First and foremost in Genesis, or any other book in the Bible is an accurate translation from the language that it is written in, to the language you understand.
I would say that a majority of the misunderstandings are caused by an inaccurate translation. Biblical Hebrew, to a certain extent, similar to English, relies on word placement and context to determine which one of the multiple meanings of a Hebrew word is applicable in that particular and specific case.
To quote one of my favorite grad school professors, âThere is no such thing as an accurate translation, there are only better or worse approximationsâ.
I donât actually think modern people lack ability to understand the text. I just think a lot of modern people think their worldview and education level privileges them, and I find it ethnocentric and condescending to the many, many cultures of the world throughout time and geography who have understood Genesis just fine even though they donât have the same grasp on modern scientific models of origins.
The two statements are not logically linked: writing can be for our sake without fitting our worldview.
No, they didnât, because it rests on their concepts; no imposition necessary. Indeed if it had no rested on their concepts, it would not qualify as communication.
Exactly. We either work with the concepts inherent in the original, or we are engaging in arrogance.
I wrote a post that started with a quote from Christy. Then somehow everything else I wrote showed up as if what I wrote was part of the quote from Christy. This is awkward, to say the least. How can this be fixed? or can it?
You can go back and click the three dots under the post, or just click the pencil icon as it should be visible for you to edit, and change anything in the post, put in parentheses and spaces etc. I can do that for you as a moderator, but will let you exercise your will! If you have any problems with it, let me know and I am happy to help.
Edit it and Look for the [ / quote] tag and move it in between where her responses end and yours begin. User the image below to help.
The second one should say: âThis is how your response should look.â Your reply needs to be after the quote tag.
If you canât see the code then change the editor:
This is a hot topic that deserves discussion and sadly, I think many people do not have enough information from either side of the argument to make a good decision. I submit that just believing one side or the other because of tradition or dogma is not enough. Find out the facts and reasons for their positions. It is also ok to adopt a position solely on tradition or non-scientific reasoning if the path is transparent and honest with yourself. As long as you are not in charge of science programs and try to impose your beliefs on that system, you can believe what you want. Just be true to yourself and understand the other side of the argument. We often choose to believe non-science-based things for convenience or tradition. The danger lies in the ignorance or denial of an entire body of evidence, not in a conscious and transparent decision based on facts and experience. IMHO
I surprised a Bible class by asking, âWhat was Moses writing â a newspaper report?â
I was surprised that people agreed he wasnât, âsince they didnât have newspapers back thenâ, and some asked what it was he did write.
Less educated people have come up with their own particular understandings of Genesis since it was written. The thing that is distressing to me is that more educated people do not seem to understand Genesis 1, or to see it for what it is.
If we are willing to drop a lot of old, outdated interpretations that have accreted to the text like barnacles to a ship, we can actually see something amazingly important about Genesis1. It actually gives us a generalized account of the history of the universe and the earth from their beginning to the present time. I donât think I am mistakenly imposing my own modern constructs on the text when I read it this way. Itâs just there (the modern cosmology and natural science) in the text if you let it out. But certain old misinterpretations do have to go.
For instance, the first verse â in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth â the first verse is not an action. It is an introduction telling us what this account we are going to read is all about. We can see that this is so, because on the second day, God creates the heavens. He would not have created the heavens on the second day if he had already done so in the first verse. If the heavens were not created in the first verse, neither was the earth.
This brings us to verse 2. The earth was void and formless. No shape, no stuff. Sounds like a good way to say nothing there. The earth wasnât there, not in the physical realm. So where are the âdeepâ and âthe watersâ? They were in Godâs realm, the invisible realm, before God began creating, not on earth, because it didnât yet exist.
Then on day one creation begins: let there be light. Not stars, not suns, just light. That happens to be what the big bang produced â light (electromagnetic energy), darkness (matter in the form of subatomic particles), and the pulse of time (evening and morning). If you canât see Godâs work on day one as the opening of the big bang, then you probably just donât know about the big bang. Day two brings the spreading out of the universe and the coalescing of the heavenly bodies â what we see when we look at the sky.
From then on, itâs straight out of the natural history museums. Continents (which actually rose from a watery earth), oceans, life in the form of one celled plant life, plants first and later animals; animals and plants that were like their kind, not their parents, leaving room for evolution (âlet the land produceâŚlet the seas teemâŚâ). Even the âbirdsâ fit in. The Hebrew word is âflying things,â which is also used for insects. Flying insects showed up at the end of the age of fishes, right where Genesis 1 says flying things appeared.
Itâs there. Itâs obvious. Just look. Is it as important as the gospel? No. But it is important. If the Bible starts with a description of how the earth actually came to be, something our science has only recently learned, maybe itâs the beginning of a book we should take special notice of. Just saying.
It appears to do so when read from a modern worldview, but the actual literary type isnât interested in an orderly history at all â itâs interested in declaring that YHWH-Elohim is so supreme that all other entities, âgodsâ or not, are just made by Him to serve Him.
This topic was automatically closed 6 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.
âLet your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.â -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.
