dayage wrote:I have always agreed that there is a theological point to chapter four and five. It goes back to the seed of the Serpent and the seed of Eve (Gen. 3:15). Cain becomes the seed of the Serpent (a liar and murderer) when he gives God just some of the fruit of the ground instead of his best and then murders his brother.
Where did you get the phrase "liar and murderer" from? This is yet another example of you using later revelation to support your view of a given passage. There is no indication in Genesis 1-5 that Cain becomes the seed of the serpent. Just the opposite, the creation narrative before makes it clear that like begets like. To say that the woman beget the serpent's seed is simply absurd.
Then Eve is given another seed to replace Abel (Seth, Gen. 4:25). We have the Godly and ungodly line set up.
This cannot be supported without appeal to the NT, which the Exodus generation did not have access to. As such, this point is unintelligible to the original audience and therefore invalid.
These lines are further shown in the names Mehujael (smitten of God) and Mahalalel (praise of God). These names sound alike, begin and end alike and have opposite meanings. This brings out the contrast being made.
Yes, as I pointed out, this is one of the similiarties between the two geneologies.
Did you listen to them? They sound very much the same . . . not that I needed to listen, but I did just to hear what you were hearing. They sound exactly like I said they sounded. haNOCH vs. eNOSH. They even use the vowel
holem-waw, which was not required. They could have just as well used
holem in one or both. The similiarty in placement, sound, and spelling is obvious. You even acknowledged yourself when you said it was similar only in English. The Hebrews, my friend, would have been just as struck with the Hebrew similiarity as you and I are with the English.
Even if I granted you 10 heads of family in chapters 4 and 5 that would not help you with chapter 11.
Assertions don't make arguments. I've already pointed out that what makes the point is that it proves the selective geneologies are being used. If selective geneologies can be used in chapters 4-5, they are likely also being used in chapter 11.
But as I said, there are not 10 in each. Chapter 5 has three heads of families which you have ignored: Shem, Ham and Japheth.
Because they aren't relevant to the geneology. The terminal character is Noah, not his three sons. His sons are mentioned only because the role they will play later in the story, but it is very easy to see who the geneology is leading up to.
I'll say this again, chapter four has only seven heads of families. You said:
There's that fatherhood thing I've been talking about. Now, you can point out that the word "father of" isn't used with reference to Tubal-Cain, and I'll just assume that you haven't looked into Hebrew parallelism.
I'm glad you pointed this out, because it rules against you. KJV and NKJV come closest to getting verse 22 right. Because of the parallelism the lines should read:
Jabal - father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock
Jubal - father of all who play the lyre and pipe
Tubal-cain - instructor of all who forge bronze and iron
Father is paralleled with instructor, so it backs my point that these are not heads of families, but fathers/instructors of technologies.
A contrast can be seen in Genesis 19:36-38 where we do find heads of families. The people are named for their "father." This is not found in chapter 4.
Again, you are only proving my point, dayage.
Headship is at issue. What is a selective geneology? It is one in which you pick specific people. Why those specific people? Because of who
or what the represent. That instructor is paralleled with father does NOT mean that they were not, in fact, fathers--it raises and clarifies "instructor" to the level in the rest of the geneology. A well established point les in the observation in commentaries of all stripes is that Cain's line produced wordly wisdom whereas Seth's line produced the fear of God. That is, yet again,
another similarity. Had Moses went on to add more names, that magic number of 10 that he liked so much would have been lost.
I believe you are correct about Lamech (ch. 4); a murderer and polygamist as opposed to Enoch (ch. 5): who walked with God. They are both found at that important number 7.
Yup, which strongly implies selective geneologies thanks to the fact that both are in an important generational slot.
The rest of the names have no special meanings or order. Irad means "fleet" and comes from a root meaning "to sequester itself," so it is not an opposite to Kenan.
I did not say that every name in the list is parallel. I said the geneologies were selective and have demonstrated a lot of similiarties between the two. All I have to do is show that there are enough comparisons/contrasts to warrant the belief that the geneologies were following the standard rules of Moses' day and were selective. There is plenty here.
The fact that there is a theological reason for the genealogies does not lead to a fact that generations were skipped. It can be seen that some names were chosen, because of what they did or the meaning of the name. This would more likely be done by chosing to use the name of child 99 instead of number one. Remeber that because they lived so long they would have probably had hundreds of children, so there were plenty to choose from.
No, it could not be accomplished by "choosing to use the name of child 99 instead of number one." Yes, there may have been a lot of kids, but this is still a geneology. We are tracing Adam to Noah. Thus, the names had to be Noah's
direct ancestors. Now, you recognize that a choice needs to be made. It CANNOT be made by horizontal choice, because a horizontal choice takes you out of Noah's family line. So how can it be made? with vertical choices--that is, generational skipping,
a practice allowed by the language and totally in line with the customs of Moses' day.
There would be the possibility that a generation needed to be skipped in order to do this, but not a likelihood. It is not until Luke 3:36 that we find solid proof that gereations were skipped.
I disagree. All the evidence points to generational skipping. And this statement here AGAIN proves your faulty hermeneutics. Under your view, the original readers were not capable of getting this passage right. By your exegesis, they would have been limited to false conclusions.
Now, if they could have been led to false conclusions due to incomplete revelation, how do you know that we can't be in the same boat? The canon may be closed for this age, but who is to say that there won't be more Scripture--more revelation--when Jesus comes back? There will obviously be more revelation of some sort. So maybe we can say that our Bible's are, basically, wrong now, because they lead us to the wrong conclusion simply because we don't have enough information. That's is, after all, what you are saying happened to the Hebrews.
The naming of sons within the text only demonstrates that the lists contain real fathers and sons. All you have done is to take the meaning of yalad from another text that fits what you believed.
I'm glad you know my motive better than I do. As I've DEMONSTRATED, without reference to my beliefs, the text shows a good deal more than that.
I'll quote you again about how you came to this meaning of yalad:
I can appeal to its broader definition. Looking at a word's semantic range has nothing to do with future revelation. The word occurs 165 times in the Pentateuch. That is more than enough to get a feeling of how the word was used by Moses and to establish its semantic range.
You have chosen a meaning which fits what you think should occur in this parallelism. That is far from proving that this meaning belongs here.
And I stand by what I said. Where I charged you with bad hermeneutics is using
future revelation as a basis for former revelation. Tell me, dayage, WHO wrote Exodus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? It was Moses himself. Therefore, if we want to know how HE used a word, we can look at ALL of his writings. Not only that, we can look at non-biblical writings of the same timeframe to establish how the word was used.
Once we have a word's semantic range, we can THEN ask how it is used in any given context. We choose the one that best fits the context. Now, it is easily established that the word
yalad meant not only "to be the father of" but also "to be the ancestor of." So, how do you choose which meaning was intended by Moses, which meaning he expected his hearers to use? By an appeal to context.
As an example, you certainly will take the word
yom to refer not to 24 hour days but to long, undefined periods of time. And I take it that you believe the original audience would have taken it that way as well. That is NOT taking future revelation and using it as a basis for former revelation. That is looking at a word's usage in a given time period and choosing, based on proper context, which is likely intended.
Now, I'll not have you attributing to me a position I do not hold. I do not have a problem debating with your or looking at the merits of our positions, but if all you are interested in doing is building strawmen, we can end this now. Further, as the board purpose is for Christians to discuss their views, it clearly violates the board purpose to argue against straw men.
I, then, will take it that I had simply been unclear in explaining the proper methodology behind the literal-historical-grammatical method. I, then, will take your misunderstanding here as being my fault. You should now be aware that looking at a word's semantic range with reference other writings by the same author and during the same time period does not constitute looking to future revelation. We should, then, be able to move on from that wrong charge.
You know I almost reworded that, but I figured you would see the implied meaning (everyth other day on which it occurs).
I can only go by what you write sir, but your nuance is noted and accepted.
"And it was so" is connected back to the creation command every other time it is used. "And God said" is used three times in relation to man, so I said it (and it was so) may be connected to the last two times as well. But, it is not focussed only on the instruction to man about plants.
The problem is, what does "it" go back to? Does it go back to God's creation of man, God's command to man to fill the earth and subdue it, or God's ordaination of certain foods for man and animals to eat? It's either all three as a package or only the last. I simply don't see how it can refer to all three as a package for the simple reason that it doesn't have that usage in any other day. Furthemore, while I see good reason for taking it to refer to the last statement, I don't see any positive reason to take it to refer to all three statements. Can you provide any?
Genesis one focuses on God as maker of all and in verses 29-30, God as provider. Funny, I remember reading this provider part in Ps. 104:14-15, 21, 27-28.
Perhaps you are just imposing a structure on the text that comes from later revelation like you did with the Cain being the seed?
"I have given" is seen for both man and animals whenever I quote it, so I am not ignoring this. But, God is instructing man, not the animals.
I have no problem with the fact that God is instructing man and not animals. I already pointed out the importance of this with respect to the tense of "I have given," which you didn't deal with.
As I have shown:
Gen. 1:29 - "Behold, I have given to you...lachem (to you) yihyeh (it shall be) le (for) ochlah (food)."
Gen. 9:3 - "...lachem (to you) yihyeh (it shall be) le (for) ochlah (food); like the green plant I have given to you all.
God instructs man twice using the same language and emphasizes this by repeating "to you."
No . . . he isn't repeating "to you." He is repeating the entire phrase. There is no particular emphasis. If you want to see a distinction between animal and human diet, you can use the distinction I already pointed out: for people, fruit was given for food, whereas for animals, vegetation was given for food. In any case, the "I have given" is still absolute, and if animal diet is not restricted then neither can human diet be restricted for the simple reason that they are governed by the same verb. And if human diet is restricted to the proceeding clauses, so also is animal diet restricted by the following clauses.
This is not done when God informs Adam about plants as food:
"Behold, I have given to (all animals)....green plants for food." He does not repeat "to them it shall be). There is a distinction.
Again, if your entire theological position is built on the absence of the
standard Hebrew state-of-being verb (
hayah), then you can have your position.
You keep bringing up the single verb, but there is also a single subject for both; Plants as food. Therefore, we should not expect it to cover all foods. But, the fact that God emphasizes plants for man leads to that conclusion (for man). This is backed by Genesis 9:3. Likewise, Genesis one gives just an overview of things. It does not go into great detail. As you have said there is a parallel being made with the plants. We can see, based on the use of the parallel and the way Genesis one abbreviates its discussions on topics, that God was not being exhaustive here, when dealing with the animals.
Again, you are simply wrong about the emphasis. Further, if man's died is fully covered, you would expect the same thing for the animal diet. There is no other food to speak of except plant food, unless, of course, you include meat. But if you include meat, you are simply begging the question.
Now, while I agree that thie entire discussion is abbreviated, it is abbreviated to the point of making specific theological points. You didn't answer before what that point is. It is very obvious if man and animals have the same diet what the point is, but if animals have a different diet than humans, but this is NOT stated but has to be read into the text, then the entire section on animal diet is simply superfluous. If, though, they are abbreviated, then it follows that what was included was included for a specific reason.
So tell me, what is the point of verse 29? How does it contibute to the theology of Genesis 1?
Noone sat around hand feeding their pet lion fruit. Everyone reading this would have thought about what they saw every day. Animals still were and are today eating plants which were provided by God for food. I like this quote of yours.
Since when are we expecting the Bible to be exhaustive?
Question begging. This presumes that the world was the same before the Fall as after, which is the very thing under discussion.
What does this have to do with sea creatures? They are mentioned as being created and man was told to subdue them, so I would expect any dietary restrictions to include them.
Does man sit around and watch what animals under water eat? The
information was restricted to that which Adam dealt with. In any case, I have no problem extending the restrictions to water creatures for the very reason you assume here -- you expect the restrictions to include them as well. Perhaps Adam expected the same. Again, Scripture is not exhaustive. God does say, after all, that everything that has life is given green plants for food. Do fishes have life in them? If yes, then we can properly conclude the restriction included them as well.
I repeat, there is nothing in all the pages of scripture to indicate that animals ate only plants, and Ps. 104 confirms this. Like it or not Psalm 104 is a creation Psalm.
Then open a thread on the exegesis of Psalm 104. You cannot use it as a basis for interpreting Gen 1 for the simple reason it was not available to Moses' original audience. In any case, as I've already told you, assertions are not arguments, and prefacing your assertions with "like it or not" doesn't make them any more or less likely to be true.
The last half of what you said, I have no problem with.
Then you will have no problem with agreeing that "you CANNOT start with unrevealed future revelation and use it to discover the meaning of an individual narrative." Thus, you will agree with me that you cannot use Psalm 104 as a basis for understanding Gen 1. Finally, you will have no problem providing me with the theological context of Gen 1 and demonstrating for me how, in your view, Gen 1:29 plays into and helps it.
God bless