Genesis 9:8-11 - The Recipients of God’s Covenant with Noah (Part 3) - The others were in God’s image, too

September 2nd, 2010

As wrote in Genesis 9:8-11 - The Recipients of God’s Covenant with Noah (Part 2) - Who else was there?, it would seem that most of the modern world did not initially descend from Adam, let alone Noah.  My list was not exhaustive, but according to fossil records, the following major populations of people have been around since before Adam:

China - 67,000 years
India - 30,000 years
Africa - 200,000 years
Native Americans - 16,500 - 40,000 years
Australia - 40,000 years
Middle East - 60,000 years

Adam descended from the Middle Eastern population, after it left Africa.  He lived somewhere around 6,000 to 10,000 …

Genesis 9:8-11 - The Recipients of God’s Covenant with Noah (Part 2) - Who else was there?

September 1st, 2010

As described in Genesis 9:8-11 - The Recipients of God’s Covenant with Noah, the recipients of God’s promise to never wipe out all people from a land are Noah and his descendants.  This was not the first time God excluded most of the world from a covenant (Adamic covenant was only with Adam and his descendants, not the rest of the world).  It would not be the last (The Mosaic covenant would only be with the descendants of Isaac).  That said, God reserves the right to graft non-recipients into a covenant, hence making them recipients if He so chooses.  Consider this passage from Romans 11…
 …

Genesis 9:8-11 - The Recipients of God’s Covenant with Noah

August 31st, 2010

 8 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: 9 “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you 10 and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth. 11 I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut off by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Referring back to …

Genesis 8:21-9:7 - God Changes the Game

August 30th, 2010

With the flood over, it would seem that God is looking back over the circumstances that led to the flood, and is given Noah and his family a slightly different set of rules by which to live.

Before the fall, God gave man plants to eat (Gen 1:29, 2:16), and animals to subdue (Gen 1:28, 2:18).  After the fall, God cursed the ground (Gen. 3:17), making it hard to till.  Rather than farm the ground, Abel decided to raise animals for food (Gen 4:2,4); Cain tilled the ground (Gen 4:2,3).  Now, how do we know Abel’s flocks were for food? Because he knew to give God the fat most flavorful part… the fat portions. 

Cain, it would seem, was the more obedient …

Genesis 9:4-7 - Loss of life, or loss of righteousness?

August 28th, 2010

 4 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it. 5 And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each man, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of his fellow man.
 6 “Whoever sheds the blood of man,
       by man shall his blood be shed;
       for in the image of God
       has God made man.

 7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”
What a curious passage.  Not because it’s inconsistent with Christianity or Judaism or something I already believe however. It …

Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 3) - Was it Abel?

August 26th, 2010

In Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 1) and Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 2), I make the assertion that mankind outside Adam and his descendants were eating animals long before Adam was even born.  Adam however was put into a garden, and given plants to eat and animals to care for.  When God cursed the ground, Adam’s descendants sinned further by eating the animals around them.  So, God used Noah to save representative samples of the animals there, killed off the people and remaining animals in their land, and then made the saved animals wild …

Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 2)

August 23rd, 2010

There are several arguments to be made, if one is to make the case that Genesis 9:3 is not the beginning of human carnivorism.  Theologically, they include the following:

Though sin can cause death, death is not sin
God’s statements in Genesis 9:1-3 were not a worldwide change
Adam’s descendants were eating meat already

Here is a good post to start with: 

Problems with Interpreting the Flood - Part 4 - Partial Revelation 

I have dealt with #1 at length already.  Here some good posts about it:

Genesis 2 - A recall of Genesis 1? No. …

Genesis 9:1-3 - When did man start eating animals? (Part 1)

August 22nd, 2010

 1 Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. 2 The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. 3 Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.
The verses complement the following excerpts in the Creation account:
Genesis 1:
  28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be …

The Flood - An Epilogue (Conclusion) - The Godly, the Ungodly, and the Ignorant

August 21st, 2010

People follow the inclinations of the of the thoughts of their heart.  Generally our heart thinks of some combination of good and evil.  We then make our choices, whether to follow the good or the evil inclination, or some combination thereof.  But, as long as there is some good within us, there is hope for righteousness.  How does this work?  Consider for example how often you help that homeless person on the corner.  The fact that you did not might be your selfishness or your fear, two inclinations that have their root in evil (to some degree).  However, this does not make you evil per se.  Perhaps you also have some inclination to help at the same time.  That is an inclination rooted in …

The Flood - An Epilogue (Part 4) - Saved in Ignorance

August 18th, 2010

As I showed in The Flood - An Epilogue (Part 3) - The Gulf within the Church… and the World, the gulf between the godly and ungodly is not a gulf between the churched and the unchurched or between the professed Christian and the nonbeliever; it is a gulf that runs through both.  The gulf, as it runs through the church, is rather obvious to nonbelievers and maybe less obvious to Christians; basically, some Christians are not Christians in faith (i.e., in faith), but in deed, and some not even in deed. 

As for nonbelievers, that gulf much less obvious.  In fact, it may prove only hypothetical, but it is at least theologically possible.  It is like the question regarding a …