Genesis 1:1-3

Hi folks. I'm new here. It may take me awhile to get use to the technology.We're talking about Genesis? I don't read or write ancient Hebrew but I have lots of opinions.So, aside from whether this Dr. Scott fellow has legitimate credentials, what else seems to be the issue here?I'm an Old Earth Exponent following G.H. Pember.

ConsequentAthiest,------------------------------
Welcome. As for Pember, I'm not a fan of ad hoc rationalizations.------------------------------Are you really an athiest?Which rationalization of Pember's are you saying is "ad hoc?"
Could you be specific?Give me one of your strongest and most notable examples.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:01 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:02 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:03 PM

Herepton,The thought that God first created a chaos and then ordered it follows some ancient cosmogony. The poet Hesiod around 900 B.C. put forth that the first thing to exist was Chaos.The word originally meant a yawning void. Latter the word Chaos came to mean a mass of unformed confusion.A disciple of rabbi Akiba ben Joseph, who died in 135 A.D., has been attributed with the Jewish commentary known as Sefer Hazzohar (alias The Book of Light). His name was Simeon ben Jochai. His work includes a comment which represents what was most likely a popular opinion in some circles of Jewish scholars. That is that God destroyed the original worlds, which rendered the earth in Genesis 1:1,2 in a desolate condition:
"The earth was Tohu and Bohu. These indeed are the worlds of which it is said that the blessed God created them and destroyed them, and, on that account, the earth was desolate and empty."This was from a comment on Genesis 2:4-6. On account of God's destruction the earth was found in the chaotic condition we see at the beginning of the six days of reformation and further creation.As a Christian believer I would not substitute such a commentary for the Bible. But it is interesting to see that some Jewish Hebrew readers had this kind of understanding of Genesis.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:24 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:26 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:26 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:27 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-06-2005 10:28 PM

Herepten, How do you deal with the criticism from YEC that "made" and "created" are used interchangeably in Genesis 1:26,27?Do you think it is a "Gotchta!" on the bara / asah issue, i.e. being the same thing?This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-17-2005 12:18 PM

Arachnophilia, To add to the issue:G.H. Pember says that we should not expect that the Hebrews would have a word exclusively set aside to mean nothing else but "creation out of nothing" because apart from God's revelation the thought of such an action would not even be in the human concept. Based on that Pember says that we should expect that there would be some overlapping use of asah and bara.According to Pember no word in Hebrew is exclusively meant to mean creation out of nothing with no other usage.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-18-2005 12:25 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-18-2005 12:26 AM

If I thought we were only dealing with Hebrew mythology in Genesis then I wouldn't pay that much attention to it to begin with.And it is most logical that God would at some point have to create the universe ex-nihilo because we are told plainly elsewhere that He pre-existed everything:"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" (Psalms. 90:2) Only God is spoken of as being from eternity. God and His wisdom are also said to pre-exist the dust, before His works of old (emplying creation):"Jehovah possessed me in the beginning of His ways, before His works of old.

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I was set up from eternity, from the beginning before the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth;

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When He had not yet made the earth and the fields, Nor the first dust of the world.

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When He established the heavens, I was there ..." (See Job 15:22-27)I think as much as it is humanly possible to conceive, God and the wisdom of God pre-existed everything in the universe. So divine creation out of nothing is logical to expect, at some point. What I said was that Pember said that such a word meaning creation out of nothing exclusively is unlikely. I didn't say that the Hebrews did not have a word meaning that, but that they didn't have a word meaning that and nothing else.In the same paragraph he writes that a certain Rabbi Nachman declares that there is no other Hebrew word beside bara to express production out of nothing. (See page 29 - Earth's Earliest Ages - Kregel)This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-26-2005 12:28 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-26-2005 12:29 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-26-2005 12:29 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-26-2005 12:30 AM

Arachnophilia, Psalm 104 seems to be a psalm about God’s creation.
Psalm 104:6 says that ”the waters stood above the mountains.”So I think it is certainly safe to assume that after God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning at some subsequent time the waters stood above the already existing mountains.I have no doubt believing that the prophets did not view have in mind a heaven and earth which eternally existed in the past. It seems that you may be reading some modern steady state theory of the cosmos into the Bible? I don’t get the sense that the earth was non-existent on the first and second day. Verse 9 says “And God said, Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear, and it was so.”It doesn’t say that God created the dry land. It says that He said that it should appear. It was hidden from the seer’s point of view because it was under the water. This would agree with Psalm 104 that the mountains were covered by the seas.As an aside I would like to mention this to the interested reader:The real significance of the land appearing on the third day is that it foreshadows the resurrection of Christ. All the life is spoken of as being created after the land rises on the third day.New life in Christ is brought about through the resurrection of Christ from the dead on the third day. Why could not the land be raised on the second day or the fourth or the fifth?Because I regard this as the oracles of God I think the appearing of the land from underneath the waters on the third day is symbolic of the rising Son of God. I sounds like you think that along with an eternal God who always was there was the eternity of matter.Well, I think that space, time, and matter are things which God has brought into being because we as human beings need them, not because God needs them to exist.I have no problem, language wise or otherwise, believing that God created from nothing all things other than Himself.According to Romans chapter 8 not only the angels, but even height and depth are creatures. Paul’s burden is to show us that no created thing shall separate the saved from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus the Lord:”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)If height and depth are created items then I can believe that matter is also a created item. Only the Triune God and His love are from eternity. I heard that Job is the earliest book written in the Hebrew canon. I think that “eventually” may be the key word here. Job is quite correct that we can see some “righteous” people under great misfortune and some “bad” people living a very comfortable life.Not only Job reconized this but Solomon also in Ecclesiastes remarked along similar lines.Anyway, I heard that Job is a very early book written before Genesis was written.I really like to get into more of Job and its perculiarities. But perhaps another thread is needed for me to do a thorough job of conveying it place among the other biblical books in the divine revelation. A just man is stripped of all of his own attainments because ultimately man’s only riches are God Himself. What is your point? Is it that the Hebrew concept contains no ex-nihilo creation?Given the whole divine revelation I have no problem with ex-nihilo creation. If it is not clear in the Old Testament (which may be an argument, I'm not sure,) the New Testament says that nothing that has come into being has come into being apart from the Word of God:”All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him not one thing came into being which has come into being. In Him was life and the life was the light of men” (John 1:3,4)The uncreated eternal life Who is a Person brought all things into being.That would include the atoms, the molecules, the dust, the wet land, the dry land, the energy, the height and the depth, space and time, etc. All were created from Him Who is uncreated.And His eternal purpose is to impart His eternal life into man to be man’s life and light.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-26-2005 08:42 PM

Sorry. I thought that might cause a misunderstanding. I don’t mean that theory per se. I meant ANY theory of the infinite continual existence of the universe. I think that the major shift is presented from verse 3 after these words in vertse 2 - ”Now the earth had become waste and wild, and darkness was on the face of the roaring deep - but the Spirit of God was brooding on the face of the waters . And God said Light, be. And light was.And God saw the light, that it was good, - and God divided the light from the darkness; and God called the light day, but the darkness called he night. So it was evening-and it was morning, one day.” (Gen. 1:2,3 The Emphasized Bible - Kregel Publications) Or here it is in my favorite Bible, the Recover Version:”But the earth became waste and emptiness, and darkness was on the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was brooding upon the surface of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. Amd God saw that the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness . etc.” (RcV - Livng Stream Ministry)I think the “major shift” begins with God’s restoration and further creation work commencing from His pronouncement that light should shine over the waste and emptiness. Well, I never refered the Creator God as “Big Bang.” But I know what you mean.There is a difference in our approach to the Scripture here. You see I don’t think that all of the pieces to the puzzle of God’s revelation to man are always necessarily in one place. What we read in the first verses of Genesis may be supplamented by other passages elsewhere even in another book.I know that some will complain that this may lead to confusion. But it is a risk that I feel we must take who understand that His word to us is:
”Rule upon rule, rule upon rule; Line upon line, line upon line; Here a little, there a little” (Isa 28:13) to sift out and stumble something in us which does not go on to seek His heart - ”That they may go and stumble backward, And be broken, snared, and taken . (28:13b)Please don’t misunderstanding me to be saying that anyone who does not see an ex-nihilo creation in Genesis 1:1-3 has a moral problem with God. I can respect your view. I don’t agree with it. But I see your ground for seeing it that way. I just think that an interval of unspecified time occurs between the original creation of the heavens and the earth of which we have no idea when that was, and the time that God restored the waste and empty earth with some further creation.Details shedding light on why the earth was found in this ruined state, I believe, are revealed “here a little, there a little” in other portions of the Scripture. I am willing to bear the criticism of “reading into the text” because of this. Not at all. It is not too much. Perhaps it is not enough.In the end of the Bible we see that the sea is no more - ”And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and the sea is no more” (Rev. 21:1)Along with the sea being no more in the new heaven and earth we see that death is abolished, and Hades - the repository of the souls of the dead:”And death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death” (Rev.20:14)The abolishing of death and the abolishing of the sea are linked. The sea is a remnant of God’s judgment which rendered the earth waste and emptiness. God’s work of re-creation was to recover the land by restricting the result of the waters of judgment. In the universe it is Christ Who is the One anointed and appointed to restrict and eventually overcome God’s judgement upon human life and death. In His death He took the judgment of God due to all mankind. And in His resurrection He overcame death which a most powerful force that no one without Christ can conquer.So the land and all of the life that springs from the land cannot but remind many of us of Christ. And we feel the similarity is no accident. We are born again through the resurrection of Christ:”Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has regenerated us unto a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3)You see the Bible is primarily a book about life. It is not an exhaustive scientific account of how God created everything just to relieve our curiosity. Some facts are related to us for sure. But Genesis is primarily a book about life. And the behind the things said about created life there are symbols and shadows pointing to the indistructible and uncreated life of God which eventually was incarnated in the man Jesus Christ and imparted into the saved believers in Christ.Christ is central to the entire divine revelation of the Scripture.Not only the land rising on the third day speaks to many of us of Christ. But the entire good land upon which Israel was to establish a priestly kingdom speaks of Christ. Everything they needed was on the good land. The the milk and honey, the fruit and crops, the rivers and fountains in valleys and hills, the wheat, the barley, the pomagranets, the iron ore and stones for defense - all was provided on the land; the good land.This speaks of all that man needs to fulfill God’s purpose on the earth is provided in Christ. Our nourishment, our refreshment, our protection, our defense - all are found in the all-inclusive Christ.So the dry land and the good land both speak of the Lord and Savior Christ as the center and circumference of the divine revelation. Okay. I don’t think I agree. But I am not going to belabor this difference of opinion too much.The ancient cosmogonies viewed a yawning void as the first thing in existence. They called it Chaos. Latter Chaos took on the meaning of a confused and formless mass of matter. I think that those who see God as creating a chaotic and confused mass first and then shaping it to be inhabitable are perhaps influenced by these ancient concepts. I will have to study that matter. But that it was canonized after the Torah is possible. In the New Testament Revelation and Hebrews were latter comers to the canon. I believe that canonization was the God lead activity of God’s people recognizing divine inspiration. A book written earlier could be latter recognized as inspired. The Hebrew Bible mentions some important men of God or prophets who were not Hebrews - Jethro and Balaam are two who come to mind.Job’s not being Hebrew presents no serious problem to me in this regard.
I not sure whether Melchisedec, king of Salem and ”priest of the Most High God” (Gen.14:18) was Hebrew. What do you think?Job not being a Jew presents no serious problem for me in this canonization matter. The heading notes in my RcV reads for the book of Job:
JOB Author: Job,
Time of Writing: According to the way of Job’s nomadic living (1:3) and the way he offered the burnt offering for his children, it seems the book was written at the time of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v.5; Gen. 22:13;31:54), about 2000 B.C., five hundred years before Moses wrote the Pentateuch.
Place of Writing: The land of Uz (1:1), and area associated with Edom (Lam. 4:21), west of the Arabian desert.
Time Period Covered: The period of time that this book covers cannot be determined with accuracy; however, after his trials Job lived another 140 years (42:16), making the period of this book close to two hundred years, somewhat around 2000 B.C. Thanks for you take on the literary criticism of Genesis and Job. I was also want to hear what other researhers have to say about it. So for now I have no comment on the above paragraph. Yes, a number of times. I have been reading and studying the Bible seriously for about 36 years. I count myself to have begun to regularly read the Bible around 1971 at the age of 21 years old when I turned my life over to Jesus Christ to be my Savior and Lord. Previous to that I think I was a in and out backslidden Christian since the age of about 6 to 8 years old. My earliest memory of God meaning something to me was when I asked my father what was God like. I remember him saying that God was a spirit like the wind. Since I vividly remember that conversation it could be that that was the moment I first believed.It was not until college that I drew the strong connection between God and the incarnation of Christ as a Savior. Within a half a year of that cataclysmic event in my youth, I began to read the Bible regularly. And I have done so ever since.Short answer - I’ve read the book of Job. I hope to enjoy reading it many more times before I die or the second coming of my Lord Jesus. That doesn’t square with the fact that he refused to curse God.Now we all know that Job had his problems with God’s way of dealing with him. And that may be why the Jews recognized the divine inspiration of the book. The book of Job gives voice to man in many regards. It could be subtitled “Equal Time for Those Disgruntled With God’s Ways”.This is like Ecclsesiates could be subtitled “Equal Time for Those Pessimistic and Perplexed By It All”.Anyway, it is because Job thought so highly of God that he would not curse God. Even Mrs. Job said “Do you still hold on to your integrity? Curse God and die!”He wouldn’t do it. That doesn’t square with your analysis “i don't think he considers god very highly”
Now I get to say “Did you read Job?” (chuckle) He did have quite a controversy with his Creator. But moments like this revealed that his faith in the goodness of God was both unshakable as it was the source of his perplexity:”But I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will stand upon the earth; And after this body of mine is destroyed, outside my flesh I will look on God, Whom I, even I, will see; I, and no other.

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My inward parts that long for God are consumed within me” (Job 19:26,27)Job’s faith in the goodness of God and His redemption seemed impossible to destroy. Your cynicism is showing. It seems consistent with your attitude of slicing and dicing the Scripture and saying higher criticism should govern our understanding rather than prayerful worshipful reading.Please show me the precise verse in Job by which you gather an interpretation of God saying: I never noticed in this book God saying that He was wrong let alone “guessing” at it. (No jumping to another book on this one, please). I think that the whole Scripture is a living revelation. I also think that many people who do not want to hear the revelation have a tactic to divide and conquer. That is to cut the beast up and separate its parts. We all know that the best way to kill a living thing is to cut it to pieces.I think you are motivated by a desire to “kill the beast” of God’s speaking. “As face a answers to face in water, so the mind of a man reflects the man.” I don’t mean to offend you. I think you make good conversation. But I think your motivation in Bible study may be to cut the book up in order to kill the living message within it.For me Genesis to Revelation is one speaking of God to man. He is exceedingly profound. I would not expect one person to be able to bear so much divine disclosure. Having progressively revealed the depths of God over 1,600 years or so, seems consistent with unveiling such a all-inclusive and extensive Divine Being.At any rate, at the conclusion of Job, he says that Job has spoken rightly about him, unlike Job's three ineffective comforters. Job has to interceed for them.The answer to Job's challenges are never answered in the book of Job.
They are however answered in the book of Second Corinthians. So sometimes, as in Genesis, crucial pieces to the divine puzzle of God's revelation are not all found in one book.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-27-2005 04:55 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-27-2005 04:59 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-27-2005 05:00 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-27-2005 05:02 AM

Yes, you’ve been over it but I think not everyone agrees with you.Custance has a long section about the lamed that you pointed out but its too technical for me at this time. When I get a grasp of his rebuttal perhaps I'll have some ground to agree or disagree with one of you two. But you're probably not bothered by this, being wary of fundamentlist Chrisians as you are. All I know about Star Wars is that a good grasp of the Theory of Evolution is indispensible in comprehending Lucas’s story. Concering destruction and reconstruction you say: Disagree. No I don’t. I accept “was” waste and void as a valid translation until someone convinces me that the controversy rules out any other English translation.Leave it as “was” waste and void. I still believe that the very existence of the advasary in Genesis indicates a previous controversy between God and an opposition party.I already provided some discussion on the two words indicating to some scholars a previous overthrow - as the word pair is seen to mean in Isa. 34:11 and Jer. 4:23. Heavens were created first according Genesis and according to Zechariah 12:1.” . Thus declares Jehovah, who stretches forth the heavens and lays the foundation of the earth and forms the spirit of man within him” The heavens were created for the earth. The earth was created for man. And man was created with a spirit within him so that he could contact God the Spirit.But in this verse God stretches forth the heavens before He lays the foundation of the earth. I think it agree with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” in Genesis.On the forth day He (asah) made or appointed the light holders. That is the generalized light was now accompanied by more definite light holders. I don’t think God created the heavens on the fourth day. I don’t even think He created the sun, moon, and stars on the forth day. I think He appointed them on the fourth day.It could be that this was all shown to a prophet by visions. And if the seer saw the clearing of the atmosphere and the appearing of sun, moon, and stars (as the dry land was made to appear on the third day) then the seer would report that this light holders were appointed on that day, not necessarily created on that day.But I don’t know how this was made known to whoever wrote it. I don’t follow you completely here except you seem to allude to the flood of Noah. The judgment I was talking about is the pre-Adamic judgment. I don’t think the original creation was waste and void.Isaiah 48:18 says that God did not create the earth tohu:”For thus says Jehovah, Who created the heavens - He is the God Who formed the earth and made it; He established it; He did not create is waste, But He formed it to be inhabited . ” I didn’t automatically assume that they were the same Job. I never gave it much thought. But it bears some looking into. From what I have been taught it is first used for Abraham. And the word refers to one who crosses over (implying a river). Somewhere in the book of Joshua it says that Abraham lived on the other side of the flood. I have been taught that the word Hebrew basically means “river crosser.”Job not being a Jew presents no serious problem for me in this canonization matter. Another “problem?” Ruth the Moabites being a great grandmother of Jesus Christ is marvelous to me. So is Rehab’s close association to Christ in His geneology a testimony to the grace of God. I assume that it is a short condensation of an opinion of some scholarship. Then it could mean basically by Job. It doesn’t matter too greatly to me. I think it is probable that Moses wrote a book but the passages about his death were written obviously by someone other than himself. Job could be something along this line.Have you ever heard the saying - “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up?” (1 Cor. 8:1)I’m concerned that I would be puffed up with the pride of knowledge about this and that issue or problem in Scripture and miss the essence of God’s divine life and love, which is to be poured out in our own hearts through the Holy Spirit (Rom. 5:5).When I said that the Bible for me is a book of life I meant primarily of the divine life of God. Any teaching that causes me to receive the life of God in His Spirit I will gravitate towards. Any teaching that just seems to point out curiosities or “problems” for the sake of having knowledge for its own sake, is not profitable to me.Just be able to say “I can point out all these problems in Christian belief with the Bible” doesn’t mean that much to me. So what? Feed me life from God. Teach me how to believe. I ”m not looking from a teacher to teach me how to doubt or how to disbelieve the Scripture.I don’t have a problem with one’s desire to more accurately expound the Bible. But I discern in my spirit, is the end result that I love God more and depend on Him more? Or do I just get a lot of bothering issues that cool down my love for the living God.Has your way of study warmed your heart towards God or cooled you off concerning Him? Does it make you more dependent upon God in a moment by moment way. Or does it make you independent, trusting in your knowledge? Job’s three friends were wrong in assuming that Job could only be suffering because he had sinned against God. They nor Job understood that God had his own reasons for breaking Job down and stripping him of everything.When God does appear He still doesn’t explain why He has allowed Job to suffer so. He only reminds Job that he really knows nothing of God’s ways. God makes no apologies.Job repents in dust and ashes for all of his doubt and complaining. The end, though we may not like it, is Job Zero / God Infinity. God wins.But God does restore Job’s fortunes. And compared to his three lousy comforters Job passes with flying colors. God tells Job to pray for them so that He will not deal with them according to their ignorant folly.If ever a book had a divine signature to it, it was the book of Job.
God makes no apologies whatsoever. He’s God. What do we know anyway?It’s a hard pill to swallow. But I think it is true.In Genesis it may say that it grieved God that He made man upon the earth. And in Exodus it may say that God repented of something or shows Moses changing his mind. But in Job God does not apologies or repent for anything. We just have to trust Him.I think the answer to why God would strip us of everything is definitely seen in the New Testament, especially Second Corinthians which is like Paul the Apostle’s autobiography.But the revelation of God’s ways are progressive in the Bible. Oh. I thought you meant God sees His error. That is different. Sorry.I have no comment on the multiple author issue at this time. If you specifically asked me to stay within the pages of Genesis to make my point about Destruction / Reconstruction I would admit that the case is not as strong as it is when I am allowed to refer to other portions of the writing.Since I don’t recall you requesting that restriction I develop my case in the way of consulting what else Scripture says about early things. The analogy is not perfect.
But in this case the living One is telling us what we need to know.I regard the Scripture as a practical way to lay hold of a rather abstract spiritual Person. It is the tree of life to me rather than the tree of knowledge of good and evil. [/qs]I hope that you don't dissect the New Testament in such a way as to arrive at a non-existent Jesus or a Jesus who is dead and gone?Is Christ alive in your personal experience or just a historical figure of long ago - basically dead and gone?My Christ is risen and living. If not the entire Bible is useless to me. My apprectiation of the whole Bible hinges on the faith that Christ is its centrality and is the living Son of God. If I am going to be a human being, I must be one who knows the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ - period. I don’t think we need new scripture at all. We need to open our lives to what He has already said. This will occupy us until He comes again. I think that Second Corinthians does show God breaking down the “outer man” that the inner man may be renewed. But by this time in God’s economy He has dispensed Himself into man. He is the “treasure in earthen vessels”.And to cause us to live in the treasure God will strip us of the riches that we think we have that we may gain Him. That letter answers to the whys of the God seeker’s suffering.”Therefore we do not lose heart; but though our outer man is decaying, yet out inner man is being renewed day by day,

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For our momentary lightness of affliction works out for us, more and more surpassingly, an eternal weight of glory” (2 Cor. 4:16,17)”But we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not out of us.

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We are pressed on every side but not constricted; unable to find a way out but not utterly without a way out; Persecuted but not abandoned; cast down but not destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the putting to death of Jesus that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our body.
For we who are alive are always being delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

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So then death operates in us, but life in you.” (2 Cor. 4:7-12)God presses the apostles out of themselves and shepherds them through their sufferings into the indistructible resurrection life of Christ which indwells them.Their suffering has nothing to do with their errors or their sins. It has to do with the fact that God’s eternal purpose is ever to dispense His divine life into man’s life. But fallen man is not use to living in and by God’s life. He is use to living independent from God since the fall of Adam. I think that you are right. His knowledge of God was really second hand. He heard of Him. When Job finally personally encounters God his questions are anwered by God’s being personal to him.In the New Testament it says that the peace Christ surpasses all understanding. The peace of knowing the resurrected Lord and Savior Jesus presently and moment by moment, surpasses all understanding. Yes, we agree here. This is the testimony of the whole Bible. In the end the New Jerusalem made of precious stones shows that all the heat and preasure of trials have just been used by God to obtain His eternal dwelling place with man. Man and God mutually abide in one another.In effect Christ the Firstborn Son of God is mass produced in millions upon millions of saved, redeemed, sanctified, transformed, conformed, resurrected, and glorified human beings. They are built up in love to be the eternal dwelling place of God.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 12:28 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 12:32 AM

Quoting Pember who was conversant on ancient Hebrew, he wrote: “And again; the verb translated ”was’ is occasionally used with a simple accusative in the sense of ”to be made,’ or ”to become.’ And instance of this may be found in the history of Lot’s wife, of whom we are told, that ”she became a pillar of salt’ (Gen.19:26). Such a meaning is by far the best for our context: we may adopt it, and render, ”And the earth became desolate and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Earth’s Earliest Ages, G.H. Pember, pg. 32, Kregel)I am aware that here too some have objected to the comparison of Genesis 1:1 to Gen. 19:26.Concerning the absence of the lamedh, here is one portion of a long discussion on it from Arthur Custance. I will have to place the word or a blank where Hebrew font is called for: [b]”Some of these writers will argue that (hayah) may be allowed to mean ”became’ when, and only when, it is followed by the preposition lamedh ______. This is quite untrue as is easily shown by a study of cases where ”became’ is manifestly the correct rederning of (hayah), though the lamedh is omitted in the Hebrew. A list of examples where ____ is used - and the reasons why - will be found in Appendix XII.”Then in Appendix XIII there is “The Use of Hayah without the Lamedh Following.” [b]“There are 128 occurences of the verb (hayah) as ”become’ or ”became’ according to the Authorized Version, of which 39 are without the (lamedh) following. There are numerous additions to this list if other English versions are consulted. The following 39 instances are to be observed in the Authorized Version alone.Gen. 3.22 19.26 21.20 37.20 48.19
Exodus 7.19 (twice) 8.17 (twice) 9.10 23.29 36.13
Judges 15.4
I Samuel 16.21 18.29 28.16
II Samuel 8.14
I Kings 12.24 13.6 13.33
II Kings 17.3 24.1
I Chronicales 18.2 18.6 18.13
Psalms 69.8 79.4 83.10 109.25
Isaiah 7.24 29.11
Jeremiah 7.11 28.18
Lamentions 1.11
Ezekiel 19.3 19.6 23.10
Daniel 2.35
Jonah 4.5
Micah 3.12Added to this list from the Authorized Version, are the following examples from Exodus and Deuteronomy in the Revised Standard Versions:Exodus 16.24; 22.24; 23.29; 40.9
Deut. 7.26; Jud. 16.7; 16.11.
. .. and there are many more.”(Page 163). I have had experiences also. You aren’t seriously comparing a following of a Hollywood movie to the antiquity and influence of the Holy Bible I hope. I mean has anyone been burned at the stake yet for translating the script of Star Wars into a language accessible to a whole populace? I am hesitatant to just accept that on your say so. Sorry.
All due respect to your opinion. Somehow he is very much involved with the serpent in Genesis chapter 3. The idea of destruction aids in understanding that if an enemy of God, lying and opposing God, did exist in the creation, what hint do we have in Genesis that he could not go undealt with by a righteous God who, after all must judge sin.The knowledge displayed by this opposer indicates not only rank rebellion, but also renegade authority. It is not hard to believe that such an opposer to God had to have had some dominion under his previous jurisdiction condemned as unfit to continue though his existence was allowed to continue for a season.You can believe as some that God created an enemy to go along with His Paradise.Or you can believe that this enemy was a remnant of an earlier time.Or, I suppose you can take your position, that any mention of Satan in Genesis is out of the question because the concept of such a being wasn’t invented until much latter. I don’t think this is the way to go. And I doubt that such a grand cosmic battle of one who actually took it upon himself to oppose God, fermented and developed in a few days. I think this enemy had a long pre-Adamic history in which the cosmic battle between he and God fermented and was manifested to the angels and pre-Adamic world. I think it shows both sequence in time and in priority.Just as God created man last and highest on the divine priority so Zechariah 12:1 explains God’s sequence and priorities. There are disagreements to this in some quarters also. Some say it is the first in a series of discriptions of events rather than an overarching preface. Among other things they point to the word “And” beginning verse two discribing a continuation in a list of discriptions about the creation - “And the earth was without form and void . ” The Targum of Onkelos has an Aramiac translation of Genesis dating to the second century B.C.Genesis 1:2 reads w’ aretsah hawath tsadh’ya.Custance states on pg. 15 of Without Form and Void that the translator compounded the Hebrew verb with a Aramaic verb which appears as a passive participle of the verb which itself means “to cut” or “to lay waste”. He then remarks:”We have here, therefore, a rendering ”and the earth was laid waste’, an interpretation of the original Hebrew of Gen. 1:2 which leaves little doubt that Onkelos understood this to mean that something had occurred between verse 1 and verse 2 to reduce the earth to this desolated condition. It reflects Gindsberg’s Jewish legend.”The reference to Ginsburg is to his work The Legends of the Jews, where he wrote a continuous narrative of Jewish legends, as far as possible in the original phrases and terms. In Volume 1 which covers the period from the Creation to Jacob, Ginsberg wrote the following excerpt on Genesis 1: [b]”Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several other worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours.”This tradition reflects the underlying translation which appears in the Targum of Onkelos dating to the second century B.C.Some ancient Jews had a destruction / reconstruction understanding of Genesis chapter one. Thanks. That’s correct. I think it could be taken that way also. But in my Strongs Concordance “create” is not a word used to define asah (6213) whereas it is to define bara (1254). I think that a major part of the Bible’s revelation is how God was able to overcome countless blunders of man to bring about His great salvation just the same. Correct. I was fully aware of that verse.Not only so, but I as a Gentile was excluded from the commonwealth of Israel also. That is why I mentioned that the geneolgy of Christ in Matthew certainly testifies to God’s grace. But Ruth sought God and God’s people. So God apparently caused what we might call in computer operating system terms “a higher priority interrupt”. His grace prevailed and the seeker of God and God’s people was included in the geneology of the Messiah dispite she was not to enter the congregation of the Lord until after the tenth generation.This works to our benefit you know? So my response to be thankful God’s grace can prevail over the effects of a divine curse if we seek God and God’s people. The same is true of Rehab the harlot from a city cursed by God forever! She became an ancestress to the Jewish Messiah. Praise God. Well, then again your opinion could be “a lot of modernist apology.” I think that God’s purpose is to dispense Himself into us so that we live a moment by moment life in union with Him in a blended way.”Abide in Me and I in you” (John 15:4)This means to remain in Christ, realizing that He is the true vine and His disciples are the branches. The life flow of the vine must be constantly available to flow out to the branches.We are also exhorted as Christians to ”Unceasingly pray” (1 Thess. 5:17)I don’t think Paul meant that we are 24 hours on our knees. I do think he means that deep within we are to stay in touch with the indwelling Holy Spirit in a kind of breathing way. By spiritually breathing in the Lord, we can pray without stopping.”Always rejoice . in everything give thanks”. There is no limitation. It depends on the depth of one’s love for God. So to rejoice without stopping, like praying without ceasing, is continually depending of God. It is a real enjoyment to linger in His presence.
[b]”And now little children, abide in Him, so that if He is manifested, we may have boldness and not be put to shame from Him as His coming” (First John 2:28).John’s thought seems to be that the Lord could come at any time. So we need to be constantly in touch with His Spirit, remaining, abiding, lingering in His presence as the Holy Spirit. Then we will have boldness when He appears suddenly and changes His spiritual presence to His actual physical presence.“The Practice of the Presence of God” by Brother Lawrence is a classic Christian book teaching the dicsiples that they can constantly be in communion with the Holy Spirit.If you have complaints about the treatment you received from fundamentalists, it could be that they were deficient on the matter of constantly depending on the Lord Jesus for wisdom and acted independently from Him in a religious way, thus causing damage.So I think the normal Christian life is to live a moment to moment life abiding in the sphere and realm of the Spirit of Christ.”The mind set on the spirit is life and peace”. The bottom line is that we need God Himself as our wisdom. Wisdom apart from God Himself is not dependable.And the results of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil stands as a testimony to that. Man was to take into himself the tree of life - meaning living in the presence and sphere of the living God. It is worth everyone’s while to pray to God asking Him Himself to reveal what one needs to know about Jesus Christ.The day I first called Him “Lord” was the day all heaven broke loose upon me. I haven’t been the same since. It seems that God allows John the Apostle to have the last word often. That is if you like me consider the very arrangements of the books of the Bible to be guided by the Spirit of God.John has the last say in the gospels. He nearly has the last say in the epistles. He has the last say in the New Testament in the book of Revelation. And God reserves for him the last say in the entire 66 books of the Bible.So I think we should come to John’s writings with an open heart and a prayerful spirit. We have to balance our scholarly study of the Bible with at least an equal amount of taking it through prayer.As Paul said we should take the word of God by means of all prayer and petition. We should balance our study with times of taking in the words of the Bible by means of all prayer. That is praying over and with the words of the Bible. That is giving thanks and saying Amen to each phrase - petitioning and praising God as we read.We should take God's word in prayer and pray it back to God. This is very very effective for spiritual growth and nourishment.And it is good for killing off many of our opinions which, as precious as they may seem to us, hinder us from developing spiritually.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 02:02 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 02:14 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 02:16 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-28-2005 02:17 PM

Arachnophilia, Thanks for a short post I can reply to in under two hours.John not humble?Have you considered that he only refers to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved"?Now that is sweet and humble. Of course John knew that the Master loved all of the disciples, including Judas. But John only refers to himself as "the disciple whom Jesus loved". That is all he needs to remember and all he wants us to know. Jesus loved him.But Jesus loves you and I also. So I think that this signature of John shows his humility.Now he was one of the "sons of thunder". And in that regard we know that he had a temper. But the point is that Jesus Christ is into changing people. By the time Jesus got finished with him, John was transformed. And He'll do the same to you and I.In Revelation John does not refer to himself as "apostle". He simply says "your brother and fellow partaker". No humility there?

Haven't read all of your comments yet. But what do think about a saying that I heard - "Every translation is an interpretation"?What do you think about that?

That Pember is supporting an interpretation is obvious by his own candid admission:“Such a meaning is by far the best for our context: we may adopt it, and render, ”And the earth became desolate and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” (Earth’s Earliest Ages, G.H. Pember, pg. 32, Kregel)I also noticet that he does not say that “we [MUST] adopt it” but only that he “may.” Nor does he say that any other rendering has to be wrong. You adopt another rendering also to support a particular ideology most likely. You admitted as obviously true “Every translation is an interpretation.”In the instance of Genesis 1:2 when you exclude the possibility of “became” aren’t you saying that your interpretation, your “ideology” has to be the correct one? This, as if there is no possibility of another view.Why did F.F. Bruce (though not a Gap theorist himself) remark that “an excessively cavalier dismisal” of a destruction / reconstruction view of Genesis 1:1,2 was unwarranted because such a view was supported by scholars of the calibre of Pusey and Liddon? Wouln’t that also include your view, the essence of is “there’s no controversy about it - ”became’ is just not the right word” (paraphrased)?Rotherham translated the entire Hebrew Bible (The Emphasized Bible). Have you done that? Should you easily dismiss someone who has? I appreciate your patience to explain some Hebrew grammer for me. I’m learning something there and also going back to digest difficult portions of Arthur Custance’s book “Without Form and Void”. But I do not feel the need to accept on your say-so that there is no possibility of question about Genesis 1:1,2. Why should I when it is obvious to me that the understanding of Destruction / Reconstruction goes back at least to the second century B.C. and perhaps earlier? Rotherham (Emphsasized Bible ) translates Gen. 3:22: ”Lo! ||man|| hath become like one of us” The 1901 American Standard translates ”Behold, the man is become as one of us “J.N. Darby’s New Translation translates ”Behold, Man is become like one of us” You say: But in these three examples the translators seemed to agree that it should be clear that “like one of us” is the state into which the man has now moved. I think that this is brought out clearer with these three aboe English renderings then in your version: Would you also say that of the above samples - So “ "become" is an english translation to ease continuity in our language. it's not needed” I think is just your opinion. These translators thought that it was needed not only for ease but to communicate the meaning clearly in English.So I am doubtful that your view necessarily has to prevail in the case of Genesis 1:2 where Rotherham’s Emphazied Bible reads:
”Now ||the earth|| had become wase and wild” That’s sufficient for us to know. His way is other than God’s way. The question is who else in the Bible is the grandfather of all rebellions against God. It is “Satan” of course. It’s no joke. It is serious business. To cause man to doubt what God has said is very serious business.And I admire that God put it in terms in Genesis that could be grasped even by a young child. I would not expect the first book of the Bible to go on a philosophical treatise on the cosmic conflict between God and Satan. For now in Genesis, the Holy Spirit deems that a snake will communicate the essential crucial matters.The book of Revelation has the apostle John tell us that the ”ancient serpent” was Satan.”And the great dragon was cast down, the ancient serpent, he who is called the Devil and Satan , he who deceives the whole inhabited earth . ” (Rev. 12:9)My reaction is thanksgiving and acceptance at God’s revelation. I don’t count that I am able to stand against the wiles of a being who is the deceiver of the entire inhabited earth. So why argue with the Bible on this? The ancient serpent in Genesis was Satan.John was two thousand years closer to the writing of Genesis then you or I. Plus the fact I accept him as an apostle not by men but by God.The Apostle further tells us ”He who practices sin is of the devil, because the devil has sinned from the beginning. (First John 3:8)From the beginning must certainly mean Genesis. Of what profit is it to me to quibble about “The snake wasn’t the devil. It was Joe Smo other there instead” with a showing display of Hebrew language?”For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8)Of what profit is it to me to argue about this. The works of the devil are the entire tragic plunge of mankind away from God. I don’t want to be away from my God.” . we should love one another, not as Cain was of the evil one and slew his brother . ” (3:12). The ”evil one” who instigated Cain to oppose and kill his brother was Satan. Of what possible advantage could it be to me to argue that “the evil one” was incorrectly indentified by God’s apostle? Probably the Devil is still lying to conceal his work against true worshippers of God.Jesus Christ said to the opposing religionists ”You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.When he speaks the lie, he speaks ot out of his own possessions; for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44)I trust Christ on this. I don’t want to toy with or attempt to conceal one in whom there is NO truth. I don’t want to play around with such believing that Jesus Christ needs to sit at my feet to learn a thing or two because of my knowledge of Hebrew, that the liar in Genesis, after all, was not Satan. It is absurd to question the matter on any grounds. I think it is pointless to argue it further with you. Take the serpent in Genesis as something or someone else. The loss is yours not mine. You may be intelligent and read Hebrew. But without accepting Christ’s word you won’t be able to stand against one who has deceived the whole inhabited earth.Go ahead, and like Eve accept the evil suggestion “Yea, hath God said . ?”Jesus said that he desired that we be hot or cold but not lukewarm. If you are going after the unbelief inspired by the snake, you might as well be not only deceived but good and deceived - thoroughly and freezingly cold. Expositions on Genesis by rabbis at times did use the state of the earth in verse 2 applying it as not a benigh affair waiting to be formed, but rather as negative opposition to the Torah and the Temple.Paul’s and John’s reference to Genesis 1:2,3 both apply the darkness not as a benigh state waiting for positive formation but rather as negative opposition against the light and order of God. I speak not of interpretation of Genesis 1:1-3 but of their application and analogy to Genesis 1:1-3.”In the beginning was the Word . He was in the beginning with God . And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” (John 1:5)”And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those who are perishing, ( v.3)

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In whom the god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the unbelievers that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine on them. (v.4)

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For we do not preach ourselves but Christ Jesus as Lord, and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. (v.5)

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Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” (v. 6) of (2 Cor. 4:3-6)Both passages are illusions to and analogies with Genesis 1:1-3. Both are written by Jews, albiet Jews who believed in the rejected Messiah Jesus.Both passages are within the 3,000 year scope that you suggested. And both passages apply the condition of the earth before God shined the light as an indication not of benigh things waiting to be put in order, but as evidence of Satanic opposition to the work of God.Then there is this commentary from a Jewish rabbi Paul Isaac Hershon where he quotes an old source similar to the above Christian NT commentaries:
” ”And the earth was desolate and void’. The earth will be desolate, for the shekinah will depart at the destruction of the Temple, and hence it is said: ”And the Spirit of God hovered upon the face of the water’: which intimates to us that even although we be in exile (after the destruction of the Temple) yet the Torah shall not depart from us; and therefore it us added: ”And God said, Let there be light’. This shows us that after the captivity God will again enlighten us, and send us the Messiah . ”.

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[Rabinnical Commentary on Genesis, Herdon, Paul Issac, London, 1882, p. 2] Clearly here, the state of the earth as dark, waste, and void is applied in the way of Destruction. And the entrance of light as recovery and Reconstruction.And of course there was the Legends of the Jews by Ginsburg which had this quotation on the section on Genesis:“Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several other worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours.”This multi volume work was based upon ancient Jewish legends which Ginsberg sought to preserve as much as possible in the original phrasing and terms.To add to these evidences an unspecified interval of time between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2 was reported by the Revised Edition of Chamber’s Encyclopedia to be was already found in the Midrash of which Custance remarks:”Now after or during the Babylonian Captivity, the Jewish people gradually accumulated the comments and explanations of their best known teachers about the Old Testament for some 1500 years - or well on into the Christian era. This body of traditional teaching was gathered together into the Midrash which thus became the oldest pre-Christian exposition of the Old Testament. It was already the basis of rabbinical teaching in the time of our Lord and must have been familiar to Paul.”As for ”war in heaven” in Revelation 12 concerning end times and not Genesis? If you are arguing that “war in heaven” there doesn’t seem to indicate anything in Genesis 1 through 3, then that is a rebuttal that you will have to address to someone else beside me. I never claimed that Satan’s casting to the earth in Rev. 12:9 is the event preceeding Genesis 1:2.The general picture of Satan’s opposition to the Bright Woman and her manchild obviously is a parallel to Genesis chapter 3. And the dragon’s dragging away a third of the ”stars of heaven” with his tail, is a general desciption of the fact that he has deceived even the angels of heaven (compare Isa. 14:12; Job 38:7). And that did take place in pre-Adamic times IMO. The tail of the dragon probably symbolizing Satan’s deceptionInteresting though, if the war was not restricted to heaven or not basically in heaven before Adam’s time, that probably would give credence to the fact that the earth had to be judged vindicating Rotherham's footenote on Genesis 1:2:”Heb. : tohu wa-vohu. Evidently an idiomatic phrase, with a play on the sound (“assonance”). The two words occur together only in Is. Xxxiv.11; Jer. Iv.23; examples which favour the conclusion that here also they describe the result of previous overthrow. Tohu by itself is found in several other texts (Deu.xxxii.10; Job xii.24; ps. Cvii.40; Is. Xxiv.10; xxxiv.11; etc.). The fact that the creature twisted God’s word, deceived God’s creatures, opposed God, slandered God’s motives, directly contradicted God’s word, tempted Eve, set out to destroyed God’s plan, was cursed by God all plainly testify to the fact that he was an advasary to God.If you can’t see that then you don’t need more Hebrew translation skills. You need the mercy of God upon you.But don’t feel that you are alone in this. We all need His mercy to receive His word and His revelation. Me especially. In myself I simply cannot go along with the Divine Mind and say Amen with submission to His will. What is there to figure out? The existence of the advasary in Genesis shows that God allowed the devil there.Both Adam and Job had a free will to act.
I have one friend who believes that Satan even gave name to “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. Perhaps, he says, God said that they would have a dual between His tree of life and Satan’s tree of death. And then the devil said “Oh no, no. If you call it tree of death that sounds too negative. Call it something nice like the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”This is pure speculation of a fellow student of Genesis that I know. My real point is that it is obvious that God’s enemy and adavasary can only do what God grants him the freedom to do. That is true in Job and in Genesis and throughout all time until he goes to his reward of eternal torment. That is precisely the only thing I am refering to the Targum of Onkelos for. It proves that some Jews thought about Genesis in that way.They read Hebrew and thought that’s what Genesis meant. Thus the incorrectness of your claim that in 3,000 years no one agrees with a Destruction / Reconstruction interpretation of Genesis 1:1-3. Custance talks about the Septuagint also in terms of proof of the existence of the interpretion I believe. I will not go into it now.Concerning Ginsberg’s proof of the existence of a Gap Theory opinion among ancient Jews you wrote: I only intended to demonstrate some and not all.You are the one that seems to be saying all agree with your view. So you discern between which ones seem scriptural and which ones less so or completely do not.Incidently in your samples from Catholicism the Trinity is scriptural in that there is stated that there is one God yet God is the Father, God is the Son, and God is the Holy Spirit. That is not a Catholic invention. That is theologians coming up with a word to discribe a very mysterious yet unmistakenly biblical teaching of the Bible.You come across that a pre-Adamic interval and destruction and reconstruction is an idea foreign to all readers of the Hebrew Bible. You are wrong. You may disagree with the interpreation. But you cannot say that what I have proposed has always been out of the question with readers of Hebrew Genesis.You’re making a false claim if you insist that undertandings of the language of Genesis 1:1,2 has never lead to a Destruction / Reconstruction interpretation by those who know Hebrew grammer. This issue is what does Genesis 1:1,3 really say. Linguistic, grammatical, and interpretive arguments are a part of the dialogue.
Pusey, Liddon, Pember, Custance, Rotherham are the names of a few consersant in reading Hebrew who disagree with you. So stop staring down your scholarly spectacles at me, that no one who knows Hebrew thinks that Destruction / Reconstruction is a proper view of Genesis 1:1,2.Rotherham translated the entire Old Testament. Have you ever done that?Incidently, ”the deep”, as far as I can see, means the sea water. I wasn;t quite sure whether you were saying that the sea was one thing and the deep was another. Excuse me if I misunderstood you. But I noticed this verse in Job:”The waters hide themselves and became like stone, And the surface of the deep is frozen” (Job 38:30)Sounds to me like water is hidden when the sea freezes over. Here it is the deep that is frozen over. You may have demonstated that. But I took to initiative to say myself that there is some overlap to be expected.But “create” is not a word to define asah (6213) as it is to define bara (1254). So I think there is room for argument that a distinction is sometimes intended in Scripture. They are not always synonomous.You said that words don’t aways have to mean the same thing in the case of my reference to tohu or bohu. So apply your principle in the case with asah and bara too. I bet you he is now. Same with Elijah and Moses who conversed with Christ in the Mount of Transfiguration.Certainly Abraham is Christian now (and as he wanted to be) as Jesus said:”Your father Abraham exulted that he would see My day, and he saw it and rejoiced” .Old Abraham is probably rejoicing to be a Messianic Jewish Christian now. Why not David also? The writer of Hebrews says that the old covenant saints are a cloud of witnesses cheering us Christians on in the race of God’s plan in the book of Hebrews. John’s gospel is manifestly not gnostic in that He emphasized that Jesus was a real flesh and blood man. The gnostics thought that Jesus was too good to be physical. They thought that He must have been a immaterial fantasm.There is however a divine and mystical aspect to John’s writings. But at the same time his gospel and epistle are very practical to us. What could be more practical in the Christian life than ”Abide in Me and I in you?” and “.. .whoseover believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life”Often skeptics who want to offer their own works of righteousness as the grounds of acceptance into God’s salvation will tend to like all the instructions in Matthew and the synoptics and dismiss John as the black sheep among the four gospels. Speaking of Hebrews. I said that I was taught that it means “river crosser”. I think that there is an important spiritual lesson in that. If we seek God we need to be willing to cross our own rivers to find him. In some cases some must cross the river of Judiasm to be spiritual Hebrews to find the Messiah. In some cases Christians must cross the river of degraded Christianity to actually learn to abide in the living Person of Christ. It is easy to be religious and miss ”Abide in Me and I in you.” CORRECTION:I only know that God selected a few examples to demonstrate a point. I think you are in the dark, and maybe even enjoy it, about Who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Sorry to be blunt with you about it. I don’t have the feeling that you met my Jesus yet.I would drop the Genesis argument completely if I could help you to see that Christ is the living Word of God and can be known today. I mean today. The Interval or the way we take Genesis 1:1-3 is not as important as receiving Christ.Don’t remind me that I am a gospel preacher now. I know that already and have no regrets and make no apologies about it. Maybe order is not divine canon. But I think that it may be sovereign in cases, that’s all.As for three Johns? Yea, I know. And four Isaiahs and three of four Jeremiahs, and a couple dozen Moses’s and a few dozen Daniels, etc. etc.Probably is this Internet Forum is preserved for 800 years scholars will say that there were three and possibly even four Arachnophilias.Must go now. Thanks for the few helpers to understand Custance’s Appendix.If you weren't so bent on teaching me to disbelieve the Bible I might even come to you for Hebrew lessons.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-29-2005 01:06 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-29-2005 03:11 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-29-2005 03:31 PMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-29-2005 03:40 PM

That is right. And the same could apply to Genesis 1:2. This is the reason why I can accept “was” there and still understand that the earth became something that it was not originally created in the beginning.If in the case of “ I wasn’t hungry earlier” is information that you picked up latter in the conversation and not at the time you were told “I am now hungry” then it would be reasonable to put the two pieces of information together and interpret that the speaker must have moved from one state to the next. Yes, but someone who has a vested interest in demonstating Archnophelia didn’t say what Archnophilia said, for some reason, can come up with many reason to propose there was imitation or some such thing from imposters. Or they could slice and dice up your paragraphs and say this sentence is Arachnophilia’s but this other one obviously is not recognized as so by the “best” scholars. Thanks. Some years back a group of us hired a Greek professor to tutor us in Greek. And it was tough.When it comes to the Bible I think there are basically two teaching approaches. You can teach people to disbelieve Scripture or you can teach people to believe Scripture. Perhaps, I am wrong. But my experience is that the Bible is simply that kind of book that causes people to have a reaction one way or the other, usually and eventually strongly.I don't know why you don't like John. I am not even sure what you think you'll get in Matthew that you will not find in John.Christ is still God in the flesh in Matthew. My reaction to Matthew is still the same as was Thomas's in John to the resurrected Christ - "My Lord and my God."Perhaps thats no issue to you at all. But my God is the Man Jesus Christ. And my Man is the God Christ Jesus.Do you think that you could grow to feel differently about John's gospel?This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-31-2005 06:47 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-31-2005 06:50 AM

That is one aspect of Christ Arachnophilia.Now please remember that I said "ONE aspect." He certainly is a shelter.The "hydrogen bomb" of God's righteous judgment will come and you are going to want to be in a bomb shelter. I recommend the redemption of Jesus Christ. You are going to need an exceedingly strong shelter. You don't go to meet a hydrogen explosion with a patched up umbrella.I was a young man cutting grass for an old woman. She use to talk the Bible to me and I did not like it. Then one day her husbnad died. That day I thought that she would be in mourning. So I was reluctant to go after school and cut her grass and pull her weeds.But she was there and in strong spirits. The man was very very old. And I never forgot what she told me. She said that the previous night her and her aged husband had prayed a typical German prayer. And this part of it struck me:"Lord Jesus, I stand clothed in your blood, my only righteousness before God"Or something similar to those words. Those words, though I didn't understand them, somehow sunk down deep into my heart. The day came for me when those words became meaningful. I needed the justification in the redemptive sacrificeof Christ on the cross. Justice was imputed in my behalf upon Christ.I am telling you of my experience now and not preaching to you. There certainly is an aspect of knowing Christ that is a shelter. You see Arachnophilia I have sinned. I need justification through the redemption of Christ.If I have to answer to God for my sinful life, I will never be able to stand before God. So I enjoy the secure peace of knowing that justice was accomplished on my behalf in Christ. "Their sins and their lawlessnesses I will by no means remember anymore".In addition to this I enjoy being in God's eternal purpose to build up the New Jerusalam of sons of God and brothers of the Firstborn Son of God.This message has been edited by jaywill, 12-31-2005 07:10 AMThis message has been edited by jaywill, 12-31-2005 07:12 AM