The Return of My Ex Nihilo Challenge

AV1611VET said:

Show me "heavens" (plural) in Genesis 1:1.

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1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The word translated "heavens" is described thus in my Concordance:

08064 shamayim [shaw-mah -yim] dual of an unused singular

AV1611VET said:

Here's my stance on that:

Where your concordance* differs from the King James, your concordance is wrong.

* Interesting that you capitalized it.

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Sorry, how so? The KJV is in English. The concordance is explaining the Hebrew word from which the KJV word "heavens' was translated. Sorry, I don't know why I used a capital C for concordance. That wasn't intentional.

AV1611VET said:

The King James is a divine Translation.

The concordance is not.

So if they differ ...

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Sorry, I still don't understand. The King James Version is a translation of the original Hebrew and Greek. God originally gave the bible in those two languages. Are you saying that because the KJV says 'heaven', and the original Hebrew word is plural, the must be a correction of the Hebrew?

AV1611VET said:

Yes indeed.



Using what as its source document?

The Autographs were long gone.

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The autographs are indeed long gone. They were gone before 1611. The makers of concordances have access to the same Hebrew and Greek texts as the 1611 translators had.

AV1611VET said:

If you have 100 pianos to tune, you don't tune the second one according to the first, then the third one according to the second, then the fourth according to the third and so on.

You tune the first one, then all 99 according to that first one.

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Yes, but continuing with your analogy, the KJV wasn't even the first 'piano' in English, let alone Hebrew.

AV1611VET said:

Faux pas?



Not by you ... no.

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AV1611VET said:

It is Day One of the Creation Week and God creates Earth ex nihilo (from nothing) by speaking it into existence.

Heretofore the level of mass/energy in the physical universe is zero; since the physical universe didn't exist yet.

Afterwards, the level of mass/energy in the physical universe is now equal to the earth.

Here's my question:

What physical evidence would convince you this happened?

I submit there isn't any.

What say you?

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This is a funny question.

Obvious evidence would be you personally speaking something into existence as representative of said God.

The scripture says faith is the evidence. However, since no one nowadays has the kind of faith sentence two describes .. there is no evidence.

Furthermore, to avoid accusations such as digital editing, you tube videos would not be evidence enough. This "speaking into existence" would need to be reproducable so the "created thing" could be examined by science to document it according to what matters to people who read scientific studies.

AV1611VET said:

God doesn't cater to threats.

"Make sure what You did is reproducable, or I'll believe what science tells me" isn't going to cut it.

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The thing is, in order for something to become "evidence" it needs to go through a similar vetting process that scripture had to before it became scripture.

Part of this process is showing the principle can be reproduced.

AV1611VET said:

Okay.



And if it can't, does that mean it didn't happen as documented?

Did Jesus walk on water? or do scientists need to see His footprints out there?

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That's why the 'faith is the evidence' passage says "by faith" we understand that God created the world.

We trust he did, it's not about evidence.

AV1611VET said:

They why do they ask for it?

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No trust. The key is on the other side of the door.

The knowledge of what's good and what's bad probably has something to do with it also.

AV1611VET said:

How do you know it's the "original Hebrew"?

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The Hebrew text the KJV is translated from is the Masoretic Text (MT) which is the most widely used Hebrew text for Bibles and is authoritative in Jewish canon.

The MT uses the same word for 1:1 and 2:1 which is the plural for heavens/skies which is "shamayim". This word is always in the plural and there is no singular form so there is no alternative Hebrew text that would conflict this. It can equally refer to the physical expanse of the sky or to the spiritual realm. And is a matter of interpretation as to its meaning.

The creation account is written in a chiastic pattern (even in the 1611 KJV) so each idea has a opener and a closer and the two pair together and can be used to understand their context better. 1:1 and 2:1 is the chiastic pair in this case. 2:1 says "thus the [shamayim] and the earth were created". This is the same word and context used in 1:1 so whatever is chosen for one should be reflected in the other be it "heaven", "heavens" or something else like "skies", all perfectly fine translations, however it would be inconsistent to use one form in one but a different in the other.

A lot of early (16th century) English translations use the singular in 1:1 but the plural in 2 the same as the KJV. This might be from Latin text influence also using singular in 1:1 and plural in 2:1 (caelum/caeli) and then establishing strong cultural resonance that could be factors why the KJV translated it this way.

I would suggest it is from cultural sensitivity the KJV leaves it this way. Although the printing press made Bibles more cheap and available they still were luxury items and not quite cheap enough that every household had one. People would commit key verses to memory and where I can't be sure of all the verses most often memorized you can be sure Gen 1:1 was one of the more common (and still is) which was more commonly translated in the singular in 16th century tranlations (at least with English) and as noted above also with the Latin texts. This is not a "bad translation" fault of the KJV but them appling a level of contextualization and being sensitive to cultural norms over a raw mechanical feel.

While this may have been still considered reasonable practice in the 16/17th century today it is different. We are far more educated and have more tools available to use than any scholar did in the 16th century. Tyndale made the first English NT which got him burned at the stake for it. He is quoted "I will cause a boy who drives the plow to know more of the Scriptures than you do, if God spares my life". I don't know if Tyndale ever got to see that come to fruition but certainly today, any person in any lot of life has more access so biblical resources than anyone in the centuries before them in the palm of their hand and at all times. I myself just got finished referencing 5 English 16th Bibles to confirm what they used and looking at their digital copies from the original and then comparing it with the Latin and Hebrew texts also viewing digital copies from the same time using a phone.

Where heaven/heavens is not a large doctrinal issue, we are not in the 17th century and don't need to be concerned with how people will disfavor the reading because it has an 's' or not. Either or is fine, but if we really want to be picky plural for both is probably a better representation, however I actually favour a word that isn't as loaded like "skies", the transliterated Hebrew "shamayim" or something that is typically in one form only like "cosmos". but like the KJV of old, modern translations must determine how well these words will be accepted and frankly I don't think people will like it and it will cause controversy which is not a goal of translations. so we may be a few years away from those readings (the Mechanical Translation uses "skies" so there are a few), until then I'm happy with either of these.