7 DAYS OF GENISIS

by badboy 16 Replies latest jw friends

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  JosephMalik

  Well, the Bible clearly says that "there came to be evening and there came to be morning, a xxth day". So, according to the Bible, the days were literal 24 hour days.

  Running Man,

  I discussed this a long time ago on H2o or some other discussion group. The word Day in and of itself does not mean 24 hours and the expression evening/moring can bracket all six of them and combine them with other events to make them into one day. Or we can group all the 7 days of Passover together to make one event. Why not do some research on this yourself. It is a great study. It is all relative to the context, and great amounts of time can be compressed into such epoch's for simplification. Here let me start you off and show how all such days can be combined into one.

  Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

  Do you see what I mean now?

  Joseph
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  pomegranate

  1. There was no sun for the first three days, so there were no hours.

  2. You really think God sets his Rolex to this particular sun in the Milky Way?

  3. True science defies 24 hour time periods.

  4. The Hebrew words have broader meaning.
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  Big Tex

  If God did indeed create the heavens and the earth, then that means he created the universe, this dimension. He is in effect the Big Bang. If that is true, then God also created time. Before the Big Bang there was no time, since time is marked by rotations around a sun, or the distance light travels, etc. If there were no stars, galaxies et al. then there would be no time. If God does exist outside this dimension then time, as we understand it being linear, would have no meaning. Time, and all human existence, past and future, would play out in front of him.

  Of course, that's a lot of ifs. But it may be why the Bible so rarely deals with the issue of when. When is the ultimate red herring in the Bible. Look at the Genesis account carefully. Where does it say the creation day is 24 hours? Or 7,000 years? It doesn't. Maybe because how long it took doesn't matter. Maybe the point of the story is simple: that God is responsible for putting the universe together.

  As for the scripture that a thousand years is as one day to God, well how else would a simple shepherd 3,000 years ago express it? He wouldn't have understood basic scientific truths that the common person does today. The point of that scripture is that time doesn't have the same meaning to God as it does to us.
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  pomegranate

  A nice logical deduction.
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  PopeOfEruke

  Or...looking at it from a different perspective......

  Does it really matter what a bunch of sheep-shagging goat-herders from Canaan from a few thousand years ago thought about the origin of the universe? Why is their story of any more importance to anyone than, say, the Australian aborigines? I prefer the Aborigines legends myself, at least they didn't shag sheep...........(maybe the occasional kangaroo, if they could catch one)...

  Pope
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  heathen

  What I would like to know is why does it say in Genesis 1-11 that God caused grass to grow and vegetation but in Genesis 2-5 says that he had not caused the vegetation to sprout? I did look in the creation book and the JW do believe that the word day can mean any amount of time but you are right it does get confusing since it does say there was an evening than a morning.
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  Big Tex

  Some months ago there was a program on the History channel that put forth the theory that Genesis contains 2 creation stories. Gen. 1:26 relates the creation of humans, but it is repeated, albeit a bit differently in chapter 2:7. The first story refers to God creating man and woman at the same time (1:27). This story shows the loving side of God wherein God gives the whole world to the man and woman and there is no division or separation. The second story is a bit more legalistic and has God creating man first and then, later, the woman; even adding the detail of God taking the rib from man to make woman. This story emphasizes law as God gives the man commandments and duties (2:15, 19).

  What was interesting about the History channel program was the various speculation from Biblical scholars as to the origins of the 2 different stories. I've slept since then so I don't remember now where the 2 creation stories originated but I do recall that sometime after the Jews returned from Babylon, scribes culled the 2 stories and merged them together into what is now Genesis.