What does a person mean when they say, "God made me," or, "God made you?"

[SlowwHand]

What does it matter to you? You're not, but you worry about someone else's soul? You get more and more strange.

[Berzerker]

That is... an interestingly novel way of reading Genesis (that Adam and Eve had kids who were ruining the garden).

I consider the creation narrative in Genesis to be mytho-poetic. However, I do agree that humans were made in the image of God (not that God looks like any of us, but that we have a divine origin - part and parcel of the sperm & egg process).

The kids hadn't arrived yet, it was the fruit that led to them. But Eve clearly enters the story after the 6th Day, true? The 6th Day people were made male and female, she doesn't appear until after a series of events that took enough time to conclude she and Adam were not made together like the 6th Day people. Its not even clear Adam was made on the 6th Day, the word Adam is generic for mankind and could refer to a man, men, or women and children. It only becomes a name for the man God took to the Garden. I believe Genesis uses both "Adam" and "the Adam" when describing early humans, eg there was no Adam to till the ground, the Lord took the Adam - the earthling - to the Garden.

So what was Eve's curse for eating the fruit? The pain of child birth. Did God change her physically to produce that pain or was that just the reality she faced because the fruit = conception? The ability (and inability) of Adam and Eve to have kids permeates the story.

what benefit do you obtain from attacking Christian scripture as contradictory?

Understanding

Which is fine, but Christians will tend to point out other truths in Genesis or what those stories are saying rather than throwing them out with the bathwater.

We could dump the OT and NT, its just a distraction from the Golden Rule

[MrFun]

What does it matter to you? You're not, but you worry about someone else's soul? You get more and more strange.

I'm not worried about someone else's soul.

[Imran Siddiqui]

If you believe that Genesis is mythological, then you're not a Christian according to Ben.

That isn't what he's saying at all. He's saying you are acting like a New Atheist when you discuss this.

But Eve clearly enters the story after the 6th Day, true? The 6th Day people were made male and female, she doesn't appear until after a series of events that took enough time to conclude she and Adam were not made together like the 6th Day people. Its not even clear Adam was made on the 6th Day, the word Adam is generic for mankind and could refer to a man, men, or women and children.

Like I said, a novel way of reading Genesis. Most people either consider the 1st and 2nd Creation Narratives to be from separate sources cobbled together, or A&E being the 6th Day humans spoken in the 1st Creation narrative. I go for the latter - as the 1st Creation Narrative has the animals arising prior to humans, while the 2nd Creation Narrative as animals arising after humans (as a companion for Adam).

We could dump the OT and NT, its just a distraction from the Golden Rule

Which is fine if you are a Deist, but not if you are a Christian (and believe Scripture has a lot of things to teach us).

[MrFun]

And can someone please teach Slowwy to tell a non-serious post from a serious post?

I don't have the patience to do so.

[SlowwHand]

You don't have a lot of things, and I have neither the time nor the inclination to go into it.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I'm not sure I have any answer myself. That's why I asked the question.

You have to have SOME explanation. Otherwise why believe in Scripture?

[MrFun]

You have to have SOME explanation. Otherwise why believe in Scripture?

Well, like I said, the contradictions in the Bible are a result of multiple individuals living in different generations, writing pieces of work that became part of the Bible. The contradictions are also the result of compiling all those individual pieces of work and then having had them translated (which allows more mistakes) in many different languages centuries later.

I don't think such contradictions negate basic, essential truths in the Bible but there's certainly nothing unChristian about trying to work out or reconcile the contradictions to achieve a greater understanding.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Working out contradictions are one thing, but do you think your OP does anything on that score after all? Does it help or hurt greater understanding?

[MrFun]

Working out contradictions are one thing, but do you think your OP does anything on that score after all? Does it help or hurt greater understanding?

It's wrong to ask for a better understanding about God's role in how we're conceived in lieu of our mom's egg and our dad's sperm?

[SlowwHand]

Who do you expect to logically have an answer for this at ACS? Douche bag.

[MrFun]

Who do you expect to logically have an answer for this at ACS? Douche bag.

You know everything about everything.

So in this instance, I'm disappointed in your lack of contribution in this thread.

[SlowwHand]

And you were a Christian for a while? I never said I knew all of God's plans.

[molly bloom]

You're missing the point, twice. I already answered you.

Butcha didn't Blanche.

[Ben Kenobi]

You're kidding yourself if you think a collection of different pieces of literature written by who knows how many different people over centuries, then compiled together, and then translated into how many other different languages does not have any contradictions anywhere in its work.

There's no contradiction. It's like arguing, "stealing is wrong, except when doing good on the Sabbath". There's one law and there's a higher law. At that point in time - it was necessary for the survival of the human race - by God's command to Adam to 'be fruitful and multiply'. It's only later on that this changes, and humanity becomes sufficiently divided.

As for the rest, I've read the purported contradictions. Everyone who insists that the bible is wrong on these points also accepts the bible in a different place. Do you believe that Jesus condemned murder? Then you're taking it for granted that Scripture is correct on this.

Here's the other problem - the bible also stacks up favorably to every other ancient source. If you're asking 'how can the bible be preserved', while at the same time, accepting that the same copyists preserving other works go unchallenged, I don't know what to say to this.

Historically, it's far more likely that the text of the bible we have today is the text of the original when compared to everything else. Even Julius Caesar.