First Water?

Indeed there was a good reason.It was the 'science' of the age. It was the Natural Philosophy of Aristotle.Aristotle held that everything, including the sun and stars, were created from water. Everything. That kind of thinking led the Alchemists to believe that gold might be created from a baser substance, such as lead. Prime Elements

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

You see what you want to see. Clearly you have not read, or did not comprehend, or cannot remember, - the text. You mean it supports the way you are mis-reading it.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

The idea of water as the primordial liquid is expressed in the earliest known documents produced by the first people to use written language: the Sumerians (circa 2500 BC).

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

In order to create a new definition for a coined expression such as: tohu-bohu, you must offer some very good reasons; much more than you have given. So far, all you have brought us is a profession of faith in Maimonides. I have read similar opinions written by Philo. But, just because the crackpots are ancient doesn't make them credible. That's right out of Philo. A man who believed the sun orbits earth, and a number of other WRONG ideas.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

Dctrbill, the problem here is not that I, or someone like Maimonedes, have not read or understand the text.The problem is that we have different approaches presuppositionally to the text, and you are not willing to take a good look at the text read from this angle. But frankly, maybe we should just quit arguing about it. I understand your view, but do not agree with it, and I am fully satisfied that the language supports my reading of the text.But here is a different angle that you may or may not want to consider. I believe the Bible is a spiritual book which God can use to grant revelations, and at times the text can even partially seem to be encoded, as if one cannot grasp it's meaning without help and some experience with the One that inspired it.It would make sense, as I tried to show in Jesus' life, that the word of God would reflect deeper perspectives and meanings and at times without some of that perspective being applied, even the literal meaning of the text can be lost.With that in mind, I share the following not to argue about it, but just as something to consider.Jesus says to John in the book of Revelation "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending" (Revelation 1:8).Jesus is the beginning then. Christ is the beginning. That's part of the message and theology of the vision in Revelation. Jesus, in his earthly ministry, if you accept the validity of the gospels, referred to the Torah as the word of God so he is aware of the implications of calling himself "the beginning" in reference to Genesis, and the beginning of the creation of the heavens and the earth.Genesis 1:1 reads as: Or perhaps it can read then:In Christ, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form and void.Let's look at the gospel of John: Hmmm.....All things were made by him, but Jesus said he never did anything except what His Father showed him.Could the Logos have just made what the Father first created in the Logos? The Father creates the design, and the Word is activated that makes the design come to be.Why did the writer of John phrase the opening of his gospel clearly alluding to Genesis, and why does Jesus say He is the beginning?Probably this should not be overly argued because you can either accept the divine connection and thread of revelation across the many books of the Bible so that they can be viewed together as all being "the word of God", or not, but if you do not, you probably would not and perhaps cannot see my point here, and if you do accept that presupposition, then we can talk because you could see the point, but may or may not accept it.I just offer this as something to think about, in terms of the theology behind it.If Christ is the beginning, then theThis message has been edited by randman, 06-04-2005 02:38 AM

the way it's used elsewhere to mean things that aren't water is to do so euphemistically. so basically, if it's saying water on it's own, and meaning something else, the whole thing ends up having to be metaphorical.which is basically what you're doing: symbolically applying genesis to something else. which is ok, but you have to understand that it's not what the literal says. plasma ≠ liquid.
plasma ≠ gas. well, yes. because מים is not refering to the STATE of the matter (ie: a liquid) but to the content of it: H₂O. like someone said, they weren't stupid, they knew about evaporation and condensation. or at least that the clouds must contain water if it rains.as for why there's night and day before the sun, well that's just the way the story goes. when's the last time you saw a priest, a rabbi, and a nun walk into a bar? or got put up for the night by a farmer and ended up sleep with his wife, daughter, and cow-milking machine?(the joke analogy is another purposeful one, btw. genesis is full of humor) and if they saw some, they wouldn't have described it as "water." a "burning bush" maybe. no, not exactly. for instance, the waters we're talking about, after they're separated, the ones below become the seas. and our seas are not quark-gluon plasma.here is every usage of the mayim in the bible look what it refers to. water. oceans. seas. the flood. wells. springs. something to drink. it's usage is pretty specific. he was using figurative language, to say what i've been saying all along. the ancients thought all life, and all creation came from water. and they were RIGHT to some degree, btw. water is the reason we are here. and water is the primordial element in which life formed.

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אָרַח

hahah. that's a good one. i'll have to remember that. that's sort of what i thought. meaing something along the lines of "containing no forms." "void" does tend to imply EMPTINESS. so it should be obvious that it's saying the earth is empty. and then when you know that the authors liked to emphasize ideas through repetition, "without form" just reinforces that idea.it's not a common usage in english anymore, but if i were to say "i'm without pants" you would understand what i mean. without can refer to possesion, so the first part could indeed mean "possesed no forms."however, i liked the chaos analogy. there's a lot in genesis 1 about chaos that doesn't come across to well in most translations. the deep represents that early stage of chaos, and the tanniyn -- leviathan maybe -- is the embodiment of that chaos. creation is literally about sorting, making order. genesis 1 is all about separation. god separates light from dark, water above from water below, sea from land, etc. it's not that these things didn't exist, but that god puts them together in the right ways.

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אָרַח

john is reading a targum. one of the aramaic translations of the old testament. one rather interesting one renders the name of god "memra." normally, we render the hashem (the name) as "lord" or whatever equivalent: kurious in greek, adonai in hebrew, dominus in latin, LORD in english. but when this translation was made, they chose another word: "to speak." god's creation is done vocal. god says it, it happens. god doesn't DO anything himself, just speaks and creation obeys. similarly, nearly all of god's interactions with men are vocal. so this is a good name for god.losely translated, memra in aramaic becomes words - logos in greek. and "the word" in english. however, the aramaic is not speaking about jesus. it was speaking about god.

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אָרַח

What a stunningly bare faced dodge.The question is where is the scientific support for his claim that events on the earth at its creation and following which took billions of years would appear to occur within 6 of our 24 hour days, 7 including the sabbath, from our current viewpoint on Earth.That is the only form in which his argument makes sense. If it is base on a purely hypothetical observational position which is allowed to move at relativistic speeds to get the desired redshift then it is no more reasonable a rationale than simply saying that God's perception of time is different from ours and he can percieve the lengths to bewhatever he wants.If the expansion of the time periods is supposed to be observable by us now then there must be some rationale for how we are supposed to observe the planet earths history across the neccesary distance in space.As I pointed out before it all depends on the frame of reference. If the events all occurr in the same frame of reference then you will not see the redshift neccessary for that line of argument.Do youactually understand the science enough to address the issue? Because you seem to have refused to address it ever since I first asked you about frames of reference.TTFN.WK

My Presupposition got wrecked in collision with the Truth. Now I drive a late model Exegesis. It's great. Goes from zero to infinity in nothing flat. Corners like a dream! Really smooths out the road!Even so, I'm always on the lookout for something better.But good luck with your dream. Suppositions can be fun. I should know.Been there. Done that.

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Theology is the science of Dominion.
- - - My God is your god's Boss - - -

The "been there, done that" works both ways. I've been on the other side too, and found it wrong!