Atheist Bible Study 1: Genesis

[Godscreated]

You were not addressed.

---

O' boy look you have copied a couple of verses from the Bible, that only proves you can read. The verses are true and I understand why, do you.



Idiot me, who's the one judging? You have no idea what that verse even means do you.


Who are they, you're just repeating what you've heard others say, real intelligent. What have they (who ever they are) shown not to be true in the Bible. And again i will ask who is judging now? Just because they have degrees doesn't mean a thing, they need to have a desire for the truth no matter what they find. They'er out for glory for themselves. You have no idea what I know.



Go debate a creation scientist, you will get embarrassed. Go ask God how He did it, He hasn't made me privy to that information and philosophy is not science. I still want to know if you are having trouble spelling Jesus or are you trying to get under my skin with such a second grade attitude, if it's the latter then grow up.

GC

A bunch of 2nd Grade retorts, and not even one issue or point actually addressed. 
Jebus made him stupid it appears.
Creationists are not scientists. "Creation science" is an oxymoron.

Dismissed.

 Good I'm tired of listening to one who can't have a truthful discussion and is afraid to address the subjects at hand.

GC

[Bucky Ball]

A bunch of 2nd Grade retorts, and not even one issue or point actually addressed. 
Jebus made him stupid it appears.
Creationists are not scientists. "Creation science" is an oxymoron.

Dismissed.

 Good I'm tired of listening to one who can't have a truthful discussion and is afraid to address the subjects at hand.

GC

LOL

[GrandizerII]

The Quest for Isaac's Wife
Genesis 24

This account is more about Abraham than it is about Isaac (IMO). Abraham wants to make sure his son Isaac gets married to a proper woman, so he sends off his chief servant to go fetch a wife for Isaac from the country where their relatives live. The servant has his struggles at the start but, with the help of God, eventually finds the right woman for Isaac (the woman's name being Rebekah). Isaac and Rebekah meet, and Isaac is thus comforted and finally gets laid.

Although still somewhat readable, the repetitive aspect of the storytelling here can be a little frustrating, and there isn't much romance happening between Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, Isaac doesn't really do much here besides passively receiving his new bride. You'd think there'd be at least one passage in which Isaac (the second Patriarch of Israel) does something memorable. At least Isaac's later son, Jacob, had to work hard for his women.

[Bucky Ball]

So again, we see the place to meet a nice girl is at the well, which is seen again and again.
Abraham (in the myth) wants to make sure that in the patriarchal lineage, a strict intra-familial relationship is maintained, and the rights to Abrahams property and land, is maintained.
Interesting that the tradition of holding something in one hand (as it still is) during an oath (as it also is told when Jacob makes Joseph swear .. Genesis 47 .. not to bury him in Egypt), is there. I'll have to look up a strict translation, but ... "putting a hand under the thigh" means Abraham is asking him to hold his genitals, according to Talmudic tradition, for the oath.

The most interesting thing here for me is the camels. We know the approximate dating (fairly certainly) for the domestication of camels in the Levant. There are a few ways this dating has been done. Camels are seen earlier in some temple/architectural paintings and carvings, but only in a "royal" environment before 1000 BCE. The height of the camel trade and their common use for caravans was about 750 BCE. So this "dates" this possible version of this story rather specifically. It may contain elements from earlier versions.

At work ... I'll post more later.

[Drich]

The Quest for Isaac's Wife
Genesis 24

This account is more about Abraham than it is about Isaac (IMO). Abraham wants to make sure his son Isaac gets married to a proper woman, so he sends off his chief servant to go fetch a wife for Isaac from the country where their relatives live. The servant has his struggles at the start but, with the help of God, eventually finds the right woman for Isaac (the woman's name being Rebekah). Isaac and Rebekah meet, and Isaac is thus comforted and finally gets laid.

Although still somewhat readable, the repetitive aspect of the storytelling here can be a little frustrating, and there isn't much romance happening between Isaac and Rebekah. In fact, Isaac doesn't really do much here besides passively receiving his new bride. You'd think there'd be at least one passage in which Isaac (the second Patriarch of Israel) does something memorable. At least Isaac's later son, Jacob, had to work hard for his women.

got to remember love is a modern construct. there was love but of a different type. that of man and wife which far exceeds passion and romance, it is more like a social contract so that isaac could retain his father's lands and holding and increase them, as clans and 'inlaws' where a form of secureity and defense. a bandit would not want to come in the middle of the night an murder and steal from a large family as they could have an army of people tracking you and your's down. pick the right wife here was like the king of england picking the daughter of the king of france to marry his son in brave heart. if isaac had problems then he also had the backing of this well established family in nahor's city.

[Bucky Ball]

The concept of romantic love, (of course) did not exist at the time. That is a very important observation.
Israel before the Exile, was a tribal society. The family groups were how the society was organized and what gave meaning to life.
The perpetuation of the (male) family line was what granted immortality. That changed eventually (for reasons we can discuss when we get there) after the Exile, and along with the change how the deity(s) were viewed, ... changed also, culturally. There is an interesting link between what we will see shortly, (when Jacob wrestles with an angel, and also receives a "generative" wound, (in his "thigh") (just as the fisher king had a generative wound in the Grail Myth), and just as Abraham here uses a "generative" (being touched under his thigh) oath to seal the deal here.

[The Grand Nudger]

As a minor aside, I'm not sure where this notion that the concept of romantic love didn't exist -at any point- in human history comes from.  It has been more or less emphasized by this or that society at one point in time or another - but so far as we can tell humans have been fully modern for at least 50k years..and the concept of romantic love does, in fact, present itself from the very earliest examples of written myth, legend, and history, and very particularly the conflict between that human behavior and social structures that did not grant it legitimacy. You'll find it in magic book, as well, ofc.

That's a trope that's been with us forever.

[Bucky Ball]

As a minor aside, I'm not sure where this notion that the concept of romantic love didn't exist -at any point- in human history comes from.  It has been more or less emphasized by this or that society at one point in time or another - but so far as we can tell humans have been fully modern for at least 50k years..and the concept of romantic love does, in fact, present itself from the very earliest examples of written myth, legend, and history, and very particularly the conflict between that human behavior and social structures that did not grant it legitimacy.  You'll find it in magic book, as well, ofc.  

That's a trope that's been with us forever.

Possibly, but not as the basis for marriage.
The idea that the concepts that modern humans, or even human in just 2019 have, have been shared by all humans for the last 50,000 years is false. Cultures change, and it changes radially over time.
Being physically "modern" in no way mean humans have been conceptually "modern" for all that time. For example, tribal societies did not have anything close to the concept of individualism we have today, and the historical events that led to the way the concept exists today is a huge study topic in human cultural history. The concept in the West of "chivalry" and the knightly (romantic courtly love) hero, has NOT existed for even a fraction of human history.

There are those who say romantic love as we think of it today did not exist until quite recently.
https://www.theeuropean-magazine.com/bar...rn-society

[The Grand Nudger]

Full modernity doesn't concern physical modernity (or that all humans shared all modern concepts).  We've been physically modern for far longer than we've been fully modern.  Full modernity is a term used to denote the point in pre-history where not only our bodies..but our behaviors..become recognizable to a modern observer and universal to all human society (regardless of it's official structures). We see, for example, by reference to artifacts and the skill and time it must have taken to produce them (and then the manner of their disposal)..that someone really loved some person we find in a grave. We also see the recognizable beggining of social status and how they could lead to the same (and..p[ossibly, in an abusive way) - but we can;t explain all finds in this manner, nor would it make sense to even if we could.

The long and short of it is that..yes, while society has changed in that time...you would find yourself staring at a human being that you could understand (and who could understand you..even you didn't agree with each other) for at least 50k years. These viewpoints that you see in magic book are an example of the social construct making it's case - asserting itself, against those other ideas, which also existed. That the two lovers in the song of solomon were romantically entangled but had to sneak away is the theme of the entire bit - as an example. It plays with a derived narrative older than anything in magic book.

The idea of arranged or political marriages would not have been a thing until those sorts of marriages became useful (or necesarry)..and indeed even marriage itself.....placing them well after two kids fucking in the bushes because they couldn't get enough of each other. That's never really been a big deal outside of social authority structures. Plenty of important people were arranging marriages and relationships while the less worthy all around them were pretty much bumping with whomever happened to catch their eyes for whatever reason. Those arranged marriages were, themselves, riddled with infidelity along similar lines. For as long as people have been insisting on them, people have been wringing their hands over children who didn't see the wisdom of them or people who breached that contract. We're a thoroughly well mixed population of organisms..that certainly didn't happen by a strict adherence to politically convenient breeding arrangements along the well defined lines of social authority.

[GrandizerII]

The Death of Abraham
Genesis 25:1-11

In the first four verses is mention of Abraham's second wife (after Sarah) and a very brief genealogical record of Abraham's offspring through that second wife. Midian is probably the most important name here (from a Biblical POV).

In the next two verses, we see Abraham leave everything he owned to Isaac and keeping all his other sons away from him (after giving them some gifts).

Then we get to the conclusion of our time with Abraham. Abraham dies at the age of 175, buried right next to his wife Sarah.

It took a while to finish, but the journey with Abraham is finally over. He was the first character in Genesis that had good enough character development, as we see him grow from a relatively young man who had not yet found a well-defined purpose for his life to one of the greatest men who have walked with God (according to the Bible stories). Along the way, we see Abraham at his greatest and also at his worst. Abraham amassed a lot of wealth, fought off his enemies and rescued a number of people, and boldly challenged the mighty God. He also seemed to have great leadership and social skills judging by the dialogues he had with the people around him. On the other hand, he was a bit of an asshole at times, subjecting his wife Sarah to fairly risky situations and not showing much empathy to her or to Hagar (with whom he had his first son). He also seemed a bit too keen to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac just because God told him to, though I understand the moral of the story is meant to be of great significance to the Israelites at the time.

Overall, it was nice to read again the various accounts of Abraham, and we can now move on to the next patriarch of Israel: Isaac ... the Silent.