Creation as presented in Genesis chapters 1 and 2

I'm quite surprised. I re-read ICANT's explanation of how the two genesis accounts can make sense and itt...actually can make sense (in a narrative way).If you read genesis 1 as the creation of the universe, then God creates everything - the planet, the stars, the moon, the animals and finally "mankind".Then you get to genesis 2, and God specifically creates Adam and Eve (and the garden of Eden, and a few rivers).Now, you've got to assume that any creation is actually talking about a recreation inside the garden, it would make more sense if Eden was created in the middle of an otherwise barren section of the planet. The language itself is vague and imprecise and we definitely have translation errors so the text can be made to fit, if you can happily swallow the idea that the first few lines are talking about the creation that went on inside the garden in line 8.This does mean, however, that there are plenty of humans not burdened by original sin, not destined for hell by default and do not need to revere nor worship this god or any other.

woah woah woah, stop right there.If you're using the English version (and truly, I cannot speak about other versions) then what you are supposing is not an open and shut case.Try this on for size:

quote:

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1: Today, I completed my usual morning routine.
2: I woke up and stretched, and saw that the sun was shining.
3: I got up out of bed and made toast
4: I drank some coffee, and saw that it was good
5: Then I went to work

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Now, by your standards, versus 2 to 5 would happen specifically after the un-named "morning routine" when in reality, they form part of the routine itself.If that sort of logic is the basis of your assumptions then it is baseless.

A small interjection - and it is somewhat on topic:Just because it is written in the bible and you do agree with it, does not make it true or fact.I don't think you can just assert "it's the bible, ergo it's true" because that puts you on the same treadmill of "it's true because it's the bible, which is the word of god, which is true because it says so in the bible"

Hi ICANT, No, it doesn't have to read like that and doesn't make sense if you do.I assume that you are dead set on the idea that my "morning story" must describe more than one morning - I assure you that it does not, and is perfectly valid English as-is, and so too can the bible be read.If you are going to talk about "the language that the bible was written in" (which you haven't, mind) and claim that it doesn't work like modern English, then we have a number of problems, the least of which is that it certainly isn't English but you're trying to treat it as if it is. I'll come back to this point in a moment... I believe that is similar to how the jews treated days and time, but off by about twelve hours. The jewish day begins at sun-down not sun-up, this is why the bible says "the evening and the morning of" each "day".Now, back to that point I was talking about: As I have said, the language that the bible was written in wasn't English. I have been told (and I lean towards accepting this) that the word for "day" is "yom" and "yom" very validly translates as "age" at least as much as it does day (infact day itself can mean age in English too) - i.e. "the day that god created the heavens and the earth" can very validly (and I argue more validly) be translated as "the age when god created the heavens and the earth".Otherwise you have a problem - if you insist on a straightforward uncomplicated direct and literal reading of the bible, there are two accounts of creation wherein the order is different. If you insist that there was only one act of creation (and no act of recreation or second act) then you cannot have the two accounts agreeing with each other and maintain day(yom)==day(English standard normal 24 hour period).If, on the other hand, you have the pre-adamic tribes of mankind, followed by another day of creating a specific garden still set within "the age of creation", along with some rivers and Adam and Eve, not only do you solve the "brides of Cain and Abel" question, but many others. Glad you think so, so don't go spouting stuff like like you did in Message 459

Hi ICANT, No, I'm calling you foolish for not understanding context. sometimes a day is a day-day, sometimes it is a length of time.Look, I'll prove it to you with one sentence: isn't "generations" far longer than a day-day?In the verse where god is talking about "the evening and the morning" you can literally read it as being similar to our 24 hour day, but just because it means day that time does not mean it means day everywhere. As my bible-thumping friends here always say, context, context, context.both of your examples specify yom as being "an amount of time" (I didn't specify year, please don't say I did). I fail to see where I must be wrong and you must be right. yes, and I remind you that you are under the same burden. On the other hand, my argument has merit as proved by your own sources and I think makes more sense for a number of reasons (already stated). I was talking about how you define day as sun-up to sun-down, whereas the jews define it as sun-down to sun-up - twelve hours out of phase, not "missing". Indeed, and my statement was to the effect that if Jar doesn't get to say the bible is false, then you don't get to claim it is true.Fair is fair.Edited by greyseal, : No reason given.

well, this context: Either you truly do not understand or you are trying to be obtuse deliberately. The crux isn't whether a day is "during the day when it is light" or whether a day is "the whole 24-hour-ish period from sun-up to sun-up" (or sun-down to sun-down as the bible defines it*, which is how the jews and muslims use the phrase), it is whether "day" refers to this distinct time-period, or whether (as is perfectly valid) it refers to something more like we would call an age.I do not need to quibble over the former, because it is the latter definition which is important, please provide proof I am wrong, and no - the fact that the same word is used as a distinct time-period earlier on in the book (in the same chapter, even) is not relevant. I did examine the context, from it I conclude that the word "day" in the above bible-quote actually refers to the age of creation.look, here's that same definition of the word "day" from the first link I found, the Mirriam-Webster:

quote:

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1 a : the time of light between one night and the next b : daylight 1 c : daytime
2
: the period of rotation of a planet (as earth) or a moon on its axis
3
: the mean solar day of 24 hours beginning at mean midnight
4
: a specified day or date
5
: a specified time or period : age (in grandfather's day) often used in plural (the old days) (the days of sailing ships)

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just because definitions 1-4 exist and are listed first, does not mean that definition 5 cannot be used, and does not mean that it's usage as such will be signified in any way.To understand English (and other contextual languages) you have to read things in context. Definition 5 fits better in context by the simple use of Occam's Razor. I think we have the history of the Heavens and the Earth in the age they were created, and I think it makes more sense. You can't have all that much history/generations in a single day, but you CAN in an age! No, no I don't, and I think it's naive to think it can be, especially when dealing with words that have multiple meanings. This isn't, remember, god's definition of a day. This is a word written down by somebody a long time ago to describe some story or narrative - written by a human, not god. You may claim it to be inspired, but I don't see where inspiration negates any specific definition of a word. If a day can be an age, then a day can be an age. It can be used interchangeably, and not even god (unless you have a dictated piece of scripture saying so) can change that.Besides, and it comes back to this, if you claim that the humanity created in Genesis 1 was the same stock as the specific human created in Genesis 2, then we're back to the problem of having the order of things that occured in Genesis 1 wrong compared to 2, and Genesis 1 of course describes things occuring in a week whereas you demand that the "day" in Genesis 2 is "one day" because you cannot accept it as "the age of creation".If you really want to talk about plural, well, the dictionary definition itself says "In Grandpa's day" to mean during his life - or are you more learned than the writers of the dictionary you lean on?* yes, that's how the bible defines it, "the EVENING and the MORNING of the first day"Edited by greyseal, : BB mullered the < and >

still irrelevantAnd I quote, "and it was the EVENING and the MORNING of the first day"infact, every single day is "and that was the EVENING and the MORNING of the".first evening, then morning.That's my reasoning. yes, it's multiple days because it's talking about the whole age. I thought both I and the dictionary itself was quite clear - "in Grandpa's day" means "during Grandpa's life". it is often plural but does not have to be. yes, I noticed - you did notice where the dictionary says "often plural" didn't you? Did you see where it said it had to be? No? oh, that's funny, because you sound like you did... hey, you're the one stating that it's so simple a ten-year-old boy figured it out, not me. You're the one saying it makes sense. If even you don't think it makes any sense, then this entire thread is worthless. Unless you believe the world is flat, or that we do not need the sun for light, then either part of the world was dark and part of the world was light for a very, very long time (either we have a tidally-locked planet or it doesn't rotate on it's own axis at all until god wound up the spring), which using your sort of naive literalist reading doesn't tally with the bible...or there is no possibility of there being more than (about) 12 hours of daylight.If you're going to start talking about the massive acid-trip that is revelation, I think you'll need another thread. Suffice to say, for ignorant goatherders some 4000 years ago it might not have been obvious that the sun shining was what made it light. pot, kettle, black.well done for not seeing the irony. so, there were two separate acts of creation - the initial creation and then the *recreation* (or additional specific creation) of adam, even and eden, yes or no? actually no, God was warned to put a stop to them before they ate of the tree of eternal life because if they did THAT, they would be as gods, this was why they were thrown out of Eden. Not so much because they ate of the tree of good and evil but because of what they would have become had they had the fruit of the tree of immortality. yes, god lied if you think a day is a standard earth day in that verse. The man you are talking about was Adam, and he died at something close to a thousand years old, something like a thousand years after he was chucked out of the garden.Or are you telling me Adam died there and then?I know some people call it "spiritual death" (because they are as needy as you are for it to make literal perfect sense) but I think that's a cop-out. well no, not if there were two acts of creation - the first being the week-long entire-universe stint, the second being some-time during the "age of creation" wherein were created god's own people, descendants of Adam and Eve, the pair who disobeyed him and didn't die (immediately) but were thrown out of the garden of Eden incase they ate of the fruit of the tree of immortality and became like gods (paraphrasing the bible here). so I'm right? There was the creation of everything, taking a week, and then this recreation which took a day?This actually can logically follow your insistence that a day is always a light-and-dark period, but you have some horribly convoluted explanation as to why that can't be so.I'm suggesting there are two choices1) two acts of creation (days CAN be always day-days, but don't need to be, I don't know which)
2) one act of creation, but the second genesis is therefore "an age"-day and is just a retelling of the first that isn't supposed to be literal (it simplifies the subject to "god created everything else FOR man, who then did this") but this limitation on the length of an age is entirely artificial and dictated by you. It does not logically follow. An age is, by definition, not bound to be a specific length.You seem to somehow be suggesting that genesis 2 actually happened on day-1 (more or less) of genesis 1 - that doesn't fit, because the order of creation is wrong, wrong, wrong. You expect the English scholars to be colloquial in their use of English, but you expect your mythical Hebrew scholars NOT to be colloquial in their use of Hebrew?Even when writing the translation from pre-Hebrew (i.e. Aramaic or earlier)?That's ludicrous.Edited by greyseal, : fixed a rogue quoteEdited by greyseal, : I think that's all of it!

I did not say god was irrelevant, I said that asking how long the days in genesis 1 were was irrelevant. And it still is. also still irrelevant. - evening is first, morning is after, ergo a day (when talking about light+dark) is evening->morning where it's "of the" or "were the". I guess some bibles change were to of, or of to were. That word is still yom and it can still mean an age, in the same way that day can mean an age. As before, as I have said, as the dictionary says, as the hebrew dictionaries say, the word yom which you are very heartily spelling out for me can mean an indeterminate amount of time equal to what we would call in English an age.It is the same word.It is correctly translatable as day when it means daylight, 24 hours or "age".

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in Grandpa's day

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in my day

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in the days of my youth

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in the good old days

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In all of the above the word "day" means "age". They would be translated into hebrew as "yom". Please provide proof they would not. I'm not sure why you discount the grasses and the beasts, but let's not go there. and I quote

quote:

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and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever

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Did you just stop reading after the words "to know good and evil"? You shouldn't have. But the man who ate the fruit was Adam, and he lived to be around a thousand years old... That doesn't follow. What makes an aramaic scholar more of a scholar than an english scholar?You seem to be one of these "jewish roots" type person who generally venerates antiquity far above it's station.

You're not understanding. The entire question of how long a "day" is is not relevant. The question is, can alternate VALID meanings of the word yom/day be used or must we stick to (out of the five plus) the first two for every occurence?You say no because...well I don't know why. I think it's because it doesn't agree with your pet theory. Apparently words in the bible will only ever have their primary meaning because screw you they do that's why...I don't get it. you're still thinking like a westerner. try again. The english word day has multiple meanings.The hebrew word yom has multiple meanings.Usage of the word in one way does not negate it's use in another way, in either hebrew or english. sez you.The word yom has multiple, valid meanings. The bible does not specify which, so we have to read it in context. It just so happens that we are disagreeing not over the word, but the context (which changes the meaning).I still haven't seen proof that the alternative context presented to you is invalid, and I have suggested reasons it could be. I'm not 4000 years old, I do not claim special knowledge, but I notice you do. Just because you wouldn't use yom does not mean it couldn't be used. You really want me to google up all the places in the bible where yom is used to denote something other than a morning to a morning or a sunset to a sunset, or a light-period?You can pretend they don't exist, you can believe they don't exist, but you would be wrong.You keep going back to the English dictionary even, and you refuse to read it.I quoted the actual Mirriam-Webster dictionary where it states "In Grandpa's day" as an example of day (singular) in use as "age" and you still refuse to believe that it could be more than one day-day. I am sorry, you are wrong and it is right there in black and white.If you want me to link-spam the many learned people who have studied the bible in hebrew and can state quite unequivocably that yom can mean many things (from a light period, to an entire 24 hour day, to a year, to an indeterminate length of time, to a year, to an age) and that it is used as such then I can. Just say the word.They may be talking bull, I don't know, but it starts to be an argument from whoever can pull the most letters after their name at that point though. If you're going to say you're the only hebrew scholar in the world who actually knows hebrew you're going to have a tough time. oh, so you're going to try that one? You do know that hebrew spelling is...rather flexible, right? It's the same trick that the bible-code morons pulled, "fiddle the spellings until we got the answer we wanted", inputting spellings which were valid but hadn't actually been used... Yes, you stopped reading before he said "and now we'd better do THIS before he does THAT".Don't.It wasn't put there as page filler, now, was it?If you read it carefully and understand what it's saying, it means that Adam and Eve now know good from evil - they are no longer innocent beasts - which up until then had been something that only god and his angels could do...however they weren't quite gods. They were *like* gods, but they were not immortal - this would only happen when they ate from the tree of life (immortality), which they would do if god didn't do something.so yes, they transgressed and needed to be kicked out of the garden because of it, but the issue was what they would become if they were also immortal.If it wasn't, there would be no need for "and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the tree of life...", would there?

OK, I'll give it a go - although this will take some time. It may be next weeked if I'm going to make a proper go of it.

I don't want to discuss this particular aspect too much further. I will seek out what qualified scholars of hebrew say about "yom", but it will take time to make something coherent enough to be worthwhile.In the meantime, I will address a couple of things still relevant here... You are mistaken, and the dictionary itself should have been your first source. I am telling you now, with absolute certainty, that the phrase "in Grandpa's day" refers NOT to a single day, but to an amount of time we could call "an age" and which means the same as "in the days of Grandpa".We could even write it "in the day of Grandpa" and it would still mean an age, but such use is rather ambiguous and should be avoided. It still doesn't mean it is wrong, however.If you won't believe me, and you won't believe the dictionary, there's not much I can do.Wikipedia? Well, this is Wikipedia:"The human hand has four fingers and one thumb(site source)".It can be very, very accurate, and it can also be very, very lacking. The only reason I can fish up for you using it rather than, say an actual dictionary, is you didn't like what the dictionary's said. In this case, it is lacking, as the "in the day/days of" meaning is completely absent even though we both agree that, at least with "days" it is valid. That should tell even you that your source is suspect. that's all well and good, but god did not define the meaning of the word itself directly in the bible, did he? He might have defined the thing itself, and I see where you're going with this "he defined the thing, therefore he defined the word" idea but I don't buy it. God doesn't say "the word yom as written in this book means this and that, but never the other" - as such, we've got humans writing words down (even if they are inspired) using language defined outside of the bible.But very well, I will search for "yom" being used in other fashions inside the bible. I find it hard to believe that - if these other scholars I keep hearing about are right - the word yom could not have been used in these alternate and apparently valid meanings. jews, and muslims, define a day as starting in the evening. that means the day starts in the evening. This is why the bible says "it was the evening and the morning of". The evening started the day and the morning ended it. yes, I am. The fruit was of the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil.Without that knowledge, they could do no evil - but they could not purposefully do good either. they did only good, if you want to put it like that, because they were limited by god, but it was the good of the natural world.lions kill their rival's cubs to bring the female into heat. If we thought this was murder, we would be trying lions in a court of law.They know not what they do.Adam and Eve were in this same state, ignorant - and ignorance is bliss.Nevertheless, god made it possible for them to do something he could deem wrong. god made a creature which could tempt them to do something wrong. god allowed that creature to tempt them into committing that act and god allowed them to commit it.No, I don't understand why either.If you paint god as omnipotent and omniscient, the whole apple-thing could never have occurred without god knowing about it and allowing it. Strangely enough, the god in the OT is often not omniscient and rarely omnipotent. He has to travel to get to places, he has to ask questions to find things out, he has to rest on day seven, he takes six days to do the job...but this is OT. They became "as gods" (like god and his angels) when they ate the fruit - that's rather obvious - and they would have become moreso if they'd eaten the fruit of the tree of life.To be honest, genesis is rather confusing for a literalist because it has an imperfect god acting out his little power fantasies with creations which can't fight back until the snake gave them that power - maybe to spite god, sure.God may have been angry at the knowledge-fruit-eating or he may have been worried about the immortality-giving fruit of life eating which he stopped from occuring as well (or instead), either way he kicks them out.