sorry fellas but heaven and earth will pass away but my words will remain forever, guess who said that! the same who said i am the first and the last,that right jesus is forever and so are his words,unlike the wt ever changing words! and like the more athiest learn the more they will change, science is good but we are always learning,for example is pluto a planet? i guess that depends when and whos answering, when i was in school it was a planet!
If Abraham had never lived...No Jewish nation, no Islam, no christianity
by Aussie Oz 20 Replies latest watchtower bible
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mrsjones5
Hail Thor!
i miss EE.
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Band on the Run
Don't scientists state that Adam and Eve is simply not feasible. You need so many of each species for the species to survive. When scientists discuss the extinction of wild life, such as the panda and gorillas, they say extinction is a grave possibility when several thousand are still alive. Imagine the genetic consequences of such inbreeding. It is fairly tale. Abraham is an archetype.
Modern historians no longer believe in great men. If George Washington had not been available, someone else would have been appointed. Perhaps someone much better. The same with Abraham LIncoln. These men were products of their time. Economic and social forces shape history. Today the empahsis is more on slaves than the "great men" extolled in my youth. Thomas Jefferson is viewed very differently today with his rape of black female slaves and not freeing any slaves, even some of his own children. Christopher Columbus is viewed more in the same category as HItler, a mass murderer with genocidal blood on his hands.
The cultures would have invented someone like Abraham. I do believe moral lessons are contained in the Bible.
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Phizzy
I think Band makes an important point, Abraham is not vital to the inception and growth of the religions mentioned in the thread title, he was just a handy figure already established in myth to hang things on.
It is a bit like the Monarchy here in the U.K, they like the existence of legends like King Arthur, and later the legends that surround a slightly more historical figure, Alfred the Great, but had those stories not existed they would have found others, or written them.
Abraham was more than likely entirely fictional, but if even the stories about him had not existed, the works that claim their provenance from him, the Bible/Talmud and the Koran will still have been produced, just with another Patriarch at the beginning.
Those very works themselves are 90% or more fiction. Characters to pepper your work of fiction with are not that difficult to invent if you have a modicum of writing skill.
History would still have been lumbered with those three montheistic faiths, and all the disgusting blood-shed, hatred, slavery, poverty and dark ignorance they have, and contine, to foster.
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QueenWitch
when cultures are mixed, you have a new culture. Explain "American culture" - a classic mishmash of everyone else's culture. Unless you are of the First Peoples, none of us were here originally.
but I agree, without the big 3, the now minor religions wouldn't be minor. I think the earth religions would have flourished.
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Band on the Run
But Judaism did not start b/c of Abraham. With the absence of any real proof of major events in the Bible in the archaeological record so far, it is most likely that the Bible was commissioned as a legitimacy device for a much later nation-state. Does anyone believe that the Israel is sprinkled with magic dust so it is holy. They decided they were holy. American exceptionalism does the same thing.
The culture produced Abraham. Abraham did not produce the culture. Someone similar would have sufficed. Joe, who is very similar to Abraham, would be the founder of the Joeic religions. Look at Ishmael in the Bible and the Koran. The Koran has the same story as the Bible but Isaac is the son without status.
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RubaDub
No bagels and lox, corned beef on rye, rueben sanwiches, etc.
It would be a real bummer.
Rub a Dub
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james_woods
Corned beef on rye is Jewish?
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unstopableravens
james i thought you were going to say without abraham, there would be no wibble!
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mP
Its obvious Abraham is a creation copied from other local and foriegn myths. For example What if i told you that another religion has two characters with almost the same names as Abraham and Sarah, and is much much older.
I make this fun and not give the answer right now. Guess away!