Sure. The beholder’s share. What we bring to the party.
To me, I dont see a problem noting that the first chapters of Genesis are repurposed from ANE myths. Thats sort of the whole point anyway - God is showing people a difference between who He is claiming to be versus the caananite gods in the cultures around them.
That it could be a retelling (in a different light) is no conflict to me - it makes sense. God is speaking into a specific culture telling them specific things - many of which are lost on us as modern westerners.
Now how you feel about what is being said may differ from individual to individual, but thats not the point of this thread.
Sorry, had to edit this a few times due to auto correct on my phone
3 Likes
Because of the common existence of a flood in ANE and other ancient culture narratives, I am inclined to believe something happened significantly in the collective human memory that was somewhat like that. I think this was likely a significant localized flooding event in a certain ancestral population of humans, probably some glacial flood or the like given the time frame humans have existed in. But the fine details of it are not so important to me for understanding the text.
But given the widespread nature of the myth among cultures, it may go further back than we can possibly know.
2 Likes
That’s my take as well. Even in modern culture we take old stories and refresh them, such as “The Lion King” being a retelling of “Hamlet” and “Oh Brother, Where Art Thou” being a retelling of “The Odyssey”. Myths have always been tool that humans use to communicate deeper philosophical and theological lessons.
5 Likes
I never thought of it that way but it’s true – and it would explain where all the water went: it drained off to form the rest of the oceans.
LOL – nice.
2 Likes
It strikes me that this fits with a theme Jesus used: “You have heard it said . . . but I say to you”. In the opening of Genesis the writer is taking the stories everyone knew and recasting them. Overall, the argument is just a repetition, “Those guys aren’t gods, YHWH-Elohim is God!” with some additional lessons tacked on.
And many of which are quite deliberately (or possibly just ignorantly) thrown in the trash by treating the text as newspaper reports.
5 Likes
After I posted, I thought about the exact same thing!
2 Likes
I see it this way. It seems to be a myth. Does not seem to be historical in any meaningful way.
-
Was there a named named Noah and only he and his family survived the flood globally? No.
-
Was there a man named Noah and only he and his family survived the flood locally? Probably not.
-
Was there a man named Noah who survived any kind of flood and his stories became what we see in the Bible? Probably not. His name seems to be symbolic and means rest, comfort or peace and is connected into several potential reasonings for it. Such as part of the cursed ground being lifted.
-
Was a giant boat built to house two of every animals globally to locally? No.
-
Did God cause a flood to come and kill almost everyone? Probably not.
-
Before this story or event, if real, occurred relatively new in human history was everyone vegetarian? No.
So everything seems to be a myth. Why would some big flood be the only literal thing? Seems to just be a reinterpret of older stories.
Dont you start me on another tangent…
Vegetarians that didnt eat plants … because PLANTS ARE ALIVE , parts of plants are alive , cells of plants are alive……and the whole “ death didn’t exist before the fall “ assertions because God didnt understand botany???…or …ummm.. yeah
Just highlighting that it mentions animals were not eaten until after the flood. That implies vegetarianism beforehand. There has never been a time when all humans were vegetarian.
However I don’t think the death and plant argument is legitimate. Science does not lean towards plants being conscious beings. I’ve been a vegan for almost two decades and I’m a huge fan of botany and while plant intelligence is cool, there is no consensus that they are conscious beings.
Hi!, this probably belongs in the ‘humour’ thread, but since we’re on the topic of murdering vegetables, I thought you’d get a kick out of this folk song by the Canadian band The Arrogant Worms. The song title: Carrot Juice is Murder:
3 Likes
Well … conscious or not .. plants are alive, they fill all the prerequisites for living beings.
If death didnt exist before adams fall , as YECs maintain, then God gave them plants to eat according to the genesis account , but they didnt eat any … making the verse concerning God providing them pointless.
Or they did eat them and death existed prior to “ the fall “, rendering the verses in the NT yecs use specific to human death and not all life … ruining the common YEC anti evolution/ death argument “ death entered the world through adams sin “ .
Life is life … no matter how intelligent… coma patients may not be self aware … unconscious people arent necessarily self aware .
Further, we have a bad habit of looking down on less complex lifeforms and making unsubstantiated assumptions .
There have been some very interesting studies suggesting plants may be self aware , using a non centralized nodal nerve network, a form of a non centralized nervous system… A plant version something like what we see in some invertebrates.
Its worth a google search …
I’m not willing to rule it out simply because we’re uncertain.
Either way … they are alive .
If God didnt know we’d learn plants were alive and kept vital information out of the bible ..hes essentially authoring confusion.
2 Likes
I imagine you’re were many don’t have that particular issue, including myself.
I’m not a YECist. I don’t even believe in any form of intelligent design.
Within the story given us, even outside of accomondationism, I don’t see plants as living beings as in something with a soul. I don’t see mushrooms with that either. Nor slime mold. I think it’s centered around Animals including humans. But the issue of no death before the fall, and plants being eaten is not an issue to me. Even if I was a yecist it’s a meaningless counter argument to me in theological discourse just as much as it is in Animals rights issues. Like ahh…. Plants scream when you eat them and so therefore it’s ok I make pigs suffer because eating their corpses. We’re on in the same. I just don’t see it that way
Suffering… a cut plant part can live for several days , the plants in your crisper are frequently alive weeks …
The process of cloning ( rooting cuttings) operates on this very basic fact .. storing cuttings for later rooting is often done in a crisper .
If a plant is self aware … that in sime ways is worse than the quick death at a meat processing facility.
I dont distinguish life based upon my inability to imagine its senses or lack there of .
Life feeds upon life , animal life , plant life … Its all food for something else eventually.
As a hunter and fisherman, gardener and forager … i accept that i take life to sustain my own , and I make it a point to appreciate the life i take.
You certainly dont have to agree , we each must ultimately decide for ourselves how we value ..everything.
I do wonder though , where do you draw the line…are tardigrades alive ? Are they moving creatures that hath life ? How about zooplankton ? Algae ? Starfish? Worms ?
How complex does life have to be to qualify as a living thing who’s “ soul is in God’s hand “ as suggested in the book of Job ?
The lily, the sparrow … how significant are they ?
2 Likes
I skimmed it. I’ve had this conversation a 10,000 times over 20 years. I don’t see a need to repeat myself. It was already absently clear.
Do you eat animals? If so… maybe worry about your line drawing first. Also just so you know. I won’t be reading anything else you post to me. Feel free to write. Just know if it’s to me, I won’t see it and so I won’t respond to it.
I eat everything. I have no delusions about it .
Life eats life . I draw no line beyond what is generally safe .
We share common ancestry with it all .
Thank you for the conversation. Have a good evening.
2 Likes
BUT I think it WAS all of humanity, because I define humanity differently. The first civilization built from the ideas inherited from the communication of God with Adam and Eve, rather than just the species with only the DNA inheritance from the primates.
1 Like
Worldviews and definitions are important here. Plants fulfill the modern criteria of life, therefore we think that they are alive.
ANE worldview was different. Although they did not usually define criteria for concepts or words, being alive was understood differently. The border between living and dead was somewhat unclear because moving matter was described as being ‘alive’, for example running water was ‘living’ water. Breathing was another criteria. Plants did not move or breath (visibly), so they did not fulfill the criteria of being living organisms (nephesh chayyah; sometimes translated as ‘living souls’).
If we consider ANE cultures more widely, the border between living and dead becomes even more fuzzy. For example, ancient Egyptians had a worldview where existence was ‘layered’, including both the visible and invisible properties. When an ancient Egyptian watched the earth, he saw simultaneously the material that formed the soil (visible upper layer) and the god (Geb) that was himself the earth. When they placed burial gifts with the dead, those gifts were assumed to be simultaneously in the grave (the material ‘existence’) and with the dead person in the land of dead (the invisible existence). In such a worldview, even unmoving material like earth could have a living ‘dimension’.
2 Likes
I understand that , yet another reason why “ the word of God “ seems to only be as advanced as the people in a specific region and the time era it was recorded .
This was ultimately my original point before it became a tangent concerning plant self awareness.
I frequently address YEC arguments , because in my opinion, they are the most aggressive towards theistic evolution/ evolutionary creationism .
1 Like
The word ‘advanced’ can be understood in many ways. Your expression seems to assume that ‘advanced’ means the modern materialistic worldview that gives much weight to the knowledge that has been obtained through scientific research. The ANE people did not have that, yet we could think that they were as ‘advanced’ as we are in some other aspects.
Anyhow, if you meant that we need to take the worldview of the original receivers into account when we interpret the text, I agree with you. Interpreting the ancient biblical scriptures solely through our modern worldview will distort the interpretation in ways that miss much of the original message and twist the messages to something that was not the intention of the writer.
2 Likes