Christian Forums

This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!

  • Focus on the Family

    Strengthening families through biblical principles.

    Focus on the Family addresses the use of biblical principles in parenting and marriage to strengthen the family.

  • Guest, Join Papa Zoom today for some uplifting biblical encouragement! --> Daily Verses
  • The Gospel of Jesus Christ

    Heard of "The Gospel"? Want to know more?

    There is salvation in no other, for there is not another name under heaven having been given among men, by which it behooves us to be saved."

Bible Study From The Beginning

2024 Website Hosting Fees

Total amount
$905.00
Goal
$1,038.00

Niyoe'es:ah

Member
-
Hello; and welcome to the very first book of the Bible.

I'm posting a systematic, home-spun commentary practically verse by verse
from the origin of the cosmos to Joseph's burial in Egypt.

As of today's date, I'm 73 years old; and an on-going student of the Bible
since 1968 via sermons, seminars, lectures, Sunday school classes, radio
Bible programs, and various authors of a number of Bible-related books. I'm
neither published nor accredited, but the way I figure it; forty-nine years of
Bible has made me at least competent enough to compose this commentary
for an internet forum. It would of course be laughed out of a seminary, but
what the hey; we hereabouts aren't a seminary, we're just regular folks.


FYI: Nothing in my posts is plagiarized, rather, it's all copied and pasted
from my own personal web page; which isn't copyrighted so if you should go
there and see something interesting and would like to take it with you; it's
okay, I don't mind.

/
 
-
Genesis 1:1

The author of Genesis is currently unknown; but commonly attributed to
Moses. Seeing as he penned Exodus (Mark 12:26) it's conceivable that
Moses also penned Genesis; but in reality, nobody really knows for sure.

Scholars have estimated the date of its writing at around 1450-1410 BC;
which is pretty recent in the grand scheme of Earth's geological history-- a
mere 3,400 years ago.

Genesis may in fact be the result of several contributors beginning as far
back as Adam himself; who would certainly know more about the creation
than anybody, and who entertained no doubts whatsoever about the
existence of an intelligent designer since he knew the Creator himself like a
next door neighbor.

That would explain why the book begins with an in-your-face theological
account of the origin of the cosmos, rather than waste words with an
apologetic argument to convince agnostics that a supreme being exists. I
mean: if the complexity of the cosmos-- its extent, its objects, and all of its
forms of life, matter, and energy --isn't enough to convince the agnostic;
then the agnostic is pretty much beyond reach.

As time went by, others like Seth and Noah would add their own experiences
to the record, and then Abraham his, Isaac his, Jacob his, and finally Judah
or one of his descendants completing the record with Joseph's burial.

Genesis is quoted more than sixty times in the New Testament; and Christ
himself authenticated its Divine inspiration by referring to it in his own
teachings. (e.g. Matt 19:4-6, Matt 24:37-39, Mk 10:4-9, Luke 11:49-51,
Luke 17:26-29 & 32, John 7:21-23, John 8:44 and John 8:56)

Gen 1:1a . . In the beginning God

The word for "God" is from the Hebrew 'elohiym (el-o-heem'). It's a plural
word and means, ordinarily: gods. 'Elohiym isn't really the creator's personal
moniker, rather, a nondescript designation that pertains to all sorts of gods,
along with, and including, the supreme one.

Gen 1:1b . . created the heaven and earth--

The word for "heaven" is from the Hebrew word shamayim (shaw-mah'-yim)
and means: to be lofty; i.e. the sky; perhaps alluding to the visible arch in
which the clouds move, as well as to the greater expanse where the celestial
bodies reside, i.e. the universe.

So the word "heaven" is ambiguous and can mean the breathable air in our
planet's atmosphere as well as the stratosphere and the vast regions of
space.

The Hebrew word for "earth" is 'erets (eh'-rets) which is yet another of the
Bible's many ambiguous words. It can indicate dry land, a country, and/or
the whole planet.

Anyway; Genesis 1:1 merely reveals the origin of the cosmos without going
into detail. It's a "Once upon a time" sort of statement with a story to follow.

/
 
-
Genesis 1:2-4a

Gen 1:2a . . the earth being unformed and void

That statement reveals the earth's condition prior to the creation of an
energy that would make it possible for its particles to coalesce into
something coherent.

Curiously, scientists have not yet been able to figure out what gives particles
their mass. In point of fact, the multi-billion-dollar Large Hadron Collider was
constructed for the specific purpose of finding a special particle called the
Higgs Boson (a.k.a. the God particle) because it's believed that the Higgs
particle "creates" a field that somehow grants other particles their mass.

Gen 1:2b . . and darkness was over the surface of the deep

This particular "deep" I believe can be safely assumed to be the void; viz:
the seemingly infinite space housing the known universe.

Gen 1:2c . . and Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the
waters.


The "waters" at this point in the earth's history probably weren't the liquid
commonly known as H
2O. It's just a "place-holder" name; viz: a convenient
label for the colossal soup of freshly created particles that would eventually
be utilized to construct the universe's physical properties.

The Spirit's job, therefore, was as a sort of cattle wrangler circling the herd
and keeping all the various particles together so they didn't drift away and
get lost because as yet there were no forces at work keeping things
together.

Gen 1:3 . . Then God said "Let there be light" and there was light.

I'm going to treat this particular light as a natural form of illumination rather
than something supernatural such as that of John 1:4-9 and/or 1Tim 6:16,
or spiritual such as that of 1John 1:5-7.

The creation of natural light was an intricate process. First God had to create
particulate matter, and along with those particles their specific properties,
including mass. Then He had to invent the laws of nature to govern how
matter behaves in combination with and/or in the presence of, other kinds of
matter in order to generate electromagnetic radiation.

Natural light's properties are a bit curious. It exists as waves in a variety of
lengths and frequencies, and also as theoretical particles called photons. And
though natural light has no mass; it's influenced by gravity. Natural light is
also quite invisible. For example: you can see the Sun when you look at it,
and you can see the Moon when sunlight reflects from its surface. But none
of the Sun's light is visible in the void between them and that's because
natural light isn't matter; it's energy.

The same laws that make it possible for matter to generate electromagnetic
radiation also make other conditions possible too; e.g. fire, wind, water, ice,
soil, rain, life, centrifugal force, thermodynamics, fusion, dark energy,
gravity, atoms, organic molecules, magnetism, color, radiation, refraction,
reflection, high energy X-rays and gamma rays, temperature, pressure,
force, inertia, sound, friction, and electricity; et al. So the creation of natural
light was a pretty big deal; yet Genesis scarcely gives its origin passing
mention.

2Cor 4:6 verifies that the light of Gen 1:3 wasn't introduced into the cosmos
from outside in order to dispel the darkness and brighten things up a bit; but
rather, it radiated out of the cosmos from inside-- from itself --indicating
that the cosmos was created to be self-illuminating by means of the various
interactions of the matter that God made for it; including, but not limited to,
the Higgs Boson.

You know it's curious to me that most people have no trouble readily
conceding that everything else in the first chapter of Genesis is natural, e.g.
the cosmos, the earth, water, sky, dry land, the Sun, the Moon, the stars,
aqua life, winged life, terra life, flora life, and human life.

But when it comes to the light of Gen 1:3 they choke; finding it impossible
within themselves to believe that Genesis just might be consistent in its
description of the creative process. I mean, if all those other things are
natural, why wouldn't creation's light be natural too? In point of fact, without
natural light, planet Earth would become a cold dead world right quick.


NOTE: The interesting thing about the laws of nature is that they're not
absolute laws. No; they're created laws-- created as a companion to the
created cosmos to regulate how the cosmos, with all of its forms of life,
matter, and energy, behaves. Seeing as how God designed and created
those laws, then He knows the secrets to manipulating them in order to
make things in our world behave quite contrary to common sense.

Take for example the floating axe head in 2Kgs 6:5-6. Solid chunks of iron
don't float. That's unnatural. Another example is the fire-proof bush of Ex
3:2. A bush that's impervious to fire is unnatural. It should have flared up
and Moses knew it too but it didn't because God can easily modify the
natural behavior of everything He ever created.

Gen 1:4a . . And God saw the light, that it was good

God declared that light is good; but He didn't declare that darkness is good.
In point of fact, darkness typically represents bad things in the Bible; while
light typically represents good things. It's been an axiom from the very
beginning.

/
 
-
Genesis 1:4b-5

Gen 1:4b-5a . . and God separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.


Day and Night simply label two distinct physical conditions-- the absence of
light, and/or the absence of darkness. Labeling those physical conditions
may seem like a superfluous detail, but when analyzing crucifixion week in
the New Testament, it's essential to keep those physical conditions separate
in regards to Christ's burial and resurrection if one is to have any hope of
deducing the correct chronology of Easter week.

Gen 1:5b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a first
Day.


In accordance with normal chronological sequencing; evening and morning
would indicate overnight; viz: a day of creation would take place entirely in
the dark; which fails to comply with the definitions of Day given at Gen 1:4
5a and Gen 1:14-18

Seeing as how it says evening "and" morning instead of evening to morning,
then we're not really looking at a chronological sequence but merely the
Am/Pm portions of daytime because evening and morning is all the same as
morning and evening.

In other words: morning represents the hours of daylight between sunup
and high noon, while evening represents the hours of daylight between high
noon and sunset; viz: afternoon.

Just exactly how long were the days of creation? Well; according to Gen
1:24-31, God created humans and all land animals on the sixth day; which
has to include dinosaurs because on no other day did God create land
animals but the sixth.

However; the fossil record, in combination with scientific dating methods,
has thus far easily proven that dinosaurs preceded human life by several
million years. So then, in my estimation, the days of creation should be
taken to represent epochs rather than 24-hour events. That's not an
unreasonable estimation; e.g.

"These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were
created, in the day that Jehovah God made earth and heaven." (Gen 2:4)

The Hebrew word for "day" in that verse is yowm (yome) which is the very
same word for each of the six days of God's creation labors. Since yowm in
Gen 2:4 refers to a period of time obviously much longer than a 24-hour
calendar day; it justifies suggesting that each of the six days of creation
were longer than 24 hours apiece too. In other words: yowm is ambiguous
and not all that easy to interpret sometimes.

Anyway; this "day" thing has been a chronic problem for just about
everybody who takes Genesis seriously. It's typically assumed that the days
of creation consisted of twenty-four hours apiece; so people end up stumped
when trying to figure out how to cope with the 4.5 billion-year age of the
earth, and factor in the various eras, e.g. Triassic, Jurassic, Mesozoic,
Cenozoic, Cretaceous, etc, plus the ice ages and the mass extinction events.

/
 
I have not as yet read any of your posts on Genesis because you don't know who penned the Torah. The Author was non other than Yahshua, the Son of Yahweh of Elohim. Get that straight, and I might see what you have to say.
 
-
Genesis 1:6-10

Gen 1:6a . . God said: Let there be an expanse

The word for "expanse" is from raqiya' (raw-kee'-ah) and means: a great
extent of something spread out, a firmament, the visible arch of the sky.

Raqiya' is distinct from shamyim in that it indicates the earth's atmosphere;
which is sort of sandwiched between the surface and the vacuum of space.

Gen 1:6b-8 . . in the midst of the water, that it may separate water
from water. God made the expanse, and it separated the water
which was below the expanse from the water which was above the
expanse. And it was so. And God named the expanse Sky.


At this point in time, I think we can safely assume that "water" is no longer
a place-card name for the colossal soup of particles God created in Gen 1:2
but the molecular combination commonly known as H
2O.

We can easily guess what is meant by water that's below the sky. But is
there really water that's above it? Yes, and it's a lot! According to an article
in the Sept 2013 issue of National Geographic magazine, Earth's atmosphere
holds roughly 3,095 cubic miles of water in the form of vapor. That may
seem like a preposterous number of cubic miles of water; but not really
when it's considered that Lake Superior's volume alone is estimated at
nearly 3,000.

Our home planet is really big; a whole lot bigger than people sometimes
realize. It's total surface area, in square miles, is 196,940,000. To give an
idea of just how many square miles that is: if somebody were to wrap a belt
around the equator made of one-mile squares; it would only take 24,902
squares to complete the distance; which is a mere .00012644 the surface
area.

Some of the more familiar global warming gases are carbon dioxide,
fluorocarbons, methane, and ozone. But as popular as those gases are with
the media, they're bit players in comparison to the role that ordinary water
vapor plays in global warming. By some estimates; atmospheric water vapor
accounts for more than 90% of global warming; which is not a bad thing
because without atmospheric water vapor, the earth would be so cold that
the only life that could exist here would be extremophiles.

How much water is below the expanse. Well; according to the same article;
the amount contained in swamp water, lakes and rivers, ground water, and
oceans, seas, and bays adds up to something like 326.6 million cubic miles;
and that's not counting the 5.85 million cubic miles tied up in living
organisms, soil moisture, ground ice and permafrost, ice sheets, glaciers,
and permanent snow.

To put that in perspective: a tower 326.6 million miles high would exceed
the Sun's distance better than 3½ times.

Gen 1:8b . . And there was evening and there was morning, a
second day.

Gen 1:9 . . God said: Let the waters below the sky be gathered into
one area, that dry ground may appear. And it was so.


Shaping the earth's mantle in order to form low spots for the seas and high
spots for dry ground was a colossal feat of magma convection and volcanism
combined with the titanic forces of tectonic plate subduction; all of which
require beaucoup centuries to accomplish.

At the ocean's deepest surveyed point-- the Challenger Deep; located in the
Mariana Islands group, at the southern end of the Mariana Trench --the
water's depth is over 11,000 meters; which is about 6.8 statute miles
(36,000 feet). That depth corresponds to the cruising altitude of a Boeing
747. At that altitude, probably about all you're going to see of the airliner
without straining your eyes is its contrail.

Africa's Mt Kilimanjaro is the tallest free-standing mountain on earth at
19,341 feet above its land base. If Kilimanjaro were placed in the Challenger
Deep, it would have about 16,659 feet of water over its peak. Were the
tallest point of the Himalayan range-- Mt Everest --to be submerged in the
Challenger Deep, it would have about 7,000 feet of water over its peak.

The discovery of fossilized sea lilies near the summit of Mt Everest proves
that the Himalayan land mass has not always been mountainous; but at one
time was the floor of an ancient sea bed. This is confirmed by the "yellow
band" below Everest's summit consisting of limestone: a type of rock made
from calcite sediments containing the skeletal remains of countless trillions
of organisms who lived, not on dry land, but in an ocean.

"He established the Earth on its foundations, so that it shall never totter.
You made the deep cover it as a garment; the waters stood above the
mountains. They fled at your blast, rushed away at the sound of your
thunder-- mountains rising, valleys sinking to the place you established for
them. You set bounds they must not pass so that they never again cover the
Earth." (Ps 104:5-9)

Psalm 104 is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. It says that the
land masses we know today as mountains were at one time submerged; and
it isn't talking about Noah's flood. The speech of "mountains rising, and
valleys sinking" isn't Flood-speak, no, it's geology-speak.

I seriously doubt that the Psalmist knew about the science of tectonic plates,
magma pressure, and the forces of subduction, but he was clearly somehow
aware that the Earth's crust is malleable. And that's true. With just the right
combination of temperature and pressure, solid rock can be made to bend;
even forced to hairpin back upon itself like taffy.

Gen 1:10 . . God called the dry ground Land, and the gathering of
waters He called Seas. And God saw that this was good.


"good" meaning not that the dry ground and seas are morally acceptable,
but rather, perfectly suitable for the purposes that God had in mind for
them.


NOTE: There are Hebrew words in the Bible for marshes, impoundments,
rivers, and streams; but I've yet to encounter one for natural lakes and
ponds. In other words "seas" suffices not only for oceans; but also for all the
smaller accumulations of naturally occurring water.

/
 
Genesis 1:1 God called the natural existence into existence from the supernatural and 'Time Began' .. At the 'End Time' the natural will cease to exist and consumed/transformed back, then Revelation 22:5
Until then . The dark part of an ancient Jewish day is set and divided into 4 equal timed watches, the light part of the day is divided into 12 equal timed hours according to the time of year.. Evening to morning dark part of the day , morning to evening finishes at evening the next day begins..
 
-
Continuing from post #6

Genesis 1:11-13

Gen 1:11a . . Then God said: Let the land produce vegetation

This is the very first mention of life on land; and what's interesting about it
is that life on land wasn't created from nothing, rather, by means of
ingredients taken from the land itself whereas aqua life and winged life were
made from water.

Gen 1:11b-12 . . seed-bearing plants, fruit trees of every kind on
earth that bear fruit with the seed in it. And it was so. The earth
brought forth vegetation: seed-bearing plants of every kind, and
trees of every kind bearing fruit with the seed in it. And God saw
that this was good.


According to Gen 2:4-5, the land's plant life was dormant at first; it didn't
actually flourish until the atmosphere began producing precipitation.


NOTE: It's believed by science that there was an era in Earth's youth called
the Carboniferous period when it was blanketed by dense jungles and
forests. As those plants and trees died, and were buried beneath layers of
sediment; their unique chemical structure caused them to be "cooked" into
solid coal; and there is really a lot of it.

Why isn't the Earth currently blanketed by dense jungles and forests? Well;
the earth's conditions today cannot produce enough humidity, nor enough
rain, nor enough global warming to sustain the kinds of heavy vegetation
that once existed in the Carboniferous era. In other words: the Earth, over
time, has managed to give itself a remarkable make-over; and at least one
element of its make-over are the mountains.

The ranges now in existence; e.g. the Andes, the Himalayas, the Rockies,
the Urals, the Appalachians, the Cascades, the Brooks Range, the Alps, etc;
and the various minor inland and coastal ranges didn't always exist. Those
were shoved up over time by the forces of tectonic subduction, volcanism,
and magma pressure. Even Yosemite's massive granite monoliths haven't
always been there. They were formed deep underground and then somehow
shoved up to where they are now.

Anyway, point being; those ranges have a very great deal to do with the
Earth's current weather systems.

Gen 1:13 . . And there was evening and there was morning, a third
day.


/
 
However; the fossil record, in combination with scientific dating methods,
has thus far easily proven that dinosaurs preceded human life by several
million years. So then, in my estimation, the days of creation should be
taken to represent epochs rather than 24-hour events. That's not an
unreasonable estimation; e.g.

I was enjoying your post until you presented your view on the dinosaurs when you said "easily proven" that dinosaurs preceded human"
Easily proven? I honestly think you ought to do a bit more research on this POV.
As I see it as well as Creation Scientist....the dinosaurs were deposited by the flood of Noah and buried where they then fossilized.
Dating techniques also seem to be a problem when soft dinosaur tissue has been found contained within the dino-remains. The question is how does biological tissue survive in strata dated to be older than 65+ MY's?

Earlier you spoke of light...could the light created via the "let there be light" have been this "type" of light?....Rev 21:23 And the city has no need of the sun, nor of the moon, that they should shine in it; for the glory of God enlightened it, and its lamp is the Lamb.
Or, could the light have been the creation of angels? I figured I'd provide you with 2 more suggestions as to what the light may have been.
 
Psalm 104 is stunning; and clearly way ahead of its time. It says that the
land masses we know today as mountains were at one time submerged; and
it isn't talking about Noah's flood. The speech of "mountains rising, and
valleys sinking" isn't Flood-speak, no, it's geology-speak.

I have to disagree with your view here. Psalm 104:9 tells us.....You set a boundary they cannot cross; never again will they cover the earth.
Something's up here...because the earth was initially flooded...covered with water..then once more during the flood of Noah was covered again. The promise to never cover the earth again was after the flood of Noah.
 
This is the very first mention of life on land; and what's interesting about it
is that life on land wasn't created from nothing, rather, by means of
ingredients taken from the land itself whereas aqua life and winged life were
made from water.

Gen 1:20 makes no claim the winged life was created from the water. It only says "let birds fly above the earth"

20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.” 21So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
 
NOTE: It's believed by science that there was an era in Earth's youth called
the Carboniferous period when it was blanketed by dense jungles and
forests. As those plants and trees died, and were buried beneath layers of
sediment; their unique chemical structure caused them to be "cooked" into
solid coal; and there is really a lot of it.

Once again you try to mix an old eath view with Genesis....problem being coal has been dated to be hundreds of millions of years old by the Old Earth Evolutionist. The problem is they find C14 in the coal..which shouldn't be there. It all should have decayed in under 60K years. But it's there....and has been shown not to be contamination.

The coal we have today was deposited during the world wide flood of Noah.
 
-
Continuing from post #9

Genesis 1:14

Gen 1:14a . . God said: Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky

On the fourth day, God spent time up in celestial regions. It might seem odd
that He began work on the surface of the Earth, and then before finishing,
stopped short and moved off into space. Why not finish building down here
on the planet first?

Many types of plants and animals need sunlight if they're to be strong and
healthy. At this point in the creation, planet Earth was very dark and
freezing cold. For example: the dark side of the Moon gets down to like 279º
below zero; so it was time to turn the earth into a greenhouse.

A major player in the earth's water cycle is evaporation, which is driven by
the Sun. By means of evaporation, the earth's atmosphere gets enough
water vapor to form the clouds that produce precipitation.

The Sun also plays a role in temperature variations that make conditions like
humidity and fog possible. Temperature variations also play a role in the
process of erosion; which assists in soil formation.

Many varieties of vegetation depend upon the annual cycle of the four
seasons of Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter; seasons which would not
be possible without the Sun.

Oxygen is a must gas for sustaining life on earth and a very large
percentage of it is produced by photosynthesis which is a chemical process
that works best in sunlight. No doubt the original atmosphere contained
oxygen enough, but would eventually be absorbed by oxidation and other
kinds of chemical activity. Plant life plays a major role in both filtration and
replenishment; hence the need to get a Sun shining as soon as possible.

The atmosphere contains about 19.5 to 23.5 percent oxygen at any given
time and even with all the fossil fuel burned around the world, along with the
destruction of savannas, prairies, woodlands, wetlands, and rain forests,
coupled with volcanic activity; the percentage remain fairly stable.

We today are aware that the Moon doesn't generate its own light; but prior
to that discovery, people no doubt regarded the Moon as a sun; especially
seeing as how from the perspective of Earth, the Sun and the Moon appear
to be exactly the same size in diameter, and both appear to circle the Earth.

Gen 1:14b . . to distinguish Day from Night;

On the first day; God defined Day as a condition of light; and defined Night
as a condition of darkness. Here, it's further defined that Day, as pertains to
life on Earth, is when the Sun is up; and Night is when the Sun is down.

These definitions occur so early in the Bible that they easily escape the
memories of Bible students as they slip into the reflexive habit of always
thinking of Days as periods of one earth rotation of 24 hours. That's okay for
calendars but can lead to gross misunderstandings when interpreting biblical
schedules, predictions, and/or chronologies.

Gen 1:14c . . they shall serve as signs for the set times-- the days
and the years;


The word for "signs" is from 'owth (oth) and means a signal; viz: indicators.
For example: the mark that God put on Cain was an 'owth. (Gen 4:15)

The Sun and the Moon are very useful time keepers. The Sun of course
marks off days and years; and if you were to tell somebody your intention to
visit them in five Moons, they would have a pretty good idea when to get
ready for your arrival; so long as you both used a common definition of
"moon". To some, a moon is new moon, while for others a moon indicates
full moon.

/
 
These definitions occur so early in the Bible that they easily escape the
memories of Bible students as they slip into the reflexive habit of always
thinking of Days as periods of one earth rotation of 24 hours. That's okay for
calendars but can lead to gross misunderstandings when interpreting biblical
schedules, predictions, and/or chronologies.

Many people try to force fit the bible into epochs..long period of times....so it can be forced to reflect Old Earth Evolutionism. The simple truth is this....Day equals a 24 hour long period of time. The simple reading of the opening chapter of Genesis numbers the days as well as defines the day into normal everyday terms...morning and evening.
 
-
Continuing from post #14

Genesis 1:15-19

Gen 1:15-18a . . and they shall serve as lights in the expanse of the
sky to shine upon the earth. And it was so. God made the two great
lights, the greater light to dominate the day and the lesser light to
dominate the night; and the stars.

. . . And God set them in the expanse of the sky to shine upon the
earth, to dominate the day and the night, and to distinguish light
from darkness.

In that passage "day" on Earth is clearly, conclusively, and without
ambiguity defined as when the Sun is up, and "night" is defined as when the
Sun is down.

Stars require some special consideration because of their apparent distances
and the apparent time it takes for their light to reach the Earth.

First off; we should emphasize that in the beginning God "set" the stars in
the sky just as he set the Sun and the Moon in the sky, i.e. celestial objects
didn't arrange themselves all by themselves sans any intelligent supervision
whatsoever; no, they were placed.

This past decade, Hubble telescope detected a galaxy at a distance of 12.8
billion light years; which was subsequently given the label A1689-zD1.
Chronologically; the cosmos' creator began constructing the Earth before He
began constructing the stars; which indicates that as a physical structure,
the Earth should be older than A1689-zD1.

But geologists have pretty good reasons to believe the Earth to be only
something like 4.5 billion years old; while A1689-zD1 appears to be a
minimum 12.8 billion years old. So then, it seems reasonable to conclude
that A1689-zD1 is Earth's senior by at least 8.3 billion years; but there's a
rub. Light's journey through space is complicated by some yet-unsolved
mysteries.

1• The available data suggests that the universe is expanding in all
directions. In other words: it's stretching out-- every galaxy in the cosmos
appears to be moving away from every other galaxy (with the exception
apparently of the Milky Way and Andromeda, which astronomers-- according
to an article in the Mar/Apr 2013 issue of Science Illustrated --predict will
collide in 4 billion years).

And not only is the cosmos expanding; but the velocity of its expansion isn't
steady, nor is it slowing down as might be expected; but rather, contrary to
common sense and Newton's laws of gravity; the velocity of the cosmos'
expansion is accelerating due to a mysterious force which, for convenience
sake, has been labeled dark energy. Plus, the expansion isn't uniform.
Galaxies farthest from the Milky Way appear to be moving away faster than
those closer in.

Ergo: many of the celestial objects that God set in place on the fourth day
are now quite a bit farther away from Earth than when He first made them.
How much farther away I don't know; but if the age of the Earth is really
and truly 4.5 billion years then it's my guess they're a long, long ways away
from their original positions.

2• Electromagnetic energy has no detectable mass, yet is effected by
gravity; so that light's path through the cosmos is not always the shortest
distance between two points; nor even the quickest.

3• Although the speed of light is constant in a vacuum, the void is a bit more
complicated. There are properties and forces in space influencing not only
light's path, but also its velocity. For example; when light passes through
mediums such as gas and water, it slows down and oftentimes deviates from
its path due to refraction.

4• Light doesn't decay. In other words: there is no detectable difference in
age between the cosmos' first light, and the light emitted by an iPhone X.

All the above suggests to me that A1689-zD1's apparent distance has no
bearing upon its age; viz: the estimated age of the cosmos is only loosely
theoretical rather than actual. In other words: current dating methods are
subject to revision, and it's very possibly true that the Earth really did
precede the stars as physical structures just as the Bible says.

The final say of course is the Bible's. According to Gen 1:15, stars
illuminated the Earth on the day that God made them, which was prior to His
creation of humanity. In other words: it's not unreasonable to believe that
God didn't wait till starlight reached the Earth on its own, but punched it
straight through in order to begin illuminating the Earth immediately.

But what's the point of putting all those objects out there in space? Well, for
one thing, they're not only brain teasers; but they're actually quite pretty.
Celestial objects decorate the night sky like the ornamentation people put up
during holidays. The night sky would sure be a bore if it was totally black.
Decorated with stars; the night sky is like a beautiful tapestry, or a celestial
Sistine Chapel.

"The heavens declare the glory of God, the sky proclaims His handiwork." (Ps 19:2)

Stars makes better sense that way than to try and find some other meaning
for them. The universe is simply a magnificent work of art-- just as
intriguing, if not more so, than the works of Picasso, Rembrandt,
Michelangelo, Monet, Vermeer, and da Vinci --testifying to the genius of an
engineer-artist without peer.

Sadly, a number of very intelligent people like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse
Tyson look to the sky for the wrong reasons. Personally, I think it's futile to
look to the sky for
SETI reasons. Why not just look to the sky for inspiration
instead of extraterrestrial life? What's so bad about visiting the sky as a
Metropolitan Museum of your maker's many-faceted talents?

"For what can be known about God is evident to them, because God made it
evident to them. Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes
of eternal power and divinity have been able to be understood and perceived
in what He has made." (Rom 1:19-20)

Gen 1:18b-19 . . And God saw that this was good. And there was
evening and there was morning, a fourth day.

/
 
Last edited:
-
Genesis 1:20-21

Gen 1:20 . . God said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living
creatures, and birds that fly above the earth across the expanse of
the sky.


The Hebrew word for "birds" is 'owph (ofe) which just simply means covered
with wings rather than covered with feathers. It's a rather unusual word
because it includes not only creatures with feathers, but according to Lev
11:13-23, 'owph also pertains to bats and flying insects. The English word
"birds" was obviously an arbitrary translation since owph is ambiguous.

What did those early winged creatures look like? My money is on the
Pterosaurs (pterodactyls). Precisely when God phased out those early skin
winged creatures and replaced them with feather-winged creatures isn't
stated; but since no winged creatures are reported created on the sixth day,
then we have to give the birdies a share of the fifth; so I think we're talking
about a pritt-tee long fifth day. What I mean is; I don't think it prudent to
rule out the possibility that those early skin-winged creatures were the
ancestors of later-to-come feather-winged creatures.

How can water be used to create both winged creatures and sea creatures?
Well, it can't be any harder than creating terra creatures from the dust of
the earth seeing as how the very same elements are dissolved in earth's
waters; and in point of biological fact, land creatures are composed of not
only dust, but also water. Dehydrate an air-breathing land creature, and it
will die.

"bring forth swarms" is derived from sharats (shaw-rats') and means: to
wriggle, i.e. (by implication) swarm or abound. Sharats, strictly speaking,
simply indicates large numbers; like in Ex 1:7 where Yhhv's people
multiplied like rabbits, and in Ex 8:3 where ka-zillions of frogs infested the
land of Egypt.

It's important to note that winged creatures were just as distinct a creation
as aqua creatures. So winged creatures didn't evolve from creatures who
once lived in the sea. Winged creatures are a separate genre of life in their
own right, and absolutely did not evolve from some other order of life.

The word for "creature" is from nephesh (neh'-fesh) which distinguishes
conscious life from non-conscious life. For example: though saguaro cacti
are alive, they aren't nephesh because saguaro cacti aren't sentient beings;
viz: they aren't self aware.

Nephesh shows up first in Gen 1:20-21 as sea creatures and winged
creatures.

Next it shows up in Gen 1:24 as terra creatures; viz: cattle, creepy crawlies,
and wild beasts.

It shows up again in Gen 2:7 as the human creature.

It shows up again in Gen 2:19-20 as the creatures to whom Adam gave
names.

It shows up again in Gen 9:8-16 as all conscious life aboard the ark,
including Noah and his family.

Some say that animals are people too. Well . . they're certainly not human,
but according to the Bible, they are very definitely just as much a nephesh
as a human being. So I guess we could consent, at least to some degree,
that critters are people too; in their own way.

Gen 1:21a . . God created the great sea monsters, and all the living
creatures of every kind that creep, which the waters brought forth in
swarms,


"sea monsters" is from tanniyn (tan-neen') and/or tanniym (tan-neem')
which mean: a marine or land monster. Tanniyn is sometimes translated
"dragon" as in Isa 27:1

It wasn't a tanniyn, however, that swallowed Jonah. That creature was
either a dagah (daw-gaw') a dag (dawg) or a da'g (dawg). All three words
mean a fish.


NOTE: The reason I quoted the three Hebrew words for "fish" is because to
tell the truth, translators are not always confident how best to represent a
Hebrew word with the English alphabet. In point of fact, there are ancient
Hebrew words that nobody really knows what they mean so translators are
forced to take educated guesses here and there.

"of every kind that creep" in this case regards only aquatic creatures that
creep e.g. starfish, lobsters, crayfish, newts, clams, and crabs et al. The
terra creepers are coming up in a little bit.

But what about aquatic dinosaurs? Well . . according to Discovery's web site
"Walking With Dinosaurs" paleontologists believe there were some
amphibious reptiles such as plesiosaurs and ichthyosaurs, but those
creatures didn't have the gills necessary to be truly aquatic like Nemo and
his dad Marlin.

Gen 1:21b . . and all the winged creatures of every kind.

"kind" is from miyn (meen) and means: to portion out: to sort; viz: species.

In other words: God created a variety of winged species all at once, rather
than just one specie like He did with man.

"From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the
whole earth" (Acts 17:25-26)

Man is a one-of-a-kind specie. From just one man's genetic chemistry came
all the other variations of Man; ranging anywhere from Pygmies to Eskimos;
and has to make you wonder how that works if evolution is total bull. Well; I
don't think it's wise to relegate Darwin to the category of total bull. I mean,
just look at how well pathogens adapt and mutate in order to cope with
antibiotics. That's a natural process and the pathies don't even have to give
it any thought. I believe Darwin was on to something, but shot himself in the
foot by leaving intelligent design out of the equation. An origin of living
species theory is incomplete without an originator of life.

God built mysterious genetic reactions into living organisms that give them
the ability to make adjustments to themselves in order to survive--
adjustments that are triggered by conditions in their respective
environments. It's because of those kinds of involuntary adaptations and
mutations that I'm very curious sometimes what the original humans really
looked like.

Gen 1:21c . . And God saw that this was good.

In other words: He was satisfied.

The Hebrew word for "good" in this instance is towb (tobe) which is horribly
ambiguous. It's meanings range from morally good, to good looking, to a job
well done, to something that's good to the taste; and to a whole lot of other
things in between; e.g. a good show, good food, as good as it gets,
satisfactory; etc, etc.

/
 
There is much to read, but I'm enjoying this.
Your effort and time put into this is admirable.
There is so much to know and learn.
Thanks!
 
-
There is much to read, but I'm enjoying this.

Sorry about the length of my posts. Fortunately they're in writing instead of vocal
lectures so you can go at them a little at a time at your convenience.


Your effort and time put into this is admirable.

I first began compiling a Genesis thread in 2001 on Lycos back when they had message
boards. I thought it would be easy, but discovered right quick that Genesis requires a lot
of thought and homework. I can't imagine where people like J. Vernon McGee find the
energy to compose commentaries on the whole Bible. You know, if it weren't for this
being my favorite hobby, I would have given up on Genesis years ago.



I appreciate your gratitude; honest. Most of the feed-back I get is in the form of
opposition rather than encouragement.

/
 
Back
Top