Dear Bard,
This does NOT mean that YAHWEH was a "local" God whose presence was only in
one location.
This means that first, YAHWEH was physically present with Cain, standing
right before his very eyes, just as if I or your wife or your children or
your next-door neighbour were to stand in front of you.
Second, this means that Cain departed from YAHWEH to continue in his sinful
life, that is, to spiritually depart from YAHWEH and condemn himself to hell
or eternal perdition. Yet, God, in His infinite forgiveness, placed a mark
on Cain's head to punish those who might commit capital punishment against
Cain for fratricide. God wanted to spare Cain's life because He loved him
as He loves us, and desires to forgive and restore the relationship which He
as our Creator wishes to have.
This NEVER means that YAHWEH is not omnipresent or omniscient or omnipotent.
God lives outside the realm of space and time; therefore God can appear as a
human to one person and still rule all the planets and guide the courses of
all the stars. We cannot, in our finite and feeble minds, understand this;
therefore we must take that in faith. God can hold a daisy in His hand,
pluck out all its petals, and restore each petal one at a time as if the
flower were never molested. God can change the course of a river, and
change it back again.
What's even better, God created both of us, and also our parents, and their
parents as well. He knows our cellular structure right down to the DNA
pattern, and he knows that for each individual person, all of whom He
created (Psalm 139)
You see, bard, the Holy Bible has two facets, the spiritual and the
physical. So when Cain was said to leave the presence of YAHWEH, that meant
that Cain not only left God's physical presence, but God's spiritual
presence as well. Cain turned and walked away from God both on his feet and
in his spirit, to continue down the damning path of sin.
In Christ,
Richard C. August
<bard at dmcom.net> wrote in message news:3D64FE61.16C at dmcom.net...
>raugust at ptd.net wrote:
> >
> > Ok, Bob, here goes.
> >
> > Josh McDowell was in college and dating a young lady. As a Christian,
she
> > challenged him to disprove the Holy Bible in all its aspects, historical
and
> > spiritual. Mr. McDowell tried in every way to disprove Holy text, using
> > historical records, maps, biological records, evolution, revolution, and
> > everything else on which he could lay hands.
> >
>>http://www.caw.org/articles/otherpeople.html>> A few excepts:
>> I innocently remark: "But none of that applies to us. We have no need
> for salvation because we don't have original sin. We are the Other
> People."
>> 16 Cain left the presence of Yahweh and settled in the land of Nod, east
> of Eden.
> We can assume that the phrase "left the presence of Yahweh" implies
> that Yahweh is a local deity, and not omnipresent. Now Eden, according
> to Gen. 2:14-15, was situated at the source of the Tigris and Euphrates
> rivers, apparently right where Lake Van is now, in Turkey. "East of
> Eden," therefore, would probably be along the shores of the Caspian Sea,
> right in the Indo-European heartland. Cain settled in there, among the
> people of Nod, and married one of the women of that country. Here, for
> the first time, is specifically mentioned the "other people" who are not
> of the lineage of Adam and Eve. I.e., the Pagans.
>> So let's look at this story from another viewpoint: There we were,
> around six thousand years ago, living in our little farming communities
> around the Caspian Sea, in the land of Nod, when this dude with a
> terrible scar comes stumbling in out of the sunset. He tells us this
> bizarre story, about how his mother and father had been created by some
> god named Jahweh, and put in charge of a beautiful garden somewhere out
> west, and how they had gotten thrown out for disobedience after eating
> some of the landlord's forbidden magic fruit of enlightenment. He tells
> us of murdering his brother, as the god of his parents would only accept
> blood sacrifice, and of receiving that scar as a mark so that all would
> know him as a fratricide.
>> Now it doesn't mention here where Seth's wife came from. Another woman
> from Nod, possibly, or maybe someone from another neolithic community
> downstream in the Tigris-Euphrates valley. But her folks also, cannot be
> of the lineage of Adam and Eve, and must also be counted among "the
> other people."
>> --
>> news:alt.pagan FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/altpag.txt> news:alt.religion.wicca FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/arwfaq2.txt> news:news.groups FAQ at http://www.dmcom.net/bard/ngfaq.txt>
