Hawkingfan

Your last response was shredded well by spin and Aprikorus (you may want to ask for their expertise in the two accounts and how we know they are 2 separate identities).

There is still no logical explanation for doing that. That's the way it reads to *you*.

Why would the author "wrap up the account" in verse 2:4 whenever he just did the EXACT same thing THREE VERSES PRIOR? Verse 2:4 is a rewording of 1:1. Verse 4 introduces the creation sequence as does 1:1.

No shit? That's because it was written by TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!

No it doesn't. Ironically at verse 5 is says that man was created before shrubs. And you cannot name animals unless they are brought to you first, etc.

Hmmm. Even though it is called "THE TREE OF THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL?" There is nothing worse than arguing with someone who purposely plays dumb. And it's strange that the Fall is blamed on Adam and Eve if the criteria to bare the burden of it is "going against god" whenever Satan did it first!

Side note: It's also odd that an omnipotent god would need any kind of "rest".

I asked you first. I don't know. I am just going by what the bible says. Why don't you start by addressing what the bible says in the quotes we have given, or do you just want to continue picking-and-choosing?

Hawkingfan

Aprikorus (and/or spin),

Would you be kind enough to do a quick summation of the two author theory for us (if it is not too much trouble)? And see if Mike has any questions?

So the first author's account is from 1:1 to 2:4a, and author two is from 2:4b to...(what)? Is that the way scholars say it is divided?

Adora

Yeah, but still, I can hope he will do a little research, and, if not realise the futulity of some of his beliefs, at least balance them out with some fact and truth of the world. My moment's of optimism are rare and unique, don't ruin this one.

rlogan

Mike's approach seems to be taken from Answers in Genesis, which provides the "solution" that the first story is kind of an "overview" and the second story is more specific to the concerns of Adam and Eve. The second story is supposedly not in order of occurrence, but rather of importance and because plants "of the field" are discussed rather than plants in general that it is not contradictory, blah blah blah.

The problem with parsing all of this up into independent packets of explanation Mike is that you need to step back and recognize that the earth is vastly older than the Genesis geneaology permits. On the order of half a million times older.

This isn't an itty-bitty error one can interpret their way out of. If you cannot appreciate the scope of an error rising to this magnitude then there is little hope of having an objective discussion.

Get a grip on the scope of the problem first. The earth is 4.5 billion years old. Genesis says thousands. The authors of Genesis don't know a damned thing about how the earth was formed or how plants evolved.

You weren't being praised because you didn't know something. It was because you admitted you didn't know. It was because you were honest about it. Commendable.

braces_for_impact

So basically what you're saying here is you haven't checked into the accuracy of the opposing information, but it must be wrong, because it conflicts with your established beliefs?

Well hopefully you'll find the "patience" to go looking for information that agrees with your pre-established conclusions, instead of looking for the truth, whatever that may be.

I honestly see no reason to continue reading the rest of the thread; except for maybe the humor of some of my fellow infidels here

Biff the unclean

I too would like to praise you for that. But….how is it that you don't know these things already? How did you get into college and still miss all this basic information? Why don't you know, for instance, that the sky is not a firmament hard as brass with the ocean separated and above it and the stars hanging from it to serve as signs? Why is it that you don't know about the ice ages? Why is it that you do not know that stories with wise talking animals in them are fables? How, in the 21st century did you miss all of this?
Or did you choose to ignore these facts because they show that Genesis does not reflect reality? I know you like to call it "science" but it is only reality, and Genesis gets it all wrong.

spin

The common current analyses based on this stuff has all sorts of sources, Es and Js and Ps, and Ds and these get broken down into sub-sources and, it becomes alphabet soup (if you hadn't noticed). I don't find that it is of too much use assuming that because a text uses a divine name rather than another, when we have no idea of the time frame under investigation. Names come in and out of vogue, some writers echo older sources, and the whole lot becomes a jumble.



I don't see much point in getting into repetition. I already know the standard analysis, which I reject on coherence grounds.

Now what exactly do yo mean by P is it a generic source developed by some priests at some point in time or do you think that it was written over a long period? What evidence do you base your response on?

But we are dealing with two separate sentences, two separate ideas and probably a source bound to the structure imposed by the writer of the toledoths. I have already pointed this out. Have difficulty with the particular editor's redaction and forget this weird idea of a toledoth at the end of the narration of the first account.

Actually only if you assume that the toledoths were attached to the texts that follow them. That is my point. They were used to tie the material together.

I hope y ou understand my point of view more clearly here now.

Look at 5:1.

Your difficults are fictitious.[/B][/QUOTE]


spin

spin

You might notice I have some disagreement with Apikorus. We have different concepts of the structures of the book under examination.

My point of view is based on the thought that the longer a text which has not been stabilised is held by a group, the more it will change, bits will get added, stuff will get modified, but, interestingly enough, not much, if anything, will be removed, perhaps through respect for the past.

I have attempted to show that there is a very ancient foundation to Gen 1:1-2:3. This text has been radically modified and I would consider at least a few times. At some stage the text was adapted for the Hebrew religious beliefs of the time.

Then, we have almost totally lost the direct physical intervention of the god in the creation, though when God made the firmament he got physically involved, the verb for make (`SH) is not the one often translated as "create" (BR'), suggesting direct physical involvement, which isn't hard to understand from the writer concerned: the word for firmament (RQY`) comes from a verb indicating beat (as you would do with a metal), so perhaps it was very hard to be consistent with the divine fiat.

At some stage in the process the institution of the sabbath was superimposed. This may have been at the same time as the abstraction of God's activity to saying and becoming, but I think that would be too many steps at once.

The second account which is more likely to have been home grown also features a layering of redactional involvement, which I won't get into (laziness), but I hope I have given a notion of how I think texts would have been built up over time.

Sometimes two or more texts are combined into one account, as we find with the flood story. The source theory that Apikorus seems to adhere to considers that there are two basic sources to the flood story that reflect larger works that are strewn through the Pentateuch, ie you'll find bits of each all through the books of Moses.

It may be that simple. I don't know, but I doubt it.

I hope something here is of use.


spin

Apikorus

Use of toledot at both beginning and end of a unit:

Identification of P has been fairly stable for almost a century. We can get into the details if you like. Modern source critical analysis has in fact retreated from positing a welter of sigla (J1, J2, P1, P2, etc.). Again, for analysis of Genesis, see Carr.

I presume, as I said earlier, that 2:4a is a redactional link between the P account in 1:1 - 2:3 and the non-P account in 2:4b - 2:25. The awkwardness of the double usage of eretz and shamayim, the two different creation verbs (bara and asah) in such close proximity, etc. are still problematic, despite your attempts to explain them away.

Note also the full orthography in 2:4a: TVLDVT. Elsewhere in Genesis it is defective: TVLDT. Another clue that 2:4a is redactional.

Good point about 5:1 you made. I should have remembered that.

BTW to lurkers, spin and I are essentially in complete agreement that there are two different creation accounts in Genesis, from 1:1 - 2:3 and from 2:4b - 2:25. Our entire argument is over the assignment of 2:4a. And even there we are not too far apart.

lpetrich

Apikorus, nice to see you here.

I'd like to thank "spin" for bringing up elsewhere the idea that Genesis 1 is perhaps excessively schematic. In summary, Days 1-3 are creations of environments and days 4-6 creations of corresponding inhabitants; they inhabit environments created three days earlier. Plants are viewed as environment (day 3) and are "inhabited" by being eaten (day 6: 3+3). And stars are viewed as celestial inhabitants (day 4). This analysis accounts for several Genesis-1 oddities, though it does hint at beliefs that are rather odd by present-day standards.

By comparison, Genesis 2 does not have any comparable structure, but appears to be much more improvisational; God has to fix his creation as he goes, and at the end, he must seem rather exasperated.

And when bara and asah (make/create) occur elsewhere in the Bible, what contexts do they appear in? May such contexts indicate subtleties of meaning? Or else different vocabulary preferences (P liking bara and J liking asah)?