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Bible Study From The Beginning

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Continuing from post #35

Genesis 2:1-5

Gen 2:1-2 . .The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their
array. On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been
doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He
had done.


Thrice it's stated in that passage that the creator finished His work and
ceased creating things for the current cosmos; yet people are still under the
impression that He creates new souls every time a baby is conceived in its
mommy's womb. But the seventh day isn't bounded by an evening and a
morning; ergo: it has not yet ended; which means God hasn't gone back to
creating things for the current cosmos.

Adam's progeny-- you and I and all the others --are not direct creations; no;
we're reproductions; viz: there's no need for mankind's creator to take a
hand in producing baby souls, or any other souls for that matter-- either
birds, bugs, beasts, or fish --because He created all life on earth as
sustainable, transferable kinds of life. The blessing of fertility is a remarkable
blessing because it enables living things to reproduce themselves sans divine
micro management. That's pretty amazing when you think about it.

In the future; after the current cosmos is destroyed, God will once again roll
up His sleeves, and go back to work creating things.

"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall
not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isa 65:17)

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned
up . . . we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2Pet 3:10-13)

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Rev 21:1)

Gen 2:3 . . And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy,
because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had
done.


The phrase "declared it holy" is from the word qadash (kaw-dash') which
means: to be clean, or to make, pronounce, or observe as clean; viz:
sanitize. Pronouncing something clean, or observing something as clean
and/or conferring upon something the status of clean and sanitized, doesn't
mean it's intrinsically clean. It's just regarded as fully dedicated to God's
purposes; which is exactly what the word "sanctified" implies. The Hebrew
word for "sanctify" is also qadash: the very same word as for "declared it
holy".


NOTE: Seeing as how God grabbed the seventh day for His own purposes,
then we have to respect His prerogative to determine how that day is used.
For example: at Mark 2:28, Jesus claimed to be lord of the sabbath; which
anyone familiar with the Old Testament easily understands that he claimed
to be the God written up in Genesis 2:1-3. That's a pretty serious claim.

Gen 2:4 . .These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made
earth and heaven.


The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm
here refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies categorizing each of the six days of creation as
epochs of indeterminate length.

Gen 2:4 is the very first time in Scripture where the name Yhvh appears.
The correct pronunciation is currently unknown. Sometimes it's pronounced
Yehovah and sometimes Jehovah.

Up to this point, The creator has been identified by 'elohiym (el-o-heem')
which is a nondescript label for any and all kinds of gods; both the true and
the false and/or the real and the imagined. The noun is grammatically plural
but doesn't necessarily indicate creation's God is a plural being. Sheep, fish,
and deer are plural too but don't always indicate more than one of each. So
plural nouns don't eo ipso denote more than one item. There are other gods
in the Bible, such as Baal and Dagon, to whom the word 'elohiym is applied
and those gods aren't composite entities; e.g. 1Kgs 18:25-29 and Jgs 16:23.

Yhvh's appellation is so sacred among pious Jews that they make every
effort to avoid speaking it except under very special circumstances. In some
of their writings, in order to avoid using the four sacred letters comprising
the tetragrammaton, they write instead "The Name" and/or sometimes
"Hashem". So Ex 20:3 could be written: "I, The Name, am your god" or "I,
Hashem, am your god."


NOTE: The Bible's God is commonly referred to with masculine pronouns
because Yhvh is a king; and kings are always males rather than females; for
example:

"Thus testifies Yhvh, the king of Israel, and His redeemer, Yhvh of hosts: I
am the First and I am the Last; other than Me there is no god." (Isa 44:6)

Gen 2:5 . . and every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew: for Yhvh God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground.


Bible students have to exercise caution when reading that section in order to
avoid making the mistake of concluding that human life was created prior to
vegetation; when we know for a fact from the day-by-day account in the
first chapter that humans were the very last to be put on earth. Gen 2:4-7 is
only saying that when God created vegetation on day three, it wasn't
permitted to flourish right away.

/
 
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Continuing from post #35

Genesis 2:1-5

Gen 2:1-2 . .The heaven and the earth were finished, and all their
array. On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been
doing, and He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He
had done.

Thrice it's stated in that passage that the creator finished His work and
ceased creating things for the current cosmos; yet people are still under the
impression that He creates new souls every time a baby is conceived in its
mommy's womb. But the seventh day isn't bounded by an evening and a
morning; ergo: it has not yet ended; which means God hasn't gone back to
creating things for the current cosmos.

Adam's progeny-- you and I and all the others --are not direct creations; no;
we're reproductions; viz: there's no need for mankind's creator to take a
hand in producing baby souls, or any other souls for that matter-- either
birds, bugs, beasts, or fish --because He created all life on earth as
sustainable, transferable kinds of life. The blessing of fertility is a remarkable
blessing because it enables living things to reproduce themselves sans divine
micro management. That's pretty amazing when you think about it.

In the future; after the current cosmos is destroyed, God will once again roll
up His sleeves, and go back to work creating things.

"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall
not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isa 65:17)

"But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the
heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned
up . . . we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth,
wherein dwelleth righteousness." (2Pet 3:10-13)

"And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first
earth were passed away; and there was no more sea." (Rev 21:1)

Gen 2:3 . . And God blessed the seventh day and declared it holy,
because on it God ceased from all the work of creation that He had
done.

The phrase "declared it holy" is from the word qadash (kaw-dash') which
means: to be clean, or to make, pronounce, or observe as clean; viz:
sanitize. Pronouncing something clean, or observing something as clean
and/or conferring upon something the status of clean and sanitized, doesn't
mean it's intrinsically clean. It's just regarded as fully dedicated to God's
purposes; which is exactly what the word "sanctified" implies. The Hebrew
word for "sanctify" is also qadash: the very same word as for "declared it
holy".


NOTE: Seeing as how God grabbed the seventh day for His own purposes,
then we have to respect His prerogative to determine how that day is used.
For example: at Mark 2:28, Jesus claimed to be lord of the sabbath; which
anyone familiar with the Old Testament easily understands that he claimed
to be the God written up in Genesis 2:1-3. That's a pretty serious claim.

Gen 2:4 . .These are the generations of the heavens and of the
earth when they were created, in the day that Jehovah God made
earth and heaven.

The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm
here refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies categorizing each of the six days of creation as
epochs of indeterminate length.

Gen 2:4 is the very first time in Scripture where the name Yhvh appears.
The correct pronunciation is currently unknown. Sometimes it's pronounced
Yehovah and sometimes Jehovah.

Up to this point, The creator has been identified by 'elohiym (el-o-heem')
which is a nondescript label for any and all kinds of gods; both the true and
the false and/or the real and the imagined. The noun is grammatically plural
but doesn't necessarily indicate creation's God is a plural being. Sheep, fish,
and deer are plural too but don't always indicate more than one of each. So
plural nouns don't eo ipso denote more than one item. There are other gods
in the Bible, such as Baal and Dagon, to whom the word 'elohiym is applied
and those gods aren't composite entities; e.g. 1Kgs 18:25-29 and Jgs 16:23.

Yhvh's appellation is so sacred among pious Jews that they make every
effort to avoid speaking it except under very special circumstances. In some
of their writings, in order to avoid using the four sacred letters comprising
the tetragrammaton, they write instead "The Name" and/or sometimes
"Hashem". So Ex 20:3 could be written: "I, The Name, am your god" or "I,
Hashem, am your god."


NOTE: The Bible's God is commonly referred to with masculine pronouns
because Yhvh is a king; and kings are always males rather than females; for
example:

"Thus testifies Yhvh, the king of Israel, and His redeemer, Yhvh of hosts: I
am the First and I am the Last; other than Me there is no god." (Isa 44:6)

Gen 2:5 . . and every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew: for Yhvh God had not
caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the
ground.

Bible students have to exercise caution when reading that section in order to
avoid making the mistake of concluding that human life was created prior to
vegetation; when we know for a fact from the day-by-day account in the
first chapter that humans were the very last to be put on earth. Gen 2:4-7 is
only saying that when God created vegetation on day three, it wasn't
permitted to flourish right away.

/
God did not make man for the earth...
God made the earth for man.
:yes
 
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Continuing from post #41

Genesis 2:6-7

Gen 2:6 . . a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole
face of the ground.

The word "mist" is from 'ed (ade). It's a very rare word and appears only
one more time in the whole Bible at Job 36:26-30 where translators render it
to mean water vapor; viz: fog. California's coastal redwood trees derive
much of their moisture from fog.

Left to itself, nature would've been producing plenty of rain at this point in
time, but none is on record prior to the Flood.

Heb 11:7 testifies that God gave Noah a head-up about things coming that
no one had ever seen before. One of those things was rain; it was unheard
of in his world. When you think about it, water falling from the sky is pretty
amazing; and in Noah's day, no doubt beyond imagination.

The reason for the mist is something I learned in a high school science class.
Had God brought rain prior to flourishing ground cover, the land would have
eroded something awful and millions of cubic yards of perfectly good dirt
would have washed into creeks, and streams, and rivers to be carried out to
sea where it would be lost in perpetuity. Vaporous water is a whole lot more
gentle on bare ground than falling water.

Gen 2:7a . . And Yhvh God formed a man's body

Mankind's creator didn't give birth to man like women give birth to children
or baby chicks hatch from eggs; no, humans aren't God's biological progeny
--humans are God's handiwork like the glass products manufactured by
craftsmen in Murano; where they make things from scratch using mostly
sand for their base material.

Gen 2:7b . . from the dust of the ground

The Hebrew word for "dust" is a bit ambiguous. It essentially refers to
powder, but can also be translated clay, earth, mud, mortar, ashes, and/or
rubbish.

A major ingredient in the human body's construction is water, without which
his "dust' wouldn't coalesce. Water is essential to complex organisms; which
is why scientists get really excited when they discover it out in in the
universe.

Gen 2:7c . . and breathed into it the breath of life

The word for "breathed" is from naphach (naw-fakh') and means; among
other things: to kindle; which Webster's defines as (1) to start (a fire)
burning: light, (2) to stir up: arouse, (3) to bring into being: start, and (4)
to animate.

Naphach is sort of like what Indy Car drivers do when they're given the
order to start their engines.

The word for "breath" is neshamah (nesh-aw-maw') which means: a puff.
Neshamah is a bit ambiguous and has been variously translated air, soul,
spirit, blast, and inspiration.

What we're looking at here is a kind of artificial respiration, but not the
regular kind because it doesn't do a bit of good pumping air into the lungs of
a corpse. They won't come alive like that; it's been tried.

However, there's abundant evidence in the Bible, starting here in Genesis,
indicating that it's possible to pump life into a corpse. But in order to do
that, one first needs a source of life just as in regular artificial respiration
one first needs a source of air.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by
him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was
life; and the life was the light of men. (John 1:1-4)

That says pretty much the same thing as Gen 2:7, and then adds the fact
that God himself is the source of life from which He drew the life used to fire
up the man's body.

Gen 2:7d . . and man became a living soul.

The Hebrew word for "soul" is nephesh (neh'-fesh) which isn't unique to
human beings. Its first appearance is at Gen 1:20-21 in reference to aqua
creatures and winged creatures; again at Gen 1:24 as terra creatures; viz:
cattle, creepy crawlies, and wild beasts; and again in Gen 2:7 as the human
creature; and yet again at Gen 9:10 to classify every creature aboard the ark,
including those with wings.

Soul is somewhat ambiguous. It can be said that creatures are souls and
also that they have souls. But here in the beginning, nephesh simply refers
to conscious existence as opposed to non conscious existence.

/
 
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Hello; and welcome to the very first book of the Bible.

I'm posting a systematic, home-spun commentary practically verse by verse
from the origin of the cosmos to Joseph's burial in Egypt.

As of today's date, I'm 73 years old; and an on-going student of the Bible
since 1968 via sermons, seminars, lectures, Sunday school classes, radio
Bible programs, and various authors of a number of Bible-related books. I'm
neither published nor accredited, but the way I figure it; forty-nine years of
Bible has made me at least competent enough to compose this commentary
for an internet forum. It would of course be laughed out of a seminary, but
what the hey; we hereabouts aren't a seminary, we're just regular folks.


FYI: Nothing in my posts is plagiarized, rather, it's all copied and pasted
from my own personal web page; which isn't copyrighted so if you should go
there and see something interesting and would like to take it with you; it's
okay, I don't mind.

/
Take some time to read John Walton's books. Particularly these:
The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate
Jun 22, 2009
by John H. Walton

The Lost World of Adam and Eve: Genesis 2-3 and the Human Origins Debate
Mar 23, 2015
by John H. Walton and N. T. Wright

Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament: Introducing the Conceptual World of the Hebrew Bible
Nov 1, 2006
by John H. Walton

You'll definitely have your current views challenged. Some reinforced.
John H. Walton (Ph.D., Hebrew Union College) is professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College. Previously he was professor of Old Testament at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. Some of his books include Ancient Near Eastern Thought Essential Bible Companion), Old Testament Today (with Andrew Hill), Genesis NIV Application Commentary and IVP Bible Background Commentary (with Victor Matthews and Mark Chavalas).

We have regurgitated the creation story and other early OT stories so many times we do so without critical review. We read a book (the Bible) that is written in words not the original (translations) and we read from out 20th 21st century bias and cultural understandings and since that is most often the case, we miss the understanding the original audience would have had.
 
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Continuing from post #43

Genesis 2:8-9

Gen 2:8a . .Yhvh God planted a garden in Eden,

The remainder of Earth's flora was planted in a large scale, landscaping
manner. But the garden was specially prepared for Man like someone might
build a home for their family. It's true that Man is a creature and Yhvh isn't
his actual biological kin. But Man is much more than just another nephesh
like as if he were a pet canary or a gerbil. No, human beings were given the
honor of God's image, and are as close to being God's kin as a creature can
possibly get in the natural world.

The Hebrew word for "garden" is from gan and means: a garden as fenced.
So the garden wasn't just a nondescript parcel of acreage with apricots and
turnips growing wild on it. The garden (which very likely was a full-blown
farm complete with orchards) was meant to be tended.

Gen 2:8b . . in the east

"east" in that verse was an east that the author(s) of Genesis understood.
Out west here in Oregon, we consider east to be New York and Chicago;
while the world considers the Orient to be east. For the purposes of modern
navigation, everything towards sunrise from the meridian of Greenwich
England around the world to Samoa is East longitude, and everything
towards sunset around the world to Samoa is West longitude.

So if you were standing in Mexico, then Greenwich would be to the east; but
if you were standing in Iran, then Greenwich would be to the west. It's all a
matter of perspective.

For Bible purposes, the State of Israel is oftentimes regarded the geo
political center of the Earth. Its position is spiritually elevated too. So
whenever you go to Jerusalem, you go up. And when you leave, you go
down. It was from the east (east of Jerusalem) that magi came to pay their
respects to the young Jesus. (Matt 2:1)

Just exactly where "the east" was in Adam's day is hard to tell. But the
garden itself is not to be confused with Eden. The garden was located "in"
Eden; an ancient pre-Flood unspecified geographic region. Some people
think Eden was somewhere in Africa but that's just a shot in the dark.

The word "Eden" is from 'eden (ay'-den) and/or 'ednah (ed-naw') and
means: pleasure, and delight. So Adam's farm was in a very nice location
and we could, if we had a mind to, name his spread Happy Valley or
Pleasant Acres.

Gen 2:8c-9a . . and placed there the man whom He had formed.
And from the ground Yhvh God caused to grow every tree that was
pleasing to the sight and good for food,

The exact site where God did the work of creating Man is unknown but
there's no reason to doubt he wasn't created right there in his intended
home. And I think we can safely assume the garden was already viable and
productive when Man arrived. God didn't just throw him in the water to sink
or swim. He gave the man a suitable habitat right from the get go. Adam
wasn't a hunter-gatherer like some sort of rootless nomad; no, he had a
place to settle down and call home.

Man came into being by the designs of a Superior Intelligence who looked
out for the unique little creature made in His own image right from the first,
and got him off to a good start; which was a good thing because at this
point in history, humans were an endangered species seeing as how there
was only one breeding pair in existence.

Gen 2:9b . . with the tree of life in the middle of the garden,

The tree of life doesn't give life; but rather, according to Gen 3:22 has
something in it that sustains life: indefinitely. Exactly how the chemistry of
any plant could be so rich in nourishment as to stop the human body from
getting old and falling apart is currently unknown.

A very active field of modern scientific research in our own time is
gerontology-- the study of the phenomena of the aging process. As yet,
gerontologists have no significant understanding of the aging process, and
therefore no clue as to what treatments, or nutrients might be employed to
stop it.

Gen 2:9c . . and the tree of knowledge of good and bad.

The Hebrew word for "good" in 2:9 is from towb (tobe). It's an ambiguous
word and isn't restricted to morals, ethics, or scruples. Even a tasty meal or
an entertaining movie can be towb.

The word for "bad" is from ra' (rah) It's another ambiguous word; and
includes anything that's bad for us like poison ivy, playing with matches,
E.coli 0157-H7, toxic chemicals, salmonella, eating without washing your
hands, bungi jumping, investing in penny stocks, walking on train tracks,
pimples, a sore throat, and going to bed without brushing your teeth.

From the gist of upcoming verses, it's readily apparent that the knowledge
of good and bad implies an intuitive sense of right and wrong. Though Man
was created intelligent; he was basically uneducated. A sense of right and
wrong wasn't programmed into his intuition. He was supposed to learn right
and wrong via Divine tutelage; not by trial and error nor by self initiative--
and certainly not by doing something patently foolish like eating from a tree
known to be toxic to humans.

I mean: how smart is it to experiment with Meth after you've been
adequately instructed that it will ruin your skin, permanently damage blood
vessels in your brain possibly causing a stroke, rot your gums and loosen
your teeth, and make you look haggard and repulsive?

/
 
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Isaiah 61:3 KJV
To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

Jeremiah 31:33 KJV
But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Luke 8:11 KJV
Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God.
12 Those by the way side are they that hear; then cometh the devil, and taketh away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved.
13 They on the rock are they, which, when they hear, receive the word with joy; and these have no root, which for a while believe, and in time of temptation fall away.
14 And that which fell among thorns are they, which, when they have heard, go forth, and are choked with cares and riches and pleasures of this life, and bring no fruit to perfection.
15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

Isaiah 53:2 KJV
For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted
5 But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Redneck
eddif
 
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Continuing from post #45

Genesis 2:10-14

Gen 2:10a . . A river issues from Eden to water the garden,

The verb "issues" is in grammatically present tense; indicating whoever
wrote Gen 2:10, did so while the land of Eden yet existed. The authorship of
Genesis has yet to be positively established. A verse like 2:10 strongly
suggests that the data used to compile Genesis, was progressively
accumulated in hand me-down journals or in oral rote, generated by people
who lived prior to the final compiler's input.

The Hebrew word for "river" is nahar (naw-hawr') which is another of those
ambiguous Bible words. It can indicate a stream or a sea and/or
metaphorically: prosperity. It was stated previously in Gen 2:6 that the face
of the whole ground was watered by fog; which suggests that the Eden river
was either an aquifer or something similar to the slow-moving water of the
Florida everglades.

Gen 2:10b-11 . . and it then divides and becomes four branches.
The name of the first is Pishon, the one that winds through the
whole land of Havilah where there is gold,

The Pishon river has yet to be positively identified.

The Hebrew word for "Havilah" is Chaviylah (khav-ee-law'); which means
circular. It's not only a place-name but also a person-name (e.g. Gen
10:7,Gen 10:29) which may indicate that the land of Havilah was named
after an antediluvian individual who settled in that area.

Gen 2:12 . . (The gold of that land is good; bdellium is there, and
lapis lazuli.)

Again, the author used a present tense verb. The gold "is" good, not was
good-- strongly suggesting the author actually lived in the period he wrote
about.

As a money; gold has intrinsic value, whereas fiat currency as a money is
worth little more than the good faith and dependability of the country that
issues it. In other words: the US Government could, if it wished, simply
outlaw the currency you have on hand and in an instant your paper money
would be totally worthless. But gold has never been totally worthless.

Gold is valuable no matter where it comes from but some gold is easier to
mine than others and some is a whole lot more plentiful. Placer gold for
example is usually in the form of dust and requires dredging, sluicing, and
washing. Hard rock gold is better; but requires boring tunnels, rock
crushing, and refinement in smelters. I'd say the really good gold is that in
the form of nuggets.

However, rather than the quality of Havilah's gold, the author's use of the
word "good" might just be saying that its gold is bountiful; as opposed to
scarce. Gold can be found just about everywhere, but concentrations of it
exist in only a relatively few places.

Bdellium is a gum resin similar to myrrh; obtained from various trees. The
author could have been referring to amber; a hard yellowish to brownish
translucent fossil resin that takes a fine polish and is used chiefly in making
ornamental objects like beads and such. Bdellium was the comparison Moses
used to describe the color of manna in Num 11:7.

In ancient Egypt lapis lazuli was a favorite stone for amulets and ornaments
such as scarabs; it was also used in ancient Mesopotamia by the Sumerians,
Akkadians, Assyrians, and Babylonians for seals and jewelry. Lapis jewelry
has been found at excavations of the Predynastic Egyptian site Naqada
(3300–3100 BC), and powdered lapis was used as eye shadow by Cleopatra.
In ancient Mesopotamia, lapis artifacts can be found in great abundance,
with many notable examples having been excavated at the Royal Cemetery
of Ur (2600-2500 BC).

Gen 2:13 . .The name of the second river is Gihon, the one that
winds through the whole land of Cush.

Cush of the post-Flood world is associated in Scripture with both a region of
Arabia and the present-day land of Ethiopia. But the exact geographic site of
the Cush of antediluvian days is impossible to know. If it's the same, then
we can be pretty sure that the Earth underwent some dramatic geological
events in the distant past because it is now impossible for any river in
Ethiopia to connect in any way at all with the Tigris and Euphrates rivers of
today's world.

Gen 2:14a . .The name of the third river is Tigris, the one that flows
east of Asshur.

According to Assyrian monuments, the Tigris was known to the post Flood
ancients as the Chiddekel, or the Hiddekel. Asshur was located in modern
day Iraq south of Mosul on the western bank of the Tigris river in between
the Great Zab and the Little Zab rivers.

Gen 2:14b . . And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

The Tigris and Euphrates rivers of today headwater not too far from Elazig
Turkey; flowing roughly (very roughly) parallel to each other from out of
Turkey, past Syria and Mesopotamia, and down into modern-day Iraq before
joining together and emptying into the Persian Gulf.

The general picture in Genesis 2 is that of a major watercourse (the Eden
River) feeding an immense aqua system supplying water to a very large
geographic area comprising parts of Turkey, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nubia,
Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, Palestine, Jordan, Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Iraq.

It would appear that the Eden River itself head-watered possibly in what the
world today knows as Russia; but it is impossible to tell exactly where it
came from because that region no longer generates a south flowing monster
river system such as the one from Eden described in Genesis 2.

The third and fourth rivers no longer connect to a larger river that elsewhere
branches off and flows to Ethiopia. It's pretty obvious from the author's
geographical descriptions that the world's current topography didn't exist
prior to the Flood. The antediluvian world was shaped quite different than
the one we live in now. The Tigris and Euphrates of today are but remnants
of an ancient irrigation system that at one time made the entire Middle East
a very beautiful and fertile region; but to look at it today; you'd never guess
it.

/
 
John 7:38 KJV
He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
39’(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)

John 20:17 KJV
Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.

I Peter 3:3 KJV
Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel;
4 But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.

Revelation 22:1 KJV
And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
2 In the midst of the street of it, and on either side of the river, was there the tree of life, which bare twelve manner of fruits, andyielded her fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.

eddif
 
-
Continuing from post #47

Genesis 2:15-17

Gen 2:15-17 . .The Lord God took the man and placed him in the
garden of Eden, to till it and tend it. And the Lord God commanded
the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat; but
as for the tree of knowledge of good and bad, you must not eat of it;
for in the day you eat of it, you shall die.


That passage is a favorite of the Bible's critics because Adam didn't drop
dead the instant he tasted the forbidden fruit. In point of fact, he continued
to live outside the garden of Eden for another 800 years after the birth of his
son Seth. (Gen 5:4)

So; is there a reasonable explanation for this apparent discrepancy?

Well; first thing to point out is that in order for the threat to resonate in
Adam's thinking; it had to be related to death as Adam understood death in
his day, rather than death as modern Bible thumpers understand it in their
day. In other words: Adam didn't expect to die spiritually. No, he expected
to die normally; viz: physically; like as in pass away.

How can I be so sure that God meant normal death instead of spiritual
death? Because according to Gen 3:19 that's how it worked out; and to
make sure Adam stayed normally dead, God blocked his access to the tree
of life. (Gen 3:22-24)

Anyway; the trick is: Adam wasn't told he would die the instant he tasted
the fruit. God's exact words were "in the day"

According to Gen 2:4, the Hebrew word for "day" is a bit ambiguous. It can
easily indicate a period of time much, much longer than 24 hours; viz: the
day of everybody's death began the moment Adam ate the fruit.

"Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this
way death came to all men." (Rom 5:12)

Well; like Jack Palance's character Curly in the movie City Slickers said: The
day ain't over yet.

"It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of gaiety, for
death is the destiny of every man; the living should take this seriously." (Ecc
7:2)

/
 
-
-- Parenthesis --

The ban on the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, was tempered by a
carte blanche to eat fruits from all the rest of the trees; including the tree of
life. So it's not like God pigeonholed Adam and forced him to eat from the
wrong tree in order to survive.

Earlier, in Gen 1:29, God gave Adam permission to eat all manner of plant
life. So he had lots of options. An abundance of other nutrition was available.
Therefore, if Adam ate from the wrong tree, he had no excuse for it. And
that is what really made eating from that tree so serious-- it was willful, and
done in full understanding of both the ban and the consequence.

Compare Num 15:27-31 where willful sin is described as a category of sin
for which there is neither atonement nor forgiveness under the terms and
conditions of the covenant that Yhvh's people agreed upon with God as per
Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

Q: Why on earth would God plant a deadly tree in an otherwise
perfect environment? Was that really necessary? What real purpose does a
tree serve that has the potential to kill? Why even create such a tree in the
first place?

A: The tree wasn't a bad tree. When God finished creating, He looked
over His work on the 6th day and pronounced it all not just good, but "very"
good.

The tree of the knowledge of good and bad wasn't a bad tree per se; any
more than toad stools, poison ivy, lightening, rattlesnakes, scorpions,
avalanches, gravity, tornadoes, typhoons, hurricanes, cactus needles,
tsunamis, earthquakes, electricity, fire, lava, lead, cadmium, and arsenic
and hemlock are bad in and of themselves. Those things are hazardous, yes,
but they all fit into the natural scheme of things. When people willfully cross
over boundaries, ignoring the dangers, and start messing around, then they
get hurt and it's really no one's fault but their own. For example:

San Francisco was once destroyed by an earthquake related to the San
Andreas fault; but where did they rebuild San Francisco? Right back in the
same place.

Los Angeles is at risk of the same San Andreas, and are even now as I write
this preparing for a major quake. Are there plans to evacuate Los Angeles
and relocate the city? No. They plan to ride out whatever the San Andreas
and/or any of the other faults throw at them and city planners and disaster
control specialists have already calculated the body count because the
Andreas is overdue for a massive slip and so is the Puente Hills Blind Thrust
System. City officials know big quakes are coming but nobody is getting out
of the way.

All around the island of Japan are ancient monoliths, some as much as 600
years old, with the inscription "Do not build your homes below this point".
The monoliths testify to past tsunamis. People back then set up those
monoliths to warn future generations; but do future generations listen? No;
they don't. 25,000 Japanese are listed as dead and/or missing from the
tsunami of 2011 because they settled in communities below those ancient
water marks.

The below-sea-level city of New Orleans was flooded by hurricane Katrina in
2005. Did city planners wise up and relocate the city to higher ground? No;
they rebuilt right back in the same place.

On the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo rumbles Mount
Nyirangongo; one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The city of
Goma, consisting of something like one million people, will be pelted with
falling rocks and lava splatter, and buried by molten rock and pyroclastic
flows of superheated dust just as sudden as the city of Pompeii if that
mountain should ever decide to get serious about its business. Past
eruptions bear this out.

And as if the volcano itself isn't threat enough, 2,590 hectares Lake Kivu
nearby conceals an enormous underwater concentration of carbon dioxide
and methane which could be released by a major eruption, spreading a
lethal cloud across Goma that would spare no one.

Are Gomites concerned? No. Thousands of homes-- shacks constructed of
hand-hewn eucalyptus boards and sheet metal roofs --have been built right
on top of the solidified lava of past eruptions. In other words; the Gomites
are knowingly living at ground zero; right in Mt. Nyirangongo's known kill
zone.

The Cumberland River inflicted major flood damage throughout the city of
Nashville in 2010. Pete Fisher, manager of the Grand Ole Opry needed a
canoe to get across the parking lot and enter the theater. He reported that
had someone been sitting in the front row seats, they would have seven feet
of water over their heads. Did the owners move the Opry to higher ground?
Nope, the Opry is still right there on the banks of the Cumberland targeted
for the next flood event.

City planners have known for years that Manhattan is so few feet above
mean sea level that any sizable tsunami at all would flood both the city and
its subway system; but have the Sand Hogs stopped boring tunnels or have
construction workers stopped erecting buildings? No, they keep right on
boring and erecting; and in 2012 hurricane Sandy pushed a surge of sea
water inland and crippled the city's public transportation and much of its
electrical power.

Adam was given fair warning what would happen if he ate from the tree. It
was just as fair a warning as parents give their kids not to poke paper clips
into wall sockets or lean over too close with their face when they pet a
strange dog. Consequences for spurning a parent's instructions in those
cases can be very terrible.

"A prudent person foresees the danger ahead and takes precautions; the
simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences." (Pro 22:3)

/
 
I John 2:16 KJV
For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

eddif
 
Hey this site is not a personal blog....

Our message boards are for discussions,

Post a bit and allow others to reply

STAFF
 
That tree of life was a physical tree that would keep the natural Adam alive forever. It appears that the amount he had eaten was good for almost 1,000 years. Had he not eaten of the tree of good and evil, and been cut off from the tree of life; he would be alive today.

Adam would not live eternally from a one time belief in that tree though. This is a shadow of what happens when Jesus Christ dies for our sin. What Jesus did will give us the potential to live in heaven eternally.

Hidden in Genesis is the concept that something has to happen to humanity to keep us going (especially after the fall).
.....,

Now the tree of good and evil:
IMHO
The human senses are ultimately that tree. Eve was tempted with sight, taste, and pride. We need to just follow God’s directives, and not use our senses to decide what to do.

I usually look for shadows, types and symbols.

Mississippi redneck
eddif
 
Hey this site is not a personal blog.... Our message boards are for discussions, Post a bit and allow others to reply


What do you feel would be an appropriate amount of interval between Bible
posts . . one day, two, a week, a month?

/
 
Last edited:
Matthew 13:35 KJV
That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

So we sit in Genesis looking for hidden things.

The seed point to a new birth: where the word is planted in men’s hearts and minds.

Post 33 addresses hidden things with scripture.

In the future; after the current cosmos is destroyed, God will once again roll
up His sleeves, and go back to work creating things.

"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall
not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isa 65:17)
Luke 16:16 KJV
The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it.

The new born again inner man discussion was started with John the Baptist.

There are several changes over time. Time itself was defined on day 4. The new day of the Kingdom is hidden in day 4 of Genesis.

eddif
 
What do you feel would be an appropriate amount of interval between Bible
posts . . one day, two, a week, a month?

/
We try to wait on each other. There may be 12 posting or 3.

Right now I am waiting on someone else. I can not post 12 times either.

eddif
 
-
We try to wait on each other.


I'm far more concerned about the forum's viewers. I don't like to keep them
waiting lest they lose interest.

I once heard tell of an autistic boy who said to his dad that airplanes fly so
high because he isn't afraid of heights. You see in the boy's mind, air traffic
control is designed to accommodate his own personal feelings about altitude.

Point being: when certain personality types have been on an internet forum
for a number of years they tend to become territorial and forget that there
are people in the gallery looking on, e.g. in football there are many more
fans in the seats than men on the field. Remove the fans, and that little
group of men down there would just be playing the game to amuse their
own selves. Nobody else would get anything out of it.

/
 
-
What do you feel would be an appropriate amount of interval between Bible
posts . . one day, two, a week, a month?


I've yet to receive a response from Reba; so, I've decided to post a Genesis
comment every two days, beginning with today, and see how that works
out.


FYI: Even by posting a comment every day, it takes roughly eight months to
complete a full, verse by verse, journey thru the book of Genesis; so we're in
for a pretty long haul by halving the frequency.

/
 
-



I'm far more concerned about the forum's viewers. I don't like to keep them
waiting lest they lose interest.

I once heard tell of an autistic boy who said to his dad that airplanes fly so
high because he isn't afraid of heights. You see in the boy's mind, air traffic
control is designed to accommodate his own personal feelings about altitude.

Point being: when certain personality types have been on an internet forum
for a number of years they tend to become territorial and forget that there
are people in the gallery looking on, e.g. in football there are many more
fans in the seats than men on the field. Remove the fans, and that little
group of men down there would just be playing the game to amuse their
own selves. Nobody else would get anything out of it.

/
I'm far more concerned about the forum's viewers. I don't like to keep them
waiting lest they lose interest.

..........
The someone else i am waiting for: is a reader or a poster.

Posts inactive for years suddenly spring back to life. The wait is for the person who has heard a secret of his or her heart opened. Someone who has their comment and need activated.

eddif

 
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