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The atheist opinion is as you state, "In other words it is teaching creation ex material not creation ex nihilo."
On the other hand the academic whose research proposes the retranslation of Genesis 1:1 as above states, "One can accept our analysis and still easily hold to a creation ex nihilo position...."-R. Holmstedt
Of course, but not based upon Genesis 1:1. You can believe whatever you want! And by the way it is not an atheist position. Some Christian scholars hold to that translation as well as Jewish.
Excuse me, that's not the motivation. It's based upon the recent discoveries of DSS, Ugaritic writings, and ANE cultural and historical understanding. You act as if the interpretations that were present prior to this are more valid when in fact they are not. The scholarship on these issues is undoing the biased facade put in place by religious zealots who had a lot to protect and as such edited the writings/stories not only of the ANE but their own as is clearly seen in the differences between DSS, LXX, and MT.
Yes, because they took the stories and edited them. It is clear that words, phrases, themes, motifs, etc. were borrowed and modified and modified further throughout Israelite history. Their foundation and origin is in the ANE conceptions not in some God.
The thought that the Bible has its foundations on ANE is NOT new
Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 20th century a school of thought called Panbabylonianism came into existence. P. Jensen, H. Winckler, Delitzsch, H Zimmen et al argued that all world myths were reflection of Babylonian religion, that the passion of Christ was a repetition of Bel Marduk of Babylon, that Israelite history was just a repetition of the Gilgamesh story, that the story of Jesus of Nazareth was a retelling of Gilgamesh. Sound familiar? It should because some keep repeating the same old tired hypothesis. Panbabylonianism faded as a serious academic pursuit because it became apparent that the adherents were indiscriminate in their hypothesis and extreme in their views without much support. However the framework started by Panbabylonianism is still used in modern times to continue this quest of proving the foundations of the Bible are on ANE. For example, Ugaritic texts can help understand the cultural, historic, and religious environment of Bible writers and of the Hebrew nation. However, some go further, just as those early scholars of Panbabylonianism, and hold the extreme view that the Bible is based on ANE. One should take note of the following: “The reason for this similarity of form and content is cultural: notwithstanding the significant geographical and temporal differences between Ugarit and Israel, they were part of a larger cultural entity that shared a common poetic and religious vocabulary.”-The Encyclopedia of Religion. The unearthing of Ugaritic texts also provides a great deal of information about Urgaritic religion ( and by extension Canaanite religion) and the deep contrast to the religion of followers of YHWH.
The work being done on Canaanite records, culture and religion is showing a lot on interesting light in Hebrew origins. Just as the cuneiform records showed interesting light on the Bible.
All this is involving a lot of discussion, disagreement and error. The Bible can be overrelated to Babylonian myth, but that does not validate your attempt to dismiss all such suggestion. It can hardly be denied that the Flood story and the Mesopotamian one are related. The creation story is harder to relate to the Babylonian myth, though the snowdome cosmos is surely based on the ancient view (in Egypt as well as Mesopotamia) that the earth was flat with a sky -dome over it.
However, while that is interesting background to the Genesis 1 story, it does not make any difference to the argument that Genesis 1 is wrong. It is cosmology, geology and palaeontology that says the Genesis account is wrong.
I repeat that trying to rewrite what it says to make it fit those finding is better that rejecting the findings and insisting that ot is literally correct, but the 'cloud -cover' argument has some serious flaws, and the order of appearance of flora and fauna is obviously wrong, so there is prima facie reason to say that the making of the sun days after day and night had appeared is also wrong.
07-22-2015, 07:28 PM
2K5Gx2km
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by hd4me
The thought that the Bible has its foundations on ANE is NOT new
Beginning in the late 19th century and continuing into the 20th century a school of thought called Panbabylonianism came into existence. P. Jensen, H. Winckler, Delitzsch, H Zimmen et al argued that all world myths were reflection of Babylonian religion, that the passion of Christ was a repetition of Bel Marduk of Babylon, that Israelite history was just a repetition of the Gilgamesh story, that the story of Jesus of Nazareth was a retelling of Gilgamesh. Sound familiar? It should because some keep repeating the same old tired hypothesis. Panbabylonianism faded as a serious academic pursuit because it became apparent that the adherents were indiscriminate in their hypothesis and extreme in their views without much support. However the framework started by Panbabylonianism is still used in modern times to continue this quest of proving the foundations of the Bible are on ANE. For example, Ugaritic texts can help understand the cultural, historic, and religious environment of Bible writers and of the Hebrew nation. However, some go further, just as those early scholars of Panbabylonianism, and hold the extreme view that the Bible is based on ANE. One should take note of the following: “The reason for this similarity of form and content is cultural: notwithstanding the significant geographical and temporal differences between Ugarit and Israel, they were part of a larger cultural entity that shared a common poetic and religious vocabulary.”-The Encyclopedia of Religion. The unearthing of Ugaritic texts also provides a great deal of information about Urgaritic religion ( and by extension Canaanite religion) and the deep contrast to the religion of followers of YHWH.
It's not just cultural similarities, but the stories that were borrowed, adapted, and then edited further just as AREQUIPA pointed out. Genesis 1:1-2 for instance has obvious similarities to the Marduk story, but demythologized. You have Marduk blowing (Spirit/wind) in the face of Tiamat, the watery chaos (the cognate being tehom - the watery deep that the wind of Elohim is hovering over) until she is split in two and from the two halves heaven and earth are created. Both start out with a pre-existing chaotic watery mass from which heaven and earth are created all the while using similar terms and phrases. It's easy to see how an Israelite many years later adopted these concepts of creation but without the mythology or the personification of nature as gods leaving the sole deity that they followed to be worshiped while at the same time repudiating the other gods. And it is this similarity that relates to the translation that later believers give to distance themselves from the obvious similarity with creatio ex materia and all the above points mentioned. They tried to say that Genesis 1:1 is the first creative act, as you did, and imply a creatio ex nihilo. So the scholars are not 'reinterpreting' anything they are getting back to what it actually says by undoing all the bias that believers have injected into this passage precisely to separate it from its clear association to the ANE material.
You would think if the true God was going to reveal the truth about his creative acts it would not be an adaptation and borrowing of this story with similar themes. It obvious as to the similarities and cultural context where Genesis 1:1-3 is deriving its general ideas and concepts.
It's not just cultural similarities, but the stories that were borrowed, adapted, and then edited further just as AREQUIPA pointed out. Genesis 1:1-2 for instance has obvious similarities to the Marduk story, but demythologized. You have Marduk blowing (Spirit/wind) in the face of Tiamat, the watery chaos (the cognate being tehom - the watery deep that the wind of Elohim is hovering over) until she is split in two and from the two halves heaven and earth are created. Both start out with a pre-existing chaotic watery mass from which heaven and earth are created all the while using similar terms and phrases. It's easy to see how an Israelite many years later adopted these concepts of creation but without the mythology or the personification of nature as gods leaving the sole deity that they followed to be worshiped while at the same time repudiating the other gods. And it is this similarity that relates to the translation that later believers give to distance themselves from the obvious similarity with creatio ex materia and all the above points mentioned. They tried to say that Genesis 1:1 is the first creative act, as you did, and imply a creatio ex nihilo. So the scholars are not 'reinterpreting' anything they are getting back to what it actually says by undoing all the bias that believers have injected into this passage precisely to separate it from its clear association to the ANE material.
You would think if the true God was going to reveal the truth about his creative acts it would not be an adaptation and borrowing of this story with similar themes. It obvious as to the similarities and cultural context where Genesis 1:1-3 is deriving its general ideas and concepts.
Does it matter if other cultures have similarities ? Many have Flood legends similar to Noah's deluge.
Noah could have easily carried on the Ark historical accounts - Genesis 5:1 mentions the ' book of generations '.
So, Moses could have used accounts that Noah had carried on the Ark.
According to Scripture we all trace back to one of Noah's three sons, then through Noah going back to father Adam.
So, should it surprise anyone that there are similarities in cultural accounts ?
So, you are going to get a Gentile's definition of YOM instead of what a Jew will tell you what YOM means and how it is used?...
This is not meant to be mean-spirited, my intention is only the credibility of the source I cited.
The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon was originally published in 1906, though it was written over a period of twenty years. That time, the late 19th and early 20th centuries, was also the time period in which Modern Hebrew began to be spoken as a vernacular language again after 1600-1800 years. It was made an official language of British-ruled Palestine in 1922. Before this modern revival, Hebrew was either spoken or studied in forms that had incorporated other Western languages.
Francis Brown, Samuel Rolles Driver, and Charles Augustus Briggs were contemporaries of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, who started the Hebrew language revival. All of them had the same materials to work with in order to uncover the original Hebrew language and separate it from the medieval Hebrew dialects that cropped up around Europe. Though even today bits of other languages make their way into the Hebrew vernacular, as happens in any spoken language.
So yes, in answer to your question. I am willing to take the Gentile scholars' definition of YOM because it is just as reliable as a definition given by a speaker of Modern Hebrew.
I especially trust the definition of YOM in Genesis 1 as being a "24 hour period, as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1" because Genesis 1 verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23, and 31 state that evening+morning=one day. Unless the definition of "evening" or "morning" is in question, which I have never heard.
It's just....frustrating, when Bible-believing people don't think God is capable of creating ex-nihlo, or that He couldn't do so in six days, or that they have to fit ever-changing scientific theories in there. Ya know, I saw this picture that I though captured evolution/spontaneous order of the universe perfectly. It was a picture of three stacks of perfectly folded laundry within a dryer, with the caption "according to evolution, this will eventually happen." Life and the universe and everything in it is just so intricate, who but God could've made it? Everything relies on everything else for survival. If the earth were just so far off, or gravity just a fraction more or less, life would cease to exist. Portions of our bodies don't work without other parts, so how could they have come about separately? This isn't X-Men. Mutation driven macro-evolution would take minute changes....
I'm getting off subject.
Sorry.
Ugh.
I'm not even answering the original question anymore.
I'm just gonna....submit this now.....
*sigh* sorry
I/d and I/C and the whole Order and "Chance" argument is a whole other thread. But let me assure you that those arguments have all been debunked, discredited and shown to be false. You need to take my assurance of course. The information is easy to Google.
Of course there could be a god and of course it could be controlling everything and of course it could have all been made by this god - or gods - or aliens using a computer. In 6 days, six minutes or six billion years.
The point, regarding your post, is that there is no really good reason to suppose this is so or even necessary. And the point regarding the thread topic is that, however it happened, it wasn't - if evidence counts for anything - as described in Genesis.
08-05-2015, 03:40 PM
2K5Gx2km
n/a posts
Quote:
Originally Posted by Matthew 4:4
So, should it surprise anyone that there are similarities in cultural accounts ?
Yeah, it should! One of the main themes in Israelite culture and religious practice and commands of YHWH is to be separate from the surrounding nations - sometimes even what they were to eat. Yet this revelation from the one true and all-knowing God has to use the themes and motifs of those other nations to explain the truth. What is so unique about Genesis 1:1-3 other than the demythologizing of those same stories? It is just An Israelite spin on the same story elevating YHWH and marginalizing the other gods to non existence. They even use similar phrasology. There was no revelation, that was unique, in regard to the cosmos and its creation. It started out as a watery chaos that was then ordered by a god using his breath/wind/spirit to create heaven and earth.
The easy answer would be to say back in Moses' day, the earth was the center of the universe.
But let's get spiritual; "time" did not become an issue until the fall of man - God lives outside of time, and so was the earth until the knowledge of good and evil entered.
We see another cart-before-the-horse moment when the sun and moon stood still in Joshua 10 - wouldn't the earth need to stop spinning for the sun to be "still"? Nope, nothing's impossible with God.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Vizio
Revelation says that there will be no need for a sun in the New Heaven and Earth because God will be the light. So...why would it be needed in Genesis 1?
I read through all the replies and I have to say, I've come to the same conclusions as these. It is indeed the cart-before-the-horse moment. God lives outside of time. Plus Vizio, I agree, God was the light, the earth rotated, just not around the sun.
As far as the order of creation according to genesis, it does seem to go with what basically science says...first the earth, then water, vegetation, sea life, air life, creatures on land, and man being created last.
I read through all the replies and I have to say, I've come to the same conclusions as these. It is indeed the cart-before-the-horse moment. God lives outside of time. Plus Vizio, I agree, God was the light, the earth rotated, just not around the sun.
As far as the order of creation according to genesis, it does seem to go with what basically science says...first the earth, then water, vegetation, sea life, air life, creatures on land, and man being created last.
anyone else want to take this? Just on the idea that vegetation appeared before sea life, for starters.
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anyone else want to take this? Just on the idea that vegetation appeared before sea life, for starters.
