I must have missed the How part. All I see is “God said” which means creation is by his command but says nothing about how that is accomplished. The Bible says in Exodus 9:23 “Then Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the LORD sent thunder and hail, and fire ran down to the earth. And the LORD rained hail upon the land of Egypt.” Now we understand how rain and hail is formed and that is not found in the Bible.
And how much Hebrew grammar do you know? Day, in English or Hebrew, can mean many different things and there is nothing in the text that indicates it has to be taken to mean a period of time from sunrise to sunrise. Especially given the sun wasn’t created on Day One.
Tangent:
Believe anything you like, propose anything you like, argue anything you like, but please don’t get your understanding of English grammar from Elements of Style. See 50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice for an explanation.
I am sure that God had many purposes for recording the Genesis account, but that does not matter. The fact is he did give it and in it he tells us how he created everything. It says God spoke and it came into being. It also tells more about how he did it. It tells us he did it in 6 24 hr days.
I agree that I can make mistakes. In this case, I don’t think I am doing so. It appears to me that this is similar to someone saying the sky is green when I can see with my own eyes that it is blue. I may not know the exact frequency I am seeing and may make small mistakes, but I sure know it is not green when I can look at it and see it is blue.
As I said in a previous post, I think that you can prove Christianity to be true and all other beliefs to be false. Part of the proof demonstrates that the scripture is 100% accurate. Once you know that is true, all these wild speculations by men are seen to be nonsense. Those who do not believe the Bible seem to me like someone telling my the sky is green.
I agree that nature reveals the glory of God and other things about God that are true. When you read the scripture it also tells you that nature is fallen and you can read wrong meanings into it if you are not careful.
Scripture on the other hand has words that have clearly known meanings. God used words that make it clear that he created everything in 6 24hr days.
As for the translation, we know the Hebrew words clearly and it is just as obvious in the Hebrew as in the English
It is difficult to give the proper level of disdain to “Elements of Style by Strunk & White” without a better book to replace it. What book do you recommend, @glipsnort?
He did not tell us the location of every molecule on each day so he did not tell us all of the how part, but he did tell us the 6 24hr day how part.
I am not a Hebrew scholar, but I have taken Hebrew and read the Bible in it everyday.
You don’t need the sun to have a day one. God can tell when the 24 hrs are up without it. Besides that, he made light on day one and the earth could already be rotating to mark the 24 hours in relation to whatever and wherever that light source was.
As I said before, I think you can prove that Christianity and the Bible are true. I could give you the short proof if you would like. Once you have done that, then the Bible is the evidence.
I see the sun move across the sky, unless I am watching pictures from a satellite far enough out to show the earth move around the sun.
I don’t think gravity is a wild speculation. We have pretty good evidence for that. No, I am talking about evolution.
I like Joseph M. Williams’s books, either the shorter one, Style: the Basics of Clarity and Grace or the longer one, Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace. There are various editions of each (some with various co-authors). Zinsser (On Writing Well) is supposed to be good but I haven’t read him.
It says one God created the heavens and the earth and the earth was without form and void. So I assume the rotating earth was on day one. Again though, God could count to 24 without having a sun or rotating earth.
I have never read that God existed before time in the Bible. I have never read that God exists outside of time in the Bible. Yes, I have heard a lot of pastors who I respect say that, but I don’t read it there. It seems to me to be making time a substance rather than an idea. Same reason I think time travel is absurd. I think the error is that those who treat time as a substance are not doing the word problem correctly. I know this may be more than you are asking, but I threw it in for free.
So … how do you know that he is using his experience for “day” , instead of your experience of day?
You seem so very absolutely adamant in your definitions. I think millions of Christians are perfectly content to ignore the “Bible According to Bibll Smith”.
Bill, for 4 of those days, there isn’t even a Sun!
So I really don’t see how you can be adamant about something that had no human witness, no human frame of reference, and not even a sun by which to gauge a human’s experience of a day.
This doesn’t have any relevance to what I wrote. You and I both believe the Bible is true. You and I both believe Christianity is true. There is no point trying to convince me of something I already believe is true.
What I want evidence for is that your interpretation of the Bible is true. Can you provide that evidence or not?
Exactly. So what you see with your own eyes is not reliable unless you have the correct point of reference. This applies equally to Bible interpretation. Now, does the Bible describe the sun moving across the sky or the earth moving around the sun? Who was right, Galileo or Cardinal Bellarmine?
I’m sure you are aware that the ability to count to 24 isn’t the issue. The contention is that Genesis uses “evening and morning” even for the days in which “evening and morning” must have been different from the way we understand the term now. Your unwillingness to consider viewpoints other than your own stifles meaningful interaction.