Genesis 1 Q&A

[BibleStu]

i m proud
your reasoning is good and buildup as well

but please try forget 'this earth' first ;
you know that Heaven is 'in the east'
and that there is "an evil dimension in the West",
as where the goat came from , in Daniel

I believe you have this reversed. Repeatedly in the Bible, the east represents a place of corruption: Adam went "east of Eden"; Cain was driven further east; humanity traveled to the plain of Shinar, to the east, to build the city and tower of Babel; Lot chose the east path, toward Sodom; invasions were from "the east"; and exile was in the east, in Babylon.

.. in the 'midsection' inbetween both
is a "dualistic realm" [imagine the pepsi logo]
of which the northern half is corrupted-masculine , a monster called 'behemoth',
and the south one 'dualistic feminine', the monster leviathan
okay

You are insisting on what some would call gnostic or occult symbolic interpretations. I'm not even going to bother commenting further.

...you d need to read Enoch as well , he describes these realms ,
and says that "after eden fell , it will not take long before the dualistic realm
will mingle again [read : be one whole again] ;
see , eden was placed in the centre of that dualistic realm , to break it's power ;
but after eden fell , that realm 'united again'

The Book of Enoch was not written by Enoch, but someone impersonating him in the second century B.C. This is probably why, despite a passing reference in James, it was never made canonical. So Enoch is pretty much worthless for anything but specialist historical study.

after paradise fell , a region was created above eden ,
we know that as 'mystery-babylon',
together with the solarplane and planets and earth as we know it
- so that was not created by God

oooooKAY then

So, folks, are gnostic occultists like this welcome on ChristianityBoard.com?

 

[forever]

I believe you have this reversed. Repeatedly in the Bible, the east represents a place of corruption: Adam went "east of Eden"; Cain was driven further east; humanity traveled to the plain of Shinar, to the east, to build the city and tower of Babel; Lot chose the east path, toward Sodom; invasions were from "the east"; and exile was in the east, in Babylon.



You are insisting on what some would call gnostic or occult symbolic interpretations. I'm not even going to bother commenting further.



The Book of Enoch was not written by Enoch, but someone impersonating him in the second century B.C. This is probably why, despite a passing reference in James, it was never made canonical. So Enoch is pretty much worthless for anything but specialist historical study.



oooooKAY then

So, folks, are gnostic occultists like this welcome on ChristianityBoard.com?

excuse me , i do not understand the offensive reply .
Can it be - remotely - possible that you are not the ónly one having researched it ??

Prophets tell 'that Gog and his cohordes will lay dead upon the east-land"
hebrew : root -qdm ,
which is the region between the dualistic-realm and Heaven .
In this eastland was also "the tree of good and evil"
exactly as you said .
Prophets also tell how the coffin [carried by the two women]
will be placed upon her base in shinar - that is , in that eastland
which is what Enoch described .

Why is Enoch immediately 'gnostical' ?

..Enoch describes "eden's binary sun and moon",
and extensively describes them ;
and God adresses the sun he made in the Isaiah chapters ,
which is not this present sun ,
because , he says in Isaiah , that is the one Adam devised :
and therefore this sun will go Dark [is all over in scripture]


Is Isaiah now occult as well ?

 

[BibleStu]

excuse me , i do not understand the offensive reply .
Can it be - remotely - possible that you are not the ónly one having researched it ??

Here is a list of all the gnostic/occult elements of your original comment:

• It is well-known that the east, not the west, is the symbol of corruption in the Bible. Claiming the opposite represents an inversion.
• Dualism, as in an eternal fight between good and evil, which are both creative principles in the universe, is a key part of the gnostic heresy. You refer to a "dualistic realm," with a "northern" and "southern" half, one good and one evil.
• Another key theme of gnosticism and the occult more generally is the association of good and evil with feminine and masculine, which can be found nowhere in the Bible and is a particularly pernicious doctrine. Here you say the northern half of the "dualistic realm" is "corrupted-masculine" and the southern is "dualistic feminine," "the monster levathian okay". Like, wut?
• Eden the ideal place, is put between something held (by you) to be good and something else that is evil. It represents "balance" between good and evil; symbolically speaking (of course the whole thing is very vague) this general notion is not just both gnostic and occult, but positively Satanic.
• You feminize Eden and say "she will rule again." Divine queens, another old occult theme.

Etc., etc. I could go on. It's completely obvious, if you know enough about this kaka. I mean, do you deny that the bizarre theories you are advancing here are gnostic and occult? Or are you saying that ChristianityBoard is and should be totally open to gnostic and occult "Christian" heresies?

 

[BibleStu]

I've posted the next Q&A, on Gen. 2.

 

[post]

of course most of my comments here were concerning ch. 2-4, and we'll get to them in more detail later.
but let me just address this:

(a) The Bible often talks about just the man when all humanity is meant. (b) The total context of the 3:22 makes clear that the fruit did make Adam more like “one of us” in some sense. The question really is just what sense is meant. If you have an alternative theory, I don’t know what it would be.

Here's the opening of Genesis 3:22 in Hebrew --

ויאמר ׀ יהוה אלהים הן האדם היה כאחד ממנו

here's a breakdown of the first few words:

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ׀ And said
יְהוָ֣ה YHWH
אֱלֹהִ֗ים God (Elohim)
הֵ֤ן behold
הָֽאָדָם֙ the man

"the man" includes the definite article 'ha' -- it's ha-adam, and that's different than 'man' which is just 'adam' -- 'ha adam' is literally 'the man', a specific man.
interpreting the Hebrew requires care because the name "Adam" is the same as the word in Hebrew for "man" -- so it's not always immediately clear whether we are talking about 'a man' or 'Adam' in particular. the language does give us an indication tho, because it includes the definite article, which is a bit like us saying in English, 'the man' -- as opposed to 'a man' in general.
so here God says "the Adam" indicating a specific man, the one named Adam. all of the immediate context is God's pronouncement of the judgement of Adam ((in particular)) and Adam ((in particular)) changing his wife's name. immediately after these things in Genesis 3 which are all about Adam ((in particular)) God says behold, ha-Adam ((a particular Adam)).

ha-Adam is singular here, not plural. so not only are we talking about a particular man we are also absolutely not talking about 'mankind' in general, and we are absolutely not talking about an arbitrary man: God is speaking specifically about Adam.

look at the text: no where does God say that eating from the tree of death ((i.e. committing sin)) will make a person like Him.
it is Satan who says committing sin will make a person like God. Satan, and Satan alone says this. God never says this. it is a lie.
committing sin does not make you like God. that's Satan's lie.

yes i know very well that 95% of churches and commentaries tell us that sinning makes us like God. they all say Satan the father of lies is telling the truth, and that God has sadistically created man in order to keep life and wisdom from him, that committing sin is the way to become free.

but the text doesn't bear that out. God says of Adam that Adam has become like Him - if it was because of committing sin, as Satan & 95% of commentaries say, then God would have included Woman in this statement. it would have been a plural word 'men' or 'mankind' -- but it's not; it's singular, and it's definite: the man, Adam in particular.



so how did Adam become like God, if committing sin is not the way to become like God?
God says this when Adam changes Woman's name to Eve ((life)) -- which he does immediately after God gives the judgement of the Serpent, Woman and Adam. in this God gives the proto-Evangelion, the first revealing of the gospel, saying that the Seed of the Woman will crush the seed of the Serpent. Adam changes his wife's name to "life" because Adam recognizes, understands and believes God's revelation here of the Messiah to come, who will conquer sin & death and restore what has been lost through their transgression. Adam, who has just died, and whose wife has died, calls her "life" because he believes the promise of God in what He said to the Serpent. Adam is extraordinary in faith and wisdom. the fact he calls his dead wife 'life' is amazing -- and God Himself says so, saying "Behold!!"

now who is God saying "behold!!!!!" to? who is listening? He speaks in 3rd person about Adam, so He's not speaking to Adam. the only other options we have are Woman, Satan, and the rest of the angels, who are all watching all of this intensely. this is 1 Peter 1:12 -- our salvation, the mystery of Christ, which things angels long to look into, which are mysteries even to them -- but Adam understood, and believed, and acted on that belief, changing the name of Woman to Eve. so God says "BEHOLD!!!!" -- not an insignificant word in scripture. every time God says this word, something amazing follows. here, in Genesis 3, it is the redemption of mankind, and the angels marvel at it. it is grace through faith: Adam displays great faith, and God sheds the blood of a Lamb, making tunics to cover their shame with the skin of That Lamb. BEHOLD!! Salvation is come to man, from God, and man is made like Him.

not by committing sin, as Satan teaches.
by grace through faith, as God teaches.

 

[post]

I think it’s believed by most Christians that what was made is comprised of atoms, which are invisible to the naked eye - so that which appears is made out of that which cannot be seen.

um, God made atoms.

so if 'most christians' believe atoms existed before God, before "the beginning" -- then 'most christians' are wrong.

when you're trying to figure out what the Bible means by saying "that which is unseen" then your first course of action should be to find everything the Bible says about things being "unseen" or "impossible to see"
go do that, and see if God, who sees all things, is talking about dust when He says "that which is unseen" -- you'll find it's a person. a "who" not a "what" which is unseen.

By faith we understand the universe to have been formed by the word of God,
so that the things being seen have not been made from the things being visible.
(Hebrews 11:3)​

how can anyone read this and get 'God didn't actually create anything, He just kind of modified dust that pre-existed Himself' ??

God, who dwells in unapproachable light, or energy, spoke matter into existence from pure energy.

He created energy too.
He created time. He created space. all those things are part of creation, 'the heavens and the earth' that He made.

smh
such a weird forum

 

[Ronald Nolette]

Why not both? Yes, he had inspiration and sources, but the words were (mostly) his choosing. Unless you think his inspiration was word-for-word.



See above on two senses of the word “perfect.” He might have been morally perfect, or perfectly acceptable to the Lord, but he was both fallible and like a child in terms of his acquaintance with evil, suffering, and all the trappings of later human culture.



We have no evidence of writing that predates the Sumerians and Egyptians. The Bible is wholly silent on the question how writing arose. Oral traditions, especially across such a relatively few generations (i.e., Noah could have known people who spoke to Adam, etc.), could easily explain the transmission of such info, without written records. I think probably Moses learned to write in Egypt. There’s no indication that those who preceded him in the Bible accounts could.



Not sure how you are interpreting me here. Doesn’t sound like anything I said.



Right, I’ll get into that in Gen 2, where the first toledoth appears.

Well as for writing, we have cuneiform tablets from Ur of the Chaldees written by what could have been Abraham himself! that predates the Sumerians and Egyptians.

And Scripture speaks of Moses consulting th ewritings.

One cannot be the author and editor of information. We have the evidence that information was carried down from generation to generation. Once again the term toledeth speaks of the addition to an already existing narrative.

 

[Ronald Nolette]

i'm of the opinion that God taught all these things to Moses while he was on mt. Sinai -- maybe even took him in the spirit to see them, who knows?
it's speculation, necessarily.
what we do know is that Moses has been attributed authorship of Genesis ((& the whole Torah)) by pretty much every source throughout history. however Moses came to this info, he is the one who wrote it all down.

Well He comppiled it to one narrative known as Genesis. There is too muc knoewn historyt and factual evidence to conclude that it was given by inspiration to Moses and not inspired to write what was pertinent from the existing materials at his command.

 

[forever]

Here is a list of all the gnostic/occult elements of your original comment:

• It is well-known that the east, not the west, is the symbol of corruption in the Bible. Claiming the opposite represents an inversion.
• Dualism, as in an eternal fight between good and evil, which are both creative principles in the universe, is a key part of the gnostic heresy. You refer to a "dualistic realm," with a "northern" and "southern" half, one good and one evil.
• Another key theme of gnosticism and the occult more generally is the association of good and evil with feminine and masculine, which can be found nowhere in the Bible and is a particularly pernicious doctrine. Here you say the northern half of the "dualistic realm" is "corrupted-masculine" and the southern is "dualistic feminine," "the monster levathian okay". Like, wut?
• Eden the ideal place, is put between something held (by you) to be good and something else that is evil. It represents "balance" between good and evil; symbolically speaking (of course the whole thing is very vague) this general notion is not just both gnostic and occult, but positively Satanic.
• You feminize Eden and say "she will rule again." Divine queens, another old occult theme.

Etc., etc. I could go on. It's completely obvious, if you know enough about this kaka. I mean, do you deny that the bizarre theories you are advancing here are gnostic and occult? Or are you saying that ChristianityBoard is and should be totally open to gnostic and occult "Christian" heresies?

look please - i've no beef with you , okay
.. i translated all prophets ... in their right context .. word for word
and within them , quite a number of concepts are confirmed : because they cross-read
(you know that only scripture can explain scripture right)

.. God made eden AFTER the evil realm had made , cq occupied 'a land' already ;
so he made eden paradise as a kind of "counter move"
Heaven is definately "in the east",
but [and scripture does nót adress that] ,
satan obviously was thrown out of heaven and occupied 'the west realm' .
So far , this is not 'dualism',
and in prophets [and Rev 20] God will punish the great dragon - satan ,
and it stands to reason that the western realm will cease to exist , right

... in Job he says : I turned the land upside down , so that the sinners fell off it",
and then he proceeds explaining how he created eden

this is the land in question :
see it as "the outskirt of Heaven",
which the evil western realm of the dragon "wanted to hold on to - in order to can feed off heaven"
(evil always needs 'something to hang onto')
so this region is "an intermediary region, a buffer , a no mans land"

God made his high mountain upon this land ,
which carried paradise at its summit

...the realm abóve this land - and now above páradise , since she came inbetween - is this 'behemoth-realm' , from hebrew 'beast', -bmh ,
and in prophets always related to 'the high places', specifically said as the sin
when people 'offer upon the high places' ;
it means that they honour an evil consciousness : namely that dragon , as 'corrupt masculine' ;
also termed 'Baal' etc .
okay .
This realm is ofcourse NOT 'from heaven', because God's realm is NOT dualistic :
and this masculine has his counterpart in "the south dimension",
also called the dragon - in Job and Enoch specified as 'Leviathan'.

...this latter 'feminine' realm is not per sé evil [like the northern one] , just 'corrupted' :
therefore "waters stream from the temple [=the temple in the other reality , in restored eden]"
and "those waters fall in the sea in the south to cleanse her" - book Ezekiel .
so , the south dimension is cleaned up , in time .

...this is exact what the temple-plan of the new temple depicts :
there are gates to the NORTH and to the SOUTH ,
while the gate to the EAST will be closed [=Heaven] ,

..but there is NO GATE TO THE WEST

why ?
because the temple represents 'ruling in the centre again'

 

[forever]

.. that i adress the land as 'feminine' is not occult grin
but i maintained that way of talking
because interlinear adresses concepts as 'fire' and 'land' etc as "she" or "her"
and i find that helpful - because the Spirit is a 'she' as well

- you know about 'the tried cornerstone' :
in prophets , this is "the [new-] temple fundament" [see Ezekiel temple in previous post]

this stone functions like "a dimensional anchor"
but in prophets God says 'they robbed that stone' :
do you know whhat another term for that stone is ..?
- Damascus ; as the place where Adam is , now ,
or "My hand"

when the sons of [eden-] Ishral will have become ,
as the 144,000 who will have received their original gorgious body ,
they will be present in the other reality ,
when God will lay that stone -- in its new, right place again ;
and this stone ,dimensional anchor , will "carry" the to-be restored eden paradise

 

[Ronald Nolette]

That statement contradicts what Christ said about Moses. The Author was God, but the writer was Moses. When Jesus called the Torah "Moses" He included all five books in that, and the Torah is one scroll. There was no "editing" of the Torah by anyone, and that is just modernist nonsense.

And I do not disagree that MOses wrote Genesis. but you are parsing this too finely. He took oral and written traditions and under the inspiration of God put them in one writing we call Genesis.

surely you do not think Moses had no prior knowledge of all that went on before and had to wait until God spoke these things to Him?

 

[Enoch111]

surely you do not think Moses had no prior knowledge of all that went on before and had to wait until God spoke these things to Him?

When we consider divine inspiration (what is God-breathed or theopneustos) as "holy men of God being moved by the Holy Ghost", then the prior knowledge of Moses (or any of the Scripture writers, whether accurate or inaccurate) would have to give place to the words given by God the Holy Spirit. That is the only way that the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture could be maintained. The Jewish scribes who copied the Torah believed that every letter was given by God.

And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exod 24:4)

 

[forever]

When we consider divine inspiration (what is God-breathed or theopneustos) as "holy men of God being moved by the Holy Ghost", then the prior knowledge of Moses (or any of the Scripture writers, whether accurate or inaccurate) would have to give place to the words given by God the Holy Spirit. That is the only way that the inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture could be maintained. The Jewish scribes who copied the Torah believed that every letter was given by God.

And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. (Exod 24:4)

you dont have to respond to this -
but exactly that opinion is lethal
and the very cause of all the problems we have today .

yes what God said to Moses is inspired and he wrote it down like that .
Likewise with all the prophets .

but these days few are brave enough to can accept , to can face the horror ,
that jews = esau = pharisee 'scribes'
distorted important sections of scripture .

God - and also Christ - told that they did / would .

 

[Curtis]

um, God made atoms.

so if 'most christians' believe atoms existed before God, before "the beginning" -- then 'most christians' are wrong.

when you're trying to figure out what the Bible means by saying "that which is unseen" then your first course of action should be to find everything the Bible says about things being "unseen" or "impossible to see"
go do that, and see if God, who sees all things, is talking about dust when He says "that which is unseen" -- you'll find it's a person. a "who" not a "what" which is unseen.

By faith we understand the universe to have been formed by the word of God,
so that the things being seen have not been made from the things being visible.
(Hebrews 11:3)​

how can anyone read this and get 'God didn't actually create anything, He just kind of modified dust that pre-existed Himself' ??




He created energy too.
He created time. He created space. all those things are part of creation, 'the heavens and the earth' that He made.

smh
such a weird forum

My point was He made all matter, including atoms, from energy - which was clearly stated.

That’s why splitting atoms creates the incredible energy released from an Atomic bomb.

In fact I said that quantum mechanics states that ATOMS are comprised of energy packets, so that between Einstein, string theory and quantum mechanics, it is theorized that all matter, including Atoms - duh - is made of energy vibrating at an extremely high frequency.

How you managed to misunderstand that is puzzling.

Obviously God also made the energy that all matter was created from - that wasn’t the point and it was not stated as such.

The point was sharing some interesting science theory on what the matter that was created by God may consist of, and there’s no implied or actual statement that atoms already existed apart from the creation event.

I find it fascinating that what appears so solid is made from energy, which you apparently issue with.

You might want to pay more attention to content of a post before criticizing it, like actually understanding what is being said, first.

 

[Wrangler]

Why does it matter—if it does matter—that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch?

It matters because it goes to the very heart of the question whether the Bible can be believed.

One thing I've learned in reading Scripture is how figurative it is. To our 21st century, scientifically trained mind, we tend to think in much less colorful and more literal terms.

Consider who destroyed Sodom and Gomorra and who appeared to Moses in the burning bush? Another thread delved into this in some detail. The literal answer is angels. However, God constantly does things through others and we talk this way today. For instance, we might say Hitler killed 4M Jews even though he literally killed no one. Nebuchanazar is credited with taking control of Judah militarily even though his troops actually did the deed.

Did Moses write the Pentateuch? If not by his hand, it was by his command and historically, this is sufficient to give credit.

 

[post]

My point was He made all matter, including atoms, from energy - which was clearly stated.

That’s why splitting atoms creates the incredible energy released from an Atomic bomb.

In fact I said that quantum mechanics states that ATOMS are comprised of energy packets, so that between Einstein, string theory and quantum mechanics, it is theorized that all matter, including Atoms - duh - is made of energy vibrating at an extremely high frequency.

How you managed to misunderstand that is puzzling.

Obviously God also made the energy that all matter was created from - that wasn’t the point and it was not stated as such.

The point was sharing some interesting science theory on what the matter that was created by God may consist of, and there’s no implied or actual statement that atoms already existed apart from the creation event.

I find it fascinating that what appears so solid is made from energy, which you apparently issue with.

You might want to pay more attention to content of a post before criticizing it, like actually understanding what is being said, first.

sorry if i've misunderstood you, but..
in the context of replying to whether creation is ex-nihilo or not, you said:

I think it’s believed by most Christians that what was made is comprised of atoms, which are invisible to the naked eye - so that which appears is made out of that which cannot be seen.

Creating seemingly out of nothing is interesting, in that Einstein showed by his famous formula that states: Energy = mass times the speed of light squared, that matter is solidified energy that can be converted back into energy.

In fact, in quantum physics, atoms are not made up of particles, but of energy packets called Quanta.

And in string theory atoms are made of vibrating strings, instead of particles.

Taking all three together: Einstein, Quantum physics, and string theory - matter is made of energy vibrating at such a very high frequency, that it appears to be, or is, a solid mass.

And God spoke it all into being using words.

Amazing.

God, who dwells in unapproachable light, or energy, spoke matter into existence from pure energy.

and this gave me the impression you were saying creation was not ex-nihilo, but rather, that the energy pre-existed God's creation, and His 'creative act' was just to mold it into matter etc.

because you said "creating seemingly out of nothing" ((as opposed to actually out of nothing)) -- because you said God "spoke matter into existence from pure energy" ((as opposed to energy & matter being equivalent forms of the same substance, per Einstein, and God creating it all rather than simply manipulating it into another form))

this language you used, still when i read it again, sure sounds like you don't believe in creation ex-nihilo but instead believe in manipulation of pre-existing energy
is that correct or not?

if that's not correct, because in your second post you're denying it, agreeing with me, now saying that He created all that physical energy too -- do you see -- now that you yourself read your own post again -- how your first post gives that clear impression?

 

[Curtis]

sorry if i've misunderstood you, but..
in the context of replying to whether creation is ex-nihilo or not, you said:



and this gave me the impression you were saying creation was not ex-nihilo, but rather, that the energy pre-existed God's creation, and His 'creative act' was just to mold it into matter etc.

because you said "creating seemingly out of nothing" ((as opposed to actually out of nothing)) -- because you said God "spoke matter into existence from pure energy" ((as opposed to energy & matter being equivalent forms of the same substance, per Einstein, and God creating it all rather than simply manipulating it into another form))

this language you used, still when i read it again, sure sounds like you don't believe in creation ex-nihilo but instead believe in manipulation of pre-existing energy
is that correct or not?

if that's not correct, because in your second post you're denying it, agreeing with me, now saying that He created all that physical energy too -- do you see -- now that you yourself read your own post again -- how your first post gives that clear impression?

Whereas I did not specify where the energy came from, seeking clarification instead of assuming what I meant, would be the right response - not ridicule.

However, I clearly specified that atoms were made out of energy, so you erred in claiming I said atoms pre-existed creation.

I did not specify whether God created the energy that matter is theorized to consist of, or IS unlimited and infinite energy as part of His intrinsic nature as God Almighty, because I don’t know.

 

[post]

I'm sorry that I misunderstood and was trying to correct what I saw as error, not to ridicule you. I'm not great with personal skills.

Whereas I did not specify where the energy came from, seeking clarification instead of assuming what I meant, would be the right response - not ridicule.

However, I clearly specified that atoms were made out of energy, so you erred in claiming I said atoms pre-existed creation.

I did not specify whether God created the energy that matter is theorized to consist of, or IS unlimited and infinite energy as part of His intrinsic nature as God Almighty, because I don’t know.

The quintessential QM demonstration of existence depending on conscious observation is a photon in a double slit. Photons are massless; you could say they are purely energy
=]

 

[Curtis]

I'm sorry that I misunderstood and was trying to correct what I saw as error, not to ridicule you. I'm not great with personal skills.



The quintessential QM demonstration of existence depending on conscious observation is a photon in a double slit. Photons are massless; you could say they are purely energy
=]

Do gravity and magnets affect photons?

Yes.

The old cathode ray tubes in TV sets used magnetic to change direction of a photon beam, and gravity in black holes stops photons in their track, so they can’t escape - also during an eclipse, stars that are behind the sun are visible due to solar gravity bending photons around it.

Therefore, photons have mass.

Apology accepted, if no offense was meant, none is taken!

Actually a Christian shouldn’t take offense even if an offense is meant, so I’m sorry too.

Shalom Aleichem

 

[post]

Do gravity and magnets affect photons?

Yes.

No.
Gravity affects space, and magnetic fields can affect the medium photons pass through.