Friday, December 05, 2014
A Must Read
This is an incredibly comprehensive summary of the Biblical teaching on marriage for all Christians who might be tempted to believe there are Biblical justifications for supporting alternative definitions. How nice it would be if such people could provide Scriptural references to support their position as Stan has done here. Don't hold your breath. Well done, Stan.
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71 comments:
Who cares? Limit marriages in your church. Our laws are not based on the Bible.
Anonymous,
Marriage is marriage, and was invented by God at the beginning.
If you think our laws are not base on the Bible, you really need to study your history and quit showing your ignorance.
It's too bad that Dan has banned himself from Stan's because I'm quite sure that his devastating Reason and Biblical knowledge would quickly put an end to Stan's foolishness.
Marriage is marriage and was invented by God at the beginning.
Who then kept changing it. Polygamy came and went. Paul argued for the cessation of marriage, that was passed by. Cousins were cool, the not cool. Can't touch a woman during her period, now l the ban is ridiculous. Cross ethnic marriages were forbidden. Now not at all. On and on and on.
All the while, Christ himself says that he has one central commandment if we truly love him: love one another.
Whereupon this crowd fails and turns to hate,
Feo the false priest sets about falsehoods once again.
Marriage has never changed from being a union of opposite-sex people. Even polygamy is just serial marriage. But God never approved of it, although he did tolerate it and made rules to protect the women. God does work within man’s culture. Try reading my article about “God’s View of Polygamy.” http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2009/07/gods-view-of-polygamy.html
Paul did not argue for cessation of marriage, rather he pointed out troubles which would result in the particular time in which they were living - dire persecution. He also felt that being married could distract from service to God, but then he says it is right to be married, especially if the person has sexual urges - marriage would save him from sinful sexual relations.
Cousins, even siblings were okay for marriage because that was necessary for the population of the earth through Adam and Eve, and then later Noah and his families. When the population was large enough, God limited how closely one could be related. Biologically, there is nothing wrong with marrying close relations, but as time went by and the world became more and more corrupt due to the Fall, and man’s bodies became more and more corrupted, close marriages could bring genetic defects. But marriage was still the union of opposite-sex people!
Can't touch a woman during her period, now l the ban is ridiculous. Cross ethnic marriages were forbidden. Now not at all. On and on and on.
These were rules ONLY for Israel the theocracy, but still didn’t change what marriage was - the union of opposite-sex people.
All the while, Christ himself says that he has one central commandment if we truly love him: love one another.
Whereupon this crowd fails and turns to hate,
But real love won’t support people in their sin. Real love tells the truth about relationships God forbids. Real love obeys GOD and not man.
Your last phrase is a bald-faced lie. You call truth hate because you hate the truth.
"God does work within man’s culture."
I bet you'd like to retract that.
And I disagree whole heartedly, by the way. I'd say that history is partly a story of our ever exlandong revelatory experience of the immensity and eternity of God's love.
Foe,
God does indeed often work within the culture. One perfect example is levirate marriage. He permits divorce while limiting it for the protection of the woman. Etc.
You always disagree with the truth. So tell me something new.
"God does indeed often work within the culture."
OK. Fine with me. So God does work within the rapidly legal and societal approval of gay marriage. Never thought you would so go along definitively with "Christ as Culture" (as Richard Niebuhr describes it).
If that's the way you want it, Glenn, I won't stand in your way.
It is not for us to seek a defence for ourselves and an excise for license by saying that this anger is either useful or unavoidable; for what vice has ever lacked its defender? It is not for you to say that this anger cannot be eradicated. We ail from curable evils, and if we are willing to be improved, nature itself helps us, who were born to what is right. Nor, as it seems to some, is the path to the virtues steep and rough: the access to them is level.
Seneca, De ira, II, 13, 1.
Feo,
Your are as goo at practicing eisegesis with what I said as you are with the Bible.
You deceive yourself to hell by claiming God approves of homosexuality in any fashion.
Thank you, Glenn, for the compliment. I'm clearly better than you because I am theologically systematic and clear about the role and limits of exegesis, having been trained by some of the best at Yale (thus, the value of an education), while you have been trained by either the internet or gorillas.
As for eisegesis, again I understand its role and limits better than you. For instance, I know that the protestant staple of sola scriptura is a prime example of proper eisegesis. On the other hand, most kinds of protestantism go further into bad eisegesis by saying that scripture is the sole source of authoritative reflection.
In fact, the New Testament itself is an eisegetical act of post-biblical centuries. And Protestantism, of course, is an eisegetical act many centuries later.
But let's narrow down to your own bad eisegetical moves:
1) You say, "Even polygamy is just serial marriage. But God never approved of it, although he did tolerate it and made rules to protect the women. God does work within man’s culture."
But scriptures says that God says, in 2 Samuel 12:8, "I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more."
Quite a bit more than tolerance. Rather, it sets a precedent. Which, by the way, scripture never rescinds until I Timothy 3:2, and applies monogamy ONLY for elders!!!!
Your bad eisegesis is clear for all to see.
2) You say, "Paul did not argue for cessation of marriage..."
But scripture says that Paul says couples should abstain, "by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am."
Notice that Paul says prayer is impossible in a true, conjugal marriage. Further, his allowance of sex is a concession toward those who cannot help themselves and NOT a command to have sex. BECAUSE he would have everyone be like him: single.
THAT is nothing but an argument short of command to refrain from sex.
3) And here, perhaps, is your most egregious and blatant "reading into" scripture that is simply not there: "Cousins, even siblings were okay for marriage because that was necessary for the population of the earth through Adam and Eve, and then later Noah and his families. When the population was large enough, God limited how closely one could be related."
Where in the hell, Glenn, do you get exegetical indications of this whole-cloth importing into scripture of pure fantasy?
I dare you to provide scriptural evidence for this massively bad eisegesis.
Punto e final.
Oh, so very educated you are; I’m so impressed that you were given such a liberal education that you can’t even think for yourself, rather you just regurgitate liberal theological lies. You are what Scripture calls a fool.
All God is saying in 2 Samuel is that everything that was Saul’s, including the wives. That was nothing more than operating within the cultural system to protect the women. Oh, but you are so brilliant you know better.
As for 1 Tim, again that is in a culture of multiple wives. Those who were to lead the Church were not to be polygamists - they were to set the example.
Talk about eisegesis!!!! Paul was not even intimating that it was impossible for prayer in marriage. What he was suggesting was no different than fasting - a total focus on prayer and on God. To claim that was a virtual command to refrain from sex is nothing more than reading into a passage what you want it to say so as to support your leftist agenda. Amazing how 2000 years of Christians never understood it that way, but your modern leftist theology somehow discovered it.
As for your last railing, how about the fact that there were only two people to begin with - Adam and Eve. Who do you think their children married? EACH OTHER, or as more children were born and more married and had kids there would be marriages between 1st cousins, etc. Even Abraham married his half-sister. It wasn’t until the Law of Moses that God stopped the practice, since by then the population would no longer require it.
OH, but libs like you think Adam and Eve is just a story and evolution brought everyone about.
You have massively bad eisegesis and leftist theology. FALSE TEACHER! And certainly not a Christian.
"Who do you think their children married? EACH OTHER, or as more children were born and more married and had kids there would be marriages between 1st cousins, etc"
If you cannot supply textual evidence, even inference, Glenn, then these kinds of statements are the very definition of eisegesis.
This you clearly can't fathom, though itself is shallow enough, thereby indicating your location in the seas of interpretation. You should have gone to Yale to avoid idiocy, sorry to say.
As it is, I imagine 90% of what you believe is grounded in eisegesis - not all of it this bad, mind you. Protestantism holistically is a largely eisegesis sl position.
Feo,
The textual evidence is Genesis. I was hoping you could read and understand, but apparently you can't.
Day six God created Adam & Eve. They were the first humans. All the human race descended from them, through Noah and his family after the flood. Since all people originated from two, who else are they going to marry? DUH. The entire Judeo/Christian theology is based on two original people.
After the Flood wiped out the human race except for Noah's family, who are they going to marry except for siblings, cousins, etc?
In Genesis you will also find where Abraham married his half-sister. I'll let you find the passage; you might learn something.
Your whole ideology is based on humanism, which is the antithesis of Christianity.
Fool
Wow. If ever there was someone who stands as a reason to avoid Yale, it is feodor. From his comments here and in previous threads, we can make a variety of assumptions:
1. Yale's theological instruction is crap.
2. Yale will pass anybody.
3. Yale passed feodor so they wouldn't have to listen to his convoluted commentaries that for him pass for higher intellect, but are no more so than a dissertation delivered by Professor Irwin Corey (who turned 100 this past July, BTW).
4. Yale theological professors couldn't make out whether or not feodor's convoluted thesis was confusing because it was deep or because it was mere baffling bullshit. This indicates the theological instruction was crap.
5. Yale will let anyone in.
6. feo went to Yale to clean toilets.
7. Yale's theological professors are of the Jesus Seminar variety of idiot theologian, which means the instruction is crap.
8. Yale passed feo confident that nobody would ever believe an idiot like him ever went to Yale.
9. feo did well enough to pass and because of thinks it made him wise.
Though Glenn did well enough in response to the false priest, I will add a comment or two of my own even if they might be repetitive.
1. The bit from 2 Samuel had nothing to do with an endorsement of polygamy. It had to do specifically with David's sin with regards to Bathsheba. Had David stolen a car, God would have said, "I gave you all of Saul's cars. Why did you feel you had to steal another?" Saul happened to have a lot of cars, and when he was deposed in favor of David, David got all his stuff, regardless of how many of any particular item on the inventory there was.
feo's not the first proponent of changing the definition of marriage to force meaning into this passage in order to use it as Scriptural support for falsehood. He's just the least original.
2. Paul's recommendation to suspend sexual gratification long enough to pray now and then is no different than any encouragement to keep God first in all things and not to let any worldly thing inhibit one's time for prayer.
He's certainly not saying that prayer is impossible in a marriage, but that, as in so many other areas of life, it is easy, due to the sex, to forget one's duty to pray. But here's the true noteworthy part of feo's idiocy or deceit or idiotic deception: The full verse is as follows...
Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer.
Note the emboldened section and how it denotes Paul's teachings regarding one's body belonging to one's spouse and the duty of each to honor the conjugal rights of the other. I guess feo didn't hear the Yale instructors teaching this part from the restroom where he was cleaning toilets.
3. Whether or not one might believe in evolution and have somehow come to accept while still claiming devotion to the God of the Bible that suggests otherwise, the issue of incestuous behavior according to Scripture is pretty clear, both when it was tolerated and when it came to be prohibited. But if one is focusing on what Scripture is teaching, there can be no other way of inferring incest as necessary in fruitful multiplication of the human species. While it may be difficult for a sophisticated intellectual to wrap his overinflated head around the concept, all other explanations for going from Adam and Eve to numerous other nations can't be more than speculation and eisegesis given what Scripture says. It doesn't get into the details of how mankind went from the two to the many.
No. feo's Yale education speaks ill for the education one might receive from Yale if he is any indication of the graduates it produces.
Marshall: "The bit from 2 Samuel had nothing to do with an endorsement of polygamy."
God: "I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more."
Feodor: I'm pretty sure gifting is approval. Take what's coming in two weeks. I bet Marshall doesn't get one gift that is disparaged by the giver.
_____________
Marshall: "Paul's recommendation to suspend sexual gratification long enough to pray now and then..."
Paul; "I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all of you were as I am."
Feodor: I'm beginning to laugh at Marshall's marvelous obtuseness. And his eisegesis: "it is easy, due to the sex, to forget one's duty to pray."
That cracks me up. And this:
"Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer."
Marshall and Glenn both, whom, I'm now wondering, may not have gone to college, cannot immediately grasp the corollary:
"Deprive each other SO you may devote yourselves to prayer."
Clearly for Paul a sexual life cannot be a prayerful life. Which is obviously a 1st century hang up and dreadfully wrong.
______________
Marshall is right to say that all explanations about how Adam and Eve begat nations must remain eisegesis because scripture does not say. But this must include his "logic" as well.
HIs myopia is laughable.
Of course, the alternative is to be simple and wise and accept the obvious: Genesis is not history and not interested in being strictly factual and rational. It is religious literature, sacred to the community that reflects spiritually upon it.
You know, being the church. Which Marshall and Glenn cannot be.
_________
Bottom line, Yale wins!!! Brains wins!!! Love wins!!!
Hate and stupidity loses.
Glenn, "The textual evidence is Genesis."
No it's not. Nothing in Genesis reflects your reasoning, "Cousins, even siblings were okay for marriage because that was necessary for the population of the earth through Adam and Eve, and then later Noah and his families. When the population was large enough, God limited how closely one could be related."
It's simply not there, or anywhere. You have to read that into the text. (Here's a HINT, Glenn: the very definition of eisegesis.)
Ultimately, there is no Biblical text that puts an end to polygamy. Only eisegesis can find it.
Once again. Wow. And he has the nerve to disparage a helicopter engineer. Based on your reasoning, I'd take someone who washes helicopters over Yale any day.
---------------------
God: "I gave your master’s house to you, and your master’s wives into your arms. I gave you all Israel and Judah. And if all this had been too little, I would have given you even more."
Feodor: I'm pretty sure gifting is approval. Take what's coming in two weeks. I bet Marshall doesn't get one gift that is disparaged by the giver.
Art: I'm more than "pretty sure" you're an idiot. First of all, I'm not sure that "gifting" is an appropriate word to apply to a situation by which one is entrusted with ruling and leading God's people. David may have been privileged by the transfer of power, while at the same time being burdened. But had David merely seized power from Saul, deposed him in a coup of David's own volition sans God's interest and involvement, he would still have come away with everything Saul had once owned. And yet one must still say that he gained his authority and power because God "gave" it to him.
However, if God "gifted" David in any way, it was by that transfer of power from Saul to him. And with that transfer naturally came everything that was once Saul's, just as if he had taken it by that hypothetical putsch. The wives "came with the house", so to speak. God saying that He gave all that was of David's master was merely making the point that to still go after the wife of another was a case of a powerful man with everything taking from a poorer man with little. In this case, that was David who had all of Saul's wives taking the one wife Uriah had. It was unnecessary. It was worse than that as he killed Uriah to get her.
But for new kings to assume the harem of their predecessors was customary. It came with the job. It wasn't in any way a statement about marriage, except to those for whom it is crucial to force a false meaning upon the word for the purpose of justifying their support for abomination. That would be you, in all your reprobate falseness. And how true to your nature that you would go so far as to distort God's meaning in order to distort the meaning of "marriage".
Now, let's show how your amusement is merely no more than a display of a mentally defective laughing at nothing.
The context, once again for Yale graduates who learned nothing, is that Paul is speaking to the duties of spouses to each other. That is, the duties of the average man and woman who are married to each other, because of course, that is what marriage is: the union of one man and one woman. From 1 Cor 7:
Now for the matters you wrote about: “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman.” 2 But since sexual immorality is occurring, each man should have sexual relations with his own wife, and each woman with her own husband. 3 The husband should fulfill his marital duty to his wife, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 The wife does not have authority over her own body but yields it to her husband. In the same way, the husband does not have authority over his own body but yields it to his wife. 5 Do not deprive each other except perhaps by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. 6 I say this as a concession, not as a command. 7 I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that.
Note Paul acknowledges human frailty. To accommodate that frailty in an acceptable way, there is marriage. However, this does not indicate a disdain for marriage, but rather a disdain for human weakness. He wishes all were like him, by which he means willing to deny himself for Christ of satiating his sexual urges. Few had his edge, which was a direct encounter with the Living Lord. But he is not saying that "prayer is impossible in a true, conjugal marriage", because his emphasis is on the duties of each spouse to the other. Thus, he is saying "get it on, EXCEPT by mutual consent AND for a time so that a devoting of time for prayer can occur". The point is that one should not deny the other EXCEPT by the terms he suggests. Not that it isn't possible to have a prayer life. He is more concerned that either denies the other of their conjugal rights as a spouse.
To put it another way, prayer time isn't even the point, but that not denying each other is. He could have simply stopped at "except by mutual consent" and still be on point. "Don't deny each other that to which each is entitled as a spouse". THAT is the message, not that "a sexual life cannot be a prayerful life." That's idiotic eisegesis from an idiot from Yale.
Also idiotic is to label a marriage as "a sexual life". You apparently are the immorality of which Paul spoke. The next thing you know is that you'll be parroting that classic leftist crap about sex being a spiritual thing.
As to the populating of the earth, I can see where the trouble is. I often have numerous ways of wanting to express a thought and sometimes combine them without realizing it until after publishing the comment. More often than not, I catch it in time to copy and paste it, deleting the original while amending it in the pasted re-posting. That's why proof-readers exist. After re-reading over and over for mistakes, the second set of eyes will be the one to catch them. The downside here is that an idiot catches them and thinks he's found a flaw. But the only flaw is a poorly expressed thought.
That's the last time I'll ever explain myself before re-phrasing the point, because false people don't accept the truth anyhow. But here is how I should have worded things to get my point across properly to fools like feo:
"...there can be no other way of inferring except that incest as necessary..."
The original wording actually says the exact opposite of what I meant, AND what the reality is regarding what Scripture implies there. Thus, all else is speculation. Going by what Scripture does say cannot suggest the myriad "scientific" alternatives. Based on what it does say, incest HAD TO HAVE BEEN how the earth was initially populated.
"Of course, the alternative is to be simple..."
You have that down pat to the level of art form. Few are as simple as you. "Wise" you are not. You likely are unaware of what Scripture says regarding those who think themselves wise.
But you say we must "accept the obvious: Genesis is not history and not interested in being strictly factual and rational."
You couldn't prove that it isn't if your sorry life depended upon it. To suggest that it is false indicates your lack of conviction regarding the level of God's power. I wouldn't dare suggest one way or the other regarding whether the events of Genesis are absolutely true or not. I do suggest that God is capable of having done things exactly as Genesis lays it out, and that highly educated sophisticates aren't as sharp as they think they are. I certainly am not willing to put religious-like faith in such people. That's for Yale toilet scrubbers like yourself to do.
Finally,
"Ultimately, there is no Biblical text that puts an end to polygamy."
There doesn't need to be. This is because there is no Biblical text that demonstrates God promoting or sanctioning it, while there is plenty that demonstrates a one man/one woman arrangement as what He intended. They just don't teach solid Biblical truths in Yale.
Um,
It isn't "eisegesis" to say Adam's & Eve's children married each other. It's extrapolation based on the fact that they were the only people. It's called logic.
Feo is so full of himself, which means he's also full of dung.
He is proof that Yale is worthless.
Glenn,
You last response could easily be regarded as a matter of semantics, though extrapolation is more speculative, while eisegesis is insisting on a specific meaning existing where it doesn't. In either case, the conclusion is indeed logical based on the text, while an evolutionary explanation isn't.
Then let's just call it a logical deduction from the available facts
Apparently the situation in this country is so bad that if one hasn't gone to Ysle one cannot read, among contenders for mates, Cain seemingly someone native to Nod and not Eden. The "sons of God" seemed to be good mating material, as perhaps the Nephilim.
And there must have been a slew of extra people east of Eden since Cain built a city there.
None of this will make sense to you guys since I am referring to actual text in Genesis 4-6.
You know (or rather don't know): exegetical interpretation of what is there, not, as you two model, silly surmises from what is not.
Feo,
Did you notice that there is no mention of how much time passed before Cain married one of his sister or cousins? Talk about the need for eisegesis! You and your ilk have to read into everytingl
Did you notice, Glenn that there's no mention of a sister?
He went to Nod in the east and married there. You've made up a sister. Eisegesis is necessary in some instances.
But you can't make up stuff wholly, which you've done.
Hey Feo,
Try reading Genesis 5:4. And it doesn't even mention other sons and daughters prior to that time.
Very good, Glenn. You now are a little smarter about the timeline. Genesis 4, Cain slays Abel, is exiled to Nod where he finds a wife, has a son, and builds a city for the people of Nod. Later, in Genesis 5, Adam and Eve, left to themselves with a dead son and an exiled son, have Seth who grows up to find a wife somewhere and have children. Adam and Eve have other children after Seth.
So?
We can speculate all day. But what the text says does not indicate other peoples who sprang up by themselves, or were placed one earth by God. That the text does not mention daughters during the time of Cain and Abel does not mean there were none. Women were rarely mentioned in OT Scripture unless they had some significant role in a revelation of that time, such as Cain's wife.
One must also consider the length of time these people lived and that populating the earth was likely not yet mitigated by disease and privation, as we cannot know just how long it took for sin to fully corrupt the entire earth.
The real problem here is the insistence that one knows for sure what isn't expressly presented in the text. We just don't know. Sophisticated Yale men think they know everything, because...well...they're from Yale. Rational people need more than that.
I hear the the clear sound of feet backtracking and carrying resentments.
That and the sound of eisegesis: "does not mean that there were none." Neither can silence mean that there were.
How can Cain marry a cousin? To have a cousin he would have to have had an aunt or an uncle, wouldn't he? Where did they come from?
Find a law that's based on the Bible and get back to me.
Yeah!!! Yale wins again. Anonymous education wins!!!
Brains win!!!! because we are at least smart enough to read what's there and what is not there.
Your minds are so filled with spinning eisegetical helicopter interpretation and blowhard bagpipes that you can't even read straight. You have to defend your faith against intelligence, unable to realize one can have both if one changes one's prejudices and harbored hates. (Almost said Harvard hates.)
Feo,
Your ignorance of the Bible is astounding.
Of course Adam and Eve had more children. The Bible doesn't say if possibly a girl was born before Cain. Cain is mentioned because he is obviously the first boy, and Eve was looking forward to the prophesied messiah (3:15). Abel is only mentioned because he is the first murder victim. Since this happened when both were adults, there had to be many children born since Cain -- unless you are so stupid as to think Adam and Eve only had two children prior to Seth. Seth is noted specifically because he is the line we follow to Noah - the particular child who is in the genealogy of Jesus.
No other children are named because they are not germane to the story.
Of course the Jews and Christians have understood this for thousands of years, but liberals, atheists, and others of you ilk pretend none of your "new" ideologies haven't been responded to since the beginning!
Now go out and play in your sandbox.
And Feo,
YALE loses, and your lack of real education on the topic proves once again what a fool you are.
Glenn: "Your ignorance of the Bible is astounding. Of course Adam and Eve had more children."
Feodor, four comments earlier: "Later, in Genesis 5, Adam and Eve, left to themselves with a dead son and an exiled son, have Seth who grows up to find a wife somewhere and have children. Adam and Eve have other children after Seth."
Glenn: "The Bible doesn't say if possibly a girl was born before Cain."
Feodor: No it doesn't. How bright of you.
Glenn "Cain is mentioned because he is obviously the first boy, and Eve was looking forward to the prophesied messiah.."
Feodor: That's a lie. God is speaking not Eve.
Glenn: "unless you are so stupid as to think Adam and Eve only had two children prior to Seth."
Feodor: I'm stupid enough to take scripture seriously and there is no mention of other children. You, eisegetically, want to believe that Cain married a sister. But God's sentences Cain only to banishment: "So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden."
Glenn: "No other children are named because they are not germane to the story."
Feodor: Then how do you explain 5:4, "After Seth was born, Adam lived 800 years and had other sons and daughters." Here, long after Cain married some woman in Nod, apparently, children not germane to any story are mentioned.
So, none your supposed points are coherent. And none of them come close to exegesis. All they are are things you were taught by eisegetical traditions and which you, because you are ignorant, cannot rethink via the obviousness of their groundlessness when one simply reads the text.
Even Marshall has abandoned you.
Yale wins, no matter the vacuousness of your inability to really engage.
Feo,
Your foolishness is not worthy of detailed responses. As noted, the Jews and Christians have understood for thousands of years that which you are unable to understand. Even Josephus talked about how many children Adam & Eve had. The fact that Adam & Eve were the only two people IMPLIES that it was their children who supplied a wife for Cain etc.
YALE loses every time.
Oh, and Marshall hasn't abandoned anything. Did it ever occur to you that he has more things to do that rush to answer your foolish stupidity?
Have a nice life on earth, because you are facing eternal damnation in the afterlife.
"Your foolishness is not worthy of detailed responses."
That's really because the biblical texts do not support your need for eisegesis.
"As noted, the Jews and Christians have understood for thousands of years that which you are unable to understand."
As you note. From your mind, Jews and Christians have thought the way you want them to think. Clearly you have no idea -- not having great education in the area -- of the massive tradition of various interpretations that would sound similarly crazy to you from the Talmud, the midrashim, the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus, Gregory of Nyssa), Anselm, Irenaeus, Tertullian, etc.
These are the commentators -- whom you do not know, except as names -- that you lump into your head as right thinking when you do not even know their thinking. Universal salvation, for instance. The perfectibility of man, for instance.
You don't know your tradition. You only know what agrarian, primitive Christian American frontier made of your tradition. Which includes a dominant under text of anti-intellectualism which you and Marshall and others here feel instinctually but unconsciously because it threatens you and your comfort.
"Even Josephus talked about how many children Adam & Eve had."
As did I, idiot, some time ago, in noting Genesis 5. You have to find them in Genesis 4 and say they are missing because they are unimportant.
In this, you practice bad eisegesis.
Cain was banished alone. He feared being a wanderer and a target. God promised him he would not be such. He went to a land with a name because people were living there. He found a woman there. In time, Adam and Eve had Seth and many other children. These children joined the Earth's population that included the city of people in Nod that Cain built, the Nephilim, and the Sons of God.
This is simply how the text reads, Glenn, which you have not acknowledged because you cannot read because you cannot accept.
Feo,
You are an idiot as well as a fool. You have NO idea as to what education I have, what vast studies I have accomplished, etc.
And you have no understanding of the Bible - you just make it say what you want it to say, just like every unbeliever.
I'm finished with you. I'll let Marshall tear you apart -- he always does such a good job of it.
The blind leads the blind and neither one can stick to the script of Genesis 4 and 5.
You've been admitting that fact for the last few comments and again just now.
Yale wins simply reading Genesis 4&5.
Let's look at Scripture to see who is engaging in eisegesis (Hint: it's feo). The only important point for this discussion is that Eve is mentioned as benign the mother of all living, as that is the meaning of her name. I can see no other references to the number of children she bore, or the order in which she bore them. What we do know is that feo is a boor. I'd hate to think that is true of all Yale boys.
Anyway,
Adam[a] made love to his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.[b] She said, “With the help of the Lord I have brought forth[c] a man.” 2 Later she gave birth to his brother Abel.
Here, there is no mention of there having been any previous children, or what sex they might have been. As the chapter deals with a specific incident, the murder of Abel, as well as the first indication of what constitutes a pleasing sacrifice to God, I don't see how mentioning other children is germane to the story.
The story also fails to provide the ages of Adam and Eve so as to speculate on how many kids they might have been able to produce before Cain, if any were. We simply can't know. Thus, while it might be natural to surmise, given this is the first mention of children, that Cain was the first, there is no true evidence provided to indicate that is so. Thus, to say so is to inject one's preferred belief into the story that the story does not with certainty provide or even imply.
Following Cain's exposure as Abel's murderer,
"Now you are under a curse and driven from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand."
There is no indication that Cain was forced to leave by himself, that he was unable to take with him a sister or sisters or that he was unmarried at the time of the murder. A Yale boy must pretend it is so that he was totally alone when made to wander.
13 Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is more than I can bear. 14 Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence; I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.”
Nothing here indicates that he must wander alone or that he was unmarried at the time. Keep in mind that it was not uncommon to refer to men only, unless a woman's part in a tale was germane to it. I do not, however, suggest that he wasn't sent off alone as part of his punishment, but only that the story thus far does not suggest that as the only possibility, or even that it was the case at all.
16 So Cain went out from the Lord’s presence and lived in the land of Nod,[f] east of Eden.
According to my Bible (NIV Study Bible), "Nod" refers to wandering. It might not be a specific place at all, other than that it was east of Eden. The fact that it is so named does not mean that it was called "Nod" at the time, but could have been named later for the purpose of recording the event. Again, not saying that this is so, but only saying that Scripture does not provide us with anything to suggest that it was a town or state or any type of specific establishment or settlement. (We do find later that Cain established a town himself---did it replace Nod? Was it down the road from Nod? No indication is available)
17 Cain made love to his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch.
feo insists that this woman was met by Cain after his banishment, possibly at a singles bar. But there is no indication that this wife was not with him from before his banishment. feo injects this information into the story that does not provide it itself. That's eisegesis.
I don't have a problem with speculation, but to insist one's speculation is more sensible to that of another requires something more tangible in the way of proof. feo would likely look to the science of men, as if it is god-like in its perfection. I prefer to simply look at Scripture and lacking proof of the type most atheists would demand of us, do not make assumptions regarding what might have occurred where there is no indication of it having actually occurred.
Thus said, between us, it is feo who is injecting what he needs to have in order to support his counter-Christian positions on marriage.
Scripture does not comment on how Cain left Eden or what he took with him. So for a Yale boy to deny that he packed up his Model-T Ford with rocking chairs, a wife, about named Jethro, a girl named Ella Mae, grandma, a couple of bloodhounds named Glenn and Marshall is preposterous.
Because the Bible doesn't say it did or didn't happen means it could have. To deny that is just one person's stubborn opinion.
Except we'd have to say that eventually grandma came back to give birth to everyone else. After all, her name is Eve.
(Though she wasn't the mother of the Nephilim... or the Sons of God who married the daughters of man... or the people who were already living in the land of Zhollywood where Cain built a city.. Hmmmm.)
Your sad attempt at cleverness does not mitigate the facts of the matter, though it does indicate you are more pathetic than you've already proven. YOU want to say that certain things happened for which there is no Biblical support. OUR position is based totally on what Scripture DOES say. For example, there is no mention of other people living in Nod. Nor is there any indication that others were present for his "then building a city". Would other people be a big help in building a city? Sure. Is there any indication that there were any at the time he began the task? No.
Again, there is plenty of room for speculations regarding the details of how all that is presented actually took place. But to insist your speculation is what should be regarded as most likely requires a bit of evidence.
At this point, however, it is safe to say you have no true argument or comment that does anything to contend with what Stan presented at his blog to which I linked in my post. You presence here is just another pathetic attempt to present yourself as more knowledgeable, while sadly at the same time proving otherwise.
I'm stunned how you so consistently get yourself backward. Well, not stunned, but definitely baffled how idiotic so many of my countrymen are that profess Christian faith but practice mud wallowing.
I've said the following:
1) Cain was banished from Eden.
2) Cain moved to a place with a name (a place outside of Eden and therefore not related to Adam. It had a name. Who gave it a name? Probably people.)
3) Then Cain married and had a son.
4) Cain built a city in Nod. (Probably for people who existed and needed a city, probably the people who lived in and named Nod.)
4) Adam and Eve had Seth (whom Eve says is a "child" not son to replace Abel.
5) Adam and Eve had other children. These, apparently, according to Genesis 5:2 were adam, the people whom God created after his image. Seemingly, the other people, those of Nod, the Kephilim and the Children of God -- both of Genesis 6 -- were not adam. They were other kinds of God's creations. But, they intermarried, explaining how Cain found a woman and begat generations. Just like Ishmael went off and founded others later on.
Seems like a parallel. The biblical texts are always only interested in one strand of many that God has going. Same with Jesus: "I have other sheep not of this fold."
But what do you guys do? Do you follow Genesis?No. You import children and people all over Genesis 4 and 5 that are no where mentioned and Glenn has to deny the existence of the Nephilim and the Children of God who are clearly not from Adam and Even and you both can stand the clearly inferred people of Nod where Cain found respite and a need for a city.
You both cannot follow the Bible because you are not wedded to scripture; you both are wedded to dead traditions done in by reading scripture. That's why you both have to make so much noise where the Bible is silent. You both argue from silence. You have to import, eisegetically, traditions that are simply not there and war against the easy flow of Genesis 4 - 6.
And you have the blindness, then, to say, "YOU want to say that certain things happened for which there is no Biblical support"? Are you mad? I think that must be it, Marshall. You're a lunatic. Everything I claim has biblical structure.
You and Glenn think every living sentient being came from Adam and Eve. That's against the clear text.
Yale wins. Gazillion to zip. Brains win. Sanity wins.
But you both will have your destruction because you serve Satan unwillingly. Lukewarmly.
The holiday season, as well well as increased hours at work and other family responsibilities have diminished my blogging opportunities, but I had to at least attack feo's little list above. The rest will have to wait until time allows.
1. Duh!
2. No indication as to when it was named. feo assumes people already lived there and named it themselves, when it is just as likely that it was named after the fact for the purpose of telling the tale. As mentioned, according to my NIV study Bible, "Nod" means "wandering". Thus, I would suggest it was named for the sake of the story and does not indicate a town or settlement, but pretty much anywhere east of Eden.
3. My Bible does not say anything about Cain "then" marrying, but only that he laid with his wife. He could have been married at the time he murdered Abel. feo assumes he married later simply because verse 4:6 is the first mention of Cain's wife.
4. There is no mention of other people in the area needing a city. This verse could just as easily mean he was building a city in advance of the people his own descendants would need. feo assumes the existence of people already living there before Cain. No Scriptural indication to support this.
5. feo takes this to mean that Adam had other children after Seth, but it only says that he had other children. It doesn't give an order of pregnancy, just as Scripture doesn't refer to the possibility that he had kids before Cain or that he didn't. The story of Cain and Abel is the story of Cain and Abel, not the whole of Adam's offspring at the time, and nothing indicates Cain and Abel were the whole of Adam's offspring at the time.
feo simply resolves his own confusion and questions about the origins of mankind, but he cannot insist his is the logical conclusion based on the text itself. He must insert his own preferred meaning the text itself does not provide. This is eisegesis and is part of his depraved support for a false definition of marriage.
More coming as time permits.
It is certainly your right to read the Bible and dispute the order in which it tells the story. As I said from the beginning, eisegesis is necessary to make sense of scripture even as exegesis is necessary to make the best sense we can of scripture.
But in doing this you are making very liberal moves. You are making sense of it for yourself.
But you can't make stuff up:
"feo assumes people already lived there"
No need to assume, Marshall, when one can simply read what's there: "anyone who meets me may kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a sevenfold vengeance.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him."
"feo assumes he married later simply because verse 4:6 is the first mention of Cain's wife."
No need to assume, Marshall, when one can simply read what's there: "My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from your face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth." "Then Cain went away from the presence of the Lord."
To read it as you and blind Glenn do -- Cain's wife was banished, too -- is to propose a cold-hearted Cain and Creator who fail to mention the burdens that will also be on his wife.
Fars simpler and sensical to follow Genesis here and admit that the text show Cain was no killed by those living in Nod, in fact he found a wife and raised a family and built a city for people.
You'd have one man build an entire city himself as a though project. How would he know so many people were coming?
Your point #5 is gobbledygook. You're arguing from the silence of scripture again: Genesis doesn't say Adam left Eden in a Model-T Ford, but it doesn't say he didn't either. This is the most scary thing about rank amateurs who, out of anti-intellectual motives of self-delusion, go to helicopter engineers for their biblical thinking instead of those who study the bible and its languages and its cultures for years.
Thank and you just destroyed Genesis 5:4
I know you can read, Marshall, in the sense that can move your eyes from beginning to end and pick out all the words.
But you can't read if by that we mean understand what you read.
That makes your eisegesis bad, and not good.
Eisegesis puts more people on earth who didn't come from Adam and Eve, when Scripture plainly says that ALL are descended from Adam.
Just because Genesis doesn't specifically mention any children besides the three men who are important to history, that doesn't mean they didn't exist.
Feo wants more people than Adam & Eve to fit with evolutionism.
And here comes blind Glenn again, unable to keep a promise: "I'm finished with you. I'll let Marshall tear you apart -- he always does such a good job of it." Perhaps he's back because it has not worked out as well as he thought. Unable to contend with Yale.
"Eisegesis puts more people on earth who didn't come from Adam and Eve."
No, Glenn, it doesn't. You just can't read Genesis 6:1-4 and account for "the Sons of God," and "the Nephilim."Nor can you straightforwardly read Genesis 1 and get out of it that humankind came from one man and one woman.
You may, of course, read Genesis 2 and get something close to one man, one woman first. But then, the writer of Genesis 2:4b on contradicts the writer of Genesis 1 in several ways, e.g. in Genesis 2, God creates a man before creating vegetation, counter to Genesis 1.
___________________
"Just because Genesis doesn't specifically mention any children besides the three men who are important to history, that doesn't mean they didn't exist."
Here you are like Marshall, Glenn: scary with the wild liberal ways in which you are treating scripture. You want to make an argument that you think is allowed simply because scripture rules it out. This is a horrid way to treat Genesis. Because there are no limits -- because you've destroyed all sense of limits -- to making arguments from silence. By our interpretive "principles," one can say that Adam left Eden with Model-T Ford packed to the brim and ended up in Hollywood.
"Just because Genesis doesn't specifically mention [it] doesn't mean [it] didn't exist." This is clearly a putrid way to read scripture.
_______________
"Feo wants more people than Adam & Eve to fit with evolutionism."
Well this is wrong because this another bad piece of eisegesis you've done.
I don't need to find evolution at all in scripture. You're the one who goes reading Genesis with evolution in mind. And that's because you don't understand Holy Scripture at all.
The Bible is not interested in science. The Bible is not interested in history. One cannot make it serve as science or as history as we understand those terms in a post-Enlightenment, modern world.
The Bible is a varied and mult-form testimony to the experience of one people's covenant with God. And it is written from their faith perspective, not anyone else's and not God's, for that matter.
It is holy because it is sacred to faith. It is scripture because it is held as formative in the midst of the faith community. It shapes faith -- faith being the evidence of things not seen.
Science and history being first of all only those things one can observe, they do not involve faith. Only data.
Apples and oranges. Scripture and science; scripture and history. Not the same thing. This is why those who have deep faith, strong faith have no problem living today with a living God with a living Christ and Mary reigning in heaven and a living Holy Spirit who move as the Spirit will. Scripture serves them, and they continually help us reflect on life through scripture and spirit to reach ever truer depths of revelation. The breadth and depth of God can never be fathomed. Not even by scripture.
Happy Holidays.
Feo,
Making a comment is not a "promise" as you claim. I didn't respond to you - I just pointed out what your ilk demanded. Fool.
Your comments have been responded to by scholars for centuries and you pretend you are the first person to bring up such questions. Gen 6 adds new "people" which most commentators prior to recent times claimed were fallen angels.
ALL humans descended from Adam and Eve. THAT is what the Bible teaches and what the Jews taught and what the Christians have taught for 2000 years. Only fools like you would claim to know more than anyone else.
You really are a tool of the devil, and will spend eternity with him. You aren't worth any more of my time.
Glenn now: "I didn't respond to you."
Glenn earlier today: "Feo wants more people than Adam & Eve to fit with evolutionism."
Thus we have before us the integrity of Glenn's cognitive memory.
FEO is such a fool that he thinks that a general comment ABOUT him is a comment TO him.
it's the same with all those of his ilk. Foolish false teachers who are in league with the devil.
Wow. Glenn breaks another oath within the hour: "You aren't worth any more of my time."
And he's back.
So untrustworthy.
And we know your tactics, Glenn. When you can't respond to the biblical text and making sense of it, you start leaving and coming back, leaving and coming back with only hate on your tongue.
So it goes for one who does not have faith, only hate when they read.
And I believe you just responded to a general comment about you NOT to you.
You can't even keep to your own hermetic rules.
Liar, liar, pants on fire.
Like his father, the father of lies.
Now you're writing at your appropriate mental and spiritual age. Good for you. You can realize how much you need to grow.
Picking up where I left off, responding to feo's comments on December 15, 2014 at 10:02 PM:
"Seems like a parallel. The biblical texts are always only interested in one strand of many that God has going. Same with Jesus: "I have other sheep not of this fold.""
No. It seems like rank eisegesis. I do not suggest that God's Chosen People are main characters in the OT, but as "other strands" are not mentioned until later, I don't presume any exists just to serve an agenda. With Jesus, other strands DID exist and were already referenced before His coming. The parallel is largely of your own making, particularly as there is no parallel reference in Genesis to what Jesus had said regarding other sheep.
"But what do you guys do? Do you follow Genesis?No"
Yes we do, and quite closely.
"You import children and people all over Genesis 4 and 5 that are no where mentioned"
Not at all. We simply come to conclusions that a close following of the text provokes. We do not insist on it, but only do not infer what the text does not imply. For example, the text says that Cain laid with his wife. It doesn't say anything about when he took a wife, and thus, because it never mentioned her before, YOU assume it means, without any real evidence to support it, that they just met after his banishment. But because there is no mention of her previous to 4:17, one cannot insist on when he took a wife. YOU do because it serves your agenda, which, as far as anyone can tell, is simply to pridefully portray yourself as wise and full of knowledge.
What's more, this is clearly YOU importing people not mentioned in Scripture...the "Nodites". As mentioned before, the Yale mind seemingly incapable of thinking beyond the squirrel it sees before it, the naming of the area referred to as Nod could have been named by Adam, Cain or the author of Genesis. There is no mention of people there before Cain's arrival. You assume it and read into the text that there must have been. Not a problem for me, but only that you have the hubris to insist no other possibility.
As to arguing from silence, you do this in spades as you insist there were no other children of A & E during the Cain and Abel story. You insist that the couldn't have been any others simply because none are mentioned. Even my study Bible does this in referring to Seth as A & E's third son, though nothing in Scripture refers to how many total kids they had at this point. It is just as logical, if not more so, to presume that Seth was regarded specifically as a replacement for Abel (since Eve says as much) without Seth being the only other son at the time. One was murdered, and the next child was a boy, a replacement. Not a stretch at all.
But considering the odds of having a girl rather than a boy, given the chromosome situation, it is not either a stretch to assume there were daughters at the time there was Cain and Abel, and possibly several before them. My wife had three daughters and no sons. Her two that had children of their own only have two daughters each. Very common. Why not for Eve? What's more, unless a woman played some major role in a story, they were rarely mentioned. Census numbers of the tribes dealt only with adult males.
So speculation regarding the size of Adam's family at any point is not eisegesis as much as simple speculation based on what IS said in the story together with what we know is true now. Nothing more. Indeed, Glenn and I add nothing to the text. You need to.
"It is certainly your right to read the Bible and dispute the order in which it tells the story."
Except that we don't dispute the order.
"eisegesis is necessary to make sense of scripture"
Only for those whose conviction in the integrity of the text is in doubt. Only for those who need Scripture to confirm their counter-Biblical positions. That is, only for Yale boys.
"You are making sense of it for yourself."
That might be true were I agonizing over the Genesis story's every little detail. I'm not because I don't. I'm merely responding to your hubris.
"But you can't make stuff up:"
Whew! Thanks for the clarification. It's a good thing I don't make stuff up. We have you for that.
"No need to assume, Marshall, when one can simply read what's there: "anyone who meets me may kill me.”"
And you assume that "anyone" means only those unrelated to Cain. To me, "anyone" means...well...anyone, including Adam himself. Are you suggesting that no one else from Eve's womb left the area except Cain? Where does the text suggest such a thing? Does the text suggest that no one of Adam's line would seek revenge for Abel? You most definitely make assumptions in order to justify your position.
"To read it as you and blind Glenn do -- Cain's wife was banished, too -- is to propose a cold-hearted Cain and Creator who fail to mention the burdens that will also be on his wife."
But as there is no indication of another source of people, no "Nodite" village, and no indication that Cain wasn't married at the time he murdered Abel, you must assume another population other than the family of Adam. You must assume that because the text refers to Cain being banished that he would have to leave behind any family he might have had already, even if that family consisted only of his wife. You assume that had he had a wife at the time, that she would not want to have gone with him when he was banished. You also assume that their burdens would be more than merely doing what Adam and Eve did in starting up their own family all by themselves. In short, you assume. We do not, but only speculate based on what Scripture actually DOES say.
"Fars simpler and sensical to follow Genesis here and admit that the text show Cain was no killed by those living in Nod..."
Far more easy and makes more sense that there simply was no one in "Nod" to kill him.
"...in fact he found a wife and raised a family and built a city for people."
No. It is NOT a "fact" that he found as wife and more than it is that he brought a wife with him. This is your eisegesis talking. There is NO mention as to when he took up with the woman AT ALL. You assume because she isn't mentioned before 4:17 that she wasn't already with him. No evidence for that whatsoever.
"You'd have one man build an entire city himself as a though project. How would he know so many people were coming?"
No. I'd have one man build a city, such as it is (given no indication as to its size---or even that the phrase refers to buildings at all---a "nation", you know, is its people, not the geography on which they live), in anticipation of the vast family that would spring from his union with his wife, and the offspring of their offspring. BTW, according to my study Bible, the Hebrew word for what is translated as "city" "can refer to any permanent settlement, however small."
"Your point #5 is gobbledygook. You're arguing from the silence of scripture again:"
No. "gobbledygook" is the level of your comprehension. And I'm not arguing from silence, but merely countering your own eisegesis. That is, you are hypocritically guilty of making stuff up. I'm indicating that because of what is actually said, your speculation cannot stand as true or even likely with greater strength than alternative speculation. That is, I don't insist upon my alternative speculation, but merely reject yours as the only possibility based on what the text both says and doesn't say.
"This is the most scary thing about rank amateurs who, out of anti-intellectual motives of self-delusion, go to helicopter engineers for their biblical thinking instead of those who study the bible and its languages and its cultures for years."
I'll take "rank amateurs" over your delusions of intellectualism any day. Your purported education hasn't impressed anyone here as having any real value nor any real sense that you know anything at all about the subject matter. My motives are hardly the stuff of self-promotion as in your case. It is only to know God. I have no other purpose in my reading of Scripture and I do not have issues with "making sense" of the text, as it does not confound me. Perhaps that is the best thing about my lesser education: it hasn't filled me with pretension and crap, allowing me the right amount of innocent sincerity in my studies of God's word. Certainly, my studies have shown me that yours are not worth the paper of whatever diplomas your Yale experience might have bestowed upon you.
Here's the most telling point about your pseudo-intellectualism: all your condescension regarding "helicopter engineers" has been noticeably void of counter argument or evidence that his interpretations are lacking in any way. But then, it is likely that Yale boys simply cannot walk and chew gum at the same time so that the thought that anyone could master more than one field is foreign to them. When you can muster the courage and demonstrate the ability to show where Oliff and Hodges erred in their interpretations, then you will have shown some honor, regardless of the quality of your rebuttal.
And it cannot be said often enough of sinfully proud people like yourself, but diplomas and years of study do not mean understanding and wisdom. All the "Jesus Seminar" buffoons have degrees and they're all idiots. You seem perfectly suited to be among them.
"Thank and you just destroyed Genesis 5:4"
Lighten up on the meds and you'll be more intelligible (maybe). But I didn't destroy anything but your sophistry and poor exegesis. 5:4 only refers to what took place after Seth was born, but does not speak to the total number of kids Adam had, including whether or not he had any before Cain or that other kids existed during the time of the Cain and Abel story.
Out of time.
"No, Glenn, it doesn't. You just can't read Genesis 6:1-4 and account for "the Sons of God," and "the Nephilim.""
Don't really have to account for them, but many traditions make them out to be descendants of Seth. What's more, their mention comes after the point at which you want to presume other peoples existed not related Adam. Again, we're aren't making speculations not compelled by the text itself. You are and need to in order to put forth your position.
"You want to make an argument that you think is allowed simply because scripture rules it out."
Not at all. We're just responding to your insistence of that which cannot be supported by the text. In that, ours is more likely given what the text does AND doesn't say, not in spite of it as in your case. The fact that the text speaks of Cain and Abel does not necessarily rule out the very real possibility that other kids of Adam and Eve existed. But you need this to be the case to make yourself seem more informed. How sad.
Out of time again.
"And I'm not arguing from silence."
"The fact that the text speaks of Cain and Abel does not necessarily rule out the very real possibility that other kids of Adam and Eve existed."
Priceless.
"And I'm not arguing from silence."
"5:4 only refers to what took place after Seth was born, but does not speak to the total number of kids Adam had, including whether or not he had any before Cain or that other kids existed during the time of the Cain."
"And I'm not arguing from silence."
"You assume because she isn't mentioned before 4:17 that she wasn't already with him."
Priceless.
"And I'm not arguing from silence."
"It is just as logical, if not more so, to presume that Seth was regarded specifically as a replacement for Abel (since Eve says as much) without Seth being the only other son at the time. One was murdered, and the next child was a boy, a replacement. Not a stretch at all."
[God, I just love Marshall for his absolute blindness when trying to make intellectual arguments!!!
I'm not arguing from silence.... it's just as logical to presume...
Wow.]
But wait, there's more!
This is how you set it up, Marshall:
"As to arguing from silence, you do this in spades as you insist there were no other children of A & E during the Cain and Abel story. You insist that the couldn't have been any others simply because none are mentioned."
How you do not get that if you stick to the text you only have Cain and Abel BECAUSE the text only mentions Cain an Abel is not arguing from silence AND that claiming there were other girl children before Seth HAS TO BE arguing from silence....
is simply, hysterically stupid.
And all this AFTER you've written, "I don't presume any exists just to serve an agenda."
UNBELIEVABLE DELICIOUS! OH, MY GOD.
How can you set yourself up time after time to punch air but then impossibly make contact with your own empty skull?
You don't know how to think. But you think that you do. What a hilarious because so vicious a cycle.
Thank you, Marshall, for what is an exquisite display of imbecilic pride that is SOOOOOO frequently the sole talent of those on the right.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
feo,
How ironic that you cannot see that you do that which you accuse me of doing. Take the first quote above:
"The fact that the text speaks of Cain and Abel does not necessarily rule out the very real possibility that other kids of Adam and Eve existed."
This isn't me arguing from silence. It is me demonstrating another possibility to counter your argument from silence. That because no other children are mentioned prior to, or during the Cain and Abel story, that there could not possibly have been. There is NO mention of the possibility one way or the other, so one cannot say one way or the other regarding the possibility, or lack thereof, of there having been other children. YOU want to insist that no other children existed simply because none were mentioned. But that absence is not evidence in favor of your position. Seen another way, you insist that because NO MENTION regarding Cain and Abel being the only children of Adam and Eve to that point means no other children existed. THAT is YOU arguing from silence. My comments merely counter that possibility having an equal lack of evidence in support of the possibility.
And this is the case in every example I've put forth. Mine is countering YOUR arguments from silence, YOUR insertion of meaning that the text does not imply. Indeed, I'm making no argument at all with regard to these issue, as I do not suffer from brain cramps due to some need to make the whole story make sense in modern terms.
Take the next example. YOU argue that because there is no mention of other children prior to 5:4 that there could not have been any, that there wasn't any. THAT is arguing from silence. My response is that without a clear indication in the text that none existed, and there is none (5:4 not providing that clear indication), one cannot insist that none existed without arguing from silence.
And yet again, Cain's wife. The first mention of her is in regards to their having sex and producing a child. It makes absolutely NO reference to either her existence or lack thereof prior to this passage, much less when they met or how long they were together. You argue from silence in suggesting how they came to be together and when and where it took place. I do not, but simply offer other possible speculations based on the very same lack of textual evidence.
"How you do not get that if you stick to the text you only have Cain and Abel BECAUSE the text only mentions Cain an Abel is not arguing from silence AND that claiming there were other girl children before Seth HAS TO BE arguing from silence...."
But again, I am NOT making any arguments at all. It is YOU who makes the arguments you do from silence. There is no mention of additional kids, so you presume to insist that there could not have been any. THAT is arguing from silence. Mine is merely another equally valid possibility given that there IS NO EVIDENCE one way or the other within the text to make the presumptions you make.
Then to presume mine is the problematic position to take is the type of hubris that is the hallmark of the false priest. But I won't thank you, because it is no more a gift than is a cancerous tumor. And if that isn't an accurate description of your ilk, then there isn't one at all.
Marshall Art,
Take a look at my Adam & Eve article and let me know what you think:
http://watchmansbagpipes.blogspot.com/2015/01/adam-and-eve-and-their-children.html
Feo,
From your comment on my blog: "Well, since you asked. . . "
I didn't ask you - I directed MY comment to Art. I couldn't care less what a fool like you thinks.
Try reading a wee bit better next time so you know to WHOM a comment is addressed.
My immediate Solutions
1. Ban porn for age below 16 .. Monitor it any cost .
2. Educating the masses .. Not text book education
3. More vigilance .. Be it police , video cams .
4. Karate course for girls
5. Girls should not be seen as burden .. Abolishing dowry system could help .. but it is easy to say , but tough to implement .
6. Dont go out after 11 pm .. Dont say i am setting rules again .. i am a guy and even i can't roam around open after 11pm .. i know incidents from Marina beach chennai where men itself were stabbed .. With too much crime around , it is better to be safe inside.
7. Punish the culprits .. No just the Rape cases , but ever case .. Indian Judiciary is in real bad state .. Salman khan is best example for that .. Damn he has at-least a crore people fans
I used to think legalizing prostitution might solve .. But when i started reading articles and news about rapes in western countries .. i understood even that might not solve it .. And it can open a new set of issues .
Lastly dont generalize every one ..
The way you wrote the Hyderabad to Khammam in a Volvo bus incident .. You could tell he was going to do some thing for sure .. you wrote as if every guy who sits next to girl at night time travel in a bus does mistakes .. It is as if what i did was wrong .. damn i never touched anyway in my all this years of travel .. was that a mistake .. please dont generalize . It is a very problematic thing in India that people generalize .. They see as if every guy harasses women which is not so ..
GE 10S
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