Again with the rape. Ok the Mosaic laws are very clear on rape. If a female is forced to have sex the man must be put to death but the woman is innocent. The Jews at the time KNEW this. MBAS' tag line is incomplete, it fails to show that these words are from Moses, NOT GOD!!
God had instructed Moses to have EVERYONE wiped out.

Now why was that done? Why was the earth flooded? Why did fire rain down on Sodom & Gomorrah? Simple. We are God's creation, living in His created world. We are subject to His laws, not He to ours. Several times through out the OT God sends messengers to a town to have them repent. Jonah, Isaiah, Jerrimiah... they're called prophets, and they spoke for God.

Some repented and obeyed God, some kept going their own way and disobeyed God. When man disobeyed God, and did not listen, He judged them, similar to how we judge criminals, except that He saw not only what they did and were, but what they would eventually do. With God's judgement usually came destruction. Sort of like drawing a picture in pencil and having this one bothersom corner you just have to erase.

It may sound harsh, it may sound mean, but it's a reality of our world as much as theirs, that evil exists. God the just judge of all the world passed judgement and had them wiped out.

Does this mean that we Christians should take up arms against all non believers? No because the covenant has changed. The old covenant with the Jewish people was "I will be your God, I will make you great, that will draw the rest of the world, I will send someone to cover the world's sins". The new covenant is with everyone who accepts and it goes like this, "You can't possibly follow every rule I'd like you to follow, but I love you, and would like you to try and follow Me. I will be your God, My temple will be within you, and I will cover your sins with my sacrifice"

Nice Carl, I've never thought of it that way. Very well written.

Actually this is quite easy. As you point out there is no way to tell how much time passed from the time they were in the garden to the time they were kicked out. The Bible doesn't say if they had kids prior to getting the boot, nor does it say anything about Cain and Able being the first kids. We assume this because it's next in the progression, but it's not really known.

I believe that Cain and Able were not the first kids, they may have been several 100 years down the line. The only reason that the narrative is there is to provide us with the first murder, and it's punishment. Were they incestuous? Yeah they probably were, but besides from the ickyness of incest the reasons against it are due to corruption of the gene pool. Having the original first perfect parents without genetic defects allows for quite a bit. Genetic defects wouldn't begin to show up for several generations, so they were free to mate with whomever they could.

i don't think it explains where the wives came from. their origin is not explained in the bible. there is no mention of them in the garden, and genesis pretty much gives the impression that they had the place to themselves. my point being, were there people created outside the garden, and where did the garden stop? why was there an inside and outside of the garden in a perfect creation? was the garden even a place, or a set of rules?

so, if cain and able were adam and eve's children, how could they have been 100 years down the line? or do you interpret the wording to include children's children.

the taboo about incest couldn't have come from genetics, as gene pool corruption has only been known about for a few decades. if people had been clued up about gene pools, then we wouldn't have had incestuous monarchies, and farming communities with tiny little gene pools. if you don't believe me, come to cornwall and count the fingers...

Interesting!!!!!

So, Believer, you believe that, at the very least, the Bible may not be a complete record....you acknowledge that some things may have been missed out?

And that not all the actions of the Hebrews were necessarily commanded by God?

The Bible doesn't say that God created anyone other than Adam & Eve. It also doesn't say that He didn't. Genesis goes from Adam & Eve getting the boot to them having kids but doesn't mention if those kids were before or after Cain & Able. Adam lived 1000+ years, that's alot of potential kids. Remember the Bible wasn't meant to be God's diary, just a 10,000 foot view of the master plan, so we don't have details about every single day after the creation.


Again Adam & Eve lived for 1000+ years they may have had kids prior to Cain and Able who had kids and maybe even grand kids. Cain may have married his niece or 2nd cousin for all we know.

No I agree the taboo is also Biblical. Before the Mosaic laws men were allowed to marry sisters, cousins, anything went. My belief is that by the time we get to Moses the gene pool started getting corrupt, which required God to intervene and make it taboo. As for counting fingers we have that here in the states. West Virginia, Arkansas, the Carolinas, anywhere you have a backwoods town with the population of 50 you can be pretty sure they're related.

isn't there some genetic disorder that goes hand in hand with a family name in the deep south?

yes, there are a large number of people who, according to the bible lived several centuries. to be honest it seems a little silly to take the chronologies literally considering the limitations of how far you can stretch a fast metabolism land mammal. its no more sensible than the ruck that is going on over the age of the grand canyon.

it all comes down to how literally you take the bible. round and round the maypole...

Of course I do. Again the Bible isn't God's diary, it's full of gaps in time that just aren't explained. For instance what happened during the captivity in Egypt? What about the time between Noah and Abraham? What about the time between Jesus' birth and the start of His ministry?

It wasn't meant to be a day by day account, but it was meant to convey a message. God creates man, man sins against God, God tries several times to get man's attention, God finally has to die on a cross to bridge the gap between Him and man.

As for the Jews following all of God's rules or all of their actions coming from God? Again no. The Jews in the OT are constantly disobeying God. Did God tell them to wipe out the inhabitants of the land? I believe He did, and He had a reason for it. But they didn't listen to Him. Under Moses they stold gold and women and brought those back to camp. Under Saul they kept the cattle and spared several people.

That is now, and again that is also Biblical. God limits our life span to 120yrs some time after Noah. We haven't even come close to breaking the genetic code in it's entirety, so we don't know what limits we have.

Consider this, I write a program to run for 5 hours and stop. I then decide that my program is causing more harm than good by running so long so I dial it back to 2 hours. The program doesn't know that it was supposed to run for 5, all it knows is it's new code says 2, so that's what will happen.

Believer, I commend you for your honesty (e.g., responding to Joe). I agree that this is the way that serious Biblical scholars with integrity view the Bible. There's narrative (but not day to day by any stretch of the imagination), there's poetry, and there's religious discourse, as well as other themes, but over-all, the Bible is a religious work. To dissect or critique it based on a verse by verse (or even extended) analysis, apart from its context, history, and purpose is to miss the meaning it may have for each person.

The main purpose of the Bible, I think, is to either acquaint or reacquaint people with God.

The reading of the Bible, and for that matter - all of creation, can open up a person to a touch from God himself (through the Holy Spirit).

The Bible is the record of the history before, during, and after the Hebrew people. That does not mean that other people can't have their own interaction with God.

Unfortunately, if that people wrote about that interaction, it would be couched in their cultural mileu, and others could probably critique it on the grounds that it is not relevant to them.

How could any one people claim to understand and define God? We should celebrate the glimmers of understanding that we have, and open ourselves up to the possibility of coming to know Him, and trust Him, and stop worrying so much about any religion's tenets.

Why not leave it to God's Spirit to show each of us what we need to learn.

There's much I don't know, and much I can't prove, and in man's eyes, it doesn't make sense. Yet, I trust God that He looks at my heart, and I know that He has not rejected me.

Nor do I reject Him.