Biblical Translation--Eden, 2

This does not hold. Because to know God deeply as YHWH may not have been Abraham's experience yet except by vision, anticipation, and promise.(Some of us knew of this verse even when we knew what God had told Moses. We do check things like that too.)For example, I know Christ as the Coming One. He has not come yet in the sense of His Second Coming. Yet I believe His promise that He will come.So I "know" Him as the Coming One. Yet deeply and experiencially, not quite yet do I know Him in this way.So I think it is a matter of the depth of knowing. And it is a matter of knowing by way of vision and promise to come (an expectation) or knowing by way as fulfillment of promise. Big deal. There's wet dust and there's dry dust.You could even say that a hand full of mud was dust. I was slow to accept Genesis as history with built in symbolism. So I don't rush people to see it that way. It took me some time.Eventually though, I noticed that the flow of history was seamless.The objections that you outline I find to be minor ones.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Autumnman, Jesus wanted His disciples to reject and ignore the hypocritical living of the Pharisees. What they taught from the law of Moses was not to be rejected and ignored often. But their hypocritical living was to be both rejected and ignored."Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swollow the camel! Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and the dish, but inwardly they are full of extortion and self-indulgence ... For you resemble whgitewashed graves, which outwardly appear beautiful but inwardly are full of dead neb's bones and all uncleaness." (See Matt. 23:24-27)At other times certain rituals of the law were ignored by Christ intentionally. Such as His going about and healing on the Sabbath day to the infuration of the Pharisees.And a number of commands of God Jesus taught that His new teaching transcended - "You have heard that it was said ... But I say unto you ..." The impact is that His new teaching is higher and more penetrating. We are to follow His new saying. In the past God said do not commit adultery. Now Jesus points out the sin of even looking at a woman to lust after her is adultery in the heart already.In the past we were not to do murder. According to His higher teaching we should not even be angry with the brother without a cause or we are in danger of murder in the heart already.This may not come out to be rejection of the older teaching. It may not come out to be ignoring of the old teaching. It is setting His new covenant words as transcending what was written before.Concerning leaven, it is used as a negative element in this passage AND in passages when it relates to the kingdom of the heavens. It is not used negatively for the Pharasee teaching and positively for the parables of the kingdom of the heavens. Leaven is negative in both instances.Do you want me to give you negative sense of leaven in the parable of Christ? I know the parable of which you speak in Matthew 13:33-35.

Nope. I don't mind at all.
By all means stick with one subject at a time.

The Bible takes note of quite a few times that God was speaking and the recipients of His speaking were suspicious that it was not God speaking at all.There is the problem of human distrust in God. In the book of Jeremiah the remnant of Judah pretend sincereity in specifically requesting that Jeremiah the prophet go to God to obtain His instructions as to whether they should flee the conquest of the Babylonians by going down to Egypt or not. When the divine answer came back they were infuriated and insisted that Jeremiah was tricking them. What they wanted to hear was not what God spoke. So they totally rejected God's word based on thier suspicion.We well might say tat they seriousy mistook the genuine prophet of God for a fallible, frail, insecure, arrogant, power-hungry, lustful human being is figuratively "pulling thier leg," so to speak.This striking account is recorded in Jeremiah 42:1 - 43:7. The people seem so sincere. They promise Jeremiah that whatever God gives back as an answer to thier inquiry, they will do. Up to this point I'm touched by their apparent sincerity. But YHWH knows the hearts of men in detail. Up to this point it sounds very good. But then the tragic result of playing with the God who knows all hearts (Jer. 17:9,10) God warns the people to remain under the imperialistic power of the king of Babylon. God will build them up. They are not to fear the Babylonian king. God will preserve them in their being under Babylon's domination.God promises to deliver them from the king of Babylon. He will protect them. He will show compassion on them. He will bring them back to the good land. Then God stearnly warns them to trust in Him and not to go down to escape in Egypt. This is exactly what the people did NOT want to hear. And they were so suspicious of the undesired answer coming from the prophet that they did not believe that God had spoken.Jeremiah says that they deceived THEMSELVES ! They deceived their own selves by pretending to be willing to obey God when they already had their minds made up to do what they wanted to do. The reply of the "proud men" is that Jeremiah has spoken falsehood and is not genuinely speaking God's words. We have to consider that man can deceive himself because of his stubburn distrust of God. We need the mercy of God to be opened to Him. We may project out schemes and devices onto Him. He is pure but we have deceived ourselves and think God is the enemy.The mind of the man reflects the man, it says in Proverbs. As face answers to face in water, so the mind of a man reflects the man. There is the danger that we recoil at the words of God because we are deeply determined to do what we want to do regardless.This account in Jeremiah has always been a warning to me.I had to do this quickly. Forgive any typos please.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

autumnman, If I understand this point correctly, you are countering bertot that the Bible does show man looking to nature to know what God requires in the way of instruction or command.I think that that is what is being argued here.Of course there are plenty of parables and metaphors using nature and natural things to teach man about what his response to God should be. However, without first His word comming in the form of instruction, they have little context or basis of meaning.Look at your examples. You refer to Deut. 32:3,4. It is His promises, His words, His commands, along with His faithfulness which furnishes the context by which He can be compared to a rock.The stability of a natural rock is used to supply a word picture to the faithfulness of God to His words. By looking at the rest of the passage we can see this:"Is He not your Father who bought you? Was it not He who made you and established you?" (v.6)Don't you see that this buying of Israel and making of Israel must refer back to God's redemptive actions in Egypt? And all those redemptive activities involved words, instructions, and teachings of God. It is not said that God is the rock of the Hebrews in a vacuum. They have His kept promises, His steadfast words as the proof of divine stability such that He can be called a rock.Even the meaning of the word Deuteronomy means a re-speaking. That is a speaking a second time of what was spoken before.You compare you Deutoronomy example to Matthew 7:26. I think this exactly argues for the rock analogy as being based on the teaching of God:"Everyone therefore who hears these words of Mine and does them shall be likened to a prudent man who built uis house upon a rock."The rock is the teaching. To live according to the teaching is to build upon the rock. Did you miss "these words of Mine"? That would refer to the words of Jesus from chapters 5 when He began to teach.If there were no words of Jesus as teaching in the previous chapters then there would be no rock upon which to build one's house.What is foolish according to the teaching is to not build one's house upon the words of Jesus. That is to try to build upon the sand. There are two ways this foolishness can come about. One can hear the words of Jesus and fail to build upon them. Or one can say Jesus never spoke. Either way causes one to lose the rock stability of His words.One ignores the divine authority of His words. The other counts the words as common and no more special than any words which were imaginiatively put into the mouth of a fictional character.At any rate the "rock" metaphor Deutoronomy 32 is strongly related to the divine instruction, words, promises, and those acts of faithfulness by God to such words. And in Matthew 7 the rock is the teaching of Christ - "these words of Mine".These words of Jesus came out of His own life experience. This is the way He lived. This is the way He lives still. So we need His Spirit within and His life to be imparted into us.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

Autumnman,Could you elaborate a litle more what your point was in these sentences? Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I believe that the Bible is the word of God; the divine oracles communicating revelation to man of many things which man could not find out unless God had spoken to us through the prophets and in the 66 books of the Bible.Upon this basis I have some comments about AM's above paragraph. Many Christians refer to this as the Fall of Man. The word fall is not in the text. The closest thing to it is recorded in the verses immediately following the expulsion of Adam and his wife Eve from the garden in Eden. That is that the countenance of Cain fell.As far as I know no interpreter has ever made a connection between the falling of Cain's countenance and the fall of man. I do so here because I have been musing on the account.Cain's expression became discouraged, angry, saddened, down cast. His offering in worship was not regarded by God whereas the offering of Abel his brother, was. Here is what Genesis says in my Recovery Version: Man has gained something called the knowledge of good and evil. Though Cain has the knowledge of good and evil he is lacking in the life power to overcome the evil that he knows. He is also weak to perform the good that he knows.It seems that Man has received a raw deal. He has gained a knowledge but he has been hoodwinked in the process. Though he has the knowledge of good and evil, the case of Cain and Abel show that having the knowledge alone is not sufficient. Man is weak to perform the good. Man is weak to resist the evil. This exhortation reveals that Cain should have some past experience with this struggle. If he does well his countenance will be lifted up. This must not have been the first time that descendents of Adam and Eve struggled with temptation to do "not well" as opposed to doing well. That is this was not the first time they had to choose between doing good or evil.This instance is singled out because it resulted in two things:1.) The invention of the first man made religion, the religion of Cain.2.) The first murder of man by man.I will not develop here the either of these points. But rather I would point out that though Cain had knowledge he lacked power - the power of life, to overcome the evil and to do the good. Instead of ruling over the sin, the sin ruled over him.Remember now that a barrier of the glorious cherubim with the flaming sword guarded the way to the tree of life (Gen. 3:24). And the New Testament tells us that man was alienated from the life of God. Fallen mankind is described as not only estranged from God's presence or from knowing God. Man in his state of vanity and falleness is alienated from the very life of God. The tree of life therefore must represent the life of God. And to partake of it must mean that the life of God is dispensed into the life of man. Therefore God's original purpose in creating man was that man was a vessel of created life designed to contain the uncreated and divine life of God Himself. God would live in man. Man would live God. That is not just worship God, obey God, know God, love God, BUT LIVE GOD.In the instance of Cain we see man alienated from the life of God. However there something evil and wicked which is very close to man and even IN man. It is something called SIN. It is spoken of as a personifide thing lurking and crouching at the door of Cain's heart, looking to seize the opportunity to rule over Cain: Man is alienated from the life of God. He is forbidden to partake of the tree of life. Instead man is infested with sin. Sin as a evil personified parasite is crouching at the door of the inward heart of man seeking any opportunity to bring man under his power to rule over him.Cain's knowledge of good and evil is not able to cause him to over come the crouching, opportunistic sin. It seems that another evil life and not the life of God has been injected into man. Though man struggle against it with the better judgment of his conscience, he cannot overcome it. The result is the jealous rage that causes one man to murder another. Of course God knew and Cain knew where Abel was. He was dead, murdered. God asks to give Cain a chance to allow his conscience to inform him of his need to confess and repent of his sin. It is similar to God asking Adam after he sinned "Where are you?".Cain now retorts in a fashion that shows that he is suppressing his human conscience. Since he cannot do good he desparately seeks to shut up the voice within him that informs him of good. He is not responsible for his brother, he retorts. In fact he can kill his brother out of anger. It does not matter.When the sinner cannot live with himself he will seek to silence his conscience. He will seek to shut it up, to shut it down and silence its conviction."I cannot escape this evil that I loath. I cannot do the good that I know I should do. I cannot live with myself in this contradiction. So I hold down and shut up the voice of my conscience. It is not there."This is one way man deals with the delimma of the convicting of his conscience. The other way is that he will seek to bribe his conscience. He will do something else good instead of the thing in which he has sinned. Perhaps if I do something else which is good I can shut the voice of my conscience up. But the conscience takes no bribes. It knows what it knows what it knows.The crouching sin rushed in and ruled over Cain. In Romans the Apostle Paul discribes sin in these terms also. Sin deceives. Sin seeks opportunity. Sin kills. Sin rebels on general principle. Here is a portion of Paul's diagnosis of man with his indwelling sin nature: The law commandment of God caused sin to "seize the opportunity" to work coveting in Paul's heart. Isn't this like God saying that "sin is crouching at the door" in Genesis 4:7Man was meant to live God out from within him via the tree of life. But taking in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil a personified evil sin has infested man's being. Sin woke up and brought the man into a dying, a weakness, and a death of sorts. Paul was alive until the commandment roused sin up in him. Sin rebels, Sin crouches. Sin seeks opportunity. Man was alienated from the life of God but Satanified by the evil nature of sin. Sin kills like a murderer. Sin deceives like a liar. There is a force indwelling man that deceives, crouches, seeks opportunity to overpower man and rule man. The knowledge of good and evil alone does not provide the power to live godly and righteously as man was created to do. Sin not only crouches and seeks opportunity. Sin causes the man to do that which he hates to do. Cain did not want to give in to anger to the extent that he would kill his brother Abel. But he was driven by the force of the indwelling sin. It is the same for all fallen people today. All are guilty of sinning. All have failed to do what they delight in and have committed what they hate to have done.If this is not the case in every action it is the case in many many actions. That is enough to give us a real record of real guilt before the holy and righteous God. we should notice that Paul speaks of the indwelling sin as being in his members. We should see that he speaks of the body of this death. And we should see that this sin acts as a law in his members. It wars against the good in his mind. Paul says that in him, that is in his flesh, DWELLS no good thing.This does not mean that his body is not created good. It means that something has entered into man's fallen body and transmuted it, corrupting it. I believe that this entered into man's body from his taking in the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.The tree was a bad deal. The tree was a deceptive deal. It looked good for food and seemed desireable to make one wise. In fact it brought man under the authority of an evil force that is personified. This lives in man and crouches at man's heart to perform the evil that man hates in his conscience.I have not answered all of the question of AM. It is hard to do so in one post. This is a start to address some of the issues of results of man's being corrupted by the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.The reverse of the effect of the tree of life came about. Instead of man being united with God in a harmonious and sweet blending, man is infested with the Satanic spirit. Something which we do not fully understand became a foreign element as a evil parasite attached to man through his fallen transmuted flesh.God wants to enliven man from the inside out. Satan seeks to destroy man from the outside in. It is the divine life of the Person God which seeks to mingle with man. It is the enemy of God driving man to be independent from God yet unknowingly enslaved to sin.Man has the knowledge of good and evil. Man does not have the power of life to fully perform the good or resist the evil.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

From where does Gaster get the idea that this power is "God given"?How does Gaster know that there is a God to give anything and that this God has endowed man with "God given" power of discernment?

Okay. The New Testament tells us to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.But I think I will continue a bit more. And I tend also to repeat things. Because of my own personal experience I found out that some repetition (Deuteronomy) is sometimes necessary in the revelation of God. We do not get many important things with just one speaking.So for that sake of some who are reading along, you may find me repeating some matters.Take you time to respond with those areas with which you find difficulties.Also, I may have made mistakes. We know in part and we prophesy in part (1 Cor. 13:12). I am only trying to do my best as a teacher of the Bible.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

This depends on what you mean by "the time of Adam, Eve, Cain, and Abel". You are speaking of four concurrent life spans. From the creation of Adam the first man to the death of the last one of the four to die, you have no specific claim that all those years ONLY these four people were on the planet.Genesis [4:3] says "In the course of time". That is a very general statement. Were Cain and Abel still the only children of Adam and Eve at that time? Perhaps so. But I am not certain at this time.The focus of the story is what happened between Cain and Abel. So it is logical that attention is given to these two specific offspring of the first couple. That other children were not mentioned specifically is inconsequential.Cain took a wife in the land of Nod after he wandered east of Eden. I don't know how long a time elapsed between Cain's murder of Abel and his taking of a wife. You can tell me if you know. I also don't know who the wife was. However it is clear that Adam and his wife were the parents of all other human beings. Eve is called the mother of all living.The account is not so allegorical that it does not make cultural sense. Even the geneology of Adam mentions generally " [more] sons and daughters" born to the early patriarchs which are not specifically mentioned - Gen. 5:4;"When God created Adam, He made him in the likeness of God ... And Adam lived one hundred thirty years and begot a son in his likeness according to his image, and he called his name Seth.

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And all the days of Adam after he had begotten Seth were eight hundred years, and he begot more sons and daughters." (Gen. 5:3-4)Seth was not even Adam's firstborn. So the geneology does not mention every child. And other sons and daughters of Adam or of someone else descended from Adam must have been about for Cain to have obtained a wife. You do not understand the point I have made. Perhaps I have not made it well. When man ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil he attempted to be independent from God. This was a trick. Man came under the authority of the evil spirit working in him. This infestation is connected in some way with the eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.This personfied SIN crouching and seeking opportunity to master man is man's new ruler. Man is the slave. He reached for something noble. He was promised that it would make him independent and autonomous. This was falsehood in advertizing.Regardless how noble the knowledge of good and evil is, even being an attribute of God Himself, man's disobedience in reaching for it brought him into slavery under an evil spirit.Man was alienated from the life of God (Eph. 4:18) being excluded from the tree of life on one hand. And on the other the ruler of the authority of the air began to operate in man's darkened being: The ruler of the air is an evil spirit operating in the sons of Adam - the sons of disobedience.If a child is instructed not to drink a bottle of poison and the child does, two problems have come about. One problem is that the child has disobeyed and has a transgression on his record. The other problem is that the child has taken into its system a poison which is harmful to him.The sons of disobedience are infested with an evil spirit operating in them and making them children of the wrath of God.I think Deuteronomy 1:39 only means that the consciences of the little ones had not matured yet. I have no major problem with this. The parents taught them many things as their humanity matured. The tried to mold and shape the growing tendencies within the children as all parent should attempt to do. Hold on there. Along with the problem that the parent caused the parent also must have taught the children the way of worship and atonement for sins committed in approaching God.Abel learned to sacrifice a livestock from the revelation of the God ordained manner of worship taught him by his parents. He believed. He had faith. And he obeyed. The memory of the first cattle slain in place of the slaying of Adam and Eve must have been associated with the worship of God.Whereas Abel received revelation of the acceptable way to approach God Cain rejected it. He established his own inventive way to approach God. There was no blood of redemption in his offering. He brought instead his good works of labor expecting that these would be acceptable to God.It is the disbelief of Cain that caused him to invent the first religion of mankind. His religion was rejected. At least his offering was not accepted. And in a rage of anger murdered the one whom God accepted. Cain would have been accepted also had he worshipped according to the revelation that probably was taught to the children by Adam and Eve.This offering of the slain cattle was a precurser to the Lamb of God - the Son of God. We are told that He was the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world (Rev. 13:8). From the world's foundation it was foreknown by God that Christ would be the atoning human Lamb offered on the cross for the redemption of mankind from sins.In offering his crops without the redemptive blood, Cain was in effect rejecting God's way of salvation. And man has been doing the same thing throughout history. He hates that he cannot be accepted by God because of his own good labors. He finds it senseless that he need to approach God through the shed blood of one who has been slain to death in his place that he may be justified before God. Cain means "acquired" in from the mouth of his parents - [b]"And the man knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain and said, I have acquired a man, [with the help of] Jehovah.Eve probably had a shortsighted hope that this man she acquired with God's assistance was the promised seed of the woman in Genesis 3:15. That is a deliver or savior of sorts to crush the head of the serpent.I may assume that since this was the first experience of the awful pain of child birth that Eve may have prayed out and called to God for help to pass through the ordeal. At any rate Cain, she believed, was the acquired possession obtained with divine help from God.It is also mysterious that the bold exact translation would be " I have acquired a man, YHWH " or " I have acquired a man [Jehovah]." I am told that there is no preposition between the word for man" and the word for word we render "Jehovah".This strengthens the interpretation that Eve regarded the birth of her first boy as the fulfillment of the promise of a savior seed of the woman - a promise of Jehovah God.The statement was pre-mature. The first boy turned out not to be a savior but an enraged self willed inventor of religion who in jealousy was driven to commit the first murder. What a disappointment this must have been to Adam and Eve. And what a tragedy for them to lose two children in one day. The seriousness of their trangression against God must have stung them to the depths of their hearts on that day that Cain killed Abel over the teaching they had passed to the children about how to approach the Creator God.But four thousand years latter the virgin Mary gave birth to the child who Whose name is called Jesus - "Jehovah the Savior". And Isaiah the prophet says that this child is the Mighty God and this given Son is the Eternal Father (Isaiah 9:6). Neither one of them were born accepted AM. The way OF acceptance was by the blood of the offering which pointed to justification through the death of a substitute. Abel in himself was not more born accepted than Cain was. You err to think that they did not both have the same standing before God as guilty sinners. They did. There is nothing about him being a warrior or a hunter in the Bible. He was a farmer. They had to raise crops to eat.Abel was a keeper of sheep. It was not until after the flood that God ordained man to eat meat along with vegatables (Compare Gen. 1:29 to Gen.9:3). So the sheep Abel raised were for clothing and sacrifice. Perhaps he raised some cattle for milk also.Abel was therefore an extraordinary believer in God in that he apparently lived for the worship of God. He was a "feeder of the sheep" (Gen. 4:2) They were of no use to man for eating (Gen. 1:29). Only after the flood was man allowed to eat meat. Therefore the feeding of sheep was not working for food to live on.It seems that Cain was more clever; he was more practical than Abel amd "was a server of the ground" (Gen. 4:2 Heb) Cain may have thought that what Abel was doing was not very practical. He may have been inwardly proud that what he, Cain, was doing was of more worth to the human race. He was producing food for living. He may have wondered how Abel culd make a living feeding sheep.The skins could cover man as clothing. But man had nothing to live on from Abel's labors, Cain must have thought.Abel was working not for his own living but for God's satisfaction. Abel did not care about his own satisfaction. Abel cared for God's satisfaction. There would be sheep for the offerings of worship to God.Cain on the other hand did not care for God's satisfaction but only for his own living. Earning a living for himself was the only noble and worthwhile thing he lived for. And this he sought to present to God as worship - the labors of his working for his own living. It was not received by God to justify him.Genesis 4:2 tells is of two flesh brothers: the first served the ground, and the second fed the sheep. The earth produced food for man while the sheep were used primarily as offerings for God. Cain served the earth and Abel served God. From the standpoint of man caring only for his living, the worshipping Abel is worthless. But to God Abel is the precious one who is spoken of positively in other portions of the Bible. For example in the book of Hebrews: Abel did what he did because he had faith in God. Cain did what he did because he had no faith in God.Jesus speaks of Abel as one of the righteous martyrs in the Hebrew Bible persecuted by religionists: Cain and Abel were two sinners. One had faith in God's way of justification and divine acceptance. The other had no faith but proudly offered to God his own labors for his own living.God did not play favorites. He was quite merciful to Cain after his crime. He was more merciful to Cain than probably than I would have been. No one was permitted to seek vengence on Cain. But he left the presence of God and became a lonely wanderer on the earth.We all have some Cain in us. We all need to follow the tendency not of Cain in us, but of Abel in us. That is to come forward to God accrording to His standard procedure. And whatever our living is it should be for God's glory.Of course Cain's occupation was indeed necessary to mankind. But Cain failed to make God his center. Regardless how useful he was in making a living he still needed the atoning blood of redemption to approach the righteous and holy God of glory.Abel learned this, believed this, and by faith offered acceptable offerings to God. For his faith he was persecuted and murdered by his enraged and envious brother.May God have mercy on each of us that we don't follow the way of Cain but have the faith of Abel. Yes. and the Bible highlights that the first human city was his invention. We have the genesis of the godless human culture originating from the man who murdered the righteous worshipper of God. The human culture rejecting God and replacing God develops from Cain. I will cut this response short here.Though I do not know for sure G.H. Pember is of the opinion that the offerings were conducted before the gate of Eden's garden. He believes that the tree of life was still visible and that the early people offered their worship before the guarded entrance to the paradise. When God accepted the offerings, Pember believes, that the fire of God came forth and consumed the offerings. This how they knew whether the offering was acceptable to God or not.I do not know these things as they are not spelled out in the text specifically. However, there may be ground for such a belief by examining the offerings of latter times given by the Levitical priests of the Aaronic priesthood. The divine fire was mentioned a number of times in connection with acceptance of the offerings.One thing is certain to me. The reality of all the offerings was the Son of God offering Himself once for all on the cross of Calvary for the sins of the whole world. He is the antitype of all the types of the Old Testament offerings.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I have to wrong verse. It is not Genesis 4:1 that says
"In the course of time ..." (RcV). It is Genesis 4:3.Rothrerham in his Emphazied Bible translates it:" So it came to pass that Cain brought in ... "John Nelson Darby translates it in Darby's New Translation:"And in the process of time ..." and in the margin Darby writes Lit. "at the end of days"There is no use in trying to get me to question the credentials of these translaters. I trust them. If one is weaker and another stronger on a particular sentence, that is acceptable to me as a non Hebrew reader. Checking a number of reputable English translations helps.Finally the 1901 American Standard reads in Gen. 4:3 - "And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground ... etc." I get the general idea. And these translators are certainly not giving me misinformation.At the end of days... So in the process of time ... And in the course of time ... So it came to pass...I get the sense of the Hebrew in the passage. I don't think you have a major descrepency to point out other than that I refered mistakenly to verse 1 when I meant verse 3.Sorry for that error, alone.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

To put it in obvious terms, Cain married one of his sisters or cousins.Are you going to react with the usual skeptical glee that, "Oh boy! now we have something immoral to charge God with?"Obviously, the first humans on earth were permitted by the Creator of humans to marry near relatives.Where's the passage specifically charging Cain with the guilt of incest? Can't find it? Then comsider the circumstances of the earliest humans on earth, and don't worry about it. Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

The facts of the account tell us that Adam disobeyed God.Whether he was persuaded to the point that he believed that God was lying and perhaps he would not die, I don't know. But Scripture records the persuasive lying serpent to have said to the woman: This is the worse kind of lie. This is a lie with a little truth mixed with it. It is very dangerous.That their eyes would be opened and in that regard be like God, was true. That they would not surely die, was a lie.Now we can philosophies why Adam disobeyed. We may also question why Judas betrayed the Son of God for 30 pieces of silver. The why of it may allude us.And theories of various kinds have been offered. Some said that Adam knew it was not the thing to do but because of his love for his wife Eve he went along with her. It makes for a great romantic opera. But I don't know.At any rate the fact is that Adam and Eve disobeyed the command. They stepped over the line and ate of the tree.I have pointed out to others on this forum that whatever they did on the right side of the line didn't matter. They could think about the forbidden tree. They could talk about the forbidden tree. They could make up songs about it, debate about it, look at it, whatever.The LINE in the sand was that they were not to EAT of it. Any evaluating of any kind on the obedient side of the line was okay. It was when they ATE of it .... that is where the transgression was committed.What they knew about good and bad on the obedient side of the line does not matter. The command was not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This is basically what we need to understand.I don't think it is profitable to spend time trying to evaluate what discernment between good and bad had to take place before the eating of that forbidden tree.Now I will give you what may be the case. It is an opinion. It could be that God said to the devil - Now this is speculation on my part. And it may be wrong. Don't take it too seriously. But judging from the book of JOB and how God and Satan had this challenge between them, perhaps behind the scenes something similiar was going on in Genesis chapter 3. There was a kind of contest with ground rules agreed upon by God and His enemy.Maybe not. Maybe, I'm off. But the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was evilly complicated. In simplicity it was simply a tree of DEATH! It was a tree of death with a supposedly good sounding name. What we had here was a huge falsehood in advertizing. But the couple had been strictly warned by God.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

No need for sarcasm. I agree with you that Cain and Abel were for a time the first and second born children alone. I don't know how long it was only those two siblings with no others.I just don't see any reason to assume that that state extended indefinitely. At some point other children shared the planet with Cain. So he took a wife.Could the wife have been much younger than he? Is it possible that she was a fraction of his age ?When Frank Sanatra got married one time some of his friends joked that instead of a wedding ring he should give his wife a teething ring! She was quite a bit younger than old Frank.Mrs. Cain may have been much younger than her husband.Anyway, if I can't trust the Bible on the simple facts like this then my faith has no firm foundation in the weightier issues.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.

I've been looking closely at Genesis and the related Scriptures. I have not even gotten warmed up to it yet.If "church jargon" expresses the truth embodied in the Bible I'll use it.Besides the church is in the eternal purpose of God. And I don't mean a stain glassed building with a steeple. You don't even know what the church is. Didn't you tell me to "praise Jesus" a post back?Well I don't despise the teachings of the church because Jesus died for the church according to Ephesians chapter 5.And while you complain of "church jargon" I am underwhelmed by your showy display of Hebrew grammer and syntax.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.Edited by jaywill, : No reason given.