God's Hidden Message

[snopes]

We frequently use the familiar term, gospel, or good news. Where is the
first place it appears in the Bible?

The great discovery is that the Bible is a message system.

In Genesis Chapter 5, there is the genealogy of Adam through Noah.
In our Bible, we read the Hebrew names. What do these names mean in
English?

These are the meanings of their names. This will amaze you.

Hebrew English
Adam Man
Seth Appointed
Enosh Mortal
Kenan Sorrow;
Mahalalel The Blessed God
Jared Shall come down
Enoch Teaching
Methuselah His death shall bring
Lamech The Despairing
Noah Rest, or comfort.

That's rather remarkable:
Man (is) appointed mortal sorrow; (but) the Blessed God shall come down
teaching (that) His death shall bring (the) despairing rest.

Here's the Gospel hidden within a genealogy in Genesis.
It demonstrates that in the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis, God
had already laid out His plan of redemption for the predicament of
mankind. It is a love story, written in blood on a wooden cross which was
erected in Judea almost 2,000 years ago.

Truly, our God is an awesome God.

[Richard W]

So God deliberately set up the "predicament" so that he could write a love message in his son's tortured blood? I suppose that follows from the omnipotence and omniscience things anyway.

That is the correct order of names from Genesis 5...

Here's a Hebrew dictionary. Plugging in those names:

Adam and Seth mean what they say above.

Enosh comes back as just a name, but apparently he gave his name to a tribe, the Enoshut which means "humanity".

Kenan: "This name seems to derive from words denoting a permanent dwelling place or stronghold."

Mahalalel comes back as just a name. Jared does indeed mean "descent", although that can be in the sense of "descendent" as well as falling or coming down.

Enoch means "initiated, dedicated, disciplined" so at a stretch I guess you could get teaching, although it seems more like "student" really.

Methuselah is "when he dies, it shall be sent" so they're OK on that one.

Again, the dictionary has no meaning for Lamech other than a name. Noah does mean "rest".

So they're stretching a bit, but at least half of their translation seems reasonable, at least as individual words. Kenan seems the weakest link.

[Don Enrico]

So, from Richard W's translating efforts (and adding that "Seth" can mean "placed", too), we can conclude that God's secret message is

"(A) man (was) placed (in a) human stronghold. Mahalalel, (his) decendent, (was) dedicated (that) when he dies, it shall be sent (to) Lamech (to) rest (there)."

I wish God would get rid of this difficult to translate secret messages and send open ones instead...

Don Enrico

[hambubba]

Originally Posted by Don Enrico

I wish God would get rid of this difficult to translate secret messages and send open ones instead...

He tried that. It didn't go over any better.

[Quantum Leap2]

He tried that. It didn't go over any better.

So true...an agnostic said to Jesus, "Prove to me you have worth; then I will believe." But I knew he would not - even if I turned stones to bread, walked on water, and rose from the dead.

From a poem by W. Joyner

[BringTheNoise]

So agnostics really love that being undecided thing then?

Originally Posted by snopes

We frequently use the familiar term, gospel, or good news. Where is the
first place it appears in the Bible?

The great discovery is that the Bible is a message system.

In Genesis Chapter 5, there is the genealogy of Adam through Noah.
..........
It demonstrates that in the earliest chapters of the Book of Genesis, God
had already laid out His plan of redemption for the predicament of
mankind. It is a love story, written in blood on a wooden cross which was
erected in Judea almost 2,000 years ago.
Truly, our God is an awesome God.

Actually the first place the good news appears in the Bible is even earlier and more "awesome" than that, because no fancy wordplay is required: Chapter 3, verse 15, the "protevangelion", where even as God is banishing Adam and Eve from Paradise He promises to send a descendant of Eve who will overcome the serpent that tempted them to their downfall.

[Logoboros]

Originally Posted by PeterK

Actually the first place the good news appears in the Bible is even earlier and more "awesome" than that, because no fancy wordplay is required: Chapter 3, verse 15, the "protevangelion", where even as God is banishing Adam and Eve from Paradise He promises to send a descendant of Eve who will overcome the serpent that tempted them to their downfall.

Well, transforming "seed" into "a descendent" and mutual animosity into a one-sided "overcoming" seems like it's making the words of the verse play twister a bit...

--Logoboros

Originally Posted by Logoboros

Well, transforming "seed" into "a descendent" and mutual animosity into a one-sided "overcoming" seems like it's making the words of the verse play twister a bit...

--Logoboros

Read a modern Bible and you will find the "seed" in the Renaissance Bibles is translated into modern English as "offspring" or "descendant". As my dictionary confirms. No "transformation" necessary. I don't know Hebrew but I'll bet if you tried to argue that the Hebrew word means something else, like maybe "seed" in the modern sense, you'd be rowing upstream in a barbed-wire canoe.

"He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" doesn't sound anything like just "mutual animosity" and an equally balanced two-sided struggle to me. If I was refereeing a fight where one bloke got his heel struck and the other got his head crushed, I wouldn't have the slightest doubt whom I'd call the winner!

This verse has been seen as a prophecy of the Messiah since probably BC. If you want to come up with some other interpretation of it, it'll be you who's "playing twister".

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by PeterK

"He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" doesn't sound anything like just "mutual animosity" and an equally balanced two-sided struggle to me. If I was refereeing a fight where one bloke got his heel struck and the other got his head crushed, I wouldn't have the slightest doubt whom I'd call the winner!

If the one who "strikes his heel" is a venomous serpent, then wouldn't they both be dead?

Originally Posted by Richard W

If the one who "strikes his heel" is a venomous serpent, then wouldn't they both be dead?

I can understand a pommie not knowing this, but most snakes (esp. in the Middle East) are not venomous, and most bites from venomous snakes are not fatal. In any case it says "strike" (or "bruise"), not "bite". Whereas crushing someone's head is invariably fatal.
Also consider the picture it is portraying: The one standing on the head of the other, who can do no more than strike at his heel, is clearly in the superior position.

[Avril]

Originally Posted by PeterK

Read a modern Bible and you will find the "seed" in the Renaissance Bibles is translated into modern English as "offspring" or "descendant". As my dictionary confirms. No "transformation" necessary. I don't know Hebrew but I'll bet if you tried to argue that the Hebrew word means something else, like maybe "seed" in the modern sense, you'd be rowing upstream in a barbed-wire canoe.

I had three semesters of Hebrew; perhaps I can help.

You would only be rowing upstream in a barbed-wire canoe to the degree that you argued that "seed" only carried the modern sense. It carried that as well as "sperm" (and curiously enough, "egg" in the sense of an egg from a human ovary) or descendant/offspring.

Avril

[Logoboros]

Peter,

My assertion would be that the most literal interpretation of this passage is that humans and snakes are cursed to be enemies -- humans will hate snakes and try to kill them, and snakes will hate humans and try to kill them.

Such an interpretation requires no fancy or restrictive glossing of the terms.

The Messianic interpretation requires deliberate narrowing of the noun seed/offspring noun (including paring down it down to a singluar), it ignores the parallelism between "offsping of woman" and "offspring of the serpent" (which makes good sense talking about the "race of humans" and the "race of snakes" not getting along, but becomes imbalanced when talking about a Divinely annointed human and a supernatural foe). And it also calls in all kinds of additional expectations and interpretations. In other words, I sincerely doubt that someone who was not already primed to look for a messianic prophecy would see anything of the kind in this verse.

And I'm not alone in such an interpretation.

--Logoboros