World history, way back

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Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."
Thought I would start a new post, the 100 years ago one is getting pretty long.
Did God create everything? Even if you do not believe the Bible, King David said in Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork." Just look around, the plants, the mountains, the skies, the clouds, our solar system, the intricate way the human body is designed, all point to a creator(God's handiwork).

Dave

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[tileguytodd]

Cant wait till John gets involved here. This oughta be entertaining :)
I agree God created everything but the YUGO/And im not to sure about the Gremlin either :D

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The Yugo and the Gremlin are clear examlples of man's failures!!! But that could be a whole new post.

[cx]

Quoth, Dave:

"Even if you do not believe the Bible, King David said in Psalm 19:1 "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.'"

Uh, Dave, If I don't believe in your particular bible, how come I'd believe King David said that in there? And if I did believe he said that in there, how come I'd believe King Dave knew whereof he spoke?

It's all a belief system based on nothing more than faith. I could give you the answer to it all and you would say I don't know what the hell I'm talking about, but some guy who's dead these hundreds of years is quoted in a book written by people who thought the earth was flat and it becomes true and accurate?

Nope, ain't goin' for it. I agree with Todd, but only about the YUGO :). And if there were a god, she wouldn't make me build houses when I really would rather be fishing.

How did this become the Religion Forum, anyway? Thought this was for history. Better we should argue religion in the Mud Box, eh? ;)

[JC]

Naw CX, the bible IS history infact it is the basis for many arcealogical digs. Abiet is has been twisted pretty badly over the years it is still very useful and interesting to historians.

It has been bugging me for a few days now about the Gnostic books John and Hobbit alluded to last week or so.
Upon reading and investigating them more I discovered that one of there allegations is that God did not create the earth or man but the Devil did and then claimed he was the only true God.

http://wesley.nnu.edu/noncanon/writing/jonevan.htm

http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/naghamm/apocjn.html

There are other Gnostic text refferancing this also..do a search.

Now the reason this is bugging me is not really just becuase it is like well total blasfamy but well becuase frankly it rather explains many of the unexplain intricities of the bible.

We were born in sin.
Differances between NT and OT.
The crazy beliefs in the OT ex. human sacrifices.
In fact it would also explain the reason for our very existance with the eternal goal of finding our way back to the kingdom of God.
Just to name a few of them.

Now before I get blasted I want to clarify that I do not follow these beliefs but rather I do find them quite interesting and relavent to this debate...if that is the purpose of the post...


will these books ever be canon....Ummm NO!

were they examples of the thoughts of early Christianity...Yes

[Bud Cline]

I love fiction, it's so much easier to believe than the real stuff.

How many different Bibles are there now days anyway?

[JC]

There are less now then there was in the early days. At least the ones now are somewhat on the same page.
Many people mistakingly think that Christianity started with the same common beliefs and brached off from that...actually from what I have learned it pretty much started out in alot of directions with alot of confusion and controversy and got somewhat unified over the years by the churches.
In fact if you look at todays trend towards globalization it is not hard to visualize that if the US can assert it's ultimate authority over the world then perhaps once again Christianity will be narrowed into a more unified belief system then the world has now...with any dissenters being suppressed further.
Primarily the version of Christianity that was adopted by the Romans was the one to set the modern standard...that was the church that I beleive first had the power to effectivly eliminate any opposing beliefs like the Ebions and the Gnostics, Mosaicist etc. Thus the reason these text were hidden and suppressed and many people outright killed. Christians did prosecute other Christians back then.

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There is only one Bible, but many different english translations. The Bible is unique in that it is a compilation of 66 books penned over the course of several 1000 years (from the time of Moses to the time of the apostle John on the isle of Patmos)with a central theme. II Timothy 3:16 "All scripture is given by inspiration of God..." II Peter 2:20,21. There were many other writings at the time, but none deemed "inspired" ??(not too familiar with the actual process of determining the Canon). Historically the Bible has never been proven inaccurate, many archaelogical finds have actually verified the Biblical record. I believe if you study ancient history you will find David "the son of Jessie" to be the second king of the nation of Israel.
JC, The term Christians I believe?? is first mentioned in Acts 11:26 the middle of the first century AD, literally means "little Christs" followers of Christ. What do you mean about human sacrifice in the OT? and the differences in the OT and the NT?
I appologize if I should have posted this elsewhere,thought a history forum would be the best place to discuss a book that covers history from the literal "beginning" of the world until the literal end of the world.
Dave

[JC]

>>There is only one Bible, but many different english translations<<
There are ALSO many differant Hebrew translations...the Gnostics text were such a thing..written in ancient Hebrew script same as the canon books were.

Canon means the books that were officially accepted by the powers to be at the time...and that many of the books were added and removed as time changed . It can be argued that the ones that got picked were the ones that agreed with the political/social agenda at the times.

Yes there was Human sacrifice in the old Hebrew times just as there were animal sacrifices..Actually I believe this belief carried all the way up to King Soloman who incidently biult human sacrifice temples.

The OT and the NT seem to not even talk about the same God...one is a really nice merciful God and the other is a Mean vengeful God...sure there are some that supposedly can exlain why this is but, and why God seemed to have a change of heart, But the fact remains they are just not consistant...something that is odd for a divine bieng.

You are correct about the term "Christain" not bieng used till later days, when I refered to them as Christains I meant those that followed Christ teachings.


>>>Historically the Bible has never been proven inaccurate<<< Well I would not go that far as to say that. The mere fact that according to text the beginning of the world was around 10,000 BC is kinda proof that if nothing else at least the dates of Genesis are off base. As you probably know man was here ALOT earlier then that. I personally think that date more so possibly represents local Hebrew tribal beginnings rather then mankind as a whole.
Also the Tower of Babal which does not seem to date back further then 2500 BC and mentions about that bieng the time God created differant languages..well that is just not so according to massive amounts of data otherwise.

I do agree though the Bible as a historical document cannot be overlooked.

[John Bridge]

Dave,

I don't mind the subject being here. I can argue in the History Forum just as well as I can in the Mud Box. ;)

I'm only sorry that CX beat me to it.

There is no question that the Bible is a historical document but only in the sense that the writings of Plato and Socrates are historical. These documents have been in existence for a long time, so they are important historically. Further, the Bible has had more influence on the shaping of other historical events than any other group of documents ever put together. So there's no argument there.

The argument was proffered by CX. It is the question of accuracy. Are the teachings (or statements, depending on where you are standing) accurate? I say no, but a lot of other people choose to say yes.

Genesis is one of my favorite examples. God created the heavens and the Earth, all men and all animals -- all plants, about seven thousand years ago, right at the dawn of Western History.

We know scientifically, though, that the Earth is about 4.3 billion years old. We have knowledge of this because we are able to observe the expansion of the universe. We know that rate of expansion, and there is no reason to believe it has ever been otherwise.

We know that Earth's continents evolved or broke apart, over the course of millions of years, from one giant land mass. We know that they are still floating around and that one day they might rejoin.

We know that prior to about 65 million years ago there were dinosaurs all over the place. We've found there remains, and we burn the "fossil fuels" they left behind.

Early forms of humanoids lived at least as early as a million years ago. We've found their remains.

Yet God created Earth (and the entire universe) only about seven thousand years ago. My wife Patti, who is a Christian, explains that time was measured differently in ancient times. A "day" could represent a billion years.

As CX stated, it's a matter of faith. You either believe the Bible (and organized religion) or you don't. If you do, you can't be dissuaded. And if you don't, you can't be persuaded.

It is probably the most wonderful right we enjoy in this country. We can believe whatever we want.

[JC]

>>>explains that time was measured differently in ancient times. A "day" could represent a billion years.<<<

Thats one explaination but it still does not explain the contradicting writings of the same books. How about the one where people in those days lived for hundreds of years at a time. Now if we were to expand there lives according to that doctrine of thought these folks would be like a million years old.

Heres an interesting timeline.

http://whatson.northnet.net.au/users/lostworlds/lwstory15.htm

[davem]

>> The argument was proffered by CX. It is the question of accuracy. Are the teachings (or statements, depending on where you are standing) accurate? I say no, but a lot of other people choose to say yes.<<

This is crucial. People are people and spin is spin. There has always been, and always will be spin. Consider recent history. Ask James Carville to write a paragraph to describe the Clinton presidency for posterity. Ask Newt Gingrich to do the same thing. Think the paragraphs would be similar? No way, no how. This is one constant in the universe.

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Lots of very good interesting questions.
The term canon I believe originally meant "measuring rule", "rod", "standard", It's application was/is applied to those books as authoritative (literally God's own words)and making up the Bible. Too much info to put here... check here http://www.reformed.org/bible/bahnsen_canon.html
The Gnostic writings were contrary to the rest of the "scriptures" Gnosticism, as per Websters Dictionary "The thought and practice especially of various cults of late pre-Christian and early Christian centuries distinguished by the conviction that matter is evil and that emancipation comes through gnosis"(greek word for knowledge).
The concept of creation taking billions of years??
That would fit nicely between a literal period of 6 days and the theory of evolution.
Check out this site http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-049.htm
Hey guys I am not trying to argue or change anyone, just make everybody think about what they really believe and why?????? Dave

[Hobbit]

Would have liked to have seen the ICR site Dave, however all pages return a "missing page" message. :confused:

:):)

[JC]

The site worked for me...about evolution/creationism.

Well I kinda think many are trying to read too much into Genisis. I mean it can be effectively argued that the creation theory indeed came from Sumarians of ancient Babylon since it is almost identical to there beliefs and Mesopotamia is one of the main origens of the hebrew race.

Trying to make since out of the days of creation and fitting them into evolution is not feasible to me. Whether it is converting days to years or whatever...just does not jive.

Also if we read Genesis it directly contradicts it's own words in just a few pages later.

Ok, first Adam and Eve...ok..Eve births Cain and Abel....Cain gets jealous of Abel and kills him in the field...God punishes Cain by not allowed him to grow crops (which by the way were not the first man hunter gatherers rather then farmers...anyways)....And cursed Cain to restlessly wonder the world....Cain says if he wanders he will be killed by others...God puts a mark on Cain so noone will hurt him...

Ok is it me but I only counted three people in this story so the obvious question is...who would hurt Cain if there were noone else in the world yet?

Anyone know the explaination for this?

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Howard, just try http://www.icr.org ???, I am new at this computer thing, links and all that stuff.

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Mesopotamia I believe is referred to as "the cradle of civilazation" for all mankind not just the Hebrews. Many other ancient cultures outside of the Bible held to this belief as well, perhaps it was they all had the same ancestory?
I don't believe Genesis contradicts itself, it just does not list "all" the details. Gen. 4:3 "and in the process of time it came to pass". Time passed after the birth of Cain and Abel. Gen. 1:28 "God said be fruitful and multiply". Apparently Adam and Eve had many more than just 2 children, why were not others mentioned at this time??? good question, maybe because none of the others had risen up against their sibling and killed him or her?? Also in many of the geneologies in the OT as well as the ancient world the oldest was only listed but not the younger, and women were not always listed either, not that they were not important. The geneology in chapter 5 only lists the fathers and one son, but they all "begat sons and daughters".
Dave

[flatfloor]

JC how's this for a theory;

At one point there was Neanderthal and Cro-magnon man, eventually Cro-magnon became the dominant species (beginning of man). Cain was marked to protect him from the Neanderthals.

As far as contradictions with all the translations by many translators from many languages- Aramaic to Hebrew to Greek to Latin to Olde English to modern English/French/Italian/German etc. is it any wonder?



[Edited by flatfloor on 10-23-2002 at 06:36 PM]

[JC]

Thats a good theory Jim but it has one nagging flaw...The biblical stuff would be in the neolithic era, this is about about 120,000 or 18,000 b.c off for the neanderthals at the most conservative timeline. However perhaps it could have merit with the Cro-magnums and the Homo sapien sapiens (moderman man) that would fit closer to the date of 10,000 BC.
Either that or we would have to push the Biblical dates back around 20,000+ years to the time of the last Neaderthals..Doing this would indeed leave major gap in the story of Genesis.

The biblical version, from what I can tell, happen around 10,000 to 8,500 BC. This is way after either of those groups walked the earth. This was when the last Ice age was almost recided.(melting ice caps possible source of the grerat flood? Thats another story).
There was a period up to that time that there was developed civilization in north africa...most of it was predominatly around the Nile river basin in much of present day Egypt. You see the Sahara desert use to be quite moist and lovely well at the end of this last Ice age it turned to desert and the people were forsed to move south and east (to the Nile river basin) to live.
Before this time also the people did indeed have agriculture and practiced husbandry.
Now here is where history gets funny.
Around the time I mentioned there appears to be a unexplainable "void" in time..There is a period where there are no relics then all of the sudden the newer relics show that the civilization "went backwards" that is the people had after this void in time all of the sudden were hunter gatherers again? This is all geussed at thru the tools and the dating that has been done.
One theory is that after the Ice age was pretty much recided there was "trapped" melted water above the glaciers and this water escaped and caused a great flood...wiping out civilization and thus the reason people had to learn all over again. Much the same way as this article discribes http://www.idahogeology.org/iceagefloods/iafidesc.html
Could this be the beggining of the Hebrew bible? But if it was indeed tha great flood that would not fit into the cronology order of the Bible with depicts the great flood after man was created and generally assumed approx (very rough guess at that) 9,000-4,300 BC?
Could Adam and Eve have been Cro-magnums? New evidense shows that Cro-magnums(well at least the more recent ones) were not bent over ape-like creratures but were fully erect and did resemble modern humans and shared much the same tools contrary to the early depictions save the shape of the skull etc...
Taken from a web site: "It is not clear whether Neanderthals were out-competed by our ancestors, directly exterminated, or absorbed into the gene pool of modern humans."
My limited knowledgable personal theory is that Cro-Magnums were not so much a differant race but they just had differant bodies in response to the extreme cold of the last Ice Age...so when the Ice recided so did there need for hair and big strong bodies(storing fat for warmth) etc.. After all the human body has a great potencial for adaptation and many changes can happen in a short order matter of generations(if not within days such as the immune system). Not hard for me to believe that skull shapes could not have adapted in a matter of tens of thousands of years...especially considering that the warmer climate tribes would have been first to change then compounded with intermingling of conquered/friendly more northern tribes the colder climates would be very close behind, Leaving it to look like from an arcealogical perspective at least of "myteriesly becoming extinct"...but anyway thats just my little theory on what happened to Cro-magnum.

Remember Neanderthals,Cro-magnums and Homo sapien sapiens are all considered as Homo Sapiens....the earliest Homo Sapiens I believe are dated around 400,000 BC. The earliest relative of man is about 6 million at last count.

Thats the best guess I have heard for this Jim, But for that theory to hold water biblically we would have to assume that indeed the Cro-magnums and modern man were "differant" species, that is they were not absorbed into the gene pool but were instead either out-competed, or exterminated by the Homo sapien sapeins. This would be the only way man could have been created by God at that time rather then much much earlier.
Now imagining if that were true and considering that Adam and Eve would have been first. then why are'nt cro-magnums mentioned in the bible if they were a differant species...or why is there not any mention of extermination, out-competing etc.. or the dissapearance of them in general? I don't remember reading about any "alien" races in the bible that would that differant.
And perhaps if my little theory is sound (or even the more similair scientifically accepted theory of mixing gene pools) then there was no "sudden" change but a more gradual one then both would be considered as bieng "man" and that would push the date Genesis farther back, way back in time, me thinks.

Interesting...interesting indeed.

[davem]

Serious question here. I'm not schooled in religion, and I've always wondered the expanation for why Adam and Eve's children could have children amongst themselves. I mean, nowadays inbreeding results in funny looking guys playing dueling banjo's right?

[JC]

Got me? Thought you had to be married in those days to have kids...much like Muslims do now. Kinda like picking up girls at a bar except in between buying them drinks and taking them to the motel you have to get married real quick...formalidies.
A man could have many wifes but the women(Eve) could only have one husband..So I would think that logic would not work either.

I guess if that thought never occured to them then we should'nt question it either...eh?

Actually I best guess is that Genesis used to be much more complete but over the time with differant polical structures certain events in the book contradicted laws at those times. Ever hear of the Code of Hammurabi? This is a taste of some of the laws in anchient times after centralized governments and centralized religion were established..not sure how many were bieng used when pentateuch was written but one can only imagine...you can see that violating some crazy law would be pretty easy to do in those times and certainly we can't have taboo in the founding of religion.

http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/hammurabi.htm

Things such as having sex without bieng married and other taboo things were removed to keep the book holy and politcally correct...This is also why I think the books of Ruth,Ester and Job were not origenally canon till later on. If you read Ruth she was a widow but met a man who was "a close relative" and re-married. It seems to be a very fishy story in that it repeatively keeps stressing "a close relative" every time it mentions her new beau name to the point it is just not natural sounding and seemingly intensionally inserted later on. The gist of this bieng that is those days it was customariy that the only way a woman can re-marry is if her husband dies and the only one she can marry is her husbands brother(which seemed to get expanded to include next of kin over time).
I suspect this could be what happened to the "voids" in the book of Genesis.

It also can be debated quite effectivily that the story of Genesis is stolen from a almost identicle Achient Sumarian creation story ---remember the Hebrews were held captive in Babylon and was just a few years after they were finally allowed to go back to there homeland(jerusalem) that the OT was colaborated,443 bc---also many Hebrew cultures like the Amorites,Akkadian from Mesopotamia)

Many similairities between the Sumarians beliefs and the early books. The good thing is we have extensive ancient text about the Sumarians to base this off of.

Learn more about the Sumarians here....this is good stuff here.

http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/MESO/SUMER.HTM

[Edited by JC on 10-24-2002 at 10:01 PM]