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Author Topic:   Creation as presented in Genesis chapters 1 and 2
ICANT
Member
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007
Member Rating: 1.5


Message 166 of 607 (562198)
05-26-2010 3:18 PM
Reply to: Message 162 by Straggler
05-26-2010 11:21 AM


Re: Two Earths?
Hi Straggler,
Straggler writes:
Straggler writes:
Can you refute my two earths affirmation based on what was written in the first 2 chapters of Genesis?
Sure.
Go on then. I don't think you can.
There is much to do about the word translated was in Genesis 1:2.
The Hebrew word hayah that is translated was in Genesis 1:2 means 1) to be, become, come to pass,
This word is translated 2 times (out of 72 times of use in Genesis) as was. Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 3:1
I have no excuse for the translators translating this word was. It in no way means something in the past tense.
An examinations of the Hebrews words in Genesis 1:2
'erets definition, earth and was translated 'and the earth', 'and the' is provided by the translators.
hayah definition, 1) to be, become, come to pass, translated, was.
tohuw definition 1) formlessness, confusion, unreality, emptiness, translated, without form.
bohuw definition 1) emptiness, void, waste, translated, and void.
choshek definition 1) darkness, obscurity, translated, and darkness.
paniym definition 1) face, translated, was upon the face.
tĕhowm definition 1) deep, depths, deep places, abyss, the deep, sea, translated, of the deep.
ruwach definition 1) wind, breath, mind, spirit, translated, and the spirit.
'elohiym definition 1) rulers, judges, divine ones, translated, of God.
rachaph definition 2) (Piel) to hover (verb in piel mode) translated moved.
`al definition 1) upon, on the ground of, according to, on account of, on behalf of, translated, upon.
paniym definition 1) face, translated, was upon the face.
mayim definition 1) water, waters, translated, of the waters.
So in Genesis 1:2 we have.
Earth become formless, empty, dark face, deep, spirit, divine ones, hover upon face waters.
This tells me the earth created in Genesis 1:1 had become formless and empty and darkness covered it.
Therefore it could not be another earth in another universe but the one created in Genesis 1:1
I know this will not meet your approval as it does not meet your worldview but it is what is recorded in the Hebrew texts.
But as I said in the OP I would use the Hebrew.
God Bless,

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 162 by Straggler, posted 05-26-2010 11:21 AM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 181 by Straggler, posted 05-27-2010 12:26 PM ICANT has replied

ICANT
Member
Posts: 6769
From: SSC
Joined: 03-12-2007
Member Rating: 1.5


Message 167 of 607 (562201)
05-26-2010 4:13 PM
Reply to: Message 165 by Straggler
05-26-2010 3:09 PM


Re: Do you care to Debate the Affirmed?
Hi Straggler,
Straggler writes:
But what is it that you want to debate? Your literal interpretation of the assumption that these two portions of the bible are inerrant and conflicting thus requiring two stories? The highly specific particulars of the two stories that you think reconcile these seeming contradictions that ignore all the other possible interpretations that could be made?
Why do scientist perform experiments?
They examine evidence to determine what the story is that is being told by what they see.
I am trying to determine what the story is that is being told in Genesis chapter 1 and 2. using what is written in the KJV Bible, along with the LXX and Hebrew text.
I am not trying to prove it to be right or wrong only what the KJV Bible has recorded in it.
Now if what I am saying is wrong why don't you take my verse by verse examination of the text and refute it. Not what you think I said but what the text actually says.
God Bless,

"John 5:39 (KJS) Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me."

This message is a reply to:
 Message 165 by Straggler, posted 05-26-2010 3:09 PM Straggler has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 179 by purpledawn, posted 05-27-2010 8:08 AM ICANT has replied
 Message 182 by Straggler, posted 05-27-2010 1:27 PM ICANT has not replied

Iblis
Member (Idle past 3895 days)
Posts: 663
Joined: 11-17-2005


Message 168 of 607 (562210)
05-26-2010 7:22 PM


Brief Overview
The venerable ICANT is running a bible study in Genesis 1-5, with emphasis on 1 and 2. He is using a couple of traditional gimmicks to make this patch of scripture more interesting and compelling, but he has combined them together in a strikingly uncommon way.
Two Creations
It has been recognized for a nice long time that the seven days in Genesis 1 and the garden bit in Genesis 2 are radically different kinds of writing. Differences in order of events and details and style are very distinct.
Standard literary analysis explains this as signifying that there are two different authors, who have been patched together along different scribal markings characterizing different historical periods; and that the purposes of the authors were different, and involved different contexts and applications.
The normal fundamentalist defense to this line of thought is to say Nuh Uh and stick their fingers in their ears. More expressive responses tend to work by marginalizing the differences, ignoring specific words, claiming that things are figurative in the same text that had to be literal all through just 2 minutes ago, and so on. Essentially an advanced version of Nuh Uh. Obviously this is insufficient, which led to this thread.
Gap Theory
For a couple of thousand years rabbis have been pointing out the word for "is" in Hebrew is also the word for "become". This is particularly important because YHWH, "I am that I am" is a form of that word. Anyway, when we look at Genesis 1:2 with this insight, we notice immediately that it might well be "became without form and void", in other words there is a gap between 1:1 and 1:2 of no definable size. Scribes need to notice this sort of thing because they have to decide whether to stick a paragraph mark in there.
So as the Targums were being rendered into Aramaic, and various people were getting nailed to this, or fed to those, this sort of thing was already exciting people like one of Paul's church fathers.
Hebrews 11:3 writes:
Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
This became a growth industry, from Origen to Milton people are throwing tons of creativity toward filling that tenuous gap with all sorts of things totally unsupported by a plain reading of scripture. And right at the end of the ecclesiastical reign of terror, some grateful geologists tended to point to it as good theological grounds not to burn them at the stake for doing the work required to properly investigate the real age of the earth.
ICANT Affirm
So what our study leader has done is to take these two concepts, and instead of explaining them away, he has tossed them together to eat each other. Extra creation? Fine. Slide it into the magic gap. In order to do this he has to gloss 4:25&26, which is actually a lot cleaner than glossing every 4th word in chapter 1 and 2. From a strong Masoretic position, one can can say that the "replace" language in the Hebrew of 4:25 is meant to refer not only to Seth for Abel but also to their respective parents.
He's taking a hard beating from his own side over a verse in Matthew (LOL) which seems to identify the male and female created he them from chapter 1 with the one flesh from chapter 2, nothing else anyone has tried has hurt his argument much. And man, have we been looking close at Genesis 1-5, which is the real point anyway isn't it?
Edited by Iblis, : lost a verse somewhere, everyone watch out you don't step on it

Replies to this message:
 Message 171 by Peg, posted 05-26-2010 9:10 PM Iblis has replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 169 of 607 (562212)
05-26-2010 7:42 PM
Reply to: Message 160 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee
05-26-2010 8:35 AM


Re: Some questions...
Jumped Up Chimpanzee writes:
Thanks for the clarification, Peg. Thank God for the original Hebrew text. I've noticed that a lot of answers to Biblical anomolies seem to be wrapped up in original Hebrew or Greek texts. Is there any kind of campaign to get the Bible properly translated so that it all makes sense?
your welcome.
One of the problems with bible translations is that hebrew words can have many different meanings and one word could be used in a variety of ways by the ancients. The problem for the early translators was that they did not fully understand the hebrew language and so in some cases used a word that seemed most obvious to them....sometimes their lack of understanding shaped their theologies such as a literal 7 days of creation.
Modern translators have much more information to work with, so they tend to understand a bit more and translations are being upgraded all the time to adapt 'somewhat' to their improved understanding of hebrew. While they may still use the word 'day' its not necessarily wrong, but it does give the wrong impression if we, the readers, dont understand what the original word can mean. Its always good to read the footnotes in reference bibles because those footnotes will give you more information about the particular words in hebrew and what they literally mean. Both translators and teachers should provide this information to the rest of us, and they should teach in harmony with those original words.
Unfortunately, thats not what most of them do which is why its important for students of the bible to analyze what they are being taught rather then just accept it. There needs to be a certain amount of personal research that goes into reading the bible....or find a good teacher who has already done that research and can provide it for you.
Jumped Up Chimpanzee writes:
Just one final question about Genesis. Who wrote it? I don't understand how anyone could have been around to witness and record the creation events.
No one witnessed the creation of the earth, but the one who wrote the book of genesis would have been given divine guidance in writing the account in the same way that God guided the writing of the prophecies in the bible. But the writer also makes mentions of other writings that he had access to which provided some information about Adam and his family decendents, So some of the info comes from other writings that existed at the time.
According to the ancient hebrews, Moses was the original writer of the Torah...'the law of moses' It was orginally written on 5 scrolls which is what the word 'Pentateuch' means.
As the years passed, copies of the scrolls were made by the jewish scribes and this is why the styles of writings changed slighty. The original hebrew language was written in pictograph (much like egypts hyroglyphx) but over time they developed other writing techniques and when the scrolls were copied, those newer techniques were employed.
Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 160 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 05-26-2010 8:35 AM Jumped Up Chimpanzee has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 178 by Jumped Up Chimpanzee, posted 05-27-2010 4:19 AM Peg has not replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 170 of 607 (562223)
05-26-2010 8:47 PM
Reply to: Message 164 by ICANT
05-26-2010 1:09 PM


Re: Do you care to Debate the Affirmed?
ICANT writes:
I am trying to examine and find out exactly what is written in the KJV Bible and have gotten very little input from anyone.
why is the KJV the authority?
ICANT writes:
Had the word Adam been translated rather than transliterated in 5:1 it would have read mankind.
Male and female was call Adam in 5:2.
Conclusion these verses are referring to mankind. There are no proper names given to either of these people.
Im sorry, im deliberatly not commenting further on most of your post only because we keep going over and over the same points.
Now regarding Adams 'name'.
All hebrew names were the same. They were names that had a specific meaning. So basically, if you want to claim that the Adam mentioned in 5:1 is not an individual actually named 'Adam' then you would have to say the same about every individual named in the bible.
Eve = Living One (as Adam said "because she will become the mother everyone living)
Cain = Something Produced (Eve proclaimed she had produced a man with the aid of Jehovah)
Moses = Drawn Out (because he was drawn from the water)
Jacob = Seizing the Heel; Supplanter (was born holding the heel of his twin brother Esau)
Abraham = Father of a Crowd (father of the isreal nation)
Sarah = Princess (God renamed her this because of her position as matriach to the nation)
David = Beloved (the one who was loved by God)
Job = Object of Hostility (due to his terrible trials)
Solomon = Peace (becauase his rulership would be one of peace for the nation)
Gabriel = Able-Bodied One of God
Jesus = Jehovah Is Salvation
i think you get the picture. All hebrew names had a meaning and just because Adam means 'mankind' does not mean that he was not an individual called by this name.
Even the christians refered to him as the first man and the one who introduced sin into the world.
1cor 15:21-22 "For since death is through a man, resurrection of the dead is also through a man. 22For just as in Adam all are dying, so also in the Christ all will be made alive
Rom 5:18 "So, then, as through one trespass the result to men of all sorts was condemnation"
Rom 5:12 "That is why, just as through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin"
ICANT writes:
Well Jesus did not refer to the people created in Genesis 1:27.
He was talking about the people in Genesis 2:7 and 2:22 and quoting what the man created in 2:7 had said.
Jesus said they were the ones created 'in the beginning'
You say the ones created 'in the beginning' are other humans.
quite a contrast.
ICANT writes:
How can the account of what happened in the beginning be an explanation of what happened 6,000+ years ago?
Its not.
The earth was created 'in the beginning' which was during the time God also made the heavens/universe.
6,000 odd years ago was when he created the first man and planted the garden. But before that time was the preparation of the earth, the creation of the atmospher, seas, land, seasons, animals, vegetation....they all happened in the previous 6 days. Toward the very end of the 6th day Adam was created and then Eve as the very final creation.
then God rested and he has been resting ever since.
ICANT writes:
Your bible says it came to be evening that means the light period closed.
It then says that it came to be morning the beginning of the next day (light period)
Do you disagree with what is written in your Bible?
If you do why?
As i said, we view the 'evening and morning' as a figurative 'evening and morning'
In Gen 2, all six days are called ONE day. So it cant be anything but figurative.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 164 by ICANT, posted 05-26-2010 1:09 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 183 by ICANT, posted 05-27-2010 1:37 PM Peg has replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 171 of 607 (562227)
05-26-2010 9:10 PM
Reply to: Message 168 by Iblis
05-26-2010 7:22 PM


Re: Brief Overview
Hi Iblis,
just wanted to make a point on your verse at Heb 11:3
Through faith we understand that the WORLDS were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.
The greek word they render 'worlds' in this particular verse is tous aionas and it means literally the orders of things
So this is not actually meaning the physical world. The greek word for 'world' is actually 'Kosmos' so i think you may be using an old translation...which one are you using?
The NWT renders this verse as
'By faith we perceive that the SYSTEM OF THINGS were put in order by God’s word, so that what is beheld has come to be out of things that do not appear'
Also the context of this passage shows that the 'world/earth' is not what is being discussed. Faith in things unseen is what is being discussed. So when it speaks of the 'system of things' its actually refers to the 'events' that happened in the world that God had fortold such as the flood of noahs day for instance.
Context and original word meanings need to be looked closely to make a determination of what is being said in a verse.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 168 by Iblis, posted 05-26-2010 7:22 PM Iblis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 172 by Iblis, posted 05-26-2010 10:31 PM Peg has replied

Iblis
Member (Idle past 3895 days)
Posts: 663
Joined: 11-17-2005


Message 172 of 607 (562231)
05-26-2010 10:31 PM
Reply to: Message 171 by Peg
05-26-2010 9:10 PM


NUH UH
you may be using an old translation...which one are you using?
Duh, the real one. The one not peed in by sectarian fruit loops who have to go out and gouge out their dates carved in stone to be replaced by, new dates, carved in stone. The one not paraphrased, mutilated, dumbed down, or pepped up. The one that preserved the idioms and chiasms of Hebrew and Greek and thereby shaped modern English into the awesome language that it is. The one read by Milton, ordered by Jefferson, quoted by Lincoln, and used to spank Billy Carter. The non-fake one.
In short, the one specified in the course description for this study. Where is your copy and why do you think you can get by using that Classic Comic ???
aionas
Aeon does mean "world" as well as "age". Thus it is the perfect choice in Greek to describe a series of two (or more) sequential worlds as in ICANT's proposal.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 171 by Peg, posted 05-26-2010 9:10 PM Peg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 173 by Peg, posted 05-27-2010 12:12 AM Iblis has replied
 Message 174 by Peg, posted 05-27-2010 12:34 AM Iblis has replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 173 of 607 (562235)
05-27-2010 12:12 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by Iblis
05-26-2010 10:31 PM


Re: NUH UH
Iblis writes:
Duh, the real one.
The one not peed in by sectarian fruit loops who have to go out and gouge out their dates carved in stone to be replaced by, new dates, carved in stone.
The one not paraphrased, mutilated, dumbed down, or pepped up.
The one that preserved the idioms and chiasms of Hebrew and Greek and thereby shaped modern English into the awesome language that it is.
The one read by Milton, ordered by Jefferson, quoted by Lincoln, and used to spank Billy Carter. The non-fake one.
ah of course....the kjv...the only 'true' bible lol
Well believe it or not the King James Bible has already been changed. today no one reads the King James Version in its original form. You do not read the bible the way Milton, Jefferson or Lincoln read it. Even after just 2 years after the original was released there were over 300 changes made to it....that has crept up to around 24,000 in our own time.
If you want to read the KJV as it was originally translated, you need to get yourself a 1611 version. Im guessing they are pretty expensive lol. And then you'll need to decipher which words are used correctly because as an example, it translates the hebrew word Sheol 31 times as hell, 31 times as grave, and 3 times as pit.
but hey, if its the only true bible, then go for it.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by Iblis, posted 05-26-2010 10:31 PM Iblis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 175 by Iblis, posted 05-27-2010 12:47 AM Peg has not replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 174 of 607 (562236)
05-27-2010 12:34 AM
Reply to: Message 172 by Iblis
05-26-2010 10:31 PM


Re: NUH UH
Iblis writes:
Aeon does mean "world" as well as "age". Thus it is the perfect choice in Greek to describe a series of two (or more) sequential worlds as in ICANT's proposal.
Lets be real, the word is only a 'perfect choice' if it fits with the context of whats being discussed. Look at what the writer is talking about.
If I say something about 'the world/age of enlightenment' or the 'world/age of discovery' would you conclude that I was speaking about the physical world or the world of human knowledge & achievement?
Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 172 by Iblis, posted 05-26-2010 10:31 PM Iblis has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 176 by Iblis, posted 05-27-2010 1:19 AM Peg has replied

Iblis
Member (Idle past 3895 days)
Posts: 663
Joined: 11-17-2005


Message 175 of 607 (562237)
05-27-2010 12:47 AM
Reply to: Message 173 by Peg
05-27-2010 12:12 AM


Topical Storms Ahead
the kjv...the only 'true' bible lol
Excellent answer. I've always admired your composure.
Anyway, before we get shut down, I'd like to point out that the vast majority of the "changes" you mention fall into two categories: bitched type and similar printing errors, and then spelling regularization. Most of the actual doctrinal decisions were hammered out between Wycliffe and Tyndale at the one end and the Bishops and Geneva at the other. And all of them were debated by the 1611 Version team, and all of them including the printing and spelling fixes were debated yet again by the 1769 Edition team at Cambridge.
One of my favorite examples is "strain at a gnat" from Matthew 23:24. The translators rather uniformly wrote "strain out", the printers accidentally published "strain ot", the correctors mistakenly made it "strain at", and it passed into literary usage that way. The editors debated it thoroughly, couldn't reach unanimity, and went on a field trip to ask random people what they thought it meant to see if it was understandable in the form it now had. As it turned out, it was, so they agreed to leave it so.
This is part of why the KJV can really be described (humorously) as "inerrant". Anything that has been debated for 300 years with all the variants and reasonings at hand and after such discourse has been left as it is, isn't an error, it's deliberate.
. . .
Anyway I'm stuck with it, Book of Eli style. Seeing as how you are going to have to be dragging out the Greek and Hebrew anyway, why not use the best literary version in English? It has the complete text and as I mentioned, preserves the idioms, unlike the paraphrases and Nestle's Crunch versions.
We can argue it more some other time in some other thread, here we are supposed to be doing science with ICANT's little puzzle box.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 173 by Peg, posted 05-27-2010 12:12 AM Peg has not replied

Iblis
Member (Idle past 3895 days)
Posts: 663
Joined: 11-17-2005


Message 176 of 607 (562238)
05-27-2010 1:19 AM
Reply to: Message 174 by Peg
05-27-2010 12:34 AM


Aeons
Look at what the writer is talking about.
I am looking, his subject is how the things we can see and know are made out of things we don't know and can't see, and he mentions worlds and creation. The making, the world we know, in this case, is what's in Genesis 1:2-2:3; that which it is made from, the world we don't know, is whatever is going on in from 1:1 to 1:2. Is it just chaos and void? Is it the fall of the angels and extinction of dinosaurs and maybe a black hole or seven? Is it ICANT's Raising Cain scenario? By definition, we don't know.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 174 by Peg, posted 05-27-2010 12:34 AM Peg has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 177 by Peg, posted 05-27-2010 1:58 AM Iblis has not replied

Peg
Member (Idle past 4929 days)
Posts: 2703
From: melbourne, australia
Joined: 11-22-2008


Message 177 of 607 (562239)
05-27-2010 1:58 AM
Reply to: Message 176 by Iblis
05-27-2010 1:19 AM


Re: Aeons
Iblis writes:
I am looking, his subject is how the things we can see and know are made out of things we don't know and can't see, and he mentions worlds and creation. The making, the world we know, in this case, is what's in Genesis 1:2-2:3
but is he really refering to the creation of the physical world?
Look at vs 1 &2.
Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld. 2For by means of THIS the men of old times had witness borne to them
Its discussing faith.
It says by means of 'something' the men of old had witness borne to them.
To have witness born to you means you have to see something. No one saw the creation of the physical earth so it cant be speaking about that.
The 'THIS' in vs 2 is something that these people of old actually 'saw' or witnessed with their own eyes which gave them an 'Assured Expectation' of the future.
In vs 4 about Able it says he had witness borne to him that he was righteous
Then in vs 5 about Enoch it says "he had the witness that he had pleased God well"
So the witness being spoken of is not that of the creation of the world but some other 'evident demonstration' from God. For Able, it was Gods approval. For Noah, it was the flood. For Sarah, it was her pregnancy in old age. For Abraham, it was fathering a child in his old age.
I had a further look at one of the cross references in my bible, and it references over to Colossians 1:26. Here the same word is used in a similar context but whats intersting is that the KJV changes the word 'world to 'age'
The context shows they are speaking of aionon as 'past times' because those people of the past were told of the Messiah, but did not know the reality of him would be in Jesus christ. That was a 'secret' to them, however, it was now revealed to the christians.
Colossians 1:26 In KJV writes:
Even the mystery which hath been hid from AGES (Gr. aionon) and from generations, but now is made manifest to the saints
If thats applied the same way to Hebrews 11, it would be so much more in harmony with the context because it would be saying that the people of old who had witnessess born to them, had faith because of what they had witnessed of 'past times'....events that they saw which gave them confidence and faith in what God would do in the future.
Edited by Peg, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 176 by Iblis, posted 05-27-2010 1:19 AM Iblis has not replied

Jumped Up Chimpanzee
Member (Idle past 4942 days)
Posts: 572
From: UK
Joined: 10-22-2009


Message 178 of 607 (562244)
05-27-2010 4:19 AM
Reply to: Message 169 by Peg
05-26-2010 7:42 PM


Re: Some questions...
Thanks, Peg.
Although we're bound to remain on different sides on these topics, I do genuinely admire your straight, unflappable responses to my questions.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 169 by Peg, posted 05-26-2010 7:42 PM Peg has not replied

purpledawn
Member (Idle past 3457 days)
Posts: 4453
From: Indiana
Joined: 04-25-2004


(1)
Message 179 of 607 (562248)
05-27-2010 8:08 AM
Reply to: Message 167 by ICANT
05-26-2010 4:13 PM


Re: Do you care to Debate the Affirmed?
I also brought up the temple as cosmos motif.
quote:
I am trying to examine and find out exactly what is written in the KJV Bible and have gotten very little input from anyone. (Message 164)
quote:
I am trying to determine what the story is that is being told in Genesis chapter 1 and 2. using what is written in the KJV Bible, along with the LXX and Hebrew text.
These aren't the same. For the first, all we have to do is read a KJV Bible. We can see what is written. In the second, we have to understand what the writer was telling his audience to know what story is being told. Yes, we have to understand what it meant in their day, not ours.
This article is interesting and doesn't even bring up the P word. It has Moses as the author and shouldn't harm your belief system. Making Sense of Genesis 1
It hits on the same thing I've been saying, modern meanings don't help us understand an ancient writing. We have to try and understand what the audience would have understood in their time.
The trick is to do as much work as we can in determining the genre and in seeking to understand the worldview out of which Genesis 1 emerged. This will involve not only looking at Genesis 1 in detail but also paying attention to similar stories elsewhere in order to get a feel for the kinds of issues with which the ancients were concerned and the language they used in dealing with them.
It isn't a factual scientific account of the creation of the planet.
What might we conclude about the truth claims and significance of Genesis 1? Given its genrea highly stylized form and unrealistic contentI would suggest that it is not to be taken "literally" in the popular modern Western sense as a blow-by-blow, chronologically accurate, account of creation. No one in the ancient world, apart from the isolated account of the time taken to build Baal’s palace, seems particularly concerned with these kinds of questions. Our chronos-fixated age measures things in nanoseconds and smallerbut not theirs. Rather, the pattern of days probably derives from the ancients’ understanding of the structure of their worldday/night, above/below, and land/seathis being conceptualized in terms of the deity’s construction of his palace-temple as he gives it form and fills it. The fundamental issue is that it is Yahweh, Israel’s God, a God who cares for slaves, non-entities, and even non-Israelites (cf. the mixed multitude who are also delivered from Pharaoh’s genocidal proclivities; Exod 12:38), who brought order to the world, not the failed deities of oppressive Egypt nor, to a lesser degree, those of Canaan or Mesopotamia. And in doing so, it uses the language and imagery to which that world, and particularly Egypt, was accustomed. This is hardly surprising.
That is the spiritual reality of the story for the Hebrews. Israel's God brought order to their civilization.
The Genesis 2 creation is a just so story, probably for children. It explains why we have knowledge of good and evil, why we have to work for a living, why men and women have sex, why women have pains in childbirth, and why the snake has no legs. It is not an actual event.
We can't understand the stories if we don't understand the original audience. The stories weren't written in English. They weren't written for the current population to understand.
They were written for ancient Hebrews to understand. So we have to figure out what the ancient Hebrews understood.

Scripture is like Newton’s third law of motionfor every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
In other words, for every biblical directive that exists, there is another scriptural mandate challenging it.
-- Carlene Cross in The Bible and Newton’s Third Law of Motion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 167 by ICANT, posted 05-26-2010 4:13 PM ICANT has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 180 by AZPaul3, posted 05-27-2010 9:58 AM purpledawn has not replied
 Message 184 by ICANT, posted 05-27-2010 3:36 PM purpledawn has replied

AZPaul3
Member
Posts: 8513
From: Phoenix
Joined: 11-06-2006
Member Rating: 5.3


Message 180 of 607 (562254)
05-27-2010 9:58 AM
Reply to: Message 179 by purpledawn
05-27-2010 8:08 AM


Re: Do you care to Debate the Affirmed?
They were written for ancient Hebrews to understand. So we have to figure out what the ancient Hebrews understood.
Hi PD,
I've enjoyed your posts here over the years and I enjoyed this one as well. I read but usually do not participate in these kinds of threads since I am not a believer. None the less I felt compelled to add this small point to this discussion.
While your posts are most accurate in reality, it is obvious ICANT is not heading in this direction. From his opening and throughout I see ICANT attempting to determine what the KJV says from a modern literalist point of view. I think ICANT believes in a modern literalist interpretation and he is showing in this thread what he believes the proper line-by-line modern literalist interpretation should be.
I also believe his interpretation has a great deal of merit from a modern literalist stance. I say that he has succeeded in showing to his fellow literalists what a strict modern literalist interpretation of KJV could/should be.
Though I do not think this was ICANT's intention, to me as an outsider and to echo your post in stronger terms, he has also amply demonstrated the absurdity of all such literal interpretations.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 179 by purpledawn, posted 05-27-2010 8:08 AM purpledawn has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 186 by ICANT, posted 05-27-2010 3:50 PM AZPaul3 has seen this message but not replied

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