There is no "a" because Hebrew does not have an indefinite article. The indefinite article is implied by context. English has an indefinite article, but sometimes it, too, is implied. To wit:
- I ate steak last night. [implied indefinite article]
- I ate a steak last night. [indefinite article included]
This page explains the difference between the definite and indefinite article.
Finally, Genesis says that God entered into rest on the seventh day. If we were to hold to the YEC theory that yom must mean a literal 24-hour day, it means that God's rest was only on that 7th day. However, Hebrews 4:1-13 says that God is still in that time of rest and we can enter into it with him.
This is just one more example of how YEC conflicts with the word of God.
Which is why you want to do a word-study focused on yom and not on 'evening, morning, second day', etc.
I did both. Please look again at what I wrote -- you even mentioned my "evening, morning, n day" study in your first question! Why did I do a word study on yom? Because it is the centerpiece of the YEC argument. If YECs admit that their interpretation of yom is incorrect, then the whole argument for YEC vanishes.
That relies on the assumption that nuclear energies are based on nuclear-time and not dynamic-time. If they are based on dynamic-time and are related to the ZPE, then faster decay simply means the same (or less) energy spread out over more events occurring during the same amount of dynamic-time in the past.
I'm sorry, but I do not understand what you are talking about. Are you talking about nuclear time scales and dynamic time scales in stellar evolution? Or are you talking about measuring time based upon nuclear decay and measuring time based on things like the movement of a pendulum? Or neither? Please educate me.
The interior of the earth is heated by nuclear fission caused by nuclear decay. If the rate of decay is faster, you would have a hotter earth. For the adherents of YECs to be correct, the earth would have molten at best and blown apart at worst.
I know what the next argument is: "God could have supernaturally cooled the earth." Well, yes he could have. YECs are fond of using layer upon layer of "what if?" arguments to support their interpretation of the Bible. Have you ever heard of Occam's razor?
- The body of science and observation point to an old earth.
- The Bible does not claim that the earth is young.
Why not just accept the simplest explanation, which also happens to agree with the Bible?
MM: "The speed of light used to be faster."
GD: Probably. If you are going to discount Setterfield's work, you should probably use his site, rather than t.o. (which is notoriously incomplete and biased). Barry Setterfield
Lord, have mercy and give me patience. Setterfield's work has been thoroughly discredited in many, many places, including here. To accept Setterfield's theory, you again have to add on layers upon layers of "what if?" arguments.
As just one example, Setterfield tries to reconcile E=mc2 by claiming that nuclear particles once had more mass. Setterfield is not just proposing a minor correction -- his theory claims that the speed of light would have had to have to approximately 10 million times faster than it is today. If the mass was once greater, then gravity was once greater. Sutterfield then has to add another layer to compensate for that fact.
By the time Setterfield is finished, he has a layer cake that is two miles high.
Conveniently for Setterfield, he claims that light stopped slowing down in the 1960s. Even the Institute for Creation Research is dubious about Sutterfield's work.
Since ICR has an entire cottage industry built upon incompetent science, their criticism of Setterfield is like Michael Moore saying that Rosie O'Donnell is too fat.
If one accepts a reasonable and consistent meaning for the word yom, one does not have to create a whole set of Rube Goldberg contraptions to explain the universe.
MM: "The Hebrew word yom combined with an ordinal always refers to a 24 hour day: Wrong. "Zechariah 14:7 contains the word yom combined with an ordinal (number one, echad), exactly as seen in Genesis 1:5."
GD: That doesn't help you as it refers to a single day there as well.
No, it doesn't. Zechariah 14:7 refers back to the "Day of the Lord" in Zechariah 14:1. Read the entire chapter. It clearly does not refer to a single, 24-hour day, but rather to a span of time. In fact, some of the events of the "Day of the Lord" have already happened. For example, Amos 5:18-27 uses the "Day of the Lord" to describe sending Israel into captivity -- something that happened in the past!
Research the many passages in the Bible that refer to the "Day of the Lord." Please do it yourself for your own benefit. I'm tired of doing Biblical research for people who claim to know that Bible better than I do.
I'm not directing this to you, but many people on this thread whom I believe are well-meaning Christians claim that I and other reasonable people don't understand the Bible. Yet, when they make a Biblical claim, I find they are the ones who do not have an in-depth knowledge of the Bible.
It is my contention that YEC is based upon a fundamental misinterpretation of portions of the Bible, not on science. It's a Biblical interpretation problem, not a science problem.
I would say this fits with my observation that OECs insert as many unobserved assumptions into the Bible as the philosophical naturalists insert into their 'scientific' theories.
I have not inserted any assumptions into the Bible. However, YECs claiming that yom must mean a literal, 24-hour day is inserting a huge assumption into the Bible.
You are just another confused OEC who only supports the damage done by the philosophical naturalists. Your God is indistinguishable from no god at all and that's just how the boys at t.o. like it.
You talk like this and wonder why reasonable people sometimes fight back? You refuse to accept a reasonable interpretation of the Bible that completely agrees with both science and the rest of the Bible. To defend your belief, you have to insert increasingly complex layers of "what if?" claims that are without basis.
Why not just accept a reasonable, Biblically-sound interpretation of the Hebrew word yom? That solves the whole problem.
A valid request. The tools are either free or cheap on the Internet and I offered one such reliable source.
From the Internet I can get concordances, dozens of Bible translations, the Septugint in Greek, The Latin Vulgate, interlinears, dictionaries, grammars and so forth.
I'm glad you mentioned Hebrews since Paul explicitly ties what he is saying about “Today” to that seventh day, which unlike the others, is not spoken of as ending.
If it's not there, then don't put one there by implication.
"Finally, Genesis says that God entered into rest on the seventh day. If we were to hold to the YEC theory that yom must mean a literal 24-hour day, it means that God's rest was only on that 7th day."
No it doesn't. It means that the *entered* into rest on the 7th Day. Where does Scripture say he *left* his rest? It doesn't. He's still there.
"I did both. Please look again at what I wrote -- you even mentioned my "evening, morning, n day" study in your first question!"
I saw what you wrote the first time. When you did a word study w/ 'evening, morning, n day' you had to add an 'implied' article to maintain your position. Your other lame attempt was at using Zech 14:7 as an example and merely showed that you misrepresent Scripture to preserve your belief since that verse clearly refers to a single day.
"Why did I do a word study on yom? Because it is the centerpiece of the YEC argument. If YECs admit that their interpretation of yom is incorrect, then the whole argument for YEC vanishes."
Uh no. You do a word study on 'yom' because a word-study using 'evening, morning, n day' doesn't fit your OEC belief. If OECs admit that their focus solely on 'yom' is incorrect, then the whole argument for OEC vanishes.
"The interior of the earth is heated by nuclear fission caused by nuclear decay. If the rate of decay is faster, you would have a hotter earth. For the adherents of YECs to be correct, the earth would have molten at best and blown apart at worst."
No, you didn't understand the difference between nuclear time and dynamic time. Nuclear time is c dependent. Atomic processes are c dependent. Dynamic processes are not c dependent. The same amount of nuclear energy per unit of dynamic time is released over a larger number of nuclear events. No meltdown.
"Have you ever heard of Occam's razor? 1. The body of science and observation point to an old earth. 2. The Bible does not claim that the earth is young. Why not just accept the simplest explanation, which also happens to agree with the Bible?"
Have you ever tried applying Occam's razor to Scripture, rather than multiplying the number of assumptions you insert into Scripture to get it to conform to the greater faith you place in man's word? Why not just accept the simplest Scriptural position and recognize that man's word is based on so many assumptions and interpretations that invoking Occam's razor is simply laughable. Doesn't fit with your faith in man?
"Lord, have mercy and give me patience."
Oh dear God, have mercy and give me patience with this poor, confused person.
"Setterfield's work has been thoroughly discredited in many, many places, including here. To accept Setterfield's theory, you again have to add on layers upon layers of "what if?" arguments."
You make the same mistake here that you make everywhere else. You rely on others to tell you what has been discredited and what has not. Look through your supposed refutations and then find the answer on Setterfield's site for yourself. You will find that the 'discrediting' is on the other side.
"Conveniently for Setterfield, he claims that light stopped slowing down in the 1960s. Even the Institute for Creation Research is dubious about Sutterfield's work."
Not his claim at all. His claim is that it appears to be oscillating. That's what you get for not reviewing Setterfield's site for yourself. And why should I believe everything the ICR puts out any more than I should believe everything that talk.origins put out?
"If one accepts a reasonable and consistent meaning for the word yom, one does not have to create a whole set of Rube Goldberg contraptions to explain the universe."
Actually, you already have a 'Rube Goldberg contraption' with the current model of the universe. What with 96% of it supposedly consisting of 'dark matter' and 'dark energy' that are, by definition, *invisible* who really has the 'Rube Goldberg' model? You do.
"No, it doesn't. Zechariah 14:7 refers back to the "Day of the Lord" in Zechariah 14:1."
Oh yes it does. And with a specific time of day, 'at evening'. Again you must obfuscate the clear meaning of Scripture to preserve your OEC belief.
"Research the many passages in the Bible that refer to the "Day of the Lord." Please do it yourself for your own benefit. I'm tired of doing Biblical research for people who claim to know that Bible better than I do."
Please do your own Biblical research with more clarity of thought for your own benefit. You currently approach every Scripture from the 'a priori' position of OEC. I too am tired of doing Biblical research for people who insist on placing the word of men on a more authoritative plane than the Word of God.
"You talk like this and wonder why reasonable people sometimes fight back?"
Since you obviously forgot, that statement was in response to your statement when you said, "Today, I have to convince my peers that not all Christians are anti-intellectual and anti-science. I have seen the damage done by YECs -- that's why I'm so passionate about battling it."
Clearly, I just repeated your own words and attitude back at you. Are you still a hypocrite like you were when you chided me for using the word 'ilk' when the post you responded to showed that I was only responding to a supposed 'intellectual' Christian who used it against me?
"You refuse to accept a reasonable interpretation of the Bible that completely agrees with both science and the rest of the Bible. To defend your belief, you have to insert increasingly complex layers of "what if?" claims that are without basis. "
That's always a lame tactic. Define your own position as the only 'reasonable' one and anyone who disagrees simply isn't being 'reasonable'. Never mind that you constantly redefine Scripture to try to make it conform to what man says in the face of mountains of assumptions and interpretations that man inserts into his 'theories'. You are the one who refuses to accept a 'reasonable' interpretation.
"Why not just accept a reasonable, Biblically-sound interpretation of the Hebrew word yom? That solves the whole problem."
Back to focusing on 'yom' again? As noted earlier, you do that because of your 'a priori' commitment to OEC and a desire to obfuscate Scripture as much as is necessary to reconcile it to man's word. It's a fool's wager to compromise Scripture to justify man's assumption-based, interpretation-filled word about the universe. I'm sorry that you choose to go down that path.