Were Adam and Eve the first people?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by Beer w/Straw, Nov 14, 2018.

  1. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Are you telling me you don’t know what you lack belief in?

    It appears that to not believe in God, is to not know God. Of course from that position, it is reasonable to assume that you don’t believe in something that for you, does not exist.

    Of course you can simply accept there is no God, because you do not perceive God. While you could claim that you are not atheist, because you don’t know if there is a God. You do so while accepting there currently is no God

    Maybe, for a while. But eventually, the training wheels come off, and we are left w

    I understand that, but that is not really the issue. From your perspective, Abraham being a nut job, does nothing to show that God noes not exist. That being said, it shows that you can’t fully understand Abraham, nor his relationship with God.

    Jan.
     
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  3. Beer w/Straw Transcendental Ignorance! Valued Senior Member

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    You may be better at a answer at that than I am...
     
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  5. exchemist Valued Senior Member

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    Very funny (or just optimistic).

    Ardena has made his life's mission never to answer a question, but to turn it into another question he can ask you instead. Good luck.
     
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  7. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. That would restrict atheism to those who do not believe in the Abrahamic theist's monodeity, which would include some followers of obviously theistic religions even (let alone private or areligious theistic beliefs).

    There are many deities, and an atheistic person lacks all of them - not just God.
     
  8. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Tag what you like on it.
    It still remains the same.

    Jan.
     
  9. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Nope. You claim that people who practice Shinto are atheists, even though they believe in supernatural spirits and gods.
     
  10. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    You don’t know what you’re talking about?

    Jan.
     
  11. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    And that "same" is contrary to your ever-shifting and dishonestly motivated posting.
    Like this one:
    You are an agent of the Great Deceiver - to borrow your Scriptural language. Your agenda here is targeted personal disparagement - essentially, an ad hominem argument against reason and science.
    - - - - -
    They do not - as a matter of that religion (some are Christian, some belong to local sects which have deities) - believe in gods. Not even a Western-written Wiki description can fully obscure that - See the link above.

    And that is one protection they have against being sucked into Jan's minor hell - science and reason are much less of a threat to their basic worldview. They aren't founding themselves on the physical reality of stories like Adam and Eve's.
     
    Last edited: Nov 30, 2018
  12. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Good to see you are back up on your game today Jan.
    Do you believe Abraham existed or is he another construct.
    Alex
     
  13. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Moreover what I am wondering is when these stories went from verbal to written.
    Alex
     
  14. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    A question of which version of the Bible you're attending arises, but might be answered some pages ago.

    Job 28.20-21

    RSV↱: "Whence then comes wisdom? And where is the place of understanding? It is hid from the eyes of all living, and concealed from the birds of the air."

    NASB↱: "Where then does wisdom come from? And where is the place of understanding? Thus it is hidden from the eyes of all living and concealed from the birds of the sky."

    KJV↱: "Whence then cometh wisdom? and where is the place of understanding? Seeing it is hid from the eyes of all living, and kept close from the fowls of the air."

    It is, admittedly, a strange separation to modern and disbelieving eyes, but even after shrugging off the translation you present, the part about chasing down the root chay ("khah'·ē", חַי)↱ isn't exactly fun. The root occurs a lot in the Hebrew texts; the Strong's count is over five hundred. A perusal of Gesenius very quickly and easily suggests contextual themes reinforcing the basic separation or distinction; one can certainly perform their own analysis of the 501 verses according to source document languages, and it's true I'm not about to go write my own Hebrew-Chaldee lexical concordance.

    Such as it is, applications of chay having to do with people tend to involve other aspects than assertion of biological life. As an adjective meaning, "alive", "living", it comes back to, variously, people, God, and something about the relationship between them. There is a context of "lively, vigorous", and chasing this down runs through chayil (חַיִל)↱, including warlike strength and power, valor, wealth, moral fitness, and the poetry of Joel. A context of "reviving" clearly involves questions of divinity; the Lord speaking unto Abraham and Sarah in Genesis, and Elisha waxing poetic according to the same phrasing in 2 Kings.

    There is a reference to animals, having to do with the word "raw", in 1 Samuel 2.15 (KJV)↱, that one should offer raw meat unto the priest for sacrifice, not boiled: "for he will not have sodden flesh of thee, but raw". Gesenius notes Psalm 58.10 for a version of "fresh" having to do with plants, but it is actually in 58.9 (KJV)↱, and if we chase that down (châzâh, חָזָה)↱ we hit on colloquialism in two ancient languages, and a poetic context in Hebrew, including Ps. 58.9, and a comparison to a German word, asserted to be "dauen", which makes precisely no sense except that it does, because there is something I'm missing about Ps.58.9-10, châzâh, and chârôwn (חָרוֹן), and it simply cannot be that Gesenius has somehow transposed verses 9 and 10 without anyone noticing until now°. More to our purpose, the mess can serve as part of the point: How far down the rabbit hole should we run? There is, after all, springing and running water in Genesis 26 and Leviticus 14.

    And, having run through chay as an adjective, we now come to the second part of the Gesenius entry, listing substantive considerations, which in turn reflect many of the issues covered above: "life" as individual welfare in salutation, swearing an oath on the life of someone, as well as a plural form resulting in contexts regarding "breath of life" and the "tree of life", including notions of "long duration" and "immortality"; "refreshment" having to do with divinity, and also compared to salvation as expressed by Jesus (sōtēria, σωτηρία), in Luke 19.9 (KJV↱). Gesenius lists Psalm 34.13, but it looks to be verse 12 (KJV↱), involving life as "happiness". Last on the list is, "the way of welfare", which is life as moral propriety.

    Your analysis, "The source of wisdom is hidden from every living thing, including the birds", errs by presuming the word "including". The translation you present does not, on its face, preclude your interpretation, but the textual record does. There is nothing about Job 28.20 requiring that inclusion. The first part of the Hebrew runs, `alam `ayin chay (עָלַם). 'Alam (עָלַם) is the reference to the hidden, but also invokes also refers to blindness as a behavioral construct, and people who dissemble. 'Ayin (עַיִן) pertains, in its way, to the eyes. Chay (חַי), as we are now familiar, refers to life, or the living. Thus, hidden from the eyes of the living. Everything about that has to do with people, behavior, and God. The second half, cathar 'owph shamayim, does not rely on 'alam. Strong's defines cathar (סָתַר) as an act of hiding either literal or figurative, including "keep close", as KJV translates, and "be absent"; thus, God "keeps close" from the birds, or is "is absent" from the birds. 'Owph pertains to wing, and thus flight, and is used mostly as fowl and bird. Shamayim is just a strange root referring to being "lofty", generally applied to Heaven, sometimes to air, and once, apparently, combined with another root having to do with cutting and dividing, astrologers. In any case, the hidden quality of the source of wisdom is reiterated for the birds; there is no explicit or even implied inclusion about the phrasing, as the word "and" in the KJV rendering is a syntactical convention of the English language, and could just as easily be replaced with a comma.

    The strongest argument for your reading of inclusion is that you need it in order to maintain your imposition of definitions; it is easier to criticize one's own straw man, sometimes, than actually find the correct answer.

    Reading the back and forth, what emerges is an all too familiar pattern in which, between the evangelist who thinks he's smarter than the atheists, and the atheists who think they're smarter than the evangelist, none sound like they have a sufficient clue what they're on about to avoid missing the point while explicitly disputing the two creation stories in Genesis.

    So let's start at #9↑. And while it's true "mankind could not have come from two solitary humans", that statement has nothing to do with anything. Jan asks (#11↑) an obvious question, and Billvon responds with smarmy confidence in #12↑ and reiterated in #16↑; we should note he is, quite technically, wrong. Hint: That Jan is incorrect does not mean anyone else is necessarily correct. Clue: Her name is Lilith. It's messy; Jan need not inject the Quran as he did in #25↑, but he is in #30↑, saying, "That's not what [Genesis 3.20] says", more correct than Billvon; we come back to chay, in fact, which would separate Eve's descendants from those of Lilith, and that theme is reflected throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, and shows through in the Christian Scriptures°°.

    But we're also up to your citation of Gen. 3.20. Jan is correct in #32↑, but largely by accident; if he could explain the correct answer, he would have.

    Please recognize: In the question of who said what in the Bible and what that all means, the opposition without a clue have the least credibility. That's how you miss at #33↑, by imposing terms on the discussion that are your own, and also, on this occasion, fallacious; "It clearly does say" "the mother of all humanity" only by your own definition of "living", which is not supported by the literary record available to us, and contradicts the living reflections of that history we still witness today.

    It's one thing to this, that, and the other about God, or religion, or whatever, but the enlightened are supposed to have a clue.

    At this point, it's like watching a bunch of religious people argue with one another. It seems more about opposition than actually having a point. Still, even if another is relying on bad information, just making it up as you go is even worse.
    ____________________

    Notes:

    ° There are translation questions; Gesenius might have been using a German-language Bible, possibly the Luther Bible, and any number of questions might arise about its influence on Tyndale and later English-language Bible translators. The truth of my confusion about this and Psalm 34.12-13 is probably at least as entertaining as enlightening.

    °° Consider spiritual life and death, the idea of the Hebrews as Chosen, and the Christian attempt to usurp that covenant. Also, any who have ever joked about Adam and Eve, the rest of humanity, and incest should probably at least familiarize themselves with the idea of Lilith.​

    Works Cited Notes:

    The Revised Standard Version (RSV) of the Bible is linked to the University of Michigan↱; NASB and KJV, as well as commentary from citations from Strong's Concordance, and Gesenius' Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament, to BlueletterBible.org↱.
     
  15. iceaura Valued Senior Member

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    30,994
    No, he isn't.

    The use of "living" in tale-telling allusion to entities that would be aware of the kinds of things held to be concealed, entities that would have human mothers, entities whose evocation makes poetic sense in context, is ordinary and normal and standard.

    The idea that the storyteller means to suggest - to bring to the listeners's minds - the notion that the mysteries at issue are actively hidden, concealed, from trees and insects and such, is awkward and unmotivated, as is the notion that the poet is presenting to their audience Eve as some metaphorical mother of the Snake, and similar perverse impositions.

    And that is before someone launches into the way ludicrous - say, pointing out the language implies these mysteries are revealed to the nonliving. It might, in logical argument, but anyone who reads formal logical implications into the Bible is full of shit: we're listening to a story here.
    It is a run of the mill example - ok, better than that but still common - of a standard poetic technique, all but universal in oral traditions that include epic tales. It's not a separation, but a repetition with variation.

    Wandering back into context-supported suppositions of poetic reference can illuminate original text, but imposing formal philosophical and logical implications of argument on ancient poetry and storytelling is what misses the point.
     
  16. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    You still have questions that you haven’t faced up to as yet.
    I say let’s deal with those, and see if f there is any need to take the discussion to this whole other topic.

    Jan.
     
  17. Acitnoids Registered Senior Member

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    704
    Noah is a direct decedent from Adam and Eve. All life died during the global flood except Noah and his family. Ergo all humans alive today originate from Eve. I'll follow up on this in a min.

    Okay now I understand. You are Jewish. That would be the only reason to use the Tanakh. The entire New Testament is based on the Septuagint not the Tanakh. If it was based on the Tanakh then the Messiah would not have been born from a virgin, he would have been born from a "young female of childbearing age".

    I use the Septuagint as my root source.



    As my first post in THIS thread states; that is a moot point because all of mankind comes from Noah and his family, according to the text.

    Only a fool would base a conclusion on one verse. You have to read the whole story, Gen 6-8, in context.

    There is around 2,500 years of tradition that says the whole of mankind was destroyed. Matt 7 and Luke 17 both have Jesus saying just that. They are both basically the same story. Jesus is comparing the day of judgment, the coming of the kingdom of heaven, to the days of Noah and the flood. Those that are righteous and pure will find salvation. Those that are not will be destroyed.

    If you say that the flood was only local then this comparison would suggest the day of judgment would be local also. Why else would he use the day of judgment in Noahs time as an example of the end of days?

    The book of Enoch mainly concerns itself with the global flood as Enoch tries to talk God out of killing all living things on Earth. Just as Abraham did for Sodom and Gomorrah.
    http://wesley.nnu.edu/index.php?id=2126

    The Septuagint (the verses I use) say the exact opposite. The Earth can be part of the world but the world consists of all the heavens and the Earth. Here the true definition:
    https://www.kjvbible.org/theworlds.html[/quote]
     
    Last edited: Dec 1, 2018
  18. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    8,502
    My question is simple enough as would be yours if you could have responded to my request to supply the text upon which you seek my comment.


    I will google and get the facts but I would have preferred to have you provide your facts.

    Actually I dont think I will bother at all ... at the moment I am more interested in Summarian myths that seem to contain the original source of the Adam and Eve story and even yhe garden of Eden ....and they have left clay tablets made in those times which give a direct link to what they actually did say..I like the fact that we can read what they said on clay tablets as opposed to reading the bible which obviously is not a direct source having gone through various translations and occassions where the bible has undergone editing.

    The clay tablets are about as close as we get to what the authors actually said.
    Clearly an opportunity to understand the original myth.


    Alex
     
  19. Acitnoids Registered Senior Member

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    Are you reading the Epic of Gilgamesh? That would be the oldest account of the flood too heh.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
     
  20. sculptor Valued Senior Member

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    job has been considered the oldest at 6000 years bce
    however, that is currently being debated
     
  21. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Acitnoids likes this.
  22. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Thank you for your decency in taking the time to help.
    If only the Jans of this world could follow your magnificent example.
    Alex
     
  23. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Thats a relief I thought he was christian☺
    So maybe I was wrong Jan is not an atheist trying to discredit christians.
    Alex
     

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