Why didnt God just cut down the Tree of Life?

SO why do you refuse to do that? You clearly read it from a MSWV, not as the ancient literature it is. You really ought to try letting the Bible be what it is rather than deciding what it looks like to you and insisting that you must be right!

Nope – that’s a human tradition, the text doesn’t say so, and a natural reading of the text in the original tells us it isn’t the case.

It only really shows the signs of historical narrative once you get to the time of Samuel, possibly the judges, but even then theology dominates.

Sorry, but you only “know” that because you’re assuming that the documents were written within a MSWV. The basic premise of YEC is that the definitions of truth that come from scientific materialism apply to the Bible. That ignores the nature of literature, it ignores the historical context, it even ignores grammar and the ordinary use of language.

1 Like

Why do you keep bringing up something that only you have ever suggested? It makes you look very shallow, as though you have so little respect for others that you just slot everything that others say into preset categories, whether what people have said fits those or not.

Nope – that ignores the fact that they are two different books (indeed Genesis itself is a collection of different sources) in different types of literature.
It’s like saying that if electrons aren’t really little balls zipping about atomic nuclei then Neils Bohr was all wrong – or maybe like saying that if Zeno’s ideas disagree with quantum physics then quantum electrodynamics is wrong.

1 Like

Okay, you told us what category you keep slotting people here into. Now try having enough respect to listen to what people are actually saying.

I “know” because i can read and cross reference to ensure i have the context and therefore the meaning.

You straw pluck and intentionally do not cross reference on this topic…you dont do that because doing so is devastating to your theological claims.

Cross referencing is a standard requirement in academia (apparently you have never been taught that habit).

We cross reference to ENSURE CONSISTENCY in interpretation and belief…thats how this process works.

For you to claim “shallow” is laughable…you dont even use any internal biblical references in order to support your theology and the belief that comes from it.

So in reality, shallow is a view devoid of referenced support and therefore, your comment about this makes your attack there either ignorant or just a flat out liar btw.

Slotting people into? What are you talking about…now you are trying to use the “poor me defense”?

For goodness sake, address the claim and its reference …if you cant do that, then your credibility as someone who claims to have been educated to university level is bogus!

St Roymond, the reference above is specifically used because it proves my point about Logical Consistency…ie Logical Conclusion.

The logical conclusion for a story that starts off as an allegory…IT ENDS AS AN ALLEGORY!

That is the reality of your twisting of scripture to avoid a literal historical reading of Moses early writings…because of that, you stuff the whole biblical narrative into an allegorical conclusion.

I can throw a straw plucked bible text at you that even supports my claim there…Matthew 28:11-15

I can easily use your same reasoing (that the bible is an allegory) to prove the claim that this story about the ressurection is part reality and part allegory…that in fact the disciples really did steal hjs body away, and that the part where the priests supposedly told the soldiers to lie…thats a later insertion into the text by Christian scribes trying to promote a christian myth about christs resurrection…which the jews still maintain to this day isnt true btw, they claim Christ never raised from the dead…he wasnt the messiah.

We cant prove that claim wrong there because the earliest manuscripts we have are about 250-300 years after the crucifixion and there are more than enough other examples where manuscripts have been modified by later scribes to support such a claim.

This is why cross referencing and consistency in theology are important…the earliest part of the narrative must be consistent with the rest of it…

so if you read the first part of the bible as allegory, then so is the rest! That meams salvation is a fairytale…nothing more than a story about morality…there is no real.second coming, no life after death.

You can try to calm yourself by claiming, oh its only spiritual. Trouble is, science doesnt believe in spirits…the very notion of them is nonsense, they arent real. Add to that the then theological problem that Revelation 21 is clearly not talking about a spiritual place…its very specifically talking about a real heaven, a real earth, and real people. That is also consistent with Christ turning to doubting Thomas in the upper room amd saying, look at the scars on my hands and put your hand in my side…Christ is claiming the resurrection is real, its physical amd because you screw around claiming Genesis 1-11 is allegory, mathew 24 and 2 peter 2 are allegory, then (because of the rules of logical consistency and logical conclusion) you immediately stuff up the credibility of the belief the second coming is real!

“Note the last statement in the image above”

For any statement, it is either true or false…THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND!

Which you do based on a MSWWV.

Your worldview shows every time you claim that Genesis is giving scientific information. But I keep asking, where does Genesis say it intends to provide such information?

Cross referencing as a way of understanding documents is flawed from the start – you have to start with the documents in their own worldview and setting. You instead force your worldview onto the documents, so all that your cross-referencing will ever do is reinforce your worldview – you’re going in circles.

Internal biblical references are insufficient for reading the Bible. Limiting yourself to them results in never even understanding what you’re reading. The Bible doesn’t tell you itself what kinds of literature it uses, you have to look outside to find that out; the Bible itself doesn’t tell you how Hebrew grammar works, you have to look outside to find that out; the Bible doesn’t even tell you what the words mean, you have to go to linguistics to find that out!

These are all foundational, part of the historical-grammatical method that YEC claims to follow but tramples right and left. You’re trying to skip the foundation, which means all you will ever get is your own thoughts, you will never see what Moses or anyone else intended. And when presented with facts about the documents, e.g. that the first Genesis Creation account is a reworking of the Egyptian creation story, you deny the facts and replace them with your personal MSWV.
That is all shallow; it is in fact blind – you’re like the aliens in Galaxy Quest, not even knowing what kind of literature you’re looking at.

That;s a lie and you know it. You have in fact never even commented on my theology; for your convenience, here it is again:

I believe in one God, the Father, almighty maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen.
I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the uniquely-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages/worlds;
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God;
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father;
by whom all things were made:
Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven,
was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the virgin Mary,
and was made Man;
and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered and was buried,
and on the third day He rose again in accordance with the scriptures,
and ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father;
and He shall come again in glory to judge both the living and dead;
whose kingdom shall have no end.
I believe in the Holy SPirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father,
who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified;
Who spoke by the prophets.
ANd I believe in one catholic and apostolic church;
I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins;
I look for the resurrection of the body*, and the life of the world to come.


*yes, that’s imported from the Apostles’ Creed, but I use it since it stands clearly against the idiots I know who think we’re all going to be some sort of disembodied spirits drifting about

== + == == + ==

There’s my theology. You have never addressed it. And since most of what you do isn’t theology but science fiction, I really don’t expect that you will.

And is something you made up given that I didn’t say it.

Stop lying about people, and stop making stuff up that people didn’t say!

I did. Your claim about moral allegory is a lie because YOU are the only one saying any such thing, not the rest of us.

It’s only used because you fail to display the respect to actually listen to people and respond to what they say. Try reading what we actually write!

If anyone but you was talking about allegories that might be useful.

But it doesn’t apply to the Bible, since the Bible is not one story, it is a library of stories. You’re basically saying that because the first book on a shelf happens to be about anthropology, then every book on the shelf must be about anthropology.

That’s a lie, and you know it;s a lie, because you’re falsely introducing the idea of allegory.
Try learning a new idea for once.

Stop lying!

Seriously, Adam, if the way you respond to people here was my only representation of what it is to be a Christian, I would be running away! You don’t respect us enough to actually read and follow what we have said and as a result lie about what people have said, and though this has been pointed out repeatedly you show no evidence of caring enough to treat us like people.

So the rest of your paragraph is just unChristian drivel that couldn’t be better written to drive people away from the Gospel.

Glancing over at my closest bookshelf, I see that the first book in line is about cosmology. Does that mean that every book on the shelf must be about cosmology? In my bedroom, the first book on the shelf by my bed is about western philosophy – does that mean that every book on that shelf must be about western philosophy (it does mean I need to reorganize my bookshelf; I haven’t cracked that book in a decade)? Go to my study, and the first book on the shelf is about Hebrew grammar – does that mean that every book on that shelf is about Hebrew grammar? And on the little shelf in the bathroom, the first book is a novel by John Grisham – does that mean every book on the shelf must be a novel?

You claim to follow the Bible, but you show a basic ignorance of what it even is. Between that lack of respect for the scriptures and lack of respect for others, your example says I should stay far, far away from Christians.

I’m just glad you’re not my only example.

BTW, if this seems a bit irritated, it’s because I’m sick and tired of being treated by you as an object rather than a person.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.