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Was Adam really the first man, according to the Bible?

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AngelRho
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12 Jan 2011, 4:18 pm

DeaconBlues wrote:
(Incidentally, it is my understanding that YHVH's use of the first person plural when referring to Himself was introduced during European translations, and may have been an example of the "Royal We".)


You're on the right track--VERY close, actually.

I don't know about the "European translations," but the word for God in that part of Genesis is "Elohim," which is a plural noun. The "Royal We" is not exactly right, but it's kinda the idea. Using the plural "Elohim" in context indicates a singular force but on such a grand scale as to be impossible to understand as a singular force. A similar way of saying it that I think is closer to being accurate is "Majestic We." I know it's a minor detail and that the meanings are very close, but "Majestic" seems more appropriate to me.



TenFaces
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12 Jan 2011, 4:33 pm

AngelRho, the Semitic term "Elohim" comes "El". It means "The". YHWE (that I Am), EL (also a Canaanite, Aramean, Phoenician, deity) , Allah, Illah, Iah, etc have the root word EL. I believe it's in Ba'el, Isra'el, so on. Does EL have another meaning than "The" ?



AngelRho
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12 Jan 2011, 4:56 pm

TenFaces wrote:
AngelRho, the Semitic term "Elohim" comes "El". It means "The". YHWE (that I Am), EL (also a Canaanite, Aramean, Phoenician, deity) , Allah, Illah, Iah, etc have the root word EL. I believe it's in Ba'el, Isra'el, so on. Does EL have another meaning than "The" ?


Well... Actually, it's a word that means something close to "Lord" or "King." It implies that El rules over all, is Lord and King over all, as in "King of kings, Lord of lords." The Spanish word "el" translates in English to "the." "Beelzebul," for instance, translates roughly to "Lord of Flies" or "Lord of Dung," a clear reference to the worthlessness of Canaanite idols.

"Elohim" LITERALLY translates to "gods" in this context. That's why you see El or Elohim used so often in reference to God. "Yahweh" is understood as the proper name for God, but oddly enough seems to be little more than a synonym for "King." Nevertheless, you don't mess around with the Name.



TenFaces
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12 Jan 2011, 5:16 pm

AngelRho, I thought EL had another meaning. In both Aramaic and Arabic they us "El" and "Al" is names. Like say Abdullah al-Qadir. Or some Aramaic names begin with Aramaic titles start with EL. I figured the Latin-Spanish EL was a cooincidence..
The idea of EL meaning king makes sense to me, though they also use MLQ. As you said that derives from Work. It explains why the Qu'ran uses Illah and Illahim.
King would be my other guess.



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12 Jan 2011, 6:11 pm

Nambo wrote:
A lot of copulating probably was done


No kidding. Even the sons of God got into the act with those hot young blossoms.

Genesis 6:4
Quote:
There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.


"and also after that", which must mean even after the flood, possibly to this day.

Quote:
just because the Bible doesnt list every offspring, its more concerned about the lineage to the seed of the "Woman", being Jesus, doesnt mean they didnt exist.


The Bible seems more concerned with listing the names of men than women. Even with Jesus, the Bible lists his step-father's male ancestors. Still, I don't think that the name and origin of Cain's wife would be of so little importance that she should have been forgotten. This is getting at the nitty gritty of our faith.

Quote:
When Man was originally made, he was made perfect, there where no genetic disabilities that would have been exagerated by inbreeding, that only came later as man independant from God deteriated.


Where does it say that the first man (or men) were "genetically perfect?" If so, then it probably took a few centuries before the first autistic people were born, thus giving mankind the useful inventions of fire and wheels. The first "genetically perfect" people must have had a difficult existence indeed.



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12 Jan 2011, 8:34 pm

pandabear wrote:
Where does it say that the first man (or men) were "genetically perfect?" If so, then it probably took a few centuries before the first autistic people were born, thus giving mankind the useful inventions of fire and wheels. The first "genetically perfect" people must have had a difficult existence indeed.


Kayin and his descendants were the technologists, builders and musicians. The descendants of Seth where sheep herding bumpkins. Perhaps the Mark of Kayin was that he was a techno nerd.

ruveyn



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12 Jan 2011, 9:27 pm

ruveyn wrote:
pandabear wrote:
Where does it say that the first man (or men) were "genetically perfect?" If so, then it probably took a few centuries before the first autistic people were born, thus giving mankind the useful inventions of fire and wheels. The first "genetically perfect" people must have had a difficult existence indeed.


Kayin and his descendants were the technologists, builders and musicians. The descendants of Seth where sheep herding bumpkins. Perhaps the Mark of Kayin was that he was a techno nerd.

ruveyn

According to Genesis, Cain's son Tubal-Cain was the first metalsmith (a fact I once looked up in relation to the old World of Darkness RPG systems - interlinking Vampire: the Masquerade and Changeling: the Dreaming, it means that one of the Antediluvians was responsible for the spread of Banality, as well as the Technocratic paradigm bedeviling the characters in Mage: the Ascension...).

OTOH, maybe "genetic perfection" meant that they were all Aspies, and that the mutation known as "neurotypicality" came later... :-)


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Nambo
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12 Jan 2011, 10:18 pm

Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?



ruveyn
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12 Jan 2011, 10:21 pm

Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?


If people believe the earth is flat to you have an urge to correct them?

ruveyn



Sand
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12 Jan 2011, 10:40 pm

Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?


When some poor gullible guy keeps mouthing idiocies it's an act of faith that there is potential in him to come to his senses. It's an act of faith and basic decency to encourage somebody to face reality.



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12 Jan 2011, 10:41 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?


If people believe the earth is flat to you have an urge to correct them?

ruveyn


Do you?



Nambo
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12 Jan 2011, 11:20 pm

ruveyn wrote:
Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?


If people believe the earth is flat to you have an urge to correct them?

ruveyn


Maybe I would post a picture of the Earth showing its a sphere, I wouldnt just keep saying, "no it isnt", post after post after post.



Sand
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12 Jan 2011, 11:33 pm

Nambo wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?


If people believe the earth is flat to you have an urge to correct them?

ruveyn


Maybe I would post a picture of the Earth showing its a sphere, I wouldnt just keep saying, "no it isnt", post after post after post.


And maybe posting a picture of the Earth as a dodecahedron would shatter your confidence.



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12 Jan 2011, 11:47 pm

Nambo wrote:
Why is it, that whenever people on this forum want to talk with each other about the Bible, half the threads are asinine comments telling us the Bible isnt true or that there never was a flood etc, if the Bibles of no interest to you all, why keep interupting our conversations?
Do you feel threatened by it?
Do you think if you say "the Bibles not true" we are going to say, "oh, I never realsied that, thank you for telling me" and stop beliving it?
Its the same hand full of people on every thread, dont you have your own interests you can talk about amongst yourselves?

Nambo, why do you believe that if one is not a Biblical literalist, one is not interested in the Bible? Is it not possible to draw important moral and ethical lessons, and even ideas of how God wants us to live, from the Book, without having to believe that it's a literally true historical document?

Does the Flood of Noah tell you nothing of the value of trusting in God's Word, if you don't believe the entire Earth was ever really covered in water for a month and a half?

Is the moral of the book of Jonah, that if God wills it there's no sense fighting it, and that no one is ever completely beyond redemption, completely lost if you don't think that a prophet was literally swallowed by a giant fish and vomited back onto the land?

Do you really need to believe that the Lord sent two she-bears to tear a group of children to bloody gobbets for mocking a prophet's bald head? Doesn't it seem to you that this might have been interpolated some time later, perhaps by an overly-sensitive bald monk?

To borrow a phrase, "Do you feel threatened by it?"


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ruveyn
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13 Jan 2011, 7:08 am

ikorack wrote:

Do you?


If they are not in a position affecting public safety or my safety I am inclined not to intervene. What they believe privately is their business.

On the other hand I feel that being a good neighbor means warning the other fellow that he is making a potentially harmful mistake. Sort of like yelling "Look out!".

ruveyn



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15 Jan 2011, 8:36 pm

In Paul's letters, Adam is generally reviled as the source of all evil in the world.

In 1 Corinthians 15:45, it says

Quote:
For the scripture says, "The first man, Adam, was created a living being"; but the last Adam is the life-giving spirit.


The "scripture" (Genesis 2:7) actually reads

Quote:
Then the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it


The "scripture" does not specifically state that this was the "first" man.

In Romans 5, Paul writes

Quote:
Sin came into the world through one man, and his sin brought death with it. As a a result, death has spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned. There was sin in the world before the Law was given; but where there is no law, no account is kept of sins. But from the time of Adam to the time of Moses death ruled over all mankind, even over those who did not sin in the same way that Adam did when he disobeyed God....It is true that many men died because of the sin of that one man.


This would suggest that the people created before Adam did not sin, and should not have shared in Adam's guilt and punishment as we do.

In Genesis 6, God decides that people's life spans (including presumeably people unrelated to Adam and who did not share in his guilt) would be limited to 120 years. Noah, however, lived more than 600 years.

Genesis 6 continues:

Quote:
When the Lord saw how wicked everyone on Earth was and how evil their thoughts were at the time, he was sorry that he had every made them and put them on the Earth. He was so filled with regreg that he said, "I will wipe out these people I have created, and also the animals and the birds, because I am sorry that I made any of them."....God said to Noah: "I have decided to put an end to all mankind. I will destroy them completely, because the world is full of their violent deeds."


God is such a hypocrite--he is much more violent than the people he decides to wipe out.

So, at this point, is everyone in the World related to Adam, because Adam and his descendents were especially sexy and had coitus with every other living human? Otherwise, everyone else would have been innocent of Adam's sin, and not deserved death.

Perhaps everyone unrelated to Adam was brought up to Heaven after the flood?