Adamu

I think this stuff hinges on more than the lack of an article, though it is of significance, but if the ASV "happily" (though I suspect "faithfully" is more appropriate) translates the creative days as such, then I'd view that as a move in the right direction. BTW, got a link showing this? All my bibles read otherwise.
I think it is precisely because, as you say, "there are no other occassions without article" we should question the natural 24hr day interpretation.

Nary a skerrick if you ignore what you yourself have stated (two separate indicators): "As there are no other occassions without article in the bible" and "I've said there's a connection (with the Enuma Elish) just not as simple as some would like."
Now, when I view the comparison of the creation accounts, I see direct parallels. The earlier Enuma Elish does not restrict these events to "days" - as in 24hr periods - which in turn makes sense of the unique use of "day" in the Genesis account. It was the Sumerians who implemented the sexagesimal system for counting, which is the very basis for Timekeeping to this day; they reckoned "day" as two 12hr periods.
But nowhere in the text is it stated that the events took place in the span of seven 12hr double days.
Quite simple, really, and most relevant.

Roger Pearse

Indeed. We might start by asking those who feel that they have a right to cross-examine *our* beliefs what their own positive beliefs are (rather than merely their hatreds).

In the case of atheists, it seems as if they mostly live in conformity to the period values of the time in which they happened to be born. Since certain values are characteristic of certain periods and cultures, a few questions on matters of morals and outlooks (avoiding purely political issues, of course) tend to reveal this. It is, after all, what one would expect.

None of them seem able to articulate this, however, or willing to do so or consider the matter. Most attempts to raise this issue are met with a single sentence assertion of some kind -- often of self-flattery -- followed by a firm change of subject back to "why Christianity is wrong".

I apologise if this description seems unduly dismissive; however it is based on near 100% experience of this curious blindness, this inability to see or discuss what everyone knows.

After all, it matters nothing that I think the Aztecs wrong, if I cannot offer anything better, or indeed do anything except invent conundra for others to solve. If everyone has beliefs, need we pay any attention to the beliefs of those who cannot articulate them? -- or to their vituperation against those who can?

But this all seems OT for this forum. I mention it only in response to the direction that the thread was taking.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Nero's Boot

Roger Pearse:

....are you really saying that following scientifically-revealed truths and refusing to believe in unprovable magical sky-titans and telepathic communication with said giants, is "irrational", especially when the grimoire of such fantasies contains glaring, obvious errors?

--if so, then pony up, you're not tithing your ten percent to our lord Vishu, hallowed be his name NB

Nero's Boot

Roger Pearse:

And you realize you just admitted that most Christians're Christians because of where they were born, primarily?

--you may've had a Freudian slip, there buddy NB

Yellum Notnef

If you want to try to understand Roger, I suggest you start at his "advice" page on his website.

He labors under the delusion that there has to be a god because he needs it to be real and has chosen Christianity because it's really old so he figures there must be something to it.

He's also not Jewish because he's not Jewish, even though Judaism is even older.

Adamu

...while the acts of creation remain the same...
but how so?

Anything paricular which regards changes to King's work on The Seven Tablets of Creation and how it relates to the Genesis account?
Vagaries won't do.

Again, how so?
I need something particular like showing the Hebrew "tehom" NOT being a variant of the Sumerian "Tiamat," that maybe the "spirit" of God hovering over the chaotic waters of the deep ISN'T the same as Marduk's "winds" over the water monster Tiamat, that perhaps Isaiah WASN'T recalling this event when exalting the Lord who pierced the chaotic dragon and dried up the waters of the deep.

I noticed.
I've also seen how difficult it can be for some...

Certainly many texts need be considered, understood linguistically, and put into context to fully elucidate what these tales are saying, but I'm not "a lot of people."

Learning the job of what?
And know that were I to launch into diatribes of any sort, more than a single statement of observation is what you'd get.
But I'm sorry, my remark wasn't about this discussion, per se, but the polarity between those who believe in an inerrant Word of God and those who don't, who wish to ridicule, disprove and debunk the Word of God.

When the creative acts in Genesis are put into context of its source material, one should understand why this is "the only place in the bible where this happens" as well as why the Hebrew rendering of yom has a unique numbering system while lacking a definite article; without any problem.

Such as?
You've still provided nothing particular to show how much "more" you think we know in comparing the Genesis account of creation to King's Seven Tablets of.

I'm unaware of this.
Any sources to "prove" it?
And I guess you'll also prove the other scholar cited in Whitefield's paper, and Whitefield himself as "sorry apologists?"

Archer directly points out how the "Hebrew expresses "the first day" by hayyom harison, but this text says simply yom ehad. Again, in v.8 we read not hayyom hasseni "the second day" but yom seni "a second day."
How can you say "he isn't dealing with items such as" these?
In what way is this apologetic?
And who's talking about days of the month?
We're dealing with "days" of creation here and how they are differentiated from all other "days" in the text.

Indeed, and we also know there is a difference in what "yom" should mean with and without a definite article, not to mention the attachment of sequential numbering unlike anywhere else in the text.

I guess we disagree on what constitutes evidence then, because to me it is rather apparent that hayyom harison is not yom ehad, yet in most every text we read "the first day," "the second day" etc.

To whom are you referring as compaining? Archer? Whitefield? Their analyses were of the use of "yom" as meaning only a 24hr period during the events of creation.

Right.

Are the days of creation described as hayyom harison etc. or are they described as yom ehad etc.?

I have; I'm rather certain it is why we find ourselves in disagreement.

Sure, I'll explore them, though I'm familiar with the DSS. But I'm unsure what calendar wars over which days were proper for observance, establishes anything pertinent to the days of creation.
Would you prefer their calendar started on Sun-day or Mon(moon)-day to make more sense in your mind?
Seriously though, given that the Sabbath is Saturday (did you overlook this?), the third day of the week would be Tuesday, can you explain why those who devised the Calendar of the Sect of the Scrolls started on Wednesday? After all, the sun and moon were created on the third "day."

Incorrect.
Marduk, in the Enuma Elish, "establishes the precincts of day and night." "He made the stations of the great gods; the stars, their images, as the stars of the zodiac, he fixed. He ordained the year and into sections he divided it." ... "The moon-god he caused to shine forth, the night he entrusted to him. He appointed him, a being of the night, to determine the days."

Moreover, just as God rested after the final act of creation, that of Mankind, so too did Marduk and the other gods rest after Mankind was created. Additionally, adter Mankind is destroyed in The Flood, after 6 days of storming rain and lightning, the gods rest on "sebittu" - the seventh - in Akkadian, their raging hearts assuaged, they rested, "Sa-Bat" in Sumerian.

Sounds familiar, hmmm?

Fine; we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Of course there is, the Enuma Elish is a more thorough reckoning of the events of creation whereas the authors of the Hebrew bible saw fit to include these events only briefly and hurry on to Jewish history.

It's not my theory it is simple recognition of a few facts.

I suppose we'll just agree to disagree on how one should understand the differentiated use of "day" during the events of creation.

I enjoyed the exchange none the less.
There is obviously more to learn.

yom ehad, yom seni, ...

Apologies.

Nero's Boot

Ah, understood.

--it's always nice to know that sort of thing NB

Johnny Skeptic

The key is "if it is true." In my opinion, the Bible probably was not inspired by God. Even if it is true, as far as I know, there is not a necessary correlation between power and good character. The God of the Bible is a sinner as judged by his standards. If no one should judge God, why did you judge him? It is not possible to accept or reject a being without judging his character.

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.

If the God of the Bible exists, all tangible benefits would be indiscriminately distributed at random according to the laws of physics without any regard for a person's needs, worldview, or requests. Either all tangible benefits are indiscriminately distributed at random according to the laws of physics without any regard for a person's needs, worldview, or requests, of for some quite odd and unexplained reasons, God has chosen to mimic a naturalistic universe in which all tangible benefits would be indiscriminately distributed at random according to the laws of physics without any regard for a person's needs, worldview, or requests. A similar argument can be made regarding fossil sorting. Fossils are sorted in ways that are convenient for skeptics. Even some evangelical Christian geologists have stated that a global flood did not occur, and that it counterproductive for some Christians to claim that a global flood occured. Since fossils are sorted in ways that are convenient for skeptics, as a number of threads at the Evolution/Creation Forum have shown, either a global flood did not occur, or a global flood did occur, and for some odd and unexplained reasons, God made sure that the evidence would mimic a naturalistic universe when he could easily have made the evidence convenient for fundamentalist Christians.

If the God of the Bible does not exist, no supernatural claim would be easily obvious to the vast majority of the people in the world. If a loving God does exist, it is reasonable to assume that he would have provided excellent, easy to understand evidence of his existence, abilities and will that could easily be understood by a sixth grader. If a God exists, as far as I know, neither he nor anyone else has benefitted from his refusal to provide more evidence than he has provided, and from the many murders that he has committed, not to mention his killing of innocent animals.

Your supposed interest in evidence is not valid. If the Bible said that God will send everyone to hell, you would not be supporting it. You would be using some of the same arguments against it that skeptics use. Why is that? Well, the answer is quite simple. It is because your emotional, perceived self-interest has caused to you accept any conclusion that is ultimately favorable to you, and reject any conclusion that is ultimately not favorable to you. Whether or not God is all-powerful, all-knowing, perfect and infallible does not really have anything to do with your beliefs. You would be quite content to accept a comfortable, eternal life from any source if you believed that no other source was available. You are merely trying to use God as a means to achieving and end, the end being a comfortable eternal life.

Why would loving, kind skeptics object to a God who reasonably proved his existence and treated people right? It would be out of character for loving, kind skeptics to object to a God who reasonably proved his existence and treated people right.

In my opinion, the philosophical and moral evidence against the Bible far outweighs the apologetic evidence that supports the Bible. Many of the God of the Bible's actions and allowances are so odd, strange, and apparently unnecessary and unkind that they preclude a reasonably possibility that the Bible is true. In order for a man to accept the Bible, he has to throw logic, morality, and philosophy right out of the window.

The best evidence indicates that no rational person would become a fundamentalist Christian.

If you wish to discuss these issues, I suggest that we do so at the General Religious Discussions Forum.

For purposes of this thread, I do not see any value in making uncorrobated, nonhistorical claims about the book of Genesis that must be accepted entirely by faith, or rejected. If you would like to start a new thread at this forum and discuss some claims that you believe can be accepted by using logic and reason instead of just faith, that would be fine. Your typically brief, uncorrobated posts are not going to convince anyone of anything. You often gay that God will do this or that. I could easily say that God will not do this or not, but what would that accomplish? What you need is evidence, not idle, uncorroborated assertions. Everyone already knows WHAT you believe. What people need to know is specifically WHY you believe what you believe. Stating the obvious will not do.

Adamu

So I take it this is not the first time, or even the second time, you've had such exchanges?
Nevermind any notion of "days" being 24hr periods, you've seemingly been doing it for years!

spin

I'm not dependent on the net! But maybe you can find Youngs on the net which has "day one", "day two", etc., while the LXX has hmera mia, hmera deutera, etc, changing cardinal to ordinal (as did the ASV). The ASV, I said "happily", had no problem trying to translate the text literally and still make sense.


It's precisely that people have no evidence whatsoever for their desired meaning that they cling to anything out of the ordinary. I did however point to a situation in which there was no article for (day) one of the month, so the lack of an article doesn't help the eisegesis case.

I've already dealt with this.

This has nothing to do with the day?not day issue.

The Enuma Elish was not Sumerian. And there doesn't seem to be any substantive argument here to connect the Hebrew YWM to anything other than "day". Why are you so interested in arguing for something that's just not in the text? You can't expect to know how the ancient receivers of the text understood it without dealing with the understandings derived from the text and from the culture of the time. This is strictly a philological issue and has nothing to do with beliefs or with what one thinks is logical in today's mind.


spin