Board index ‹ Sex

[jimwalton]

> The basis of the Bible's morality claim is flawed. Adam n Eve and the concept of sin are flawed concepts.

You state this, but without supporting arguments I can't reply. I have not idea on what basis you assert these propositions.

> "Our selfishness, pride, and will to power compromises our ability to create a universal objective standard of good and right." If our ability to discern is flawed, then our judgement of the bible's morality is also flawed

I never said our ability to discern was so flawed that it was impossible to arrive at truth and to discern truth. You and I would most likely consider this to be a presuppositional foundation to reasonable discourse, scientific inquiry, and the ability to learn. I do, in any case. God has endowed us with the capability to reason, discern truth, and subscribe to it. What we are unable to do, as I contended, is to create a universal objective standard of good and right.

> Paul, in those verses, never claims to have met Jesus in the flesh.

In Acts 9.7, it says the men with Paul "heard the sound but did not see anyone," implying their experience was different from Paul's, whom we can presume saw someone. (We are also not told in Acts 9.1-9 that he saw a man named Ananias, but that is expressed in Acts 9.12.) In Acts 22.18 Paul claims to have seen Jesus in a visionary trance (different from seeing him in the flesh).

In 1 Cor. 15.8, Paul claims to have seen Jesus. The way he makes this statement tells us it was qualitatively different from the way the disciples saw Jesus after his resurrection, but it also tells us that this was no hallucination, vision, or trance. He saw Jesus with his ordinary eyes—personally present, rather than a spiritual experience.

> "what is good is what is always good" ... Then God is not the creator of morality

This is a non sequitur. If objective morality is defined as "that which conforms to the nature and character of God," then God is neither the creator nor messenger of morality, but the ground of it.

> "Women under Christianity had more freedom than their contemporaries." ... Not today.

I would again disagree with you. First of all, women still don't have total freedom in the secular world. The glass ceiling, biases, and imbalances still work against them. In the church it's about the same. In many congregations women have equality, in others there are still class ceilings that work against them.

> 1 Timothy. "To be clear, we do not 'know' this..."

Actually, we do. My second point ("we know that the Bible allows women to have authority over men") is solid, as is my 3rd ("we know that in 1 Corinthians 11.5 the women were allowed to speak, by the mandate of Paul, so we know this teaching in 1 Timothy is a local problem and a local mandate, not a universal one."). As to the other parts of the text, there are certainly conflicting perspectives on it, but some things we can know for certain.

[The List]

The jews have a long and proud tradition of rules-lawyering their way around things that are explicitly commanded (http://mentalfloss.com/article/91594/theres-wire-above-manhattan-youve-probably-never-noticed). I see no reason for contemporary christians to not take the same approach.

[jimwalton]

It unfair and unjustified for you to identify a gerrymandering perpetrated by Jews to ease the burden of Sabbath, and then extrapolate that to, "Well, then it's pretty much understood that Christians also routinely manipulate teachings." There is plenty of reason for contemporary Christians to not take the same approach.

[Ostrich]

> You state this, but without supporting arguments I can't reply. I have not idea on what basis you assert these propositions.

If Adam and Eve are properly representative of humanity, and failed the test, then God’s design of humanity is ultimately sub-optimal.

If Adam and Eve are not properly representative of humanity, and failed the test, and humanity are punished as a result of this failure, then god is quite obviously not fair.

Adam and Eve were blamed for disobeying god when they were innocent children with no concept of good and evil, and therefore no concept of obeying/disobeying.

How is it that the talking snake with legs was more clued-in to his surroundings than the mud man and rib woman? Indeed, the snake appeared, in order to be able to tempt Eve, to have some idea already of good and evil, and without God knowing, or getting hitherto angry.

> God has endowed us with the capability to reason, discern truth, and subscribe to it. What we are unable to do, as I contended, is to create a universal objective standard of good and right.

Contradiction.

> "whom we can presume saw someone."

There is the problem right there. If we have to presume any of Paul's visions or encounters then this opens the door to Joseph Smith's visions and encounters as being truthful as well as David Koresh's claims and any and all who have claims that are unverifiable.

> God is neither the creator nor messenger of morality, but the ground of it.

What does this mean? "The ground of it"? Morality existed before God? It exists outside of God? Please be specific.
Women of today have more freedoms than the biblical women. They can own property and be unwed without the social consequences for starters.

It's unclear to me how we can know the claims in the bible for certain if they are only backed up by internal validity arguments. Geological discoveries and outside sources confirm certain elements in the bible, but the oldest paper we have in existence does not confirm who are the authors of the Gospels.

[jimwalton]

> If Adam and Eve are properly representative of humanity, and failed the test, then God’s design of humanity is ultimately sub-optimal.

God, by definition, is uncreated. Anything created is therefore not God and is subject to vulnerabilities and imperfections to which God is not susceptible. God's design is not sub-optimal, but rather sublime but not divine. The failure of Adam and Eve was not due to poor design but to poor execution by choice, viz., they used for wrong what God had given them for good.

> If Adam and Eve are not properly representative of humanity, and failed the test, and humanity are punished as a result of this failure, then god is quite obviously not fair.

They are not punished for conforming to their nature, but for not availing themselves of the resources available to withstand the test.

> How is it that the talking snake with legs was more clued-in to his surroundings than the mud man and rib woman?

A sentence just burdened with misunderstandings.

The talking snake: First, it may not have been a literal snake. The Hebrew word for serpent is *nahash*, which is indeed the common word for snake, but it also possibly means "able to stand upright." There are all kinds of verbal possibilities here. For instance, *nahash* is the same root as nehoset, which means "bronze". We see that the shiny, upright snake in Number 21.9 is the same root: it was a literal thing, but a spiritual symbol. "Snake" could also be a word play, because the Hebrew word for "deceive" is very close to it, and is the same root as for magic and divination. Snakes in the ancient world were very much associated with spiritual powers, magic, and cultic rituals. So maybe that's why it was a snake and not another animal.

Back to Genesis now. So what if this "thing" (the nahash) was a spiritual power, represented to the woman as a bright creature, speaking "spiritual wisdom", and yet was deceiving her—all of these can be expressed by the word for snake? Just a little bit of research could change the whole picture. Bible scholars are still working on this text. New archaeological data, as I have just explained, are motivating them to rethink what we thought we knew. So maybe that's why there was a snake in the first place—it was actually a spiritual power (same word group).

So maybe, as I said, this wasn't a snake at all (though logically that is the word used by their culture). Maybe it was a deceiviant (my own coined word. You like it?) upright spiritual being. That may have been why Adam & Eve didn't think it was weird to converse with it. After all, who would talk to a snake? The *nahash* distorted God's words, deceived them both, and was cursed by God for what he did. And, by the way, *nahashim* are often the object of curses in the ancient world, and the curse of Genesis 3.14 follows somewhat predictable patterns, conforming to the culture's expressions and forms. The word curse (*'aror*) also means "banned," so what was happening was that this spiritual being was being thrown out of the garden, so to speak, removed from God's presence (banned), and that was his curse. Maybe that's why God punished the spiritual being. It distorted God's words, deceived them both, and motivated them to rebel against God. You'll notice in the text that the serpent was cursed, but not the man or the woman. There were consequences for what they had done, but only the serpent and the ground were cursed.

Mud man: "Dust" was a symbol of his mortality (Gn. 3.19; Ps. 103.14), not the composition of his material creation. The dust is not speaking of raw materials, but a statement about our nature: was have mortal bodies. The role of dust is archetypal, not material. It doesn't have to do with chemistry (the ancients knew nothing of chemistry anyway). All humans are made of dust, viz., mortal (1 Cor. 15.47-48). God gives them a Tree of Life. Immortal people don't need a tree of life. They need such a tree because they need an antidote to their mortality.

Rib woman: The deep sleep was a visionary trance, not physical sleep. God is showing Adam a vision about the nature and identity of the woman—that she is related to him as an equal. There was no surgery done (the ancients knew nothing of surgery and wouldn't even think that way). The word for rib (מִצַּלְעֹתָיו [tsal’otav]), is not used anatomically anywhere else in the OT. It's more often architectural—the side of a building or room. The point of the text is that the woman is his equal, his kin, and his match.

> Contradiction.

Not by logical means. Our capacity to reason doesn't inherently grant us the right or capability to create a universal objective standard. There's no contradiction there.

> "We can presume he saw someone." There is the problem right there.

Not so fast. In 1 Cor. 15.8 Paul claims he saw someone; based on that testimony we can presume that in Acts he saw someone. It's not at all the same as Jos. Smith or David Koresh.

> What does this mean? "The ground of it"? Morality existed before God? It exists outside of God? Please be specific.

Morality neither existed before God nor outside of him. Our concepts of morality are based in who God is by nature. What conforms to His nature is therefore moral.

> Women of today have more freedoms than the biblical women. They can own property and be unwed without the social consequences for starters.

Own property? Proverbs 31.16.
Be unwed without the social consequences? Dorcas in Acts 9.36-39; Phoebe in Romans 16.1; Lydia in Acts 16.14-15.

[Ostrich]

> God, by definition, is uncreated.

This is called a special pleading fallacy. While everything in the universe is assumed to have a cause, God is free from this requirement. And we don't know why this is the exception. We just have to assume it.

> they used for wrong what God had given them for good.

Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of what is good or evil before they ate the fruit. So how can they be punished for choosing evil? They weren't. they were simply punishes for disobedience. Thus giving humanity the lesson: OBEY or DIE. nothing moral about that.

> ...So maybe that's why it was a snake and not another animal....

A whole bunch of problems here. So now the story isn't literal? If it's not a literal story and just a fairy tale, then fine, anything can happen, snakes, or upright animals can talk and have knowledge of good and evil. But if it's to be taken literally, then snakes, or ANY OTHER animal still makes my point that God allowed a talking animal to be clued in to knowledge that A&E didn't have and yet were punished for.

You still don't answer my question as to why would God allow this "spiritual power" with more knowledge of Good/Evil than them to temp them in the first place?

I find it interesting, but irrelevant to my point that the "serpent" could have been Satan or whatever "spiritual" being you want to invent. The unanswered question is WHY did God allow the serpent into the garden in the first place? God either knew what it's intent and outcome was, or God was unaware of it's presence.

> "Dust" was a symbol of his mortality.

Again, this follows with an allegorical interpretation of the story. Not a literal one.

> God is showing Adam a vision.

I have a problem with this because we must ASSUME all of this to be true. There is no way to verify visions that God gives to any man if man's senses can be manipulated. There is no way to verify if the giver of the visions is good or evil.

> capability to create a universal objective standard.

Biblical morality takes massive amounts of special pleading from Biblical literalists who insist that morality can only come from the Bible. They are very happy to follow some rules (shunning gay men) but not others (selling their daughters into slavery, stoning disobedient children, eschewing shellfish) — even though the Bible, which they claim can be the only source of their moral decision making, is quite silent on what parts of it you can happily ignore.

> Paul claims he saw someone.

Why should we assume he is any less deceived by HIS vision than Smith or Koresh? How can we verify which visions are "real" and which are delusions?

> Our concepts of morality are based in who God is by nature.

the Sixth and Eighth Commandments have all the appearance of being absolute prohibitions against murder and theft. However, if God made exceptions to these laws, people could kill with impunity.

in the Book of Joshua: God commands the Israelites to go into the land of Canaan, which he has decreed belongs to them, and kill everyone in the thirty-one kingdoms therein, including women, children, and livestock. They do so.

In short, the Christian take on "absolute morality" is not as absolute as it is sometimes portrayed; it simply makes such matters dependent on the whims of God (or whoever pretends to be speaking for him) rather than the whims of people in general.

Even allowing for the "God is exempt from the rules" argument, there are still numerous cases where the law doesn't seem to apply to people either. The Book of Joshua also features the story of Rahab, the Canaanite harlot who assists Joshua in his defeat of Jericho. As reward for her help, she is married off to one of his sons, despite this being explicitly forbidden in the Pentateuch: Deuteronomy 7:3 — Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son. (i.e. the Canaanites, as identified in Deuteronomy 7:1)

[jimwalton]

> This is called a special pleading fallacy. While everything in the universe is assumed to have a cause, God is free from this requirement.

It's not special pleading but a philosophical, logical, or scientific requirement. There always had to have been SOMETHING. Maybe matter is eternal (but that's not what the scientists tell us). Maybe energy is eternal. Maybe something. Maybe God. It's not special pleading where God gets a free pass. Something is eternal to have brought forth what we now see.

> Adam and Eve did not have knowledge of what is good or evil before they ate the fruit.

Then you misunderstand the story. It's not that evil didn't exist or that they didn't know about it, but about what path they would take to achieve wisdom and order. "The Knowledge of Good and Evil" in the ancient world was an idiom for wisdom and order. The tree symbolizes what is only God's to give: He is the center of order, and wisdom is the ability to discern order. What is forbidden to humanity is the power to decide for himself what is in his best interests and what is not. It's not that humanity didn't know anything about evil—he knew very well. He was given the choice to make whether He would be his own path to wisdom or whether he would find his meaning in his relationship with God.

> So now the story isn't literal?

Well, the term "literal" is always a problem. The Bible is a rich literary collection containing music, poetry, metaphor, allegory, archetypes, parable, hyperbole, metonymy, irony, simile, and many other literary forms, as well as genres such as prayer, prophecy, blessing, covenant language, legal language, etc. "Literally" quickly becomes a word with very little meaning or helpfulness. If a poet says the trees of the field will clap their hands and the mountains will jump for joy, is that literal? Of course not, it's poetry. If a man prays, "God, kill all those people", we may all understand that his prayer is inappropriate, and is not blessed by God, but is it literal? Well, how does that word even apply? And how does it apply to archetype, allegory, parable, and all the others? It's a word that should be dropped from the discussion because it doesn't take us anywhere except to the Land of Misunderstanding.

It's better to think that the Bible should be taken the way the author intended it to be taken. If he was using hyperbole, we're to take it that way. So also allegorically, historically, parabolic, poetic, etc. Our quest is to understand the intent of the author. In that case we'll take the Bible *seriously*, but "literally" doesn't take us anywhere.

But it's certainly not a fairy tale. It tells history from a theological vantage point, telling us about the nature of the being that deceived the woman. Our choices are far more than "literal" or "fairy tale." The author is telling us of the moral frailty, the spiritual warfare, the physical and historical consequences of spiritual decisions, of the nature of temptation and the grace of God. Did it really happen? Of course. Was it a snake? No. Is it literal? Wrong word, wrong question. Is it fairy tale? Nope.

> You still don't answer my question as to why would God allow this "spiritual power" with more knowledge of Good/Evil than them to temp them in the first place?

It's part of life, no different for us than for them. We are continually subjected to God's Spirit drawing us toward Himself and spiritual powers tempting us away from God. It's as true for us as for them, for them as for us. You yourself are in a spiritual tug of war. You are trying to discern truth. You are talking with someone about the claims of Christianity and the reliability of the Bible. Thoughts in you tell you I'm full of baloney, and yet other thoughts keep you in the conversation.

> or whatever "spiritual" being you want to invent

See the bias? I try to appeal to you on the basis of scholarship, and you brush me off like crumbs off a table.

> God either knew what it's intent and outcome was, or God was unaware of it's presence.

God knew the intent and outcome, but if didn't happen then it would have happened the next time or the next. Men are not God, and therefore they are vulnerable to mistake. Since God knew they weren't divine, he designed a plan to redeem them from any error they made so they could still have fellowship with Him.

> Again, this follows with an allegorical interpretation of the story. Not a literal one.

Again, there's a vast difference between symbolism and allegory. The story is symbolic and archetypal, but not allegorical or metaphorical.

> I have a problem with this because we must ASSUME all of this to be true.

There is scholarship behind it. The term for deep sleep is תַּרְדֵּמָה (tardema). It's often associated with supernatural "stupor" or trances. It is used 7 times in the OT.

- Here: a deep sleep induced by God to excise flesh for the creation of the woman
- Gn. 15.12: the deep sleep of Abraham, induced by God, to communicate a vision
- 1 Samuel 26.12: a deep sleep induced by God to protect David
- Job 4.13: the deep sleep of the middle of the night
- Job 33.15: the deep sleep in the middle of the night when God speaks in warnings and visions.
- Proverbs 19.15: a picture of laziness
- Isaiah 29.10: the deep sleep induced by God—a metaphor of spiritual blindness

Four of the 7 are sleep induced by God; 2 of which are associated with visions. 3 pertain to spiritual messages (warnings, visions, spiritual blindness). Two are normal sleep. So 5 of the 7 pertain to visions and trances.This deep sleep sometimes refers to an individual being oblivious to what is taking place in the waking world (usually potential threat, Judg. 4:21; 1 Sam. 26:12; Jonah 1:5-6). Other times it refers to someone whose deep sleep gives them awareness of something going on in the spiritual realm (Gen. 15:12; Job 4:13; Dan. 8:18; 10:9). In my estimation, the latter is more likely here. There is no potential threat and there is an important spiritual reality that is conveyed. As Genesis 15:12, which features the ratification of the covenant, indicates, such visions can be used to make highly significant spiritual or theological points.

> Why should we assume he is any less deceived by HIS vision than Smith or Koresh?

We are remiss to assume either all visions are true or all visions are false. If there is such a thing as visions, we are wiser (in my opinion) to be discerning and not have to conclude the only choices are "all true or all false."

> in the Book of Joshua: God commands the Israelites to go into the land of Canaan, which he has decreed belongs to them, and kill everyone in the thirty-one kingdoms therein, including women, children, and livestock. They do so.

This is incorrect. The "kill 'em all" language of Joshua has at least three factors we have to use to condition your understanding. First of all, the term (charm) translated "kill 'em all" is better translated "removal of something from human use." Even in Joshua the term is not always used for utter destruction. The purpose of the Conquest was to drive out the Canaanites, not to kill them. Secondly, according to the biblical record, Joshua only killed the populations of 3 cities: Jericho, Ai, and Hazor. Third, "kill 'em all" was ancient warfare rhetoric for "win a decisive victory." There are many ancient Near Eastern texts to confirm this.

[Ostrich]

> There always had to have been SOMETHING.

Does not prove or imply the biblical God, AT ALL. So to assume it's God that gets the pass is special pleading.

> The tree symbolizes....

You're playing word games. How can the story be historical AND allegorical, true and untrue at the same time?

The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the very "fall of mankind" itself can be understood mythologically as the moment when the culture at large went from an animal-like existence, where moral reasoning is impossible because we were acting on instinct alone, to a point where there is real morality — and therefore consequences. We have stopped being animals, and become a thinking civilization with moral autonomy — we are able to reflect upon our own behaviors and decide what is good and bad, right and wrong. We will necessarily "die", not because God cursed us with death, but because we became aware of it. The problem with this of course is that any human civilization capable of making up a story about evil and good would probably already be capable of this moral autonomy, seeing as they are familiar with the concept of morality that is part of the story.

Once you claim YOU know what the "author" intended you create problems. Who do you believe is the author of Genesis? And how can you prove that YOU know his intent? Short of that it's only up to interpretation.

Beyond the troubles of the nature of the story itself, is the PLOT of the story. Please tell me where I'm mistaken.

There's an extremely dangerous and unprotected tree in "paradise", that an omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly loving deity doesn't want touched, but this omnipotent, omniscient, perfectly loving deity also created the beings that would touch the aforementioned tree.

Since human existence in the Garden of Eden before original sin was therefore infinite, even a very small chance of Adam or Eve eating from the forbidden tree by accident would have become increasingly more likely over time. Original sin was essentially a foregone conclusion after God created the tree.

Said trees do not seem to have any reason for existing in the first place. Other than being a bad plot device, they do not seem to serve any purpose to either God, the garden at large, or the animals in it.

Question: Does the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE actually exist or is it a plot device for the story?

If God is a free agent that never sins because it is against his nature, why didn't he create beings that also were free agents that didn't sin? Because she sinned it must have been part of her nature, which God created, so it is at least partly his fault. No matter how you square it, God is partly to blame here for the original sin. (This should logically also apply to Satan, who must not have rebelled against God solely because he had the "free will" to do so but must have done so because of his sinful nature.)

> spiritual powers tempting us away from God

That these powers are allowed to exist by an all powerful God who has the power to make them not exist presents a problem.

I brush your arguments off because they are founded on the assumption that the Bible-God is truth. And you've yet to provide enough evidence for that claim.

> Men are not God, and therefore they are vulnerable to mistake.

God designed us flawed. With only a backdoor plan.

>symbolic and archetypal

these things occur in mythology. They are representative of other things or people, or events, The hero's quest, The trickster. But this does not imply the events ACTUALLY HAPPENED in reality. But I am beginning to understand why you have to believe what you believe. You want to assume the Bible-God is real and true. So in order to support that assumption, the Original Sin story must also be true. But how? How can a snake talk or all knowledge be contained in a tree? This is obviously fiction, snakes don't talk. So you simply state, the serpent never talked because in this story a serpent isn't really a serpent, it's symbolic of a spiritual being who can talk. But this only works if we assume that spiritual beings exist and forget to ask WHY wouldn't the author just use the correct term for the reality of the situation instead of a talking animal, which causes thousands of years of confusion? Working under the assumption that the bible-god is real and everything in the bible is 100% TRUE is easy.

> It's often associated with supernatural "stupor" or trances.

I'm speechless. This is such nonsense, the only explanation for your defense of this is your unflinching desire for the bible-God to be real.

Let's just look at one problem you cannot explain away without assuming truth. These events, deep sleeps, and visions, are conveyed to us by authors. Who may be the actual people who received these visions. But these "trances" and their true author cannot be discerned even by THEM. These direct revelations cannot be authenticated.

If there exists an arbitrary entity who is able to manipulate all of one's senses, dreams, and perceptions, essentially shaping the reality one perceives; or being a conscious intermediary between a person and the reality that person perceives, how can we tell if that entity is God or some other entity using the same techniques?

The method/channels a god chooses to send a message to someone can be used by any other entity.

No foolproof authentication method can be established since the authentication key has to be sent through one of those methods/channels without the possibility of some other entity imitating it.

If you claim that "God wouldn't say such a thing, it's against his nature" you can only claim that because you have a separate list of "things God wouldn't do" which was already on the receivers end. Which means someone else has revealed it to the receiver, and it's no longer divine.

> Secondly, according to the biblical record, Joshua only killed the populations of 3 cities: Jericho, Ai, and Hazor.

So I'm unclear, you're saying that no one was killed, instead they were kindly "removed from human use"????? Seriously, this is dumbfounding that you aim to play semantics. If only ONE innocent person was "removed from human use" then it contradicts the notion of Universal Objective morality. You seem to be trying to sidestep the point. Were innocent people killed or not?

In 1 Samuel 15:2-3, God commanded Saul and the Israelites, “This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.'"

If you are using reason as you claim, it's much more reasonable that the leaders at that time used GOD to justify their wars instead of whatever semantic hoops you'll jump through to keep your assumptions that the Bible-God is the source of universal objective morality.

[jimwalton]

> " There always had to have been SOMETHING." ... Does not prove or imply the biblical God, AT ALL. So to assume it's God that gets the pass is special pleading.

I never claimed it proved there was a God, or that it implied the biblical God, and therefore I'm not guilty of special pleading. Please pay attention. I only said, "There always had to have been SOMETHING. Maybe matter is eternal (but that's not what the scientists tell us). Maybe energy is eternal. Maybe something. Maybe God." In other words, God is one of the reasonable choices. That's all I said. Your bias is coloring how you read what I write, and motivating you to misread and jump to improper conclusions.

> How can the story be historical AND allegorical, true and untrue at the same time?

Please read carefully. I never said it was allegorical, nor implied such. Because the story has symbolism in it doesn't mean it's not historical. Barack Obama was a symbol of hope and renewal for a generation that voted him into office, but that doesn't mean he wasn't historical. And, of course, you understand that, but for some reason you won't apply it to biblical matters.

> The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the very "fall of mankind" itself can be understood mythologically

You can choose to understand it that way, but that is not how the Bible presents it. You are free to make up whatever interpretation you choose, but that doesn't give it credibility.

> Once you claim YOU know what the "author" intended you create problems.

By looking at the documents of the ancient cultures we can arrive at understandings of how they thought, what they valued, issues that were of concern in their time and culture, and what they chose to write about. By assessing the historical information available we are able to make reasonable proposals about the intent of the author—a far more reliable approach than assuming all things mean what they mean to us in the Western hemisphere in 2017. The Genesis story is markedly different in nature and purpose than any of the ancient mythographies, separating it from them.

For instance, kings (Ashunasirpal, Sennacherib, Sargon, etc.) of the ancient Near East boasted large parts of their cities devoted to gardens, places thought to be the abode of the gods. Gardens often adjoined temples. Rivers, as mentioned in Gn 2, had a cosmic role. The concept of a primeval paradise is well known in ancient literature (the Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag). In the Gilgamesh Epic there is a tree of life plant where the old man becomes young at the bottom of a cosmic river. Trees often adorn ancient art and cylinder seals because trees were thought to have a connection to God.

As far as the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, in the Gilgamesh Epic, Enkidu becomes wise by NOT eating from the fruit of a tree but instead having sex with Samhat the prostitute. "The knowledge of good and evil" in the ancient world is a euphemism for wisdom, and it is often a legal idiom meaning "to formulate and articulate a judicial decision." This is all just a smattering of what we know. Therefore, by examining the contemporaneous documents of the era and region we can understand the mentality of the times and make better interpretations than merely going by the English as we understand it in 2017.

> Beyond the troubles of the nature of the story itself, is the PLOT of the story. Please tell me where I'm mistaken.

Everything you said is mistaken. Your interpretation doesn't conform to a single aspect of the biblical account or the biblical writer's intent.

> Said trees do not seem to have any reason for existing in the first place. Other than being a bad plot device, they do not seem to serve any purpose to either God, the garden at large, or the animals in it.

Sure they are. They are symbols of realities, like a line in the sand. Suppose you and I are fighting, and I draw a line in the sand and forbid you to cross it without dire consequences. Duh, it's just a line in the sand (it's just a tree!), but it symbolizes far more, and we both know what it symbolizes and what will happen in the event of defiance.

> Question: Does the TREE OF KNOWLEDGE actually exist or is it a plot device for the story?

It actually exists, just like the line in the sand in my analogy. It's really there. But the fruit isn't magical. It's a symbol of compliance or defiance.

> If God is a free agent that never sins because it is against his nature, why didn't he create beings that also were free agents that didn't sin?

It's impossible to create a being that has the nature of God, who is uncreated by nature.

> That these powers are allowed to exist by an all powerful God who has the power to make them not exist presents a problem.

Not so. I just re-watched all 6 "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings" movies. In the movie both Bilbo and Frodo allowed Gollum to live, though they had opportunity and motive to kill him. As Gandalf said, "Who knows that he might have some vital part to play in the destruction of the ring." And so it was.

> I brush your arguments off because they are founded on the assumption that the Bible-God is truth. And you've yet to provide enough evidence for that claim.

That evidence is a much longer discussion. There's no room to deal with that here because of space limitations. I would be glad to have that conversation, but it will have to be a separate forum thread.

> These things occur in mythology. They are representative of other things or people, or events, The hero's quest, The trickster. But this does not imply the events ACTUALLY HAPPENED in reality.

Nor does it imply that they didn't happen. Mythology was the ancient world's theology, not their history. But certainly in real life there are heroes, tricksters, dark rainy nights, mysterious visitors at the door, and countless other elements that we use as literary tools. But they can be and are very real. The presence of a mysterious visitor at the door doesn't automatically mean the story is fictional. Sometimes there really are such people.

> But this only works if we assume that spiritual beings exist and forget to ask WHY wouldn't the author just use the correct term for the reality of the situation instead of a talking animal, which causes thousands of years of confusion?

History is jammed with evidences that spiritual beings exist. You no doubt reject them as the ignorances of superstitious primitives, but I think the subject demands a more rigorous examination than that. And why not just use the correct terms? Because you're looking for terms from 2017, when the author is using terms from 1300 BC or earlier. The issues, concerns, and manner of speaking in the ancient world were very different from ours, and we must allow them to write from their context and not insist they write from ours.

> "It's often associated with supernatural "stupor" or trances." ... I'm speechless. This is such nonsense, the only explanation for your defense of this is your unflinching desire for the bible-God to be real.

I gave you my scholarship, research, and linguistics. I would be please to see yours in rebuttal rather than just "lol."

> But these "trances" and their true author cannot be discerned even by THEM. These direct revelations cannot be authenticated.

First of all, metaphysical experiences can never be authenticated by the sciences that demand materiality and repetition. It's a misguided quest. Often in the Bible visions were confirmed by historical events to verify their reality. Again, that works for the eyewitnesses of the era, but still doesn't satisfy the scientific mind that wants everything replicated in our era to be measured by science. But again, it's demanding the wrong evidence for the phenomena at hand. Science can't even tell me where my pain is; I have to tell the doctor myself where it hurts and how badly it hurts, and whether or not it hurts when he pushes here or twists my arm like so. The lack of science doesn't mean my shoulder doesn't really hurt, nor does it mean that I didn't have a spiritual vision.

> you're saying that no one was killed, instead they were kindly "removed from human use"?????

Of course I'm not saying that. Please read what I wrote. "Joshua...killed the populations of 3 cities: Jericho, Ai, and Hazor." The people of Canaan were offered terms of peace (Dt. 20.10) and allowed to become part of Israel. If they didn't do that, then they were offered an opportunity to leave their cities and the land and their lives would be spared. If they didn't do that, the city was attacked.

What I'm saying is that the command to "kill 'em all" is generally a mistranslation of the term *cherem,* which research has borne out to mean "remove from human use." Sometimes removing something from use meant something other than killing or destroying. In Joshua 11.12-13, all of the northern cities of Canaan were *cherem*, but only Hazor was destroyed. In Leviticus 27.21, a field that is *cherem* is not destroyed but becomes the property of the priests—removed from [normal] human use.

> 1 Sam 15 and the Amalekites

Same thing. Please read carefully what I wrote previously. The Amalekites were never totally destroyed by the Israelites, nor was that the intent. They were a people group (according to the Bible and the archaeologists) for about 1000 years after that. There was no attempt to wipe out the entire people group. You'll even notice in 1 Samuel 15.5 that specific action was taken so that innocents did not get caught up in the violence and killed along with the military population. If Saul is setting an ambush in a ravine, he is after a specific military target. The Amalekites were a nomadic group spread over a large geographic area. They weren't concentrated in cities, and most didn't live in cities (less than 10% of ancient populations lived in cities), and they certainly didn't all walk down the same path to the ravine at a specific time each day. Totally destroying the Amalekites in one battle is like thinking one can wipe out Al Qaeda or ISIS in one battle. That's not possible, because they are not concentrated in one location, and you certainly wouldn't set up an ambush in a ravine if that were your objective. The idea in 1 Samuel 15 was to punish concentrated populations of military power and regional leadership, not to destroy an entire people group. The city of Amalek (the military and government officials) was the target, and they understood that. Look at vv. 7-9: Saul conquered the city and chased the governmental leaders and the soldiers through the desert to kill them. That’s what's going on here. 1 Sam. 15.12 implies that Saul accomplished his goal in one night. This tells us, again, that genocide was not the objective, the understanding, or the action. In v. 13 we hear from Saul himself: I conquered the city, killed the perpetrators, took the king captive, and scattered the people into the wilderness. Objective accomplished. All he did was conquer a small city. This is very typical through all of the ancient Near East when they used "genocidal" rhetoric.

[Ostrich]

> I never claimed it proved there was a God,

So we agree that there has always being "something" doesn't prove God exists.

> Barack Obama was a symbol of hope

A stretch because in his biography there is no use of miraculous events, nor the use of unscientific creatures etc. Never once does his story claim or use the supernatural.

> but that is not how the Bible presents it.

Based on similarities in both the story itself as well as shared cultural worldviews, many scholars argue that the story of creation week in Genesis is strongly influenced by (if not based on) the Babylonian creation myth Enuma Elish.

Similarities with Enuma Elish Order of Creation "Order" from "Chaos" (The Torah places more emphasis on the organization of things rather than the 'something from nothing' aspect of creation that is emphasized by the Christian Old Testament.) 6th day creation of "man" or of "savage god". In the Enuma Elish, man is to be slave to the gods. In modern American Christianity, apparently God is Slave to the wills of Conservatives. Concept that man is created in God's image. The strange idea of light being created before the sun.

The Sumerian myth and the Eden story share some similar aspects.

1. The setting: a garden paradise surrounded by desert.
2. Forbidden Fruits.
3. Expulsion from paradise and physical punishment for eating fruit.
4. Using a rib from a male to create womankind.
5. The meaning of the female names; Eve (life), Ti (lady of life)

> By looking at the documents of the ancient cultures..

So then you go on to compare the Bible to ANCIENT MYTHS!! I'm unclear how you can first claim the intent is not mythology, then defend the very same texts understanding and interpretations by using other myths?!?!

Lastly, who is the Author of Genesis?

> They are symbols of realities,...

Ok so I need clarification. The tree is a symbol of other realities, but it exists in reality. ?? Are you trolling me? I understand the American flag can exist in reality as a symbol of Freedom, Liberty etc. But if the Tree of Life in the story actually exists, then the Garden of Eden must actually exist somewhere on Earth. So where is that? Saint Lucia ?

> It's impossible to create a being that has the nature of God, who is uncreated by nature.

Bible-God is not omnipotent.

> "Hobbit" and "Lord of the Rings"

Both myths. Both fictions. And YOU compared them to the Bible-God. ....

> Nor does it imply that they didn't happen

The rational mind must imply that the supernatural is a fiction.

> History is jammed with evidences that spiritual beings exist.

History is jammed with STORIES of the supernatural, as well as being JAMMED with false beliefs, superstitions and misunderstandings of reality. But to say that the bible author used ancient terms to better convey a message to the people of that time, and YET STILL be literal is silly . You're claiming the author used talking serpents and tree's of life to better communicate with those people, and YET still claim those elements actually existed to today's people. Who will obviously not see them as literal things. You want both things. The Literal and the symbolic.

> Often in the Bible visions were confirmed by historical events to verify their reality.

Often the bible was edited and written to fit the visions claims and predictions.

There is such a thing as phantom pain. Pain that comes from a body part that is no longer there.

Science does not make the claim that your pain (or visions) do not appear to be real to you or the receiver of them. But what it questions is that there is a valid nonscientific explanation. Is every vision divine? Can men have visions that aren't divine? Can the devil give us visions? How can we tell the difference?