Creation vs materialising

smiddy

This is a question that always puzzled me when I was a beleiver......In gen.chapt.6 where the sons of the true God began to notice the daughters of men and began taking them as wives,producing the nephilim,a hybrid race man/angel,the men of fame,what exactly is the difference between a created human being as in Adam,and a materialised being???from an angel??one who is evidently in opposition to Jehovah???Adam of course as a created being could have relations with Eve and bear children,but materialized creatures???producing sperm to impregnate women???If satans demons could do that what`s the difference between Gods creation??and the demons offspring???

smiddy

Black Sheep

Plus, it can't be that great in heaven if the heavenly dudes want to come down here and bonk our women.

It finally made sense to me when I read it in the context of it being ancient fables of goat herders from a far off country.

Cheers

Chris

MissingLink

"Evidently" the demons were able to perfectly create DNA based bodies to inhabit. But unfortunately they all made the exact same mistake in a mutation in their genes that caused excessive size in their offspring. Stupid demons, no wonder they get trapped in garage sale items only to be freed by the name of god being spoken at them.

JosephMalik

what exactly is the difference between a created human being as in Adam,and a materialised being???from an angel??

Smiddy,

Life! The life passed on to the human race all came from only one source and that was the Word or Logos that was with God. John 1:3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. But now there was another source of life introduced into the human race that was not authorized by God for such use. This had a direct relationship on the the sacrifice already agreed upon when sin entered the world that would redeem all mankind. This had to be corrected. It may seem like nothing to us, but life whatever it is and we all share the continuity of this one life, is important to God. Only one source of such life for humanity was authorized by Him. 1Jo 1:2 (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us;)

Joseph

Satanus

Didn't angelic life also originate from god? So, isn't all life the same?

S

Narkissos

There is a very long history of reinterpretation and retelling between the narrative fragment in Genesis 6 and the modern, pseudoscientific (or sci-fi?) concept of "materialising".

The basic story originally makes sense in a polytheistic setting where the "sons of gods" are gods just like the "daughters of men" are women. It reflects the widespread mythological pattern of intercourse between gods and humans producing heroes or demi-gods (here the nephilim or giants). The integration of the story in a monotheistic context reduced the gods to a lower status, that of "angels" or heavenly "watchers" as the books of Enoch and Jubilees call them. Still at this point there is no "spirit/matter" dichotomy; the watchers simply descend or come down from their heavenly abode to the earth on the top of a high mountain (where heaven and earth meet according to ancient cosmology); mount Hermon by 1 Enoch 7. That they can do this (i.e. they have a body sexually compatible with humans) is simply taken for granted. This is still the basic story behind the references in Jude and 2 Peter: they just "left their proper dwelling" (Jude 6); note that the "similar" (hôs = "as, likewise") sin of Sodom and Gomorrah in v. 7 consists in "going after another flesh" (apelthousai opisô sarkos heteras), referring to the intercourse between men and angels rather than homosexuality...

JosephMalik

So, isn't all life the same?

Satanus,

God decides what kind is important to Him not us. All life does not appear to be the same from this standpoint: Ge 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. And we find such life according to its kind still in existence today. But human life is what was considered important enough for God to command: Ge 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. Special permission like this singled us out and we are differentiated from other kinds of life in existence. And even this command was not given without careful consideration for such life for we also know that: Ge 9:4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat. So even such life must be treated with care. Such root teachings of scripture are the very foundation the why? for understanding our redemption.

Joseph

It will not be the life we now have, but the immortal human life Christ will give us that will result in the humanity that will exist in the world to come. Call it materialization. recreation, resurrection or something else. It will still be us and we will be much better off for it than we were before.

JM

Leolaia

The JW idea of "body materialization" imo breaks down especially when it is invoked in the instance of Jesus' resurrection, as it works against the logic of the empty tomb story (i.e. the tomb is empty because Jesus has been bodily raised from the dead), especially the Lukan, Johannine, and Ignatian versions which all establish the raised Jesus' identity by the fact that his body bears the marks of his crucifixion — proof that he had been resurrected bodily from the dead. Paul too refers to those who will be resurrected as being raised bodily, albeit with a different nature than the perishable, mortal body they originally had.

OTOH there may be a precedent for the JW notion in the clothing metaphor that is used by Paul and in some apocalyptic texts (such as Revelation and 2 Enoch), that one could "put off" the mortal body and "put on" a new body, just as in the case of Enoch who was bodily raised to heaven, he was "extracted" from his earthly clothing and given glorious heavenly robes similar to what the angels wear. In the case of Paul however he speaks in terms of change and transformation, such that one's original body changes its nature to that of another, so he appears to be mixing metaphors drawn from the multiplity of concepts in apocalyptic.

Narkissos

From the JW perspective, the tomb story in general and the nails and spear marks in particular amount to false evidence (fabricated resemblance) pointing to a false conclusion (that the crucified body of Jesus was resurrected)! That beats even the Bethlehem star in the art of reading against the text... :)

JosephMalik

one's original body changes its nature to that of another,

Leolaia,

I would not call it a change in nature but something more like a transfiguration with the result still human in nature. Like the face of Moses or the whole body of Christ that was experienced giving them exceptional capability as humans. Words like spirit body simply reduce in scripture to God given or a Godly provision and not a sinful body like the one we received from Adam. It would be something more like a body we would have received if Adam was faithful and ate from the tree of life. As for Enoch, we know that he never went to a place called heaven. Joh 3:13 And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven. There are other ways to explain what happened to him. And yes, Jesus did raise the very same body that was executed and appeared to his disciples in it. Details that seem to disagree with this can be easily explained as I did in and article called Identifying the Antichrist.

Joseph

Creation vs materialising

Share this