The Genesis Genealogies in their Cultural Context

[St.Roymond]

@adamjedgar

What actual evidence do you have the proves anyone should believe Christian faith?

Im pre empting your answer will be the New Testament Gospels.

Why? There’s enough evidence without the Gospels to “indict” Christ of having risen from the dead; the Gospels are corroborating evidence.

@adamjedgar

My next question is, if Christs ministry was largely his own words, what proofs did he have that he was who he claimed to be?

How can Christ claim to be a saviour if he has zero historicity to support his claims?

That’s two different questions – historicity was not necessarily involved in “proofs”, only authoritative writings.

@adamjedgar

Just as it was in the days of Noah…a flood came and swept them all away”

Clearly Christ believed that Noah was a real person.

“Just as at Hogwarts, the faculty was infiltrated by those with a political agenda.”

Does that make Hogwarts “real”?

@adamjedgar

they are considered literal history.

No ancient near eastern genealogy was considered “literal history”, which is tidily established by the fact that Matthew felt free to alter them.

[St.Roymond]

@paleomalacologist

Noah being a real person does not mean that we should therefore believe all the stuff that young-earthers have claimed about him and the Flood.

Thank you for saying that more diplomatically than what was in my brain.

@adamjedgar

I have to seriously question the notion that modern criminal investigative techniques are valid when its pretty clear that a scientist like yourself is suggesting the recorded evidence trail in the bible be completely ignored

A modern investigator would start by asking how ancient genealogies worked and would correctly conclude that they can’t qualify as objective evidence.

@adamjedgar

the erosion of pages of the bible in this way

What erosion? By insisting that the text be read as what it was to the original writer and his audience isn’t “erosion”, it’s restoration!

[St.Roymond]

@paleomalacologist

The fact that there is variation between the numbers for the ages here (and in other numbers where we have multiple copies, e.g., how many people returned from Exile in the tallies in Ezra, Nehemiah, and I Esdras) shows that copying errors limit our ability to know precisely what the original numbers were. God has preserved the text; as you point out, these variations are not something which any theologically responsible group has made the basis for significant doctrines (e.g., not considering snake handlers as exemplifying sound theology). Given the variations, it is reasonable to conclude that the exact numbers are not the point of the inclusion of the passages in Scripture. But young-earth creationism insists that calculating a fairly precise date of creation is an important theological issue.

Nicely stated! That God doesn’t care about a lot of details in the text is one of the first lessons from seeing the critical apparatus that lists only those variations regarded as significant yet are found on every page!

@paleomalacologist

You keep bringing up the fact that Jesus and Peter refer to Noah as if that proved that young-earth creationism and flood geology were true. But Noah’s existence does not tell us how extensive the Flood was.

Quite so.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

Whether the genealogies work or not Adam couldn’t have fathered all of humanity. The bible itself shows this.

There are aliens around who would want to kill Cain.

Any people termed “gentile” are not descended from Abraham.

Egyptian records parallel Jewish ones, rather than stem from them

Likewise Roman, Greek, Assyrian let alone the more distant peoples Scripture knows nothing a out.

And this is ignoring genetic and incestuous arguments.

Richard