Attributes of Humanity in the Bible
One attribute of Humanity that I saw in Genesis through Dueteronomy was the fearing of God. The fear of the Lord, according to the Bible, is a heartfelt reverence for the majesty of God and a loving awe of the grace of God. One who fears God has great thoughts about Him and knows Him and puts his trust in Him. One who fears God, first of all, knows God in all of the infinite splendor of God's being and the God who says, "I AM THAT I AM." Throughout the Scriptures, whenever we see a human encountering God, we see that this encounter always contains an element of fear.
. Throughout the Bible we also see people who do not fear God and where this is, the Wrath of God takes place. We see the Wrath of God take place in Genesis 3, where He casts Adam and Eve out of Eden because of their sin. In Genesis 6 God destroys the world with the Flood because of their sin. In the Book of Exodus, He sends plagues upon Egypt. God also refuses to let the Israelites enter into the Promised Land because of their disobedience and forces them to wander in the wilderness for forty years. This Divine Wrath continues throughout the whole Bible and into the New Testament. Since God is angry, and since God has the power to cast us into hell, it is certainly only right to fear the Lord. And since the people didn’t want these things to happen to them they feared God.
There are many examples in Exodus and Dueteronomy where people feared God. In one instance the king of Egypt told the Hebrew midwives to kill the Hebrew women’s child if it was a boy, but if it was a girl they were to let her live. “ The midwives, however, feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.” (Exodus 1:17) When people fear him and do as God tells them, the Lord blesses them immensely. “ So God was kind to the midwives and the people increased and became even more numerous. 21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” (Exodus 1:20-21)
Also in Exodus 9, the Lord told Moses to tell the people He was sending another plague of the worst hailstorms.
“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”. In the book the Lord of the Flies by William Golding and the episode “The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street” by Rod Serling both revolve around a society who creates this monster in them that is made out of fear, paranoia, and savagery. They both show how just a small group of people can go mad and destroy everything out of fear.
Fear is one of the most powerful emotions, therefore by using fear as a rhetorical strategy it makes Edwards’s argument more memorable and more likely to be taken to heart due to the audience’s dreading eternity in a “lake of burning brimstone,” (2) and a “pit of glowing flames of the wrath of god” (2). Fear turns the imagined into something tangible and because the audience has no way of actually discovering heaven or hell until they die, they are more likely to accept his argument and accept god into their lives in order to avoid hell.
In placing humankind within this world, it is the intent of God that humans enjoy this world and flourish in it through a continuing relationship with Him. And God said, “Let us make a human in our image, by our likeness, to hold sway over the fish of the sea and the fowl of the heavens and the cattle and the wild beasts and all the crawling things that crawl upon the earth” (Genesis 158-159). Therefore, He creates a human in His image, the image of God. God did not want man to be alone and decides to fashion a companion from the rib of man. “And the Lord God cast a deep slumber on the human, and he slept, and He took one of his ribs and closed over the flesh where it had been, and the Lord God built the rib He had taken from the human into a woman” (Genesis 160). Upon learning of this the human said, “This one at last, bone of my bones / and flesh of my flesh, / This one shall be called Woman, / for from man was this one taken” (Genesis 160). Human beings occupy center stage in this account of the world’s origin, but are held in low regard in Mesopotamian and Greek creation stories. In Enuma Elish, Marduk spoke to Ea of his idea for the creation of humankind, but Ea was the actual creator who devised how it should come about. In the Sixth Tablet, Marduk says, “My blood will I take and bone will I fashion / I will make man, that man may… / I will create man who shall
Where Genesis I describes a more ordered creation - the manifestation of a more primitive cultural influence than was responsible for the multi-layered creation in Genesis II - the second creation story focuses less on an etiological justification for the physical world and examines the ramifications of humankind's existence and relationship with God. Instead of Genesis I's simple and repetitive refrains of "and God saw that it was good" (Gen 1:12, 18, 21, 25), Genesis II features a more stylistically advanced look at "the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens" (Gen 2:4). While both stories represent different versions of the same Biblical event, Genesis II is significantly more complex than its predecessor and serves both to quantify the relationship between God and his creations and lay the foundation for the evolving story of humankind as well.
...he one that most Christians know today. This God is quite different from both the New Testament and Plato’s. In Genesis, God states, “For behold, I will bring a flood of waters upon the earth to destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven. Everything that is on the earth shall die.” This God does not desire human beings to accept knowledge but rather to accept His rule and obey. This particular deity is about fear, power, and absolute control; so much so that those who do not adhere to His law, their deaths are assured. This is seen in Deuteronomy 7:2, it states, “When the Lord your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.” God is characterized not as a kindly guider of souls, but rather the harsh taskmaster intent on defeating enemies of His and spreading the influence of His supporters.
One of the main themes in Chapter Fourteen is that of morality. Cari Barney defined morality as “conformity to the rules of right conduct” (lecture). Man is “a moral being” obligated “to act according to moral principles” (McDonald, 2007, p. 165). Deep down within man’s conscience, there is the sense of knowing right from wrong and knowing God’s requirements (Romans 2:14-15). This awareness should cause all humans to strive to adhere to what God requires of us. The moral consciousness of man is within the heart (Proverbs 4:23). McDonald (2007) stated, “So man is in himself a moral being with moral obligations and responsibilities (p. 165). Man’s lifestyle should resemble biblical principles that have been instructed by God.
Throughout the Bible God can be represented in a number of different ways. In some chapters of the Bible God can be found to be a compassionate, loving God, who would do anything for his people. To contradict this, in other chapters of the Bible God can be found trying to instill fear into people so that they believe in him, or do what he wants of them. In both instances it shows how different God can be seen and why believers can have doubts about how God really is.
Of course, the most dominant example of fear was when Scrooge met The Ghost of Christmas Future, and saw his fate. Scrooge saw that people wouldn’t show up to his funeral, and saw that some thieves even stole from his room whilst his corpse was still resting in his bed. It made Scrooge want to become a better person, and have a better legacy when he died. In “Thank You M’am”, Roger was scared that Ms. Jones would report him to the police or kidnap him. When Ms. Jones shut the door on him, he was scared straight to knowing that stealing was wrong, and that the next time he steals somebody won’t be as generous as the lady. In my small group learning, Jesus was too scared about being faced with prejudice to help the lady with the valise and the kids. He hated that he was scared, so he decided to change himself to be helpful, even if he may be shunned by the way he looked. If somebody is about to lose their job, they change to focus more and learn how to do their job better. We all do have fear, but in some situations fear can be
...o I have created…’” (Gen. Ch 6, line 12) God tells this to Noah, explaining that he will end the lives of all in order to cleanse the land. The Hebrew belief that their god had the power to end all forced the people to be fearful and respect their covenant with the lord.
As human beings, we are designed to belive in something. Although the belief in a higher power or religion is diverse, many theologies share common themes. “The Epic of Gilgamesh” and the Hebrew book of “Genesis” are seemingly polar opposites. Christianity, demonstrated in Genesis, is monotheistic, and the Hebrews base their faith on their relationship with God. On the other hand, Sumerian philosophy, found in Gilgamesh, is polytheistic, and the Sumerian people base their theology on fear. Ancient polytheistic literature forms an archetypical pattern of the mortals trying desperately to please the gods. A mortal’s entire existence rests in the hands of the sometimes childish gods. In spite of this, these two stories
Throughout the world there are various cultures with varying religions and creation stories to explain the creation of the Earth and it’s inhabitants. Of these creation stories two with similar and also different characteristics is the Creation story in the book of Genesis which is a part of the 1st Testament in the Hebrew Bible and explains the creation of Earth and humans, and the Theogony which is the greek creation story that describes the origins of the Earth and the Greek Gods. Both the Theogony and the Creation in Genesis show nature as a blessing for humans but it can also affect them negatively, However the myths differ in the ways that the Earth and humans were created and how humans interact with the deities of the creation stories.
Thessalonians 4:1-3 says, “Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more, for you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God's will that you should be sanctified.” During my time at Saint Joseph College I have been able to pick up a lot being in the core program. Even though I have learned a lot from all of my core classes, there has some been a hand full of core classes where I found myself having trouble finding how they relate to me in my everyday life. Core nine has easily been the easiest class for me to relate to. I like to believe that I am a religious person. I take pride in the fact that I talk to God every day, and have a very healthy relationship with him, and do everything I can to live my life the way he intended me to. Though I do not attend church every Sunday, I always find time to read my daily bread, and my daily praise. So being in this class, and being able to discover more of the truth about the meaning of life from a religious standpoint kept me focused all semester.
The relationship between God and his creations humans can be said to be a very complex relationship. Genesis shows us many examples of God's interaction with humans and human's interaction with each other. From the creation of Adam and Eve and all the events that follow afterwards, I shall show what the relationship tells us about the nature of God and mankind.
Many times they wailed about how miserable they were and how it would have been best to stay in Egypt. In the book of numbers, God becomes angry at their wails and punishes some of them. Even after the earth opened up and swallowed these men and their families, some of the Israelites were still complaining. It is hard to fathom not trusting in God when he is clearly present. I would like to think that if God were clearly present and speaking directly with man today, we would listen and be content. This is not to say that God is not present today, just that he does not make His presence known as greatly as He did with the
“Who do people say that I am?” (Mark 8:27) is one of the most fundamental questions that Jesus asked his disciples. It is a question, from my personal viewpoint, that has a simple answer. Jesus is Lord! Needless to say, there is more to the identity of Jesus, but it is my belief that Jesus is the Messiah, the second person of the Holy Trinity. He is the promised Savior foretold in the Old Testament by the prophets. There is an endless list that gives Jesus titles such as Ruler and King, Master and Teacher, Savior and Christ, but in Acts 2:36 Luke writes, “God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.” Jesus is the one who went to the Cross to bring humankind forgiveness, redemption, and salvation.