Why is incarnation important to Christians?

Answer 1

Prior to the Babylonian Exile, Judaism did not consider creation very important at all. Let me explain. There are two creation stories in Genesis: (1) verses 1:1 to 2:4a; (2) 2:4b to 2:22. The first of these (1:1-2:4a) is recognised by scholars as the work of the Priestly (P) source, based on a Mesopotamian mythe encountered by the Jews in Babylon. So, the creation account that has the world created in six days, which every Christian learns as a child, did not even exist prior to the sixth century BCE. The second account (2:4b-2:22) predated the other in Judaism but was never considered important, except for the creation of Adam, later Eve. A summary follows, in order to show that there really are two creation accounts in Genesis:: In Genesis 1:1 to 2:4a ( up to first sentence of 2:4) there was a pre-existing watery chaos. The ocean was already present and a wind moved across the surface. The seas rested on the dry land, which appeared on day 3 when God gathered the waters together. The order of creation was as follows: (Day 1) light (day); (2) the firmament, which was believed to separate the waters of the heavens from the lower waters; (3) By gathering the lower waters in one place the land appeared. Grasses and trees;
(4) sun; moon and stars - the lights in the firmament;
(5) fish, land creatures and fowl;
(6) man, both male and female.

Notice that the light of day was not yet understood to have originated from the sun, although the sun was universally understood to rule the day. That is why it was possible to have grass and trees before the sun was created.

Genesis 2:4b to 2:15 says that there was pre-existing dry land, but God had yet to make it rain for plants to grow. A spring arose and God took some moist clay and made Adam. After Adam, he made the creatures of earth, one by one, then finally Eve.

The biblical books written before the Exile rarely mentioned the creation at all. It is only after the Jews came into close contact with other cultures that they began to see Creation as important. Thereafter, Creation was more frequently mentioned in The Bible.

Answer 2

God's are supposed to be Absolute, if a God stated that Life was Created, as opposed to life Evolving, and Science could demonstrate with a 99.9% probability factor that life Evolved rather then Life was Created, then the Scriptures would be by necessity of Fact, not Absolute as to Truth, and Fact. If a God is Absolute, The Deity could Absolutely not make a mistake, as mistakes are Dependent upon error, and error is dependent upon ignorance, carelessness, Etc. This is just one possibility with regards to your Question. However most Christians would argue, that Faith requires no Proof. So who really could answer such a Question, and who actually speaks for all to begin or end with. People have the liberty to Believe what ever they choose, so long as that Belief does not cause injury to another, this is just Common Sense, Common Law, Period.

Answer 3

Creation is only a problem for some Christians. For those who believe in evolution, it becomes necessary to no longer take the words of Genesis 1 in their most obvious sense in order to fit long ages into the account. The problem is where the line between literal and figurative is drawn and this subsequently applies to the entire Bible. Another problem is the need to explain how suffering and death existed prior to the Fall.

Answer 4

It is important that Jesus was God incarnate for the following reasons:

1. He claimed to be. We cannot follow a liar or a lunatic.

2. He could not be perfect if he was not God, he could not atone for our sins if he was not perfect.

3. If Jesus was not God then his death would not have had anything to do with God and would not have been an act of His love.

4. The prophecies of his divinity would be false.

5. We would be wrong to worship him if he was a man.

Answer 5

Many Christians choose to read the Genesis creation stories 'literally', although in fact few really understand exactly what the stories say. It takes a certain degree of mental gymnastics to read the two, quite different and conflicting creation stories, one in Genesis 1:1-2:4a and the other in 2:4b onwards, believing that they represent one and the same creation story.
They believe that 'Adam' was one individual person, although in Hebrew, Adam simply means 'man'. Not only need there have been no biblical character called Adam, but the stories of Adam are discontinuous and could originally have been intended to refer to different 'men'. Many Christians have no problem believing that Adam and Eve were created fully formed as adults, with the power and understanding of speech, but have a problem accepting the scientific evidence that points to an entirely different origin for humans.
Many Christians also believe that the New Testament was inspired by God and is inerrant. However, we see Luke giving the genealogy of Joseph all the way back to Adam, Paul speaking of Adam (Romans and 1 Corinthians), as well as Adam being mentioned in 1 Timothy and Jude. If there was no Adam, it is no longer possible to regard the New Testament as either divinely inspired or inerrant.
For more information on the story of creation, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 6

The notion that God created the world as described in the Book of Genesis is fundamental to belief that God exists and that the Bible is literally true.

Theologians have long argued that the very proof of God's existence is the world around us. If God did not create the world, one of the pillars of belief has been removed.

If God created the world, but in a different way than described in the Bible, then an important story in the Bible is not literally true and who knows what other stories in the Bible are not true either. It is the thin end of the wedge to accept that the Genesis account of creation is not how the world really originated, and this will only lead to doubts and loss of faith.

Since there are actually two, quite different, creation stories in Genesis (Genesis 1:1-2:4a and 2:4b-25), it is also necessary to believe both stories as if there were no contradiction. Leon R. Kass (The Beginning of Wisdom: Reading Genesis) says that the second creation story departs from the first not only in content but also in tone, mood and orientation, yet pious readers, believing that the text cannot contain contradictions, ignore the major disjunctions between the two creation stories and tend to treat the second story as the fuller, more detailed account of the creation of man (and woman) that the first story simply reported. He goes on to say that to understand Genesis we must scrupulously avoid reading into the second story any facts or notions taken from the first, and vice versa.

For more information, please visit: http://christianity.answers.com/theology/the-story-of-creation

Answer 7

The account of Creation, which is contained in Genesis ch.1 and 2, teaches Jews and Christians that God exists, that our lives and the world are meaningful, and that the created things may be assumed to contain vast wisdom in their beautiful and purposeful design. (In recent decades, this wisdom has indeed been partially revealed, through increasingly powerful microscopes.) Evolution through random mutations, on the other hand, may be understood as implying that life is an accident, that perceived beauty and wisdom are ultimately purposeless, and that our instinctive yearning for the Eternal is just an electrical impulse in our brain.

Abraham, who founded our monotheism, stood all alone in his belief in God (Midrash Rabbah 42:8), but his tradition has survived, persisted and spread. The Torah and its beliefs have never changed. Evolutionists, on the other hand, must shore up their theory as problems keep surfacing:

http://religion.answers.com/controversy/is-there-evidence-against-evolution

http://judaism.answers.com/jewish-philosophy/can-you-prove-that-god-exists

http://www.allaboutscience.org/intelligent-design.htm

http://life.nationalpost.com/2013/03/23/what-has-gotten-into-thomas-nagel-leading-atheist-branded-a-heretic-for-daring-to-question-darwinism/