Creation

It doesn't say that. You're making it up. It was written for humans so there's no reason to think it meant anything but what humans think it means.If all you can do is make up stuff to cover up the errors, that's not very satisfying.

I don't use the word "probable" unless it's an actual mathematical probability that can be calculated. Can you show what the mathematical value of the "probability" is? Or are you just stating your own preference? As I said, you need to show that it does mean that, not just that it hypothetically "could" mean that. Otherwise, you're just bending the word's meaning to fit your preconceived interpretation.We need to be honest here and decide what the text actually says and only then can we decide whether or not there are errors in it. We can't decide a priori that there are no errors and then look for flimsy excuses to mean something else.Edited by ringo, : Inserted missing word "you".

It says he created the heavens and the earth. There's no "then". There's certainly nothing to suggest billions of years.

That isn't what it says. There is no "prior to" time frame mentioned between verse 1 and verse 2. I agree that it's a revolution of Biblical revisionism that came up with your interpretation. It wasn't Bible scholars who discovered that the earth was billions of years old. Bible revisionists have been struggling to shoehorn the Bible into reality ever since science was invented. So which is it? Are you looking for possibilities within scripture or are you looking for the truth? Huh? Are you disputing the length of time from Abraham to Jesus? Are you inserting untold generations in there? Remember that Abraham was from Ur and we can date Ur independently of the Bible.The biggest problem in Biblical dating of the earth is that the gap before humans is way too small. You can't insert generations there. Indeed. That includes your interpretation. That's why we need to look at what it actually says instead of trying to rewrite it to conform to the science of the day.

Scripture allows for a lot of things both true and false. You can't decide that scripture is accurate just because it maybe could possibly be warped to fit reality.You have to look at what it actually says. If it's wrong, it's wrong.

DOCJ and I haven't gotten to verse 3 yet. He said in Message 355 that, "Genesis 1:1 is where the universe was created. It does represent billions of years." That's what I was referring to.

That doesn't help you. Most of the age of the earth occurred before there were any humans and the Bible doesn't suggest that at all.

Does it really suggest that or do you just wish it did? If you were reading Genesis 1 with no preconceived notions, would you conclude that there were billions of years? Well of course Genesis 1:1 is looking down on the earth; there was nowhere to stand on earth yet. How can you stretch a different viewpoint to billions of years? No, the Big Bang didn't expand "into" anything. It was an expansion OF everything. That's like saying that Ian Fleming mentioned Paris and Paris exists so the James Bond stories must be true. Even if there are some congruencies, it's the incongruencies that determine whether or not the Bible is reliable.

So God created the dryness.Really, this nitpicking about whether anything was "created" is pretty silly.

You can be too careful, to the point of being catatonic.

The Bible is not true. We know that.

There is no distinction between "space" and "material" in Genesis 1. Did the Hebrews even have a concept of "space"?

Sure, it's possible for an author of fiction to make up something that coincidentally agrees with reality. There's nothing objective about the concept of "God", so your point is moot. What if God knew that He was dictating fiction? On the contrary, I'm saying that we should just read the text as it is written. You're the one who's trying to shoehorn "truth" into it.

We do, even if you don't. We (humans) know how to split an atom even if you (personally) do not.We don't have to go beyond page 1 of the Bible to find mistakes. You might be able to jump through enough hoops to convince yourself that it's still "true" but you'll find it hard to drag everybody else through the hoops with you.

It says they were in the "firmament". Note the root word "firm". The Hebrews thought of it as a solid dome over the earth. It has nothing to do with what we call "space".