Ipetrich
(nice name, how did you come to get it?),
Tercel sure as hell is contriving the hell out of Genesis and so brazenly scrambling the text I am left speechless.

Are you a christian by any chance?

If anyone is wondering - I am not French. I am a Kenyan.

When you posted the message, there was an option to get notified by email everytime
somebody replied to the thread which you
started. Everytime ANYBODY replies, you'll
get an email message. It's your own fault.

The body of water is just that- a body of water. At the time God is preparing the Earth for life, it is covered with a lot of water. Why did the author use the "deep"? Maybe for poetic license, maybe because God hadn't named it yet- He separates it in two and then names the parts.

Well the third day just describes the land rising above sea level and formation vegetation. It's not specifically speaking of the creation of seas. I guess it just depends on how you look at it. If land rising is what made oceans and seas, I guess that could be it too. I see it as just describing land rising above sea level. Everything is already in place because verse one already told you that. You shouldn't assume anything else.

I say "usually" to explain why I believe that is what the author is referring to. I am not unsure.

I don't know if you read my post well enough. The light is the sun- as I said the heavens already exist. The Bible doesn't say the universe is dark, it says the earth is dark. Apparently something is blocking the way and preventing the light of the sun from reaching its surface. As of day 1, the light of the sun (and moon) can be seen, but not the sources of light themselves. Why? I'll explain later.

I think you missed the point I was trying to make. God is not wasting His breath. Meaningless palaver? (Hmmm, Americans don't use such words- I haven't heard that in a long time. Where are you from?) Anyway what I was saying is that there was probably something preventing the sources of light from being seen- and the clouds contributed to this prevention. God issues a command for the light to be in the expanse of the sky, or firmament of heaven made on the 2nd day (the water vapour, clouds, what have you). Ask yourself, when it is very cloudy are you still able to see the sun or can you just sometimes see its light? A better way for me to put it is that on day 4 it went from very cloudy to partly cloudy and sometimes clear. Make sense?

The days in Genesis are used to establish chronology. It seems that from days 1-4, He is just setting up the earth He has already created for life. It's not until day 5 that he actually creates again. In fact it's not until verse 20, that the Henrew for creating brand new, bara is used again.

It seems you turned on notification for replies when you created your thread. Next time you create a thread, uncheck the box.



[This message has been edited by TrueThinker (edited June 12, 2001).]

I guess you replied as I was replying back to your post. Anyway I'm from Ghana which is why I asked. The language you used was not common to this part of the world (I live in the U.S. currently).

T: "1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth."The Stars, Sun, Earth were all created.

LP: Totally scrambling the text.

T: Really? The NIV, NASB, NKJV, DARBY all render Genesis 1:1 like this.

LP: That's not my point. My point is that Genesis 1 states that the Sun, Moon, and stars were created a couple days later.

T: "3 And God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light."At this point one of two things happened. Either the sun began to give off light, or the vapour cloud around the earth thinned to a point where the sun's light was visible from the earth.

LP: Light without a source is an absurdity.

T: Perhaps. But how is this relevant? The light has a source - the sun.

LP: However, the Sun is described as being created a few days later.

LP: The Earth's atmosphere is NOT a body of continuous liquid water, despite it sometimes having clouds in it.

T: I don't recall saying or implying it was.

LP: Maybe not you, but the Bible, which implies that there is a big ocean of water above the sky.

LP: I suggest reading also:

Matthew 4:8
Revelation 7:1

Consider what they imply about the shape of the Earth.

T: Oh, please!

LP: It must be embarrassing to discover that the Bible strongly implies that the Earth is flat. And this was over three centuries *after* Aristotle had convincingly shown that the Earth is shaped like a ball.

Jaliet: Ipetrich
(nice name, how did you come to get it?),

LP: That's my first initial + my last name

J: Tercel sure as hell is contriving the hell out of Genesis and so brazenly scrambling the text I am left speechless.

LP: I agree.

J: Are you a christian by any chance?

LP: No.

lpetrich,

Have you read anything I've posted in this thread?

Yes, I'm a Christian. It doesn't mean I have to have an interpretation for every single passage in the Bible. Frankly, I don't know how this should be interpreted. Surely I'm allowed to say "I don't know"? When dealing with such an unclear passage, especially when also trying to read it in light of science, I think "I don't know" is more than justified.
You asked for what Christians think about this passage, and since Genesis 1 is a subject on which I am fairly knowledgable I thought I'd give you the different Christian views. I think both approaches have merit and both have problems.

-Major edit-
I've changed my mind: since I do not have an opinion on the interpretation I will not support one.

[This message has been edited by Tercel (edited June 12, 2001).]

Genesis 1
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.

Most likely, the original Hebrew text went like this: "When the gods began to create the sky and the land--the land being unformed and vacant, with darkness over the surface of the deep [water] and a wind from the gods sweeping over the water..."

The writer presumed the pre-existence of water, so the gods created only the sky and land. This is consistent with the most ancient semitic creation mythology which predates the Hebrew version.

rodahi

You are not paying attention. Ha'shammayim we ha'erets is a combination in Hebrew that refers to the whole of creation, not the sky and land. It's like the difference between freethinker and free thinker- when combined the word has a different meaning. The common error people make is trying to say that it speaks of the sky and land. Not so.