Torah Study

RachelBibleStudent · Jul 26, 2015

i can gather some other lessons from the first half of genesis 6 too...

we see a wonderful example of God's great patience...he tolerated the human race in spite of their increasing wickedness for over 1,600 years until there was no other choice but to destroy that world...and through noah he continued to call people to repentance which shows that even then he was still willing to show mercy on individuals...

we also see that God took note of noah's faith and holiness in that world...sometimes christians look at the increasing sin of the world around us and feel like they have not accomplished anything...but God sees!

it is significant that God says his -spirit- will not strive with people forever...this is a reference to the holy spirit and it shows the personhood of the holy spirit...an impersonal force does not 'strive'...only a personal being with feelings can strive...so this is another proof for the trinitarian theology...

and of course there is the gospel lesson of salvation by grace through faith that we see reflected in the righteous life of noah...

RachelBibleStudent · Jul 26, 2015

Tintin said:

i wonder if maybe it had something to do with the fact that the human race was apparently more or less a single civilization at that time...it was before the confusion of languages and the division of humanity into separate people groups...so i can imagine that wicked ideas probably traveled faster and were accepted more rapidly than in other periods of history...

Tintin · Jul 26, 2015

RachelBibleStudent said:

Yes, that's true. Also, their long lifespans would have given them a lot of time to act on those good or evil intentions. Longer lives - more time to accumulate knowledge and experience, for good or ill.

GandalfTheWhite · Jul 27, 2015

Dan_473 said:

good points...

were humans eating milk/cheese at this time? if so, that could go a long way towards alleviating the curse on the ground... goats can eat thorns, then give milk...

sounds like there's four people alive at this time... for the animal products, how much of them could four people use? meanwhile, adam, cain, and maybe eve are trying to scratch food out of the soil...

this may have been an underlying cause of cain's killing abel... or perhaps genesis is compiled from various sources, not meant to be put together...

God gave Noah instruction to eat meat. Before then people only eat fruit, vegetables and herbs...

Dan_473 · Jul 27, 2015

MarcR said:

the question about how many animals could four people use arises (for me) from why is abel keeping flocks? you can't eat them at this time... maybe animal products? how much could four people use?

maybe for sacrifice? possibly... we see later in Torah (imo) that the number of animals sacrificed isn't burdensome...

how many animals is abel keeping, and what for? why isn't he farming like his dad adam and bro cain? is abel free from the prophecy about working the ground? maybe so...

keeping flocks would've been really easy at this time... no predatory animals... can you eat the milk and cheese at this time? if so, then just farm enough for a little variety... that sounds like the cushy way to live...

adam and cain should give up this tilling the soil business and do the animal thing...

the other possibility I see is that it's a collection of stories, and the writer of the abel/cain story doesn't know about the earlier instruction to just eat plants...

great discussion, btw... blessings on you too!

Dan_473 · Jul 27, 2015

GandalfTheWhite said:

does it say when humans started eating milk and cheese? I hadn't thought about it until MarcR mentioned it...

Dan_473 · Jul 27, 2015

one of the things I think is cool about studying Torah is that different people will see different things in it...

for me, the 'take away' lesson from abel keeping flocks is that when God curses something (in this case, the ground) he will also provide a 'loophole' for those willing to 'think outside the box'...

this, again for me, fits well with sayings in Proverbs that wisdom is to be highly prized...

royalscot · Jul 27, 2015

funny, why study the old before the new. yet if you believe, in modern day bible , you believed in the new first. so that would make the old a history document.

Billyd · Jul 27, 2015

RachelBibleStudent said:

i was asked to comment on genesis 6:1-4 but i am going to go all the way through verse twelve for better context on the nephilim issue...

'sons of God' and 'daughters of men' are more like terms of allegiance...the sons of God were children of God belonging to the kingdom of God...the daughters of men were children of men belonging to the kingdom of men...that is the kingdom of the world... it is actually quite a bit like a pre flood version of the concepts of 'jerusalem' and 'babylon'... the contrasting terms 'sons' and 'daughters' are used for these two groups of people because it would have been awkward for moses to speak of sons marrying sons...

early on the godly sons of God would have been mainly sethites...and the worldly daughters of men would have been mainly cainites...but these were not racial or ethnic or even familial distinctions and getting closer to the time of the flood even a lot of the sethites had become wicked and would have been identified as 'daughters of men' too...

so it says first that when people began to multiply that these sons of God and daughters of men began getting married...the people of God had started to become lax and were marrying solely based on physical attraction... these were 'unequally yoked' marriages...and a big danger of marriages of this type is that they often result in the children not being properly trained in the ways of God... this means that each successive generation is likely to become less and less concerned with the things of God...

by the time of the flood it seems there was virtually nobody left who cared about following God...other than noah... and it is doubtful that the messianic prophecy given to eve in eden was being passed down through ungodly generations...so it is probable that even the messianic promise itself was a mere generation or two away from being forgotten... this especially would have been a serious danger to the salvation of the human race...imagine if jesus had come and absolutely -nobody- on earth had any understanding about -anything- of a spiritual nature...it would have been virtually impossible for anyone to be saved...

so with so little time left for human civilization God gave the people of that time 120 more years on the earth...this was their last chance to repent and correct their course... the new testament tells us that during this time noah was a 'preacher of righteousness'...but his preaching apparently fell on deaf ears...it doesn't seem that he won any converts...unless maybe his sons' wives were converts... also probably around a third or halfway into this 120 year period is when noah began building the ark...which would have been another form of warning to the people of the pre flood world...

the fact that noah preached for 120 years and won maybe a handful of converts at the most lines up with the observation i made above...that it was becoming nearly impossible for any of the people to respond to the word of God with faith...

the situation actually reminds me quite a bit of a passage in the new testament that speaks about the end times...where it says that if God had not shorted the days then nobody could be saved... the human race was on a collision course with irreparable spiritual destruction...ironically the physical destruction of the flood was the only way to interrupt this process...

then we come to the nephilim...we are told that they were on the earth in those days... i cannot stress enough that the text does -not- actually say that the nephilim were the children born to the sons of God and the daughters of men...it -only- says that the nephilim were on the earth in those days when the sons of God and daughters of men were marrying and having children...the bible does not anywhere actually identify the nephilim as being those children...

many people interpret the word 'nephilim' as meaning 'fallen ones' in hebrew...but this is actually incorrect...the hebrew term is causative...it means something more like 'those who cause to fall'...in other words 'those who knock down'... so the word 'nephilim' is actually descriptive of a lifestyle...namely a life of violence and causing others to fall by striking them down... it was not a racial or ethnic term because the text says that the nephilim were also present on earth 'afterwards' and we see their presence in canaan mentioned in numbers over 1,000 years after the flood...the only way there could have been nephilim both before and after the flood is if there is no genetic relation between the two...in other words 'nephilim' cannot be a genetic or racial identifier at all...it simply refers to people whose living is characterized by excessive violence and murder... in the case of the post flood nephilim we know that they were anakites...and we know from the stories that they were violent and dangerous...and genealogically they can be traced back to noah with no scriptural evidence of anything 'weird' in their lineage...

so someone might ask...why does scripture mention the nephilim here if it is merely a term that refers to violent people...something that has always been in this world? the answer is at the end of verse four...these people were renowned and revered as heroes in the days before the flood... scripture includes them here as an example of just how wicked the world had become...so wicked that the mass murderers were the ones people admired!

notice that when God gives his reasons for causing the flood he only mentions the people's wickedness and their violence...he says nothing about bloodlines or genetic corruption or any of the other things that the 'fallen angel theory' mistakenly suggests as the primary reasons for the flood...

next it says that God saw this great wickedness and the constant evil of the people's hearts...and he was grieved...God resolved to wipe the world clean and start over with the one remaining family that still loved him...the family of noah...

it says noah found favor in God's eyes...the words 'favor' and 'grace' are interchangeable...so noah found grace...and salvation by grace comes through faith...so noah was a person of faith...

since righteousness is by faith it makes sense that noah is also called a righteous man and blameless in his time...the hebrew literally says that noah was 'perfect in his toledoth'... 'toledoth' was an ancient semitic word that referred to a record of your life and especially things like your finances and dealings...so in more modern terms we might say that noah had 'a perfect track record'...if we were to look at God's record of noah's life up to this found we would find nothing lacking... the hebrew word for 'perfect' has the sense of 'completeness'...his accounting was in order...or in modern terms 'all your boxes are checked off'...all of the requirements for noah's salvation were completed...of course we know that this happens only by the grace through faith that i mentioned earlier... and since he was a person of faith noah lived a life of faith...similar to enoch the bible says noah 'walked with God'...living a life of obedience and fellowship with God...

noah's three sons are mentioned again here...given that they are named right after noah's godliness is described...it seems the author wants us to draw the conclusion that noah was godly before they were born...and therefore they were born to a person of lifelong faith who would train them in the ways of God...

finally the text summarizes the problem one more time...the earth was corrupt...and it specifically says they were corrupt in their -ways-...corruption of genetics or bloodlines is not mentioned as being any part of the problem here... verse eleven mentions that the earth is filled with violence...an assessment God will repeat to noah in verse thirteen...again we can understand why the author mentioned the nephilim earlier...they were the epitome of violence and it is human violence that was one of God's primary reasons for sending the flood...

Thanks. I agree.

Tintin · Jul 27, 2015

Dan_473 said:

Brother, early Genesis is as much truthful history as the rest of the Bible. As for there just being Adam, Eve, Cain and Abel around the time they offered sacrifices to God, who's to say there were only four people on earth? The Bible mentions that Adam had other sons and daughters. Presumably he had many of each, their names just aren't listed as they're not important to the Messiah narrative. And yes, animals would've been kept for their products (not meat, but eggs, milk, cheese, maybe yoghurt) and to provide clothing for humanity at the time. Why do you think there were no predatory animals around at this time? Adam and Eve had rebelled against God quite some time earlier.

Tintin · Jul 27, 2015

royalscot said:

It makes sense to start at the Genesis of everything. It lays the foundation for the Gospel message. Also, the whole Bible is a series of historical documents in different genres, save for the future prophetic passages and much of Revelation to come.

royalscot · Jul 28, 2015

Tintin said:

how do you come to that conclusion. when is a new believer taught about genesis. so your light years away from the point, i am making. so what would you say a modern day christian is spoke firstly about, in regard to believing in a god through jesus.

RachelBibleStudent · Jul 28, 2015

royalscot said:

there are threads on just about every part of the bible on this forum...including many on the new testament...this thread is not in any way intended to discourage the study of other parts of the bible...

in fact if you look at many of the posts on this thread you can see people making connections between these old testament stories and the new testament truths they very often illustrate...

royalscot · Jul 28, 2015

RachelBibleStudent said:

i am not saying dont study it. i am saying to put in prospectively with a new covenant.

RachelBibleStudent · Jul 28, 2015

royalscot said:

i am saying we are doing that here

royalscot · Jul 28, 2015

RachelBibleStudent said:

how can you. if history has changed some major things. so from a view point of a history account. to view point of a spiritual change. to no temple of stone. however my point was more at knowing about what is correct today, for modern day believer.
i had no intention to derail your forum topic. just made a passing comment to these facts, in regard to what is correct for a modern day believer , is different to the study of how a jewish nation became a nation. etc

MarcR · Jul 28, 2015

Dan_473 said:

We are not given any clue on how much time has elapsed before Cain slew Abel . By what they are said to be doing there is little doubt they are both adults. We know that Cain has at least one sister mature enough to marry.
I f Eve had any sets of twins, there could be as many as 30 people by now. Sacrifices might be made as often as weekl, or even dailyy. In the robust life of farming, clothing wears out quickly. Wool can also be used for blankets, sacks, and cordage.

Dan_473 · Jul 29, 2015

royalscot said:

true! for me, I've studyed the new, and now I'm searching for wisdom in the old...

Dan_473 · Jul 29, 2015

Tintin said:

true! now for me, Genesis is written in a style that matches up with hebrew culture at that time... just as the nt uses a style from greek culture...

to try to overlay modern western ideas of how history is written is, imo, not a good idea...

good point, and I was guessing about the four people... really, I was using a modern western idea of expecting the story to be told in a linear style...

if humans can eat eggs at this time, that would really go a long ways towards relaxing the curse on the ground...

are adam and cain still out there sweating in the field? seems like animal husbandry is the better choice... just grow enough for variety...

on the sixth day of creation, God says "to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"

does that change after the fall? doesn't say... humans don't start eating animals until after the flood, so I assumed the same for predators... there's something about God requiring the lifeblood of beasts in the same passage...

Dan_473 · Jul 29, 2015

royalscot said:

yes, imo people are doing that... what would be an example of what you would post here?

Torah Study

RachelBibleStudent

Guest

RachelBibleStudent

Guest

Tintin

Guest

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Banned

Senior Member

Tintin

Guest

Tintin

Guest

Banned

RachelBibleStudent

Guest

Banned

RachelBibleStudent

Guest

Banned

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member

Senior Member