Religion and science

[Karel]

Perhaps, but Genesis 1 is not missing. Genesis 1 frames its content as a chronology, stating "first day," "second day," etc. In chapter two the focus changes from the act of creation to events during the sixth creative day that provide background information for man's rebellion against God, which occurs in chapter 3.

Thank you for confirming my viewpoint. To repeat: Genesis 2 on its own shows all the markings of a "chronological" text (I will address your objections when I come to them). The fact that Genesis 1 also is a "chronological" text doesn't make Genesis 2 less so. The fact that Genesis 1 spells out the chronology, does not make make Genesis 2 unchronological. When you use language like "the focus changes", you argue at the interpretative level. My contention was that Gen 2 is marked at the grammatical and structural level as "chronological" (the official technical term would be: a narrative). Up to this point you have only confirmed my viewpoint. I will now follow your arguments to see what happens.

[snip interesting but irrelevant tidbit] In order for there to be a major chronological contradiction from chapter one to chapter two, we must assume: (1) that for some reason the writer perceived some need to fall back and repeat a portion of the chronology just completed, (2) that the writer suffered from very poor short-term memory, (3) that the writer was at the same time quite careless in not going back to check what he had just written, and (4) that God must not have particularly cared that this account of his activity was erroneous.

We have to assume nothing of these four points. We just have to give a due account of the grammatical structure of the text. If this poses problems for the interpretation, then we have to deal with them. Ignoring the grammatical structure of the text is not an answer, unless you consider the text itself secondary to your interpretation or dogma.

Nevertheless, let's proceed based on your assertion that the events described in Genesis 2:7-9, 15-23, 25 must be in chronological order and see whether it makes sense. Vss. 7-9 in the King James Version read as follows:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

If this is in strict chronological order: (1) Adam was created before God planted the garden; (2) Adam was placed in the garden before any trees had yet sprouted. This raises a couple of interesting questions: Where was Adam while God was planting the garden, and what was he doing? Also, what did Adam eat while he was waiting for the garden to grow?

This kind of questions is hardly relevant for the text. You claim that these actions take so much time that it raises certain problems. Were does the text say that these actions actually take so long as to cause problems? Are you adding to the text of the Bible?

Then vs. 15 says:

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Why did he have to put him there a second time? That's very curious. Yet if, as you say, the verb forms demand that these events are written chronologically, then we must believe this is what happened, even though it doesn't make much sense.

Part of the problem is that I accepted your use of "chronological", for what really is a narrative structure. The other part of the problem is that you do not look at the text. You isolate vs 8 and vs 15, ignore what happens in between, and conclude to a problem. But when we really look at what happens in between, we see an excursus about the rivers of the garden that is about as long as the whole of the narrative part before it. Is it really so unreasonable to view vs 15 as a recapitulation? In English, after an explanation that has interrupted the flow of a narrative significantly, one might say something like: "As I was saying", with a short recapitulation, to take up the narrative again. In Hebrew the return of the narrative forms alone mark that the narration is taken up again, without the need for extra markers.

I think the above is sufficient to prove that the verses under discussion in Genesis 2 are not to be interpreted in strict chronological order, but it gets more interesting in vs. 19, which is where I believe the crux of your arguement lies. Vs. 19 reads:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

In this verse the King James translators translated the Hebrew verb יצר (yatsar) as "formed" in the simple past tense, which gives the idea of a complete action from start to finish. I see that a number of other English translations put the verb in past perfect tense, rendering it "had formed," which makes more sense. The Hebrew verb יצר is immediately preceded by the letter ו ("waw") in a construction know as the "waw consecutive." According to what I read from those knowledgeable about ancient Hebrew, the waw consecutive in this instance, because the verb starts with י ("yodh"), makes the tense of this verb—are you ready?—Qal imperfect third person masculine singular. (As I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong, normally to make a Hebrew verb past imperfect you would add two letters to the verb's prefix, namely וי ("waw, yodh"), except where the verb already begins with yodh, in which case adding just the waw has the same meaning.) If so, a more accurate rendering would be the past imperfect "was forming," and this also makes more sense than the past simple "formed."

I am glad you have found meanings for wayyitser that make more sense to you. Unfortunately, they are ungrammatical. The verb form does not allow of such a translation. The Bible translations you mention apparently considered a (perceived!) need for harmonization more important than a correct translation. There have been some attempts to defend the anomalous use of "had formed" out of the need for harmonization. The large majority of experts in Biblical Hebrew doesn't see that need, and if they did, would never dream of mistranslating a word to facilitate that harmonization. And anyway, when you change the translation of word to facilitate your harmonization, it doesn't do to argue: you see, the word can be translated like this, so there never was a problem. That is called circular reasoning.

Another significant error here is to call the form under discussion a "past imperfect". The traditional, now outdated, term is "consecutive imperfect"; more modern designations are "narrative" and "wayyiqtol". These forms should be translated with forms that are used for a running narrative in the target language; usually a simple past tense, with possibly an occasional marker like "then" thrown in for good measure, like: "he went to town, he did some shopping and then he returned home".

In other words, during the undetermined length of time between Adam's creation and Eve's creation, the man was given work to do, namely to cultivate the garden and to name the animals over which he was to exercise dominion.

I see you feel some need to expand on the text of the Bible. I prefer to stick to the text as it stands.

The fact that the Creator "had formed" or "was forming" animals from the ground does not present a problem. We are all, animal and human alike, formed from the dust, as shown by Ps. 103:14 and Eccl. 3:20, even though all alive today were created long after the end of the sixth creative day. (See also Job 10:9 and Isaiah 64:8.)

Well, both forms are equally ungrammatical, so take your pick. I would like to point out however that "was forming" suggests that the creation of man coincided with the creation of all animals. This is of course perfectly in accordance with evolution theory. It really is a pity that I cannot accept your translation!

I therefore conclude that there is no contradiction between the events related in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Jesus evidently saw no problem with it either, considering that in Matthew 19:4, 5 he quoted directly from that passage of Scripture. Would Jesus Christ appeal to an untrustworthy text as authority?

Well, since you have not even adressed my basic issue, your conclusion seems to be a bit hasty. And I consider your arguments obviously as either fallacious or irrelevant. I have asked you to do what should be a joy for every Christian: to really read the texts, to really let them speak for themselves. Yet at every point I have to counter your attempts to change the meaning of the text, to put your interpretation and dogma first, and generally to ignore the text itself.

The proper procedure is first to establish the text, well we will skip that. Then we need to establish the grammatical structure of the text, for that will need to be our frame of reference. After that, we can talk about the interpretation of the text, and the problems that may arise in that interpretation, and base our interpration of the text on its structure. So, if this is not a chronological (or better: narrative) text, what grammatical pointers do we have for this conclusion in Genesis 2 itself? My proposal is: none whatsoever.

My prediction is that you will not do this groundwork, and instead hare of into interpretation, before you have established the necessary groundwork. Read the text, don't assume that you know it.

No mainstream expert in Biblical Hebrew and no mainstream exegete would call the text untrustworthy. The normal interpretation of the texts discussed implies that the order of creation events is of absolutely minor importance. Of course, with your claim that science supports the creation order in Genesis, we do have to examine that order in detail. If you fail to back up that claim, it is not the text that is in trouble, but just your interpretation of it.

Regards,

Karel

I'm not kidding.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...toryId=5523909

I thought most bible thumping, gay bashers were gay? You know, like that guy from CO (some leader of a conservative, right wing christian church) last fall who finally, after many sermons demonizing gays admitted he was gay and that he liked having sex with men. Come on, its pretty common knowledge that most homophobes are just closet gays...and he proves the point. And if I recall, he had a pretty hot looking wife, go figure.

Does this mean that gerry falwell is gay? I don't know, but to have an androgynous name like that, and a gay biographer doesn't help either. How many late nights did they spend together, chatting away??

Ghostwriter for Jerry Falwell's 1987 autobiography is gay

I'm not kidding.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5523909

I think we're looking at two very confused people here.

[Rob]

If Genesis 1 were missing, we would have no reason to consider Genesis 2 not to have been presented in chronological order.

Perhaps, but Genesis 1 is not missing. Genesis 1 frames its content as a chronology, stating "first day," "second day," etc. In chapter two the focus changes from the act of creation to events during the sixth creative day that provide background information for man's rebellion against God, which occurs in chapter 3. (It should be noted here that when originally written, there were no chapter and verse divisions, but it was all written as one continuous scroll.) In order for there to be a major chronological contradiction from chapter one to chapter two, we must assume: (1) that for some reason the writer perceived some need to fall back and repeat a portion of the chronology just completed, (2) that the writer suffered from very poor short-term memory, (3) that the writer was at the same time quite careless in not going back to check what he had just written, and (4) that God must not have particularly cared that this account of his activity was erroneous.


Nevertheless, let's proceed based on your assertion that the events described in Genesis 2:7-9, 15-23, 25 must be in chronological order and see whether it makes sense. Vss. 7-9 in the King James Version read as follows:

And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

If this is in strict chronological order: (1) Adam was created before God planted the garden; (2) Adam was placed in the garden before any trees had yet sprouted. This raises a couple of interesting questions: Where was Adam while God was planting the garden, and what was he doing? Also, what did Adam eat while he was waiting for the garden to grow? Then vs. 15 says:

And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.

Why did he have to put him there a second time? That's very curious. Yet if, as you say, the verb forms demand that these events are written chronologically, then we must believe this is what happened, even though it doesn't make much sense.


I think the above is sufficient to prove that the verses under discussion in Genesis 2 are not to be interpreted in strict chronological order, but it gets more interesting in vs. 19, which is where I believe the crux of your arguement lies. Vs. 19 reads:

And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.

In this verse the King James translators translated the Hebrew verb יצר (yatsar) as "formed" in the simple past tense, which gives the idea of a complete action from start to finish. I see that a number of other English translations put the verb in past perfect tense, rendering it "had formed," which makes more sense. The Hebrew verb יצר is immediately preceded by the letter ו ("waw") in a construction know as the "waw consecutive." According to what I read from those knowledgeable about ancient Hebrew, the waw consecutive in this instance, because the verb starts with י ("yodh"), makes the tense of this verb—are you ready?—Qal imperfect third person masculine singular. (As I understand this, and correct me if I'm wrong, normally to make a Hebrew verb past imperfect you would add two letters to the verb's prefix, namely וי ("waw, yodh"), except where the verb already begins with yodh, in which case adding just the waw has the same meaning.) If so, a more accurate rendering would be the past imperfect "was forming," and this also makes more sense than the past simple "formed." In other words, during the undetermined length of time between Adam's creation and Eve's creation, the man was given work to do, namely to cultivate the garden and to name the animals over which he was to exercise dominion.

The fact that the Creator "had formed" or "was forming" animals from the ground does not present a problem. We are all, animal and human alike, formed from the dust, as shown by Ps. 103:14 and Eccl. 3:20, even though all alive today were created long after the end of the sixth creative day. (See also Job 10:9 and Isaiah 64:8.)

I therefore conclude that there is no contradiction between the events related in Genesis chapters 1 and 2. Jesus evidently saw no problem with it either, considering that in Matthew 19:4, 5 he quoted directly from that passage of Scripture. Would Jesus Christ appeal to an untrustworthy text as authority?

I'm enjoying this. I find it informative and stimulating in that I'm hearing of things that I didn't know of especially from Karel I would like it if Karel would give a clearer basic laymen's explanation of the chronological meaning of the Hebrew verb forms that he states changes the meaning of the chronological order of happenings and how they effect the chronological order.

I was also curious about the length of time between the creation of Adam and Eve and their family coming into existence. Does the Bible state that specifically. And if that is the start of earth and mankind as we know it then man just appeared. Doesn't the the scientific explanation really differ with that entirely if you believe that it all started with one cell life forms evolving into more complex life forms until we got where we are at. Does the Bible deal with that at all or does it just say that God created all living things and that was it.

I believe the bible thumpers claim that everything began 4,000 years ago, the sun, the moon, the earth, man, etc. They don't believe in dinosaurs or fossills or carbon dating but they believe that everyone is related to adam and eve..talk about a shallow gene pool. And those frozen little men they find in glaciers...they were planted by God as a practical joke...that guy cracks me up!

Seriously, the bible is the best selling novel of all time...there's a smattering of historic fact but its mostly just fiction and brain-washing. I think the whole religion thing is first and foremost a business, secondly a very feeble and silly attempt at explaning why we're here...who cares? Why waste time trying to figure that out. There's more important things to do. We will never, ever know why or how we were created...maybe we're just a fart from God, who knows? But if there is a God, and he's all powerful, why didn't he bother to populate the moon, venus, mars or the sun? He can do anything he sets his mind to, right? Why earth? We're just an insignificant tiny little spec of dust in the solar system, meaningless. Why did God create the planets? To amuse us? They weren't given much discussion in the bible, right? But they're right there in plain sight. How bout the internet? Seems like something that important would have been mentioned in the bible? Or how bout nuclear weapons? Pretty sophisticated stuff...intelligent design for that matter. How come there's no hint of them in the bible? God too stupid? Its a simple equation God...E=MC^2.

[skiracer]

I'm enjoying this. I find it informative and stimulating in that I'm hearing of things that I didn't know of especially from Karel I would like it if Karel would give a clearer basic laymen's explanation of the chronological meaning of the Hebrew verb forms that he states changes the meaning of the chronological order of happenings and how they effect the chronological order.

I was also curious about the length of time between the creation of Adam and Eve and their family coming into existence. Does the Bible state that specifically. And if that is the start of earth and mankind as we know it then man just appeared. Doesn't the the scientific explanation really differ with that entirely if you believe that it all started with one cell life forms evolving into more complex life forms until we got where we are at. Does the Bible deal with that at all or does it just say that God created all living things and that was it.

[Karel]

Karel, Are you an expert in the Hebrew language too?....

Well not an expert, but I had expert teachers. You might say that this is so elementary that even I can figure it out on my own, and be certain that I can defend it against any authority. After all, that is what you are supposed to be able to do at an examination...

Regards,

Karel

[Lyehopper]

If the Hebrew language wants to impart a topical ordering, it is perfectly able to do so, and the verb forms in the running text of Genesis 2 are not the way to do so.

It is really rather elementary.

Karel, Are you an expert in the Hebrew language too?....

[Karel]

Is it? Which method do you consider most reliable? Potassium-argon?

Before we get off on the dating tangent, I will admit that I have never engaged in a deep study of it and may be ill-prepared to argue it effectively, but is it not true that the various methods are less accurate in dating sedimentary formations vs. igneous? And is it not true that dates arrived at must assume no presence of "daughter elements" in the original mass? So that if you find a 1-ton mass of lead and uranium in which half of the molecules are lead and the other half uranium, the conclusion that it is 4.5 billion years old (based on the 4.5 billion-year half life of uranium) assumes there was no lead present at the beginning?

I'm much more interested in your reasons for your insistence that the events stated in Genesis chapter 2 must be in chronological order rather than in order of topical importance.

I really mean all dating methods of course, not a single one. But I will follow your wish; let us start on Genesis 1 and 2.

I think the attempt to qualify the order in Genesis 2 as "topical", to the exclusion of chronological, is too artificial to be considered. If Genesis 1 were missing, we would have no reason to consider Genesis 2 not to have been presented in chronological order.

But it is also the basic grammatical structure of Genesis 2:4-25 that resists such an interpretation. The scene for this pericope is set in vss 4-6 and then from vs 7 onward the verb forms change to indicate chronological order. This order is broken in vss 10-14, in the excursus about the rivers of Eden, and this is indicated by different verb forms. The chronological verb forms take over again in 15-23 (disregarding the quote), 24 is another interruption, as is shown by the different verb forms, and 25 finishes this scene as the last link in the chronological chain. In the beginning of Genesis 3 a new scene is laid out, again based on the verb forms.

To ignore the chronological ordering I just outlined means to ignore the basic structure of the text. If the Hebrew language wants to impart a topical ordering, it is perfectly able to do so, and the verb forms in the running text of Genesis 2 are not the way to do so.

It is really rather elementary.

Regards,

Karel

[Rob]

It is easy to be objective about the dating stuff [. . .]

Is it? Which method do you consider most reliable? Potassium-argon?

Before we get off on the dating tangent, I will admit that I have never engaged in a deep study of it and may be ill-prepared to argue it effectively, but is it not true that the various methods are less accurate in dating sedimentary formations vs. igneous? And is it not true that dates arrived at must assume no presence of "daughter elements" in the original mass? So that if you find a 1-ton mass of lead and uranium in which half of the molecules are lead and the other half uranium, the conclusion that it is 4.5 billion years old (based on the 4.5 billion-year half life of uranium) assumes there was no lead present at the beginning?

I'm much more interested in your reasons for your insistence that the events stated in Genesis chapter 2 must be in chronological order rather than in order of topical importance.

[Karel]

As I said, let us settle the reliability of the various dating methods first. It is easy to be objective about the dating stuff, no problems here about different sets of beliefs. I propose to accept the general validity of the dating methods currently in use by science. They have been studied in detail, the problems have been worked out, and they all, when applicable, give consistent results. Do you agree? If not, why not?

After that, we can consider which sequence of events we should use for the creation, Genesis 1 or Genesis 2.

I have already said that scientists currently have no satisfactory explanation for the Cambrian explosion. Perhaps that is why you return to the issue. I do not see how this of itself supports the biblical narratives of the creation, when the two (contradicting) stories from Genesis are both flatly contradicted by the empirical scientific evidence. I would say that "don't know" is less negative than "not so". So again, let us get the dating straight first.

Regards,

Karel

[Rob]

Then you propose that basically all animals were created in the Cambrian?

Apparently the majority, if not all, were. The sequence of events in the Genesis account implies that man (including woman) was the final act of creation on the sixth "day." How far removed in time that took place from the other creations no one knows and the Bible does not say. For that matter we don't have any idea how much time elapsed between Adam's creation and Eve's.

I know you prefer to view the account of Adam and Eve's creation as a sort of "non-factual truth," but I do not. When the Bible says that Enoch was the seventh one in line from Adam (Jude 14), then I believe that is what it means (counting Adam as #1, otherwise the sixth). In fact, I accept all the genealogical information presented in the Pentateuch and the rest of the Bible as factual.

I believe it is a fact of history that God sent Moses to stand before Pharaoh and demand the release of the Israelites. And I believe God sent the ten plagues as described when Pharaoh refused, and that God drowned the entire Egyptian army, including Pharaoh, in the Red Sea. I believe that Moses and Aaron were directly descended from Jacob's son Levi, that Jacob was the grandson of Abraham, that Abraham was ten generations removed from Shem, son of Noah, that Noah was eight generations removed from Seth, son of Adam, and that Adam was created by God as the first human. If not, then, as I have questioned before, at what point in the genealogy does fiction become fact?

I believe these things because I believe Jesus is the Son of God, the promised Messiah, and that he believed and taught them too. I don't see how it is possible to be a Christian in the absolute sense of the word and not believe those things are factual. I understand how one could reason it to be so, but my personal opinion is that one would have to follow "cunningly devised fables" (to borrow a phrase from Peter (2 Pet. 1:16)) in order to believe so. Jesus said, "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God," (Matt. 4:4) and I believe that. And I accept the principle stated by Paul at Romans 3:4: "Let God be found true though every human being is false and a liar."—Amplified Bible

I guess this is where you and I part ways, Karel, because I know you don't accept as factual the biblical account of Adam and Eve's creation or of the Noachian flood. I'm left to wonder what historical accounts in the Bible you do believe are true. I guess you probably doubt the Israelites were ever really slaves in Egypt. I wonder whether you believe they were held in Babylonian captivity for 70 years, or whether one angel slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers in one night when Hezekiah was King of Judah, or whether the account of the walls of Jericho falling ever really happened the way it is described in Joshua chapter 6.

All that having been said, I come back to the question of evolution, the Cambrian stratum and Mr. Darwin, who wrote: "If numerous species, belonging to the same genera or families, have really started into life at once, the fact would be fatal to the theory of evolution through natural selection,"(Charles Darwin) and that is what the fossil record shows, regardless of the rationalizations by Mr. Darwin following the above quote as well as similar rationalizations by enthusiasts for the theory since then.

[Karel]

[big snip] But please bear in mind, while I question the validity of the dating of those fossil layers, I do not believe the Genesis creative days were literally 24 hours in length either. I view those "days" more in terms of creative periods, each of which spanned many thousands, maybe even millions, of years. [another big snip]

Let us talk about dating methods first, because science relies on them for a big part of the argument. I am not aware of any arguments against the dating of the fossil layers that are not misrepresentations or downright dishonest. Please educate me: what is a real argument against the dating methods used? In all their variety they come up with remarkably consistent dates, something that is really an argument against unreliability.

After we have settled the dating issue, it will be easy to show that the creation sequence in Genesis 1 (which by the way is contradicted in Genesis 2) is not according to the empirical scientific facts.

Regards,

Karel

[Karel]

Update: Okay, a little further research reveals that bacteria do belong to a certain subset of fauna called "infauna," but as I said these are nothing even remotely resembling the multicellular species appearing in the early Cambrian period.

Here's an interesting quote:

"Aside from a few enigmatic forms that may or may not represent animals, all modern animal phyla with any fossil record to speak of (except bryozoans) appear to have representatives in the Cambrian, and of these most except sponges seem to have originated just after or just before the start of the period. [. . .] Fairly extensive Precambrian Ediacaran faunas have been identified in the past 50 years, but their relationships to Cambrian forms are quite obscure."—Wikipedia (emphasis mine)

Then you propose that basically all animals were created in the Cambrian? I thought we were talking about sea creatures only, but this would suit me better.

Regards,

Karel

[Rob]

Update: Okay, a little further research reveals that bacteria do belong to a certain subset of fauna called "infauna," but as I said these are nothing even remotely resembling the multicellular species appearing in the early Cambrian period.

Here's an interesting quote:

"Aside from a few enigmatic forms that may or may not represent animals, all modern animal phyla with any fossil record to speak of (except bryozoans) appear to have representatives in the Cambrian, and of these most except sponges seem to have originated just after or just before the start of the period. [. . .] Fairly extensive Precambrian Ediacaran faunas have been identified in the past 50 years, but their relationships to Cambrian forms are quite obscure."—Wikipedia (emphasis mine)