[truthfinder9]

"I repeat. We are not discussing what the text MEANS. We're discussing what it SAYS."

You have to realize how bad that sounds! All sound exegesis is about determining what the text MEANS. People can make it SAY anything!

[xzins]

The opposite.

People can make it MEAN anything.

The words on the page are what they are. It SAYS only what it says.

Observation is the 1st step in exegesis. It requires absolute honesty about the data in front of us.

[Alamo-Girl]

No, actually I made my statement assuming we live in a universe with at least 11 dimensions (string theory). Having more dimensions doesn't change time's (our time - 4th dimnesion) historic progession. All dimensions were created simultaneously at the Big Bang event, with all but four dimensions immediately thereafter "folding" into themselves. We are only bound by the time in our part of the universe's existence. The other dimensions explain the structure of the universe but mean little mankind's history.

Not so, truthfinder9. Vafa's F-theory for example proposes a second temporal dimension which yields this time dimension of our perceptible four dimension block (x,y,z and t for time) as a plane and not a line. That means that past, present and future co-exist. It could be very significant wrt our understanding of non-locality and superposition.

On the Spiritual side, it also helps our understanding of pre-destination (and prophesy) v. free-will.

Also I disagree with you that Genesis 1:2 establishes that God’s time is our time. Here is a link to the Mechanical Translation of that verse.

I also assert that the notion God is on any time is illogical per se. Regardless of cosmology – whether inflationary theory, multi-verse, multi-world, cyclic, Ekpyrotic, imaginary time – there is always a beginning because all of them rely on geometry for physical causation. God is the only possible uncaused cause of geometry and therefore, physical causation.

There is a huge difference between infinity and timelessness – much like the difference between zero and null.

And concerning the computation of elapsed time which I approximate at 15 billion years v. the 13.7 billion year measurement: we would need to adjust my approximation from "in the beginning" to the moment of the first day when God said “let there be Light”. And that is an unknown, though the physical realm evidences that it was said.

“The MAXIMA, BOOMERANG, and DASI collaborations, which measure minute variations in the CMB [cosmic microwave background radiation], recently reported new results at the American Physical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. All three agree remarkably about what the ‘harmonic proportions’ of the cosmos imply: not only is the universe flat, but its structure is definitely due to inflation, not to topological defects in the early universe.

“The results were presented as plots of slight temperature variations in the CMB that graph sound waves in the dense early universe. These high-resolution ‘power spectra’ show not only a strong primary resonance but are consistent with two additional harmonics, or peaks.

“The peaks indicate harmonics in the sound waves that filled the early, dense universe. Until some 300,000 years after the Big Bang, the universe was so hot that matter and radiation were entangled in a kind of soup in which sound waves (pressure waves) could vibrate. The CMB is a relic of the moment when the universe had cooled enough so that photons could ‘decouple’ from electrons, protons, and neutrons; then atoms formed and light went on its way.”

Paul Preuss, “The Universe May Be Flat But It Is Nevertheless Musical,” Science Beat, Berkeley Lab (June 5, 2001)

And finally, I strongly agree with xzins that we must accept the Scriptures for what they say because God is the author. God is Truth – and the Scriptures are Truth because He is the author. A thing is true because He says it.

Further, I expect the Father’s revelation in Jesus Christ, in the Holy Spirit, in Scripture and in the Creation to agree – and I have never, ever, been disappointed.