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Author | Topic: Not reading God's Word right is just wrong. No talking snakes! | |||||||||||||||||||
PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Yet you can't justify your reading of Genesis 5. Why should the fact that the chapter claims to be about the descendants of Adam causes you to assume that the man of Genesis 5:2 is not Adam and is completely unrelated to Adam ? Nor can you explain how you can have a reading of the Flood story that fits with the evidence. According to your own source the floods found in the archaeology are limited in area even within Sumeria, and did not cause massive depopulation even of the area that they did cover.
The Mesopotamian strata, whether at Ur or at Kish and Suruppak, testify only to a local flood which clearly left behind survivors and significant cultural continuity.
Also note:
No other Mesopotamian sites have produced flood remains of significance
Even your reading of Genesis 2 requires conflating the domestication of wheat with the start of farming - you treat those two distinct ideas as if they were interchangeable.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: I'm glad that you agree with me now. Because that is not what you said before - not at all.
quote: Neither would the earliest stages of the domestication of wheat require tilling and cultivating - because domestication, by definition, requires starting with wild stock. But that's not what your reading of Genesis 2 says - there's no mention of domestication as such.If you want to say Genesis 2 is an inaccurate and mythologised account of the beginnings of farming then you might have some small case. But that's all this approach can get you. It's the same with the flood. You haven't got evidence of a real event that can be made to fit the Biblical description. quote: Odd how you're so certain that no generations were left out there !
quote: Given the uncertainty over the date of the domestication of wheat - and that your view requires a very early date in that range - that's little comfort for your views. Wikipedia may not be the most reliable of sources but it reports goats being domesticated in Iran around 10,000 BC and Cattle not until 8,000 BC (and their reference is to a site in Egypt). Not so near.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: And both relate to the situation AFTER God's curse was issued in Genesis 3:17-19.
quote: Provided you assume that the gaps in the genealogy don't predate this version of the story.
quote: I'm taking a look. Most of the posts relating to domestication seem to deal with Europe and Africa, however I have spotted this:
...rye was being grown at Abu Hureyra about 13k ago,
Early Holocene Cultivation...
...my provisional dates on the domestication of lentils and vetch seem to predate this ( about 14,000 years min)
...cultural diffusion of agriculture... The latter puts the domestication of rye and vetch clearly prior to the Younger Dryas.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: No, that's not true. You went in with the intention of fitting the Biblical text to the evidence. And when it didn't you just twist both the evidence and the text to try to force-fit it. You're really not that different from the more typical creationists.
quote: No, you don't. And if I did your blind acceptance of Biblical inerrancy - despite your own researches showing that it is untenable - is at least as bad as that of the YECs.
quote: Genesis 2:5-7 seems to pretty clearly imply it. And it makes a hell of a lot more sense to read it that way than to assume that Genesis 2:5-7 is talking about a region where humans were already living as you would have it. And we already know that you misrepresented Genesis 5:1 in an attempt to try to suggest that the man of Genesis 5:2 was not Adam.
quote: Wrong - he DID say that in 1 Corinthians 15:45.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
I notice that you do not answer many of my points, also you miss the difficulties with your own interpretations.
I can say quite categorically that you have not found a valid interpretation of Genesis 2 that actually fits the evidence. All you have is a few bits and pieces that possibly fit - and a lot more that doesn't. The definition of domestication is certainly important, but our difference on the matter is no mere quibble. The essence of domestication - with respect to plants - is to breed varieties that are superior for human purposes. But there is no hint of that process in Genesis.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: As I've said before your interpretation is far enough from the text that you're really arguing that Genesis 2 is a distorted and mythicised account. I've got no complaint about that, but you should be open about it. And for all your references to Paul, you are still ignoring his explicit description of Adam as the first man in 1 Corinthians 15:45, even after I pointed it out to you in Message 104. Missing it is one thing, ignoring it after it has been pointed out is quite another.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: You must be joking. You've even contradicted yourself. You claimed:
When I claim that the Garden was set at the time and location of the domestication of wheat, and was aimed at worshipers of the Mother Goddess, I am going against traditional interpretations.
Thus placing the story at a time long after the first men. Your "speculation" is an implicit part of the very statement that you claim "sticks quite closely to the texts". Even your interpretation of Genesis 2:5 as referring to domesticated plants creates problems. Plant varieties that have yet to be bred won't grow however much water is provided or work done tilling the ground - you can only grow varieties that exist at least as seeds. And of course it all but explicitly states that there were no humans. Your idea of "sticking quite close" seems to mean "stops just short of explicit contradiction".
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It IS clearly implicit. Your whole idea is to try to harmonise scientific views with your interpretation of the Bible (itself a risky strategy because the scientific conclusions are uncertain, and your preferred version could easily turn out to be wrong). If you have to throw out all the evidence of earlier human existence then what is the point of harmonisation ?
quote: Which means that you have to place Genesis 2:5 AFTER domestication. That's the problem.
quote: I will have to check that. However I suspect that you are conflating the initial production of improved varieties with longer-term developments.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Then your analysis was very careless with the text.
quote: Then you have the problem that the varieties it supposedly refers to hadn't been bred yet.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Apart from the one I keep pointing out. In your explanation the primary reason why the plants didn't grow was the fact that THOSE plants didn't exist. THe Bible doesn;t say tha.t
quote: The Bible implies that the plants in question (which are NOT explicitly limited to domesticated plants) existed as seeds, if nothing else.
quote: The Bible says no such thing. As I said, your analysis of the text is clearly faulty. And yes, I have read your site. Unsurprisingly it has the same errors and blind spots.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: But one solidly implied by the text - unlike your idea that the plants referred to are only domesticated plants. The reasons given for the plants not growing is that bot water and cultivation are required - not that they don't exist. If you intend to genuinely stick closely to the text (instead of just saying that you did) then you have a problem.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Well let's take those criteria with regard to Genesis 2:5. Genesis 2:5 gives two reasons why the plants in question don't grow. According to your interpretation the most important reason is that those plants didn't exist at the time. So you're not being true to scripture there. Also it is far more likely that the plants referred to are those planted in the Garden - not those that will be bred over time from wild ancestors that aren't even mentioned. The first reason is the lack of water. Since you assume that the wild wheats are growing this can only be true if the early domesticated varieties had a significantly higher water requirement (and I see no reason to believe that). So it is far from clear that you have the science right there. The second is that there are no people around. Science flat out says that that is wrong. So, so far as I can tell your interpretation of Geneis 2:5 fails by BOTH criteria.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: It certainly does not. Yet another poitn where your analysis fails.
quote: That is irrelevant to our discussion since I am not asserting that there were no plants before Adam.
quote: Now you are getting irrational I am not asserting that Adam would have been incapable of breeding plants. I am asserting that the Bible indicates that Adam did not produce the plants referred to in 2:5 by breeding. Of course all that this is really about is your need to pretend that you are sticking closely to the text. And the bizarre thing is that there is a reading which is at least not scientifically implausible, and does less violence to the verse than your reading. If it is not close, at least it does not reduce it to nonsense. That is, that it refers to the drought reducing the productivity of the wild stands, a reduction that could be countered by cultivation. As I keep telling you, you are actually treating Genesis 2 as a mythologised account of the events that you presume occurred. If you were to do so consistently you would not be creating such problems for yourself.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: Not if it ALSO meant that cultivation could help counter the effects of water shortage. Which is what I said.
quote: How LONG after ? And do you have a source (a checkable reference, please, at worse specifying the chapter if the source is a book).
quote: Which fits perfectly well with the idea that the story is a mythologised account of the beginnings of agriculture.
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PaulK Member Posts: 17828 Joined: Member Rating: 2.3 |
quote: That pretty much proves my point, then. I pointed out that the "mythologised" reading of Genesis 2:5 was better than yours even on fidelity to the scripture. And you respond by finding verses where the two are equally good ? Look, fidelity to the scripture is NOT a major criterion when the scripture is taken as mythology. If you can't find verses where your reading does better on that criterion then you are clearly conceding my point. And of course even if you did find such verses it would still fail to justify your reading of Genesis 2:5
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