POLL: Which of these elements of the creation story do you believe?

rakovsky · Apr 30, 2016

1. A firm layer divided the waters so that a massive body of liquid water was above the stars.

6 Then God said, “Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” 7 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. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. ... 14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;

2. The 7 days of creations were in 24 hour periods, so the earth's age is in thousands of years.
I am not sure if the Bible actually teaches this one, since the sun was made on the fourth day or so, after the earth was already made.

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

3. The Earth is flat.

The earth's circle
A circle (hug) is flat, a ball(dur) is round. eg. Isaiah 22:18 uses the word ball (dur).

Isaiah 40:22 It is he that sitteth upon the circle (hug) of the earth,

Proverbs 8:27 When he prepared the heavens, I was there: when he set a compass (hug) upon the face of the depth:

The earth's ends
Job 37:3 He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth.

Job 37:33 He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven and sends it to the ends of the earth.

Job 38:13 That it might take hold of the ends of the earth

Isaiah 43:6 I'll say to the north, 'Give them up'! and to the south, 'Don't keep them back!' Bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the ends of the earth

Jeremiah 51:16 He brings up the mist from the ends of the earth

The East and the West at the opposite ends of the earth
Psalm 103:12 As far as the east is from the west, so far has he put our offences from us.

Seeing all the earth's land from a single point in space:
Job 28:24 For he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven;

Daniel 4:10-11 [The king] saw a tree of great height at the centre of the earth...reaching with its top to the sky and visible to the earth's farthest bounds.

Matthew 4:8 “Once again, the devil took him to a very high mountain, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world [cosmos] in their glory.”

The earth's corners
One explanation has been that "corners" is a designation for directions.
Isaiah 11:12 And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.

Rev 7:1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.

The earth's foundations

Job 9:6 Which shaketh the earth out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble.

Job 38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?

Job 38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof

1 Samuel 2:8 for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them.

2 Samuel 22:16 And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered

Psalm 104:5 Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.

The earth's stretching
Something that is stretched out is flat.

Psalm 136:6 To him that stretched out the earth above the waters: for his mercy endureth for ever.

Stretching a line across the eartth, rather than around it
Job 38:44 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it?

The earth's stretching over nothing
Something that is suspended over nothing would have an underside.
Job 26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing [beliymah].

4. Geocentricism: The earth does not move, whereas the sun does not stand still. In other words, the earth does not go around the sun.

1 Chronicles 16:30
tremble before him, all earth; yea, the world stands firm, never to be moved.

Psalms 93:1
The Lord reigns; he is robbed in majesty; the lord is robbed, he is girded with strength. Yea, the world is established; it shall never be moved.

Ecclesiastes 1:5
The sun rises and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.

Personally, based on the theory of relativity, I think that one can posit a model whereby the earth is the center of the universe and that the sun goes around the earth. The model just looks a bit more unwieldy than a solar system model.

Here is an example of a geocentric model. The planets are forced into awkward "epicycles".

5. God made the first man Adam directly out of clay or dust, instead of mankind's development passing through evolutionary stages such as more primitive classes of animals.

ClothedInGrace · Apr 30, 2016

#2 and #5 are correct; the others are just misunderstandings of the text.

rakovsky · Apr 30, 2016

ClothedInGrace said:
#2 and #5 are correct; the others are just misunderstandings of the text.

Ancient peoples like the Babylonians and Sumerians actually believed #s 1, 3-4. Abraham was from Ur in Sumer. Wouldn't it only be natural then for them to express this in their description of the world?

Genesis 11:31: And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan...

Razare · Apr 30, 2016

I voted 2 and 5.

I have studied geocentrism some. I ended up breaking it down into 2 separate assertions.

- The earth does not move relative to the aether.
- The earth is the center of the universe.

Of the later, I am certain the Earth is at the universe's center. I know it by divine revelation from God. He showed me the whole universe, and he showed me where Earth was, and it was smack dab in the middle as far as anyone could see it. If he put it off 10 miles or something, I can't tell you that.

WMAP I later learned confirms this principle.

But does that mean the Earth is absolutely static? To that, I don't know. When the Bible says the Earth is fixed, I believe it.

I'm just not sure what that verse means yet with certainty. I would need a few other scriptures on it to tell.

rakovsky · Apr 30, 2016

Razare said:
I voted 2 and 5.

I have studied geocentrism some. I ended up breaking it down into 2 separate assertions.

- The earth does not move relative to the aether.
- The earth is the center of the universe.

Of the later, I am certain the Earth is at the universe's center. I know it by divine revelation from God. He showed me the whole universe, and he showed me where Earth was, and it was smack dab in the middle as far as anyone could see it. If he put it off 10 miles or something, I can't tell you that.

WMAP I later learned confirms this principle.

But does that mean the Earth is absolutely static? To that, I don't know. When the Bible says the Earth is fixed, I believe it.

OK, I was not wording them to be trick questions. I think you should have voted #4 then.

I am OK with #4 based on the theory of relativity, but I think that heliocentricism is a better model.

I think if you go by the Bible, #2 is actually the weakest. The Bible never specifies the exact ae of the earth and a "day" can mean different things. One verse says a day to God is a thousand years. But for some reason many Evangelicals like to imagine the world as only several thousand years old.

Razare · Apr 30, 2016

rakovsky said:
OK, I was not wording them to be trick questions. I think you should have voted #4 then.

I am OK with #4 based on the theory of relativity, but I think that heliocentricism is a better model.

I think if you go by the Bible, #2 is actually the weakest. The Bible never specifies the exact ae of the earth and a "day" can mean different things. One verse says a day to God is a thousand years. But for some reason many Evangelicals like to imagine the world as only several thousand years old.

Oh no, I studied it but I'm not sure I believe Geocentrism. I mean. The Earth being the center isn't really the same as solving the issue of general relativity vs. aether, and whether the Earth is totally fixed. I guess I'm still thinking it over.

As for #2, I listened to an old Earth creationist. And I totally agree that we do not have to interpret days as literal days... even if they were Earth days, the literal interpretation has some play in it, which would cause us to conclude they were periods.

Reading it again, I probably should not have selected #2. I believe in basically less than 10k years of human history. I believe Adam died at that 900, and several thousand years ago was the flood, and a couple thousand before that, Adam's fall.

Earth creationism could have proceeded according a number of time periods by scripture, and I keep old Earth on the table, just I think there was no death until after the fall. Spiritual death = physical death, for both man and creatures.

But since I do not believe in uniformitarianism which is the entire basis for radio active decay rates, erosion records, ect. (because 2 Peter 3:4 rejects this assumption of modern historical science), I would have difficulty believing anything outside of scripture on the matter as to why the Earth should be very old. Speed of light? Irrelevant according to Peter. Radioactive decay? Irrelevant. Rainbows didn't exist before the flood, which included all rainbows that might be fabricated on Earth, so what is being described may in fact transcend environmental conditions such as rain but pertain to the properties of light itself.

But yes, good point about Genesis days not exactly being human Earth days! If I recall, the fist day didn't start until half way through, and then so the first day was a half day anyway. And some days have statements with play in them where it makes you think it's a long time.

Razare · Apr 30, 2016

I fixed my vote, I went with 4 and 5. Maybe I was nitpicking about geocentrism. I'm inclined enough to study it I think.

As for #1, I want to learn a lot about that!!! I believe there was a firmament, but, the Bible said water arose from the deep during the flood.

So while I think there was a firmament, I do not see why I would think there was water above it. I believe most of the water was buried beneath the Earth. But I do think the firmament broke and it caused rain, ect.

rakovsky · Apr 30, 2016

Razare said:
But yes, good point about Genesis days not exactly being human Earth days! If I recall, the fist day didn't start until half way through, and then so the first day was a half day anyway. And some days have statements with play in them where it makes you think it's a long time.

Well there are a ton of Evangelicals who make that assumption, thinking the earth must be under 10,000 years old based on the Bible. But the Bible never actually specifies how many minutes and hours old it is, or how long a day would be in human years in Genesis 1 before the sun was made.

Personally, I think alot of Evangelicals today would pick 2 and 5, but in fact 2 is the only one that the Bible does NOT actually support as I explained above.

Based on modern science, 4 is the only one I could accept.

rakovsky · Apr 30, 2016

Razare said:
As for #1, I want to learn a lot about that!!! I believe there was a firmament, but, the Bible said water arose from the deep during the flood.
But I do think the firmament broke and it caused rain, ect.

Maybe ancient people felt the same way and when rain came down they thought it was from above the sun.

There is a theory that the story in Genesis came from Babylonian creation mythology. The Babylonians thought that the primordial waters were divided into two halves, with the lower half being used to form the basis of the earth. The Babylonians called the divided waters the goddess Tiamat.

"Marduk then forms heavens and the earth from her divided body.... Tiamat also has been claimed to be cognate with Northwest Semitic tehom (תהום) (the deeps, abyss), in the Book of Genesis 1:2."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat

Hoghead1 · May 1, 2016

rakovsky said:
Well there are a ton of Evangelicals who make that assumption, thinking the earth must be under 10,000 years old based on the Bible. But the Bible never actually specifies how many minutes and hours old it is, or how long a day would be in human years in Genesis 1 before the sun was made.

Personally, I think alot of Evangelicals today would pick 2 and 5, but in fact 2 is the only one that the Bible does NOT actually support as I explained above.

Based on modern science, 4 is the only one I could accept.

Given what I believe the the context is of Gen. 1, I think 24-hour days are meant. I believe the author, the P source, was intending this as part of a liturgy, the purpose of which has to fight polytheism and remind everyone that we should worship the same God everyday. That's why the account runs through seven days, one week.

rakovsky · May 1, 2016

Hoghead1 said:
Given what I believe the the context is of Gen. 1, I think 24-hour days are meant. I believe the author, the P source, was intending this as part of a liturgy, the purpose of which has to fight polytheism and remind everyone that we should worship the same God everyday. That's why the account runs through seven days, one week.

I know what you mean, but the days need not be the same exact length of time as today to serve as a prefigurement.
A prefigurement does not have to be the same exact thing to work as a lesson.

rakovsky · May 1, 2016

Nowadays many conservative Reformed Christians say that the Bible only teaches #5, but back in the 16th century, there was common agreement that if you went by the plain meaning of the Bible, it taught at least 1,3-5. I suppose that they dated the world only several thousand years old.

Nowadays when faced with the verses teaching waters above the heavens or flat earth, they typically claim that this not what the Bible actually says, opting instead to only defend #2 or 5.

In #5, God himself actually directly walked in the garden of eden, formed a person named Adam directly from clay in his image and then the anthropomorphic God breathed directly into Adam to give him life.

And then you have the idea that Eve was made from Adam's rib:

while-adam-sleeps-eve-is-formed-from-one-rib-late-12th-c.jpg

mark kennedy · May 1, 2016

Love the OP, unfortunately the poll didn't really describe my view. While I don't believe there is any credible evidence of gaps in the genealogies in Scripture I think there might be one between original creation and creation week. So an old earth cosmology whether billions or thousands of years are irrelevant to the doctrine of creation in my view. All we know about the original creation is that it was in the beginning, creation week may have started immediately following or billions of years later.

Grace and peace,
Mark

mark kennedy · May 1, 2016

rakovsky said:
Maybe ancient people felt the same way and when rain came down they thought it was from above the sun.

There is a theory that the story in Genesis came from Babylonian creation mythology. The Babylonians thought that the primordial waters were divided into two halves, with the lower half being used to form the basis of the earth. The Babylonians called the divided waters the goddess Tiamat.

"Marduk then forms heavens and the earth from her divided body.... SkyWriting also has been claimed to be cognate with Northwest Semitic tehom (תהום) (the deeps, abyss), in the Book of Genesis 1:2."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiamat

I am under the impression that Tiamat isn't a god or a goddess, but rather some kind of an elemental. In pagan mythology the first element would have been earth, air, fire or water, Tiamat is a water elemental. Enuma Elish starts off in this way:

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being (ENUMA ELISH)

This would have been a very common worldview in the ancient Mediterranean world. Do note, in such a worldview the gods are created by the elementals, the Hebrew concept of God creating the elements is a distinctly opposing if not opposite view.

Grace and peace,
Mark

rakovsky · May 1, 2016

mark kennedy said:
I am under the impression that Tiamat isn't a god or a goddess, but rather some kind of an elemental. In pagan mythology the first element would have been earth, air, fire or water, Tiamat is a water elemental. Enuma Elish starts off in this way:

When in the height heaven was not named,
And the earth beneath did not yet bear a name,
And the primeval Apsu, who begat them,
And chaos, Tiamut, the mother of them both
Their waters were mingled together,
And no field was formed, no marsh was to be seen;
When of the gods none had been called into being,
And none bore a name, and no destinies were ordained;
Then were created the gods in the midst of heaven,
Lahmu and Lahamu were called into being (ENUMA ELISH)

This would have been a very common worldview in the ancient Mediterranean world. Do note, in such a worldview the gods are created by the elementals, the Hebrew concept of God creating the elements is a distinctly opposing if not opposite view.

Grace and peace,
Mark

In Babylonian Mythology, Tiamat is anthropomorphized. If you read the poems about her you will see that she is not just an element or just water in the liquid sense, but described as having body parts. she is in a battle with Marduk. Thus fo the Babylonians it appears that Tiamat was a goddess.

In the Bible, in Genesis 1 the Waters are not clearly anthropomorphized in that same lucid way, with body parts, etc. I think that in the Bible the waters are not a goddess.

rakovsky · May 1, 2016

mark kennedy said:
Love the OP, unfortunately the poll didn't really describe my view.

FYI
Calvin accepted #3-5. I am not sure if he accepted #2, but he rejected #1.

Hoghead1 · May 1, 2016

rakovsky said:
I know what you mean, but the days need not be the same exact length of time as today to serve as a prefigurement.
A prefigurement does not have to be the same exact thing to work as a lesson.

I don't consider it a prefigurement.

mark kennedy · May 2, 2016

rakovsky said:
In Babylonian Mythology, Tiamat is anthropomorphized. If you read the poems about her you will see that she is not just an element or just water in the liquid sense, but described as having body parts. she is in a battle with Marduk. Thus fo the Babylonians it appears that Tiamat was a goddess.

In the Bible, in Genesis 1 the Waters are not clearly anthropomorphized in that same lucid way, with body parts, etc. I think that in the Bible the waters are not a goddess.

I'm not so sure about that:

Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab, and wounded the dragon? Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the great deep; that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the ransomed to pass over? (Isa. 51:9-10)

A personification here of water tends to indicate that the gods of ancient pagan religions were defeated by the one true, everlasting Most High. It's common for God to demonstrate he is superior to the false deities of pagan nations. I always found the one were the Ark of the Covenant was captured by the Philistines to be almost humorous. The Philistines put it in their temple of Dagon and in the morning then found the idols on their faces before the Ark. If there is one thing God gets furious about it's false gods, there is a reason the first and second commandments address idolatry.

Grace and peace,
Mark

mark kennedy · May 2, 2016

rakovsky said:
FYI
Calvin accepted #3-5. I am not sure if he accepted #2, but he rejected #1.

I accept #5 but Calvin was probably reflecting a cosmology, contemporary to his times. There is no real Biblical basis for astronomy, the ancient Hebrews would appear to have little interest in such things.

Grace and peace,
Mark

rakovsky · May 2, 2016

Hoghead1 said:
I don't consider it a prefigurement.

OK, well maybe you should write out in much more detail and length because that is what I thought you were saying:

Given what I believe the the context is of Gen. 1, I think 24-hour days are meant. I believe the author, the P source, was intending this as part of a liturgy, the purpose of which has to fight polytheism and remind everyone that we should worship the same God everyday.

That is, I thought you meant it was written in days in 24 hours as a reminder. It would be helpful if you would write about this in much more detail why you selected #2, as the text never specifies how long the days are and we know that no man was yet created and 1000 years for man are a day for God it says in the Bible.

POLL: Which of these elements of the creation story do you believe?

POLL: Which of the following do you accept?

1. A firm layer divided the waters so a massive body of liquid water was right above the firmament.

2. The earth's age is under 10,000 years old, or the 7 days of creation were in c.24 hour periods.

3. The Earth is flat.

4. Geocentricism.

5. God made man directly out of the earth instead of using Evolution through lower mammalian classes

6. None of the above.

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