Biblical Account of Creation

shadetaker said:
That may well be the case, but seeing as how every major translation (which, I point out, are translated and edited by scholars who are also language specialists with years of work in the books they are responsible for translating) and other scholarly sources cite it as as it was first quoted, I nonetheless feel confident in saying that that version is more likely to be correct.

Does your father have any articles or such on the subject that might be easily perused? I would be interested to have a look.
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Yes I think so. I will see if I can find a way of getting it to you. (as you are most likely aware copyright in academia is rarely in the hands of the author but will see what I can - will PM you if I find it get it :) )

I think translation in general however is a very tricky process (which was the original issue I was getting at). Translators are frequently required to make choices when no word exists in the translated language, when the word is missing (as is frequently the case given the cost of paper), or when multiple meaning are present (e.g. Pharmakon = poison or remedy). It is an unfortunate case that individuals have to often make educated guesses and unfortunately it is often a case that those guesses are not uninfluenced by certain biases.

A perfect example of this is the verse (in older English translations) "in Christ we conquer". In context it is actually referring to Paul being a conquered slave of Christ but Calvin thought that this could not be the case as Paul was an apostle and Calvin thought the word slave was not a good one for Paul. We can notice now that this translation error has been fixed in modern translation but it also suggests that some translation mistakes can continue in translations for some and I think it is fair to say that some further errors may still be present despite consistency in translation so far.
 
I'm of the opinion that ppar3566's fathers work has been appropriately scrutinized by those who have the authority to do so and will take his translation to be as valid as any.

By definition, somebody who has done their doctorate in a field of study is an expert at that field having studied and researched it at the highest formal level having successfully defended their postulations in a peer review setting.

But then, I acknowledge I also do not have the authority to challenge it because I am by no means an expert on the meaning or context of the subject.
 
Gods_Peon said:
I'm of the opinion that ppar3566's fathers work has been appropriately scrutinized by those who have the authority to do so and will take his translation to be as valid as any.

By definition, somebody who has done their doctorate in a field of study is an expert at that field having studied and researched it at the highest formal level having successfully defended their postulations in a peer review setting.

But then, I acknowledge I also do not have the authority to challenge it because I am by no means an expert on the meaning or context of the subject.
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Thanks that is very kind and I agree with a catch that I think it is imperative that people question, and question frequently, no matter where the information comes from. It is in my belief the quality of the rational logic of the information rather than the number or quality of the individuals that give that information that should matter (once again i borrow from Socrates). In any case I am certainly no expert either and I admit that I brought the issue up originally because i was offended by what I saw as dismissal of my post without interaction which was a tad childish perhaps.

While we are on it though I think, even if we translate the word as interpretation this does not resolve the issue as easily as would be thought. The NKJV translates it as interpretation but has 'origin' in the margin; in other words: "But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one's own origin" Thus, the interesting thing being that even when you do translate the word as "interpretation' it does not mean interpretation in the traditional sense of 'understanding' but in relation to, stealing from the NKJV, origin of scripture.
 
What I was saying, is no study or school or doctorate, can properly explain a verse, according to that verse...only the Holy Spirit, and that is what I was trying to say... It does not matter if you are the Dr. of Biblical Languages or if you are a homeless person on the street, you ONLY have it right if you go through the Holy Spirit...and no one is better than anyone else, and arguing about crap such as a word, have you even asked the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the true meaning...which 100 years of study will NOT show you...
 
tjguitarz said:
I was reading the first 2 chapters of Genesis and I have questions. What better place to bring them than CGA?

First, Genesis 1:3 and Genesis 1:16. They both describe the creation of light.
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Originally Posted by Bible, ESV
Genesis 1:3 "And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

Genesis 1:16 "And God made the two great lights--the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars."
With both of these, God separate the light from the darkness. And both resulting in an evening and a morning on the first and the fourth day. The difference is that night and day are made in the first day, but then what is the light spoken of in verse 3? We know that night and day are lit by the sun and moon, but those aren't created until verse 16.

Next, we have the account of organism creation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bible, ESV
Genesis 1:20 "And God said, "Let the waters swarm with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the heavens."

Genesis 1:24 "And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds--livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds."

Genesis 1:26 "The God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..."
In chapter 1, it is clearly seen that first fish/birds are created, then beasts/creeping things, and THEN humans. But chapter 2 appears to tell another story...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bible, ESV
Genesis 2:5-8 "When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up--for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground, and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground--then the Lord God formed the man of dust..."

Genesis 2:8 "And then the Lord God planted a garden in Eden..."

Genesis 2:18-19 "Then the Lord God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens..."
Chapter 2 seems to say that first man was made, then a garden, and then God made everything else as a helper for him. Chapter 1 and 2 don't seem to be in agreement.

I know the Bible often uses literary devices which have long weeded themselves out of our culture. Could someone clarify what is going on here?
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Genesis 2 is not an account of Creation. It is not where the vegetation was created, or all the animals or all the fish or all the birds. It is an account of creation of and the specials circumstances of man.

God did not create all the animals after man, and then bring them to Adam to be named. He formed beasts of the field (or livestock) and birds of the heavens and brought them before Adam to be named. This is not the account of their creation. They were all created. And then recreated (and not all them at that, just those of the field, or livestock), or formed, again in front of man to find a suitable helper and to be named).

Same with the vegetation. The account says that the bush and plant of the field had not sprung...why? Not because they haven't been created, rather, because rain had not been caused to water them and man had not been created to cultivate them.

As for light, "Let there be light." This can not be light as we know it from the sun or a light bulb, or from the reflection of a light source like the moon. This, to me, is more likened to the Glory of God (2 Cor 4:6). And the darkness, for which it is separated from, is the darkness of being separated from the Glory of God. God said the light was good, he did not say the ensuing creation of darkness that was created with the separation of light from it, was good.

To me, there is no conflict because, they
 
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If I may point out something:

The Bible is supposed to be the building block of faith. One cannot possibly ever know everything there is about the faith. It takes concepts that cannot be grasped and simplifies them so that we have a good enough start to at least get our feet wet.

If any of you are math savvy and have taken pre-cal or higher, you probably understand the concept of limits. Limits are an attempt to find the intended destination of a function, whether it reaches it or not. So on a graph, if you have a function, you'll almost always have a curve that stretches to infinity in at least one direction.
Infinity. Forever. Impossible to label something that goes on forever.
Well some of them go towards a certain number, but never reach it. The limit is the number that they never quite reach, such as the function f(x)=1/x, which has a limit (as x approaches infinity) of 0. Others don't have a specific number to go to, they just go up or down forever, and their limit is infinity or negative infinity.

Basically what I'm saying is: God and all that goes with Him is obviously infinity. Alpha-Omega, etc. etc.
You can't capture infinity.
You can create some make-shift label for it, such as a mathematical limit, only for better understanding and practical use, but you can never quite place it.


One way ancient people used to try and capture their philosophies was through allegory. They made up crazy fictional stories which ignored all laws of nature and the like except the ones directly related to the concepts they wanted to explain. That way you would have something like Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which you have prisoners in a cave facing a back wall for who knows how long with no movement or interaction with anybody. The only thing they have ever known are the silhouettes and reflections on the wall, cast from a huge fire behind them past people walking and interacting with each other, and also the sounds which are made. Etc. etc. etc.
The point being, you've got people chained and totally unmoving in a cave since they were too young to remember, unaware of any other human life and even unaware of theirselves, knowing only the shadows in front of their faces and the sounds behind them?
How is that possible?!
Well it's not! To get the ideas across (and there are several of them which I'll just avoid trying to list), Plato ignores all irrelevant material and although it's essentially impossible, we can still relate to it and get at least a hint of his meaning.


Not that I'm saying the entire Bible is not literal, but I'm saying that almost all of it is metaphorical, whether literal or not. The way to understand whether it's literal or not is to see where it doesn't make sense, because that's an obvious indicator that it was written solely for allegorical purpose. On the other hand, I think that even the most literal parts have a substantial amount of metaphorical value.

As in the discussion of the Torah, I don't think it's a matter of whether or not the events really happened in the way in which they're written; it's all about learning from them. If the Bible were purely literal it would be just another non-fiction account... and that would be rather boring.

(An example of why this is important: I think that the story of Adam and Eve summarizes the entirety of human life and humanity, universally. People come into the world pure and unknowing of evil, learn what evil is, do it anyway, repent and receive punishment, etc. etc.)
 
Also a quick note on science and the creation: The sun is a relatively young star. The milky way includes a massive number of other lights, and other galaxies as well.

And a quick note on light: Light can symbolize just about anything good, warm, pure, holy, etc., and can also denote understanding or knowledge, etc.
 
Lovely reference to Plato. I have only just started The Republic myself and only just come across the cave. But I digress.

I think the formula you put up is interesting but I have some trouble with it. I kind of think it suggests that the bible is essentially unknowable and infinitely so. If it is infinitely unknowable then knowing more will bring us no closer to knowing than not knowing anything. I don't know if I wholly disagree with this or whether it is simply disheartening but I get your point.

I also worry about your blanket statement that almost all is metaphorical (interestingly similar approach to Augustine though, when you give your test case for whether it is allegorical or not). I think the truth of it is that the metaphorical nature or literal nature needs to be justified on a case by case OR section by section basis.

Finally I think you bring up a very very interesting question. What is it about the bible that is God inspired (is it the gist for want of a better word or is every dot of every I every cross of every t was God inspired). Interesting question and one I am trying to understand myself at present.

Interesting point about the sun being a young star. I never thought of that before :)
 
Again, I'm not suggesting that it can't be both literal and metaphorical. Most literature is literal with at least some underlying meaning.

Also, reaching back to the mathematics, the question of whether or not we're getting any closer to actually learning anything about the Bible can only be approached if you know whether or not the "limit" goes to infinity. If the "limit" of the Bible is some number, we cannot actually attain that number but we do get to a point where the difference between where we are and where we are trying to reach is insignificant.
However, I must say that however disheartening, I think there is infinite knowledge to be attained from it, and we cannot ever (at least while bound to our human nature) attain anything close to that knowledge. The point is that we at least try to do something, and try to get others to join in as well.

Another mathematics example:
Mathematics is a theoretically perfect system. You might say that it doesn't really work sometimes, because you might have some flaws in measurements and whatnot... But that's the worldly aspect of it. One thing that supports the fact that there is a God and a perfection is the perfection in the systems that are imitated here on Earth. An aspect of the aforementioned passage in the Bible that I hold to be not simply literal with no other meaning is that God created man in his image. Perhaps what it is trying to tell us is that everything we have on earth was created to emulate the perfection that is God/Heaven, etc., only because it is not actually that perfection, it doesn't precisely follow the same rules. The reason you can't draw a perfect circle is because perfection is unattainable here. However, the idea of a perfect circle exists because perfection exists, only it is not actually visible here.

And you said that it's disheartening that we can't possibly ever learn everything about the Bible. I disagree. Would you rather already know everything and have absolutely nothing to strive for, to learn, to try and figure out? The grass isn't greener on either side, but if you look at the glass as half-empty because of what you can't have, you don't see the fullness of what you already have.

We were given the Bible so that we could at least get in the ballpark. Although we don't actually reach the intended "limit," we can estimate where it is and see how far we can get.

Also, on the other hand, I'm not saying meaning can't be taken from the Bible via perfectly literal reading. In fact, a lot of things that we take as part of daily practice comes straight from the text. I'm not saying that doing things as read from the Bible is at all wrong, but I'm saying that there are plenty of ways to skin a cat, and I personally enjoy dissecting it and putting it under a microscope more than just skinning it and getting straight to the point.
Again, a matter of preference. Both equally rewarding I would assume.


On a side note, I should write a book about my philosophies as explained through mathematics and such... Economics is an interesting one to use, too, because it actually pertains to human nature already. The "grass is greener on the other side" effect which I mention often can be expressed very easily through economic models. It's really a matter of preference.
 
Which reminds me (please don't regard my incessant essay posts as spam :P), I see a lot of division between Christians where I live. There are a lot of Catholics and a lot of Baptists in my town, and I'm able to visibly catch on to the differences between the interpretations of the Bible throughout my daily life. I see great things and fallacies in both, and I can't say either one is better or worse [grass isn't greener, etc. etc.]. One strikingly obvious difference is that Catholics mostly center their religious lives around emulations of Christ in church, while Baptists mostly center their outside of church lives around concepts they learn in church.
Basically the concept is that Catholics do more to express faith, but the downside is that it can be easily taken to the level of "going through the motions," which I believe is less fruitful as not doing them in the first place. Baptists have a little more talk and a little less action, and there's always the possibility of being too casual about it and the often heard "back-row Baptist" which characterizes that fallacy.
[Hopefully not offending anyone or showing any bias; I once considered myself Baptist and have never actually been Catholic, so I'm trying to explain what I see without any bias even though bias is always inherent. I used these two as an example because of familiarity, I deem other denominations equally as important.]

So which way is the best way? It's a matter of preference... or let's say a matter of which one you are more devoted to, assuming your preference is to be on better terms with God by judgement day. :P

[And if you haven't noticed by now, these are things that I've thought about for a while now and have formed into a huge philosophy which I should but almost assuredly will never publish because I honestly can't stand philosophy about 80% of the time. This is one of those "Universal theory of everything ever" sort of philosophies. It might sound depressing but it's actually fun if you look at it the right way. As with everything. No wonder all these quotes and lame cliches stay in existence, right?! :P]
 
I would like to respond to this in detail as it is interesting. I dont have time ATM as I am moving tomorrow but thought I would leave you with a quote from Darwin that my wife read to me yesterday "Dickens is a cure for philosophy" =)
 
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