today. we might say "I fought the adversary in war," (satan) or "I fought The Adversary in temptation," (et Ha-Satan).
How can you tell when it is used as a proper name in Hebrew? this is the bit i want to make really clear for everyone in this thread: you can't. we can only get hints from context (is it talking about war? king david? clearly something natural?) and some from grammar. and from that grammar, all we can tell is whether something IS NOT a proper name. so here's the other bit i want to make clear: proper names never, ever, have a heh in front of them. ever. it doesn't work in english, and it doesn't work in hebrew either. and all of the uses that lack ha- are clearly describing someone besides THE Adversary. so here's the subtle point: i don't think satan is ever once used as a proper name in the old testament. but i'm too lazy and tired right now to sort through ALL of them (including the ones not translated as proper names). i should note that it's still a "proper" noun, and refers to a specific (divine?) entity, but is not actually a name. rather, it refers to him with a title, or placeholder.
Yes it is difficult to understand the grammar and such from the concordance. I realize there is more to a language than just the possible meanings of the words, but I'm language challenged. That's why I'm glad you are around to enlighten me. well, that's exactly the reason i'm bothering to take hebrew. granted, it's not biblical hebrew; it's modern hebrew. some of the grammar is VERY different. but a lot of the basic rules are adopted from biblical hebrew. the direct object signifier (et) and the usage of "to-" and "the-" are the same.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
Arach writes: the story explains why snakes have no legs, and why they appear to lick the ground. the idea that "maybe it's talking about a snake" comes from the fact that it describes what a snake is, by means of this curse. It is also clearly implying that before the curse serpents had legs. Put on your thinking cap and read the verse. That the seed of the serpent kind would be a belly crawler from then on was the major effect of the curse..
Arach writes: and so all subsequent snakes have no legs, and are too busy "eating dust" to tell us things to lead us astray. The Hebrew word here is NACHASH, meaning the "shining one," the meaning possibly implying that the serpent, before the fall was a spectacular and admirable creature. At any rate, this curse clearly transformed the "seed" of this "snake/serpent" creature into a significantly inferior creature. The dust thing obviously means that now he's low to the ground and when the dust flies, he's going to injest some of it until he finds a hole or evades it some way. If a herd of animals runs near a snake or if a cloud of dust blows near him he's got to continue breathing and until he finds shelter he 'eats' some. Savvy, pardner? BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW
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Modulous Member Posts: 7801 From: Manchester, UK Joined: |
It is also clearly implying that before the curse serpents had legs. Yes, I think everyone agrees with that interpretation. So to find out what that creature is, we need to find a legless serpent that lays eggs that hatch into legless serpents. I'd go with snake.
The dust thing obviously means...(some meaning)...If a herd of animals runs near a snake or if a cloud of dust blows near him he's got to continue breathing I thought the serpent of the garden wasn't cursed to become a snake? Isn't that what you were saying in Message 48? My reading is that there was a legged serpent that did a bad thing so God cursed it and now we have snakes, sprung from the seed of the original cursed serpent.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
Modulous writes: Yes, I think everyone agrees with that interpretation. So to find out what that creature is, we need to find a legless serpent that lays eggs that hatch into legless serpents. I'd go with snake. 1. Everyone seems to be ignoring that a legged creature exists and should show up in the fossil record which was the legged pre-cursed serpent. I'm saying that Eve was talking to a legged serpent much different than what it's cursed offspring came to be. I don't see my counterparts understanding this by what they are saying.2. No, we need to find a legged larger and grander serpent that layed eggs and hatched into legless serpents/snakes. Modulous writes: I thought the serpent of the garden wasn't cursed to become a snake? Isn't that what you were saying in Message 48? No. I suggest you go back and carefully reread message 48. I was responding to the Rev as to the pre-cursed serpent. My answer was that the precursed serpent was not a snake (i.e. legless as we know them to be today)
Modulous writes: My reading is that there was a legged serpent that did a bad thing so God cursed it and now we have snakes, sprung from the seed of the original cursed serpent. That's exactly what my position has been all along which will bear out if you reread all my posts. But my argument is that if this was so, that the fossil record should show evidence of it. Since both dinos and modern reptiles are reptilian, my contention is that the pre-cursed serpent was a dino. I've contended for that for years since I first came here to EvC. I see no other creatures in the fossil record which fit the ticket better than the dinos. I make an issue of this because as per the topic I believe the garden serpent was not Satan or the dragon of Revelation 12, but a real creature fitting the account as literally put in the Genesis account. BUZSAW B 4 U 2 Z Y BUZ SAW
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