The timeline of the Bible

Peg writes:

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The apostle Paul wrote

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Just one parboiled second? Who cares what Paul wrote? You're trying to impose a Christian meaning on a Hebrew text. How many times do we have to spin this merry-go-round?

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So from this it must be concluded that each creative day could have been several thousands of years in length.

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No, it can't because the phrasings used for the "days" in Genesis mean literal, 24-hour days.

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This also agrees with the Hebrew word yohm which can be used to represent any length of time

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Indeed...but only if you phrase it a certain way. That phrasing is not used in Genesis 1, so that is not what it means.The same thing happens in English. "Day" can mean a whole lot of time, but if I were to say to you, "On the first day of my freshman orientation," you would know that I was not talking about any period of time greater than 24 hours. The only way to make the word mean something other than a literal day is to phrase it in a specific way such as "back in my day."

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similar to the way 'ages' can be used in english to say 'a very long time'

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Hebrew has a different word to express "ages." So if the text meant to say "ages," why didn't 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 writes:

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Yes i am because the preparation of the earth, the six days, are not literal days.

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Not according to the text. The text instead indicates that they are literal, 24-hour days. "Yowm" in Hebrew only means long periods of time when it is phrased in a particular way. Such phrasings aren't used in Genesis 1 but instead phrasing that indicates a literal, 24-hour day is used.

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it was still in progess according to Paul centuries later.

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Who cares what Paul says? We're talking about Genesis, a text written by Jews and for Jews and can only be understood in a Jewish context. Christian impositions upon the text are irrelevant.

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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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its pointless having a discussion about he timeline of the bible if you insist on including the creation of the universe with it.

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(*blink!*)You did not just say that, did you? Again, I have to ask you to please, PLEASE, PLEASE stop acting like an idiot. From my opening post: If you were incapable of accepting that as the foundation for the discussion, why did you join in? You claimed that the Bible doesn't say that life, the universe, and everything is about 6000 years old and now that you've been shown that yes, it does say, you're trying to claim that it doesn't really say it because, well, you're not allowed to go all the way back to the beginning?Is there a reason you decided to waste my time?

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The timeline of Human History, Adams creation to today is the only timeline the bible gives.

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Incorrect. The timeline goes all the way back to "the beginning," not "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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the beginning of the creation of the universe includes when God made the earth

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Indeed. And according to the text, the earth didn't get made until the third day.

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the 6 creative days, where he worked on the earth to prepare it for habitation, is NOT the beginning of the universe.

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Incorrect. They are the days that immediately follow "the beginning" for in "the beginning" god made the heavens and the earth. The heavens were made on the second day and the earth was made on the third.

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you say they are literal days, but Genesis does not.

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Incorrect. The phrasing used in Genesis 1 is indicative of a literal, 24-hour day.

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At Gen 2:4 Moses refers to all six creative days as ONE day.

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First, Gen 2:4 is a different story from Gen 1.Second, the phrasing used for Gen 2:4 is different from the phrasing used for Gen 1. For the umpteenth time, of course "yowm" can be used to mean longer periods of time. English has the same thing to use "day" to mean long stretches.However, in order to do so, you have to phrase it in a certain way. The phrasing used in Genesis 1 is not of a long period of time but rather a literal, 24-hour day. Events are given and the text simply says, "Evening and morning. A day." That doesn't mean potentially thousands of years.It means a literal, 24-hour day.

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There is further evidence of this on the first creative day, "God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night." So only a portion of the 24-hour period was being defined by the term "day."

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So? You're seemingly hung up over the fact that words can have more than one meaning and you determine that meaning by the context. "Day" means both the period in which the sun is in the sky as well as 24-hour as well as long periods of time.Thank heaven you don't speak Spanish or you'd be absolutely flabbergasted by the simple phrase, "maana por la maana." That means "tomorrow morning." According to your logic, that is absolutely impossible for how could one word mean "tomorrow" and "morning" all at the same time? My head hurts! Waaa!Because people are not fools. It would be nice if you would stop pretending to be one.There is no basis in the text for stating that the six days of Genesis 1 were anything other than 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.

bluescat48 writes:

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what does Moses have to do with Genesis?

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Traditionally, the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) is said to have been written by Moses. Of course, Deuteronomy contains a description of the funeral of Moses, so clearly somebody else was involved, but that is the teaching.

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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.

bluescat48 writes:

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What I am saying is there is no evidence to whether the Day is literal or not

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Incorrect. All the evidence points to a literal, 24-hour day.The concept is pretty much identical to how English uses the word "day." The English word "day" can mean a whole bunch of different time periods from just a few hours ("a work day") to many years in length ("in Charlemagne's day").The way you tell what "day" means has to do with context and phrasing. If I say, "On the first day of freshman orientation," everybody knows that I'm talking about literal days, not weeks on end.In Genesis 1, the phrasing is what is used for literal, 24-hour days: "And there was evening and there was morning, one/a second/third/fourth/fifth/the sixth day." That phrasing is not indicative of long periods of vaguely defined time. It is indicative of literal, 24-hour days.After all, god is powerful and creating the universe in six days is nothing for him.Peg is trying to say that "human history" is only 6000 years old, but that simply isn't true. It goes back at least six times that far. Obsession with Naked Women Dates Back 35,000 YearsWhen some friends of mine got married, they went to Italy for their honeymoon and commented on how, standing in the Senate, they had a huge sense of time...that there were people standing right where they were. When the Olympics were in Greece, I decided to go and went to the Archaeological Museum and the Museum of Cycladic Art, both of which have objects that are over 5000 years old and I had that same sense of time...that this carved stone in front of me was made so long ago.This new figure makes that feeling I had seem puny in comparison. "Human history" only 6000 years old? Please.

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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 pattern of the account is that each "day" begins with "and then God said." Thus the first day begins at v. 3. Ther first two verses fall outside of the "day" pattern.

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But you're making my point. The first verse is introductory: "In the beginning." You're about to hear a story about how everything was created. When was it created? "In the beginning." There was no earth, it being "unformed and void," so god moved and created.And your obsession with verses is touching considering that there are no verses in the original text. The line breaks are impositions we have put upon the text to help make it readable.

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Notice the start of verse 3, "and then."

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Not in my translation. Both my Torah and my KJV both simply say, "And god said." Again, you are seemingly fixated on this idea that the line breaks actually mean anything. Instead, this is a huge run-on sentence:In the beginning, god created everything for there was no earth, it being unformed and void, and god moved and said, "Let there be light," and there was and god saw it and it was good and he divided the light from the darkness and called the light "day" and the darkness "night" and there was evening and morning, a day.

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Nothing fixes the length of time between the first and second events.

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Huh? The "first event" was the creation of the light. There was no event prior to that. If there were, it wouldn't be "the beginning." It would be "later." There certainly wasn't any creation of the earth because the text directly states that "the earth was unformed and void" ("ve.ha.a.rets hai.ta to.hu va.vo.hu") and thus didn't exist.

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What is so difficult about this?

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You tell me. You're the one having the trouble. You keep claiming that the earth existed before "the beginning" which is a failure on at least two counts: It couldn't be "the beginning" if the earth was already around but instead it would be "later." Too, the text directly and clearly states that the earth didn't exist.When did "unformed and void" come to mean "existing and present"?

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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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I dont believe the earth is 6,000 years old...i believe MANKIND is 6,000 years old

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But we're much older than that.

Side and front views of the Venus of Hohle Fels. Credit: H. Jensen; Copyright University of Tubingen

Thirty-five thousand years old. Now what?

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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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how could a day and night be complete without the sun and moon?

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Because most people are not idiots. A "day" is a period of time and thus is easily reckoned without celestial signs. By your logic, astronauts on the space shuttle record 16 "days" every 24 hours since the orbital period of the shuttle is about 90 minutes and thus they see the sun rise and set 16 times, right? Anybody who stayed indoors and never saw the sun experienced no days at all, right?Ah, but no...we're not idiots. There is more to telling time than just your position with respect to the sun. There is no confusion in describing a "day" even though there is no sun or moon.If you're looking for a more spiritual reason, it would seem that light and heaven are more important and/or basic, more "fundamental," if you will, than the earth, the sun, and the moon and thus it would seem appropriate that they be created first with distinctions between their creations. But, that is a theological argument, not a textual one. It doesn't really matter why they used phrasing indicative of a literal, 24-hour day. The simple fact of the matter is that they did.

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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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1. the 12 hour period of 'light' is called day (yohm) at Gen 1:5 "God began calling the light Day, but the darkness he called Night"
This is obviously not 24 hours in length...or are we to beleive that it is 24 hours in length because of the word 'day'???

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Of course not. Please stop pretending to be an idiot. We use this same construction in English. If I say, "I go out during the day," we all know that I'm talking about daylight. However, the reason that we know that "day" means "daylight" as opposed to "24 hours" is because of the phrasing used.The passages in Genesis 1 do not phrase "yowm" to mean an indefinite period of time but instead a literal, 24-hour day:"And there was evening and there was morning. A day."

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2. at Genesis 2:4 ALL the creative periods are called one 'day'(yohm)
does this mean that chapter 1 is a complete mistake???

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No. Please stop pretending to be an idiot. We use the same construction in English. If I say, "In my day," we all know that I'm talking about a generic period of time. However, the reason that we know that "day" means "a period of time" as opposed to "24 hours" is because of the phrasing used.The passages in Genesis 1 do not phrase "yowm" to mean an indefinite period of time but instead a literal, 24-hour day:"And there was evening and there was morning. A second day."

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3. William Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies says "A day; it is frequently put for time in general, or for a long time; a whole period under consideration...Day is also put for a particular season or time when any extraordinary event happens"
here is one of the minority scholars who believe 'day' is of any length of time

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Huh? "Minority"? Please stop pretending to be an idiot. Nobody has ever claimed that "yowm" in Hebrew cannot mean an indefinite period of time, conceivably lasting years. The only claim is that it only means that when it is phrased in a particular way.The passages in Genesis 1 do not phrase "yowm" to mean an indefinite period of time but instead a literal, 24-hour day:"And there was evening and there was morning. A second day."

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4. The word Yohm/day is used at Zechariah 14:18 with reference to the "Day of Harvest" which includes several days.
again are we to assume that the harvest was completed in 1 literal day...we KNOW thats not the case

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5. In Ps 90:4 A thousand years are likened to one 'day'

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So what. Please stop pretending to be an idiot. We aren't talking about Zechariah or Psalms. We're talking about Genesis. Surely you aren't saying that "yowm" always means an indefinite period of time and never means a 24-hour period, are you?

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with so much evidence for the minority view

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Huh? "Minority view"? What "minority"? Nobody anywhere in this or any other discussion has ever said that "yowm" cannot mean an indefinite period of time. Instead, the only argument made here is that specifically in Genesis, "yowm" means a literal, 24-hour day. And the reason we conclude that is because the specific phrasing used in Genesis 1 is indicative of a literal, 24-hour day:"And there was evening and there was morning. A third day."Of course "yowm" can mean a whole bunch of things. But the way you determine what is meant is by the phrasing. This is just the way we do it in English: The word "take" has over 100 meanings, but the way you mean it is determined by the way you phrase it.The passages in Genesis 1 do not phrase "yowm" to mean an indefinite period of time but instead a literal, 24-hour day:"And there was evening and there was morning. A fourth day."It makes me wonder if you have an agenda. When we let the Bible speak for itself, taking the context into consideration, then the only conclusion is that Genesis 1 is talking about 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.

Peg responds to me:

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The sun doesnt appear until day 4, not day 1, so how can there be an 'evening and morning' without the sun on each of these 'days'?

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Because most people are not idiots. A "day" is a period of time and thus is easily reckoned without celestial signs. By your logic, astronauts on the space shuttle record 16 "days" every 24 hours since the orbital period of the shuttle is about 90 minutes and thus they see the sun rise and set 16 times, right? Anybody who stayed indoors and never saw the sun experienced no days at all, right?Ah, but no...we're not idiots. There is more to telling time than just your position with respect to the sun. There is no confusion in describing a "day" even though there is no sun or moon.If you're looking for a more spiritual reason, it would seem that light and heaven are more important and/or basic, more "fundamental," if you will, than the earth, the sun, and the moon and thus it would seem appropriate that they be created first with distinctions between their creations. But, that is a theological argument, not a textual one. It doesn't really matter why they used phrasing indicative of a literal, 24-hour day. The simple fact of the matter is that they did.

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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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I agree that the line breaks or verse breaks are irrelevant to the grammar. But at least for the first few verses, the verse breaks (but not the line breaks) occur between clauses. Each verse starts a new clause.

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Your obsession with verses is touching considering that there are no verses in the original text. The line breaks are impositions we have put upon the text to help make it readable. You are trying to impose spiritual meaning upon a convention that was made simply to make the text easier to read.

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Are you reading the Torah in the Hebrew, or in an English translation?

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Both.

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You keep claiming that the earth existed before "the beginning" ..."

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False. I have never claimed this.

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Now, you're being less than truthful here, aren't you? Do you really want me to go back through your posts in this thread and find your direct statements about how there was an earth before the creative days that was then laid waste, how the earth existed under the water so that the water could then part and form the dry land, etc.?

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My claim is that "the beginning" occurs before "and then God said."

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Then it wouldn't be "the beginning." It would be "later." And it wouldn't be the first day. It would be "later." The text does not talk about "later." It talks about "the beginning" and ticks off the days from "the beginning" leaving no intervening time to exist.

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Too, the text directly and clearly states that the earth didn't exist.

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False.

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Incorrect. We've been through this already. "Towhu and bowhu" means that it did not exist. That specific phrasing is not indicative of something that already exists but is barren of features but rather is indicative of nothingness itself, very much akin to what Greek means in the use of the word "chaos." In modern English, it has overtones of a morass of actual stuff but without any order, but Greek takes it much further: It is nothingness complete. "Unformed and void." When did "unformed" come to mean "formed"?

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It does not say "non-existent."

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Incorrect. That is PRECISELY what it says. That's what "to.hu va.vo.hu" means.

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This phrase "tohu wa bohu" occurs one other place in the Bible, in Jer. 4:23

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And it means the same thing: Nothingness itself.

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And the two words "tohu" and "bohu" occur near one another in one other passage, Is. 34:11

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Irrelevant. Context is king and different phrases have different meanings. That's why they use a different phrase: To convey a different meaning.

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In neither instance do the words "tohu" and "bohu" mean "non-existent."

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Indeed. That's because by themselves, they don't convey that meaning. But when they are put together in a single phrase, they mean nothingness itself.The text literally does not say what you claim it says. In fact, it says the exact opposite.No wonder you're having trouble.

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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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If "without form and void" in verse 2 means nonexistence, then what did the Spirit of God hover over?

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The waters. You act like nothingness and visions of that nothingness are incompatible. You need to start thinking mythologically. Greek uses the same concept with "chaos." It is not simply a jumbled mess of stuff. It is nothingness itself.And yet, Gaia came out of Chaos.

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Nonexistence would probably mean no darkness.

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Why? With no light, how is it anything but dark? Again, you need to start thinking mythologically. The first thing god creates is light and separates it from the darkness.

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For sure it mean no "surface" of ANYTHING.

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Why not? You need to start thinking mythologically. The imagery is of god moving within nothingness. How do you describe that to someone poetically?

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The early Greek meaning of chaos was a empty yawning void as a recepticle of all matter. It latter meant a unformed confusion or mess.

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I know. That's my point. "Tohuw and bohuw" is the same concept: It is nothingness itself, not just repetition.

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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 equate "the beginning" (Gen 1:1) with the start of the First Day (Gen 1:3), and you apparently cannot accept that I see it differently.

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Incorrect. I do accept that you see it differently. I also accept that you have no textual justification for your claim.

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I see "the beginning" as occurring before the start of the First Day.

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Which would mean that the "first day" wasn't actually the first and thus what is described as "the beginning" wasn't actually "the beginning" but was really sometime "later" than "the beginning."The "first day" necessarily ends 24 hours after "the beginning." You seem to want there to be something between "the beginning" and the "first day," which is not justified by anything in the text.

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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 "first Day" was not "first" in an absolute sense

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So "first" doesn't mean "first," "the beginning" doesn't mean "the beginning," and you wonder why we have spent 300+ posts on this matter?

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Note that the text does not call it "the first", but "Day One."

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No, it doesn't say that, either. It simply says, "a day." That is why the implication is that it is the very first one and not just some random one pulled out of many. That is why the implication is that it is a literal, 24-hour day and not some nebulous, vaguely defined period of time.When the imagery is to start at "the beginning" and then tell you that "a day" has passed, it is not talking about "10 billion years 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.