Johnny Skeptic

But there is not any information in the book of Genesis that can reasonably be verified.

What information is accurate? If you mean the creation accounts, no human witnessed creation.

No one knows who first wrote down the creation story.

No one knows where the author got his information from.

No one knows whether or not the original information was changed.

There is good evidence that the Bible is not inerrant. Not only are there a number of reasonably provable errors in the Bible, but inspriring and preserving texts implies that whoever inspired and preserved them wants people to have access to them. As it was, millions of people died without hearing the Gospel messages because God refused to tell them about it.

Fundies believe that God wants them to spread the Gospel message. However, there is not any credible evidence that God has every personally told anyone about the Gospel message. This means that God only wants people to hear about the Gospel message if another human tells them about it. That does not make any sense. If God did not have anything to do with the spread of the Gospel message, that explains why the people who had the best chance to hear it lived closer to Palestine. A loving God would certainly not play favorites based upon geography, or based upon any other factors. Kosmin and Lachman wrote a book that is titled "One Nation Under God." The authors provide a lot of documented evidence that shows that in the U.S., the primary factors that influence what people believe are geography, family, race, ethnicity, gender, and age. Those factors are obviously secular factors. Kosmin and Lachman show that a much higher percentage of women become Christians than men. This means that either God discriminates against women, or that that is to be expected since women are generally more emotional than men are, and since emotions are an important part of religous beliefs. The authors also show that when people become elderly, they are much less likely to change their minds no matter what they believe. This means that either God discriminates against elderly skeptics, or that it is genetically normal for elderly people to become set in their ways.

What we have here is that God wants people to hear the Gospel message, but only if another person tells then about it.

James says that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead, and yet God refused to give food to hundreds of thousands of people who died of starvation in the Irish Potato Famine. This means that God is only concerned with people having enough food to eat if another human gives them enough food to eat. That does not make any sense either.

What we have here is that God wants people to have enough food to eat, but only if another person gives them enough food to eat.

In both cases, God is more concerned with METHODS than he is with RESULTS. That is an utterly outrageous conclusion, but fundies have no choice except to make that conclusion. The best conclusion is that if a God exists, he is not the God of the Bible.

Why do you suppose that God inspired James to write that if a man refuses to give food to a hungry person, he is vain, and his faith is dead?

Will you please tell us that you believe God is trying to accomplish?

Will you please tell us some fair, worthy, and just goals God cannot achieve without killing people and innocent animals with hurricanes?

If I recall correctly, in the past you said that hurricanes are natural disasters. If you said that, from a Christian perspective you are wrong. From a Christian perspective, there is not any such thing as a natural disaster. For a hurricane to be a natural disaster, the first hurricane would have to had created itself, and determined where it wanted to go by itself. You obviously do not believe that. If God originally created the weather, the weather can only do what he created it to do, and that includes Hurricane Katrina.

Please be advised that there is not a necessary correlation between the ability to create a universe and good character.

The implied claim in Romans chapter 9 that "might makes right" is not valid.

May I ask who appointed you to judge whether or not God is good, perfect, and infallible?

If a God exists, and wants to communicate with humans, it is logical to conclude that the best way for him to communicate with humans would be written texts AND lots of personal appearances to everyone in all generations. Refusing to do that could not possibly benefit a God or anyone else. Historically, many Christians have killed each other over arguments regarding interpretation. That would not have been necessary if God had showed up in person to mediate disputes.

It is not reasonable for anyone to believe that a loving God would threaten to send skeptics to hell for eternity without parole, and that he would do so exclusively by using human proxies.

Exodus 4:11 says that God makes people blind, deaf, and dumb. Exodus 20:5 says that God punishes people for sins that their ancestors committed. God to Moses to kill women and children. God killed babies at Sodom and Gomorrah and at Egypt. Even in the New Testament, God killed Ananias and Saphira over money.
No decent person would ever accept a God like that.

You ougth to be aware that chance and circumstance determine what people believe, not the God of the Bible. Under certain different circumstances, including different time periods, you would not have been a fundamentalist Christian. It is my position that a loving God would not allow chance and circumstance to determine what people believe.

I know that some of my comments are off-topic. Would you like to discuss some of these issues at the General Religious Discussions Forum? I assume that you would not like to discuss some of these issues because you know that they are difficult for fundies to defend.

Adamu

Neither the creative acts in Genesis nor The Seven Tablets of Creation have changed, have they? To what changes, then, are you referring? Why complicate things with "complexity and responsibility?" A simple side by side comparison elucidates the connection, if you ask me.
As I see it, only if one is beholden to the inerrant Word of God or is simply compelled to ridicule and debunk believers is there "complexity and responsibility" in this discussion.
As it is, the differing prefix, or lack thereof, and unique numbering system used to describe the "days" of creation are but more evidence of the derivative nature of the Genesis account.

What do you mean "the Sumerian variety of the tradition or any of the others?"
Please show how King lacked such in his work?

Sorry, I wasn't clear.
The "conclusions" I cited are found in the paper by Whitefield, 2006, wherein he discusses the use of "yom" in Genesis 1.
He cites another scholar, Gleason Archer:
“ There were six major stages in this work of formation, and these stages are represented by successive days of a week. In this connection it is important to observe that none of the six creative days bears a definite article in the Hebrew text; the translations “the first day,” “ the second day,” etc., are in error. The Hebrew says, “And the evening took place, and the morning took place, day one” (1:5). Hebrew expresses “the first day” by hayyom harison, but this text says simply yom ehad (day one). Again, in v.8 we read not hayyom hasseni (“the second day”) but yom seni (“a second day”). In Hebrew prose of this genre, the definite article was generally used where the noun was intended to be definite; only in poetic style could it be
omitted. The same is true with the rest of the six days; they all lack the definite article. Thus they are well adapted to a sequential pattern, rather than to strictly delimited units of time.”

My emphases.

Whitefield adds: "A review of the Hebrew text of the Bible finds: (1) Each of the Hebrew numberings expressed by “yom” + ordinal number used in Genesis 1:8, Genesis 1:13, Genesis 1:19, Genesis 1:23, and Genesis 1:31 (i.e., five of the six creative times) appear only one time in the Bible" and "These results and the uniform absence of the definite article “the” prefixing the Hebrew word “yom,” confirms the basis of Archer’s: “. . . none of the six creative days bears a definite article in the Hebrew text; the translations “the first day,” “ the second day,” etc., are in error.”

The translations in the text are in error.

Readers of English translations, or any translations, should be aware there is no "the" article in the Hebrew texts during the creative "days;" they are distinctly different.
Is there a rule in English which states we should ignore this?

Translations are inherently flawed, which is why we should understand what the texts say in their own language.

Hey, I'm all for a more literal reading of ancient texts. I actually think a more meaningful understanding can be gleaned in doing so, which is why I see this particular issue as reconciled. Acknowledging the derivative nature of the Genesis account of creation, coupled with the distinct linguistic difference in the "days" (pun intended) of creation, it seems utterly clear they were not intended as delimited periods of 24hrs.

A natural reading of a mistranslated text leaves you with what though?

Readers should know the writers of Genesis simply edited a much older creation story to fit their particular monotheistic view.

IMO, it is ridiculous for literalists to believe the acts of creation took place over 7 literal 24hr days, and perhaps just as to deny the Hebrew use of "days" during the process as meaning "ages" or "extended periods."

Adamu

No, they are only wrong in stating "the first day," "the second day," etc. in describing the events of creation.
At worst, they should be read "first extended period of time," "second extended period of time," etc.

Adamu

Good question. I think it's possible they are both remembrances from a common source but I find it more probable that the Hebrew account followed the Sumerian. It appears that just as Marduk became the exalted god for the Babylonians, so too was YHWH for the Hebrews, both conveying the same tale but with different god-most high. These were distinct moves in the direction of monotheism. And if I'm not mistaken, polytheism predates such a belief. The Sumerian version of the Enuma Elish, IIRC, actually exalted EA, not Marduk. So there seems an obvious progression in time and geography towards a single God. However, and more over, YHWH was also "elohim," a morphologically plural word translated singularly. I think more accurately He was just one of "the gods" of the much older Sumerian pantheon.


As for me, unless I can touch or smell it, at least see it, but even better, eat it, I don't believe it.

Possible, but I find it more probable that "the adam," the Man, created by God (after a discussion with himself in the plural) is the same man fashioned by the gods of Sumer after holding council. I think Adam, the person, is relevant only to the Hebraic lineages. Again, the Genesis account appears to be the edited version.

Johnny Skeptic

What information, and useful for what? There is not anything in the book of Genesis that is historically verifiable, but you already know that. You know that the book of Genesis must be accepted entirely by faith, or rejected, just like most or all of the rest of the supernatural claims that the Bible makes, including the claims that the God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth, that there was a global flood, that a donkey talked, that God sent the Ten Plagues to Egypt, that Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit, that Jesus was born of a virgin, that Jesus never sinned, that Jesus' shed blood and death atoned for the sins of mankind, and that Jesus ascended into heaven.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, that explains why there is not one single supernatural claim in the Bible that is obvious to the majority of the people in the world, and why God does not perform any reasonably verfiable tangible miracles today.

spin

This stuff hangs on the lack of an article. Naturally the only place where numbered days lack the definite article is in Genesis 1. It should be noted that the ASV happily translates the days as "a first day", "a second day", etc, and that makes sense without suspecting anything strange about the significance of the word YWM. As there are no other occasions without article in the bible, we must assume that there isn't a single reason for reading YWM as anything other than its normal significance.

Stuff about an "extended period of time" is merely irrelevant to the text, because there isn't a skerrick of evidence to support it. It's just more eisegesis. I've pointed to two separate indicators in the text for reading "day" for the normal sense of YWM. There are no apparent indicators for reading any other sense.


spin

spin

Our knowledge of them has certainly changed.

100 years of philology. Word meanings, grammar. Comparative linguistics and literature.

For a better understanding.

If you hadn't noticed, I've said there's a connection, just not as simple as some would like..

A lot of people seem to think that it is a matter of reading a translation of a few texts in order to understand the complexities of philology and linguistics. This is not the case.

Falling into diatribes about inerrantism and ridicule are merely excuses for not learning the job.

I've responded to this in my last posting. Genesis is the only place in the bible where this happens, so there is no case to be made out of other examples. There is no evidence to allow one to translate YWM any differently when a literal translation functions without any problem.

Many more texts have been found since King's day that allow one to know more about the language and cultural heritage behind the texts.

Gleason Archer has consistently proven to be a sorry apologist.

Sadly, Archer is arguing for an apologetic purpose. He isn't dealing with items such as "the first day" not being the same as "a first day". His whole argument here is irrelevant. When talking about days of a month the first day is )XD L:XD$, which is not easily translatable literally ("one to month") -- notice, no article.

One thing we know is that languages use articles differently from other languages.

Fine apologetics. Poor philology. There is no evidence for error in translation. Merely the assumption that because there is no article in the Hebrew, there should be no article in the English.

Do the same writers complain that the translation is wrong when we read "the first day of the month" for )XD L:XD$? Naturally they are silent. That's convenient: no article in Hebrew, but we use one in English... hmmm, sound familiar?

See above.

If you believe the apologists.

You should start.

Well, why did the Jews who wrote the calendrical documents in the DSS start the calendar year on a Wednesday, the day on which the sun and moon were created? Nothing to do with the notion that Genesis days were perceived as ordinary days of course. (Do you want a few references to discussions on these Qumran documents?)

One thing we note that is different about the Genesis version of the creation from the Enuma Elish is the imposition of the days. This is a feature of the Hebrew. The Babylonian didn't have them and didn't need to talk about time periods. The days were placed in the text for a purpose and we know that that purpose was the institution of the sabbath day, not the sabbath extended period of time.

Funny thing is I can use the original text. The natural reading indicates that there's nothing to suggest any other meaning for YWM than its usual meaning.

(Why do you think they should know? The vast majority could only listen to the text and they certainly weren't presented with readings of, say, the Enuma Elish.)

There was nothing simple about the effort. It wasn't an act of editing. And there is a lot that is different in the text from what is found in the Enuma Elish.

If you cannot read the text for what it says, why bother reading it? You are not deriving your meanings from it. You are putting meanings onto it, ie eisegesis. You pick the ideas of "ages" and "extended periods" not out of the text, but out of thin air, through suggestions of apologists. Read the text first and forget the apologetics.

If you cannot derive a meaning from the text itself, then you cannot derive that meaning. The text repeatedly talks literally not about "ages", but about "days". The text supports the notion of an ordinary day through the related words, "night", "evening" and "morning" (what do these words actually mean in your theory?), and through the necessity of the sabbath discourse.


spin

rhutchin

As you reveal, even you have faith.

Johnny Skeptic

Well sure, but what does that have to do with my question? I said "What information, and useful for what?" Please answer the question.

I also said "There is not anything in the book of Genesis that is historically verifiable, but you already know that. You know that the book of Genesis must be accepted entirely by faith, or rejected......." Do you agree with that?

The main issue is not THAT people believe things, but WHY they believe things. If a liberal Christian or a deist had used my argument, would you have said "As you reveal, even you have faith?" Of course you wouldn't. You need arguments that apply not only to atheists and agnostics, but also to non-Christian theists, who happen to number in the billions.

Do you really hope to change anyone's mind about the book of Genesis with brief little comments like that?

If a God created the heavens and the earth, so what? No one saw him do it, no one knows how long it took, and no one knows who he is.

rhutchin

The information we find in the Bible is placed there by God to draw a person to Christ or prepare a person for judgment. Any person can read the Bible and pretty much figure out where they fit.

For the most part, I agree. Archaeological research has verified names and places, even dates, but on the whole, historical texts are difficult to verify and this is true for the historical texts gathered together to form the Bible.

People seem to believe as a consequence of being human. What they believe is really the issue.

No. God uses the Bible to change the minds of people and does not rely on pithy little comments by me to do so.

The so what concerns your accountability to the God who created the heavens and the earth. If it is true that God did create the heavens and the earth (and no one has figured out a way for it to happen on its own), then it would also be true that you must stand before that God and give account of all you have done with the life He gave you. That accounting is the so what.