Yes. That is what I usually emphasize with the passage.
I don’t necessarily see it as a “work around” because the descendants of the Image of God ADAM introduced early in the Genesis scroll is the context we would expect. And the sons of God and daughters of men section which opens Genesis 6 appears to provide an important lead-in to the Flood pericope. Based on comparative linguistics and what I know of ancient cultures, I believe the sons of God [the non-Adamics] and the daughters of men [the Adamics] are terms for contrasting these hominid (for lack of a better term) “tribes.”
In many cultures, even today, a tribe of larger stature may be called “sons of god/gods” by a smaller stature tribe. (The ancient Titans may have gotten that name through that very circumstance, and over time the language became more hyperbolic.)
Fair enough… I assume the above to mean that the "image of God quality/description is unique to Adam and his physical descendants. This leaves the question of how you understand the image of God.
If you assume that the image of God is anything like rationality,intelligence, creativity etc, it would make those outside the garden less than human.
Describing it as an ability to have a relationship with God is also problematic as that would also indicate those outside the garden are inferior to the adamites in very profound way.
Calling it a calling to represent God and rule over creation is the least problematic. Tgough it would create a class of people who can rule by divine fiat.
The first reference to the image of God is in Genesis 1 - - which is where the GAE assigns the reference to “humans” as being the pre-Adam evolved population of humans.
The memories of some people are easily skewed - - they are inclined to think the “image of God” verse appears in Genesis 2. But once we properly locate it, there’s not really much of a fuss to be made, don’t you agree?
I was disappointed very few engaged with it. My arguments were too good?
Thank you for making me aware of this verse. It’s interesting because, again, after watching the presentations, but before reading this, I realized that the gospel had been spread everywhere in the world before Christ. I could “see” (very vaguely) where the “table of nations” tribes had kept the story faithfully.
For example, Jeanson did a section on Ashkenzi Jews and their main haplogroup J. Their legend is that they belong to a high priestly group. He pointed out a mainstream science article that thought the Ashkenzi Jews were perhaps the original Jewish lineage and that instead he believes J is likely a Turkish heritage. https://youtu.be/7tgzyWJzLfY
So what to do with the legend? I believe that it could be fairly simple to explain: As Ashkenaz is the firsborn of Japeth’s firstborn (Genesis 10:2 “The sons of Japheth: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras. 3 The sons of Gomer: Ashkenaz, Riphath, and Togarmah.”), Ashkenaz would have been the family’s priest-king. As Abrahamic Jews fled the Middle East in the B.C. era, they could have migrated to their faithful Yahweh-worshipping relatives who lived in Europe. The clan as a whole forgot who was who, and who came from who, they just knew they were faithful, priestly Jews. Group J is widely spread throughout Europe and the middle east because it’s such an ancient lineage, and a huge chunk of it survived as Turkish. I don’t think it’s a completely absurd hypothesis anyway.
I think we also forget that if the YEC timescale is correct, the flood happened around 2500 B.C. 2500 B.C. for someone in 40 A.D. would be like our knowledge of Alexander the Great. Those in 40 A.D. would have been much more familiar with what happened throughout the history of the globe in the preceding 2000 years than we are with those same years 2000-4000 years in the past.
The other place where the gospel spreading everywhere was highlighted in this video https://youtu.be/_Kj6KowXXtM at about 22 minutes The Delaware’s Red Record has a very striking creation/fall account that is too similar to Genesis to be independently imagined. He explains how this group migrated from Asia. I remember thinking that this group in Asia would have had the creation/fall story in the B.C. era because of the details of these haplogroups. I couldn’t tell you all the details now, and I’m not really interested in watching the videos again for a while. I’m just explaining my general impression is that the gospel had clearly reached Asia before Christ, and so, again, I think the answer to Duff’s question
is yes. It had been presented in those areas of the world at some point as well.
Also, Duff asks various questions in the footnote of his article. Although I cannot speak for Jeanson, here are my impressions after watching the video series. These impressions are also my own views and so this could be my own bias as I watched the videos.
“It seems to be his starting assumption as he now explores how the evidence from creation and human history might be reinterpreted to fit the plain reading of the scriptures. Nevertheless, we should treat his proposals as provisional until he commits to this relatively novel interpretation of Genesis 41.”
Yes.
“Interestingly, one wonders if the physical evidence he seeks to confirm his provisional interpretation might influence his evaluation of the Genesis 41 passage?”
Possibly
“If he can’t find supporting physical evidence of a global famine during this time or clear evidence in genomics that point to people having come from the whole earth back to Egypt will he reconsider his interpretation of Genesis 41?”
He suggests that AIG colleague also believes this time frame was the end of an ice age, so would explain a famine. Jeanson also guesses the famine may have been the reason for the abandonment of Stonehenge and the completion of it later.
But my impression - possibly - although, the examples show right now he’s already quite certain of his interpretation of the text.
“Will Jeanson allow physical evidence to suggest problems with an interpretation of the text?”
Possibly. Interpretations can be flawed.
So much argument and gnashing and teeth over such a simple issue.
Just accept that Genesis is nothing more than a compendium of ancient myths with next to no historical basis, and all these questions are easily resolved.
“I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
— unreliably attributed to Newton
I find this appropriate for you and Jeanson, where the pebbles and shells are things you want to notice because they can be used to fit your story, and the great ocean of truth (contrary to the supposed Newton’s meaning) would be most of our current scientific knowledge.
You are confusing the Gospel, which is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, with Genesis. You are assuming a great global flood for which there is no evidence, though there ought to be if it actually happened. And so on.
I like to think of Genesis as past prophecy. An interpretation of Moses like Isaiah or Ezekiel or John, but reaching into the past instead of the future. Much of prophecy is fulfilled by interpretation, and hidden by metaphor or parable so that you really have to seek truth to find it.
Isaiah 9:6 - For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
This prophecy can only be perceived as a fulfilled future prophecy by knowing Jesus personally, everyone else thinks it to be nonsense or untrue or not really predicting any future event.
So I would argue that Genesis is certainly relevant beyond just mythological stories, but we have yet to understand the past prophecy (or God’s meaning/truth of revealing the story as He did). Either way, I think conversation regarding historical relevance is important whether you believe the stories or not, it is the oldest writing (that I know of) regarding the origin of life.
There have been several mass extinction events, correct? Wouldn’t a short-term flooding be undetectable? For instance, would an ancient tsunami event leave an obvious time stamp geologically? Just curious.
Absolutely not…I know what it feels like to be anti-Christian and I know what it feels like to follow Christ. I can’t convince you, @swamidass is correct, something personal to everyone. I certainly mean no offense, you are entitled to your beliefs as much as I am.
None of the mass extinctions was caused by a worldwide flood. None of the mass extinctions happened within the past few thousand years. Whether a flood would be detectable depends on just how it happened. But in fact there is no mechanism capable of causing a short-term, worldwide flood. Unless you’re invoking a serious miracle, and again there’s no way to know what sort of miracle that might have been. Not sure where you’re going with this.
Me neither, just asking questions, no direction really…I guess I don’t see the Genesis story as literally as most, I see it as something broader in terms of time. I see God as completely outside of time, so discussions about whether or not He controls this or that just seem silly to me. We are not capable of understanding how He exists, in His Word, He just IS.
So everything to me is “eternity past prophecy” up to the time of Moses when biblical writing became no longer an interpretation of what God was telling someone about the past, but was rather an historical (somewhat) account of what actually happened. Prophecy meaning not necessarily a prediction, but an interpretation of Divine communication, which is what Moses received to be able to write about the past that was before his lifetime.
So in my head (and in my Spirit) there is a lot of leeway time-wise to early scripture, prophecy (past and future) tends to be ambiguous relative to time. Perhaps the stories are parables and the timeline is skewed. Ecclesiastes points out that all of this has already been, even today, there is nothing new under the sun. Perhaps scientifically proven extinction events are markers of God resetting history. I dunno, dreaming and thinking out loud…I am not pressing a point.
Good enough. My point (and I do have one) is that Genesis, at least the creation stories, makes no sense as a literal description of real history and bears no resemblance to actual earth history. You are free to interpret them some other way. (You’re free to interpret them as history too; you just have to abandon reality in order to do so.)
I agree. I will add though, that I don’t think that makes early Genesis any less valid. Whether it matches up with earth history or not, to me it represents important lessons regarding mans sin nature, why and how sin came about, and how to find God in an evil world. (Means much more to me than that short blurb, but I will spare everyone)
This sounds like just what someone who wants something which is false, to be true, would say. There isn’t an idea, concept, philosophy, or religion in history, for which there has not been people saying similar things.
Yes but you see, Marx/Muhammad/Moses/Matthew didn’t actually mean this with that word or phrase, he meant this other thing in a metaphorical sense, and you just have to want to see what he really meant to see how Marxism/Islam/Christianity[insert favorite idea] is actually still superior/true. Etc. etc.
, and I don’t think it will convince you…sometimes you have to see things for yourself.