DNA & the Bible

JohnR7 · Dec 30, 2002

There is a new scientific study that suggest that 4/5 of Europe was founded by men who were hunter gathers. Then about 6 or 8 thousand years ago, a more advanced man came along, and we see the beginning of agriculture. The new man had a profound effect on all of mankind.

http://www.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/europe/11/10/ancestors/

Genesis 12:2-3
    I will make you a great nation;
    I will bless you
    And make your name great;
    And you shall be a blessing.
    [3] I will bless those who bless you,
    And I will curse him who curses you;
    And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed."
 

We read about the 7 days of creation and that God rested on the 7 th day. Now there are two theorys, that each day was equal in length. The second theory is that each day is half the length of the day before it. This is based on how life emerges. With one cell, then two cells, then four cells, and then 8 cells. So that things start off very slow, but pick up speed as they go along.

So if the earth is around 4.5 billion years, and you divide that into a week, that means each day would be around 700 million years long. That means if men were created on day 6 they would have to have been here at least 700 million years.

The second theory would make day one 2.25 billion years, day two 1.25 billion years, day three .75 billion years, day four  375 million years, day five 187.5 million years, day six 93.75 million years, day 7 the day of rest 46.875 million years. Actually, there was a doomsday asteroid that they say hit the earth about 64 million years ago, and that was suppose to have destroyed 2/3 of the life on the earth. 

So there is quite a bit of time between the men we read about on day 6 and the man we read about on day 8 who was put in the garden to tend the garden. That science calls the first farmer or food producer. This is the beginning of human history.

The genologys in the Bible were never really intended to cover the gentiles. While the Hebrew children did marry gentiles and they did convert to the Hebrew faith. The genologies from Adam forward were only intended to be a family tree for the Hebrews. Ruth who married Boez for example was a gentile. Even the Harlot Rahab (symbolic for egypt) we read was in the genology of Jesus.

The muslims trace themselves to the same father as the Hebrews, Abraham. The Bible confirms that they were the son from his wife's handmaiden Hagar (from egypt). Then Sarah was the mother of the Hebrews. This is confirmed in the DNA record, that shows very little difference between the DNA of the muslims and the DNA of the people of the nation of Isreal.

Genesis 21:17-18 And God heard the voice of the lad. Then the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said to her, "What ails you, Hagar? Fear not, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. [18] Arise, lift up the lad and hold him with your hand, for I will make him a great nation."

Moses we are told took a second wife from Ethiopia. Solomon had many foreign wives. 700 wives and 300 cumbines. So he had at least 2000 children with all of those wives.

1 Kings 11:3  And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines; and his wives turned away his heart.

 

 

CommonAncestor · Dec 30, 2002

So if the earth is around 4.5 billion years, and you divide that into a week, that means each day would be around 700 million years long. That means if men were created on day 6 they would have to have been here at least 700 million years.

Do you actually think that the writers of the bible actually sat down and concocted that scheme?  I can just see it.  Some monks sitting around a table a long time ago brainstorming some ideas for their story.  "First off, let's make one day equal 700 million years, okay?  Yeah, that'll make people think and debate for thousands of years about what we REALLY mean."  To come up with each day equaling 700 million years, you have to know how old the earth is to begin with, and for certain, no one had a clue how old the planet was back when the bible was written.  They meant what they wrote: that the universe was created in six 24 hour periods.    Don't try to overanalyze and rationalize genesis to the point of making it a mathematical exercise.  You either believe it as it is written or you don't.  A 4.5 billion year old earth does not fit into genesis.  Please don't mix religious myth into scientific fact in order to make the myth sound more believable.  If you're a christian you don't need to rationalize and if you do need to rationalize, then to me, that is the first sign of skepticism.

 

JohnR7 · Dec 31, 2002

Originally posted by CommonAncestor
"First off, let's make one day equal 700 million years, okay?  
 

I am not trying to come up with any sort of exact mathmatical formula. I am just showing that creation as it unfolds in the Bible, pretty much follows what we now know in and though science.

http://seaborg.nmu.edu/earth/timelines.html

There is simply NO conflict between true science and the Bible. There maybe a conflict between the traditions of man and the Bible. But really, some of the old theology theories need to be revised with new information that is coming forth.

Genesis 1:6-8 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [7] And 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. [8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The Bible says that God "divide the waters from the waters". He began to form an atmosphere. Now science can tell us a lot about this. You can find many, many books on Oxygen and H2O. In the Bible, there is only a few sentances.

Physicist · Dec 31, 2002

Originally posted by JohnR7

There is simply NO conflict between true science and the Bible. There maybe a conflict between the traditions of man and the Bible. But really, some of the old theology theories need to be revised with new information that is coming forth.

Genesis 1:6-8 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. [7] And 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. [8] And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

The Bible says that God "divide the waters from the waters". He began to form an atmosphere. Now science can tell us a lot about this. You can find many, many books on Oxygen and H2O. In the Bible, there is only a few sentances.

No conflict between Genesis and true science? Only if you have a very unorthodox definition for true science. Lets look at some examples:

SCIENCE: Stars and galaxies first, then the earth
GENESIS: Earth first and then the stars

SCIENCE: Insects and then whales
GENESIS: Whales and then insects

For science to support the Genesis order of things, virtually all of our major scientific theories would have to be scrapped. Sorry, Genesis is an ancient creation myth of a primitive people and like all such creation myths was based on the limited worldview at the time. We know more now.

Regards,

Physicist

Jahservant · Dec 31, 2002

Actually, when Genesis begins its narrative of creation it does so by telling us in a synopsis that God created the heavens and the earth. In other words the stars and the earth. Then it goes on to describe how he prepared the earth for human habitation. Anything said within that context must be understood within that context and not apart from it. Otherwise we might reach erroneous conclusions about what is REALLY being described and find contradictions which are based on only that misunderstanding.

 

Since we are intially clearly told that the stars and earth existed BEFORE the first preparatory creative day in relation to earth for human habitation began, then we really are left without a valid basis to say that what is being described is the creation of stars. To do so we would have to ignore what was previously said, that these existed already BEFORE that first preparatory creative day.

Physicist · Dec 31, 2002

Originally posted by Jahservant
Actually, when Genesis begins its narrative of creation it does so by telling us in a synopsis that God created the heavens and the earth. In other words the stars and the earth. Then it goes on to describe how he prepared the earth for human habitation. Anything said within that context must be understood within that context and not apart from it. Otherwise we might reach erroneous conclusions about what is REALLY being described and find contradictions which are based on only that misunderstanding.

 

Since we are intially clearly told that the stars and earth existed BEFORE the first preparatory creative day in relation to earth for human habitation began, then we really are left without a valid basis to say that what is being described is the creation of stars. To do so we would have to ignore what was previously said, that these existed already BEFORE that first preparatory creative day.

Read your Genesis closely for what it says, not what Fundamentalists wished it said. On the first day, YHWH creates the firmament of heaven. On the fourth day, YHWH explicitly makes the stars(Gen 1,v16) and sets them in the firmament. There is no way no reconcile this story with modern scientific knowledge. The same applies to the order of the animal appearances. In fact, Genesis itself is internally inconsistent since it is the amalgam of two stories, one where God is called YHWH and another where he(they) are called Elohim. The YHWH and Elohim narratives disagree on the order of appearance of man and the animals.

Regards,

Physicist

JohnR7 · Jan 1, 2003

Originally posted by Physicist
Read your Genesis closely for what it says, not what Fundamentalists wished it said. On the first day, YHWH creates the firmament of heaven. On the fourth day, YHWH explicitly makes the stars(Gen 1,v16) and sets them in the firmament.

You need to follow your own advise and READ Genesis closely. Also, you need to think about what your saying. The firmament was not CREATED on the first day, it was MADE on the second day. Also, on the forth day, where we read God made the stars. The word "made" is in Italics. That means it is not in the origional language, it was added to the translation.

Genesis 1:1  In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

"Beginning" here, is actually used in the sense of when a child is born. It is the beginning of their life. The Hebrew word is translated 11 times as: "firstfruit".

Even the word create does not have to imply that there was no preexistance. If you were to create a work of art, that does not mean you make the elements that you create that work of art from. It means you shape and fashion them.

It was actually not 'tell 1500 years later, that Paul tells us that: "that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible." (heb 11:3) "for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." (2 Cor. 4:18) 

Paul tells us that the things we see were not made and they were not made from things that are visible. John tells us that in the beginning was the logos, the word. It took on flesh or form.

If someone were to make a dress, you would not say that they planted the seed, and then took the cotton and changed it into a material. You would assume a the cloth already existed that you were making the dress from.

So your attempt to make the account in Genesis a simple one, did not work. Moses was annointed by God, so he could take something very complex, and explain it in a simple and plain way. Genesis can be understood by everyone, from the most simple among us, to the most intellegent and learned among us.

In your life time and in my life time we will never totally understand what it means that "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." You could spend your whole life to try and come to a understanding of what does "in the beginning" mean.  Or you could spend your whole life to study "the heaven and the earth". Or you could spend your whole life to study what does it mean that "God created". No man can do this in ONE lifetime. It would at the very least require three men, three lifetimes, each building on the work of the person before him.

Perhaps now is the day and the time for the third man to take the work of Moses and the work of the early chuch and build on it to come up with a greater understanding then we ever had before. We could very well be living in the best of all times to live. Our work could set the stage for the next 1000 years of man's development and progression.  

There is no way no reconcile this story with modern scientific knowledge.

Click to expand...

I have no problem at all to reconcile them.

The same applies to the order of the animal appearances. In fact, Genesis itself is internally inconsistent since it is the amalgam of two stories, one where God is called YHWH and another where he(they) are called Elohim. The YHWH and Elohim narratives disagree on the order of appearance of man and the animals.

Click to expand...

Now your onto something, maybe there is real hope for you. Yes, there is a difference between the men we see on the 6 th day and the man Adam we see on the 8 th day. Adam had a tiny brain and a tiny heart that was like God's. YHWH is God who created all. Elohim becomes the Lord God who talks with man. Because man is given a mind and a heart that can understand the mind and the heart of God.

That is why when Adam fell, it was God's greatest disappointment. To destroy man would be to destroy a part of Himself or at least something He loved very much. So He redeems fallen man, to restore man to even a place beyond where man started out from. Thus Jesus was sent to save fallen mankind and to restore what was lost.

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DNA & the Bible

JohnR7

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