Things I have learned lately:
- there are many atonement theories (why Jesus died on the cross)
- the early church had a different atonement theory than the Reformers
- the Catholic church changed the focus of the atonement from a Christ Ransom (Christus Victor) to Satisfaction Theory (similar to Penal Substitution) around the 11th Century, about the same time they started writing the apostle Junia's name as Junias (thus changer her to a "he").
- the Eastern Orthodox church holds to a form of Christus Victor theory (Ransom Theory)
Things I am learning now:
- The Genesis accounts are fascinating, as soon as you let them be Myth
- I will need to seek God to hear what he is saying in Genesis
- without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is pointless - as no interpretation of it is clear - seeing as even the purpose of Christ's Death is not agreed upon - where the Spirit is, there is life.
God's plan...
Create a beautiful world for Humans to reflect/respond to Him(Them)
and authority...
Have the Angles guarding over the earth and Humans working on the Earth
in Heaven...
The King's realm
and Earth...
The King's garden? refuge? not sure.
Part 4
At some point between the creation of the Heavens and Earth and Adam's arrival something has gone wrong. Once the world was made, and people put on it, God saw his creation as good. However, once Adam and Eve are in The Garden with God, evil is lurking (not good). Now, on earth there are Principalities of evil. These aren't human principalities. When Daniel is in exile in Persia, the Archangel Michael has to battle with the Prince of Persia to get to Daniel. Not the King on earth, Daniel had access to him, but the Angel couldn't get to Daniel because a powerful non-human principality was blocking him (read the book of Daniel). We know little of this principality, other than, it was somehow a prince of Persia (a non-human Prince).
A suggestion from Greg Boyd is, God intended for the Angels to have dominion over the earth, and do His will, but at some point the angels with earthly dominion rebel against God and are kicked out of Heaven. It is debatable when using various verses (one verse says God bound them in chains till judgment day), but it is commonly understood that the Principalities are these fallen (excluded from Heaven) angels. They are referred to in the Bible interchangeably as Demons.
So, by the time God is hanging out with Adam, the former angels are now evil, but still ruling the earth. I am not clear how, but Genesis makes it clear non-human evil has now entered God's creation.
This evil tempts Eve into disobedience, she didn't bring evil into The Garden, by the second Genesis chapter and story, it is there.
My thoughts...
Since Adam and Eve are clearly an agricultural people, and, specifically, a Mesopotamian agricultural people, taking the creation story as a story about a specific couple who was put into an already-created world by God in order to save it (making Adam and Eve special humans, not first humans)
can eliminate the literal problem. They were planted there by God, to make God known. They were given a beautiful, easy place to live. They could walk and talk freely with God. When they sinned, however, they joined the rest of creation in being under the Daemons' power - they had a choice, yet chose to join evil. The rest of us may not have had a choice, and our life line - God's plan for bringing Eden to earth was a rescue plan of some sort, Eden represents a beach-head of God's - just fell under the bondage we were already born into.
- there are many atonement theories (why Jesus died on the cross)
- the early church had a different atonement theory than the Reformers
- the Catholic church changed the focus of the atonement from a Christ Ransom (Christus Victor) to Satisfaction Theory (similar to Penal Substitution) around the 11th Century, about the same time they started writing the apostle Junia's name as Junias (thus changer her to a "he").
- the Eastern Orthodox church holds to a form of Christus Victor theory (Ransom Theory)
Things I am learning now:
- The Genesis accounts are fascinating, as soon as you let them be Myth
- I will need to seek God to hear what he is saying in Genesis
- without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is pointless - as no interpretation of it is clear - seeing as even the purpose of Christ's Death is not agreed upon - where the Spirit is, there is life.
God's plan...
Create a beautiful world for Humans to reflect/respond to Him(Them)
and authority...
Have the Angles guarding over the earth and Humans working on the Earth
in Heaven...
The King's realm
and Earth...
The King's garden? refuge? not sure.
Part 4
At some point between the creation of the Heavens and Earth and Adam's arrival something has gone wrong. Once the world was made, and people put on it, God saw his creation as good. However, once Adam and Eve are in The Garden with God, evil is lurking (not good). Now, on earth there are Principalities of evil. These aren't human principalities. When Daniel is in exile in Persia, the Archangel Michael has to battle with the Prince of Persia to get to Daniel. Not the King on earth, Daniel had access to him, but the Angel couldn't get to Daniel because a powerful non-human principality was blocking him (read the book of Daniel). We know little of this principality, other than, it was somehow a prince of Persia (a non-human Prince).
A suggestion from Greg Boyd is, God intended for the Angels to have dominion over the earth, and do His will, but at some point the angels with earthly dominion rebel against God and are kicked out of Heaven. It is debatable when using various verses (one verse says God bound them in chains till judgment day), but it is commonly understood that the Principalities are these fallen (excluded from Heaven) angels. They are referred to in the Bible interchangeably as Demons.
So, by the time God is hanging out with Adam, the former angels are now evil, but still ruling the earth. I am not clear how, but Genesis makes it clear non-human evil has now entered God's creation.
This evil tempts Eve into disobedience, she didn't bring evil into The Garden, by the second Genesis chapter and story, it is there.
My thoughts...
Since Adam and Eve are clearly an agricultural people, and, specifically, a Mesopotamian agricultural people, taking the creation story as a story about a specific couple who was put into an already-created world by God in order to save it (making Adam and Eve special humans, not first humans)
can eliminate the literal problem. They were planted there by God, to make God known. They were given a beautiful, easy place to live. They could walk and talk freely with God. When they sinned, however, they joined the rest of creation in being under the Daemons' power - they had a choice, yet chose to join evil. The rest of us may not have had a choice, and our life line - God's plan for bringing Eden to earth was a rescue plan of some sort, Eden represents a beach-head of God's - just fell under the bondage we were already born into.
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