Genesis

[FaithfulPilgrim]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

 

[ICONO'CLAST]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

The Genesis account is the truth as written. The other writings are unbelief.
The sabbath was based on the creation week.
Jesus spoke of Genesis events as literal, Adam, Eve, Sin, Flood etc
click on and listen to this sermon
Six Days & The Eisegesis Problem

 

[Halbhh]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

So much to tell you, but the purpose of chapter 1 of Genesis is to alter one's state of mind.

It's not going to be some silly doctrine like a version of creationism over other version, not this version or that.

It's God!

We must put aside all the assessing and doctrines and interpretations and arguments and thoughts (even!)...and just listen, fully, without needing it to be something or another, without need it to prove or modify some theory of creationism, any one.

The way to read is as if you just woke up in the dawn of the world, and for the first time ever heard the words.


The reason God didn't give us trivial details like how much time passed during verse one (which may have been billions of years), before verse 2....is...because....it ultimately does not matter at all!

What is mere time in the face of the Lord God, the Maker of Heaven and Earth?

A thousand years are like a day for the Lord, we know (from scripture), and that means a billion years are perhaps like only an enjoyable month.

So, even while I might want to tweak a word or 2 in this wonderful song, it's in a way entirely perfect --

 

[ewq1938]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

Theistic evolution/old Earth is what I believe in. God left clues about such things in His creation.

 

[St_Worm2]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

Hi FaithfulPilgrim, if you've not seen this recent movie, it is worth watching .. Is Genesis History?

Sadly, it is no longer free on Netflix, but you can stream it in HD from Amazon Prime Video or from their website (www.isgenesishistory.com) for $4.00, I think. Go here.

The movie's cast is as follows:

• Kevin Anderson, PhD – Microbiologist
• Steve Austin, PhD – Geologist
• Steven Boyd, PhD – Hebraist
• Robert Carter, PhD – Marine Biologist
• Arthur Chadwick, PhD – Taphonomist
• Danny Faulkner, PhD – Astronomer
• George Grant, PhD – Pastor
• Paul Nelson, PhD – Philosopher of Science
• Douglas Petrovich, PhD – Archeologist

• Marcus Ross, PhD – Paleontologist
• Andrew Snelling, PhD – Geologist
• Kurt Wise, PhD – Paleontologist
• Todd Wood, PhD – Biologist
• Stuart Burgess, PhD – Mechanical Engineer (Bonus Features)
• Douglas Kelly, PhD – Theologian (Bonus Features)
• Larry Vardiman, PhD – Atmospheric Physicist (Bonus Features)

Here’s an overview of topics explored in the film:

• Paradigms
• Created Kinds
• Fossil Record
• DNA
• Transitional Forms
• Historic Views
• Evolution
• Ecosystems

• Global Flood
• Starlight
• Tower of Babel
• Big Bang
• Rock Layers
• Genealogies
• Isotope Dating
• Beauty

• Hebrew Text
• Dinosaurs
• Epochs of History
• Neanderthals
• Nautiloids
• Soft Tissue
• Coal Formation
• And much more…

There are also many videos to watch in addition to the feature film, which go much deeper into the various sciences and evidence than the feature film had time to do.

--David

 

[HTacianas]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

There is no doctrinal teaching on how to view the book of Genesis, excepting that, as the Nicene Creed states, "we believe in one God, the Father Almighty, creator of all things...".

You may believe what you wish to believe about the creation story.

 

[Serving Zion]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

I still have not found a perfect answer as to how Genesis came to be written. There is three different possibilities:

• It may have been passed down through the generations, from the first-hand knowledge that Adam and Eve had.
• It may have been divinely inspired (told by God to a writer).
• It may have been mythology that became so central to the philosophy in the faith, that it became regarded as fact.

Whichever explanation is true, it has an impact on the regard we should have for it's authority to make statements of fact.

There is some fact about the English translation of it though, that is interesting for anyone who has become accustomed to read it as though it speaks of the world being made in seven literal days.

It was actually another member who wrote about it, and I found it such a good explanation that I have made it into a printable PDF booklet so I can give it to people who are interested.

----------

Translators make choices, and people who think like Western legalists then read the Scriptures, in English, as though they were statutes written by God. Perhaps they are, but if they are going to be treated that way, each word in Hebrew has to be translated into English with a variety of meanings, and the understanding that the Hebrew embraces all of those meanings. And imperfect verbs must be rendered with a future sense.

To understand what Genesis says, you have to accept that the verbs are open and incomplete - the imperfect tense. Everything you have ever read has the verbs in the perfect tense, the actions completed. And everything you have ever read is wrong. The verbs are imperfect in Hebrew, and the Hebrew is the only real Scripture.

The key takeaway is that Ancient Hebrew verbs are not based on the time principle, but on the completeness or incompletion of action. It's a difficult way to think, and when you do start to think that way, it isn't pleasant, because it starts to change some "settled" Biblical understandings rather radically. But if you want to understand what God actually SAID, you MUST do that. Otherwise you're reading a story in which things happened in a certain fixed way, but the Scriptures say differently.

- by @Vicomte13, February 2016

Read the full article here: https://static.adonai-reigns.life/hotlinks/hebrew-english-lost-in-translation.pdf

 

[Vicomte13]

I still have not found a perfect answer as to how Genesis came to be written. There is three different possibilities:

• It may have been passed down through the generations, from the first-hand knowledge that Adam and Eve had.
• It may have been divinely inspired (told by God to a writer).
• It may have been mythology that became so central to the philosophy in the faith, that it became regarded as fact.

Whichever explanation is true, it has an impact on the regard we should have for it's authority to make statements of fact.

There is some fact about the English translation of it though, that is interesting for anyone who has become accustomed to read it as though it speaks of the world being made in seven literal days.

It was actually another member who wrote about it, and I found it such a good explanation that I have made it into a printable PDF booklet so I can give it to people who are interested.

----------

Translators make choices, and people who think like Western legalists then read the Scriptures, in English, as though they were statutes written by God. Perhaps they are, but if they are going to be treated that way, each word in Hebrew has to be translated into English with a variety of meanings, and the understanding that the Hebrew embraces all of those meanings. And imperfect verbs must be rendered with a future sense.

To understand what Genesis says, you have to accept that the verbs are open and incomplete - the imperfect tense. Everything you have ever read has the verbs in the perfect tense, the actions completed. And everything you have ever read is wrong. The verbs are imperfect in Hebrew, and the Hebrew is the only real Scripture.

The key takeaway is that Ancient Hebrew verbs are not based on the time principle, but on the completeness or incompletion of action. It's a difficult way to think, and when you do start to think that way, it isn't pleasant, because it starts to change some "settled" Biblical understandings rather radically. But if you want to understand what God actually SAID, you MUST do that. Otherwise you're reading a story in which things happened in a certain fixed way, but the Scriptures say differently.

- by @Vicomte13, February 2016

Read the full article here: https://static.adonai-reigns.life/hotlinks/hebrew-english-lost-in-translation.pdf

Thanks for mentioning me. You might enjoy going through Genesis 1 with me. It's such a complex, layered document. There is a spectrum of things that it can be read to say. For me it has been helpful to know the parameters laid out.

 

[Halbhh]

Thanks for mentioning me. You might enjoy going through Genesis 1 with me. It's such a complex, layered document. There is a spectrum of things that it can be read to say. For me it has been helpful to know the parameters laid out.

I'd love to be included if you 2 have a study progression through it.

 

[Halbhh]

I still have not found a perfect answer as to how Genesis came to be written. There is three different possibilities:

• It may have been passed down through the generations, from the first-hand knowledge that Adam and Eve had.
• It may have been divinely inspired (told by God to a writer).
• It may have been mythology that became so central to the philosophy in the faith, that it became regarded as fact.

Whichever explanation is true, it has an impact on the regard we should have for it's authority to make statements of fact.

There is some fact about the English translation of it though, that is interesting for anyone who has become accustomed to read it as though it speaks of the world being made in seven literal days.

It was actually another member who wrote about it, and I found it such a good explanation that I have made it into a printable PDF booklet so I can give it to people who are interested.

----------

Translators make choices, and people who think like Western legalists then read the Scriptures, in English, as though they were statutes written by God. Perhaps they are, but if they are going to be treated that way, each word in Hebrew has to be translated into English with a variety of meanings, and the understanding that the Hebrew embraces all of those meanings. And imperfect verbs must be rendered with a future sense.

To understand what Genesis says, you have to accept that the verbs are open and incomplete - the imperfect tense. Everything you have ever read has the verbs in the perfect tense, the actions completed. And everything you have ever read is wrong. The verbs are imperfect in Hebrew, and the Hebrew is the only real Scripture.

The key takeaway is that Ancient Hebrew verbs are not based on the time principle, but on the completeness or incompletion of action. It's a difficult way to think, and when you do start to think that way, it isn't pleasant, because it starts to change some "settled" Biblical understandings rather radically. But if you want to understand what God actually SAID, you MUST do that. Otherwise you're reading a story in which things happened in a certain fixed way, but the Scriptures say differently.

- by @Vicomte13, February 2016

Read the full article here: https://static.adonai-reigns.life/hotlinks/hebrew-english-lost-in-translation.pdf

Yes, quite interesting. There are a number of places in the Bible where the tense isn't as expected and/or is not definite, but I hadn't considered Genesis 1 to be definitely that way, though I did have a feeling of that, because I'd read it in many versions, including Young's Literal --

1 In the beginning of God’s preparing the heavens and the earth — 2 the earth hath existed waste and void, and darkness [is] on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God fluttering on the face of the waters,
3 and God saith, ‘Let light be;’ and light is.

So, I think I'll look in that link.

 

[Vicomte13]

I'd love to be included if you 2 have a study progression through it.

We can go through it together, sure. Let's do it in a sidebar somewhere.

 

[Doctor.Sphinx]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

To believe in Old Earth Creationism causes more problems. What evidence for an Old Earth in particular causes you to doubt? Radiometric dating is easily explained in terms of a Young Earth.

 

[Halbhh]

To believe in Old Earth Creationism causes more problems. What evidence for an Old Earth in particular causes you to doubt? Radiometric dating is easily explained in terms of a Young Earth.

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

Just a note to everyone.

Many different sciences show the Earth is very old, as the Bible seems to say at times, for instance Deuteronomy 33:15 with the best of the ancient mountains and the bounty of the everlasting hills, (while unclear how old 'ancient' is, 'everlasting' doesn't sound like just a few thousand years; but this isn't proof, just suggestive).

But the Earth being very old (much older than 6,000 years) fits Genesis chapter 1, also!

God intentionally did not say how much time passed during Genesis 1:1, before verse 2 came about.

This unknown amount of time during which He created the Universe and the Earth and our solar system -- the time before the Spirit hovered over the landless waters of Earth in Genesis 1:2 -- we are not told this amount of time anywhere in the Bible.

That's because it ultimately does not matter. Why would a billion years matter to the Eternal One?

To the Lord God Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth? For Whom a thousand years is merely like a day.

But it does matter if someone preaches a young Earth as if that is about believing in God -- as if the Bible said somewhere the age of the Earth more exactly, which it does not -- thus creating the illusion that blocks some that would seek God from even reading the Bible, because of this wrongful preaching some do to claim Bible says the Earth is so young.

Each person turned away by the preaching of a young Earth might be put on the account of those doing this preaching when they preach the idea as if it is the Bible.

Those blocked from the Bible on account of this wrongful preaching -- how will we bring them the real gospel if they already have learned the Bible appears false because Earth must be older than that. We have to pray hard and tell them the true scripture, the real gospel.

------------
Just trigonometry (not complex nor ambiguous) used to measure how much stars that shift in apparent location against (more distant) background stars as the Earth orbits the sun...
and 2nd, learning how speed and distance traveled relate and then measuring the speed of light...
together these are enough to show how far away nearby stars are in distance and thys also in how much time is required for their light to travel to us.

We can measure the real speed of light in an easy and clear way even many or most high school students could do.

The classic experiment from the 19th century, often repeated by physics students --
We use a brief pulse of light split into 2 parts.
A single brief pulse of light is split in half and the two pluses that came from the same moment in time then can be directed with mirrors to travel 2 paths of different lengths -- this will show the speed of light.
I've personally done this experiment myself with my own measuring in a physic lab with a laser, and a rotating beam interrupter (to create the pulses) and a semi-reflecting mirror (to split the pulse into 2) and rotating mirror (to create an angular separation of the returning 2 pulses when they return).

Just this way of using geometry and measuring distance allows a very simple way to measure the speed of light many (probably most) high school students could learn to understand in less than 30 or 40 minutes. And then they could do it too.

Having the speed of light known, and then 2nd seeing how nearby stars shift in apparent position against the background of more distant stars 6 months apart in time as the Earth orbits the sun -- together make an easy way to figure out the distances to nearby star distances out to about 10,000 light-years, if multiple measurements are made, so that we can calculate and then subtract out the transverse (sideways to us) movement of the star itself (sometimes people get confused by this fact that all stars have relative motion compared to us, and this is why parallax requires multiple measurements to figure out this motion so it can be subtracted, but again, it's not complex math, not esoteric theory. Also some get confused by wording where we consider some relatively isolated background stars to have 'negative parallax' compared to multiple foreground stars, just a convention of language.)

This parallax measurement works out to about 10,000 light years currently, with the Hubble telescope and recent improved techniques for super accurate measurements.

Consider: light from a star 10,000 light-years away has traveled for 10,000 years to arrive at Earth.

And the stars in the background that do not shift shows those stars are are further away than 10,000 light-years, meaning their light is older yet. They have existed even longer.

And then next, astronomers noticed a certain kind of star that has a reliable level of brightness compared to it's period of pulsation, and this particular kind of star itself is a good measuring stick to figure out distances to nearby galaxies -- which turn out to be on the order of millions of light years, meaning that light from those galaxies, like Andromeda, was emitted millions of years ago(!)...or alternatively that God created those light beams from those galaxies out in space nearby to us, to make them appear older than they are, but few think that's a likelihood, since we already can see plainly in scripture that God specifically has not said how much time passed in Genesis 1:1. It's more likely the light is just as old as it appears to be, and billions of years passed during Genesis 1:1. But a billion years isn't much compared to the Lord God.

 

[Halbhh]

How are we to view the book of Genesis?

I was raised a Young Earth Creationist and accepted all of it as literally true, but I started exploring evolution and Old Earth Creationism, and started doubting the credibility of a young earth.

I guess I lean towards Old Earth Creationism now, but I find some arguments for evolution to be compelling, and since so many people accept it as scientific fact, there has to be at least some merit to the idea.

Is the Creation account in Genesis a literal historical recording of how God crested the world, or is its purpose just to show that God is sovereign over all things and the sin, moon and other objects are created by him, and not deities to be worshiped?

I still accept much of the OT as being historically true, though, even the part of Genesis after the Creations Week.

Thoughts?

How concrete is the vision of Genesis chapter 1?

Continuing from post #13 just above, once we know as believers that the Earth is very old, we might wonder how concretely to take the wonderful, inspiring wording of the vision of Genesis chapter 1. We know that in the Bible visions are stylized normally -- representing reality symbolically instead of being a video like recording of reality. Over and over we see this in the visions.

Even after one reads this chapter with deep listening and is transported into a different state of mind....

Still, at some later time, they still may wonder: How concrete the Genesis 1 vision is -- for some people this matters significantly.

Until recently, I never worried about Genesis chapter 1 though I knew Earth was about 4.55 billion years old.

I had no trouble with Genesis 1 at all, thinking of it as a powerful and wonderful Poem of Creation.

But I also read routinely in astrophysics and other sciences, as a longtime interest -- thousands and thousands of articles over the years -- though it's less interesting at this point in my life than what Christ says.

One day it hit me suddenly, after reading another of the endless articles about planetary formation, that the Genesis 1 vision could be more concrete than I'd guessed....

All at once I suddenly began seeing how a variety of leading mainstream science theories about the formation of Earth and our solar system fit Genesis chapter 1 perfectly.

I was very surprised.

See, scientists have gradually realized for instance that Earth was at one point a water world, with no dry land yet...

And that's just one of several perfect alignments between the leading mainstream science theories and the text of Genesis chapter 1.

Each verse! Each verse has mainstream science theories now that fit it. Example: from the point of view of being on the Earth surface, the sun would be unseen but already causing the day and night cycle early on Earth, even just after formation, and continuing at least on the order of a billion (or 2 or even more) years of always cloudy days, even long after life began (earlier than once thought according to recent fossil discoveries).

That fits Genesis 1 perfectly.

In the vision of chapter 1, the sun, moon, stars would not be visible yet (until a later day, the first day in the vision with clear skies), but day/night, land, life would be ongoing already. Because the point of view of the vision would always be from the surface of Earth, not out in space like some modern astronomy video....

So I began to see it as surprisingly more than just a powerful Poem.

Not just affecting and symbolically true, but representative of concrete moments in time -- widely spaced days even -- much more so than I ever had supposed.

This isn't crucial to most people, this question of things like how old is the Earth, I think. They don't worry about it, don't base their faith on it.

But it may help some, however few, some small portion of people ( but 0.5% of America on the other hand is still many).

I'm not sure how often to share it. On the one hand we don't want ideologues for young Earth (who preach it even, constantly) to block seekers from even reading the Bible, but how serious is this blocking -- what portion of seekers realize it's just some individuals preaching their own ideology? On the other hand, how many of believers have been tripped into a loss of faith by this evangelizing for the young Earth ideology contradicting clear and simple science (as above in post #13)? Is it very few, or a lot?