Re: context (was craters)
Massie (mrlab@ix.netcom.com)
Mon, 15 Mar 1999 20:33:02 -0800
Allen Roy wrote:
>
> > From: David Campbell <bivalve@mailserv0.isis.unc.edu>
> > As the use of "day" (yom) in Genesis 2:4 conflicts with that in 1:1-2:3
> if
> > a 24 hour interpretation is forced upon both, the professor was not
> taking
> > the text out of context, whereas the student was. Another passage in the
> > Pentateuch requiring a non-24 hour rendition is the description of the
> year
> > of Jubilee-it follows a day of 49 years.
>
> I agree that the meaning of day in 2:4 is different than the use of the
> word in 1:1-2:3. Taken in context, 2:4 is obviously used figuratively.
> Just because the figurative meaning of the word is used in 2:4, that does
> not mean that every other use of that word, if even in the same sentence,
> must mean exactly the same thing. For instance: 'The other day, I felt as
> if I was living in the day of my fathers.'
>
> I understand that a literal translation of the Hebrew of the KJV phrase
> "And the evening and the morning were the first day" would read "evening
> was, morning was, day one." That seems to clearly indicate one rotation of
> the planet.
>
> Then we must also take into consideration the context of the rest of the
> Bible. In Exodus 20:11 it says, "For in six days the Lord made heaven and
> earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day." If
> the seventh "day" represents all the time since the end of the "6th day" of
> many thousands of years, then the Jews have been foolishly keeping the
> Sabbath every seven literal days. And who cares if Sunday is comming. If
> we are going to be consistant we must be consistant. We must never ever
> work for it is the Sabbath until the coming of the Lord.
>
> Or, we can be consistant and accept the week as 7 literal rotations of the
> planet both then and now.
>
> The professor took 2 Peter 3:8 out of context. This text stresses the
> timelessness of God. The Creator can do in a day the work of a thousand
> years, and a thousand years may be considered by Him as only one day. It
> does not define the length of a day of Creation.
>
> Allen
"Now that I reach the evening of my life I look back to my day and
realize that . .. . "
There was no evening and morning of the seventh day.
Why do you insist that God measure time periods with the rotation of our
little planet? And, yes I do think he make the who universe just for us
but it is hardly a time piece for the cosmos. Without controversy God
spoke in language and means that the ancients could grasp. How out of
character for God to give a man living in a tent with no concept of
cause and effect and physical law a science lession and some kind of
quantitative measure of the enormity of the universe. How about instead
a short history of the creation events with an emphasis on what was
important, who did it.
The amazing thing and the utility of this for sharing the Gospel is that
that order of things give or take a little is amazing as is the concept
of a beginning and the like as compared to the turtle myths or cylcic
universes of other cultures. The Genesis account more or less follows
the current scientific account (meaning description and not the
evolutionary interpretation) unless you insist on the seven days then
the Genesis account follows nothing. Do you really think that 20
million back biting and hyper competitive scientists about the world and
through generations missed that the universe age is only 4000 years?
Bert Massie