answersincreation.org (Literal Genesis AND Old Earth Creationism?)

The gap theory is one of two theories ALL scholars subscribe to. My sources are pro-gap theorists. Do you want to know why we are right and the YEC's wrong ?Answer: Because science has proven the Earth of immense age. Therefore the gap rendering is correct based on the totality of Biblical evidence.Ray: Genesis 1 has God telling Adam to "REplenish" the Earth.RAZD: Is there a time-table for this? At what point in time does Adam step on the stage?Time is conspicuously absent from Genesis. God told Adam to REplenish the Earth instead of plenish; which implies and supports the gap. Genealogically, Adam was created 5100 BC (source: Codex Alexandrinus)Ray

you are aware of two facts, right?1. genesis 1 doesn't talk about "Adam" the proper name of a man, it says "ha-adam" or THE man.2. most translations render that as "fill the earth." it's teh same word as in verse 22, that he tells the fishies.

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אָרַח

Negative."hadamah" = red ground, that which God formed Adam out of. Notice "adam" name in the word."ish" = generic mankind. Deliberately conflating both words to mean generic man while adding a definite article is corruption on it face; your Darwinian ulterior motive is clearly exposed.Adam is a proper name. "ish" = mankind in general. Blurring these simple facts is very predictable since Darwinists are fraud artists through and through to begin with.I was clearly incompetent to say you were competent. You are a Darwinist.RayThis message has been edited by Herepton, 11-21-2005 01:35 PM

I can see no problem with that approach on the surface. There might be some places where interpretations come to be at odds but I don't see a necessity for this to happen. This then brings to question what are all the plentiful fossils and other evidence of complete Homo sapiens well before that period - are these the "other men" that some see references to? The dates of these fossils is well corroborated vis a vis the dating correlations shown in {Age Correlations and an Old Earth}
http://EvC Forum: Age Correlations and an Old Earth: Part II.Doesn't this sort of contradict the "Time is conspicuously absent from Genesis" bit above?Just curious.

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the words might be related, but adam still means "man" and ha-adam means "the man." check, i dunno, every bible translation ever. ish is the modern word for A man SINGULAR, yes. man as opposed to woman, not mankind. the female is ishah. it's plural is nashim, and the female plural is anashim. as far as i know, there is no feminine for "adam." learn to read basic hebrew, then come back and call me incompetant, or a darwinist. let's look at genesis 1:27.

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וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם.

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v-bara elohym et-ha'adam b'tzelemo, b'tzelem elohym bara otov: zachar v-neqevah bara otem

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and-created god {d.o} the man in his own image, in the image of god created he them: male and-female created he them.

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"them" refers back to adam, which is a singular word. et-ha is a common combination, it signifies something specific. it doesn't make sense for "adam" to be a proper name here, unless he was two people, and a hermaphrodite. which i doubt is the case.adam has to refer to mankind -- a singular word describe multiple (but at this time specific) people. it's all in the grammar. this stuff matters.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 11-21-2005 09:47 PM

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אָרַח

How do you explain God creating light, and then separating it from drakness on the first day, but then days were not cleary defined until the fourth day?

I see the creation story from Genesis 1 as a pre-scientific attempt to explain the world and its origins.A person with no scientific knowledge can easily see that much of the light comes from the skies, whether the blue sky or the clouds. Without scientific knowledge, there is no reason that you would assume this light to be scattered or reflected light that originated in the sun.The light from Genesis 1:3-1:5 was simply this background of light, presumed to be independent of the sun.The firmament of 1:6-1:8 surely refers to apparent appearance of the sky as a dome over the earth. It was taken to be some kind of ceiling, and "Heaven" was the name given to this ceiling. Thus "heaven" means the same thing as "sky", the apparent domed ceiling above the earth.The sun and moon obviously had to come later (1:14-1:19). For they were lights to be mounted in the ceiling, and God could not do that until after the ceiling had been installed.This is the quite obvious literal reading of Genesis 1. In the light of modern day science, it is nonsense. In the light of modern day Christianity it is nonsense, for the modern notion of "heaven" is of a spiritual realm, not of a domed ceiling over the earth.It makes you wonder about modern day people who consider themselves literalists.My own conclusion, when I was a teenage evangelical, was that one had to understand the Bible as the writings of men (and women), not as the direct word of God. These men and women may well have been inspired, but what they wrote was not inerrant.The authors of Genesis may well have done the best possible, given what was known to them at the time. It would be unrealistic for us to fault them, simply because what they wrote is inconsistent with our modern understanding of science, and our modern understanding of heavan. But it ought to be clear that modern literalism is foolish, as is the idea that the Bible is the inerrant direct word of God.

Or, it could be a dream or vision interpretation from God, to whoever wrote it. They wrote it to the best of their abilities. I am not sure how you are trying to interpret Genisis, but I have a question.What is the difference between the "lights" from this verse:

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14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years,

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And the stars from this verse:

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He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness.

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Or the microwave backround Yea, I agree with that. At best, they had to at least hear from God, whether it was in a dream, vision, or direct voice, or even a donkey. Then find the time to write down what they remember, and/or how they translated it.Then the bible gets translated several more times.But somehow, we can find the word of God in its writings. I don't think that makes it inherrant, and anyone who says that, and believes that, is probably a hypocrite, and doesn't follow it.But we don't need it to find God. Many people have found God without a bible, or even ever having heard of it.

I agree with that. I think they did not quite know what to make of the stars. They could see that they were illuminated, but they did not produce enough light on earth to be useful to them.I take verses 17 and 18 to be referring mainly to the sun and moon, but incidently to the stars. Verse 14 was where the sun and moon were created, verse 17 is where they were installed in place, and verse 18 is their purpose. I would say that's about right.People can find the word of God in Billy Graham's sermons, but that doesn't make Billy Graham inerrant.The Genesis account was for people of that time, and had to be understandable to them. It was not written directly for us. It is not reasonable to expect it to describe things so as to be compatible with modern physics, for then the people of the time could not have understood it.

no, the days are clearly defined from day one. it says evening and morning, and the day's number for every day except the 7th, which god takes off.are you concered with the sun and moon being created after light and dark are divided? the evenings are mornings were clearly already there beforehand. but god sets sun to rule the day, and the moon to rule the night. and light, apparently, already exists prior to sun.if you're asking me for an explanation of that, well, i don't know. but that's what the bible says. maybe light from dark was a definition or properties, and day's weren't light until day four? maybe they were, but god created the light? genesis doesn't really elaborate -- anything else is a guess, and probably an ad-hoc interpretation.

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אָרַח

haha! i'm starting to like you, riverrat.

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אָרַח

The reason I am asking is that you seem to know Hebrew?
And better understand the words before the translation.As I was reading through the web site answersincreation, It tries to explain that the seven days could have taken as long as it was neccesary. I kind of agree with that being that one day can be a thousand years to God. They use that explanation as well.In other words they are not YEC, and try to say that your not going against the bible to think so. Myself, I try not to get to hung up on it anyway. But it is interesting to discuss, and study.I like that web-site, in that they are trying to let religion and science get along. I agree with that. I think that both things seek some sort of truth, and if the truth is out there, then it won't lie. Everytime I study something further, it confirms the experiences I have with the Holy Spirit.For too many years, (or maybe not) I used things like science, the world around me, and bad experiences with the church to not believe in God. Or they just kept me from finding God. It is what drove me to come into this forum in the first place, thinking I can explain to others what I found, and what used to keep me from finding it. But I came in here pretty ignorant.But through the discussions I have in here, especially with atheists, it helps me define just who God is, and how we show others what we have found.

i'm only learning. i can't read anywhere near fluently yet. it's kind of a tired reading, actually, but i think it perverts the meaning of that verse in second peter (which is NOT in hebrew, btw). he's saying that a day to god is like 1000 years to us, and that god can accomplish in a single day what would take us 1000 years. he's not saying that 1 god-day is literally 1000 years to us. it's simile, a comparison, but they're not the same thing. i suspect that "1000 years" is alo hyperbole -- he just picked a large number.it actually sort of makes the genesis account make more sense. how did accomplish so much in just a day? right, but i think they're changing the meaning of the words to justify the bible against reality, in an apologetic sense. i couldn't really care less, myself, if the bible relates to reality. i'd rather know what it says and what it means than try to force my own meaning on it. i think that they are two different kinds of truth -- the bible speaks of spiritual truths, and those are most important. we don't need to be inerrant, or even true in the other sense of the word for the spiritual truths to be valid. you can have truths in complete fictions, like parables.i have no desire, really, to try to match genesis up with geology. they don't fit; i know because i've tried before myself. everyone always starts out ignorant, no matter the field. learning takes time. i think it's important, really, that we separate faith from religion, science, and the world around us. i've had bad experiences with the church myself too -- but you have to realize that other people are not god. they can't even claim to adequately represent him.faith is a personal thing, really, and has little to do with church and religion.This message has been edited by arachnophilia, 12-04-2005 11:50 PM

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אָרַח

Overwhelming evidence of mircles, and undenyable proof of God's existance.

Well the verse in the NIV goes like this:

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8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

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I agree the thousand years is a hyperbole, he just picked a number. But what I get from that reading is that time just doesn't matter to God. Almost as if he exists in a demension void of time.
The way God understands slowness, and the way we do, are 2 different things.This to me could also mean, that any length of time could have happened in the creation process. I have always thought that. NEver at any point in my life did I think the world was only 6000 years old. After my experience, I did start to wonder, and I remain open to any possibility, but made up my mind that whole thing really doesn't play into what makes me believe in God or not. Do you think that if science can prove the bible wrong, then people will use that to not believe in God? Yes I agree, and I know that now. Well 14 years ago I started to realize that. I am now involved with a church pretty heavily. So far, so good, I think I found a good group of people, who seem to think along the same lines. Our own pastor preaches on Sunday that he is "sick of church", which I think is cool. But I already made up my mind, that no matter what these "people" do to me, it has nothing to do with God.This message has been edited by riVeRraT, 12-05-2005 06:55 AM