1. At what point during the creation story was man created?

2. There are a number of places in the Bible in which we are told that God sends the rain. If one believes that God sends the rain, how does one reconcile that with what we know about the natural processes that produce rain?

3. Does evolution need to be supported from the Bible?

4. Would the author of Genesis have been able to use 21st-century language to describe the creation of this world?

1. Sixth day

2. Prior to the Flood there was no rain. God created the current water cycle at the time of the Flood. Biblical authors were not writing as scientists and when we try to read the Bible as if it were a science book we ask questions we really don't need to be asking. We will have a much greater understanding of Scripture if we read it as a history book rather than a science book.

3. No. Evolution does not need to be supported by the Bible. Nor do the New York Yankees or Wal-Mart. These things have nothing to do with the Bible.

4. He didn't. He used the language of his day.

1. See Genesis 2:4-7.

2. There are a few passages in the Bible after the time period of the flood in which it says that God sends the rain. If one reads in the Bible that God sends the rain, how does one reconcile that with what we know about the natural processes that produce rain?

3. Your idea that the Bible is a history book and not a science book has a couple of holes in it.

4. Yes, exactly. But what happens if we read early Genesis without a 21st-century mind? What happens if we look at the world through his eyes? What would we know about the land, and the sea, and the sky, and the rain? What would we know about bacteria, and viruses, and cellular organisms? What would we know about kangaroos, and kiwis, and duckbilled platypuses? What would we know about microscopes, and gas chromotography, and mass spectrometers? What would we know about the moon, and the sun, and the stars, and our galaxy?

1. The answer is in Genesis 1:27, 31 not Genesis 2:4-7.

2. God does send rain. He sent me my wife too. He can stop the rain too. Even the winds and the rain obey Him.

3. The Bible being a history book isn't my idea any more than the dollar being US currency is my idea. It is what it is and I have little to do with it being what it is.

4. Theologians trained in ancient Hebrew read Genesis as it was intended to be read. Bible commentaries are available for us that are not Hebrew scholars. The clear intent of Genesis is a literal six day creation week and a world-wide flood that covered the entire globe.

1. But what does Genesis 2:4-7 say as it relates to my original question?

2. Since God sends the rain, do we need to know how the hydrologic cycle works?

3. Well, no. The Bible is not always a history book. However, I suppose that we can agree that the Bible is not a science book.

4. There's more to be learned than what the words say. I'm serious about looking at the world through the eyes of the authors of the Bible. What they saw and what we see are essentially the same, but through vastly different worldviews. Imagine.

1. Genesis 2:407 does not deal with a time so it has nothing to do with the original question.

2. Since the General Motors Company made my trucks engine, do I need to know how it works?

3. The Bible is a history book. Even the books that are prophetic are history because they provide us the details of a vision or dream given to a prophet at sometime in the past. That doesn't mean it is not relevant to us today.

4. Yes there is more to be learned. That is the study of Hebrew scholars and is available in Bible commentaries.

1. Genesis 2:4-7 seems pretty clear that man was created before any vegetation. What do you think it says?

2. Maybe you don't, but somebody does. Should we all remain ignorant of the hydrologic cycle?

3. The Bible is not a history book. There are parts of it that are historical, but much of it is not.

4. Are you opposed to imagining the world through the eyes of the authors of the Bible?

1. The Garden of Eden was planted by God after He created Adam. (verse 8) Plants were created completely mature prior to Adam being created (verse 5).

2. How about the primeval water cycle mentioned in verse 6? The pre-flood world was obviously much different than the one we live in today.

3. The Bible is the history of God's interaction with man. Some may argue that prophecy is not history. In a way, it is the opposite of history. However, as I already mentioned, the revelation of the prophecies themselves are an element of history.

4. That is the study of Hebrew scholars and is available in Bible commentaries.

1. Are we reading the same Bible? The one I'm looking at says this:


2. I'm not talking about any pre-flood water cycle. I'm talking about the world in which we have rain, and that's a lot like the one that existed in most of the Bible.

Let me be clear. While the Bible says in a number of places that God sends the rain, we don't have any problem subscribing to what the science of meteorology tells us about the formation of rain and how it ends up back on the ground. We don't see any conflict between what the Bible says about the source of rain and what we know about the natural processes of weather. We don't reject meteorology because God is absent from the science.

But when the Bible says that God created the earth and the life on it in certain ways and we count up Biblical genealogies in order to arrive at a certain time, we have an entirely different reaction. Humans have accumulated scientific knowledge over the centuries that have led us to the theory of evolution (and its refinements over the last 150 years) as the best explanation for the development and diversity of life on this planet. It didn't have to be Darwin; it was very nearly Wallace, and if it hadn't been either, it would have been someone else.

3. It seems like you're happy claiming that the entire Bible is history. I'll leave you alone in that contention.

4. For anyone else that's still reading, I invite you to take that journey that I previously mentioned:


I'd like someone—anyone—to take that journey. The author of Genesis wrote what he did because it was based on what he observed (as well as what he thought about God). What he wrote about the land, and the sea, and the sky, and the rain, and the moon, and the sun, and the stars was based on not only what he could see, but on his idea that God was the creator of all things. Bacteria, viruses, cellular organisms, kangaroos, kiwis, and duck-billed platypuses aren't mentioned in the Bible because no Bible writer ever saw one.

I was serious when I asked what happens if we read early Genesis without a 21st-century mind. Read it through the eyes of the author of Genesis. Imagine what he saw and what he knew. Forget everything you know about the world through science. Be Moses for a month. Then tell me what you see.

1. The King James reads thus:


Thus God created the plants and herbs before they grew. That means He created them mature. According to Strongs, the KJV does pretty well on this passage.




The Bible is not a science book. We error when we try to read it as such. When the authors read that God sent rain it is no different than the farmers today (who fully understand meteorology) praying for God to send rain. When we look at the Bible as a history book, it reads very nicely. If we try to read it as a science book, we are going to have problems. The solution is to stop trying to read the Bible as a science book. It isn't one.

4. Moses was inspired by God. That doesn't mean that God choose his words for him but rather that God inspired the message.

"All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Tim. 3:16)

"Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." ( 2 Peter 1:20,21)

Chapter 1 gives the order in which God created the world. It give us an objective overview. Time is important in this chapter.

Chapter 2 tells the story of creation subjectively, as if through the eye of humanity. Gen. 2: 4-10 are not given in the order in which events occurred. . It may appear that God made man first, before any shrub or bush, but that is because the narrative begins with Adam, followed by a series of flashbacks which describe what God had done before. However, the story is told in such a way that, without chapter 1, the reader would never be sure of when the events occurred. Time is virtually ignored in this chapter.

1. Hmm. Not sure that I agree with your interpretation of that passage in the KJV. You conclude that creating them before they grew means that they were created mature?

And pardon my oversight, but the order in the later part of the chapter indicates that Adam was created before the animals, which doesn't match the story in Genesis 1.

2. We agree that the Bible is not a science book. I will always agree with you in that detail, unless one of us changes our minds. So let's leave that aside, shall we?

The problem is that while many other people agree that the Bible is not a science book, they in fact treat it as if it is (and I mean to suggest that you do, too). The Bible says that God created the earth in six days. What we've learned about the earth and the universe paints a very different picture. Calling it one thing doesn't mean you treat it as that thing.

4. You don't have to take that journey, but I wish you'd give it a shot.

John 317, what is it about chapter 2 that indicates it's a subjective view of the story?

Quote:

The Bible says that God created the earth in six days. What we've learned about the earth and the universe paints a very different picture.

Hi, Vera, what you mean is that the Bible says that God created the earth in six days, and what men have assumed -- because they want to leave God out of the picture paints a very different picture.

If you turn in your Bible to Hebrews 11:1-3 we read that "faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made ot of what was visible".

OK, which do we believe -- the Word of God or of men? 2 Peter 1:19-21 says, "And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit".

The Bible is indeed the Word of God, and we either accept that it is God's Word, or we disbelieve.

Scripture is full of references to God as the creator of the world. Read Psalm 19 -- it is in poetic language, and was written by David. He gives glory to God as the creator -- not to evolution.

The book of Job also affirms God as the creator -- not evolution. Read what God has to say to Job in Chapters 38 - 41. Can you answer all of God's questions? No -- and neither can the evolutionists!

Go to Isaiah, and read chapters 40 to 43.

Yes, Vera, we need faith to believe what God says, but I would sooner put all of my faith in God than in a bunch of evolutionists who are only interested in trying to prove the Bible wrong.

There is just so much more in the Bible that proves that God speaks the truth, but I won't make this post any larger!

God bless,

Beryl

First of all I agree with the notion of letting the Bible text speak without trying to shoehorn it into evolutionism. Bending the text to meet an evolutionist agenda would be eisegesis - not exegesis.

And as you point out the Bible says that all life on earth was created in six days -- something that evolutionists generally are not happy with. Easy to spot that gap.

The bible says in Jer 4:23 that the earth exists during the millennium in a similar formless and void state as we find it already existing in Gen 1:2.

But in the case of Gen 1 (according to the text) -- there is no life on earth. No sun, no moon.

God is the author of the text according to 2Peter 1 and most here will conclude that His being creator and all - He knows a thing or two about actual "events".

As we see in this video - there is a widely circulated proposal by many of our atheist friends to the point that the Bible in fact is merely a good book of morals - but lousy on events and accuracy.

http://www.wingclips.com/cart.php?target=product&product_id=16679&category_id=778

Darwin himself came to that same conclusion and then stated that he completely rejected Christianity because of it.

But the key to answering the problem is not in downsizing the Bible to meet evolutionism's needs NOR is it to change science to meet the needs of evolutionist orthodoxy.

When Israel stands at the foot of Sinai and God says "SIX DAYS you shall labor... for in SIX DAYS God MADE..." do you suppose they were saying "not sure if God really knows what he is talking about here with those timelines. Let's keep some kind of one in seven rule and see if that hits the mark for the moral principle since we are not sure if the actual details are trustworthy".


The key is to engage in the critical objective thinking needed to distinguish between what the Bible says and what darwinists would prefer that it said -- and to distinguish between actual science vs the smoke-and-mirrors proven frauds of darwinism.


in Christ,

Bob

No, I mean just what I said. The Bible says this one thing, but humans—from the evidence in front of them—have come to some vastly different conclusions. God may or may not have been part of the picture for individual humans coming to these conclusions. When you're dating a piece of rock, acceptance or denial of God's role is not part of the process. There's not a step that says "First, I must believe/disbelieve that God created the heavens and the earth." It's not relevant.

This leaves Christians with at least a couple of possibilities. One is what I call the Lala perspective, because I imagine people walking around with their fingers in their ears, singing "La la la la la la la la" to keep out the noise of any perspective with which they don't agree. It's not a nice image, because it makes people I love look like fools.

Another one—and this is but one possibility—is that Christians can agree among themselves that God is the author of creation, but we've learned things about the natural world that aren't consistent with the Bible. Then we might wonder what those passages are really saying. If they're not descriptive of what actually happened, can we still learn something about God? Can we affirm the Sabbath commandment (because a world without the Sabbath is—well, you can see how that's working out)?

Call me crazy for asking, but how do you define actual science?

Biology, Physics, Math etc.

Vs the junk science story telling about "how one thing came from another... stories easy enough to make up but they are NOT science" so rife with documented fraud after documented fraud.

in Christ,

Bob

I assume that we can agree that scientific fraud is serious when it occurs, but that it doesn't make up a significant portion of scientific effort or thought.

Chapter 1-2:4 is an account in the form of a chronological sequence -- each unit of time is identifed and events in each unit are specified in the exact sequence.

Chapter 2 is not a chronological sequence which means it can not be positioned as a competing one. It provides added detail without any timeline and the events are such that they add detail to the initial chronological sequence without duplicating it.

in Christ,

Bob

Real science doesn't need decades long fraud to gain acceptance.

in Christ,

Bob

Fraud is not how the theory of evolution was established.

Bob what is your theory about the origin of the so-called food chain. When did the almost infinite number of methods of self defence originate (like protective coloring)? How did the rattlesnake come by it's venom and it's rattles? When and how did the lions become become killers and develop jaws and teeth for the purpose?
mel

As it turns out -- not only does the timline of Gen 1-2:3 and Ex 20:8-11 not agree with Richard Dawkin's view of origins - but the Gen 1:29-30 food chain does not agree either!



Wow - imagine Dawkins being wrong on both counts!

Ok - I know that was not your question.

So WHEN did they change? Certainly we had the division of clean and unclean animals by the 1600 year boundary where we see the flood in Gen 6.

We also know that the division of clean unclean and animal-eating was in place right after the flood.

How long BEFORE that time - is anybody's guess. I personnally think that all evidence of catastrophic and rapid burial associated with Dinosaurs puts their death at the time of the flood. I doubt they had much flooding before them -- even locally unless someone was playing around with water irrigation and that does not seem likely given their climate.


in Christ,

Bob