The Watchtower and Creation (page 4)

hillary_step

TopHat,

OH MY, Alan, YOU DO have a few Brown Nose trip-overs following you around. That is so sad that people cannot think for themsleves and form their own opinions.

If you do not play nicely, I will post your last ten posts for all to read. I have noted this tends to silence you for a little while, overcome as you are by the shock of seeing your thought processes highlighted for all to see.

You may have opinions TopHat, but to date I have never read one that is remotely correct or sustained by science or history. If I am mistaken, I would be pleased to have you correct me.

Frankly, I am amazed that you can find your own front door.

HS

TopHat

LMAO @ HS such a nice person, NOT! do what you have to do Brown Nose

Narkissos

Test (I've been trying to post on this thread for some time and keep getting an error message).

Alan,

My "Watchtower advocate" reply was "tongue-in-cheek," of course, but I'm glad it prompted this thorough and witty (as usual) refutation of yours. Nothing to add here.

(Btw I also meant to point out that Mad's WT apology actually diverges from the WT interpretation of Genesis 1, especially as to the relationship between Genesis 1:1, 3 and 14. Not sure whether this is to ascribe to incipient apostasy or customary laziness on his part.)

The two lines in Job 26:7 are clearly a synonymic parallelism (cf. LXX ouden // oudenos, meaning nothing / no one). However, the textual history of Job is very difficult, and the compound word beli-mah strikes me as very artificial from both a formal and conceptual standpoint. Perhaps a bit like the better known beli-ya`al which late Jewish exegesis (and textual tradition) construes abstractly as "worth-less" but probably covers an older, more mythological, representation of the underworld (perhaps from bl` "to swallow," cf. the parallelisms with she'ol in Psalms). So I would wonder if perhaps beli-mah (which in its present form suits the late concept of creatio ex nihilo) does not also cover (like tohu) an earlier representation of the primeval oceanic chaos (cf. yam and tiamat) which is not, strictly, "no-thing"

Big Tex

do what you have to do Brown Nose

Never seen a less accurate description. I could see HS appointed to the Governing Body, become Pope or sell his entire collection of The Carpenters albums before he would "brown nose".

theMadChristian

AA writes:"With respect, Mad, did you read the scriptures Alan cited from Exodus? You're a relatively free-thinking JW, Mad. You're not mentally bound to believe whatever the Watchtower spews. So what do YOU personally think? How do you reconcile a billions-year-old earth with the Exodus reference Alan cited?

Dave

Buuuuuuuuuut, people will usually believe only what they WANT to believe! Look at all the attempts to prove different beliefs about creation- instead of just listening to what the BIBLE says!

Agape,

the Mad JW

BluesBrother

Thank you Alan, like you I have never seen any comment on the verse by the WTS .. If I were still a dub, my comment wold be on the lines of this :

*

it-1p.528Creation***

It is also noteworthy that at Genesis 1:16 the Hebrew verb ba·ra’´, meaning "create," is not used. Instead, the Hebrew verb ?a·sah´, meaning "make," is employed. Since the sun, moon, and stars are included in "the heavens" mentioned in Genesis 1:1, they were created long before Day Four. On the fourth day God proceeded to "make" these celestial bodies occupy a new relationship toward earth’s surface and the expanse above it. When it is said, "God put them in the expanse of the heavens to shine upon the earth," this would indicate that they now became discernible from the surface of the earth, as though they were in the expanse. Also, the luminaries were to "serve as signs and for seasons and for days and years," thus later providing guidance for man in various ways.—Ge 1:14.

and also vs 8 of Gen : 1

Genesis 1:6-8) 6 And God went on to say: "Let an expanse come to be in between the waters and let a dividing occur between the waters and the waters." 7 Then God proceeded to make the expanse and to make a division between the waters that should be beneath the expanse and the waters that should be above the expanse. And it came to be so. 8 And God began to call the expanse Heaven. And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a second day.

I would therefore apply the "making" of the heavens to the events of the second day of creation. I am not saying that it would be right to say that , but It is my guess that a dub might say it.

AlmostAtheist

>>Thanks for asking!

No, thank YOU for replying. Hit-n-run types are extremely irritating. Someone willing to stick around and chat is much better!

>>In Hebrew, the word translated "Day" covers the 24-hour, the generation, and a period of time.

True, but the word used in genesis is referenced ordinally, e.g. "first day", "second day", etc. To my knowledge, there are no examples in the scriptures of this sort of ordinal reference applying to anything but a literal day.

>>To take that statement as 'proof' of God creating Heaven & Earth in a 24-hour day- even tho He could have if He wanted to- is absurd

Well, remember the book we're talking about here. The sun is portrayed as stopping in the sky long enough for [what's-his-name] to slaughter [whoever it was]. Balaam is depicted as having a conversation with a talking donkey. And the entire earth's population of animals is said to be descended from single pairs of various "kinds". You don't wanna go around labelling things "absurd" in this context, I don't think.

HOWEVER, while I think there's a good argument for the Bible writer having meant a literal 24-hour day, that isn't the point. The point is that in order for the earth to be billions of years old, and the days of creation to NOT encompass billions of years, you've got to pull the creation of the earth itself out of those creative days. This is the teaching of the Watchtower, and I believe, your view as well. "In the beginning..." was a starting point, where the earth and heavens were created. THEN the creative days kick off. Am I right so far?

The problem with the scriptures in Exodus is that they lump the creation of the earth and heavens INTO the creative days. So in order to believe the earth is billions of years old, you either have to find some way to explain how those Exodus scriptures don't really mean that, or you have to let the creative days themselves be billions of years old. Or you have to do some third thing I haven't thought of. :-)

SO, my question remains: How do you reconcile a billions-year-old earth with the Exodus reference Alan cited?

BTW - Why'd you change your login name? Just curious...

Dave

AlmostAtheist

>>Moses, when referring to the Creative Days, was not making a doctrinal statement,

I posted my reply before reading the above. I have to admit, I don't understand what you're saying.

Here's my problem. Just jump in here and tell me where my thinking is awry:

The Bible says (Gen 1, the Exodus verses earlier cited) that God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days. There is some debate about the length of these "days", but no one seems to feel they are longer than 6,000 years or so.

The earth is thought to be 4.5 billion years old. Even if off by a few orders of magnitude, it's still ridiculously old.

There's a conflict. The earth is observably older than the 6-days-of-creation would allow for. So, to resolve the conflict, we assume that the rock we call earth was created BEFORE the 6 creative days. The days then were just the time god took to "create" the livable aspects of earth.

But this creates a new conflict, in that in contradicts the Exodus account. Regardless of the length of the "days", Exodus lumps the earth's creation into them.

THAT'S the issue I'm hoping you'll address.

Dave

stillajwexelder

And if you truly believe that Moses wrote all 5 books of the Pentateuch (which includes Genesis and Exodus) then that makes matters worse. However it was of course written by a minimum of 4 writers as Friedman et all have shown

The Watchtower and Creation

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