A Girl's Message To All Christians - Page 9

Good post GSD guy, glad to see you back!

Red Sable thanks. And I've not been on the OT forum in who knows how long. I've looked at a few threads on the entire forum, but haven't felt like posting lately. I've just not been feeling too great for the past couple of months really.  I feel like Job (in the Bible), but instead of the problems he had....I have this hacking/sinus/congestion/ cough your lungs out for the past two months.  It's made for a fun time trying to preach (sarcasm there). It's getting better now, but even this past Sunday evening I had a coughing fit during the middle of a sermon. It's frustrating because no medicines have really been working (though the antibiotics I just got started on seem to be helping with things). Apparently a lot of people around here are having this. 

For you GSDtravels

http://carm.org/bible-difficulties/genesis-deuteronomy/why-did-god-tell-abraham-kill-his-son-isaac




      gouda

Welcome back GSDguy08

  gouda

GSDGuy,

Judaism is not older the Sumerian religion and it shares many parallels with the Sumerian's religious beliefs and their mythology. It could be said that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are an evolution of Sumerian religion. It not really a stretch considering the evolution of Christianity from the Old Testament to the new.

GSDtravels,,I have nothing to lose here,,And you?
If you use the same exact logic, you certainly DO have something to lose!  Your question was, "What if you're wrong?" and I am asking the same question.  

But then, come to think of it, I STILL haven't said exactly what I believe or don't believe, have I?

If I am wrong then I die and turn into worm food,,;) or whatever it is that you think happens..

 

Felloffher; The God of the Scriptures predates all "religions" as He created everything.  Some might say, no....because the Bible "states the earth is 6,000 years old", and that the flood (if you look at the geneaology in the Genesis account) would have taken place about 100 years before the pyramids were built; And it would have been hard for 8 people to build the pyramids..and so on and so on.  Actually no, the Bible never states that either though. (not stating you believe the 6,000 years, I'm just stating all of thise because many try to make a false accusation against the Bible to state it "claims" the world is 6,000 years old and that is so far from the truth)  Moses did not write Genesis for the purpose of dating the beginning of the world as many today seem to think. He wrote it as a truncated history of humanity as it pertained to the redemptive work of God and His selection of the Israelites. Trying to date the beginning of the world using Moses' genealogies in Genesis is going beyond their intended function.

That there are gaps in the genealogy is beyond doubt. The original Hebrew text of Genesis 11:12-13 does not include the name Cainan or his years, but the text of Luke 3:36 does. When the Old Testament was being translated into Greek (called the Septuagint, in the 3rd century BC), Cainan's name was added to Genesis 11. But the fact remains that, originally, there was at least one verifiable gap in the Genesis 11 genealogy. If Genesis 11 is strictly-chronological, then all of the post-flood patriarchs actually outlived Abram, including Noah. Even more ridiculous, Eber the father of Peleg would have been alive until the time of Jacob! Also, the Tower of Babel story would have occurred within a generation or two of Abram's life. This makes no sense, since Abram's world is vastly different than the post-Tower-of-Babel. By Abram's time period, people were already very spread out and living by long-entrenched customs and languages. Civilizations had been built, which wouldn't make much sense if the Babel people had only recently been ordered to spread out.

It just doesn't make any sense to believe that the Genesis 11 genealogy is the complete chronological record. In fact, the Hebrews traditionally viewed genealogies as being very loosely-defined. "Begat" does not literally mean "had him as a son", but actually refers to descendants, as in my grandfather or great-grandfather begat me, even though we are generations apart.
The years are literal, and it is a factual genealogy. Don't misinterpret me at all. It just explains a lot chronologically if we understand that there are intentional gaps in the genealogy. For other genealogical gaps, as further proof of what I'm saying, consider that in Matthew 1:8 "Joram begat Uzziah", but there are actually three generations ommitted. 1 Chronicles 26:24 calls Shebuel the son of Gershom, but there are actually 400 years of generations skipped between them. Also notice that in Genesis 11:16-19, there is a sudden, inexplicable drop in lifespans from Eber (no patriarch before him lived less than 433 years) to Peleg (nobody after him lived more than 239 years). If Peleg was alive at the time of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 10:25), but if Noah, Shem, and the others lived all the way until Abram, this is strange language. Why is it said that Peleg lived during the time of the division at Babel, when a strict-chronological interpretation of Genesis 11 actually has them ALL living during Babel?  With all of that said (sorry for the rambling) I would have no problem dating something like the flood, thousands of years before the pyramids were built. Truly we don't know (according to Scripture) how far back it would have been for the creation and some of these events.

But something else I'll address. If you look at the content of the Sumerian story versus Genesis, there are also a lot of differences. But they weren't the only ones with a "creation" account or a story about a great flood. Rather than seeing this as an example where Moses copied somebody else's story as many claim, I see it as proof that these things actually happened. If there was a worldwide flood and we have now all descended from Noah, then doesn't it make sense that Shem, Ham, and Japheth would all pass down some semblance of their great adventure to their children and grandchildren? Perhaps some cultures developed their own traditions or versions of the story, but they nevertheless knew that a worldwide flood occurred. All of humanity shares that as a common event, so why wouldn't there be different ancient texts that talk about it? A thousand years from now, will scholars believe the Holocaust never happened because there were multiple authors from many different cultures that wrote about it?

If I am wrong then I die and turn into worm food,,;)

Not if you have the wrong God!