Stonesoffire: Genesis study

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

It's okay, SOF. Just ignore them if they are being mean and arrogant. Ariel and magenta aren't being rude. They are walking in the Spirit obediently and we are all learning more together. I have been learning. Just ignore the rude ones. We have ariel and magenta and they don't pummel anyone for something they are still working on, and neither do you or I pummel anyone.

Just don't even reply to anyone who isn't showing fruits of walking in the Spirit.

LaurenTM · Jan 21, 2017

stonesoffire said:

something I said?

the Bible tells you why I don't agree

why take it personal? you are being confrontational now

you say Adam and Eve were spirit beings in the garden and did not become flesh until after the fall

stunned says we are all bipartate beings until we 'receive' the 'spirit'

these are not biblically sound teachings and it does make me rude for saying so

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

Ariel82 said:

But we were talking about God being Spirit and not having a body or form of flesh. That is where SOF and I were. These verses don't say God has a body.

LaurenTM · Jan 21, 2017

Ariel82 said:

no one on this thread knows what outrage means

well, stunned doesn't anyway

don't mind me

LaurenTM · Jan 21, 2017

Stunnedbygrace said:

so that means everything in the garden was a spirit?

so confusing

maybe that is what the scripture means when it says we are like a vapor?

perhaps in the Hebrew?

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

SOF, please don't let them cause you to leave and stop studying. It is good to study and talk through what we think and believe and have each other to bring up the verses we may not yet have worked into our understanding and the verses we may have left out of our equation!

Just keep walking well as you have been in all the threads and don't let their flesh stir up your flesh.

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

I hope you will come back and we can keep studying the Hebrew words together SOF. Let's get back to it and just ignore, okay?

Ariel82 · Jan 21, 2017

Stunnedbygrace said:

??? God the Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

God is not just spirit. Jesus has a resurrected body. God the Father is so much more than the human mind can grasp. We might be able to understand His pinkie nail.

I will sit back and see where this study goes.

The verses given because people say stars don't have bodies but the Bible says they do.

Many people make assumptions about the world, that if we read the Bible we would question.

Also many people make assumptions about the Bible, that is we had a better understanding of science and the world around us we would know is an incorrect assumption of scripture...like the Jews looked for an earthly king to take over the world with miltary might. Instead of a baby born to a virgin to die on the cross for our sins.

Ariel82 · Jan 21, 2017

Just one question....if Adam and Eve were just spirits, how could they have babies?

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it;

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

Ariel82 said:

Yes, the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. He took bodily form through Jesus. But God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth. Jesus existed before He took on bodily form and dwelt among us.

Stunnedbygrace · Jan 21, 2017

Ariel82 said:

Yes, that is what I asked too. We were working through it but then she just got pummeled very badly for not having perfect knowledge in some area and so all good forward movement just stopped. (Like it did in your thread a few days ago with all the bickering over words.

)

popeye · Jan 21, 2017

LaurenTM said:

[video=youtube;A81Mm5No1hw]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A81Mm5No1hw[/video]

LaurenTM · Jan 21, 2017

LOL

yeah exactly...

pottersclay · Jan 22, 2017

Didn't Adam say " this is bone of my bone flesh of my flesh" don't seem like spirit too me

stonesoffire · Jan 22, 2017

LaurenTM said:

Mature conversation is to listen respectfully, express agreement or disagreement and why. And yes, am confronting you about this because I expected better from you.

loopy is not a word that comes from agape.

stonesoffire · Jan 22, 2017

Vested with Adam's Glory: Moses as the Luminous Counterpart of Adam in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian Homilies
[forthcoming in: "Mémorial Annie Jaubert (1912—1980)" Xristianskij Vostok 4.10 (2002). This paper requires the fonts UT Greek Acient Bodoni and UT Hebrew Frankruhl]

Two Luminaries
In the group of the Dead Sea Scrolls fragments known under the title the Words of the Luminaries (4Q504),[SUP][1][/SUP] the following passage about the glory of Adam in the Garden of Eden can be found:

... [ ... Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory ([™ë] ©S<ë úSî©< ™úøöé) [...] [... the breath of life] you lew into his nostril, and intelligence and knowledge [...] [... in the gard]en of Eden, which you had planted. You made [him] govern [...] [...] and so that he would walk in a glorious land... [...] [...] he kept. And you imposed on him not to tu[rn away...] [...] he is flesh, and to dust [...] ...[SUP][2][/SUP]
Later in 4Q504, this tradition about Adam's former glory follows with a reference to the luminosity bestowed on another human body--the glorious face of Moses at his encounter with the Lord at Sinai:

... [...Re]member, please, that all of us are your people. You have lifted us wonderfully [upon the wings of] eagles and you have brought us to you. And like the eagle which watches its nest, circles [over its chicks,] stretches its wings, takes one and carries it upon [its pinions] [...] we remain aloof and one does not count us among the nations. And [...] [...] You are in our midst, in the column of fire and in the cloud [...] [...] your [hol]y [...] walks in front of us, and your glory is in [our] midst (ëSú< ™ë©S<ëS) [...] [...] the face of Moses (™ùSî éô), [your] serv[ant]...[SUP][3][/SUP]

Two details are intriguing in these descriptions. First, the author of 4Q504 appears to be familiar with the lore about the glorious garments of Adam, the tradition according to which first humans had luminous attires in Eden before their transgression.
Second, the author seems to draw parallels between the glory of Adam and the glory of Moses' face.[SUP][4][/SUP] The luminous face of the prophet might represent in this text an alternative to the lost luminosity of Adam and serve as a new symbol of God's glory once again manifested in the human body. It appears, therefore, that in 4Q504, traditions about Adam's glory and Moses' glory are creatively juxtaposed with each other. Unfortunately, the fragmentary character of the Qumran document does not allow to grasp the full scope and intentions of the author(s) of 4Q504 in making such juxtapostion. To understand this juxtapostion better, research must proceed to other sources where the association between the glory of Adam and Moses was made more explicit. One of such sources includes the Macarian Homilies, where the author vividly accentuates this association. However, before our research proceeds to a detailed analysis of the Adam/Moses connection in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Macarian homilies, a short introduction to the Jewish, Samaritan, and Christian materials about the glorious garments of Adam and the glorious face of Moses is needed.

stonesoffire · Jan 22, 2017

The Background: The Garments of Light

The Biblical passages found in Gen 1:26-27 and Gen 3:21 represent two pivotal starting points for the subsequent Jewish and Christian reflections on the glorious garments of Adam and Eve. Gen 1:26 describes the creation of human being(s) after the likeness (úSî©) of the image (íìö) of God. It is noteworthy that Gen 1:26-27 refers to the íìö (tselem) of Adam, the luminous image of God's glory according to which Adam was created.[SUP][5][/SUP] The particular interest in Gen 1:26 is that Adam's tselem was created after God's own tselem (Sîìö<) (literally "in our tselem"), being a luminous "imitation" of the glorious tselem of God. Some scholars argue that the likeness that Adam and God shared was not physicality--in the usual sense of having a body--but rather luminescence.[SUP][6][/SUP]
The Tarqums, the Aramaic renderings of the Hebrew Bible, also attest to the prelapsarian luminosity of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. The Biblical background for such traditions includes the passage from Gen 3:21, where "the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin and clothed them." The Targumic traditions, both Palestinian[SUP][7][/SUP] and Babylonian,[SUP][8][/SUP] read, instead of "garments of skin," "garments of glory." This Targumic interpretation is reinforced by Rabbinic sources. One of them can be found in Genesis Rabbah 20:12, which tells that the scroll of Rabbi Meir reads "garments of light" (øS? úSúë) instead of "garments of skin" (øS? úSúë): "In R. Meir's Torah it was found written, 'Garments of light: this refers to Adam's garments, which were like a torch [shedding radiance], broad at the bottom and narrow at the top.'"[SUP][9][/SUP]
It is usually understood that Gen 3:21 refers to God's clothing Adam and Eve's nakedness after the Fall. S. Brock, however, argues that sufficient evidence exist to suggest that there also was another way of understanding the time reference of Gen 3:21. According to this alternative understanding the verbs are to be taken as pluperfects, referring to the status of Adam and Eve at their creation before the Fall.[SUP][10][/SUP]
It is noteworthy that in the later Jewish and Samaritan sources, the story about Adam's luminous garments is often mentioned in conjunction with Moses' story. In these materials, Moses is often depicted as a luminous counterpart of Adam.
Jarl Fossum and April De Conick successfully demonstrated the importance of the Samaritan materials for understanding the connection between the "glories" of Adam and Moses. The Samaritan texts insist that when Moses ascended to Mount Sinai, he received the image of God which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden.[SUP][11][/SUP] According to Memar Marqa, Moses was endowed with the identical glorious body as Adam.[SUP][12][/SUP] Memar Marqa 5.4 tells that:
He [Moses] was vested with the form which Adam cast off in the Garden of Eden; and his face shone up to the day of his death.[SUP][13][/SUP]

The Adam/Moses connection also looms large in the Rabbinic sources. Alon Goshen Gottstein stresses that "the luminescent quality of the image (tselem) is the basis for comparison between Moses and Adam in several rabbinical materials."[SUP][14][/SUP]
Deuteronomy Rabbah 11.3 offers important witness to the Adam/Moses conection. It includes the following passage in which two "luminaries" argue whose glory is the greatest:
Adam said to Moses: "I am greater than you because I have been created in the image of God." Whence this? For it is said, "and God created man in his own image" (Gen. 1,27). Moses replied to him: "I am far superior to you, for the honor which was given to you has been taken away from you, as it is said: but man (Adam) abideth not in honor, (Ps. XLIX, 13) but as for me, the radiant countenance which God gave me still remains with me." Whence? For it is said: "his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated" (Deut. 34,7).[SUP][15][/SUP]

Goshen Gottstein draws attention to another significant midrashic passage from Midrash Tadshe 4, in which Moses poses Adam's luminous counterpart. The tradition tells that
...in the likeness of the creation of the world the Holy One blessed be he performed miracles for Israel when they came out of Egypt... In the beginning: "and God created man in his image," and in the desert: "and Moshe knew not that the skin of his face shone."[SUP][16][/SUP]

It is also remarkable that later Rabbinic materials often speak of the luminosity of Adam's face,[SUP][17][/SUP] the feature that might point to the influence of the Adam-Moses connection. Thus, as an example, in Leviticus Rabbah 20.2, the following passage can be found:
Resh Lakish, in the name of R. Simeon the son of Menasya, said: The apple of Adam's heel outshone the globe of the sun; how much more so the brightness of his face! Nor need you wonder. In the ordinary way if a person makes salvers, one for himself and one for his household, whose will he make more beautiful? Not his own? Similarly, Adam was created for the service of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the globe of the sun for the service of mankind.[SUP][18][/SUP]

stonesoffire · Jan 22, 2017

Genesis Rabbah 11 also focuses, not on Adam's luminous garments, but rather on his glorious face:
Adam's glory did not abide the night with him. What is the proof? But Adam passeth not the night in glory (Ps. XLIX, 13). The Rabbis maintain: His glory abode with him, but at the termination of the Sabbath He deprived him of his splendor and expelled him from the Garden of Eden, as it is written, Thou changest his countenance, and sendest him away (Job XIV, 20).[SUP][19][/SUP]

Despite the importance of these late Rabbinic passages linking the luminosity of Adam's body and Moses' face, the chronological boundaries of these evidences are difficult to establish. Rabbinic attestations to the Adam/Moses connection are also very succinct and sometimes lack any systematic development.
Much more extensive expositions of the traditions about Moses as the heavenly counterpart of Adam can be found in the writings of the fourth century Christian author, the Syrian father, known to us as Pseudo-Macarius.

Adam and Moses in the Macarian Homilies
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Adam/Moses "glory" typologies for the theological enterprise of the Macarian Homilies.[SUP][20][/SUP] The symbolism of the divine light seems to stay at the center of the theological world of the Syrian father.[SUP][21][/SUP] Adam's luminosity in the Garden and Christ's luminosity at Mount Tabor serve for Pseudo-Macarius as important landmarks of the eschatological Urzeit and Endzeit. In dealing with these stories of the fall and the restoration of the divine light in human nature, Macarian writings also employ another important traditional symbol of the manifestation of the divine glory in humans--Moses' luminous face. In his employment of the Adam/Moses connection, the author of the Macarian Homilies reveals profound knowledge of the Jewish and Christian esoteric traditions about the glorious manifestations of Adam and Moses.
The story of Adam serves for the homilist as the starting point of his theology of the divine light. Thus, from the homily II.12[SUP][22][/SUP] the reader learns that "Adam, when he transgressed the commandment, lost two things. First, he lost the pure possession of his nature, so lovely, created according to the image and likeness of God (ê<ô? S?êüí< ê<? ?ìï?ù(éí ôï ?Sï ). Second, he lost the very image itself (<ô?í ô?í S?êüí<) in which was laid up for him, according to God's promise, the full heavenly inheritance"(II.12.1).[SUP][23][/SUP] Further, another important passage in the same homily informs the reader that Adam and Eve before the Fall were clothed (dí™S™)ì?íïé) with God's glory in place of clothing (II.12.8).[SUP][24][/SUP] The homily shows a certain continuity between Adam's "very image itself" and his glorious clothing. An important detail in the narrative is that the homilist makes a distinction between Adam's nature, created after the image and likeness of God, and Adam's "very image itself;" he speaks of them as of two separate entities which were lost during the Fall. This subtle theological distinction shows the author's familiarity with the Jewish aggadic traditions about the tselem of Adam--the luminous image of God's glory according to which the first human being was created. The Macarian association of Adam's garments and his creation after the luminous image of God points us again to the Qumran passage from 4Q504, where Adam is depicted as the one who was "fashioned" in the image of God's glory. It should be noted that besides this reference to "image," both texts entertain several other parallels that reveal similarities between the Adamic story in the Macarian Homilies and the Adamic traditions at Qumran.
First, the Qumran Adamic account in 4Q504 8 is distinctive in that it connects Adam's glorious state[SUP][25][/SUP] with his ability to exercise dominion[SUP][26][/SUP] over the rest of creation. 4Q504 8 reads:
... [ ... Adam,] our [fat]her, you fashioned in the image of [your] glory ...You made [him] govern [...] [...] and so that he would walk in a glorious land...[SUP][27][/SUP]

Macarian writings also employ the same juxtaposition by linking Adam's glory with his capacity to exercise power over the created order by giving names to various things.[SUP][28][/SUP] The Homily II.12.6 tells that:
...As long as the Word of God was with him, he [Adam] possessed everything. For the Word himself was his inheritance, his covering, and a glory that was his defense (Is 4:5). He was his teaching. For he taught him how to give names to all things: "Give this name of heaven, that the sun; this the moon; that earth; this a bird; that a beast; that a tree." As he was instructed, so he named them.[SUP][29][/SUP]

A second important detail that connects the Adamic tradition at Qumran with Macarian writings is that the luminous image (tselem) of Adam in the Macarian Homilies is termed as "the full heavenly inheritance."[SUP][30][/SUP] In II.12.1, it is also associated with a very valuable estate:
...he lost the very image itself in which was laid up for him, according to God's promise, the full heavenly inheritance (êëç>ïíïì?<). Take the example of a coin bearing the image of the king. If it were mixed with a false alloy and lost its gold content, the image also would lose its value. Such, indeed, happened to Adam. A very great richness and inheritance was prepared for him. It was as though there were a large estate and it possessed many sources of income. It had a fruitful vineyard; there were fertile fields, flocks, gold and silver. Such was the vessel of Adam before his disobedience like a very valuable estate.[SUP][31][/SUP]

The terminology found in this Macarian passage seems allude to the Qumran Adamic materials, which also refer to Adam's "inheritance." Thus, the Qumran Pesher on Psalms (4Q171) contains a reference to the inheritance of Adam (í©? úìç) which the Israelites will have in the future:

...those who have returned from the wilderness, who will live for a thousand generations, in salva[tio]n; for them there is all the inheritance of Adam (í©? úìç), and for their descendants for ever...[SUP][32][/SUP]

In previous studies, scholars[SUP][33][/SUP] noted that this passage from 4Q171 seems to refer to an eschatological period characterized in part by a reversal of the Adamic curse and the restoration of the glory[SUP][34][/SUP] of Adam.[SUP][35][/SUP]
It is important to note that the Macarian passage links the inheritance with the large estate which includes a vineyard. The reference to the vineyard is intriguing since in 4Q171 the term, the "inheritance" of Adam, is closely associated with the Temple[SUP][36][/SUP] and the Temple mountain.[SUP][37][/SUP]
The foregoing analysis shows that the theme of Adam's heavenly garments plays an important role in the theological universe of the Macarian Homilies. The homilist, however, does not follow blindly these ancient traditions, but, incorporates them into the fabric of the Christian story. The Adamic narrative, therefore, represents an essential part of the Macarian "glory" Christology, where the lost luminous garment of the First Adam has to be restored by the glory of the Second Adam, Christ. The Second Adam thus must put on the body of the first Adam in order to restore the lost clothes of the divine light, which now has to be acquired by the believers at their resurrection.
However, in Macarian writings this "glory" Christology is not simply confined to the Adam-Christ dichotomy but includes a third important element, namely, the story of Moses, whose glorious face serves as the prototype for the future glory of Christ at the Transfiguration.[SUP][38][/SUP] The radiance of the patriarch's face remains in the Macarian Homilies to be the mediator between the former glory of Adam lost in the Paradise and the future glory of Christ, which will eventually be manifested in the resurrected bodies of the saints. Thus, in the Homily II.5.10-11, Macarius tells about the Moses glorious face as the prototype of the future glory:
...For the blessed Moses provided us with a certain type (ôí ôýïí) through the glory of the Spirit which covered his countenance upon which no one could look with steadfast gaze. This type anticipates how in the resurrection of the just the body of the saints will be glorified with a glory which even now the souls of the saintly and faithful people are deemed worthy to possess within, in the indwelling of the inner man...[SUP][39][/SUP]

In his presentation of the shining appearance of Moses, the homilist, however, makes a clear distinction between the glory of Moses at Sinai and the glory of Christ at the Transfiguration. Moses' glory is only a "prototype" of God's "true" glory. Macarius' understanding of Moses' glory as the prototype (ôýï?) or the figure of the "true glory" is observable, for example, in the Homily II.47.1:
...The glory of Moses which he received on his countenance was a figure of the true glory (ôýï? í ô?? ?ëçèéí?? ™üîç?). Just as the Jews were unable "to look steadfastly upon the face of Moses" (2 Cor 3:7), so now Christians receive that glory of light in their souls, and the darkness, not bearing the splendor of the light, is blinded and is put to fight.[SUP][40][/SUP]

Another feature of Moses' glorification is that Moses' luminous face was only "covered" with God's glory in the same way as the luminous garments covered the body of the first humans. According to Macarius, Moses' luminosity was not able to penetrate human nature and remove the inner garments of darkness bestowed by the devil on the human heart.[SUP][41][/SUP] In II.32.4, the Syrian father affirms that:
...Moses, having been clothed in the flesh, was unable to enter into the heart and take away the sordid garments of darkness.[SUP][42][/SUP]

For Macarius, only the glory of Christ is able to remove the attire of darkness and "heal" the human heart. It is, therefore, observable that for the Syrian father the glory of Moses shows a greater typological affinity to the glory of Adam[SUP][43][/SUP] then to the glory of Christ.
A decisive feature of the Macarian Homilies is that the homilist often emphasizes the connection between the luminosity of Adam's heavenly attire lost in the Paradise and the luminosity of Moses' face acquired on Mount Sinai. In the Macarian Homilies, the motif of Moses' glorious face seems to serve as a sign of the partial restoration of the former glory of Adam,[SUP][44][/SUP] the glorious garment of light in which Adam and Eve were clothed in the Garden of Eden before their transgression. Moses’ glorious face is, therefore, viewed by the homilist as the counterpart of the glorious garment of Adam. The conflation of the two "glories," lost and acquired, is observable, for instance, in the Homily II.12. After the already mentioned Adamic narrative of Homily II.12, which tells how Adam lost his luminous status and "obeyed his darker side," Macarius sets before the reader the example of Moses as the one who "had a glory shining on his countenance."[SUP][45][/SUP]

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LaurenTM · Jan 22, 2017

stonesoffire said:

mature conversation...how matured? 12 years? or a few thousand like the unbiblical renderings in this op?

God actually expects better of us stones...He expects us to know the word, agree with the word and learn ...we allow scripture to change how we think and we agree with it

this thread is a hodge podge of absolute non-godly nonsense and people have told stunned from the beginning of it, it is not a study and it is dangerous to assume things in scripture and to try to fill in the blanks

this op is more like 40 years in the wilderness than the promised land

you ought to scold yourself and stunned...not the good folks who have tried to stear the 2 of you away from this nonsense

Ariel82 · Jan 22, 2017

Interesting resources and none state that Adam and Eve did not have material bodies while in the garden of Eden.
They speak of different "glory" our current bodies have "glory" too.

I believe the above statement is false. Especially in light of the fact Jesus was born into these bodies. It says we lost our nature and image of reflecting God. We did not lose either. We lost His power and for a time innate dominion of this earth.

Again until Jesus we were not promised a heavenly inheritance. Adam and Eve were entrusted with care of the Earth, not promised places in Heaven. Even in Revelation the New Jerusalem where we are to live will descend from Heaven to Earth.

In addition, God giving Adam and Eve their clothes of skin....foreshadowed Jesus death on the cross to cover our sins. How else do you think Able knew to sacrifice a sheep?

The conclusions these Jewish scholars made doesn't make sense in light of Jesus and His teachings.

Is it any wonder that they called Him to be crucified? He taught things that directly contradicted their cherished beliefs.

Stonesoffire: Genesis study

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