Interpreting Genesis

[philadiddle]

This is a cut and paste of an old thread I made a year ago. I just wanted to start the conversation fresh again. If you want to read the replies to the original click here.

I hold the view that the writers of genesis were describing an ancient cosmological view. Not that that was the point of Genesis, it was meant to be a backdrop for more important theological truths. The key points of this cosmology are;
-the earth is flat
-the earth is fixed and everything revolves around the earth
-there are pillars below the foundations of the earth
-there is a firmament above the earth, which contains the stars, sun, and moon
-there are waters that are above the firmament, and there are windows in the firmament that let the water come down as rain or snow.
Here is an illustration of that view.

There are others that have decided genesis is describing our current scientific understanding of the earth and the universe. This is often viewed as a literal approach, everything in the Bible must be literal or none can be trusted. The key points to that view are:
-the earth is round
-the earth rotates on it's axis, and revolves around the sun
-the earth is not the center of the universe
-rain is caused from condensation in the atmosphere
-the earth has a molten core, then granite, then strata layers
Here's a picture to keep in mind while reading the rest of this post.

Lets read some passages in the bible and see which cosmological view they are describing.

THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH
Job 9:6 - He shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble;
1 Samuel 2:8 - ...“For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and He has set the world upon them.
Psalm 75:3 - The earth and all its inhabitants are dissolved; I set up its pillars firmly. Selah
All these verses say "pillars", so there must literally be pillars if the bible has to be taken literally

GEOCENTRICITY
1 Chronicles 16:30 - Tremble before Him, all the earth. The world also is firmly established, it shall not be moved.
Psalm 96:10 - Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns; The world also is firmly established, it shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples righteously.”
Psalm 104:5 - You who laid the foundations of the earth, so that it should not be moved forever,
All these verses seem to contradict Job 9:6, listed above, where it says the earth was moved. They are also used as evidence that the earth doesn't move, and everything revolves around it.

FLAT EARTH
Matthew 4:8 - Again, the devil took Him up on an exceedingly high mountain, and showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
This verse could be interpreted as a vision that Jesus saw, but it doesn't say that, and other times in the Bible when ppl have visions it clarifies that they had visions.

WINDOWS IN THE SKY
Genesis 7:11 - In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
Genesis 8:2 - The fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven were also stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained.
2 Kings 7:2 - So an officer on whose hand the king leaned answered the man of God and said, “Look, if the LORD would make windows in heaven, could this thing be?” And he said, “In fact, you shall see it with your eyes, but you shall not eat of it.”
Malachi 3:10 - Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and try Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you such blessing that there will not be room enough to receive it.
These verses all say "windows", that can only be literally interpreted as "windows"
Deuteronomy 28:12 - The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand.
This again is an example of opening the heavens where the water is to produce rain.

SUNS PATH
Joshua 10:12 - Then Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.”
The sun was commanded to stand still, not the earth.
Psalm 19:1-6
1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
And the firmament shows His handiwork.
2 Day unto day utters speech,
And night unto night reveals knowledge.
3 There is no speech nor language
Where their voice is not heard.
4 Their line has gone out through all the earth,
And their words to the end of the world.
In them He has set a tabernacle for the sun,
5 Which is like a bridegroom coming out of his chamber,
And rejoices like a strong man to run its race.
6 Its rising is from one end of heaven,
And its circuit to the other end;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat.
This discusses how the sun has a path in the firmament, and goes from one side of the heavens to the other.
Ecclesiastes 1:5 - The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it arose.
The sun has 1 place it rises and 1 place it sets, this means the earth must be flat.

If you compare all of those verses to the 2 pictures above, which one do they more accuratly describe? With this in mind, read the creation account and see which cosmological view it is describing.

Important Note!!! I'm not saying that the bible is intending to say that the first view is true. The biblical writers just used that understanding as a backdrop for the message to their theology. We should be more concerned with finding the truth about God and man and the relationship between them instead of wasting time and resources looking for the arc.

 

[Jimlarmore]

Important Note!!! I'm not saying that the bible is intending to say that the first view is true. The biblical writers just used that understanding as a backdrop for the message to their theology. We should be more concerned with finding the truth about God and man and the relationship between them instead of wasting time and resources looking for the arc.

A particular world view that was held by the ancient hebrews is one thing you may be right about but none of the verses above specifically support your contention of that view or that the writer of Genesis held that view.

For example, when the verses in the Bible says the world shall not be moved you are assuming that means it's stationary in the universe. However, a closer interpretation shows something totally different. The context of the verses in 1 Chron 16:30, Ps 96:10, and Ps 104:5 all are the same in that it is speaking of the eternal power and majesty of the Creator. What it is really saying is the earth will not just deteriorate away or fall apart not that it is a stationary object in space. The word in hebrew for moved is "thkun" or "she is being established". Which is even better than the english illiteration because God maintains what HE creates.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Jimlarmore]

In my experience with theistic evolutionists the main thrust of their arguement is that the Bible cannot be taken as a literal book. Yet, in a case already noted here some of them fully accept the literal life of Jesus Christ or Paul. So this to me represents some inconsistencies.

It's true that the Bible contains several areas where symbology is used to depict future events or kingdoms and cannot be taken literally. In these cases it's very easy to see that the intent is to use this symbology to represent things other than the literal narrative would describe. The problem is in Genesis there is nothing to indicate that mythology or symbology is intended or implied. The book of Genesis starts with creation and goes clear to the time of the Exodus of Israel from Egypt. The book tells us of the life and times of the major patriachs like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who became Israel. These are all literal people and lived literal lives. This book is not an apocalyptic book and with the exception of Gen 3:15 uses no symbology. So the creation event is to be taken literally as is the global flood event. To do less is to compromise the truths the Bible gives us.

Faith in God's word is key here. Both sides of this debate requires faith. In the case of evolutionists they must have faith that many of the things they can't explain will either eventually be explained or that they are inconsequential to the validity of the theory. However, is this really the case? I don't have any problem with not understanding everything. I do have a problem with dismissing gaps as inconsequential to the mainstream theory.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[atomweaver]

Faith in God's word is key here. Both sides of this debate requires faith. In the case of evolutionists they must have faith that many of the things they can't explain will either eventually be explained or that they are inconsequential to the validity of the theory. However, is this really the case? I don't have any problem with not understanding everything. I do have a problem with dismissing gaps as inconsequential to the mainstream theory.

I just read this in a Time article, mere seconds before reading your post...

"More dishonestly, [Ben] Stein employs the common dodge of enumerating all the admittedly unanswered questions in evolutionary theory and using this to refute the whole idea. But all scientific knowledge is built this way. A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger

 

[Jimlarmore]

I just read this in a Time article, mere seconds before reading your post...

"More dishonestly, [Ben] Stein employs the common dodge of enumerating all the admittedly unanswered questions in evolutionary theory and using this to refute the whole idea. But all scientific knowledge is built this way. A fishnet is made up of a lot more holes than strings, but you can't therefore argue that the net doesn't exist. Just ask the fish." - Jeffrey Kluger

Dishonesty has been a problem on both sides of this thing. However, I don't see this as a dishonesty problem. I see it as a perception problem. Cognitive perception is everything when it comes to interpretation of the evidence. For instance creationist see gaps as evidence that refutes or invalidates a theory, whereas macro-evolutionists see gaps as undiscovered gliches in the known knowledge base. Is either side being truely dishonest in their assessement? I don't think so. Where the dishonesty comes in is refusing to take an objective open minded look at all of the evidence employing all possibilities. This is a rare thing in todays scientific community as the norm is a polarized dichotomy of philosophies neither of which has all of the facts or all of the truth.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Mallon]

A particular world view that was held by the ancient hebrews is one thing you may be right about but none of the verses above specifically support your contention of that view or that the writer of Genesis held that view.

In light of the fact that every surrounding culture believed in the sort of flat-earth, geocentric cosmology depicted in the Bible (and the Jews elaborated on this cosmology in the Talmud), I think it's pretty safe to say that the authors of the Old Testament did, indeed, literally believe the ancient science they depicted in the Scriptures. That's certainly the most parsimonious understanding. Certainly more parsimonious than, "Well... they may used flat-earth, geocentric language, but they didn't actually believe it." Come on!

 

[Jimlarmore]

In light of the fact that every surrounding culture believed in the sort of flat-earth, geocentric cosmology depicted in the Bible (and the Jews elaborated on this cosmology in the Talmud), I think it's pretty safe to say that the authors of the Old Testament did, indeed, literally believe the ancient science they depicted in the Scriptures. That's certainly the most parsimonious understanding. Certainly more parsimonious than, "Well... they may used flat-earth, geocentric language, but they didn't actually believe it." Come on!

I didn't say they didn't believe it. What I said was the writer of Genesis didn't teach that the world was geocentric. Mankind had many cultural beliefs that were not taught from the scripture's or canon at the time. For instance the idea of an immortal soul was a paganistic belief brought over from babylon and continues to this day. However, even though the word soul is used 1600 times in scripture it is never once said to be immortal or unable to die, on the contrary in Ezekiel 18:4 says "the soul that sinneth it shall die."

In Isa 40:22 The Bible speaks of God the creator sitting above the "Circle" of the earth. In Prov 8:27 the Bible says That God set a compass on the face of the deep at creation. The word 'erets for compass also could be translated as Circle or sphere.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Molal]

In my experience with theistic evolutionists the main thrust of their arguement is that the Bible cannot be taken as a literal book. Yet, in a case already noted here some of them fully accept the literal life of Jesus Christ or Paul. So this to me represents some inconsistencies.

And that's fine Jim, you don't have to understand our stance. For me, this is not inconsistent. To me, you insinuate God is inconsistent when you try to fit reality into a literal reading of genesis.

 

[philadiddle]

In Isa 40:22 The Bible speaks of God the creator sitting above the "Circle" of the earth. In Prov 8:27 the Bible says That God set a compass on the face of the deep at creation. The word 'erets for compass also could be translated as Circle or sphere.

So what was it, circle or sphere? The circle of the earth seems to fit with the ancient cosmology, since the world was perceived to be circular, not a sphere.

 

[Mallon]

The Jews had a word for "sphere" (or "ball"), Jim: duwr. Notably, it is never used in reference to the shape of the earth.
Your use of the word 'erets does serve well as a synonym for "circle" (a 2D object, I will add), but it certainly doesn't mean "sphere".
No doubt about it: the Bible speaks of the earth as though it were flat (Job 38:13-14, Isaiah 40:22, Matthew 4:8, Daniel 4:10-11), and never once speaks as though it were a sphere.

 

[Jimlarmore]

And that's fine Jim, you don't have to understand our stance. For me, this is not inconsistent. To me, you insinuate God is inconsistent when you try to fit reality into a literal reading of genesis.

God gave each of us the powers of discernment and to a degree common sense. I can see where and when the Bible is teaching from a symbolic perspective and when it is speaking of literal things. I can find no reason to make the creation event or the global flood symbolic or mythological. So I choose to accept the genesis account of creation and the flood as a literal and true event/s.

The problem arises in the mind when one tries to justify one against the other. You can't accept both as being true because there is too much of a divergence from their stories. If you accept macro-evolution as truth then you have to compromise what the Bible says as being literal. Either way you go you have to exercise faith.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Mallon]

You sound like Martin Luther, Jim, in reference to Copernicus:

"So it goes now. Whoever wants to be clever must agree with nothing that others esteem. He must do something of his own. This is what that fellow does who wishes to turn the whole of astronomy upside down. Even in these things that are thrown into disorder I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth [Jos. 10:12]."

 

[Molal]

God gave each of us the powers of discernment and to a degree common sense. I can see where and when the Bible is teaching from a symbolic perspective and when it is speaking of literal things. I can find no reason to make the creation event or the global flood symbolic or mythological. So I choose to accept the genesis account of creation and the flood as a literal and true event/s.

The problem arises in the mind when one tries to justify one against the other. You can't accept both as being true because there is too much of a divergence from their stories. If you accept macro-evolution as truth then you have to compromise what the Bible says as being literal. Either way you go you have to exercise faith.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

Excellent point - it is all faith (Heb 11:1).

I hope you understand, however much we may disagree we remain brothers in Christ.

I understand that my stance causes you cognitive dissonance. As a practicing, researching geologist I cannot use a young earth model since it clearly doesn't work and allow me to use my knowledge for the gain of the companies for whom I have worked.

 

[Assyrian]

God gave each of us the powers of discernment and to a degree common sense. I can see where and when the Bible is teaching from a symbolic perspective and when it is speaking of literal things. I can find no reason to make the creation event or the global flood symbolic or mythological. So I choose to accept the genesis account of creation and the flood as a literal and true event/s.

The problem arises in the mind when one tries to justify one against the other. You can't accept both as being true because there is too much of a divergence from their stories. If you accept macro-evolution as truth then you have to compromise what the Bible says as being literal. Either way you go you have to exercise faith.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

You seem to jump from your choosing to believe the Genesis account as literal, because you think your common sense and discernment will tell you any time scripture is being symbolic, to claiming the bible says the account is literal. That is a very big leap. You seem to be equating your gut reaction with the word of God.

Besides the bible is frequently doesn't tell us when it is being figurative. This is my body?

 

[Jimlarmore]

Excellent point - it is all faith (Heb 11:1).

I hope you understand, however much we may disagree we remain brothers in Christ.

I understand that my stance causes you cognitive dissonance. As a practicing, researching geologist I cannot use a young earth model since it clearly doesn't work and allow me to use my knowledge for the gain of the companies for whom I have worked.

I appreciate your fellowship here brother. I agree it's hard to reconcile a lot of the things we see in nature to the Bible however, it is a person's perspective on what he is looking at that determines the conclusions. BTW, I have some friends who are successful practicing geologist who find oil and gas all the time who don't accept an old earth slow accumulation of the sediments. The primary tools used to find oil and gas structures are independent of time of deposition. I understand the microstructures in the formations seem to be. I am in the oil and gas business myself here in N.E. Oklahoma.

This current boom is crazy with Oil at $117.00 a barrel right now. Makes me wonder when the ceiling will callapse. We have a lot of old abandoned wells that we are in the process of getting going again. This is a marginal area where a good well makes 5 bbls at about 1300 feet deep. So if we can average 1 bbls a day after we get the flush off we will be happy at today's prices. Not too far west of me they have some horizontal wells in the "mississippi chat" making 150bbls/day and over a 550m of gas/day. Those wells cost over 1.5 million to complete. This whole area is going nuts right now with the current prices being what they are. IOW, business is good.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Molal]

I appreciate your fellowship here brother. I agree it's hard to reconcile a lot of the things we see in nature to the Bible however, it is a person's perspective on what he is looking at that determines the conclusions. BTW, I have some friends who are successful practicing geologist who find oil and gas all the time who don't accept an old earth slow accumulation of the sediments. The primary tools used to find oil and gas structures are independent of time of deposition. I understand the microstructures in the formations seem to be. I am in the oil and gas business myself here in N.E. Oklahoma.

This current boom is crazy with Oil at $117.00 a barrel right now. Makes me wonder when the ceiling will callapse. We have a lot of old abandoned wells that we are in the process of getting going again. This is a marginal area where a good well makes 5 bbls at about 1300 feet deep. So if we can average 1 bbls a day after we get the flush off we will be happy at today's prices. Not too far west of me they have some horizontal wells in the "mississippi chat" making 150bbls/day and over a 550m of gas/day. Those wells cost over 1.5 million to complete. This whole area is going nuts right now with the current prices being what they are. IOW, business is good.

God Bless
Jim Larmore

Thanks Jim,

I agree about the price of oil - it's crazy!

By the way, I know many exploration and reservoir geologists in the oil/gas industry - never have I found a YEC.

There is an oil and gas company(Zion Oil and Gas) that has explored for oil and gas based on a literal interpretation of genesis - they failed.
http://blogs.salon.com/0003494/2004/06/13.html


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-18-israel-oil_x.htm

Since 1947, 470 wells have been drilled, including one by another American evangelical on Brown's site. None of the projects has led to a significant oil discovery.

http://pubs.bna.com/ip/bna/IER.NSF/eh/a0b6g6n6n1

 

[Jimlarmore]

Thanks Jim,

I agree about the price of oil - it's crazy!

By the way, I know many exploration and reservoir geologists in the oil/gas industry - never have I found a YEC.

There is an oil and gas company(Zion Oil and Gas) that has explored for oil and gas based on a literal interpretation of genesis - they failed.
http://blogs.salon.com/0003494/2004/06/13.html


http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-18-israel-oil_x.htm

Didn't they do that in Israel? Aren't they also a very successful company in south Texas who showed they could find oil using YEC principles? Let's face it a log is a log and can be interpreted without a time of deposition relationship at all. Same way with seismography. These are the basic tools of your trade aren't they?

God Bless
Jim Larmore

 

[Molal]

Didn't they do that in Israel? Aren't they also a very successful company in south Texas who showed they could find oil using YEC principles? Let's face it a log is a log and can be interpreted without a time of deposition relationship at all. Same way with seismography. These are the basic tools of your trade aren't they?

God Bless
Jim Larmore

Although the tools of the trade are the same, as you have pointed out previously (bedding planes, rapid deposition) do not provide knowledge tools to explore for oil...

In addition, I stated that the oil company is trying to utilize YEC principles to find oil and gas.......I did not say that they had NEVER found oil and gas......just that they have failed to find oil and gas using YEC principles.

Anyway, it appears that we are at an impasse.

 

[philadiddle]

jim, seems you are saying that the old age model doesn't help the oil industry in any way. Glenn Morton's story says the opposite.

I changed subdivisions of my work in 1980. I left seismic processing and went into seismic interpretation where I would have to deal with more geologic data. My horror at what I was seeing only increased. There was a major problem; the data I was seeing at work, was not agreeing with what I had been taught as a Christian. Doubts about what I was writing and teaching began to grow. Unfortunately, my fellow young earth creationists were not willing to listen to the problems. No one could give me a model which allowed me to unite into one cloth what I believed on Sunday and what I was forced to believe by the data Monday through Friday.

I took a poll of my ICR graduate friends who have worked in the oil industry. I asked them one question.

"From your oil industry experience, did any fact that you were taught at ICR, which challenged current geological thinking, turn out in the long run to be true?"

That is a very simple question. One man, Steve Robertson, who worked for Shell grew real silent on the phone, sighed and softly said 'No!' A very close friend that I had hired at Arco, after hearing the question, exclaimed, "Wait a minute. There has to be one!" But he could not name one. I can not name one. No one else could either.

 

[juvenissun]

For example, when the verses in the Bible says the world shall not be moved you are assuming that means it's stationary in the universe. However, a closer interpretation shows something totally different. The context of the verses in 1 Chron 16:30, Ps 96:10, and Ps 104:5 all are the same in that it is speaking of the eternal power and majesty of the Creator. What it is really saying is the earth will not just deteriorate away or fall apart not that it is a stationary object in space. The word in hebrew for moved is "thkun" or "she is being established". Which is even better than the english illiteration because God maintains what HE creates.

This is very inspirational. As we witnessed that Mars and Venus might start the same way as the earth. But both of them deteriorated away very quickly. We do not know how did it happen.