Re: [asa] Re: Slug

Archer's argument is as good an example as may be cited for making the
scripture say something that fits with contemporary views. It's true that
Hebrew does not have a distinction between imperfect, preterite (aorist)
and past perfect tenses. But it does have a consistent way to indicate
continuous narrative, the use of /va/. This is consistently "and" in KJV,
but omitted in modern translations unless it fits their preconceptions,
when it becomes "then." /Va/ is missing when a new narrative begins. The
linguistic evidence is that the events of day 4, "making", follow the
events of day 3 in temporal order.

I recall one attempt to document the notion that /va/ could indicate a
return to a previous time in narrative. It required several chapters of
narrative, and a return to a different line, which also was followed for
several chapters. It was the kind of thing that fit the traditional
western, "Meanwhile, back at the farm, ..." Archer feels compelled to
prove scripture inerrant, totally inerrant. But he has come a cropper
with hyrax and hares as ruminants. Even he can't weasel out of that one.
May I suggest that, if you can't make it fit EVERY time, there's no point
in revising it any time?
Dave

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 12:17:51 -0400 "Dick Fischer"
<dickfischer@verizon.net> writes:
Day Four does indeed refer to the sun, moon and stars which were used
then and are still used today for signs and seasons. Babylonian kings
became gods and gods became astral bodies and resided in constellations,
and constellations marked seasons. Ishtar/Inanna was associated with the
planet Venus who seasonally disappears to search for her departed
Tummuz/Dumuzi who dies in mid-summer when vegetation withers. The stars
were an important part of Babylonian theology. On Day Four, God himself
appointed them as signs and seasons for the sighted creatures who come
later. There is nothing in the Hebrew that should cause us to believe
that God “created” the heavenly bodies on Day Four. The creation of
“heaven” which is everything in it, sun moon and stars included, was on
Day One.
 
Quoting Gleason Archer:
 
Verse 16 should not be understood as indicating the creation of the
heavenly
bodies for the first time on the fourth creative day; rather it informs
us that
the sun, moon, and stars created on Day One as the source of light had
been
placed in their appointed places by God with a view to their eventually
functioning as indicators of time (‘signs, seasons, days, years’) to
terrestrial
observers. The Hebrew verb ‘wayya ‘as’ in v. 16 should better be
rendered
‘Now [God] had made the two great luminaries, etc.,’ rather than as
simple
past tense, [God] made. – Gleason Archer, Encyclopedia of Bible
Difficulties, 62.
 
I keep telling you guys this and it goes ignored because it is a lynchpin
rationale for rearranging the days of creation.
 

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Received on Fri Jun 16 14:27:21 2006