Change and Time in Genesis

@godsriddle Do you own any clocks or watches? If so, do you use them?

Of course. I live in a Western society. Clocks control every moment of our lives. However, they did not control the lives of the biblical prophets. They felt the continuously changing pulse of nature, not the tick of clocks. Change and time are opposite worldviews.

Victor

during the era

Koine Greek was an aspectual language like Biblical Hebrew. Their verbs were about how things change, not about time. For example, aorist verbs make no reference to when. Every passage that says God chooses us for salvation uses aorist verbs. We are not told when he chooses other than it happened before we came to faith. Paul wrote that God chose him from his mother’s womb. It is because theologians try to understand election with the Western notion of time that they get confused. The grammar itself is not confusing. Another example, the present shows continuing action in Greek, not ‘now’ like in English. Jesus asked a man about his son’s jumping into the fire. He answered with a present verb. He was not at that moment jumping into the fire, but he did it often. Just because we assign names for Greek verbs using our notion of time does not means they were talking about time.

Pagan philosophers had already speculated about time before Jesus came. Ordinary people, however, could communicate quite well without the concept of time even after the pagans began their speculations.

Look at each place in the Bible where time is mentioned and you will find many timing words such as days and years, predicted events etc. Jesus did not say the time is at hand. He used the word kairos that to the ancients meant the opportune point, the predicted event, not time. Yet kairos is the most often word translated as time in the New Testament. A contemporary Christian would understand kairos in Ephesians 5:16 as redeeming the opportunities, not redeeming the time. Hesiod uses the word kairos for the opportune way to live life in harmony with nature-changes. He lists the changes we should look for in nature as we change our activities. Homer uses kairos for the opportune way to throw a spear. Later, Isocrates developed rules for the opportune moment to deliver an argument or when to make a pragmatic decision. Kairos is not time to people who did not think like philosophers.

Why is this important. When we try to make Creation and Earth history fit the western notion of time, we always trip ourselves up. That is not exegesis. It is eisegesis. Moses never heard of time. He had no words for time. All early languages used the changes observed in nature and in history to explain when, not time. In the ancient worldview, everything is changing. Indeed, we can see the past to the Creation era. The orbits incrementally accelerate outward, just like God commanded on the fourth day. He commanded the light in the heavens to become spreading thing (raqiya). Trillions of star streams emerge and spread out from billions of galactic cores, becoming spreading things. God put the spreading things in the heavens to mark days and years. How could a spreading thing mark time? It marks how nature continues to change, not time. There is no such thing as time. We only see change. In billions of examples, the atomic clocks and the orbits accelerate together throughout cosmic history.

Victor

Okay, so time is real in the way you live your life.

But he did use chronos which is Greek for time.

5550 xrónos – time (in general), especially viewed in sequence (a “succession of moments”); time in duration in the physical-space world, sovereignly apportioned by God to each person.

Or do you want to dispute Mr. Vine’s definition? So since Jesus used time isn’t that a pretty good indication that time is real?

The ancients did not use chronos for time. The authors of the Bible did not imagine phantasmal, invisible things like a time continuum. They used chronos for calendar events. Calendars did not measure time. They were for counting specific events such as sunrises and new moons. I have documented this in previous posts and don’t want to repeat myself.

I admire modern authorities on biblical languages, but not when it comes to time. Western people have a long history of adapting the Bible to fit our traditions about time. For over a thousand years, the Catholics controlled the West and taught their time theologies. For example, they claimed the opposite of time is eternity. God supposedly is eternal because he exists in a timeless world, seeing the future. In the original languages, the bible never admits to anything remotely like these things. The Greeks had a word for never ending or limitless. It is only used twice in the New Testament and never about eternal life. In Greek it talks of eon life, not eternal life. Eon life never ends for the believer, but it is not an existence outside of time. There is no evidence in the Bible for a time flow, as though it were a phantasmal, invisible entity. Yet even evangelical theologians follows the Catholic time / eternity traditions.

Originally chronos (Kronos) was Saturn, the god of the primordial golden age when people lived, long, slow lives in a peaceful world. Then Zeus, (Jupiter), banished Saturn into the nether gloom (tartarus). The age of chronos was replaced with the age of Jupiter when life became short and brutal. Pagan Earth histories were punctuated by catastrophic changes, not time.

The Bible also mentions how early people lived for vast ages, even mentioning the geological events that marked a lifetime (See Job 14). It also mentions close planet passages in Joshua and Judges. The crushing of a planet is mentioned four times in Job, Isaiah and Psalms. The shattered planet showed great changes when chaos happened. All ancient societies remembered solar system catastrophes when enormous changes ravaged the Earth. The Greeks listed the early kings who reigned when (what we might call the tidal tsunamis) devastated the lowlands during planet encounters. They also mentions how the Sun moved north and south during these catastrophes. Joshua, mentions how the Sun and Moon remained over a north west / south east valley as rocks (not ice) fell from the sky. If Venus did pass close to Earth, it would cause the Earth’s spin axis to precess north south during the encounter etc. Why Venus? Venus is the only planet that has a rotational resonance with Earth so that it points its same longitude at us during opposition. Evidently it did pass close to Earth as every ancient society feared.

Why is this important? If we interpret the Bible using the changing worldview of the authors, instead of the Western notion of time, we confirm the grammatical words in the visible history of how the galaxies formed. We see the solution to the age of the Earth mystery but it is not scientific. The Bible defeats science for His great glory.

Victor

This has never stopped you before.

So Greek has two words, kairos and chronos. What is the difference in your view?

I believe kairos was used for a special moment in time and chronos for any moment in time. That fact that both refer to a moment and time is nothing but a succession of moments says both words are referring to what we call time. And a quick look at Strong’s shows chronos was used for more than calendar events. In fact it is used for pretty much plain old time in Revelation 10:6, “And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer”

I think I see what your real problem is.

God is eternal because he is the Creator and as such is outside of his Creation (space and time). He existed before time was created and will still exist after time is destroyed. If that is not eternal what do you call it?

Saturn was a Roman god. Are you mixed up with Cronus who was the Titan father of Zeus. This confusion became a widespread problem during the Renaissance (per Wikipedia).

Indeed, kairos was a predicted event or an opportune point. Chronos was how people referenced their lives and counted days and years using nature’s never endings changes. Ancient people saw real visible changes and used them to record history. They also remembered the great age when people lived for geological ages. They did not imagine that this was some sort of invisible time-flow. It was evidence that everything is changing.

The Bible does not say in the course of time Cain brought an offering. It says in the course of days. Rebekah did not deliver twins when her time was complete, but when her days were complete. Time, as an actuality, is never once mentioned in the Bible. Lots of timing events are mentioned.

The context is important for Revelations 10:6. It means no more delay. When the seventh trumpet sounds, delay no more. But wait, other events happen after the seventh angel sounds. He sounds his trumpet for seven weeks that are divided into seven one week bowls of wrath.

How can we know these things? Because Revelations gives as timing references. Months are mentioned four times in the calendar of the Revelations. It even explains the nesting sequence of seals, trumpets and bowls. A person who comes to faith during the Tribulation, can anticipate what happens next and mark their calendar for when Jesus returns. Timing references are not time. They reference EVENTS (Specific changes) that people of faith can use as they await the return of Christ.

You are reading into the Bible Western philosophy. It does not say in the beginning, it says first (in importance and presidence) Elohim created (completed action) the entire universe (the plural heavens and earth). A person untrained in philosophical reasoning would not imagine this as space and time.

A biblical contemporary would not know how to think with philosophical theories about a time continuum. They used timing events without imagining an underlying time continuum. Their Earth histories were about change, not time.
All early people looked back on the age of the patriarchs as those who lived long slow lives. Job spells out the geological markers for a lifetime during the dinosaur era. He says mountains wear down. We have photos of mountains taken a hundred years ago and we only rarely see differences. He says the Mediterranean sea dries. Indeed, it did leaving thick layers of gypsum and salt sandwiched between deep sea plankton layers. He also uses the way water wears away rocks and washes away the dust of the Earth as lifetime markers. He even describes the physical changes they endured before they died. He says their faces intensely changed in unbroken continuity before they died. If you lived long enough to watch the Nile incise a channel into granite 1.5 miles deep, which drill cores reveal that it did, you would grow thick Neanderthal brows from vast age. Neanderthal child skulls have the shapes of modern child faces.

Change and time are diametrically opposite ways of understanding reality. One is based on philosophy the other on what is visible. The visible history of how the galaxies formed ONLY fits the words of the bible.

Victor

In other words, they measured time (doesn’t matter that they didn’t understand the concept they just used it) using natural phenomenon as that is all they had.

I have asked you several times and you just ignore me, so I will try one more time. As I understand what you have said, repeatedly, is that the earth is just 6000 solar orbits old, The earth has always completed one rotation around the sun in 365 earth rotations and 12 lunar rotations (approximately). Correct?

So how do you go from that to having enough earth rotations to dry up the Mediterranean Sea, cut the Nile River Canyon and grow Neanderthal brows? Something doesn’t add up to me.

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So do I. Why does he get away with such blatant anti-Catholicism?

Flag away, people.

@godsriddle Blatant anti-Catholicism is not tolerated here. Please be respectful of those of different faith traditions.

I am merely pointing out their historical effects on the Western system. There is no question that Aquinas had an enormous influence on science. He had an enormous intellect. He could dictate to four secretaries at one. He was the most influential metaphysician of the West.

I am not disparaging Catholics. I am asking if Aquinas has support in our universe. I am questioning the concept of time using the ancient worldview that the biblical prophets lived in, before philosophy.

Victor

Can you explain why if time does not exist it works so very well when you use it.

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Not in their worldview which we can read in their writings. They did not imagine that time existed, so they could not think about measuring it. (1) they tuned their clocks and calendars to fit nature’s changes. (2) Their Earth histories focused on great changes such as close planet passages, the crushing of a nearby planet and how the first generations lived for eons. They focused on visible changes, not undetectable things like time. The Bible mentions similar events, when we compare it to the statements of their contemporaries. .

I cannot give you and answer that satisfies your worldview, because I am using the Bible to argue against it.

How long did Job live, back when dinosaurs lounged in the descending river (the Jordan)? We are only told that he lived 140 years after his first 10 children died in satanic efforts to undermine his faith. The name of the tribes mentioned suggests he lived before nation states. Job describes several major geological effects as markers for a lifetime. Solomon also explains getting old (Ecclesiastes 12), perhaps a 1,000 years later. We understand Solomon’s poem about getting old, but not Job’s. Why? We try to understand history with time instead of “everything is constantly changing.”

There is a simple way to test whether orbits accelerate. We can see, in the history of the universe, how galactic shapes change as their light colors go from infrared to UV. God commanded the plural eons to passively form as things that are seen were not made out of things that are seen (Hebrews 11:3). Galaxy clusters, star streams within galaxies, nebulae within the arms of spiral galaxies, visibly spread out from original tiny cores. The orbits in spiral galaxies incrementally accelerate, rotating outwards into logarithmic spacing. What we see confirms the Creation text, that God continues to command the lights in the plural heavens to become spreading things. The spreading lights (Sun, Moon and stars) are to mark days and years, according to Day four.

If the same laws are in effect in the heavens as on Earth, as God explained to Job in 38: 33, then.

  1. Matter here in the solar system must also be changing. Indeed, take away the younger oceans and the continents fit together on a minuscule globe. Take way the lunar mare, and the highlands fit together on a smaller moon. The same is true for Mars that has global magnetic stripes embedded in the surface rocks. Matter is always observed to shift its properties.

  2. Orbits accelerate outward along with the shifting properties of matter as billions of galaxies grew into growth spirals. Evidently gravity is what emerges from matter as it keep on shifting its properties, since the orbits are going in the opposite direction of the laws of physics.

  3. We detect that the pul of the Sun and Moon have an aberration. The Sun must, therefore, pull more on the dawn than the sunset. This accelerates days and years together. We have no references for understanding the duration of a day just a few thousand years. In that era people did not wear shirts under the infrared sun and the sky was bronze, according to Homer.

The principle that everything is changing (as stated by the Apostle Paul) is visibly confirmed. It means the Earth has vast age (just like the bible repeatedly states) in only a few thousand years. The days and the years of the son are shorter and worse than the days and years of the fathers, as Jacob explained. It is because everything is changing that the days and years accelerate.

Change and time are diametrically opposite worldviews.

Victor

@godsriddle

Exactly what is Catholic time theology? (You might refer to the Online Catholic Encyclopedia for your answer.) How does it differ from Eastern Orthodox and Protestant time theology? What did the reformers do about time? Did they outlaw all time-keeping devices?

So anything not recorded in the Bible doesn’t exist? Is that the jist of your argument?

I think it’s time for a change. We’ve been going around in circles here for quite a long time. Time is of the essence, so let’s change the status of this topic. I’m closing the thread.

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NOT one verse in the Bible says the world is young. Over and over, the Bible uses eon words for the Old Testament era. Yet the genealogies and king lists add up to only about 4000 OT years.

God has perfectly designed the universe, without any deception. He never lies. We can see that the universe is very old with telescopes and on the surface of our planet. So why do philosophers struggle over the age of the universe?

Philosophers try to understand the universe using their notion of time. Moses never heard of time. It had not even been invented when he wrote the creation account. Ancient people focused on what changes. They recorded when aspectually, using the changes they observed. Their clocks and calendars did not measure time. They were dynamic, adjusted to fit nature’s changes. All ancient societies also looked back with longing on the first generations who lived for geological eons, back when the whole world was so different. For example, Job in chapter 14, lists six geological markers for a lifetime. One was that the Mediterranean sea (Hebrew word west) dried, which it did. He also compared a lifetime to water wearing down rocks and washing away the dust of the earth. Indeed, during the era when the Med dried (which scientists estimate lasted from 23,000,000 to 5,300,000 years ago, the Nile incised a canyon deeper than the Grand Canyon as it raced down into the desiccated Med basin. Later it filled the deep canyon with sediments and formed a great delta. Surely this did not happen in 200 linear years of Job’s lifetime, that biblically happened not much more than 5,000 years ago. He also wrote that their faces intensely continued to change until they died. If you lived to watch the ocean dry, you too would grow thick Neanderthal brows from vast age in few years. (The skull is the only part of our skeleton that keeps growing as we age. Neanderthal child skulls have faces like modern children. Sometimes we find their primary teeth worn down as though they were a 100 years old, yet still infants. )

Change and time are diametrically opposite worldviews. The changes the Bible mentions are visible, especially in the visible history of hundreds of billions of galaxies. The orbits and the clocks visible both accelerate as billions of galaxies become spreading things (raiqya) exactly as per the literal text. In fact, the Biblical God calls attention to what he continues to do, call the stars to continually come out; spread out the plural heavens (the independent galaxies) like a tent. Billions of galaxies spread out from tiny naked globs into huge, local growth spirals as the visible properties of all matter continually and visibly change.

Time does not exist. All we see are changes. Why did God make a universe where every atom changes itself as it ages (visibly)? So that no one can come to faith in him through philosophy. Unfortunately, as a child I was trained to think like a pagan philosopher in Western, Christian schools. I was trained to believe in time. All we see are changes. The changes we observe are the very ones the Bible lists as evidence for the Creator. Change and time are diametrically opposite worldviews.

Victor

Spiral galaxies are powerful evidences for a grammatical creation. On the fourth day, Elohim continues (imperfect verb) to speak to the lights in the sky for them to continue to become spreading things (Hebrew noun raqiya). Raqa is the verb to pound out and spread out. Raqiya is the noun of that verb, the object that is spreading out. He commands the Sun, Moon and stars to continue (imperfect verbs or participles) to become spreading things in the sky. Repeatedly, in Isaiah, Psalms and elsewhere, the Creator claims to continue to spread out the plural heavens, to continue to call the stars to come out.

Indeed, early galaxies are often naked, without starry arms. Their atoms shine at tiny fractions of the frequencies of modern atoms. Wait, we measure unchanging atoms, says the astronomer. Empirical science was founded on the Thomasian notion that the essence of substance is changeless. Even the physics definitions, measuring units and mathematical methods depend on Thomas’ metaphysics. Peter predicted that in the last days some would obfuscate the evidence that the heavens came out long ago (ouranoi ek palai) because they believe that all things remain the same. Yet we can see how the properties of matter keep shifting throughout cosmic history.

We often see globs packed with stars around those early spirals. The globs often have different spectral colors than the core. At many ranges, billion of galaxies become spreading things as stars globs (often blue) continue to emerge from the cores. Evidently God is continuing to command light to give form to matter, just like he did on day one for the Earth. Indeed, the Earth continues to grow exactly as we read repeatedly in the Hebrew text.

In spirals the star globs follow each other out in lanes, steadily accelerating outwards. This is why spiral galaxies always have logarithmic spaced arms, a sure sign of continuous acceleration. (Major moons and multiplanet systems also have logarithmic spacing, as we see in our own solar system and exoplanet systems with multiple planets. This is a sure sign that the lights in the sky are also continuously accelerating outwards, becoming spreading things just like we read in the Creation text.

Why would they continue to accelerate? The visible properties of matter continue to shift throughout cosmic history. Even local atomic clocks, when compared to their own reflections from hours ago, also accelerate at the approximate same distance-rate as the atoms in countless galaxies (Pioneer Anomaly).

The star globs continue to emerge and spread out from the cores until day seven. Only nearby spirals have dust bars. On the seventh day, God ended the intensity of creating the stars. Yet the finishing continues (imperfect verbs in Genesis 2:1-3). Only dust emerges from the cores beginning on day seven, rather than streams of stars. The visible history of the universe only fits the Hebrew creation text.

Victor