27.8.06
Adam's Family
Cain took a wife. Now, who could she be? We have the parents, Adam and Eve, plus their two sons, Cain and Seth. The text focuses on these fours characters, but does not claim that the first couple did not have many other sons and daugthers in their long life. They were told to "multiply and replenish the earth". Cain must have then found a sister-wife in the neighbouring towns founded by some of his known or unknown brothers and sisters.
Humans had been created perfect and it is said that the lifespan, back at the beginning of the race, was much longer for that reason. Our bodies have gradually become degenerated. If that's the case, then it is possible that there would be no in-bred effect like there would be now. Some Fundamentalist Christian websites do claim that and I guess I agree with these claims.
As for Cain marrying his sister, that sounds weird to us, but God hadn't given the Law yet. It was not a sin to marry in the family back in those times.
Cain's descendants created culture and civilisation, becoming musicians, like "Jubal, the invetnor of the harp and flute", or blacksmiths, like "Tubal-cain, the first to work with metal", etc. One of them, Lamech, became the first polygamist, as "Lamech married two women: Adah and Zillah". Cain's descendants also became inscreasingly evil, boasting of their crimes and murders, as if wickedness was hereditary. This escalation of violence and wickedness would be swiped away by the Flood a few generations later...
As for Seth's line, they instaured the best act of culture and civilisation, according to Genesis: Authentic worship.
The genealogy that follows, from Seth to Noah, does not have to be taken literally. Ancient genealogies were not about historicity but about determining domestical, legal or religious matters. Many Mesopotamian myths also refer to similar genealogies, in which men had a lifespan of more than 900 years up to the Flood.
Some insteresting aspects in the Adam genealogy:
Adam's first-born son (and consequently Seth who replaced Abel) was begotten "in his own image" (we now would say he was the spitting image of his father) like Adam had been created in the very "image of God".
Enoch did not die, but after walking with God (that is to say, being a reighteous worshipper) apparently was taken by God. Despite the few Apocrypha books that tell the detailed (and most likely fantasy) story of Enoch, the Bible tries to be very discreet about what actually happened! We are just told that he was "taken up".
We are not told about the other sons' or daughters' names in that genealogy of Adam through Seth: The text focuses on the first-borns until Noah comes to the scene with his 3 sons (Shem, the ancestor of the Semitic people, being the first-born).
Humans had been created perfect and it is said that the lifespan, back at the beginning of the race, was much longer for that reason. Our bodies have gradually become degenerated. If that's the case, then it is possible that there would be no in-bred effect like there would be now. Some Fundamentalist Christian websites do claim that and I guess I agree with these claims.As for Cain marrying his sister, that sounds weird to us, but God hadn't given the Law yet. It was not a sin to marry in the family back in those times.
Cain's descendants created culture and civilisation, becoming musicians, like "Jubal, the invetnor of the harp and flute", or blacksmiths, like "Tubal-cain, the first to work with metal", etc. One of them, Lamech, became the first polygamist, as "Lamech married two women: Adah and Zillah". Cain's descendants also became inscreasingly evil, boasting of their crimes and murders, as if wickedness was hereditary. This escalation of violence and wickedness would be swiped away by the Flood a few generations later...
As for Seth's line, they instaured the best act of culture and civilisation, according to Genesis: Authentic worship.
The genealogy that follows, from Seth to Noah, does not have to be taken literally. Ancient genealogies were not about historicity but about determining domestical, legal or religious matters. Many Mesopotamian myths also refer to similar genealogies, in which men had a lifespan of more than 900 years up to the Flood.
Some insteresting aspects in the Adam genealogy:
Adam's first-born son (and consequently Seth who replaced Abel) was begotten "in his own image" (we now would say he was the spitting image of his father) like Adam had been created in the very "image of God".
Enoch did not die, but after walking with God (that is to say, being a reighteous worshipper) apparently was taken by God. Despite the few Apocrypha books that tell the detailed (and most likely fantasy) story of Enoch, the Bible tries to be very discreet about what actually happened! We are just told that he was "taken up".
We are not told about the other sons' or daughters' names in that genealogy of Adam through Seth: The text focuses on the first-borns until Noah comes to the scene with his 3 sons (Shem, the ancestor of the Semitic people, being the first-born).
Past The Mission
I have finished reading a book called "The Authentic Gospel of Jesus", by Geza Vermas, the first professor of Jewish studies at Oxford. Probably the foremost world authority on the Dead Sea scrolls, he has also written at great length about the historical Jesus.
Everyone's got their own idea of who Jesus was or is. My idea always was that Jesus was not God, that he was the Son of God, send by God to be Preacher to the world, to die as the ultimate sacrificial lamb of the Law of Moses, to bring humans back to the communion they should enjoy with God. Now, my whole conception of Jesus has shifted, partly because, or thanks to, this book.
It seems that Jesus was one of these prophets of Galilee, an rigourous observer of the Torah, calling his fellow Jews, and not the Gentiles, to get right with God, and observe the Torah in a heartfelt manner, instead of just seeing the legal or technical aspect of it. According to Prof. Vermas, it seems that Jesus was unaware that he'd end up dying on a cross, that his message was to get ready for the coming of Kingdom of God, the end of times or whatever this concept meant to him.
Prof. Vermas uses the knowledge he has of the time in which Jesus lived and he examines each of the words Jesus is reported to have uttered and analyses them, judging them genuine, probably genuine, probably invented by the Gospel authors, and surely invented by the authors.
No doubt that hardline Christians will find this serious book insulting. Honest researchers of the Truth will be disturbed and challenged like I was. But it is sometimes necessary to get shocked sane.
The God I worship wants me to gain knowledge and not have a blind faith that blurs my vision but makes me feel safe! The Jesus I admire and try to follow is not the wimp worshipped with his asexual mother by the Catholics!
The Jesus I admire and try to follow was an ancient Jewish prophet, healer and miracle-worker. I believe he didn't think he would die and that his words would be shared with the non-Jews. However, I personally believe that God used him as a sacrifice and as the opening door for all of us who are not Jews but have come to know the God of Israel.
Read a review of the book, published in the UK newspaper The Guardian.
Everyone's got their own idea of who Jesus was or is. My idea always was that Jesus was not God, that he was the Son of God, send by God to be Preacher to the world, to die as the ultimate sacrificial lamb of the Law of Moses, to bring humans back to the communion they should enjoy with God. Now, my whole conception of Jesus has shifted, partly because, or thanks to, this book.
It seems that Jesus was one of these prophets of Galilee, an rigourous observer of the Torah, calling his fellow Jews, and not the Gentiles, to get right with God, and observe the Torah in a heartfelt manner, instead of just seeing the legal or technical aspect of it. According to Prof. Vermas, it seems that Jesus was unaware that he'd end up dying on a cross, that his message was to get ready for the coming of Kingdom of God, the end of times or whatever this concept meant to him.
Prof. Vermas uses the knowledge he has of the time in which Jesus lived and he examines each of the words Jesus is reported to have uttered and analyses them, judging them genuine, probably genuine, probably invented by the Gospel authors, and surely invented by the authors.
No doubt that hardline Christians will find this serious book insulting. Honest researchers of the Truth will be disturbed and challenged like I was. But it is sometimes necessary to get shocked sane.
The God I worship wants me to gain knowledge and not have a blind faith that blurs my vision but makes me feel safe! The Jesus I admire and try to follow is not the wimp worshipped with his asexual mother by the Catholics!
The Jesus I admire and try to follow was an ancient Jewish prophet, healer and miracle-worker. I believe he didn't think he would die and that his words would be shared with the non-Jews. However, I personally believe that God used him as a sacrifice and as the opening door for all of us who are not Jews but have come to know the God of Israel.
Read a review of the book, published in the UK newspaper The Guardian.
