arndt@lymph.DEC (04/19/85)
Micha Berger! Love it. Foreskins indeed.
Cain's wife and all those other guys not mentioned in Genesis:
I can't figure out if those who ask where Cain's wife came from are
merely stupid or only unsophisticated and educated beyond their IQ.
I KNOW they don't read other things with the same standards they
claim must be used when reading the Bible! Just because the writer doesn't
give her history doesn't mean there's a problem. Some Christians do the same
thing when reading Genesis by seeing only Cain and Able and Adam and Eve becasuethat's all the writer mentions. You know, Adam's first children, or only
children were Cain and Able. NO ONE, WHEN TELLING A STORY, FILLS IN ALL THE
DETAILS!!!! We'd be here all night!
Look, what sense does the limiting of the results of Adam and Eve's
sin by greatly increasing her fertility, now they have to WORK the land to
survive, if they had no children prior to the 'fall'???? Eve would turn to
Adam and say, "What's he TALKING about???" I think it highly likely from
reading the account in Genesis that a whole raft of people followed Eve in
eating the forbidden fruit, whatever it actually was (King James says apple
only because they don't know - for a good analogy for this 'test' see the
book by C.S. Lewis Out of the Silent Planet and the temptation pictured
there on a new virgin planet, but I digress) and so I picture a crowd of
people being 'cast out' of Eden. Do you really think that Adam and Eve
who would seem to already HAVE the great COSMIC ORGANISM and it's relation-
ship we all rummage for would not have children????? Sayyyy. Ask me to
believe in something a little less far out please.
The same kind of thing 'works' for the sacrifice required by God
after the 'fall' of Cain and Able. How did they KNOW what was right and
what was wrong to bring? Gee, it doesn't tell us. Does that mean God was
pretty hard on Cain? Remember he brought veggies and an animal was required.
Keep chargin'
Ken Arndtjeff@rtech.ARPA (Jeff Lichtman) (04/20/85)
> > Cain's wife and all those other guys not mentioned in Genesis: > > I can't figure out if those who ask where Cain's wife came from are > merely stupid or only unsophisticated and educated beyond their IQ. > > I KNOW they don't read other things with the same standards they > claim must be used when reading the Bible! Just because the writer doesn't > give her history doesn't mean there's a problem. Some Christians do the same > thing when reading Genesis by seeing only Cain and Able and Adam and Eve > because that's all the writer mentions. You know, Adam's first children, > or only > children were Cain and Able. NO ONE, WHEN TELLING A STORY, FILLS IN ALL THE > DETAILS!!!! We'd be here all night! > > Look, what sense does the limiting of the results of Adam and Eve's > sin by greatly increasing her fertility, now they have to WORK the land to > survive, if they had no children prior to the 'fall'???? Eve would turn to > Adam and say, "What's he TALKING about???" I think it highly likely from > reading the account in Genesis that a whole raft of people followed Eve in > eating the forbidden fruit, whatever it actually was ... > ... > and so I picture a crowd of > people being 'cast out' of Eden. Do you really think that Adam and Eve > who would seem to already HAVE the great COSMIC ORGANISM and it's relation- > ship we all rummage for would not have children????? Sayyyy. Ask me to > believe in something a little less far out please. > > Ken Arndt This is one of the most ridiculous arguments I have ever read on the net, and that's saying a lot. Mr. Arndt says that details must be omitted when telling a story, and then proceeds to make up his own "details", which include a whole host of people besides Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden. These don't sound like details to me, the type of details which would be left out of a story because it would take too long to tell them. They sound to me like major story elements. I can't think of any reason that the original author of Genesis, or any of the subsequent tellers or transcribers, would omit such major elements (let's assume a single author, for the sake of argument). Anyone with enough imagination can fill in the gaps in an inconsistent story. This is what Ken Arndt has done. This surprises me, because I expect that Mr. Arndt believes that Genesis is divine scripture, and so it seems extremely arrogant on his part to add to it new "truths", for example, suggesting that Adam and Eve had children before they were expelled from Eden (on second thought, I shouldn't be at all surprised by his arrogance). One could just as easily say that Cain's wife came from Venus. As long as we're speculating on what "details" were left out of Genesis, why not just say that evolution by natural selection was part of the original story, but that the original author neglected to mention it. I and a lot of other people (including people who are religious, which I am not) see Genesis as an allegory. It is a beautiful piece of literature, but it has no value today as a description of the origin of the universe. I'm not even sure whether the original author intended it that way. As long as I am allowed to consider Genesis as an allegorical myth, I have no problem with the origin of Cain's wife, but if I am asked (or told) to believe in Genesis as truth, then inconsistencies such as this become important, and can't be explained away by inventing new parts to the story. Mr. Arndt, you've got a lot of gall calling people stupid for taking the story of Genesis as it is instead of amending it to conform to *your* fantasies. If my grandmother had wheels, she'd be a buggy. -- Jeff Lichtman at rtech (Relational Technology, Inc.) aka Swazoo Koolak