I can’t figure out any logical connection in that statement. Linearity has no impact on omnipresence.
But that’s not what your example did – it changed the meaning.
David used the Ephod. which gives the yes or no answer. To the writer it was as if God said yes.
Richard
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One could argue that those are “will happen if”, and then the antecedent gets changed, rather than God’s knowledge being incomplete.
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It is also consistent with with human freewill-choices determining how God will react. In other words, some aspects of the future might be left open and undecided (and unknown by God until they happen). In other words Open Theism, where the nature of the future is that it is (at least partly) open.
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The linearity of Genesis 1 is the sequence of events in the world after God “created the heavens and the earth”. In the created world, every event may be correctly understood as an effect of a particular action of God. But God wills the created realities to be related to each other. Thus, [almost] every event is causally dependent on some other events; likewise, every event is created in order to be a part of some sequence of events, some temporal series.
Therefore, every “particular action” of God fits into some kind of general order, which is characterized by causal and temporal relations. But all the “particular” divine actions are held together by the Word of God – who is himself God (John 1:1, 18), and through whom everything is created and sustained (John 1:3, 1 Corinthians 8:6, Colossians 1:16-17, Hebrews 1:2-3). This very Word encompasses the entire temporal reality – he is the first and the last (Revelation 1: 8).
Obviously, one may criticize me for invoking the New Testament while discussing Genesis; but I’ve already written that it’s the deliberate choice: whenever the New Testament writers discuss an Old Testament theme, their interpretation is naturally normative for Christians.
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I realize that the epistemic translation changes the meaning of Genesis. There would be no reason for having it or describing the translation as ‘epistemic’ if it had the same meaning as a traditional translation. It also has rules that can be applied to any translation of ancient literature.
One view, like that of John Walton, is that Adam and Eve were real people, even though that may not have been there name and that they were a couple used in a highly hyperbolic, mythicized story. Much like what we see throughout the Bible of the god calling out a few people. We calls out Moses and Aaron. He calls out David. He calls out the Hebrews as a whole. Even Jesus selected a handful of disciples and they wandered about. That god may have brought together a couple , or led two individuals together and set them apart as his chosen ones to bring his message into the world.
Then there is the seemingly more popular narrative in here that they were purely fictional. That Adam and Eve was written as a mythical poem condensing either the story of the Hebrews or mankind as a whole.’of us growing up, making wicked choices, going through life suffering all the while the god remains in contact with us.
Either story can work with reality and within the biblical story.
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I have visualized the apparent changes in what God tells as different potential paths in the future. Some paths have a blessing, others curses, some are ‘if … then’ paths. If someone changes the path, God’s ‘opinions’ or ‘attitude’ seem to change although in reality, nothing changes in the ‘mind’ of God. The only thing that changes is the location of the person in relation to the potential paths. So, if someone ‘jumps’ from a path with blessings to a path of curses, the messages and ‘opinion’ of God seem to change from speaking good to speaking judgement, and vice versa. If this visualization is close to truth, that would mean that we have at least some amount of free will. Otherwise we could not make decisions that shift our path to another one.
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In his book ‘The lost world of Genesis one’, John Walton lifts up the problems of translating using words that have an evident meaning in the current culture. Whatever words we use, all words are just pegs to hang ideas on and we have hanged different ideas and meanings to words than the ancient writers. For example, if we use the word ‘create’ and know everything about the use of that word, it does not necessarily help us to understand the creation story in Genesis one. We understand the word ‘create’ through our materially oriented culture and our interpretation of the creation story becomes different than what the writer intended. To understand the creation story in its original meaning, we need to understand the culturally loaded meaning of the original word (in the case of Genesis, the Hebrew word) instead of the translated word (create).
Walton argues that the original word (bara) was not used in the same sense as we use the word ‘create’ in our culture. The use of the ancient word did not seem to have as strong ties to the material reality and in most cases, did not refer to creation out of nothing (ex nihilo). I am not an expert and cannot therefore judge how well the claim holds in critical inspection but it seems that Walton did note something crucial in this matter.
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Foreknowledge does not mean foreordained.
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This highlights the challenge of any translation.
Furthermore, the impact on the original hearers had to be specific not just to the words but also to the implicit cosmology. Modern readers see Genesis 1:1-2 as two statements while that passage is one statement to the original Hebrews:
modern: God invented time, space, and matter; then we see the ancient cosmology in verse 2.
ancient: time space, and matter are stipulated and time has no beginning. God began creating heavens and earth out of the vast waters that had always been there.
To us moderns a Reality with an infinite past does not fit. Time, distance, and mass are co-relate. This provides a satisfyingly finite image: the apparent expansion of the universe began a finite time ago from an infinitesimal dot; the current universe expands so rapidly that light will never “catch up” to that expansion is satisfyingly finite. Some inconceivable actor / mechanism generated what we comprehend as a universe, full stop.
Consider the “conceptual space” of the ancient Hebrews: their implicit universe was at some prior point vast waters with no stated beginning, and God (also with no specific beginning) began to act on that eternal body of water in a way that resulted in firmament with water both above and below, and earth pulled out of that unguessable mass of water on Day Three, then commanded to bring forth plants.
The MEANING of the opening chapters of Genesis is that God is superior to the material world and affects it in creative ways.
Considering the modern realization that this universe, and time itself, having a finite beginning, imply an Uncaused First Cause. If it was sentient, that would be Almighty God, I AM. For the modern awareness to explain God’s act of Creation, it is useful to re-read those first two verses as God declaring ownership of both material and time itself, especially since verse two acts as a claim to ownership while forcing no connection to Creation as it reveals itself today.
Conclusion: Genesis is OF GOD yet does not conflict with GOD’s CREATION, given that God speaks to us at many times and in many ways. Creation itself is witness to God’s unparalleled act.
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In point of fact, Creation as it reveals itself to us denies the possibility of an Adam-Eve couple which had no parents. As being evolved, yes it is conceivable that such a couple did exist, but their significance as instigators of Original Sin is not part of material reality.
DNA tells us that one father of all future male lines and one mother of all future female lines do exist. Their connection to each other in one moment of time and one limited place is not possible.
The factor that condemns us to a life of sinfulness is, instead, evolution. The real world shows us that our antecedents, going all the way back to a First Cell 3.8+ billion years ago, universally did two things: the survived to reproduce, and reproduced. No one has a celibate direct-lien-of-parentage ancestor. In other words Natural Selection has super-tuned us to focus on things which violate a sinless life.
This is a theological Catch-22; God abhors sinfulness; all of humanity owes a blood debt. For this reason God’s Son took flesh to pay in full that awe-ful debt, both of blood death and ostracism from the presence of the Father. Jesus “spoke Psalm 22 into the record” by reciting its first line, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!” The psalm begins with a devastating image of a crucifixion, then transitions into an ending of reconciliation. The gospel message permeates this psalm. God is perfectly righteous,. and God in the form of Jesus pays the full cost for us, to cleanse us for presence with God in heaven.
That is just plain fallacy. Sin has no substance, nor genetic manufacture. There is nothing inherant because it cannot be transmitted or trnsferred. If selfishness is sin then that is the basis of all life: ie self preservtion (and continuance through progeny) But, as all life has this trait and almost a necesity for survival it becomeds par tof the original creation and not somthing humanity could have caused. Self interest is not, in itself a sin uness it causes harm to another. It is the difference between instinct and conscious thought. SIn is a result of conscious thought. As sentient beings we have the ability to overule our instinct and that ability does not rely on salvation.
Richard
Facts do not bend. Evolution is fact. Natural Selection is the Readers Digest condensed version of how it all works. God made the board and pieces; god did not “play the game” of evolution. It runs on its own. Of course God can and has intervened; but requiring every smallest act of evolution to have God behind it is (in my own opinion) a gross overstatement, a silliness that hamstrings God.
Causing harm to another is a tautology. We behave in this way continuously.
That is an oversimplification. Evolution is not a game. And running on its own is the contradiction of Scripture and the call for atheism.
Evolution is not self sufficient or capable of zero to humanity, no matter how much you or Mr Dawkins woulld like it ti be.
And my statement about proof and faith still stands.
Richard
All well and good that you have a faith. So does everyone else on this site.
But the bland assertion that “Evolution is not a game” misses the point. Evolution is a process equally to weather and tectonic plate movement.
Evolution is fact. When a fact seems to contradict Scripture yet arises from Creation, then the person to whom it seems that way is in error.
Find your own error; beliefs and faiths that falsify Creation are in error.
I hear rigid insistence on ideas that do not honor Creation.
Please hear this in Christian love - I speak “tough love” to someone of great connection to a faith but who ignores that Faith must honor Creation. When Creation disagrees with the literal text of Scripture, then we must work to understand. Begin with “My reading of that Scripture is based on flawed assumptions.”
I am inclined to accept the latter. It seems completely arbitrary to me to just believe a small core is historical when clearly 90% of the narrative is fabricated. How do you even know those details are true? And which ones? It’s pure guesswork. A small core that just happens to help keep whatever ideology we want it to? How convenient. And aside from David, I’m not sure if anyone else you mentioned actually existed. And in the case of David, the material is so heavily worked it’s hard to know what is historical and what is not about David. Who actually killed Goliath? I’m guessing not David. And the guy killed a man by putting him on the front lines so he could take his wife. Man after God’s own heart? Is that supposed to be comedy?
In my mind, the Garden story just doesn’t work the way people need it to. The first humans bring sin into the world. Well they weren’t the first humans and the world is filled with cancer, death, disease, hurricanes and life that must compete with, inflict pain and suffering on, and destroy other life to survive. I’m not interested in salvaging scraps from a biblical story. Some may find that necessary but to me that is just defeated and retreating apologetics that lacks intellectual integrity. I don’t look for historical kernels in the garden myth anymore than I do Atrahasis or the Epic of Gilgamesh. All are fiction and I presume any actual history is so lost and beyond recovery it is irrelevant. That is the key. History of these narratives is mostly irrelevant. For me reading the Bible is about God acting in the here and now through these stories. Any history is lost. Gone forever.
I can read the garden story and see myself in Adam. I can see society as a whole in Adam and Eve and it works. But I certainly don’t necessarily find the image of God it broadcasts to most people remotely moral or worthy of my worship if the story is true or original sin is real. Why? Because I am not a Bronze or Iron Age Jew and I don’t share that worldview, conception to God, conception of people, family life, women, etc.
Jesus selecting 12 disciples to symbolize the restoration of the 12 tribes of Israel has no bearing on the historicity of OT narratives and you know this.
Saying something is logically possibly is about as weak an argument for historicity one can make.
Vinnie
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I don’t believe in original sin.
What I meant, is that a couple could have existed, humans just like any other humans, who was chosen and set apart by God like he did dozens of others and used in myths or hyperbolic stories.