Jubal_DiGriz

No, because planetary theory requires there to be a sun before there is any formation process (because of the gravity, you know).

There's a couple things wrong with that statement. First is the idea that there is any observer except God before the creation of life. It's seems you missed the helpful hints implying this others provided earlier. If you mean "literary perspective", I concede your point, though the rest of the Creation is told from an "omniscient" perspective, so the inconsistency is curious.

Second, as others have again said before, the light appear before the sun. First day=light. Fourth day= sun, moon, and stars. The earth, the oceans, and PLANTS are all said to have existed before the sun, moon, and stars. This is in direct, complete contradiction to everything we know about astronomy, geology, and biology.


True enough. ("City of God", Book 6, Chapter 7). Augustine conceived of the seven days as "light of knowledge", and to be highly metaphysical, with time only progressing when humans begin to move about. But then that contradicts your idea that these "days" are actually vast eras that correspond to our current understanding of cosmological evolution. Which is it? Either 1) all was created in an instant and time did not exist until humans began to move, or 2) vast swaths of time pass, with light, Earth, and plant life preceding the Sun and Moon.


The ancient Hebrew cosmology has been accurately depicted here before your post (with lovely pictures!). Clearly, there is "empty space" between the ground and the dome, which God bequeathed to the birds and so forth. Nothing you cited (except a modern apologist, aware of rockets and astronomy) contradicts a solid firmament that holds off the upper oceans from crashing down on us.

It says "cattle". I liberally interpreted that to mean domesticated animals, instead of presuming that God has a special plan for cows. My point is that several times in Creation "cattle" is distinguished from wild animals, implying a different role in Creation...which, from an anthropocentric point of view, is true. It also implies, again, that "cattle" were created as-is, and not bred from wild beasts, which further encourages a Young-Earth viewpoint.


And, again, I argue that the day-age argument is incompatible with both a literal reading of the Bible and a scientific cosmology. It could work if one to concede that the stages of creation are mixed up, distorted, and more myth than textbook.

That's an very liberal reading. What it does imply is a creation of, you know, the heavens and the earth. Honestly, I think it's useless to bicker about ancient Hebrew grammar over a rather critical point, namely when and how long did God create, and was there anything before he started creating? I'll concede the point to you, because I don't know enough to argue it, and there are really much more important problems with the Creation account.

Like, for instance, all the other things you choose not to comment on. The Sun and Moon being functionally the same, and being created in the same era (after plants). No planets. No vegetation in the oceans. Simultaneous creation of fish and birds (in the same era, if you please). No microscopic organisms. Humans entirely separate from the rest of the biosphere.

Just one of these is a serious contradiction between simple scientific conclusions (or simple observation) and the Biblical account. I'd be very interested to see these addressed, as well.

And that does not even include my list of things we would expect to see if Genesis was true, giving it the same critical examination as any hypothesis. While your "day-as-era" idea would discount some of these, other points (such as concentric human growth from a single point, and the decreasingly lifespan) are still relevant. Or do you discount the Garden of Eden and parts of the biography of Abraham as well, for being to silly? Almost like mythology...

Dlx2

Something I have a problem with as far as day-age hypotheses go:

The Elohist and Jahwist authors are both incredibly careful with use HYH and it's derivatives, because it forms part of the name of God, and is intrinsically intertwined with the existence of God. Considering that word choice is VERY precise in the first few chapters of B'reishit and careful wordplay abounds, I have a lot of trouble believing that either source would have carelessly used the word "hayah" in the phrase hayah erev v'hayah boker yom ekhad.

Additionally, I'm still not convinced that Tohu and Bohu are not primeval myth-entities in and of themselves, nor am I convinced that Khoshekh is not being treated as a proper noun and thus a mythological entity in itself.

Boro Nut

Perhaps the flood was the only way god could send us a message in the bottleneck.

Boro Nut

Boro Nut

That's right. Modern biblical scholarship now understands them to be incredibly huge and every bit as insignificant.

Boro Nut

Vicious Love

:notworthy:

lee_merrill

Well, why so?

Well, Augustine did, he thought creation occurred in one split second.

Well, "the heavens and the earth" is an idiom for "the universe," so the universe created in some form will do, for verse 1.

Good point, now it would seem “formless” could still apply to an unformed earth.

But see Proverbs 8:24-35.

Well, I mean the literary device of perspective, which involves the reader in the story, from that perspective, and generally speaks of events as happening from that perspective.

Well, again “let there be lights” may well be reminiscent of “let there be light,” and the lights were placed in the heavens on the fourth day, but the point remains that there are remarkable correspondences, as well as these disputes.

But not my point that days would only mean 24-hour days to someone untrained in science. It seems the goalposts shifted?

So which ancient Hebrew artist drew this picture? This is the medieval picture, I repeat.

Ahem…

“The Mosaic account of creation uses rqiat interchangeably for the ‘open expanse of the heavens’ in which birds fly (Gen 1:20 NASB), i.e. the atmosphere (H. C. Leupold, Exposition of Genesis, 1, p. 59), and that farther expanse of sky in which God placed ‘the lights... for signs and for seasons' (vv. 14,17, referring apparently to their becoming visible through the cloud cover; the stars, sun, and moon presumably having been created already in v. 3), i.e. empty space (ISBE, I, p. 315), over which, as Job said, ‘He stretches out the north’ (Job 26:7).” (TWOT)

So the space between the earth and clouds may very well be the firmament, medieval artists notwithstanding, and the waters above them would then be the clouds (the Hebrews knew water came from clouds!).

Psalm 50:10 For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills.

Which would I think refer to more than domesticated cattle. And here:

Deuteronomy 32:24 I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts [behemoth – the same word].

So there was a beginning to the universe, which has been noted as observation 1.

Strangely enough, I have mentioned before this is not my view. Now to present me with problems with my view, you will have to desist from addressing other views!

No insects! So this is evidently a broad-brush view. No mosses or mushrooms, and so on.

This is a problem? Of course humans have biological selves, but that is (as Chesterton said) a truism, and the startling fact is that humans, though similar in features, should be so different. The astonishment is the gulf, five fingers and toes on both men and the apes having been duly noted.

“If you leave off looking at books about beasts and men, if you begin to look at beasts and men then (if you have any humour or imagination, any sense of the frantic or the farcical) you will observe that the startling thing is not how like man is to the brutes, but how unlike he is. It is the monstrous scale of his divergence that requires an explanation.” (Chesterton)

Right, birds from fishies—observation number, what, four?

But “hayah” is fine in my view—there was a beginning and an end of one era.

And the phrase "one day" does occur in other places, where it does not refer to a 24-hour period:

Genesis 27:45 Why should I lose both of you in one day?

Zechariah 14:7-8 It will be a unique day [yom echad], without daytime or nighttime-- a day known to the Lord. When evening comes, there will be light. On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half to the eastern sea and half to the western sea, in summer and in winter.

Evening is mentioned here, too.

Well, do please show me this in a commentary, and then we can proceed, otherwise I shall think this idea rather insubstantially supported.

Regards,
Lee

Johnny Skeptic

Message to Lee Merrill: Do you believe that dinosaurs predated humans by thousands or millions of years, or that they were created about the time that Adam and Eve were created?

Do you know of any credible ways to determine whether or not the Genesis accounts of creation are true?

Jubal_DiGriz

What I've gotten from your reply, Lee, is that you do not read Genesis (and presumably, the rest of the Bible) literally. Is this accurate? I'm not sure, because on the one hand you seem to deny that creation took six days and think the sun came before everything else, but on the other hand you quote scripture (Psalms and Proverbs, even!) to prove a point.

Since this thread is about hammering down just what it is that creationist believe, I make two proposals:

If a significant volume of creationist thought is non-literalist, than can we please move from nit-picking the Bible to figuring out what interpretations are preferred.

And to Lee: Since you appear to be a creationist, I would appreciate it if you provided some constructive help. Could you give a clear statement to what you believe, and/or give us a source that is highly regarded among creationists as a good theory? No piecemeal, please.

lee_merrill

Well, here, Psalms shows clearly that behemoth doesn't just mean cattle to Hebrews, why is the some literal interpretation point? And observers before creation, Scripture does picture observers then, so doesn't this establish the point that there could be such observers from a literary perspective? Again, why this means I am being literal or non-literal, I wonder.

And I certainly argue that this is a real account of creation, now if by literal, you mean the YEC 24-hour view is the only literal view, I have been explaining why this need not be the actual meaning of the text, yet I believe it is a description of real events, re the opening post in this thread--the verses match with observations.

I certainly want the best interpretation, call this literalist or not if you wish.

Hugh Ross' view fits mine pretty closely, see also his book "A Matter of Days."

Regards,
Lee

lee_merrill

Here is Hugh Ross' timeline of such events, which seems in line with what I hold happened.

That would be the subject of this thread! if observations can be seen that match (in ways people long ago would probably not have been able to guess) with the account in Genesis.