What is the correct view on genesis

[Dave L]

Why should I believe your version of another’s?

You cannot believe spiritual truth unless God wants you to.

“But the unbeliever does not welcome what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.” (1 Corinthians 2:14) (HCSB)

 

[Ezra]

Acts 2:39-40 says differently. You can say my interpretation is wrong etc etc. but there is no way to know who is right.

baptism of the spirit/receiving of the spirit does NOT come through water baptism 1 Corinthians 12:13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body--whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free--and we were all given one Spirit to drink. sounds like to me you was in a legalistic denom. that had to beg for the spirit

 

[bbyrd009]

Some people say that genesis is meant to be taken literally others say metaphorically, who's right?

Dunno if you got a valid answer here, Mr Kind? You might explore google @ "does Genesis come from older sources" or maybe even "Genesis as mythology."

My current understanding is that particularly the beginning of Gen is regarded by many as a mythology--not saying "myth" there, like we mean today of course--derived from more ancient sources, half of the Decalogue can be traced all the way back to Hammurabi for instance, and the Abarim, The amazing name Mary: meaning and etymology, (which that is just a link to the site I happened to have already open; not meaning to direct you to that page specifically) can provide valuable historical connections of the common elements in our Scripture with the pre-Genesis ones, Paul even mentions some, Jannes and Jambres, Adam and Eve is likely derived from previous mythologies that contained "Lilith," and etc

 

[bbyrd009]

Acts 2:39-40 says differently. You can say my interpretation is wrong etc etc. but there is no way to know who is right.

Wadr there is however a good way to form an opinion, as those who say they know do not yet know.
So, no offense meant to whomever it was you wee talking to, but they are just "testifying of themselves," iow their testimony is invalid, and they are describing the emo experience of tares, not the Holy Spirit imo. Scripture asks them "why don't you eat at home?" fwiw.
Similarly, anyone who states "I am saved, I know I am saved," is equally deceived and drunk on tares, which are not "weeds" except to the deceived, i.e them. (Darnel/tares are fairly psychoactive, added to beer for a kick, etc)

 

[Vince]

You yourself were baptized in water but never received the Holy Spirit, yet you are insisting that anyone baptized in water has received the Holy Spirit. It's a bit bizarre.

i said I have received the Holy Spirit over 18 years ago. It is people here that disagree with me.

 

[Vince]

Were you baptised as a baby, or as a believer?

as an adult believer.

 

[Dave L]

as an adult believer.

What denomination?

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Wadr there is however a good way to form an opinion, as those who say they know do not yet know.
So, no offense meant to whomever it was you wee talking to, but they are just "testifying of themselves," iow their testimony is invalid, and they are describing the emo experience of tares, not the Holy Spirit imo. Scripture asks them "why don't you eat at home?" fwiw.
Similarly, anyone who states "I am saved, I know I am saved," is equally deceived and drunk on tares, which are not "weeds" except to the deceived, i.e them. (Darnel/tares are fairly psychoactive, added to beer for a kick, etc)

It was me he was talking to, and no offense taken. You are however wrong that I am just testifying of or by myself that I have received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness also, in me, that I am His child.

 

[bbyrd009]

It was me he was talking to, and no offense taken. You are however wrong that I am just testifying of or by myself that I have received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit bears witness also, in me, that I am His child.

It might, I don't know you well enough to say, but your testimony of yourself is nonetheless invalid, same as mine would be. In a diff setting I might refer to the relationship invoked in Scripture to sexuality, and the feeling you have compared to "If loving you is wrong, I don't wanna be right" that i'm sure we are all fam with, but I don't want to offend you any more than I already have tbh. Telling ppl you are saved or that you know anything is tantamount to the opposite, and um "we" are taught to do this bc we seek immortality in the Elysian Fields at the expense of obvious Scripture to the contrary.

So we are even discussing at cross-purposes I guess; you feel that prolly I am saying that when the White Jesus comes in on his horse to take everyone to heaven you will not be included or something, but I don't mean that at all ok. You are obv testifying of yourself here, at least until the Holy Spirit makes a post

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Once again, you have made no sense to me...

 

[Wafer]

Some people say that genesis is meant to be taken literally others say metaphorically, who's right?

Well, for starters, people don't know what they are talking about. A metaphor is a carefully defined figure of speech, but people use the word to mean "a garbled expression that may or may not be understandable to humans." God speaks to us in human languages, so He uses figures of speech, same as we do. But He uses them a lot better than we do, and people can't understand something just because it is correctly stated. For example, the bible plainly says "In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth." People say it dragged on for six days. No, it was in the beginning. The six days period was a time of reconstruction after a war. It takes a few weeks to unteach a student so he/she can understand the bible just as it is written, laying aside all the gobbledygook they have been told it says.

Then you want to find some sort of corroboration. Well, the timeline is given, so it's easy to find that the garden of Eden was about 6,000 to 7,000 years BC. And scientists have studied recent history very carefully, so it's easy to nail Genesis 1:2 at 12,000 to 13,000 years BC. It's called "Younger Dryas". So what the bible calls six days corresponds to what the scientists call 6,000 years. Either that or they have totally flubbed at measuring the time.

Then we come to something not so well known: creation myths. Tribes all over the world have traditional stories recounting their histories. The stories are not all easy to understand, first because they didn't know what they were looking at, and second because their languages were sometimes very odd compared to what we speak. Nevertheless, they managed to record eye witness accounts that pretty much agree with everything the bible says.

Putting it all together:
1. People don't read the bible.
2. People misread the bible.
3. People mostly remember stories they have heard from preachers who made them up.
4. People assume everything means what they got in their first impression.
5. People don't even bother to listen to ancient myths. They just assume the story tellers were babbling fools. (How do you explain that people used to worship a planet that you can't even point to?)

 

[Wafer]

You want literal? I'll give you literal.

Genesis 2:8-14 King James Version (KJV)
8 And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
11 The name of the first is Pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
12 And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
13 And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia.
14 And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

The first thing you need to remember is that the bible was not written in English. For instance, take that word "Euphrates". The bible does not say that. It says "Pareth". For a while that river was called "Firat". The other river "Hiddekel" was called "Diglat" for a while, and now it is called "Tigris". "Gihon" was renamed "Araxas" and now appears on maps as "Aras". "Pison" was changed to "Uison" and recently it was dammed, so now it is a dry riverbed, but you can still find it on a map because the reservoir is named "Qezel Uison".

"Eden" means "Plain". There are lots of plains over there so you can find lots of places on maps named "Eden" or "Edin". The most salient plain is the one between the rivers. It is so salient that we are not even told which rivers; everybody knows they are the Tigris and Euphrates. ("Mesopotamia" means "between the rivers".) So we go east from that plain and we find a salt lake called Urumia, and east of that is a valley with steep walls and a river running through it. That is the garden of Eden. You can go to google maps and look for "Tabriz, Iran" and that is the east end of the garden. All four of those rivers encompass that location.

The only problem in locating the garden has been that humans are not as careful about rightness as our God is. For example, the bible mentions Ethiopia. Students have been thrown off the trail for thousands of years by that. The original text says Cush. Everybody knows Ethiopia is/was the land of Cush. Everybody forgets that places did not have names, places were named for the tribe that lived there. If the tribe split, BOTH places were called "land of Cush". Well, the tribe split into four parts and if you inspect a map you will find three areas around the south end of the Caspian Sea named "Cush".

Material from David Rohl. (More at youtube.)

 

[SkyWriting]

Some people say that genesis is meant to be taken literally others say metaphorically, who's right?

Both. Generally literal provides a sound foundation when that was the intent.

 

[SkyWriting]

Well, for starters, people don't know what they are talking about. A metaphor is a carefully defined figure of speech, but people use the word to mean "a garbled expression that may or may not be understandable to humans." God speaks to us in human languages, so He uses figures of speech, same as we do. But He uses them a lot better than we do, and people can't understand something just because it is correctly stated. For example, the bible plainly says "In the beginning god created the heaven and the earth." People say it dragged on for six days. No, it was in the beginning. The six days period was a time of reconstruction after a war. It takes a few weeks to unteach a student so he/she can understand the bible just as it is written, laying aside all the gobbledygook they have been told it says.

Then you want to find some sort of corroboration. Well, the timeline is given, so it's easy to find that the garden of Eden was about 6,000 to 7,000 years BC. And scientists have studied recent history very carefully, so it's easy to nail Genesis 1:2 at 12,000 to 13,000 years BC. It's called "Younger Dryas". So what the bible calls six days corresponds to what the scientists call 6,000 years. Either that or they have totally flubbed at measuring the time.

Then we come to something not so well known: creation myths. Tribes all over the world have traditional stories recounting their histories. The stories are not all easy to understand, first because they didn't know what they were looking at, and second because their languages were sometimes very odd compared to what we speak. Nevertheless, they managed to record eye witness accounts that pretty much agree with everything the bible says.

Putting it all together:
1. People don't read the bible.
2. People misread the bible.
3. People mostly remember stories they have heard from preachers who made them up.
4. People assume everything means what they got in their first impression.
5. People don't even bother to listen to ancient myths. They just assume the story tellers were babbling fools. (How do you explain that people used to worship a planet that you can't even point to?)

The six days likely refer to Paradise and not the Earth we experience.

 

[Jon Mathews]

Some people say that genesis is meant to be taken literally others say metaphorically, who's right?

The ones who take it literally are right. God will never condemn someone for taking a parable literally, but He will condemn people who only take His literal Word metaphorically.

 

[shnarkle]

Some people say that genesis is meant to be taken literally others say metaphorically, who's right?

Neither. The Genesis account is literal narrative that employs figurative speech. Each figure can be identified by its own tell tale signs.

For example, Some claim that a literal snake is literally talking to Eve, and that Adam and Eve were tempted to eat literal fruit. Some even claim it was an apple.

The word "naXash" in the Hebrew means "a shining one, burning one", but it is also applied to snakes because of the burn of their bite. In Numbers, God tells Moses to attach a Seraph to a pole, and in complying with God's command, the text indicates that Moses constructed "a naXash of brass". Seraphim and naXashim are terms that are used interchangeably in the bible. They're even juxtaposed as "Seraphim naXashim" or 'fiery serpents'

In the new testament we read of "that old serpent the devil, and Satan", so it stands to reason that Eve was holding her conversation with this fallen angel Satan rather than a literal snake. We would never assume that when Christ refers to Herod as 'that fox', he is claiming Herod was an actual literal fox, and there's no reason to do the same here.

 

[DoveSpirit05]

Historical narrative!!

 

[historyb]

Neither. The Genesis account is literal narrative that employs figurative speech. Each figure can be identified by its own tell tale signs.

Never thought about this, thank you

 

[Enoch111]

Neither. The Genesis account is literal narrative that employs figurative speech. Each figure can be identified by its own tell tale signs.

Genesis (the account of the Creation and the Fall) is written in very plain, simple, and powerful language, and is meant to be interpreted in its plain literal sense. Satan took possession of the *serpent* (which may even have been quite different from a slithering snake at creation) and spoke to Eve through it. Indeed the Serpent is also called that Great Red Dragon (both alternative names for Satan), so it could well have been exactly that.

Also each creation day is defined as a literal 24-hour day as "evening and morning" (the Hebrew day beginning and ending at sunset).

 

[Hawkins]

I did answer your question. The Bible promised it at baptism, does god not keep his promises? That is how I know I received him.

I do not believe god doesn’t exist, I don’t think there is sufficient evidence for a belief in a god.

What evidence do you need, can you give an example?

Under the New Covenant, humans are saved by faith. To a certain extent, you are not savable if God is evidenced.