ZealotX
Member
Greetings, everyone. I wish you all love, peace, and happiness today.
I saw this on another site and wanted to reply there but wasn't given permission to because it seems like they want to be more of an echo chamber. I see value in the diversity of viewpoints and it seems like that's valued more here so I would like to address this here.
OP: To better firmly hold a creationism standpoint, it is important to see there are two creation stories: one of heaven and Earth in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 and one somewhere else on the first day of the first creation story, before life and other things were created in the heavens and Earth, in Genesis 2:4 - 4:26. Immediately after, the book of Genesis resumes with the conclusion of the first creation story, where Adam has been fruitful and multiplied and become many on earth.
I would like to challenge this by giving you and the forum another possibility. For some background, we should all know and understand that many human tribes had their own "creation myths". These stories came before the bible and before one group of humans believed themselves to be in contact with the one true God. One simply needs to google "creation myths" to begin to see this and to see the similarities between them.
Why is this important?
Once this one group of humans believed they were in contact with the one true God they had to reorganize everything they believed they already knew. If you know about the Canaanite gods already it is impossible not to see the influence in Hebrew culture. So what they would do is attribute the things they already believed to this new God and now those old stories simply gave birth to new versions. We see this with the Epic of Gilgamesh becoming Noah's flood. And so the gods of the first story are replaced with the God of the second.
Easy so far? Controversial?
Once we understand that Hebrew culture wasn't originally in theocratic competition with other gods and politics came in more at a later date, we can understand why the Father of Israel, the man Israel himself, had wives who had idols. Without competition people were more "unitarian"... and there was no enforcement of the belief in one God over others. This presents the backdrop of how stories were handled.
Another point we need to see is whose point of view the story is being told from. We need to understand our own biases when looking at a story, especially when it is someone else's. Fair? The cultural behavior in the Abrahamic religious traditions very much centers on "give God all the glory". Well how can you do that with other popular pre-existing stories? You take some of those stories in order to attract those who believe those stories and you give credit/glory to God.
Not just "God"... because if you said "God" in a crowded room of different beliefs everyone would think of their own "God", not yours. Once you say "my God" you introduce personal bias as well as competition. If you believe in your God, that he is the one and only, if anyone else believes the same about their gods then their God would have to be the creator in their beliefs.
Again... why is this important? Because it's getting boring.
This is important for us to consider because again, it gives us a perspective on the story that lets us see through to the intent. The story is political. It is a recruitment tool. The writer wasn't there in the beginning but is FORCED to ensure that his religion has an account of the beginning in order to answer the question of human origins using the writer's God as the creator.
So this brings us to what may appear to be 2 stories.
I would submit to the forum, as a matter of opinion and theory, that the first story is likely a very generic model of what ancient people believed about creation based on simple deduction. Logically, carnivores cannot exist before herbivores, for example. It is simple logic to say thing 1 must have come before thing 2. And so this is something every distinct culture was able to do and did. There's really no point in pretending they didn't and that the bible has the only creation myth in existence. Right? Right.
Now here we should also note that the word for "man" is the same word as the NAME of the first man. So in the first story, you have a generic "mankind" being created (v27 "male and female"). Now, this inclusion of both genders is very important because it shows how the generic story is talking about the human race in general. So this is further evidence of a generic story that was already floating around, based on simple deduction, that was heavily accepted the same way modern humans have heavily accepted understandings of basic scientific principles. And then we argue about the details. So what happened is this generic story was appropriated and barely altered to fit the biased narrative. This is likely also the reason why the story says "let us make man" because the original story was likely taken from a polytheistic origin.
And in general, the creation story itself has a bias. Do you see it? The bias is that it's a HUMAN story that is mainly concerned with answering the question of how WE (humans) got here. It's not about the animals in the sea or far away places from where the writer is. This is a story of logical deduction of what had to precede man in the order of creation. That is what's going on here. Many people latch on to Genesis 1 with their own bias resonating with the bias of its original writer and so what they see is their origins and so they believe the story, filtering all information according to what upholds their biased worldview. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm simply saying this is a common issue. Genesis 1 does nothing to explain the genesis of the universe, of God, of anything that came before Earth because it's really only interested in how we humans came to be and God was the best answer anyone had at the time. But this was a philosophy that produced different versions of God based on what made sense to people working backward from Effect to Cause. Do you see?
Genesis 1 is Cause and Effect reversed. It is that simple.
In Genesis 2... the generic story is over. It has explained how everything, most importantly people, got here so now it can begin its agenda. What's that? Now the writer can shift from talking about "adam" (mankind) to "Adam" as an ancestor. Ancestor. Many humans at the time worshipped their ancestors. And worship... doesn't exactly mean that they were gods. This idea got bent out of shape in more modern religions as the English language went through changes.
So now in Genesis 2, you start seeing the writer getting specific... naming rivers that wouldn't have these names until much later in the timeline OR that this story happened later in the timeline after these names were in use: Gihon, Euphrates, Hiddekel. Assyria is mentioned. So this regional knowledge tells us about the writer. So this story exists within a context, not in general, but specific places and people; importantly, people who were the ancestors of the writer. People already existed. We know because Cain goes to dwell in the land of Nod without the writer thinking "hey, maybe I should explain where his wife came from." How did Cain build a city? Did his children all have to marry each other? Of course not, there were already people according to the generic story of Genesis 1. Genesis 2 is the genesis of a family that writers would later regard as "God's chosen people". So it's about them, not about their wives and where everyone else came from. So if we understand this from Genesis 4 we can take that knowledge back with us to Genesis 2 and understand that this is the beginning of the Israelite continuity story.
Adam is the name of the species while Israel would come to be the name for all the Israelites as one corporate unit that would have "eternal life" if they followed, not just their God, but also their ancestors (5th commandment). It was never really about eternal life for the individual but rather each family was seen as one corporate person like "Intel" or "Microsoft". Within the corporate unit, people can live and die, but the corporation lives on. This is also what they believed and understood, again by logical deduction.
And so, in conclusion, It's not 1 story or really 2 stories. You have one story that is the generic overall creation myth/legend. And then you have a separate story as a familiar family genesis where the family itself has divine origin and thus sets the stage for ancestor worship which was common. And then the family story then sets up the patriarchal narrative of why men were (in this culture) culturally superior to their women and how they weren't to be trusted with knowledge-which is power-and therefore pushed down to a lower discriminated class. But this is what the writer himself was raised in and so he sees no problems with it at all, buying into the same "it's their fault" narrative and thus enabling this to be part of the story. The names Adam and Eve were likely chosen for the fact that they didn't know who the first people were in their families. Do you? If you said "Yes, I do know. It's "Adam" then you're basically in the same boat. And that's the reason why Adam and Eve are invented for the family genesis story. And this was also the genesis of good and evil and the logical deduction of why they weren't living in some kind of tropical utopia. "Must be a curse." That is how they believed.
I saw this on another site and wanted to reply there but wasn't given permission to because it seems like they want to be more of an echo chamber. I see value in the diversity of viewpoints and it seems like that's valued more here so I would like to address this here.
OP: To better firmly hold a creationism standpoint, it is important to see there are two creation stories: one of heaven and Earth in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 and one somewhere else on the first day of the first creation story, before life and other things were created in the heavens and Earth, in Genesis 2:4 - 4:26. Immediately after, the book of Genesis resumes with the conclusion of the first creation story, where Adam has been fruitful and multiplied and become many on earth.
I would like to challenge this by giving you and the forum another possibility. For some background, we should all know and understand that many human tribes had their own "creation myths". These stories came before the bible and before one group of humans believed themselves to be in contact with the one true God. One simply needs to google "creation myths" to begin to see this and to see the similarities between them.
Why is this important?
Once this one group of humans believed they were in contact with the one true God they had to reorganize everything they believed they already knew. If you know about the Canaanite gods already it is impossible not to see the influence in Hebrew culture. So what they would do is attribute the things they already believed to this new God and now those old stories simply gave birth to new versions. We see this with the Epic of Gilgamesh becoming Noah's flood. And so the gods of the first story are replaced with the God of the second.
Easy so far? Controversial?
Once we understand that Hebrew culture wasn't originally in theocratic competition with other gods and politics came in more at a later date, we can understand why the Father of Israel, the man Israel himself, had wives who had idols. Without competition people were more "unitarian"... and there was no enforcement of the belief in one God over others. This presents the backdrop of how stories were handled.
Another point we need to see is whose point of view the story is being told from. We need to understand our own biases when looking at a story, especially when it is someone else's. Fair? The cultural behavior in the Abrahamic religious traditions very much centers on "give God all the glory". Well how can you do that with other popular pre-existing stories? You take some of those stories in order to attract those who believe those stories and you give credit/glory to God.
Not just "God"... because if you said "God" in a crowded room of different beliefs everyone would think of their own "God", not yours. Once you say "my God" you introduce personal bias as well as competition. If you believe in your God, that he is the one and only, if anyone else believes the same about their gods then their God would have to be the creator in their beliefs.
Again... why is this important? Because it's getting boring.
This is important for us to consider because again, it gives us a perspective on the story that lets us see through to the intent. The story is political. It is a recruitment tool. The writer wasn't there in the beginning but is FORCED to ensure that his religion has an account of the beginning in order to answer the question of human origins using the writer's God as the creator.
So this brings us to what may appear to be 2 stories.
I would submit to the forum, as a matter of opinion and theory, that the first story is likely a very generic model of what ancient people believed about creation based on simple deduction. Logically, carnivores cannot exist before herbivores, for example. It is simple logic to say thing 1 must have come before thing 2. And so this is something every distinct culture was able to do and did. There's really no point in pretending they didn't and that the bible has the only creation myth in existence. Right? Right.
Now here we should also note that the word for "man" is the same word as the NAME of the first man. So in the first story, you have a generic "mankind" being created (v27 "male and female"). Now, this inclusion of both genders is very important because it shows how the generic story is talking about the human race in general. So this is further evidence of a generic story that was already floating around, based on simple deduction, that was heavily accepted the same way modern humans have heavily accepted understandings of basic scientific principles. And then we argue about the details. So what happened is this generic story was appropriated and barely altered to fit the biased narrative. This is likely also the reason why the story says "let us make man" because the original story was likely taken from a polytheistic origin.
And in general, the creation story itself has a bias. Do you see it? The bias is that it's a HUMAN story that is mainly concerned with answering the question of how WE (humans) got here. It's not about the animals in the sea or far away places from where the writer is. This is a story of logical deduction of what had to precede man in the order of creation. That is what's going on here. Many people latch on to Genesis 1 with their own bias resonating with the bias of its original writer and so what they see is their origins and so they believe the story, filtering all information according to what upholds their biased worldview. I'm not attacking anyone. I'm simply saying this is a common issue. Genesis 1 does nothing to explain the genesis of the universe, of God, of anything that came before Earth because it's really only interested in how we humans came to be and God was the best answer anyone had at the time. But this was a philosophy that produced different versions of God based on what made sense to people working backward from Effect to Cause. Do you see?
Genesis 1 is Cause and Effect reversed. It is that simple.
In Genesis 2... the generic story is over. It has explained how everything, most importantly people, got here so now it can begin its agenda. What's that? Now the writer can shift from talking about "adam" (mankind) to "Adam" as an ancestor. Ancestor. Many humans at the time worshipped their ancestors. And worship... doesn't exactly mean that they were gods. This idea got bent out of shape in more modern religions as the English language went through changes.
So now in Genesis 2, you start seeing the writer getting specific... naming rivers that wouldn't have these names until much later in the timeline OR that this story happened later in the timeline after these names were in use: Gihon, Euphrates, Hiddekel. Assyria is mentioned. So this regional knowledge tells us about the writer. So this story exists within a context, not in general, but specific places and people; importantly, people who were the ancestors of the writer. People already existed. We know because Cain goes to dwell in the land of Nod without the writer thinking "hey, maybe I should explain where his wife came from." How did Cain build a city? Did his children all have to marry each other? Of course not, there were already people according to the generic story of Genesis 1. Genesis 2 is the genesis of a family that writers would later regard as "God's chosen people". So it's about them, not about their wives and where everyone else came from. So if we understand this from Genesis 4 we can take that knowledge back with us to Genesis 2 and understand that this is the beginning of the Israelite continuity story.
Adam is the name of the species while Israel would come to be the name for all the Israelites as one corporate unit that would have "eternal life" if they followed, not just their God, but also their ancestors (5th commandment). It was never really about eternal life for the individual but rather each family was seen as one corporate person like "Intel" or "Microsoft". Within the corporate unit, people can live and die, but the corporation lives on. This is also what they believed and understood, again by logical deduction.
And so, in conclusion, It's not 1 story or really 2 stories. You have one story that is the generic overall creation myth/legend. And then you have a separate story as a familiar family genesis where the family itself has divine origin and thus sets the stage for ancestor worship which was common. And then the family story then sets up the patriarchal narrative of why men were (in this culture) culturally superior to their women and how they weren't to be trusted with knowledge-which is power-and therefore pushed down to a lower discriminated class. But this is what the writer himself was raised in and so he sees no problems with it at all, buying into the same "it's their fault" narrative and thus enabling this to be part of the story. The names Adam and Eve were likely chosen for the fact that they didn't know who the first people were in their families. Do you? If you said "Yes, I do know. It's "Adam" then you're basically in the same boat. And that's the reason why Adam and Eve are invented for the family genesis story. And this was also the genesis of good and evil and the logical deduction of why they weren't living in some kind of tropical utopia. "Must be a curse." That is how they believed.
and it has "wine as if it was river water", must be a party cruise 
. And this the Gilgamesh ark was built in 6 days !