Freethought & Rationalism Archive

spin · 09-08-2011, 10:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mg01

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Let me say for accuracy's sake that the first verse in Genesis should be understood as "In the beginning when god created the heavens and the earth" this is followed by the state in the beginning. It is not until v.3 that any creation takes place, when god turns the lights on: "let there be light".

I've also seen it stated it could be translated as the more awkward: "In the beginning of god's creating of the heavens and the earth." As in as a setup for the next verse to describe the initial conditions. Then the first event, as you said, was turning on the lights.

They're just two ways of saying the same Hebrew idea, one just more awkward than the other. And the "initial conditions" are the "state in the beginning".

[t2]bereshit bara elohim
at the head of create of god

at ha-shamim w:at ha-eretz
the heavens and the earth[/t2]
Doesn't sound great, but it's a literal rendering of another language that's very different from European ones. The christian breaks it up:

[t2]bereshit
at the head = in the beginning

bara elohim at ha-shamim w:at ha-eretz
created god the heavens and the earth[/t2]
to which the Jew responds "the beginning of what?" and the christian retorts, "the beginning of everything" which gets the reply, "but it doesn't say the beginning of everything, just the creation by god."

judge · 09-08-2011, 05:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

to which the Jew responds "the beginning of what?" and the christian retorts, "the beginning of everything" which gets the reply, "but it doesn't say the beginning of everything, just the creation by god."

Of course this is later christian idea not an early one.

Hebrews 11.3
By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

semiopen · 09-09-2011, 06:28 AM

There are clearly two accounts.

The Priestly Vision of Genesis I (or via: amazon.co.uk)

by Mark S. Smith discusses this.

His view is that the Genesis 1 is commentary to the older account in Genesis 2. He dates Genesis 1 to during or shortly after the exile. I'm not sure if this is totally accurate, but it's useful to know what a conservative Jewish studies professor thinks is going on.

It was interesting to see that the bible interpretation software at Bar Ilyan thought that Genesis 1 isn't the Priestly source.

AI software, the Bible and Belief.

Quote:

The places in which the program disagreed with accepted scholarship might prove interesting leads for scholars. The first chapter of Genesis, for example, is usually thought to have been written by the “priestly” author, but the software indicated it was not.

I'd tend to go with the humans in this kind of discussion. It's interesting to note that in chess opening theory, computers haven't come up with anything that challenges human theory even though computers have been playing at a high level for many years now.

JonA · 09-10-2011, 12:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kohai

We all know that the Bible presents two creation accounts, but that doesn't stop apologists from defending the Bible.

Don't Genesis 1 and 2 present contradictory creation accounts?
Genesis 1
Day one - Heavens and earth are created. "Let there be light." Day and Night.
Day two - Atmospheric waters separated from earth waters.
Day three - Land appears separating the seas. Vegetation is made.
Day four - Sun, moon, stars are made.
Day five - Sea life and birds are made.
Day six - Land animals, creeping things, and man (male and female) are made.
Genesis 2
States heaven and earth were created. There was no plant yet on earth, no rain yet, and no man. But, a mist rose watering the surface of the ground. Then the Lord formed man from dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Finally, God made Eve.

Here is Matt Slick's "refutation" of it.

Quote:

There is no contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2. Genesis 1 is a detailed explanation of the six days of creation, day by day. Genesis two is a recap and a more detailed explanation of the sixth day, the day that Adam and Eve were made. The recap is stated in Gen. 2:4, "This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." Then, Moses goes on to detail the creation of Adam and Eve as is seen in verses 7 thru 24 of Gen. 2. Proof that it is not a creative account is found in the fact that animals aren't even mentioned until after the creation of Adam. Why? Probably because their purpose was designated by Adam. They didn't need to be mentioned until after Adam was created.

I also seen apologists make claims of a complementary account.

What do you think of this argument. Does it work or does it not? If not, why not.

It doesn't work; obviously. If the second story is meant to be a detailed version of part of the first, and it begins with 'in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven', then it is either starting way back on day one and reworking the order of everything while failing to make mention of the passage of days (with the first account failing to mention the creation of animals separating the creation of man and woman), or it is flat out contradictory by stating that humans were created shortly after the earth was formed.

And those are just a few of the problems with that reconciliation. There are loads others; like the issue of when the birds were made or why God would do things twice over, etc.

In short, to reconcile the two accounts requires too much interpretive gymnastics for any reasonable person to attempt; which is why all the attempted reconciliations are unreasonable.

Jon

Gorit Maqueda · 09-10-2011, 10:11 AM

What I have always found curious is that the harmonization made by the Torah final editors from J, E, P, and D reached such a success (the Torah being seen for centuries, even millenia, as essentially the product of one author) whereas poor Tatian didn't manage to give his creature a life as long as that of his four G sources...

DoubtingDave · 09-10-2011, 07:39 PM

Thanks for your feedback! counterapologetics.blogspot.com is a new website I made to refute the would-be apologist. Please give me feedback!

DoubtingDave · 09-11-2011, 05:36 PM

Here is what one of my friend's has to say:

Quote:

My opponent argues two basic premises.

1) The order of the creation of man is contradictory between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
2) The broader order of creation is contradictory between Genisis 1 and Genesis 2.

I shall demonstrate presently how these two contentions fail. I shall do so by presenting a harmonious account of how the two accounts cohere to paint a fuller picture of the creation narrative.

The Big Picture
Genesis 1 is a grand cosmological poem about the creation of all things, with humanity as the pinacle of creation. We see in broad sweeping brush strokes that systematically creates all things in an ordered fashion. Primarily we see God create a location (Space, Sea, Land) and then fill that location with appropriate inhabitants (Celestial Bodies, Sea Creatures, Land Creatures). This account focuses on the overall process, not the details. We are not told what process is used to cause vegitation to spring forth from the land. We are not told what process is used to create each animal. We are not given any sort of sequence within individual acts of creation to demonstrate the order in which things happened. We therefore do not know if all the animals sprung to life simultaneously, if all the water gathered simultaneously, or if there was a process. The text simply does not tell us. That is because this text is focusing on the finished product. We see that when God has completed a given work, it is declared good. The only exception to this is when God completes mankind, it is declared very good. However, the phrase "good/very good" denotes the completion of a given act of creation. This is crucial to understanding the text.

I shall give a "day-by-day" account of the creation narrative, for reference.

In the beginning - God creates the heavens and the earth. These locations are void and empty. (Genesis 1:1-2
Day 1 - God creates light, separates this light from darkness. This is commonly seen as God creating space and ordering it. (Genesis 1:3-5)
Day 2 - God creates a firmament to separate the waters above and below. This is seen as a further ordering act of the cosmos, and it creates the sea on the surface of th earth. (Genesis 1:6-8)
Day 3 - God causes the water on earth to gather together, and causes dry land to appear. He also causes the land to produce vegitation. (Genesis 1:9-13)
Day 4 - God causes the stars and other celestial bodies to appear. (Genesis 1:14-18)
Day 5 - God causes animals to appear in both the sea and on the land. (Genesis 1:20-23)
Day 6 - God creates a gender differentiated humanity. (Genesis 1:26-31)

The Details
The second account, in contrast to the first account, is the details account of the process of God's unique creation of humanity. In this we narrow in on one particular aspect of God's creation, namely the creation of humanity. This account, although told in a different way, is completely harmonious with the first account. The key to understanding this is in the usage of the phrase "good/very good" to denote a completed act of creation.

The account does not talk about anything prior to day 3. We can assume that there is no significant distinction between the accounts and that the author wished to give us no specific details about hte creation of space or the separation of the upper and lower waters. However, we see that in the details of this account, that the single gendered humanity was created on day 3, after the land had appeared and before vegitation began to sprout. After creating this man the vegitation appeared and he was placed in the garden. We know that this act of creation is not finished however, because it is not declared "good" when the man was created. In fact, it is declared "not good that the man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18). The text is silent about day 4, but we then see God create all the land animals (Day 5). We see that Adam seeks a companion amongs the animals, but does not find one (I disagree with Rashi that he mated with them, but that fact does not have impact on the debate). After naming all the animals, God puts the man into a deep sleep and creates the woman. This deep sleep occured on day 6, and after he created them "male and female" by creating a gender differentiated humanity, he declared it good.

Wrapping It All Up
My opponent asks two questions.

Was man created before the woman, or was he created simultaneously?
Was man created before the animals?

There is a fundamental issue with these questions. The word "adam" which is translated as man in many cases, is more accurately translated as "mankind" or "humanity" and is refering to the overall human race, not simply a male instance of the human race. The key to this is that humanity was not complete until it was differentiated into male and female. We see this clearly by the fact that Genesis 1 calls the differentiated humanity "very good" but Genesis 2 calls the non-differentiated humanity "not good." The appropriate questions therefore would be the following.

Was the male created before the woman, or was he created simultaneously?
Was the male created before the animals?

Genesis 1 is silent on the specifics of the non-differentiated male. All we know is that humanity was not complete (declared good/very good) until after the genders were differentiated. Genesis 2 however is specific in the details that male was created before both the animals and the woman.

As anyone can clearly see, the accounts are simply two views on the same perspective. One provides information about the timing of the completed creation, one provides details surrounding the process of creating human beings.

Thank you.

There are issues with this but I want to see what your thoughts were:

It does not refute what came first man or beast?
It fails to show why one account says it is simultaneous and the other says it is not simultaneous.

Those are what I found wrong, am I missing anything else?

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09-10-2011, 10:11 AM	#15
Gorit Maqueda Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: Valdebernardo Posts: 73	What I have always found curious is that the harmonization made by the Torah final editors from J, E, P, and D reached such a success (the Torah being seen for centuries, even millenia, as essentially the product of one author) whereas poor Tatian didn't manage to give his creature a life as long as that of his four G sources...

09-10-2011, 07:39 PM	#16
DoubtingDave Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2011 Location: Conowingo, Maryland Posts: 577	Thanks for your feedback! counterapologetics.blogspot.com is a new website I made to refute the would-be apologist. Please give me feedback!

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