Genesis 1 vs. Genesis 2

actually, i know several people on this board that might make that claim.>>Unless you count God as an individual, I've never heard anyone claim this.no, the two running examples we've used, homer and shakespeare, are questioned ALL the time. and shakespeare's hardly ancient.>>There's minor speculation, but never the HELLBENT attempt to disprove traditional authorship.no, flood myths are NOT clearly all based on the same story. some are very different. but yes. all in involve a flood.>>You said earlier that most flood myths involve a man told by the dvine to build an ark, take life aboard with him and repopulate the Earth. That's clearly based on the same story.wow. every culture has a creation myth too, where a god or gods creates almost everything.>>Which I claim as a real event too, so you only hurt your own argument by bringing this up.i didn't say it was allegorical. i said it was making fun of a real babylonian ziggurat.>>If the story's comedic, it's clearly not intended to be taken literally.

Shakespeare's work was artistic, not ancient and venerated like Homer, Aristotle and the Bible.

not if both versions were thought to be sacred. who is this editor that you think he'd think himself worthy to change or delete sacred texts?>>Let me get this straight..........he thought himself worthy to WRITE sacred texts which CONTRADICT other sacred texts.........but not to DELETE sacred texts?

Admin, I hear ya.

the idea of them being based on some real event is not absurd.>>Then we agree here.well, yes, presumably we came into existance at some point. how do you know which account is true?>>They all have the common thread of creation........therefore, by the universal account of the most ancient of sources, man was created by the divine.Everything else is just detail.at one time, people all over the world were making fat little women idols, with somethign covering their heads and usually more than two breasts.>>I thought those were only found in Europe.clearly. i find it funny. don't you? i think you're missing a lot if you fail to see the humor in it.>>Perhaps.........but my point is, if it's clearly not intended to be taken literally, then it's clearly allegorical. If it's clearly allegorical, then you can't use its historical inaccuracies as proof that the Bible isn;t inerrant.

genesis is a compilation, not originally a sacred text in and of itself. the "author" of genesis had at least 2, probably 3 sources which were merged into a single text during some unifying period of hebrew history, in order to preserve existing tradition>>So you admit that 1 and 2, in their present form, are clearly intended to be read as one continuous story?If this is so, perhaps they were never NOT intended to be read as one continuous story......and maybe it's the CONTRADICTIONS in them that were added at a later period.....also, according to jewish tradition, hashem, the name of the lord, may not be erased once written>>I've never heard this name.......what does it mean?

Yhvh is a phonetic spelling of what is usually translated into English as "Yahweh", correct?

What do you think the word "inerrant" means?>>Not the same as "literal".........at least, not the way I use it.If it's clearly allegorical, then we clearly have no case for biblical creationism.>>And I don't believe in a strictly literal Biblical creation.But the thing is, this isn't like the various stories told by Jesus where he says that it's a story that isn't true but is simply told to make a point. It purports to be the actual way things happened.>.But it's clearly a joke.......therefore, clearly not meant to be taken literally.And people claim that it is the actual way things happened.>>That's because the obviousness of the joke is lost outside of its cultural context.And you need to fix your formatting. Read the instructions on how to format a post, please. You said you would, but you clearly did not. There are two general methods>>......that's not how I roll, yo.

not exactly. i don't believe some extreme world-wide flood actually happened.>>Who says I do? Who says the inerrancy of the Bible would be effected, either way?yet we arguing over details in genesis. if it's "just detail" what does it matter?>>It doesn't. You're the one making the big deal over apparent slight contradiction.i'm pretty sure they've been found as far as africa and china. but even if it's just europe, so what? >>So, it's a cultural thing.......which flood and creation myths clearly aren't.if we're gonna read it as literature, that's cool. it's got good stories. if we're gonna read it as a record of history, it fails brilliantly.>>How about a combination of both?

not exactly. i don't believe some extreme world-wide flood actually happened.>>Who says I do? Who says the inerrancy of the Bible would be effected, either way?yet we arguing over details in genesis. if it's "just detail" what does it matter?>>It doesn't. You're the one making the big deal over apparent slight contradiction.i'm pretty sure they've been found as far as africa and china. but even if it's just europe, so what? >>So, it's a cultural thing.......which flood and creation myths clearly aren't.if we're gonna read it as literature, that's cool. it's got good stories. if we're gonna read it as a record of history, it fails brilliantly.>>How about a combination of both?

Gotcha. Thanks for the info.

What does that have to do with anything.>>Shakespeare was never as venerated as the OT was by the Jews, because while Shakespeare is just really good art, the OT was the SOLE source of ancient Jews for both history and theology.

either the flood covered the whole earth, and killed everything but the contents of the ark, or the bible is errant.>>Not true. If civilization ended, we'd refer to it as the "end of the world".........when, in fact, the world would still very much be here.but if you insist that they must be one story, it makes no sense. in the evolution of judaism thread, we were trying to show how one was much later than the other, and how it indicates a change in the religion.>>This is how I know that atheists are no less influenced by personal belief than theists........because you make these bold, sweeping statements because maybe a transcriptionist somewhere along the lines goofed and wrote (in relation to which came first, man or animal) "and then God created animals" instead of "and that's why God created animals".because "as a record of history, it fails brilliantly.">>Which only makes sense for the parts that are intended as allegorical.........