Excellent take. I was thinking the same thing. We see God's mercy and often we see the lament that God seems slow to judge and punish.

I have this idea that all the name in the bible is not God real name, when mozes asked God the name of God, God replied I AM that I AM, we cannot know God real NAME, that is why God told mozes to tell the people I AM has send you. We cannot see God, but then God appears in lower forms like when Jacob fought with God and a dove as the Holyghost.

I think that this seems like a fair take, but my question then will be that why did they preserve the prior text that seems to contradict their new found theology of YHVH? Also another question, why were redactors needed to edit the text and did they do a bad job?

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

Some theorize that they meant to replace things but just didn’t.., I am more likely to believe that they 1) wanted to show a pattern of growth in their understanding of who YHWH is (a progressive revelation) and 2) they didn’t want to lose these stories. The ancient Hebrew people seem perfectly fine to live with these tensions.

@velkyn1

20 күн бұрын

@@sam_burke yep, becuase they weren't very educated.

@user-hn1el1ck7c

19 күн бұрын

Its simple. Yahweh is satan the evil god. Yahweh doesnt want humans to have life or knowledge. Yahweh admits ge does evil and that his laws are bad and lead to death. The Elohim are the good Gods.

The more charitable framing of the matter for those with a high bibliology would be to see the Priestly editorial work not merely as human revisionism but as progressive revelation: as God revealed his nature more clearly to subsequent generations, the community of faith by inspiration expanded their earlier narratives to account for this developed understanding of the truth--never discarding the stories passed down, but seeing them now in an advanced theological framework that recognizes divine accommodation for what it is rather than taking the more anthropomorphic depiction of God as a definitive statement on his attributes. By extension, the later Christian community can see in the Edenic theophany and similar manifestations a preview of the Incarnation, when Christ would "empty himself" and take on "human likeness."

@sam_burke

21 күн бұрын

I agree. I am trying to be as pragmatic as possible in this for those who might not view it that way. I agree that what we likely see is a people who have grown, over time, to see YHWH in fresh and new ways. But if I am going to try and leave my personal bias and belief out of it and try to give an explanation that does not apologetically work that in, I believe this is likely a good way to answer this without claiming that YHWH lies.

While listening to this, I had yet another idea. Could it be that the thought in God's mind was that if Adam or Eve ON THEIR OWN decided to eat the fruit it's lights out. But they were deceived by the serpent that we later find out is Satan himself. Seeing how no human (except Jesus, who was human, yet God) could withstand a test of wits with Satan, God relented on the full punishment.

@sam_burke

17 күн бұрын

Maybe?? 🤷🏼‍♂️ I’ve often wondered if God relented from punishing them because the snake got involved.

Two things, one, what do you think of Young's literal translation of Genesis 2:17? It states: "and of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou dost not eat of it, for in the day of thine eating of it -- dying thou dost die.'" Dying thou dost die would imply in the day Adam ate, he would begin to die. Two, what would you say about the garments of skin? It could be Adam would have died that day, but instead God substituted an innocent animal to preserve Adam's life. Surely the documentary hypothesis is something scholars accept, but as believers we see God's inspiration in Scripture. The idea the writes felt like they had to correct this and that, it comes from a scholarly point of view, not necessarily God's.

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

Right. As I pointed out to another commenter, this video was created to answer this question purely on the basis of the presupposition that can be agreed on by those who make the claim that God lies here. In my previous video, I answered this based upon the fact that God knew he would have to remove them from the garden and the tree of life and return them to the dust, and therefore “death” happened on that day. The issue with that explanation (which I think is the correct one, btw) to them is that it presupposes things that they do not agree to. So I am showing in this video that, even given their terms, we can still argue that God doesn’t lie here.

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

PS - I pretty much agree with both of those things. I just want to demonstrate how ridiculous it is from any angle to try and demonstrate that God is the liar in a text written by a people who are so devoted to this God that they won’t utter his name.

I think that this is a stretch for sure. I agree the Priestly account offers Genesis 1 as an alternative story of Genesis 2-3, but there are a few issues for sure with using Exodus 34 in this way, which include: 1. There is no direct evidence that Exodus 34 is responding to Genesis 2-3. 2. Exodus 34 itself as you noted also emphasizes God's unwillingness to leave sin unpunished. Why can't I use that as an indication of His character in that there are clear examples within the P source of people who transgressed and were killed immediately (for one example, Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10)? 3. This use of Exodus 34 to read back to Genesis 2-3 is kind of like a proof text for the final word on God's character. I think that is unfair. If you are not going to univocalize in your use of texts, I think that you should consider that God is not confined to what you think he can and can't do. Explaining God's character is much more complex than that. Additionally, regarding the text where God is said to lie, there was a clear indication of a temporal aspect to the death that they would suffer (on the day you eat of it, you will surely die). The idea of a spiritual death or something they had lost is not inherent in the text itself. Also, Adam being seen as immortal doesn't make sense as Genesis 3:22 makes clear that eating from the tree of life will make him immortal, therefore implying he is not so at the moment. If I had to think of the most likely scenario that preserves the idea that God doesn't lie, I would probably say that he exaggerated in his speech, i.e., he gave a threat as we might (maybe in haste) and then relented and thought better of it. But have you considered that maybe they viewed lying differently than we do today? I think that God protects Abraham when he is lying in the book of Genesis and the general theme of the trickster (i.e., the Jacob stories) is sometimes cast in a positive light. Just because we are uncomfortable with that doesn't mean that we can say that it doesn't play a role in how this narrative in Genesis 2-3 is told. Finally, please don't say that the serpent told a half-truth. Using our definition of lying, the serpent said that they surely wouldn't die and they did not. I think that our discomfort with how God is portrayed here has led to a lot (including the entire post-Biblical doctrine of Original Sin). Even if I accepted your explanation here, I think that we should maybe try to think if that explanation of the serpent would have made any sense to it's original hearers. I do appreciate the work that you have done here to try and make this bridge between what you call critical and what you call confessional readings of this text. I just disagree with what you've said here and look forward to more engagement. Sorry if I got a bit long here.

@sam_burke

17 күн бұрын

Ya.. just trying to think through what is allowed and not from a historical/critical perspective. And I wouldn’t say that they had Genesis 3 in view… but this definition of YHWH is like his own apologetic about who he is and why he acts the way he does. And, you know what? It’s a little unpredictable. So, I hold in one hand critically that God changed his mind/relented as he does in other texts… and if I have to apologetically look at it, I say that the removal from the tree of life is a curse unto death because they were always mortal and that was what would give them life. The reason I say the snake told 1/2 of the truth is this: the snake obviously knows what the fruit does and that it is not poisonous (will kill them) but it doesn’t know what God will do to them. So it doesn’t lie to them, it manipulates them with the truth. Its whole goal is to be “arum”… cunning and crafty. Manipulative. The man and woman are definitely blame shifting and passing the buck, for sure, but the snake never denies that it tricked her. I think that is why the curse from YHWH Elohim is that it is “arur” - more cursed… from most cunning “arum” to most cursed “arur.” So I would agree that the snake doesn’t lie to her, it just uses the truth manipulatively.

@nbayounggunschannel7195

17 күн бұрын

@@sam_burke In this story I believe עָרוּם is a word play with עֲרוּמִּים which is translated naked in the former case. I'm not sure that it means manipulative or is to be seen negatively. In the book of Proverbs (especially 12-15), some words from the same root are translated prudent/wise, etc. Proverbs 1:4 even states that the purpose of Proverbs are to teach עָרְמָ֑ה (shrewdness) to the simple, one of the purposes of wisdom literature is that we the reader would understand this kind of shrewdness.

@nbayounggunschannel7195

17 күн бұрын

@@sam_burke I also don't see the idea that the snake never denied that it tricked her. The snake speaks to no one but Eve and is not given a chance to defend itself. Unless I am missing something, I don't know you can argue that...

@sam_burke

17 күн бұрын

@@nbayounggunschannel7195 there’s definitely word play with naked… I’m just still not convinced that, even if you translate the word shrewd, that the snakes intentions are purely innocent… but hey, something had to get the plot moving along. 🤷🏼‍♂️

@sam_burke

17 күн бұрын

@@nbayounggunschannel7195 on a completely different note.. I have been trying to figure out how to do Hebrew and Greek in the comments to no avail… but others do it regularly. How do you do that?

It’s not correcting, it’s doing at least 2 things. 1. It shows a pattern that can be used with the rest of the Bible. 2. It’s teaching you right from wrong. We are being programmed. The pattern can be seen all throughout the Bible. At one point God was going to kill Moses before he got to Egypt, but didn’t. God was going to wipe out Israel, but didn’t. Jesus said anyone who denies Him, He will deny them before the Farther; Peter denies Jesus 3 times. God never punishes us like we deserve. He’s patient, loving, kind, and full of mercy. So even though there are threats of hell, God’s mercy will win out. Everyone is going to heaven. And more than that, we will all be equals. Just like Joseph had to be betrayed by his own brothers but sin was never charged against them because it was the will of God. So it will be with us. We sold out Jesus and put Him on the cross, but that’s how God intended it to happen. And we will not be charged but come to the understanding that this is how things had to be done.

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

Corrective = explanation. If the documentary hypothesis is correct, the earliest writings did not have this explanation of who YHWH is…. So we are left to our own conclusions. So this character definition is correcting/clearing up/explaining who YHWH is… in case we are inclined to think otherwise. And yes, that pattern is what I was talking about. Exodus 34 makes explicit why this pattern exists.

@dan_m7774

20 күн бұрын

I think it is a bad understanding you are presenting. The day they ate death did enter mankind. Both physically and spiritually. The very need for Christ is the only correction to death, both spiritually and physically. Since you are calling God a lier, can we also apply this belief to eternal damnation? Sin freely as God will forgive you and send you to heaven anyway. Then once there you cannot trust God will live up to his promises of eternal bliss. To me it seems you are defining God in a very weak human trait.

@move_i_got_this5659

20 күн бұрын

@@sam_burke But God said Adam would die and he didn't. And all the examples I gave showed God doing the opposite. It's not explaining it, it's changing it completely. The Bible says that God doesn't change His mind. So we can safely assume God said it this way for a purpose. I think God did this on purpose to make Him a mystery for us to figure out. Jesus spoke in parables, why not just speak plainly? Sometimes Jesus would speak plainly and the meaning was still kept from all or some of them. I wonder if you and I are saying the same thing but with different words?

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

@@move_i_got_this5659 if you go back to my “Genesis 3 and the lie” video, you’ll get what I presuppositionally think about this event. I created this video to try and answer this question for those who do not accept those presuppositional terms. I am engaging the conversation on their presuppositional terms and showing that, even given those (no apologetics and no univocality and documentary hypothesis sources correcting other sources) we still don’t have to conclude that God lied here. I guess I am just trying to point out how ridiculous it would seem that a people who were so devoted to God that they wouldn’t even utter his name, would write in their text that he lied from the beginning. And whether Exodus 34 corrects or changes or explains what happened here… it definitely defines for us who this God is, what his character is, and that he shows compassion and forgives but won’t always relent from bringing calamity.

@sam_burke

20 күн бұрын

@@dan_m7774i’m not sure I did call God a liar… in fact, I’m pretty sure I did the opposite. I’ve already stated in a video that I think the removal from the tree of life was “death” for them… this is an engagement with those who don’t accept that reasoning and claim that God is lying… and me showing that, even given the terms of their argument, you still don’t have God lying.