Not reading God's Word right is just wrong. No talking snakes!

I have a Masters in Intercultural Communication in addition to two degrees from Fundamentalist Bible Schools. I have very carefully scoured the texts, including the Hebrew, and frequently discarded my Hypotheses. Much of what I have said is conclusions that I reluctantly arrived at. I mention my masters to indicate that I am well trained in the concepts of communication that I am talking about. It is not what I think the Bible says, but what the writer was trying to say. What seems obvious to me can be dead wrong. I constantly seek to challenge my preconceived notions. I am also a scientist and am well trained in the scientific method. I know what bad science is, and cherry picking facts that fit my preconceived notions is bad science. I don't do that with the Bible either. By the way, I haven't heard the terms Peshat and Derash. Can you explain them? Thanks

In my family genealogy, we list all the children of a couple (that we can find.) The ancient genealogies did it different. Sometimes they just added, and other children. Sometimes, but rarely, they added the wife. Other times they skipped one or many Generations. In all cases, they only highlighted the people that were significant for some reason such as the direct descendant, or the one that started a tribe or town. Gen 5 is the book of the generations of Adam, so I would not expect the person to list the people before Adam, but it does list at least some of the generations after Adam. Look at the Generations of Noah in Chap 10. We can still trace about half to known people groups and it seems likely that the other half were also, but it seems like many people were left out. Should I insist the genealogies fit the American method or one of these ancient methods?
My reading of Gen associates Adam with the start of farming of wheat. The harvesting that scientists say happened before the Younger Dryas did not entail tilling and cultivating. Whether Adam also domesticated the rest of the farming package, I don't know. I do know that one of Adam's sons kept flocks. Either at the same time or shortly after wheat was domesticated, sheep were being kept and undergoing the domestication process. Scientists say sheep, goats, pigs and Cattle were all domesticated near Karacadag, but not necessarily at there. They also say sheep, goats, and possibly pigs were undergoing domestication at about the same time as wheat. If there are other scientific studies, proving the scientists I have read are wrong, I am willing to listen.

Thank you. I saw in the Peshat def. this line, "proper understanding of peshat reveals deep, unexpected meaning within the text itself." I saw this line in the Derash, "Presence of apparently superfluous words or letters, chronology of events, parallel narratives or other textual anomalies are often a springboard for interpretation of segments of Biblical text." Both those statements seem to apply to what I do, though I try to limit myself very carefully to the possibilities that the Bible allows. Some of the Jewish methods go to far for me.

I can write with quality, it just takes me much longer than average. So yes, my writing on this site is not submission quality, to say the least.

You heard my conclusion and assumed my logic. It started out reading Noah's Flood by Ballard, etc. about the Black Sea and asking myself, could this be what the Bible refers to? I then went on to study the oceans rising at the end of the ice age to see if that was the flood. Then I looked at the sudden draining of the great ice lakes and asking myself, is this connected with Noah's flood? My conclusions were only slowly arrived at after careful studying of The Bible and seeing if these floods fit, and reluctantly abandoning them, especially the Black Sea flood.

I was just reanalyzing the texts to see if another interpretation fit. In science, should scientists never challenge theories? I see you getting angry with Christians for accepting everything they are taught blindly. Should I do that? I have yet to find a text that clearly says he was the first human being. Even in the New Testament, When Paul could have said he was the first Anthropos, he didn't. He said he was the first Adam and that Jesus was the last Adam. If Adam meant human being, that would say that Jesus was the last human being, which he clearly is not, else you and I would not be here. So tell me, should I be questioning every interpretation or accepting them blindly?

In Gen 3:23, and in Gen 4:2, the Hebrew uses more technical words for preparing the ground before planting. The harvesters never did this work. Later, after Cain Killed Abel, Eve says God gave me another child in place of Abel since Cain killed him. Therefore, we know that there was no gap between Abel and Cain, though that doesn't preclude gaps in the rest of the genealogy.Rather than wikipedia, I recommend Mathilda's Anthropology Blog.
Mathilda's Anthropology Blog. | Just another WordPress.com weblogShe does a great job of keeping abreast of the latest scientific studies and giving us links. (I have no idea if she is a Christian, I would guess she is not. She definitely is not pushing a Christian agenda.) She has 37 blogs on domestication and agriculture.Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Add blank lines.

I do see your logic. In fact, I tried to say that I couldn't prove any of the "supernatural or theological." I tried to say that all I could do was show a factual basis for the passages in the Bible. Actually, I can show one other thing that you can accept. I can show a connection to other non Christian Theologies. Therefore, I do not say there was a talking snake. I say that the other religions preached about talking Serpents and that the Bible did too. The next part, "The Bible was teaching against that worship," I don't expect you to accept. Read up on the Oracle at Delphi. Is it true that she was called the Pythia and she was said to receive her oracles from Python, the serpent? All I would expect you to say is that that is known history.

I don't think I have tried to use my point about the historical accuracy to convince you of the theological aspects. What amazes me is the depth of historical accuracy. As for the ten plagues, have you read Ipuwer? He doesn't have to be describing the same event. It just shows that the plagues could have been a historic event. The only part of the story of Moses that I really struggle over is the numbers. I know that the desert couldn't support those numbers. I have read various theories, but do not have a theory of my own. I have gone so far as to research the history of the alphabet in looking for answers. I am even wondering if there was a translation error when someone read the 1400 BC writing and wrote a new copy in the much different 1000 BC script. Again, I have nothing solid. Sometimes it has taken me years to find a key that unlocks a point, usually making all my previous theories wrong. Therefore, I am not ready to say "The Bible is plain wrong." Years ago, I was in the same position with the Garden of Eden that I am now at with the population in the Exodus.

If Eve was alive and gave birth after Abel died, saying Seth is a replacement for Abel, yes, that precludes a gap between Even and Cain of even Seth.
You are right, both are after the curse. No domestic wheat before Adam was born and domestic wheat after the curse and Adam was kicked out. I have been saying all along, Adam lived when and where wheat was domesticated. One of the arguments about farming is the farming package. with one plant domesticated here, and one there, farming would not replace hunter-gatherer because it was not a complete package. Once they had all 8 founder crops and possibly sheep, farming exploded out of the middle east. The cultural diffusion you mentioned is also great. The J2 Y haplotype (associated with Jews and Kurds) seems to be the one that spread farming first. There are more specifics that I mention on my website, but it all seems to spread out of SE Anatolia. One other point. Mathilda mentions that Abu Hureyra is predomestic activity that seems to have spread there from the north. We may be quibbling over the definition of domestic. is it the seeds not shattering off the stalk? is it the seeds easily separated from the husks? Is it the larger seed size? If you say it was the first step, before the younger dryas, and I say it was the second step, during the younger dryas, and another says the third step, after the younger dryas, who is right? Though some seeds may be earlier, and some of the steps may be earlier, farming didn't erupt out to the rest of the world until after the younger dryas ended. My claim is specifically about wheat, and wheat still fits.

Not proof, but shows the possibility, which was denied in the post.

For thousands of years, scholars thought Hittites were a local group in Canaan. Then we found that they were a huge empire in Turkey, and a few refugees had settled in Canaan. We needed to look at outside sources to understand. There are a variety of foreign Gods mentioned in the Bible, Baal, Dagon, Asgerah, etc. Again to understand more about what the foreign religion taught, we need to look at outside sources. We can do the same for the talking serpent. This, in no way, changes the theology that the Bible teaches. The serpent of old is equated with Satan. Paul equates idols with demons. Still we can look at the foreign religions to understand more. The oracle at Delphi is just one religion that sheds light on the passage. The woman talked to, believed and obeyed a talking serpent and taught men to do the same. In the Garden, Adam and Eve were taught, don't talk to the serpent, don't believe him or obey him. Don't teach others to do those things either. Evil is a term that most often is used to mean breaking the covenant. By obeying the serpent, they broke the covenant with God. There is so much more here. Read Sumerian beliefs. Read The Golden Bough by Frazier. The talking serpent is not scientifically accurate but it is historically accurate. The Bible teaches solidly against that belief, and extends that to all false religions. Yes, this is symbolism, but clearly related to known false religions. To isolate the Bible from all known history, and the theological teaching and then claim that the Bible is stating that the talking serpent has a physical reality and that therefore the Bible is false is just setting up a straw dog.

Look at Wikipedia. They fought Egypt to a standstill. The Empire disintegrated about 1180 BC. The last remnants disappeared about 800 BC and the memory of them was lost for 2,000 years until 1884 AD, except for mentions in the Bible. The only part that I may have misspoke is that some people think the mention in the Bible refers to Hittites living in Canaan and others say it was a group with a similar name (children of Heth or Hethites.) If you doubt what I say, check it out first. Some have brought out some valid, documented points and I listened to them. (I appreciate those corrections.) My main point is that researching outside the Bible helps prevent many strange interpretations. Talking snakes, referring to the name of this thread is just one of those bad interpretations.

Jaywill - What you say is solid. For a Christian, there is no need to look to other writings. The Bible is clear that the Garden teaches us to hold Marriage as a sacred covenant. It is also clear that sin entered the world through Adam, and that we need a second Adam, one who will take away/pay for the sin. These are matters of theology/belief. Many of these people do not believe and are questioning the accuracy of what the Bible says. When we take the Hebrew word, serpent, and translate it snake, we get a problem. Everyone knows that snakes do not talk. When we see that the Garden taught against a specific religion, the talking serpent makes sense. Reading the Golden Bough helps us understand other finer points. Why did Cain kill his brother in the field and shed the blood onto the field? Why was Cain afraid that anyone who met him would kill him? That book helps us understand that type of thinking that existed for thousands of years after the Garden. A careful analysis of the Biblical passage on the Garden will not convince anyone that God exists. It just shows that it is quite possible that the story of the Garden was historically accurate. If a person wants to reject the Bible, it should not be done because of wrong interpretations that also happen to be scientifically invalid.

A single search and the first on the list yielded this:
At the end of the 18th century AD bas-reliefs with pictographs were discovered by travelers passing near Ivriz, on the plateau of Asia Minor. These same peculiar signs were seen in the area of Jerablus-Carchemish on the bank of the Euphrates, and later on the site of ancient Babylon and in other places. Hittite Pictographic WritingThey are completely different from hieroglyphics. It was then not known which people had left them.
However, mention of Kheta in the texts accompanying the bas-reliefs of the battle of Kadesh, in the poem celebrating this battle, and in the Egyptian text of the peace treaty stimulated conjecture about the identity of the rivals of Ramses II in the struggle for dominion over their world. Who were the `HtBreasted, `Records', V. III, Sec. 306', Kheta? [4] An Egyptian hieroglyphic word which according to Budge means `a rectangular plot of land', while the verb form `khetta' means `to wander about the earth'.In the 1870's a solution was offered and accepted. Kheta were the Hittites, occasionally mentioned in the Scriptures. It was the phonetic similarity of the names that prompted this identification.William Wright, a missionary in Damascus, came to this conclusion and also decided that the mysteries signs are Hittite writings.[5] Since almost nothing was known of Hittite history, it was like resurrecting an empire from oblivion, and it was called `a discovery of a forgotten empire.' These were sensational matters in the 1880's.Yes, no scholar - today - would doubt the Hittites (as we know them) or Hatti or Kheta (as others referred to them).
Again, it is debated whether the Bible refers to these people, and I admitted that.