Genesis 5 - 6.5: God Regrets Creating People

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Adam's Descendants to Noah (ch. 5:1-32)

Most of this chapter is useless. It is just a list of how long a few people lived and who their children were, or most likely who their first born son was. One thing that is interesting though, it starts with Adam who had his son Seth after 130 years. It also says Adam had other sons and daughters but it implies that they happened after Seth. On the other hand it doesn't mention Cain and Abel, so who knows. It also says that all of these guys lived around 900 years, it makes me wonder why.

It is really amazing to see the lengths that Christians will go to justify the insane things that are present within this book. Let's look at what Guzik has to say here. First we can look at the claim that the universe is less than 10,000 years old.

One can arrange the following genealogies in a sequential manner and chart out a time line. However, one cannot establish an absolutely reliable timeline with this method, because Biblical genealogies are not always complete. Sometimes generations are skipped over.

If one takes the genealogies as being without omission, the time of Adam comes to be some 4,000 to 5,000 years before Christ. Even with omissions, it is hard to imagine that the time of Adam was significantly more than perhaps 10,000 years before Jesus.

This puts the Biblical record at incredible variance with the assertions of modern science. Yet there are good reasons to believe God created the earth with age “built in,” even as Adam and the trees of Eden had age “built” into them. 

This is young earth creationism people, they take a bunch of genealogies of ancient people and count backward to the creation of the universe by God. Then they explain that this isn't what we observe because God built the universe with time cooked in. He also has to explain why people lived so much longer back then.

It is more likely that people did live much, much longer before the flood. This is because the degenerative effects of the fall on the human gene pool had not yet accumulated greatly, and because the environment in the pre-flood world was so different, with the blanket of water vapors surrounding the earth (Genesis 1:6-8). In the post-flood world, life spans quickly came down to the life-spans we are familiar with today.

The mix of science and fantasy is remarkable here isn't it? The fall of man has to accumulate in the gene pool? What?

Increasing Corruption on Earth (ch 6 v. 1-8)

People were multiplying and spreading out on the face of the earth. The "sons of God" saw that the "daughters of man" were attractive.

Wait, is this just plain sexism or is there something more than I am missing?

Guzik suggests that the daughters of men are the line of Cain. An interesting explanation I suppose. He then says that this explanation does leave a lot of unanswered questions, and suggests and alternative, that the sons of God were the angels or perhaps demons. The angels mated with the human females and caused all of this trouble. This seems to me to leave plenty of unanswered questions as well. Interesting to ponder though.

God decided that his spirit would not stay in man forever since he is flesh, so men will now only live 120 years.

This says that early man had the spirit of God and therefore lived longer, why did Guzik have that gene pool nonsense last chapter?

Guzik says that 120 years is not the lifespan of man, but instead is the amount of time between when God said that and when the flood will happen. Looking back at the text, this seems a reasonable way to interpret it.

v.4 "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown."

I quoted that because I just don't know how to summarize. I'm not really sure what the Nephilim is, wikipedia says it is unclear, it might be giants or children of angels. It seems to me to be the explanation for why everything went to shit, God's perfect creation interbred with the Nephilim (whoever they are) and that is why things are bad. Although Adam and Eve disobeyed and Cain killed Abel, so much for that idea.

Nephilim pics are fake

God saw that man was wicked to the core and he was sorry that he had created people. He decided to kill everyone, including all of the animals, but luckily Noah found favor in the eyes of God.

So God has regret for creating man. This pretty much blows omniscience out of the water right? If God knew everything that would happen why would he create people he knew he would regret? Someone might argue that he needed to get to Noah, why not just start there then?

There is an interesting argument from Guzik on this point.

God’s sorrow at man, and the grief in His heart, are striking. This does not mean that creation was out of control, nor does it mean that God hoped for something better but was unable to achieve it. God knew all along that this was how things would turn out, but our text tells us loud and clear that as God sees His plan for the ages unfold, it affects Him. God is not unfeeling in the face of human sin and rebellion.

I think this argument has a bit of emotional power because it mirrors something we come across in life from time to time. Sometimes we have to go through something difficult to get a good end result. Or we have to put our children through something that is hard for them, even though we know the end result is good. We feel sorry that they had to experience that pain, but still have to do it.

However, this argument fails for me because God's plan is to kill everyone! The appropriate analogy is not to force your kid to take his medicine so he will get over the flu, it is not to force him to keep studying so he will learn. The appropriate analogy is to have a bunch of children and then kill all but one for the benefit of the surviving one. This God is a monster.

For the Verses of Note post:

--God's Emotions--

Genesis 6:6 God has regret for creating man

"And the LORD was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart."

--Violence--

Genesis 6:7 God decides to kill everyone

"So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.""