Man was created as the lord of creation. He will one day discover the hidden laws once scientists put on the humility to throw a spanner in the works of metaphysics and religion.
They’ve been doing that for 400 years. Only religion needs humilty.
We do know that Genesis was not written down by a single guy at a desk one time, it was compiled over time, probably from a combination of oral history and texts and that even that compilation was redacted by various editors and did not reach the form we have now until the exile period of Israel’s history. The idea that Moses wrote Genesis is shorthand for saying the Pentateuch is authoritative. It’s a kind of metonymy where one concept (Moses) stands in for a whole bigger concept (the revealed Law of Israel).
Plus, there are many black holes in the universe, not one single “abyss.” They are formed when stars collapse. Or are you talking about something like this theory?
I still reject the idea that God revealed modern science to the ancient audience secretly and only now can we understand the “true” meaning. I don’t think that is a useful approach to Scripture and it denies everything we know about human language and communication. Words simply do not have meanings outside of their usages in a speech community. We can’t decide that ancient Hebrew words “really mean” something other than what they meant in their context. They can only refer to what they referred to then, it’s a basic principle of sense and reference.
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In everyday life, religious people are always humble. But when it comes to faith and science, it’s all about the biblical pattern of creation. We don’t even take into account what the other sacred books say, which I don’t want to quote. This is why I am talking about the Astrotheology project, which is a set of science courses that should be taught in theology so that the latter no longer discuss on the basis of arguments or belief, but also take into account scientific observations.
Until they get on the internet. Until you scratch their sweetness and light surface.
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First of all, I thank you for the link Our Universe Was Born in a Black Hole, Theory Says | Space
It proves that I am not the only one to say that before our universe, there was something caused by a collapse. This thing, the Bible called it an abyss which means black abyss. The other cosmogonic accounts called it chaos, which also means black abyss. Scientists have called it a black hole, which also means a black abyss. But science has adopted the name of black hole. So I said that we also adopt the same name in order to speak the same language with science. However, there is a big difference and that is why you reject that the biblical abyss was not a black hole. You are right about the formation of holes according to scientists.
The biblical abyss and the cosmogonic chaos were not formed by the collapse of a star from another universe. The universe being empty at the beginning according to the Bible and the cosmogony, the abyss and the chaos or the first deformation of the fabric of space-time was formed by the action of “the spirit of God who was moving on the waters”. In cosmogony, we speak of the primitive ocean, which in fact meant the particles.
Scientifically my conception of the hole before the big-bang is the same as that of Professor Gabriele Veneziano and not that of the scientists who say that there was a collapse of a star before our Universe. The conception of Professor Gabriele Veneziano, which I adhere to, is the following:
" In my scenario, we start from an almost empty Universe, very, very diluted with very weak interactions between the components. But in this near vacuum, there are instabilities that can become catastrophic and lead to gravitational collapses like a black hole. And the Universe as we know it would come out of this initial quasi-vacuum by this black hole (abyss according to the Bible). (Gabriele Veneziano, interview by Guy DUPLAT). http://www.lalibre.be/archive/qu-y-avais-il-avant-le-big-bang ; published on 15/12/2005.
Here, the professor Gabriele Veneziano says at first "like a black hole " that the Bible calls abyss. But at the end, he ends with the words “black hole” because this is the name that science has retained. That’s why I said that we also retain this name to speak the same language with science. In another magazine Professor Gabriele Veneziano develops it in the following way:
"Infinitely long ago, the universe was almost empty (the earth was invisible and empty according to the Bible) and contained only a rarefied gas of radiation and matter ( the waters according to the Bible ). The forces of nature (spirit or wind or breath), controlled by the dilaton (God according to the Bible), were so weak that the particles of this gas barely interacted. Over time, the forces became stronger and matter began to aggregate (the ocean or primeval water). Some regions accumulated it at the expense of their neighbors. The density became such that black holes (the abyss according to the Bible) were formed. (see: https://www.pourlascience.fr/sd/cosmologie/lunivers-avant-le-big-bang-2971.php )
So when we say that the biblical abyss is the equivalent of what science calls black hole, we are in the same wavelength as Professor Gabriele Veneziano. He also missed the word to qualify this deformation of the fabric of the space-time caused only by the collapse caused by the particles (the waters according to the Bible).
Let us return now to the consideration that people make of the Genesis. You say that it is a compiled history and that when people say that Moses wrote Genesis, it is a shortcut to say that the Pentateuch is authoritative. That’s what they teach in theology too, but I didn’t go to theology and I reject that consideration.
Moses first benefited from the same training as the Pharaohs. The construction of the pyramids, respecting certain mathematical principles, is earlier than the time of Moses. Therefore, the Egyptians were already very advanced in scientific knowledge and Moses, whom theologians consider as a legendary person, was in fact a scientist and a warrior. That is why God used him, not only to bring the Jewish people out of slavery, but to teach them as well.
If Genesis is a compiled story as you are taught in theology, but the biblical pattern of creation is not a compiled story. It is the true pattern of the universe. The author knew the situations they were describing, but the words no longer reflect in our time what he meant. I only restore the real words according to our current knowledge of cosmology to make this story clear. My goal is not to add to the Bible, because the Bible forbids it. I only show with our actualized language, how the situation happened according to the Bible. It is this restitution that is part of the Universal Cosmological Model.
Many think that accepting what science confirms is a sin. But the omnipotence of God is manifested in the perfection of the things and beings that he created, even if it took some evolution to arrive at stable forms.
Aye, ignorance isn’t bliss. Ginkgoes and coelacanths. Yeahhhhs.
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The issue is that it never says black abyss. It never says it’s a hole. It says it’s the earth was formless and void and that the Holy Spirit was hovering over the deep waters which made up of this formless void.
So the earth in the first creation mythology was a sea and it seems like it was probably stormy sea with waves, swells and just covered in clouds. I think it’s as probably covered in clouds and in their concept that when the waters we’re separated from waters ( down below and above ) it was probably connected to clouds since that’s where rain from above fell from.
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But they were not all talking about the same thing, obviously.
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Talk about pounding a square peg into a round black hole!
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No.
No and no.
No, at least in the way you are trying to coerce it.
You appear to be burying scripture under a whole heap of your own, individual opinion.
What? The two halves of that sentence are irrelevant to each other. The first half is about ancient worldviews (including our beloved scriptures in their time); the second half purports to be about modern science (even though it is nowhere in demonstrable modern science)
No. That’s your opinion. Show us real, substantial mainstream support. Those ANE cosmogenic views contained nothing like our concept of particles.
The opening of ancient Genesis isn’t talking about our understanding of modern “universe”. Be cautious about crashing those two different views into each other.
No. This assertion has no basis whatsoever. “Primitive ocean” (more accurately “waters of chaos”) is from the ancient world; the other is using terminology of modern science. They don’t meet (except as the your speculation and opinion).
Who is the “we” who say that? Certainly not any community of theologians. Certainly not any community of Bible scholars. Certainly not any community of scientists.
“We” do not say that at all.
ALL theology, ALL biblical scholarship, ALL science is done in communities of peer-reviewing experts who have deeply studied into and through their fields of expertise. This is almost the opposite ot the modernist phenomenon of someone sitting alone in their room watching shallow Youtube video opinion=-pieces of unknown provenance and coming to a subjective opinion.
Et cetera. Et cetera. Et cetera.
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Read again the Bible, it is well written: “the earth was without form and void, but there was darkness in the surface of the abyss”. So, it is indeed a black abyss, that is to say a hole where we cannot see the bottom because it is black. But why didn’t the author use the word “hole”? Because it was a dynamic hole like a hurricane that ravages everything and brings it back to its center.
Yes of course, they weren’t all talking about the same thing. This is a situation that prevailed before the Big Bang. The idea of all is that there were manifestations that centralized all the elements in a center forming a black hole. The black hole is only the scientific term that science has adopted and that is well understood by scientists compared to the words “chaos” or “abyss”.
I know it’s very hard for people to wait until 3500 years after Moses for someone to come along and prove that Genesis is a true story. Your struggle with me is that Genesis remains a story. From the beginning I have explained what is meant by the six biblical days, I have explained the difference between the biblical sky and the geographical sky, I have explained what is meant by an invisible and empty earth and now I am in the explanation of the abyss. And, until then, I am only in the explanation of the events that took place in the first biblical day. To say that this is part of my views is easy. But my goal is that it actually gets the attention of those you call experts. For they are the ones who will one day confirm whether what I say is true or false. But at least, let the Biologos community be informed that there is already a cosmological model that confirms that the biblical scheme of creation is founded.
Amen to that, bro.
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So this is some of the issues.
- The word there for deep , abyss does not mean hole. It means deep waters.
https://biblehub.com/hebrew/8415.htm
Perhaps you could show my 2-3 theologians that agree with you with some cited sources so we can look at what they are saying and see if it makes more sense.
Because at the moment you simply do not.
It would make no sense for it to be a black hole, and that black hole is filled with water, and there is absolutely no reason there to legitimately think water means something else.’
It being waters fits with the rest of the biblical narrative as well.
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Deep waters that are separated revealing dry land.
That fits with the story in genesis, and that fires with the story of the hebrews going through the Red Sea. The waters separated revealing dry land. -
Deep waters that are chaotic and not fruitful for human life plays out better as well. The waters play out there. The land comes out of the water and bears life. Eden is a island popping out between rivers and it bears life. The ark of Noah and Moses ( sometimes translated basket ) are both safe places for the righteous to live on while the waters washes away the others. The world washed away while Noah was safe. The other kids washed away in the Nile while Moses was safe.
We this play out further with trees. Dry land and trees. Eden with the tree of life. The trees used for the arks. The staff made of a tree that separated the waters. The branch tossed in to the bitter water making it sweet. The bird that was hovering over the flooded world found land , life, and brought back a twig.
It builds the foundation of baptism. Jesus the tree of life brings us safely through the waters of baptism where we “die to the world” and the “water washes away our former self and out sins “ and we come up out of the water safe and grafted into the tree of life.
That’s why in revelation it says even the sea will give you its dead and that in the restored earth there won’t be a sea, because the sea symbolizes chaos.
It may even be connected to the eunuch and playing off the desert like world of genesis 2. A eunuch traveling thought a area where when he sees water it seemed to have been a surprise. The chariot would have been made of wood. A disciple , carried on the wind as if hovering above the dry world is brought down. The guy is baptized.
Nothing in the narration fits a black hole or whatever you’re trying to push.
Science didn’t adopt “black hole” to describe the ancient idea of chaos or the abyss. Science discovered black holes, a completely unknown phenomenon to the ancients. The Bible is not describing creation in scientific terms. To insist that it is is concordism, which is not a great way to approach biblical interpretation.
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I think you have an idea of black holes. When there is a hurricane, you see as if the clouds have rolled into lengths with the shape you know. it is the same for a black hole. It is a void or a hole in empty space with the only difference that it exerts a great gravitational attraction. Its surface which is called horizon is black. Its physical description actually corresponds to the verse: “there was darkness in the surface of the abyss.” After the abyss, the author used the word “waters” as the content of the early universe. After the following verse, which I want to publish soon, those who follow these debates closely will discover that it was not about the current water made of oxygen and hydrogen. At this stage of the universe, to speak of running water as a component of the universe is to mock the one who wrote this diagram.
You are right, the Bible did not describe creation in scientific terms. However, there are not only scientific terms to describe a situation. One can also describe a scientific situation with ordinary terms. And, the Bible described the creation with the terms of its time. Certainly, the ancients did not know the existence of black hole, but, the black hole began to exist since the beginning of the Universe and God knew that. Even if Moses didn’t have telescopes, God inspired him about the origin of the Universe up to man. No philosopher in ancient times had to talk about the universe with stages of creation. And, it turns out in these days, if we take the biblical days as periods, the scientific order on the creation of things is the same as the one in the Bible. That is to say that the one who wrote this story, which is attributed to Moses, knew more than our present-day scientists.