net2002

Ptet here is another evasive attempt made to rebuke your article.



In the beginning created God the heavens and the earth;

The frame of reference in Genesis 1:1 is the cosmos.

God declares that He brought into existence the entire physical universe - matter, energy, and all the space-time dimensions associated with matter and energy.

Einstein's theory of general relativity tells us that the cause of the universe creates it independently (i.e. from outside) of matter, energy, and the space-time dimensions along which matter and energy are distributed.

Creation of the entire physical universe (matter, energy, space and time), occurred ~13.7 Billion years ago.

The creation of the Universe brought with it not only the time into which it flows, but also the space into which it expands. Thus, the presence of the matter and energy of the Universe not only causes the existence of time, but also of space. This creation event includes an expanding universe, which continues to expand at this time.

Here is a brief scriptural summary:
1) MATTER: Genesis 1:1, 2:4, Isaiah 42:5, 45:12, 45:18, Colossians 1:16, Revelation 4:11.
2) ENERGY: Genesis 1:3.
3) SPACE: Romans 8:38-39, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22.
4) TIME: Titus 1:2, 2 Tim 1:9
5) FROM THE INVISIBLE: Hebrews 11:3.
6) EXPANDING UNIVERSE: Expanding Universe: Job 9:8, Psalm 104:2, Isaiah 40:22, 42:5, 44:24, 45:12, 48:13, 51:13, Jeremiah 10:12, 51:15, Zechariah 12:1.

The heavens (universe, solar system, sun, earth, etc.) were already created before the First "day".

“Day” One describes the preparation of planet earth for the creation of life.

The Bible describes the Earth's initial conditions following its creation when the Sun is already shining. The original Earth is described as being without any oceans or water at all (4.5 Billion years ago).

Support Scripture:

Bless Jehovah, O my soul! O Jehovah my God, You are very great; You have put on honor and majesty, covering Yourself with light like a cloak, and stretching out the heavens like a curtain; (Psalm 104:1-2)

By faith we understand the ages to have been framed by the Word of God, so that the things seen should not come into being out of things that appear. (Heb 11:3)




Scientific Discovery Support:

1) Evidences for a Big Bang Creation Event
A) Existence and temperature of the cosmic background radiation.
B) Black Body character of the cosmic background radiation.
C) Cooling rate of the cosmic background radiation.
D) Einstein’s Special & General relativity.




Scientific Predictions Gen 1:1:

1) Time and Space have a Beginning.
2) Matter & Energy have a beginning.
3) The Universe displays divine design.
4) The Universe’s design is for the benefit of man’s existence on earth.
5) The Universe has a transcendent cause.
6) The Universe is expanding.
7) The laws of physics were fixed from a very early point in the universe’s history, possibly since the beginning.



אֱלֹהִים, מְרַחֶפֶת עַל-פְּנֵי הַמָּיִם.
1:2 Veha'aretz hayetah tohu vavohu vechoshech al-penei tehom veruach Elohim merachefet al-penei hamayim.
And the earth was without form and empty, and darkness on the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was brooding on the face of the waters.


Genesis 1:2 explicitly shifts the frame of reference, the narrator's vantage point, to the surface of Earth, above the water, but below the cloud layer.

Genesis 1:2 begins after the formation of the Earth's oceans with a description of the Earth as a water-covered planet covered by dense clouds (4 Billion years ago).

This verse describes the initial conditions of primordial Earth:
1) Earth being without form.
2) Earth empty.
3) Earth was covered in darkness.
4) Earth was covered with water.
5) Earth unfit for life.


With the frame of reference and the initial conditions for the six creation “days” thus established, a straightforward chronology for the creation days' events can unfold.


Support Scripture:

You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. (Psalm 104:6)

Where were you when I founded the earth? Declare if you know understanding. Who has set its dimensions, for you know? Or who has stretched a line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who cast its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it burst out; it came forth from the womb? When I made the clouds to clothe it, and darkness its navel-band; (Job 38:4-9)



Scientific Discovery Support:

The scientific record agrees with Genesis 1:2, 9-10 in stating that shortly after the earth’s formation, the planet’s surface was more fully covered with water than at present.
(Monastersky, R., “Speedy Spin Kept Early Earth from Freezing,” Science News 143 (1993), page 373.

http://www.geolsoc.org.uk/template.cfm?name=WateryEarth



Scientific Predictions Gen 1:2:

1) Earth is old.
2) The surface of early Earth was covered with water.
3) Early Earth was shrouded in darkness.
4) Early Earth was empty of life.
5) Early Earth was unsuitable for life.
6) Life appeared early in Earth’s history.
7) Life appeared under hostile conditions.
8 ) Life appeared suddenly.
9) Early life showed features of design.
10) The purpose of this design in the universe is to sustain and benefit human life on earth.



1:4 Vayar Elohim et-ha'or ki-tov vayavdel Elohim bein ha'or uvein hachoshech.
And saw God the light that good (it was) and separated God between the light and the darkness.


This is the opaque light of the Sun (already created) which now is visible from the vantage point of the Earth’s surface.

God “sees” the light from the surface of the Earth, since His Spirit (and vantage point) is still on the surface of the Earth.



ה וַיִּקְרָא אֱלֹהִים לָאוֹר יוֹם, וְלַחֹשֶׁךְ קָרָא לָיְלָה; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם אֶחָד. {פ}
1:5 Vayikra Elohim la-or yom velachoshevh kara lailah vayehi-erev vayehi-boker yom echad.
And called God the light Day. And the darkness He called night; and was the mixing and was the breaking forth time one. {P}

It is very clear from the text that the sun had already been created and the earth was rotating on its axis, since there was light (day) and darkness (night).

The sun was created BEFORE the first “day”.

The root meaning of Erev, the Hebrew word for “Evening”, is:

Mixture
Disorder
Chaos


The root meaning of Boker, the Hebrew word for “Morning”, is:

Breaking Forth
Orderly
Able to be discerned


The flow of order out of chaos is described sequentially, six times over, in the Genesis creation account.

The Bible tells of the flow to ever more complex arrangements of existing matter by the seemingly simple statement of “and there was evening and there was morning”. In a deeper sense, “and there was disorder and there was order” or “and was the mixing and was the breaking forth”.

There was nothing to which one could relate this “day”. It stands alone as “time one”.




Scientific Discovery Support Gen 1:3-5:

1) Early in Earth’s history, the atmosphere changed so that day and night could be differentiated for an observer on Earth’s surface.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/n...oonimpact.html

http://www.space.com/scienceastronom...de_000901.html

http://www.psi.edu/projects/moon/moon.html



Scientific Predictions Gen 1:3-5:

1) Early in Earth’s history, the atmosphere changed so that day and night could be differentiated for an observer on Earth’s surface.



PTET’s “executive Summary” for “Day” one:

1) Genesis 1:1-2….NO rebuttal/NO refutation.
2) Genesis 1:3……”at a guess”
3) Genesis 1:4-5…..”presumably”


Conclusion:

NO challenge has been made to “Day” one and it stands un-refuted.

PTET

OK. Let's accept for the sake of argument that "Day One" can be read (I would, of course, say retro-fitted) as being "unrefuted".

Can anyone please explain to my why Genesis 1 says that fruit trees appeared on earth (11-13) two creation days before animal life first appread (20)?

Evolutionary science - accepted by the overwhelming majority of scientists, Christian and otherwise - says that fruit trees evolved millions of years after the first animal life. Fruit trees don't appear on the fossil record until millions of years after the first animal life. Evolutionary science understands that fruit trees didn't evolve until there were animals and insects around to eat the fruits.

If the Bible is able to make accurate scientific preditions, what support is there in Scripture to predict that fruit trees would not appear on Earth until animals were around to eat the fruit?

I've lost count of the number of times I've asked Ross's happy band to answer this simple question.

(And were did I ever claim that my Reasons not to believe Hugh Ross's Creation Model is meant to be exhaustive?)

PTET

CJD

Typically, when I see a thread on the Genesis creation account I .

Why? For two simple reasons: 1) The defender often wreaks havoc upon the ancient text by reading the account too literally and in a far too linear fashion; 2) the offender often presumes that this is the taken-for-granted reading of the text and therefore asks silly, sweeping questions like "Can anyone please explain to my why Genesis 1 says that fruit trees appeared on earth (11-13) two creation days before animal life first appread (20)?" with the presupposition that it cannot be understood in any other way than linear.

People truly interested in reading an ancient Semitic text ought also to be truly interested in learning how to read it:

See this article, "Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony", then let us see if PTET can answer Meredith Kline.

Another article of interest might be this study of Genesis 2:5-7 with implications for Genesis 2:4-25 and Genesis 1:1-2:3 (note: press on the middle "articles" link, and it is the first article in the list; parts 1&2 are in .pdf format).

A book of interest might be The Genesis Debate, where Drs. Irons and Kline explain the literary framework approach one should take when reading the creation account in Genesis.

* Nota bene: this framework view, I think, is biblical criticism proper, and as such, does not see science as either in contradiction to or in harmonization with theology; rather, it gives the two their proper place—complementary to each other.

Regards,

CJD

Amaleq13

I don't think this is true. Where, specifically, does Einstein's theory say anything about the origin of the universe? Where, specifically, does Einstein's theory make a claim about anything "outside" the universe. As I understand it, Einstein's theory breaks down when attempts are made to apply it to the earliest existence (including the onset of that existence) of the universe. Quantum physics, not Einstein's theory, is thought to be the best approach to understanding the origin and earliest condition of the universe.

spin

When one starts with an inappropriate translation one comes to erroneous conclusions.

BR$YT is not a prepositional phrase. It indicates a construct form in Hebrew, which means something like what follows is subordinated to it. It is most clearly translated something like:

In the beginning when...

(More accurate but harder to translate, "In the beginning of [God's creating...]") This means that the first few verses of the text reads:

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was without form and empty; darkness was over the face of the deep and the wind of God was hovering over the waters.

This is a prelude to the creative act. It says in what state the cosmos was when God began: there was water and darkness. One has to wait until the Platonic school introduced the notion of God as first cause before one can get the idea of a creation out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo).

Creation a la Genesis 1 was a creation out of something, which is nothing strange. The creation narratives which proceeded it in other ancient cultures were also creation out of something. In fact the Babylonian creation account Enuma Elish (EE) contains material strictly related to the Genesis account, though whether it was the source or not is hard to tell. Let's just say it preceded the Hebrew account in Gen 1. EE tells us what the wind was doing in the story, for reading the Hebrew without presuppositions one finds that the wind of God seems to have no apparent purpose.

EE tells us that to create the world Marduk first had to slay the watery chaos dragon, Tiamat, and to do so he used a magical wind to hold her (Tiamat's) mouth open so that he could thrust his sword down her gullet. The word for "deep" in 1:2 is THM (tehom), which is a cognate of the Akkadian Tiamat, ie it comes from the same linguistic source (the '-at' is a feminine ending in Akkadian that isn't preserved in the Hebrew simple form of the word) and should have similar meaning. In fact they do. Tehom is the ocean, as Tiamat is, the waters. The wind of God hovering over the waters is the magical wind used by Marduk and yhwh. When Marduk killed Tiamat, he slit her in two and put half up into the sky and held it there with a bolt, just as yhwh separated the waters and lifted half up to the sky and held it with the firmament. Then from the remains both gods created the cosmos. The Hebrew version has been transformed but its origins are transparent: it came either from EE or from the same source as EE.

No, it doesn't say that. It gives the first creative act as derived from God saying "Let there be light".

When you mix literalism with a bad translation, you can come to some strange conclusions.

If you need a little hand holding on Gen 1:1 you could check out how Jews understand the text in the JPS editions. A more literal translation from xians would be the NRSV.

Day one actually starts with "And God said" (continuing with "Let there be light"). You can see this by comparing it with all other 5 days. Each starts with "And God said". This becomes easier to see when you understand the preceding verses, ie the state at the time of the creation.

You should understand that you cannot quote something written in a later time, as being relevant to something written in an earlier one. What someone says later is usually condition by what came before.


As can be seen actually reading what the text says, these are not derived from it.

#4 is not derived from the text either, not even with the erroneous translation you were using.

What happened to the beginning of the Hebrew text?

Understanding this verse helps you understand the whole creation which follows. Not only do we have the starting conditions, we also have a description of the basic spheres in which God acts, for as the cosmos was without form and empty (TOHU WA-BOHU), God proceeds to give form and then populate his creation. The creative acts are parallelled, the first three days provide the form and the second three provide population. As I gave in another post elsewhere:

Day one, light (from dark) -- Day four, sun and moon and stars
Day two, sky (from sea) -- Day five, birds and fish
Day three, land -- Day six, animals and humans

As you should be able to see, the author's intention was to present a scheme in which the sun, moon and stars were created on day four after the creation of light, of the sky and of land.

Unlike you, the writer was not interested in the constraints of our modern science, so it is not strange that you don't try to undertand the text from what it says and write the following:

The text simply tells you that we had water and darkness. Nothing else, that was the earth. Yes, it was empty, yes, it was without form, but what else was there? Nothing. The text doesn't say that the earth wasn't covered with water. It just talks of water.

That's correct.

They are irrelevant to what you were trying to say.

As speedy spin has pointed out, the text doesn't talk of anything other than water and darkness, you have inserted the idea of something under the water. You should stick to the text.

With the possible exception of #3, not one of these is derived from the text.


This is simply wrong.

Do you have a problem with the notion of divine fiat? God says something and it happens. God says in 1:14 "Let there be lights..." And it was so. This is day 4. Light literally existed before the sun. Why try to straightjacket the text with your preconceptions?

You are not reading what the text says.

The normal understanding of `RB (ereb) is from a verb, "to darken"

This is sort of correct.

No, you are waxing metaphorical and the text doesn't allow you to be so. God acts during the day, then evening ends daytime and morning ends nighttime -- one doesn't do things at nighttime {grin}. We have one complete day past. This is important in the institutionalisation of the sabbath later on in the chapter.

I don't understand what you are trying to say here.

From what I've seen you haven't got the gist of day one, even to the extent of putting inverted commas around "day" indicating somehow that the author intended somethng other than a normal day. This is not a happy end for such an amount of work. Sorry.


spin

Dean Anderson

Great post!

Do you have any good references or works that you can recommend about the Genesis / Enuma Elish similarities so that I can read up on them in more detail - it's fascinating stuff.

I have standard English translations of both the above - but as you were pointing out, simple mistranslations can alter the meaning so I would rather find something that went into more detail about the possible shades of meaning in the Hebrew / Sumerian texts than simply compare my two English versions.

CJD

Not knowing where spin is at theologically (after all, he/she is a self-avowed "sleeping time-waster"), I would like to add my explicitly Christian perspective to his/her interpretation of Genesis 1:1 (so the Christian reader who is tempted to be skeptical of a skeptic's reading might not be in this case). It is largely correct. My main divergence would probably come over the author's intent. The "days" serve merely as a literary framework within which the account is described. The author had no intention of teaching anyone that God literally (re)created the universe in a six-day period.

B'reshit ("at the first") denotes a relative beginning, which in this case refers to the entire created event, not something before the event, nor as a part of the first day. The grammar makes the interpretation that 1:1 functions as merely the first event of creation—rather than a summary of the whole account—highly improbable.

The next important part of the text is the word often translated "created." Bara ("he created") is a telic verb (like "die" or "sell"), and it finds meaning only at the end of a process. The Hebrew term bara, then, only refers to a completed act of creation (cf. Deut. 4:32; Ps. 89:12; Isa 40:26; Amos 4:13. The reader will note that each of these verses employing the phrase bara speak of a completed act of creation).

The interpretation, then, cannot be that God began the process of creating the cosmos. Rather, he took the pre-existent negative state of the earth and subdued the chaos therein, transforming the darkness into an ordered universe.

Regards,

CJD

Toto

net2002 - please check your PM's. It is not clear where your post comes from or who the "dumb clown" of the title is.

Edited to add:

I have edited the title due to several complaints. If this is not your meaning, let me know.

spin

This is interpretation not based on any textual indications (and no, not "re"!).

You might like to argue for some notion of days that isn't literal, but you would have to do so without the specific text which has amongst its many functions to explain the sabbath, which is related to ordinary days.

The key idea in BR'$YT is R'$ ("head"), but at the head of what? The text is clear: at the head of the creation.

Nothing is created until 1:3, when day one begins. (All days begin with divine fiat. There are six days before the sabbath,

if there were anything before day one then the institutionalisation of the sabbath wouldn't work. The notion of God resting on the seventh day requires that we are dealing with the inaugural, archetype, week.)

Firstly, the tiny selection of Hebrew language contained in the Hebrew bible is not sufficient to make definitive statements

about how words must be used. There are many words which only appear once and we have trouble understanding them. This doesn't mean that they were only ever used in Hebrew once. The biblical text is only a small subset of a living language output. So making conclusions on such a sample may easily lead to erroneous resuls.

Just because there are no imperfective examples of BR' (bara) in the Hebrew bible doesn't imply that the word only implies a completed act. Do you think that it was impossible for a user of BR' to perceive of an incomplete act of creating? or of an inception of the creative act?

Such modern terms as "telic" can only be descriptive. You cannot usefully say "The Hebrew term bara, then, only refers to a

completed act of creation". It only means that you are imposing the limit. The best one can say is that there are no imperfective examples of BR'. (And I don't understand why people pushing this view of BR' as outlined in the post I'm responding to never cite Ezekiel's usage of the term.)

If "sell" were as you want to define it, one couldn't say in English, "While he was selling the product, he was shot.", which does not imply the termination of the action of selling.

This conclusion, though in part only implied through its non-biblical source and other biblical elements relating to creation, seems to be correct in what it reflects of the text.


spin

CJD

Hello, spin. Thanks for the response, and thanks for pointing out the difficulties in discussing the meanings of ancient words. I do not think the TNK can be used to exhaustively define a word, but at the very least I have show its greater plausibility. I might have used overly-decisive language, but hey, I am trying to make a point. Nevertheless, I think I have shown a valid interpretation (minus the "re-creation" bit; while the text doesn't indicate such a thing, I don't think it rules it out, either).

But the main point for me is this:

I absolutely do think the original author of this work intended to establish Sabbatarian theology as a Creation ordinance. The day of rest stands at the pinnacle of the framework theory. Consider the following:

Day 1: light________________/__________Day 4: lights
Day 2: sky (from the sea)____/__________Day 5: birds to fill sky, fish to fill sea
Day 3: land, edible food_______/_______Day 6: animals and humans to fill it and eat

_______________________DAY SEVEN_____________________________

Accentuated as the centerpiece stands the Seventh Day, the Sabbath. This, without taking the days literally and with taking into account the specific text, does more than explain the Sabbath, it gives it meaning.

I seriously recommend reading the articles I linked to earlier in this thread.

Regards,

CJD