Bible in 365 days Part 2: Brotherly Love in a Evil World
Genesis 4-7
Family you can't live with them but you can't live without them.
Ref
The first nuclear family of the bible didn't turn out too well. Both son's were proud farmers-- Able raised livestock; Cain raised crops. Both preformed the first recorded offering to God. Able gave a first born of his livestock with fat portions; Cain gave some of his crops.
God seems to not be a vegan since he gave a thumbs up to the livestock but rejected the plant offerings. Even though plants were what we were originally mandated to eat (Genesis 2:9, Genesis 3:17)
Although it isn't mentioned yet in the bible I doubt that this instance was the first offering that was ever given. Adam likely had to give similar offerings. Perhaps this was the first offering that Abel and Cain had to give on their own. Whatever the reason if you jump ahead in the bible it fairly clear that blood sacrifices were the only thing that could help atone for sin.
Cain likely was told to offer a animal sacrifice since God's response in Genesis 4:6-7
Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you furious? And why do you look despondent? If you do what is right, wont you be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is for you, but you must rule over it.
Obviously Cain had previous instructions on what kind of sacrifice would be acceptable since God questioned why Cain was angered at the rejection and told Cain that he would have been accepted if he did what was right. The last part of verse 7 is interesting where God is telling Cain to take control over his freewill and rule over his sin rather then letting it control him.
The warning obviously didn't have much of an effect since the next verse involves Cain killing Able. Cain really didn't fall far from the tree when, like Adam, he tried to play dumb with God when asked about where his brother was. Like God didn't already know.
God's punishment of not allowing him to grow any more crops causing him to be a wanderer is amplified that much more since farming was Cain's passion.
Nephilim
Skipping ahead to chapter 6 where it talks about the Son's of God and the Nephilim which have spawned many conspiracy theories through speakers like Rob Skiba.
I don't necessarily believe in this viewpoint but it is interesting to think about trying to explain ancient lore. It also takes angels and puts angels on earth interacting with humans physically which in our materialistic world in Western countries it laughed at as superstition.
The Flood
Apparently the people of that time were not very good people and apparently only Noah was able to pass Go from the Flood. Understanding how the Flood changed the world is central to being able to understand most of Genesis and the creation account. Young Earth creationists are especially basing most of their explanations off of a devastating global flood occurring to be able to account for the formation of fossils, fossil fuels, and the Grand Canyon through erosion which flies in the face of what we are taught in our culture.
On of the last points that I wanted to make was that Noah took two of each kind of animal onto the ark. That is not two of each species. For Noah's ark to workout there would have been a lot fewer of what we call species nowadays. Likely all the animal diversity back then would have been grouped into its own taxinomic genus with environment, genetic drift, and genetic break down being responsible for a lot more of the variations in what we call species on earth now.
Those are just a few of my thoughts. What do you make of the Flood?
Christian Standard Bible 2017
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