Change and Time in Genesis

Faith & Science Conversation
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I recommend the little book, “Time and Process in Ancient Judaism” by Sacha Stern. “A worldview based on process and without the general concept of time gives rise to a radically different description of reality, but without excluding or ignoring any aspect of the universal empirical experience.” Another excellent book from a different perspective is “Hebrew thought compared to Greek” by Thorleif Boman. Henri Bergson thought that the static concept of Western time is a defense against what is real: which is change.

Hebrew had no words for time, only timing events or durations marked by event. For example, the Qumran scrolls never mention time as an entity in itself. They do mention punctual events such as festivals. In their worldview calendars and clocks do not measure time.

Lets go back to creation.

52 % of the verbs in the Genesis Creation account are imperfect, showing continuing or repeating commands and actions.

14% show actions that continue in unbroken continuity.

Only 11 verbs show completion, such as when God completed naming the dark as night. The naming of the light as day is imperfect. This suggest that the light continues to change, whereas the dark is an absence of activity and therefore uses the perfect.

17% of the verbs are imperatives or infinitives.

The waw consecutive imperfect may introduce what happens next and continues to happen. For example, Jeroboam the son of Nebat breaks away from Judah and his sins continue throughout the history of Israel.

My claim is this. The problem that Western Christians struggle with over the age of the universe in only 4,000 Old Testament years comes from our concept of time. To an ancient person who had no concept of an actual time dimension, only accepting what is changing is real. If you see change instead of synthetic ideas about time, then the changes the Bible mentions on day four are the most powerful evidence for Creation possible, since we see the creation era with telescopes.

Just a thought.

Victor

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Eddie, To clarify: I was indeed criticizing Victor’s point as not being in harmony with what Hebrew linguistics currently says. I am not a linguist, but simply reporting on what I understand from reading the latest Hebrew grammars on this. The reason the preterite looks like an imperfect has to do with the evolution of the form over time. It used to look different, but now happens to resemble an imperfect.

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Thank you for your excellent comments. Ephesians 5:13 tells tells us that light reveals the truth and exposes error because everything that is visible phos estin, is light. Genesis tells us and the Earth was dark and tohu wa bohu. God’s wind dithered in unbroken continuity over the dark waters. God continues to command the light. This is very interesting, because light is what gives matter its form and other external properties as it never stops dithering around with atoms (QED theory). Matter really is light, as Paul wrote. This is why evidence based on light (rather than mathematics) is so important.

We can see back to the creation era with telescopes. The earliest atoms clocked much less than 10% of the frequencies emitted by modern atoms. We also observe (at many ranges) how galaxies keep changing their shapes and colors throughout cosmic history. What we see ONLY fits the literal text for day four. It does not fit a big bang or the accretion of stars from dust. What we see is that tiny cores of primordial matter shoot out globs packed with stars. The star globs are often arranged in equally spaced strings, like beads on a necklace. The globs accelerate out from point like sources and spread out. This is like we read of in Hebrews 11:3 where God commands the plural eons to passively form as things appear out from what is not apparent. The cosmos is the only history that we observe as it happened to the creation era. God continues to command luminaries in the plural heavens. The luminaries are to be for signs for years, and days. God continues to place the luminaries as spreading things (raqiya) in the plural heavens (shamayim). He continues to call the stars to come out, according to Isaiah. There are probably at least 5 trillion galaxies and the earliest ones are remarkably different from the local ones. Trillions upon trillions of star streams spread out, accelerate out, become dusty, often growing into local, growth spirals. What is visible violates every definition and law of modern physics. Anyone with a computer can examine the deep vistas of the universe and look at the spectra of each galaxy. The James Webb space telescope is due to launch in 2 years. If it properly unfolds its giant mirrors and its helium refrigeration system works, we will get even greater proofs for the Hebrew grammar for day four.

Meanwhile the scientific universe is crammed full of undetectable magic, like vastly more invisible matter than the natural kind, vacuums that adjust the frequencies of passing light and impossible accretion that violates the visible history of the universe.

The universe does have laws. The same laws do function in the universe as on Earth (Job 38:33). However, the laws regulate how matter keeps changing in an orderly together manner (Romans 8:19-22). Friar Thomas, the metaphysician of the West, was wrong. Western science was founded on his notion that the essence of substance is changeless. The structure of Western science was built on the notion that "all things remain the same (2 Peter 3:3-6). Indeed scientists obfuscate both Earth’s geology and the history of the plural heavens (as Peter predicted they would) because they have a first law (arch ktisis) that all things remain the same.

My contention is that only the literal creation text is confirmed in the visible history of the universe. However, we Westerners have a strong cultural notion of changelessness and time. The authors of the Bible had no such culture. The Bible is going to completely vanquish Western science, for the creators great glory.

Victor

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Another book that someone gave me ($150) is “Word Order and Time in Biblical Hebrew Narrative” by Tal Goldfajn. She teaches biblical Hebrew in a university in Sao Paulo, Brazil. I read the book but must confess I do not understand all of her arguments, although she has her own theory of waw consecutive etc.

I have lot of books on time, almost all based on Western theories of time, such as relativity etc. It was not, however, until I began a study of biblical Creation and Earth history that God (I believe) opened my eyes to seeing things from the perspective of how ancient people thought and lived without a philsophy of time.

It is my contention, that if we approach the biblical narrative on creation and earth history with their worldview and their grammar (hermeneutically) we have the most powerful evidence possible for a biblical Creation. It does not involve a big bang, billions of years or a young earth.

It involves change, not time. This is not speculation, since we confirm that everything changes with telescopes. The atomic clocks and the orbits visibly accelerate throughout cosmic history. Science and change are opposite worldview. God will someday reduce the wise of this age to moros, as he promised. Why would he do this? Because man cannot come to know him (have true faith) through philosophy. Yet any sinner who trusts him (which is as a result of his special grace) becomes his child. He is taking the wise with their skills, 2 Cor 3:20.

Victor

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I have enjoyed following these posts. I have no clue what God did, but I know that He did all of this!
I was pretty closed minded to any view, but YEC, at one time, and it was He who focused my thoughts on Genesis 1-2 and gave me a desire to research evolution and old earth views. I read books, and learned the possibilities.
An open mind, best way.
Anything is possible,
He is the creator, and I am nothing.
Thank-you for this.
God Bless

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@godsriddle

You are proposing that Word Order found in an ancient and pre-scientific document somehow trumps our own living witness of what dozens of different scientific disciplines show us:

Earth is billions of years old.

Most of us ALREADY agree that the early Bible writers believed many things about Creation that are in error. Paying $150 in order to be even more convinced of this doesn’t seem to be a good investment.

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The science community disagrees quite vehemently with your statement of the astronomical evidence, Victor. The cosmic microwave background radiation, to give just one example, is quite visible to radio telescopes and fits quite closely to the big bang theory:

The cosmic background radiation is radiation left over from early development of the universe, and is a landmark proof of the Big Bang theory. Before the formation of stars and planets, the Universe was smaller, much hotter, and filled with a uniform glow from its white-hot fog of hydrogen plasma. As the universe expanded, both the plasma and the radiation filling it grew cooler. When the universe cooled and stable atoms could form, they eventually could no longer absorb the thermal radiation and the universe became transparent instead of being an opaque fog. The photons that from that time have been propagating ever since, growing fainter and less energetic.

Quoted from Universe Today

I am now going to offer some constructive criticism. I hope you will be able to receive it in the spirit in which it is offered.

My dear brother Victor, you have been making a long series of fantastical statements about science that have no congruence with reality. But you have brushing off our critiques and proceeding to even more fantastical statements.

If you would instead carefully consider what we are saying, you would be able to formulate better ideas. You would then discover that your contributions could be better received.

As it is, your confident assertions about science are so ill-informed that I, for one, have no interest in trying to filter the wheat from the chaff. There’s simply too much chaff and not enough wheat to justify the time investment.

Best regards,

Chris Falter

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Thank you for your kind words. I am sorry but there is no way to tone down what I am saying: to make it socially correct.

My claim is that Western science was built on a false assumption, an idea Peter predicted 1900+ years ago: that all things remain the same.(2 Peter 3:3-6) Even scientific methods and its rules of evidence, even most of their physics measuring units and even their mathematical laws were founded on Friar Thomas’ writings, that the essence of substance is changeless. Why does science work? It only works locally and only because everything is made consistent with its first principle. Scientists measure and mathematicate with synthetic things such as mass, energy and time that have no equivalence in the world of visible reality. The entire structure is based on the medieval creed that matter is NOT changing itself as it ages.

How can we test this idea to see if it is valid? We can see the past to the creation era in hundreds of billions of galaxies at many ranges and directions.

Only the literal creation account has visible support in the only history that is visible as it happened. Billions of galaxies grew out from the unformed matter God created first. At many ranges we observe that galaxies become spreading things (Hebrew noun raqiya). The orbits and the matter galaxies are made of keeps spreading out as the atomic clocks also accelerate.

What is visible with telescopes is unscientific, so neither secular scientists nor creation scientists can accept it. The triumph of the Bible over science will bring him great glory.

Victor

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Hi Victor, I would like to point out that your definition of “visible” is arbitrary and inconsistent.

In fact, those billions of galaxies that you consider to be “visible” were made visible with telescopes. Before astronomers developed telescopes, we even didn’t know that such things as “other” galaxies existed. People thought that the universe consisted of our own galaxy only.

See for example this article on the 1923 discovery of extragalactic objects (outside our own galaxy) made by Hubble with a telescope: http://amazingspace.org/resources/explorations/groundup/lesson/scopes/mt_wilson/discovery.php

Another fun fact, the cosmological expansion is measured using redshift, something that can only be measured using telescopes. So you can’t assert (as you did) that the universe is being “spread out” without relying on telescopes.

Just so you know, your artificial definition of “visible” negates half of the things you’re saying.

Casper

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Chris wasn’t critiquing your claims for social correctness. He was examining them to see if they have scientific correctness … and your claims fell short.

There have been times when some radical individual(s) proved to be right and the entire establishment wrong, but those have by far been the exceptions rather than the rule. In your case I’m sticking with the rule. You are right about one thing, though. In the end God gets all the glory.

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What are these “atomic clocks” that you keep mentioning? What evidence exists for these clocks?

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Is it just me, or is anyone else finding Victor’s arguments a bit difficult to follow?

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`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
_ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:_
_ All mimsy were the borogoves,_
_ And the mome raths outgrabe._

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No, it is just you.

Kidding, I am trying hard to see the point of view, but having difficulty. I’m afraid I am a little concrete in my thinking.
Victor, if you could elaborate on some of the ideas put forth such as “science and change are opposite worldviews.” Most of us have a good idea what science is, but what is “change as a worldview?”

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Would be nice to see some references and foot notes attached to some of these statements??

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That is actually measuring time. Dividing up the day into arbitrary parts is exactly what a clock does, whether it’s an ancient clock or a modern clock.

But the marks inside the pots are arbitrary, as you have already acknowledged. That’s why these are called “clocks”, because they are instruments for measuring time.

Evidence please.

This sounds like the stuff of Immanuel Velikovsky. Where is the evidence for these claims?

No, this is a common misconception. The Hebrew Bible itself describes the sky as the color of sapphire.

I have no idea what this is supposed to mean, since the idea that matter changes has been current since Heraclitus in the 6th century BCE.

You have made a lot of unsubstantiated claims, most of which flatly contradict well established linguistic, historical, and scientific knowledge. Here are just a few.

  • Dinosaurs lived at the same time as humans
  • Neanderthals had purer genes than we do
  • Neanderthals lived for geological ages
  • Neanderthals were humans

These claims have no basis in reality. Contrary to what you claim, the current understanding of the universe (the “standard model”), has demonstrated robust resistance to falsification, enormous explanatory power, and significant predictive success. You would be well advised to learn more about science in general before attempting to overturn this consensus view.

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Lets talk about elementary assumptions, which the Greeks called arche: first principles. All version of philosophy, including Western science, are built upon historical first principles. Proclus, 412 - 485, wrote of first principles in his commentary on Euclid’s Stoicheia. He claimed no science demonstrates its first principle or presents a reason for them. Even theories of motion depend on a definite first principle, which philosophers hold as self evident. Mixing in the same pot your principles and their consequences disorders one’s thinking completely. Why? A principle and what is contrived with the principle are different from each other.

I went to Western schools and learned to think synthetically (mathematically) like a Greek philosopher. I was not aware that the Bible warns about the elementary ideas of the world and philosophy that can take us captive (Col 2:8). I did not know how to think like the prophets of the Bible, who didn’t even have a concept of a time continuum. [Paul may have been trained in philosophy in Tarsus. However, he says the stoicheia (elementary principles) of the world held him in bondage as a child Gal 4:3.]

I loved science and worked in physics most of my life. However, I struggled with the various theories of Creation, trying to understand the Bible with science. Finally, in desperation, I asked God to help me. I discovered that I was double minded, I tried to interpret the Bible with Western science. I discovered that the authors of the Bible could not think scientifically. In fact, a Western scientific mindset did not finally gel until a few centuries ago.

The Bible predicts the elementary principle (arche ktisis) first law of the last days. Peter also predicted two things modern scientists do because they hold the principle that all things remain the same. Scientists reject the evidence that the plural heavens came out long ago (ouranoi ek palai) because they believe that matter is NOT changing as it ages. Even their definitions, methods and laws depend on this medieval assumption.

You will not understand the evidence I point to unless you are willing to first examine the fundamental principle upon which Western science was built. This idea came from the writings of the Dominican Friar Thomas. The stories scientists tell about the history of the universe are incredible myths. The myths, like redshift, were contrived with the idea the Bible predicted for the last days.

Understanding the world with the ancient concept of change is diametrically different from science. The two are not compatible. They are two different ways of defining what is evidence and how to understand evidence.

My claim is that, once you reject the assumption upon which Western science was contrived, you are allowed to believe what telescopes reveal.The scientific universe that is 99% undetectable magic because they only know how to think with the philosophical notion that matter is not changing itself (relationally) as it ages.

Victor