Ziggy
Well-Known Member
In 2015 the doctors diagnosed me with a blocked artery. They said I had a year to live.
I am a miracle.
Hugs
Genesis as allegory? - History versus allegory
- Thread starter St. SteVen
- Start date
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I am a miracle.
Hugs
Sounds like God of the Bible! In these last days those who don't receive miracles from God are in DEEP trouble.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
As I thought......and you have no idea what you've missed by a country mile!
Such irony! Keep your opinions. I'll stick with the Christian Bible. I don't want to burn in Hell for chopping up God's written Word, the Bible.
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BlessedPeace
Well-Known Member
Hugs
I know miracles too.
I picked a friend up from the airport years ago.
We're on the way home when we start talking about classic films.
I tell him about this one scene, and as I explain I took my right hand off the steering wheel.
Dumb!
I had just taken an exit and unbeknownst to me,despite the construction sign warning about highway work, the ramp pavement on the driver's side was jagged and not yet finished.
It was evening and the ramp was clear and the work crews gone.
My left front tire hits that jagged pavement. As I try to bring the car up off that edge the back tire hits the edge just right and we start to spin.
When I took that ramp I saw in the rearview a string of cars behind me,including tractor trailers.
We're dead. I knew it because it was a single lane ramp. The cars and truck had no place to go but through us.
During the spin the propulsion was so strong my glasses flew off. It was night. No street lights,and I can't see clearly without them.
When we stop spinning I tell my buddy to steer the car between the construction barrels beside us. Because I thought I might have time to get out of the way of traffic if I went into the grass near the burm of the nearby overpass.
He steered,I used the gas and brake.
There was no traffic.
When I looked in the rearview mirror while entering the ramp, I saw all those other cars taking that same ramp as they followed us. But they were gone.
It was like being in a void all the sudden.
There was no traffic anywhere. Not passing us on that ramp,not on the freeway below and after the ramp entrance. Nothing. Perfectly quiet.
I composed myself to resume the drive and we made it home.
Yes, I too know miracles.
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Seeing you are so familiar with the Christian Bible Jack, I might ask how it is that those who were the knowledgable ones in Jesus time and boasted of it, lined him up for execution?
Nice smokescreen. Now back to the Bible, the written Word of Jesus:
Hebrews 11:7
7 By faith Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith.
Do you believe anything in the Bible is the Word of Jesus???
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
Smokescreen?... you do evaluate in skewed ways! but so did they. In fact they saw the hand of God at work and judged it to be the hand of the devil. It gave them their justification to close their ears and misrepresent him.....using scripture!
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Deborah_
Well-Known Member
The early chapters of Genesis deal with the beginnings of the human race and explain, in a series of powerful and unforgettable stories, why we are as we are. God created a good world, but it was spoiled by our sin, and the whole of human society is hopelessly corrupt as a result. As a consequence, God judged the primitive world three times: He ejected Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, destroyed Noah’s generation with a flood, and punished the builders of the Tower of Babel by confusing their language.
Is this history (as we would define it), or is it myth? For many people, this is the same as asking if it is fact or fiction. But these categories do not overlap.
From chapter 12 onwards, Genesis contains stories of Abraham’s family, presumably handed down orally through the generations until written down by Moses. This should indeed be classified as ‘history’ - but we cannot therefore assume that chapters 1-11 are in the same category. Abraham is firmly rooted in both geography and history; the places where he lived are known to us, and we are given enough cultural detail to date him to around 2100 BC. We cannot say the same for Noah. Nor can we locate the Garden of Eden, despite the geographical information given; two of the rivers named are on different continents (Genesis 2:10-14)! It’s a bit like looking at one of those old maps, where America is missing but Australia fills the southern hemisphere, and recognisable places are mixed up with statements of “here be dragons” on uncharted territory. We run into similar problems when we try to integrate recent scientific discoveries with the accounts of creation in Genesis 1 and 2. We need a different approach altogether.
The stories in the first part of Genesis also have a very different ‘feel’ to those in the later chapters in the way they are narrated. The characters frequently have conversations with God (or with the devil, in Eve’s case), but rarely talk to each other. When they do speak, all the recorded dialogue takes the form of prophetic pronouncements or ‘oracles’ e.g. Genesis 2:23; 4:23,24). (The one exception, Cain’s words to Abel in Genesis 4:8, is not in the original Hebrew text) This is not ‘real life’, but commentary on it.
Maybe Genesis 1-11 was written not so much to answer the questions “How?” or “When?“ but “What?” and “Why?” The author wanted to stimulate our imaginations, rather than follow the constraints of technical and historical accuracy; it may therefore be idle to wonder whether Eve actually had a conversation with a talking snake. Date and place are left vague, because the truths being taught are spiritual, timeless and universal. And yet it would be a grave mistake to regard these stories as pure fiction… they describe real events.
Our spiritual prehistory, like our anthropological prehistory, is largely lost in the mists of time. The glimpses that we see through the veil are not clear ‘photographic’ images, such as we are accustomed to, but rather ‘artist’s impressions’. They should be interpreted accordingly.
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Jhn 14:2
In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
Jhn 14:3
And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.
I like Trey Smith. On one of his videos he had some film of I forget off hand, a crew that went archeological hunting for the Red Sea crossing, Noah's Ark, and Sodom and Gomorrah. So I went looking for the film Trey Smith was showing.
If interested I found it here:
It's not that the events are not factual, it's that the telling of them have significant prophetical, philosophical, and moral principles behind them as well.
I don't believe God does anything without a lesson to be learned by them, or a prophetic reason for doing them.
Every person is a testimony whether good or bad. And every life is His Story written in them.
The account of Noah is his testimony, it is the revealing of things as they were, as they are, and how they will be.
They are written in the book to speak of and to give God Glory.
We are all parables, we are all lessons, read and learned of all men.
Paul calls us his epistles:
2Co 3:2
Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
Noah is an epistle, it is His Story, history.
And God sent Noah to be known and read of all men to learn God's mercy and his grace and his love towards us. Also his judgment and his justice.
Noah walked the walk, he didn't just talk the talk.
And God wrote him into the book of Life.
But the importance of the story of Noah, isn't the factual events, it's the spiritual truth behind that, that we need to learn.
Noah believed God. Noah found grace in God. Noah had faith in God. And God saved Noah.
This is the prophecy of Jesus. Jesus is the Ark that Noah entered. And God gave Noah rest while the rest of the world went through chaos and destruction.
The same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Noah is a sign for a certain generation that occured before Jesus, during Jesus' generation, and a generation to come.
In all 3 situtations the people are ignorant of the times they are in, and they don't recognize their shame and sinfulness.
Mat 24:38
For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
Jesus called his generation like children sitting in the marketplace saying sing us a song...
Luk 7:32
They are like unto children sitting in the marketplace, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned to you, and ye have not wept.
In Jesus' generation, Israel fell from grace and Christianity was born.
Today another storm is coming. And Jesus tells us only a few will make it into the Ark.
It is God's desire that all us "animals" come into the Ark with him, to his father's mansions that he goes to prepare for those that believe in him and love him.
Jesus is not only the Ark. Jesus Is the Storm.
May your eyes and ears be opened to understanding what the ways of the Lord are.
For his thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and his ways higher than our ways.
Isa 55:9
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We live in a dualistic world, made up of both flesh and spirit.
Noah's story is flesh, the evidence of things seen. The moral or principle of the story is spirit , it is faith of things unseen.
Heb 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Noah's story for us today is one of faith.
Hugs
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
I followed some breadcrumbs that hansel and gretel left on the ground, and I came to Babylon located in Iraq.
I traced the steps of Abraham through the bible.
I thought, how can babylon be eden? How can paradise be so corrupted. corrupted may not be the right word.. earthy maybe.
And I understood that when Adam fell from grace the place God put him fell from grace as well.
And it is unrecognizable as Eden on the face of the earth, but it's features of a war torn location bares the marks of spiritual Babylon.
Over the hills and through the dale to grandmother's house we go....
And there is an actual babylon located in Iraq where Saddam Hussein had his throne.
Babylon
Capital city of Babylonia and an archaeological site in modern-day IraqBabylon was an ancient city located on the lower Euphrates river in southern Mesopotamia, within modern-day Iraq. Wikipedia
Hugs
Good post, thanks.
There are theories that Moses got scrolls from his father-in-law that were used as source material for the books of Moses.
/ @Wick Stick
You didn't answer: "Do you believe anything in the Bible is the Word of Jesus???"
Today we have thousands of 'Christian' churches that have drastically different doctrines. Satan has been busy.
2 Corinthians 11:14-15
Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. 15 Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness,
God's house is filthy and He is going to clean it soon. It's not gonna be pretty. Most 'Christians' believe more in politics than God's Word. Satan has been busy!
Karen Armstrong’s book, The Case for God distinguishes, as the ancients did, between logos (“reason”) and mythos (“myth”), the former being concerned with accurate knowledge of external realities, the latter with inner meaning and value as a guide for practical human action:
"Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition. Logos was forward-looking, continually on the lookout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh. Logos was essential to the survival of our species. But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles. For that people turned to mythos or “myth.”
"Today we live in a society of scientific logos, and myth has fallen into disrepute. In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true. But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way. Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos. Myth has been called a primitive form of psychology. When a myth described heroes threading their way through labyrinths, descending into the underworld, or fighting monsters, these were not understood as primarily factual stories. They were designed to help people negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche, which are difficult to access but which profoundly influence our thought and behavior. People had to enter the warren of their own minds and fight their personal demons. When Freud and Jung began to chart their scientific search for the soul, they instinctively turned to these ancient myths. A myth was never intended as an accurate account of a historical event; it was something that had in some sense happened once but that also happens all the time.
"But a myth would not be effective if people simply “believed” in it. It was essentially a program of action. It could put you in the correct spiritual or psychological posture, but it was up to you to take the next step and make the “truth” of the myth a reality in your own life. The only way to assess the value and truth of any myth was to act upon it. The myth of the hero, for example, which takes the same form in nearly all cultural traditions, taught people how to unlock their own heroic potential. Later the stories of historical figures such as the Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad were made to conform to this paradigm so that their followers could imitate them in the same way. Put into practice, a myth could tell us something profoundly true about our humanity."
"Logos (“reason”) was the pragmatic mode of thought that enabled people to function effectively in the world. It had, therefore, to correspond accurately to external reality. People have always needed logos to make an efficient weapon, organize their societies, or plan an expedition. Logos was forward-looking, continually on the lookout for new ways of controlling the environment, improving old insights, or inventing something fresh. Logos was essential to the survival of our species. But it had its limitations: it could not assuage human grief or find ultimate meaning in life’s struggles. For that people turned to mythos or “myth.”
"Today we live in a society of scientific logos, and myth has fallen into disrepute. In popular parlance, a “myth” is something that is not true. But in the past, myth was not self-indulgent fantasy; rather, like logos, it helped people to live effectively in our confusing world, though in a different way. Myths may have told stories about the gods, but they were really focused on the more elusive, puzzling, and tragic aspects of the human predicament that lay outside the remit of logos. Myth has been called a primitive form of psychology. When a myth described heroes threading their way through labyrinths, descending into the underworld, or fighting monsters, these were not understood as primarily factual stories. They were designed to help people negotiate the obscure regions of the psyche, which are difficult to access but which profoundly influence our thought and behavior. People had to enter the warren of their own minds and fight their personal demons. When Freud and Jung began to chart their scientific search for the soul, they instinctively turned to these ancient myths. A myth was never intended as an accurate account of a historical event; it was something that had in some sense happened once but that also happens all the time.
"But a myth would not be effective if people simply “believed” in it. It was essentially a program of action. It could put you in the correct spiritual or psychological posture, but it was up to you to take the next step and make the “truth” of the myth a reality in your own life. The only way to assess the value and truth of any myth was to act upon it. The myth of the hero, for example, which takes the same form in nearly all cultural traditions, taught people how to unlock their own heroic potential. Later the stories of historical figures such as the Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad were made to conform to this paradigm so that their followers could imitate them in the same way. Put into practice, a myth could tell us something profoundly true about our humanity."
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Jethro was a medianite.
I followed those crumbs too. And I'm not so sure the advice Jethro gave to Moses was lined up with what God wanted Moses to do.
Jethro had instructed Moses to set up judges because the cause of so many were becoming overwhelming for Moses.
Moses wasn't complaining, it was Jethro who was a priest of Midian that put the idea in his head.
Exo 3:1
Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
Moses took his wife and child and left Jethro to go into the wilderness.
This reminds me of when Jacob took Leah and Rachel to go to Canaan.
And Laban wasn't happy about that. He accused Jacob of stealing his daughters, his flock and his gods.
In the Book of Jasher, this goes into much greater detail and very interesting.
According to Jasher, Laban sent his men to Esau to tell them that Jacob was heading in his direction and that he had stolen all these from him.
Well Esau, having been "decieved" by Jacob twice became irratable and went out to meet him.
This is when Jacob sent his camp in droves. Leah with one camp, Rachel with another, with some seperation between them,
(So I just saw another one.. the seperation of time between the older and the younger.. anywho..)
There are 4 battalions of angels that confront Esau along the way and they tell him, that if he were not the brother of Jacob they would of slain him. So by the time Jacob came into his territory, Esau already had the fear of Jacob in him.
So they meet, Jabob gives him gifts, promises to come stay in his land, and ends up going in the direction of Canaan.
The story isn't different, there's just more detail.
Getting back to Moses, because I haven't gotten to the part of this story in the book of Jasher yet, I believe there is some thing odd between Jethro and Moses. This is the story:
Exo 18:13
And it came to pass on the morrow, that Moses sat to judge the people: and the people stood by Moses from the morning unto the evening.
Exo 18:14
And when Moses' father in law saw all that he did to the people, he said, What is this thing that thou doest to the people? why sittest thou thyself alone, and all the people stand by thee from morning unto even?
Exo 18:15
And Moses said unto his father in law, Because the people come unto me to enquire of God:
Exo 18:16
When they have a matter, they come unto me; and I judge between one and another, and I do make them know the statutes of God, and his laws.
Jethro Counsels Moses
Exo 18:17And Moses' father in law said unto him, The thing that thou doest is not good.
Exo 18:18
Thou wilt surely wear away, both thou, and this people that is with thee: for this thing is too heavy for thee; thou art not able to perform it thyself alone.
Exo 18:19
Hearken now unto my voice, I will give thee counsel, and God shall be with thee: Be thou for the people to God-ward, that thou mayest bring the causes unto God:
Exo 18:20
And thou shalt teach them ordinances and laws, and shalt shew them the way wherein they must walk, and the work that they must do.
Exo 18:21
Moreover thou shalt provide out of all the people able men, such as fear God, men of truth, hating covetousness; and place such over them, to be rulers of thousands, and rulers of hundreds, rulers of fifties, and rulers of tens:
Exo 18:22
And let them judge the people at all seasons: and it shall be, that every great matter they shall bring unto thee, but every small matter they shall judge: so shall it be easier for thyself, and they shall bear the burden with thee.
Exo 18:23
If thou shalt do this thing, and God command thee so, then thou shalt be able to endure, and all this people shall also go to their place in peace.
Exo 18:24
So Moses hearkened to the voice of his father in law, and did all that he had said.
It is Jethro the priest of Midian that gives Moses council concerning ordinances and laws, and to set up judges.
There is a story in the prophets concerning ordinances and laws:
Isa 1:10
Hear the word of the LORD, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah.
Isa 1:11
To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the LORD: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.
Isa 1:12
When ye come to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Isa 1:13
Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
Isa 1:14
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth: they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear them.
Isa 1:15
And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide mine eyes from you: yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear: your hands are full of blood.
Isa 1:16
Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil;
Isa 1:17
Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.
Who are the midianites? And why did Moses take council from Jethro and not God?
Gen 37:28
Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmeelites for twenty pieces of silver: and they brought Joseph into Egypt.
Gen 37:36
And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, and captain of the guard.
Well the midianites were merchantment, they sold Joseph into slavery.
Now Moses was sent to free those very slaves that the Midianites sold them into.
This sounds like another prophecy:
Num 31:2
Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites: afterward shalt thou be gathered unto thy people.
We are no longer under the law of Moses but under grace.
Jdg 6:2
And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.
Is this the reason that Jesus removed the ordinaces from the law?
Because they were not by God but by man?
Eph 2:15
Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
Col 2:14
Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Jethro told Moses to set up judges, yet Jesus tells us not to judge.
Luk 6:37
Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven:
Jhn 12:48
He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.
Moses was doing what God had put him in charge of, until Jethro came and brought with him ordinances and judges.
Being mindful that Jethro was a Priest of Midian and Aaron, Moses brother was given the Priesthood of Israel. Could there have been some jealousy there?
So anyways I could go on and on...
Just thinking..
Hugs
quietthinker
Well-Known Member
I have answered your question.....you haven't heard it ....or is it, you can't hear it?
Ziggy
Well-Known Member
Scratch that. Moses had left his wife and sons with his fatherinlaw while he went to Egypt to free the hebrews.
It was Jethro who brought them out to the wilderness to be with Moses.
I believe one of his wives wasn't happy about the circumcising of the children. So what was her "religion" her knowledge of Abraham, or what was taught them from the Priest of Midian their father Jethro?
Reuel or Raguel = "friend of God"
- a son of Esau by his wife Bashemath, the sister of Ishmael
- the father-in-law of Moses
- also 'Jethro'
This gets even more interesting lol.
Jethro believed Moses was an Egyptian. Whom the Midianites had Joseph to in the beginning.
Exo 2:18
And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
Exo 2:19
And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.
Exo 2:20
And he said unto his daughters, And where is he? why is it that ye have left the man? call him, that he may eat bread.
Exo 2:21
And Moses was content to dwell with the man: and he gave Moses Zipporah his daughter.
Exo 4:25
Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
What was Jethro thinking? ...
Exo 18:1
When Jethro, the priest of Midian, Moses' father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses, and for Israel his people, and that the LORD had brought Israel out of Egypt;
Exo 18:2
Then Jethro, Moses' father in law, took Zipporah, Moses' wife, after he had sent her back,
Exo 18:3
And her two sons; of which the name of the one was Gershom; for he said, I have been an alien in a strange land:
Exo 18:4
And the name of the other was Eliezer; for the God of my father, said he, was mine help, and delivered me from the sword of Pharaoh:
Exo 18:5
And Jethro, Moses' father in law, came with his sons and his wife unto Moses into the wilderness, where he encamped at the mount of God:
Exo 18:6
And he said unto Moses, I thy father in law Jethro am come unto thee, and thy wife, and her two sons with her.
Did Jethro know God?
Exo 18:10
And Jethro said, Blessed be the LORD, who hath delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of Pharaoh, who hath delivered the people from under the hand of the Egyptians.
Exo 18:11
Now I know that the LORD is greater than all gods: for in the thing wherein they dealt proudly he was above them.
Jethro was changing sides. He was changing his allegience from Egypt to Israel.
But was he "creeping in unawares" ?
I'm just sharpening my pick and shovel, going down rabbit holes to see where they lead.
What was Jethro's true intentions. And the relationship between Egyptians and the Midianites?
Just thinking..
Hugs