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Author Topic:   Genesis 1:1-5 — Day One
Evangelical Humanists
Junior Member (Idle past 4252 days)
Posts: 14
Joined: 05-27-2012


Message 106 of 110 (664233)
05-30-2012 6:14 AM
Reply to: Message 105 by arachnophilia
05-29-2012 8:44 PM


Re: Life before Genesis 1:2? - NOWAY!
Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning he created heaven and earth" correct? This is talking present tense not past tense as in if it would have read " In the beginning there was heaven and earth" according to Genesis 1 not earth or a heaven existed prior to a god creating them. This makes it an ex-nihilo event.
Do you believe that matter is eternal? This idea is put forth by the Mormons. While you maybe correct in saying that nothing in the Bible indicates a belief in ex-nihilo the very wording in Genesis 1 indicates it is.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 105 by arachnophilia, posted 05-29-2012 8:44 PM arachnophilia has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 107 by arachnophilia, posted 05-30-2012 4:53 PM Evangelical Humanists has not replied

  
arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


Message 107 of 110 (664271)
05-30-2012 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 106 by Evangelical Humanists
05-30-2012 6:14 AM


Re: Life before Genesis 1:2? - NOWAY!
Evangelical Humanists writes:
Genesis 1:1 says "In the beginning he created heaven and earth" correct?
nope! you should probably read the comment i linked to above. it says, literally, "in the beginning of god creating..." or more idiomatically, "when god began creating..."
This is talking present tense not past tense as in if it would have read " In the beginning there was heaven and earth" according to Genesis 1 not earth or a heaven existed prior to a god creating them.
the verb in the sentence is pointed as a qal perfect verb, but it was almost certainly meant to be an infinitive construct as in genesis 5:1. it's being used as a noun, in construct with "beginning".
the actual creation is described in the rest of the chapter. heaven is made in verses 6-8. and earth in 9 and 10. it isn't hard to see how verse 1 is talking about those events (and the others in the chapter) even if you don't follow the grammatical reasons above. as described in the rest of the chapter, neither earth nor heaven are made out of nothing. they are both made from water, which is already there.
Do you believe that matter is eternal? This idea is put forth by the Mormons.
my beliefs aren't relevant. i'm just discussing what the bible says.
While you maybe correct in saying that nothing in the Bible indicates a belief in ex-nihilo the very wording in Genesis 1 indicates it is.
it doesn't. it's possible to read it that way in most translations, yes. but if you noted in the linked post above, i'm not looking at translations, am i?
quote:
n the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
may be a little unclear, but
quote:
בראשית ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
is not. if i had meant the above, it would have said
quote:
בראשונה ברא אלהים את השמים ואת הארץ
see the difference? one word is a construct, ending in ית. the other is not. that makes all the difference. it's not ex-nihilo because the following statements describe what creation was like god began creating. there was something there already: water.
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

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This message is a reply to:
 Message 106 by Evangelical Humanists, posted 05-30-2012 6:14 AM Evangelical Humanists has not replied

  
Evangelical Humanists
Junior Member (Idle past 4252 days)
Posts: 14
Joined: 05-27-2012


Message 108 of 110 (664276)
05-30-2012 6:31 PM


Ex-nihilo either way you look at it changing words does not change it. I am aware that the Hebrew is ברא bara' for (creation). And since I do not speak fluent Hebrew I got no idea what you posted in Hebrew.
Edited by Evangelical Humanists, : No reason given.

Replies to this message:
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arachnophilia
Member (Idle past 1343 days)
Posts: 9069
From: god's waiting room
Joined: 05-21-2004


(1)
Message 109 of 110 (664297)
05-30-2012 9:25 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Evangelical Humanists
05-30-2012 6:31 PM


Evangelical Humanists writes:
Ex-nihilo either way you look at it changing words does not change it.
i believe you have ignored my argument, perhaps because you didn't understand it? can i help explain it to you in any way?
I am aware that the Hebrew is ברא bara' for (creation)
correct. and that's actually neither here nor there (though ICANT likes to make some kind of nonsense issue about it). the issue is that the first word, ראש ("first"), is in the construct state, ראשית ("first of"), which means that it's joined to the next word. it's common in hebrew for words to be paired this way, but you can only have a construct between two nouns. that means the verb, ברא ("create") must be functioning as a noun ("creating"). in other words, an infinitive (or gerund, in english terms).
the issue is that, in hebrew, verb tenses are determined by the vowels and/or semi-vowels that have been applied to modify the three letter root. in this case, the people who added the vowel points added the vowels for a simple (qal) perfect (generally translated as past tense) verb, instead of the points for an infinitive. the points, of course, were not part of the original text.
in this case, i haven't changed any of the words, just made an educated inference about what the vowels should have been. this inference is supported by rashi and orlinsky, both of whom know what they're talking about. (rashi is the tenth century jewish rabbi responsible for one of the most comprehensive commentaries on the torah. he wrote in hebrew, so i believe that counts as fluent.)
as rashi notes, if the author had meant to say "in the beginning, god created" in an abstract sense, to give a timeframe for the story, instead of "in the beginning of god creating" ("when god began creating") he would have used ראש in the abstract sense, not in the construct. so instead of ראשית ("first of"), it would say ראשונה ("first").
since, in this case, ברא is not an actual verb, we have ourselves a subordinate clause. no action has taken place here. the clauses that proceed from this verse describe what it was like at the beginning of god's creation. so, if you read from there, it says that, "when god began creating the heaven and the earth... the earth was formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep." that's what it was like, when god began creating.
this is actually a common way to begin stories. genesis 2:4 says,
quote:
אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם: בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים--אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם
"these are the generations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created: in the day of yahweh god making earth and heaven..."
i don't expect you to follow the grammar here specifically, but you should know that it's exactly the same. ביום is a complex preposition, similar to בראשית, and means "in the day of" something. the verb that follows it, עשות ("making") is (correctly pointed as) an infinitive construct. the whole thing begins a subordinate clause. here is genesis 5:1:
quote:
זֶה סֵפֶר, תּוֹלְדֹת אָדָם: בְּיוֹם, בְּרֹא אֱלֹהִים אָדָם, בִּדְמוּת אֱלֹהִים, עָשָׂה אֹתוֹ.
"this is the book of the generation of adam: in the day of god creating adam, in the image of god he made him."
same structure. complex preposition, constructed with an infinitive noun (this time, ברא pointed correctly), forming a subordinate clause. the independent clause, "in the image of god he made him" tells what happened when god made adam.
yes? so in genesis 1:1-3, the second and third verses tell what happened at the beginning of god creating. ergo, no ex-nihilo creation. the hebrew doesn't support it. further, as i tried to point out above, even if you miss all of these points, the rest of the chapter goes on to tell the actual story of creation, in which god creates from raw materials.
And since I do not speak fluent Hebrew I got no idea what you posted in Hebrew.
does this post help any?
Edited by arachnophilia, : No reason given.

אָרַח

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Evangelical Humanists, posted 05-30-2012 6:31 PM Evangelical Humanists has not replied

  
Calminian
Junior Member (Idle past 4173 days)
Posts: 2
Joined: 10-22-2012


Message 110 of 110 (676345)
10-22-2012 1:24 AM
Reply to: Message 30 by Jon
05-07-2012 7:59 AM


Re: The Light was Good
Couple things that should be considered in this discussion. First, erets in the hebrew means land, not planet earth. Second, the land as we understand it wasn't created until verse 9, while the expanse of space was created in verse 6. Just some thoughts. I would gather from this that planet earth, the land and sea, were not created in verse 2, but rather a primordial fluid which contained the elements God used to form our planet.
Edited by Calminian, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 30 by Jon, posted 05-07-2012 7:59 AM Jon has not replied

  
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