Maybe Davies in a NYT piece? There have been quite a few.
For a start, how is the existence of the other universes to be tested? To be sure, all cosmologists accept that there are some regions of the universe that lie beyond the reach of our telescopes, but somewhere on the slippery slope between that and the idea that there is an infinite number of universes, credibility reaches a limit. As one slips down that slope, more and more must be accepted on faith, and less and less is open to scientific verification. Extreme multiverse explanations are therefore reminiscent of theological discussions. Indeed, invoking an infinity of unseen universes to explain the unusual features of the one we do see is just as ad hoc as invoking an unseen Creator. The multiverse theory may be dressed up in scientific language, but in essence, it requires the same leap of faith.
â Paul Davies, âA Brief History of the Multiverseâ, The New York Times
I cringe at your use of âemanationsâ for scripture and creation; itâs strongly suggestive of old Gnostic ideas.
The relationship between Godâs days of Creation and human days as analogous is a good point; thatâs the word I was struggling to find a few weeks back when tangling with a guy who insisted that the comparison had to mean that the six days of creation were literal 24-hour days.
As to the suggestion of translating as âsky and landâ rather than âheaven and earthâ, one problem with that is that âthe heavens and the earthâ was a phrase that meant âeverything there isâ.
Iâm struggling and failing to see how the âFramework Viewâ contradicts your âSequential pattern of the eight creation decreesâ. All that framework does is recognize the literary structure of the first Creation account, it does not change the order of anything, so its structure canât be described as ânon sequentialâ. It also essentially recognizes one of the literary types that the account fits into, namely the âtemple inaugurationâ type.
When you say that the Framework View âwrongly claims that light was created on Day 1 and the lights on Day 4â, I donât see what youâre claiming because thatâs exactly what the text says! Then your next frame listing things that supposedly contradict scripture just goes off the deep end.
Your treatment of âlet there be lightâ misses the import of the Hebrew, which is a command given to light and could better be translated, âLight â BE!â This imperative isnât addressed to any cloud layer or anything else to get out lightâs way, itâs addressed to something which doesnât yet exist and commands it into existence. So I donât buy your âestablish[ment] of the water cycleâ frame, either, also because âexpanseâ is a bit of a misleading term for âרָקִÖ×ע֡â especially given that the Septuagint renders that Hebrew word as âĎĎÎľĎÎĎΟιâ, a word that gets used for a shipâs keel and thus tends to suggest something solid or at least a definitive barrier. (This section really misses the ANE context of the first Genesis Creation account.)
So while Genesis 1 may not be âa Book of Ancient Scienceâ, it is a book that is written within the understanding of âancient scienceâ, specifically ancient cosmology in which the stars hang from the dome of the heavens.
There are different flavors of concordism. As ray9will notes:
And it is. In fact itâs essential to the first principle he lists:
â˘Since the revelation of scripture and the creation of the natural world are both emanations from God, they fundamentally must have a harmonious relationship.
I would change âemanationsâ to âcome fromâ, but thatâs just because as written it sounds very Gnostic.
True enough, but the organization in the first Creation account is more thematic than temporal; the days are a literary device to organize the material. In this case, God is filling the realms where humans arenât able to go before creating what fills the realm where humans are made for, i.e. the land. That fits with the general progression from the periphery towards the center which is the creation of humans.
Thatâs really essential to grasp the message. The structure fits three different things, a âroyal chronicleâ telling a great accomplishment of a mighty king, a temple inauguration where space is set aside, that space is appropriately filled, and the deity comes and ârestsâ in the temple, and a polemic that follows the Egyptian order of events in their creation version and reduces everything from being deities to being tools of the purpose of YHWH-Elohim â and itâs quite the achievement to do all that at once! But we wouldnât know that if scholars hadnât uncovered (and go on uncovering) literary material from the other cultures around Israel and found where the Genesis writerâs work fits.
Absolutely, given that the writer follows the order of events from the Egyptian creation version; he just topples all the things that to the Egyptians were deities and makes them tools fashioned by YHWH-Elohim to a degree that to ancient Egyptians the message could be summed up, using a modern colloquial phrase, âAll your gods are belong to YHWH!â
Add to that summary the concept that YHWH-Elohim didnât have to use existing material to make things but merely called them into existence, or made them indirectly by commanding things heâd already made to do other things, most pointedly with the command âBring forth!â to get living things rather than making them personally â a point that is sharply contrasted by the bit in the second Creation account that YHWH-Elohim personally formed His representatives, His âimagesâ, and brought them to life by applying His own life force.
And donât forget that in the first Creation account there are no other gods! Everything that everyone else in the region would have considered deities, from the sky to the stars to the sun and moon at the pinnacle (which BTW get the biggest polemical slam by not even being named), is reduced to accoutrements in YHWH-Elohimâs temple, tools that serve in making it run properly. Thatâs a bit astounding since the ancient Hebrews considered the gods of other nations to be real even if of no consequence (and thus one of the biggest reasons some consider it to have been written late).
Good response, Dale!! I just returned from a long road trip. Itâs hard not to look around you at the natural world and to think there was/is something good about a Creator â Heâs pretty imaginative too!!
Fundamentally, the Framework Hypothesis was designed to avoid having to attribute a time to the âdayâ i.e. 24 hours or a long period of time, which is not consistent with the creation account.
The two-triad relationship of the six days is arbitrarily substituted for the linear sequence of the eight decrees, which is wrong.
The Framework View considers that the creation narrative is figurative in nature, which denies the reality of a physical creation. This disagrees with the precise language of the transformation decrees.
The Framework View denies the harmony of the creation account with science.
The Framework View ignores that there is a relationship of the refrain with manâs daily living pattern.
Because of these discrepancies the Framework View is not a valid interpretation of Genesis 1.
Itâs true that the phrase âheaven and earthâ is an âall thingsâ reference, but the six days of Exodus 20:11 are the days in the transformation of the earth, which makes the translation to âsky and landâ more appropriate.
Ray9will
Your treatment of âlet there be lightâ misses the import of the Hebrew, which is a command given to light and could better be translated, âLight â BE!â This imperative isnât addressed to any cloud layer or anything else to get out lightâs way, itâs addressed to something which doesnât yet exist and commands it into existence.
Visible light frequencies are a small portion of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum that is a fundamental force of nature, which was created at the beginning of creation. Before our Sun and the Earth were formed there were billions of stars within galaxies created and all of them radiated the full electromagnetic radiation spectrum including visible light. Obviously, they are still radiating, just like our Sun, and thatâs why we can see them with our telescopes.
So, when Genesis 1:3 says âLet there be lightâ it absolutely cannot mean the creation of light at that point in time. Therefore, I have proposed a reasonable meaning of the verse because the primordial earth was covered by a thick cloud cover and this condition has been verified by science and Job 38:4,9.
St.Roymond, - So I donât buy your âestablish[ment] of the water cycleâ frame, either, also because âexpanseâ is a bit of a misleading term for âרָקִÖ×ע֡â especially given that the Septuagint renders that Hebrew word as âĎĎÎľĎÎĎΟιâ, a word that gets used for a shipâs keel and thus tends to suggest something solid or at least a definitive barrier.
Weâve got to be practical here. A vital water cycle was established on the earth and the second decree in the second day makes reference to it. What else could Genesis 1:6 be talking about? The ancient theory of an solid dome model of the created world is physically not possible.
As several scholars have noted, there is an entire range of understandings of what reading it âliterallyâ means. I read it literally as something in the literary forms that constitute it, but not literally in terms of science, which is different from others who treat it as ancient literature but still assert that the days were actual periods of time, which is different from others with yet other understandings.
But it is in harmony with modern science â not because it gives scientific details but because it doesnât in the least care about scientific details and doesnât venture to give any! The closest the account comes to anything we would think of as science is in recognizing that the material things which get named are real things, that they exist and can be and are encountered by humans, plus that with respect to the Earth there are two main lights in the sky. The rest is thematic, not scientific in any fashion.
Keep in mind that these are two entirely separate accounts/stories despite all the assumption over the centuries that the second one is just filling in some details from the first one.
That said, whether the second one was meant to be taken literally is a question I havenât pursued much; Iâve focused more on the first Creation account and secondly on the Flood. It should be pointed out, though, that even if the second story is considered literal history it has no bearing whatsoever on science!
Actually, you made assumptions; what he has said in this thread is insufficient to draw even a tentative conclusion as to what his point of view is.
Unless you happen to have a functional crystal ball, the only way to have more than a guess at his point of view is to go view his presentation. The list at the start of the thread is suggestive but hardly conclusive, so in science terms you lack the data to do more than venture a hypothesis.
Or the Egyptian version, which has one day but the same order of events as the Genesis account.
Heh â that should be âoralâ, as in by mouth; âauralâ indicates âhaving or pertaining to an auraâ.
âBorrowingâ is a bit of a misnomer. Since the Israelites were part of the ANE culture, the seven-day week would have been common culture. Speaking of âborrowingâ gives the impression that the Hebrews had no mythology at all and selected one rather than just sharing the regional mythos up until they diverged.
You need to take a closer look at Genesis 1. God makes a firmament to separate the waters above from the waters below. And the sun and the moon, the two lights, are set in the firmament. But the moon has no light of its own and merely reflects light. When weâre speaking of the natural world weâre talking about science.
Iâve encountered the framework a number of times from different scholars and this doesnât apply to any of them, itâs just an analysis of the literary structure. Have you got a source for the version youâre indicating?
Again, Iâve never encountered this. But assuming that the account is treated as figurative, that does not necessarily â[deny] the reality of a physical creationâ. Besides, having âprecise languageâ doesnât preclude a figurative account, either; precise language can merely be due to an economy of words.
How? Even if there is a view as you describe it, how does using a literary framework to tell about creation in a memorable way deny anything at all (except the reality of other gods)?
Again, how? It doesnât change the number of days, even if â as I have yet to see â the days are figurative and only serve as an organizing structure.
But âsky and landâ doesnât describe the complete account, which includes the sea, whereas in âheavens and earthâ the sea is included.
= - + - = - + - = - + - +
note: I did some dredging on the 'web and found an article on the framework view (FV). it appears to be something that developed over the last quarter century, taking off from the literary analysis and making claims related to the supposed actual chronology. But it goes well beyond the literary analysis to making more claims than the literary structure actually tells us.
Interestingly (and annoyingly) all the criticism of the FV either assumes or asserts that it was formed in order to make the first Genesis Creation account fit science, which is news to me since the books I had read that pointed out the framework mentioned science only in passing, proceeding instead from just the Hebrew text.
This is something that annoys me: I and others come from the analysis of the text but it is almost invariably assumed that the point is to smuggle in the Big Bang and/or evolution, when as far as the text goes we donât care about evolution, only the text! And from the point of view of the text the framework is fairly obvious, though the literary type and purpose arenât clear without comparison to other ANE material. And from the point of view of the ANE context, the vast majority of what people are arguing is so much fluff with little to no bearing on the understanding because the question âDoes the narrative fit with science?â is only peripherally relevant at best.
Why canât it âmean the creation of light at that point in timeâ? There have been scholars who purely on the basis of the Hebrew determined that the universe began smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for the smallest possible size), expanded extremely rapidly while filled with fluid (the waters), where that fluid was so dense that light could not flow until God commanded light into existence at which point the âwatersâ thinned and light shined. They took âthe deepâ as the dark universe before light, and âthe watersâ as a fluid filling that dark universe, while the Earth didnât even have a form, it was just emptiness in that vast dark and only took shape at all when, once light was flowing, God commanded dry land to appear.
So to at least some people who grew up studying Hebrew from as early as they could read, âLight â BE!â was definitely when light began, and as I noted, the grammar points to that.
I donât âhave to be practicalâ, I only have to honor the text. Some of those ancient scholars I mentioned regarded the dividing of the waters to be when God turned His attention from the greater universe to this little corner of it, separating out a minuscule portion of the fluid the universe began as and starting work on our world.
Nor is it relevant whether âThe ancient theory of an solid dome model of the created world is physically not possibleâ; if âרָקִÖ×ע֡â refers to something solid, then thatâs what it refers to; the only thing worth considering is whether it has that meaning or something less physical. If weâre dragging things in from outside the text, I could just as well assert that it was a force field God employed to section off the âwatersâ from which God would draw the Earth, so that as those scholars I mentioned held what was being described was a dividing of a small batch of the universal fluid from the rest. That the Septuagint translators chose âĎĎÎľĎÎĎΟιâ (steh-REH-oh-ma) to render âרָקִÖ×ע֡â (rah-KEY-ah) indicates that at the very least they regarded the Hebrew as indicating a firm framework supporting the sky (sort of like poles supporting a dome tent), whether that framework was something humans could bang a fist against if they happened to somehow be able to reach it.
A case could be made that ĎĎÎľĎÎĎΟι is used here as it is later used of a personâs character, where it gets translated âfirmâ or even âstubbornâ â thatâs where my idea of a force field comes from, that it doesnât have to be something literally physical but does have to be capable of doing what the text says, separating waters(/fluid) from waters(/fluid).
So âwhat else could Genesis 1:6 be talking about?â It could be talking about God sectioning off a portion of the primeval âfluidâ from the rest in order to give this small portion special attention.
I can recite Genesis 1 in Hebrew, so I only have to close my eyes to âtake a closer lookâ.
The âרָקִÖ×ע֡â (rah-KEY-ah), given its root, can be translated as âa separationâ, though the Greek âĎĎÎľĎÎĎΟιâ (steh-REH-oh-ma) indicates that at the very least it had the property of being firm if not solid. The common use of âexpanseâ in English translations seem to hearken back to this root and give less credence to the Greek; combining their senses could give us âa firm expanseâ, where âfirmâ does not have to be solid. And of course that leaves the question of just what the âwatersâ are, especially since some ancient Hebrew scholars regarded them as a primeval fluid which filled the universe and from which the Earth was formed or drawn out.
As for the moon, it is certainly a light in the sky; the Hebrew text doesnât care where the light originates, it only indicates that light comes from the moon to the Earth. We speak the same way of light bulbs; we say there is light coming from the bulb and donât bother to talk about electrons getting excited and giving off photons, and in fact we speak of light coming from a mirror even though we know it is reflected. Claiming the moon is not the actual source doesnât just ignore the Hebrew text and its perspective, it ignores how humans think and speak of simple phenomena.
Only if weâre speaking of them scientifically. Though even in terms of science, we recognize that there is an expanse above us and that light comes from the moon to the Earth, so even though the writer isnât speaking scientifically his broad brush strokes are correct.
A question: how much science do you find in Joyce Kilmerâs poem âTreesâ? Given the poetic leaning of Genesis 1, itâs a fair parallel.
For those not familiaar with that poem:
To insist that the description of the sky in Genesis 1 must conform to contemporary science is a theological problem. It is important to remember that God speaks in ways that people can understand
In Job the firmament is described as âhard as a molten mirrorâ
Youâre just tap-dancing, trying to pound a square peg into a round hole.
How do you interpret John 11âŚthe raising of Lazarus from the deadâŚas a concordist? For that matter, how do you interpret any supernatural event in the Bible?
WellâŚthat is what the online site saidâŚand see below from todayfoundout.com (although another site said the Babs added and 8- or 9-day week from time to timeâsee wikipedia etc. OK here goes from todayfoundout.comâ
Two of the earliest known civilizations to use a seven day week were the Babylonians and the Jews. The Babylonians marked time with lunar months and it is thought by many scholars that this is why they chose a seven day week (though direct evidence of this being why they did this i