Age of the earth

[dead2self]

miguel_de_luis,

you have misread my post. Jesus authenticated the account as the word of God. It is the original Hebrew text that indicates it was meant to be taken literally.

As for the authentication, look at the following
Matthew 19:4-5 (English Standard Version)


4He answered, (A) "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said,(B) 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and(C) the two shall become one flesh'?


Notice how Jesus says the God said the words from Genesis 2:24 which were written by Moses. Here Jesus clearly authenticates Genesis as being God's words.


So again, we have Jesus saying that Moses' writing is what God actually said and those texts are to be taken literally according the the original author. Can you credibly draw antoher conclusion than that Jesus taught that Genesis was literal?

 

[miguel_de_luis]

Well, I think that we all agree that Genesis is God's word, yet there are many passages in Scripture that Christians do not take literally (as God having wings -well, I hope)

I do not challenge the inspiration of challenge. I -and also many scholars as you know- just think that not everything in Genesis is to be taken literally.

 

[exxxys]

miguel_de_luis,

you have misread my post. Jesus authenticated the account as the word of God. It is the original Hebrew text that indicates it was meant to be taken literally.

As for the authentication, look at the following
Matthew 19:4-5 (English Standard Version)


4He answered, (A) "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said,(B) 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and(C) the two shall become one flesh'?


Notice how Jesus says the God said the words from Genesis 2:24 which were written by Moses. Here Jesus clearly authenticates Genesis as being God's words.


So again, we have Jesus saying that Moses' writing is what God actually said and those texts are to be taken literally according the the original author. Can you credibly draw antoher conclusion than that Jesus taught that Genesis was literal?

The Book of Matthew was written anonymously, and by more than one person during the Middle Ages. It was a time when Christianity was law, and that was that. What do you think is the easiest way to get people to follow your religion? Write a gospel that says the Bible should be taken literally.

 

[Markus6]

The Book of Matthew was written anonymously, and by more than one person during the Middle Ages. It was a time when Christianity was law, and that was that. What do you think is the easiest way to get people to follow your religion? Write a gospel that says the Bible should be taken literally.

We have a papyrus manuscript of some of Matthew from around 150AD whilst Christians were still being persecuted.

Linky

 

[dead2self]

Well, I think that we all agree that Genesis is God's word, yet there are many passages in Scripture that Christians do not take literally (as God having wings -well, I hope)

I do not challenge the inspiration of challenge. I -and also many scholars as you know- just think that not everything in Genesis is to be taken literally.

Well, according to the grammar and language used by the author of Genesis there is no doubt he intended it to beetaken literally. As I said, this view is is almost universlly held by hebrew scholars. Believe in it's inspiration or not, the passage was intended to ba taken at face value. Unless one can provide proof to the contrary then arguments against this must fall.

 

[dead2self]

The Book of Matthew was written anonymously, and by more than one person during the Middle Ages. It was a time when Christianity was law, and that was that. What do you think is the easiest way to get people to follow your religion? Write a gospel that says the Bible should be taken literally.

That is a farce. Also this forum is for Christians to discuss scripture I believe. Even if not, I stated I waned the view of those who believe in scripture.

 

[miguel_de_luis]

The Book of Matthew was written anonymously, and by more than one person during the Middle Ages. It was a time when Christianity was law, and that was that. What do you think is the easiest way to get people to follow your religion? Write a gospel that says the Bible should be taken literally.

Any evidence of that most curious opinion?

And, in any case, how come that the Gospel of Mathew was accepted as canonical much earlier than the dawn of the Middle Ages?

 

[miguel_de_luis]

Well, according to the grammar and language used by the author of Genesis there is no doubt he intended it to beetaken literally. As I said, this view is is almost universlly held by hebrew scholars. Believe in it's inspiration or not, the passage was intended to ba taken at face value. Unless one can provide proof to the contrary then arguments against this must fall.

Is there a special grammar for non-literal accounts?

And there are many Bible scholars who have a different opinion. In any case I'm not going to accept "cause somebody said so".

I'd rather prefer that we examine the reasons in favor and against, agreed?

 

[dead2self]

Is there a special grammar for non-literal accounts?

Glad you asked There is indeed. Perhaps you have noticed a difference in language between prose and news reporting? Well the same concept applies to ancient Hebrew. I will refer you to this study, performed by Stephen W. Boyd, Ph.D. in Hebraic and Cognate studies.

http://www.icr.org/index.php?module=articles&action=view&ID=24

This shows quite clearly that ancient Hebrew does indeed use very different language for narratives and poetry.

And there are many Bible scholars who have a different opinion. In any case I'm not going to accept "cause somebody said so".

I do not expect you to. But I must clarify. I am not talking about Bible scholars in particular. This view is held by scholars specialising in ancient Hebrew. There are indeed many theologians who subscribe to the long day theory but world class Hebrew language experts agree that the language cannot support it.

I will give you the following quote from an article here: http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c011.html

Please note tha Professor Barr is not an amatuer but a professor and a very prestigious university. One would expect that he knows his field. Also note that he does not claim to believe the Bible is true. He is merely commenting on the intent of the author.

If I were to quote one scholar to back up this statement, the reader may not be impressed. But what if that scholar was a leading Oxford University professor of Hebrew who claimed that, as far as he knew, all other similar world class Hebrew language scholars were of the same mind?

The following is an extract from a letter written in 1984 by Professor James Barr, who was at the time Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford. Please note that Professor Barr does not claim to believe that Genesis is literally true, he is just telling us, openly and honestly, what the language means.
Professor Barr said,

“Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Gen. 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah's flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the 'days' of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.”
​

I'd rather prefer that we examine the reasons in favor and against, agreed?

Agreed. I have shown that the experts in the field of the Hebrew language say that the text cannot support a non literal view. I have shown how the text structure prohibits that undertanding.

Now let me show how we can see this even in our english translations. Folowing is an article from here: http://www.icr.org/creation-recent/

The language of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are technically precise and linguistically clear. Any reader would understand that the author of those pages intended to convey a normal six-day creation, involving God’s supernatural intervention both to create (something from nothing) and to make and shape (something basic into something more complex).
Three days (Day 1, Day 5, and Day 6) involve creation. Three days (Day 2, Day 3, and Day 4) involve the organization, integration, and structuring of the material created on Day 1.
Life was created on Day 5, a life in which all animals and man share. A special image of God was created on Day 6 that only man has. The movement from “simple to complex” may appear to follow evolution’s theory, but the specific order (water > land > plants > stellar and planetary bodies > birds and fish > land animals > man) most emphatically does not.
The Hebrew word for day (yom) is used some 3,000 times in the Hebrew Bible, and is almost always used to mean an ordinary 24-hour day-night cycle. On the few occasions where it is used to mean an indeterminate period of time, it is always clear from the context that it means something other than a 24-hour day (day of trouble, day of the Lord, day of battle, etc). Whenever it is used with an ordinal (1, 2, 1st, 2nd, etc.), it always means a specific day, an ordinary24-hour day.
The language of Genesis 1 appears to have been crafted so that no reader would mistake the word use for anything other than an ordinary 24-hour day. The light portion is named “day,” and the dark portion is named “night.” Then the “evening and the morning” is Day 1, Day 2, etc. The linguistic formula is repeated for each of the six days, a strange emphasis if the words were to be taken as allegorical or analogous to something other than a day-night cycle.
When God wrote the Ten Commandments with His own finger (certainly the most emphatic action every taken by God on behalf of His revealed Word), God specifically designated a seventh day to be a “Sabbath” day (rest day) in memory and in honor of the work-six-days, rest-one-day activity of God during the creation week (Exodus 20:11). In that context, spoken and written by God Himself, the creation week can mean only a regular week of seven days, one of which is set aside as holy.

Another look at this point by John D. Morris Ph.D. : http://www.icr.org/articles/view/3228/306/

And another by the same author: http://www.icr.org/articles/view/594/306/

Now one from Henry Morris Ph.D. : http://www.icr.org/articles/view/838/306/

Here Henry Morris Ph.D. talks about the problems with Old-Earth Creationism: http://www.icr.org/articles/view/816/306/

Here John D. Morris Ph.D. explains the problems with gap theory and why most Biblical scholars have abandoned it: http://www.icr.org/articles/view/1076/306/

An in depth article by James Stambaugh, M.DIV. regarding the meaning of days in Genesis: http://www.icr.org/articles/view/288/306/

 

[artybloke]

According to all the best scientific evidence that we have, the earth is 4.5 billion years old, or round about. No literalistic reading of Genesis can hold up against the evidence. Whether Jesus said that Adam & Eve really existed or not (or whether - like every good speaker does - he just used the story as an illustration, rather like someone might use an illustration from Shakespeare), he said nothing about the age of the earth or about evolution.

Whatever interpretation of scripture you take doesn't negate the facts of the world - a world God created, which seems to have all the evidence of being very ancient in deed. God's witness in the creation is that the world is 4.5 billion years old - so unless he's lying in the creation, then the world has to be as the observed facts show it to be.

Of course, God did not write the Bible: but he did create the universe. The writers of the Bible were steeped in ancient story telling techniques and the Genesis stories show evidence of influenced from ancient Sumerian creation stories. The arguments from grammar, by the way, are nonsensical: grammar doesn't tell you whether a story is meant to be factual. Any good storyteller wants you to suspend disbelief for the length of the story.

Henry Morris, by the way, was a fraud, and for anybody to use him as a source is frankly laughable. As are the magority of so-called creation "scientists".

 

[miguel_de_luis]

I have been only able to read the first of the studies, and I have to say that I find it disappointing.

1.- It places prose on a higher lever that (and I quote) "mere poetry". (And that could have been enough to make me stop reading in any less important matter).

2.- Secondly the question is not about if the account(s) of the world creation are poetry or not. (Though the first chapter of Genesis does exhibit and evident rythm). The question is only about if it is to be taken as historic or not. Certainly Jesus' parables are not poems in any sense but I hope nobody would say that the Kingdom of God is a coin somebody lost.

3.- In any case it addresses not Grammar, but style and genre.

----
Hope to be able to check the other resources soon.

 

[Iosias]

It is accepted by religious and secualr scholarship that the Genesis account was meant to be taken literally by it's author.

One issue with this is that you commit an anachronism. That is, how do you know that the Israelite mind functioned like the Western? Whilst the Hebrew understood the text to be an account of the origins of the world we do not know what that meant to them. Furthermore, we don't know when the account was written. Many scholars accept that Gen. 1:1-2:4a was written at some point during the Babylonian captivity in reaction to the Babylonian creation story.

 

[dead2self]

I have been only able to read the first of the studies, and I have to say that I find it disappointing.

1.- It places prose on a higher lever that (and I quote) "mere poetry". (And that could have been enough to make me stop reading in any less important matter).

2.- Secondly the question is not about if the account(s) of the world creation are poetry or not. (Though the first chapter of Genesis does exhibit and evident rythm). The question is only about if it is to be taken as historic or not. Certainly Jesus' parables are not poems in any sense but I hope nobody would say that the Kingdom of God is a coin somebody lost.

3.- In any case it addresses not Grammar, but style and genre.

----
Hope to be able to check the other resources soon.

First, I apologise if it placing prose above poetry offended you. I honestly couldn't tell you the difference so I never noticed a problem there. Not my cup of tea I'm afraid.

Second, the question of whether this account is poetic or not is indeed pertinent. If it is poetry, then it is very likely to be taken allegorically. However, it was written in the style of a narrative meant to be taken at face value. I will stipulate that alone, this argument is by no means conclusive. It merely starts us off. That is why there is so much more material.

Third, it does in fact address grammar in that the grammar indicates the style the author was writing in.

In several of the other articles I posted, you will see how the used of the word day cannot have meant anything other than a literal day.

 

[dead2self]

One issue with this is that you commit an anachronism. That is, how do you know that the Israelite mind functioned like the Western? Whilst the Hebrew understood the text to be an account of the origins of the world we do not know what that meant to them. Furthermore, we don't know when the account was written. Many scholars accept that Gen. 1:1-2:4a was written at some point during the Babylonian captivity in reaction to the Babylonian creation story.

Oh how I beg to differ my friend. It is not I that must be accused of commiting an anachronism but the old-earth creationists. You see, you reasoning is fundamentally flawed on tow levels that I can see right now.

1. Who said anything about the Western mind? Scholars in Hebrew around the world, including Jewish scholars, concur that the original intent of the author was to be taken literally. This is by no means a me reading into it with my western mind.

2. This is the real kicker. Untill modern times, no one read this text with anything other than a literal undertanding. From the ancient Hebrews, to the Jews of Jesus' time, to the early Christian Church to modern Judaism and Christianity the understanding that the text was meant to be taken as literal was accepted. It is, in fact modern scholars and theologiand than commit the anachronism. They have taken our modern scientific theories which remain not simply unproven and unprovable but in many cases refuted and abandoned, and read them into the text. They then concocted several theories about the interpretation of the text which had never existed beore to fit the Bible into scientifc thought.

You see, we have a long history of what these texts meant. We have modern Jews who agree that the texts were literal and that opinion has been passed down since teh time of Moses who penned the text in the first place. We can say quite certainly that the early Hebrews took these texts literally without consulting a single western mind.

Furthermore, your final statement falls flat on it's face before leaving the starting gates I am afraid. We know conclusively that Moses wrote these texts. We also know conclusively that Moses was not alive anywhere near the Babylonian captivity. You see, Jesus Himself named Moses as the author and God as the one who inspried these texts.

As for the accoutn being written in reaction to the Babylonian stories, does it escape you that the Babylonian flood story is so similar to the Biblical account beacuse they describe the same event that actually happened? The flood happened and all men descended from Noah thereafter. The story of the flood, the greatest cataclysm of the age, would have been carried by all the descendants of Noah along with the stories of how God created the world. It is simply simple logic to deduce that the Babylonians have these stories because their ancestors witnessed some of these events. The main difference is that while most cultures have remnants of what actually happended in their myths, the Hebrews are the only people whom God gave the inerrant and infallible account. That accounts for why other cultures accounts are different.

 

[champuru]

miguel_de_luis,

you have misread my post. Jesus authenticated the account as the word of God. It is the original Hebrew text that indicates it was meant to be taken literally.

As for the authentication, look at the following
Matthew 19:4-5 (English Standard Version)


4He answered, (A) "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5and said,(B) 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and(C) the two shall become one flesh'?

Well he is saying that God made humans male and female. I dont think anybody would argue that. Now if he said "God made the earth in 6 days" that would be different.

Notice how Jesus says the God said the words from Genesis 2:24 which were written by Moses. Here Jesus clearly authenticates Genesis as being God's words.

It is God's word. It could have been a parable. Jesus used parables to explain complicated concepts, why not God? The lessons you learn from the story are: God created the universe, rest on the sabbath day and keep it holy, and men's sins caused them to fall out of favor with God and must atone for sins with a blood sacrifice. I dont see any creationist "scientists" trying to prove that the earth pre-existed the sun, or that evening and morning is independent of the sun.

So again, we have Jesus saying that Moses' writing is what God actually said and those texts are to be taken literally according the the original author. Can you credibly draw antoher conclusion than that Jesus taught that Genesis was literal?[/quote]
Again, he quoted a part that is undisputed. Obiviosly humans are not a hermaphroditic species.

 

[dead2self]

Well he is saying that God made humans male and female. I dont think anybody would argue that. Now if he said "God made the earth in 6 days" that would be different.

Jesus said that the words in Genesis are God's words.

It is God's word. It could have been a parable. Jesus used parables to explain complicated concepts, why not God? The lessons you learn from the story are: God created the universe, rest on the sabbath day and keep it holy, and men's sins caused them to fall out of favor with God and must atone for sins with a blood sacrifice. I dont see any creationist "scientists" trying to prove that the earth pre-existed the sun, or that evening and morning is independent of the sun.

Please, read the material I have given before critiquing. It could not have been a parable for several historical and grammatical reasons. The sabbath rest also is a clear implication of the creation week being literal. As for creation scientists proving your two points, well they are working on such things, have theories about them and have a lot a hard evidence to back up a young earth creation theology.

But that is not the issue. The current issue is reconciling that Jesus said the account is the word of God and is was originally meant to be taken literally with old-earth creationsim.

Again, he quoted a part that is undisputed. Obiviosly humans are not a hermaphroditic species.

What in the world are you talking about? How do hermaphrodites fit in here??? Plust, the quote Jesus gave regarding the creation account is not releveant. The relevant part was that he prefaced the quote by clearly indicating that while Moses penned the text, it was the word of God. Or would you have us believe that God inspired only bits and pieces of the text?

 

[Iosias]

This is the real kicker. Untill modern times, no one read this text with anything other than a literal undertanding. From the ancient Hebrews, to the Jews of Jesus' time, to the early Christian Church to modern Judaism and Christianity the understanding that the text was meant to be taken as literal was accepted.

Augustine, himself, as is well known, states in connection with the days of Genesis 1, "What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive."

Anselm may be read to follow this lead in his supposition that "the 'days' of Moses' account ... are not to be equated with the days in which we live."

John Colet held that Genesis 1 was written in "the manner of a popular poet" [more poetae alicuius popularis]. In the Augustinian tradition, Colet views the precise meaning of the days of Genesis 1 as so difficult to untangle that he writes (tongue in cheek): "nothing could be more like night than these Mosaic days."

Even highly conservative Prebyterians of the 1800s and 1900s disagree with you. Neither Charles Hodge, nor his son, A. A. Hodge, nor B. B. Warfield regarded the six 24 hour day view of creation as exegetically required by a careful reading of Genesis 1.

Dr. J. Gresham Machen, when he stated in connection with the days of Genesis 1: "It is certainly not necessary to think that the six days spoken of in that first chapter of the Bible are intended to be six days of twenty four hours each. We may think of them rather as very long periods of time."

Professor Edward J. Young, often regarded as the epitome of conservative exegetical orthodoxy in this matter, while holding that a chronological sequence is taught by Genesis 1, nevertheless made abundantly clear that chronological sequence should not be equated with or confused with chronological duration:"But then there arises the question as to the length of these days. That is a question which is difficult to answer. Indications are not lacking that they may have been longer than the days we now know, but the Scripture itself does not speak as clearly as one might like."

 

[Iosias]

We know conclusively that Moses wrote these texts.

There is nothing conclusive about it whatsoever. First of all conservative scholars believe that even if Moses wrote some of the Pentateuch he would have used earlier sources. Secondly, the Sitz im Leben of Genesis 1:1-2:4a is a New Year Festival that predates Moses.

 

[Iosias]

As for the accoutn being written in reaction to the Babylonian stories, does it escape you that the Babylonian flood story is so similar to the Biblical account beacuse they describe the same event that actually happened?

Creation And Chaos in the Primeval Era And the Eschaton: A Religio-historical Study of Genesis 1 and Revelation 12

 

[Markus6]

The sabbath rest also is a clear implication of the creation week being literal.

Or a clear reason for writing a non-literal passage, depending on your view.