Voting in favor of your Bible POV - God's Word

[BobRyan]

What about John 6?

There is a thread on that topic Tuesday at 5:45 PM #1

 

[BobRyan]

So why don't you believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist are our Lord's Body and Blood?

Thats the topic of this other thread --
Tuesday at 5:45 PM #1

Because if every time we point to any fact at all in the Bible - someone responds with - "then that must mean the bread is literally turned into Christ's body" -- then we need a thread devoted to that argument lest we derail every other thread on the board.

But the focus of this thread is the various views on Genesis..

and "the kind of literature" that it is.

James Barr has an interesting statement on the "kind of literature" that Genesis is given that Moses was no Darwinist.

========================================
Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:

"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:

• (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience
  
• (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story
  
• (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark.

"Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know."

=========== end quote

Note Barr does not claim that he or any of the scholars he refers to - take the Bible seriously when it makes its statements - he only claims that they know "the kind of literature that it is" - - a historic account.

 

[AmigodeJesus]

So, Bob, If they were to travel to Venus by space craft

'They' cannot, as they haven't even reached the other planetary bodies yet (and before you think "moon", that may be discussed in another thread) and can barely reach low-earth orbit, and according to scripture, and the science to date, cannot go beyond that.

 

[AmigodeJesus]

1] Ps 78 explains the Lord speaks to us in parables and dark sayings!!!! To state "("Legal code" is not parable or allegory or ...)" is not Biblical!! It is simply calling God a lair. He speaks to us in parables and dark saying even if you don't understand that, if for no other reason than He said He does!

Yes, God speaks in parables and dark sayings, even as Psalms 78 is given in music, lyric and prose, see also Psalms 49:4.

However, with that stated, and agreed to, God doesn't use a parable without the natural being given first, and explained first. Consider the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world", was a natural lamb (a fuzzy-wuzzy generally docile creature), and it is not until AD 27, that John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, "Behold the Lamb of God" (a spiritual use of the previously given natural in Genesis, which was carried through all those 4Kish years)

The entirety of the OT and NT, including God's own statement on the matter in Exodus 20, clearly reveal natural days of 24 hr periods of time in 6 natural-literal consecutive days as mankind was to experience, courtesy of Genesis 1-3, Exodus 20, and so many other texts.

The mystical, parable, metaphor, spiritual and so forth, cannot be understood apart from the original natural, by courtesy of 1 Corinthians 15:44-46.

Many other such examples from natural to spiritual may be shown, but I will cite a few brief ones:

Wheat & Tares
Sheep & Goats
Woman & Church
Tree & Men
Seas & Peoples

A mystical, spiritual use of the word "day", and so on, cannot be understood apart from the natural day which was the original.

The entire Genesis account is itself written in historical narrative. From Creation to Adam to Cain to Enoch to Noah to Abraham/Job and so forth unto Joseph dying in Egypt. There are even several geneologies in Genesis, with tabulated days of their life, unto deaths.

 

[AmigodeJesus]

We can all count to 7...

Well, that may actually be an assumption, considering. I do not even know how these which proclaim thousands, millions, billions somewhere in Genesis 1, when they have to get past 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 before they ever reach their phantastical and cherry picked enumeration.

 

[BobRyan]

Yes, God speaks in parables and dark sayings, even as Psalms 78 is given in music, lyric and prose, see also Psalms 49:4.

However, with that stated, and agreed to, God doesn't use a parable without the natural being given first, and explained first. Consider the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world", was a natural lamb (a fuzzy-wuzzy generally docile creature), and it is not until AD 27, that John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, "Behold the Lamb of God" (a spiritual use of the previously given natural in Genesis, which was carried through all those 4Kish years)

The entirety of the OT and NT, including God's own statement on the matter in Exodus 20, clearly reveal natural days of 24 hr periods of time in 6 natural-literal consecutive days as mankind was to experience, courtesy of Genesis 1-3, Exodus 20, and so many other texts.

The mystical, parable, metaphor, spiritual and so forth, cannot be understood apart from the original natural, by courtesy of 1 Corinthians 15:44-46.

Many other such examples from natural to spiritual may be shown, but I will cite a few brief ones:

Wheat & Tares
Sheep & Goats
Woman & Church
Tree & Men
Seas & Peoples

A mystical, spiritual use of the word "day", and so on, cannot be understood apart from the natural day which was the original.

The entire Genesis account is itself written in historical narrative. From Creation to Adam to Cain to Enoch to Noah to Abraham/Job and so forth unto Joseph dying in Egypt. There are even several geneologies in Genesis, with tabulated days of their life, unto deaths.

And the fact that "parables exist" does not mean that the legal code in Ex 20 "is a parable" or is "Dark speech".

John 16
25 “These things I have spoken to you in figurative language; an hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figurative language, but will tell you plainly of the Father. 26 In that day you will ask in My name, and I do not say to you that I will request of the Father on your behalf; 27 for the Father Himself loves you, because you have loved Me and have believed that I came forth from the Father. 28 I came forth from the Father and have come into the world; I am leaving the world again and going to the Father.”

29 His disciples *said, “Lo, now You are speaking plainly and are not using a figure of speech. 30 Now we know that You know all things, and have no need for anyone to question You; by this we believe that You came from God.” 31 Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe? 32 Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me. 33 These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.”

in Matt 22 in full-on debate Jesus speaks "so plainly" that the Sadducees who say there is no future resurrection were put to silence "by the scriptures" that Christ referenced and even the Pharisees "saw that the Sadducees had been put to silence".

In Mark 7:6-13 the sola scriptura slam-hammer of Christ came down on the tradition of the Jews leaving them without excuse.

And as for the myth that God's word given to Moses and easily understood by all his readers, his newly freed slaves from Egypt ... we have this...

Numbers 12:8
With him I speak mouth to mouth, Even openly, and not in dark sayings, And he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant, against Moses?

God's Word is clear and concise even though some places have parables and symbols... one cannot dismiss all of scripture just because there is a parable some place in the Bible.

as I am sure we agree - I just saw the opportunity to make an obvious statement that everyone can easily agree with.

 

[JacksBratt]

BTW

"A day on Venus lasts for 243 Earth days or 5,832 hours! A day on Earth is 23.943 hours. Venus also rotates backwards compared to the Earth and most of the other planets."

well "So much" for preserving angular momentum in that accretion disc that supposedly formed the solar system - eh?

Don't you love it when God throws one little hiccup into the so called "wisdom of man".. and they just ignore it and move on?

 

[Monna]

"evening and morning"

Except that on our planet this is not one rotation in all locations - certainly not in the polar regions.

And not all planets rotate on an axis. (The moon is not a planet, but it does not rotate on its axis. One side always faces earth. At the same time the sun does shine on different "sides" of the moon as it circles the earth.) There are a very large number of planets - not all of them circling our sun. So it is highly likely that some do not rotate. Certainly the planets around our sun rotate at different speeds. And earth is not rotating today at the same rate as it rotated from the beginning.

Venus rotates once every 243 earth days. This is longer than the 224.7 earth days it takes to revolve once around the sun. So it's "day" is longer than its "year."

 

[BobRyan]

Except that on our planet this is not one rotation in all locations - certainly not in the polar regions.

"Except" what?

Is your point that context matters?

I already stated that.

 

[AmigodeJesus]

Except that on our planet this is not one rotation in all locations - certainly not in the polar regions.

And not all planets rotate on an axis. (The moon is not a planet, but it does not rotate on its axis. One side always faces earth. At the same time the sun does shine on different "sides" of the moon as it circles the earth.) There are a very large number of planets - not all of them circling our sun. So it is highly likely that some do not rotate. Certainly the planets around our sun rotate at different speeds. And earth is not rotating today at the same rate as it rotated from the beginning.

Venus rotates once every 243 earth days. This is longer than the 224.7 earth days it takes to revolve once around the sun. So it's "day" is longer than its "year."

Question. What does any of that which you ejected onto the forum have to do with whether the words in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 (and also Exodus 20 for that matter), in referring to time of the earth and the days thereof, are to be read naturally and literally (and at the least first before any secondary meaning is given or understood from them?)

Do you think when it is written in Genesis 1, in regards "day" it means something other than an actual normal natural 24 hour period of time? What do you think it is supposed to mean when it specifies a number, followed by day, followed by the division of that day into evening and morning? If they are merely symbolic, &c of something else, what exactly, and why would it exclude the natural day from it first?

 

[The Liturgist]

Except that on our planet this is not one rotation in all locations - certainly not in the polar regions.

And not all planets rotate on an axis. (The moon is not a planet, but it does not rotate on its axis. One side always faces earth. At the same time the sun does shine on different "sides" of the moon as it circles the earth.) There are a very large number of planets - not all of them circling our sun. So it is highly likely that some do not rotate. Certainly the planets around our sun rotate at different speeds. And earth is not rotating today at the same rate as it rotated from the beginning.

Venus rotates once every 243 earth days. This is longer than the 224.7 earth days it takes to revolve once around the sun. So it's "day" is longer than its "year."

Minor nitpick: the Moon actually does rotate on its axis once every 27 days.

 

[BobRyan]

Question. What does any of that which you ejected onto the forum have to do with whether the words in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 (and also Exodus 20 for that matter), in referring to time of the earth and the days thereof, are to be read naturally and literally (and at the least first before any secondary meaning is given or understood from them?)

Do you think when it is written in Genesis 1, in regards "day" it means something other than an actual normal natural 24 hour period of time? What do you think it is supposed to mean when it specifies a number, followed by day, followed by the division of that day into evening and morning? If they are merely symbolic, &c of something else, what exactly, and why would it exclude the natural day from it first?

Good point. Would the newly freed slaves from Egypt have injected "darwinism" into Ex 20:11 or Genesis 1-2?

Exegesis includes context and the writer's historic account in Gen 1-2 summarized in Ex 20:11 as just such an historic account "in legal code not figures of speech" -- would have been accepted at face value by the primary intended audience.. Moses knew that. Moses was no darwinist.

 

[BobRyan]

And not all planets rotate on an axis. (The moon is not a planet, but it does not rotate on its axis. One side always faces earth.

ok that is a bit of a problem in your understanding of what is going on there.

Also might want to check into the idea of preservation of angular momentum

 

[K2K]

Yes, God speaks in parables and dark sayings, even as Psalms 78 is given in music, lyric and prose, see also Psalms 49:4.

However, with that stated, and agreed to, God doesn't use a parable without the natural being given first, and explained first. Consider the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world", was a natural lamb (a fuzzy-wuzzy generally docile creature), and it is not until AD 27, that John the Baptist points to Jesus and says, "Behold the Lamb of God" (a spiritual use of the previously given natural in Genesis, which was carried through all those 4Kish years)

The entirety of the OT and NT, including God's own statement on the matter in Exodus 20, clearly reveal natural days of 24 hr periods of time in 6 natural-literal consecutive days as mankind was to experience, courtesy of Genesis 1-3, Exodus 20, and so many other texts.

The mystical, parable, metaphor, spiritual and so forth, cannot be understood apart from the original natural, by courtesy of 1 Corinthians 15:44-46.

Many other such examples from natural to spiritual may be shown, but I will cite a few brief ones:

Wheat & Tares
Sheep & Goats
Woman & Church
Tree & Men
Seas & Peoples

A mystical, spiritual use of the word "day", and so on, cannot be understood apart from the natural day which was the original.

The entire Genesis account is itself written in historical narrative. From Creation to Adam to Cain to Enoch to Noah to Abraham/Job and so forth unto Joseph dying in Egypt. There are even several geneologies in Genesis, with tabulated days of their life, unto deaths.

Really? He speaks in the "natural" first?

God is spirit and we tend to operate in the flesh. Of course He knows that, but He is try to get us to think in heavenly terms, isn't He? That is what I have seen clearly in my time with Him. He is trying to get me away from thinking in fleshy (what you are calling "natural") terms. So even when it seems like what He is saying in "natural" (in worldly terms) there turns out to be a spiritual meaning behind it. Thus - we have a parable or saying that while may at first seem to be or have a "natural" meaning it does in fact have a more spiritual meaning!!!

I actually find it hard to think a Christian who has indeed spent much time learning from Him doesn't already know this. The Bible tends to have layers of meanings, the first of which might seem to make sense to us in our "natural" (fleshy) since but then you find out that there are deeper, more spiritual meanings, don't you?

I could give you example, but didn't you find the Bible as a whole is an example of that. And if the bible then what about when He speaks to you personally. You found that as an example too, didn't you. And then you discover that as you listen to Him and do what He says even what He has you do turns out to have deeper spiritual means, like He has always been preparing you for the next life!

So when I hear other Christians telling me that the Lord first talks about "natural" terms, it honestly tells me that they have not yet spent much time talking to Him and getting revelation from Him. I know that sounds kinda harsh on them, but it isn't. I went thought that time when I first read the Bible and it all had fleshy or worldly meanings. Yeah- the seven days then were 7 24 hour days. Yet those days didn't stay that way any more than than the rest of the Bible continued to have iteral meanings. The more I talked to Him them more 'revelation' I got from Him. And like the parable of the sower, it tended to reveal that there is a heavenly or spiritual realm around me which is really what I battle with.

Those birds of the air eating the seeds, which are in fact the words the Lord tells you, are demons (evil spirits). So the battle is not with flesh and blood but evil spirits. And the more with us refers to the army of God and His Kingdom. Thus the days of creation were days according to a spiritual view point and of what concerns in the speed that the earth turning have to do with them? Nothing, because they are not concern with the speed the world turns, that is worldly thinking, but everything to do with the plan God has for things, and we simply don't know enough about that plan, and virtually nothing about the plan unless you are talking to the King regularly and if the King then you are also hearing from those in the Kingdom that serve Him.

Yet if you are still thinking in worldly terms, like a day is one spin of the world, then obviously your reference is wrong and He is communicating with you to to change that point of view to a heavenly point of view. Of course it has not change if your view is a day is one spin of the world. It will change after 20 years of actually talking to Him though! More and more you will be concerned with the heavenly or spiritual influence on us.

My friends, it is not about the physical realm around you! It is about the spiritual/heavenly realm around you! Are you missing that?

 

[ViaCrucis]

Don't you love it when God throws one little hiccup into the so called "wisdom of man".. and they just ignore it and move on?

Newton's first law of motion says that an object in motion stays in motion unless acted upon by an external force.

With hundreds of millions of rocks and ice hurtling around the sun, with gravity coalescing them into large lumps, then having a gravitational effect on one another as differences in mass result in larger bodies due to accretion of more material--well there's a of planetoids whirling around, yanking on one another through gravitational force. They hit, they collide, they slingshot around one another, their orbits and rotational speeds and axes being affected through all these processes. It's the same basic science we use to send probes through our solar system, the same basic science that happens every time a meteor or asteroid collides with the earth. If a comet came near enough to the earth its orbit around the sun can be effected, a small gravitational tug and its trajectory through the solar system can change.

Why does a Venusian day take longer than a year? Well the most likely culprit is the sun. The closest planet, Mercury has an even stranger situation, where a single rotation takes roughly two entire revolutions around the sun, meaning a Mercurian day is almost twice as long as a Mercurian year. Again, because of the gravitational pull of the sun. Earth also experiences these same tidal stresses, just much less so than either Mercury or Venus; additionally we have the moon that also applies tidal stresses to the earth. The earth's rotation is also slowing down, but it's slowing down incredibly slowly. By days on earth are getting longer, at a very, very, very small fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. The most peculiar thing about Venus' rotation is its retrograde spin, which may have been caused by a massive axial tilting event, effectively flipping Venus' axis ~180, meaning that Venus is still spinning the same direction, only the axis has been flipped. Why? Again, the most likely answer is gravity.

No, not a hiccup. Just basic science.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[AmigodeJesus]

Those birds of the air eating the seeds, which are in fact the words the Lord tells you, are demons (evil spirits).

Yes, you just gave the very evidence of what I stated. Natural (birds) given first, by which the spiritual meaning (devils) is extrapolated. Now, just return to Genesis 1.

 

[JacksBratt]

(snip)

Why does a Venusian day take longer than a year? Well the most likely culprit is the sun. The closest planet, Mercury has an even stranger situation, where a single rotation takes roughly two entire revolutions around the sun, meaning a Mercurian day is almost twice as long as a Mercurian year. Again, because of the gravitational pull of the sun. Earth also experiences these same tidal stresses, just much less so than either Mercury or Venus; additionally we have the moon that also applies tidal stresses to the earth. The earth's rotation is also slowing down, but it's slowing down incredibly slowly. By days on earth are getting longer, at a very, very, very small fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second. The most peculiar thing about Venus' rotation is its retrograde spin, which may have been caused by a massive axial tilting event, effectively flipping Venus' axis ~180, meaning that Venus is still spinning the same direction, only the axis has been flipped. Why? Again, the most likely answer is gravity.

No, not a hiccup. Just basic science.

-CryptoLutheran

Basic Science does not say "most likely" or "may have been".

There are solid scientific facts, laws and concepts that we apply every day... even count on.

Then, they changed any Tom, Dick or Harry's musings and assumptions, that used to be called "theoretical" to the term "law"...

Most science, today, is puffs of smoke and math on a chalk board. Yes, people still confirm different theories through observable, repeatable and testable fact..

But... Tesla said it best:
“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. ”

Thing is... most of these scientists with all the letters after their name... are atheistic Darwinian evolutionists....trying to prove to themselves that this universe was not fearfully and wonderfully made by an intelligent designer.

 

[pescador]

Basic Science does not say "most likely" or "may have been".

There are solid scientific facts, laws and concepts that we apply every day... even count on.

Then, they changed any Tom, Dick or Harry's musings and assumptions, that used to be called "theoretical" to the term "law"...

Most science, today, is puffs of smoke and math on a chalk board. Yes, people still confirm different theories through observable, repeatable and testable fact..

But... Tesla said it best:
“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. ”

Thing is... most of these scientists with all the letters after their name... are atheistic Darwinian evolutionists....trying to prove to themselves that this universe was not fearfully and wonderfully made by an intelligent designer.

"Thing is... most of these scientists with all the letters after their name... are atheistic Darwinian evolutionists....trying to prove to themselves that this universe was not fearfully and wonderfully made by an intelligent designer." That is so wrong that it baffles the mind. Science, to a large degree, has created the miraculous world that we live in today. We have more tools to use today in every field from science to education to economics to the digital world including the very computer that you and I and millions of others use to communicate in cyberspace (via satellites), than ever before in world history.

The science that we have today is not incompatible with God. Except to those who can't accept reality.

 

[pescador]

Really? He speaks in the "natural" first?

God is spirit and we tend to operate in the flesh. Of course He knows that, but He is try to get us to think in heavenly terms, isn't He? That is what I have seen clearly in my time with Him. He is trying to get me away from thinking in fleshy (what you are calling "natural") terms. So even when it seems like what He is saying in "natural" (in worldly terms) there turns out to be a spiritual meaning behind it. Thus - we have a parable or saying that while may at first seem to be or have a "natural" meaning it does in fact have a more spiritual meaning!!!

I actually find it hard to think a Christian who has indeed spent much time learning from Him doesn't already know this. The Bible tends to have layers of meanings, the first of which might seem to make sense to us in our "natural" (fleshy) since but then you find out that there are deeper, more spiritual meanings, don't you?

I could give you example, but didn't you find the Bible as a whole is an example of that. And if the bible then what about when He speaks to you personally. You found that as an example too, didn't you. And then you discover that as you listen to Him and do what He says even what He has you do turns out to have deeper spiritual means, like He has always been preparing you for the next life!

So when I hear other Christians telling me that the Lord first talks about "natural" terms, it honestly tells me that they have not yet spent much time talking to Him and getting revelation from Him. I know that sounds kinda harsh on them, but it isn't. I went thought that time when I first read the Bible and it all had fleshy or worldly meanings. Yeah- the seven days then were 7 24 hour days. Yet those days didn't stay that way any more than than the rest of the Bible continued to have iteral meanings. The more I talked to Him them more 'revelation' I got from Him. And like the parable of the sower, it tended to reveal that there is a heavenly or spiritual realm around me which is really what I battle with.

Those birds of the air eating the seeds, which are in fact the words the Lord tells you, are demons (evil spirits). So the battle is not with flesh and blood but evil spirits. And the more with us refers to the army of God and His Kingdom. Thus the days of creation were days according to a spiritual view point and of what concerns in the speed that the earth turning have to do with them? Nothing, because they are not concern with the speed the world turns, that is worldly thinking, but everything to do with the plan God has for things, and we simply don't know enough about that plan, and virtually nothing about the plan unless you are talking to the King regularly and if the King then you are also hearing from those in the Kingdom that serve Him.

Yet if you are still thinking in worldly terms, like a day is one spin of the world, then obviously your reference is wrong and He is communicating with you to to change that point of view to a heavenly point of view. Of course it has not change if your view is a day is one spin of the world. It will change after 20 years of actually talking to Him though! More and more you will be concerned with the heavenly or spiritual influence on us.

My friends, it is not about the physical realm around you! It is about the spiritual/heavenly realm around you! Are you missing that?

I dunno. I am sitting at my physical desk typing on my physical computer in my physical house. Am I missing something when you say it's all about the spiritual/heavenly realm around me?

 

[K2K]

Yes, you just gave the very evidence of what I stated. Natural (birds) given first, by which the spiritual meaning (devils) is extrapolated. Now, just return to Genesis 1.

Yes - but in the parable "birds" were only mentioned, not the spiritual meaning. Maybe, we are both saying the same thing, but to be sure in Genesis concerning this thread "days" were mentioned. Now in the case of the sower, the parable was given to everyone but the meaning and deeper understanding was only given to the disciples who meet with Him later, asking Him questions and getting a deeper understanding. So are we meeting with Him later and finding out the deeper meaning.

He told me that to think a day means that the world spun around one time is "worldly thinking". It is the way this world thinks because we see things only from our perspective of being a person in a physical body on this physical planet. So our worldly days are to us are the world spinning around. And we dig into our thinking instead of seeking His, like the disciples did.

So days were all that was written in Genesis, not the meaning. Not there. Which is perhaps what you are getting at. We are probably in agreement. The point I make is that we "Christians" don't tend toact like His disciples in that we don't then seek Him and listen to what He says in order to get a better, more heavenly, understanding. And it clearly shows that we don't seek Him and listen to Him because we want to stick to the worldly meaning of "days" meaning one rotation of the world.

Of course if you try to explain that it is apparent that they are not seeking Him and listening to Him then they want to write back, upset, saying "So are you saying I don't listen to Him?" Well it is obvious, but I don't want to upset them, I just want them to seek the Lord and listen to Him. God is spirit, and He is the Teacher, so if they seek Him I understand that it will become apparent to them that the days are not one turn of the earth. What does the earth spinning really have to do with God making billions of galaxies with with millions of star.

The earth spinning may have something to do with how God deals with people, but He created all things and holds all things together with His hands. So He had 'days' written to try an give a brief explanation to us worldly people, thinking that they might turn to Him to get a better explanation. He also made it so that knowledge would increase. Perhaps that would turn people back to Him for some answers, but we people get stubborn and refuse to seek the Lord least He shows us we are wrong. Our pride gets in our way and it is obvious! It is obvious that we don't seek Him like we should. I don't.

I only hear from Him about a dozen times during the day. I get busy. Yet from that dozen times a day it becomes very obvious that most Christians are not listening to Him even close to that amount. I mean really, thinking that day in Genesis is a 24 hour day? Even to say that a day to God is like a thousand years or a thousand years is like a day is obviously just a highly understated saying meaning that His thoughts are not our thoughts. I mean our knowledge has increased to a point that the best conclusion we people in general now have is that the universe started 13 -15 billion years ago. We of course are not right but our increased knowledge clearly indicates that God is much bigger than we think. It could have been written a day is like a billion years to God and probably gotten the saying closer, but you can grasp a billion years anymore than you can grasp a thousand years.