or alternately one uses Mr Meaner’s interpretation which differentiates between the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and the creation narratvie in Genesis 2.

Under this analysis there in fact is no inconsistency here.

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All children are genetically 50% of each parent. Yes, God could have carefully given a different 50% to Adam and Even’s sons and to their daughters, but why? Furthermore, Adam and Eve were themselves related–Eve was taken from Adam.

Apparently it was acceptable for Adam’s children to marry one another. Whether the genetic code hadn’t yet been corrupted enough in the first generation for that to be a problem or whether that was simply a necessary evil, we do not know. It’s not really something we need to explain, as no doctrine that I know of is based on it.

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and your objective evidence for this hypothesis?

Before you answer, you might want to read Mr Meaner’s interpretation specifically of Genesis 2.4.

I always find it fascinating that, to resolve apparent Biblical contradictions, it is considered by some acceptable to make conjectures which are supported neither by the objective evidence nor by the scriptures themselves.

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if you leave, I will be sad to see you go.

You haave been very patient and kind to me and I have learned much from you.

We probably will seldom agree, but I will always admire your technical hoenst and technbical profiency in Biblical areas.

And it has always been wonderful talking with you even (or perhaps because) we disagree!

Have a great holiday.

And don’t be too disconsolent over yor ideas being subverted: any darn fool can take an excellent idea and turn it to hash. That does not mean that the idea or thought is bad: just that people can mangle almost anyting.

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Don’t feel alone in being a non-traditional Christian. (If I’ve assumed correctly that you are) I can’t even find any fringe groups that I can agree with enough to “fit in”.
There are elements of some of my non-traditional beliefs (that I haven’t discussed here) that are shared by other groups. But, almost all of them take those beliefs, and distort them to the point where there’s not much truth there, anymore.
And some actually distort what is a beautiful truth, and turn it in to something vile, and racist, in some cases.

It would be nice if we could have more of these kinds of discussions, with others getting involved.
I’m just not sure that other’s “civility” would allow it.
I’m going to do some thinking.
I may take a leave, like Random.
I just don’t know how much I can contribute, here.

If I don’t come back, it was nice conversing with you, Musing.
A lot of people here could take a lesson from you on debate.

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but as you know I agree with you on this point.

Of course the same logic that leads me to agree with you on this point also is the starting point form my conlcuding that there are two intertwined flood narratives.

Now my sense is I need to start using your analytical approach with Strong’s concordance and work on the 7 and 2 issues. I have this inkling that there is more behind this issue than meets the eye.

Of course, I am wrong a lot also.

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now when we are discussing what Bible verses mean we are discussing what is at root a subjective interpretation. As such there is no “right”, since we will in general not know exactly what the author meant (and even if we did, it is not clear to me that we should ever limit ourselves to what the author thought they
meant! ).

So I will leave you to your interpretation and I will take mine. The direct impact on the Flood narrative is minimal.

There are, however, a number of narratvies in the Pentateuch which appear to be clearer to my eye under a mutiple author/editor model.

So if we come to them, then we can see which interpretation seems to provide the clearest explanation of the author’s intent for the material.

But of course we should both realize that by necessity, in general we will both be wrong: this is interpretations and our interpretations are limited.

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actually when it became clear that it was acceptable to apply objective analysis to the Bible (my Sunday School certainly didn’t encourage this) and that the objective analysis of the Bible does not yield the same understanidng that my traditional Sunday School (or for that matter I suspect any Sunday School) presented, mny reaction became that it seemed one could not be a Christian and deal with the objective world in a rational manner: bascially the argument which qwerty often made.

And I let this area lie fallow for many years.

I slowly realized that not all Christians are arational. I located a number who in fact are highly rational and slowly discovered an increasing body of works which provided a technical framework with which I could reconstruct my own understanding of Christianity and the Bible.

And it has been an interesting exercise. But it results in a very non-traditional Christianity and a very non-traditional approach to the Bible.

The toothpaste is out of the tube and will not go back in.

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ah but whether one sees a problem here, of course does depend on one’s perspective.

I look at the layout of the two versions and I do find that they appear to be relatively coherent as separate floows (I am a bit troubled about verses Genesis 6:1 and 16-17 transitions. I think this needs more work).

And when I start using the mutiple versions woven together by an editor model for the Pentateuch, then it now begins to make much more sense and the story flows to my ears.

So with the understanding that what we are discussiing is interpretatioins, I find a documentary type hypothesis interpretation to meet my needs for understanding the Pentateuch.

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