Creation account is the creation of Moses

by venus 16 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  venus

  The word `intelligence' [from inter, “between” + legere, “ to read”] would mean ‘discern things as though reading in between the lines. Now read in between the lines of what Moses wrote; his favored and frequent statement is this: ‘Obedience to God means blessings, and disobedience means maledictions.’ (Deut 28:1-68; 30:15-18) Let us try to discern his motive behind this statement.

  When Moses wanted to present 10 commandments and other laws, he naturally wanted to prepare the Israelites with a mind-set that ‘We must obey God, otherwise it is problem for us.’ The best way for this was to modify a well-known story of Fall from other cultures. This seems to be the origin of creation account and the subsequent story of “tree of good and bad” which shows suffering was the result of disobedience to God.

  Moses wanted to show his people are special because God chose them as His own giving them The Law, and to convey: “You do well if you obey the Law.” That’s all what Moses did! That means story of “tree of good and bad” has no significance to the humanity, and God and Satan are nowhere in the picture as the creation account is the creation of Moses who wrote for his own people, not to the world. Interestingly, Jesus himself testifies that Moses was whimsical. (Mathew 19:7, 8) Moses did everything to project one nation as God’s chosen one—something that God would not do because He simply cannot be partial (Deut 10:17), and also exalting one nation over the others is spiritual ego which is more harmful than material ego (root of all problems) seen in individuals.

  If creation account is creation of Moses, then how did universe come about? To me this question looks very simple. If one reads in between the lines of the famous question: “What came first chicken or egg?” he would get the answer as “none,” it is a chain without any beginning! We are conditioned to think in term of a beginning. But our experience is that nothing happens without something preceding to it, and it is ad infinitum. God does not create anything. This “creation” is a natural manifestation of something inherent in the nature and God. He does not deliberately engage in any action to bring “creation” into existence, ­ it just happens. So God is not directly responsible for “creation” (just like a dreamer does not design the dream, nor does he control the dream, but it happens in a natural way).
• 

  Crazyguy

  You make some good points, but the Bible does say that Israel is Yah's inheritance so one can say this god is partial.
• 

  venus

  Bible itself says "test everything. Hold on to what is good (kalos, what is inherently good and logical)".--1 Thessalonians 5:21. It primarily applies to Bible itself. Hence when we find things that are not logical in the Bible, we need to ignore them.
• 

  waton

  “What came first chicken or egg--" Venus:

  the rooster. This is a very fertilized part of the universe. and

  Venus spins the other, retrograde way. by the way.
  
  
• 

  venus

  waton,

  Retrograde way is the only one we are sure about. That is why some classical physicists have different view other than a starting from 'a big bang.' http://www.nature.com/news/cosmologist-claims-universe-may-not-be-expanding-1.13379; http://www.physicsmyths.org.uk/expansion.htm; http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2014/05/the-universe-is-not-expanding-an-alternate-theory-to-big-bang-cosmology.html; https://bigbangno.wordpress.com/
• 

  OnTheWayOut

  I hope one day that people all realize that the Jews were not slaves in Egypt and there was no exodus with or without the 40 years wandering on a trip that should have taken just days.

  Whoever finally wrote the creation account also wrote the Moses account, both from stories used to sway the people into believing they are a special people.
• 

  venus

  OnTheWayOut,

  That is what exactly the impression I too get from my reading in between the lines.
• 

  venus

  OnTheWayOut,

  There are many who feel the way you feel: "A massive exodus that led to the drowning of Pharaoh's army, says Father Anthony Axe, Bible lecturer at Jerusalem's Ecole Biblique, would have reverberated politically and economically through the entire region. And considering that artifacts from as far back as the late Stone Age have turned up in the Sinai, it is perplexing that no evidence of the Israelites' passage has been found. William Dever, a University of Arizona archaeologist, flatly calls Moses a mythical figure. Some scholars even insist the story was a political fabrication, invented to unite the disparate tribes living in Canaan through a falsified heroic past"--Time Mazazine Dec 12, 2014
• 

  smiddy

  My question is : Why wasnt the creation account written soon after it was supposed to have occured instead of some 2000 years later ?

  That beggars belief. when you think about it.Where was god in all this time ? Didnt he have one single person who was a faithfull servant/worshiper in all this time ?

  Of course their was no human eye witness to the Creation account ,but surely their were faithfull men other than Abel who could have written about the creation well before 2000 years before Moses came on the scene.?

  And if their werent that raises a few more questions doesnt it ? So close to human perfection ?
• 

  doubtfull1799

  There is no evidence that the person we know of as Moses in Scripture was actually the author. That is a Jewish tradition. Perhaps our Jewish experts on this forum can enlighten us more on the origins of that tradition. What you say may be true for who actually did author the Genesis account. From what I understand though it almost certainly was not Moses. For one thing, if Moses was an historical Israelite he was probably illiterate unless he was part of the priestly/scribal class - I don't know?