The Gap Theory

[GenemZ]

Well I'm not here to pick a fight with you genez but regarding what you said about the "created" soul and the "made" body that sounds pretty dualistic to me and I don't really think that is very Biblical.

But, the Bible says its so. So? What does it matter what anyone of us thinks? Its what the Bible says, that matters. Just read the acount of God forming (yatsar) the body of Adam from the elements of the earth. Was that body formed alive? It was not alive until God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils. The body is one thing. The soul is another. If you think that is dualism? Then the Bible teaches dualism.

Are there any other Biblical evidences or agreements from contemporary Jewish philosophy that support the idea that the soul and the body were created separately?

Why don't you also ask..... Are there any other Biblical evidences or agreements from contemporary Jewish philosophy that support the idea that Jesus is the messiah? Why not? Since you have this notion that CJP has all the answers we need. I was brought up a Jew. Unless you are one of the very few that attend Yeshiva, theology is not something most Jews concentrate on. Contemporary Judaism and Christianity are not parallel worlds. They are quite different today. Pre church age Jews who were born again, were theology conscious. Today there are no born again Jews who are Jews. They are Christians once they are born again.

I must admit that this whole area is quite speculative but I believe that Biblical and traditional Hebrew philosophy points more towards a holistic view of man, where soul and body are not separate components.

Frankly, Scarlet. I don't give a _____.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 niv
"May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Man does not have a human spirit until he is born again. That is why Jesus said "Spirit begets spirit."

John 3:5-6 niv
"Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit."

It does not say, flesh gives birth to soul.


Man is a tricotomy when he is saved, born again. He is a dicotomy when he is first born. Body and soul.

It amazes me how some see things as speculative, when others get it in an instant. Because there are those who do get it? Its a sign to me not to try to reason too much with something really not that complex to begin with.

You been taught to think they way you do? Or, you thought that on your own? That's between you and the Lord. It would be like arguing with someone that Jesus is the Messiah. Grace makes certain truths self evident. Not winning a debate. If you wish to believe what you claim? Fine.

Some things are not worth arguing over. Because in certain cases, those one wishes to comfort and defend, already know the truth!

Have a nice Day, GeneZ

 

[shernren]

If you're wondering, I'm not a materialist who believes that man and mind are just empty scientific results of brain chemical interactions. Yes, there are spiritual realities; there are body and mind and soul, but they are not so simply separable and definitely not created separately. I find that understanding the "mind-body dichotomy" properly helps me greatly in my understanding of resurrection, and in practical life helps me greatly to address the traditional false divisions like "secular-sacred", "part time-full time" and "evangelism-social justice". But I trust that you will find the correct and Christian thing to do in these areas without necessarily agreeing with me about the mind and the body and how they are related or not. So if you don't wish to discuss this, I won't press it. I'll just leave you with an interesting book link to spark your investigation and some important passages from that book:

http://www.religion-online.org/showbook.asp?title=2290

(from Chapter 1)
In the course of a pretty long life, I have heard only one sermon which dealt with the subject [of death]. I shall never forget the astonishment, not to say horror, with which the congregation heard the preacher, a visiting monk as it happened, begin his sermon by these words: ‘Every one of you now sitting in front of me is going to be a corpse; and that, within not too many years.’ If the preacher hoped to shock his audience into attention, he certainly succeeded. They listened to what he said after those words; and I suspect that most of them were not able to get over being forced to endure what Henry James, in a very different connection, once styled ‘the shock of recognition’. It was good for them to be forced to do this.

Now the fact of our death is a writing of finis on this our mortal existence. To use an analogy suggested by Professor Charles Hartshorne, it constitutes the last page of our book of life. The story has come to an end; this is its conclusion. It is an inevitable finis; and no good purpose is served by denying that such is the case. I should put it in this fashion: not only do we all die, which is obvious enough, but all of us also dies, which to many may not appear so obvious. We die, body and mind, even ‘soul’ (if that word is right to use here); and all the talk in the world about ‘immortality of the soul’ will not deliver us from this kind of finality.

I am well aware of the hangover of vague religiosity which wants to maintain some such ‘immortality of the soul’, as if there were part of each of us, and the most important part, that did not undergo death. Origins of such a notion go far back in human history, to primitive days when our remote ancestors thought that some special anima indwelt human bodies; it was given additional support by the teaching of certain of the Greeks, with their insistence on the soul as entirely distinct from, yet temporarily the tenant of, the body -- at its most extreme this expressed itself in the saying soma sema, ‘the body is the prison-house of the soul’. At death, for those who took this view, the soul or ‘spirit’ would be released from its captivity in and its bondage to the physical integument which for a time had clothed it; then the soul, taken to be the genuine self, would continue for ever in a state of disembodied existence.

This doctrine is often enough taken to be the Christian way of seeing things. But it is not the biblical view, for what that is worth. In the early days of the Jewish people, death was not seen as such a release; it was taken to be quite definitely final. Some vague and ghostly continuation was granted, in at least some if not all biblical writers; but this continuation was an insignificant and senseless shadow of real life. ‘The dead praise not thee, O Lord, neither they that go down to Sheol’ -- not inappropriately translated in the Authorized Version of the Bible as ‘silence’, for in Sheol nothing transpires, nothing is heard, nothing is known.

In later years in Jewish history, especially with the Maccabean Wars, belief in a ‘resurrection’, rather than in natural immortality, began to make its appearance. With their strongly material stress, the Jews naturally thought of such a restoration in terms of a bodily or fleshly ‘rising’. Later this was given a more ‘spiritual’ interpretation, as in some Pharisaic thinking and in Christian times as in such a view as St. Paul’s in I Corinthians, where there is a ‘physical body’ and a ‘spiritual body’. The latter is not a matter of ‘flesh and blood’, which (he says) ‘cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven’. Rather, it is sort of existence continuous with our life in this world and in the physical body, but not identical with either of these -- it is a mode of existence appropriate to ‘the heavenly places’, although the level or degree of its continuation is to be determined by what has been done ‘in the flesh’.

Christian theologians in later ages engaged in the well-nigh impossible task of holding together the ‘immortality of the soul’ and the ‘resurrection of the body’. The synthesis was never worked out in a consistent and logically intelligible fashion, despite the various devices which were employed in the attempt to do this. Just what happened to the ‘body’ in the interval before the ‘end of the days’; just where and what the continuing ‘soul’ was when separated from that body; just how the two somehow were to be united once again, especially when quite plainly the body had decayed into its several ingredients: these and other questions were never satisfactorily resolved. Hence, as some of us think, the resultant doctrine found in theological text-books under the chapter-heading ‘The Last Things’ or ‘eschatology’ is confused and confusing. But there can be little question that over the years the ‘immortality’ position has been more and more given the primacy, while the ‘resurrection’ position has been explained away or so modified that its basic intention has been forgotten or lost. To that extent, and in that way, an essentially Greek philosophical, rather than a biblical, teaching has been communicated to the great majority of thoughtful believers.

In later chapters I shall attempt to say positively what, as it seems to me, the ‘resurrection’ can be taken to affirm. But for the moment I wish only to insist that one of the consequences of the ‘immortality’ position, for so long presented as essential to Christian belief, has been precisely the tendency to minimize the reality of death and to make it appear blasphemous for anyone to say, as I did in an earlier paragraph, that not only do we all die but that all of us also dies. Yet the evidence which we possess, from our much more complete scientific knowledge, would argue that such is indeed the truth.

(from Chapter 2)

In those days, not least in the thinking of men like St. Thomas Aquinas, the material world was regarded as a good thing, although wrongdoing of various sorts had distorted and perverted it in the forms in which actually we experience it. Grace, or the divine good will and the divine activity, did not ‘destroy nature but perfected it’. So the Angelic Doctor vigorously affirmed. And when he was thinking about human existence itself, he was intent upon saying that a whole human person was compounded of body as well as of soul; in the end, he said, the two would be reunited after the separation which death had brought about. Here, of course, he was thinking in terms of the typical philosophical understanding of his day: soul and body were taken to be distinct but also mutually involved in human existence. He was accepting the immortality of the soul; but he was also urging that a mere soul, without a body of some kind, did not constitute the genuine and complete human person. The soul was for him the form of the body; the body the matter of the soul. The two belonged together in what Aristotelian thought styled the hylo-morphic nature of ‘manhood’. Although his way of working this outmay not appeal to us, with our quite different scientific knowledge, and our own philosophical idiom, the point here is that Aquinas, like the other theologians of the great Christian tradition, was no ‘spiritualist’, denying or minimizing the material world and the physical body and their ways of working. In this sense that tradition was getting at what in our own day we should call the ‘psychosomatic’ constitution of human being. Alas, many of those who would style themselves devout Christians are in fact believers in the Manichean rejection of the world as not only temporal and in the obvious sense ephemeral but also as evil and without spiritual worth. St Thomas fought that position with all his intellectual and religious power.

(from Chapter 3)
To return, however, to the phenomenology of human existence, we may begin simply by reasserting what so far in this chapter has been stated again and again -- namely, that human existence is a body-mind or mind-body complex; and that the two go together in a most intimate and interdependent fashion. A good deal of so-called ‘religious’ discussion has been conducted on altogether too highly spiritual a plane, as if human beings were really nothing but angels who for the time being happened to be resident in a physical abode. Such a view would be more appropriate for proponents of ancient gnostic theories, come alive again in our day, than for those who profess a biblical basis for their religion. None the less, much that has been taught and preached in the Christian churches has resembled this heretical theorizing. Yet we all know that the body and the mind (or soul) are both so much ourselves that we can say with the poet that it is hard to tell ‘whether soul helps body more than body soul’. Our present knowledge of the psychosomatic nature of much human illness, to give but one example, is clear proof that such is indeed the case.

God bless. I am convinced that I am closer to the truth on this; may He correct you if I am indeed correct, or me if I am in fact wrong, and may He forgive us for the many times when we believe what is right but anyway do what is wrong. Have a good day.

 

[justified]

You answer that.

Obviously, you and I do not think along the same lines, even when we do.

If I have to answer that one? Then it indicates that you could not accept the answer. For, you should be able to figure that out for yourself.

If you want to know one of my sources for what I do understand, you can have a "blepo" at the following link.

http://www.rbthieme.org/r_b_.htm

See, giving me a link is at least something. You can't just go around telling people you know what the Hebrew says if you don't know it. I'll take a look at the link later.

 

[Micaiah]

It also refers to a modus operandi of God's. One you are ignoring.

But, I'm not...


In Christ, GeneZ

What you are doing is normally spoken of in the industry as 'twisting the plain meaning of Scripture to make it fit your theory.' Theologians have been doing it for centuries.

 

[shernren]

What you are doing is normally spoken of in the industry as 'twisting the plain meaning of Scripture to make it fit your theory.' Theologians have been doing it for centuries.

Oh, the way they did when they declared transubstantiation wrong?

 

[Micaiah]

I get the impression you are being a little cryptic here Shernan, and I'm not quite sure I follow gist what you are implying. It sounds profound anway.

 

[nephilimiyr]

I have always thought that the latter statement is the reason for the Earth becoming desolate. The Lord only has need to judge sin and evil, yes? If the desolation was caused as a direct result of God's judgemnet alone then He would have been judging what was still perfect, which in effect would be to judge Himself, yes?

No, LOL, God doesn't pass judgment on anything or anybody that has remained perfect. The belief in the judgement is a belief that says there was something or someone living on earth that fell into sin and God then passed judgment. I believe the point is that the earth isn't the subject of the judgment but the destruction of the earth was the means to how God carried out His judgment.

Having learned a little about what others have said regarding the Gap Theory, the resultant impression I have got is to see the Earth detoriate over a very long time and then seeing the Lord bring down His judgement, not by destroying the Earth, but rather like putting it into a deep freeze. A bit like how we use cryogenics. Of course that impression maybe my misinterpretation of what I have heard but...

However the judgment was carried out I don't know. It is suggested by some that Jeremiah shead some light on this when he said this.
Jeremiah 4:23-26, I beheld the earth, and lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. I beheld the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly.
I beheld, and, lo, there was no man, and all the birds of the heavens were fled. I beheld, and, lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger.

Whether or not the earth became without form and void through a long period of time or during one terrible event I do not know for certain but that the earth became without form and void is what I believe.

So this is why I am asking about the physical evidence because for the most part, what I see others who do not hold to the theory, seem to be rejecting it on the basis of no physical evidence to "instant destruction". Yet what I am suggesting is ... is it possible the destruction wasn't instant but over a long time period and that God's judgment is going unseen because we are not looking for the right things or intrepreting the evidence wrong?

I am just thinking out loud here so please bear with me.

Go ahead and think out loud sawdust, you're one person here at CF that I've always love to hear no matter what the subject.

If you saw my first post here in the thread you would've seen me say that I mostly agree with the gap theory but I do have a problem with it because I see no natural evidence for how this planet became without form and void roughly 6,000 years ago. I see the Biblical evidence but not the physical evidence. I side with the "instant destruction" gappers by the way.

 

[nephilimiyr]

Sawdust, as for the theory that when Lucifer fell into sin and millions of angels sided with him that this is what caused the original creation to go bad. I think the belief is that when Lucifer was kicked out of heaven with a host of angels that sided with him they were cast down to earth. The efect of their evil and sin upon the earth changed the earth from being perfect to imperfect, not a direct judgment from God upon the earth. I think in this way a gradual change instead of an instant change from perfect to formless and void would be possible even if an instant destruction having taken place is also possible..

The Bible doesn't ever give us a hint at when Lucifer fell into sin, at least for the gapper we don't see anything sheading light on this. So what you have asked and what some have suggested may be closer to the truth than what I realise.

 

[shernren]

Gee, Micaiah, I suppose that's a compliment Transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and wine during Holy Communion actually become the body and blood of Jesus literally though mysteriously. A little while back we had some discussion on whether or not this was the simple and straightforward interpretation of Jesus' words. If I remember correctly, the only creationist who agreed was Critias, and he actually does believe in it, whereas the other creationists tried to show that it wasn't the simplest and most straightforward interpretation but didn't IMHO. In any case, theology has much advancement by admitting and fixing mistakes, as much as science.

Sawdust: When you think out loud it shows that at least you're thinking. well it's not so much that there is no evidence of a sudden destruction 6000 years ago. Given that it is supposedly God doing the judging, we wouldn't be surprised if we didn't know what to find. But the problem is that there is not a shred (well, one or two if you're looking for them devoutly ) of evidence that our universe was constructed (YEC) or reconstructed (Gap) 6000 years ago. A scientific YEC would expect simply evidence that everything was zapped into being 6000 years ago. A Gap theorist would expect the same, plus tantalizing hints here and there that a few things had been around longer than that. A TE would expect evidence of an old universe and an old earth whose existence has been uninterrupted for billions of years. And guess who gets the evidence he wants.

 

[nephilimiyr]

But the problem is that there is not a shred (well, one or two if you're looking for them devoutly ) of evidence that our universe was constructed (YEC) or reconstructed (Gap) 6000 years ago.

The gap theory doesn't say that the universe was destroyed or the universe was reconstructed, just the earth.

A scientific YEC would expect simply evidence that everything was zapped into being 6000 years ago. A Gap theorist would expect the same, plus tantalizing hints here and there that a few things had been around longer than that.

When it comes to physical evidence a gap theorist like myself does believe that everything living today, plants and animals, got their start roughly 6,000 years ago. Everything else we do believe is the result of an older creation. We don't look for "tanalizing hints" but simply believe the earth as well as the universe and everything it it is old, much older than 6,000 years. Other than believeing that God spoke things into existance most if not all gap theorists don't try to profess to know and sometimes even contemplate how and when God actually created the original creation.

 

[Micaiah]

Gee, Micaiah, I suppose that's a compliment Transubstantiation is the belief that the bread and wine during Holy Communion actually become the body and blood of Jesus literally though mysteriously. A little while back we had some discussion on whether or not this was the simple and straightforward interpretation of Jesus' words. If I remember correctly, the only creationist who agreed was Critias, and he actually does believe in it, whereas the other creationists tried to show that it wasn't the simplest and most straightforward interpretation but didn't IMHO. In any case, theology has much advancement by admitting and fixing mistakes, as much as science.

Yes, please feel free to take that as a compliment. Its about as good as it gets around here so savour the moment.

Its important to discern the appropriate writing style of a passage and not force the style on the text that suits your theory. I think you know what I'm hinting at. Actually in this case this is not a question one of style but rather reading the passage in context.

 

[shernren]

Oh. So I was quite wrong then. So I guess a Gap theorist would be expecting an old universe, an old earth, but young life?

 

[GenemZ]

What you are doing is normally spoken of in the industry as 'twisting the plain meaning of Scripture to make it fit your theory.' Theologians have been doing it for centuries.

What's plain to one person sir, may be another man's doorway through to greater understanding. While some stand there and simply proclaim. "What's all the fuss about? Its only a rectangular piece of constructed wood with a round knob to the right side!"

Philippians 1:9 niv
"And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight."

It amazes me how what can be plainly seen by some, is a blind spot to others. Which all goes to prove, God has set up his plan and will for believers lives, that they are totally and completely free to reject.

It takes more than simple human IQ to see what is needed. Its not black and white as some demand before they will believe something. Insight is derived from what is certain, yet without the correct knowledge of what is certain, insight can not be had. It will seem like someone is twisting.

Maybe I am twsiting. And, maybe I am not. You only see one possibility. And, that's where you wish to remain. Fine. It's a beautiful day outside.


Grace and God's peace, GeneZ

 

[nephilimiyr]

Oh. So I was quite wrong then. So I guess a Gap theorist would be expecting an old universe, an old earth, but young life?

We don't expect to find but just simply believe in an old universe and an old earth. To say that we expect to find would hold the conotation that we are searching for evidence of an old universe and an old earth but the gap theory isn't a theory built upon scientific thought or experiment. The gap theory is solely based upon the word of God written in the Bible. We take the word of God to be mostly literal.

As for young life I have to say the same thing. We don't expect to find that all the life living today is young because we are not searching for physical evidence of this. We believe that since the earth was formless and void, which basically means a wastelend, that no life was present. We do generally believe that there was life before the earth became formless and void but not during the time of.

The verses that follow after the first two verses in Genesis are believed to be God restoring what had once been a perfect earth. The implication then would be that all life that is living today had it's basic start roughly 6,000 years ago.

 

[GenemZ]

Oh. So I was quite wrong then. So I guess a Gap theorist would be expecting an old universe, an old earth, but young life?

That is absolutely correct. God knocked down an old house, and built a new one where the other one once stood. Those digging for worms in the yard discover parts of the old house, and wonder what it can be from. God did it before, and God will do it again.

Isaiah 65:17 niv
"Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind."

What will man find in this new earth?

25 "The wolf and the lamb will feed together,
and the lion will eat straw like the ox,
but dust will be the serpent's food.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,"
says the LORD."

And, if someone living in that creation should so happen to dig up the bones of a lion from this creation? And, a past creation wolf?

"Look at those teeth! Obviously, what we have today has evolved!"

Nope! Its going to be a new creation.

But, it will be the same ground beneath their feet that it was created on. Just like this present creation sits on top of the same soil that the last creation sat upon.

The new creatures may be similar in many respects. But, it does not mean that what they have in the future had evolved from what we have today. The lions and wolves in the next creation will be very similar to what we now have. But, these will be herbivores!

It will be easy to produce a theory that seems logical if one does not know what took place. Very. TOE, all over again!

Yes... We see it today with TOE. We also see the suppression of truth with YEC. The war wages on. Its a lose-lose situation, unless the truth is made known and accepted. But, it will be rejected by many. For, that is the way it is in God's economy when man with free volitions, are also having pride.

In Christ, GeneZ

 

[GenemZ]

The verses that follow after the first two verses in Genesis are believed to be God restoring what had once been a perfect earth. The implication then would be that all life that is living today had it's basic start roughly 6,000 years ago.

6000 years was calculated from the genealogies found in the Bible. But, a problem was later discovered. Just as Jesus Christ is called the "son of David" involves many leaps in leaving names out, so it was with the genealogies to be found. Prominent names found their way into genealogies, with lesser known names not found. There are scholars today that figure this current creation may go back as far as 30,000 years.

And, you have to also keep in mind. When Adam named every single animal that roamed the earth? He was presented each one to study and observe. Each one was his temporary pet, so to speak. That in itself may have taken a very long time. For? Without death? Without of fear of not having enough time to complete a task? It was a totally relaxed situation, and Adam just took one day at a time. How many species of animal exists? Let's say that Adam spent a month with each one... observing and interacting with. Then, giving it a name. A very big chunk of time of this creation passing along could have easily taken place during those years. And, Adam was not bored. Life as we know it did not exist. No pressures to perform. No pressure of time running out. Just take each day and see what it brings.

And, Adam and Eve in the Garden before the fall? No need to be a bread winner? No need to hurry up and start a family before you get too old? Heck.... they may have spent several thousands of years enjoying each other with no in-laws, nor neighbors to be in competition with them.

We have no idea how many centuries passed before Adam and the woman fell. We have no idea how long man was living before the flood. Genealogies skipped many generations. That can add up considering that one generation could live 800 years.

This creation can be quite a bit older than a mere 6000 years old.

Grace and peace, GeneZ

 

[GenemZ]

See, giving me a link is at least something. You can't just go around telling people you know what the Hebrew says if you don't know it. I'll take a look at the link later.

You were doing the same. So?

Shalom! GeneZ

 

[nephilimiyr]

6000 years was calculated from the genealogies found in the Bible. But, a problem was later discovered. Just as Jesus Christ is called the "son of David" involves many leaps in leaving names out, so it was with the genealogies to be found. Prominent names found their way into genealogies, with lesser known names not found. There are scholars today that figure this current creation may go back as far as 30,000 years.

Thanks genez. Let me just say that if they are right or are closer to the correct age of the restoration that that wouldn't be of any concern for me. I'm just saying that if it's closer to 30,000 years then 6,000 it doesn't matter too much to me. However, I have heard that some believe the age to be anywhere from 8,000 to 15,000 years but the 30,000 figure is new to me.

And, you have to also keep in mind. When Adam named every single animal that roamed the earth? He was presented each one to study and observe. Each one was his temporary pet, so to speak. That in itself may have taken a very long time. For? Without death? Without of fear of not having enough time to complete a task? It was a totally relaxed situation, and Adam just took one day at a time. How many species of animal exists? Let's say that Adam spent a month with each one... observing and interacting with. Then, giving it a name. A very big chunk of time of this creation passing along could have easily taken place during those years. And, Adam was not bored. Life as we know it did not exist. No pressures to perform. No pressure of time running out. Just take each day and see what it brings.

Ok, um, what's your point? LOL!

And, Adam and Eve in the Garden before the fall? No need to be a bread winner? No need to hurry up and start a family before you get too old? Heck.... they may have spent several thousands of years enjoying each other with no in-laws, nor neighbors to be in competition with them.

Again, I don't understand where you are going with this?

If you're trying to say that Adam needed thousands of years to name all the species of animals that God had newly created on earth and that Adam and Eve were married for thousands of years more i'd have to respectfully disagree with you. If this is in fact why you are pointing these things out to me.

We have no idea how many centuries passed before Adam and the woman fell. We have no idea how long man was living before the flood. Genealogies skipped many generations. That can add up considering that one generation could live 800 years.

Well like I told shernren, I take the bible to be literal and I at least thought that all gappers did also. So when the Bible says Adam lived for 130 years before he and Eve had a son and that after that he lived just 800 years after that I take that to mean that Adam age when he died was 930 years. And in fact Gen. 5:5 specifically says Adam lived a total of 930 years so that is what I believe.

This creation can be quite a bit older than a mere 6000 years old.

And I wouldn't argue with that.

 

[GenemZ]

Ok, um, what's your point? LOL!

Genealogies leave out the other times I mentioned. This creation was existing long before Adam and Eve procreated. Before there were any need for a genealogy. This present creation may have been existing several thousands of years before the genealogies can give account for. Why? No one was born to anyone yet.

Again, I don't understand where you are going with this?

I have been given a quota.

If you're trying to say that Adam needed thousands of years to name all the species of animals that God had newly created on earth and that Adam and Eve were married for thousands of years more i'd have to respectfully disagree with you. If this is in fact why you are pointing these things out to me.

Time was nothing to them. We are all going to die. Time is essential to us.

If every species of animal were brought to you? Over a million?

Sir? That might take some time.

Well like I told shernren, I take the bible to be literal and I at least thought that all gappers did also. So when the Bible says Adam lived for 130 years before he and Eve had a son and that after that he lived just 800 years after that I take that to mean that Adam age when he died was 930 years. And in fact Gen. 5:5 specifically says Adam lived a total of 930 years so that is what I believe.

That is how old he lived AFTER the fall. Before? When he could not die? Who was counting years? Adam could have been technically 2000 years old before he fell. But, since he could not age until after the fall? We will never know how many years this creation was existing before the fall. This current creation was existing also all these years before the fall. That adds up as to how old this current creation may have been.

Grace and inquisitiveness, GeneZ

 

[justified]

You were doing the same. So?

Shalom! GeneZ

You may have missed the part about my having studied hebrew under a brilliant semiticist in Boston.

As far as yourlink, I took a look at it, and I'm afraid I have no desire to go buying things. I was unable to find lists of sources which were free. So, let me just reiterate a couple of points.

As I have stated elsewhere, and in a paper recently presented here at Oxford, there was only a single type of "creation" done in the ancient world. The idea of creation ex nihilo did not exist: there had to be something there. In Egypt, for example, you have nut, the personification of the sea. Compare this to the "ruach elohim, hovering over the waters." In the east semitic myth, you have Tiamat, the sea, who is split in half by Marduk to create the sky and earth: notice in the Bible, God divides the earth and sea.

As I have said before, you have not provided evidence for your interpretation. I mean, at least quote a lexicon or something. I've quoted BDB which is the standard lexicon. That's hardly just spouting off my own opinion.