Initial Discussion and Reading

[Bio-logical]

The purpose of this bible study is to read the bible in a logical way as a narrative and as a religious text that has shaped the practices of those religions that follow it.

This is not a "Christian" bible study, although people of all religious backgrounds are welcome to participate. It is meant to be a study of the bible as a text, to better understand the book in a scholarly manner.

The discussion of origin is outside the scope of the study - we will not be debating whether something is the word of man or god.

Discussions regarding interpretations of the text are entirely allowed and encouraged, this is the main purpose of the discussion.

Discussions regarding implications of different interpretations may arise but should be kept from disintegrating into which is the correct interpretation.

We will be reading according to the Scholar's Plan, a narratively chronological plan to read the bible so that the stories in it take place in order. We will have assigned reading and will move on when the discussion has reached a conclusion or when it involves few participants, at which point we will ask that they continue it in a separate thread.

The readings are based on the King James Version of the Bible, links to the reading will be posted before starting a new section, but participants are welcome to read whichever translation they prefer and are encouraged to discuss differences in translation.

As for our first reading:

I feel it is appropriate to read Genesis 1- 5, which is approximately equal to "5 days" of reading in the plan but I think it holds much to discuss without mixing the flood into it yet. The reading includes creation through the fall of man, including Cain and Abel and everything up to the introduction of Noah and before the causes of the flood. Feel free to past anything that strikes you as you read it, no need to wait for a particular date.

[Cathar1950]

... using Job or the Psalms might be a better fit as they could very well be older then Genesis which began as two different stories sometime after The times of David and Solomon around the 8th or 9th centuries BCE...

I think it best not to present hypothesis as fact. The current consensus on Wellhausen's stuff is considerably more nuanced than that popularized by R. E. Friedman, and there is good reason to believe that strands of narrative within Genesis are considerably older than Job. See, for example, Blinkensopp.

You migh tbe right about Job, at least as a Hebrew story, while there are reasons to think the story was borrowed from a much earlier story.
I guess I am going to go with the "Wellhausen's stuff" as there is no other reasonable explanation for what scholars see and the contents of the writings. It is much better then Moses wrote it or it was dictated by God. But to each his own.
Of course there are older strands such as the Song of Deborah and the borrowed Flood and creation myths.

[Heterodoxus]

Here’s my take on the content of GEN 1-5:

• 1:1 -- the supreme tribal-national spiritual entity of Israel; i.e., the version of the God of gods taught and worshiped within Judaism, (×�ֱלֹהִ֑י×� ο θεός, hereinafter "God") purportedly "created" (בָּרָ×� εποίησεν shaped, made) the universe and our world, including its objects and both its human and nonhuman inhabitants.
  
  1:2 -- the Earth וָבֹ֔הוּ תֹ֙הוּ֙ הָיְתָ֥ה וְהָ�ָ֗רֶץ ("was void and formless"; [WLC reads "became chaos and vacancy" and points toward a possible destruction of an earlier world, but this might be a poor reading based on a misconception]; ην αό�ατος και ακατασκε�αστος "unseen and unready").
  
  1:3-24 -- no comment.
  
  1: 25-27 -- God made nonhuman creatures first and seems to have saved his best creation for last: man.
  
  1:26 -- suggests the existence of a plurality of gods.
  
  1:28 -- God approved (וַיְבָ֣רֶךְ ευλόγησεν praised, "blessed") conjugal sexual relations for the purposes of procreation and propagation of the human species (cf. Matt 19:5; but cp. Heb 13:4).
  
  1:29-30 -- no comment.
  
  1:31 -- God was pleased with what was made.
  
  2:1-17 -- no comment.
  
  2:18-19 -- indicates creation of man followed by the creation of nonhuman creatures, and appears to contradict 1:25-27, above.
  
  2:20-3:7 -- no comment.
  
  3:8 -- God is neither omnipresent nor omniscient.
  
  3:9-10 -- God can be heard by man.
  
  3:11-15 -- no comment.
  
  3:16 -- control (rule) of the man and rights of the woman denied by God.
  
  3:17-4:15 -- murderers (shedders of blood) shall not be killed (smitten).
  
  4:16-:26 -- recounts the creation of the first man and woman, and traces events from creation throught the fall and judgment.
  
  5:1-32 -- no comment.

[Heterodoxus]

• 1: that we post in this thread what we need to say to make our respective and on-point comments relevant to the passage currently under study, and
  
  2: PM rebuttals directly to the moderator/poster for their consideration/action.

[Paul2]

myth-one.com,

3) And thou renewest the face of the earth. God recreated the earth.

Do you mean that this renewal included a recreation of humanity? Do you mean that humanity didn't begin with Adam? Please clarify.

I'll soon be going away for a few days so responses from me may be delayed.

[myth-one.com]

myth-one.com,

3) And thou renewest the face of the earth. God recreated the earth.

Do you mean that this renewal included a recreation of humanity? Do you mean that humanity didn't begin with Adam? Please clarify.

I'll soon be going away for a few days so responses from me may be delayed.

In the Bible, it is not perfectly clear (at least to me) as to what might have existed prior to the recreation. There's probably better info about this in the scientific world of geology and archeology.

But God created "man" during the recreation for a specific purpose -- to replace the angels who were supposed to be caring for the earth. Man was not needed until that time. However, perhaps we should call this "modern man" because it's obvious that something akin to man was present prior to the recreation. If so, they were inadequate for the job Adam and Eve were created to perform.

Although "beings similar to humans" existing prior to Genesis 1:3 can be viewed as a possible conflict by non-theists, they can also answer the question as to how Adam and Eve's siblings continued to propagate without committing incest. They could have paired off with these beings.

A preview of things to come: It gets even more confusing and exciting in the immediate future if we continue sequentially into chapter 6:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Did man mate with spiritual beings? It only gets better!

Because you are departing soon, the above was a quick and probably inadequate answer. I'll continue to pray & think about it.

Have a safe trip -- good talking to you!

[Bio-logical]

A preview of things to come: It gets even more confusing and exciting in the immediate future if we continue sequentially into chapter 6:

And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

Did man mate with spiritual beings? It only gets better!

Because you are departing soon, the above was a quick and probably inadequate answer. I'll continue to pray & think about it.

Have a safe trip -- good talking to you!

It seems we have approached the appropriate point to move on to the next reading, so I am looking at format. For ease of reading and organization I think what I will do is start a new thread and link to it here. If there are any objections let me know.

[Bio-logical]

New Reading assignment: Genesis 6-11:9

Feel free to continue here, but I thought it was about time to keep the reading moving

[myth-one.com]

1:1 -- the supreme tribal-national spiritual entity of Israel; i.e., the version of the God of gods taught and worshiped within Judaism, (�ֱלֹהִ֑י� ο θεός, hereinafter "God") purportedly "created" (בָּרָ� εποίησεν shaped, made) the universe and our world, including its objects and both its human and nonhuman inhabitants.

So it should read: In the beginning, the Jewish God created the heavens and the earth?

Adam and Eve were Jewish? And the vast majority of those believing in this God today, the non-Jewish, are being fooled?

1:2 -- the Earth וָבֹ֔הוּ תֹ֙הוּ֙ הָיְתָ֥ה וְהָ�ָ֗רֶץ ("was void and formless"; [WLC reads "became chaos and vacancy" and points toward a possible destruction of an earlier world, but this might be a poor reading based on a misconception]; ην αό�ατος και ακατασκε�αστος "unseen and unready").

"But this might be a poor reading based on a misconception." And it could just as well not be! What is the supposed misconception?

1: 25-27 -- God made nonhuman creatures first and seems to have saved his best creation for last: man.

I dunno. I've had some great animals!

1:26 -- suggests the existence of a plurality of gods.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

It simply says there were more than one spiritual being present. God's Son and Satan were present, for example.

2:18-19 -- indicates creation of man followed by the creation of nonhuman creatures, and appears to contradict 1:25-27, above.

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The entire Genesis chapter 2 is a restatement in more detail of Gods creations in Chapter one. It is a list. "These are the generations . . . when they were created (past tense)." They are not said to be in any order!

3:8 -- God is neither omnipresent nor omniscient.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

Just because they heard Him coming, does not mean that He was not there already.

[Heterodoxus]

1:1 -- the supreme tribal-national spiritual entity of Israel; i.e., the version of the God of gods taught and worshiped within Judaism, (�ֱלֹהִ֑י� ο θεός, hereinafter "God") purportedly "created" (בָּרָ� εποίησεν shaped, made) the universe and our world, including its objects and both its human and nonhuman inhabitants.

So it should read: In the beginning, the Jewish God created the heavens and the earth?

Do I really need to embellish this further? Who or what else do you think the Biblegod might be? Allah? Zeus? Other?

Adam and Eve were Jewish? And the vast majority of those believing in this God today, the non-Jewish, are being fooled?

The first humans were, according to the story, creations of Biblegod. And, the Bible record shows that Biblegod is the των Θεον Ιουδαιων και τους χ�ιστιανους (God of the Jews and the Christians; i.e., seekers/purported followers of Biblegod's Messiah). Moreover, what does it matter if non-Jews/Gentiles don't believe in Biblegod? Are not such persons traditionally regarded as lower than cattle, and infidels? (Not being Jewish, I've forgotten those parts of the Talmud which I studied more than 30 years ago, but I seem to recall those teachings being in there somewhere.)

1:2 -- ... WLC reads "became chaos and vacancy" and points toward a possible destruction of an earlier world, but this might be a poor reading based on a misconception];....

.... What is the supposed misconception?

The possible misconception that there might have been an earlier and destroyed world upon which this present world was supposedly re-created. Unless there is authenticated archeological or documentary evidence that this earlier world did in fact exist, opinions as to its possible existence are based on nothing more than supposition. It's those supposings which are most likely mis-conceived if they're based on speculation.

1: 25-27 -- God made nonhuman creatures first and seems to have saved his best creation for last: man.

I dunno. I've had some great animals!

So have I; still do, and I'm one of those persons who, as the saying goes, likes my dogs better than other people.

1:26 -- suggests the existence of a plurality of gods.

And God said, Let us make man in our image,....

It simply says there were more than one spiritual being present. God's Son and Satan were present, for example.

You know this because ____? And are you referring to that "Satan" character who didn't exist until it was invented by the medieval Catholic Church and approved by Pope Gregory "the Great"? (Dr. Google has more and seemingly reliable info on the origin and propagation of the Satan myth.)

2:18-19 -- indicates creation of man followed by the creation of nonhuman creatures, and appears to contradict 1:25-27,...

These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The entire Genesis chapter 2 is a restatement in more detail of Gods creations in Chapter one. It is a list. "These are the generations . . . when they were created (past tense)." They are not said to be in any order!

Perhaps, but yet they are. According to which religious group's scholars are they "not said to be in any order"?

3:8 -- God is neither omnipresent nor omniscient.

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.

Just because they heard Him coming, does not mean that He was not there already.

This statement appears to be more theosophical than theological, and it reminds me of a puzzler within existential philosophy that asks: if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?
Similarly, if Biblegod walked in the garden, but no one was there to hear the footsteps, was Biblegod really there?

I have no further comment on GEN 1-5.

[myth-one.com]

I have no further comment on GEN 1-5.

I hear ya -- enuff said! Have a good night!