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the genesis of civilization

TheResister

Council Member
I know the thread has moved on some from the first post and would have posted this sooner but it took time to do the research...

The word REPLENISH referred to in the first post is in Genesis 1:28, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Replenish is the translation of the ancient Hebrew (the original language) word UMILU. That same word, UMILU, is used in Genesis 1:22. There, God commands the fish & birds as He would later command Adam & Eve. 1:22 seems to usually be translated "Be fruitful and multiply and FILL the waters..."
The same word UMILU is translated as "fill" in one place and "replenish" in another.
So God could be telling the fish & birds and then later humans to FILL the waters and FILL the earth, which could mean doing it for the first time, OR to REPLENISH both, which would be re-filling them, which is the thrust of the first post.

I really like the idea behind the replenish translation and think it fits with what we see later with Cain. If the word could be translated as either fill or replenish, though, there are 2 (at least) possible understandings.

People who know a lot more than me did the translating but I'd suggest that if they translated the same word differently in different places, especially when the whole clause and the general context is the same in both places, it might display the kind of bias mentioned in some of the posts here, interpreting things to fit what you already think.

Just something to ponder.

Thanks, Days, for making me think and do some research.
I don't know where you're going with that, but let me ask you a question based upon the biblical record.

If you look closely there are genealogical records to account for Adam and his offspring throughout the Bible. So, everybody is accounted for.

God created Adam and Eve. Eve gave birth to two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain slew Able. Then God banished Cain to the land of Nod and Cain began wailing that wherever he went men would seek to kill him. So, where do you suppose this land of Nod came from? What "men" inhabited the earth at that time?

Isn't it more likely that the Bible is, exactly what it purports to be? In Genesis 5 : 1 the Bible says "This is the book of the generations of Adam."

Genesis, generations, genes, the book of Adamic man as opposed to all other humans. Isn't that a plausible concept???
 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
I don't know where you're going with that, but let me ask you a question based upon the biblical record.

God created Adam and Eve. Eve gave birth to two sons: Cain and Abel. Cain slew Able. Then God banished Cain to the land of Nod and Cain began wailing that wherever he went men would seek to kill him. So, where do you suppose this land of Nod came from? What "men" inhabited the earth at that time?

Isn't it more likely that the Bible is, exactly what it purports to be? In Genesis 5 : 1 the Bible says "This is the book of the generations of Adam."
Isn't that a plausible concept???
Certainly a plausible concept. I wasn't trying to argue against the concept. Also said I liked the "replenish" idea because of Cain, his fearing people would kill him and his marrying so there must have been other people besides him, his siblings, and his parents. Just pointing out that things could be understood differently depending on how one translates a word, and that the different possible understandings give us something to think about. Many layers of meaning can be found in the Bible.
 

Days

Commentator
I know the thread has moved on some from the first post and would have posted this sooner but it took time to do the research...

The word REPLENISH referred to in the first post is in Genesis 1:28, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth." Replenish is the translation of the ancient Hebrew (the original language) word UMILU. That same word, UMILU, is used in Genesis 1:22. There, God commands the fish & birds as He would later command Adam & Eve. 1:22 seems to usually be translated "Be fruitful and multiply and FILL the waters..."
The same word UMILU is translated as "fill" in one place and "replenish" in another.
So God could be telling the fish & birds and then later humans to FILL the waters and FILL the earth, which could mean doing it for the first time, OR to REPLENISH both, which would be re-filling them, which is the thrust of the first post.

I really like the idea behind the replenish translation and think it fits with what we see later with Cain. If the word could be translated as either fill or replenish, though, there are 2 (at least) possible understandings.

People who know a lot more than me did the translating but I'd suggest that if they translated the same word differently in different places, especially when the whole clause and the general context is the same in both places, it might display the kind of bias mentioned in some of the posts here, interpreting things to fit what you already think.

Just something to ponder.

Thanks, Days, for making me think and do some research.
thanks for the research!

When you stop to think about it, the translators are automatically relying on their frame of reference, when they do their work. So if they think the earth was just created in six days and God is now placing life on it for the first time (and you know that's what every one of them was thinking) then the best choice is to use the word "fill" ... because "replenish" conveys the idea that life had alrady existed. You've got 3000 years in between the original writing down of the text in hebrew and the translation into English by King James translators. That they used the word "replenish" at all was enough for me to understand that the word in Hebrew really intends the idea "replenish"... but they didn't understand it that way, they figured it meant "fill".

Now, if the earth is 4 billion years old, and there was a global flood so that no land was seen above the waters, I'm talking at least 200,000 years ago, and likely closer to a million years ago, but that still leaves 3 billion, 999 million years, so there was lots of time for prior life on the planet before the catastrophic flood that opens the first verses of Genesis.

Once you read the opening of Genesis with that perspective, "replenish" makes perfect sense. Remember God explaining to Jeremiah that he works like a potter does with clay, when he doesn't get the exact results he wants, he collapses the whole game and starts over. What else could God be talking about there? I suppose it could mean his covenants, but even there, he doesn't totally throw away the old covenant, he builds upon it. It could mean the kingdom of David, but it hasn't panned out to be the case, that kingdom is lost forever and the modern nation of Israel is nothing like it. So what did God show Jeremiah? I think he was showing him his whole program upon the earth, he certainly pulled it once with Noah's flood and the apocalypse says he will do it again next time with fire, so if this is his approach, then it stands to reason, the opening verses of Genesis was another do-over.
 

Jen

Senator
thanks for the research!

When you stop to think about it, the translators are automatically relying on their frame of reference, when they do their work. So if they think the earth was just created in six days and God is now placing life on it for the first time (and you know that's what every one of them was thinking) then the best choice is to use the word "fill" ... because "replenish" conveys the idea that life had alrady existed. You've got 3000 years in between the original writing down of the text in hebrew and the translation into English by King James translators. That they used the word "replenish" at all was enough for me to understand that the word in Hebrew really intends the idea "replenish"... but they didn't understand it that way, they figured it meant "fill".

Now, if the earth is 4 billion years old, and there was a global flood so that no land was seen above the waters, I'm talking at least 200,000 years ago, and likely closer to a million years ago, but that still leaves 3 billion, 999 million years, so there was lots of time for prior life on the planet before the catastrophic flood that opens the first verses of Genesis.

Once you read the opening of Genesis with that perspective, "replenish" makes perfect sense. Remember God explaining to Jeremiah that he works like a potter does with clay, when he doesn't get the exact results he wants, he collapses the whole game and starts over. What else could God be talking about there? I suppose it could mean his covenants, but even there, he doesn't totally throw away the old covenant, he builds upon it. It could mean the kingdom of David, but it hasn't panned out to be the case, that kingdom is lost forever and the modern nation of Israel is nothing like it. So what did God show Jeremiah? I think he was showing him his whole program upon the earth, he certainly pulled it once with Noah's flood and the apocalypse says he will do it again next time with fire, so if this is his approach, then it stands to reason, the opening verses of Genesis was another do-over.
The thing I've been thinking lately is that with everything we do going digital and people putting less and less to hard copy, if something catastrophic happened, there wouldn't be much in the way of records, or at least, readable records left. If the world is very old (and I see nothing to tell us it's not) it might have been possible for mankind to reach the point where nothing was written down in a way it could be recovered and read by anyone who was starting all over. Paper doesn't even last like stone and leather.

That said......... the word "replenish" makes perfect sense. Thank you, @Emily.
 

Days

Commentator
The thing I've been thinking lately is that with everything we do going digital and people putting less and less to hard copy, if something catastrophic happened, there wouldn't be much in the way of records, or at least, readable records left. If the world is very old (and I see nothing to tell us it's not) it might have been possible for mankind to reach the point where nothing was written down in a way it could be recovered and read by anyone who was starting all over. Paper doesn't even last like stone and leather.

That said......... the word "replenish" makes perfect sense. Thank you, @Emily.
Those pyramids in Giza, Egypt have no writing whatsoever. Not a word. Ancient Egyptians would have covered them with glyphs, like they did everything they built. So people are looking at them for their construction and letting their engineering tell their story... and that story reads "power plant". But is also reads, "sound vibration". Maybe the builders had computers more advanced than ours and it was all lost?

There's no reason to conclude that writing began with ancient Sumerian tablets, it is so much more plausible to expect that writing has been happening as long as man has been here and the ancient Sumerian tablets are merely the oldest records to survive.
 

Jen

Senator
Those pyramids in Giza, Egypt have no writing whatsoever. Not a word. Ancient Egyptians would have covered them with glyphs, like they did everything they built. So people are looking at them for their construction and letting their engineering tell their story... and that story reads "power plant". But is also reads, "sound vibration". Maybe the builders had computers more advanced than ours and it was all lost?

There's no reason to conclude that writing began with ancient Sumerian tablets, it is so much more plausible to expect that writing has been happening as long as man has been here and the ancient Sumerian tablets are merely the oldest records to survive.
That's kind of how my thought process has been going with this, Days. Something beyond what we have even now......
 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
If the world is very old (and I see nothing to tell us it's not) it might have been possible for mankind to reach the point where nothing was written down in a way it could be recovered and read by anyone who was starting all over. Paper doesn't even last like stone and leather.
We'll never know what historical treasures of documentation were lost when Arab invaders destroyed the great library at Alexandria.
 

Emily

NSDAP Kanzler
When you stop to think about it, the translators are automatically relying on their frame of reference, when they do their work.
Exactly.
The people who translated the Bible into English relied on earlier translations into Latin, Greek, and Aramaic as well as on the original text (or the version of the original extant at the time). Maybe those earlier translators knew something we don't anymore when they chose "replenish," or even just believed something that's not a part of modern-day Christian thought.Either way, the word choice is telling.
 

Days

Commentator
Exactly.
The people who translated the Bible into English relied on earlier translations into Latin, Greek, and Aramaic as well as on the original text (or the version of the original extant at the time). Maybe those earlier translators knew something we don't anymore when they chose "replenish," or even just believed something that's not a part of modern-day Christian thought.Either way, the word choice is telling.
We see all this influence from religious thought and theology; our understanding of what we are reading, stems from our frame of reference in the religious thinking we were raised in. Whether I like it or not, both my parents being raised Roman Catholics is the foundation for my understanding of Genesis, even though they raised me atheist and outside of the Catholic institution, the religious instruction of their youth was still the frame work for my understanding of scripture. Only now that I am on the verge of entering old age - after 35 years of walking with the holy spirit - am I beginning to look at these verses with an open mind.

I wrote 15 years ago that it was a bedtime story, it was a myth, carried by word of mouth, but I think it was much bigger than just a Jewish myth, it was, no doubt, a general myth of mankind, remembering where he came from, adapted to the Jewish origin of their family patriarch Abraham. The first 5 chapters of Genesis reads radically different than the rest of the book, it reads like a totally different book that was penned in the Hebrew as an introduction to where Abraham came from. So the story of Adam seems to be a general myth from the mysts of time, something that was common to mankind, an understanding of how we came to be on this planet, and then it was adapted to produce Abraham. I suspect the story of Adam is so much older than we tend to think, and yet, I think it is a genuine story passed down... not one made up for the sake of later generations. I don't buy into the idea that religion made it up to enslave us into caste systems... although religion definitely does that, I think religion is also an opportunistic scam that uses anything it can get its hands on. I think the bedtime story of Adam was there, floating around forever in the general consciousness of man... and religion plucked it up for an intro to the story of Abraham. That's not to say it isn't an honest approach, whoever the scribes were, seemed to be earnest enough... I think they were faithfully retelling the story. No way to know if the "first epoch" or "first age" ended up reading "the first day"... or when or if a change like that happened, but the kernel of the story seems to be intact.

If we strip away the religious catholic teachings and muse over the myth (the myth is likely so much older than those dogmas, it is like taking a child's interpretation for an ancient writing; there's no reason whatsoever to listen to that; it should hold no authority)... if we just think about what the myth is telling us, you will notice some startling concepts unveiled here. The idea that the waters were above and below the firmament; how in the hell did mankind know about the jet streams?

And there is that old question... which came first; the ground or the life that dies and becomes ground? Genesis tells us that all plant and animal life came from the ground. Where did the dirt come from? You can say that early plant life grew in the volcanic ash, and that gave us dirt which eventually produced "earth" - a ground of dirt. We see that happening today, but not without animals to fertilize it. It's a tougher biologic model than was likely intended by the verses because Genesis starts with the ground and everything comes from it... it isn't so easy... perhaps, this latest epoch of time was the benefactor of earlier epochs - and maybe those started differently? A global flood should deposit some nice soil to work with, the epoch described in early Genesis seemed to be primed to go, everything fell into place with such precision, like it was just itching to happen.

And look at mankind. God creates man the same way he created the animals, and bear in mind, all of this is replenishing the earth, so all of this was here before, anyway, he makes man from the ground, just like the animals. Mankind is naked, just like the animals... there's no thought amongst the animals to make clothing for themselves and the same went for mankind. So mankind is living in the woods, amongst the trees, very much like another ape, and God looks amongst the animals for a mate for Adam. Either God is really stupid, or this man Adam, is not very different from the apes. At any rate, a strand of mankind is reproduced, and the huge deal, the big separator, is the gift of speech.

Then it seems that God and his angels bequeath everything upon this strand of man: clothing, shelter, organization, community, eventually government and industry. I don't think the story was about the great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents of Abraham and Sarah, I think the story is about the origin of mankind after a cataclysmic flood. I think it relates to us our early history going back roughly 200,000 years. The Jews, no doubt, seized upon the myth the same way all religions seize upon ancient writings and claim them for their own. But my gut tells me, the pre-(Noah's)-flood story was adapted, or simply recorded for posterity sake, as an introduction to Abraham's story; a way to say how mankind began, then they shoot to Noah's flood and the genealogy of Abraham: and by and large, Genesis is the story of Abraham... and Abraham was the genesis of monotheistic civilization.
 
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You might like a fun read on the origins of consciousness that hit upon some of the myths of the ancient era, its by julian jaynes, the origin of consciousness and the bicameral mind. If you are a student of ancient ME history including Greece, you will enjoy it.
 

Days

Commentator
You might like a fun read on the origins of consciousness that hit upon some of the myths of the ancient era, its by julian jaynes, the origin of consciousness and the bicameral mind. If you are a student of ancient ME history including Greece, you will enjoy it.
This guy looks like a writer after my own heart...

INTRODUCTION

The Problem of Consciousness

O , WHAT A WORLD of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all一 what is it?

And where did it come from?

And why?


I wish I had the brain power left to merely read his 460 pages, let alone craft such a work. color me jealous. Thanks Wooley, it looks like a treasure and I intend to indulge. There's a PDF posted online that I hope is intentional by the author...

http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/Julian-Jaynes-Origin-of-Consciousness-Breakdown-of-Bicameral-Mind.pdf

He added this addendum in a later publication...

http://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynes_consciousness-voices-mind.pdf
 
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This guy looks like a writer after my own heart...

INTRODUCTION

The Problem of Consciousness

O , WHAT A WORLD of unseen visions and heard silences, this insubstantial country of the mind! What ineffable essences, these touchless rememberings and unshowable reveries! And the privacy of it all! A secret theater of speechless monologue and prevenient counsel, an invisible mansion of all moods, musings, and mysteries, an infinite resort of disappointments and discoveries. A whole kingdom where each of us reigns reclusively alone, questioning what we will, commanding what we can. A hidden hermitage where we may study out the troubled book of what we have done and yet may do. An introcosm that is more myself than anything I can find in a mirror. This consciousness that is myself of selves, that is everything, and yet nothing at all一 what is it?

And where did it come from?

And why?


I wish I had the brain power left to merely read his 460 pages, let alone craft such a work. color me jealous. Thanks Wooley, it looks like a treasure and I intend to indulge. There's a PDF posted online that I hope is intentional by the author...

http://selfdefinition.org/psychology/Julian-Jaynes-Origin-of-Consciousness-Breakdown-of-Bicameral-Mind.pdf

He added this addendum in a later publication...

http://www.julianjaynes.org/pdf/jaynes_consciousness-voices-mind.pdf
I thought you would like it. Much of what he said about the brain has been updated since then but its still a fantastic read. He ties together the tradition of oracles with schitzophrenia and also uses the idea of fall of man with our ascent into modern conciousness. Its a blast to read and not that technical.
 

Days

Commentator
I thought you would like it. Much of what he said about the brain has been updated since then but its still a fantastic read. He ties together the tradition of oracles with schitzophrenia and also uses the idea of fall of man with our ascent into modern conciousness. Its a blast to read and not that technical.
Whatever we want to label our thought world... we can think of our thoughts as dreams, concepts, imaginations, reading, visions, problem solving, mechanics, songs, artistry, it all comes from our consciousness. When you read me, you see me use "the spirit" constantly, which I see as the source that generates consciousness, but it can generate life in a blade of grass without as much consciousness; psychology is delving into the same world, tackling it from a different perspective, but whether we call it the problem of consciousness or the mystery of life, we are both looking at the same apples.

My wife grows plants. My dad built green houses his whole life, knew as much about plants as the doctors over at Univ of Michigan whom he visited periodically and chatted with. I'm better with fish and animals, but either way, there's a connection with the spirit. We are communicating with the plants, we are speaking whale with the fish, we are holding conversations with our pets, there is a shared consciousness. Audrey (my wife) had this big pot full of pussy willows and baby breath in pink, blue, white growing 1/3 the height of the pussy willows. She plants a delicate fern that grows like a clinging vine next to the pussy willows; separate pot! But that fern grew over top the baby breath and filled the top 2/3rds of the pussy willows, using them like a vine grows on lattice work; the fern didn't grow toward the window light, it sensed out those pussy willows and grew up and over to them. Somehow, that fern was conscious of where those pussy willows were and where they were still empty. So to me, that says the spirit of life in all things has a shared connection to the Spirit that is generating all this life... even the plants are communicating with each other, there is this awareness we all seem to share.

These ideas never become outdated. Life changes constantly but at the same time, remains the same. Man has been studying this from all angles for thousands of years and when you look at the Vedas, you have to say, for tens of thousands of years. St Paul called it the mystery of faith, our connection to this mystery of who and what we are ... and who and what we are part of.
 
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Whatever we want to label our thought world... we can think of our thoughts as dreams, concepts, imaginations, reading, visions, problem solving, mechanics, songs, artistry, it all comes from our consciousness. When you read me, you see me use "the spirit" constantly, which I see as the source that generates consciousness, but it can generate life in a blade of grass without as much consciousness; psychology is delving into the same world, tackling it from a different perspective, but whether we call it the problem of consciousness or the mystery of life, we are both looking at the same apples.

My wife grows plants. My dad built green houses his whole life, knew as much about plants as the doctors over at Univ of Michigan whom he visited periodically and chatted with. I'm better with fish and animals, but either way, there's a connection with the spirit. We are communicating with the plants, we are speaking whale with the fish, we are holding conversations with our pets, there is a shared consciousness. Audrey (my wife) had this big pot full of pussy willows and baby breath in pink, blue, white growing 1/3 the height of the pussy willows. She plants a delicate fern that grows like a clinging vine next to the pussy willows; separate pot! But that fern grew over top the baby breath and filled the top 2/3rds of the pussy willows, using them like a vine grows on lattice work; the fern didn't grow toward the window light, it sensed out those pussy willows and grew up and over to them. Somehow, that fern was conscious of where those pussy willows were and where they were still empty. So to me, that says the spirit of life in all things has a shared connection to the Spirit that is generating all this life... even the plants are communicating with each other, there is this awareness we all seem to share.

These ideas never become outdated. Life changes constantly but at the same time, remains the same. Man has been studying this from all angles for thousands of years and when you look at the Vedas, you have to say, for tens of thousands of years. St Paul called it the mystery of faith, our connection to this mystery of who and what we are ... and who and what we are part of.
Personally, I think animals have a much greater sense of consciousness than we care to admit. Look at an orangutan or a gorilla, study them. They know what is going on. Human consciousness may never be understood, it might be one of the greatest mysteries but then, maybe a mind itself is the greatest mystery. If you think about it, the mind may be the greatest single thing in the universe.
 

Days

Commentator
Personally, I think animals have a much greater sense of consciousness than we care to admit. Look at an orangutan or a gorilla, study them. They know what is going on. Human consciousness may never be understood, it might be one of the greatest mysteries but then, maybe a mind itself is the greatest mystery. If you think about it, the mind may be the greatest single thing in the universe.
I hear ya. ;)
I grew up this son of a medical minded couple, my mom was a nurse with a minor in psychology, my dad majored in psychology, for me, sex was just another bodily function I had to take care of one way or another, no big deal. I scored way up there in the sciences, borderline gifted, genius, I had my moments. I'm still awful curious about natural sciences. But once I found God (or did he find me?) my whole perspective on the sciences changed; suddenly there was a huge plumb line to use when surveying the universe... there was all this incredible physics on so many levels, but what I asked myself was this; am I dealing with the living or the dead? I am totally fascinated by electromagnetic waves, especially in the spectrum of visible light, but for all the amazing things that light does, it still isn't alive; it brings a fuel for life, but it isn't in itself alive. So a ray of life has properties, amazing properties, but anything living has awareness, living things react to their environment, there's this skill of adaptation, there's this ability to engineer one's surroundings, not only do my pores close in a cold rain, my brother-in-law figures out how to deal with me when I am being a pain-in-the-ass. It is indescribable, all the things the human mind achieves, and I wonder, how much of it is matched by the mind of a blue whale? I suspect most, if not all of it.

Tell you what, I've been meditating on this for a long while... asking myself... what are emotions? Are they thoughts? How about moods? What produces an emotion? a mood? I'm sure that book touches on it. I am curious to hear his take on it. I've been working 70 hours per week, and helping my son navigate his freshman year at UIC college of Engineering, my sleep pattern of late looks like those ink spots on flash cards of old, I'm a wreck. But I downloaded the 2 PDF's, I've been curious about this area all my life; working stiffs never have time to do the things they want; but if work lets up - and it usually does, except this year - and even if it doesn't, I am going to squeeze in some reading.
 

Days

Commentator
"In the beginning" of what?

Mankind, in our current image and likeness, has been around for 200,000 years. There was a flood as recently as 9000-12,000 years ago. So there is two civilization periods. The book of Genesis starts at somewhere before the first civilization... in the beginning of that time period.

The earth was empty, as in void, as in no land sticking up out of the water. So God had totally flattened the earth, which means the oceans would have covered it to an average depth of 1 1/2 miles. We are not told why he did that, or what pissed him off that time, or if it was just a big mistake. But we are told that God gathered the land together, populated it, then separated the land into continents, and it is terribly obvious that the continents all fit back together. There's a rock cycle, so don't believe any dates in the billions of years for rocks. Maybe believe that dating for stars, but stars aren't rocks, capice?

So God tells man to go "replenish" the earth.

replenish: fill (something) up again. restore (a stock or supply of something) to the former level or condition.

Be fruitful and multiply. So the whole intent in creating man all over again was to reproduce a working civilization. It's a do-over. When a potter goofs up a vase, he smashes the clay down, adds more water, and starts over.

Something like 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, we had some very high tech civilization going on. Which means it was around for another 15,000 years minimum, to reach that point. I'm inclined to believe that the entire 200,000 years played out in the last two civilizations. IOW, there was no cave man bull shit in the past 200,000 years. Man was created intelligent. And there was mankind before this time, but he may not have been made in God's image and likeness. He may have been a cave man... but I doubt it. Even the animals have intelligence, so why would you expect mankind to be less intelligent than the animals? What would be the point in creating animalistic mankind? Again, don't believe any dates in the millions of years for human skeletons. I only believe mankind predates the book of Genesis because the book of Genesis tells me that he did. There is no way a human skeleton survived whatever catastrophe reduced the earth to a perfect sphere covered with water. For that matter, there is no way any skeleton of any creature survived that, except if they were fossilized by it, which they would have, if it was a sudden inundation.

How were the floods created? The land was flattened. Bring down the mountains, bring up the sea floor, and the oceans will cover everything. The first flood was an absolute leveling. The 2nd flood was a partial leveling. The deep trenches in the ocean floor were raised and then dropped, the mountains may have been lowered somewhat and then raised back up, but the water did not cover everything in Noah's flood, it was a docile enough flood for a wooden boat to survive. It would have, no doubt, melted the ice that had formed in North America into the Great Lakes. And it would have created fossils.

So now you see that there was two floods in the Bible. The first one which finished off all mankind and Noah's flood which did not finish off all mankind. The Bible records there were giants before Noah's flood and that they survived the flood, heck, there was still some smallish giants in the land of Canaan in David's time. In Moses' time there was real giants in the land, maybe 12 feet tall, maybe 20 feet tall, before Noah's flood some were 30 feet tall, even 35 feet tall. Figure that was something like 5000-7000 years after the flood, and likely longer. So, there's little doubt that more than Noah's family survived the flood.

Just as there is little doubt that mankind was already on the earth before God created Adam... heck the lands already had names, and already had people in them, so Adam wasn't even the beginning of the civilization before Noah's flood, he was inserted into it. If you think about it, man was created upon the land in chapter one, then God goes back and creates Adam and Eve in a garden he planted eastward in e-den, so civilization was well under way already.
So how about Neanderthal man? Was he wiped out by the flood in Genesis 1:2? Not according to the archaeological record. Was he created in the first seven days, was he the man that inhabited the earth in the beginning? Was Adamic man created to replace Neanderthal man? Did they intermix? Science likes to keep the two separate, maybe because it is too difficult to comprehend the full capabilities of DNA. Did you know that DNA is reactive? It isn't a static code, it reacts to one's environment, it is a living code, it is truly amazing stuff.

 

Days

Commentator
So how about Neanderthal man? Was he wiped out by the flood in Genesis 1:2? Not according to the archaeological record. Was he created in the first seven days, was he the man that inhabited the earth in the beginning? Was Adamic man created to replace Neanderthal man? Did they intermix? Science likes to keep the two separate, maybe because it is too difficult to comprehend the full capabilities of DNA. Did you know that DNA is reactive? It isn't a static code, it reacts to one's environment, it is a living code, it is truly amazing stuff.

Think about this idea... what did it mean? good and evil. What was that? The knowledge of good and evil, what was that... before the Law? Because the Law defined good and evil; when you obeyed the Law, that was good, and when you transgressed the law, that was evil, but before the Law, what was it that opened the eyes of understanding of mankind? I can hear a 1000 preachers right now, saying it was the obedience to God's command to not eat of the tree. But that is nothing more than conversation, it was one command and one reprimand, it was not enough to be the whole content of this fruit that made mankind equal to the gods, and besides, that one line of instruction was outside of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, it was about partaking of the knowledge, it was not the knowledge itself. So what was that? Back then, before mankind had civilization, what was it that entered man that changed his whole composition and existence?

Remember, God brought on Noah's flood ... why? To wipe out mankind... why? Because every thought of man was evil.

think... did you watch the movie on the Neanderthals? Were they evil? God said their every thought was evil. What made them evil? What did "evil" mean? And then, if all of mankind was evil, what was good? What did "good" mean?

I think evil simply meant natural. Living like the rest of the animals.

I think good simply meant spiritual. Living like the gods lived, interacting and communicating and developing communities and civilizations based upon higher understanding.

That was the whole reason Jesus said "ye must be born again" ... we are born carnal, our first birth is carnal, we still need to be born of the spirit, born again, into a higher life.

Mankind, before the flood, really took over the earth from Neanderthals, as civilization came upon the face of the earth and blossomed, about 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals vanished, they couldn't compete. But even as man built advanced civilizations and developed technology and unlocked the power of the stars... he was still carnal, he was still fighting and competing and warring and his basic instinct was to be natural. He had both the knowledge of good AND evil, which means he was following both ways, and this path doesn't lead to the most high god, it leads to technology, it leads to inventions, and it enables mankind to kill himself off, because that's what he does with it, he uses it to harm his neighbor, rule over his neighbor, even kill his neighbor. Think about it, 30,000 years ago, mankind had higher technology than he has today... and what did he do with it? Did he help Neanderthals? Nope he killed him off.

Read the Vedas, read about Krishna. what was going on? war. That was roughly 32,000 years ago. They had technology, they had the knowledge of good and evil, they had advanced civilization... and it led to global war.

Seems like we are doing it all over again. I'm betting God knew where it was leading us... maybe this is what happened on earth before Genesis 1:1... maybe we are a giant repeat of what had to be wiped out completely.

There's a path that leads to life. The knowledge of good and evil is not that path. There is a way that seems right to man, but it leads to death. That's where the knowledge of good and evil leads us. The way of man is not in him, we need to be born again. How many creations and recreations must mankind go through to learn this...

 
"In the beginning" of what?

Mankind, in our current image and likeness, has been around for 200,000 years. There was a flood as recently as 9000-12,000 years ago. So there is two civilization periods. The book of Genesis starts at somewhere before the first civilization... in the beginning of that time period.

The earth was empty, as in void, as in no land sticking up out of the water. So God had totally flattened the earth, which means the oceans would have covered it to an average depth of 1 1/2 miles. We are not told why he did that, or what pissed him off that time, or if it was just a big mistake. But we are told that God gathered the land together, populated it, then separated the land into continents, and it is terribly obvious that the continents all fit back together. There's a rock cycle, so don't believe any dates in the billions of years for rocks. Maybe believe that dating for stars, but stars aren't rocks, capice?

So God tells man to go "replenish" the earth.

replenish: fill (something) up again. restore (a stock or supply of something) to the former level or condition.

Be fruitful and multiply. So the whole intent in creating man all over again was to reproduce a working civilization. It's a do-over. When a potter goofs up a vase, he smashes the clay down, adds more water, and starts over.

Something like 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, we had some very high tech civilization going on. Which means it was around for another 15,000 years minimum, to reach that point. I'm inclined to believe that the entire 200,000 years played out in the last two civilizations. IOW, there was no cave man bull shit in the past 200,000 years. Man was created intelligent. And there was mankind before this time, but he may not have been made in God's image and likeness. He may have been a cave man... but I doubt it. Even the animals have intelligence, so why would you expect mankind to be less intelligent than the animals? What would be the point in creating animalistic mankind? Again, don't believe any dates in the millions of years for human skeletons. I only believe mankind predates the book of Genesis because the book of Genesis tells me that he did. There is no way a human skeleton survived whatever catastrophe reduced the earth to a perfect sphere covered with water. For that matter, there is no way any skeleton of any creature survived that, except if they were fossilized by it, which they would have, if it was a sudden inundation.

How were the floods created? The land was flattened. Bring down the mountains, bring up the sea floor, and the oceans will cover everything. The first flood was an absolute leveling. The 2nd flood was a partial leveling. The deep trenches in the ocean floor were raised and then dropped, the mountains may have been lowered somewhat and then raised back up, but the water did not cover everything in Noah's flood, it was a docile enough flood for a wooden boat to survive. It would have, no doubt, melted the ice that had formed in North America into the Great Lakes. And it would have created fossils.

So now you see that there was two floods in the Bible. The first one which finished off all mankind and Noah's flood which did not finish off all mankind. The Bible records there were giants before Noah's flood and that they survived the flood, heck, there was still some smallish giants in the land of Canaan in David's time. In Moses' time there was real giants in the land, maybe 12 feet tall, maybe 20 feet tall, before Noah's flood some were 30 feet tall, even 35 feet tall. Figure that was something like 5000-7000 years after the flood, and likely longer. So, there's little doubt that more than Noah's family survived the flood.

Just as there is little doubt that mankind was already on the earth before God created Adam... heck the lands already had names, and already had people in them, so Adam wasn't even the beginning of the civilization before Noah's flood, he was inserted into it. If you think about it, man was created upon the land in chapter one, then God goes back and creates Adam and Eve in a garden he planted eastward in e-den, so civilization was well under way already.
The Bible is a spiritual tome and not a scientific textbook (because explaining DNA before its time just doesn't make sense). To that realization it becomes evident that the Bible is spiritually true and spiritually inerrant which is great because you read the Bible to become spiritually informed. :0)
 

Days

Commentator
The Bible is a spiritual tome and not a scientific textbook (because explaining DNA before its time just doesn't make sense). To that realization it becomes evident that the Bible is spiritually true and spiritually inerrant which is great because you read the Bible to become spiritually informed. :0)
the Bible is a collection of writings. It is not a single work that you could characterize like that. Each writing is different. We have no author for Genesis, all we know is it was written by Moses authority along with the next four books and it appears, that the first 5 chapters of Genesis was a myth that had been floating through the mists of time and was written down by Moses' scribes but they were not the author (obviously).

Are you born again? Because reading the scriptures without the holy spirit to teach you is futile, you only become spiritually informed by the still small voice whispering in your inner ear as you read, your carnal nature will not be transformed by letter on page...

the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
 
the Bible is a collection of writings. It is not a single work that you could characterize like that. Each writing is different. We have no author for Genesis, all we know is it was written by Moses authority along with the next four books and it appears, that the first 5 chapters of Genesis was a myth that had been floating through the mists of time and was written down by Moses' scribes but they were not the author (obviously).

Are you born again? Because reading the scriptures without the holy spirit to teach you is futile, you only become spiritually informed by the still small voice whispering in your inner ear as you read, your carnal nature will not be transformed by letter on page...

the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.
1) Lifelong confirmed Lutheran who no longer attends but goes Baptist from time to time.

2) I find the Bible accessible to people in a couple of ways. Either at a very salt of the earth level or at a rigorous theologian level. In either case the Holy Spirit is very much needed as you so appropriately point out to get it right.

I wish... no I will start to become a more avid student of the good book.

From your top post: Maybe only Jews are people on this planet and the rest of us are just monkeys and hence Adam being the first man. I kid of course. :0)
 
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