Hi Phil:
I see your point. Now please fill in some blanks for me. Gen. 4:1:
"And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain ." Since
you've shown Cain can't be a "literal individual" whom did she bare?
Eve then said, "I have gotten a man from the LORD." A mystery man no
doubt since Cain's off the table. If this was someone else, who was it?
"And she again bare his brother Abel" Gen. 4:2). Now you have me
wondering whether Abel is real or made up. Who kept the sheep and who
tilled the ground?
Gen. 4:6: "And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth?" Who was
God talking to? And who knocked off Abel?
Gen. 4:25: "And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called
his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead
of Abel, whom Cain slew." Okay, who is real in this sentence, who is
fictitious, how can we tell, and why are real people and theological
constructs mixed together in the same sentence?
Personally, I think you either have to go with all of them being real or
else the whole genealogical thing in the first eleven chapters of
Genesis was made up from the start. That includes everybody. Then, at
what point do fictitious people begin to have flesh and blood children?
Do we start at Abraham? David? Mary?
And who would have had a motive for making it all up? Who would have
believed it? Would the Israelites have been so stupid and gullible
Moses could just hand them a bunch of baloney? Somebody would have
stood up and said, "Hey, these aren't my ancestors." It would have
blown his credibility completely. Then they'd start asking him where he
got those commandments. Why are there only ten? Why is lying on the
list while rape and incest isn't? The whole Pentateuch could have come
unraveled.
I'll just stick with all real, nothing made up.
I will admit whoever named their kid "Cursed of God" had a real unusual
sense of humor.
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/> www.genesisproclaimed.org
Hi Dick,
I don't follow your point. The original author apparently took Seth's
geneology and changed the names to create Cain's sequence in order to
teach a theological lesson. In order to accomplish this, the author
needed to say that Cain (= "smith" or forger) forged a city, which God
rejected in the Flood. Jared could be made into Irad, which means "city
of a fugitive," but how could Enosh be made into something about a city?
Answer: change it into the name of the very significant city Unug,
which was a leading city of that time and famous since that is where
Gilgamesh was king. It was a real city, yes. The Cain geneology would
have made no sense if it wasn't a real city.
Also, to accomplish this, the author had to criss-cross the order of
Kenan and Enosh so that Cain was in the first place and Enoch in the
second. The author also criss-crossed the second pair of names putting
Irad after Enoch so that the two "city" references were one after the
other. (the comparison lists are below)
Phil
Godly Ungodly
====== ========
Seth (no one comparable)
Enosh \ / Cain
Kenan / \ Enoch
Mahalalel \ / Irad
Jared / \ Mehujael
Enoch (no one comparable)
Methuselah Methushael
Lamech Lamech
Noah (no one comparable)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
To: ASA <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Mon, 5 Nov 2007 9:20 pm
Subject: RE: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are
overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Hi Phil, you wrote:
Cain = "a smith," someone who forges things with his hands, by extension
someone who works with his hands in order to forge out his own
significance (e.g., farming, cities, sacrifices that God rejects). He
represents pre-historic mankind who "wanders" on the Earth without
permanent community.
Enoch = "Unuk," the first civilization that Cain forged. (Note how Cain
can't be a literal individual, because he can't be cursed to wander and
yet build a city at the same time.)
The idea that the line of Seth is literal where the line of Cain is
figurative breaks down here at the beginning. The Sumerian unug was a
literal city. After "the flood swept thereover," kingship was restored
at Kish. The city Cain built is the second city named in the Sumerian
king list as restored. The SKL lists it as E-Anna(k) (phonetically in
English) where Mes-kiag-gasher was high priest and king. Remember how
long the patriarchs lived in the days of Adam. If Cain also lived to
over 900 he could wander for hundreds of years before settling down and
building a city.
Dick Fischer
Dick Fischer, Genesis Proclaimed Association
Finding Harmony in Bible, Science, and History
<http://www.genesisproclaimed.org/> www.genesisproclaimed.org
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu?> ] On Behalf Of philtill@aol.com
Sent: Monday, November 05, 2007 7:22 AM
To: bernie.dehler@intel.com; asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] ORIGINS: (Adam or a group of Adams?) pseudogenes are
overwhelming evidence for evolution...?
Yes, I think the Biblical account is clear
that Adam was a unique person and that's why it was used in genealogies;
but I also think it is wrong
The idea that I've been exploring in recent years is this: that Adam in
the Seth geneology was a historical person, the actual father of Seth;
yet since his name happens to mean "mankind" and since he is the first
person in the Semitic geneology, the original composer of Genesis 2-4
took this as an opportunity to "reflect" him backwards to represent the
origin of mankind. Thus, the "Adam" of Genesis 2-4 is a literary
contruction based upon the name of a real person "Adam" found in the
geneology.
It all depends on how the genre of Genesis 2-4 was used at the time. We
need to be more careful not to treat the genre differently than the
original author treated it. It's not correct to say that the use of a
"mythological" genre for those chapters represents "error" in the Bible
if the biblical author intended it to be understood according to the
norms of that genre. It means what the original author meant it to
mean, nothing more, and hence it is not error.
I think there is internal evidence that the original author knew that
Genesis 2-4 was not literal. For example, the Cain geneology is
obviously a pure literary construction intended to parallel the Seth
geneology and teach a lesson about mankind. Taking the names of Cain's
geneolgy, they are all distorted versions of the names in Seth's
geneology, and it means this:
Cain = "a smith," someone who forges things with his hands, by extension
someone who works with his hands in order to forge out his own
significance (e.g., farming, cities, sacrifices that God rejects). He
represents pre-historic mankind who "wanders" on the Earth without
permanent community.
Enoch = "Unuk," the first civilization that Cain forged. (Note how Cain
can't be a literal individual, because he can't be cursed to wander and
yet build a city at the same time.)
Irad = "city of a fugitive," so that even though mankind now lives in
cities, rather than wandering like Cain, they are still fugitives from
God just as much as Cain was. They still run from God in their hearts
if not with their feet.
Mehujael = "cursed of God" because the curse on Cain still continues
into Cain's civilization. Man has forged cities but he has not
successfully forged his own salvation or significance in this world. He
has not escaped the curse.
Methushael = "man of Sheol" because death hangs over mankind. Man's
attempts to forge salvation are a failure and the flood is impending.
Lamech -- the meaning is unknown, but possible means nothing more than
to parallel the Lamech found in Seth's geneology. The Lamechs are the
ones who speak in each geneology, and their respective speeches amplify
the differences between the godly and ungodly responses to life in this
world. The godly Lamech speaks how they have been patiently waiting for
salvation from the curse, and how Noah will bring that salvation. The
ungoldy Lamech speaks how he has been violently taking revenge far more
so than God himself does, 70 times 7. He is continuing the murder
introduced by Cain, and boasting of his power because he is still trying
to forge out his own significance in this world. This is the violence
that God judges in the Flood.
Lamech's three sons (parallel to Noah's three sons) represent profound
cultural achievements (pastoral nomadism, music, and metallurgy), how
"Cain" continues to forge his own significance in this world by cultural
advancement.
The last of these three sons of Lamech is named Tubal-cain, which
literally means "World-smith". This pretty much summarizes it: Cain
has been forging his "world". The Cain geneology both begins and ends
with a person called "Cain" and this forms parentheses around the
account.
This "forging" of Cain ends in judgement, the flood. God rejects Cain's
civilization, just as God had had rejected Cain's sacrifice of grain.
In both cases, the works of mankind's hands are unable to bring
salvation. The "Cain" is unable to "cain" his own place in this world
and God rejects his efforts.
This is in contrast to the blood sacrifice of Abel, and the patient
waiting of Seth's line culminating in Noah (whose name means "rest").
Indeed, the entire story of Mesopotamia leading up to the flood is
selected by the author as a theological case-study to teach us that
mankind's works are unable to effect our own salvation. All Cain does
is contaminated with sin and fails to save. This is the point of the
story.
So you can see that the Cain geneology is a pure literary construction
based on distorting the names found in the Seth geneology. If so, then
this implies that what precedes the Cain geneology may also be a
literary construction: the Cain/Abel account, and the Garden of Eden
account. Both are intended to teach the existence of two curses: the
curse on man that separates us from God, and the curse on man that makes
our works unable to redeem us. Just as the Cain geneology is based on
the names found in Seth's geneology, so the Garden of Eden account may
also be based on a name found in Seth's geneology: Adam the literal man
--> Adam the universal progenitor who was cursed.
But the names in Seth's geneology (including Adam) are accompanied by
birth and death dates and the sequence of names does not form such a
"pat" message as does the sequence of distorted names in Cain's account.
So I take everything from Seth (and his actual father Adam) on down to
be historical based on oral or cuneiform accounts -- including the local
mesopotamian flood. When the Bible says that Adam knew his wife again
and she conceived Seth, this is where the symbolic language of the
mythological genre comes to an end, and the account begins relating what
the author had received as historical data.
I've been working on this hypothesis for several years now, and I have
great hope that this will lead to a consistent and high view of both
Scripture and Science without abusing either. There are a number of
other internal evidences that will take too much space to continue
listing here.
Phil
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Received on Tue Nov 6 01:47:45 2007
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