I am very open to receiving thoughts that will help me develop this Study:
https://jwstudies.com/Creation_literally.pdf
Doug
Creation literally
by Doug Mason 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
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waton
doug a very ambitious project to deal withe these details whtch have no connection with what really transpired in the start up of the universe we live in.
Genesis 1:1 In the Beginning creation of heaven and planet Earth how long is that beginning, in mainstream science called Big bang, a plank length or 13 billion years? because
The cosmic energy is eternal, the universe we live in 13,8 billion years old since it's beginning, and the Earth we live on only 4,5 billion, at best. so:
after these stark facts what about the day and night rotation of the earth? grass with dew? who knew?
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Doug Mason
waton,
I am analysing the two creation stories at Genesis, not the time frames of Evolution.
My intention is to provide a literal, grammatical and rational analysis of the words in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Doug
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Mac48
You first need to understand that the Bible does not present Adam and Eve as literally the first two people who ever lived. For it informs us that God created the human race (Genesis 1:26-27) long before He created Adam and Eve. (Genesis 2:7-22) And it tells us that their son Cain found his wife in "the land of Nod," which then existed "east of Eden." (Genesis 4:16-17) This means that God staged the events in Eden as a demonstration of the sinful nature of all mankind, and our need for His forgiveness. For if Adam and Eve in paradise, without problems of any kind, were unable to obey one very simple command from God, what chance does any of us have, in far more difficult circumstances, of living a perfectly righteous life and by so doing prove him or herself worthy of eternal life? No chance at all. This means that Adam and Eve’s nakedness in Eden did not represent their innocence. It represented their shameful condition before God as sinful people, just as nakedness does everywhere else it is portrayed in the Bible. See, for instance, the next time it is there portrayed in Genesis 9:20-23, where Noah’s nakedness is associated with the sinful behavior of drunkenness.
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waton
creation stories at Genesis, not the time frames of Evolution.
Doug, I understand your good intentions. What I wanted to put in perspective is not the development, or evolution of the later happenings.
The very first preamble shows that the whole concept is not inspired, or even divinely proof read. Even the making of the solar system and our planet can not be lumped together as "the beginning"
Far from it. Off by more than 300%
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EverApostate
For it informs us that God created the human race (Genesis 1:26-27) long before He created Adam and Eve. (Genesis 2:7-22)
That seems a new light. So what happened to this pre-AdamEve people ? . Its only adam and eve that sinned and hence they died. These Pre-AdamEve people and their descendants should all be alive today.
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Mac48
Ever, You wrote: These Pre-Adam [and] Eve people and their descendants should all be alive today.
They are us.
Few people now alive are descendants of Adam and Eve. The Bible contains a greatly detailed chronological record that tells us that God created Adam only 4,000 years before the birth of Christ. However, scientists assure us that this planet has been populated with members of the human race for at least 200,000 years, and maybe as long as 400,000 years. So, as I said, this means that God created Adam and Eve (Genesis 2:7-22) long after He created the human race (Genesis 1:26-27) and that He staged the events in Eden as a demonstration of our sinful nature, and our need for His forgiveness. It also means that the doctrines of the "fall of man" and "original sin" are misunderstandings of the Scriptures. Long story.
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Mac48
Ever, You also wrote: Its only Adam and eve that sinned and hence they died.
I disagree.
The book of Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve were created by God as mortal people with a dying nature just like us. The Bible makes clear that their being able to live forever was not a part of their original physical nature. Rather, Adam and Eve's ability to live forever depended entirely on their eating from a tree “in the middle of the garden” of Eden, “the Tree of Life.” (Genesis 2:9)
Genesis tells us that Adam and Eve were going to be given continued access to its fruit only if they passed a God-given test, a test which we are told they both failed. After failing that test God expelled Adam and his wife from the Garden of Eden and prevented them from ever again eating from “the Tree of Life.” Genesis also tells us that had Adam and Eve been allowed to continue eating from that tree their lives would have been prolonged indefinitely, even after they had sinned. (Genesis 3:22-24) So we know that it was not their disobedience to God that changed them into people like us who naturally die. For it was only when God prevented them from eating from “the Tree of Life” that they began to die what were apparently natural deaths. A careful reading of the Genesis account shows that living forever would have been just as unnatural for Adam and Eve as it would now be for us.
Genesis does not indicate that Adam and Eve originally had eternal life programmed into their genetic codes by God and later had their genetic codes reprogrammed by Him in order to make them and their descendants mortals. Rather, Genesis indicates that Adam and Eve would have lived forever only if God had graciously given them eternal life from a source outside of themselves, “the Tree of Life." That "Tree of Life" was meant to picture Jesus Christ and the free gift of eternal life which He will give to all who follow Him. (Matthew 19:29; 25:46; John 3:16; 6:40; 17:3; Revelation 2:7)
The Bible tells us that God was going to give Adam and Eve eternal life from an outside source, “the Tree of Life,” only if they passed a very simple test. The Bible also says that God will give all of us eternal life from an outside source, Jesus Christ, if we pass a very simple test. That test is to simply believe in our hearts that Jesus Christ's death was sufficient payment to buy all mankind God's forgiveness for all of our sins, and then begin serving Him as our Lord.
As I noted earlier, I understand that Adam and Eve’s nakedness in Eden was meant to picture their sinful and shameful condition before God, even before their disobedience to Him. Adam and Eve’s failure to see themselves as being naked before they had committed a very blatant act of sin pictured their failure to recognize the fact that they were sinful people even before they disobeyed God. We are told that it was only after they did so that they realized they were naked, felt ashamed of their condition, tried to cover their nakedness and tried to hide from God. Why? Because it was only then that they felt unworthy to stand in God’s presence. However, Adam and Eve’s nakedness before their disobedience showed that they were just as unworthy to stand in front of their perfectly righteous God prior to their act of disobedience as they were afterwards. They just didn’t realize it.
Adam and Eve’s feelings and behavior in this regard were meant to picture the way we often become ashamed of ourselves after committing what we consider to be a “very serious” sin. For it is usually only then that we feel like hiding ourselves from God. At such times we often do things like stop praying to God or stop attending church services because we feel ashamed of what we have done and feel unworthy to be in His presence. Adam and Eve’s nakedness in Eden, and their failure to see themselves as naked before they disobeyed God, was meant to picture the fact that we are all just as unworthy to stand in the presence of our Most Holy God before we commit any “serious” sin as we are after we have done so. We just don’t realize it.
Besides their nakedness, another element of the Bible’s story of Adam and Eve which was meant to inform us that they were sinful people before they ever disobeyed God’s command is that Satan spoke to Eve through a snake. To begin with, this seems to make no sense to many Bible readers. If Satan wanted to deceive Eve why would he have chosen to talk to her through a snake? Wouldn’t a better choice have been a harmless looking deer, lamb or bunny rabbit? Or better yet, why did Satan not appear to her as “an angel of light,” since the Bible tells us that is how he often appears? (2 Corinthians 11:14) Why did God see to it that Satan would speak to Eve through a snake? The answer to this question can be found in Numbers 21:6-9 and John 3:14-15.
In Numbers 21:6-9 we are told that during the time the Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, before being allowed to enter their promised land, “They spoke against God and against Moses,” complaining about their living conditions. Then we find that “The Lord sent venomous snakes among them; they bit the people and many Israelites died.” The Bible tells us that the people then asked for God’s forgiveness for speaking against both Him and Moses. After they did so, “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’ So Moses made a bronze snake and put it up on a pole. Then when anyone was bitten by a snake and looked at the bronze snake, they lived.” In John 3:14-15 we find that Jesus said, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” Jesus was saying that the replica of a snake which Moses attached to a pole and lifted up in the wilderness was intended to point to the time when He would be nailed to the Cross. But why did God use a snake to picture the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ? He did so because that snake raised up by Moses on a pole was meant to represent the Israelites’ sin. God said He would forgive their sin, provided they would acknowledge it in the way He told them they must do, by looking upon it as a snake nailed to a pole.
Clearly, the snake which Moses nailed to that pole and then raised up in the wilderness was intended by God to picture the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. For at that time Jesus Christ took all of our sins upon Himself, in order to pay for them with His life. The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:21 that when Jesus Christ was nailed to the Cross, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us.” So that snake nailed to the pole which Moses raised up for the snake-bitten Israelites to look upon did not picture our sinless Lord. That bronze snake pictured the sin of all mankind which Jesus Christ took upon Himself, as our sin was nailed to His Cross.
So by reading Numbers 21:6-9 and John 3:14-15 we can see that God long ago used a snake to represent sin and mankind’s need for God’s forgiveness. It was for this reason that God saw to it that Satan spoke through a snake. For He intended for the events in Eden to serve as a demonstration in which He used Adam and Eve as representatives of the human race. In that demonstration He used a snake to represent Adam and Eve’s sinful condition and their need for His forgiveness, even before they disobeyed Him. We can see this because that snake was with Adam and Eve in their garden home even before they there disobeyed God.
In confirmation of this understanding, I think it is worthwhile to here note that when Satan spoke to Jesus Christ in the wilderness he did not speak to Him through a serpent, even though there were probably many there. For, as I have here shown, the Bible uses snakes to represent sin, and the sinful condition of the ones looking upon them. And the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ was without sin. (2 Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 4:15; 1 Peter 2:22)
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Mac48
Again, those who tell us that Adam and Eve died because their sin caused them to become mortals need to explain why God said they would live forever after they disobeyed Him if He allowed them to eat from, or continue eating from, the tree of life. And they need to explain why, "after He drove the man out [of the garden], He placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."
For as Genesis 3:22-24 tells us, "And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.’ So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life."
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waton
Mac 48. very good point (but too long a read).
If A&E were created with the everlasting life gene (that according to wt they last while touching the ff,)
why would they need to eat of the tree of life later, after their so called "perfect" creation. surely,
The tree of life was not just a panacea in case of accidents.
Even if A&R would have never sinned, they still would have died had they been barred from the tree of life.
We were made "very good' but obviously mortal, always making room for the better adapted offspring. Mortality makes an efficient evolution/selection tool.