Question on Genesis 1 (the passion, Jesus, worship, Matthew)
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Wrong.
God created the universe, including the earth, in the indefinite past as stated in Genesis 1:1“in the beginning." Science agrees that the universe had a beginning. Science suggests that the universe is about 14 billion years old. Thus a Christian could well believe the creation account in Genesis and when asked how old the universe is could refer to whatever best scientific models of our modern day suggest.
No that's not what Genesis 1:1 says. First there is no definite article in the phrase 'In beginning...' .
Second, the first act of creation is in verse 3 where God says '...let there be light...'. Verse one is a dependent clause. Verses one and two are stating that when God began to create the heavens and the earth, which takes place between verses 3-31, the conditions were thus: '...the earth was without form and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and Spirit of God was over the face of the waters.'
In other words it is teaching creatio ex materia not creatio ex nihilo. Which by the way is exactly what you would expect from a book that borrows and edits ANE mythologies.
I suppose one could say that the 'materia' were made and already existed and one could give a date of billions of years to agree with science. But why it would take so long is not clear since the evening and morning of the light without a sun (since I have explained why I think the 'cloud cover' explanation does not wash) was the first day and there is no reason to see it as anything other than a normal 24 hour day 9especially if one does believe the 'cloud -cover' explanation ) .
Thereafter, the acts of creation are over 6 days. Which makes one wonder why the prior assembling of materia took billions of years.
So more probably the chapter is describing
Cosmic material in a matter of hours; light
Light divided from dark. Morning and evening marking the 1st day.
Division of the waters into the ones on earth and the ones in the sky. evening and morning, 2nd day.
dry land, grass, herb, fruit trees. Morning and evening, 3rd day.
sun, moon and other heavenly bodies made and set in heaven to 'rule' the day and night. Morning and evening, 4th day.
Birds and sea -creatures. evening and morning, 5th day.
land creatures and man. 6th day.
This pretty clear one week job rather makes a billion years preliminary a bit pointless.
Chapter 2, sometimes cited as 'different' from chapter 1, doesn't concern me. In the day (and here, it does mean a longer time than one day ) that God made all the works of creation over 6 days, no rain fell but a mist went up that watered the ground. And God made man - on the 6th day.
That is not a problem for me. but the rest - ch. 1 - looks quite mythological and not in accordance with what science says.
07-19-2015, 02:28 PM
2K5Gx2km
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA
I suppose one could say that the 'materia' were made and already existed and one could give a date of billions of years to agree with science. But why it would take so long is not clear since the evening and morning of the light without a sun (since I have explained why I think the 'cloud cover' explanation does not wash) was the first day and there is no reason to see it as anything other than a normal 24 hour day 9especially if one does believe the 'cloud -cover' explanation ) .
Thereafter, the acts of creation are over 6 days. Which makes one wonder why the prior assembling of materia took billions of years.
So more probably the chapter is describing
Cosmic material in a matter of hours; light
Light divided from dark. Morning and evening marking the 1st day.
Division of the waters into the ones on earth and the ones in the sky. evening and morning, 2nd day.
dry land, grass, herb, fruit trees. Morning and evening, 3rd day.
sun, moon and other heavenly bodies made and set in heaven to 'rule' the day and night. Morning and evening, 4th day.
Birds and sea -creatures. evening and morning, 5th day.
land creatures and man. 6th day.
This pretty clear one week job rather makes a billion years preliminary a bit pointless.
Chapter 2, sometimes cited as 'different' from chapter 1, doesn't concern me. In the day (and here, it does mean a longer time than one day ) that God made all the works of creation over 6 days, no rain fell but a mist went up that watered the ground. And God made man - on the 6th day.
That is not a problem for me. but the rest - ch. 1 - looks quite mythological and not in accordance with what science says.
Yes, also the pattern of a literal six day creation is why the Hebrews adopted it for their calendar with a 7th day of rest. It's abundantly clear, despite all of the gymnastics, that the creation took place over six days (verses 3-31), each day being a 24 hour period. In the ANE the deep was a watery chaos that God then ordered.
God hovers over the deep and says let there be light and the light is good and God calls the light day and the darkness night. There was an evening and there was a morning - the first day.
The sun however, is not created until day 4. How can you have a daytime and nighttime without the sun?
Plus, it seems the Earth is created before the rest of the universe. It says on day 4 the sun, moon and stars are created.
When was the last time you saw the sun on a cloudy day? When was the last time you saw the moon and stars on a cold and stormy night? Get real.
There are four, count 'em four accounts of creation in the Bible.
Creation account #1 is Genesis 1:1 God created the heavens and the earth.
Creation account #2 begins with Genesis 1:2 and continues to Genesis 2:3.
Creation account #3 begins with Genesis 2:4 to the end of the chapter.
Creation account #4 is John 1:1
The Bible is not a geophysical record of planetary tectonic plate movement. It is not a work of astronomical observance. It is not a record of pre-historic plant and animal development and it isn't a cook book. It doesn't even talk about animal husbandry or dogs and cats.
The Bible IS a story of the fall and redemption of man.
THAT story begins six thousand years ago and is still running.
If the reader wants a book about geology, astronomy, the jurassic period or the fossil record he or she would be well advised to travel to their local library and consult one of many tomes on the subject in question. The Bible does not pretend to examine any of them. Anybody who says it does is either a liar or illiterate. The Bible is about God and His work to redeem man from man's fall from grace. That's all and that's it.
With regard to the Genesis record, chapter one and verse two states that at the beginning of the Biblical record the earth was a water world. Oceans were wide and deep and the sky was apparently a blanket of heavy clouds. This condition continued for quite some time as referenced by the appearance of the world following Noah's flood. A rainbow appeared to Noah and his family and the account is very specific that the sight was unique. A rainbow cannot be seen except in a partly cloudy sky. Nobody sees a rainbow in heavy overcast or absolutely clear sky.
At the risk of digressing too far from the Biblical question, many if not most cultures of the world suggest some sort of global cataclysm following which point the rise of human civilization began. This global disaster may or may not coincide with the Noah flood, but its usually there in the secular religious and cultural record. Some Biblical as well as geological scholars suggest the Noah flood was localized to the middle east. The explanation does not agree with other cultures on other continents that claim a global disaster happened. The difference in accounts might be explained by the suggestion of TWO global floods or disasters instead of one. If I've added to the reader's confusion on this point, I apologize. What I'm trying to say is that there is wider evidence for this than the Biblical account.
The genesis account continues with a partial clearing of the sky and the visibility, at least in part, of lights in the firmament (sky). Sun, moon and stars appear that weren't seen before. The account continues with a record of the appearance of land. Some scholars believe that this is a record of the first global flooding - the Noah flood being the second. Be that as it may, the Genesis account reads like receding water from the sky and land. Read it again for the first time.
Either way, the Bible is quite clear that the earth was created at an earlier time. Somebody left the water running and God had to clean up the mess.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
Last edited by Choir Loft; 07-19-2015 at 03:10 PM..
The question really posed in the OP is, by implication, if you can't trust the Bible of factual matters, can we trust it on 'spiritual' matters? And yes. Cloud would make it impossible to see where the light was coming from. But Genesis does not say the sun was revealed on the fourth day but was made on the fourth day. It is the old business of rewriting the Bible to make it look believable.
We can see that the order of animal and veg. creation is wrong, so why can't the account of when the celestial bodies were made and 'set in the firmament' be wrong too? If it is accepted that it looks like a mythological guesswork effort at a creation story, then you can thake the rest as you like. But I can't sit and see it claimed as being a factual record.
No that's not what Genesis 1:1 says. First there is no definite article in the phrase 'In beginning...' .
Second, the first act of creation is in verse 3 where God says '...let there be light...'. Verse one is a dependent clause. Verses one and two are stating that when God began to create the heavens and the earth, which takes place between verses 3-31, the conditions were thus: '...the earth was without form and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and Spirit of God was over the face of the waters.'
In other words it is teaching creatio ex materia not creatio ex nihilo. Which by the way is exactly what you would expect from a book that borrows and edits ANE mythologies.
Some semitists have retranslated Genesis 1:1 that is true. Is it the definitive agreed upon translation? No.
As far as "it is teaching creatio ex material not creatio ex nihilo" even if one accepts such a retranslation it still leaves the question who created matter and what was God's role in it.
Trying to fit the Bible with ANE mythologies may be the motivation by some to retranslate what has been considered acceptable translation.
The Genesis account of creation is in stark contrast to that found in ANE mythologies. Genesis does not contain the Mesopotamian view that the cosmos was formed from the carcass of some murdered primordial divine being or the Egyptian view that a divine being was self begotten and proceeded to create the rest by ejaculation or gives names to astral entities such as Shamash. It's these details that are overlooked Why is that?
And yes. Cloud would make it impossible to see where
the light was coming from.
Good you learned something.
Quote:
But Genesis does not say the sun was revealed on the fourth day but was made on the fourth day. It is the old business of rewriting the Bible to
make it look believable
The ancient Hebrew words for "made" and "create" have different meanings. Do some research and you'll learn even more.
Can't say the same for you. The argument in that that cloud could not obscure the sun, but there is nothing in Genesis - nor, despite your best efforts, in Job - to suggest that it did. That is a pure invention to try to get over the account of the celestial bodies including sun and moon being made or created after the light was marking morning and evening.
Quote:
The ancient Hebrew words for "made" and "create" have different meanings. Do some research and you'll learn even more.
Your translation -shopping is getting you nothing. Reading the direct translation from the Hebrew does not make the appearance of the celestial bodies look like their being revealed by removing cloud -cover but putting them in the heavens. And you don't put something in the heavens if they are already there.
And I repeat that the appearance of grass and birds before land creatures is also wrong, unless you are going to try to fiddle the Hebrew to mean that the land creatures were already there but God removed the trees so that the writer he was revealing all this to could see them. Your wriggling is just making you increasingly look as though your faith in the truth of Genesis has crippled your ability to learn.
07-21-2015, 05:24 PM
2K5Gx2km
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hd4me said
Quote:
Some semitists have retranslated Genesis 1:1 that is true. Is it the definitive agreed upon translation? No.
It's the best given what we know about the context and language.
Quote:
As far as "it is teaching creatio ex material not creatio ex nihilo" even if one accepts such a retranslation it still leaves the question who created matter and what was God's role in it.
Not really, no more than it still leaves the question of who created God. Matter/energy is just a easily proposed to be eternal.
Quote:
Trying to fit the Bible with ANE mythologies may be the motivation by some to retranslate what has been considered acceptable translation.
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.
Quote:
The Genesis account of creation is in stark contrast to that found in ANE mythologies. Genesis does not contain the Mesopotamian view that the cosmos was formed from the carcass of some murdered primordial divine being or the Egyptian view that a divine being was self begotten and proceeded to create the rest by ejaculation or gives names to astral entities such as Shamash. It's these details that are overlooked Why is that?
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.
No that's not what Genesis 1:1 says. First there is no definite article in the phrase 'In beginning...' .
Second, the first act of creation is in verse 3 where God says '...let there be light...'. Verse one is a dependent clause. Verses one and two are stating that when God began to create the heavens and the earth, which takes place between verses 3-31, the conditions were thus: '...the earth was without form and empty and darkness was on the face of the deep and Spirit of God was over the face of the waters.'
In other words it is teaching creatio ex materia not creatio ex nihilo. Which by the way is exactly what you would expect from a book that borrows and edits ANE mythologies.
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
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) .
) that God made all the works of creation over 6 days, no rain fell but a mist went up that watered the ground. And God made man - on the 6th day. 
