The story of Cain and Babel

reply to post by OneManArmy


Except, what if the region only will support so many. And if everyone sees a fruitful and rich region because X, Y, and Z and their kin have been tending that land well and properly, including paying proper attention to its carrying capacity, they may well be tempted to just move right in.

How do X, Y, and Z and their kin handle this? You state they have the right to remain their has custodians, but you also say that everyone else also has the right to move their so long as they are willing to work to help tend the land and support themselves and the previous inhabitants.

Proper custodianship would be to keep the newcomers out because they would destroy the land with their activities, but you state that X, Y, Z and their kin can't do that ...

So what? This is why we cannot live in anarchy and need some laws and aspects of Babel in our lives. I'm not sure how a proper, Christlike society would do this, but perhaps the others would not be greedy and move to X, Y, and Z's bit in the first place, but find some patch they can make prosperous on their own.

Myself, I want only to keep the fruits of my labors to use as I see fit, not to be taken from me by others who think I would use them poorly or improperly or that they should have the right to dictate to me how I should use them.

ketsuko
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

Except, what if the region only will support so many. And if everyone sees a fruitful and rich region because X, Y, and Z and their kin have been tending that land well and properly, including paying proper attention to its carrying capacity, they may well be tempted to just move right in.

How do X, Y, and Z and their kin handle this? You state they have the right to remain their has custodians, but you also say that everyone else also has the right to move their so long as they are willing to work to help tend the land and support themselves and the previous inhabitants.

Proper custodianship would be to keep the newcomers out because they would destroy the land with their activities, but you state that X, Y, Z and their kin can't do that ...

So what? This is why we cannot live in anarchy and need some laws and aspects of Babel in our lives. I'm not sure how a proper, Christlike society would do this, but perhaps the others would not be greedy and move to X, Y, and Z's bit in the first place, but find some patch they can make prosperous on their own.

Myself, I want only to keep the fruits of my labors to use as I see fit, not to be taken from me by others who think I would use them poorly or improperly or that they should have the right to dictate to me how I should use them.

Its not a matter of keeping the fruits of your labour to yourself, or them being seized, its a matter of sharing the fruits of your labour.
Its the effect on the earth that should dictate how many people can live in any particular place, I think it could probably be equated as "environmental dictatorship", which doesnt sound like a good thing at all, unless society is fair and just and greed and power are severely restricted. Personally I dont think people can be trusted with that responsibility.
The whole of human existence blows these idealistic ideas out of the realms of possibility.
But we can dream right?
Might even be able to work out some workable compromises.

reply to post by OneManArmy


But if the carrying capacity of the land, is a certain amount. It's a certain amount. And you can only share so much of what you have before you start to not be able to care for yourself. Some things are finite.

God wants us to be charitable and share, yes, but he never commanded us to share so much that we ourselves could not then survive. At that point, it would be beyond greedy for others to continue to expect you to give of what you had. Remember, God also expects that they, too, should be working hard to produce their own fruits.

ketsuko
reply to post by OneManArmy

 

But if the carrying capacity of the land, is a certain amount. It's a certain amount. And you can only share so much of what you have before you start to not be able to care for yourself. Some things are finite.

God wants us to be charitable and share, yes, but he never commanded us to share so much that we ourselves could not then survive. At that point, it would be beyond greedy for others to continue to expect you to give of what you had. Remember, God also expects that they, too, should be working hard to produce their own fruits.

Yes indeed land is finite, thats why the land decides if more people can populate it.
If we can eliminate greed(materialistic ownership), then people wouldnt expect what they havent earned.
And remember that not everyone is capable of "earning", they depend on charity.
The children, the disabled, the sick, and the elderly need our charity.
Its the epitome of justice and fairness for ALL. In a self sustainable and non damaging method of living on earth.
No elite to hoard the wealth of the masses that labour for their survival.
Im not sure that what I propose is THE answer, but it beats working for the scraps I need to survive while the elite of this world party and live the high life on the back of my sweat and tears, while the earth is raped and species are thrown into extinction for elitist profiteering.
Throw me a bone, please. lol.

OneManArmy
Im not so sure that the metaphor of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil" equates to "choosing for ourselves what is right and what is wrong".
The clue in the name suggests to me it is of knowing good and evil, hence Adam and Eves "shame" of nakedness, and the covering up with fig leaves.

As I said to the other poster, this goes back to my thread on the Tree of Knowledge.
The suggestion was that "knowing good and evil" was a Hebraism for knowing them side by side, that is determining the boundary line between them. In which case "choosing to eat the fruit" is not only a metaphor for their offence but also a perfect illustration of it.
For further discussion, once again, I'm going to have to refer you to the thread
The Tree of what knowledge?

EDIT: Also God deceived Adam and Eve by saying that to eat from the tree would cause certain death. Its worthy noting that, God told a lie.

Ah yes, that old chestnut. That line of argument has become so familiar that I prepared a thread to deal with it. Let me give you a extract from the relevant portion;

They did not die

This version of the objection is based on the apparent inconsistency between the events which followed the expulsion from the Garden and the wording of God’s previous warning.
On the one hand, the warning is translated as “in the day that you eat of it, you will die”- Genesis ch2 v17
We are also told, on the other hand, that Adam lived to the age of nine hundred and thirty years- Genesis ch5 v5
His death comes eight hundred years after the birth of Seth, which follows on from the Cain’s murder of Abel;
So Adam’s death has to be more than eight hundred years after the expulsion from the Garden.
This seems to conflict with “in the day that you eat of it”.

But why would the writer (or the final redactor) of Genesis allow his narrative to include a contradiction?
It would not have been part of his purpose to present his God as a liar.
I think we have to accept that the author of Genesis himself could have seen no conflict between the two sets of statements.
If he saw any such conflict, he would have removed it by writing the warning in a different way.
Therefore the words of God’s warning, as the writer intended them to be understood, must have a meaning which is consistent with what happened afterwards.

I think the solution to the puzzle lies in finding the right understanding of “you will die”.
The Hebrew wording is very definite- “dying you die”, normally translated as “you will surely die”.
This makes it all the more unlikely that the writer would allow it to be contradicted by later events.
But is this predicting a single death, or a continuing series of deaths?
In other words, does it mean that Adam, the individual, will drop lifeless almost on the instant of expulsion from the Garden (which is not what happened)?
Or does it mean that the human race which Adam represents will begin to experience death from that moment onwards (which is exactly what happened)?
I’m not convinced that Hebrew offers a clear way of distinguishing between the two.
The second meaning is to be preferred because it gives the writer of Genesis the effect which he clearly intended.
His point is that humans die, and the whole purpose of the story is to explain why they die.
He has connected human death in general with the arrival of the knowledge of good and evil.

For further discussion on that question, I must refer you to the thread
With knowledge comes death?

The sacrifice of Isaac is on the list of potential future threads, so I'll deal with it at the appropriate time.
It certainly isn't on topic in this context.

Do I have a thread for every occasion?
I'm working on it.
My purpose so sublime, I shall achieve in time.

DISRAELI

Do I have a thread for every occasion?
I'm working on it.
My purpose so sublime, I shall achieve in time.

lol.
I bet you was a boy scout..."Be prepared"

As for death after eating the fruit. I can only see for that to be true, that Adam and Eve must have been immortal pre-eating. And aging and death became a reality post apple.

But yes, back to the topic....

OneManArmy
As for death after eating the fruit. I can only see for that to be true, that Adam and Eve must have been immortal pre-eating. And aging and death became a reality post apple.

Before they were expelled from the Garden and their access was blocked off, they were eating from the Tree of Life.

As I explain in my thread Did they eat from the Tree of Life?.

I'm afraid you set me up for that one.

DISRAELI

OneManArmy
As for death after eating the fruit. I can only see for that to be true, that Adam and Eve must have been immortal pre-eating. And aging and death became a reality post apple.

Before they were expelled from the Garden and their access was blocked off, they were eating from the Tree of Life.

As I explain in my thread Did they eat from the Tree of Life?.

I'm afraid you set me up for that one.

PMSL, you are good!!

DISRAELI
In one respect, Cain and Babel represent opposing tendencies.
The legacy of Cain is the assertion of the individual will, against other individual wills, which tends to promote individual violence.
The legacy of Babel is the assertion of the collective will, against other wills, which tends to promote corporate power.
The co-existence of the two gives us the perennial conflict between individualism and corporate authority...

There is a sense, though, in which we need them both, in the current conditions of human life.
We need the power of authority to restrain the violence of Cain.
We need the energy of the individual to restrain the pride and power of Babel.

Another application is in the field of religion.
The relentless authoritarianism of the Roman Catholic church is clearly "Babel" in character (which is not the same thing as identifying them as Revelation's Babylon).
But if this is questioned, they will seek to justify themselves by pointing to the "Cain" tendancy of the multiplicity of small Protestant sects.

reply to post by DISRAELI


and we will reform them... again

originally posted by: OneManArmy
He also asked Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac to prove his allegiance to God...

I told you at the time that I would do a separate thread on this later.
The thread can now be found at;
Abraham and Isaac