Not even Christians believe the *edit* of creation

[Balthazzar]

Uh, no, the non-explosion of a solid that was the big bang did not directly create the materials that aggregated to become the earth. There is billions of years of stellar and galaxy formulation and demise in between to even create the elements that make up the earth. Go to a library and research the thing called the "Big Bang" and then research planet formation, they are sequential, but distantly related.
For example, there was no H2O or water in the universe for millions if not billions of years let alone the iron and nickel that makes up the majority of the core of the earth.

I didn't imply that the big bang was the explosion of a solid material, but I utilized that type of analogy to point out what you agreed with about my post. I will disagree with your position on water, however.

 

[Pogo]

I didn't imply that the big bang was the explosion of a solid material, but I utilized that type of analogy to point out what you agreed with about my post. I will disagree with your position on water, however.

You are still trying to shoehorn science into an ancient campfire story that was never about how the earth came to be, but to convey the belief that the earth was the work of a god and that the story tellers and listeners were significant in this obviously big place that they had no explanation for.

Ultimately these beliefs make a mockery of the meaning of the actual story and lead to their followers becoming the one thing they created the story to assuage, their fear of the unknown and being insignificant.

You can see it these days in the willingness to follow Trump who bears more resemblance to an anti-christ than a saviour in a desperate attempt to cling to literal interpretations of the text amounting to superstition rather than the purpose of the story as a story of redemption and learning right behaviour.

 

[Balthazzar]

You are still trying to shoehorn science into an ancient campfire story that was never about how the earth came to be, but to convey the belief that the earth was the work of a god and that the story tellers and listeners were significant in this obviously big place that they had no explanation for.

Ultimately these beliefs make a mockery of the meaning of the actual story and lead to their followers becoming the one thing they created the story to assuage, their fear of the unknown and being insignificant.

You can see it these days in the willingness to follow Trump who bears more resemblance to an anti-christ than a saviour in a desperate attempt to cling to literal interpretations of the text amounting to superstition rather than the purpose of the story as a story of redemption and learning right behaviour.

No, Pogo I'm not ...

I offered nothing but an inquiry and a possible series of events that would in fact be in line with how our earth may have been formed per scientific theory. My inquiry specifically was about what the earth looked like prior to becoming spherical. I mentioned an energy dome possibly being the result of the earths spin on its axis and how the iron ores in the earth interact with the sun's electromagnetic field. I likewise made mention of the atmosphere being developed from the byproduct of early living organisms.

 

[Pogo]

No, Pogo I'm not ...

I offered nothing but an inquiry and a possible series of events that would in fact be in line with how our earth may have been formed per scientific theory. My inquiry specifically was about what the earth looked like prior to becoming spherical. I mentioned an energy dome possibly being the result of the earths spin on its axis and how the iron ores in the earth interact with the sun's electromagnetic field. I likewise made mention of the atmosphere being developed from the byproduct of early living organisms.

This is exactly missing the point of the story and shoehorning the story into insignificance. I honestly suggest you find a Rabbi, they are much better at explaining the story since it is theirs to begin with.

 

[Balthazzar]

This is exactly missing the point of the story and shoehorning the story into insignificance. I honestly suggest you find a Rabbi, they are much better at explaining the story since it is theirs to begin with.

Inquiring minds become students and students search for understanding, as opposed to those who teach what they have been taught to teach. These types of snares limit progress unless the windows are left open for greater insight. I'll remain a student, thank you. It is my honor to remain one ...

 

[Balthazzar]

This is exactly missing the point of the story and shoehorning the story into insignificance. I honestly suggest you find a Rabbi, they are much better at explaining the story since it is theirs to begin with.

Another point I wish to make is in how concepts are communicated and how communication dynamics change over time. From terms to intent to symbols and poetics, language is or can be complex. Genesis is a story and although it is far from being literal, it has a type of correspondence with what we've discovered since and how we communicate these discoveries to others. Some enjoy the argument while others enjoy the compatible side of the equation. Puzzle pieces and history, dna and carbon dating all relevant to our quest for understanding. While the bible may not appeal to everyone, it certainly appeals to some. I enjoy bible literature and I enjoy science. I'm not superstitious and I don't believe in magic. I prefer understanding factual truths and how these truths may correlate with our distant pasts.

 

[Pogo]

Another point I wish to make is in how concepts are communicated and how communication dynamics change over time. From terms to intent to symbols and poetics, language is or can be complex. Genesis is a story and although it is far from being literal, it has a type of correspondence with what we've discovered since and how we communicate these discoveries to others. Some enjoy the argument while others enjoy the compatible side of the equation. Puzzle pieces and history, dna and carbon dating all relevant to our quest for understanding. While the bible may not appeal to everyone, it certainly appeals to some. I enjoy bible literature and I enjoy science. I'm not superstitious and I don't believe in magic. I prefer understanding factual truths and how these truths may correlate with our distant pasts.

Yes and it is only recently that the belief that the Bible tells the true story of the Earth's creation beyond it once wasn't here and now it is has become an idea. It is also only maintained by a small subset primarily in the US. If you are looking for truth and not superstition and magic, stop looking for parallels that aren't there because a literal reading or even an interpretation of it as a factual account requires superstition and magic.

 

[Balthazzar]

Yes and it is only recently that the belief that the Bible tells the true story of the Earth's creation beyond it once wasn't here and now it is has become an idea. It is also only maintained by a small subset primarily in the US. If you are looking for truth and not superstition and magic, stop looking for parallels that aren't there because a literal reading or even an interpretation of it as a factual account requires superstition and magic.

You're free to follow your approach to religious texts. I'll continue the academic in a manner that best suits my needs. I have no need to change your mind. You have science and your other chosen disciplines. I have science, ancient history, poetics, mythology, art, sociology, and politics.

Edit: World History and Politics go hand in hand.

 

[Audie]

No, Pogo I'm not ...

I offered nothing but an inquiry and a possible series of events that would in fact be in line with how our earth may have been formed per scientific theory. My inquiry specifically was about what the earth looked like prior to becoming spherical. I mentioned an energy dome possibly being the result of the earths spin on its axis and how the iron ores in the earth interact with the sun's electromagnetic field. I likewise made mention of the atmosphere being developed from the byproduct of early living organisms.

What is an energy dome?

 

[DavidSMoore]

The corrections were based on legitimate new findings and research not known at the time of the original KJV.

My argument is that the provenance of the Bible is the main issue not which translation is correct.

Here's what I said in the very first posting of this thread about the NRSVue:
(The New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition was published in 2019. The organization that holds the copyright on that version is the National Council of Churches of the United States of America. So it represents the orthodox Christian interpretation in the United States.)

There's a Catholic version of the same translation. Its rendition of the story of the creation is the same as the non-Catholic version.

The NRSVue is certainly not the only translation available, but it is the one that has the broadest acceptance among the various sects of Christianity in the U.S. today.

I previously argued that the NRSVue's interpretation of the story of the creation is implied in earlier versions:

Response to Kathryn

Let's look specifically at the events of Day 2 as per the KJV, but we'll replace the word "firmament" with "dome", which is closer to the original Hebrew:

And God said, Let there be a firmament dome in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.
And God made the firmament dome, and divided the waters which were under the firmament dome from the waters which were above the firmament dome: and it was so.
And God called the firmament dome Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

So the KJV version has the problem made obvious in the NRSVue that there are waters above the dome of Heaven. What are those waters? They are the waters of the enveloping universe. And why is Heaven dome shaped? Because the Earth is a flat disc. What a difference a single word can make!

Now let's do the same with Day 4:

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament dome of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
And let them be for lights in the firmament dome of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
And God set them in the firmament dome of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.

So this part of the story has the same problem that the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are all inside the dome of Heaven. The universe is not dome shaped. The Earth is not a flat disc. The problems that are made more evident in the NRSVue were always present in the earlier English translations.

 

[DavidSMoore]

There must be something in the story that says that God created everything from nothing.

Why? Is it only because if God did not create the universe from nothing, then God is not omnipotent? That's not a sufficient reason to assume that God created the universe from nothing.

You tell us here that your interpretation is based on the assumption the Bible has to mean what other cultures of the day believed. You assume the answer, that the Bible must mean what other cultures believed. That is circular reasoning, esp when the Bible does not say that.

I offered my interpretation of the first sentence of the Bible (from the NRSVue) several times in previous postings, and you simply dismissed it. Your above statement that "the Bible does not say that" is further proof that you are indifferent to the evidence I presented on the basis of what that first sentence actually says. No, I don't agree that the "Bible does not say that."

Where do you think the Bible got the story of the flood? That story circulated throughout ancient Mesopotamia for at least 1500 years before it was adapted for use in the Bible. It was translated into several different languages, and it was adapted for use in different cultures. There are many similarities between the version of the flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh and that in the Bible; but there are also several pronounced differences. You seem to have a very naive view of how the Bible was written. It's a collection of human authored texts. And the stories of the creation and the flood, in particular, are composites of elements from other cultures and traditions.

The Biblical cosmology that we are told the ancient Jews believed is one thing but the cosmology that we can understand from what we have learned from science, can also fit with what the Bible tells us. There is nothing wrong with being informed about Biblical interpretation through science.
Day 2 says that the waters were above the sky, and in those days the clouds, and whatever other waters there were, were probably above the atmosphere to a degree. (esp going by Job 38:9 which gives a picture of clouds extending quite a distance from the earth, and why not when there would have been no atmosphere to stop that from happening).
Sites like these show that science (even though it is still theorising) might be on the right track when it speaks about clouds around the early earth which allow light in but not necessarily allowing the sun and moon etc to be seen clearly.

So let me get this straight. One of the articles you cited is about the Precambrian. That's a period of time more than 543 million years ago. So you do not accept the Biblical chronology of a 6 day creation, right? You seem so determined to nitpick every detail of the story to make it sound like it fits with modern science-- but to deny that the creation took place in 6 days is to deny one of the most important elements of the story. What else of the Biblical story do you reject?

I am not making an assumption about the Genesis story being compatible with modern concepts of cosmology and I have sort of demonsrated that. But you have said that you are assuming that the story is wrong and that it has to agree with what some other cultures said about cosmology.
It's cosmology can be read to agree with science and to even be illuminated by science. Why would you then assume that the rest of the creation story got it wrong?

What does the Biblical story have to say about the expansion of the universe? NOTHING.
What does the Biblical story have to say about the Great Oxygenation Event? NOTHING.
What does the Biblical story have to say about galaxies? NOTHING. (And it's only because of galaxies that we know about the expansion of the universe.)
What does the Biblical story have to say about the many mass extinction events that have happened over the last 600 million years? NOTHING. (And those extinction events wiped out huge percentages of entire species-- not just of individual organisms.)
What does the Biblical story have to say about the first forms of life on Earth-- single-celled prokaryotes-- that were the only forms of life on our planet for more than 2 billion years? NOTHING.

Here's what the Bible says about the sequence of the origin of species on Earth:

Biblical story element

On Day 3 God created all species of plants

On Day 5 God created all species of marine life and of birds

On Day 6 God created all species of land animals and human beings

Here's what science has to say:

MYA	Span– MY	Event
3800	0	First appearance of life on Earth (single celled prokaryotes)
1500	2300	First eukaryotes (but still single celled)
1200	300	First multi-celled organisms
800	400	First sponges
575	225	Beginning of the Ediacaran period
543	32	Beginning of the Cambrian period
433	110	First land plant
428	5	First land animal

(MYA = Million Years Ago; MY = Millions of Years)

During the Ediacaran period there were some organisms that appeared to be plants and others that appeared to be animals. As far as I am aware, no one has definitively proved one way or another which came first.
The most important fact about the history of life on Earth is that once complex life gained a foothold (in the Ediacaran) new species of animals and plants appeared continuously throughout time. Couple that with the history of mass extinctions and you have a history of species being created and destroyed throughout the past 600 million years.

So would you please explain how the two listings above are identical? Because I just don't see it.

Thanks.

 

[YoursTrue]

Here's what I said in the very first posting of this thread about the NRSVue:
(The New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition was published in 2019. The organization that holds the copyright on that version is the National Council of Churches of the United States of America. So it represents the orthodox Christian interpretation in the United States.)

There's a Catholic version of the same translation. Its rendition of the story of the creation is the same as the non-Catholic version.

The NRSVue is certainly not the only translation available, but it is the one that has the broadest acceptance among the various sects of Christianity in the U.S. today.

I previously argued that the NRSVue's interpretation of the story of the creation is implied in earlier versions:

Response to Kathryn

Let's look specifically at the events of Day 2 as per the KJV, but we'll replace the word "firmament" with "dome", which is closer to the original Hebrew:



So the KJV version has the problem made obvious in the NRSVue that there are waters above the dome of Heaven. What are those waters? They are the waters of the enveloping universe. And why is Heaven dome shaped? Because the Earth is a flat disc. What a difference a single word can make!

Now let's do the same with Day 4:



So this part of the story has the same problem that the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are all inside the dome of Heaven. The universe is not dome shaped. The Earth is not a flat disc. The problems that are made more evident in the NRSVue were always present in the earlier English translations.

OK, wait a minute here. Do you believe that the earth is a flat disc?

 

[DavidSMoore]

OK, wait a minute here. Do you believe that the earth is a flat disc?

No, of course not. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. The universe is not an ocean of water. The Earth's atmosphere is not dome shaped. And the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are not contained within the Earth's atmosphere. And yet the Bible's story of creation says all of that.

 

[YoursTrue]

No, of course not. The Earth is an oblate spheroid. The universe is not an ocean of water. The Earth's atmosphere is not dome shaped. And the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are not contained within the Earth's atmosphere. And yet the Bible's story of creation says all of that.

1. I didn't know it says the earth is a flat disc. But if that's how you interpret it -- have a good one. No need for me to go any further if that's how you see things. Some people were barred from joining the armed forces because they had "flat feet."

 

[shunyadragon]

Here's what I said in the very first posting of this thread about the NRSVue:
(The New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition was published in 2019. The organization that holds the copyright on that version is the National Council of Churches of the United States of America. So it represents the orthodox Christian interpretation in the United States.)

There's a Catholic version of the same translation. Its rendition of the story of the creation is the same as the non-Catholic version.

The NRSVue is certainly not the only translation available, but it is the one that has the broadest acceptance among the various sects of Christianity in the U.S. today.

I previously argued that the NRSVue's interpretation of the story of the creation is implied in earlier versions:

Response to Kathryn

Let's look specifically at the events of Day 2 as per the KJV, but we'll replace the word "firmament" with "dome", which is closer to the original Hebrew:



So the KJV version has the problem made obvious in the NRSVue that there are waters above the dome of Heaven. What are those waters? They are the waters of the enveloping universe. And why is Heaven dome shaped? Because the Earth is a flat disc. What a difference a single word can make!

Now let's do the same with Day 4:



So this part of the story has the same problem that the Sun, the Moon, and the stars are all inside the dome of Heaven. The universe is not dome shaped. The Earth is not a flat disc. The problems that are made more evident in the NRSVue were always present in the earlier English translations.

The corrections were based on legitimate new findings and research not known at the time of the original KJV.

My argument is that the provenance of the Bible is the main issue not which translation is correct.

It remains the Genesis Creations story is based on the ancient mythology of the time. There never was a place the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and no talking snakes. There definitely was not a perfect world without death, sin or suffering.

 

[shunyadragon]

1. I didn't know it says the earth is a flat disc. But if that's how you interpret it -- have a good one.

The Bible describes it as a flat disc in a geocentric universe,. That is what was believed at the time without science.

The Genesis Creation is fundamentally an edited compilation of the Creation mythologies of the time.

 

[GoodAttention]

The Bible describes it as a flat disc in a geocentric universe,. That is what was believed at the time without science.

Source?

 

[shunyadragon]

Source?

Genesis! Read the Book. References have already been cited, and there are more. The Genesis account reflects what was generally believed at the time and in the maps they made.

 

[Absolutely Frank]

And yet the Bible's story of creation says all of that.

And? It's a story. People have stories that connect them together in unity. Like any other national mythology. I know some rather interesting Nsative American stories about how the world came to be, should we all take a dump on those because they don't align with your worldview? If so. Why?

 

[YoursTrue]

Genesis! Read the Book. References have already been cited, and there are more. The Genesis account reflects what was generally believed at the time and in the maps they made.

I like the term dome. It sheds some light on the situation of the relation of celestial bodies to the earth.