Posted on 03/09/2009 3:50:09 PM PDT by GodGunsGuts
Critics of the Bible have often said that the writings of Genesis reflect an “unscientific view” of the universe—one that reflected the cosmology of the ancient world. One of these criticisms centers on the Hebrew word raqia used in the creation account of Genesis 1. Several Bible versions, such as the New King James, translate this word as firmament:
Genesis 1:6–8, NJKV
Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day. [Emphasis added.]
The argument from these Bible critics is that the ancient Hebrews believed in a solid dome with the stars embedded in the dome. They say that the word firmament reflects the idea of firmness, and this reflects erroneous cosmology. Therefore, the Bible is not the inspired Word of God, and we don’t need to listen to its teaching.
However, other versions of the Bible, such as the New American Standard, translate raqia as expanse:
Genesis 1:6–8, NASB
Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.” God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day. [Emphasis added.]
But which is the correct term to use?...
(Excerpt) Read more at answersingenesis.org ...
But I defy you to survive in the atmosphere BEFORE plants released the oxygen we now can breathe. 8<)
Again - What's critical is the sequence, the beautifully exact descriptions of the sequence of events in the story of creation - before “science” figured out the physics behind the story.
Example: In the beginning .... formless and void. But the earth had already been created! How - Because light had not condensed out of energy.
THEN, only after everything was created, did light come.
THEN, after light condensed further into solids - and only matter can cast shadows and “separate the light from the dark” - did matter as we know it could be created.
No.
waters => fluids => gasses => plasmas.
No conflict with science at all. They all behave the same at the level the Story describes.
>God created the Sun to line up with His definition of DAY, not yours...
Indeed. But doesn’t God speak to us in ways and terms we might have a chance at understanding even though we are, literally, little more than dirt in his eyes? (And that ‘little more’ that He gave us, He determined was enough to die for.)
So, I’ll ask you again: does it matter if it’s the “24-hour day” we (humanity) understands and lives by, or the thousand-years that “are like unto a day” to God, or a mere fraction of a second, or “millions and millions of years”? Hm?
The things people read from Creationists sources leave them more ignorant than when they started. Creationists are just not serious people.
What I meant was that men have to really torture the Hebrew to get around 6 24-hour days for creation (Rom 1:22).
"I honestly don’t know if the days of Creation were 24-hr days or not, in the end it doesn’t matter... it’s the Creator, not the creation that’s what this is all about."
Do you say it doesn't matter because you don't know, or do you not know because you don't think it matters?
There is no evidence that cannot be interpreted in a young creation. There's no need to be afraid of what man says about old-ages because that's what underlies the old-earth position. The Bible was always understood to represent a young creation until it became popular for man to say the earth is old. Then the Christians started compromising because they feared the opinions of men more than the opinion of God.
It comes down to whether or not you believe that God is able to communicate how He created the heavens and the earth or whether He needs 'man' to interpret what was written into the exact opposite of what it says. I believe that God is able and did communicate the order and time-frame of creation. You would claim not to be able to know and further claim it is irrelevant.
How can you hold to that position and then say 'it's all about the Creator'? Obviously, your position is not 'all about the Creator'. It's all about what man says the Creator can do and what He can't. That's never been a profitable position.
*nod* - Glad we cleared that up! :)
{Actually I’m tired of people running around bemoaning CO2... don’t they realize that if we had ZERO CO2 we’d ALL BE DEAD!?!}
No need to invoke speeds of 4c or water impacts.
Planck density is 5.1 × 10^96 kg/m³ vs the density of an atomic nucleus at 2 × 10^17 kg/m³.
That's *solid* no matter how you look at it.
Do not lose sight of this one thing my friend, a day unto the Lord is as a thousand years; and a thousand years a day.
So HIS definition of a day is obviously subjective.
Physically a day is variable as well. They are not “perfect” 24 hour days, nor were they always this exact length.
Morning and evening of a day without a Sun? Possibly poetic? No way! And Pi is 3. The earth has four corners and does not move. The sky is also solid./s
I know you didn't say that but I didn't know if you were aware of this little tidbit wrt pi in the Bible.
That's as accurate as pi can be written in Hebrew.
waters => fluids => gasses => plasmas.
No, to you...It says water, so it means, water...There are far too many cross references in the scriptures to THIS water for it not to be water...
Did Noah float on a sea of gas???
Matters a great deal...God says don't go changing words in His scripture...
God didn't write the bible like you'd write a novel...He made it so you'd have to spend time in the scriptures and search for these truths...And they are there...
You remove those words and ideas, you end up thinking God's word doesn't really matter...
You take away the authority of God's word and some bonehead will convince you that science and evolution are the authority...
Interesting...But not surprising... :)
>It’s all about what man says the Creator can do and what He can’t. That’s never been a profitable position.
This is true. A lot of the “If God is omnipotent/omniscient...” disproofs of God, are in reality non-statements, contradictions, and illogic. The classic example being “If God is all powerful, then can He make a rock so big He can’t move it (immovable)?” This is a ridiculous contradiction and should be thrown out; but let’s disregard that and play with it a bit first.
If God is powerful enough to create the universe, and he created a rock that was as big as the universe, then the rock (which defines the universe) could not be moved; however God could create more “universe and displace the rock and then destroy that old universe bit... so yes, God COULD move a rock so big it was immovable.
How about the question “Could God create a figure that has three sides, which has points all equidistant from the center?” Again, notice the word-tangling, logic-mangling, definition-mismatching that’s going on here: they’re asking for a triangle which has the properties of a circle! That’s plainly impossible in Euclidean geometry. It’s a stupid question that contradicts itself. But let’s try poking at it again, The assumption with this question is that the figure would be in Euclidean-space... but you can do a LOT of funny “impossible”/”nonsensical” things with math (like ‘i’, the square-root of -1! What preposterous rubbish! But it works... and there’re actually REAL-WORLD phenomena which demonstrate it’s use in the physical world! Weird!) What about having a three-sided figure which was that of a triangle imposed on the surface of a sphere, or the mathematical transformational equivalent? It would have three sides, and all the points would be equidistant from the center (of what we would precive of as the sphere).
Keep that in mind as I answer the next part of your question:
>Do you say it doesn’t matter because you don’t know, or do you not know because you don’t think it matters?
I used to think, and still do, that it is a literal 24-hr day. But, I could be wrong. And, in fact, I don’t think that minutia really matters anymore. Who am I to tell God “it has to be 24/hr days!” Honestly, He could have made everything 24 seconds ago... or 24 million-million-million years ago... Who am I to say “No, it has to be literal!”?
Do you remember the story of Elijah and the fiery chariot? Does it matter if it was a chariot made of fire? Or a super-bright rift in time-space? Or a Cadillac of light? Or a meteor? The point is that something super-natural took him off to be with God, still alive! That’s the exciting part!
Like if you’re hearing a story of navy seals going behind enemy lines to rescue POWs and killing several guards. One time you hear about one killing someone with a knife, one you hear of him killing a guard with his bear hands, another shooting a guard in the neck. Does that mean that this Navy seal didn’t kill anybody? I mean all these stories are different in his methods of quashing those who are in opposition to his mission of rescuing the POWs. Or, could it be that there are three different incidents which got stuck into the different SEAL team’s minds when reporting on their mission?
In fact that’s how the Hebrews would have thought about things, using something termed “block logic” which is something similar to a bunch of police reports on the same thing. This type of thinking is different from our “classical logic” thinking which says, basically, that if the premises are true, then the outcomes are true as well. (This actually gives us two points of “contention”/argument; one that the person’s premises are wrong, and two that his mappings/modelings are wrong, which is to say that the premises of the premises’s interactions.)
So, is the earth only 6 thousand years old. I think so. Does the bible explicitly say? not really, though you can look at the genealogies and life-spans and use that to present things in a young-earth world-view... but, also, we know that humans would not have died prior to the fall. If something so natural to us as dieing is in reality UN-NATURAL, then what of aging? Could Adam and Eve have been alive for thousands of years before they got kicked out of Eden? (And that getting kicked-out is when their “clocks” turned on.) It’s possible, but I think that’s not the case, I really don’t know.
In the many parables that Jesus told, does it really matter if they were actually mapped into real life? IE Does it matter if there really was a “good Samaritan”? Or was that point merely to answer the question “Who is my neighbor?”?
You are right words DO have meaning. I am not arguing that.
But let me ask you a question (after the scenario): Is time constant? According to relativity, no. What about the speed of light? According to modern physics it is.
Now, consider the following scenario: There’s three clocks perfectly in sync and one is left here on earth while the other two are aboard a spaceship traveling at .99c to a spot about 50 light-years away, the ship stops and drops off a clock and returns to Earth at .99c.
How long did the trip take?You have three clocks to use, each with three different times, supposedly. The one on earth seemed to pass very slowly as you were traveling away from it, and the clock you dropped off appeared to be moving very slowly as you sped away from it. Did the first clock appear to speed up as you approached it? Which clock shows the correct time, assuming all three are different?
Nope.
There's your problem...God never required an editor for His work...
the Roman Catholic Church, never claimed that God wrote the Bible, or any of its separate, diverse Books, directly.
What the Roman Catholic church thinks or claims about God or His written words is meaningless to many of us...
It seems odd to me, as a Catholic, that non-Catholics can question Papal authority (Which, by the way, only attaches when it is expressly applied) -— However, the same non-Catholics want to grant “infallibility” to the very HUMAN authors of the many separate Books of the Bible.
Well that's easy...'Outside of your religion, there is no papal authority...As for the 2nd part, Jesus recogized the authors of the scripture as infallible...And I guess He would know, eh???
The fact that your religon disagrees with Jesus is not at all uncommon, is it...
Actually, the Catholic Church disagrees quite powerfully with your interpretation of Jesus. That much is clear.
>That’s *solid* no matter how you look at it.
Yes, I know, but I was simply showing that even things that are “less solid” may behave as solids would in proper circumstances. (IE further validating your stance.)
Yes He would. And through the Holy Spirit He guided His Church, the Catholic Church, to write and assemble the New Testament and to discern which books belonged in the Bible and which did not.
Later, the false traditions of misguided men deleted seven books and (unsuccessfully) added to another.
Hmmm...If I was standing is a railroad car and the train was traveling east at 60 miles per hour, but I was facing west, and I was shaving with a Bic throwaway making 40 strokes per minute, how much force would it take to move the razor toward my ear as compared to moving it toward my chin...Hmmm...
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