Change and Time in Genesis

Faith & Science Conversation
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There are two primary physics reference standards mass and time.

http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/mpc/section3/mpc312.htm

Secondary standards and thousands of other measuring units depend on the primary standards that are established by international agreements. The length of a meter, velocities, energies and the laws of physics depend on the primary standards and the secondaries. Mass, a primary, has a problem. Although the kilogram masses are kept in bell jars under tight temperature controls and are never handled to leave fingerprints, they are shifting relative to each other. The primary kilogram mass is kept in France. The other standard masses no longer agree so it is difficult to know which might be correct or why they are shifting relative to each other. This is why NIST is proposing a watt balance as the new standard mass. The watt balance depends on Friar Thomas’ notion that the essence of substance is changeless, the elementary, metaphysical idea upon which Western empiricism was contrived.

My claim is that the precision units of measurement (except for Babylonian angles) depend on the medieval assumption that matter is not changing itself relationally. For example temperature is based on this idea. Most physics formulas use time as the independent variable as though it’s speed is independent of everything else. Even mathematics, experimental methods and most measuring units rely on the notion that matter is not changing itself relationally. But we measure changelessness. No you operationally defined your measuring units, your methods and your mathematics on the Dominican idea that the essence of substance is changeless.

There are no independent variables. Everything is changing in an orderly (hupotaso) together (sustenazo) way as the Apostle Paul states. This is not philosophical speculation. We can see the past to the creation era in billions of galaxies. Matter is observed to change in an orderly together way. The orbits and the atomic clocks accelerate together as billions of galaxies intrinsically grow, becoming spreading things (Hebrew noun raqiya) exactly as in the creation account. Not a single physical constant or unchanging standard is visible. The properties of matter are observed to always shift together, relationally, throughout cosmic history.

This is why scientific stories of beginnings violate the Biblical statements. It is also why scientists fill the universe up with mythical things like invisible matter, space time, accretion and black holes. It is also why they measure billions of years. They are only measuring their assumption. There is no such thing as time. All we see is change. The orbits and the atoms both change together in violation of almost every definition and law of physics. This is why CEC expect that God will triumph over science with his literal words, for his great glory. Why? No ne can come to saving faith through science. Yet he rejects no sinner who, by his grace, comes to trust in the death of Jesus for our sins. The last will be first and the first will be last.

Victor.

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Come back when you can explain the difference between defining a unit and calibration needed to measure a unit.

Also, do you care to comment on the old definition of the second? It appears to match what you call non-time.

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Almost everything scientists measure is operationally defined. An operational definition does not concern itself whether time actually exists. It simply defines it with a specified operation using an assumption.

The modern operational definition of a second depends on a particular pulse rate from cesium 133 atoms. Atomic clocks are really two clocks. When you start an atomic clock, an oscillator sweeps through a microwave band radiating on heated cesium. At some point in the band sweep, the cesium absorbs the microwaves and later relaxes, emitting a narrow frequency. The output clock counts 9,192,631,770 re-radiated microwaves as one second. This is an operational definition. The output clock ALSO TUNES THE INPUT CLOCK with a feedback circuit, like a phase locked loop, for a maximum of re-radiated microwaves. If atoms are shifting their properties RELATIONALLY, all atomic clocks would keep actively tuning themselves to the shifting atoms. Even hydrogen maser clocks, that use the size of the cavity as the tuning circuit, depend on the medieval notion that matter is not changing itself. If atoms are shifting their properties relationally, the size of the cavity would also change as the atoms changed relationally.

Calibration involves refining ones equipment to fit the operational definition of a second. For example, tuning a magnetic field to prevent extraneous ions from the stream or tuning the feedback circuit. A cesium fountain clock fits the operational definition with fewer potential deviations than a cesium beam clock. It is said to be more accurate. However, the basic assumption upon which the theory that atoms pulse at a constant frequency is not in question by the operational definition.

NASA sent four spin stabilized spacecraft into the distant solar system. These craft do not use internal wheels to orient the craft (which naturally produces multiple accelerations). Instead the entire spaceship is balanced and spins around the central axis of the dish antenna. Pioneer 10 & 11, Ulysses and Galileo were spin stabilized and all experienced a strange anomaly. (Galileo and Ulysses had different constructions and arrangements of their plutonium RTGs than the Pioneers). John Anderson noticed an anomaly when he tried to use Doppler shifts to calculate the “mass” of Jupiter. NASA beams a radio frequency containing range markers that are produced by hydrogen maser clocks. The craft receives the signal, multiplies it by a factor, and simultaneously beams the same signal back to Earth over the same antenna. Back on Earth, the returned signal is beat against the present speed of the atomic clocks and the differences are counted as Doppler counts which can be scaled as a distance rate in meters / second. After all variables are deducted (such as from the motion of the Earth) Anderson found a signal that increased with distance. He interpreted the anomaly in tow possible ways. Perhaps the spacecraft accelerates at 8.74 ± 1.33 x 10-10 m / s^2. This is close to the estimates of the Hubble Constant (H). H = v/d where v is velocity and d is distance to a galaxy. (cH ~ 8 x 10^-10m / s^2). Is this a coincidence? Anderson calculated that if all atomic clocks are accelerating at 2.92 ± .044 x 10^-18 / s, it could also account for the Pioneer Anomaly. Is every atom in the universe changing its clock rate or is the vacuum of space time adjusting the frequencies of passing light?

A system of precision measuring and mathematical calculations, like science, must depend on an inflexible law-like first assumption (arch ktiseous in Greek). Peter predicted an arche ktiseous for the last days "that all things remain the same).

Change and science are opposite worldviews. The authors of the Bible lived in the age when everyone accepted that everything is changing. Their clocks and calendars were NOT FOR MEASURING time. They were adjusted to fit natures never ending changes. Change and time are opposite worldviews.

Al Biruni first used the word second in estimating how many days, hours, minutes and seconds between two new moon observations. The first use of seconds in pendulum clocks developed over 300 years ago. Eventually seconds were said to be 1/8,460th of a mean solar day. The real solar day only fits the mean solar day twice a year.

We can see the past at many ranges and in all directions. Orbits accelerate outward in defiance of every operational definition and law of physics. Billions of galaxies intrinsically grow, the orbits not closing but accelerating outwards, often into huge, dusty, local growth spirals. The earliest galaxies are tiny, non extended, and clock tiny fractions of the frequencies of modern atoms. Throughout cosmic history the clocks and the orbits both accelerate. God continued to command, beginning on the fourth day, for the lights in the heavens to become spreading things. The spreading things were to serve as markers for days and years. Indeed, our ancestors recorded how the Sun was red, the sky brown and the planets sometimes catastrophically passed close to Earth. The optical parallax to the Sun and planets has continued to decrease, even since scientists used clocks and radar to canonically define a fixed AU. There is not time. All there is is change. The days and years of the son are shorter and worse than the days and years of the fathers, as Israel explained. .

Change and science (time) are opposite worldviews.

Victor

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So when they used a time stick to divide the day into units of duration that are roughly the same every day, what exactly were they measuring if not time?

Funny how it is that time doesn’t exist until you want to use it.

If I keep saying this often enough maybe you will believe me (kind of like you do). Ktiseous is used 8 times in the NT, always for creation. Other than it fits what you want it to mean, how do you justify translating it in a totally different way? And how do you justify ignoring the first words of the mockers, “Where is the promise of His coming?” That context makes the translation of “things have been this way since the creation” the correct one.

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Sorry for the delay in answering. I did not run out of time. I was merely busy.

Please notice in the above passage, I am quoting the ideas of a prominent scientist, Dr John Anderson. His world is emersed in the concept of time. He used the concept of time every day to track the position of spacecraft using Doppler navigation while employed with Jet Propulsion labs.

Anyone can legitimately compare any present phenomena to another present phenomena. This is not measuring time, just comparing phenomena. A wifi broadcasts an ssid every 100 milliseconds. Two phenomena are compared. The ticks a clock and the ssid broadcasts. Not surprising, since the wifi contains a clock and uses it decide when to broadcast. The problem is when one takes the local comparison and projects it back, imagining that they are measuring time, perhaps billions of years. Those who do this are merely confusing change with time. Clocks (atomic and inertial) are observed to accelerate throughout cosmic history. Billions of galaxies spread out into growth spirals. That is relational change, not time.

I claim that Western peoples misinterpret Creation, forcing it to fit their concept of time. Moses had no words for time. Like other early languages, Biblical Hebrew had no verb tenses to refer to an imaginary, external, invisible time. They could talk about duration by comparing things they saw. For example, the fastest process in Hebrew was an eye blink. It was not a second of time. It was not even a measurement. It was simply comparing something to what we see as fast, a blink of an eye.

By the way, if you are interested in understanding the radically different way early people thought about history and time, I recommend Mircea Eliade’s book, Cosmos and History, the Myth of the Eternal Return. You can read this on line here:

Caviate: Eliade was raised an Eastern Orthodox. IMO, he tries to understand the ancient way of thinking by comparing it to modern notions of time. He does not seem to understand the difference between a system of change and a system of time. For example, he calls the ancient way of looking back on the first generations as those who lived longer, better lives back when big changes happened as “en illo tempore”. He tries to interpret their way of thinking with our notion of time. He acts as though we are the standard of truth. It is better to try to understand their system as entirely consistent with a worldview about change, not time.

After the apostles died, the early church used Greek philosophical notions of time to interpret the Bible. They interpreted Creation, Earth history and even God using time. In medieval theology / philosophy, God created time and is not in time. They even came up with a philosophical word for being outside of time: eternal. Philosopher / priests had a powerful effect on the world, influencing modern languages, worldview and how to interpret the Scriptures.

The Bible does not say believe on the Lord Jesus and you will have “eternal life”. It says eon life, eon life without end. You don’t have to imagine an eternal state outside of time to accept the Bible literally. e.g. They translated 1 Corinthians 7:29 as our “time is short” - [kairos sustello.] Paul is talking about the predictions for our era are contracted, drawn together, shortened, abridged. They thought the first generations lived, long, slow eon lives. They lived to watch geological events pass in a lifetime (Job 14). However, the coming of Jesus is soon. Why is it soon when Job lived in the eon generations. because the days and years of the son are shorter and worse than the days and years of the fathers (Genesis 47:9)

Eon life in the kingdom of God is not outside of time. Imagine that we are in the New Jerusalem on the “new in form” Earth that has no sea. Yet we will mark off months without the Sun or moon. How? We can monitor what is changing just like the early generations did. The Tree of Life produces 12 kinds of fruit, one each month. We ill be able to count months and even years by counting how the tree of life marks off change. Change and time are opposite worldviews.

By the way, arche ktiseous means what the context shows, not what tradition demands. When Jesus is talking about laws of divorce, arche ktiseous has to do with the first law for human societies, not the beginning of creation. Mockers who reject the coming of Christ do so because they claim evidence from the fathers that all things remain the same. They are not taking about the beginning of creation, which they obviously don’t believe in. Indeed, scientists regularly compare astronomical observations and dates from our forefathers to imply that all things remain the same. They imagine that an ancient day and year was similar to a modern day and year because the ratios are similar. Yet we can see the past. The orbits accelerate outwards incrementally as the atomic clocks also accelerate as billions of galaxies spread out into huge, dusty “spreading things - raqiya” exactly as God commanded on day four. There is not such thing as time. All we see is change.

Victor

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Please notice in the above passage I was joking.

God is self-existent. Since he has no creator he has always existed, hence he is eternal.

Psalm 90:2 Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
Genesis 21:33 Abraham planted a tamarisk tree at Beersheba, and there he called on the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.

The “Everlasting God” is El Olam which comes from the Hebrew “the God of eternity.”

To us time is just a succession of events that run in only one direction. Since God created time he is not bound by this and actually exists in an “eternal now.”

If I am sitting and watching a pendulim swing and I count the swings what is changing? After I get to 10 swings can I go back to the 4th swing? Without referring to time, can you explain what is going on?

Also, if time doesn’t exist, why does Jesus mention it? I would think he would know it doesn’t exist.

This context? Mark 10:1 “But from the beginning of creation, God MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE. 7“FOR THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER, 8AND THE TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9“What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

How do you get “From the first law of marriage, God made them” out of this? He is talking about WHEN they were made. There is no reference to law here. In fact what law of marriage are you talking about? The children of Adam and Eve were marryiing their brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and cousins for quite a few generations. The first example of a law we are given is Cain murdering Able. I don’t have my reference with me at the moment, but the greek phrase that gives you “from the beginning of creation” is only used 3 times in the NT and in all 3 cases the context clearly shows that is the correct interpretation. In fact I think you could take Jesus’s words as indicating that is WHY God created a male and female. The two together results in a complete image of God. In fact, I don’t think God got into the law making business until Moses came along.

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Olam is what is out of sight, by implication something that extends for a great while, since we do not observe it happening. The context here is important. Abraham makes a treaty that is supposed to go on for generations to show kindness to Abimelech’s descendants and to the land.

Abraham has a complaint that is part of the treaty. Your servants seized my well that I dug. Abraham gives Abimelech seven ewe lambs as witness that he dug the well. Abraham names the place “Well of the Seven” or “Well of the Oath - Beersheba.” He plants a Tamarisk tree at Beersheba and calls on the Lord the Olam God. Tamarask trees can grow in the dessert, but they need water. Evidently Abraham planted it near his well. They can grow to great height and live for a thousand years. They were also a sacred tree in many ancient societies associated with the worship of gods, used for medicines, religious purification, healing, constructing temples etc.

Abraham is not imagining that he lives in time, but God exists outside of time, the Catholic notion of eternal. People in his era had no concept of a separable thing we call time. He knew God as the Creator, who made everything, therefore himself unmade. He is the Olam God that kept his promises to Abraham for a son and that someday he will bless all the families of the Earth through him. He keeps his promises to all generations, even though Abraham owned no part of the promised land at that point. Therefore, he is the Olam God, symbolized by the long lasting tamarisk tree.

Again we read the context. The pharisees ask a question about laws, whether it is lawful for a man to divorce his wife. In return, Jesus asks about Moses’ law. The pharisees respond, Moses permitted a certificate of divorce. Jesus gives the punch line. Moses made this law because of the hardness of your hearts. It was not so from the first law (arche ktiseous). Then he quotes the first law, before there were any other laws, courts or judges. This law came not at the beginning of creation but much later on the sixth day. It did not affect Adam and the wife, since they had no parents and Adam had no option to leave his wife for another woman. In God’s first law for all future generations, a man is to leave his parents and cling to his wife. They are to become one flesh. What God joins together, let no man, even Moses’ later laws, separate.

In the 2 Peter 3 section, the context is about how people in the last days interpret Earth history. The mockers clearly are arguing against creation, therefore it should not be interpreted as “from the beginning of Creation.” What the mockers do (misinterpret cosmic and earth history) is based on a first law, that all things remain the same. Indeed, Western science was founded on a religious idea. Most physics definitions, measuring units and mathematical laws depend on a historical law like idea that matter is NOT changing itself, changing relationally. This idea came through Catholic theology that taught that God is Eternal, unchanging, seeing all the future, perfectly immutable. The Greeks did not invent modern science because the early philosophers acknowledged that everything is changing. Friar Thomas, by adjusting the Aristotelian philosophy to fit Catholic traditions, inadvertently solved the problem of change. This is why modern science developed in the West, the only place where children learned to think with Thomasian metaphysics.

The reason scientific stories of beginnings violate the genealogies, visible cosmic history and watery history of our planet is because all scientists have a first law: that matter is intrinsically immutable. The theory that time exists predates this assumption. However, the notion that it is linear depends on the idea that all things remain the same.

We should not place science above the Bible. We should allow the grammatical text and the context (including the worldview of the authors) to do the interpreting, not science.

Victor

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You have said this multiple times so please explain this verse by verse.
2 Peter 3:1-13 (NASB95)
1 This is now, beloved, the second letter I am writing to you in which I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,
2 that you should remember the words spoken beforehand by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken by your apostles.
3 Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts,
4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.”
Here is where the mockers are talking
5 For when they maintain this, it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water,
Now Peter is talking. What does he mean when he says “they (the mockers) maintain this”? The “this” is their saying Christ is not returning. He then goes on to confirm that God created the heavens and the earth.
6 through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water.
Peter confirms the flood.
7 But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
Peter predicts that in the future God is going to destroy the earth. This is a warning for the mockers.
8 But do not let this one fact escape your notice, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years like one day.
Peter is telling his readers to not doubt that Christ will return, but to look forward to his return.
9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up.
11 Since all these things are to be destroyed in this way, what sort of people ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness,
12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be destroyed by burning, and the elements will melt with intense heat!
13 But according to His promise we are looking for new heavens and a new earth, in which righteousness dwells.

The mockers are clearly not arguing against creation. Peter is confirming creation as he argues against the mockers. If you assign creation and the flood to the mockers what is left for Peter to use as an argument? Nothing! He just goes back to talking to his readers. How do you go about changing scripture to fit your desired meaning?

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Peter tells us that mockers reject the coming of Christ. Their reason is that since the fathers died all things remain the same. [panta houtĂŽs diamenei ap archĂȘs ktiseĂŽs. Panta has no definite article - evidently all things that exist. Diamenei means to remain in the same state or condition. The preposition apo means to come out, since atoms came out they stay the same is the modern version of this law.

Indeed, in our days the first law of science, ais taught by implication without examination or discussion. What the mockers maintain is that all things remain the same. They contrive their versions of cosmic and earth history with this law like assumption despite the contrary evidence Peter mentions.

The word ouranoi can meas an atmosphere or a starry heavens. Both kinds of heavens came out long ago. The atmosphere formed as geysers ejected water that formed clouds of icy particles above the spreading atmosphere (days 2). God continues to command the Sun, Moon and stars (the lights) to become spreading things (beginning on day four). The spreading lights are to mark the days and years. We see how countless galaxies spread out, just like the grammar for days four.

Peter predicts that the mockers reject that the water used to stand with the land, forming the land. The continents are covered with sedimentary, water deposited rocks. The continental basements are granite with large crystals. Millions of cubic kilometers of water deposited marine shale, chalks and limestone stand above the granite basements.

The Earth has two distinctly different geologies. The younger oceans are made of heavy basalt covered with marine oozes, not sedimentary rocks. In some areas sedimentary material has slid into the deep oceans along the continental margins. The continents fit together on a minuscule globe without any of the modern deep oceans. Trillions of marine fossils exist on the continents, but not in the younger oceans. Many of these fossils died in their marine burrows where they lived in oceans that only existed on the continent. Above the marine layers we find surface rocks containing surface fossils. Many of the surface features are canted at angles, evidence for a great cataclysm.

Can God really defeat Western science without any deception? Can he do so in full conformity to His word? The collapse of Western science in favor of His word will bring him enormous honor and glory. On that day the pride of man in their science will be abased and the Lord alone will be exalted.

Victor

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You have said before that the mockers were rejecting the creation and flood. That is why you placed this in our time (given a very large definition of what “our time” is. If you just use a plain reading of the text you see that the “things” are not referring to matter but to life in general. What would the connection be between unchanging matter and Christ’s return. It doesn’t make sense for them to use that as an argument.

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Mockers reject that Jesus is the Son of God and that he will return to judge the nations and establish a world of peace. What is the basis for this decision? They make a rational decision to not believe the Bible based on their science. They cannot believe the universe is only 6,000 years old because their science was contrived on an elementary, medieval assumption that all things remain the same.

They point to evidence: since the fathers fell asleep. Indeed, scientists reference records from previous generations to support their presumption that all things remain the same. For example, Claudius Ptolemy uses similar eclipse records from hundreds of years apart to find the average number of days in an average month. (He used the fixed Egyptian calendar to count the days between these events and divided the total day count by the month count). His average number of days in a lunation is considered to be a “measurement of time” by modern astronomers and almost identical to our clock measurements. Almost all ancient astronomical observations violate our mathematical ephemeris, so astronomers modify the date, place or description of an eclipse to support their fundamentalist principle that all things remain the same. Even Ptolemy recorded that Sirius was bright red, like other ancient writers. It is blue white today. He measured with angles the diameter of the planets as much larger than we see. He claimed previous generations of astronomers recorded even larger diameter luminaries than he did. Indeed, the Bible records close planet passages and the shattering of a nearby, watery planet, just like all ancient societies.

Time is linear, says the scientist. Their concept of linear time causes them to reject a 6,000 years old Earth. Often this causes them to reject faith in Jesus as Savior / Creator. However, their notion of linear time and fixed orbits is based on the fundamental assumption that the properties of matter are fixed. For example, they use this assumption to define time with notions of linear clocks based on fixed matter ideas.

The visible history of the universe is the most powerful evidence for a LITERAL biblical creation. God commanded the lights in the heavens to become spreading things (noun raqiya). Indeed, billions of galaxies spread out from countless tiny globs of primordial matter that took up much less space and shone at much less than 10% of the frequencies of modern matter. Trillions of star streams emerge from billions of point-like cores and spread out, often growing into huge, growth spirals, biblical raqiya. The clocks and the orbits accelerate together in violation of the definitions and laws of physics.

What about the ratios, the same number of days in a month and a year when the father’s died? Experiments show that the pull of the Sun and Moon on the Earth has an aberration, suggesting that (whatever gravity might be) it propagates at light speed. This MUST pull more on the dawn that the sunset, steadily accelerating days and years throughout the long geological history of the Earth. This suggests that a day in Noah’s era was a geological eon, but it is ephemeral today. All old people remember how much slower life was in their youth.

We can test for the tangential effect of gravity with various techniques, such as paraconical pendulum and parallax. If gravity has an aberration, orbits would never quite close but open outwards. Indeed, the optical parallax to the Sun and planets has steadily reduced for over 2300 years. In 1672, Cassini and Flamsteed both measured the optical parallax to Mars during opposition (when Mars was standing relative to Earth) and occulted the bright star Psi Aquarius. Cassini used two places thousands of miles apart, to triangulate the distance to Mars during the occultation. Flamsteed using diurnal parallax using a micrometer eyepiece. They both arrived at a similar parallax - a solar system 7% smaller than it is today. In 2003, Parker Moorland repeated their measurements using a modern telescope with a micrometer eyepiece during the similar opposition of Psi Aquarius and Mars. His optical AU was 151.6 million kilometers, 8% larger than in 1672. http://www.mccarthyobservatory.org/pdfs/pm031117.pdf

All over the universe we see logarithmically spaced orbits. The planets of the solar system; multiple planet exoplanets; the major moons in the solar system and the spiral arms of billions of spiral galaxies have logarithmic spacings. Logarithmic spacings are evidence for incremental changes, not time.

There is no such thing as time. Change and time (science) are opposite worldviews. The authors of the Bible, like all early peoples, saw change where westerners imagine time. The orbits and the clocks accelerate together as galaxies become spreading things (raqiya) as per the creation text.

Victor

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OK what is wrong with this argument.

The Greek language contains references to time in verb tenses and vocabulary.

The New Testament was written mostly in Greek.

The authors of the New Testament were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Time does not exist.

Therefore the New Testament contains errors.

Thus the entire New Testament cannot be trusted.

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No, basic geology shows the earth is much older than 6,0000 years. It isn’t rocket science.

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And if you will read the abstract of a paper at 1985BAAS...17..844V Page 844 you will find that both picked numbers that matched what they expected.

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Do you know the difference between exegesis and eisegesis?

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Are you really saying that in Noah’s era a day (one earth rotation) lasted for a geological eon? And plant life survived in the dark for those geological eons how?

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What? I’m pretty sure the post-medieval and pre-medieval basis for the decision to reject that Jesus is the Messiah is the same. It has nothing to do with scientific worldview or rational decision making, and everything to do with hard hearts, selfishness, pride, autonomy, and a refusal to turn away from sin. You think most unbelievers have actually made a rational decision to “disbelieve” the Bible and its stance on science that is obvious only to you, and that is what causes them to reject Christ? You have a weird view of faith.

The idea that God became incarnate in a human being, dealt with humanity’s sinfulness and made a way for reconciliation to God by his sacrificial death and resurrection is its own difficult rational pill to swallow, regardless of one’s view of time or the age of the earth. And even after however many thousand words you have poured onto this thread, I’m pretty sure no one understands why it is important to believe the earth is 6,000 years old, when time doesn’t even exist. Age being a measurement of time and all.

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

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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

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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