ECT Clearing up the confusion of Creation!

[Stripe]

From an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literally (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), orfiguratively (a space of time defined by an associated term).

And given that the text defines the six days as having evenings and mornings, I'd say the case is closed.

So, where is the confusion?

 

[iamaberean]

And given that the text defines the six days as having evenings and mornings, I'd say the case is closed.

So, where is the confusion?

The confusion is:

Most Christians, including you, believe that heaven and earth has only been around 8,000 years when all the evidence says millions of years.

Most Christian, including you, believe that mankind has only been here on earth for less than 3000 years when the evidence shows most likely 50 to 60 thousand years.

Most Christians, including you, ignore the fact that the bible never says the seventh day ended.

Most Christians don't know, including you, there is a difference, in meanings, between the word 'God' and 'LORD God' in the Old Testament.

That means most Christians, including you, can not explain away the evidence of an old heaven and earth which does not agree with your understanding of a literal six day creation and a never ending seventh day.

That means most Christians, including you, are still confused.

 

[6days]

So, where is the confusion?

Most Christians, including you, believe that heaven and earth has only been around 8,000 years when all the evidence says millions of years.
Most Christian, including you, believe that mankind has only been here on earth for less than 3000 years when the evidence shows most likely 50 to 60 thousand years.

OK. ..

So draw a graph representing the millions of years that you think the earth is. ( Actually stellar evolution says about 4.5 billion...with a 'B')
Now, on your graph, chart where you believe humans came on the scene. (That graph will show humans at the end of the graph)

OK, now...
Let's draw a graph representing what Biblical creation shows.
We will draw a graph representing the 6,000 years from Adam to now.
Now, on our graph, we chart where the Bible says humans came on the scene, the 6th day. (This graph will show humans at the very beginning of the graph)

Now let's see what Jesus says...
Mark 10:6 "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female."

 

[Stripe]

Most Christians, including you, believe that heaven and earth has only been around 8,000 years when all the evidence says millions of years.

Nope. The evidence shows that things are all at most 6,000 years old.

No confusion.

Most Christians, including you, ignore the fact that the bible never says the seventh day ended.

Nope.

I'm aware that there isn't much said about the seventh day ending. I just don't make the leap from this obscure observation to: Therefore, evolution!

No confusion.

Most Christians don't know, including you, there is a difference, in meanings, between the word 'God' and 'LORD God' in the Old Testament.

:AMR:

Most Christians, including you, can not explain away the evidence of an old heaven and earth which does not agree with your understanding of a literal six day creation and a never ending seventh day.

Begging the question remains a logical fallacy no matter how many times you use it.

That means most Christians, including you, are still confused.

I notice that in your incoherent rambling, you did not answer the question.

Telling.

 

[iamaberean]

Nope. The evidence shows that things are all at most 6,000 years old.

No confusion.

Nope.

Where is that evidence?

I'm aware that there isn't much said about the seventh day ending. I just don't make the leap from this obscure observation to: Therefore, evolution!

No confusion.

Maybe it would explain the fact that day 1 thru day 6 could be more than just a 24 hour period.

:AMR:

Begging the question remains a logical fallacy no matter how many times you use it.

I notice that in your incoherent rambling, you did not answer the question.

Telling.

The answer is if day 7 can be more than a 24 hour period, then the others can also too, and indeed they are.

 

[Derf]

Derf,

You probably need to go back and read all my posts. In summary, God created man in the sixth day, then he promply told them to go into all the earth and replenish it. Because of the language used it implies more than one. "let us make man in our image and let them" but even if there were just a male and a female, God still told them to go into all the earth.

In Gen 2 LORD God formed a man from the ground (he took something he had already created and formed it into a man). Then he took a rib from Adam and formed a female, Eve. He did not tell them to go into all the earth, but he placed them in a garden east of Eden.

Two different stories and two different people, one of creation the other of a covenant.

As for the time frame, day in Hebrew can be any length. Here is example:

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

Generations of heaven and earth in the day -- that God made the earth and heavens.

Hi Iama,
I think I caught all that from your posts. But I'm having trouble figuring out how it would work. The "these are the generations" header in Gen 2:4 does seem to distinguish a separate account, but unless Adam is not from the race of man (in Gen 1), i.e., he's a separate creation, I don't see how it can be a separate activity.

If he IS of the race of man, then you have to allegorize Adam's creation from the mud of the ground to show how he really wasn't formed from the mud of the ground, but was descended from another man. Or, alternatively, you have to assume that there were a number of men and women that were formed the same way as Adam, but were somewhere else, and therefore Adam's sin doesn't affect them--they had their own mandate from God as well as a different locale, with little or no access to the two trees. Adam was neither their father nor leader, so his sin doesn't affect them, except perhaps as it did the rest of creation--they weren't born guilty of sin, and neither would their children be.

The different length "day" is very interesting, but the "days" of creation were marked by an evening and morning progression that's pretty hard to dismiss without saying there were really a bunch of evenings and mornings. Again, you'd have to allegorize the "days" of creation into something that doesn't look like "days", be it years, decades, millennia, etc. But the Gen 1 account is pretty descriptive of what a "day" looks like, and pretty specific about how many of those it took to create.

Allegorizing might be ok at times, but you go very far in it, and you can make the passage say whatever you want it to say, and therefore it means little or nothing.

In fact, if you and I sit down with the text and allegorize without talking to each other, I would expect we would end up with completely different scenarios. And I can't imagine that helping to eliminate confusion, as you said you want to do.

Let me address the covenant thing a bit. I'm open to this idea--seems rather reasonable, in fact, as long as it isn't used to somehow contradict the previous account. The LORD God made and named Adam and gave him a place to live. But He didn't restrict his travel until after his sin--and then the restriction kept him outside of the "nice" place God had made for him.

I don't see anything in the Eden experience that suggests God's mandate to replenish the earth is somehow restricted to the Garden or that Adam doesn't have that mandate, but instead He gives them a good example of what it should look like to exercise dominion over the rest of the world--tending and improving things as they multiply and spread out.

What do you think?

 

[Derf]

The bones from dinosaurs came from somewhere and the only place one can find some type of history on these animals comes from:

Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

I think you should also consider Behemoth in Job 15:40 and following, as well as Leviathan in Job 41:1 and following.

As pointed out elsewhere, the bible doesn't tell us every kind of animal that God created, so it shouldn't surprise us that we find bones of animals we don't recognize sometimes.

As for scientists, you can't equate their interpretation of the evidence with the evidence itself. The evidence is the bones of the dinosaurs--no question that they exist, and no question that some animal died at some point to leave those bones behind--but how and when the bones got there is up to some interpretation.

 

[Stripe]

Where is that evidence?

Oh, you want to talk evidence now?

Maybe it would explain the fact that day 1 thru day 6 could be more than just a 24 hour period.

Evening and morning, remember?

The answer is if day 7 can be more than a 24 hour period, then the others can also too, and indeed they are.

Because you say so? I don't think so, sonny. :nono:

 

[way 2 go]

Evening and morning, remember?

1 rotation of the earth = 1 day

has he addressed evening and morning being anything but
one 24 hour day ?

 

[6days]

Where is that evidence?

God's Word.
(Also evidence from geology, paleontology, genetics etc)

The answer is if day 7 can be more than a 24 hour period, then the others can also too, and indeed they are.

Nope...The days can't be more than 24 hours. You are trying to confuse what scripture tells us.
The creation days can't be anything other than normal days with evening and morning.

 

[Stripe]

:mock: IAmNotABerean.

 

[iamaberean]

:mock: IAmNotABerean.

Here is another point that confirms my view. The Jews also believe there are two parts of creation. The first scripture they quote is:

Deu 32:7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

The days of old refers to Adam and Eve while the years of many generations refers to Gen 1.

Very informative site at.

http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html

 

[iamaberean]

Muslims also believe that Gen 1 and Gen 2 are referring to different events.

 

[6days]

Muslims also believe that Gen 1 and Gen 2 are referring to different events.

And that seems like a good way for you to understand scripture?

 

[6days]

Very informative site at.[/COLOR]

http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html

You rely on a Muslim site to help you put confusion into God's Word?
Would you be interested in seeing what the early church father's said about creation?

 

[Stripe]

Here is another point that confirms my view. The Jews also believe there are two parts of creation. The first scripture they quote iseu 32:7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. The days of old refers to Adam and Eve while the years of many generations refers to Gen 1.Very informative site at.ww.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html[/url][/B][/COLOR]

So you're just going to ignore everything you say that contradicts the Bible and make up nonsense to believe?

Have fun. :wave2:

 

[Derf]

Here is another point that confirms my view. The Jews also believe there are two parts of creation. The first scripture they quote is:

Deu 32:7 Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee.

The days of old refers to Adam and Eve while the years of many generations refers to Gen 1.

Very informative site at.

http://www.aish.com/ci/sam/48951136.html

I don't think you read your Aish.com site correctly. They were saying that "days of old" refers to the six days of creation, while "years of generations" refers to the period from Adam forward. Here's direct quote from your site:

Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah, says, "Why does Moses break the calendar into two parts ― 'The days of old, and the years of the many generations?' Because, 'Consider the days of old' is the Six Days of Genesis. 'The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward."

The problem with making a distinction between the 2 phrases is that then you have to make a distinction between every couplet surrounding that verse--and they all seem to be referring to similar concepts rather than different concepts. Consider the remaining portion of the verse you quoted: "ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee." These are really just one concept--learn from the people that have gone before you. If instead you need to separate them into two distinct groups in line with the other (false) distinction, you end up with something that suggests your father correlates with the "years of generations" and the elders correlate with "days of old" (or vice versa, which makes even less sense).

Your Aish.com site also claimed that Gen 1-2:3 was set in poetic style, but they fail to notice the more obvious poetic style of Deut 32, concepts are repeated in each verse (probably for a memory device) like many cultures retain around the world today. You can see this same style in many of the Psalms.

It's interesting to me that the quote above says "Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah...", and then he goes on to say something that rejects the more plain meaning of scripture for something else. We should read the scriptures in the name of the Lord, or for the sake of truth, not for finding what we want in them.

I tend to agree with Stripe here, that your sources are belying your name, Iamaberean. You keep quoting extra-biblical sources to justify reading the scriptures different from how they are written. That's not what the Bereans did. They went to scripture to see if something they had heard from Paul was accurate.

 

[iamaberean]

I don't think you read your Aish.com site correctly. They were saying that "days of old" refers to the six days of creation, while "years of generations" refers to the period from Adam forward. Here's direct quote from your site:

The problem with making a distinction between the 2 phrases is that then you have to make a distinction between every couplet surrounding that verse--and they all seem to be referring to similar concepts rather than different concepts. Consider the remaining portion of the verse you quoted: "ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee." These are really just one concept--learn from the people that have gone before you. If instead you need to separate them into two distinct groups in line with the other (false) distinction, you end up with something that suggests your father correlates with the "years of generations" and the elders correlate with "days of old" (or vice versa, which makes even less sense).

Your Aish.com site also claimed that Gen 1-2:3 was set in poetic style, but they fail to notice the more obvious poetic style of Deut 32, concepts are repeated in each verse (probably for a memory device) like many cultures retain around the world today. You can see this same style in many of the Psalms.

It's interesting to me that the quote above says "Nachmanides, in the name of Kabbalah...", and then he goes on to say something that rejects the more plain meaning of scripture for something else. We should read the scriptures in the name of the Lord, or for the sake of truth, not for finding what we want in them.

I tend to agree with Stripe here, that your sources are belying your name, Iamaberean. You keep quoting extra-biblical sources to justify reading the scriptures different from how they are written. That's not what the Bereans did. They went to scripture to see if something they had heard from Paul was accurate.

You are right we go to the scriptures for truth.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The above scripture relates the 6 days as generations.

I have quoted scripture and Christians, for the most part, can not accept what they say. That is why I try to find confirmation from others to show you. But even that falls on deft ears.

Duft, are you really a rookie? If so how did you get such a high reputation so quickly? Don't try to play others for a fool!

 

[Stripe]

You are right we go to the scriptures for truth.

You don't.

You go there with your agenda as priority No. 1 and seize upon anything that can be twisted into supporting your evolutionism, while ignoring that which denies it — ie, practically everything.

Case in point: You declare Gen 2:4 to support your case, but you ignore the fact that "generations" is also translated as "history," "account," "record," or "birth."

Your agenda is dismantled by a simple analysis of the word you chose to focus on; and that is a favored method for Darwinists: invent anti-Bible rhetoric from a forced understanding of an uncommon rendering of the original language, while ignoring the plain meaning.

Gen 2:4 [This is the history] of the heavens and of the earth when they were created.

Doesn't suit your agenda now, does it?

I have quoted scripture and Christians, for the most part, can not accept what they say. That is why I try to find confirmation from others to show you. But even that falls on deft ears.

Like yours when you are asked to respond to "evening and morning"? :think:

 

[Derf]

You are right we go to the scriptures for truth.

Gen 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

The above scripture relates the 6 days as generations.

I have quoted scripture and Christians, for the most part, can not accept what they say. That is why I try to find confirmation from others to show you. But even that falls on deft ears.

Duft, are you really a rookie? If so how did you get such a high reputation so quickly? Don't try to play others for a fool!

You flatter me. But I have no idea how to give myself reputation points, nor others, either, nor do I know how to make myself other than a rookie, except to stay involved and post (which I prefer not to do frivolously). I do appreciate a good conversation, where each person is responding to the posts of the others, which you have done here. Thank you for that.

I don't think I know the full meaning of the Gen 1 and 2 texts--I have a lot to learn. But I'm very suspicious of anyone, you or Nachmanides or whomever (even some systematic theologies might be in this category, but that's another discussion), that wants to make the scripture unreadable without some special knowledge that only some elite group can have. Kabbalism is one of those things. Today's science is another, potentially. That doesn't mean that everything scientists tell us is false, far from it. But I've seen science change course on a number of issues in my short lifetime, and I've never seen the Bible change course or need to.

The text from Gen 2:4 is one of two things: it is either a footer, describing the previous verses, or it is a header, describing the following verses. I found 9 other uses of the same phrase in the rest of the book of Genesis:
Gen 6:9
Gen 10:1
Gen 11:10
Gen 11:27
Gen 25:12
Gen 25:19
Gen 36:1
Gen 36:9
Gen 37:2

In each of these 9 cases, the phrase indicates that the information is forthcoming, that it is a header for the following information, rather than a footer describing what came before.

Assuming Gen 2:4 is like all the other "these are the generations" passages in Genesis, the "generations" it is talking about would have to be the following verses, rather than the preceding ones. I could be wrong, but it's a strong precedence to have to break.

Even your Aish.com site, quoting Nachmanides, is on my side here:

'The years of the many generations' is all the time from Adam forward.

So, though you may have quoted scripture, your interpretation of it doesn't seem to fit with the more readily apparent nature of the scripture you've quoted.