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Reload this Page 6-Day-Creation and the Santa Claus Filter Hypothesis
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Old 09-13-2002, 01:49 PM   #1
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Post 6-Day-Creation and the Santa Claus Filter Hypothesis
This thread is being started so that Vanderzyden can back up the claims he made regarding the Hebrew text of Genesis on <a href="http://iidb.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic&f=58&t=001379&p=3" target="_blank">this thread.</a>

To review:

Quote:
Originally posted by Vanderzyden:
So far, there has been no natural evidence to contradict a careful reading of scripture.
Quote:
Kevin Dorner:
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. By the way: the earth isn't flat, the sky is not supported by pillars, insects don't have four legs, stars are not small or near enough to fall to earth, pi is not exactly three, mating goats near slats will not make them striped, the moon only reflects light, etcetera.

And, need I add: all life wasn't created in six literal days either. Maybe I wasn't careful enough when I read it...
Quote:
Vanderzyden:
Why do you choose to make the easy attack on the Young Earth Creationist? The original Hebrew doesn't say "six days".
Quote:
Ps418:

Nonsense.

'Biblical scholarship' overwhelmingly supports the 6-solar-day creation interpretation of Genesis. If you disagree with the 6-solar-day creation interpretation of Genesis, then you do so only to reconcile your creationism with naturalistic science, not because there is genuine ambiguity in the text. However, please feel free to post links to the "biblical scholarship" which you think undermine the 6-solar-day creation interpretation of Genesis.
Quote:
Vanderzyden, responding to Kevin Dorner:
Yes, your reading of scripture is way off. None of the passages you cite are inconsistent with any modern knowledge. The difficulty, I think, is that you read it through a "Santa Claus" filter.
Quote:
Ps418:
I am curious as to which other scriptures we are "way off" on. In addition to the 6-days bit I've requested information on, I'd like to know whether there was a global flood 4500 years ago that killed every breathing thing outside Noah's ark and covered the highest mountains?

Or does an &lt;cough, cough&gt; 'careful reading' of the Genesis account support a local flood, that didnt really cover any mountains, and only killed some of the animals outside the ark?

. . . Is any of this "inconsistent with any modern knowledge"? Or are we just reading Genesis through the Santa Claus filter again? How do we know when to adulterate our acceptance of God's word based on naturalistic science, and when not to?
Vanderzyden, I would like for you to explain to me exactly what you meant when you stated that the "The original Hebrew doesn't say "six days." I find this claim quite absurd. I dont think the text could possibly be more clear on this point (or on the extent of the flood).

But I am willing to be swayed by valid arguments, if you would be so kind as to present them for our consideration. Please dont be like all the other non-YEC creationists on this forum who made this claim, and then dropped it when pressed for details.

The links below should give us a basis on which to start the discusion, and should help you avoid some of the more common fallacies (e.g. Yom can mean a longer period, therefore Genesis 1 dooesnt mean 24 hour day, etc.).


<a href="http://www.ldolphin.org/haseldays.html" target="_blank">THE "DAYS" OF CREATION IN GENESIS 1: LITERAL "DAYS" OR FIGURATIVE "PERIODS / EPOCHS" OF TIME?, Origins 21(1):5-38 (1994).</a>

This one is fairly detailed, and concludes:

Quote:
This paper investigated the meaning of creation "days." It has considered key arguments in favor of a figurative, non-literal meaning of the creation "days." It found them to be wanting on the basis of genre investigation, literary considerations, grammatical study, syntactical usages, and semantic connections. The cumulative evidence, based on comparative, literary, linguistic and other considerations, converges on every level, leading to the singular conclusion that the designation yom, "day," in Genesis 1 means consistently a literal 24-hour day.

The author of Genesis 1 could not have produced more comprehensive and all-inclusive ways to express the idea of a literal "day" than the ones that were chosen. There is a complete lack of indicators from prepositions, qualifying expressions, construct phrases, semantic-syntactical connections, and so on, on the basis of which the designation "day" in the creation week could be taken to be anything different than a regular 24-hour day. The combinations of the factors of articular usage, singular gender, semantic-syntactical constructions, time boundaries, and so on, corroborated by the divine promulgations in such Pentateuchal passages as Exodus 20:8-11 and Exodus 31:12-17, suggest uniquely and consistently that the creation "day" is meant to be literal, sequential, and chronological in nature.
<a href="http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-a/btg-021a.htm" target="_blank">Do The Days Really Matter?, ICR article</a>

At the bottom of this article is a statement by James Barr, a Hebrew scholar at the University of Oxford:

Quote:
" . . . so far as I know there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

(a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience;

(b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the Biblical story; and

(c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and to have extinguished all human and land animal life except for those in the ark.

Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any professor. as far as I know."
Which pretty thoroughly refutes what you said about the Hebrew not saying 6 days. Unless you consider yourself more in the know when in comes to the Hebrew than Barr.


<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/4204tj_v5n1.asp" target="_blank">The Days of Creation: A Semantic Approach, CEN Technical Journal 5(1):70-78</a>

Quote:
The syntagmatic relationships of yôm in Genesis 1 have been considered and it has been demonstrated that, when used with a number, the pattern is always a normal time period. If 'night' is combined with yôm, it always denotes a 24-hour day. If yôm is used with either 'morning' or 'evening', they too refer to a literal day. When 'morning' and 'evening' are used together, with yôm, it always signifies a solar day. So the syntagmatic relationships that yôm has illustrate clearly that the meaning is to be; considered a normal time period, consisting of one axial rotation of the earth, called a 'day'.
. . .

The point of discussing the semantic approach should be rather obvious. God, through the 'pen' of Moses, is being redundant for redundancy's sake. God is going out of His way to tell us that the 'days' of creation were literal solar days. He has used the word yôm, and combined this with a number and the words 'morning' and 'evening'. God has communicated the words of Genesis 1 in a specific manner, so that the interpreter could not miss His point. God could not have communicated the timing of creation more clearly than He did in Genesis 1.
<a href="http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1316.asp" target="_blank">The Necessity for believing in six literal days, Creation Ex Nihilo 18(1)</a>

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: ps418 ]</p>
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Old 09-14-2002, 12:40 PM   #2
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Maybe it was six days "spiritually reckoned."

Chris
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Old 09-14-2002, 01:14 PM   #3
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Quote:
Originally posted by ps418:
<strong>This thread is being started so that Vanderzyden can back up the claims he made regarding the Hebrew text of Genesis...</strong>
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooooOOOOOOOooooOOO!!!

Not another Vanderzyden thread that begins with a pronouncement that he has been evasive again! When will everyone figure out that he is an evasive, unresponsive, close-minded troll who has nothing to contribute? There have been some excellent attempts to hammer a few basic ideas into that impenetrable skull, to no avail...yet the threads go on and on, and never die. <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> The only thing that makes me cringe more than having to read a Vanderzyden thread is seeing the damn things proliferate.

This one, at least, I can get rid of. It belongs in Biblical Criticism, not here in E/C.

On second thought, that's not fair. It belongs in a dungheap.
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Old 09-14-2002, 06:12 PM   #4
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D**M IT! And I thought this thread was going to be about Santa Claus. I just want to know were I can get one of these Santa Claus filters that everybody talks about, and will it really make every day seem like Christmas? Where are my Present? I want them now. And no cha-cha shoes please.
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Old 09-15-2002, 09:58 AM   #5
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Quote:
Kevin Dorner:
Thanks, I needed a good laugh. By the way: the earth isn't flat, the sky is not supported by pillars, insects don't have four legs, stars are not small or near enough to fall to earth, pi is not exactly three, mating goats near slats will not make them striped, the moon only reflects light, etcetera.
Good list. You left off my favorite:

All mental diseases are not caused by demons.

That is, the science of the hebrews was no more advanced than that of their primitive neighbors!

Sojourner
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Old 09-15-2002, 10:05 AM   #6
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Problem is, extreme conservative literalism is bad for both Christianity AND science. None of the (hardcore conservative Christian) posters here seem to realize that. Or for that matter realize the problems with the literalist view of the Bible.

Chris <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />
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Old 09-16-2002, 06:09 AM   #7
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I think this thread has descended into RRP terrority. Off it goes.
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