Copen, on 18 December 2012 - 12:45 AM, said:
There are words in the Bible God uses that have a meaning quite different from the dictionary definition. The meaning is derived from their use. Example: Adam "knew" his wife and she conceived Cain....And Adam "knew" his wife again; and she bore a son..."
Oh, and who doesn't know that means sexual relations?
I mean it is quite cleary all the way through the bible, even in the New Testament.
Matthew 1:24-25
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not UNTIL she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.
Quote
The lineage of Jesus goes all the way back to Adam and the last remark is that Adam was the son of God. (Luke 3: 38) That brings up, again, the sons of God (descendants of Adam) married the daughters of men, all whom they chose.
You are relying on false exegisis
The problem with that view is that the term "sons of God" also means angels and gods. So who exactly is meant in Genesis 6?
At no time, before the Flood or after, has God destroyed or threatened to destroy the human race for the sin of "mixed marriages." And that is exactly what you are proposing with your interpretation. It is impossible to reconcile this extreme punishment with the mere verbal strictures found elsewhere in the Bible for the same practice. If God is going to be consistent, He should have destroyed the human race many times over!
The contrast made in Genesis 6:2 is not between the descendants of Seth and the descendants of Cain, but between the "sons of God" and the "daughters of men." If by "sons of God" is meant "sons of Seth," then only the sons of Seth engaged in mixed marriages, and not the daughters. And only the daughters of Cain were involved, and not the sons. And another strange assumption is implied: that only the sons of Seth were godly, and only the daughters of Cain were evil.
The strangeness is compounded when one seeks for evidence that the sons of Seth were godly. We know from Genesis that when the time came for God to destroy the human race, He found only one godly family left among them--that of Noah. Where were all the other supposedly godly sons of Seth?
Even Seth's own son could hardly be called righteous. His name was Enos, meaning "mortal" or "frail." And he certainly lived up to it! Genesis 4:26 reads, "And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name of the Lord." That statement seems harmless enough, but what does it mean when it says that it was only now that men began to call upon the name of the Lord? Upon whom did Adam call? And Abel? And Seth himself?
Some scholars give us a more literal and exact translation to this verse: "
Then men began to call themselves by the name of Jehovah." Other scholars translate the statement in this manner: "
Then men began to call upon their gods (idols) by the name of Jehovah." If either of these be the correct translation then the evidence for the so-called godly line of Seth is non- existent. The truth of the matter is that Enos and his line, with few noted exceptions, were as ungodly as the other line. The divine record could not be clearer: "all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth" (Genesis 6:12).
The term sons of God is an ancient term, used throughout the Near Middle East. The entire region including Israel shared a common cosmological view of the universe, and one of the things that was well known is that the term was used to speak of the lesser gods, These gods shared the atributes of their father, had supernatural powers, but were in fact created by the Father God.... who does that bring to mind? angels...
Quote
QUESTION: Since Jesus said there would be no such thing as a wife of a man in heaven, where in scripture do you find support that angels can procreate? Course, those sons of God didn't just procreate with daughters of men, they married them. That means they hung around for a life time, till death do ye part. Really, angels lived on earth and grew old together with the daughters of men and built cities?
Your questions will be answered fully, but you also need to ask yourself, what assumptions are you making when you ask them...
Contrary to what you may believe, scripture supports my view rather than yours...
1st, angels can and do incarnate (become flesh and blood) There are a number of instances of this in the bible, but I'll give you two.
In Genesis 18, God appears along with TWO angels to Abraham. We know this because all three figures are eventually identified in the text as such. This was not a vision, it was a physical event.
7 Then he ran to the herd and selected a choice, tender calf and gave it to a servant, who hurried to prepare it. 8 He then brought some curds and milk and the calf that had been prepared, and set these before them. While they ate, he stood near them under a tree.
Notice that they ATE the food prepared and offered to them. Not only God, but the two angels with him as well. Those same angels are then sent on an errand by God, to Sodom.
This is evidenced by the words of the text.
Genesis 19
The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground.
These are the very same angels that appeared to Abraham with God. The textual context verifies this. It is not an opinion. Now guess what happens to these angels?
They are attacked by the Sodomites and if they hadn't been inside Lots house, they would have been raped... That is why the word Sodomize, means male on male rape.
4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom—both young and old—surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them.”
So were these men seeing visions or were they seeing angles who had physical bodies?
This is attested again by many, and I mean many other sources of literature, from the near Middle East and from Israel itself. Angels could and did become flesh. These weren't special cases, they are a natural attribute of angels, they can become flesh when they want to. How many stories have we heard, of angels saving people, physically, for that they need physical bodies. Do these bodies age? We don't know, but probably not, they are not human flesh.
That brings us to the last point. How can mixed marriages, between believers and idolatrers produce monsters?
The Nephilim are clearly hybrids, they are represented as such, they are neither human or angelic, they are a mixture of both. How can such beings be the produce of humans, whether they be believers or unbelievers. No, there is much more there than marriage between humans.
Now let us go elswhere... to the New Testament, let us see what Jude has to say on the subject.
Jude 1:6-7
6 And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— 7 just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.
Notice how the angels in the text are linked directly to sexual imorality and that the judgement of these angels was to be imprisoned in eternal chains. The references are clear that these are the angels referred to as the sons of God in Genesis 6. The references again are not only biblical but extra-biblical. Entire books were written on the subject by the ancients. The book of Enoch written long before the New Testament is a witness to the truth of these statements. There are many other witnesses especially in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Your view on the other hand is an invention by Jews in the late 1st century who could not accept christianity... by espousing it you actually denigrate the word of God.
Quote
Moses, who came after Abraham, said in Deuteronomy 32: 8 that God divided to the nations their inheritance, when He, (God), separated the sons of Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. Adam was set in the Garden in Israel. Adam is connected to Israel by blood, by being placed in Israel and by being "the figure," (foreshadow),"of Him," (Jesus), "that was to come." (Romans 5:14)
Incorrect. It is now known and accepted by virtually ALL bible scholars that the verse in question, (Deuteronomy 32: 8) had been altered in Masoretic text over the centuries. The original reading as found in the Dead Sea Scrolls and adopted in nearly all New translations of the bible is as follows...
Deuteronomy 32:8
English Standard Version (ESV)
8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he divided mankind,
he fixed the borders of the peoples
according to the number of the sons of God.
The reason for the alteration is clearly to allow for the modern reading that you defend. The earliest masoretic text is from the 9th century C.E. The Dead Sea Scrolls reading is clearly the original and superior of the two. The text was definitely altered in the late 1st century because of the discomfort this caused in some circles. Chrsitianity adopted it unknowingly in later times after it rejected much of the early Jewish literature it relied on from early on in the 1st century.
Quote
QUESTION: How can Adam be a foreshadow of Jesus Christ if he is the man that brought sin into the world? There are many pictures, (foreshadows), of Jesus can be seen in Adam.
He is a foreshadow as you put it, but in contrasts not in parallels. That is the error of your view. Let me quote the bible here...
1 Cor. 15:22, 45
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”, the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
Romans 5:12-14
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
It is clear that Sin came into the world due to the actions of ONE man (Adam) and that because of this death came to all men, because all are sinners. Jesus is also called the 2nd Adam, because he came to do what the 1st failed to do. That is why the foreshadow (type) as you put it does not equate, they are contrasts, not parallels. There is more than one kind of type.
Quote
The same is true when God blessed male and female and told them to multiply. He couldn't turn around and curse them. And He didn't. Gentiles have always multiplied more than descendants of Adam. Adam transgressed. Everybody transgresses. David transgressed. No where in the Bible is there a fall of Adam. No where is there proof that Adam brought sin into the world because he ate the forbidden fruit. It says their eyes were opened and they were like gods knowing good and evil. Gods is used of priests and prophets of God. Such as in the Psalms and when King Saul's witch called up Samuel and she saw he was in Paradise with other gods, (other prophets and priests who knew good and evil).
I won't comment on the above, it is simply too strange...
Quote
"By one man, (Lucifer), sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, for all have sinned...death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that did not sin similar to Adam's transgression"
When was Lucifer ever a
MAN?
The reference to the man is clearly Adam it actually says so in the scripture... I just quoted it. Or are you saying that Lucifer is the type of the one who was to come (Jesus)?
Romans 5:12-14
12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.
You know, one can't have it both ways. Either one adheres to what is actually written, or one writes fiction.
Quote
QUESTION: Why did sin not ENTER when the woman ate the fruit, since she ate it first? Could she have eaten fruit everyday in disobedience and sin would not have entered until Adam ate the fruit? Isn't disobedience a sin, even if you don't know you are being disobedient to God's dictates.
Sin didn't enter because she was not the responsible individual before God for keeping the commandment. Adam was. Thus the responsability was his, the consequences though were shared but individually tailored.
Quote
QUESTION: If death reigned from Adam to Moses, did death cease to reign after Moses? Is there no more death after Moses? Is it saying death began because of Adam? Does that mean death continued because of Moses? It is talking about sin increasing because the LAW had not been given.
Death without the Law reigned from Adam to Moses, death did not cease with Moses, but death due to the Law followed. In both circumstances, Death was not negated. Did death cease with Jesus? No. The events decreed are not negated, we must die, because of the consequences of sin, but we are also saved and born again to life everlasting. One does not contradict the other.
Quote
QUESTION: Since God said the self same day (that's 24 hours) they ate the fruit they would die, did God lie? Was He talking about a death of the soul (seat of the mind, emotion)? Because they didn't die physically until one day more than 900 years later.
Incorrect.
That is a misinterpretation of scripture due to the complexity of the Hebrew in question.
מוֹת תָּמוּת
tamut mot
you shall die dying
Biblical Hebrew
Hebrew has two infinitives, the infinitive absolute and the infinitive construct. The infinitive construct is used after prepositions and is inflected with pronominal endings to indicate its subject or object: bikhtōbh hassōphēr "when the scribe wrote", ahare lekhtō "after his going". When the infinitive construct is preceded by ל (lə-, li-, lā-) "to", it has a similar meaning as the English to-infinitive, and this is its most frequent use in Modern Hebrew. The infinitive absolute is used for verb focus, as in מות ימות mōth yāmūth (literally "
die he will
die"; figuratively, "he
shall indeed
die"). This usage is commonplace in the Bible, but in Modern Hebrew it is restricted to high-flown literary works.
Source:
Wikipedia
And here again is another more detailed explanation...
But is the penalty annexed to the law translated according to the full import of the original text? All Hebraists are agreed that it is not. The words penned by Moses, without the Masoretic pointing are
ki bium akalek memenu muth temuth—the English of which is,
for after the day of thy eating from it, dying thou shalt die. We have rendered byom 'after the day.'
For the information of the mere English reader, we remark that
byom is formed from the particle b, which is here a proposition as well as a prefix; and yo
m which signifies day, definite, or otherwise, according to the context.
Bayt or b has many countersigns in our language, among which are in, against, to, after, &c. We have selected from these the last. B or
Bayt is used in this sense in Numb. 28:26, where it is prefixed to the word
sebothikam, which is rendered 'after
your weeks;' that is,
your weeks having expired, or from the expiration of
your weeks, 'ye
shall have a holy convocation;' so in the case before us, 'after the day of the eating,' or the day of the eating having passed; or, 'from the day of thy eating
dying thou shalt
die.'
As to the phrase '
dying thou shalt
die,' no criticism is needed; for it is admitted as the correct rendering on every side.
As such the correct interpretation is not a literal 24 hour period where death would occur after disobedience. It is quite clearly an expression that death would come to them over time, but they would most certainly die. Dying, you shall die. We all are dying at this very moment, little by little, cell by cell.
Mankind was never created immortal, what kept Adam and Eve from dying was access to the tree of life, when that access was denied, they proceeded to age and die.
I would challenge anybody to find a single verse that states that mankind was created immortal. That is the reason why they were banned from the Garden of Eden, not because they sinned. The sin was the cause of their expulsion, but the reson the were expelled was so that they could not maintain access the tree of Life. It is there in black and white.
Quote
It may be hard to realize the many contradictions to Adam being the cause this world fell into sin; but the only way to eliminate the contradictions is to not be satisfied until everything adds up and there are no contradictions and no scripture ignored. It takes more than one person to do that together to keep each other from clinging to preconceived false teachings that are full of contradictions.
It took earnest seekers in the upper room 10 days of constant praying and searching the scriptures together. There was one point that must have been hard to swallow. That being the virgin birth. It was hard to accept. But they didn't take her word alone. They searched the scriptures and remembered things Jesus said. There must have been other points that needed contradictions eliminated. Modern history of religious cults has proved it is not impossible to get as many as 120 men and women to all agree together on something from one leader. But they were not in agreement with scripture and the leader was teaching contradictions with the Bible. But on Pentecost when the 120 men and women all came together in one accord with God and the scriptures, the anointing with fire came down and started a revival.
If we have a revival, that's the way it will happen again. Don't be satisfied with a contradiction. Acknowledge them and get in one accord with God and the scriptures.
May God bless us all is my prayer.
I am never satisfied with contradictions, I study them to death until they cease to be so, that is why your view does not make sense, instead of subtracting it adds confusion and misunderstanding.
Edited by Jor-el, 19 December 2012 - 12:14 AM.
3
