Could you develop this, as it is not a standard interpretation, cause I gotta say, this* seems like an offhand exhortation from God, not unlike Dad saying ‘don’t do anything I wouldn’t do’, or ‘if you can’t be good, be careful’.
Plus there is stuff about fish in the same passage. Is original sin also failing to rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air?
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Ted, why would it matter if Cain’s wife were his sister or his niece? Unless one accepts the pre-adamic humans, it’s inevitable that, early on in the mythic history, either pair of siblings or a parent-child pair mated.
You forget that kanicbird worships a god twenty times more evil than Satan, Wotan, and Zeus put together. kanicbird’s god is perfectly okay with rape and child abuse.
I reject this conclusion - clearly the next son born after the murder would be a replacement for Abel, but there could have been fifteen sons inbetween, who would not have been in the running for replacement since Abel was still around when they were born.
I see no argument against the theory that Adam and Eve had been spawning like rabbits in the hundred years before Cain got murderous. Odds are good that there’d be plenty of sisters hanging around for Cain to run off with.
I forget – is this possible in the context of the story? I’d always assumed the story was supposed to have happened before there were any descendants.
I agree with the notion of the whole thing being a Bronze Age myth, possibly rooted in actual events or persons, and that the purpose of the myth is to account for the origin of punishment and redress through the law, rather than by acts of revenge between individuals. God’s saying that the only one permitted to punish crime is himself; in an age when most rulers and judiciaries were supposed to operate under a divine mandate, any distinction between human law and divine retribution was of no consequence.
Keep in mind that most early or primitive cultures use terms like The Men or The People to refer to themselves to the exclusion of all others. The Biblical story isn’t necessarily the story of the first or only human beings of their time, but of the first people whom the original storytellers and writers of the legends considered to belong to their own tribe or culture. The earliest audience might well have taken it for granted that there were other tribes or countries in the world when the events of Genesis were supposed to take place.
God does not impose further rules unless former ones were broken. The rule was be fruitful and increase - I believe this is the only commandment in paradise (ruling over the animals is a function of being fruitful and increase). There would be no need for further rules unless that one was broken, and if a second rule was imposed the violation would be of the first one to allow the second.
The fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (fruit here is outcome, such as the fruit of the Spirit), is the knowledge of willfully stepping outside the will of God. This is what Adam did (note not Eve, she was deceived - 1 Tim 2:14), while Adam (not Eve) willfully disobeyed, and only Adam acquired this knowledge (Gen 3:23), also note that only Adam received death in Gen 3:19. IMHO Adam’s sin was willfully disobeying God, the subject does not matter.
As I pointed out earlier, the temptation on Eve is exactly the same reason why women delay having children/aborting today - scriptures are just as valid today as they were back then. That temptation is for beauty (it looks attractive not have kids), good for food (less mouths to feed/ better career opportunities) and gaining wisdom (stay in school). IMHO the sin of Eve is following Satan’s suggestion to delay childbirth.
Further the curses on Eve are around reproduction, pains in childbirth, and also puts her in a position of submission to her husband (Gen 3:16).
In the NT we see that women’s salvation in Jesus will be through childbearing (1Tim 2:15) and faith. This is to reverse the system Adam and Eve bought. Women will realize that they are made to adore children, they just have to find that out for themselves. Also their submission and union to Jesus undoes the submission to her husband and Jesus then sets her free to act with His full authority.
We can also go into how scriptures treat fertility and many children as a blessing and barrenness as a curse, and how the enemy of God in scriptures throw infants into fires and castrate men.
Reading scriptures the pattern of childbirth is repeated over and over, including being born again, and the birth pains of creation. Deut 30:19 also indicative of the importance of life is for not only oneself but one’s children. (Quick add, Cain, A&E’s first son was a problem child which lead to death, which is inline with Deut 30:19)
I don’t know how the animals fit into original sin.
Going further, this seems to indicate that the Kingdom of God is some backwards society and we will be going back to the stone age. I believe it is quite the opposite, and the wonders of the Kingdom of God will far surpass what we see in SciFi such as Startrek. IMHO in the Kingdom of God the angels are responsible for the work, Adam and Eve bought the opposite, we do the work and have a very low level of advancement. Scriptures state we will live in pavilions of splendor (or mansions) and flying on golden wings. Most importantly we will be in a family that Loves us wherever we go, and that alone I would take over what we have, the other stuff is just a bonus.
All of man’s efforts are like dirty used menstrual pads - this is what God says, though it’s a paraphrase. We really can’t do anything, it is God who heals, He does it through Love, a person may think it is medication, but that medication is just a reflection of healing Love from God, usually through a person.
And it’s not waiting for Jesus, Jesus is hear and now, ready to (in general) first teach us, then to send us out to do His work.
You know, if circumstances were different, I would take this as a complete and unabridged liscence to act like a complete asshole, to the degree that people who do care how I act will let me. After all, God thinks that kicking poor people in the nuts is as good as giving them hearty meals!
(Of course, the circumstances are that I already am acting like I have this liscence, since I never imagined there was a god requring good behavior to begin with. But if I was a theist, you would totally be coercing me to do evil.)
Let me put it another way then, Jesus said that the widow who gave 2 mites (pennies) did more then people who gave much more, because she gave from what little she had (‘her poverty’ in scriptures), I would say she gave out of her heart. This God blesses, giving from the heart, which is God acting through the person, the amount is irrelevant to God (God can take care of that easy enough).
The blessings that that money went to had her heart along it, which is from and of God, which will carry on to the recipient. This IMHO is also the issue with organic foods today, it’s not the organic that makes it better, it’s that people have put their heart into their work - which is care and Love for our mother earth and humanity, which is the flow of the Love of God.
Scriptures speak of objects, such as handkerchiefs carrying the blessings of God to others.
This I believe is the basis of forms of spirituality where certain objects are said to have ‘high vibrational energy’, or something like that, which is just that the Love of God is on a object, which may have come through a person.
See now, that’s not nearly as fun as having carte blanche to go around kicking people in the nuts. Despite the mildly entertaining ‘high vibrational energy’ bit.
Well, how many cures for disease were found through menstrual-pad science and how many through prayer and Jesus-guidance? I assume some people forego the former and operate through Jesus’ teachings, so are there Benedictine Monks who can cure blindness more effectively than, say, a cataract surgeon?
You might be interested to know that *R. Crumb *has published a comic book based on Genesis. I have not read it, but I assume that all the squicky stuff is faithfully represented. Because, you know, R. Crumb.
Isn’t that, um, not what the book says though? I don’t seen anything about giving from the heart or whatnot and I assume if it wasn’t mentioned it wasn’t a factor. The key point appears to be that she gave everything she could while they gave what they didn’t need; it highlights the difference between compassionate charity and charity for the sake of appearing charitable and stifling guilt. Charity is (supposed) to be about compassion not amount.
I’m not a believer, and I know that will be used to dismiss me, but I find this part of the Bible inspiring because it teaches that anyone, of any means, can make a difference. Just mundane, regular humans making the world a better place by caring about other humans. If I were to go along with that you’re saying the only significant thing the widow did was to obey. It seems like you’re tripping over yourself to diminish humans and give God all the credit. Believing that the only good thing you can do is obey seems to contradict quite a bit of the Bible and robs certain parts such as this one of their meaning, IMHO.
Sorry for that impression. It was not that she obeyed, though she could have been obeying the Holy Spirit, but she allowed the Love of God to flow through her to others.
It’s where that spirit of giving comes from, which I believe is from God, not man, though it can and does flow through man (and woman).
It merely says that, henceforth (having just been kicked out of Eden for eating the forbidden fruit) when she then has children it’ll be painful, not that she’s dropping sprogs here and now. That whole verse is in the future tense.