Just learned. Genesi 1 doesn't actually depict the creation of the planet Earth

by srd 13 Replies latest jw friends

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  srd

  The ancient Hebrews, and their Yahweh included I suppose (can I say that here? Or do you'll prefer Jehovah?), didn't even know of the earth. Here's an excerpt from my post, the full text you can fnd here http://contradictionsinthebible.com/genesis-god-creates-dry-habitable-land-planet-earth/

  Thus far from presenting God creating Earth, a spherical planet orbiting a sun in one of many galaxies in infinite space (none of whose ideas existed to the authors of these texts and the God they portrayed in them), the text of Genesis presents its god forming the substance earth, that is dry habitable and flat land, from an initial formless, vacuous, and desolate piece of earth that now rests on the waters below and is encased within a finite area of space itself enclosed and defined by a solid domed barrier called the sky, which further functions to hold back the waters above!
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  objectivetruth

  Srd - Nice article.

  I don't have a lot of time to study it closely right now, but I believe that you're correct on several things.

  How do you view the 2 Creation Narratives? Gen 1 & starting at Gen 2:4

  Also have you read the Books of Adam & Eve? You will gain some really cool insights after reading these books..

  Essentially what I have come to understand is this :

  The Garden of Eden is what People now refer to as "Heaven", this is a proper description since it is possible that The Garden of Eden actually rested on top of the Firmament, (The Thick ice Barrier that was Destroyed for the Flood) - This is why when Adam & Eve were driven to the earth, it was such a Punishment.. The Garden of Eden is a place of Heaven & Earth combined, where as the Earth is primarily for the Animals.

  there are verses that point to this all though out the bible if you look for them.
• 

  srd

  OT, thanks.

  Yes, my commentary or close reading of Genesis will continue to cover chapter 2, where I will start showing, via textual data, that we clearly have the hand and ideas of a different author starting ar 2:4b. This is all part of a larger project --- a book against Creationists, wherein the first chapter --- Genesis 2 Creation Accounts --- attempts to demonstrate my 2 goals:

  1. To put forward the textual data that convincingly demonstrate the hand of two different authors for Genesis 1:1-2:3 and 2:4b-3:24
  2. To demonstrate that the depiction of the creation of the world and of mankind in both these accounts were conditioned and shaped by subjective and culturally formed beliefs and ideas about the nature of the world as perceived by ancient Near Eastern peoples and cultures. They are not, in other words, divinely dictated, divinely inspired, or objective descriptions. This claim will be supported by the textual data.

  I've so far posted on Genesis 1:1-2 showing that it is not a creation ex nihilo

  Genesis 1:3-5 showing that the ancient Israelites conceived of day as light, no need for sun

  and Genesis 1:6-8, the creation of our air-pocket in the midst of the primordial waters

  I now of the 1st c. book the Life of Adam, which is a Jewsih text afirming resurrection for Adam, and thus all mankind. May have influenced Paul.
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  HowTheBibleWasCreated

  The first creation narritive was borrowed from Babylonian stories (The second was too ). Here is a shocker:

  Gen 1:1- In the Beginning Elohim created the heaven and the earth.. <<< wrong translation. It reads this way:

  In the begining of Elohim creating the heaven and the earth the earth was formless and void and there was darkness on the surface of the waters etc....

  This live is word-word from the beginning of the Babylonian Enuma Elish epic. From here on the priest who wrote this formulted it into a montheistic sabbath based creation sotry with humans at the top.
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  HeyThere

  Genesis does have a verse that says God was moving over the watery deep....before the creation of anything...I have always wondered about that.

  I also believe that Heaven was the sky - they did not know about space etc. bck then - all the wild storms, floods, tornadoes, etc. were caused by God or whatever, to explain the destruction? This is just my preliminary thoughts on the matter.
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  DATA-DOG

  I think Valhalla is more believable than "heaven" being on an enclosure of ice around the Earth.

  DD
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  Finkelstein

  Anyone can play with the imagination of ignorant people who lived 4000 years ago and the stories they told.

  The ancients were full of imaginative expressive thoughts of how the earth came to be as well as themselves.

  Each civilization had their own inherently self conceived thoughts of gods and their specific deeds and works.

  .

  Interesting that some people still today believe what the ancient civilization's imagined, believed and

  even worshiped.
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  wizzstick

  But according to 2 Tim: 3:16 "All scripture is inspired".

  If there are problems with the Bible then it's not inspired.

  Simple.
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  OnTheWayOut

  As science has debunked the Bible and as people have discovered that science has done so, religion and strong believers keep coming up with more thoughts on literalness, allegory, symbolic, spiritual vs. actual, etc. of the Bible. But it has been going on for a long time now.

  Pope John Paul II said that the Bible does not teach how heaven was made but how one goes to heaven, hinting that people are free to ignore any and all literalness of the history within the Bible, especially the creation myth.

  Today's Christians seem able to accept evolution since it is so well founded in the facts, but accept creation in church and never have a problem with the two completely different ideas.
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  Finkelstein

  But according to 2 Tim: 3:16 "All scripture is inspired".

  If there are problems with the Bible then it's not inspired.

  .

  According to history individual ancient civilizations were inspired to tell many stories of their own particular god(s)

  Most were created as pictographs on temples of worship and some were told in written script form like the ancient Hebrews.