Ok, I have a few questions for Christians here, I am doing a comprehensive "study" of the Bible. I am reading the whole thing through, and documenting weird things, I am only just finished with the story of the flood and I wish to know what you think of these descrepincies, especially if anyone here beleives the Bible to be 100% truth.

Genesis 1:26
- "Then God said: Let US make man in our image, after our likeness.

In Genesis 2, why are there different references to God? Why is it sometimes called God, and other times Lord God? And after Chapter 3 of Genesis why have I not seen this again?

Genesis 3:5
- "...and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."

Genesis 3:22
- "Then the Lord God said: See! The man has become like one of US, knowing what is good and what is bad!"

In Chapter 4 when Cain kills Abel and God banishes him, why does Cain worry about other people killing him while banished? I thought Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel? How are there other people on the Earth if God just created Adam and Eve and they only have 2 children?

In Chapter 5 of Genesis "Generations: Adam to Noah," I marked down the year of Adams birth as "Year 1."

Ok just follow with me here for a minute:
1- Adam born
130- Seth born
235- Enosh born
325- Kenan born
395- Mahalael born
460- Jared born
622 - Enoch born
687- Methuselah born
774- Lamech born
930- Adam dies
956- Noah born
1042- Seth dies
1235- Kenan dies
1290- Mahalael dies
1422- Jared dies
1456- Noah gives birth to Shem, Ham, Japhet
1554- Lamech dies
1556- Great Flood occurs
1557- Great Flood ends
1656- METHUSELA DIES

-WTF? How die Methusela survive the Great Flood? Must have been a strong swimmer because, Genesis 6:18 "...I will establish my covenant; you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives shall go into the ark."

Makes no mention of Noahs great grandfather, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Comments?

You have some good questions RagePatriot I will give you what I believe are the answers over several posts. I will try to give you the readers digest version. Remember that not all Christian or Jewish scholars agree with these interpretations so there will be other answers that differ from these.
Genesis 1:26
- "Then God said: Let US make man in our image, after our likeness.
First of all as a triune God (Father Son and Holy Spirit) He was communicating with other parts of Himself, much the same as when we contemplate an answer to a puzzle within our minds.

THE IMAGE OF GOD
I. WHAT IS MEANT BY THE IMAGE OF GOD?
A. I do not believe that it means a physical image.
1. Though the Bible refers to the eyes of the Lord, and His ears. It talks of the hand of the Lord, also the arm of the Lord. These are all used in a figurative sense, for in the Psalms it refers to Him covering us with His wings.
2. Jesus was a manifestation of the Godhead bodily, but He became flesh and dwelt among us.
3. Jesus said, "God is a Spirit."
B. God's chief emotional attribute is love, so He created us with the capacity to love.
1. I know the joy of giving love.
a. I cannot describe the feelings that I have when I hold my wife or my children or now my grandchildren.
b. I cannot describe my feelings for God, the warmth and satisfaction as I commune with Him.
c. I cannot describe the feelings I have for you who share with us here in the body of Christ. My appreciation, my joy, my blessing.
2. I know the joy of receiving love.
a. It is difficult to know which joy excels.
b. As the lyrics of a song once expressed, the greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved in return.
C. God's chief governmental attribute is His self-determination so He made us self-determinate beings.
1. I have the power of choice. I am not a robot.
2. For choice to be valid, there must be something to choose. Hence, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden with the prohibition.
3. For choice to be valid, there must be respect for the choice made.
4. This capacity of choice is necessary for love to be a meaningful expression.
a. If I am forced to call you every night or forced to send you a bouquet every day, it may or may not be a true expression of love. You would never know.
b. If I were forced to fellowship with God, if there were no alternatives, then my fellowship would not be meaningful.
D. God's chief moral attribute is holiness.
1. Man was created pure, holy, and as such had fellowship with the holy God.
2. An unholy man cannot have fellowship or be one with a holy God.
E. God is a Spirit and He created man a spirit, but clothed him in a body in order to be able to express himself to other men.
1. Man is a spirit, dwelling in a body, possessing a consciousness.
2. Thus man as God is a trinity.
3. One of our problems is trying to decide if a malady is physical or mental. If it is something from my spirit or my flesh.
4. The truth is that we are so integrated that it is often impossible to tell.
5. Whatever effects one part of me effects all of me. Would God create man in His own image?
II. WHY WOULD GOD CREATE MAN IN HIS OWN IMAGE?
A. It would seem it was His desire to come into a meaningful loving relationship with His creation.
1. It is stated in the scriptures that we were created for His pleasure. That is the pleasure of loving us and being loved by us
2. You may say, "I don't want to love God." You have a prerogative, He created you a free moral agent.
3. Just note that in not loving God, you have failed to respond to the basic purpose of your existence thus do not be surprised if your life seems at times to be empty, frustrating and useless.
B. God desired fellowship.
1. More than half the joy of having something beautiful is the sharing of that beauty with someone you love.
a. If I see a beautiful sunset, I will call Kay to come see it with me.
b. If I hear a beautiful symphony, I will call her to listen.
2. God wanted to share the glories and the beauty of His creation, hence He created man in His image and likeness that He might fellowship or share with Him all the glory and beauty of His love.
Source for image

Abram came from Ur which was a city of Sumeria. Study the stories of ancient Sumeria first and it will be easier.

Genesis 3:5
- "...and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."
Here Satan implies that God is not fair in withholding the knowledge of good and evil. And considered himself with god status. Known as the fall of man, Satan deceived Eve with a drop of poison in a cup of truth. However Adam freely chose to oppose God for fear of losing his beloved Eve.

"In our image" by Bob Riggins

That's how God made man, according to Genesis, and therefore according to creationists. But every moderately bright 8-year-old immediately comes up with two questions which are never satisfactorily answered. If any answers are offered, they are usually cobbled-up rationalizations from outside the Bible. Generally, the kid gets the message that he's better off not asking such things.

The first is whom the One and Only God meant by "our"--but that's really a theological question, not related directly to creationism. The second question, however, is right on target: If man was made "in [God's] image," then Adam must have looked just like God--right? But wait--it gets more confusing. Man is immediately referred to as "them," so maybe it's not just Adam who looks like God. Then to further confound literal-minded youngsters, "..in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." If God is male (the assumption of 97.83% of all creationists), then how could a female be made in His image?

Let's grant the general creationist assumptions (correct me if I'm wrong): God is male; men are made "in [His] image" in only a general way (maybe even Adam didn't look exactly like Him); and women were made with necessary differences to enable reproduction. Still a load of embarrassing questions arise. Much has been made of Adam's navel, and why he would have one, having never been attached to a placenta. I want to know if God has one. I want to know if He has a digestive tract. If so, why? Does He eat? If so, what, and why would He need to? Does He excrete? Where? What happens to it? Does He have lungs? Why would He need them? Does He have sweat glands? And naughty stuff: does He have genitals? Why would He need those? (And that nasty Paul Yost wants to know if He is circumcised! I figure He is, since He ordered his chosen people to be, presumably to make them more like their God. So who did it?) Does He even have two legs, and feet, and toes? Why would He need them, unless He's bound by gravity, as we are?

Childish questions? Of course, but only because they arise from a literal (i.e., childish) reading of Genesis. But the point is profound: either God has human-like organs and glands and body parts, or He doesn't. If He does, why, and what does He use them for? If He doesn't, then made "in [His] image" has no literal meaning. (For those creationists tempted to inform me that the human soul was what was made in God's image, let me save you the trouble and thank you ahead of time for backing up my point: the phrase has no literal [physical] meaning. I would point out that a great many generations of Judaeo-Christians have taken the phrase to mean physical resemblance, and that most fundamentalist believers still do. Ever see a painting that showed God with anything but a human form? Let me also direct you to the section of Exodus wherein Moses is covered with God's hand, and then allowed to view His backside. Note also numerous other biblical references to God's hands, face, and other apparently human-like body parts. One of my favorites is Jacob's wrestling match with God, in which Jacob didn't recognize the Lord of All Creation until later, and God couldn't win until He cheated by using magic!)

Bob Riggins seems to be stuck on the assumption that image means physical image. The bible clearly states that God is Spirit and has no physical image. Before we run the gauntlet of scriptures suggesting otherwise. If you look at them they are either analogies or representations of God manifest. So if we look at the image of God being Spirit it make sense at least to me.
God made man in his image meaning with many of His own abilities, examples.
1. The ability to either create or destroy.
2. The ability to pro-create or take a life.
3. The ability for un-conditional love. "Agape" you may want to research this unique Hebrew word it does not translate well into English.
Not only did God create us in His spiritual image He created Himself in our image though Jesus. Now that’s a compliment to us as humans and explains by action that He truly is Agape.
Irish

Wouldn't that just mean that he looks like a human?(Assuming he means physical appearance) A women looks like a man with small differences. People always tell me that me and my sister look just alike, does it mean that I look like a girl, or she looks like a guy? No.

-----

Scriptures clearly teach that Adam was the first man (1 Corinthians 15:45) and that his wife, Eve, was "the mother of all the living" (Genesis 3:20).

Genesis 5:4 tells us that Adam had sons and daughters. At first, sons and daughters of Adam and Eve had to marry each other to populate the earth. Cain probably married a sister or niece or grand niece.

I can understand why it does'nt translate well.

A dialog about Peter's restoration as an interesting case study of the use of agapeo and phileo.

An interesting use of agapeo and phileo in Scripture is in John 21:15-17, with the translation of Jesus' restoral of Peter, where the words seem to be used to convey some import:

Jesus asked, "do you agapeo me?"
Peter replied, "I phileo you."
Jesus asked, "do you agapeo me?"
Peter replied, "I phileo you."
Jesus asked, "do you phileo me?"
Peter replied, "I phileo you."

I will not say what kind of love fest this sounds like.....shame shame


Source

that makes me think of the part in shakespear's romeo and juliet where the two servants are arguing
"do you bite your thumb at me, sir?"
"i bite my thumb sir"
... and so on.

Being as how the bible hasn't been proven to be factual it could be Eve and Adam are just names we gave to first woman and man, They were jsut names the historys came from well thats anyones guess....

Are you reading this Sheri?

It's exactly what it sounds like. Peter had a heartfelt Love for Jesus. You are a dirty minded individual, zandore

agape is greek, not hebrew. it is group attachment.

According to all serious Biblical scholars, Genesis is a compilation of stories written by at least 4 different people. It contains, for example, 2 different versions of creation and of Noah's flood. The reason for this is probably that the compilers didn't know which version was 'correct' so stuck in both to be safe.

Under such circumstances discrepancies are to be expected.

It is only those who take Genesis as being the unadulterated word of God who have a problem. But even in their case it doesn't really matter because God can do whatever he wants, so if he wants to write a load of nonsense, far be it for us to question him....

A lot of people are inclined to say that either God was talking to the Elohim or using the royal we (personally I don't think so). God also lives in different places, one place even including a mountain. And his "personality" changes. I think it's safe to say that a lot of people had their input.

You are not describing unconditional love it is not the core message of the bible, sorry its at the awareness of conditonal love , Read your bible PA........

Love me or spend eternity in hell.......

You are right that is conditonal love.

But what is Hell? Is it really that horrible place of torture and fire and brimestone that Dante made it out to be?

When the misconceptions of Hell are dismissed, what is left is something far from hateful.....

Just a thought.

Regards, PA

PA hell is a religious concept made up to scare the followers for some reason maybe control.would be my guess if I was to take a stab at it...

Ok, I have a few questions for Christians here, I am doing a comprehensive "study" of the Bible. I am reading the whole thing through, and documenting weird things, I am only just finished with the story of the flood and I wish to know what you think of these descrepincies, especially if anyone here beleives the Bible to be 100% truth.

If you plan to learn anything, at all, (if that is you intention, and not just to mock Christians) you must look up the Hebrew words for the English ones. 99% of all your question will be answered this way.

Genesis 1:26
- "Then God said: Let US make man in our image, after our likeness.

"In the beginning was The Word. And The Word was with God, and the Word WAS God. He was with God in the beginning. Apart from the Word, nothing would have been made that was made."

Jesus Christ is The Word. God's first creation, even before the angels. A perfect representation of Himself, holy, mighty; a Son. A Family. God refers to Himself and His Son in this passage as the US you mention.

Keep in mind, that Bible is not a regular book. It must be studied, and UNDERSTOOD to make sense. Just because you read something doesn't mean you understand it.

In Genesis 2, why are there different references to God? Why is it sometimes called God, and other times Lord God? And after Chapter 3 of Genesis why have I not seen this again?

That depends completely on what translation you are reading from, and which scholars translated it. I HIGHLY recommend a NASB (New American Standard Bible) with a complete Hebrew and Greek dictionary in it, as well as concordance and word list. Hebrew translates very, very poorly to English, and alot of meaning, continuity, and explinations are lost through translation.

Genesis 3:5
- "...and you will be like gods who know what is good and what is bad."

That is not what the verse says. It says GOD, not GOD'S. What translation are you using??

Genesis 3:22
- "Then the Lord God said: See! The man has become like one of US, knowing what is good and what is bad!"

See above statement.

In Chapter 4 when Cain kills Abel and God banishes him, why does Cain worry about other people killing him while banished?

If you look up the hebrew tense in thie sentence, you will find it is future, not present. Because Cain was "marked" by God as a murderer (what ever that mark may be), he would be recognized for what he had done. Cain was worried that anyone he met up with in the future would surely kill him.


I thought Adam and Eve gave birth to Cain and Abel? How are there other people on the Earth if God just created Adam and Eve and they only have 2 children?

You thought. But you didn't really read the Bible, DID you.

Ahem:

Genesis 4:25:

25(A)Adam had relations with his wife again; and she gave birth to a son, and named him Seth, for, she said, "God has appointed me another offspring in place of Abel, (B)for Cain killed him."

Genesis 5:3:

3When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he [a]became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.

Genesis 5:4:

4Then the days of Adam after he became the father of Seth were eight hundred years, and he had other sons and daughters.




In Chapter 5 of Genesis "Generations: Adam to Noah," I marked down the year of Adams birth as "Year 1."

Ok just follow with me here for a minute:
1- Adam born
130- Seth born
235- Enosh born
325- Kenan born
395- Mahalael born
460- Jared born
622 - Enoch born
687- Methuselah born
774- Lamech born
930- Adam dies
956- Noah born
1042- Seth dies
1235- Kenan dies
1290- Mahalael dies
1422- Jared dies
1456- Noah gives birth to Shem, Ham, Japhet
1554- Lamech dies
1556- Great Flood occurs
1557- Great Flood ends
1656- METHUSELA DIES

Does it ever say in the Bible that "Noah did not take any of his family on the ark"? No. It says the exact opposite.





-WTF? How die Methusela survive the Great Flood? Must have been a strong swimmer because, Genesis 6:18 "...I will establish my covenant; you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives shall go into the ark."

Do you understand what a covenant in the Old testament means? It is a blessing of a multitude of offspring over a favorable genepool which has proven righteousness. If you read a little more into the flood, you will see that Noah was the LAST righteous man on the earth. It does not mention Methusela's righteousness. Only Noah's. It therefore would only make sense for God to form His Covenant with the Noah and his offspring, not Methusela and his offspring. Methusela did not honor God as he should have, and therefore a covenant was not put over him directly. But that didn't mean Noah ousted the old man and left him to die in the flood waters. Remember, Noah was the last righteous man on earth. Could a righteous man let a grandfater die, even if he wasn't right with God? No.




And to this comment:




Try to expand your horizons past one sentence explinations of eternity. If all of life can't be summed up in a paragraph, I doubt the Etheral, or the eternal could either.

Hell, as defined by the Bible it's self, is seperation from God. Man was never intended to be seperated from God. Infact, when man was created, he was in direct contact and communication with God. God, being the source of all life, is the only thing that can sustain life. MAN made the choice to seperate himself from God. MAN made the choice to decend into "Hell".

If God had ever intended us to be seperated from him, he would have created Man in a fallen state right off the bat, but He didn't. He created man in perfection, and as an immortal. But when Man seperated himself from God, God could no longer let man live through immortality. WHy? For the sake of man's own soul. For the wages of sin (Seperation) is death (physical). But the gift of God is eternal life (Spiritual). God love his creation so much, that ever after it seperated it's self from Him, he gave it another chance for eternal life.

Sounds pretty unconditional to me.

I'm pretty sure the OT is full of statements from God saying that he'll smite anyone who doesn't worship him and do exactly as he says.... Sounds very conditional to me

I agree with Insight. I think it would be a wise choice to look up the original Hebrew words that were used in scripture.

As far as God referring to itself in the plural, a lot of people (myself included) believe that God was referring to God and the Nephilim that were heavenly beings that walked the Earth in those days. (Genesis 6:4)

It is believed that God is sometimes called "Lord, Elohim, God, Lord God" etc, due to the different authors that wrote the Bible. I guess different authors called God by different names. That accounts for the differences in language style and wording, I suppose. (I got this info from "Who Wrote The Bible" a really good History Channel documentary I own)

In Chapter 4 where Cain worries about others killing him because Eve wasnt the first woman on Earth. Youll notice that Cain was banished to the land of Nod. In this land, he met, took, and bore children with a woman. The woman remains unnamed in the Bible, but in earlier Apocryphal and Gnostic texts as well as some Jewish texts, the story of Genesis is a little different. Adam has a wife BEFORE Eve, named Lilith. Lilith was not subserviant to Adam because she was created the same way Adam was, so she believed herself to be equal to him. When Adam wouldnt give in, she left him. Becoming what some people believe to be a demoness, or vampire. After that, God created another woman FROM Adam, so that she may not be equal TO Adam. Her name was Eve. Lilith is believed to be the wife that Cain took when he was banished to Nod. (Which is kind of weird when you think that Cain got sloppy seconds from his dad, HAH!)
Lilith is mentioned in the Bible once, I think. Isaiah 34:14. She is mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the Talmud and other pseudepigraphic texts.

::shrug

where does it say that God "created" jesus before anything else?
The "US" and "we" can't be the trinity, as that only took place in the new testament, millions of years after the "creation" (yeah I know some christians think the earth was created like 2-3000 years ago...).

I might be very wrong, but where is the trinity mentioned before the NT?
IMO, "US" refers to Gods peers. his like, colleagues if you wish. Friends, relatives, whatever

^^John 1:1 - In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God

Though to be fair, the Greek word for 'beginning' is ambiguous, and can mean A beginning, not just THE beginning. Since I believe in the trinity though, my thoughts on the matter are obvious.....

Regards, PA

and where in that sentence does it say that Jesus and the Holy spirit existed in the time of the OT?

IN THE BEGINNING!........

I did concede though that the Greek doesn't necessarily make it "the beginning", just "a beginning".

it says "in the beginning was the word"
does "the word" = the trinity?
or do you mean that "the word" = the bible?
or?

the Word (Greek=Logos) referred to Jesus. Jesus was known as the Word

Never heard of that. Is it from teh new or old testament? (the interpretation of jesus being "the word")

anyway, if jesus is believed to be "the word", I wouldn't count that as a "proof" of the trinity existing before the NT. but that's just me

The OT was written mainly in Hebrew and the NT mainly in Greek and "logos" being Greek it had to come from the NT.

its in the first few verses of John.
Wisdom is described in Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, and Sirach (did i spell that right) in similar ways as Paul and the Gospel of John describe Jesus.

That's just it. You're "pretty sure", not 100% completely sure. You really have no idea what you are talking about. All you have to go on is hearsay and conjecture. If you read the Bible with the intention os finally understanding it, I'm sure the answers would come to you.

There are very very few instances of Men being struck down by God. The only one that comes to mind is when two men were commiting sexual atrocities and defiling the temple.

Read this: Killed by God


TOTAL BODY COUNT (from known numbers): 314,637

This does not include the general body counts given in "whole cities slain" figures such as in Num. 21:25, Deut. 2:19-21, and Joshua 10. These may indeed boost the total figures to over six million. As they stand, the 300,000+ is well over the U.S. body count of the Viet Nam war.

It isn't proof..... if you take the NT and OT as separate and distinct writings. If you believe the writings to be complimentary, then it is "proof"

But that's just me

It doesnt say whether or not god created more people at the time he created adam and eve. It just says that they were created first. It says that cain and abel were their first sons born. Doesnt say whether or not if any daughters were born before them.
genisis4:6
and cain went ou from the presence the lord and dwelt in the land of nod to the east of eden and cain knew his wife and she concieved and bare enoch.



It doesnt say that he met his wife outside of eden, It doesnt state where he met her.

Hmmmm, typical Christian Apologist thinking....If god didn't say it, then we will put the words in his mouth. Sorry,unless you can show evidence that this was true, then no seegar!

I don't have an answer about Methusaleh, but I will deal with Cain.

Let's start with Genesis Chapter 1:26. God is speaking to the angels, who have been assisting him with the creation.



Notice the extensive use of them and they. This is the human race, as a whole. Then God rests for the seventh day, and gets busy again. In Chapter two he builds Adam (the man of the red soil) and clones him to make Eve (Chavah, the living one).
Genesis Chapter 2:



There were plenty of people from Chapter One, to kill or marry Cain. Adam and Chavah are simply the earliest traceable ancestors of the Jews, not the first people, as most believe. The timeframe "days", the Hebrew word "yom", would be more properly interpreted as "epochs" here. Those of you who read the "weeks" of Daniel as "septats of seventy years" should understand the concept.

In Chapter 5 of Genesis "Generations: Adam to Noah," I marked down the year of Adams birth as "Year 1."

Ok just follow with me here for a minute:
1- Adam born
130- Seth born
235- Enosh born
325- Kenan born
395- Mahalael born
460- Jared born
622 - Enoch born
687- Methuselah born
774- Lamech born
930- Adam dies
956- Noah born
1042- Seth dies
1235- Kenan dies
1290- Mahalael dies
1422- Jared dies
1456- Noah gives birth to Shem, Ham, Japhet
1554- Lamech dies
1556- Great Flood occurs
1557- Great Flood ends
1656- METHUSELA DIES

-WTF? How die Methusela survive the Great Flood? Must have been a strong swimmer because, Genesis 6:18 "...I will establish my covenant; you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives shall go into the ark."

Makes no mention of Noahs great grandfather, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Comments?
[/quote]
you didnt figure right....go back and really do the math...methuselah was 187 when lamech was born. Lamech was 182 when noah was born. which would make methuselah 369. And in the 600th year of noahs life (gen. 7:11) the great flood happened...making methuselah 969 years old. and that when he died, so he didnt survive the great flood...sorry but good try.

Too bad for all of your attempts to explain away a contradiction....The whole story was stolen/borrowed from a much older Semite culture that had the story 500 years before Moses was born and around 100 years prior to Abraham being born!