Genesis

2007-03-23T13:21:53Z

Lad8908: /* The Creation */ Minor changes

[[Image:Genesis1.JPG|right|thumb|250px|Genesis as seen in the [[Bible]]]]
''For the rock band Genesis, please see [[Genesis (band)]]''

'''Genesis''' the book of beginnings, and the first book of the Jewish [[Torah]] as well as the [[Bible]], recounts the beginning of all life on [[earth]] and the social and cultural formations of mankind. It stands as the introduction of the entire body of the Bible, of the creation of the nation of Israel, and of the earliest promises of the coming redeemer.

==Name==
The [[Hebrews]] had called the First Book of Moses by the name of ''bereisheet'' or ''be'reshith'', meaning "in the beginning", based on the three words which start Genesis. The [[Septuagint]], the ancient Greek-language version of the Old Testament, rendered this title under the name ''he biblos geneseos'', from which came the Greek word ''genesis'', meaning "origin". (Unger, pg. 396)

==Overview==
The fifty chapters of the book of Genesis can be divided into two parts: the early, primeval history of man from the [[Creation]] to the fall of the [[Tower of Babel]], and the [[Patriarchal History of Israel]] from [[Abraham]] and his son [[Issac]], grandson [[Jacob]], and Jacob's sons, primarily [[Joseph]], although there is a continuous genealogy connecting both parts.

This entire site is bullshit. You leave no factual basis for any of your claims. You block truth and don't present both sides of a story. It's like talking to a wall, and you all must like it because the wall can't talk back and tell you how uninformed you all are. Pro choice.

===The Flood===
The wickedness of mankind is so great the God repents of His creation and decides to destroy it all through a flood. Only Noah is righteous before God, and He instruct Noah to build an [[Noah's Ark|ark]] to carry himself, his family, and pairs of every creature on earth and in the air. God then destroys the earth with water, the ark riding the waves until the waters abate and it comes to rest at the mountains of Ararat. God makes a promise never to destroy the earth by flood again, and shows Noah the sign of that covenant, a rainbow.

Noah is also the first planter of a vineyard, and during a drunken sleep one of his sons (Ham) sees him naked. Noah awakes with the knowledge as to what he had done, and places a curse upon his son Canaan, declaring that Canaan and his descendants would be slaves to the his brothers Shem and Japheth. All three sons would have their names and their descendants listed on the Table of Nations, which ends Noah's story.

===Abraham===
Genesis 11 begins the story of Abram, who leaves the city of [[Ur]] with his wife, Sarai, on a journey towards Canaan, where God has shown him what He was going to do: ''I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who curses you I will curse; and by you all the families of the earth shall bless themselves.''

Sarai, being barren tells Abram to take Hagar, his Egyptian handmaiden, as wife. Hagar becomes pregnant with Ishmael, and God makes a promise that the child will be "a wild ass of a man, his hand against every man and every man's hand against him," with descendants beyond number.

God also makes a covenant with Abram: Abram will have many descendants as well as possession of the land of Canaan. Abram's name is changed to "Abraham”, and Sarai becomes "Sarah." A sign of the new covenant is the circumcision of all males. Abraham is also told of the fact that Sarah will bear a son who will be named Issac, and it is through Issac and his descendants that the covenant will be established; although Ishmael is to be a great nation, he is left out of God’s covenant.

Two angels appeared to Abraham and told him that Sarah, barren for years, will bear a son. They also tell him that the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah is very great, and God will shortly punish them, Abraham asking if the cities be spared if so much as ten righteous men are found inside.

The two angels are received by Lot, much to the consternation of the townspeople who surround the house and demand sexual acts with the strangers; the townspeople are blinded, and the angels warn Lot and his family to flee immediately for the mountains and never look back. Both Sodom and Gomorrah are consumed by fire and brimstone; Lot’s wife turn back to look and is turned to a pillar of salt.

Sarah gives birth to Isaac, and at her insistence demands that Hagar and Ishmael are driven into the wilderness. While Ishmael is near dying, an angel speaks to Hagar and promises that God will not forget them, and will make the descendants of Ishmael a great nation.

God puts Abraham to the test by demanding the sacrifice of Isaac. Abraham obeys God during his ultimate test: the sacrifice of his beloved son Issac; just as he is about to thrust the knife God restrains him, and promises descendants beyond numbering. Abraham dies later, ‘’full of years”, and is laid to rest in the Tomb of Machpelah in Hebron, which he had purchased shortly before as a place of rest for Sarah.

===Isaac and Jacob===
Isaac had prayed to God that He would deliver a child through Rebekah’s barren womb. He does, and Rebekah gives birth to the twins Esau and Jacob; but prior to the birth God had predicted division between the two, with the elder serving the younger. Esau, the elder, had despised his own birthright and sold it for a bowl of red porridge, allowing Jacob to enter his father’s tent and deceitfully take the blessing intended for Esau. He flees to Haran, the home of his uncle Laban. Along the way he has the dream of the ladder to Heaven, where God tells him of prosperity for himself and his descendants; he names the spot Bethel in commemoration.

Jacob had two wives, Leah and Rachel, and two concubines, Zilpah (Leah's handmaid), and Bilhah (Rachel's handmaid). Together they bore Jacob twelve sons:
*From Leah: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulan.
*From Rachel: Joseph, Benjamin.
*From Zilpah: Gad, Asser.
*From Bilhah: Dan, Naphtali.

===Joseph===
Joseph, having angered his brothers through the dreams indicating his brothers would bow down before him in addition to a colorful coat given to him by his father, is bound and sold into slavery by his brothers’ wickedness, and claim to a bitter Jacob that Joseph was killed by a wild animal. His dreams while a slave in Egypt come to the attention of Pharaoh, who was troubled by a dream of seven withered cows and stalks of corn which ate seven fat cows and healthy stalks of corn. Joseph interprets the dream as that of Egypt going through seven years of plentiful harvests, followed by seven years of severe famine, and follows it up by asking Pharaoh to appoint a wise man over Egypt to ensure enough is collected and stored during the plentiful years to act as a hedge against the years of famine. Pharaoh responds by appointing Joseph himself in this position, and during the famine "all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain, because the famine was severe over all the earth."

Jacob, not knowing Joseph is still alive, sends his sons to buy grain in Egypt. The brothers appear before Joseph, but do not recognize him; Joseph however, recognizes them, and after a series of tests which convinces Joseph their characters have changed, reveals himself to them, convinces them that what happened in the past was God’s plan, and tells them to bring Jacob and their families to live in Egypt. Genesis ends with the blessing of Jacob’s children, his death, and the death of Joseph, who exhorts his brothers to carry his bones when they eventually return to the Promised Land.

==Authorship==
Biblical tradition within and without the Old Testament, Jesus in the New Testament, as well as extra-Biblical writers such as Josephus, Origen, the early church fathers and many others, have claimed Moses as the author of Genesis, written during the time of the Hebrew wanderings in the Wilderness, between 1440-1400 B.C. Certainly, Moses was well established to have written Genesis in Hebrew, Akkadian, or Egyptian; he was well educated and trained in the Egyptian court. Archaeology demonstrated that such a man did have the eductation necessary to accomplish this during that time in history. (Unger, pp. 35-35)

The higher critical view was that Moses did not write it. Some biblical scholars identified five separate authors of the five 'books of Moses'<ref>[http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_tora.htm Who Wrote The Pentateuch, The Five Books of Moses?]</ref><ref>[http://lectionary.org/EXEG-English/OT/EOT01-Gen/Authorship-Genesis%20&%20Pentateuch.html Introduction to Genesis & the Pentateuch]</ref>. Although unidentified, each of these authors has been given the name of a letter:
* J who calls God ''YHWH'' (the ''Jehovist'' account), and who possibly wrote in the south of [[Judah]], written c. 850 B.C.
* E who uses ''Elohim'' ('the gods', 'the spirits') as God's name, and possibly wrote in [[Ephraim]], written c. 750 B.C.
* D who wrote the book of Deuteronomy, about 650 B.C.
* P who wrote an alternate history in what was called the ''Priestly Code'', about 500 B.C.
* R who joined the writings of J, E, D and P to form a single work.
Under this hypothesis, looking at the Creation story
* Genesis 1:1 through 2:3 were written by P.
* Genesis 2:4 was written by R
* Genesis 2:5 through 4:26 were written by J.
This theory has gained in popularity since it was first proposed in the late 19th century. However, it is inevitably a product of modern rationalistic research and the application of literary criteria. Opponents of this research point to the fact that it is difficult to reconcile with the historical, miraculous, and prophetic elements which they claim to be basic to the first five books of the Bible (Unger, 397; Young, pp. 183-276).

==English Translation of Genesis==
'''1:1''' In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

'''1:2''' And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

'''1:3''' And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. '''1:4''' And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. '''1:5''' And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

'''1:6''' And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. '''1:7''' And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. '''1:8''' And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

'''1:9''' And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. '''1:10''' And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

'''1:11''' And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. '''1:12''' And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. '''1:13''' And the evening and the morning were the third day.

'''1:14''' And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: '''1:15''' And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. '''1:16''' And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also. '''1:17''' And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, '''1:18''' And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good. '''1:19''' And the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

'''1:20''' And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. '''1:21''' And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good. '''1:22''' And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. '''1:23''' And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.

'''1:24''' And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. '''1:25''' And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

'''1:26''' And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

:'''1:27''' So God created man in his own image,
:in the image of God created he him;
:male and female created he them.

'''1:28''' And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

'''1:29''' And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing
seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
shall be for meat. '''1:30''' And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air,and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

'''1:31''' And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

==Archaeological importance==

==References==

<references/>

==Sources==
*Holy Bible, King James Version (''Thompson Chain Reference''), B.B. Kirkbride Bible Co. Indianapolis, IN 1982.
*Unger, Merril F. ''Unger's Bible Dictionary'', Moody Press, Chicago, IL 1966.
*Unger, Merril F. ''Unger's Bible Handbook'', Moody Press, Chicago, IL 1967.
*Young, Edward J. ''Introduction to the Old Testament'', W.B. Eardmans Pub. Co. Grand Rapids, MI 1949.

==Links==
*[http://www.creationapologetics.org/table.html Table of Nations chart]
*[http://www.creationapologetics.org/creation.html Creation timeline]

[[Category:Biblical books]]
[[Category:Old Testament]]

Wikipedia

2007-03-23T13:17:18Z

Lad8908: /* Wikipedia and Bias */ No factual basis

'''Wikipedia''' is a free-content online [[encyclopedia]] established by [[Jimbo Wales]] and Larry Sangers on January 15, 2001. It currently has over 6 million articles, written in 250 languages<ref>[http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wikipedias List of Wikipedias - Wikimedia]</ref>, including over 1,600,000 articles in the English version. Like [[Conservapedia]], it is a [[wiki]] that is written and edited by its users. Under its GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL), anyone can add to or edit the content on Wikipedia.

Initially, Wikipedia was hosted on servers operated by Bomis Incorporated, a pornographic search engine funded by Jimbo Wales. Then in 2003, Jimbo Wales created the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation with himself as board president, to oversee the day-to-day operation of Wikipedia.

==Sigenthaler Scandal==
In May 2005, an anonymous user created a Wikipedia article on John Seigenthaler Sr, a journalist and an assistant to former attorney general Robert F. Kennedy that states:
<blockquote>
John Seigenthaler Sr. was the assistant to Attorney General Robert Kennedy in the early 1960s. For a short time, he was thought to have been directly involved in the Kennedy assassinations of both John, and his brother, Bobby. Nothing was ever proven.
</blockquote>
and
<blockquote>
John Seigenthaler moved to the Soviet Union in 1971, and returned to the United States in 1984. He started one of the country's largest public relations firms shortly thereafter.
</blockquote>
In September 2005, a friend of Seigenthaler's discovered the Wikipedia entry and alerted Seigenthaler, whom then contacted the Wikimedia foundation to have the article corrected, however the false biography had remained on Wikipedia for many months.
Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt later discovered the prepetrator of the prank was Brian Chase, an aquintence of Seigenthaler Sr. John Seigenthaler Sr later published an article in USA Today on the whole affair<ref>http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2005-11-29-wikipedia-edit_x.htm</ref>.

==Essjay Scandal==
In February 2007, Wikipedia critic Daniel Brandt discovered that a prominent Wikipedia administrator, bureaucrat and arbitrator nicknamed Essjay has lied on Wikipedia and in phone interviews with the New Yorkers magazine about his age, job, background, and academic credentials<ref>http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6423659.stm</ref>. Essjay, who later identified himself as Ryan Jordan and who was an employee at Wikia Inc. funded by Jimbo Wales, had claimed to be a 40 year old homosexual, holding doctoral degrees in theology and canon law and is a tenured professor at a private university; but he was in fact a 20 years old community college dropout from Kentucky. This fraud was reported by ABC, BBC and many other major news organizations. Jimbo Wales upon learning of this incident, stated: "I regard it as a pseudonym and I don’t really have a problem with it."<ref>http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/07/31/060731fa_fact</ref>

==Sinbad Hoax==
On march 16, wikipedia entry on the 50-year old entertainer Sinbad, born David Adkins, states: "He succumbed to a fatal heart attack on the morning of March, 14, 2007." This hoax was widely reported in the media<ref>http://www.ioltechnology.co.za/article_page.php?iSectionId=2891&iArticleId=3734818</ref>.

==References==
<references />

==External Links==
*[http://www.wikipedia.org Wikipedia]
*[http://www.wikitruth.info/ Wikitruth]
*[http://www.wikipedia-watch.org Wikipedia Watch]
*[http://wikipediareview.com/ Wikipedia Review]

[[Category:Wiki]]

Conservapedia - User contributions [en]

Genesis

Wikipedia