From your recent video post and his response to the video, I don't believe either of you knows anything about what Tim Mackie or I believe.
Stripe has not clearly stated a challenge. In order to do so, he might need to try to understand my position.
He did, but you dismissed it out of hand.
Here it is again:
What I have are challenges to what you believe. For example:
| Your video makes the mistake of asserting that shamayim and erets must mean "skies" and "land." This is simply not the case. They can mean those things, but they can also mean "heavens" and "Earth." And there are plenty of Biblical examples showing that they must be able to. |
Examples of
erets necessarily being able to mean something other than simply "land" can be found in the very chapter your video reviewed:
Gen 1:26 - Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle,
over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
That's two uses that make no sense together if they refer to the same thing.
Do you believe God inspired the writing of Genesis 1 to provide a historic record of the origin of the universe?
I believe that was at least most of the intent.
Do you believe that God inspired the first chapter of Genesis so that people could apply science to it?
To answer this, I will simply quote scripture:
It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, But the glory of kings is to search out a matter. - Proverbs 25:2
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Proverbs25:2&version=NKJV
You seem to be saying that if just one fact or part of your literal interpretation of Genesis is wrong, then the entire Bible is irrelevant. Is that right?
What I'm saying is that when you reject Genesis 1 as a literal account of the origin of the universe (note: this does not mean that figurative language should be taken literally), you lose the foundation for most of the rest of the Bible to be true.
If one asserts that God did not create the world exactly as He described in Genesis 1, or if one asserts that it's all or mostly figurative language, then the result is that one loses the foundation (pardon the biblical pun), the means, for the flood to have occurred, and either have to resort to miracles (which is ok ONLY where the text allows miracles and aside from the ones clearly stated, it does not allow much wiggle room in that respect), or one has to reject that the flood occurred at all, or assert it wasn't global, because the evidence for it has been repurposed to attempt to explain the origin of the earth, rather than the extinction of all life except that which was on the Ark.
And more importantly, in addition to the above, you also lose the bloodline from Adam to Jesus, and that has so many negative implications it would take me hours to go into in any depth, but suffice it to say that Jesus would be discredited simply because his genealogy cannot be traced clearly as it is in the gospels.
If I extrapolate this, you believe if any fact or scientific concept is wrong in the Bible, then the entire Bible is irrelevant. Is that right?
The Bible is not a science text-book, but yet it still accurately describes reality, even when using figurative terms.
For example, the phrase, "God hung the earth on nothing" is a VERY accurate description of how the earth is not attached to anything in space, literally floating in a sea of nothingness. (See what I did there?)
I believe the Bible is inerrant in its original manuscripts, which have been lost to time.
The fact that errors in spelling and grammar, in addition to the fact that differences exist between translations and versions, does not change the overall story.
In other words, when God writes a book, He does so in a way that, despite the errors that might creep in, the story remains largely unaffected, being that God created the universe and everything in it, including man from the dust of the earth, man rebelled, and so through the Seed of a chosen people, God brought about a plan for reconciliation and redemption, so that those who turned to Him would be rewarded with life.
That story (and I'm not talking about the Bible here, but "His-story"), written over a period of about 7 thousand years, has survived in the pages of the Bible, despite the errors and differences in spelling and grammar that have crept into our copies we have today.
Finally, you never mentioned any theology one can learn directly from the first chapter plus the seventh day of Genesis. Is this because you didn't want or were unable to share it or is it because you believe there is no theology in that portion of the Bible?
Theology, as in... What, exactly? Some sort of hidden meaning in those? Please be more specific.
No, I don't think there's any hidden meaning in Genesis. Could there be secondary lessons to be learned from Genesis 1? Sure, it's possible. But the point of Genesis 1 is mainly a record of history of the events that took place prior to man's existence, from an observer's perspective of God during the creation week.
As for day seven, what of it? It's the day God ceased from creating, like the maker of a fine watch sitting back and watching (pardon the pun) it tick after winding it up for the first time). That's it. To get anything else out of it, you have to read a belief into the text that cannot be found in scripture.
Unlike such beliefs, however, throughout the Bible, "7" is often representative of completion, with "8" representing a new beginning. Day seven did end, just as what the number's representation indicates. But the text doesn't have to explicitly state that, and had it done so, we would probably be sitting here talking about how day eight never ended, rather than seven, or nine, rather than eight, or ten, rather than nine. In other words, your argument from silence (that the Bible never said day seven ended), a logical fallacy, has resulted in you believing that day seven never ended. But look at what Genesis 2 says, not the details, but the structure of what is said:
Do you see it?
The new paragraph...
The end of verse 3 and the beginning of verse 4 are the end of one thought and the beginning of another, respectively.
Maybe it's just me, and perhaps there's a reason I'm not aware of, but I personally have thought it odd that the people who put the chapters and verse numbers in the Bible decided on putting the beginning of chapter 2 at the end of Day six at the end of Genesis 1:31, rather than at the end of Genesis 2:3, simply due to the fact that the first week isn't over with. It would have preempted those who who say that day seven never ended, simply because the formatting itself would have indicated the shift.
But that's probably just my Western way of thinking butting in.
The point is that day seven was one full day, just like the first six, and that God codified its sanctification in the Mosaic Law (which is in and of itself evidence against the position that day seven never ended, because God said that every seventh day is holy, and yet the seventh day still goes into an eighth day, but that's a can of worms that we can open some other time).
Final comments, there is no reason in scripture to interpret Genesis 1 so that the days are longer than 24 hours, and there are multiple verses that indicate that they were, in fact, 24 hour days, and despite the fact (please take note of the following) that "day" (Hebrew yom) has different meanings,
WHICH meaning is used is ALWAYS determined by the context. And there is nothing in the context of Genesis 1 that would indicate that the meaning used is anything other than the normal, "24-hour period." And there is no indication (without an a priori commitment to a belief) that the days in Genesis 1 refer to an aeon or undefined period of time. And in fact, the chapter even goes so far as to define day as being the cycle of darkness then light, with light called day, and darkness called night. In other words, one night/day (evening and morning) cycle is one day.
P.S. I was going to respond to your questions on the thread last week. However, technical issues interfered with that. You provided an excellent and thorough explanation of your interpretation of the physical creation of the Earth. I do want to take more time on a good response. I hope to have some time this weekend.
Ok.
