The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

hinault · 15-02-2017 12:55PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Hinault, I'm not the biblical scholar.

All I'm saying is that scholars of the ancient world do have techniques that they can apply to identify the period from which an ancient text dates, and those techniques can be and have been applied to date scriptural texts. Therefore it's not true to say that we have no idea when they were written.

Clearly, you're not a scholar.

I've asked you to supply proof for the claims that you have made for extrinsic evidence, archaelogical evidence, and for the points you have made.

You have managed to provide no evidence whatsoever, despite contending throughout that there is "evidence".

You manage to supply no evidence for the points that you make.

Your opinion is not evidence.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Not a very great possiblity, maybe. But, if it's a possiblity at all, then Genesis is not contemporary with the events it narrates.

You raised the possibility initially and I agreed with you.

Now you're saying that it isn't a great possibility, why so? What evidence can you supply that shows that it is a lesser possibility?

It is possible that Moses wrote Genesis. Whether it is a greater or lesser possibility that Moses wrote Genesis is beyond verification

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, we don't.

Days and years are not arbitrary periods of time, and they are not culturally determined. They are naturally-occurring, easy-to-observe, hard-to-ignore cycles of considerable practical importance to agricultural societies. The Hebrew word for "day" means a day. The Hebrew word for "year" means a year. How could it be otherwise? An agricultural culture that cannot identify a year with reasonable accuracy is doomed to early collapse and extinction.

Supply proof that the Hebrew word "day" written in Genesis is the same day as measured on the Gregorian time scale measured centuries later

Supply proof that the Hebrew word "year" written in Genesis is the same year as measured by the Gregorian time scale centuries later.

You repeatedly saying that day/year means what we today understand what day/year means, doesn't cut it. You need to supply evidence at this point.

Peregrinus wrote: »

Which kind of makes my point. The Gregorian calendar was devised in the sixteenth century, but it didn't involve a new concept of "year"; all it did was to devise a new way of counting years, given the established concept of "year".

We know what the Gregorian calendar measures. That is not what is at issue.

What we are trying to discern is what is Genesis measuring when it refers to the word day/year.

We have no basis of verifying if the Genesis reference to a year conforms to the Gregorian measurement for a solar year. You are guessing that a year in Genesis conforms to what we refer to as a solar year. I'm guessing otherwise.

Peregrinus wrote: »

No, I don't. The word "day" is frequently used in analogical, idiomatic, etc sense in the bible just as in our day (see what I did there?) we use it in idioms, analogies, figures of speech, etc. That doesn't mean that its literal sense, for the Israelites, was any different to its literal sense for us..

Clearly the word "day" was used in an analogical sense in Chapter 1 of Genesis because there was no Sun to measure a "day" by for the first three "days" of creation. Literally, scientifically,, there was no day in Genesis until day 4 of Creation.

It appears that Genesis requires readers to move between literal and analogical analysis.

Peregrinus wrote: »

.
I don't disagree with any of that, hinault. But none of it offers any reason at all for thinking that the Israelites didn't know what a "year" was, or that they had a different notion of "year" than we do. The fact that they sometimes use the word in a literal or figurative or symbolic sense doesn't mean that they ascribe a different literal meaning to it. Indeed, the symbolic significance of ascribing a very long life to Moses (or whoever) would be entirely lost if "120 years" wasn't a very long life.

None of what you contend here supports the verification that Noah lived for
900+ years, or that Moses lived for 124 years.

We know that life expectancy for humans in later times - more sophisticated times? - show that human longevity has increased compared to previous times cumulatively.

In these modern times, more people are living longer in the 21st century than ever before apparently.

Does that mean that a person living in pre-historic times could not live to 124 years? No. It just makes it more unlikely that a person lived to 124 years in a time when longevity was far shorter throughout subsequent multiple centuries.

looksee · 15-02-2017 04:05PM

Clearly the word "day" was used in an analogical sense in Chapter 1 of Genesis because there was no Sun to measure a "day" by for the first three "days" of creation. Literally, scientifically,, there was no day in Genesis until day 4 of Creation.

It appears that Genesis requires readers to move between literal and analogical analysis.

So if there are analogies in Genesis, why is it so hard to accept that the whole of Genesis is an analogy - an analogy for the more scientific story of creation that we now understand (up to a point)?

Leroy42 · 15-02-2017 04:10PM

And if Genesis is an analogy, then were does it stop?

Why do we treat all the words in the NT as true rather than analogy. Did Jesus really walk on water as was it just a message about his ability to rise above the problems that men are faced with?

Did he really rise from the dead, or is that just a message to tell us his spirit lives on and his message is still relevant?

The 10 commandments are in the OT, but can we simply treat them as probable?

ScumLord · 15-02-2017 05:03PM

Metatron had a good video on people's misinterpretation of the bible.

Apparently the original hebrew bible didn't even have punctuation. It hadn't been invented yet. I was listening to the video in the background so didn't catch it all, I have to rewatch, but he's a knowledgeable fella with experience in history and language.

He says if you read it in Hebrew it becomes clear people have misinterpreted, or read too much into their translation.

Leroy42 · 15-02-2017 05:37PM

I wonder what the % of believers have actually taken the time to read the original texts of the bible, thus understanding the mistranslations and rewording that has gone on over the years.

It would seem quite important, that if people are to rely so heavily on the teachings of a book that they would understand the actual primary source of that rather than one that has been filtered over time.

Surely if they haven't taken the time to do this then they can't possibly claim that it is the true word of God. It might well be based on God, but to rely on such a clearly interpretive test seems rather strange

Peregrinus · 16-02-2017 02:20AM

Hinault, do you have proof that the word we translate as "tree" in the Hebrew scriptures means a tree? That the word translated as "man" means a man? That the word translated as "sun" means a sun? That the words translated as "live" and "die" mean live and die?

Trees, men, the sun, life, death, years and days are all naturally occurring phenomena, easily observed and of considerable practical relevance to daily life. So far as I know they are common to all cultures and societies that we know of. Your suggestion that the Israelites had a different conception of days and years is an extraordinary one, and you have offered neither evidence to support it nor even argument to suggest how such an unlikely situation could have come about.

Besides, we just have to look at the text to see that the words are used in ways which really only make sense if they mean what we would expect them to mean. I have already pointed out that the text of Genesis 1 actually defines "day" in terms of the cycle of morning and evening. At this juncture I will point out that Exodus explicitly links the concept of "year" to the annual harvest, and to the cycle of seasons from summer to winter. Leviticus repeats these links, and also links "year" with the annual cycle of sowing and harvesting - there's one harvest in each year, and the year ends when the harvest is gathered.

In short, if you are looking for evidence that "day" refers to the 24-hour cycle that we know to result from the rotation of the earth about its own axis, and that "year" refers to the 365-day cycle that we know to result from the rotation of the earth about the sun, it's right there in the text, in the way the words are used, in what is said about days and years. You just have to read it, and you'll see that the Israelites clearly had pretty much the same understanding of "day" and "year" that pretty much every other culture we know about has, and the same understanding as is employed in the Gregorian calendar.

Peregrinus · 16-02-2017 04:26AM

looksee wrote: »

So if there are analogies in Genesis, why is it so hard to accept that the whole of Genesis is an analogy - an analogy for the more scientific story of creation that we now understand (up to a point)?

Well, not to pick nits, but out of the fifty chapters in Genesis, only chapter 1 and part of chapter 2 deal with the creation of the cosmos. You might think that any or all of the rest of the text should be read figuratively or analogically or whatever, but your reasons for doing so won't have much to do with the conclusions of scientific cosmology.

Leroy42 wrote: »

And if Genesis is an analogy, then were does it stop?

Why do we treat all the words in the NT as true rather than analogy. Did Jesus really walk on water as was it just a message about his ability to rise above the problems that men are faced with?

Did he really rise from the dead, or is that just a message to tell us his spirit lives on and his message is still relevant?

The 10 commandments are in the OT, but can we simply treat them as probable?

You have this problem anyway, whether a text is regarded biblical or not. If there exists a single text which is, e.g. figurative, then obviously figurative texts are possible. So you must admit the possibility that any text could be figurative, and you must either profess ignorance as to whether it is or not, or develop techniques for making judgments about whether it is or not.

The bible, remember, is a variety of texts composed, edited, redacted, etc by a variety of people in a variety of circumstances and only much, much later printed and bound between a single set of covers with "bible" on the spine. If one of these texts employs a particular literary genre, that's no reason to think that another employs the same genre.

The psalms, for example, are obviously poetry. Does that mean that all the the other texts in the bible are also poetry? In most cases, clearly not. How do we know? Well, because we've read them, and we can recognise them as not being in the poetic genre.

Which points us towards our answer. How do you make a judgment about the literary genre employed in a particular biblical text? The same way you make a judgment about the literary genre of a non-biblical text; you read it, thoughtfully and critically. And you reflect on what you know of its provenance, its purpose and its context. And you compare it with other texts that you're familiar with. The more you have read, the easier you will find this.

It's not always easy, particularly with ancient texts, since they may be written in genres that you are unfamiliar with, or that you have literally never encountered anywhere else. (Apocalyptic writings, for example.) And sometimes judgments have to be bit tentative. But, basically, the process is the same for scriptural texts as it is for non-scriptural texts.

looksee · 16-02-2017 10:46AM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Well, not to pick nits, but out of the fifty chapters in Genesis, only chapter 1 and part of chapter 2 deal with the creation of the cosmos. You might think that any or all of the rest of the text should be read figuratively or analogically or whatever, but your reasons for doing so won't have much to do with the conclusions of scientific cosmology.

Yes, I was using the word Genesis rather loosely there, I grant your nit picking. It does not alter the fact that the overall sense of what I was saying is a reasonable question, and more to the point, Hinault has not been back to offer an answer.

hinault · 16-02-2017 04:58PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Trees, men, the sun, life, death, years and days are all naturally occurring phenomena, easily observed and of considerable practical relevance to daily life. So far as I know they are common to all cultures and societies that we know of. Your suggestion that the Israelites had a different conception of days and years is an extraordinary one, and you have offered neither evidence to support it nor even argument to suggest how such an unlikely situation could have come about..

I didn't say that the Israelites had a different conception of days and years.

I said that what the Israelites did not have the same scale that we use to measure days and years.

What scale did the Israelites employ to measure the passage of time? What scale was employed when Genesis was written?
We know that in part of Genesis no scale could have been employed because the Sun did not exist at a time when "days" were said to have passed.

Peregrinus wrote: »

At this juncture I will point out that Exodus explicitly links the concept of "year" to the annual harvest, and to the cycle of seasons from summer to winter. Leviticus repeats these links, and also links "year" with the annual cycle of sowing and harvesting - there's one harvest in each year, and the year ends when the harvest is gathered.

The book of Exodus shows that many aspects of life were far more advanced compared to Genesis.

None of which addresses what is claimed in parts of Genesis.

Peregrinus wrote: »

In short, if you are looking for evidence that "day" refers to the 24-hour cycle that we know to result from the rotation of the earth about its own axis, and that "year" refers to the 365-day cycle that we know to result from the rotation of the earth about the sun, it's right there in the text, in the way the words are used, in what is said about days and years. You just have to read it, and you'll see that the Israelites clearly had pretty much the same understanding of "day" and "year" that pretty much every other culture we know about has, and the same understanding as is employed in the Gregorian calendar.

No, we have no way of knowing what basis the measurement for days/years
as described in Genesis, was.

And to suggest that the Israelites understood the planetary and solar activity for the accurate measurement of time that was developed in the 16th century is fantasy.

Instead we do know for certain that the longevity of human life centuries after the time period that Genesis described, was far far shorter than the longevity of the lives of several people named in Genesis.

Of course the longevity of these peoples lives might be possible. It might be possible that someone lived for 900 years, in a time when peoples longevity was only several decades long. It might be possible too that one person lived until they were 124 years old in a time when the same people were lucky to have lived until they were 40.

NaFirinne · 16-02-2017 10:10PM

I haven't read through a lot of the 395 pages, however just my 2 cents on translations.

I use e-sword to read the bible, which allows you to check the hebrew meaning of the words and phrases.

I have to say that when you do check the meaning from the original hebrew, the bible starts making a lot more sense.

There is a huge amount that you just don't get in the translations.. and can give totally different meanings to what it's actually saying.

Leroy42 · 16-02-2017 10:18PM

NaFirinne wrote: »

I haven't read through a lot of the 395 pages, however just my 2 cents on translations.

I use e-sword to read the bible, which allows you to check the hebrew meaning of the words and phrases.

I have to say that when you do check the meaning from the original hebrew, the bible starts making a lot more sense.

There is a huge amount that you just don't get in the translations.. and can give totally different meanings to what it's actually saying.

How so? For it to make more sense then it must mean that it doesn't currently make sense.

Peregrinus · 17-02-2017 02:25AM

hinault wrote: »

I didn't say that the Israelites had a different conception of days and years.

I said that what the Israelites did not have the same scale that we use to measure days and years.

I’m not sure I understand you. The Israelites didn’t have a scale to measure days and years, any more than we do. Rather, days and years were scales which they used to measure the passage of time, just as they are for us.

They "measured" days, if you want to put it in those terms, not with any scale, but as we do simply by observing natural phenomena, specifically sunrise and sunset. They "measured" years by observing the solstices and other astronomical phenomena. They subdivided years into months, which they "measured" by observing the phases of the moon.

hinault wrote: »

What scale did the Israelites employ to measure the passage of time?

Days and years.

hinault wrote: »

What scale was employed when Genesis was written?

Days and years. You have quoted several passages in Genesis which measure the passage of time as a number of days or years. Months also turn up in Genesis, but for dating events rather than for measuring their duration.

hinault wrote: »

We know that in part of Genesis no scale could have been employed because the Sun did not exist at a time when "days" were said to have passed.

Which tells us, as I think we have already established, that in that passage the author is not using the word “day” in a literal sense. But it doesn’t suggest that the word “day” had a different literal sense for him that it does for us. In fact, we know it has the same literal sense, because he explicitly defines it by reference to morning and evening.

hinault wrote: »

The book of Exodus shows that many aspects of life were far more advanced compared to Genesis.

Perhaps, but the work itself dates from the same time as Genesis. (Indeed, the religious tradition is that they were written by the same person.) There is no reason at all to think that the words “day” and “year” mean different things in Genesis and Exodus.

hinault wrote: »

No, we have no way of knowing what basis the measurement for days/years as described in Genesis, was.

As pointed out more than once, hinault, the concept of “day” is explicitly elaborated in Genesis in terms of morning and evening, and days are also contrasted to nights. So, as regards days at any rate, your claim here is flat-out wrong. As regards years, your claim can only be defended if you argue that the way the word is employed in Exodus can tell us nothing about what it means in Genesis, which is not a claim that many people will take seriously.

hinault wrote: »

And to suggest that the Israelites understood the planetary and solar activity for the accurate measurement of time that was developed in the 16th century is fantasy.

The passage of time has been measured by astronomical activity since ancient times, and the Israelites certainly knew about this and used it. Genesis is explicit about this.

And I should point out that our measurement of time wasn’t developed in the sixteenth century; at most, it was very marginally refined. The Gregorian calendar didn’t introduce new concepts of “day” and “year”; it just introduced a (slightly) different convention for counting years (but not days) based on a more accurate understanding of exactly how many days are in a solar year.

hinault wrote: »

Instead we do know for certain that the longevity of human life centuries after the time period that Genesis described, was far far shorter than the longevity of the lives of several people named in Genesis.

I don’t understand. How can you say this, if you also say that we don’t know what length of time is indicated by the word “year” when used in Genesis?

hinault · 17-02-2017 04:38PM

Peregrinus wrote: »

Which tells us, as I think we have already established, that in that passage the author is not using the word “day” in a literal sense. But it doesn’t suggest that the word “day” had a different literal sense for him that it does for us. In fact, we know it has the same literal sense, because he explicitly defines it by reference to morning and evening.

No.

Genesis makes explicit reference to the word "day" when no day could have existed and when there was no way to measure what the author refers to as
a "day".
The Sun did not exist when Genesis makes reference to a "day".

Peregrinus wrote: »

Perhaps, but the work itself dates from the same time as Genesis. (Indeed, the religious tradition is that they were written by the same person.) There is no reason at all to think that the words “day” and “year” mean different things in Genesis and Exodus

No.
Exodus and Genesis refer to separate periods of time.

Genesis appears to cover a time period of approximately several thousand "years" before Exodus begins it's chronicle.
We know this because Genesis chronicles the longevity of the people that are named in it.

Genesis goes to great lengths to state that lineage of Adam to Seth to Methusaleh to Noah, and so on throughout the 50 chapters of Genesis. The lineage tells us that these people lived for hundred of "years" apparently.
Methusaleh lived for 969 years. Generations of people living for centuries.

Some of these generations overlapped (Methuselah outlived his son, Lemach)
but Genesis gives you some idea of the time span that it narrates.

Adam lived 930 years
Seth lived 912 years
Methuselah lived 969 years
Lemech (Methuselah's son) lived 777 years
Noah lived 950 years
Shem lived 600 years
Eber lived 464 years
Terah lived 205 years
Abraham lived 175 years
Isaac lived 180 years
Jacob lived 147 years

All of these people lived and died before Exodus chronicles begins.
Genesis therefore appears to chronicle a period of perhaps 5,000 to 6,000 "years" based on when and for how long the people it named lived.

Peregrinus wrote: »

As pointed out more than once, hinault, the concept of “day” is explicitly elaborated in Genesis in terms of morning and evening, and days are also contrasted to nights. So, as regards days at any rate, your claim here is flat-out wrong. As regards years, your claim can only be defended if you argue that the way the word is employed in Exodus can tell us nothing about what it means in Genesis, which is not a claim that many people will take seriously

So we're to accept as fact that Methusaleh lived for 969 years (per the Gregorian calendar)? And Noah lived for 950 years?

Peregrinus wrote: »

The Gregorian calendar didn’t introduce new concepts of “day” and “year”; it just introduced a (slightly) different convention for counting years (but not days) based on a more accurate understanding of exactly how many days are in a solar year.

I never claimed that the Gregorian calendar introduced new concepts of days or years. Nowhere did I make that claim.

What I said instead was that the Gregorian calendar created the scale to measure days and years.

We don't know what scale the Israelites employed to measure "days" and "years" referred to in early Genesis. We do know that early Genesis refers to
days when there was no way to measure days at that time (because the Sun did not exist). Therefore the Israelites could not have employed any scale at that juncture.

So what scale did they employ (if any)?

Peregrinus wrote: »

I don’t understand. How can you say this, if you also say that we don’t know what length of time is indicated by the word “year” when used in Genesis?

see above.

looksee · 17-02-2017 06:45PM

You seem to be suggesting on the one hand that a year is not what we understand as a year, yet Genesis and Exodus can be thousands of years apart.

Presumably we are not working on the understanding that the earth is 6000 years old or Exodus would have hardly happened yet?

If the alternative year is reckoned to be say, a growing season, and there were two harvests a year (I don't know, it is possible) that still makes Adam some 400 years old when he died, and this seems as unlikely as 900.

If the years were actually months then it is beginning to make more sense as Adam would have been about 80. One of these has to apply unless you are claiming that the earth turned on its axis at a different rate than now.

However if we are talking about 'years' being our months then Genesis and Exodus fit a lot closer together.

Of course the longevity of these peoples lives might be possible. It might be possible that someone lived for 900 years, in a time when peoples longevity was only several decades long. It might be possible too that one person lived until they were 124 years old in a time when the same people were lucky to have lived until they were 40.

I am not following the logic of that at all?

J C · 17-02-2017 10:20PM

hinault wrote: »

I didn't say that the Israelites had a different conception of days and years.

I said that what the Israelites did not have the same scale that we use to measure days and years.

What scale did the Israelites employ to measure the passage of time? What scale was employed when Genesis was written?
We know that in part of Genesis no scale could have been employed because the Sun did not exist at a time when "days" were said to have passed.

The Sun was created on the 4th Day ... and the first three days were normal 24 hour days (even described as having an evening and a morning).
... and the year hasn't changed either ... it was approximately 365.25 days, just like it is now.

hinault wrote: »

The book of Exodus shows that many aspects of life were far more advanced compared to Genesis.

None of which addresses what is claimed in parts of Genesis.

No, we have no way of knowing what basis the measurement for days/years
as described in Genesis, was.

And to suggest that the Israelites understood the planetary and solar activity for the accurate measurement of time that was developed in the 16th century is fantasy.

Days measure themselves ... even tiny chidren can count the number of 'sleeps' (or days) leading up to Christmas ... and all agricultural societies knew how to measure years ... and when to sow and reap their crops and breed their animals to optimum effect.

hinault wrote: »

Instead we do know for certain that the longevity of human life centuries after the time period that Genesis described, was far far shorter than the longevity of the lives of several people named in Genesis.

Nobody is arguing with you on this one ... we can even observe the limits to Human life today ... with a maximum of about 120 years ... that is roughly the same as the time of the Flood.
You are making the error of assuming that Human longevity has increased since ancient times (when Humans had a much lower genetic load than they do now).

Genesis 6 New International Version (NIV)

Wickedness in the World
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

hinault wrote: »

Of course the longevity of these peoples lives might be possible. It might be possible that someone lived for 900 years, in a time when peoples longevity was only several decades long. It might be possible too that one person lived until they were 124 years old in a time when the same people were lucky to have lived until they were 40.

... or it might be a certainty that people who were only a few generations away from the first perfect (and designed to be immortal) Humans ... would live very long lives (by modern standards).
Please remember that Adam was still alive when Noah's father, Lamech, was born. In fact, Lamlech was 57 years old when Adam died.

Timberrrrrrrr · 17-02-2017 10:23PM

J C wrote: »

The Sun was created on the 4th Day ... and the other three days were normal 24 hour days (even described as having an evening and a morning.
... and the year hasn't changed either ... it was approximately 365.25 days, just like it is now.

Days measure themselves ... even tiny chidren can count the number of sleeps (or days) leading up to Christmas ... and all agricultural societies knew how to measure years ... and when to sow and reap their crops and breed their animals to optimum effect.

Nobody is arguing with you on this one ... we can even observe the limits to Human life today ... with a maxium of about 120 years ... that is roughly the same as the time of the Flood.
You are making the error of assuming that Human longevity has increased since ancient times (when Humans had a much lower genetic load than they do now).

Genesis 6 New International Version (NIV)

Wickedness in the World
1 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with[a] humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

... or it would be a certainty that people who were only a few generations away from the first perfect (and designed to be immortal) Humans ... would live very long lives (by modern standards).
Please remember that Adam was still alive when Noah's father, Lamech, was born. In fact, Lamlech was 57 years old when Adam died.

How do you have a morning without a sunrise?

J C · 17-02-2017 10:44PM

Leroy42 wrote: »

And if Genesis is an analogy, then were does it stop?

Why do we treat all the words in the NT as true rather than analogy. Did Jesus really walk on water as was it just a message about his ability to rise above the problems that men are faced with?

Did he really rise from the dead, or is that just a message to tell us his spirit lives on and his message is still relevant?

The 10 commandments are in the OT, but can we simply treat them as probable?

A very fair point ... that Christians who don't take a plain reading of the Bible, should note.

J C · 17-02-2017 10:51PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

How do you have a morning without a sunrise?

The Earth was created (and was therefore rotating) from Day 1 ... all that was needed was a source of light / energy ... and this was also provided on Day 1.

Gen 1:3-5

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Timberrrrrrrr · 17-02-2017 11:40PM

J C wrote: »

The Earth was created (and was therefore rotating) from Day 1 ... all that was needed was a source of light / energy ... and this was also provided on Day 1.

Gen 1:3-5

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

Where did this "light" come from?

hinault · 18-02-2017 04:55AM

J C wrote: »

The Earth was created (and was therefore rotating) from Day 1 ... all that was needed was a source of light / energy ... and this was also provided on Day 1.

Gen 1:3-5

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

The "light" that you refer to, using Genesis, is energy.
Verses 3 and 4, in Genesis.

Matter can only exist where there is energy to create matter.
No energy, no matter.

And the Earth may have been rotating as you suggest, but it wasn't orbiting anything during the first 3 days of creation. Because there was no Sun which Earth could orbit during the first 3 days of creation.

If there was no Sun, there was no "day" or "night", as we understand it.

Verse 5 of Genesis states

1:5 And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day.

Verse 16 of Genesis states

And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and The stars.

My view is that verses 3 and 4 refers to the creation of Energy and Time.

My view is that verse 5 might refer to the creation of the measurement of days, but verse 16 also refers to the measurement of days.

Panrich · 18-02-2017 10:37AM

It's all seems a bit too ambiguous to base your whole life view around in my opinion even if you can get past who wrote it and when or why.

Nick Park · 18-02-2017 11:13AM

Leroy42 wrote: »

Why do we treat all the words in the NT as true rather than analogy. Did Jesus really walk on water as was it just a message about his ability to rise above the problems that men are faced with?

First off, it would be a big mistake to talk of 'analogy' and 'true' as being opposites or mutually exclusive. An analogy can be true. For example, if I say that Stalin kicked Hitler's backside at the Battle of Stalingrad, that is an analogy that is also true!

We do treat some words in the NT as analogy. For example, when Jesus told the apostles that they would be 'fishers of men' He didn't mean that they had to throw nets over people or stick a hook in someone's mouth - it's an analogy.

It's pretty easy to tell what words in the New Testament are analogies, metaphors etc and which are meant to be understood literally. This is because we understand First Century literary forms very well and so scholars, both Christian and non-Christian, can tell what is intended to be understood as historical narrative and where figures of speech are being used. In fact, in most cases, we don't need the help of scholars - common sense will do it for you!

In interpreting the Bible, as with most forms of communication, the key question is always, "How did the writers intend the original hearers to understand these words? Knowing what we do of these hearers, how would they have most likely understood these words?"

In our daily lives we encounter a mixture of literal language and figures of speech in almost every conversation or form of communication. But we rarely mistake one for the other (unless we are being a prat and trying to deliberately twist the words of others). This is how speech and communication works.

The problem is that the further our 'distance' (in language, time and culture) from the transmitters of the original message, the more likely we are to misunderstand them. That is why a Chinese visitor to Ireland is more likely to get confused by a figure of speech than someone who has lived here all their life.

In the case of the New Testament, we have so many other literary sources from that period, so much historical data about how people thought and behaved, and so many people who are extremely proficient in Koine Greek (the language in which the NT was written) that we can shrink our 'distance' so far as to easily understand.

The early chapters of Genesis, however, are a different kettle of fish. They go back much further (even if we guess a date for the writing of Genesis, the author obviously incorporated older sources) and it gets much harder to work out how the original author intended his words to be understood by his original hearers. So some, including some who post in this thread, think that they were intended to be understood as historical narrative. Others believe the early chapters of Genesis are an extended parable (we have other examples in the OT of this literary form).

Nick Park · 18-02-2017 11:15AM

Panrich wrote: »

It's all seems a bit too ambiguous to base your whole life view around in my opinion even if you can get past who wrote it and when or why.

You can probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who base their whole life around the first few chapters of Genesis.

J C · 18-02-2017 05:16PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

How do you have a morning without a sunrise?

... we have plenty of them in Ireland ... cloudy mornings ... without being able to see the sun rise !!!:pac::)

J C · 18-02-2017 05:18PM

Timberrrrrrrr wrote: »

Where did this "light" come from?

It was created by God on Day 1 ... as a precursor to Sun and other stars ... on Day 4.:)

J C · 18-02-2017 05:30PM

hinault wrote: »

The "light" that you refer to, using Genesis, is energy.
Verses 3 and 4, in Genesis.

Matter can only exist where there is energy to create matter.
No energy, no matter.

Says who?
Matter can be destroyed to create (a large amount of) energy ... in nuclear reactions ... going the other way, by using energy to create matter, is much more difficult and has never been observed. It is theoretically possible to create electrons and positrons by deveoping a 'photon collider'... but this hasn't been done yet.

Matter (and energy) were directly created ... in fact, matter was created before energy/light ...

Genesis 1 New International Version (NIV)

The Beginning
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

hinault wrote: »

And the Earth may have been rotating as you suggest, but it wasn't orbiting anything during the first 3 days of creation. Because there was no Sun which Earth could orbit during the first 3 days of creation.

If there was no Sun, there was no "day" or "night", as we understand it.

There was no Sun ... but there was light and darkness ... and therefore day and night ... morning and evening.

Leroy42 · 18-02-2017 05:35PM

JC they quotes from a translation. Are you certain that are a correct interpretation of what was originally said.

J C · 18-02-2017 05:49PM

Leroy42 wrote: »

JC they quotes from a translation. Are you certain that are a correct interpretation of what was originally said.

Which 'quotes' are you referring to?

Leroy42 · 18-02-2017 06:09PM

Genesis 1.

As was mentioned earlier in the thread, the current english translations are not direct translations of the original text so little point using that as a reference

Safehands · 18-02-2017 08:07PM

J C wrote: »

The Sun was created on the 4th Day ... and the first three days were normal 24 hour days (even described as having an evening and a morning).

It really bothers me when creationsists just make things up when facts don't suit the story. But that is what happens all the time.
According to the tale, the sun was created on the forth day, as you say.
You call yourself a scientist JC. I have no doubt whatsoever that you are a very intelligent person. So you know fine well that it is not possible for normal 24 hour days to occur without the sun. So I ask, are you just writing nonsensical stuff like this just to stir things up a bit?

The Bible, Creationism, and Prophecy (part 2)

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