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StrawberryJam
Guest
I’m still left wondering how this means of communication actually happened, and all I am left with is a location in the Middle East.
Spin it any way you like.
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Spin it any way you like.
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wmw
Guest
A book by Roy Varghese, “The Christ Connection:How the world religions prepared the way for the Phenomenon of Jesus.” Does a fantastic job of first explaining How religions came about and that Primitives really didn’t have such primitive ideas of the supernatural.
Then what is this Phenomenon of Jesus and finally how each of the religions and philoshophies of the world had aspects that helped introduce and make close to home the Christian Gospel.
For instance he tells how one Chinese ruler made a public prayer to accept upon himself all the sins of the people and die so that a drought might be ended. The story concludes that in three days rain came. Also in the section on China there were rituals of sacrificing unblemished animals in very similar fashions to how the Jewish Temple rituals were done. The most important of these was the one done by the Emperor at the southern border at the winter solstice near the end of December.
He goes through all the major religions and they all happend to develop these very similar to Christian and Jewish tales and rituals very soon after the death of Christ. The world was prepared the harvest was ripe, but the workers were few.
Then what is this Phenomenon of Jesus and finally how each of the religions and philoshophies of the world had aspects that helped introduce and make close to home the Christian Gospel.
For instance he tells how one Chinese ruler made a public prayer to accept upon himself all the sins of the people and die so that a drought might be ended. The story concludes that in three days rain came. Also in the section on China there were rituals of sacrificing unblemished animals in very similar fashions to how the Jewish Temple rituals were done. The most important of these was the one done by the Emperor at the southern border at the winter solstice near the end of December.
He goes through all the major religions and they all happend to develop these very similar to Christian and Jewish tales and rituals very soon after the death of Christ. The world was prepared the harvest was ripe, but the workers were few.
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simpleas
Guest
This sounds like a interesting book, i’ve read little bits of other faiths/practises and see some very similar traits.
Isn’t there a story about an egyptian virgin who gives birth to a son. They believed in an afterlife, I don’t know much about it, but they also worshipped many Gods etc.
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wmw
Guest
Maybe, but “The Christ Connection…” does not refer to it.
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grannymh
Guest
My general response about how the communication of the Adam and Eve story actually happened goes something like this.
Some of Adam and Eve’s kids learned from their parent’s wise words. Some kids realized the importance of those wise words, especially the words which described what really happened while Adam and Eve were in their first, unique, original relationship with their Creator. By word of mouth, Adam’s wise kids passed this story on to their descendants who, in turn, passed the story on to their …
As the centuries progressed, and migration literally reached the ends of the ends of the earth, very wise descendants wrote down the essential historic truths about human origin and nature.
This is my new spin:newidea:
Inherent in all human beings is the sense that the supernatural exists. The first essential information is that there is a God Creator and then it was figured out that God Creator could communicate with human beings.
From paragraph 28 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition.
**28 **In many ways, throughout history down to the present day, men have given expression to their quest for God in their religious beliefs and behavior: in their prayers, sacrifices, rituals, meditations, and so forth. These forms of religious expression, despite the ambiguities they often bring with them, are so universal that one may well call man a religious being:
From one ancestor [God] made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him - though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For “in him we live and move and have our being.”
What is important to notice is the word “ambiguities” because we are well aware that not all the forms of ancient “religious” expression were true or even good. It is not necessary to judge these expressions of the spiritual/supernatural. All that is necessary is to recognize that humans have within them an affinity for the spiritual/supernatural.
God as Creator can interact with humans, that is, God is free of material restrictions so He can communicate with us . God leaves His imprint on the minds of humans, because we have a rational spiritual soul since we are in the image of God. From this, we can conclude that God’s love was present in humans everywhere.
It happened that the Jewish culture not only preserved the “knowledge” communicated by the Creator; but they also responded to God through their worship and actions. As we learn from Genesis, there was a covenant established between God and the Jewish people.
When it came time for God to publically reveal Himself to His creatures, He inspired certain writers to put together not only the true story of Adam and Eve which some cultures had persevered in various forms, but also to present Divine Revelation in the final Adam and Eve story.
What I am suggesting is that the basic love story between God and His humans has been understood, since the beginning of human history, in some form, not all of them perfect or complete due to the fact that all humans could exercise their free will. One familiar example is that ancient people believed that rain was a love gift from a god. The “rain dance”, now done in the back room of weather stations is a current example.
All I can add to the above is that God knew that Jesus Christ would be incarnate in real space and time and so the “background” story for the crucifixion had to be told in real space and time by real humans living in space and time; hence, Genesis 1:1 was put to parchment.
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grannymh
Guest
About the possibility of this statement as the third axiom in the logic of Adam –
3. From the dawn of human history, God, the Alpha and Omega, is actively present to each person.
– I am going back and forth, round about the inclusion of “the Alpha and Omega,” which is found in the book of Revelations.
Revelations 1: 8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the One Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.”
And Revelations 22: 13, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
In these words, God is clear that He is the totally Divine complete being. There is nothing incomplete about Him. On the other hand, the human person living on earth is, in a sense, incomplete because he has not reached his perfection of being eternally in the presence of the Beatific Vision.(CCC, Glossary, Beatific Vision, page 867; CCC, 1028) Even Adam, while in the Garden, who directly communicated with God (Genesis 19-20) in a rational intellective manner was not in “eternity”. Even in heaven, Adam is not the same as the totally Divine being because Adam will always remain a creature in relationship to God the Creator.
Adam completely understood the [philosophical] difference between species. He was different in kind from the various wild animals and various birds of the air precisely because he was communicating with God on this earth. Adam was so different in kind from the rest of creation that he needed a spouse who was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, that is, he needed a spouse who shared his unique human nature. (CCC, 371)
When humans do reach their perfection in the eternal presence of God, face to face, (1 Corinthians 1: 13: 12; CCC, 163-165), their material anatomy has had a real beginning within the material world. But – they are also part of the spiritual world of God because Adam was created in the image of God.
The principle of parsimony (Occam’s Razor) is that the simplest assumption to a problem is probably the best. In my humble opinion, the Catholic reasoning that the whole human race is in Adam, the first human, “as one body of one man” is both the most simple and most direct explanation which assures, beyond a doubt, that all humans are eligible for the eternal Beatific Vision.
(Romans 5: 12-21; CCC, 404; CCC, 360-361; CCC, 225; CCC, 775; CCC, 831)
3. From the dawn of human history, God, the Alpha and Omega, is actively present to each person.
– I am going back and forth, round about the inclusion of “the Alpha and Omega,” which is found in the book of Revelations.
Revelations 1: 8, “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “the One Who is and Who was and Who is to come, the Almighty.”
And Revelations 22: 13, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”
In these words, God is clear that He is the totally Divine complete being. There is nothing incomplete about Him. On the other hand, the human person living on earth is, in a sense, incomplete because he has not reached his perfection of being eternally in the presence of the Beatific Vision.(CCC, Glossary, Beatific Vision, page 867; CCC, 1028) Even Adam, while in the Garden, who directly communicated with God (Genesis 19-20) in a rational intellective manner was not in “eternity”. Even in heaven, Adam is not the same as the totally Divine being because Adam will always remain a creature in relationship to God the Creator.
Adam completely understood the [philosophical] difference between species. He was different in kind from the various wild animals and various birds of the air precisely because he was communicating with God on this earth. Adam was so different in kind from the rest of creation that he needed a spouse who was bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh, that is, he needed a spouse who shared his unique human nature. (CCC, 371)
When humans do reach their perfection in the eternal presence of God, face to face, (1 Corinthians 1: 13: 12; CCC, 163-165), their material anatomy has had a real beginning within the material world. But – they are also part of the spiritual world of God because Adam was created in the image of God.
The principle of parsimony (Occam’s Razor) is that the simplest assumption to a problem is probably the best. In my humble opinion, the Catholic reasoning that the whole human race is in Adam, the first human, “as one body of one man” is both the most simple and most direct explanation which assures, beyond a doubt, that all humans are eligible for the eternal Beatific Vision.
(Romans 5: 12-21; CCC, 404; CCC, 360-361; CCC, 225; CCC, 775; CCC, 831)
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wmw
Guest
On the origins of Genesis.
I’ve looked on the internet and it is not hard to run into the Wiseman theory of how Moses had in his posession the original clay tables written from Adam, Noah, etc. It goes on to say that these names are still recorded in the Bible as whenever the text says, “these are the generations of” .
I don’t subscribe to the idea that Moses touched the same tablet originally written by Adam, but I never fully accepted the idea that oral traditions were the only thing that Moses had to work with. Also the actual Wiseman discovery is that the clay tablets were mainly writted in the form where the geneology of the author, or I would say subject, of the story was written at the end of the account.
The first of these is Genesis 2:4 “This is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—” which is organized in our Bibles as the start of the second account of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, but is really a completion of the account of creation from a “God’s eye view”. Where the second creation story is from a “Adam’s eye view”.
Again I stress that Wiseman constructed a huge theory that claims the authors of Genesis were from the hand of the main subjects; that stands on little evidence and is scoffed at by serious scholars for many good reasons. Still, the minor points that Moses could have had written accounts of the original traditions to construct Genesis and that he employed a form of writting that was common in his time could be his real contribution to the truth.
Here are the other locations of these genelogical endings as used in this theory: Genesis (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10,27; 25:12,19; 36:1,9; 37:2)
I’ve looked on the internet and it is not hard to run into the Wiseman theory of how Moses had in his posession the original clay tables written from Adam, Noah, etc. It goes on to say that these names are still recorded in the Bible as whenever the text says, “these are the generations of” .
I don’t subscribe to the idea that Moses touched the same tablet originally written by Adam, but I never fully accepted the idea that oral traditions were the only thing that Moses had to work with. Also the actual Wiseman discovery is that the clay tablets were mainly writted in the form where the geneology of the author, or I would say subject, of the story was written at the end of the account.
The first of these is Genesis 2:4 “This is the story of the heavens and the earth at their creation. When the LORD God made the earth and the heavens—” which is organized in our Bibles as the start of the second account of Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden, but is really a completion of the account of creation from a “God’s eye view”. Where the second creation story is from a “Adam’s eye view”.
Again I stress that Wiseman constructed a huge theory that claims the authors of Genesis were from the hand of the main subjects; that stands on little evidence and is scoffed at by serious scholars for many good reasons. Still, the minor points that Moses could have had written accounts of the original traditions to construct Genesis and that he employed a form of writting that was common in his time could be his real contribution to the truth.
Here are the other locations of these genelogical endings as used in this theory: Genesis (2:4; 5:1; 6:9; 10:1; 11:10,27; 25:12,19; 36:1,9; 37:2)
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simpleas
Guest
Never heard of the wiseman theory, Moses having evidence of creation written by Adam…how very interesting 
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grannymh
Guest
I am embarrassed that it has taken me so long to reply. Sometimes, the most obvious truth is the hardest to see.
The point of the Wiseman theory about Moses is not necessarily that Moses had first-hand information about Adam. It is the point that along the way, various descendants of Adam would have reasonably preserved the facts in available formats. These written notes to affirm one’s memory are probably the first cheat sheet on record.
From there, I went back to another post which has been on my mind, post 334, which paid tribute to the Holy Spirit.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11367130&postcount=334
There it was, as plain as the nose on my face which just had Mohs surgery, the obvious truth that the Holy Spirit guarded the story of Adam down through the ages.
Recall Genesis 2: 7. “The Lord God formed man out of the clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man became a living being.” While I did Google “breath of the Holy Spirit,” I preferred my own idea of the Holy Spirit preserving the logical truth of Adam just as He has been preserving the full “Deposit of Truth” in the Catholic Church since Pentecost.
Perhaps there is more to axiom 2 which is “God as Creator interacts with humans.” Of course, the Holy Spirit was working behind the scenes. How silly of me to worry about how the story of Adam made it intact to the time of Moses.
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wmw
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My college age Children that have taken Catholic Theology classes for the past decade are completely unfamilure with it, but will tell you they are tied of hearing the JEPD Theory which largely refutes that Moses was involved in writting Genesis, but was developed when most believed that Writing was not even available to people of Moses’ time.
Are we in a Modern Dark ages where new Theories are the stuff of Internet Rumor, but are neither taken up nor refuted by Catholic Authoritative scholars?
Are we in a Modern Dark ages where new Theories are the stuff of Internet Rumor, but are neither taken up nor refuted by Catholic Authoritative scholars?
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simpleas
Guest
Why did they write two accounts of creation?
The first is one account of creation and man.
The second, creation, man and paradise.
The first tells us of how the earth was made,plants and veg etc, and how God created all the birds and cattle etc, Then how man was made in the image of God,
“God created man in the image of himself” yet God is neither male nor female, and is a spirit “Gods spirit hovered over the water”.
The second account seems slightly different as in, first there was no vegetation so God sends rain. Then he creates man, then the garden to put man in. Theres no animals yet, so God makes them out of the soil, but can’t find a help mate for Adam so he takes the rib etc.
Just wondered why there is two versions?
The first is one account of creation and man.
The second, creation, man and paradise.
The first tells us of how the earth was made,plants and veg etc, and how God created all the birds and cattle etc, Then how man was made in the image of God,
“God created man in the image of himself” yet God is neither male nor female, and is a spirit “Gods spirit hovered over the water”.
The second account seems slightly different as in, first there was no vegetation so God sends rain. Then he creates man, then the garden to put man in. Theres no animals yet, so God makes them out of the soil, but can’t find a help mate for Adam so he takes the rib etc.
Just wondered why there is two versions?
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wmw
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When we accept that God is infinite we have to also accept that we will never know all the why’s. We understand some better than others. Some are more straightforwardly stated in the Bible. These seem as layers of understanding to us. Each more difficult to grasp. Is the first we know the more important? To some people’s faith and understanding it would seem that way, but in the eye’s of God none of us will know if the 2 millionth reason of God is the most important or the 3rd.
More to the point of your question the thinking in the last 4 or 5 posts of mine are working on the point of view of the Genesis early Chapters. Independent of who took reed in ink or stylus to clay the View of the first story is God the Father’s and the second as Adam saw it.
When we read the Gospels in the NT we are seeing view points of different apostles and accept that each saw it in their own way. Some of the events are told differently and in slightly different orders. This seems a disater to those who are fixated on literal perfection, but to those seeing the writting as an account of witnesses memories they are stunningly accurate, detailed, and complementary.
When we look at the second creation story of Adam do we then say Adam saw his own making? No, but we can see Adam’s understanding in how he and Eve came to be. That this was first and paramount in his story is quite natural and has Thelogical reasons. Then he adds that God made all the other things too in the place of Eden where God brings them together.
The modern scientific mind wants to parce, disect, and re-assemble the two stories into one full understanding, but they are made to be seperate, to be two views that are complemetary. Also, neither fits our modern format of an unbiased news report or scientific journal. Yet, with full conviction of faith, in total union with rational fact we can say both are true and that either one without the other is a much lesser truth than having both as truthful cannon of scripture.
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wmw
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After starting the Thanksgiving Holiday early and taking some relaxation I’m going to give the Magistarium some slack. This Sunday my Parish Priest is asking for our (name removed by moderator)ut into a Synod Questionare. A Synod is of Bishops and usually only gathers the opinons of Bishops and Priests. I find it a sign of the depths of the problems of Marrage, Family Life, Gay “marrage”, single parent families, contraseption, addoption, etc. So, now wonderfully, the Church is trying to begin to address in a kind, gental, loving, patorial, and docterally correct way; now with the glorious leadership of our new Pope Francis these problems of our time…
Therefore, I’ll deem my priorities of addressing Internet Rumors as far less than secondary and swollow some crow in having thought this is an issue that must be addressed furvently.
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Aloysium
Guest
What I understand of what you state here, I don’t actually see as a good thing and I am hoping I have misunderstood. Are they asking the congregation for guidance?
The concern I have about tody’s world is the extent to which
- secular beliefs have entrenched themselves into the views of the faithful and
- how far have Priests and Bishops strayed from the influence of the Holy Spirit.
What I read in your statement scares me about the future of the church.
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wmw
Guest
The Vatican under the direction of Pope Francis is calling for the Synod and is asking all the Lay faithful of the whole world for (name removed by moderator)ut to specific questions as well as the usual preperations of the gathering Bishops.
I Don’t share your fears and completely disagree that any radical changes in a liberal direction are being insitgated if that is the source of your fear.
My main point in the post was to say that my ideas of what the Magisterium should be working on are very off the mark while the Holy Spirit seems to doing a great job in setting the hierarchy’s direction.
I Don’t share your fears and completely disagree that any radical changes in a liberal direction are being insitgated if that is the source of your fear.
My main point in the post was to say that my ideas of what the Magisterium should be working on are very off the mark while the Holy Spirit seems to doing a great job in setting the hierarchy’s direction.
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grannymh
Guest
In the USA, today is the holiday Thanksgiving Day.
**May those who pause on this thread have a wonderful Thanksgiving. **
May those who live beyond our shores, join us in being thankful for blessings.
**May those who pause on this thread have a wonderful Thanksgiving. **
May those who live beyond our shores, join us in being thankful for blessings.
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simpleas
Guest
Happy Thanksgiving USA
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wmw
Guest
My thoughts on Thanksgiving have turned on to a command of Jesus that is made quite often in the NT, but is often overlooked:
“Be not afraid”!
Let’s turn our attentions of fear to being attentive to all we have to be thankful.
“Be not afraid”!
Let’s turn our attentions of fear to being attentive to all we have to be thankful.
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wmw
Guest
For a more complete answer with references to Authoritative Church documents go to this ask as apologist answer:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=12966
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