Half Lives Havn't Changed

[Guest mscoville]

I'm not unsettled. Sorry about my name there. I was recently called suspended brain for being a young earth believer. Greek or english I think is irrelevent here. If you need a measuring stick as you say and we don't have one, then your suggested interpretation doesn't work either. Both would be negated.

Anyway. I'd like to ask you the same questions I've asked and never had answered. If the earth is billions of years old where did sin come from? Was Adam the first man? Or the First actual homosapien? Or is he a made up story? Why would one man (representation of Adam as Paul said), Christ, have to die, since one man, Adam, brought sin into the world. If he is a made up story and we don't believe he was real. Do we trust the parting of the red sea? If not, why believe Christ was raised from the dead? It's all God's miracle. 6 days is what the word says, and Christ is the word. I trust him.

Please believe I love you and I'm not angry. I believe if you're a believer in the Resurrection of Christ you are as saved as me. I've just not had the time or inclination lately to express my love of my fellow believers in my posts. I'll try to get back at it.

God Bless you sis.

[Steff]

Strservant:

Steff,

Please accept this as it is intended. I'm not trying to be offensive at all just informative. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew not Greek, therefore to find the styles of writing one would need to look at Hebrew writings. Again no offense intended.

Respectfully,

Strservant

I realize this, but most of the translations used have been from the greek text. But the question then is either the Greek or Hebrew poetic in nature? Also being that different people wrote different portions of scripture how do we know it was meant to be poetic and not just the writers writing style?

Mscoville:

Please believe I love you and I'm not angry. I believe if you're a believer in the Resurrection of Christ you are as saved as me. I've just not had the time or inclination lately to express my love of my fellow believers in my posts. I'll try to get back at it.

God Bless you sis.

I understand your frustration, Second I'm a guy so please don't call me sis . My Board name is another topic.

As for your questions about Sin, death and Adam lets see:

from Genesis:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the

field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam

to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called

every living creature, that was the name thereof.

Notice it doesn't say when every beast and fowl was created, at least not in a specific manner. It has always been assumed God created them there, but you know what happens when you assume .

I'm having trouble finding the verse where death is brought into the picture. I see mention of evil being let into the world but not death. I may need a reference from you for this one. Being that as it may I would not associate death with evil but rather death being a natural process in a cycle of life. So I will concede man letting evil into the world but not death, at least not yet =).

Now where did Adam come from? In my mind God "created" him through evolutionary process. Perhaps he saw a form he was happy with between all the creatures he created and chose one to cast his image upon (which I take to mean spirit). Adam did bring sin upon the world by eating from the fruit of the tree with Eve, however I think the true instument of sin was the serpent.

[Osiris]

Anyway. I'd like to ask you the same questions I've asked and never had answered. If the earth is billions of years old where did sin come from? Was Adam the first man? Or the First actual homosapien? Or is he a made up story? Why would one man (representation of Adam as Paul said), Christ, have to die, since one man, Adam, brought sin into the world. If he is a made up story and we don't believe he was real. Do we trust the parting of the red sea? If not, why believe Christ was raised from the dead? It's all God's miracle. 6 days is what the word says, and Christ is the word. I trust him.

Hi mscoville, I have asked the very same questions.

I've even thought of something that might explain Genesis.

Animals don't know that they die, they only live for the present. They don't have the concept of tomorrow, they have no concept of death, so to their reality, their is no death, they are immortal. God might have told pre-homosapiens (adam&eve) not to eat from the tree of knowledge(symbolical to something). And just like dogs are trained to be obedient, adam and eve were obidient, they did not sin just like cats can't sin, for animals don't know that their actions have consequences. So, after pre-homosapiens eating from the tree of knowledge, they evolved into intelligent beings, they reasoned and could think about tomorrow, realised about their immortality, and to their reality they did die. And we are able to sin because we know what the consequences for our actions might bring.

I don't know if this might explain everything, it makes sense to me. But not all of Genesis is about Adam and Eve and I do believe that the earth and the universe are much older than 6,000 years old. This is were my disbelief comes in

[Guest mscoville]

Howdy Brothers,

Now we're gettin somewhere.

I would not associate death with evil but rather death being a natural process in a cycle of life.

Genesis 3

22 Then the LORD God said, "Behold, the man has become like one of (1) Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might stretch out his hand, and take also from (2) the tree of life, and eat, and live forever"-- Genesis 3

23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden, to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. (NASB)

Man was condemned to die for the first time. Being removed from access to the tree of life in the Garden. King James renders it this way

Genesis 3

22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

The Bible says all the birds and animals were created on the 5th and 6th day respectively and of course man on the 6th. That's one day ahead of man or on the same day. He might have brought them to be named a number of days later, but we know the man was named Adam. He was created on the 6th day.

If man is created in an evolutionary process, what about the amount of death prior to man was exactly "good" in God's eyes after he created it? Also isn't it just that sin was programed into us? I mean it's our nature? Doesn't that mean God made us sinful and we're not responsible for our actions, but rather God is responsible. Also, Christ dies as the one man who can bring righteousness because Adam was the man responsible for bringing sin into the world.

Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned

[Steff]

001:001 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

001:005 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called

        Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

001:008 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the

        morning were the second day.

001:013 And the evening and the morning were the third day.

001:019 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Rather than drag it out you get the idea.

Then you have:

002:004 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when

        they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth

        and the heavens,

We know the Hebrew word for day is Yom, but yom also means age (an undisclosed amount of time). In this case day doesn't mean day.

Also you said:

Romans 5:12

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned

[Steff]

Rather than Pollute SA's thread here Mscoville lets start a new one for this discussion.

[Guest mscoville]

Howdy,

We know the Hebrew word for day is Yom, but yom also means age (an undisclosed amount of time). In this case day doesn't mean day.

Fortunately we have the context in Genesis 1. The word yom is qualified by day and night. Please don't go there with the no sun day and night jazz. In Genesis 2 we have a different context for yom, showing that it was written after the fact. At least we should be able to agree that if you read it correctly in context in chapter 2 you should also in chapter 1.

Notice how it says death came to man, not animals this way. In my mind before god put man in the garden death was still around for animals, just not for man once God had breathed his spirit into him. Death came to man because he was no longer able to eat of the tree of life.

The origination of sin was the disobedience to God done by Adam and Eve so that doesn't change.

Just more conjecture. You're right about it not mentioning animals. But what does that have to do with anything? Paul tells us later how the whole creation was subject to pains because of the fall. Were Adam and Eve animals? Were they human? Were they made on the sixth day or the 60,000,000,000th day? The Bible says they were made as humans, on the 6th day. It seems clear. It's only clouded when we bring in info from outside the word of God. When we add the words of men. yadda yadda.

I agree with you, but how then can you call any verse in the bible poetic if this if you can't call it symbolic? We know that many of the stories were oral tradtions before they were written down, maybe the exact wording is lost to us, but the message is the same, God created the earth. Now we are just missing details of how long.

Because some is poetry. Are the psalms the same as the account in Genesis? We know they aren't. Which is Ecclesiastes most like, just in your opinion when you read it. Genesis is an account. It's quite different. But don't read me on the subject. Read Christian and Jewish Hebrew scholars who aren't looking for a loop whole or alternate reading. Who are looking to tell you what Genesis says.

Once again you have to excuse me if the real contradiction exists with old earth believers who deny what Genesis says in favor of science. God doesn't want us to be fools but he made it quite clear that we'd be thought fools because of our beliefs. Reason is a major part of why I believe in Christ. It think it's all quite plausible. Then you bend your knee and the Holy Spirit takes over from there. Hopefully if you're on the more pentacostal side of things, you even get a nice jolt of God's love in physical form.

Science in a number of years isn't going to figure out how a man with the wounds Jesus had who had been dead for 3 days came back from the dead. That is the "myth" that is the primary source of your faith and mine. If you can't believe Genesis you can't believe that either, since there is not a single shred of scientific evidence, and scientific evidence is entirely what is causing your problems with Genesis.

God Bless you family,

Martin

Edited June 4, 2004 by mscoville

[Guest mscoville]

I agree with you, but how then can you call any verse in the bible poetic if this if you can't call it symbolic? We know that many of the stories were oral tradtions before they were written down, maybe the exact wording is lost to us, but the message is the same, God created the earth. Now we are just missing details of how long.

Somewhere in here I missed a point. I never said that there was no symbolism in the Bible. I was saying, where poetic license is employed you are more free with the meanings or interpretation of words. In Psalms, even in Job, in many sections of the Bible, there is amazing, beautiful poetry. Then there are accounts, like the Gospels, like Genesis. Like the Books of Kings and Chronicles. The two are different and must be read so. There are a lot of good books on this, and we should be able to under the guidance of the spirit and our own sense, see which is which.

~M