Evidence for God from Science

Here's a simple lesson on how we must keep the proper context when interpreting scripture(or anything else).

B. W. Wrote:
Do you have comprehension of the doctrine of the Divine Trinity as true?

jpbg33 wrote:
I definitely believe in the Trinity.

But then, Jpbg wrote:

I will say this though I believe God created light before he created the son...

Looks like jpbg33 doesn't believe in the Trinity after all. The son is the second person of the Trinity. God did not create the son.

I mean sun spelled it wrong

Now you're blaming the sun for spelling it wrong?

The sun rarely misspells. He is extremely bright.

lol

That was a little humorous.

I am not saying that anyone on here is wrong on there beliefs in creation. I was just posting my views to show were I am coming from on the subject.

So I posted my beliefs on the subject and am wondering why only 2 chapters in genesis was written poetic and the rest not.

jpbg33 wrote:That was a little humorous.

I am not saying that anyone on here is wrong on there beliefs in creation. I was just posting my views to show were I am coming from on the subject.

So I posted my beliefs on the subject and am wondering why only 2 chapters in genesis was written poetic and the rest not.

What scholars generally consider the first part is Genesis is 1:1 to 2:3 (not first two chapters). Some try to pull 2:4 into the first part (e.g., Day-Agers), but it seems clear to me now having looked into it that such isn't right to do. Genesis 1:1 is also sometimes separated by some. This division is generally accepted, you can investigate the reasons why.

Again, just because a more "poetic" style is used in Genesis 1, it doesn't mean one can't take a literal or plain understanding within this construct. To say there is nothing true because of such a style is just extreme and wrong-headed. For example, my previous post detailing the parallelism that exists between days 1+4, 2+5 and 3+6 and the like, what you have is a general accounting of God creating all kingdoms and everything within.

As for Young-Earth Creationism, if you believe that God created "light" without the Sun on Day 1, this leaves one in a tricky position especially when we add in there was evening and morning on days 1, 2 and 3 (which required the rising and setting of the Sun). Just like Joshua's long day, where the Sun is associated with a literal day, if there is no Sun on days 1-3 then there can be no literal day, no evening and morning as said in the end verses for days 1, 2 and 3. So what happens is YECs (wrongly) symbolise day as a 12 or 24 hour period of time (depending on which interpretation you opt for), but then this is really no better/worse than Day-Agers who substitute in an unspecified period of time.

Better to take Moses' language at face value while paying attention to the literary styles used, some of which I mentioned earlier on in this thread.

To be fair to YEC the Bible does say that on the first bay God divided the light from the darkness and called the light day and the darkness He called night.

I am a computer programmer so it is easy for me to see this logic. Because as a programmer in my program I could make the light and the darkness and set it up to being 12 hours of each then later place an object in to the program and cause the light to come from it.

And in programing a lot of the time that is the way you do it. You put something in the program then later you set the promoters around it. That is what I see when I read the first 5 verses of genesis God making the light and setting up the length of time light and darkness would be in one day then later on day four making the light come from the sun and made the sun divided the light from the darkness.

So days and night without the sun is not really a stretch at all.

If it is then suggesting two days as one day is a stretch as well.

Not only that day 2 and day 5 can't be the same events happening at the same time. Why because if you read day 5 then you can see that obviously that the waters had already been divided and that the land was already there. And day three had already happened because it wouldn't make any sense to put birds and fish on earth with out first putting plants there.

You can see it is more of a stretch to say the days were not days then to say God set up the concept of day and night on the first day like the Bible says He did

jpbg33 wrote: You can see it is more of a stretch to say the days were not days then to say God set up the concept of day and night on the first day like the Bible says He did

A couple of quick questions about Genesis 1 "days"
1. How many hours does the period of time between evening and morning cover?
2. How long is the "day" (yom) in Genesis 2:4? Is it a stretch to say that a Genesis 2:4 day is not a day?

jpbg33 wrote:To be fair to YEC the Bible does say that on the first bay God divided the light from the darkness and called the light day and the darkness He called night.

I am a computer programmer so it is easy for me to see this logic. Because as a programmer in my program I could make the light and the darkness and set it up to being 12 hours of each then later place an object in to the program and cause the light to come from it.

And in programing a lot of the time that is the way you do it. You put something in the program then later you set the promoters around it. That is what I see when I read the first 5 verses of genesis God making the light and setting up the length of time light and darkness would be in one day then later on day four making the light come from the sun and made the sun divided the light from the darkness.

So days and night without the sun is not really a stretch at all.

If it is then suggesting two days as one day is a stretch as well.

Not only that day 2 and day 5 can't be the same events happening at the same time. Why because if you read day 5 then you can see that obviously that the waters had already been divided and that the land was already there. And day three had already happened because it wouldn't make any sense to put birds and fish on earth with out first putting plants there.

You can see it is more of a stretch to say the days were not days then to say God set up the concept of day and night on the first day like the Bible says He did

You're not the only one who programs, but just like we don't want to read science into Scripture, we also don't want to read how virtual realities might be programmed in games into Scripture. Rather, as people interested in what was intended by "day" in Genesis 1 we want to know what the Scriptural or Hebraic understanding is of "day"?

Investigating this question leads us to conclude that a "day" on Earth is understood in reference to the Sun and even moon. Therefore, unless the Sun exists in the beginning, then there can be no "day 1", no "evening and morning". Consider Joshua's long day in Joshua 10:12-14:

• 12Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel,
  “O sun, stand still at Gibeon,
  And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.”
  
  13So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped,
  Until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies.
  Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.
  
  14There was no day like that before it or after it, when the LORD listened to the voice of a man; for the LORD fought for Israel.

"Day" is here defined as the Sun and the moon going through the sky. It is a long day because "the sun stood still, and the moon stopped."

This text is further interesting because it says the sun stopped and did not go down "for about a whole day." This is a specific reference to a property of a day: time. Nowhere in Genesis 1 does the context indicate the property of "time" as the referent for "day".

So then, we should not substitute in 12/24 hours or an unspecified period of time for "day". Rather, we must accept at face-value that Moses had intended to employ language for a truly ordinary day as they understood (i.e., Earth in reference to Sun rising in the morning, going through the sky, and setting in the evening). Such is clearly what the language used in Genesis 1 supports.

DBowling wrote:

jpbg33 wrote: You can see it is more of a stretch to say the days were not days then to say God set up the concept of day and night on the first day like the Bible says He did

A couple of quick questions about Genesis 1 "days"
1. How many hours does the period of time between evening and morning cover?
2. How long is the "day" (yom) in Genesis 2:4? Is it a stretch to say that a Genesis 2:4 day is not a day?

Re #2, Genesis 2:4 is a Day-Age argument specifically out of RTB's position. The argument paints Genesis 2:4 as the concluding verse of Genesis 1:1-2:4, and then Genesis 2:5+ focuses in upon humanity. If Gen 2:4 is the concluding verse, then we have "day" covering all days in creation week from Genesis 1:1-2:3. Therefore, it is argued, "day" doesn't always mean an ordinary day and we have direct proof of that in the Genesis creation account itself. Not just that, but the "generations of the heavens and the earth" in Genesis 2:4 reveal a length of time that would be longer than 24 hour days.

This really a solid and powerful argument from Day-Age quarters over and against the YEC 24-hour day view of creation, if and only if Genesis 2:4 is the concluding verse of the creation account in Genesis 1.

You, on the other hand, I'm aware reject RTB's Day-Age position in preference for Heiser's. And, I must admit, I agree with Heiser on this that Genesis 2:4 is actually an introductory verse (not a concluding verse as I myself once believed in the past). So then, we both agree with Heiser that Genesis 2:4 is actually the introduction to the next creation section which focuses upon humanities relationship with God:

• The next verse (Gen 2:4) begins with the refrain “these are the generations,” a phrase that will be repeated throughout Genesis to announce a lineage or genealogy of some kind *that is distinct in its own right* (see Gen 6:9; 10:1; 11:10, 27: 25:12, 19; 36:1, 9, 37:2).
  
  • 4 These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.
  The statement is a curious one. Traditionally, it has been understood as looking back to Genesis 1, thus co-identifying the activity of the two chapters (i.e., they are about the same set of events). Then, the argument goes, Genesis 2 telescopes on Adam and Eve, so that the two chapters don’t contradict but complement each other. After all, Genesis 2 is describing the same set of events from chapter 1 but in different ways.
  
  Is it? The very next verse argues against that.
  
  • 5 When no bush of the field was yet in the earth3 and no small plant (‘eseb) of the field had yet sprung up, for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground.
  ...
  
  Gen 2:4 introduces a new creation episode. The traditional view takes “in that day” to mean “at the same time,” so that Gen 2:5-9 is a new way of describing the same events of Gen 1. However, “in that day” could very easily be construed in the sense of “right on the heels of” Gen 2:1-3. That is, right after God was done resting He got busy again- this time creating a special human (male) for a special place (presumably for a special purpose -perhaps to elect them as His own children amid the rest of humanity [created in Genesis 1], thereby providing a point of analogy with his later election of Israel). Later in Genesis 2:21-23 God creates a second special human, the female counterpart to the earlier created male human.

What I'm getting at here, is unless one believes and argues that Genesis 2:4 is the concluding verse all prior rather than the introductory verse to what comes after, then Gen 2:4 doesn't really hold much weight in way of an argument for understanding the days in Genesis 1 as representing long periods of time.

Kurieuo wrote: Gen 2:4 introduces a new creation episode. The traditional view takes “in that day” to mean “at the same time,” so that Gen 2:5-9 is a new way of describing the same events of Gen 1. However, “in that day” could very easily be construed in the sense of “right on the heels of” Gen 2:1-3. That is, right after God was done resting He got busy again- this time creating a special human (male) for a special place (presumably for a special purpose -perhaps to elect them as His own children amid the rest of humanity [created in Genesis 1], thereby providing a point of analogy with his later election of Israel). Later in Genesis 2:21-23 God creates a second special human, the female counterpart to the earlier created male human.[/list]
What I'm getting at here, is unless one believes and argues that Genesis 2:4 is the concluding verse all prior rather than the introductory verse to what comes after, then Gen 2:4 doesn't really hold much weight in way of an argument for understanding the days in Genesis 1 as representing long periods of time.

Where we agree... you are correct I do see Genesis 2:4 as the beginning of the section of the narrative that runs from Genesis 2:4 through the end of Genesis 4.
I also see the use of YHWH in this section of Genesis as an indicator that God is interacting with his covenant people beginning with Genesis 2:4 as opposed to generic humanity in Genesis 1:26-28 where Genesis uses the more generic Elohim (I was actually discussing this with my dad yesterday).

Here's where I disagree with your position. Genesis 2:4 is one of the 'toledot' transition verses which as you point out marks the beginning of a new narrative. And the toledot is used to indicate a relationship between the narrative beginning with the toledot and the narrative prior to the toledot. According to John Walton (The Lost World of Adam and Eve - Proposition 7). The toledot is used to indicate that the narrative beginning with Genesis 2:4 is sequential to what happened in Gen 1:1-2:3... not a recapitulation of the events that took place during 'day 6' of Genesis 1.

OK... so what does that have to do with the use of 'day' in Genesis 2:4?
My understanding of the function of the Genesis 2:4 toledot is to basically say... this is what happened when/after God created the heavens and the earth in the previous section.
So even though 'yom' in Gen 2:4 is is part of the beginning of a new narrative, it is still used to look back to the creation of the heavens and the earth which is described in the previous narrative. So It is legitimate to say that the Genesis 2:4 'yom' is used within the context of the creation of the heavens and earth which is described in detail in the previous section (Genesis 1:1-2:3)

Genesis 2:4 is my poster child of an example where yom does not (and cannot) refer to 24 hours within the context of the creation of the heavens and earth.
My other point "and there was evening and there was morning, day x" just points out that that phrase cannot be used assert a 24 hour day. I think the phrase most likely refers to the transition between two days. Something like "day x" came to an end and another day began.
All this to point out that there are a number of meanings for 'yom' in Hebrew, and contrary to the assertions of the YEC tradition there is nothing in the text of Genesis 1 to indicate that a day is 24 hours or a 'regular' day, especially since the word 'yom' is used before the markers for a 'regular' day even become visible on day 4.

DBowling wrote:
...especially since the word 'yom' is used before the markers for a 'regular' day even become visible on day 4.

You are referring to the YEC position that the sun wasn't created until day 4, correct?

You're not suggesting that the sun wasn't actually there before day 4?

RickD wrote:

DBowling wrote:
...especially since the word 'yom' is used before the markers for a 'regular' day even become visible on day 4.

You are referring to the YEC position that the sun wasn't created until day 4, correct?

You're not suggesting that the sun wasn't actually there before day 4?

I was pretty specific in my words here...
" become visible on day 4"

This is consistent with the RTB premise that the context of the Genesis 1 creation account moves to the surface of the earth beginning with Genesis 1:2. Therefore even though all the heavens and the earth were created in Genesis 1:1 (before God starts working on forming the earth in Genesis 1:2) the luminaries in the sky were not visible from the surface of the earth until day 4 due to the state of the atmosphere at that time.
According to this theory the atmosphere was translucent enough to distinguish day from night on day 1, but it wasn't clear enough to specifically see the luminaries in the sky from the surface of the earth until day 4.

DBowling wrote:

RickD wrote:

DBowling wrote:
...especially since the word 'yom' is used before the markers for a 'regular' day even become visible on day 4.

You are referring to the YEC position that the sun wasn't created until day 4, correct?

You're not suggesting that the sun wasn't actually there before day 4?

I was pretty specific in my words here...
" become visible on day 4"

This is consistent with the RTB premise that the context of the Genesis 1 creation account moves to the surface of the earth beginning with Genesis 1:2. Therefore even though all the heavens and the earth were created in Genesis 1:1 (before God starts working on forming the earth in Genesis 1:2) the luminaries in the sky were not visible from the surface of the earth until day 4 due to the state of the atmosphere at that time.

Become "visible" to whom? The plants with eyes?