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Author | Topic: The first 3 chapters of Genesis | |||||||||||||||||||||||
robinrohan Inactive Member |
You're the one who's injecting what isn't there: a fictitious world in which there is child-free childbirth and work-free gardening. No, you are applying realism. It's like saying there is no such thing as ghosts in regard to Hamlet. But we are inquiring about the facts of the story. Edited by robinrohan, : No reason given.
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
robinrohan writes: ... you are applyimg realism. No I'm not. I'm not saying there is no child-free childbirth or work-free gardening. I'm saying they're not in the story. If you think they are, cite chapter and verse instead of just repeating, "It's obvious." Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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robinrohan Inactive Member |
I'm not saying there is no child-free childbirth or work-free gardening. I'm saying they're not in the story. If you think they are, cite chapter and verse instead of just repeating, "It's obvious." You must be the biggest damned fool I ever met in my life. So God said, everything is like it was before? No changes?
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ringo Member (Idle past 411 days) Posts: 20940 From: frozen wasteland Joined: |
Chapter and verse?
Help scientific research in your spare time. No cost. No obligation. Join the World Community Grid with Team EvC
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jar Member (Idle past 393 days) Posts: 34026 From: Texas!! Joined: |
I agree with Robin that God punished Adam and Eve in Genesis 3:16-19. I don't think anyone has ever disagreed that that is what those verses say. The question then moves beyond that simple point. The topic here is The first 3 chapters of Genesis. That seems to go beyond a few verses in that last of the three chapters. The thing that I and others have discussed is whether there was a Fall or some Original Sin. IMHO the reading of Genesis, particularly the first three chapters, does not support the concept of either a Fall or Original Sin. The story goes that Adam and Eve eat some fruit that lets them know the difference between Good and Evil, even though God had told them not to eat from that Tree. God then punishes them for that act. The key point is that tale if taken at face value makes God look pretty bad. Until Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil they would have no way of knowing they should obey God as opposed to anyone else. They were like infants, they had no sense of morality or what the threat of death meant. They were completely innocent and so to punish them for disobeying when they just did not have the capability to know right from wrong would be unjust. The redactors of the Bible were not stupid, they could see the problems just as they saw the inconsistencies between the creation myth in Genesis 1 and that in Genesis 2. So why include it? IMHO they saw that the story was more important than the inconsistencies. Aslan is not a Tame Lion
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Brian Member (Idle past 4959 days) Posts: 4659 From: Scotland Joined: |
oh to be 8 years old again and believe that every story in the Bible is true.
Ah how I yearn for those innocent days. Brian.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
It's pathetic, Robin. They refuse to simply read the story and discuss what it actually says.
You could always flunk students of yours who couldn't follow your simple assignment. That might not be any great satisfaction since they're just poor victims of modern education, but it would probably be a great pleasure to flunk these know-it-alls here if only you could. And they don't even have a sense of humor.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
I'm interested in interpretation generally ...
I'll assume you are mainly concerned with the Adam and Eve story (rather than the separate creation story of Genesis 1). My take is that this an early form of a "Just So" story. It was intended to explain the human condition in general. But its main emphasis was on human consciousness and what distinguishes us from other animals. Thus the tree of knowledge of good and evil is the central theme. The tree of life is merely a side issue, to fill out the plot.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
Robin is interested in discussing what the story SAYS, not what you think it means or why it was written. Perhaps his OP was not clear enough, but that's been the gist of the discussion since.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
Robin is interested in discussing what the story SAYS, not what you think it means or why it was written.
You cannot separate what it says from why it was written. The latter provides the context for understanding the former.
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Faith  Suspended Member (Idle past 1444 days) Posts: 35298 From: Nevada, USA Joined: |
You cannot separate what it says from why it was written. The latter provides the context for understanding the former. "Understanding" it is not the point. Simply grasping what it actually SAYS in so many words is the point. This is because "understanding" it does nothing but introduce fanciful speculations that have nothing to do with the text itself. Start with what the text actually SAYS. There is so much "understanding" here the text might as well not exist. This is apparently a bad habit introduced by modern text criticism.
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nwr Member Posts: 6408 From: Geneva, Illinois Joined: Member Rating: 5.1 |
"Understanding" it is not the point. Simply grasping what it actually SAYS in so many words is the point.
Understanding is grasping what it says.
Start with what the text actually SAYS.
The OP does ask about interpretation. Text doesn't actually say anything. Rather, it conveys a message from the author. Thus one must consider the intent of the author. In this case it is particularly difficult, because we would need to consider the intent of the original author when the story was part of an oral tradition, the intent of those who embellished the story over the years while it existed only in the oral tradition, the intent of the writer who committed it to written text, and the intent of the translators.
This is apparently a bad habit introduced by modern text criticism.
If "modern text criticism" is an allusion to deconstructionism, then I have no part in that.
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3597 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
You rang?
iano: Look what you've done! I cannot agree with Robin for fear of incurring your wrath - despite what Jar says reading like the manuals that used to come with Japanese equipment 20 years ago. You seem to be asking me to help you find common ground. Are you serious? If you are, I can. I don't promise you'll be singing 'Kum Ba Yah' around VBS campfires with Episcopalian orangutangs if that's not your cup of tea. But I can show you something worthwhile: another aspect of this subject, an important one, that you don't seem to have much experience with. If you give yourself time to reflect on it, it could put into healthier perspective some of the interpretive differences that loom so large in your mind right now that they divide you from your fellow Christians. If you're in the market for anything like that. You'd have to let me walk you through a few observations before we come around to one feature of the Genesis text. This would involve 2-3 fairly hefty posts for me. Admin has to be cool with me taking a momentary detour from the immediate subject for a moment before returning to it. The discussion should be of general interest, though. There's nothing up my sleeve. Go with me on this and you don't have to worry about accepting gifts from Greeks. You will be able to voice agreement with everything I say if it strikes you as reasonable, yet still walk away with your creationism intact. Nothing lost. I don't want to waste my time, though, or yours. If you're just here to repeat old patterns I'd sooner forego the typing. So let me know what you want to do. . Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Edited by Archer Opterix, : Typo. Archer All species are transitional.
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RickJB Member (Idle past 4990 days) Posts: 917 From: London, UK Joined: |
I don't remember Jar arguing against punishment. He argued that the idea of "original sin" is not made explcit in the text.
The section you present seems to back that up... Jar's "just so" hypothesis works for me. Adam and Eve were punished and that's why the world is as it is. However, I can see how the the "fall" concept would arise. One can argue that we were ALL punished because we live in the world that resulted from their disobediance. This idea, however, does not appear to have been made explicit in the text. Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.
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arachnophilia Member (Idle past 1343 days) Posts: 9069 From: god's waiting room Joined: |
Jar and others in another thread claim that the traditional interpretation--that God punishes Adam and Eve for eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (we can shorten this to KGE) is incorrect. god certain does punish adam and eve. you can argue about whether it's consequences of their actions or not, but it's essentially punishment. the issue is whether god punishes us with some abstract sense of "original sin" from the moment of birth. that idea is largely unsupported by the text, especially the jewish segment of it. that god withdraws the tree of life from adam and eve -- and that this action affects the rest of, as do the other punishments -- is uncontested. of course their punishment affects us, their decendents. if it did not, there would be no point in telling the story. indeed, the things they are actually punished with (work, physical and emotional pain, patriarchal society, and death) do affect us.
They say that Adam and Eve are being sent away from Eden so that they won't eat from the Tree of Life, not because they did eat from the KGE, from the section you didn't quote:
quote: seems pretty clear to me. god sends them away to keep them from eating from the tree of life. the other punishments {other than death} are irrelevant to whether or not man lives in the garden. {certainly, not eating from the tree of life is part of the punishment} it also indicates that man is probably not immortal prior to this.
and this being sent away does not consititute punishment. well, it's part of the "death" punishment. if adam can eat from the tree of life, he won't die. Edited by arachnophilia, : added brackets
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