You’ve got it backwards. Anecdotal evidence refers to “local floods” from multiple cultures around the world.
Who is going to answer @Ashwin_s ?
The key is how you define “human beings”. The context points to the line of Imago Dei creatures which God had created—not all hominids.
I have no idea what you are talking about. If someone in this thread based their argument on “local floods from multiple cultures around the world”, I didn’t see it—but then again I don’t always read every post in a thread. (If someone did indeed post such an argument, I will leave it to them to defend it.)
Meanwhile, this thread has settled into rehashing the same material which has been discussed countless times on PS. Unless there is something new to be covered, I’m losing interest in this thread.
@noUCA, perhaps you could start a new thread on your experiences with going “straight to the words of God on this one” and your hermeneutical approaches to Hebrew exegesis.
WHOOSH! {The sound of a joke going right past you.}
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It’s another version of pt 2.
What it basically ammounts to is that the flood was global as far as “human beings” are concerned.
You are right this has been rehashed many times. The problem of course is that we get two types of human beings which are not at all different in biological terms. But one kind bears the image of God and is superior to the other.
At what time do you place this locally global flood? Was it before or after the Harappa civilization?
catastrophic floods are a rather frequent occurrence around the world. The Mississippi turned into an inland sea in the 90s, for example.
Recall, there is no word “human” in Hebrew. The word there is “Adam.” It isn’t talking about homosapiens. It’s talking about the visible descendents of Adam.
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That’s highly ambiguous. Who are the Imago Dei creatures? They would seem to be the Genesis 1 creation, which I believe you interpret in the sequential way, and thus all Homo sapiens, not just descendants of A&E. And thus, too, a worldwide flood.
Or is Imago Dei not the same thing as “in his image”?
Not really clear, since “adam” isn’t a name. What word is used for people in Genesis 1?
The more relevant question is about the words in Genesis 6:1-4. Gibbowr, nephilim, enosh, and sons of Elohim. That ia four different ways of referring to people other than Adam. The focus of the flood is on Adam.
There is debate about how Genesis 1 and 2 maps on to the GAE and whether the people outside are in the Image of God. I think @AllenWitmerMiller is speaking from the view that Genesis 1 and 2 are recapitulatory, only in reference to AE, and the people outside are not in the image of God. That’s one view. There are others.
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Not at all. A TOLEDOT in Genesis 5 begins with:
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him;
…and ends with …
30 And Lamech lived after he begat Noah five hundred ninety and five years, and begat sons and daughters:
31 And all the days of Lamech were seven hundred seventy and seven years: and he died.
32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
So the Genesis text very carefully and explicitly connects the Imago Dei ADAM with the descendant, Noah, of the flood account.
See above.
Not all of creation. Just the Imago Dei ADAM creatures of Genesis 1:27:
So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
Moving on:
I don’t know what “sequential way” means.
That has never been my claim.
See Hugh Ross quote. I’m fine with a worldwide flood—but not a global one.
Imago Dei is a commonly used term for the divine image.
I’m not sure why it is unclear.
Not in its first use in Genesis 1 but it became one.
ADAM
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I’d say Genesis 1 is at least as relevant. Come now, don’t deflect.
Two things: are they people? And could they also be referred to as adam (=man)? I don’t think either is clear. Nor is it clear that men referred to as adam are references to descendants of Adam.
If he thinks that Genesis 1 refers to Adam and Eve, then the creation of Homo sapiens is nowhere recorded. This seems like a serious omission. Unless of course they’re considered beasts. But in that case it seems odd that when God presented all the beasts to Adam, none of them was deemed a proper companion for him, and a rib had to be resorted to. There are problematic implications of both the sequential and recapitulation understandings.
I like this. This needs an answer.
Sure. But it doesn’t connect all the people who died in the Flood to ADAM. (What are the all caps intended to convey?).
So your position is that only descendants of Adam have the Imago Dei? People living elsewhere than the Middle East (or whatever you think the Flood area is) didn’t have it? Is it even fair to call them people?
Yes, surely that was clear already and needed no clarification.
Really? It seems a term in common use here. The creation of Man in Genesis 1 is either the same as the creation of Adam and Eve in Genesis 2 (recapitulation) or it’s a separate creation of other humans (sequential). I see you go for recapitulation. But in that case, why is the creation of Homo sapiens left out of Genesis?
Semantic obfuscation. Not a good way to discuss our differences.
But it isn’t in its use in the Flood story, is it?
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Nobody is deflecting anything. And I’ve not noticed anyone claiming that Genesis 1 is not relevant.
You attempting to anachronistically force modern, English language classifications on an ancient text.
And that is because you are trying to force modern distinctions (which are important to you) into the text to try and make it address modern questions the text is not concerned about.
See TOLEDOT in Genesis 5.
Why on earth why?? Yet again you are thinking anachronistically.
Of course, all of us who are interested in these topics would love to see the Biblical text address all sorts of issues which matter to us today. What about Homo neaderthalensis? Where specifically did Cain go, what were the circumstances of his marriage and of what tribe was his partner, and what of the city he built? (He would need help in doing that.) And when did the Imago Dei ADAM appear?
Yes, those are interesting and very natural questions. But they are not what the text is concerned with addressing.
The English word beasts has its own set of connotations and baggage—and isn’t necessarily exactly semantically equivalent with the corresponding Hebrew word.
If all other creatures lacked the Imago Dei—which is rather obvious from the text—we would certainly expect there to be a lack of “proper companion” qualifications.
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This is a lethal question. This actually pertains to the second account of Creation and could be very damaging to some ideas around here if satisfactory answers are not presented.
Why was a female hominid* not suitable for Adam?
*an idea that to me is hogwash, but of course means something to you people
That is not what I call a satisfactory answer.
Absolutely shocking I say!
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Why? After all, their offspring would have borne the image of God according to theories around here right?
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Also, why would Adam need to name all the beasts? Other members of Homo sapiens would have done a lot of that already.
Hominid makes no sense here.
Perhaps because there were no morally perfect men or women outside the Garden. Perhaps that is why God created Adam and Eve de novo. There could have been other women around, but they were not suitable to be welcomed into the Garden.
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Yes. We must stay tightly (and non-anachronistically) within the contextual boundaries of the ancient text—even while being open-minded to a variety of interpretations which are hermeneutically harmonious with the text (such as the de novo creation of Adam and Eve while similar, though not entirely identical, intelligent beings existed outside of the garden.)
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