Wiðercora wrote:Sometimes it refers to the sky, but only in certain collocations, for example: the heavens opened.

In many of the Psalms and Old testament books the usage of heavens was meant to signify the sky and beyond. "The heaven's declare the Lord's Glory" etc. This is not talking about a realm of spirit where the believers go, but rather a physical place. In the context of many of these verses it is talking about the beauty of the stars and the order that life seems to be in.

willhud9 wrote:

Wiðercora wrote:Sometimes it refers to the sky, but only in certain collocations, for example: the heavens opened.

In many of the Psalms and Old testament books the usage of heavens was meant to signify the sky and beyond. "The heaven's declare the Lord's Glory" etc. This is not talking about a realm of spirit where the believers go, but rather a physical place. In the context of many of these verses it is talking about the beauty of the stars and the order that life seems to be in.

Wiðercora was probably rather specifically answering to my slight comment about usage of the word in English, rather than anything about the usage of שמים in Biblical Hebrew.

willhud9 wrote:
Created. The Hebrew for this word is bara and it always associated with God. Only God can bara something. This is an ambiguous phrase in Hebrew, but we know it means creation of some kind. Several possible meanings are "God willed something to be" "God spoke something to be" God called something to be" etc. However, the emphasis is not on "God created", but rather on what God created. The text gives us the phrase heaven and earth. This phrase in Hebrew is a generic phrase that means "everything."

I seem to remember reading that 'bara' can mean shaping, fashioning, forming (of something existent)?

willhud9 wrote:
The paralleling text is rather interesting and one of the further notes as to why it is a figurative creation account rather than literal. First of all, God creates light and dark 3 days before the illumination bodies filled the sky. What's up with that? Literally that cannot be true; it's illogical.

<snip>

The first conclusion is that Genesis is irrelevant and wrong, therefore, not to be taken seriously. One can reach that conclusion, especially if belief in God is not present there is no need to take Genesis has important. Fair enough. But the point of this isn't to attack Genesis, but rather support or clarify the text. I do not think that Genesis is irrelevant in the slightest for it gives an insight into the Old Testament and therefore an insight into Theology. The second conclusion is that Genesis missed the mark when it came to science. After all, the author(s) of Genesis clearly were not men of science, or at least modern science, and when writing the text human error can in fact take place. Yes, but that assumes a literal reading of the text was what was intended by the authors. Due to the literary technique of the writing of Genesis 1, the odds of it being history seems far fetched as it does not have the same diction or syntax used in later history books of Israel. So we come to a third conclusion: the text has a purpose and context which transcends the actual Creation account.

I'm just wondering if we would show the same courtesy to other similar texts, or if it is born out of our history of belief and of the import of the text to our past / civilization?

I'm thinking that if I read a text written by, say, some ancient tribe of Indians, that I had no emotional, historical or other connection to, which said something about origins that was clearly not correct, I wouldn't go "Oh - they must have meant this metaphorically then". Because - what does that say? It says "They can't have meant that literally, because it is after all scientifically incorrect and illogical, as we now know". But it seems to me that to say that they therefore couldn't have meant it literally, is the same as saying that they had a clue.

How many Israelites, when hearing these passages spoken out loud, would have raised their hand and went "Hang on a minute! This can't be right!" ? What part of the account would have raised eyebrows to the audience back then?

Or how many of them would have thought "Aah, yes. Admittedly, this tells me nothing of how things came to be, but it sure tells me a lot about God's characteristics" ?

To say that it must have been meant figuratively because it is scientifically wrong or illogical, I think is born out of subconsciously still attributing knowledge to them that they didn't have, but that we have been conditioned to think they had, because they allegedly had a connection to the Creator. When you strip all that away, you possibly have an ancient bunch of writers that just didn't have a clue.

And as for not being the type of thing they'd normally - and later - write, that may just be because they had borrowed much of this from other/earlier sources and adapted it, couldn't it?.

I at the very least question if we'd be willing to treat other myths the same way, in such detail and with so much added weight and meaning and intertwined depth, when "they didn't have a clue" may be as good an explanation as any. Well - with some poetic prose of the day mixed in to make it slightly obscure to us.

I'm not saying you can't look at the text, find new meanings to the words used, and come up with some 'deep' meaning that ties into future beliefs and practices, but you could do that to pretty much any other text as well. I'm not sure it then any longer reflects the reality of the situation, even if it may be a poetic, intricate, interesting and slightly geeky endeavor.

If you put away for a moment everything you know about science, history and theology, and just read Genesis 1 and 2 as it is written on the pages, it reads like a pretty straight forward creation story without any hidden meaning - at least it does to me. How would it have been understood by the original audience? Would they automatically have substituted the meaning of various words of the text in their minds with other ones, so that it gave a completely different meaning to them than it can give us?

Would they immediately have understood that since it cannot be literally correct, it must instead reflect some deeper aspect of God and future theology, and really has little to do with origins?

spin wrote:

questioner121 wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

questioner121 wrote:I've read a number of bible verses which if taken literally refer to waters in the heaven. Have I taken a wrong interpretation of the verses? Any comments appreciated.

At least there's water in the sky - the sky is a vault that keeps the waters up, so they don't drop down on the earth. Or are you thinking of something else?

I was thinking of there being liquid water in the heavens above the sky. That's how I understand the bible verses. I''d appreciate any commentary regarding verses which talk about the waters in the heavens.

When god separated the waters, he placed something called the raqia to hold the waters above. This raqia is frequently and not badly translated as "firmament", as it was solid. The word is derived from a verb used to describe the beating of metal (eg gold and silver), so the firmament is intimated here to be like (shiny) sheet metal. Elsewhere there is talk of opening the windows of heaven to cause rain (eg Gen 7:11; Mal 3:10 -- this latter regards blessings but uses a metaphor of rain).

One should note the idea in Ps 148:4, "Praise Him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that are above the heavens." (I don't expect too much consistency. Different writers had different conceptions.)

It seems to me that a literal understanding of this was held by many even into NT times. 2. Peter 3:5,6 seems to convey this:

2. Peter 3:5,6 wrote:For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, | and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

I suppose one could say (as an example illustration) that since the flood story cannot be historically true as we now know, 'earth' and 'world' here must therefore mean 'people', 'water' must mean 'God's force', 'deluged' must mean 'permeated by', and 'perished' must mean 'cleansed/renewed'. But it could also be that the writer simply believed it to be literal history.

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

From a wish list of imaginary places.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

From a wish list of imaginary places.

Regards
DL

Most definitely not. It originally designated 'the sky', which is not particularly imaginary.

Zwaarddijk wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

From a wish list of imaginary places.

Regards
DL

Most definitely not. It originally designated 'the sky', which is not particularly imaginary.

True but the sky they saw or meant in calling it heaven was a sky with souls and God flying about there. I think that that puts it in the realm of fantasy and wish lists.

Regards
DL

Greatest I am wrote:

Zwaarddijk wrote:

Greatest I am wrote:

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

From a wish list of imaginary places.

Regards
DL

Most definitely not. It originally designated 'the sky', which is not particularly imaginary.

True but the sky they saw or meant in calling it heaven was a sky with souls and God flying about there. I think that that puts it in the realm of fantasy and wish lists.

Regards
DL

Uhm, are you sure the first persons to use the word "heaven", did use it with those exact connotations? It seems you are confused about how words develop.

Zwaarddijk wrote:

questioner121 wrote:Where does the word heaven come from?

"heaven" comes from Old English heofon, which comes from proto-German himinaz or himilaz. Some English friends inform me in their speech, it no longer can refer to the sky above us, but is exclusively a word with a religious meaning.

It's cognate to German Himmel, Swedish himmel(en), Dutch hemel. But uh, what's the point of your question?

The point of my questions about the heavens and taking the Bible (and Quran's) words literally is to imagine whether it could actually be true and not metaphors or misunderstandings of the writers or stories made up to explain the mysteries of the universe.

I know what science says about space, about the stars and the big bang theory and all that. I know about satellites and the space station in orbit above us and how astronauts have done space walks. I'm not discounting all that, I accept and understand most of the science (I can't say I accept all of the science yet).

My point is that what if we took the words of the Bible and Quran to be literally true regarding the creation of the everything in the universe, could the universe as we know it be as described in these texts?

So far this is my understanding of the universe if you take the words of the Bible and Quran to be literally true.

In the beginning God created the heavens, the heavens is just water. Lots and lots of water. From the water God created the earth. ie. re-organised the water atoms into earth atoms. This would explain how all living things are actually created from water. God then separated the water from the earth by creating a structure, the sky, to hold water above the earth and create a vast space between the waters on the earth and the waters of the heavens. The vast space is were we see the clouds. Some of the waters on the earth were gathered underwater where they are stored.

This would then fit with the story of Noah. When it says the heavens opened then that would literally mean that water from the heavens above came down, and with the waters from the deep springs, covered the entire earth in water upto the highest mountain peaks. This would explain where all the water came from to flood the earth with.

I know all this sounds beyond ludicrous given all at we know about the earth and universe today. However as a believer I think one should accept it as matter of faith even though it doesn't quite fit the science we currently know. Who knows maybe one day we may see an observation which actually may prove the holy texts to be true.

questioner121 wrote:In the beginning God created the heavens,

As has been pointed out in this thread, this in not a correct translation of Gen 1:1. Most bible translations are dishonest in this respect. You need say the (N)RSV or the JPS to get something that represents the correct understanding of the verse. The Hebrew requires this sort of understanding: "In the beginning of [God created the heavens and the earth] the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters." That was the state at the beginning before god did anything. The RSV renders the first verse, "In the beginning when god created the heavens and the earth..." The stuff of the cosmos was already there. God's creation involved converting the chaotic emptiness (tohu wa bohu = waste and void) into a formed and populated cosmos.

questioner121 wrote:the heavens is just water. Lots and lots of water. From the water God created the earth. ie. re-organised the water atoms into earth atoms. This would explain how all living things are actually created from water.

You are reinventing the text rather than reading it. The text says nothing about atoms. It does talk about separating the waters above from the waters below and holding that above separate with a solid firmament (raqia = beaten metal surface), such that between the two there was a space which was the sky. The writers knew nothing about atoms or that it was necessary for god to create a mixture of nitrogen and oxygen atoms which was air. Atoms as a meaningful scientific notion didn't exist at the time. To insinuate them into the text is to pervert it. The writers knew nothing about science and cannot be expected to make scientific sense. Give them a break.

The chaotic waters were perceived as similar to flood waters, like those of Mesopotamia which carried earth within it (the Mesopotamian rivers eroded it upstream and carried it down, but the chaotic waters here in Gen 1 are an abstracted form of the notion), so it is only natural that it could restore the earth by command of god, as an act of separation, just like the separation of light and darkness.

questioner121 wrote:God then separated the water from the earth by creating a structure, the sky, to hold water above the earth and create a vast space between the waters on the earth and the waters of the heavens. The vast space is were we see the clouds. Some of the waters on the earth were gathered underwater where they are stored.

You've got the order wrong here. The firmament was installed on day 2. The earth was separated from the waters on day 3.

questioner121 wrote:This would then fit with the story of Noah. When it says the heavens opened then that would literally mean that water from the heavens above came down, and with the waters from the deep springs, covered the entire earth in water upto the highest mountain peaks. This would explain where all the water came from to flood the earth with.

I know all this sounds beyond ludicrous given all at we know about the earth and universe today. However as a believer I think one should accept it as matter of faith even though it doesn't quite fit the science we currently know. Who knows maybe one day we may see an observation which actually may prove the holy texts to be true.

This all seems to be you manipulating your bible translation to fulfill your desires for scientific veracity. You'll probably want the six days of the creation mentioned in Gen 1 not to be real 24-hour days, but some desire of eons to allow it more opportunity to fit what you know of science. One purpose of he creation in Gen 1 is to establish the Sabbath as the day of rest. If you want to pervert the text to make days mean eons, what does that make of the Sabbath?

Are you prepared to lose the art and beauty of this creation account because you want to force it to reflect science as it might be, even though the account was written well over 2000 years ago, long, long before science could have helped the writers, and though science has made you aware of its scientific "difficulties"?

Very good spin.

Although I do disagree with God "shaping an Earth that was already in existence." That is a matter of how one reads the text and I do understand how you can interpret the Hebrew that way.

Wilhud,

From where does the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo actually arise? It is my understanding that the very first word of the Torah, bereshith is used in its form where it represents an action still in progress, not a completed action. Or at least that's what my Young's Literal Translation tells me. In this case, it would comport well with the other indications in the text that early Israelite religion was monistic with Yahweh in the Canaanite pantheon as a son of El Elyon, and not assuming his status as the sole creator deity until sometime during or after the Babylonian Captivity.

If so, it would also make sense that Yahweh was perceived as being the sole creator deity, but also as requiring the primal chaos (or formlessness) in order to create. This was the standard religious explanation at the time. This is not to deny that Genesis 1:1 does not represent a significant advance in theological thought. By having their deity form the world without first killing his own father, killing a representative of the primal chaos, or mating with a fertility deity, the Israelites were already making a huge jump.

As you are the resident Ancient Hebrew reader, (I believe?), I thought I would ask.

Ex Nihilo was if I remember a creation of Jewish Theologian Philo. Which became adopted by the Christian church soon after. Ex Nihilo combines platonic philosophy with the Jewish Scriptures especially Genesis 1:1.

But bereshith does not mean the absolute beginning. It is the start of something. As this account is very poetic, this beginning is the beginning of Elohim's creation. Meaning there could be matter already existing. Which is what Philo and Augustine would argue, but would get hijacked later on, especially during the Reformation, and the church believed that NOTHING existed and then God created everything.

I guess I really dont' disagree with spin after all.

The word bara which in Genesis 1:1 translates create is used in 1 Samuel 2:29 as fatten. If we say God fattened the Heavens and the Earth, the message becomes different. That supposes that the Heavens and the Earth existed and God will fatten them i.e. make them larger.

John P. M. wrote:To say that it must have been meant figuratively because it is scientifically wrong or illogical, I think is born out of subconsciously still attributing knowledge to them that they didn't have, but that we have been conditioned to think they had, because they allegedly had a connection to the Creator. When you strip all that away, you possibly have an ancient bunch of writers that just didn't have a clue.

This is pretty much my take also. Genesis records that whales were created before land animals, from which we now know whales are descended. It's a record of the ignorance of the society in which the book was written.

spin wrote:
This all seems to be you manipulating your bible translation to fulfill your desires for scientific veracity. You'll probably want the six days of the creation mentioned in Gen 1 not to be real 24-hour days, but some desire of eons to allow it more opportunity to fit what you know of science. One purpose of he creation in Gen 1 is to establish the Sabbath as the day of rest. If you want to pervert the text to make days mean eons, what does that make of the Sabbath?

Are you prepared to lose the art and beauty of this creation account because you want to force it to reflect science as it might be, even though the account was written well over 2000 years ago, long, long before science could have helped the writers, and though science has made you aware of its scientific "difficulties"?

Sorry I can't see where I've changed the bible translations to fit in with our current understanding of the world. I was actually trying to confirm the bible translations.

I actually do believe that the six days are real 24 hour days. I find it fascinating that a day was defined before the creation of the sun and moon and after thinking over it, it actually makes sense now. The sun and moon are actually just used for measuring the number of days and not the actual unit itself. I understand how some non-believers are amused that a day existed before the creation of the sun, I don't think they have really thought it through. The same goes for believers who try to change it to mean stages or eons, or whatever to make it fit with the science of today.

The science of today has actually not created any "difficulties" for the bible, I think the believers are actually taking the science of today as matter of fact rather than observations which could later on turn out to be wrong. It's understandable but a shame to see believers bending over backwards to change holy texts to fit in with science of today.

Option 1: we measure a day from sunup to sunup because it's a convenient measure of time. Activity is only convenient with light so it makes sense to measure time by periods of activity.

Option 2: The length of a day was specifically ordained by an unseen and unevidenced designer who carefully sculpted the universe to ensure that the time the earth takes to go around the sun precisely matched this prearranged time period, even though the unseen designer is immaterial and timeless so periods of time (of any length) can have no meaning or significance to it. The cosmic significance of this particular time period is unknown. That the length of the day has and continues to vary due to natural processes which are well documented just shows how magnificently wonderful the unseen designer truly is.

Ockham would have a few words to say I'd suggest.

questioner121 wrote:I actually do believe that the six days are real 24 hour days. I find it fascinating that a day was defined before the creation of the sun and moon and after thinking over it, it actually makes sense now. The sun and moon are actually just used for measuring the number of days and not the actual unit itself. I understand how some non-believers are amused that a day existed before the creation of the sun, I don't think they have really thought it through. The same goes for believers who try to change it to mean stages or eons, or whatever to make it fit with the science of today.

The science of today has actually not created any "difficulties" for the bible, I think the believers are actually taking the science of today as matter of fact rather than observations which could later on turn out to be wrong. It's understandable but a shame to see believers bending over backwards to change holy texts to fit in with science of today.

You are aware that the earth slows by about 14 uS per year? Even allowing that we have not always had the moon and its drag, would not the day have been dramatically shorter than 24 hours a few billion years ago? Are you a young earther?

Xeno wrote:
You are aware that the earth slows by about 14 uS per year? Even allowing that we have not always had the moon and its drag, would not the day have been dramatically shorter than 24 hours a few billion years ago? Are you a young earther?

Yes I am a young earther. Do you have any evidence that we have not always had the moon or is it just an assumption or based on theory?

As for the earth slowing down (if it actually is really slowing down) that would have no bearing on the unit of day defined from the begninning. There was evening and morning before the creation of the sun which was created on the fourth day.

questioner121 wrote:

Xeno wrote:
You are aware that the earth slows by about 14 uS per year? Even allowing that we have not always had the moon and its drag, would not the day have been dramatically shorter than 24 hours a few billion years ago? Are you a young earther?

Yes I am a young earther. Do you have any evidence that we have not always had the moon or is it just an assumption or based on theory?

As for the earth slowing down (if it actually is really slowing down) that would have no bearing on the unit of day defined from the begninning. There was evening and morning before the creation of the sun which was created on the fourth day.

Oh my god.

Yes we do have evidence we didn't always have a moon. It's called observing the development of other nebulae and realize once upon a time that was our own galaxy. Also I guess light years and the time it takes light to reach Earth are just cosmic lies.

Also "based on a theory" I suggest you go to the creationism thread on this forum and read Cali's thorough post regarding arguments like this. Learn what a theory is.

questioner121 wrote:

I actually do believe that the six days are real 24 hour days. I find it fascinating that a day was defined before the creation of the sun and moon and after thinking over it, it actually makes sense now. The sun and moon are actually just used for measuring the number of days and not the actual unit itself. I understand how some non-believers are amused that a day existed before the creation of the sun, I don't think they have really thought it through. The same goes for believers who try to change it to mean stages or eons, or whatever to make it fit with the science of today.

It's a good thing time is relative and a good thing the science doesn't support a young earth.

The science of today has actually not created any "difficulties" for the bible,

Yes it has, if believers are willing to adhere to a dated doctrine and ignore scientific evidence to cling to their doctrine like a baby to its mother's tit.

I think the believers are actually taking the science of today as matter of fact rather than observations which could later on turn out to be wrong.

Oh boy, you're one of those people.

It's understandable but a shame to see believers bending over backwards to change holy texts to fit in with science of today.

At least their trying to make sense of everything. Instead of YEC's and IDers who claim that the Holy Book of the Bible or Qu'ran are some how more reliable than basic scientific evidence.

questioner121 wrote:

Xeno wrote:
You are aware that the earth slows by about 14 uS per year? Even allowing that we have not always had the moon and its drag, would not the day have been dramatically shorter than 24 hours a few billion years ago? Are you a young earther?

Yes I am a young earthier.

OK, I just needed to confirm that we had a dropkick into the realm of inter-galactic silliness.

Do you have any evidence that we have not always had the moon or is it just an assumption or based on theory?

Yes, we have evidence, and the theories which best model that evidence have been tested and used to make successful predictions about new data, which is vastly more than any bible has ever done. See wilhud9's post to trace through to posts by Cali and many other people.

As for the earth slowing down (if it actually is really slowing down) that would have no bearing on the unit of day defined from the begninning. There was evening and morning before the creation of the sun which was created on the fourth day.

So the length of a day is independent of the earth's rotation on its axis (23 h 56 m) and around the sun, or are you also a stationery earther? You may as well be for all the difference it will make. As for whether the earth is slowing (and the moon receding) I take it you are not keen even on Newton's contributions let alone those of Einstein?