KeithJM

Without a sun, there would be no concept of Day and Night. Both of those concepts require both a light source and a rotating planetary body. Day is that range in our earth's rotation where our particular spot on it is illuminated by the sun, and Night is the opposite. So, Day and Night both definitively require a stellar body and a rotating planetary body.

It was a common misconception in ancient times that day and night occurred independently of our earth's rotation, and understandably so, given that they had no way to determine that the earth was rotating or that it orbited the sun. An account of a wise vizier springs to mind, who was asked whether he would do without the Sun or the Moon, if he had to choose. He chose the Sun, reasoning "Who needs the Sun when it's light out anyway?"

Thus the "Creation" account of Genesis fails as Divine Revelation on just that point alone. That is, unless the Divine Revelator had a sudden stroke of amnesia and couldn't remember how She(He, It) went about setting things up.

spin

If you are not an advocate of the structure I have given, what exactly is wrong with it? Is there not a correspondence between each of the days in the formation cycle and those of the population cycle?

Please be specific. There is not much content here other than the suggestion that "this frame of arena and ruler is not so perfect". These are not my words "arena" and "ruler". I cited "rule" because that comes from 1:16 for the sun. My words dealt with formation, order against the chaos ("without form") and population against the emptiness ("and void").

Please feel free to be specific about any criticism of the framework I supplied, rather than needing to have it teased out of you.

Do you need to fall back on such silliness, lee_merrill. You have been expressly asked not to retroject modern concepts onto our writer and what do you do?

This helps you in no way, lee_merrill. As with the rest of the creation god says "Let there be..., and there was." That's how things were created in Gen 1. Now you are trying to say that, unlike the other things, the sun wasn't created when god says "Let there be lights", as in "let there be light", which could just as easily, with your rewriting the story, also have been earlier. The upshot, lee_merrill, is that you should use the text as your guide rather than try to change it to suit your purposes.

The word for "light" in "let there be lights" is M)WR, a word meaning "thing of light" derived from "light" )WR, as in "let there be light". The lights in in 1:14 are a derived idea from the light of 1:3. They were created after the earth was created specifically so as to give light to the earth.

Augustine, writing in the 5th century CE perhaps 1000 years after Gen 1 was written, is welcome to his opinions. But please, lee_merrill, stick to the topic.


spin

spin

But it is still a tangent to your thread. Sauron is quite happy to deal with your inconsistencies, lee_merrill, but it's up to you to try to stick to your topic rather than shooting tangents off it which will only obfuscate the issues involved.

It was more a reflection on your knowledge, lee_merrill. You were the one arguing about (WLM being an adjective, remember.


spin

spin

Keith Minor, welcome. My response here is not meant as a criticism of your thought but its aptness in the BC&H forum. Issues of science and creation are discussed elsewhere, for our scope is to confront the text of the bible for what it says, how it is said, and how it reflects history.
This is not based on the Genesis 1 passage. Therefore it isn't relevant, is it?

This doesn't come from the text. The writer happily tells us that god created light and separated it from darkness, calling the light "day" and the darkness "night". There is no indication of "light sources", so it is obviously irrelevant to our writer, who didn't have the good fortune of having been brought up with the level of science in his culture that we have today. He had no science and his text reflects that fact.

OK, but what's that got to do with our writer?

Ahh, but you are arguing not with the text, but with modern christians who have also had the science education that you have. That's why lee_merrill is attempting to rewrite the text to suit his education, rather than reading the text for what it says. He doesn't like the text because it literally is difficult for him to deal with. The text is just great -- and I mean that -- but it's not a haven for people who want the text to be something that it is not: an embodiment of good science. So, while I may agree with your sentiments, it seems you are shooting at the text rather than those who misuse it.


spin

Gamera

There is remarkably little natural history in Genesis or the bible as a whole. Indeed, the apparent lack of interest Judaic culture had in natural history is something much commented upon.

But I mean, you don't even have to make a comparative cultural analysis. Genesis clearly has much more in common as a genre with Homer's narratives than with Aristotle's works. It focusses primarilly on pschological and social relationships. There is no attempt to describe and explain the natural world. Indeed, the natural world is virtually completely absent from Genesis and the Hebrew scriptures in general.

That doesn't mean animals aren't mentioned, or that they don't play an important role at times (Balaam's ass for instance). But in the narrative there is never an attempt to describe natural phenomena and explain it, even in a fanciful way.

KeithJM

Well, I had thought it was relevant in that Day and Night were created on the first day(Gen 1:3-5) and that the Sun, Moon, and Stars were created on the fourth day(Gen 1:14-19). Day and Night cannot exist without the Sun, they're concepts based on our experience of the Sun's light, and thus, one can't create them unless one creates the Sun, and they are "created" as a corollary. That was what I was getting at, and I still think it relevant if we are showing disparities between Genesis and scientific knowledge.


I thought I had done a rather good job of refuting his claim that a "day" doesn't require a sun, poking another hole in his attempt to semantically flounder his way out of the endless morass that anyone who attempts to reconcile Genesis with scientific knowledge falls into. Perhaps I've got the wrong perspective here, if so, enlighten me.

spin

For our biblical writer, there was no problem. God created light and thus started the first day. He turned the light on in his creation. The writer sees the sun, moon and stars as occupants of the realms of light and darkness. That reality is different from the writer's concept is irrelevant to the text. It is only relevant to those christians who nonsensically want the text to be scientific, though it patently isn't.

Perhaps I misunderstand you, but I was arguing that the text clearly indicates that 'a "day" doesn't require a sun'. The OP wants the sun.

Science is obviously on your side, Keith Minor. That is not at issue, though, yes, some of our christian brethren try to fiddle the science and the text to make them appear a little closer together. This forum is about the text of the bible, what it says and how it reflects history, and not about science versus fundamentalist christian beliefs. As I said, there is a different forum for that topic. Responses to the OP are oriented towards understanding the text, not to deal with the poster's questionable scientific re-elaborations.


spin

Sheshbazzar

In each of these instances, The Sabbath Day is designated as being but one day in duration.
In as much as the seventh day of the creation week is presented as, and is understood as being the foundation of all The Sabbath Day regulations, it is rather inane to attempt to stretch the term to apply to "ages" or any longer period of time than a common twenty-four hour Day.
Did elohim also rest for an "ages" long Sabbath Day following creation?
Nothing found within the Genesis accounts, and most definately not within the succeeding texts based on that cosmology, can ever justify such an imposition.

Sauron

Strawman again? I merely used a similar situation in English to outline what was happening in Hebrew.

And occasionally people write "forever" as "for ever", with a space in it. So the English word "forever" can also be two words, just like the Hebrew situation. My point, however, still stands: in both English and Hebrew, it is acting as an adverb.

Given your poor understanding of grammar - English or Hebrew - you also missed the point I made earlier. To wit:

But anyone who looked at the word "forever" and said that there was a noun and an adjective would not only be (a) wrong, but they would be also be (b) missing the entire point of trying to diagram a sentence with the word in it -- to wit, what role in the sentence is this word playing?


Since you have first claim on this, you need to back up your claim first. As soon as you support you claim, you'll be in a position to ask others to support theirs.

The whole thing - both words. Did you not read what I wrote?

Adverbial phrase
Adverbial clause

Do you understand the bold?

lee_merrill

Hi everyone,

So I then conclude a day means light followed by darkness? The sun is not essential? Then I will ask again if I can light (say) a candle, and blow it out, and call that one day.

Yet the point still stands that the Sabbath rest for land was a full year, and I see no reason why the principle does not apply for 1 of 7 time periods, however long they may be.

Glad to discuss this at TheologyWeb!

But I hold that “let there be lights” reminds us of “let there be light,” the two may then refer to the same event, and “God made” on day four may indeed be rendered “God had made” and then this day is to set the lights in place, to have them mark of day and night and seasons.

I would yet insist it focuses on describing what happened at creation.

Genesis 2:1 The heavens and the earth were completed with everything that was in them.

Makes sense to me!

But I meant a 24-hour day, an earth day requires it, but not an age.

The day-age view is that this Sabbath is still continuing:

Hebrews 4:3 Now we who have believed enter that rest, just as God has said, "So I declared on oath in my anger, 'They shall never enter my rest.'" And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world.

Well, why so? Spin even said “that which is here ‘a lasting ordinance’ is our old literal friend ‘statute OF long duration’, a compound term used frequently in the Hebrew bible, mainly in Leviticus.” This would be an adjective.

I notice you did not tell me which word is the verb in the Hebrew for "This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come, wherever you live".

Regards,
Lee