Other sheep I have...

[PruePhillip]

Younger? 4,000 years? 6,000 is perhaps what Bible genealogies suggest, that is why I mentioned it like that.
Yeah, sure. God created Adam on the 3rd or 6th day of creation. Where is the need for billions of years of evolution?
That is Darwinian crap.

There are TWO accounts in Genesis 1.
The first account give us God creating the heaven and the earth.
And then, you the observer, are placed upon the earth - it is dark, oceanic and sterile
then the skies clear
the continents rise
life emerges first on land (fresh water)
and then life appears in the oceans
then man.

That's the exact sequence, given in symbolic 'days'

 

[Aupmanyav]

How come two accounts?
Angels misunderstood? Communication link failure?
Garbled message? Someone made a mistake while copying?

 

[PruePhillip]

How come two accounts?
Angels misunderstood? Communication link failure?
Garbled message? Someone made a mistake while copying?

Two differing aspects - both are symbolic, the second one is also highly abstracted.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Well, whatever it is, it is for you people. I go with science.

 

[Kenny]

"The books of the Bible were initially written and copied by hand on papyrus scrolls. No originals survive. .. The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in the caves of Qumran in 1947, are copies that can be dated to between 250 BCE and 100 CE. They are the oldest existing copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible of any length that are not simply fragments."
Etc.
Bible - Wikipedia

Very true.

Do you know the process of them copying?

 

[PruePhillip]

Well, whatever it is, it is for you people. I go with science.

and I gave you some science. But just remember, science explains only the natural world - it cannot explain how it got here or why it's here.

 

[Aupmanyav]

and I gave you some science. But just remember, science explains only the natural world - it cannot explain how it got here or why it's here.

If you think "Goddidit" is a good explanation, then it is OK. At least science is trying to find answers.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Do you know the process of them copying?

That is a huge subject but Historicity of the Bible - Wikipedia is helpful.

"Modern professional historians, familiar with the phenomenon of on-going historical revisionism, allow new findings and ideas into their interpretations of "what happened", and scholars versed in the study of texts (however sacred) see all narrators as potentially unreliable and all accounts - especially edited accounts - as potentially historically incomplete, biased by times and circumstances."

"By the end of the 19th century the scholarly consensus was that the Pentateuch was the work of many authors writing from 1000 BCE (the time of David) to 500 BCE (the time of Ezra) and redacted c. 450, and as a consequence whatever history it contained was more often polemical than strictly factual - a conclusion reinforced by the then fresh scientific refutations of what were at the time widely classed as biblical mythologies."

".. until Adam Sedgwick, the president of the Geological Society, publicly recanted his previous support in his 1831 presidential address: "We ought indeed to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic Flood. For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not yet found a single trace among the remnants of the former world entombed in those deposits." All of which left the "first man" and his putative descendants in the awkward position of being stripped of all historical context, .."

Gunkel's position is that: "if, however, we consider figures like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be actual persons with no original mythic foundations, that does not at all mean that they are historical figures. ...For even if, as may well be assumed, there was once a man call "Abraham," everyone who knows the history of legends is sure that the legend is in no position at the distance of so many centuries to preserve a picture of the personal piety of Abraham. The "religion of Abraham" is, in reality, the religion of the legend narrators which they attribute to Abraham."

Well, it will be a long post even if I choose from that article, so I would request all interested to go through the article themselves.

 

[PruePhillip]

If you think "Goddidit" is a good explanation, then it is OK. At least science is trying to find answers.

There two options with our universe appearing
1 - magic
2 - creation

Magic means it just emerged without even physical laws, or time, or energy - and for no reason.
Creation means it was made by someone or some thing outside of space and time.
Take your pick.

 

[Aupmanyav]

There two options with our universe appearing
1 - magic
2 - creation
Magic means it just emerged without even physical laws, or time, or energy - and for no reason.

What do we know about reasons? Yeah, birth of universe is certainly magic as we understand today. In coming ages, we will know better. I would not jumps to conclusions. The mystery is not going to be cleared in my life-time (I am 79+). Just as the former generations passed away without having any inkling of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, I will also be no more when this mystery is cleared - Allah knows whether in this Century or in the next. I am satisfied with what we have come to know today and would not resort to a 'no-explanation' like "Goddidit".

James Webb telescope.

 

[idea]

There two options with our universe appearing
1 - magic
2 - creation

Magic means it just emerged without even physical laws, or time, or energy - and for no reason.
Creation means it was made by someone or some thing outside of space and time.
Take your pick.

Or
3. No beginning. Everything has always existed.

The Beginning. by Brig Klyce

 

[idea]

That is a huge subject but Historicity of the Bible - Wikipedia is helpful.
.

Fewer in U.S. Now See Bible as Literal Word of God

As even most Christians now do not take the Bible literally, there is room for more interpretations, like asops fables, lessons within lessons, more tolerance for others. A good trend to see.

 

[Kenny]

That is a huge subject but Historicity of the Bible - Wikipedia is helpful.

"Modern professional historians, familiar with the phenomenon of on-going historical revisionism, allow new findings and ideas into their interpretations of "what happened", and scholars versed in the study of texts (however sacred) see all narrators as potentially unreliable and all accounts - especially edited accounts - as potentially historically incomplete, biased by times and circumstances."

"By the end of the 19th century the scholarly consensus was that the Pentateuch was the work of many authors writing from 1000 BCE (the time of David) to 500 BCE (the time of Ezra) and redacted c. 450, and as a consequence whatever history it contained was more often polemical than strictly factual - a conclusion reinforced by the then fresh scientific refutations of what were at the time widely classed as biblical mythologies."

".. until Adam Sedgwick, the president of the Geological Society, publicly recanted his previous support in his 1831 presidential address: "We ought indeed to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic Flood. For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not yet found a single trace among the remnants of the former world entombed in those deposits." All of which left the "first man" and his putative descendants in the awkward position of being stripped of all historical context, .."

Gunkel's position is that: "if, however, we consider figures like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to be actual persons with no original mythic foundations, that does not at all mean that they are historical figures. ...For even if, as may well be assumed, there was once a man call "Abraham," everyone who knows the history of legends is sure that the legend is in no position at the distance of so many centuries to preserve a picture of the personal piety of Abraham. The "religion of Abraham" is, in reality, the religion of the legend narrators which they attribute to Abraham."

Well, it will be a long post even if I choose from that article, so I would request all interested to go through the article themselves.

You might try something other than Wikipedia since it is so flexible on who write what and who decides if it is correct.

This site might be helpful for you:

Process of copying the Old Testament by Jewish Scribes

From then on, the Jewish scribes solidified the following process for creating copies of the Torah and eventually other books in the Old Testament.

1. They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
2. Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
3. The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
4. They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
5. They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies before writing the word "Jehovah," every time they wrote it.
6. There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
7. The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
8. The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc).
9. As no document containing God's Word could be destroyed, they were stored, or buried, in a genizah - a Hebrew term meaning "hiding place." These were usually kept in a synagogue or sometimes in a Jewish cemetery.

so many time the reason why some people think it was corrupted is only because of #9. They simply don't have the right one.

 

[PruePhillip]

Or
3. No beginning. Everything has always existed.

The Beginning. by Brig Klyce

The third option is looking increasingly unlikely. As far as we can tell, the universe will keep expanding until
it tears itself apart.

 

[PruePhillip]

What do we know about reasons? Yeah, birth of universe is certainly magic as we understand today. In coming ages, we will know better. I would not jumps to conclusions. The mystery is not going to be cleared in my life-time (I am 79+). Just as the former generations passed away without having any inkling of Relativity or Quantum Mechanics, I will also be no more when this mystery is cleared - Allah knows whether in this Century or in the next. I am satisfied with what we have come to know today and would not resort to a 'no-explanation' like "Goddidit".

James Webb telescope.

The central point in this JWST image interests me. Tried to find out last week if it's some kind of black hole event horizon, or what.
Must ask on Quora.
But if science 'finds out' if the universe was created or it was magic - then we are still with the problem.

 

[Aupmanyav]

so many time the reason why some people think it was corrupted is only because of #9. They simply don't have the right one.

I do not know, but they still ended up with different versions.
Vedas also have versions (minor differences), but we have no problem about that. Families went with their own versions (Shakhas). For example, Shukla YajurVeda (lit. white) and Krishna YajurVeda (Dark). None were disrespected.
Also, we too have a very strict system of oral transmission of Vedas. Even the tone, pronunciation cannot be changed.
"For example, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text." Vedic chant - Wikipedia
It takes years to become proficient.

 

[Aupmanyav]

The third option is looking increasingly unlikely. As far as we can tell, the universe will keep expanding until
it tears itself apart.

No tearing up. The scenarios include "going absolutely cold" or "collapsing". Ultimate fate of the universe - Wikipedia

 

[Aupmanyav]

The central point in this JWST image interests me. Tried to find out last week if it's some kind of black hole event horizon, or what.

To me, it seems to be a star belonging to some other galaxy. Of course, galaxies generally have black holes at their center. If a star from some other farther galaxy happens to be in that position, then we will see gravitational lensing.

1. File:Artist's impression of gravitational lensing of a distant merger.ogv - Wikipedia
2. File:Gravitational lensing of distant star-forming galaxies (schematic) 2.webm - Wikipedia
Gravitational lens - Wikipedia

 

[Kenny]

I do not know, but they still ended up with different versions.
Vedas also have versions (minor differences), but we have no problem about that. Families went with their own versions (Shakhas). For example, Shukla YajurVeda (lit. white) and Krishna YajurVeda (Dark). None were disrespected.
Also, we too have a very strict system of oral transmission of Vedas. Even the tone, pronunciation cannot be changed.
"For example, memorization of the sacred Vedas included up to eleven forms of recitation of the same text." Vedic chant - Wikipedia

Great!

And likewise, we have no problems with ours because the differences are negligible. IMV

 

[Aupmanyav]

Nice to hear that. This is unlike what we find in Hinduism. Huge differences. For example, I am a strong atheist, a non believer in reincarnation, etc.