Genesis 1 and 2: The Difference Between Created and Formed

irrelevant. this is not about enoch, this is about the book of genesis which was written quite a while after enoch, by (suprise) jews. if you choose the fundamentalist viewpoint, it was personally handed to moses -- a jew -- by god.genesis is a jewish text. it is a jewish text written in biblical (classical/old) hebrew. we are not talking about stuff that is not in this jewish text. ever read the census in the book of numbers? it's tediuous, i admit. tell me though, how many egyptians left among the jews during the exodus?

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this is just the same old argument, jay. it was wrong then, it's wrong now. destruction is described in terms of a return to a pre-creation state. it was that way with noah, it's that way with isaiah and jeremiah. those references lose their meaning if you remove the context of un-creation.i'm not going to go through this again. the targumim are notoriously fruity in their interpretations. some even choose to rename god.

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In this passage, the verb ____ is compunded with the Aramaic verb _____ which appears here as a passive participle of a verb which itself means "to cut" or "to lay waste". We have here, therefore, a rendering "and the earth was laid waste", an intepretation of the original Hebrew of Gen. 1:2 which leaves little room for doubt that Onkelos understood this to mean that something had occured between verse 1 and verse 2 to reduce the earth to this desolated condition. It reflects Ginsburg's Jewish legend.

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wanna explain to me how that's possible without a past tense? yeah... research the targumim and come back to me on this. i think you'll find they're about as subjective as the talmud. it goes almost without saying that translation is interpretation. and translation of translation is even worse. you tried to take "made" on day four to mean something other than "made." then you describe that the sun existed from day one, nevermind that god himself only commanded the sun to exist on day four. why would god command something to exist, if it is exists already? l'hyot is a verb that isn't used very often in hebrew, and almost NEVER in present tense. no one ever says that something "is." god is issuing an impretive command, for something to be. your "interpretation" that it existed before that point is changing the text. there are no two ways about it. jay, let me direct you to some posts by a former member here, eddy penngelly. such classics as windows 3 described in the bible. all he's doing in those posts is interpretting usage differently, and "decoding" the bible in a similar manner. it's wrong when he does it, and it's wrong when you do it. usage, context, and idiomatic meaning are important. if you exchange one usage for another, out of context, it is changing the text. like "appoint" or "reveal" for "make"? yes jay, that's exactly what you did. the ideas, in this case, are interchangeable. god creates through different processes -- when i says god created the heavens and the earth, that includes the things in them. things it said he "made" and "formed" are also part of his creation. is this not common sense to you? do you think bara can ONLY mean creatio ex-nihilo? i addressed this point in Message 118, including an explanation of the translation. "appoint" does not come from asah. rather, what the verse says in hebrew is that god made the moon to appoint time. it's one of the rare examples where the kjv re-words something -- if you look around, you'll find that many other versions word things the way i explained, including the new jps, nlt, rsv, etc. your interpretation of god NOT making the sun on the fourth day, and that it existed previously, directly contradicts the bible. it requires reading verses where god commands the sun to exist as something else -- and i don't even know what because you have consistently failed to answer this point.the view that says "no, the bible doesn't actually mean what it says, it means this, the total opposite" is by definition un-biblical. irrelevant. if god chose the words exactly, why do you choose to not pay attention to them exactly? and yes, btw, i do believe there is inspiration in the bible beyond what the authors understood. i also understand that any such information has to be based upon the foundation of a firm literal reading of the text. if you accept the text is wrong, that's fine by me. but then your interpretation is un-biblical. you cannot interpret the bible to mean something that contradicts the plain text, and still claim your interpretation is biblical. it's just not.and i've warned you before, do not presume to tell me what i do or do not believe.Edited by arachnophilia, : subtitle

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no, it tells who EXACTLY was in that multitude. and it wasn't egyptians.

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good luck, jay likes to drag things way off topic. the whole "jewish" bible thing is not so much about who the text belongs to, but rather me trying to keep jaywill specific. he was going off about god's words to other people, or him, or people before moses, etc. no, this discussion is about genesis, and what's actually in genesis. this thread is NOT about god-given understanding, decoder rings, the holy spirit, or enoch. it's about the book of genesis, part of the torah, a jewish text.frankly, he's just debating his gap theory again, in the wrong thread, and he's starting to repeat himself. it's all off topic here. will try to. nothing has really jumped out at me as describing what this is about. other than "off-topic" that is.Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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ok, you might have a point. but these egyptians seem to have been left out of the census. that might not be a problem, though, i admit.moving back to the topic? uh huh, tell me another one. there's a lot of content in the old testament about the israelites flirting with idols, and disobeying god. they are portrayed as "a stiffnecked people" and kvetching all the time.

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empty, and without form. they do not represent the majority of opinion. yes, some people thought that. that does not mean they are right, or that everyone agrees. evidently, you do need to research the targumim. aramaic is a different language than hebrew. the grammar is different, even if many of the words are the same. it's actually from a targum that christians get the name for god "the word." not in the old testament anywhere, until it's translated into aramaic, and they need to find a new word for god. no, it's just that there's a whole wide world of jewish interpretation. i keep saying this over and over and you never seem to get it -- saying "this jewish source agrees with me!" does not prove your point. no, in THIS verse:

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Genesis 1:14

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—, ‘

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v'y'amar elohim yehey maorot b'raqiya ha-shamim.

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and said god, "exist, lightbearers, in the firmament of the heavens"

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notice it's (maorot -- lightbearers) that god is commanding into existance. how can you say they existed before this point? clearly, they did not. you changed a usage in an incorrect way, resulting in a translation that is not used by anybody. i challenge you to find a single translation that renders in verse 16 as "appoint" or "reveal." you are playing semantics, both with the words themselves, and with what is changing the text. yes, in fact, you did. because we have this thing called context, see. and it along with grammar dictates what the usage of the word is. using the wrong usage is distorting the meaning.suppose for a second the text was written in english -- and i take the common english idiom "to make out" and apply it to this verse. did god french-kiss the sun? usage matters. yes, there is, and i've already explained why multiple times. the word used does not imply it. yes, there is, because on day four we have god commanding them to exist. they did not exist prior to god's command. you are wrong. then, by your claim, the bible is ignorant or inaccurate, and the words of god commanding the sun and moon and stars to exist are in error. the first part is plausible. the second is needlessly redundant. i do not try to change the plain meaning of the bible. you do.Edited by arachnophilia, : typo

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why do you write reply after reply to one post? sometimes even replying to yourself? stop it, it's annoying. the grammar in hebrew supports either reading. irrelevant. "so and so said so" is not support for accuracy. not even if it's the majority opinion. nor with rabbi nachman, all due respect. in this case, he's probably right. but no one is saying that god did not use raw materials in his creation of the sun -- but the sun did not exist before god made it. then you contend the bible is wrong when it says that god made the sun and moon and stars on day four, or records the words of god inaccurately? or that god was stupid for commanding something into existance that already existed? clouds did not exist until god made the sky. this is the only logical conclusion from the text. does the meal exist before i make it?raw materials ≠ finished product. because it doesn't say god "repaired" the sun. it says that god commanded the sun to exist. then it says god made the sun. it's not an issue of "could." god could do anything. the issue at hand is what the bible says.

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faith corrected me -- and it's also irrelevant. irrelevant. we're not talking about who god's word was written for, we're talking about the contents of it. i was trying to keep you specific to which words of god. you do that. but remember, in this verse, in this book (genesis). i never argued otherwise. just that the sun itself did not exist prior to god's command for it to exist. it would prove that no one reads it that way. majority opinion, whatever. but if nobody agrees with you?maybe you're just wrong.

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it's not a strictly literal translation. this sort of word exchange happens a few times in the kjv, and other translations, to make concepts and grammar make sense in english (of the time). because the sentance is changed around in a strange grammatical way, gets an instance of "appointed" in the concordance, when really, "appointed" comes from the prepositional phrase —.really, the sentance reads, "made the-moon to-marked-seasons," because the verb is asah "made", and moadim are months. "appointed" is thrown in because moadim (months) lack the implication of marking found in the hebrew. so they take "marked" from "seasons" and make it part of the verb, rendering "make marked" or "appointed."it's NOT a literal translation of asah, in this regard. like i said, usage matters. in any case, i feel that — reads better as an infinitive in english. the jps and a many other translations agree.

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wow, a reply to a reply to an admin action. i guess i shouldn't have started it. probably, but i'll bet you ten bucks i can get another fundie argue that god made them out of thin air. cause, you know, no death until the fall, no man using animal products until noah.but tell me, did the coats exist before god made them? wrong usage of asah. and anyways, were they three measures before sarah measured them? did the meal exist before jacob made it? materials -- nothing. the sun itself? no. the moon itself? no. the stars themselves? no.things do not exist before you make them, even if you make them from something else. if that's the case, the something else exists.Edited by AdminPD, : Change Subtitle

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i'm glad i'm not the only who understands logic here. well, not exactly. bara may (or may not) be a different case. the three (bara, asah, yatsar) all have different shades of meaning, though it is incorrect to say they cannot be use synonymously. they very often are.in english, i might describe a piece of sculpture as my creation, but certainly it's something i made, and formed with my hands. "create" has an intellectual connotations -- it's something i planned, and executed. "form" refers to actual process of creation.the op means to say, essentially, is that genesis is a planning stage, and genesis 2 is the execution. but you cannot disconnect "create" from "formed" because "create" encompasses the execution. anyway, back to your regularly scheduled off-topic discussion.jay: i have a better place to read your gap theory into -- genesis 2:4. god goes through creation, at length, including the creation of man -- and then god does it all over again in the next chapter. why would god start over? must be the first one was destroyed.Edited by arachnophilia, : forgot the large tacky and arrogant hebrew font below.

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suppose what you wish. i was a fundamentalist myself. yes, but i bet i know a few people here who would argue that they were. afterall, even lions ate grass on the ark. they were skins. god made the coats of skins. they did not exist as coats until god made the skins into coats. they did not exist until god made them. the raw materials might have, but the end products did not. there was no sun on day one. the "seer" is being given divine knowledge. his perspective is irrelevant, and frankly, you're still saying "i know better than the authors of the bible." it's the three measures that was made, not the meal. you cannot substitute meanings like this. "prepared" works in english, appointed does not. i know you don't speak hebrew, i'm sure you speak english. and that doesn't make sense in english. yes. but not the sun. doesn't make sense in the context of the story. this is not the cosmological picture that genesis draws. and whatever was providing light was not in the position or function of the sun.i agree, that's not very specific, but they story doesn't give a lot to work on. no, the stars didn't exist until god commanded them to. then the human prophet misunderstands, and the bible is inaccurate. we can divine a lot of stuff from the text if we just assume that it's wrong in places. no, this not about "coming into proper function." this is about creation. it's a creation story. god commands these things to exist not to change function.

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not claims i made up. and one of them is in the bible. no, it was something that was not the sun. yes. the universe in genesis is geocentric -- actually, it's centered around one particular inhabitant of the earth, mankind. everything is made around man. this should not be a startling conclusion. it is contrary to science in almost every way. why do you think we have most of this debate, on this board? genesis describes us (mankind) as having a central and special place in the universe, and science describes the exact opposite. modern science and genesis are completely unable to be reconciled. why try to match the cosmology?genesis is a mythological description of how god created everything that hebrew authors cared to write about. i have no problem saying that genesis has it wrong -- but i suspect that you do. yet, you seem to use "genesis has it wrong" to try to justify genesis having it right. which just doesn't make sense. i'll take a consistent and accurate picture of genesis, regardless of its accuracy. no, this is still a double standard. you cannot say that god has given the author of genesis divine knowledge to the extent of controlling which words he used -- and that the text is limited by the author's understanding. those are directly contradictory statements. if the author is being given divine inspiration down to precise word choice, then either everything is correct, or god is lying to the author. but did any of them recieve divine knowledge that was wrong? if genesis presents an account that is colored by the authors misunderstandings, than word choice is not important. you are saying that the text is in error. i have no problem with saying the text is in error, but you cannot say "the text is in error" and pretend that it is still accurate, and god gave the author his very words. so it's a "santa claus" lie then? the kjv is generally regarded as the most "wooden" literal translation. it still makes this change. translations are subjective, and done by multiple people, with varying standards of literalness versus grammatical sense. but look back a few pages, i personally translated this verse for you, word for word, without making it make sense in english, and then with. there is nothing in the verse that neccessitates anything other than a usage of asah meaning "made" as in creation. i keep around a modern jps (which you can't get free online), a parallel english/hebrew chumash, an old niv someone gave me when i first converted, a kjv, an interlineal greek/english new testament (which as sees very little use), a hebrew dictionary, and commonly refer to multiple translations online, including the hebrew/old jps at http://www.mechon-mamre.org/i can pull very wooden literal translations on my own, and i frequently do for debates here. i also consult other translations in the process to make sure i'm not totally misunderstanding something. and in this particular verse, the 1901 asv is not expecially wooden. it would be something that is not the sun in any manner.god may have used raw materials, but the creation of the sun was still a creative act, not just re-appointment or repair or a mild transition. it was a substantial shift. whatever was providing the light for the first three days was not what would become the sun. many have suggested that god personally provided the light. the grammar and context of the story does not support your view (regarding the sun's prior existance) in hebrew, nor english for that matter. this is not my opinion, this is what the text says. you cannot read a text which says "on day four, god told the sun to exist. then god made the sun" to mean the sun existed before day four. you just can't. you can say the text is wrong, but i suspect you don't want to say that. no, i have suggested that they have slightly different connotations. just as synonyms in english do. they are often used interchangeably to describe the same thing. if i make a sculpture in my sculpture class, it's my creation (intellectual connotation), but it's also something i made (physical connotation), that i formed (connotation of process) with my hands.we could say, in genesis, that bara refers to god's special creations, the planned-in-detail, intellectual efforts. we could say that asah refers to things that aren't as grand. genesis 1 uses these two words to describe a carefully planned and meticulously executed creation. genesis 2 uses yatsar to describe a more in-touch physical creation, a process of god actually using his hands. the stories have different foci, so different vocabulary. actually, if you're interested, i could make an argument that he's wrong. but since you don't accept the basic logic that the sun didn't exist before god made it, there's no way you'll accept this -- considering that it's actually the same argument. no, but frankly this is about what you believe. i do not believe the text to be accurate. but i do believe that we should treat it with integrity and take it at its word, even if it's wrong. you try to subtely say "it's wrong" and make it sound like that's not what you're saying in order to prove it right. you cannot use error as a basis for accuracy.if the author of genesis misunderstood, and recorded his misunderstanding, then the text is wrong. stop beating around the bush about this, and pussyfooting around the issue. if you think the text is wrong, just say so.do i think the text is wrong in places? yes. but i don't say "it's wrong here" with the goal of distorting what the text is saying, to prove its accuracy. i think it's just plain inaccurate, and a human text, inspired (in a loose sense) by god. if i think it's wrong, it's because what the text is actually saying does not reflect reality -- not because there's some coded message in there that's really right, and the author simply didn't understand what he was writing. that's a little convuluted. i'm just saying, stick to one or the other -- but either way, do NOT distort the meaning of the text. don't be silly. i'm a christian, and we're talking about the old testament. i'm trying to chase people away from misinterpretting the bible to support extra-biblical dogma. i am often the first to commend yec's in the religious fora for their courage of recognizing that the bible and science utterly disagree on very many things, and siding with the bible. it's the people in the middle i have problems with. they bend science, and bend the bible to get them to fit. they are only betraying both. because that is your claim, and you are not fessing up to it. i suspect that you are not trying to make this claim, yet you persist in saying that authors misunderstood, or weren't aware of something (yet god gave them their very words). if you think the bible is correct to that degree, more power to you. but evidently, you do not. i'm not suggesting it. i'm saying it. that is what the text says. yes, let's look at that. "appeared." is that word asah?Edited by arachnophilia, : typos

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what, to you, indicates that either genesis 1 or genesis 2 is a blueprint? and why does god then deviate from the blueprint? no, man in genesis 1 ("created" and "made") is clearly a living entity, as are the animals. in fact, the word for "beast" in genesis 1 is actually derived from the word "life" chay.

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