†. Gen 6:5 . .Yhvh saw how great was man's wickedness on earth,
and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the
time.
It's one thing to be guilty of an evil act. It's quite another to be infected with
an evil mind. There are some who believe that the Bible's God weighs only
actions. But here, in the very beginning, He was already weighing the
activity of the human mind; and said that the human mind was evil --not
just some of the time, but all the time.
What does that mean really? Does it mean that people in those days thought
only about rape, and robbery, and embezzlement, and kidnapping, and
sleeping around, and entertainment, and food, and power, and wealth, and
revenge? Maybe. I guess you could include those things; but I think it goes
much deeper than that.
God said that antediluvian man was lawless (Gen 6:11) which Webster's
defines as: unruly; viz: unrestrained by laws and rules. It's not really eo ipso
evil to be lawless if one's intuitive moral compass is in harmony with
absolutes. But man's moral compass parted company with his maker's moral
compass because of the forbidden fruit incident. In other words: the
antediluvians' moral compass didn't point north; in point of fact, it pointed in
no direction at all but instead simply spun around like a roulette wheel, so
that what they thought was right, was, in many cases, actually wrong; and
what they thought was wrong, was, in many cases, actually right.
†. Isa 5:20-21 . .Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent
in their own sight!
The disharmony of the compasses has its roots all the way back at the
garden when God observed: "the man has become as one of us, discerning
good and evil". Consequently, the good that humans discern isn't the good
that God discerns, and the evil that humans discern isn't the evil that God
discerns.
†. Gen 6:6 . . And The Lord regretted that He had made man on
earth, and His heart was saddened.
"Regret" is from the Hebrew word nacham (naw-kham') which means,
among other things: to sigh, i.e. breathe strongly, to groan; by implication,
to be sorry, i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity.
God doesn't hate Himself for creating Man. No, not at all. On the final day of
creation, when Man was created, God looked back over His handiwork and
announced it was all not just good; but "very good".
Creation's God was pained by the antediluvians' decadence; much as a
parent is disappointed in a child for whom they had high hopes, but ends up
a loser instead. The antediluvians resisted God's Spirit by turning a deaf ear
to Noah's pulpit-- they finally resisted his preaching to the point of no
return. Hence: God was saddened; and finally, because nothing else could
be done; He removed them from the earth as a HazMat team would deal
with a chemical spill. They were toxic and God was forced to take drastic
steps to clean up their mess.
†. Gen 6:7 . .Yhvh said: I will blot out from the earth the men whom
I created-- men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of
the sky; for it grieves me that I made them.
The wording of that verse makes it look like God was grieved with the
animal kingdom too; but I seriously don't think that's the right way to take
it. Through no fault of their own, they became collateral damage.
The Hebrew word for "blot" is from machah (maw-khaw') which means: to
stroke or rub; by implication, to erase; also to smooth (as if with oil), i.e.
grease or make fat; also to touch, i.e. reach to.
God intended to not only remove the antediluvians from the face of the
earth, but also to scrub off all of their works too so that when He was done,
it would be very difficult to even be able to tell the antediluvians were ever
here at all.
It's always been a mystery to me why paleo-anthropologists have managed
to find so few fossilized remains of pre-historic human beings. In 1992, Tim
White of the University of California at Berkeley, discovered the fossilized
skeletons of human-like creatures in Ethiopia's Afar Rift who lived 4.4 million
years ago but those aren't the remains of homo sapiens; but rather, of
beasts that resemble homo sapiens. To my knowledge; no truly human
remains have been found from that era.
But my point is: where are the remains of the antediluvians? They're gone:
lock, stock, and barrel-- no metal implements from Tubal-Cain's blacksmith
shop, no musical instruments from Jubal's work shop, no dwellings, no
footprints, no bones, no pottery, no cave art, no nothing. It's like they were
never here. God moved against the antediluvians like a relentless newspaper
editor deleting superfluous words and sentences so skillfully that the reader
cannot even tell those superfluous words and sentences ever existed in the
original copy.
Cont.
/
and how every plan devised by his mind was nothing but evil all the
time.
It's one thing to be guilty of an evil act. It's quite another to be infected with
an evil mind. There are some who believe that the Bible's God weighs only
actions. But here, in the very beginning, He was already weighing the
activity of the human mind; and said that the human mind was evil --not
just some of the time, but all the time.
What does that mean really? Does it mean that people in those days thought
only about rape, and robbery, and embezzlement, and kidnapping, and
sleeping around, and entertainment, and food, and power, and wealth, and
revenge? Maybe. I guess you could include those things; but I think it goes
much deeper than that.
God said that antediluvian man was lawless (Gen 6:11) which Webster's
defines as: unruly; viz: unrestrained by laws and rules. It's not really eo ipso
evil to be lawless if one's intuitive moral compass is in harmony with
absolutes. But man's moral compass parted company with his maker's moral
compass because of the forbidden fruit incident. In other words: the
antediluvians' moral compass didn't point north; in point of fact, it pointed in
no direction at all but instead simply spun around like a roulette wheel, so
that what they thought was right, was, in many cases, actually wrong; and
what they thought was wrong, was, in many cases, actually right.
†. Isa 5:20-21 . .Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put
darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and
sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes, and prudent
in their own sight!
The disharmony of the compasses has its roots all the way back at the
garden when God observed: "the man has become as one of us, discerning
good and evil". Consequently, the good that humans discern isn't the good
that God discerns, and the evil that humans discern isn't the evil that God
discerns.
†. Gen 6:6 . . And The Lord regretted that He had made man on
earth, and His heart was saddened.
"Regret" is from the Hebrew word nacham (naw-kham') which means,
among other things: to sigh, i.e. breathe strongly, to groan; by implication,
to be sorry, i.e. (in a favorable sense) to pity.
God doesn't hate Himself for creating Man. No, not at all. On the final day of
creation, when Man was created, God looked back over His handiwork and
announced it was all not just good; but "very good".
Creation's God was pained by the antediluvians' decadence; much as a
parent is disappointed in a child for whom they had high hopes, but ends up
a loser instead. The antediluvians resisted God's Spirit by turning a deaf ear
to Noah's pulpit-- they finally resisted his preaching to the point of no
return. Hence: God was saddened; and finally, because nothing else could
be done; He removed them from the earth as a HazMat team would deal
with a chemical spill. They were toxic and God was forced to take drastic
steps to clean up their mess.
†. Gen 6:7 . .Yhvh said: I will blot out from the earth the men whom
I created-- men together with beasts, creeping things, and birds of
the sky; for it grieves me that I made them.
The wording of that verse makes it look like God was grieved with the
animal kingdom too; but I seriously don't think that's the right way to take
it. Through no fault of their own, they became collateral damage.
The Hebrew word for "blot" is from machah (maw-khaw') which means: to
stroke or rub; by implication, to erase; also to smooth (as if with oil), i.e.
grease or make fat; also to touch, i.e. reach to.
God intended to not only remove the antediluvians from the face of the
earth, but also to scrub off all of their works too so that when He was done,
it would be very difficult to even be able to tell the antediluvians were ever
here at all.
It's always been a mystery to me why paleo-anthropologists have managed
to find so few fossilized remains of pre-historic human beings. In 1992, Tim
White of the University of California at Berkeley, discovered the fossilized
skeletons of human-like creatures in Ethiopia's Afar Rift who lived 4.4 million
years ago but those aren't the remains of homo sapiens; but rather, of
beasts that resemble homo sapiens. To my knowledge; no truly human
remains have been found from that era.
But my point is: where are the remains of the antediluvians? They're gone:
lock, stock, and barrel-- no metal implements from Tubal-Cain's blacksmith
shop, no musical instruments from Jubal's work shop, no dwellings, no
footprints, no bones, no pottery, no cave art, no nothing. It's like they were
never here. God moved against the antediluvians like a relentless newspaper
editor deleting superfluous words and sentences so skillfully that the reader
cannot even tell those superfluous words and sentences ever existed in the
original copy.
Cont.
/
