Barbarian observes:
God never said His creation in general (or man in particular) were perfect. He said it was very good.
What would "very good" mean to God? How high is that standard compared to our "very good" that's the overall point. According to the Bible, God's standard for "good" is pretty high.
Still ignoring a lot of other stuff, but then again after a few back and forths with you, I'm no longer surprised.
I'm just going by what God says. And he never said creation was perfect. So you'll have to take it up with Him, not me.
And yet when it comes to things like Genesis you don't go by what God says. Such inconsistency.
By His standards which are beyond ours. Which by the way there was no actual evil in Creation prior to any being actualizing their potential to do evil. Show me in the text where there is evil in the Creation prior to this.
This would be a state of perfection.
Right. I'll go with God's opinion.
Which is a higher standard than yours. For God to call something "good" or "very good" as He did about the Creation, means it is void of evil. There was no physical evil (death, disease, sickness, ailments) and there was no spiritual evil (sin, fallen nature) at the end of the Creation week.
You're right about "deductive" this time. There are rules for language. And "very good" is not a synonym for "perfect."
The Hebrew words for "good," "very good," and "perfect" are all used to describe fallen people. The Hebrew word for "perfect" is used to describe Noah as "perfect in his generations." It didn't mean that Noah was spiritually perfect and without blemish, but instead he lived an unblemished, upright life in comparison to everything corrupted around him.
Thus, there is no reason
tamim, the word often translated "perfect" would have been used instead of the words for "good" and "very good" since the word
tov was already used several times in the Genesis 1 narrative. Thus, phrase word
me’od tov makes sense linguistically.
Either way, both were used to describe the "goodness" or "rightness" of sinful human beings.
Therefore, you need to consider the context of tov and me'od tov's use in Genesis. The sinless state at the time, the lack of evil being actualized at the time, etc.
Don't know how else to put this.
If you don't use words as they are commonly defined, you'll always be confused.
I respect word definitions a great deal, but I also understand you need context since words can have more than one meaning. Take
tov for instance. It means the following according to
Strong's:
1) good, pleasant, agreeable (
adjective)
1a) pleasant, agreeable (to the senses)
1b) pleasant (to the higher nature)
1c) good, excellent (of its kind)
1d) good, rich, valuable in estimation
1e) good, appropriate, becoming
1f) better (comparative)
1g) glad, happy, prosperous (of man’s sensuous nature)
1h) good understanding (of man’s intellectual nature)
1i) good, kind, benign
1j) good, right (ethical)
2) a good thing, benefit, welfare (
noun masculine)
2a) welfare, prosperity, happiness
2b) good things (collective)
2c) good, benefit
2d) moral good
3) welfare, benefit, good things (
noun feminine)
3a) welfare, prosperity, happiness
3b) good things (collective)
3c) bounty
The adverb
me'od used to modify the adjective means according to
Strong's:
1) exceedingly, much (
adverb)
2) might, force, abundance (
substantive)
3) muchness, force, abundance, exceedingly (
noun masculine)
3a) force, might
3b) exceedingly, greatly, very (idioms showing magnitude or degree)
3b1) exceedingly
3b2) up to abundance, to a great degree, exceedingly
3b3) with muchness, muchness
So you have to look at the context as well as the definition. Oh look, one of the definitions of
tov is "good,
excellent (of its kind)." Hmmm...wonder if that could be close to perfect. Hmmmmm? In English it is, see
synonyms of Perfect.
But that's in English. In Hebrew what's translated "very good" could also be translated "Exceedingly good" or "especially good" as in beyond just being moderately good. Based on the context, it's meaning is obvious. It means a "goodness" beyond what we call "good." God's standard.