by EdenOne 154 Replies latest watchtower bible
This brings the following questions to mind:
Why is man older than the Biblical Adam?
Where did Cain get his wife from and why would he and his wife build a city for two people?
Who was Cain afraid of would kill him as revenge for his brother's death if there were only three people alive (Adam, Eve and Cain)
EdenOne,
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What I find interesting is that the "garden" or "paradise" of GOD is in the spiritual realm. The paradise is in heaven when mentioned in the Bible. The term " paradise Earth " does not exist. So where was the "garden" that Adam and Eve were cast out of? Have you seen the movie Thor? Asgard is the " Eternal realm." Perhaps it was something similar? Why are there so many stories and legends about an eternal realm? To be cast out of God's paradise, if it was an eternal realm with an entrance on the Earth, would be quite the fall. To go from being created with the purpose of subduing the Earth, to dying upon it, would be a major punishment.
What about the Cherub assigned with watching Adam and Eve? Did it really use a snake? Why would a literal snake be used as a puppet by a spirit being? I doubt that there ever was a talking snake. A spirit being that Adam and Eve were already familiar with is more likely, IMO. Anyway, it's fun to think about. It's way more interesting than a WT study.
DD
Almost ALL translations have "to make one wise" or "desirable for obtaining wisdom"...
The NWT (and RNWT) purposely ignore this because it would show how cruel God is, and how he entrapped the Adam & Eve.
*compare verses: http://biblehub.com/genesis/3-6.htm
prologos: You seem to imply that both evolution and direct creation are true. the prehistoric human(oids) evolved, we were a direct creation? our whole ? or just our Humanity part?
Cofty: who did humanity descend from - Adam and Eve or evolved humans?
In my scenario, modern mankind descends mostly from humans who evolved. Cain married a woman from the "others" (not his sister, not his niece); Seth probably did the same. The Bible is only concerned to tell us how the male line descends from Adam until Abraham, and from Abraham to David, and from him to Jesus Christ. It appears that as early as the second generation after Adam and Eve were already interbreeding with other Homo Sapiens that lived outside Eden. Since the "original sin" is, in my view, the loss of sonship towards God, it made no sense to keep on preserving the descendants of Adam and Eve from contact with the other humans outside Eden. The purpose of the geneology preserved in the Bible is to trace a line of heritage between the "son of God" Adam and the "Son of God/Son of man", Jesus. Since the DNA from Adam and Eve was a copy of some other Homo Sapiens, there isn't any evidence left from a separate ancestral line of DNA. We are all humans.
Eden
EdenOne, how do you rationalize the two conflicting beliefs: evolution and creation?
How could Adam & Eve lose perfection after hundred thousands years of human evolution still in process?
Were their parents perfect? Grandparents?
Also, can you please give us the references for what you state here; " in my view, the loss of sonship towards God, it made no sense to keep on preserving the descendants of Adam and Eve from contact with the other humans outside Eden"?
How do you know that?
___
*Just so you know my background: ExJW, atheist, and I can believe there MAY be a creative force behind life... but I totally dismiss the cruel Abrahamic god character and its biblical folklore.
braincleaned:
how do you rationalize the two conflicting beliefs: evolution and creation?
How could Adam & Eve lose perfection after hundred thousands years of human existance?
In my hypothesis, Adam and Eve were created as a separate human couple in a time where this planet was already inhabited by human populations who evolved over the course of millions of years. What made this couple special was the fact that they were "sons of God", with a spiritual bond between them and their maker. The "original sin" [what in one of my articles I call Primary Sin] is about losing their sonship towards God by their disobedience. Their descendants after them were already born without this special spiritual bond. By interbreeding, they became just like the other humans already in existence, subject to sin [what i call "derivative sin"]. Actually, to start with, there was nothing in their DNA that would make them any different from the other humans already in existence, except the fact that they have been created directly by God and were, therefore, their children.
With Adam and Eve, God gave mankind the possibility to rise and overcome physical decay and death by accessing the spiritual realm after their existence on earth was over - thus the meaning of eating from the "tree of knowledge" and from the "tree of life". They would ultimately eat from those - but on God's chosen time, not theirs. Unfortunately, Adam and Eve wasted that gift and thus wasted it also for their descendants after them. Mankind remained without hope. Christ came to restore the "sonship" towards God by means of a redemption.
Edit: So that you know my background, I'm an active JW who happens to have a substancial amount of unorthodox positions compared to the WTS.
Eden
It seems to me you are suggesting that all of us on earth are descendant from A&E — otherwise, Jesus did not need to be perfect to 'save' all humanity.
Or do you think that some humans today are descendants of other branches — not needing Jesus' sacrifice, for not being descendants of A&E?*
This said, I appreciate your honesty in admitting this is your hypothesis, and that you have no other reference for this idea.
Don't have time now, but the context of both the Bible and what science says contradicts the hypothesis.
In fact, there is no way to rationalize evolution and creation being coherent with each other. We can discuss this when I'm less busy.
Are you willing to reconsider your conclusions?
edit * Vestigial organs and genes that are "turned off" prove that most of us are descendants from imperfect evolution.
So I don't see why the sacrifice of Jesus was needed "for all Nations" — you see the problem?
It seems to me you are suggesting that all of us on earth are descendant from A&E — otherwise, Jesus did not need to be perfect to 'save' all humanity.
No, I haven't suggested that at all. I said that A & E's descendants mixed with the rest of mankind, so today there is no trace of them to be singled out in our genes. There's a distinct probability that there were many people living on earth in Jesus' time that didn't have any direct link to Adam and Eve. However, all of them lacked that "sonship" towards God. That lacking is THE primary sin that condemns mankind to final death. Nowhere in the Bible you can find a direct link between sin and ageing - that's JW theology. (Btw, nowhere in the Bible you find God promising Adam and Eve that they would live forever on earth). You find a suggestion that sin is linked with illness, yes. But not ageing. Jesus came to offer to mankind what Adam and Eve failed to provide - eternal life in an eternal realm, through sonship with God.
Eden
Braincleaned,
You insist of tying physical "perfection" with the absence of the "original sin". That's besides the point. I don't think that Adam and Eve were necessarily "perfect" in the physical sense. Perfection encompasses the notion of "fit to the purpose; complete". The perfection of Adam and Eve was about being complete with that spiritual bond with God, the "sonship" that other humans lacked. It doesn't necessarily mean that Adam and Eve would not age, get a flu, have an accident or die, like all other humans. It merely meant that they would die a final death without any access to the spiritual, eternal realm. This is the reason that God told them that "on the day" they would eat the fruit, they would die. If God was talking about a physical death, they would have to be instantly executed. But God was talking about their eternal life that was tied with their sonship. By losing their sonship, they were as good as dead from the day the ate the fruit onwards.
Eden
This is an interesting hypothesis, but it does have problems.
Again, I ask you if you are willing to reconsider your convictions on this?
I ask because if you are not willing, then we are both wasting our time discussing, and your hypothesis is not really other than a gut feeling of truth. Fair enough?
* Maybe I'm wrong, but the subject of aging seems like a red herring to the questions I posed above.
I'll address it, although I don't see the subject of aging relevant.
You say "Nowhere in the Bible you can find a direct link between sin and aging"…
— About Abraham, in Genesis 25:8 it says: “He took his last breath and died at a ripe old age, old and contented, and he was gathered to his people”
Abraham died at the recorded age of 175; Adam at 930… so let's think about that.
How is aging not clearly implied in the process of death by sin?
You say "nowhere in the Bible you find God promising Adam and Eve that they would live forever on earth."
— If I tell you that you will not eat if you do not accomplish a certain task, am I not implying that you will eat if you obey? Do you need to read expressly that God promised everlasting life? Does not Jesus' words in John 17:3 confirm that everlasting life was the idea all along?
