Hi Dick,
Thanks for your reply. I think I understand your position better now. And now
it makes more sense.
By the way, I certainly didn't mean to say that Jesus Christ was created. I
was referring only to His physical human form.
You wrote: God created Satan too. Knowing the outcome, why didn't God just
stick with Gabriel and the rest of the heavenly host who remained faithful.
I don't know.
Neither do I. But I can certainly make a reasonable guess. I believe God
thought it best to allow evil to exist for a time in order for us to learn
valuable lessons while being exposed to it. God may have thought it best for
us all to acquire a personal "knowledge of good AND evil." For only by our
possessing an intimate knowledge of both good and evil could we ever really
fully appreciate why God's ways are the best ways. And God knew that such an
intimate knowledge of both good and evil and both of their effects would
serve us well for all eternity.
Thus the tree that Adam was told not to eat from was called "the tree of the
knowledge of good AND evil." For God knew that Adam would be enticed to
partake of that tree's "forbidden fruit," and God knew that when he did he
would then acquire an intimate knowledge of both "good and evil." God knew
that the lessons Adam would learn from experiencing the harmful effects of
disobedience would be hard lessons, but would be lessons which would be
necessary for him to learn in order for him to attain spiritual growth, and
for him to eventually attain spiritual maturity.
I believe God knows we must all personally acquire an intimate knowledge of
both good and evil, which includes personally experiencing the blessings that
doing good brings us and the harm that doing evil brings us. I believe that
is why God allowed Satan's rebellion to take place and continue for as long
as it has. And I believe that is why God desired Adam and all of us to be
exposed to the evil it brought about.
You wrote: Again, I think Adam was special. He lived for 930 years.
This brings up an interesting subject I have not seen discussed here before.
The long lives of Adam and some of his descendants were certainly very
unusual for men in their day. Could it be that the writer of Genesis made a
point to record the length of their lives because they were so unusually
long?
I think the Bible itself gives us indications that this is the case. For
instance, the writer of Genesis makes a point to tell us that Noah's three
sons who accompanied him on the ark were all born after Noah was 500 years
old. (Gen. 5:32) And he tells us that Noah was 600 years old when the flood
began. (Gen. 7:6) And the writer of Genesis only records an unusually long
life for only one of Noah's sons, Shem. (Gen.11:11) Thus the writer of
Genesis seems to have made a point of allowing us to understand that Noah's
other two sons may have had lives of normal length.
The writer of Genesis also seems to say that God Himself told Noah that He
intended for men to be "mortal," with life spans limited to about "a hundred
and twenty years." (Gen. 6:3) To me this seems to indicate that God gave only
a few of Adam's descendants extremely long lives.
I believe this was the case for a few reasons. One is the math of the whole
thing. Let's assume that most of Adam's descendants had lives as long as
those mentioned in Genesis 5. If that were true, and if most of them produced
children at normal rates for much of their unusually long lives, in the
sixteen hundred years between the creation of Adam and the flood of Noah's
day there would have been an awful lot more of Adam's decentness around than
could have been contained in the land of Noah to be drowned by the flood. The
reason human population growth is always relatively slow is because people
die after only a few score years and because they only produce children for
an even much shorter period of time.
But let's assume, as some have argued, that most of Adam's normally extremely
long lived offspring died unnatural deaths due to the violence that was
prevalent in the land of Noah prior to the flood. If that was the case then
maybe the population explosion that would have normally resulted if Adam's
descendants all normally had extremely long lives might have not taken place.
But that still does not solve the population problem that would have occurred
if the long lives referred to in Genesis were common to all of Adam's
descendants. For Genesis 11 tells us that some of Noah's descendants had life
spans which were much longer than normal, and they had these extremely long
lives for hundreds of years after the flood. If that was true of all of
Noah's descendants a similar population explosion would have occurred in the
Middle East between the time of Noah and Abraham. But historians tell us such
a population explosion never happened in ancient times.
So, I can only conclude that God must have only given a few specially
selected descendants of Adam extraordinarily long lives. If this is true He
must have done so for a reason. Why would He have done such a thing? After
Adam, from my count, the Bible records only 24 people as dying at an age
beyond their 120s. With this in mind, I believe God may have supernaturally
extended the lives of these 24 people to numerically symbolize something.
24 is 2 x 12 and brings to mind the 24 elders in Revelation. I believe 12 is
the number the Bible uses to represent God's people. In Old Testament times
there were 12 tribes. Thus 12 is used to represent all of God's faithful Old
Covenant people. In New Testament times there were 12 apostles. Thus 12 is
also used to represent all of God's faithful New Covenant people. Together
these two 12s, totaling 24, may well represent all of God's faithful people
throughout time, from both physical and spiritual Israel, Jews and
Christians. (I believe the number 144,000 - 12 x 12 x 1000 - is a variation
on this same theme.) By God supernaturally postponing the deaths of 24
people, He may have been symbolically pointing to the fact that He will one
day eternally extend the lives of all of His Old Testament and New Testament
people.
I believe God probably extended the lives of some of these 24 people so the
years of their lives would reach certain specific numbers for other symbolic
purposes. Abraham, for instance, lived to be 175, which is 1/40 of 7000
years. Noah was exactly 600 when the flood began. And he lived exactly
another 350 years. I believe both of these numbers probably were meant to
have strong symbolic significance. God took Enoch (though Enoch did not die)
when he was 365 years old, the same number of years as the number of days in
a year.
Are you of the opinion that all of Adam's descendants and those of Noah up
until the time of Abraham, or thereabouts, had unusually long lives?
Oh, thanks for the information on the legend of Adapa. It certainly fits
Adam.
Mike
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