The literal 6 day creation in Genesis.

[Lightspirit]

Originally Posted by Morpheus

If time was not a factor in the Garden of Eden, then, we count time in the Bible from the Fall, true?

I once heard it said that the hebrew word for create "bara" used in Genesis also could be taken as recreate. The Hebrew language has no word specifically for create out of nothing so the verb bara is translated to mean create in english.

Bara means fatten in hebrew in other contexts and that makes me wonder if the implication of fatten is to prepare the earth for life.


This could mean a transformation after the dinosaurs finished by God to make way for mammals and human life.

There is no reason to say the "fattening" of the existing earth didn't occur in the literal 6 days.

[theophilus]

Originally Posted by lightworkerAu

I know Genesis is Poetic in the way it was written and I personally suspect the latter as that fits in with a creation/evolution model.

Why do you say that Genesis is poetic? Everything after the creation is a historical account of what actually happened. Why would the creation account be any different? Did you read this thread?

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18879

A literal interpretation is completelly compatible with the evolutionary process we can observe, the develpment of different forms of life from a common ancester by the process of natural selection. It is incompatible from many widely held theories about evolution but these theories are all about things which supposedly happened in the past and can't be tested scientifically.

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=380381&postcount=11

[Reverend Keith]

Originally Posted by theophilus

Why do you say that Genesis is poetic? Everything after the creation is a historical account of what actually happened. Why would the creation account be any different? Did you read this thread?

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showthread.php?t=18879

A literal interpretation is completelly compatible with the evolutionary process we can observe, the develpment of different forms of life from a common ancester by the process of natural selection. It is incompatible from many widely held theories about evolution but these theories are all about things which supposedly happened in the past and can't be tested scientifically.

http://www.spiritualforums.com/vb/showpost.php?p=380381&postcount=11

But look at the gymnastics you're going through on that thread to preserve a "literal" meaning. Earth means one thing in this verse and another in that verse. When God "makes" the greater light to rule the day, he's just making it visible. Lots of things are happening off-stage where we can't see, like an unmentioned Satanic corruption. Perspectives change from cosmic in one verse to human in another, etc. So sure, if you're willing to change the interpretation of words and the perspective on a verse-by-verse basis, and posit any and all sorts of off-stage activity before during and after... then you CAN say that Genesis 1 is "literal". But how useful is that? The ancients peoples of Mesopotamia believed that the sky was a "firmament" - a vast powerful clear dome that held back an ocean in the sky (which is why the sky was blue). It divided the waters above (in the sky) from the waters beneath (the seas). The Babylonians believed that it was created by the god Marduk from the carcass of the slain chaos goddess Tiamet. Genesis 1 fits pretty good with THAT perspective also. In fact it fits BETTER.

I think the question is, why do you feel so compelled to find some way to see the story literally? It's much more enjoyable to appreciate it as poetry.

Understanding that by "poetry" or "mythology" I don't mean "a pack of outrageous lies". I mean "a story that expresses things that are emotionally or spiritually true. A story that invokes spiritually true feelings in us."

[Morpheus]

AU:

This could mean a transformation after the dinosaurs finished by God to make way for mammals and human life.

There is no reason to say the "fattening" of the existing earth didn't occur in the literal
6 days.

However, AU, what do you think of the statements I made about "time" along with death and decay beginning at, "the Fall"?
Does it make sense? Can you answer as to how long Adam and Eve were in, "The Garden", and, why death and decay came into the whole world, through them?

So, in that case, post fall, we are speaking of a paradigm change, interdimensionally, and another timeline and history being realized.
True?
This may align with what science is telling us today, regarding the equations concerning multiple worlds, and dimensions theories.
You're not going to incorporate the latest findings in Physics, since Einstein?

[Lightspirit]

Originally Posted by Morpheus

AU:


However, AU, what do you think of the statements I made about "time" along with death and decay beginning at, "the Fall"?
Does it make sense? Can you answer as to how long Adam and Eve were in, "The Garden", and, why death and decay came into the whole world, through them?

So, in that case, post fall, we are speaking of a paradigm change, interdimensionally, and another timeline and history being realized.
True?
This may align with what science is telling us today, regarding the equations concerning multiple worlds, and dimensions theories.
You're not going to incorporate the latest findings in Physics, since Einstein?

However, AU, what do you think of the statements I made about "time" along with death and decay beginning at, "the Fall"?

From what I understand of Genesis, mortality entered the picture after the fall along with the knowledge of good and evil. Time may have not changed, just people and their lifespan and workload did.

Genesis doesn't give much away scientifically regarding the creation story.

Originally Posted by lightworkerAu

What do you think about the Genesis account of the wolds creation in 6 days.

Was it possible, did it happen or was the 6 days the Authors best way of describing the time period.

I know Genesis is Poetic in the way it was written and I personally suspect the latter as that fits in with a creation/evolution model.

It is my belief that we live in an eternal oscillating universe, that expands outward and contracts back to it's beginning in space-time, forever oscillating between the two states of Matter and energy.

Universe after universe is like an interminable succession of wheels forever coming into view, forever rolling onwards, disappearing and reappearing; forever passing from being to non being, and again from non being to being. In short, the constant revolving of the wheel of life in one eternal cycle, according to fixed and immutable laws, is perhaps after all the sum and substance of the philosophy of Buddhism. And this eternal wheel has so to speak, six spokes representing six forms of existence.” ---- Mon. Williams, Buddhism, pp. 229, 122.

The days and nights of Brahma are called Manvantara or the cycle of manifestation, ‘The Great Day,’ which is a period of universal activity, that is preceded, and also followed by ‘Pralaya,’ a dark period, which to our finite minds seems as an eternity. ‘Manvantara,’ is a creative day as seen in the six days of creation in Genesis, ‘Pralaya,’ is the evening that proceeds the next creative day. The six periods of Creation and the seventh day of rest in which we now exist are referred to in the book of Genesis as the generations of the universe.

The English word “Generation,” is translated from the Hebrew “toledoth” which is used in the Old Testament in every instance as ‘births,’ or ‘descendants,’ such as “These are the generations of Adam,” or “these are the generations of Abraham, and Genesis 2: 4; These are the generations of the Universe or the heavens and earth, etc. And the ‘Great Day’ in which the seven generations of the universe are eternally repeated, is the eternal cosmic period, or the eighth eternal day in which those who attain to perfection are allowed to enter, where they shall be surrounded by great light and they shall experience eternal peace, while those who do not attain to perfection are cast back into the refining fires of the seven physical cycles that perpetually revolve within the eighth eternal cosmic cycle.

A series of worlds following one upon the other,-- each world rising a step higher than the previous world, so that every later world brings to ripeness the seeds that were imbedded in the former, and itself then prepares the seed for the universe that will follow it. Every universe from the first to the last, from the smallest to the greatest, which have been created throughout the eons of eternity, still exist in their independent Space-Time positions within the eternal and boundless cosmos.

The New international Version, the Scofield Referrence Bible, and the Companion Bible, all note that the phase in Genesis 1: 2; The earth was formless and void (Having neither shape or mass) should be correctly translated, “The earth became without form and void.” The Hebrew word “Hayah” translated “was,” means “To become, occur, come to pass, Be.” (Vines Complete Expository of Old and New Testament Words, 1985. “To Be.”)

I am sure that one day our scientific community will prove that the wise religious men of old, had been correct in their belief.

http://www.world-science.net/otherne..._bouncefrm.htm

I would rather a theory which states that there are many galactic clusters out there within the boundless cosmos, each cluster consisting of billions of Galaxies falling inward toward a Great Abyss, Black Hole, Bottomless Pit, where, once torn to peices and reconverted into the electromagnetic energy from which they were created and accelerated along the dark worm hole to speeds far, far in excess of the speed of light, where that liquid like electromagnetic energy is spewed out in the trillions of degrees, somewhere far beyond the visible horizon of the boundless cosmos, where, from the cooling quantum of that electromagnetic energy a new universe is created, to which the light from its old position in space-time, would take billions upon billions of years to reach it.

I will stick my neck out here, and predict that one day far in the future, science will prove the existence of God.

Edited by SF Staff

[theophilus]

Originally Posted by Reverend Keith

But look at the gymnastics you're going through on that thread to preserve a "literal" meaning. Earth means one thing in this verse and another in that verse.

What do you mean by mental gymnastics? I am simply using the same methods of interpretation that I would apply to any other writing. Many words have more that one meaning and you need to examine the context to find out which meaning is used in any specific case.

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
(Genesis 1:2 ESV)

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
(Genesis 1:9-10 ESV)

Isn't it obvious that the word "earth" has a different meaning in each of these statements?

I think the question is, why do you feel so compelled to find some way to see the story literally? It's much more enjoyable to appreciate it as poetry.

Because it is obvious from its place in the Bible that it was intended to be literal. The rest of Genesis is a history of things that actually happened. There is no reason to believe that the first part is any different. It might be more enjoyabole to think of it as poetry but the Bible was given to teach us the truth.

A question Jesus addressed to Nicodemas applies here.

If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?
(John 3:12 ESV)

If you don't believe what God has told us about how he created the earth how can you believe what he tells us about heaven and what happens to us after we leave this life?

[Reverend Keith]

Because it is obvious from its place in the Bible that it was intended to be literal.

I'm afraid it's not obvious to me.

The rest of Genesis is a history of things that actually happened.

Actually, I have the same opinion about the rest of Genesis.

It might be more enjoyabole to think of it as poetry but the Bible was given to teach us the truth.

Spiritual truth perhaps. Not scientific and historical truth.

[Lightspirit]

Originally Posted by Reverend Keith

Spiritual truth perhaps. Not scientific and historical truth.

Genesis is critical to the Christian faith that the story of the fall of man in the garden of
Eden took place.

Jesus life, death and resurection centers around undoing the separation man man jas from God gained in the fall story.

Originally Posted by theophilus

What do you mean by mental gymnastics? I am simply using the same methods of interpretation that I would apply to any other writing. Many words have more that one meaning and you need to examine the context to find out which meaning is used in any specific case.



Isn't it obvious that the word "earth" has a different meaning in each of these statements?

Because it is obvious from its place in the Bible that it was intended to be literal. The rest of Genesis is a history of things that actually happened. There is no reason to believe that the first part is any different. It might be more enjoyabole to think of it as poetry but the Bible was given to teach us the truth.

A question Jesus addressed to Nicodemas applies here.


If you don't believe what God has told us about how he created the earth how can you believe what he tells us about heaven and what happens to us after we leave this life?

The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
(Genesis 1:2 ESV)

The New international Version, the Scofield Referrence Bible, and the Companion Bible, all note that the phase in Genesis 1: 2; The earth was formless and void (Having neither shape or mass) should be correctly translated, “The earth became without form and void.” The Hebrew word “Hayah” translated “was,” means “To become, occur, come to pass, Be.” (Vines Complete Expository of Old and New Testament Words, 1985. “To Be.”)

And God said, “Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
(Genesis 1:9-10 ESV

The elements from the great nebula, which was the residue of one of the massive first generation stars of the first universal generation of light, when the greater percentage of its mass was condensed into the Black Hole around which the residue was trapped, began to be attracted to each other and finally condensed to create our solar system, in which, the contracting elements from which the planets were formed, would not become the great nuclear reactor that it is today, until the third day, or the third generation of the universe.