Bible

[NatalieCrouc]

Could someone tell me the meaning of the following from the Bible and also the ensuing text:

And there came a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them... And the Lord said unto Satan whence comest thou.. then Satan answered the Lord and said from going to and fro in the earth and from walking up and down in it .....

[shaneystar]

have a look here


http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/job/1.html

[spudqueen]

This can be interpreted at two levels:

1) is that this is just another story in the bible, which biblical scholars can no doubt choose to interpret as they see fit, usually at a metaphorical level

2) A deeper level is to ask who actually wrote this story in the first place? And the interesting answer to that question is that a lot of the early Old Testament is considered to have been written by the Sumerians, hailing from Sumer, arguably the oldest civilisation on Earth. In this latter case you can then interpret the text literally and gain a feeling for who these 'gods' were and what they got up to. There was a lot of 'too-ing anf fro-ing in the Earth, that's for sure. Perhaps the most interesting translation of the Sumerian account is given by Zecharia Sitchin (see for example 'Wars of Gods & Men'.) And once you approach the biblical text from Sitchin's perspective it actually makes some kind of sense and is a very interesting way to examine this kind of text (in my opinion anyway.)

Mr Spudqueen

[Peter Pedant]

Or you could use a book - Cruden's concordance (1727) is a good one and available at your local library. As the quote goes on, there isnt a more unusual word is there? LIke scruntie or Zaphod ? The ones in the quote will kick up zillions of hits

 

Pp

[crushtv]

What is your question about the text?

It seems pretty straightforward to me. "One all the angels were required to present themselves to God. Satan (literally: "the enemy") did and God asked him "What have you been up to?" And Satan answered "Earth". 

[spudqueen]

Need to be careful here with the text:

It says 'sons of God' but it does not say 'angels': the two are not necessarily the same thing and should not always be interpreted as being the same thing: it is possible to use the word 'angel' to airbrush out any inconsistencies in interpretation in the Old Testament. And some people wonder why the text is not always consistent in its description of the various 'deities' related to God.

Also some might say that an all knowing God should not need to ask questions of anyone, and this can be an issue in itself cf similar discussions with Adam in the Garden of Eden.

But otherwise I agree crushTV, the crux of the matter is that with this question, God is on the verge of finding out exactly what Satan has been up to on Earth.

[spudqueen]

Sorry that above was from Mr Spudqueen!

[connundro]

This is from the book of Job, and describes an event taking place in Heaven.The "sons of God" or as they are called in the book of Genesis,"The sons of the true God",are the angels, or spirit creatures,standing before God (Jehova).It seems at this time Satan,who,s name means "adversary" or "resister",himself an angel ,though a fallen one ,also had accesss to this realm,and passed between it and earth-"going to and fro in the earth ,and from walking up and down in in"

hope this helps