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Why Did God Wait?
- Thread starter rrobs
- Start date
Seems that we're approaching the question from different directions. I'm taking a historiographical approach: IOW, I'm asking how the story ended up saying what it says. You seem to be taking a number of things as given in this that I'm not personally willing to concede as necessarily true.
halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
Another question --
Why did God take about 1400 years (roughly) between giving the first laws until finally giving the law that would bring about the end of slavery (freeing slaves), in scripture, as shown in outcome finally in Philemon?
Why so long?
For both this and your own broader question, the answer is the same --
People, cultures, nations, cannot take huge steps.
They fail.
(to be precise only a few individuals succeed at a big change, and most of the people in a nation or culture fail to do a big change)
People, nations, cultures -- need incremental small steps, so that they can progress over time.
A stairway. Nothing else works.
Step by step, to gradually ascend to being truly civilized.
To this level even(!) --
Matthew 7:12 In everything, then, do to others as you would have them do to you. For this is the essence of the Law and the Prophets.
(something often easy to do today in our modern American culture for many, in their well-to-do life situations, but still hard or impossible in moments when someone harms or insults or otherwise seriously mistreats us (without God; with God all things are possible). That's when we need God.)
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rrobs
Well-Known Member
Yes! He gave dominion to man. God was (is) not in charge. Very perceptive of you. Most Christians don't even know that.
In Genesis 3:15 God promised the redeemer would come from the seed of Eve. In the first chapter we see God explaining what seed is. It's simple, a rose seed produces another rose bush, an oak seed seed produces another oak tree, a cat seed (sperm) produces another cat, etc. So what would the seed of a human produce? A god? A god-man? How about another man! Yes, the redeemer would be a man, not a god, nor a god-man.
It took 4,000 years for God to explain (vie the scriptures) what must be done by some human to rectify the problem. He had to really plan things well in order to give the human Jesus the best chance at making all the right choices, all the way to the very end. Jesus, being human, did have free will and could have followed God's plan or not. I imagine keeping Israel together was like herding a million cats across the desert, but somehow He managed to keep the message pure so that Jesus would have his instructions. All in all, it's a wonder it only took 4,000 years to do it.
Take care.
rrobs
Well-Known Member
No it isn't.
Genesis 3:15 doesn't seem to say anything about a redeemer:
And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Onoma
Active Member
It is though
You presented an either / or scenario ( Either it's true or it's not )
That's a false dichotomy
rrobs
Well-Known Member
I'm just considering the question from a scriptural perspective. Let the scriptures be a fairy tale if you wish, but even a fairy tale has a definite story line. What it says is in fact a given. So, the fairy tale says God waited 4,000 years before redeeming mankind. Does the fairy tale explain why? That is my question.
rrobs
Well-Known Member
To whom or what do you think the seed of Genesis 3:15 referred if not the redeemer?
Genesis 3:15 is the first mention of Jesus. It is easy enough to see that if you have a grasp of the overall scope of the scriptures.
rrobs
Well-Known Member
I agree with you that it is either true or not. Not sure why you think that is a false dichotomy. Wouldn't everything be either true or not?It is though
You presented an either / or scenario ( Either it's true or it's not )
That's a false dichotomy
For example, is it true or not that we've gotten way off the OP?
Samantha Rinne
Resident Genderfluid Writer/Artist
As any married couple knows, you can't force others to act a certain way.
Btw, John tells us in no uncertain terms that Jesus was with the Creator in the beginning.
In the OT, we have some unnamed man wrestle with Jacob, and we have several humanlike divine figures or savior figures across multiple cultures (Maui, Akhnaten, Merlin, Hercules, Buddha). We also have many death and rebirth types.
None of these inspired people toward the desired result. You kinda have to want to be saved.
And my answer is that this is explained by the historiography: the story of the story.
Authors writing the New Testament in the first century CE were writing in support of a couple of key ideas:
- Jesus was the Messiah
- the Jewish scriptures (or their interpretation of them, at least) was correct
These two things put some serious constraints on the narrative.
Onoma
Active Member
well then I'd start over
If you could offer some evidence outside the Bible that time began 4,000 years ago, I'd be interested
Maybe start by explaining some Sumerian metrology
The passage seems to refer to the relationship between humans and snakes in general.
This passage is in the "just-so story" portion of Genesis: it explains things like:
- why women have pain in childbirth
- why men have to labour
- why snakes have no legs
... and in this same vein, it explains why people have an aversion to snakes and try to kill them.
Edit: quite a bit of Genesis is about establishing the "origin story" for the way of life of the ancient Jewish people.
What you call "a grasp of the overall scope of the scriptures," I call pareidolia. You're doing some pretty obvious retconning.
Just advice, rrobs, that you put questions like this in the Christian DIR to avoid flack from the non-Christians.
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
Conscience does not require a creator. It depends on how a person was raised in childhood, what kind of education, training, social influences, experiences did he/she go through. All that when registered in brain gives rise to conscience or no conscience. But yes, this is not what the OP asked for.
How could Satan or Adam disobey if the God did not want it? Yeah, lot of unanswered questions.
Terry Sampson
Well-Known Member
LOL! Your question may be only barely less ambiguous than one asking: "Why did God wait for 4,000 years before sending a redeemer?"
- 4,000 years starting when?
- 2020 minus 4,000 years = 1880 BCE?
- 0 minus 4,000 years = 4000 BCE?
- ???
Aupmanyav
Be your own guru
No, Samantha. Advaitist and atheists do not need to be saved (I am both, Advaitist and atheist
).I have no hatred or dislike, nor greed or delusion, nor pride or haughtiness, nor feelings of envy or jealousy;
I have no duty (dharma), nor money, nor desire (kāma), nor even liberation (mokṣa). I am the form of eternal bliss, the auspicious, the eternal.
"na me dveşarāgau na me lobhamohau, mado naiva me naiva mātsarya bhāvaḥ;
na dharmo na cārtho na kāmo na mokşaḥ, cid-ānanda-rūpaḥ śivo'ham śivo'ham."
Atma Shatkam - Wikipedia (6 verses to nirvana, this is the third verse)
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Onoma
Active Member
Most historians generally agree that the conventions by with Mesopotamians recorded and kept time with, were established roughly around 4,000 BC ( Uruk )
..which coincidentally would place the Biblical narrative starting in the same era, provided you bother to add up the spans of time in the genealogies listed
However, I don't recall the Bible asking readers to add up the lifespans to determine the time of " the beginning "
In fact, iirc, the scriptures tell us not to be concerned with such a thing , 1 Timothy 1:4 for example
But, this question in the OP sets up a false dichotomy by assuming a foundation of Biblical literalism, which is a niche view held by a few in a rather large group
..which coincidentally would place the Biblical narrative starting in the same era, provided you bother to add up the spans of time in the genealogies listed
However, I don't recall the Bible asking readers to add up the lifespans to determine the time of " the beginning "
In fact, iirc, the scriptures tell us not to be concerned with such a thing , 1 Timothy 1:4 for example
But, this question in the OP sets up a false dichotomy by assuming a foundation of Biblical literalism, which is a niche view held by a few in a rather large group