Can We Determine the Age of the Universe and Earth Biblically?

[EarlyActs]

I have not denied a gap. I simply have no reason to believe there is one, and nobody has supplied any reason.




That is not the assumption I was talking about. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth, you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind, and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system (d) did not exist until creation week" (here). From start to finish, these highlighted terms represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology) which you impose on the text. These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?

Since they are in the text, modern knowledge has caught up with what they knew. Many Christian traditions have very odd or tangential ways of reading the text that are indefensible.

 

[EarlyActs]

re the 'pre-existing conditions' and how it allows for a gap
I just re-read Gen 2 and was reminded of a comment by Cassuto that sometimes a couple pre-existing conditions can be spelled out in a unit. We can see this in 2:5-6's description while v7 is new material. But then he goes back to further pre-existing in v8-15--all to get to the new material about the tree restriction. Even 19 goes back to some conditions to set up new material about the creation of woman.

And so goes the formula through Genesis. Which is why 1:1 is a title line, and why 1:3 may simply be about distant light--the distinction mentioned in the previous post.

I combine this with the meaning of tohu wa-bohu as support for some time between 1:1 and 1:2.

 

[Sereni-tea]

Cassuto pretty much single-handedly destroyed JEPD. This was so significant, that in the doc THE MOSES CONTROVERSY one of the linguists interviewed, a Ph.D. from U Toronto, was walking unannounced by his mentor's class one day as a professor and they were joking about having outdone Cassuto. The ANE language department had 'buried' Cassuto for a couple decades, and this professor learned that his own department was that dishonest.

re Ptolemy, if it is good enough for Lewis, it is good enough for me.

re the match of Genesis and 2 P 3. They both make a distinction between the distant universe and the local earth and the system it is in. You were saying that the ancient world did not know certain things that we know. And so what do you say about Isaiah's refering to earth as a sphere that hangs from nothing?

My point was that Ptolemy (approx 100 - 170 AD, I believe) lived after the Bible was written so what does he have to do with what we are talking about?

I think you are reading into the text what you want to see. Scripture does not present a cosmology beyond the time it is in. Why would it? It is not trying to correct our science - the ancients knew nothing about science. It is teaching us theology.

 

[EarlyActs]

My point was that Ptolemy (approx 100 - 170 AD, I believe) lived after the Bible was written so what does he have to do with what we are talking about?

I think you are reading into the text what you want to see. Scripture does not present a cosmology beyond the time it is in. Why would it? It is not trying to correct our science - the ancients knew nothing about science. It is teaching us theology.

Isaiah knew the 'earth hangs from nothing.' I don't know why you would say they knew nothing about science when there are 'tons' of structures around the world that we can't possibly duplicate.

The date of Ptolemy is not a rigid thing that means he is the only person to think that way. Peter has the same 'there' and 'here' distinction about the universe--that earth is a small remote spot. I am reading Boorstin's THE DISCOVERERS for a class I lead and there are several kinds of scientific activity going on in the various ANE and Med cultures.

The neo-orthodox view of Gen 1-11 is that it is 'helpful' or 'spiritually needed' even if not historical. This collapses on itself, to where the spiritual help no longer matters either because the person being helped is diminished to insignificance. See Lewis' "Man Or Rabbit" in GOD IN THE DOCK.

To dismiss the attempt to state something scientifically sensible in those passages is very dismissive of the collector and custodian of the materials, Joseph, who was a pretty astute manager of Egyptian farming, who needed to fend off a famine, and who seems to have developed the Hebrew alphabet and its initial vocabulary.

 

[Sereni-tea]

Isaiah knew the 'earth hangs from nothing.' I don't know why you would say they knew nothing about science when there are 'tons' of structures around the world that we can't possibly duplicate.

The date of Ptolemy is not a rigid thing that means he is the only person to think that way. Peter has the same 'there' and 'here' distinction about the universe--that earth is a small remote spot. I am reading Boorstin's THE DISCOVERERS for a class I lead and there are several kinds of scientific activity going on in the various ANE and Med cultures.

The neo-orthodox view of Gen 1-11 is that it is 'helpful' or 'spiritually needed' even if not historical. This collapses on itself, to where the spiritual help no longer matters either because the person being helped is diminished to insignificance. See Lewis' "Man Or Rabbit" in GOD IN THE DOCK.

To dismiss the attempt to state something scientifically sensible in those passages is very dismissive of the collector and custodian of the materials, Joseph, who was a pretty astute manager of Egyptian farming, who needed to fend off a famine, and who seems to have developed the Hebrew alphabet and its initial vocabulary.

The anicients did some amazing things, especially in relation to construction - no argument about that. However, in relation to what we are talking about - they knew nothing about the structure of the universe.

Genesis 1-11 is a lot more than 'helpful'. It tells us about God and His relationship with humanity. It sets up the entire Bible and shows our desperate need for God to bring us out of the dire state that we have made for ourselves. But it says nothing about science.

Even if Joseph wrote part of Genesis, his role in the Bible does not give any suggestion that he, or the ancient Israelites, had advanced knowlege about the struture of the universe.

 

[EarlyActs]

The anicients did some amazing things, especially in relation to construction - no argument about that. However, in relation to what we are talking about - they knew nothing about the structure of the universe.

Genesis 1-11 is a lot more than 'helpful'. It tells us about God and His relationship with humanity. It sets up the entire Bible and shows our desperate need for God to bring us out of the dire state that we have made for ourselves. But it says nothing about science.

Even if Joseph wrote part of Genesis, his role in the Bible does not give any suggestion that he, or the ancient Israelites, had advanced knowlege about the struture of the universe.

But if it isn't factual then it becomes a mere neo-orthodox document. It is not a mystical myth where everything about the place is bizarrely altered. There is far more familiar than bizarre. The ch 6 evil could be genetic engineering, through breeding but if Nephilim are involved, they could be trying other things than breeding.

If they know nothing about structure how is there meaning to the stars being messengers and markers of seasons?

 

[Sereni-tea]

But if it isn't factual then it becomes a mere neo-orthodox document. It is not a mystical myth where everything about the place is bizarrely altered. There is far more familiar than bizarre. The ch 6 evil could be genetic engineering, through breeding but if Nephilim are involved, they could be trying other things than breeding.

If they know nothing about structure how is there meaning to the stars being messengers and markers of seasons?

Who said it wasn't factual? It tells us the truth, just not scientific truth. We need to understand the text on its own terms and not try to make it say what we want it to. We need to look at it in its context - in the case of Genesis 1-11, this is the context of the ancient near east. Understanding how they thought, and what they meant, helps us to understand what the passages are telling us. Trying to read into it with modern day concepts means missing out on what the text is actually saying.

 

[EarlyActs]

Who said it wasn't factual? It tells us the truth, just not scientific truth. We need to understand the text on its own terms and not try to make it say what we want it to. We need to look at it in its context - in the case of Genesis 1-11, this is the context of the ancient near east. Understanding how they thought, and what they meant, helps us to understand what the passages are telling us. Trying to read into it with modern day concepts means missing out on what the text is actually saying.

Or is it both ancient and factual?

Are markers of times and seasons and being messengers ancient or modern? One of our problems is not the modern knowledge but that something obliterated the ancient/Biblical way of reading/accounting the stars (after the Cataclysm) that was quite explicitly Messianic. It seems to have survived through the Chaldean maji but then disappears quickly. Which of course is not a modern problem, but is a deviance from what they were meant to do.

I hope that giants, the Nephilim, the sexual acts of 'sons of God', the Hebrew term 'dabar' for destructive flood, are not "ancient" meanings that are no longer valid, nor the Bab-El confusion, because that's really getting destructive.

 

[DialecticSkeptic]

Sorry I don't know what you mean by your counter-argument. I will try to find it.

My counter-argument was in post #314 (here), where I identified a number of assumptions that your view imposes on the text.

1. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth,
2. you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind,
3. and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system
4. (d) did not exist until creation week."

This was quoted from your post #310 (here). Again, it is these highlighted terms (bold text) that "represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), which you impose on the text," I said. "These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?"

I am assuming, of course, that you didn't draw those concepts from the text, because no one ever has in my experience. Perhaps you will be the first who does. If these were interpreted from the text, please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.

"Spoken into existence" is the normal understanding of the passage ...

First, describing it as "the normal understanding" doesn't account for the ontology that defined existence. As one Old Testament scholar put it, "If ontology defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one’s ontology sets the parameters by which one thinks about creation."

Second, and in keeping with the above, it is "the normal understanding" for whom? If you want to claim that this is properly an interpretation of the text, it needs to be shown that this was the normal understanding of the original human narrators or authors and their audience (plus an accounting of what it meant for them to say that something exists). Anything otherwise will simply draw attention to and underscore my criticism.

You said that "several indigenous narratives of creation clear across the planet have the same wording," but you did not identify those narratives, or locate them in place or time, or explain their relationship to the people or content of our text, and so on—although describing them as "feeble echoes of Genesis" implies that they come long afterwards. Essentially, your statement is an example of weasel words, carrying an air of answering the question without actually doing so.

 

[Sereni-tea]

Or is it both ancient and factual?

Genesis 1-11 is an ancient document that conveys theological truth. It is written to an ancient people, addressing their questions in a way they can understand. Why do you read it as if it is answering modern day questions?

Are markers of times and seasons and being messengers ancient or modern?

This is an interesting question.

One of our problems is not the modern knowledge but that something obliterated the ancient/Biblical way of reading/accounting the stars (after the Cataclysm) that was quite explicitly Messianic. It seems to have survived through the Chaldean maji but then disappears quickly. Which of course is not a modern problem, but is a deviance from what they were meant to do.

If it was obliterated, then how did it survive? But yes, I agree there was something the magi obviously. Was there anything in the Dead Sea Scrolls that could shed light on this?

I hope that giants, the Nephilim, the sexual acts of 'sons of God', the Hebrew term 'dabar' for destructive flood, are not "ancient" meanings that are no longer valid, nor the Bab-El confusion, because that's really getting destructive.

I am not understanding what you are getting at. What exactly do you think I am denying?

 

[EarlyActs]

Genesis 1-11 is an ancient document that conveys theological truth. It is written to an ancient people, addressing their questions in a way they can understand. Why do you read it as if it is answering modern day questions?


This is an interesting question.


If it was obliterated, then how did it survive? But yes, I agree there was something the magi obviously. Was there anything in the Dead Sea Scrolls that could shed light on this?


I am not understanding what you are getting at. What exactly do you think I am denying?

It is handled by the enthroned Christ and Paul up to 3000 years later as the official record, even on historical creation, mankind, the cataclysm. They do not treat it is only for 'help.' I hope you read Lewis 'Man or Rabbit?'

Neo-orthodoxy says there is just as much theology there as ever, even if it is not historical. That is not how the Bible handles the realities of which it speaks.

 

[EarlyActs]

re the interesting question: indeed: how can they not be knowledgeable about some celestial mechanics? You said they knew nothing.

On the messaging part, see below.

 

[EarlyActs]

re Biblical astronomy.
The Biblical astronomy seems to have been obliterated, not the astrology. The astrology took away its Christ-centered focus, for the sake of doctrines of demons.

If you read Christians saying that simply the celestial mechanics of our solar system are a marvel of God's handiwork, that is only scratching the surface of what God was communicating from Bab-El onward. See Larson's doc THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

This is what the stars were messengers about, and the angels also did God's bidding. "The Law was received through angels." Gal 3.

 

[EarlyActs]

re various Gen 1-11 events.
The list of events above is at the bizarre end of the spectrum, the kind of thing that people seek to dismiss. But if they are gone the meaning is gone. They are treated as historical later.

 

[Musician]

"But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day" 2 Peter 3:8

Does this mean 6,000 years is like 3.4 Billion? Very well could be.

 

[EarlyActs]

My counter-argument was in post #314 (here), where I identified a number of assumptions that your view imposes on the text.

1. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth,
2. you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind,
3. and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system
4. (d) did not exist until creation week."

This was quoted from your post #310 (here). Again, it is these highlighted terms (bold text) that "represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), which you impose on the text," I said. "These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?"

I am assuming, of course, that you didn't draw those concepts from the text, because no one ever has in my experience. Perhaps you will be the first who does. If these were interpreted from the text, please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.




First, describing it as "the normal understanding" doesn't account for the ontology that defined existence. As one Old Testament scholar put it, "If ontology defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one’s ontology sets the parameters by which one thinks about creation."

Second, and in keeping with the above, it is "the normal understanding" for whom? If you want to claim that this is properly an interpretation of the text, it needs to be shown that this was the normal understanding of the original human narrators or authors and their audience (plus an accounting of what it meant for them to say that something exists). Anything otherwise will simply draw attention to and underscore my criticism.

You said that "several indigenous narratives of creation clear across the planet have the same wording," but you did not identify those narratives, or locate them in place or time, or explain their relationship to the people or content of our text, and so on—although describing them as "feeble echoes of Genesis" implies that they come long afterwards. Essentially, your statement is an example of weasel words, carrying an air of answering the question without actually doing so.

(I only do one message per post)

re orb
While I don't find the Isaiah reference, and of course that is later, I don't think you have to be genius to notice, simply by various shadowing, that the moon is a sphere and that they would have thought the rest must be as well based on that.

 

[EarlyActs]

My counter-argument was in post #314 (here), where I identified a number of assumptions that your view imposes on the text.

1. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth,
2. you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind,
3. and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system
4. (d) did not exist until creation week."

This was quoted from your post #310 (here). Again, it is these highlighted terms (bold text) that "represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), which you impose on the text," I said. "These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?"

I am assuming, of course, that you didn't draw those concepts from the text, because no one ever has in my experience. Perhaps you will be the first who does. If these were interpreted from the text, please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.




First, describing it as "the normal understanding" doesn't account for the ontology that defined existence. As one Old Testament scholar put it, "If ontology defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one’s ontology sets the parameters by which one thinks about creation."

Second, and in keeping with the above, it is "the normal understanding" for whom? If you want to claim that this is properly an interpretation of the text, it needs to be shown that this was the normal understanding of the original human narrators or authors and their audience (plus an accounting of what it meant for them to say that something exists). Anything otherwise will simply draw attention to and underscore my criticism.

You said that "several indigenous narratives of creation clear across the planet have the same wording," but you did not identify those narratives, or locate them in place or time, or explain their relationship to the people or content of our text, and so on—although describing them as "feeble echoes of Genesis" implies that they come long afterwards. Essentially, your statement is an example of weasel words, carrying an air of answering the question without actually doing so.

re "material was formed"
I really can't grasp what you are saying when God speaks several times in Gen 1 and the thing comes into existence. I guess in your mindset that means it did not happen.

I do not have a problem coordinating 1 and 2 where the material is already there, because the whole creation week seems to have that feature:
The formless void is there and earth is made from it
Water is there but is not divided to function in an organized way
Man is created but not woman

So in ch 2 God makes man from the dirt, but we don't get details like a sculpture process; it just forms, meaning, he can speak things into existence.

Later he commands a tempest to stop abruptly. Same.

He commands gobs of fish to appear at the side of a boat. Same.

He creates food from a mere number. Same.

He speaks, and it exists. I think we have to get used to it.

I referenced the Sequalish version because it has a sort of irreducible logic to it: that we don't have to know the method in order to agree that it is is the sensible explanation.

There are whole books of Pacific native legends about creation, etc, all the essential human history questions.

 

[EarlyActs]

My counter-argument was in post #314 (here), where I identified a number of assumptions that your view imposes on the text.

1. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth,
2. you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind,
3. and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system
4. (d) did not exist until creation week."

This was quoted from your post #310 (here). Again, it is these highlighted terms (bold text) that "represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), which you impose on the text," I said. "These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?"

I am assuming, of course, that you didn't draw those concepts from the text, because no one ever has in my experience. Perhaps you will be the first who does. If these were interpreted from the text, please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.




First, describing it as "the normal understanding" doesn't account for the ontology that defined existence. As one Old Testament scholar put it, "If ontology defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one’s ontology sets the parameters by which one thinks about creation."

Second, and in keeping with the above, it is "the normal understanding" for whom? If you want to claim that this is properly an interpretation of the text, it needs to be shown that this was the normal understanding of the original human narrators or authors and their audience (plus an accounting of what it meant for them to say that something exists). Anything otherwise will simply draw attention to and underscore my criticism.

You said that "several indigenous narratives of creation clear across the planet have the same wording," but you did not identify those narratives, or locate them in place or time, or explain their relationship to the people or content of our text, and so on—although describing them as "feeble echoes of Genesis" implies that they come long afterwards. Essentially, your statement is an example of weasel words, carrying an air of answering the question without actually doing so.

re native accounts
The ancients often realized the complexity of human and animal organism better than we did and often said the Creator simply had authority to say it exists, and it does. See previous post about Pacific native accounts. The Sequalish are near Seattle.

In "The Myth That Became Fact" (in GOD IN THE DOCK) Lewis shows that we should expect the world to contain such decayed myths that degenerated from the Biblical. In "Tracing Genesis Through History" two British museum curators are quoted saying that the essential narratives of Genesis predated the others that are similar from around the world. This is a video on Youtube by a Scottish speaker James-Griffith (?). The curators are mentioned late in the 1 hour talk.

 

[EarlyActs]

My counter-argument was in post #314 (here), where I identified a number of assumptions that your view imposes on the text.

1. In reference to the (a) "orb" of the primordial earth,
2. you said that its (b) "material was formed" for mankind,
3. and that the other "local parts of our (c) solar system
4. (d) did not exist until creation week."

This was quoted from your post #310 (here). Again, it is these highlighted terms (bold text) that "represent language that is consistent with modern knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), which you impose on the text," I said. "These were not drawn from the text. And if it is not drawn from the text, then in what sense is it an interpretation of the text?"

I am assuming, of course, that you didn't draw those concepts from the text, because no one ever has in my experience. Perhaps you will be the first who does. If these were interpreted from the text, please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.




First, describing it as "the normal understanding" doesn't account for the ontology that defined existence. As one Old Testament scholar put it, "If ontology defines the terms of existence, and creation means to bring something into existence, then one’s ontology sets the parameters by which one thinks about creation."

Second, and in keeping with the above, it is "the normal understanding" for whom? If you want to claim that this is properly an interpretation of the text, it needs to be shown that this was the normal understanding of the original human narrators or authors and their audience (plus an accounting of what it meant for them to say that something exists). Anything otherwise will simply draw attention to and underscore my criticism.

You said that "several indigenous narratives of creation clear across the planet have the same wording," but you did not identify those narratives, or locate them in place or time, or explain their relationship to the people or content of our text, and so on—although describing them as "feeble echoes of Genesis" implies that they come long afterwards. Essentially, your statement is an example of weasel words, carrying an air of answering the question without actually doing so.

re#3&4 and the local system (sorry I jumped)
I'm not sure what you are seeing but it seems to me that if they were made during creation week, they did not exist before that, even though light did exist (the distant universe) and that culture did not think of the local group as 'the heavens.' Nothing local is created until day 4 which would humiliate Egyptian theology.

Later In Hellenistic usage, that distant realm was call 'ourion' (eg Orion) because they could tell it was separate from the local group. This is used by Peter in 2 P 3. That chapter also has the matching distinction between the distant heavens 'ekpalai' (existed from of old) and earth was formed (sunestosa) like pottery, and I think that implies more recently.

 

[Sereni-tea]

It is handled by the enthroned Christ and Paul up to 3000 years later as the official record, even on historical creation, mankind, the cataclysm. They do not treat it is only for 'help.' I hope you read Lewis 'Man or Rabbit?'

Neo-orthodoxy says there is just as much theology there as ever, even if it is not historical. That is not how the Bible handles the realities of which it speaks.

When I speak of theological truth I do not mean the events didn't happen. I mean that the way in which the events are told is theological in nature, not scientific.