Originally posted by Keeper of Kheb
You don't have any evidence that he doesn't exist.

You can't have any sort of evidence for something that never existed. I could make that same argument for 7-armed gorillas, but I don't because I know it's ridiculous.

From my impression, Moses was an impressionable type man, Amen

?.

Nevermind the people in Africa or the Americas.

I think what most people forget is when they read the bible that there is a break between God created man on the sixth day and then chapter 2 God created Adam and Eve. Most people find it hard to think that all the Old Testament is the story not of the whole Earth but that of the Jews, God's chosen people. Jesus comes along later to make the Spirit of God available to all men Gentile and Jew alike.

I believe the creation story in the bible is the creation of the Jews. A people God has imparted his will upon. Then when God has to destroy the corruption of the Gentiles and Jews he does so with the flood of Noah. This does not mean that all people were destroyed. In some non-canonical yet very prestigious books written in the same time period, elaborate on this flood, saying that God choose to flood the Earth to destroy the children of the Grigori or the Watchers. Also we know that others survived this flood because many nations have very similar flood stories all produced in the same time period.

Adam and Eve were not the first people. They were the first Jews.

The beginning of a story does not tell us the End. If you want to find out what awaits the end you need to read the Gospels of Jesus. That is what is important. Christians should stop trying to justify themselves through science. Science is of here and now and it will be washed away. When a man thinks he is wise, he is stupid. Christians try and prove creation so that they can for themselves release the doubt that they feel. Without doubt there would not be faith and without faith there would be no need for a Spirit. Focus on these things. If Noah's Ark was found, The Arc of the Covenant found, Holy Grail was real, and The shroud of Turin proven real, people would still have to believe in there hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead and confess with their lips that He is Lord to get everlasting life not just after death but here on Earth. That is what should be focused on.

You do not justify God. He justifies you.

Originally posted by JBA2848
And when God told them that no man wouold live past the age of 120 years from this point further is because of the change to using the sun to measure a yearly cycle.

Originally posted by platipus
so i guess they didnt really live to be 900+ years old.

Actually what God said in Genesis 6:3 was "And the the Lord said, 'My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh; yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.'"

Doesn't say anything that man's lifespan would only be 120 years.

Two theories:

1) Since this statement introduced the story of the flood, this was His warning that He was going to destroy the earth in 120 years. So it could hold that it took 120 years from that point until the flood. I believe this to be correct.

2) The Hebrew word for man is also the word for Adam. Therefore, God could very well have been saying that His Spirit wouldn't always strive with Adam, and He was going to die in 120. There was a definite article used with the word "adam", therefore it should read "the Adam". Per some studies, Adam died something like only 10 years before the flood. So this could be true also.

[edit on 9/29/2009 by willow1d]

[edit on 9/29/2009 by willow1d]

Where are all those extremely aged bones of all the thousands of early Israelites & ancestors in the tribe of Judah?

It seems only the 'chosen people' lived remarkable long lives of well over two hundred years old at a minimum.

see: earlier posts for the list of long lived Hebrew & Jewish/Israelite ancestors

Do we now find burial relics & bones that suggest the individual showed signs of having lived only 45 years but had in fact lived 777 years,
but had no age related infirmities like arthritius that would show up in a 777 yr old individual?


heck, all our dating methods might be off by 300-969 years as far as
skeletons in ancient graves is concerned.

by-the-way.... none of thelist of Patriarchs & long lived family members
speaks of how they died....
did they just pass in their sleep with no ailments or age related infirmaties?
That scenario would be the most appropriate, so that the followers might think that those patriarchs were completely lucid & physically/mentally alert in their daily prayers & meditations with their 'God'...
a modicum of heaven-on-earth as it were, with no aging, no drudgery and tedious labor or strife to fill the belly everyday with food & wine.


reminds me of the end of the standard fairytale ;"
& the lived happily-ever-after...'

Originally posted by Keeper of Kheb

Originally posted by aorAki
....and not just carbon dated. There are many dating techniques, some which go back way way further than carbon-dating, such are Uranium-Thorium or Rubidium-Strontium.

However, I'm with you regarding this, the fossil record is much more reliable than these myths when we try to determine the past.

OP, just as a curiosity: how old do you consider the Earth to be?

Billions. The account in Genesis is a recreation account. The Earth was destroyed with an Ice Age or cataclysmic event presumably the previous inhabitants rebelled against God possibly sided with Lucifer and 1/3 of the Angels. The only time in the Bible that God destroys a world is when it becomes corrupt. Scientifically proven there was an Ice Age, there was a Flood and bible prophecies 1000+ years from now with Fire. Prophecy in Revelations accounts for a final recreation of the Earth after it is burned with fire. I'm a Gap Theorist. meaning "In the Beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" (Stop: Billions of years existed) now begins the account of the recreation since the previous earth was destroyed by that i mean all life wiped out and Earth thrown into Chaos in which God reorganizes and brings life back to Earth with Creation of Man as its Keeper. On a side note i believe Dinosaurs existed before mankind in the previous world, there is some debate about this among some christians but me personally I don't see it that way.

BTW. You are on the slippery slope to becoming athiest. If you interpret some of the bible to be metaphor, then surely other parts can be too. This is a very quick path to athiest

The way I see it, if you don't accept the bible as a literal truth, you are actually agnostic without realising it as the logic you used to figure it out hasn't permeated yet. Keep thinking, good things will happen!