The timeline of the Bible

Peg responds to me:

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the word 'created' is a hebrew verb in its perfect state...its a completed action.

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Again: Irrelevant. There is no significance to use the of "bara" that makes it something mystical. The use of "bara" as opposed to "asah" is not indicative of anything special just as English "create," "made," "fashioned," etc. do not indicate anything special.After all, Genesis 1 uses both words to describe the origin of humans: If there were truly some sort of mystical significance to the use of "bara," why would god talk about "making" humans using "asah"?

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this means that the opening verse is identifying God as the creator of the earth and universe that was already in existence, not one that he 'began' making at that time.

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Incorrect. That is not the way the perfect tense is used. Indeed, the perfect tense is indicative of completed action, but there is more to be done to determine when it was completed.That is, since life, the universe, and everything came into existence in the past, that action is "perfected." But the timing is in relation to our current position in time in the present, not in relation to god's position in time in the scenario listed in Genesis 1. The phrasing of Genesis 1:1 is to tell a current reader that in the past, god had created (notice my use of the past perfect) the heavens and the earth. It then launches into the description of how it had happened (again, notice my use of the past perfect).Again, to claim otherwise is to claim that when the text says, "In the beginning," it doesn't really mean "beginning" but rather "later." If the point was to talk about the reformation of a previously created object, why talk about the "beginning"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

jaywill responds to me:Well, no. No, he doesn't. He wanders off topic. Let's try it again, shall we?I'm still waiting for you to show me where we have a secondary genealogy of Adam such that we can declare that there are skipped generations in it. If you can't do so, just come out and say it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

jaywill responds to me:Well, no. No, he doesn't. He wanders off topic. Let's try it again, shall we?I'm still waiting for you to show me where we have a secondary genealogy of Adam such that we can declare that there are skipped generations in it. If you can't do so, just come out and say it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

jaywill responds to me:Well, no. No, he doesn't. He wanders off topic. Let's try it again, shall we?I'm still waiting for you to show me where we have a secondary genealogy of Adam such that we can declare that there are skipped generations in it. If you can't do so, just come out and say it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg responds to me:

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All imperfects in the Hebrew verb are 'incomplete actions'.

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Um, this isn't unique to Hebrew. Any language that uses an imperfect tense means the same thing. That's what "imperfect" means in linguistics. English doesn't really have an "imperfect" tense. Instead, we use the progressive.At any rate, Biblical Hebrew doesn't really have "tenses" the way modern languages do. Instead, it has two aspects...a "past," often called "perfect," and a "present/future," often called "imperfect."So of course the description of the heavens and earth are in the perfect: It happened in the past and that's how you describe things in the past in Biblical Hebrew.

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It was not an ongoing action so it cannot be a part of the six creative days that follow.

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First, incorrect. The six creative days are the creation of the heavens and the earth described in the first sentence.Second, irrelevant. The description is that the creation of the heavens and the earth happened in the past. That action was completed and thus it is "perfected." The description is of a past, completed event that is then immediately followed by a detailed description of what happened for that action."Twenty years ago, I had attended college. There was orientation and some parent informational sessions. And on the second day, they had Frosh Run."That doesn't mean that there was some previous matriculation before I went through orientation. It is a direct statement that my collegiate experience was in the past and has been completed. And now, you get to hear about the details of what happened while I was there.

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that is the title of the book. 'Bere'shith' is the opening word in Hebrew and its the 'title' of the book as opposed to a part of the dialogue that follows it. The book was first named Genesis in the LXXXVg

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That doesn't answer the question. What you are saying is that when the text says, "In the beginning," it doesn't really mean "beginning" but rather "later." If the point was to talk about the reformation of a previously created object, why talk about the "beginning"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

kbertsche responds to me:

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No, Peg is correct. The best fit with the grammar is that v.1 was a separate event which occurred PRIOR to v.3

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Incorrect. It makes no sense that the same concept is used to describe the creation of humans later on. So humans were created before they were created?"Something had happened. Here is how it happened."How does the use of the perfect in the first sentence indicate that the event being described is a different event than the event being described in the second sentence?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

kbertsche responds to me:

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My conclusion that v.1 describes an event prior to v.3 is based primarily on the grammar of the preterite (waw-consecutive). It is true that the form of the verb in v.1 is perfect (or past perfect), but I consider this a secondary evidence.

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But that simply means it happened in the past.And it did.What immediately follows is a description of how creation happened.You don't apply this reasoning to any other verses in the Bible, so why is this one special? It makes no sense to talk about "the beginning" if something had happened before. That wouldn't make it "the beginning" but would rather make it "later." It makes no sense to talk about the creation of things that already existed."Something had happened. Here's how it happened."How does the use of the perfect in the first sentence indicate that the event being described is a different event than the event being described in the second sentence?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

jaywill responds to me:

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Are we back on the time of creation again? Or are we only talking about Adam being 130 years old when someone was born, and so forth ?

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I'm still waiting for you to show me where we have a secondary genealogy of Adam such that we can declare that there are skipped generations in it. If you can't do so, just come out and say it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

kbertsche responds to me:

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You are completely missing (or intentionally ignoring) the point. Your parroting of claims about the perfect are irrelevant to my main evidence, which is the preterite forms.

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Um, you do realize that Biblical Hebrew doesn't really have a preterite, yes? It has two aspects: The perfect and the imperfect.That said, the "waw" construction is a narrative device to indicate progression, furthering of plot, as it were."Something had happened. Here is how it happened."That is the narrative description of Genesis 1: First you get the really big picture, and then you get the details. The creation of life, the universe, and everything was not just a snap-of-the-fingers, now-you-don't-see-it/now-you-do event. God worked at it. It took, quite literally, days.So of course the description of what happened during the days where god made the heavens and the earth are going to be written using progressive narration. That's how you tell an interesting story.You still haven't answered the question, though: If the heavens and earth were already made, then why talk about the "beginning"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

kbertsche responds to me:Well, no. No, he doesn't.I'm still waiting for an explanation for why Genesis 1 talks about "the beginning" if life, the universe, and everything were already in existence. That necessarily means it isn't the beginning but rather "later." The grammar specifically says that the six days of creation were "the beginning," that there was no previous creation, that the appearance of the earth on the third day was its origination, etc.How does "the beginning" come to mean "sometime later"?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg responds to me:

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you will need to explain why in Vs1:1 'created' was written as a completed action

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Because the creation of life, the universe, and everything happened in the past, in "the beginning," and thus was a completed action. As I already pointed out to you:"Twenty years ago, I had attended college. There was orientation and some parent informational sessions. And on the second day, they had Frosh Run."That doesn't mean that there was some previous matriculation before I went through orientation. It is a direct statement that my collegiate experience was in the past and has been completed. And now, you get to hear about the details of what happened while I was there.

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do the words of Genesis say that this happened 7,000 years ago?

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Yes. The story of Genesis starts from "the beginning," not "later," and thus the six days described are the very first days that ever happened, not some later ones, for we it all happened at "the beginning."The days are literal, 24-hour days.Genesis (and a few other passages in other books) give a timeline for the precise number of years that passed between "the beginning" and the founding of Solomon's temple.The temple is considered to have been founded about 950 BCE.Adding all of them up, you get about 6000 years from "the beginning" to now.

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"The beginning" is a simple way that Moses explained that at a certain point in time, God 'began' his creation of the universe and all that is in it.

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Huh? "The beginning" doesn't actually mean the beginning? It means "later"?

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then later he proceeded to prepare the earth in the 6 creative periods.

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Indeed. Those "creative periods" were six, literal, 24-hour days and they started at "the beginning." There is no previous time for that would mean that "the beginning" wasn't actually the beginning but was "later."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg responds to me:

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what does the physical evidence show?

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is the universe only 6,000 odd years old?

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This isn't about what the physical evidence shows. This is about what the Bible says and it says that life, the universe, and everything are only about 6000 years old.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

kbertsche responds to me:

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The grammar of the preterite (i.e. waw-consecutive construction) clearly implies that the six days of creation occurred AFTER the "creation of the heavens and the earth" which occurred "in the beginning."

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Incorrect. It is exactly the other way around. The creation of the heavens and earth were during the six days delineated in Genesis 1. There was no "before." I see we're never going to get anywhere with this.

Peg writes:

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Where does it expressly say that the earth and 'universe' is 6,000 years old?

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Oh, my freaking god! Peg, what on earth do you think this entire thread was about? Please, PLEASE, PLEASE stop pretending to be an idiot.Of course the Bible doesn't say, "The Earth was created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 B.C., at exactly 9:00 A.M., because God liked to get work done early in the morning while he was feeling fresh." You did read my original post, correct? You started this conversation knowing perfectly well that the Bible does not give a Gregorian calendar date, that the way we were going to determine the age of life, the universe, and everything was going to count up specific statements about how much time passed between certain events and then tying that timeline to an actual event we can place in time and thus determine when "the beginning" that Genesis 1 talks about took place. From the original post: So since you knew that this was what we were going to do, why do you insult us by playing the fool? For crying out loud, nearly 300 posts and you dare to claim you don't understand what's going on?If I told you Joe was born 40 years before Jane and I later find out that Jane is 27 years old, I haven't given you a date, but I have told you when Joe was born, haven't I?Do you have so little respect for yourself?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

Peg writes:

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yes, but that is the timeline of 'human' history.

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Incorrect. It is the timeline since "the beginning."Or are you saying that when the text says, "the beginning," it doesn't actually mean, you know, the "beginning" but is rather referring to "later"?If it didn't mean the beginning, why did it say, "the beginning"?

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We cannot include the creation of the universe in the timeline of Adams creation to the death of Jesus to today

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Huh? Humans were created on the sixth day after "the beginning." Why can't we include those six, literal, 24-hour days?

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.