Correct way to Read Genesis Creation

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BibleAnswer said:
However the language is different and so we must figure out why. and so there it is.
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We “figure it out”? How do we know that we have gotten it right??? I thought you said God’s word was “complete”. It sounds like God’s word requires us to use our reasoning as well. Could it be that you simply dislike the amount of reasoning that some of us use in approaching the Creation accounts???
 
This [is] the genealogy of Shem: Shem [was] one hundred years old, and **begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. ** After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

Regardless of the distinction you are trying to make - begotten, named, had, etc - Arphaxad was begotten two years after the flood.
 
Philthy said:
We “figure it out”? How do we know that we have gotten it right??? I thought you said God’s word was “complete”. It sounds like God’s word requires us to use our reasoning as well. Could it be that you simply dislike the amount of reasoning that some of us use in approaching the Creation accounts???
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Not quite, there are biblical rules to follow. God’s information is not easy to discern without study.

Is 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little.

1 chor 2 spiritual things with spiritual things

Matt 13:34 All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables; and without a parable He did not speak to them,

Matt 13:35 that is might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying: “I will open My mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.”

Ps 78:2 I will open my mouth in a parable.

Mark 5:33 And with many such parables He spoke the word to them as they were able to hear it.

Mark 5:34 But without a parable He did not speak to them. And when they were alone, He explained all things to His disciples.

I was using a general term to explain my answer, but a person can “figure it out” as this is God’s desire for us. To read and study and understand.
 
BibleAnswer said:
In (Gen 4:25), (Gen 4:26) God uses special language to set forth
a precedence, to discern between offspring and grandchildren.

Named him: Denotes an immediate descendent.
An offspring. The calendar is based off of the new patriarch
at the year of his birth.
(Gen 4:25),(Gen 4:26),(Gen 5:29),(Gen 21:3),(Gen 25:26)

Begot: Denotes a descendent far removed. A grandchild.
The calendar is based off of the death of the old patriarch.

It has been established that the calendar has been tied to the life
spans of certain patriarchs.
(Gen 5:32),(Gen 11:10),(Gen 11:26)

This is the answer.

Notice the language used, Shem **Begot **Arphaxad. This means that Arphaxad was not an immediate descendent of Shem, however through the years of children Shem had, through his line, which is the line of Adam to Christ, eventually Arphaxad was born, and Arphaxad was the patriarch when Shem dies as the language implies. This fits with the rest of the account given in Genesis.

There is two words used when geneoligy is given.

Begot
and
Named

You must distinguish between the two, because they mean seperate things. If you apply the same rule to both of the words you will end up with a timeline like Ussa’s,

However the language is different and so we must figure out why. and so there it is.
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Yeah, I understand that sometimes these generations are skipped.

But I am totally confused because I don’t care whether Arphaxad is Shem son, grandson, or great grandson. The point is Arphaxad was born when Shem was 100 years old and this birth happened 2 years after the flood.
 
buffalo said:
Just curious - since God infused knowledge into Adam and Eve - what language do you suppose they spoke?
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Unless they lived in 1200 BC, definitely not Hebrew 🙂​

I didn’t want to open up the issue of historicity with the OP, so I didn’t labour the point: I met his post within his terms because they were his. The fact that I don’t believe in the historicity of A & E (which we ***must ***have discussed quite a few times by now) was not directly relevant; it would have been a distraction from what he said.

Nice talking to you though 😃
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

Unless they lived in 1200 BC, definitely not Hebrew 🙂​

I didn’t want to open up the issue of historicity with the OP, so I didn’t labour the point: I met his post within his terms because they were his. The fact that I don’t believe in the historicity of A & E (which we ***must ***have discussed quite a few times by now) was not directly relevant; it would have been a distraction from what he said.

Nice talking to you though 😃
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I’ve been following this thread and at the risk of opening a can of worms…

I hope everyone realizes that in accordance with a Catholic interpretation of Scripture, the book of Genesis–in general – may or may not be interpreted as “historically true” as we tend to understand it. That is, for example, the ages of people can be taken literally or figuratively. Either, or both, interpretations are acceptable. The Catholic Church does not require that we take them literally, nor does it preclude us from doing so. The Catholic Church does not require that we interpret them metaphorically, or allegorically, nor does it prohibit us from doing so.

Let me qualify/clarify this to ensure there’s no misunderstanding: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph et. al. are, of course, considered as historical figures. I am more referring to chapters 1-11.

Same for the creations accounts in Genesis 1-2.
 
BibleAnswer said:
10883 BC: SETH IS BORN. ADAM IS 130 YEARS OLD.

10778 BC: ENOSH IS BORN. ADAM IS 235 YEARS OLD. SETH IS 105 YEARS OLD.

5590 BC: NOAH IS BORN. LAMECH IS 182 YEARS OLD.

5090 BC: SHEM IS BORN. NOAH IS 500 YEARS OLD.

MAY 21, 4990 BC: GOD DESTROYS THE WORLD BY WATER.

4488 BC: ARPHAXAD IS BORN. SHEM IS 602 YEARS OLD AND DIES.

3153-2914 BC: GOD DIVIDES THE EARTH INTO CONTINENTS, AND CONFUSES MAN’S LANGUAGE.

2167 BC: ABRAM IS BORN. TERAH IS 130 YEARS OLD.

2068 BC: GODS COVENANT TO ABRAHAM.

2067 BC: ISAAC IS BORN. ABRAHAM IS 100 YEARS OLD.

2007 BC: JACOB IS BORN. ABRAHAM IS 160. ISAAC IS 60 YEARS OLD.

1967 BC: JACOB GAINS ESAU’S BIRTHRIGHT AND GOES TO HARAN.

1954 BC: LEVI IS BORN. 1950 BC: JOSEPH IS BORN.

1944 BC: JACOB DEPARTS HARAN WITH HIS FAMILY.

1944-1933 BC: GODS COVENANT WITH ISRAEL WHO IS JACOB.

1933 BC: JOSEPH SOLD INTO SLAVERY.

1877 BC: ISRAEL ENTERS EGYPT. BEGINNING 430 SOJOURN.

THE GENEALOGY OF LEVI

Ex 6:16 These are the names of the sons of Levi according to their generations: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. And the years of the life of Levi were one hundred and thirty seven

1817 BC: Levi dies at 137. Kohath is the patriarch. 77 years later.

Ex 6:18 And the sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron, and Uzziel. And the years of the life of Kohath were one hundred and thirty three

1667 BC: Kohath dies at 133. Amram is the patriarch. 133 years later.

1530 BC: AARON IS BORN. 1527 BC: MOSES IS BORN.

APRIL 1447 BC: MOSES LEADS ISRAEL OUT OF EGYPT AFTER 430 YEARS OF BONDAGE.

1447 BC: MOSES PARTS THE RED SEA.

JULY 1447 BC: THE 10 COMMANDMENTS [THE LAW].

MAY 1445 BC: MOSES LEADS ISRAEL INTO THE WILDERNESS.

MARCH 1407 BC: JOSHUA LEADS ISRAEL INTO THE LAND OF CANAAN.

All of this information was obtained from scripture in the bible. It took many hours, days, months of study to find the connection. but there it is.
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TY for the quotation of Ex 6:16.​

Shem is said to be 100 + 500 - not 602. The extra two years are from the end of Gen. 5, which disagrees with the verse that says he was 100 when he begot Arphaxad. He must have been either 98, or 102 - it depends which passage is given priority.

The birth-dates for Seth & Enosh look much too high. And I don’t see any historians adopting your dates for the confusion of languages; they are much too low (unless one takes the Bible as a source of information on the matter).

BTW - have a look at Luke 3.36 🙂
 
NotWorthy said:
I’m confused. I thought Shem was alive during the lifetime of Abram. It would be worth another thread - this one has gone far enough off-topic.
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Shem should be alive from 2446 to 1846 - 25 years before Abraham died at 175.​

STM this is still on the topic - if only just. Chronology matters in such questions.
 
NotWorthy said:
Yeah, I understand that sometimes these generations are skipped.

But I am totally confused because I don’t care whether Arphaxad is Shem son, grandson, or great grandson. The point is Arphaxad was born when Shem was 100 years old and this birth happened 2 years after the flood.
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You should care, it is a big distinction between “named” and “begot” it is the key to the puzzle. To disregard because your mind is set, is in error.

There are five verses which God specifically writes as “named” to distinguish from those names who were simply “begotten”. This is important information you should take into account. (Gen 4:25),(Gen 4:26),(Gen 5:29),(Gen 21:3),(Gen 25:26)

Arphaxad was “begotten” by Shem, which means Arphaxad was a progenitor, a descendant, a grandchild, a great grandchild, a great great grandchild, etc.

in (Gen 4:25), (Gen 4:26) God uses special language to set forth a precedence, to discern between offspring and grandchildren. He is telling us about Seth and Enosh right off the bat, then immediately in Genesis 5, He begins the genealogy account and begins with Seth and Enosh again, setting the precedent between “named” and “begot”.

It is a very very big distinction.
 
Philthy said:
This [is] the genealogy of Shem: Shem [was] one hundred years old, and **begot Arphaxad two years after the flood. **After he begot Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters.

Regardless of the distinction you are trying to make - begotten, named, had, etc - Arphaxad was begotten two years after the flood.
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The OP’s procedure is the reason some of us espouse the methods of critical scholarship - believing in the activity of J & P & R (& possibly E) allows one to take the text as it stands, and to work from there. :o​

Luke 3.36 includes Cainan, without notice of age - who is perhaps a doublet of Kenan AKA Cainan or Cainam in Gen.5. Which mucks up the dates in the list in Gen. 11.
 
BibleAnswer said:
You should care, it is a big distinction between “named” and “begot” it is the key to the puzzle. To disregard because your mind is set, is in error.

There are five verses which God specifically writes as “named” to distinguish from those names who were simply “begotten”. This is important information you should take into account. (Gen 4:25),(Gen 4:26),(Gen 5:29),(Gen 21:3),(Gen 25:26)

Arphaxad was “begotten” by Shem, which means Arphaxad was a progenitor, a descendant, a grandchild, a great grandchild, a great great grandchild, etc.

in (Gen 4:25), (Gen 4:26) God uses special language to set forth a precedence, to discern between offspring and grandchildren. He is telling us about Seth and Enosh right off the bat, then immediately in Genesis 5, He begins the genealogy account and begins with Seth and Enosh again, setting the precedent between “named” and “begot”.

It is a very very big distinction.
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I don’t care because it’s not germane to the point. The point being that Shem was 102 (give or take a couple) years old when our good Arphaxad was born. I don’t see your reasoning that Shem was 590 during the time of Arpha’s birth. That’s the reason that (for this point only) I don’t care about the relationship between Shem and Arpha.
 
NotWorthy said:
I don’t care because it’s not germane to the point. The point being that Shem was 102 (give or take a couple) years old when our good Arphaxad was born. I don’t see your reasoning that Shem was 590 during the time of Arpha’s birth. That’s the reason that (for this point only) I don’t care about the relationship between Shem and Arpha.
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dude you have over 10,000 posts and you sound so incredibly confused.

Are you absolutely sure that you know Gods account in Genesis? enough to debate me?

It is quite obvious that you are going by your own reasoning without understanding the implications.
 
Gottle_of_Geer said:

The OP’s procedure is the reason some of us espouse the methods of critical scholarship - believing in the activity of J & P & R (& possibly E) allows one to take the text as it stands, and to work from there. :o​

Luke 3.36 includes Cainan, without notice of age - who is perhaps a doublet of Kenan AKA Cainan or Cainam in Gen.5. Which mucks up the dates in the list in Gen. 11.
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Dude, I am not going to lie, I have not noticed that before, or if i did, I totally forgot. You are right Cainan is mentioned twice in Luke 3:36 and I have no idea why.

However it is important to note that the time line is a time line because every date fits. The flood, the 430 years in Egypt (a major proof as it matches up with key individuals and they only fit if everything else fits),Moses, Aaron, the burning bush, the ten plagues, the changing of the calender by God, the Exodus, the sojourn in the wilderness, the 2 year camp at Mt Sinai, the 38 year of wanderings in the desert, Moses dying, Joshua leading Israel across the Jordan into the promised land, the passover, the Judges, the Kings, The temple, the destruction of the temple, the birth of Christ, the ministry of Christ, the death of Christ.

I’ll need to consider Luke 3:36 though…
 
This is quite the fascinating thread (though I admit I passed over page 6 ). If I may just offer my own two cents regarding the OP I would suggest a little foray into older ANE literature as a beginning point. This may enlighten the eyes of understanding. It is my opinion (so don’t shoot me over it) that the first 11 chapters (at least) of Genesis are a religious polemic against other ANE cosmologies and their religious understanding(s). That is, the science is not as important as the purpose, which is to insist on One personal Creator in a linear understanding of the cosmos as opposed to a cyclical view offered by other ANE cultures populated with a plethora of mythic gods in a continual cycle of renewal of the cosmos and the earth.

If acceptable, one may fast-forward to the Passion as the key hermeneutic for understanding in greater detail what a polemical reading of Genesis means, at least from an anthropological view (though ultimately from a religious or spiritual view as well).

The fact that Christ’s Life and Passion takes on the characteristics of older myths points to the Fall of Man not so much in the literal A and E and Garden of Eden sense, but in the sense of a contrarian explanation of the scapegoating mechanism of all cultures based upon sacrifical murder. Christ unmasked the myths, as it were, by declaring the “gods” to be nothing more than warmed-over scapegoats—the victims offered up to maintain the myth of cyclic renewal through violence. Adam and Eve, in this lens, are guilty of believing the Satanic lie that the knowledge of good and evil would make one “wise” and “as God.” Christ unmasks the myth to show us that this knowledge of good and evil, that is, the power to declare what is and is not good and evil for ourselves results only in the curse of cyclic renewal through sacrificial murder.

Someone earlier in the thread (forgive me for fogetting who, precisely) is on the right track in mentioning the “evolution” of human society from an acceptance of sacrificial murder (including human sacrifice to appease the gods of nature–understood in the sense of cyclic renewal as opposed to the Genesis polemic of linear time and a Personal Creator) to one in which we are shocked by a mother drowning her own children. This, we often overlook, was not always the case.

Christ’s Passion is the reason for this, in my opinion. He overthrew the ancient cosmologies, the ancient cyclic renewals through sacrificial murder, by submitting to the mythic process and revealing that the victims were never truly guilty of anything other than human will to define good and evil for ourselves. That is why His ethic is “upside-down” from the ways of the world He entered through the Incarnation. In a very real sense He turned the world back to “right-side-up”. Forgiveness breaks the cycle of violence that orders all previous existing societies, and as the Gospel spreads and takes root, most often through self-sacrifice, as in the early Church that welcomed death and martyrdom, the revelation of Christ’s Passion (as self-sacrifice and forgiveness) overthrows this same tendency in every culture in which it is established.

Through this lens, we can make better sense of the polemic of Genesis’ creation accounts, not as strictly scientific texts (to say the least) but as a reordered understanding of the cosmos and man’s place within it, over and opposed to the typical, cyclic understanding which premised the sacrificial systems founded upon an erroneously (mythically) ordered, and mythical society. The sacrificial murders were elevated to legendary status through deifying the victims in order to assuage the collective guilt, and to fend off the tendency to pull society apart as the need for reneal presented itself. It reordered a fragmenting society, based upon a myth, and cleared the slate with the addition of a new myth, thus, anthropomorphic polytheism.

This is at serious odds with Genesis . . “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . .”

:twocents:
 
In the end I don’t think it matters much. The important thing is that we embrace the simple truths God has conveyed through Scripture and Sacred Tradition; the fall of man, the punishment of sinners and, most importantly, the salvation of Christ. Does it really matter if we believe Jonah was really inside a whale, so long as we see the moral the story is trying to convey, that of penance, or if Adam was created from dust 6,000 years ago or evolved over time a million years ago, so long as we understand the important facts the story is trying to explain; that we used to have it good, but through our sinfulness we have lost this, until Jesus offered it to us again?
 
The amateur archaeologist and professional merchant mariner, David Fasold, made a systematic study of ancient texts to discern the whereabouts of Noah’s Ark. He cleverly filtered the writings of Berosus to extract directions left in his corrupt writings. Like scientists using computer correction to clarify objects, Fasold untangled Berosus and apparently hit the mark–Mt. Cudi/Judi in the Ararat range in Turkish Armenia. This intensive study is nothing new for those in Fasold’s treasure hunting profession.

As part of his now out-of-print book documenting this quest, The Ark of Noah, Fasold threw us a delicious tidbit that explained what he called the Shem Shuffle. The key is that there is a repeated word that indicates two scrolls treating of this subject were joined together. I cannot remember the details but highly recommend this wonderful book. I’d hunt it up if I were serious about getting a handle on Genesis.

That leads me to another point. Are people interested in getting a handle on Genesis? It’s a grand and delightful study. I suggest some may not be interested in anything more than squid inking, obfuscating, as the red herrings are proliferating. I would further suggest this is not because of any academic or religious interest in Genesis but is rooted in de-linking from God because of a persistent pattern of sin. I am questioning motives here. Man up and fess up. **Is the aim here to propagate confusion and doubt because of ulterior motives? **I genuinely dislike those casting the effeminate web of confusion.

St. Augustine wisely refrained from doubt when he didn’t understand the seeming lack of reconciliation from the prophesied time of Messiah and Christ’s coming onto the scene. Augustine was a discerning scholar and wisely chose to leave this as a black box issue, unresolved but not scuttling the otherwise tasty accuracy and verity of Holy Writ. And Augustine’s decision was correct because a Scotland Yard detective ran the prophesied time of Messiah’s coming through a Greenwich Observatory calendar based on the shorter Jewish canonical year and came up with the time of Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem exactment. And this is why Christ said, “If only you’d known the time of your visitation” because the Romanized/Hellenized scribes and pharisees were not using the Jewish canonical year to reckon the time of Messiah.

Ancient texts of many cultures all have the same number of patriarchs–ten–between the first man, Adam, and the flood king, Noah. These King Lists independently support Genesis, with or without the two-year gap. And the Deluge account is culturally omnipresent, sharing the same four elements: 1. God was angry at man. 2. Man takes to a boat. 3. Animals involved. 4. Charmingly, the boat lands on what is denominated as that mountain nearest the people involved, i.e., if Japan, the landing mountain is given as Mt. Fuji. Any beef with Genesis is going to have to be a beef with a multitude of correlative accounts.
 
David Fasold’s The Ark of Noah is available from Amazon for anywhere from $50 new to $5.00 used. I highly recommend his detailed study of Genesis which also documents the political impediments–from Christians to Muslims–that were part of his quest to find Noah’s Ark.

amazon.com/Ark-Noah-David-Fasold/dp/0922066108
 
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