Originally posted by wolfgang59
"Adam & Eve" = believe (Cocney rhyming slang)
The few Christians I know tell me that they do not take the bible literally whoever i note that a lot of posters on RHP do. How do you cope with this:
In Genesis 1:27 God creates man (male [b]and female) and in Genesis 1:28 tels them to "Be fruitful, and multiply"
Two questions
1.Was it God's int accounts (which is fine) but how can you take it literally if they contradict each other?[/b]
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Two questions
1.Was it God's intention for Adam & Eve to have children prior to Eve eating the apple?
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By "apple" I will assume you mean the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In understanding the Bible it is good to first be accurate about what it actually says.
Before the fall of man God had plans for man. So yes it was God's plan for Adam and Eve to multiply and fill the earth. The eternal purpose for man is not simply to be saved from sin and hell.
Apart from man's fall God had a purpose for man's creation. Human beings have a purpose for their being created which is apart from their fall into sin.
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2.How does the woman from Adam's rib fit in with this?
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Apart from the need for God to redeem the fallen man and save him, God has an eternal purpose for man's creation. The story of Eve being built out of a part of Adam's body, (the rib) is a little window into the eternal purpose of God.
From out of Himself He would build a counterpart, a mate to match Him and share in a kind of divine and eternal romance. I do not mean sexually. I do mean that God chose marriage and the male female paradigm to express His eternal plan to us in ways we can appreciate.
In other words - human marriage is a shadow of a more profound universal reality. That reality is that God, from within His own life and nature, purposed to build a corporate counterpart.
Out of one came two. Then God brought the two together to be one. This is a little glimpse into the eternal purpose of God.
Out of one God made two. Then He brought the two
together to be one. God became a man in Jesus Christ so that He might produce sons of God to collectively be the Wife and Bride this incarnated God.
So in the end of the Bible the holy city New Jerusalem comes down out of God to become the Wife of the Lamb, the incarnated Redeemer.
In a sense the only male is God. Collectively, all of mankind was brought into existence to be the "female" couterpart to the one universal Male - God.
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It seems obvious that Geneseis is a combination of at least two creation accounts (which is fine) but how can you take it literally if they contradict each other?
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Two accounts with different focuses. Two accounts from different angles.