For those interested in the Book of Genesis...

[Just_me_Mike]

I wanted to go over the 1st 7 chapters of Genesis. I think because of the language used in much of it, that concepts are overlooked in our day and age.
These first 7 chapters discuss the creation of the world according to the bible, and the first destruction of the world. Which in an of itself is quite a span of time, and quite a set of events that have taken place.
However, I am never one to take something lightly and think most people I talk to about these chapters haven't really given them much thought beyond the surface of the popular stories.


I will start by outlining what took place in these chapters.

1. God is with a formless planet and universe. God is not alone, but is in fact with Jesus during this whole process. Together they create the world.
2. The world is formed and it is fashioned with vegetation.
3. Animals are created, and man and women as well.
4. God gives everything to man to tend too, but with one condition or rule. That man not eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
5. Satan gets man to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil
6. Man becomes as a God knowing good and evil. Man and women are given there punishment for eating of it.
7. Punishment is death, but before death comes they will live out there lives as God instructed them.
8. Man reproduces, and we learn a specific timeline of genreations all the way up to Noah.
9. God finds that all mankind has become pure evil, and nothing good was found left in them. Except Noah and his family.
10. God tells Noah to build Ark and God destroys the Earth.

This is an basic outline of the first 7 chapters. From here I think a lot of concepts are available that we can develop. They are as follows

1. We learn that God was not alone when he created everything, in fact this could only be Jesus. Only Jesus could be equal to God, and we learn later in the bible that Jesus was the one who created all things. This is not a well understood concept, but is vital if we are to make sense of much of the bible. Old and New Testament.
2. We see right off the bat that God is creating a world that has an option for showing what it is like to be without God. We see this with the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This tree is a concept that is easily overlooked. Though when we examine the implications of this event, we can see that mankind existed in safety and blessing before they ate the tree. Man did not know of evil, and was dependent on God's love only.
   So as stated when they ate of the tree, they became as a God to know good and evil. What can we learn from this? Man was not a God at this time or equal to a God. So to have the knowledge of good and evil meant we had to deal with both good and evil on our own.
3. Next are the generation leading all the way up to Noah, we became pure evil. The point being that humans having the ability to know good and evil, we will eventually be consumed with only evil, because that is the nature of being without God. This is another misunderstood concept. That if God is absent, we are lost. If we are left to deal with good an evil, we will eventually end up evil. Otherwise we would not need God. Obviusly God would not allow that to happen. He would not allow a scenerio to develop where mankind was good without God.
4. God saw the end of man in Noah's day, and how they completely left God and God's ways. So, God destroyed mankind, and saved Noah. At first glance, this appears God is failing to create something succesful. God had to destroy his whole creation. We will later learn how this is part of God's infinite mind. We will begin to see how Jesus, created this world and all the events from beginning to end to show his love for us, and what a world existance is like without God.

I think there is a lot we can learn from slowing down the chapters and compare all scripture together.
I think we can pull from these chapters that God wants us to know what it is like to be without him. He clearly demonstrates man left to his own, will eventually lead to violence and evil. We often sit back and wonder why God would do this? As we continue to study the bible we will get a better understanding.

 

[Riverwolf]

Interesting take on the Genesis prologue accounts.

Except HOW was mankind "evil"? What exactly did they do?

Were they just mindless robots doing nothing but what their desire for fleeting pleasures led them to do?

Or did they just come up with their own way of doing things, and God felt neglected and had a temper tantrum?

 

[challupa]

You might want to read the book "Secret Origins of the Bible" by Tom Callahan. It is quite enlightening.

 

[kadzbiz]

What was the purpose of God creating the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

I cannot understand how you assume Jesus was with God before the creation.

As I wrote some time ago, God creates Adam. God creates the Garden of Eden. God creates the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God creates Eve. Eve gets tricked by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit and then so does Adam. God gave man free will and yet did not want man to have the knowledge of good and evil. How can Man exercise free will without this knowledge? Why have the free will? And God would've known anyway that Eve was tricked by the serpent. Man was innocent and naive. Why put such a temptation for naive innocent man and give him free will. God is imnipotent, so He knew this would happen. So what was the point?

 

[dogsgod]

God lied about dying and the snake told the truth. It's a story promoting atheism. Believers get everything backwards.

 

[dogsgod]

The creation story is allegorical. It's purpose appears to be a means of establishing a work week, and the week itself for that matter. It was useful to organize days into a grouping in order to give slaves a time of rest every so many days. One day off after working six days was good enough for God, the example was set.

 

[kadzbiz]

God lied about dying and the snake told the truth. It's a story promoting atheism. Believers get everything backwards.

I'm an athiest, but I think by dying it is meant that man would not live forever.

 

[ChristineES]

Those first stories in Genesis were all word-of-mouth before finally being written down. I often wonder if the story didn't change slightly with each telling to the next generation before it written in Genesis. I usually take those stories to be symbolism- true but not literal truth, symbolic truth. I have heard similar stories from other cultures- I wonder if all those stories started with the same source.

 

[dogsgod]

I'm an athiest, but I think by dying it is meant that man would not live forever.

Just last week I couldn't spell atheist either, now I are one.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

Interesting take on the Genesis prologue accounts.

Except HOW was mankind "evil"? What exactly did they do?

Were they just mindless robots doing nothing but what their desire for fleeting pleasures led them to do?

Or did they just come up with their own way of doing things, and God felt neglected and had a temper tantrum?

Evil among other words instantly conjure up a predetermined meaning in our head, just like hell does.
Evil is simply at the root level a human that "thinks" they do not need God. Because if God made everything for "his" pleasure, part of that pleasure is for us to need him. So this is where evil start. Notice later in the bible it says Money is the Root of all evil? Well it ties in perfectly with the knowledge of good and evil. We find GREAT comfort in our money, enough comfort that many who have a lot of money do not need or have time for God (at least the one in the bible). Of course evil is many things, but this is evil at it conception.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

You might want to read the book "Secret Origins of the Bible" by Tom Callahan. It is quite enlightening.

I'll check it out and get back to you... thanks...

 

[Just_me_Mike]

What was the purpose of God creating the tree of knowledge of good and evil?

I cannot understand how you assume Jesus was with God before the creation.

As I wrote some time ago, God creates Adam. God creates the Garden of Eden. God creates the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God creates Eve. Eve gets tricked by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit and then so does Adam. God gave man free will and yet did not want man to have the knowledge of good and evil. How can Man exercise free will without this knowledge? Why have the free will? And God would've known anyway that Eve was tricked by the serpent. Man was innocent and naive. Why put such a temptation for naive innocent man and give him free will. God is imnipotent, so He knew this would happen. So what was the point?

OK well you are interjecting "free will" into here. though I don't want to debate that at this point because I want to stickto the chapters outlined for now. Another thread should be made to debate free will as there are already many made.

In essence you are asking why would God create such a situation in which man and women would fall. I made the position that God did this because he wanted us to know what a world or existance is like without God.
Case in point look at the world today. I am not saying it is better or worse today than any other time, but I do know that God is more and more being taken out of most societies to be replaced with either science, or false representations of the bible. Both which serve man only and give no acknowledgement to God.

I will touch on your free will remark a bit though because there is one aspect that relates to the topic. You state that how can man excercise free will without knowing good and evil, or how could he really be free if he could not eat of that tree.
That is why it is so important to address the reality of free will.
Many many times in the old testament did Israel go after "other things" because they were not content with what God gave them. They were not content that God was in charge, and that persona will always grow into "I don't need God at all" which goes right back to the point God created all of this so we can see what it is like without Him.

To me this is very logical and a perfect way for all of us to see God has always been in charge and one day, it will end.

 

[McBell]

Evil among other words instantly conjure up a predetermined meaning in our head, just like hell does.
Evil is simply at the root level a human that "thinks" they do not need God. Because if God made everything for "his" pleasure, part of that pleasure is for us to need him. So this is where evil start. Notice later in the bible it says Money is the Root of all evil? Well it ties in perfectly with the knowledge of good and evil. We find GREAT comfort in our money, enough comfort that many who have a lot of money do not need or have time for God (at least the one in the bible). Of course evil is many things, but this is evil at it conception.

Interesting Humpty Dumpty job.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

God lied about dying and the snake told the truth. It's a story promoting atheism. Believers get everything backwards.

God did not lie, at that moment we died in a multipart way.

1. We were spiritually dead, seperated from direct communication with God
2. We began to physically die
3. If we don't get right with God before we die, we will forever be dead for eternity and will never know life ever again.

So how is God a lier? Because they didn't drop dead on the spot?
Yes, Satan told the truth. No one is arguing that, at least I don't think anyone is.

Anyway thanks for the comment

 

[McBell]

OK well you are interjecting "free will" into here. though I don't want to debate that at this point because I want to stickto the chapters outlined for now. Another thread should be made to debate free will as there are already many made.

In essence you are asking why would God create such a situation in which man and women would fall. I made the position that God did this because he wanted us to know what a world or existance is like without God.
Case in point look at the world today. I am not saying it is better or worse today than any other time, but I do know that God is more and more being taken out of most societies to be replaced with either science, or false representations of the bible. Both which serve man only and give no acknowledgement to God.

I will touch on your free will remark a bit though because there is one aspect that relates to the topic. You state that how can man excercise free will without knowing good and evil, or how could he really be free if he could not eat of that tree.
That is why it is so important to address the reality of free will.
Many many times in the old testament did Israel go after "other things" because they were not content with what God gave them. They were not content that God was in charge, and that persona will always grow into "I don't need God at all" which goes right back to the point God created all of this so we can see what it is like without Him.

To me this is very logical and a perfect way for all of us to see God has always been in charge and one day, it will end.

So in a nutshell, you seem to be saying that God created faulty humans, then blames humans for said faults.

 

[Just_me_Mike]

So in a nutshell, you seem to be saying that God created faulty humans, then blames humans for said faults.

Faulty? OK I'll go with that if that makes you feel better about the point.

God creates whatever God wants. If God created us so we can see what it is like to be without him, is that not God's right to do so?

 

[McBell]

Faulty? OK I'll go with that if that makes you feel better about the point.

God creates whatever God wants. If God created us so we can see what it is like to be without him, is that not God's right to do so?

So God repeatedly set man up to fail?

 

[Just_me_Mike]

So God repeatedly set man up to fail?

Yes until the end.
Think of the logic here, if God created us so that we didn't need him how smart would that have been?
God created people to need him, but as noted in this forum alone, many do not need, want, and actually are sickened by the thought of being with this God.

Totally understood, when we read passages in the bible and then meditate on the fact that God has allowed many to die. In our minds we quickly conclude that this can't be true.

Which is why I apointed out maybe in another thread, that many would become sympathetic to Hitler, or Manson if one was to really read their writings. I think they are both bad people, but until one studies them, they are just ignorantly judging the matter. It is fear that keeps people from studying deeper, the fear of identifying with what they "think" is evil, because they don't ever want to identify with something that evil.

 

[McBell]

Yes until the end.
Think of the logic here, if God created us so that we didn't need him how smart would that have been?
God created people to need him, but as noted in this forum alone, many do not need, want, and actually are sickened by the thought of being with this God.

Totally understood, when we read passages in the bible and then meditate on the fact that God has allowed many to die. In our minds we quickly conclude that this can't be true.

Which is why I apointed out maybe in another thread, that many would become sympathetic to Hitler, or Manson if one was to really read their writings. I think they are both bad people, but until one studies them, they are just ignorantly judging the matter. It is fear that keeps people from studying deeper, the fear of identifying with what they "think" is evil, because they don't ever want to identify with something that evil.

The thing is, Hitler and Manson did/do not think they were/are evil.
Even by your unique definition of the word.

In fact, in light of your unique definition of evil, Hitler and Manson are really poor examples to bringing up.
For both honestly believed they were doing the work of God.

 

[Falvlun]

I made the position that God did this because he wanted us to know what a world or existance is like without God.

This might make sense for Adam and Eve who were able to know what a world was like with God, but how is this "experiment" useful or instructive for the rest of us?

Many of us do not experience the world and think "Oh, this world is so crappy without God. We need him so that it won't be crappy anymore." We think "Oh, this is reality." Without the experience of a world with God, we have nothing to judge this world against, or knowledge of why a world with God would be any better.

It would be like giving children tests day after day at school, without instruction on any of the material. Would these children somehow magically learn that they need teachers, or that they need to study, if they have never experienced the state of being taught?