The Implied Pre-Genesis Ice Age & It's Interesting Implications

i think that's misinterpretting the intentions of the authors.genesis starts with a neutral element: water. had they wanted to say ice, they would have. there is no textual basis for their understanding of the solar system. quite the contrary. there are plants before a sun. it stands to reason then that absence of the sun in no way means an ice age.what you're doing is trying to fit a text to reality. and it doesn't work. the people who wrote the book did not see the world through the eyes of modern science, and it's a mistake to try to rectify their position with it.it's also especially a mistake because the redactor failed to rectify the textual sources with one another. genesis 1 and 2 are totally in the opposite order, and it's NOT just a matter of emphasis. what this tells me is that they didn't care about accuracy of the text, because there was something about them more important than the sum of their details. they didn't care about reality, they care about what the story said.so your focus is a little misguided.

no you're not paying attention. they have a different word for ice. had they wanted to say ice, they would have. that bit about god warming up his creation was poetic, but it's not what the text says. it says water -- liquid water -- surrounds everything. the heavens keep it out. later in chapter 6, god opens the windows of heaven and what comes out?rain. not snow. not hail. not ice cubes. rain. it's liquid. again, god's either stupid or a liar. i don't want to believe in a god that's either of those things. the model of the world in genesis chapter is an inside-out snow dome. the water's on the outside, flat land, dome of the sky. that's the picture it paints.so if god can't get little bits like "the world is spherical" right, when he created the darned thing... well. i'd just prefer to think the people got it wrong, and not god. because the fact is that it IS wrong. but it still has a chronological order, even if it doesn't count days.

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Gen 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and [there was] not a man to till the ground.

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Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

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Gen 2:8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.

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so, to paraphrase:1. no plants.
2. man.
3. plants.
4. animals.genesis one goes:
1. land.
2. plants.
3. animals.
4. man.these two orders are not compatible. my understanding is NOT a liberal interpretation of the text, your's is. i'm not interpreting the text at all. i'm simply reporting what the text says. and the orders are in conflict. read it closely.in fact, people have KNOWN about this conflict for thousands of years. there have been a couple apologetic reasonings, but the most commonly accept scholarly view today is that for whatever reason the redactor didn't care becuase he had other priorities (such as the sanctity of existing texts).perhaps you should look a little more into what the biblical SCHOLARS say. not to be confused with preachers who've been to seminary. wow, i had pegged you as much younger. no, i'm sorry to say that you don't. i've only been studying it for a few years, and i gave up trying to rectify it with the real world LONG ago. it simply doesn't fit, and the textual evidence is that the people who wrote it didn't care. it's not a history, it's a collection of tradition.do yourself a favor, and find a bible-as-literature class. it's a really interesting book, once you get past the standard religous crap you think it says. you might find that the scholarly work that's been done for the last fifty years or so contradicts everything you thought about it.it was interesting in my last class on the subject to watch the fundamentalists squirm. the teacher, as it turns out, was far more literal than the literalists. he was concerned, like i, with what the book actually says, where it's problems really, and its context, regardless of his religion.you really do have to accept that it's just plain wrong in some cases, and that it quite often contradicts itself. it's an assembly of multiple sources, and those contradictions (such as between gen 1 and 2) are a good hint at where it changes sources. i set down the enlightment path almost at birth. i've been through every version and idea of the truth, from athiesm to fundamentalism, to apologistics. what you're spouting isn't new to me.i'm just explaining why i rejected the idea, and why it doesn't make sense.

it's NOT a strawmen. your argument is that the water of creation, in genesis 1, was really ice.but the text says water, and not ice. there's another word for ice. i'm not saying they didn't understand that ice was just frozen. they just have a different word for it, like we do. it's how we know which one we're talking about.if you go to a restaurant, and order some water, and they bring you a block of ice, aren't you gonna complain to the manager? what'll you do when he says "well, technically, my waiter DID bring you some water?" really? where?polar water caps?
water cubes?
water skating?
water cold?
waterbox?
watered tea? no this really isn't the place for it, and it's been discussed before. but you're completely ignoring the point, of course.edit: you're also ignoring the references to the structures referenced later in the book: the heavens and the waters of the heavens, and how the noah story indicates that the water HAS TO BE liquid.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-15-2005 05:59 PM

shall i diagram sentances for you?"water [...] being ice"you're either arguing that the water in genesis 1, the deep, the waters above and below are referring to ice, or you are not. i have not ignored your post. you have dodged the important question. if they meant ice, and had a word for ice that meant a solid form of h20, why did they say "water" which means a liquid the other 578 times it's used? in fact, sometimes the word even means urine, which is slightly warm.unless, of course, you piss icicles. no. that's a creationist reading that tries to justify a worldwide flood. take a look at what the text says for a moment.

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Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

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firmament. solid.here, god is creating a solid object, a ROOF over the land, to separate the waters. the water above is liquid, because look what happens when god punches some holes in said firmament:

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Gen 7:11 ... and the windows of heaven were opened.
Gen 7:12 And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights.

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so the water above has to be liquid. that's simply what the bible says. i don't care if doesn't describe the real world. no, it's not a strawman to clearly refute your points with other evidence. you can ignore me if you want, but i'll keep beating this horse because it proves that your point is wrong: it cannot have meant ice. yeah, looks silly now doesn't it. but it doesn't say "vapor canopy" or "condensation." it says a solid vault of the heavens, which keeps out the waters above. that's the function it is given in genesis 1.and it's not "in the sky." it's above the sky. actually, it's outside of the known universe. the sun, the moon, the stars, and the planets are all INSIDE this firmament of the heavens. this is very consistent with a pre-ptolemaic view of the universe, in an astronomically unaware society.but this whole vapor canopy business is not what's described in the bible. it's an attempt by creationists and apologists to rectify the bible with reality. and it fails, because such an object would break the laws of physics, and cook everything on the planet. not that everything being surrounded by water wouldn't -- but hey, that's what they wrote. it's just a story. and to quote you:

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Get over it and move on

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not in genesis it's not.plants seem to grow with no sun just fine. actually, we do. genesis explicitly describes it. it implies a flat circular earth, with a dome of the heavens above it, and everything surrounded by water. they evidently knew of stars, and maybe planets (other authors did). and the sun and the moon. there is no indication they knew that other planets were in any way similar to place we lived, and that would have been TOTALLY anachronistic. nor after. like he said, there is no reason to assume the author meant anything other than a standard 24 hour day. if we're gonna change what the book says, let's just start from scratch.

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The New Bible, Genesis One:

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In the begining, God created the singularity. And the singularity was formless and nonexistant, surrounded by darkness, with God's spirit moving about. God said, "Let there be the Strong Nuclear Force..."

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i mean, if we're gonna try to view this text with the eyes of modern science, and totally defy what it's actually saying, lets at least get it right. how? god can work miracles and create everything, but can't do it FAST? you don't give god much credit, do you? i like the jps for the ot, myself. mine starts of like this:

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Genesis One, JPS:

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When God began to create heaven and earth -- the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep and a wind from God sweeping over the water -- God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw the light was good, and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was an evening and there was a morning, a first day.

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now, this is a proper, modern idiomatic hebrew translation from the masoretic text. the people who made this were scholars, and not all of them rabbis or religious leaders. so it's usually fairly true to the meaning except in a few specific instances. but lets look at what this says, since it's in modern easy to read english.there is darkness, followed by light. the darkness is night: not complete darkness. the light is day: not complete light. there is a night and a day even with the absence of the sun and the moon. the creation of light happens part way through the first day: it's why it always says evening before morning, and why even today jewish people regard the day as starting at sundown. (bet you didn't know that!)so, since the darkness is only night time, it doesn't imply that everything was frozen over. it also fully allows for plants to grow, since there is a daytime and light without a sun.it may not be RIGHT, but it's what the book says. no, not correctly. god's proper name is yahweh. jehovah is a combination of his name, rendered in german and read in english, with his title: adonay. the original text was written without vowels, so you have to ignore the vowels that are there NOW and look at the implied vowels. the vowels that are there now were added during the transcription of the masoretic text, and they are the vowels of adonay "LORD." they're there to remind the hebrew reader to say "adonay" instead of "yahweh" which would be a no-no. it is absolutely incorrect to use both name, you should use one of the other. and most bibles, out of respect for and knowledge of the hebrew tradition use "LORD" from the vowels of adonay.so no, jehovah is not god's name. and while we're at it, jesus is the wrong name as well. his name properly rendered in hebrew would be yehowshua. and coverted to common english: joshua. "jesus" has been through another language, greek.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-16-2005 12:40 AM

actually, "evening and morning" WAS the measurement device in the text. a period of dark followed by a period of light: a day. there is absolutely no reason to assume that a day would have changed length. no, he's saying "it is not directly related to the Sun at all." however, the hebrews who wrote genesis did not seem to associate the two AT ALL. there is light before the sun. and darkness. in cycles called days. they seemed to think that sun was a patron of the daytime, and not vice-versa. they had no concept of the earth turning. it's static, and flat. welcome to the outdated world of genesis. would involve changing the laws of the physics, i'm sure. and besides -- why? just to match genesis with the real world? you're not doing it very well. i've read genesis quite closely, i know the picture of the world that it paints.at least the flat earth society has the balls to pick one or the other. i had a very long day today. i bought a frame at rag shop, went to two classes, submitted three photos to a gallery showing, and wrote a huge refutation of contracycle's post that made him look just plain stupid.did it take me more than 24 hours? i even said my day was long, too. did the world change speed for me?now, why would it NEED to for god, who can do anything and everything? would it take him longer to do the impossible?the book means DAYS, literally. it's just wrong. you will never recitify perfectly with the real world, because the world it depicts is VERY innacurate. i mean, hey, an ocean in the sky, right? but that's what it says.want a better reading? the water is not water at all. water is what we call a thematic element in hebrew literature. it's associated with giant chaos dragons, like the tanniyn of genesis 1 and leviathan of psalm 74 and job 41. water is formless, void, but chaotic and dangerous. to the hebrew reader, water is a metaphor for emptiness.and they heavens are a compressed view of the rest of the universe. the sun and moon and stars and all the planets are all compressed into this (set of) dome(s) or sphere(s) that according to some traditional belief all rotate around the earth. but ignore that for a bit. what it's talking about, this water, is outside of the universe.so there's some questions resolved in this story that are still talked about in modern physics and sci-fi. granted, it is not LITERALLY correct, but it is an attempt to describe more than can possibly be comprehended.(i'm reminded of a book in osc's ender series, where they get outside of the universe, actually)

hockey is awesome.now that the bible implies it, i won't feel like as much of a sinner if i go see the panthers.

don't be ridiculous, everyone knows abel was a mighty duck.one thing however is certain. david played for the kings.

i don't mean any offense, but it's a little ridiculous to begin with. and ignoring my posts makes you look a little bad, especially when i keep disproving your points with textual evidence.

yes. currently, the atlantic ocean is covered in darkness and is still liquid.the text says the darkness is called "night." why do you assume it means anything other than "night?"

you know, playing the strawman card to attempt to avoid logical defeat is intellectually dishonest.you argue that the "deep" and "water" of genesis 1:2 is in fact solid ice, do you not? and you reason this because there is no light, and therefore no heat, correct?however, a verse later, the darkness is called "night." the light is called "day." there are light and darkness cycles described in the text, prior to the creation of the sun. do you agree?now, tell me, does the ocean freeze over at night? and more importantly, do you think the ancient hebrews thought it did?

*applauds* *continues applauding*

buzz, you have failed to be sensible. i have provided evidence for a correct and literal reading of the text, and multiple reasons why what you're saying is a distortion.and you have ignored my points, claimed i'm attacking strawmen, and refused to answer logical questions.at a certain point, all we can do is sit back and laugh.

except that there is no "holy spirit" in genesis. nor is there in any book before matthew.word in genesis is not exactly spirit. it's WIND. yahweh's other name, elohym, which is the plural of elowah, which is a formalized version of of el (as in el shaddai). el, in ugartic mythology is the WIND god. it is not suprising to see him associated with wind at all.wind - breath - life. that's the theme in genesis 2, btw. these are all related terms. but spirit is a modern christian rendering. except that this deep is NOT god's creation. it was just always there. prove it.This message has been edited by Arachnophilia, 03-18-2005 10:42 PM

i've shown that water is used to describe liquids, and ice to describe solids, and the text uses water.i've shown that such a body is indeed water later in the text.i've described the context of water as an element of emptiness and chaos, from which order is created, and the role of the serpents in genesis 1.i've shown that the darkness was in fact, like the text says, only nighttime. and the light is only day, and that these things are textually unrelated to the sun.that means that the water of genesis 1:2 has to be liquid.