Origins

2004-06-17: Ok here’s my contribution: God works in a process more often than a stroke. Thus, the creation ‘process’ seems more in God’s character than instantaneously creating a complete & functioning universe. I don’t deny that He could do it instantaneously, just it doesn’t seem in His character. So, given that, the young-earthers are claiming six consecutive 24-hour periods of creation. My question: Why 6 and not just a single one? Why not just say ‘first He created Light, then the earth, then the seas, etc.’ Why break it into day segments? I have not seen an answer for that. I have seen arguments about the symbolism of the numbers 6 & 7. That would be evidence for creating in 6 acts, rather than in a single stroke. The 6 acts could easily have been done in a single day, not six days (one day per act). So, why six days? Why not six hours, or six weeks? Is there anything to the argument that ‘yom’ can refer to a single day or a period of time, but the Hebrew words for hour & week are more precise to the ‘chronos’ time? Now this gets beyond me.

God tends to work in processes. Examples (this needs work): Getting the Hebrews out of Egypt. Taking over the land in Canaan. Hmm. Since in these cases (and especially in the 40 years in the wilderness), God is dealing with people (and their obedience/disobedience), and is working to transform the people. Transformation takes time. And God is merciful (thank you, thank you, thank you). Is any of this applicable to the creation process? Hmm. I need a good example of God working slower than necessary. That’s a joke isn’t it? God works in the perfect amount of time required. It’s only ‘slower’ to us humans.

2005-07-26:

Well here’s one that got to be hard for the young-earthers to debunk: they’ve taken ice core samples from the south pole & other places (Greenland, new Zealand) that show layers, similar to tree rings. These layers go up to hundreds of thousands of years – way beyond any young-earther’s outer limits. Debunking these would be like debunking tree rings. Can you make the case that winter comes three or four times a year? Apparently the layers match up perfectly with known global catastrophes like Krakatoa and Vesuvius (Pompeii). If the layers match to 1883 (Krakatoa) and Vesuvius (79), then how can you say it doesn’t match back further in time – at least tens of thousands of years. If you say it doesn’t match, you need to explain the deviation.

God & the Heavens

search on mazzaroth, zodiac of denderah, zoad, etc.

God’s plan in the zodiac: http://www.mazzaroth.com by Jim Cornwell.

Book God’s Voice in the Stars by Kenneth C. Fleming

History of Constellation & Star names: http://members.optusnet.com.au/~gtosiris/index1.html

The Witness of the Stars, by E W Bullinger (1893), on-line book: http://philologos.org/__eb-tws/default.htm

The Star Gospel: http://www.biblenews1.com/creation/stars.html

A chapter from an on-line book on Armageddon, http://208.234.11.183/aa/5.shtml, deals with God’s revelation

in the sky. The text is remarkably similar to Fleming’s God’s Voice in the Stars. Hmmm.

Another short site on the Biblical Zodiac: http://www.novareinna.com/constellation/bible.html

WITH CAUTION: http://www.greatdreams.com/riddle-stars.htm - this site ranges widely, including

dreams & astrology. Not to be taken as truth! But there is a large amount of information & biblical citation.

On-line book The Heavens Declare by J. Preston Eby: http://www.hisremnant.org/eby/articles/kingdom/heavensindex.html

Another site http://www.unlimitedglory.org/txtstarlight.html & http://www.unlimitedglory.org/starlight.htm

Dealing with Time

The question is, what does ‘day’ (Hebrew ‘yom’) mean in Genesis?

Handy reference for the Hebrew translation of Genesis, etc: http://www.levsoftware.com/verses.htm

2004-06-17: I had a brainflash this morning – ‘the dual nature of time’. Thinking thusly: we have long agreed to the dual nature of Christ. We don’t let our minds get too worried by it. We can easily say “When Christ was born”, meaning the baby of Mary & Christmas, and at the same time refer to immortal Christ existing prior to creation. We don’t even trip over the language, nor does our mind say “that doesn’t make sense”. Therefore, why not just think of the creation time as seeming as a day to man, but being a complex & long period of time. I have no problem with my brain doing this.

I notice that the Hebrew ‘yom’ is used in both Genesis 1 and Genesis 2. In the NKJ version, this is translated ‘day’. Thus leading to the problem of 6 biblical creation days in Gen. 1, and a ‘day’ of creation referring to the whole week in Gen. 2. My NIV bible translates Gen. 2 as ‘time’ instead of day. So the NIV neatly avoids any appearance of ‘yom’ being anything but a 24 hour period.

Here’s an odd duck: http://www.theorderoftime.com/

Nephilim (not really an origins issue):

Genesis 6:4: The “Nephilim”: http://www.geocities.com/nephilimnot/nephilim.html - a number of bible references to lookup.

Also referred to as Rephaim, Anakites. See Numbers 13:33; references in Deuteronomy & the book of Enoch.

more: http://www.therain.org/appendixes/app25.html again, lots of bible references.

and: http://www.ldolphin.org/nephilim.html

this study does become relevant since it deals with pre-flood days, and Jesus refers to this time in Matt 24:7

and: http://www.mt.net/~watcher/enoch5.html

Reference:

Notes to E.W. Bullinger’s Companion Bible: http://www.therain.org/appendixes/

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