Posted on 02/05/2002 9:04:00 PM PST by Sabertooth
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Genesis 1: 1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. |
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6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. |
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14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 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. 17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good. 19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth day. |
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20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl [that] may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. |
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24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. |
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26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. |
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Genesis 2: 1 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. |
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4 These [are] the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens, |
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Genesis 1: 6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. How can the heavens be created on the same day there was a mist rising from the ground in Genesis 2, when these things occurred on different days in Genesis 1? The word "day" in Genesis 1 and 2 is translated from the Hebrew "yom." It's the same word in all of the places I've highlighted in red. In fact, about 99% of the time the word "day" is found in the Old Testament, the original Hebrew is "yom." If the word "day" in the Genesis 1 is a normal 24-hour day, rather than an allegorical phrasing for a much longer period of time (as seen elsewhere in the Bible, Ps. 90:4 and 2 Peter 3: 8 being good examples), and the word "day" in Genesis 2:4 is also a 24 hour day, we appear to have a contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2. The only way Genesis 2:4 can be reconciled is if "day" refers to a period of longer than 24 hours. But if the word "day" is figurative in Genesis 2:4, then why not in Genesis 1? Why does the word "day" in Genesis 1 have to mean a literal 24-hour period? |
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Absolutely. Thanks.
Whether or not my forefathers were monkeys has no bearing on whether or not Jesus's mother was a virgin.
Where is it written that belief in anti-Evolution is my ticket to Salvation?
Where is it demonstrated that obeisance to random causes is my ticket to wisdom?
Every time a Creationist spouts off nonsensically about Evolution running counter to Entropy, it makes a bad witness. Every time an Evolutionist perceives an "imperfect" universe as presumptive evidence of dysteleogy, they're tossing the science and reason in favor of a theological prejudice. Both show propensities for pedantic, dogmatic, even evangelical blindness.
I believe that God is the Author of the Universe, and I believe that science is an important tool for discovering His designs. In the pursuit of Truth, I don't believe it's necessary to put one's fingers on the scales.
Yes, very interesting. This jibes with the comment that the waters weren't finished until day 3, as He did not say "it was good" on day two because the work was not yet perfected.
Thank you for answering my question.
Take care
The most obvious understanding of the days would be that of six or seven 24-hour periods, in other words, what we know as the 24-hour calendar day. The word "day" itself is used in several different ways in Genesis 1 and 2. That the word "day" does not refer to a 24-hour calendar day also seems apparent from the account of the sun and moon not being made until the fourth day. How could there be calendar days, which equal solar days, when the sun is not yet present to mark them out? It seems quite likely that "day" represents a period of time, however short or long, in which God was accomplishing something. I think we should view the six days of creation as periods of time, even ages, in which God brought the process of creation.
"With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day"
-- 2 Peter 3:8
Way to cut to the chase.
Why is it necessary, when delving into origins, to assume that time had the same meaning as it does now?
I don't.
14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
A poetical creation story that science has born out to be true time and time again. For decades non-Christians have said, "How could God create light before he created the Sun?" and we now know through science that light existed before any stars were formed. The progression of creation has been discovered, first by the Word of God and then verified by science. Plants were the first life on earth followed by water life and then land animals. This is spelled out before science was invented, before the study of animals, before fossil research before any of it. God's Word is true. Then why the panic that insues if there seems to be a misunderstanding on our part of scripture? The verses quoted above I think are the most damaging to the "24 hour day" literalist interpretation. In verse 5, on the 2nd day, God creates light and darkness and calls them day and night. Then in verse 14, on the 4th day, he creates the stars (and later the Sun and Moon) in order to "divide the day from the night". But wasn't that already done in verse 5? Apparently not. If not, then how could there be morning and evening? Morning and evening are words that convey the transistion between light and dark. Without verse 14 in place, there is no division between day and night. This clearly is a oral tradition story, true as can be, that Moses put down in written form. The Word of God, which is Truth, inhabits perfectly the whole creation story told in Genesis 1. We also have the God given ability to understand that literary and poetic narrative, while containing truth, do not have to contain actuality. That's like saying that the parable of Lazerus and the rich man must have actually happened, or Jesus was telling a lie. Telling a story that incorporates truth in a way that people can understand it is not telling a lie. This is how I view Genesis chapter 1.
I find nothing to disagree with in what you've written. I find the Genesis account to be poetic, allegorical, and true given that context.
The one thing I would say... Moses may well have recorded an oral tradition passed down through Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, etc... But he may have gotten it through direct revelation as well. Not sure we can know, and it's no skin off my nose either way.
Mind if I ask why?
It doesn't logically follow that the only case where the 1000 year reference applies is in the context of God's mercy. The comment is a poetic illustration of the Eternity of God. The phrase could as easily have been a billion years.
A day, 1000 years, or 1,000,000,000 years... all are infinitesmal motes to God.
Three...
You left out the world's greatest dinosaur artist...
In verse 1 everything was created; "heavens and earth", Hebrew phrase 'shemayim erets' (sp? I don't have my notes handy...) means everything in the physical universe, including all the stars, sun, moon, etc.
The Spirit of God is hovering over the waters of the earth in verse 2, therefore, everything from verse 2 onwards is from the frame of reference of the Spirit of God down at the earth's surface.
Early Earth's atmosphere was opaque with water vapor. God did not CREATE the stars and sun on day four, they BECAME VISIBLE on the surface of the earth (frame of reference here) as the atmosphere transformed from opaque to translucent to transparent. The Hebrew word here for "be" is 'haya' (to cause to appear) as opposed to 'bara' in verse 1 (to create anew).
So everything was in place in verse 1; it's the transformation of the earth we see in subsequent verses.
Why is it necessary, when delving into origins, to assume that time had the same meaning as it does now?
The whole argument about the nature of time itself (popular with author Gerald Schroeder in trying to blend science and Genesis) is not necessary to address the meaning of 'day'.
In English, the word 'day' has a literal meaning (24 hrs) and several figurative meanings. In Hebrew, the word 'yom', translated as day, has three LITERAL meanings, 24 hours, 12 hours (daytime), or an unspecified longer period of time. Similarly, the words translated as morning and evening were also used to designate beginning, ending, dawning, etc. It would not be an inaccurate rendering to change "the evening and the morning were the forth day" (more literally "the evening, the morning, day four) to "the beginning, the ending, epoch four." Also fits with the fact that the seventh day is not given an ending; we're still in it.
Reasons to Believe - Creation sequence
And since I don't have time at the moment to get into the purported Ge 1 vs Ge 2 conflicts:
I'd be curious to know exactly how the Big Bang fits into the 10 questions... I'd have a hard time believing they question the idea that there WAS a Big Bang event... it's a fairly well-established and accepted theory, some details notwithstanding.
Regarding Bertrand Russell's question of who created God, physics gives us a perspective on a possible answer: the Big Bang brought about not just the creation of matter, but of space and time as well (yes, time had a beginning, fitting nicely with 2 Timothy 1:8-10 and Titus 1:1-3), so by definition, the initiator of the Big Bang would be outside of time; i.e., timeless and hence uncreated.
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