I'll shut up after this. I'm just bored tonight. Anyway:

There are two creation stories in Genesis, from two entirely different sources. So which one is the one God likes best when it comes to Creationism? The P or the J version? When creationists try to make creationism a part of our schools' science curricula, don't you think we deserve to know which one they want us to believe in the most? Otherwise the rest of us would need to try to figure it out for ourselves...

>
> Otherwise the rest of us would need to
> try to figure it out for ourselves...
>

None of that now! You just sit there and and listen to us!

Of JEDP, the E version.

in b 4 ~ ¿ why not both OPie ? ~

It matters for several reasons. Only one says anything about Six Days. If the other one is "right", then there is absolutely no Biblical reason to infer that "God" followed any sort of timetable. Six days? Six years? Six billion years? It simply does not specify. And only one says anything about Adam and Eve.

Conversely,only one says anything about the Garden of Eden and talking snakes and the Fall. In the first version everything is hunky-dory after "God" (is it El or Yahweh? I can't remember which is which) made the world. Only the second claims that the first humans goofed. So if we go with the first, we are all great people in God's image, and that includes both sexes. Only the second claims that Eve was made out of Adam. So it does indeed matter as far as one's perception of human spiritual status. To repeat, these are two separate creation mythos from two different groups of people with two different histories. The final editor of the Torah blended them together, and King James' scholars smoothed out the rest of the wrinkles to make them look seamless.

By the way, in Genesis there is absolutely no implication that Adam and Eve's mistake had any lasting spiritual effect on any other human being. The whole idea of a Fall of Mankind arose with Paul (or somebody claiming to be Paul- again, I don't remember the specifics) who needed some rationale for positing Jesus as humanity's Great Savior. No Fall, no need for Redemption. Before this Paul fellow the Jesus groups, such as the Q communities, never thought of Jesus as a cosmic Savior. Smart, yes, and spiritually superior, yes, but hardly an equal to God.Note also that the whole Adam and Eve thing is never again mentioned in Hebrew scripture. The Jews/Israelites certainly never saw themselves as damned because of Adam and Eve. In the Hebrew mind-set, sin/atonement were almost solely a function of one's adherence to rules about ritual practices- sacrifices, mainly. Even the idea of Kosher was not really a part of the Israelite moral code until much later.

The whole "Pharisees versus Jesus" thing only happened after the second Temple was destroyed, and the Jews needed some way to distinguish Jews from the rest of the Roman world. So they established all those rules about the Sabbath and Kosher and so on. Note that all this happened after the "real" Jesus was dead and gone. He never had any arguments with the Pharisees. The Jesus people, on the other hand, needed a way to distinguish themselves from other Jews, and so the idea of salvation by Jesus happened. And so we come back to Adam and Eve and the Fall and innate moral depravity.

So, ziller, it matters a great deal even in 2017 which version of the creation story one accepts, because it really and truly influences how modern people (especially Americans) think, act and vote. Is humanity hopelessly depraved and lost and only OK if they Praise Jesus and Let Him Into Their Hearts, or is everybody else who doesn't do those things OK also? This is something that Ken Ham and his disciples need to sort out before they go off wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money (i.e., your money) on some cockamamie recreation of some big boat that never really happened, all in an effort to get people to believe they are hopelessly depraved (especially if you are a girl!) unless they fall on their knees and Accept Jesus.

Thank you.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2017 06:44PM by slskipper.

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So, ziller, it matters a great deal even in 2017
> which version of the creation story one accepts,
> because it really and truly influences how modern
> people (especially Americans) think, act and vote.

Hey, here's an idea:
Let's not "accept" either of them. Or any of the other thousands of ancient creation myths. 'Cause all of 'em are made-up.

Let's go with the facts we find out from science instead.
You know, the facts that show all of the ancient creation myths are made-up...?

Or is that too radical?

No, that is not too radical. It's the one I prefer, actually. I was just trying to point out the logical quagmires one gets into by claiming the Bible as the definitive document for our species.
The problem is that plenty of people- mostly Americans-
see it as vitally important to stick to the Bible. I was just throwing the burden back on them to first figure out among themselves which version of the Bible they wanted the rest of us to accept, and then present us with a definitive answer.

By the way, everybody knows that the world was really created when White Bead Girl and Blue Corn Man climbed through the hole in the sky and became the first humans. Adam and Eve? Talking Snakes? magic trees? Come on- how absurd!

slskipper Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> By the way, everybody knows that the world was
> really created when White Bead Girl and Blue Corn
> Man climbed through the hole in the sky and became
> the first humans. Adam and Eve? Talking Snakes?
> magic trees? Come on- how absurd!

:)

Personally, I kinda like the Ainu creation myth:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_creation_myth

I once pointed out the parallel myths between Genesis and a number of other creation stories to Mrs. Boner. The response was simple—Boner, you’ve just proved Mormonism is true. The Gospel was taught to Adam and fell into apostasy. Jesus re-taught it, apostasy happened again, and Joseph Smith restored it now that we’re in the Fillness of Times.

Gilgamesh’s wet Boner.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2017 10:11PM by BYU Boner.

in b 4 ~ Genesis 1:27 ~

"So God created man in His own image" ~

"in the image of God He created him" ~

"male and female He created them" ~

in b 4 ~ God created man as male / female ! ~ (srs) ~


in b 4 ~ God took the "curvy parts" out of MAN and made WOMAN" ~

in b 4 ~ Genesis 2:21 ~

"And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam" ~

"and he slept: and he took one of his ribs" ~

"and closed up the flesh instead thereof" ~

...task, all the time needed to accomplish it. Not limited by celestial bodies cycles.

It seems like Mormonism tries to reconcile the two accounts by claiming that one account is of the "temporal" (physical) creation and the other account is of the "spiritual" creation.

That's the doctrinal answer.

Except chapter 1 is post exile in origin and is a restating of Babylonian creation myth. There are other time and source problems as well with both stories, but mormonism doesn't accept evidence nor scholarship on this topic.

I am going to stick my foot in it!
1.Old Testament legends and annals were taken from ancient legends and annals.
2.It is believed by many that these legends and annals originated with Sumerians.
3.Now comes the translations from the Sumerian cuneiform tablets
Enuma Elish, Epic of Gilgamesh, and more currently Book of Enki.
Granted these books are frequently challenged but by their very existence they should be carefully evaluated,with an open mind,to establish their veracity.
There! I stuck my foot in it. So sue me. I think for myself!

You're looking at things through modern, Aristotelian-logic eyes.
If you look at things through ancient eyes it's simple. Creation
stories are good. Two creation stories are twice as good as one.

The Egyptians had 3 or 4 creation stories.

This part is also lost on people. Not only are the stories of doubtful providence, they didn't mean to the people who originated them what we try to make them mean to us. That's why a revealed truth--written down in a book--is hopelessly absurd.

Did people writing creation myths 3K years ago mean for them to be taught in science classes in 21st century public schools?