Did God say it, or did you say it?

true, true... they might not, you know. The hebrew text appears to be a retelling of older stories and includes elements from other mythologies and civilisations...and I don't think anyone actually HAS the "original" text.The dead sea scrolls, for example, are similar but they are NOT the same... And here again I am hearing some people (Peg for one, JRTjr for another) state that "YOM" doesn't necessarily mean the same for ancient jews as it does for us.I haven't ascertained the truth of that (I neither speak nor read Hebrew) - what I have seen so far is one quote purportedly from one person who claims to be a scholar, who wrote a book or two about hebrew and the bible, and he says that YOM can mean any length of time in addition to the standard "24 hours" and "daylight part of the day" meanings - and there is potentially supporting evidence.It would be an argument from authority to call you wrong, and I'd only have your word for it that you're able to translate from (ancient) Hebrew into English and/or are more correct that said author...

Nice idea, but I don't see the proof of that - is it not possible that genesis 1:1 is merely the opener explaining genesis 1:2 and onwards? meaning that god created "the heavens and the earth" but that it took 6 "days" to do it to completion?we'll ignore genesis 2 for now

Hi ICANT,

quote:

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And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

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The earth was "without form, and void" - it's fair to say it didn't exist, it wasn't "formed".However, the "deep" existed, and the spirit of god did (is there a difference between the spirit of god, and god?).Cheers,Greyseal.

Yesterday with my kids, I built a house out of lego. After I built the house my kids pulled it apart and built a racecar.Where's the house?when you understand this, you'll understand what I meant earlier.cheers,Greyseal.Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

without form and void is a bit more powerful a phrase than "empty and desolate". I think if they'd meant merely "empty and desolate" they should have said so......but now you have a problem. You want to believe in a literal bible when the original manuscripts are non existent, the authors unknown and even the translation is open to interpretation?

Hi Peg and ICANT, You know what I find funny?* God said it
* Moses wrote it down
* Moses "says" God said "this"
* Peg (a human) says "God meant that"
* ICANT (a human) says "God meant the other" AND
* ICANT (a human) says he "doesn't want to take what a {human} said over the word of God"There's only the words of humans in here! Since none of you have God's cellphone number, all any of you have is a man's words.ICANT, you're a human, why should Peg take what you said over what God said? What do you have to show that your interpretation of God's words (as written by Moses) is any more correct than Peg's interpretation of God's words?And Peg, what makes you think YOUR interpretation is correct over ICANT's?

excuse me, but we have three "men" here (humans is longer to type, so natch, sorry Peg* Peg - says God clearly meant "YOM" as we use the word "age" (i.e. "the days of")
* ICANT - says God obviously meant "YOM" in it's most literal obvious meaning as "day"
* Moses - well he's dead. He just said Yom
* God - ? well, everyone is proclaiming they know what God meant, but nobody can actually ask the fellowso written down or not, inspired or not, there's at least two valid interpretations here which are following exactly what God said, yet coming to two wildly different answers.Which one has the real direct God hotline?

yes yes, but what does it mean? what's the problem? the problem is that when such a simple phrase cannot be pinned down, the text's use as anything other than literature is highly suspect. You talk about interpretation, but what you treat it like is translation.1+1=2 is a formal, simple mathematical equation which can be written in many ways and many tongues, and when translated it will always be the same thing (philosophical discussions on "what is the number 2" and so on notwitstanding).But "tohu wa-bahu" ? the last word is apparently nonsense and the first word has many meanings - from formless (so "not existing" is fair) to "wasteland" or "empty" (in which it would not be) to "vain" which is...something else entirely.And yet you treat this book as if it were the same as the mathematical equation of "1+1=2" when it quite clearly is not.God may have said...something...and it was translated into "tohu wa-bahu" (let's say), and now it's been translated several times again and it's ended up as "empty and desolate", "formless and void" and many other alternatives, none of which mean quite the same thing.All these translations, right from the very, very first ones that we don't even have any more, are quite obviously the words of men, and unless the magical sky-daddy's ability to guide humanity has ebbed to nothingness over the years, you can hardly claim that modern translations are any worse or any better than contemporary scribes and translators.yet still they differ.These words, they don't seem to be God's words, do they?

silly me, I thought Yahweh was omnipotent. tsch. shows what I know.so, he couldn't have sped up reproduction, or allowed the animals to reproduce asexually, or allowed some other sort of special magical reproduction seeing as, you know, he can create an entire universe and breath life into mud and all that?

So God in your opinion can't do anything supernatural, like, say, bringing the dead back to life? Or walking on water? Or making a bush burn without actually burning? Or turn water into wine or a staff into a snake?

He can, but he didn't.Well go ahead, shoot; why not?Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

saying that he magically made Mary pregnant isn't a reason to disbelieve that he magically made the universe in six days!It seems to me that it is your sensibilities upset by the thought that an all-powerful god could have made a planet which appears to be billions of years old in only 6 days some 6000 years ago, I'm not seeing proof, all I can see is your objection that "it's not possible". Is it not God who said "in me, all things are possible" ? ...actually it might not be, but it's something I've heard attributed to God.I seem to recall you have no problem with Noah's ark, despite the mathematical impossibility of it all (enough food, water, ventilation for all the animals in the entire world on the finite-sized ark for a year, with only about 6 guys to muck it all out), you seem to be okay with manna from heaven, with parting the red sea, with people coming back to life, having blindness cured, having thousands fed with a few loaves and a few small fish, with stopping the rotation of the earth so that a certain group of stone-age warriors would have enough daylight...but apparently creating an entire universe in six days is beyond god's powers?I'm not going to argue the validity of picking the timeless version of "yom" because it would seem possible you could be right, but I still don't see the proof - you can say "context context context" all you want, but it seems the author of that piece is using yom in the standard way we do, which is a valid use of the word "yom" as well as making sense in context, the only person I see demanding that it be taken otherwise is an understandably flawed human who can't quite swallow a miracle of that size.God could quite easily have said "and lo, this day lasted a thousand years, a year for each a day in a year, and thousands of such years", but he didn't, or at least Moses didn't write that down...Now I'm as flawed as the next guy, and the Truth isn't up to the democratic process besides, so you don't have to take my word for it, but it would seem you have YOUR interpretation and others have their own, with little but the loudness of voice of the participants to decide who is correct

Peg, umm...did you mean to say two wildly contradicting things in the same paragraph, one sentence after another?Anyway, just to make sure, I'm not arguing for my pet point of view, just playing devil's advocate here because I'm not sure about the consistency you treat different levels of magic with; apparently God (obviously) didn't create the universe and the world in six actual days, yet you still see the creation of Adam as being instantaneous - you have no problems with saying that god had a "need" to create Adam magically instantly, but didn't have a need to create the universe magically and instantly? and yet you still say "tell me why an eternal God would need to create anything instantly" and don't apparently see a problem with this.I'm not saying you can't be right, I'm just questioning the reasoning behind it.If I have you wrong, and your god uses the big bang and inflationary cosmology, natural selection and evolution, genetics and geology to create a universe by guiding or sustaining the laws, then you'll need to be a bit clearer - right now you seem to be fine with magic on a small enough scale, but against it on larger acts, yet still call god omnipotent if not omnimax.

Hi Peg,I totally understand your reasoning, although I do not necessarily agree with you, but you seem to have a problem: I realise you're being honest, also with yourself, which is wonderful - but if your reasoning is coloured by your own opinion, then your words are your words, not your god's.

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The universe could have been created slowly over time becaues its simply the bringing together to matter.

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quite, but if god is all-powerful, he could snap his noodly appendages and zing! universe. Or he could warp time itself so 13.4 billion years or so happened in literally moments for him. There's quite a lot of what-if's there, and those two ignore last-thursdayism. Peg, I feel you do not understand evolution, or have your perception coloured by the lies and inadequacies of Behe and his ilk. The magic words you are missing is "scaffolding", and the magic words you did not use is "irreducibly complex".The former has been proved to work. The latter has not been proved to exist. Just because you cannot comprehend it does not by any stretch of the imagination mean it cannot happen. And please, I am not attempting to be mean, but you have fallen head-first into the traps left for you not by Darwinists but by creationists.Why could god, most powerful, most high, omnimax being that he is, not know how to use evolution? After all, the classic christian believes that god made man from dirt! i find that a lot more absurd than chemistry! indeed, but these are YOUR words, not god's - I'm not arguing that your interpretation cannot be correct, but I am pointing out that you HAVE an interpretation, and that it (the bible) MUST be interpreted since it is not a recording, audio or visual, it was not written by god himself, it does not come with authorized explanational footnotes from god and has been passed down through many thousands of years from people who were, to all intents and purposes, ignorant and illiterate peasants.You may talk about context, but contradictory sentence is contradictory (to balderize a meme or two)

Hi Peg, No, no, that's fine. I'm just trying to get a handle on how come you (and others, not picking on you particularly here) speak with such strident certainty over things like the age of the Earth, with wildly differing viewpoints, all claiming to be using the same "evidence", all claiming to be correct, when the honest among you (that's you, Peg, take a bow) admit that the source is inadequate by itself. But, but...we've already covered that the most obvious way that "yom" is used means "day", yet you rather gallantly acknowledge that science has proved for your satisfaction that the Earth is older than that, and that the universe probably was created by (I am assuming) something that looks like the big bang.Why do you have a problem with looking at the evidence and coming to the conclusion that evolution was god's tool as much as the big bang was?big bang? not a problem.
4.5 byo earth? not a problem.
abiogenesis - problem if it's "naturalistic", not a problem if it's magical
evolution - problem if it's "naturalistic", not a problem if it's post-special-creationhave I summed you up right?I mean, I can show you that apes and humans share over 98% of the genome, and that the banana shares something like 50% of our DNA, indicating a high degree of common ancestry or that god used the same code during his special creation. the evidence is just as strong yet you deny one and embrace the other, and I'm not sure why. In your old-earth belief, where does the dinosaur fit in? How do ice ages fit? God doesn't talk about ice ages, yet we can readily prove there were ice ages. We can readily prove not only tectonic drift but how the continents looked in the past - yet you state that god wouldn't do nothing for billions of years when the evidence that you yourself agree with indicates that he must have.Why is it not possible, even most likely given the evidence, that the book collection we call "the bible" was written by ignorant illiterate savages attempting to scribe knowledge handed down from a being so far advanced that even we, now, cannot comprehend his greatness?Is it just, be honest now, that you feel it likely your faith could not take holding that viewpoint?