My Genesis 1 Hypothetical Challenge

[Belk]

God showing up.

Seconded.

 

[klutedavid]

The earth is considered as having been created on Day One.

Not so, the earth was definitely before the light!

Genesis 1:2-3
And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”

 

[Frank Robert]

If God showed up and took you back in time to the Creation Week, and you saw the events of the Creation Week occur just as outlined in Genesis 1, what single event would surprise you the most?

Angiosperms before the sun? the earth as the first object in the universe with mass? starlight from hundreds and thousands of light years away? whales before land animals? man from the dust of the ground? woman from Adam's rib?

What exactly would surprise you the most?

(And please don't make this into a "God is deceptive" thread.)

If God then sent me back to the present I would be surprised that he planted overwhelming evidence for a 13 billion year old universe, a 4.5 billion year old earth and evolution from a universal common ancestor.

 

[SkyWriting]

That the vegetables tasted surprisingly good without cooking.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

I gots no belly button.

 

[Abaxvahl]

Not so, the earth was definitely before the light!

Genesis 1:2-3
And the earth was a formless and desolate emptiness, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light”

That's true but the Earth was created just before that: "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day."

This is all considered the "one day" to my knowledge.

 

[klutedavid]

That's true but the Earth was created just before that: "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day."

This is all considered the "one day" to my knowledge.

It is assumed that the earth was created slightly before the first day. The scripture does not say it was. So why would anyone assume that the earth was created at the same time?

 

[AV1611VET]

It is assumed that the earth was created slightly before the first day.

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Sorry, David, I don't see that.

 

[Torah Keeper]

1. At the end of day 5, we would not see any celestial objects (stars, galaxies, nebula, etc.) that are more than 1 light day away. When Adam looked up into the sky, he would not see anything further that 6 light days away. This means only the sun, the moon, and the planets. No stars would have appeared until 4.7 years after he was created. Even today we should only be able to see less than 10000 stars all of which are in our own corner of our galaxy. We should see no galaxies or any other deep space objects. The light from all these objects have only traveled 6000 light years in our direction. Yet we mysteriously can see galaxies that are more than 14 billion light years away. How?
Some suggest that God created the light between these far away objects and the earth. He essentially wrote a fiction, a book in the form of a light beam stretching from the object to earth. It would be a book of fiction because the things this beam of light is relating never happened. All the variations we are seeing today in celestial objects never happened. All these things we are seeing would have had to happen billions of years before the earth (or the objects) even existed.
2. Dinosaur Fossils. Also, If Adam had traveled to the nearest limestone outcropping, he would have found fossils that were millions and, in some cases, billions of years old. Limestone is made from the bodies of microscopic sea creatures. His descendants would have made powder from diatomaceous earth: the bodies of ancient sea creatures that died and fell to the sea floor millions of years before Adam existed. When Herod build his temple, he would have used limestone from quarries hundreds of millions of years old. None of these things should even exist.
3. Volcanic mountains. Adam would have found long dead volcanos. He may have traveled to the Siberian "traps" where billions of square meters of lava cover 3 million square miles of Siberia. These traps are estimated to be over 500 million years old.
4. If Adam perchance traveled to east Africa, he would have found human remains dating from 100 thousand to 7 million years old. He could have journeyed to Israel and France and found the remains of Neanderthal creatures that were very similar to modern man. He would have found cave paintings that were over 25 thousand years old. If he traveled to the Americas, he would have found the remains of the Clovis people, dated over 12 thousand years old. This people would have ceased to exist 8 thousand years before Adam existed.
---------------------
Essentially, Adam, upon leaving the garden of Eden, would have found an earth almost identical to the earth we see today.
The only resolution to this quandary is old earth creationism and theistic evolution.

Everything you just said is based on assumptions. I believe dinosaurs and man coexisted. And I believe the world was created only thousands of years ago, not millions or billions. I would suggest websites such as CMI or ICR, but you will probably ignore it, just as I have no intention of reading "Your Inner Fish".

You are assuming that God wrote fiction because He created something? How does that make sense? If He created Adam and Adam was a full adult, does that mean God made fiction? If God made something, He made it. You have to get rid of your notion that everything in the universe has a natural source that doesn't need God. Because God created it all. God can make light move faster or slower, He can make the universe expand faster than the speed of light, He can do anything He wants. Just because you assume the universe looks old because that is part of your evolutionary belief, does not make it true.

It's circular reasoning. The argument goes like this "We know (assume) that the universe is old because (assumptions). So God deceived us by making the universe look older than it is."

So the reason it looks old to you, is because you already have a presupposition that it is old. Light is in motion. When God created light, was it in motion? Or still? So if God created a universe that He wanted us to see, would He create stars and not the light of the stars?

When God made the sun and moon stand still in the Book of Joshua, was that just an illusion? Did God deceive Joshua?

When God made the shadow on the steps go back for king Hezekiah, was that just fiction?

God is all-powerful. He can make the universe any way He wants.

 

[klutedavid]

Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Sorry, David, I don't see that.

You cannot see that the earth was formless and void, before God said, 'let there be light'?

 

[klutedavid]

That's true but the Earth was created just before that: "In the beginning God created heaven, and earth. And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved over the waters. And God said: Be light made. And light was made. And God saw the light that it was good; and he divided the light from the darkness. And he called the light Day, and the darkness Night; and there was evening and morning one day."

This is all considered the "one day" to my knowledge.

But the earth existed before the light?

Before the first day was announced to have occurred.

The text is an easy read and no need to assume anything.

 

[Abaxvahl]

But the earth existed before the light?

Before the first day was announced to have occurred.

The text is an easy read and no need to assume anything.

I am not assuming anything, from "in the beginning" to "and it was one day" or "the first day" (depends on your text base, LXX or MT) that is the full day. God made the Heavens and the Earth before the light.

 

[AV1611VET]

You cannot see that the earth was formless and void, before God said, 'let there be light'?

That's because it was a mass of water in the hollow of His hand.

Isaiah 40:12 Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, and meted out heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance?

 

[Frank Robert]

Everything you just said is based on assumptions. I believe dinosaurs and man coexisted. And I believe the world was created only thousands of years ago, not millions or billions. I would suggest websites such as CMI or ICR, but you will probably ignore it, just as I have no intention of reading "Your Inner Fish"

Everything A&E, what happened in the garden, if there were humans outside the of the garden or even if there were a garden or the age of the earth, etc depends on the many different Christian religious interpretations and beliefs.

The age of the earth and when dinosaurs, etc is determined by evidence from many independent scientific fields.

Websites like ICR are religious apologetics sites that are meant to reinforce a creationist interpretation of the bible.

If apologetics is your thing then fine but you should have figured it out that apologetics is not a valid argument against evolution and that the literal interpretation of the bible is a creationist belief that is not shared by the majority of Christians.

 

[AV1611VET]

... the literal interpretation of the bible is a creationist belief that is not shared by the majority of Christians.

I get tired of hearing this.

You mean "the majority of Christians TODAY," don't you?

If you factor in every Christian since Antioch, your statement has to change.

 

[Frank Robert]

I get tired of hearing this.

You mean "the majority of Christians TODAY," don't you?

If you factor in every Christian since Antioch, your statement has to change.

I will not apologize for living in modern times with its current knowledge of the sciences. If I was born into a middle class Christian family in 300BC I would likely have have believed similarly to what you believe today.

I am critical of the ID/creationists' understanding of science but I am not anti-religious and I am not criticizing your religious belief when I point out that not all Christians share creationists' beliefs about the bible and/or the ToE.

 

[AV1611VET]

I am not criticizing your religious belief when I point out that not all Christians share creationists' beliefs about the bible and/or the ToE.

I agree with you, Frank.

Not all Christians [today] share creationists' beliefs about the Bible and/or the ToE.

Read the parable of the wheat and tares.

 

[ruthiesea]

If God showed up and took you back in time to the Creation Week, and you saw the events of the Creation Week occur just as outlined in Genesis 1, what single event would surprise you the most?

Angiosperms before the sun? the earth as the first object in the universe with mass? starlight from hundreds and thousands of light years away? whales before land animals? man from the dust of the ground? woman from Adam's rib?

What exactly would surprise you the most?

(And please don't make this into a "God is deceptive" thread.)

I would be surprised that, prior to the creation of the sun, plants and trees could survive with no light at absolute zero

 

[AV1611VET]

I would be surprised that, prior to the creation of the sun, plants and trees could survive with no light at absolute zero

Hmmm ... interesting.

I had never thought of the temp being at Absolute Zero.

No Browning motion going on?

 

[Frank Robert]

I agree with you, Frank.

Not all Christians [today] share creationists' beliefs about the Bible and/or the ToE.

Read the parable of the wheat and tares.

I think the bible should be read keeping in mind that it is a book written for a 3 thousand year old nomadic tribal culture and in an ancient language few people understand today. The point of genesis is simply that YHWH created earth and everything in and to sustain earth. The writers, whether or not inspired by YHWH, needed to write with the knowledge of the time and not ahead of their time.