Posted on 01/04/2011 2:51:24 PM PST by GiovannaNicoletta
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Following years of devastation under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and the ensuing American invasion of Iraq, World Monuments Fund conservationist Jeff Allen told The New York Times this week that archeologists are beginning to work on ancient Babylonian sites and possibly restore some of them.
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(Excerpt) Read more at israelnationalnews.com ...
Thank you for the link to a great source.
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Thanks for the ping!
God gave us judgment, logic, and reason, and the ability to study old texts and documents and make logical sense of them. It is often the case that the stories you read in the OT are sufficiently real while the religious interpretations are highly questionable. The flood for instance is a true story, while the idea that a supposedly omniscient and omnipotent God would ever need or want to wipe the planet as punishment for human misconduct is not tenable. Likewise the story of God "killing" Uzzah for trying to stabilize the ark (of the covenant) on a wagon is not accurate; the thing was clearly a primitive capacitor and the man electrocuted himself in touching it.
They're still muslims, aren't they? How is that being rehabilitated?
Are you aware of the entirety of the reason why God wiped out every living thing with a flood (with the exception of Noah and his family)?
And, just because we, as limited, finite human beings, cannot always grasp the reasons why God does something, does not mean that the action taken by God or the reasons for the action are not "tenable". God did say, after all, that "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:7).
We don't understand much of why God does what He does. Sometimes He explains it to us, as in the case of the Flood, and sometimes He doesn't. But He is never wrong and He always has a purpose for everything He does.
The flood was a cosmic event which we simply got in the way of and which nothing could have saved us from. The entire solar system was impacted, not just our own planet.
Chapter Six of Genesis begins with a cryptic, concise statement of the moral decay and corruption that had gradually filled the earth since the children of Adam and Eve began to populate the Pre-Flood world.
"When men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose. Then the LORD said, 'My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.'
"The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the LORD said, 'I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the ground, man and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.'
"But Noah found favor [grace] in the eyes of the LORD. These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God. And Noah had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
"Now the earth was [thoroughly] corrupt in God's sight, and the earth was filled [continually] with violence. And God saw the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth." (Genesis 6:1-12)
The term, "the sons of God" (bene elohim) in Gen. 6:1 almost certainly refers to the angels. (See Job 1:6, 2:1, 38:7). This is the preferred interpretation of most scholars today and is consistent with 1 Pet. 3:18-22, 2 Pet. 2:4-5, and Jude 6-7. Although Christian men and women are called "sons of God" or "children of God" in the New Testament, the term bene elohim refers to the angels in the Old Testament. Although the angels in heaven evidently are not sexually active (Mark 12:25) this does not mean that they lack reproductive ability. Fallen angels may also be able to introduce genetic alterations into the human gene pool through demon possession of susceptible individuals, evidently especially women. In one way or another, one particular group of fallen angels apparently "possessed" human males --or perhaps in some way had direct sexual intercourse with human females--with the end result that a race of fallen giants, the Nephilim and/or Rephaim, was brought into the world prior to the Flood.
Gen. 6:4 says this genetic impregnation of human women by fallen angels also occurred after the Flood, leading at that time to the giants such as Goliath or Og, King of Bashan. (Numbers. 13:33, 1 Sam. 17). Deuteronomy 18:10 describes Og's bedstead, "...behold, his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbah of the Ammonites? Nine cubits (13.5 feet) was its length, and four cubits (6 feet) its breadth, according to the common cubit."
David's slaying of the giant Goliath is recorded in 1 Samuel 17 where we learn how big he was, "And there came out from the camp of the Philistines a champion named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span (9.5 - 10.8 ft). He had a helmet of bronze on his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail, and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels (~125 pounds) of bronze. And he had greaves of bronze upon his legs, and a javelin of bronze slung between his shoulders. And the shaft of his spear was like a weaver's beam, and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels (~15 pounds) of iron; and his shield-bearer went before him."
Genetic defects seem to be associated with these giants. 2 Samuel 21:18-22 records the following glimpse of the giants still living in Israel in the time of King David, "After this there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; then Sibbecai the Hushathite slew Saph, who was one of the descendants of the giants. "And there was again war with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan the son of Jaareoregim, the Bethlehemite, slew Goliath the Gittite, the shaft of whose spear was like a weaver's beam. And there was again war at Gath, where there was a man of great stature, who had six fingers on each hand, and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in number; and he also was descended from the giants. And when he taunted Israel, Jonathan the son of Shimei, David's brother, slew him. These four were descended from the giants in Gath; and they fell by the hand of David and by the hand of his servants."
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I believe in allowing the text of Genesis 6 to speak for itself:
"And God said to Noah, 'I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence through them; behold, I will destroy them with the earth. Make yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark, and cover it inside and out with pitch. This is how you are to make it: the length of the ark three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. Make a roof for the ark, and finish it to a cubit above; and set the door of the ark in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks.
"For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall die. But I will establish my covenant with you; and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your sons' wives with you.
"And of every living thing of all flesh, you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds, and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every sort shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every sort of food that is eaten, and store it up; and it shall serve as food for you and for them.' Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him."
Note the reference twice in this passage to the impending destruction of "all flesh," except for those harbored in the Ark.
So, again, God had very specific reasons for sending the flood and taking out every living thing. Satan and the angels who chose to rebel against God with him were attempting to pollute the human gene pool to prevent the birth of Jesus Christ. They mated with human women and produced offspring called "Nephilim". The only family who was, as God put it, "perfect in his generations", or who had not been contaminated by fallen angels, was Noah's.
So as we see from the word of God, the Flood was not an accident; it was a specific act of God done for the purpose of cleansing the earth and beginning again with uncontaminated human beings who would start a new generational line which would result in the birth of Jesus Christ.
God has a purpose for everything He does.
As nearly as I’ve ever been able to tell from reading, God works entirely within the basic laws of physics; if you want wholesale violations of mathematical and physical laws you need to be talking to the evolutionites who specialize in that sort of thing. The problem arises from the idea of omnipotence and whether we view that as meaning ‘having all the power which anybody could imagine’ or ‘having all the power that there actually is’. The one causes conundrums, the other does not. God had nothing to do with the flood. The spirit realm, including God, has very limited powers to act in this physical world which we inhabit. In the realm which God inhabits, there are no floods or cosmic catastrophes. That’s the good news and what Jesus meant in saying that his father’s realm is not of this world.
Absolutely, that is very helpful. Let me digest and I may come back with a specific question.
Many thanks.
My son was posted close to there. He sent pictures home of some of the ruins. Interesting.
Yes. Replace one idol with another.
Well, God did say He had everything to do with the Flood and gave us a very detailed record of that Flood and why He did it. If you really believe that God has any limitations whatsoever, then you don't know Him at all. The God Who spoke into existence not only the universe that we have been allowed by Him to explore and learn about, but also the planet we inhabit and all universes and all worlds has limitations? Where in the world did you get that looney idea? You can't possibly be serious. And you certainly can't back it up with any Scripture.
You have jumped into the realm of denying the plain, clear, inarguable Word of God, which I have absolutely zero patience for, and your denials of the Scripture, which God wrote by the way, has absolutely no place on a Dispensational Caucus forum.
This conversation will go no further.
Fantastic summary!!
That’s apparent from the world around us. The biggest problem most people have with religion is the question of evil in the world, and not evolution. The question of evil takes numerous forms, but they all boil down to the question of what the word “omnipotent” is supposed to mean, e.g. why would a supposedly omnipotent and well-intentioned God allow babies and small children to die of malaria? See what I mean?
There's a reason for that.
BTW, I can "rehabilitate you" and then you hit the street and strike up a conversation with the first floozy who looks like she's good for some smack or something.
Sometimes it just doesn't work.
The Mongols did it the opposite way ~ they simply killed them all ~ but, perversely, they came back.
Still, the oldest “temple sites” or “graveyards” are upstream a long way in Turkey. This article is about one of ‘em 12000 years old. Back then there was no Black Sea ~ just the Black Lake totally cut off from the Mediterranean. Take a look at: http://www.archaeology.org/0811/abstracts/turkey.html
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