• Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Access to private conversations with other members.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Christ Genealogy Debunks Christiany

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
The genealogies in Matthew and Luke aren’t desdigned to be literal. They’re mythic, and they each make a specific point about who they each claim Jesus to be.

So then if the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are meant to be literal, then anything claimed to have been done by Jesus shouldn't also be taken literally. Right?
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
Taking things literally is actually rather modern. St Augustine wrote that anyone who believes that God created the world in exactly 144 hours divided into 6 sessions was being "childish"!

Specific ages and names shouldn't be taken literally, then nothing has to be taken literally in the Bible...Right?
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
This only hurts your faith if you're a strict literalist.

If specific names and ages can't be taken as literal, then what should be taken as literal...pick and choose...when scientific evidence refutes a literal biblical claim...then it should be taken as metaphorical? Is this how the faith in the Bible can't be wrong game is played?
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
If the genealogy of Jesus is so fabricated, then so is the validity of him being the prognosticated Messiah....Right?
His validity as Messiah doesn’t actually hinge on the genealogies. As for the messiahship being fabricated, it would depend on who you ask. There’s no empirical proof, mind you — only the Tradition of the Church.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
So then if the genealogies in Matthew and Luke are meant to be literal, then anything claimed to have been done by Jesus shouldn't also be taken literally. Right?
It’s a little more complicated than that. Since there are multiple attestations of particular episodes, it may be quite likely that the episode in question occurred. Indeed, many of the quotes attributed to Jesus are quite likely authentic. Some are not. But one has to really dig into the exegetical process to come up with anything approaching certainty.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
If specific names and ages can't be taken as literal, then what should be taken as literal...pick and choose...when scientific evidence refutes a literal biblical claim...then it should be taken as metaphorical? Is this how the faith in the Bible can't be wrong game is played?
The truths put forth in the Bible aren’t necessarily historic facts, they’re more philosophical and spiritual truth. Much of the Bible is mythic.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Specific ages and names shouldn't be taken literally, then nothing has to be taken literally in the Bible...Right?
Depends on what one is trying to take literalistically. The Psalms are ancient hymns, but not written by David. Paul did write certain letters to certain churches. It is highly likely that there was a man named Jesus who was executed. The Levitican Law is Levitican Law.
 

sojourner

Annoyingly Progressive Since 2006
Spiritual truth...what does that even mean?
It means different things for different people and communities. Since the Bible is multivalent, it offers insight that brings love, justice, mercy, kindness, compassion, forgiveness, forbearance, hospitality, unity, and vision to a variety of expressions of spiritual community.
 

lukethethird

unknown member
As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Matthew 1:1-16 & Luke 3:23-38)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

The Bible falsely claims there were only 77 generations between Christ and the first man; when people have indeed actually existed for thousands of generations, which proves the Bible and Christianity as being false. Right?
You're just trying to test my faith, I can tell.
 

Faithofchristian

Well-Known Member
As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Matthew 1:1-16 & Luke 3:23-38)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

The Bible falsely claims there were only 77 generations between Christ and the first man; when people have indeed actually existed for thousands of generations, which proves the Bible and Christianity as being false. Right?


The bible doesn't claim Adam as being the first man.
That's man's teachings that claim's Adam as being the first man.
 

GoodbyeDave

Well-Known Member
Spiritual truth...what does that even mean?
If you don't know, then you're in the wrong forum!

To return to Augustine, he argued that being chosen as a prophet doesn't give you a crash course in science or history. The bits of the Bible to be taken literally were the religious and ethical teachings; the rest was the work of the human writers and could not go further than what was known to their generation.

On the point of the genealogies, they are given by the authors of Matthew and Luke because they thought it important to link Jesus to messianic prophecies. That's why they also claimed he was born in Bethlehem, even though they came up with different explanations of how that came about! Mark, Paul, and the author of John ignore both genealogies and Bethlehem: for them, the resurection is all the proof they need.
 

exchemist

Veteran Member
As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Matthew 1:1-16 & Luke 3:23-38)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

The Bible falsely claims there were only 77 generations between Christ and the first man; when people have indeed actually existed for thousands of generations, which proves the Bible and Christianity as being false. Right?
Gosh, you mean......you can't take everything in the bible literally??!!! What an Earth-shattering insight. Why has nobody realised this before?

Oh, wait, Origen did back in 200AD.

:rolleyes:
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
As I've noted elsewhere in some other discussions about Christianity, Jesus's family tree has a time span of 77 generations listed between his generation and Adam whom the Bible claims was the "first man". Reference: (Matthew 1:1-16 & Luke 3:23-38)

However, the Australian aborigines have evidently been in Australia for over a thousand consecutive generations. Reference: Aboriginal Australians - Wikipedia

There have been hundreds of generations of Native Americans between the time their common ancestry migrated from Asia until the time of Christ.
Reference: Native Americans in the United States - Wikipedia

The Bible falsely claims there were only 77 generations between Christ and the first man; when people have indeed actually existed for thousands of generations, which proves the Bible and Christianity as being false. Right?
Adam means "representative" in Hebrew (and also red blood). There could have been previous humans until Adam came out as a representative.
 

Salvador

RF's Swedenborgian
Adam means "representative" in Hebrew (and also red blood). There could have been previous humans until Adam came out as a representative.

If the Bible calls Adam the “first man” (1 Corinthians 15:45), then doesn't the Bible claim there were no other men before him?
 

robocop (actually)

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
If the Bible calls Adam the “first man” (1 Corinthians 15:45), then doesn't the Bible claim there were no other men before him?
Not a problem... he was the first one with a "living soul." There are many possibilities... I will suggest one possibility... he was capable of knowing good and evil. The previous ones were perhaps animals. It even says "beasts" in the 5th day of creation and the Raelians have speculated that this means apes.
 

Faithofchristian

Well-Known Member
Not a problem... he was the first one with a "living soul." The previous ones were animals. It even says "beasts" in the 5th day of creation and the Raelians have speculated that this means apes.

The beasts of the earth, means like elephants, cap Buffalo, giraffes, rhinos, hippopotamus, and the such being beasts of the earth.
The beast of the earth wasn't created until the 6th day of creation
Genesis 1:25.
 
Top