Creation and Deceit

[rmwilliamsll]

If taking a verse that says "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." and then somehow reading millions of years there isn't redefining the terms then I don't know what is.


morning and evening are defined by the rotation of the earth relative to the position of the sun.
in this verse there is no sun, no earth, no rotation. how can there be a morning and an evening? who is redefining terms?

I agree Scripture is just as clear on these points, at least the ones of importance. Tell me one that is of importance that isn't clear?


depends on what church you go to.
let me see--baptist

have the supernatural gifts of the spirit ceased?

should we baptise children?
should children receive communion?
are children before the age of accountability saved or not?
is circumcisum analogous to baptism?
is there one covenant between God and man or more than one?
what is the millenium?
is there a rapture?
what is the right form of church government-independence, presbyterian or hierarchical?
how should preachers be certified?
who ordains preachers?
should women be ordained?
must a preacher have a college degree and a seminary degree?
must a preacher read greek and hebrew?


etc.
and that is just from your baptist icon, and i could go on.


are these issues clear or unclear in Scripture?
are these issues important or unimportant?
can people with your hermeneutic legitimately disagree on these issues?

the point:
the statement "things are clear in Scripture" is simply wrong or so qualified as to be meaningless or the issues that are clear are very elementary and basic.

 

[vossler]

morning and evening are defined by the rotation of the earth relative to the position of the sun.
in this verse there is no sun, no earth, no rotation. how can there be a morning and an evening? who is redefining terms?

Wow, another inventive way to twist the Scriptures! How about this: God said it and I believe it! If God said there was a morning and an evening on day 1 who am I to question whether it was an actual day or millions of years?

depends on what church you go to.
let me see--baptist

have the supernatural gifts of the spirit ceased?

I asked for one and I'll answer the first one. No the supernatural gifts of the spirit haven't ceased. Scripture clearly backs that. I personally don't believe them to be of great importance, at least not yet. Lot's of people will probably disagree because there are Scriptures that could lead one to believe otherwise but I'm not going to derail this thread by going down that road.

the point:
the statement "things are clear in Scripture" is simply wrong or so qualified as to be meaningless or the issues that are clear are very elementary and basic.

Well I consider the six days of creation to be elementary and basic.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

No the supernatural gifts of the spirit haven't ceased. Scripture clearly backs that. I personally don't believe them to be of great importance, at least not yet. Lot's of people will probably disagree because there are Scriptures that could lead one to believe otherwise but I'm not going to derail this thread by going down that road.


it is not derailing the thread at all, but is right to the point.

when people disagree, what is the source of their disagreement? the OP proposes that those who disagree with a recent 6 24hr day Creation Week are deceived

Yet scientists in their 'infinite' wisdom choose to go where man has no need to go by developing and promoting theories to explain how everything came about.

my point in listing all these items is that deception is the wrong way to deal with these kinds of issues. so is the claim that the issues are clear and simple.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

morning and evening are defined by the rotation of the earth relative to the position of the sun.
in this verse there is no sun, no earth, no rotation. how can there be a morning and an evening? who is redefining terms?


Wow, another inventive way to twist the Scriptures! How about this: God said it and I believe it! If God said there was a morning and an evening on day 1 who am I to question whether it was an actual day or millions of years?


this is exactly what makes talking to YECists so difficult. i desire to understand what God is saying in the text. a big hint is that the words morning and evening are not being used in their normal definitions. i point this out and you accuse me of twisting Scripture.

your normal definition of morning and evening do NOT work in the first 3 occurences of the terms in Gen 1.
doesn't that interest you? aren't you the least bit curious about what clues God might be leaving you as to what it means?
or is it so much easier just to name call--Scripture twister?

 

[vossler]

this is exactly what makes talking to YECists so difficult. i desire to understand what God is saying in the text. a big hint is that the words morning and evening are not being used in their normal definitions. i point this out and you accuse me of twisting Scripture.

O.K. maybe I jumped the gun there a bit with the twisting accusation. I'm sorry. I just get tired of having to discuss rather simple and straight-forward Scriptural text in order to allow discussions that, IMO, minimize or change the meaning of said text. The only thing not 'normal' in this text is the fact that our measurement device, the sun, which we use to determine what a day is, wasn't present yet. However, what confusion that might arise from it here, in days 1 through 3, is eliminated in days 4 through 6. There the same terms are used within the same context, therefore whatever uncertainty one might have had should be eliminated and is no longer warranted.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

O.K. maybe I jumped the gun there a bit with the twisting accusation. I'm sorry. I just get tired of having to discuss rather simple and straight-forward Scriptural text in order to allow discussions that, IMO, minimize or change the meaning of said text. The only thing not 'normal' in this text is the fact that our measurement device, the sun, which we use to determine what a day is, wasn't present yet. However, what confusion that might arise from it here, in days 1 through 3, is eliminated in days 4 through 6. There the same terms are used within the same context, therefore whatever uncertainty one might have had should be eliminated and is no longer warranted.

the length of a day, as well as the terms morning and evening, are to us terms deeply embedded in our scientific worldview.



take another example.
the song "age of aquarius", what does that mean?
a day is the time it takes for the earth to rotate around it's axis. it is so normal, so common sense to us that we miss how much knowledge it requires and how long it took this to be the average person's ideas.

a round earth.
that rotates in space. not just around it's axis but around the sun.

what is so important about the issue?
because the Bible does not include a dictionary, we have to work out how the original readers thought about the words.

morning and evening are being used as refrains in a song, they are repetition markers, separators, dividers. pointing at the significance of the Creation Week. they are literary first, demonstrating that the Creation Week is a complex metaphor, not a scientific treatise, for if it were scientific the definitions would fix what we know about the sun, earth and what forms days and nights. it doesn't.

 

[Numenor]

That was a really good OP, it is sad that it got no real attention in the responses.

It's sad that the OP is nothing but a rehash of vossler's "scientists are godless" rhetoric.

 

[Numenor]

O.K. maybe I jumped the gun there a bit with the twisting accusation. I'm sorry.

No no you didn't jump the gun, you merely betrayed you true opinion of TEs, we are twisters/compromiser/redefiners of terms. As wiltor already pointed out, you don't see that your interpretation of scripture is based on a post-enlightenment rationalist framework. You are influenced by Voltaire, Hume and Rousseau more than you realise, and we know what kind of guys they were.

 

[Gwenyfur]

must we

?????

 

[vossler]

the length of a day, as well as the terms morning and evening, are to us terms deeply embedded in our scientific worldview.

take another example.
the song "age of aquarius", what does that mean?
a day is the time it takes for the earth to rotate around it's axis. it is so normal, so common sense to us that we miss how much knowledge it requires and how long it took this to be the average person's ideas.

a round earth.
that rotates in space. not just around it's axis but around the sun.

what is so important about the issue?
because the Bible does not include a dictionary, we have to work out how the original readers thought about the words.

morning and evening are being used as refrains in a song, they are repetition markers, separators, dividers. pointing at the significance of the Creation Week. they are literary first, demonstrating that the Creation Week is a complex metaphor, not a scientific treatise, for if it were scientific the definitions would fix what we know about the sun, earth and what forms days and nights. it doesn't.

Just think, if common words like evening, morning, and day are as complex and complicated as you would purport them to be, is it any wonder why people don't want to read their Bibles? Who wants to be continually told that what they are reading doesn't mean what they think it does and I (whoever that may be, pastor, theologian, etc.) have the answers as to their meaning. Then you find out there are countless other 'experts' who believe it means something totally different.

That's exactly what's happening with Genesis.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Just think, if common words like evening, morning, and day are as complex and complicated as you would purport them to be, is it any wonder why people don't want to read their Bibles? Who wants to be continually told that what they are reading doesn't mean what they think it does and I (whoever that may be, pastor, theologian, etc.) have the answers as to their meaning. Then you find out there are countless other 'experts' who believe it means something totally different.

That's exactly what's happening with Genesis.

let me understand this argument.

the issues can not be complex because if they were complex then people could not trust that their first naive common sense reading of Scripture. And this implicit naive trust of Scripture vs a difficult expert study of Scripture is obviously what God intends for us to believe about Scripture, because the experts can not agree.


ok.
then tell me how your normal naive common sense unsophisticated not-expert interpretation can understand the words morning and evening before there was:
a globe, a globe in rotation around its axis, a sun, the earth's rotation around the sun? all those elements are crucial to the current definition of day, night, morning, evening. the very same definition you use when you get up in the morning and thank God for safety during the night and for the blessings of a new day while watching the sun rise in the east....

at the very least, morning evening and day MUST change definition and meaning between the 3rd and 4th days of creation week. something that has been recognized for at least 1500 years, if a scientific definition of these terms is what God intends for us to use.

 

[theFijian]

Just think, if common words like evening, morning, and day are as complex and complicated as you would purport them to be, is it any wonder why people don't want to read their Bibles? Who wants to be continually told that what they are reading doesn't mean what they think it does and I (whoever that may be, pastor, theologian, etc.) have the answers as to their meaning. Then you find out there are countless other 'experts' who believe it means something totally different.

Is it any wonder people don't want to read their bibles when in one place it tells you we're justified by faith alone and then another bit says that we're justified by works and not by faith alone. Who wants to be told that what they're reading doesn't really mean what they think it does?

Sad to see that anti-intellectualism is just as rampant in the church as it ever was.

 

[shernren]

the issues can not be complex because if they were complex then people could not trust that their first naive common sense reading of Scripture. And this implicit naive trust of Scripture vs a difficult expert study of Scripture is obviously what God intends for us to believe about Scripture, because the experts can not agree.

The "cheque" mentality - working so hard to defend the scriptures without working even harder to "cash in" on what they actually mean. Sure, it's convenient and pragmatic to say "The meaning is self-evidently obvious! Forget hermeneutical scholarship and all that blah!". It may even be right. But it really knocks YECism off its "us against them infidels" high moral ground.

(I liked the cheque analogy but is there a more self-evident, concise way to name this style of thinking? I was toying with the "Taj Mahal mentality", but I did a little Internet search for the story of Taj Mahal's builder throwing his wife's body out and guess what ... it isn't found anywhere at all. Not even in Wikipedia's "legends and myths" section on Taj Mahal. Guess where it started?

Christian devotional.

Sigh.)

 

[vossler]

As the Fijian has so accurately demonstrated and already implied, one must be an intellectual in order to understand biblical truths. This proves the point I've been trying to make all along.

let me understand this argument.

the issues can not be complex because if they were complex then people could not trust that their first naive common sense reading of Scripture. And this implicit naive trust of Scripture vs a difficult expert study of Scripture is obviously what God intends for us to believe about Scripture, because the experts can not agree.

The issues are complex enough without making the definitions of simple words complex. Why make things more difficult when it isn't required?

ok.
then tell me how your normal naive common sense unsophisticated not-expert interpretation can understand the words morning and evening before there was:
a globe, a globe in rotation around its axis, a sun, the earth's rotation around the sun? all those elements are crucial to the current definition of day, night, morning, evening. the very same definition you use when you get up in the morning and thank God for safety during the night and for the blessings of a new day while watching the sun rise in the east....

What you're forgetting is that Genesis was written for us so that we might understand it. I don't believe God wanted us to complicate matters by repeatedly asking ourselves whether what He said is actually what He said. We all know what morning, evening and day mean and so He used those simple words to convey His complex message. I believe only someone unwilling to accept such simple truths that don't correspond with their own intellect would ever enter a discussion about the definition of such plain and simple words as those.

at the very least, morning evening and day MUST change definition and meaning between the 3rd and 4th days of creation week. something that has been recognized for at least 1500 years, if a scientific definition of these terms is what God intends for us to use.

There you go trying to complicate matters again. Why can't we just accept the text for what it says instead of trying to make more out of it. What benefit is there in that? What do you glean from this change? The first 3 days were billions of years and the last three days were actual days?

I can't see anything that would lead me to believe that God wants us to us a scientific definition of any term, much less evening, morning or day.

 

[Mallon]

The issues are complex enough without making the definitions of simple words complex. Why make things more difficult when it isn't required?

I completely agree with vossler, here. Which is why I believe God did not dictate an actual scientific account of Creation to the Genesis author(s), but rather an easy-to-understand allegory. If God had used concepts entirely unheard of the Genesis author(s) (like "evolution", "Big Bang", "nuclear fusion", etc.), it would have no meaning to them. The only people capable of understanding such a story would be us, here in the 21st century.

 

[gluadys]

take another example.
the song "age of aquarius", what does that mean?

This is also based in astronomy. It is the period of time when, due to the precession of the equinox, the vernal equinox occurs in the constellation of Aquarius.

It's not just an astrological myth. Though, as with many things astronomical, the astrologers conjure up mystical meanings for it.

 

[gluadys]

I can't see anything that would lead me to believe that God wants us to us a scientific definition of any term, much less evening, morning or day.

Now you are sounding like a TE.

You are absolutely right. God didn't intend the words to be understood scientifically.

But when you insist on a literal reading, you are insisting that they be understood scientifically.

Since that was not God's intention, why insist on it? Why not recognize that literally, the earth, the universe is as old as science claims it to be, but in Genesis, it is explained simply as occurring in 6 days, with no intent that this be understood as science?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Now you are sounding like a TE.

You are absolutely right. God didn't intend the words to be understood scientifically.

But when you insist on a literal reading, you are insisting that they be understood scientifically.

Since that was not God's intention, why insist on it? Why not recognize that literally, the earth, the universe is as old as science claims it to be, but in Genesis, it is explained simply as occurring in 6 days, with no intent that this be understood as science?

i'd like to expand a little bit on bolded statement. when someone says "i use the literal hermeneutical principle" or something similiar, they are not using just a simple principle: that words are words are words, take things at face value, in their simplest possible meaning. They are importing an entire array of ideas:
Scottish common sense realism, via the Princeton seminary greats, cultural things like historicism, scientism, modern notions like what is a day?

it is seductive to think that you are reading things simply and literally, however there is nothing either simple or particularly literal in the hermeneutic. It is thoroughly modern, shot through and through with ideas about the reality of history and the epistemology of science.

that is why looking at what is a day, a night, morning and evening to us versus what they meant to the ancient Hebrews is instructive.
they saw night and day as attributes of the universe. The whole universe was dark when it was night in Israel, the whole universe was light when it was day in Israel. common sense apparent to the man in the 2nd millennium BC street. The sun literally rises in the east. the earth is fixed. This is the context of Genesis. and it doesn't do anyone any good to skip over this analysis and jump right into what Gen 1 means to me in the 21st C......

....

 

[rmwilliamsll]

This is also based in astronomy. It is the period of time when, due to the precession of the equinox, the vernal equinox occurs in the constellation of Aquarius.

It's not just an astrological myth. Though, as with many things astronomical, the astrologers conjure up mystical meanings for it.

i like to use K.Armstrong's mythos, trying to break that cultural programming of myth=false story.

myth has meaning, stories with themes and big take home points. The ancients anchored their mythos often in the sky. it dominates roughly half of their lives, although because of electric lights far less in importance to us. we don't go out much at night and look at the sky, and when we do our light pollution oftens keeps us from seeing very much.

but think about the fact that ancient man, in several places, detected the precession of the equinoxes and knew the length of time it took (roughly 25K years), and yet most people here and in our societies, despite the popular song, still don't know it.

but our explanatory technique for explaining it differs greatly from the ancients. what they saw as a great battle we attribute not to personality but to motion.

worth working more on.
see:
The Origins of the Mithraic Mysteries : Cosmology and Salvation in the Ancient World by David Ulansey

 

[vossler]

Now you are sounding like a TE.

I don't think I'll be accepted into the brotherhood anytime soon.

Why not recognize that literally, the earth, the universe is as old as science claims it to be, but in Genesis, it is explained simply as occurring in 6 days, with no intent that this be understood as science?

I can almost go where you're trying to lead me because the science of it all plays little to no significance for me. Yet where I must deviate is the with the words of the Bible. They are important to me and I can't dismiss that as easily. If the Bible hadn't used the Words evening, morning, and numbered days I'd be with you.