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I think the unfolding of the formation of the earth in billions of years is far more wondrous and awe-inspiring than the six-day God-just-snaps-his-fingers-and-it's-THERE approach. Humanity likes the idea of a Merlin the Magician making things appear in an instant.
I think the issue is more 'did' God create in a certain way, rather than 'could' He have. You simply cannot ignore (or shouldn't) what science has shown to be true. We know for instance that the earth didn't exist before the sun and the stars which according to the creation story were made on the fourth creation day.
We also know that the sky (the firmament) is not a hard dome covering a flat earth. But that's what the Bible says, and it's what the ancient Hebrews believed. In the Jewish apocalypse 3rd Baruch the men who built the towel of Babel wanted to see what the sky was made of.
3 Baruch
3. . .And they took a gimlet, and sought to pierce the heaven, saying, Let us see (whether) the heaven is made of clay, or of 8 brass, or of iron. When God saw this He did not permit them, but smote them with blindness and confusion of speech, and rendered them as thou seest. [Bolding mine]
Now you may point out that 3 Baruch is not canonical. And it's not. But it reflects an ancient view of the sky as a hard dome covering the earth. And that belief found its way into the Bible.
Job 37:18 "Can you, with Him, spread out the skies, Strong (or hard) as a molten mirror?
When the Jewish historian Josephus wrote his interpretation of the Genesis creation story here's what he wrote.
After this, on the second day, he placed the heaven over the whole world, and separated it from the other parts; and he determined it should stand by itself. He also placed a crystalline [firmament] round it, and put together in a manner agreeable to the earth, and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, and for affording the advantage of dews. [Bolding mine]
Antiquities of the Jews, book I, chapter 1, section 1
The fact of the matter is that the Bible reflects the errant cosmological views of the ancient Hebrews, and God was okay with it. It didn't matter to Him. It wasn't important in communicating to the Biblical writers what was important.
To support the biblical statement, that the process of the division of the waters above from the waters below, [See Genesis 1: 6; KJV] or the division of the solar nebula cloud from the greater Galactic nebula cloud, began some five billion years ago, and that the whole process began with the division of the waters (cloud) above, from the waters (Cloud) below from which the entire Solar system was created. This took just a few hundred million years, about 400 million years in fact, and the creation of our entire solar system was completed by about 4.6 billion years ago.
It was from the galactic nebular cloud, which was the residue of the heaver elements that were exploded off with the great super nova, which was the death of one of those gigantic earlier generation Stars that our Milky-Way galaxy would be formed in the second creative period=day, as the active universal forces brought about a division of the Solar nebular cloud [The Waters Below] from the Galactic nebular cloud [The Waters Above].
The accretion of the galactic nebula disk, which was being attracted to the central Black Hole around which it had begun to orbit, and by which the Milky Way is anchored in space, transferred angular momentum outward as it transferred mass inward, it was this that caused our solar nebula to begin to rotate and condense inward, bringing a division of the solar cloud, from the galactic cloud, or the waters above from the waters below.
According to the Genesis narrative, it is on the second day that the Lord calls for a "firmament" to be in the "midst of the waters" to divide the waters:
"And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under (or within) the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." (Genesis 1:6-8 KJV)
The term "firmament" according to the Creation account, is taken from the Hebrew: רָקִיעַ raqiya` raw-kee'-ah, which is defined by many scholars as an expanse, or the visible arch of the sky:—firmament, but a primitive root; “רָקַע raqa` raw-kah” means, to pound, hammer, to overlay (with thin sheets of metal):—beat, make broad, spread abroad (forth, over, out, into plates), stamp, stretch.
The creation of the firmament is associated with the placement of some sort of structure, and in some modern Bibles many modern scholars translate the Hebrew word raqia as a "dome" or "vault". The Hebrew language appears to imply that the firmament is a firm, fixed structure (FIRMament, which can now be seen as the spherical cloud of comets (Icy vault) in which our solar system was created from the solar nebula cloud that was divided from the greater galactic nebula cloud.
"And God said, “Let there be lights within the firmament or vault to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."
(Genesis 1:14-16 KJV) This verse says that the Sun, Moon, and Stars=planets of our solar system, are "within" the firmament. Therefore, the waters that are "above the firmament=dome/vault" must be above the Sun, Moon and Stars=planets of our solar system, revealing that the waters which are referred to in Psalms 148:4; "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens," belong to the greater galactic nebula cloud which has become our Milky Way Galaxy.
The Oort cloud, or the Opik-Oort cloud, which is named after Jan Oort, is a spherical cloud that surrounds our solar system, a cloud of predominantly icy objects such as comets that are comprised of mainly hydrogen, oxygen=water, ammonia and methane, and extends up to about a light year from the sun and defines the cosmographical boundary of our Solar System and the region of the suns gravitational dominance. Here is the Firmament, the great spherical vault within which is found the sun, moons and planets of our solar system, the dome of ice above us.
Knowing that the planets of our solar system were already created before the sun came into existence when the hydrogen nuclei within the condensing solar cloud started fusing together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy thereby creating our sun, we must now ask the question, “Did life on earth begin to evolve before the creation of the sun?” As is recorded in the Bible. And can life exist without sunlight? Proof of this is to be found in the darkest depths of our oceans, where life has evolved over six miles beneath the surface where sunlight does not and cannot penetrate. This subject will be discussed at a later stage.
For the Word of God can be likened to a star that’s being ever brightened
By the mind of man reaching ever higher, but those who deviate they’re liars
In God’s words man’s mind can grow, but those outside are like the snow
That settles on the desert sand and will melt away before “I AM.”...…..The Anointed.
Extract from a book that I am in the process of writing.
If the day in which our solar system was created, is a period of some 400 million years, surely you are not so naïve as to think a universal creative day, is only 24 earth hours?
Last edited by The Anointed; 01-28-2020 at 05:36 PM..
To support the biblical statement, that the process of the division of the waters above from the waters below, [See Genesis 1: 6; KJV] or the division of the solar nebula cloud from the greater Galactic nebula cloud, began some five billion years ago, and that the whole process began with the division of the waters (cloud) above, from the waters (Cloud) below from which the entire Solar system was created. This took just a few hundred million years, about 400 million years in fact, and the creation of our entire solar system was completed by about 4.6 billion years ago.
It was from the galactic nebular cloud, which was the residue of the heaver elements that were exploded off with the great super nova, which was the death of one of those gigantic earlier generation Stars that our Milky-Way galaxy would be formed in the second creative period=day, as the active universal forces brought about a division of the Solar nebular cloud [The Waters Below] from the Galactic nebular cloud [The Waters Above].
The accretion of the galactic nebula disk, which was being attracted to the central Black Hole around which it had begun to orbit, and by which the Milky Way is anchored in space, transferred angular momentum outward as it transferred mass inward, it was this that caused our solar nebula to begin to rotate and condense inward, bringing a division of the solar cloud, from the galactic cloud, or the waters above from the waters below.
According to the Genesis narrative, it is on the second day that the Lord calls for a "firmament" to be in the "midst of the waters" to divide the waters:
"And God said, let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under (or within) the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day." (Genesis 1:6-8 KJV)
The term "firmament" according to the Creation account, is taken from the Hebrew: רָקִיעַ raqiya` raw-kee'-ah, which is defined by many scholars as an expanse, or the visible arch of the sky:—firmament, but a primitive root; “רָקַע raqa` raw-kah” means, to pound, hammer, to overlay (with thin sheets of metal):—beat, make broad, spread abroad (forth, over, out, into plates), stamp, stretch.
The creation of the firmament is associated with the placement of some sort of structure, and in some modern Bibles many modern scholars translate the Hebrew word raqia as a "dome" or "vault". The Hebrew language appears to imply that the firmament is a firm, fixed structure (FIRMament, which can now be seen as the spherical cloud of comets (Icy vault) in which our solar system was created from the solar nebula cloud that was divided from the greater galactic nebula cloud.
"And God said, “Let there be lights within the firmament or vault to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also."
(Genesis 1:14-16 KJV) This verse says that the Sun, Moon, and Stars=planets of our solar system, are "within" the firmament. Therefore, the waters that are "above the firmament=dome/vault" must be above the Sun, Moon and Stars=planets of our solar system, revealing that the waters which are referred to in Psalms 148:4; "Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that [be] above the heavens," belong to the greater galactic nebula cloud which has become our Milky Way Galaxy.
The Oort cloud, or the Opik-Oort cloud, which is named after Jan Oort, is a spherical cloud that surrounds our solar system, a cloud of predominantly icy objects such as comets that are comprised of mainly hydrogen, oxygen=water, ammonia and methane, and extends up to about a light year from the sun and defines the cosmographical boundary of our Solar System and the region of the suns gravitational dominance. Here is the Firmament, the great spherical vault within which is found the sun, moons and planets of our solar system, the dome of ice above us.
Knowing that the planets of our solar system were already created before the sun came into existence when the hydrogen nuclei within the condensing solar cloud started fusing together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy thereby creating our sun, we must now ask the question, “Did life on earth begin to evolve before the creation of the sun?” As is recorded in the Bible. And can life exist without sunlight? Proof of this is to be found in the darkest depths of our oceans, where life has evolved over six miles beneath the surface where sunlight does not and cannot penetrate. This subject will be discussed at a later stage.
For the Word of God can be likened to a star that’s being ever brightened
By the mind of man reaching ever higher, but those who deviate they’re liars
In God’s words man’s mind can grow, but those outside are like the snow
That settles on the desert sand and will melt away before “I AM.”...…..The Anointed.
Extract from a book that I am in the process of writing.
That is one book you couldn't pay me to read. Stop pretending that you know anything about how our solar system was formed. You don't. And neither did the biblical writers.
That is one book you couldn't pay me to read. Stop pretending that you know anything about how our solar system was formed. You don't. And neither did the biblical writers.
God knows - doesn't he?
Didn't the Holy Spirit move the writers to write what they wrote?
Hebrews 11:3 - By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
That is one book you couldn't pay me to read. Stop pretending that you know anything about how our solar system was formed. You don't. And neither did the biblical writers.
But what about today's scientists, do you reject them also?
This is one scientific theory as to the creation of our solar system some 9 billion years after the creation of those first massive stars that lit up the darkness of the expanding space.
Whether or not a better theory than that which we have today will develop, time will tell.
This theory would appear to support the biblical statement, that the process of the division of the waters above from the waters below, [See Genesis 1: 6; KJV] or the division of the solar nebula cloud from the greater Galactic nebula cloud, began some five billion years ago, and that the whole process began with the division of the waters (cloud) above, from the waters (Cloud) below from which the entire Solar system was created. This took just a few hundred million years, about 400 million years in fact, and the creation of our entire solar system was completed by about 4.6 billion years ago.
It was from the galactic nebular cloud, which was the residue of the heaver elements that were exploded off with the great super nova, which was the death of one of those gigantic earlier generation Stars that our Milky-Way galaxy would be formed in the second creative period=day, as the active universal forces brought about a division of the Solar nebular cloud [The Waters Below] from the Galactic nebular cloud [The Waters Above].
The accretion of the galactic nebula disk, which was being attracted to the central Black Hole around which it had begun to orbit, transferred angular momentum outward as it transferred mass inward, it was this that caused our solar nebula to begin to rotate and condense inward, bringing a division of the solar cloud, from the galactic cloud, or the waters above from the waters below.
Within the greater galactic nebular cloud, which was slowly beginning to revolve around the Black Hole that anchored it in space, a piece of the larger cloud complex started to collapse about five billion years ago. The cloud complex had already been "polluted" with dust grains from previous generations of stars, so it was possible to form the rocky terrestrial planets as gravity pulled the gas and dust together, forming a solar nebula. As the cloud=waters of the solar nebula collapsed, its slight rotation increased. This is because of the conservation of angular momentum.
Just like a dancer who spins faster as she pulls in her arms, the cloud began to spin as it collapsed. Eventually, the cloud grew hotter and denser in the centre, with a disk of gas and dust surrounding it that was hot in the centre but cool at the edges. As the disk got thinner and thinner, particles began to stick together and form clumps. Some clumps got bigger, as particles and small clumps stuck to them, eventually forming planets or moons. Genesis 1: 6—9. As the heavenly cloud was gathered together in one place, dry land, or rather planets began to form. Near the centre of the condensing cloud, where planets like earth formed, only rocky material could stand the great heat. Icy matter settled in the outer regions of the disk along with rocky material, where the giant planets like Jupiter formed.
As the cloud continued to fall in, the centre would get so hot that it would eventually become a star and with a strong stellar wind, would blow away most of the gas and dust from which the planets of the solar system had been formed.
By studying meteorites, which are thought to be left over from this early phase of the solar system, scientists have found that the solar system is about 4.6 billion years old! As the solar nebula collapsed, the gas and dust heated up through collisions among the particles. The solar nebula heated up to around 3000 K so everything was in a gaseous form. The solar nebula's composition was similar to the present-day Sun's composition: about 93% hydrogen, 6% helium, and about 1% silicates and iron, and the density of the gas and dust increased toward the core where the proto-sun was: [PROTO SUN.]. The inner, denser regions collapsed more quickly than the outer regions.
PROTO-HUMANS WERE NOT HUMANS AND THE PROTO-SUN, WAS NOT YET OUR SUN.
Around Jupiter's distance from the proto-Sun the temperature was cool enough to freeze water (the so-called "snow line" or "frost line"). Further out from the proto-Sun, ammonia and methane were able to condense. There was a significant amount of water closer to the Proto-sun, but could not condense. When the solar nebula stopped collapsing it began cooling, though the core that would later form the Sun remained hot.
This meant that the outer parts of the solar nebula cooled off more than the inner parts closer to the hot proto-Sun. Only metal and rock materials could condense (solidify) at the high temperatures close to the proto-Sun. Therefore, the metal and rock materials could condense in all the places where the planets were forming. Volatile materials (like water, methane and ammonia) could only condense in the outer parts of the solar nebula.
Because the density of the solar nebula material increased inward, there was more water at Jupiter's distance than at the distances of Saturn, Uranus, or Neptune. The greater amount of water ice at Jupiter's distance from the proto-Sun helped it grow larger than the other planets. Although, there was more water closer to the proto-Sun than Jupiter, that water was too warm to condense. Material with the highest freezing temperatures condensed to form the chondrules that were then incorporated in lower freezing temperature material. Chondrules (from Ancient Greek chondros, meaning grain) are round grains found in chondrites. Chondrules form as molten or partially molten droplets in space before being accreted to their parent asteroids.
Any material that later became part of a planet underwent further heating and processing when the planet differentiated so the heavy metals sunk to the planet's core and lighter metals floated up to nearer the surface.
Because of its great compression, the core of the proto-Sun finally reached about 10 million Kelvin and after the planets of the solar system had been created, the hydrogen nuclei started fusing together to produce helium nuclei and a lot of energy. It was then that the proto-Sun "TURNED ON" and became our Sun, which produced the strong winds called T-Tauri winds named after the prototype star in the constellation Taurus.
These winds swept out the rest of the nebula that was not already incorporated into the planets. With most of the cocoon gas blown away, the new star itself becomes visible to the outside for the first time. This whole process took just a few hundred million years and was finished by about 4.6 billion years ago. At the distance of about one light year from the earth, is the great icy Dome, that is the boundary of the firmament of our heavens, in which the sun, moon, and planets of our solar system were created.
For the Word of God can be likened to a star that’s being ever brightened
By the mind of man reaching ever higher, but those who deviate they’re liars
In God’s words man’s mind can grow, but those outside are like the snow
That settles on the desert sand and will melt away before “I AM.”...….The Anointed.
Didn't the Holy Spirit move the writers to write what they wrote?
Hebrews 11:3 - By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.
Hi DRob. Yes, the Holy Spirit moved the writers to write what they wrote. But God didn't dictate to the writers what to write with regard to the creation and flood stories at least. Nor did God put the writers into a trance and by means of automatic writing cause them to write what they wrote. God has to condescend to our level of understanding in order to be understood. He had to condescend to the level of understanding that the ancient Hebrews possessed. And their level of understanding was basically the same as the other ancient Near East peoples with regard to their cosmology.
As I've said, it wasn't important for God to correct their understanding of the universe in order to tell them what they needed to know about Himself and what He expected of them.
Yes, with regard to Hebrews 11:3, God is responsible for all that exists, but the issue is how God brought it all about. And for that, scientific evidence simply refutes the idea of a young earth six day creation in which among other things He made a fully grown man out of dust and a fully grown woman from a rib.
Hi DRob. Yes, the Holy Spirit moved the writers to write what they wrote. But God didn't dictate to the writers what to write with regard to the creation and flood stories at least. Nor did God put the writers into a trance and by means of automatic writing cause them to write what they wrote. God has to condescend to our level of understanding in order to be understood. He had to condescend to the level of understanding that the ancient Hebrews possessed. And their level of understanding was basically the same as the other ancient Near East peoples with regard to their cosmology.
As I've said, it wasn't important for God to correct their understanding of the universe in order to tell them what they needed to know about Himself and what He expected of them.
Yes, with regard to Hebrews 11:3, God is responsible for all that exists, but the issue is how God brought it all about. And for that, scientific evidence simply refutes the idea of a young earth six day creation in which among other things He made a fully grown man out of dust and a fully grown woman from a rib.
You don't believe too much of God's word, do you Mike?
I see that you reject the fact that the known world of the day, which is recorded in the Hebrew scripture and from other cultures, was submerged by water.
But what about today's scientists, do you reject them also?
What an asinine question considering that science refutes a literal understanding of the creation and flood stories.
Quote:
This is one scientific theory as to the creation of our solar system some 9 billion years after the creation of those first massive stars that lit up the darkness of the expanding space.
Whether or not a better theory than that which we have today will develop, time will tell.
There are no legitimate astrophysicists who believe that the earth existed before the sun and stars. We do in fact have a pretty good idea how the earth formed by observing probable planet formation around star HL Touri which is only 450 light years from earth. What was going on 450 years ago is still going on today. The video below explains it.
Star's Planet-Forming Disc Revealed In Unprecedented Detail | Video
You don't believe too much of God's word, do you Mike?
I see that you reject the fact that the known world of the day, which is recorded in the Hebrew scripture and from other cultures, was submerged by water.
The known world of the day did not include the concept of a large globe. The flood stories of the ancient Near East were based on an actual flood, but one that was at best a regional flood such as the Black Sea flood. From that, legends developed, and from those legends came the Biblical flood story as a polemic against those legends. Geology quite simply refutes any possibility of a flood which submerged the entire global earth.
The known world of the day did not include the concept of a large globe. The flood stories of the ancient Near East were based on an actual flood, but one that was at best a regional flood such as the Black Sea flood. From that, legends developed, and from those legends came the Biblical flood story as a polemic against those legends. Geology quite simply refutes any possibility of a flood which submerged the entire global earth.
And that's the least of the problems associated with the flood. How on earth did Noah go about collecting two penguins, two kangaroos and two Gila monsters? Did God just plunk them down at the ramp to the ark or what?
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