How do we know Genesis was intended to be a metaphor?

[Justin108]

Other than our current understanding of science clearly contradicting Genesis, what reason is there to believe Genesis was written as a metaphorical account of creation?

[TheBeardedDude]

The bible says you descend from dirt. Which is in no way scientifically sound.

The words in the bible are that god formed the first man "from the dust of the ground". It then goes on to speak of man and his woman procreating and children being born to them. Thus the implication is that humans descended from other humans but that the human body is made made from elements that can also be found in the ground.

Both of the above facts (that humans descend from other humans; that the human body contains elements found in the ground) are proven scientific truths.

JW

The bible says man was made from dust/dirt. Humans do not come from dirt/dust. The human species descended from the Great Apes. What you assert are "scientific truths" are not true or scientific.

[Justin108]

Now if you can actually give me a definition that resolves the core issue (i.e the issue of plants existing prior to stars) then please do so. As it stands, your focus on whether God "fashioned" or "constructed" the stars is entirely irrelevant to the core issue.

First of all I have posted extensively in this thread as to why "create" in Genesis 1:14-16 would not be a fitting choice. Since not one of the major translations use the word "create" ie bring into existence. and the original Hebrew certainly does not support this choice, can you please justify your choice of "create" from the dictionary list you yourself posted?

New International Version
God made two great lights--the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.

New Living Translation
God made two great lights--the larger one to govern the day, and the smaller one to govern the night. He also made the stars.

English Standard Version
And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars.

New American Standard Bible
God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

King James Bible
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
God made the two great lights--the greater light to have dominion over the day and the lesser light to have dominion over the night--as well as the stars.

International Standard Version
God fashioned two great lights—the larger light to shine during the day and the smaller light to shine during the night—as well as stars.

NET Bible
God made two great lights--the greater light to rule over the day and the lesser light to rule over the night. He made the stars also.

New Heart English Bible
God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
God made the two bright lights: the larger light to rule the day and the smaller light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

JPS Tanakh 1917
And God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.

New American Standard 1977
And God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also.

Jubilee Bible 2000
And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; he made the stars also.

King James 2000 Bible
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

American King James Version
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

American Standard Version
And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And God made two great lights: a greater light to rule the day; and a lesser light to rule the night: and the stars.

Darby Bible Translation
And God made the two great lights, the great light to rule the day, and the small light to rule the night, -- and the stars.

English Revised Version
And God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

Webster's Bible Translation
And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.

World English Bible
God made the two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He also made the stars.

[/b]

Okay now you're just wasting my time. At what point in my post did I revert back to the use of "create"? I have been operating under "made" this entire time. You are just looking for excuses to drag this debate out instead of conceding. Nowhere in my argument am I insisting Genesis uses the word "create". My entire argument comfortably uses "made".

[JehovahsWitness]

. Nowhere in my argument am I insisting Genesis uses the word "create". My entire argument comfortably uses "made".

it doesn't change the fact that before he did this - the stars did not exist.

God brought the stars into existence on day 4, one day after bringing the plants into existence.

Correct me if I'm wrong but to "create" means to bring something that did not previously exist into existence*; So you are effectively attributing the meaning of "create" to the word.

Since the word in question in the original Hebrew does not mean to bring something into existence that previously doesn't exist (but has a vast range of other meanings see post #89), why are you attributing that specific meaning* (bring into existence) to the text?

Can you justify this?

* NOTE #6213a.
עָשָׂה
asah (793c); a prim. root; do, make:—
NASB - ..., administer(1), administered(1), administered*(1), apply(1),... bring it about(1), bring about(1), bring forth(1), brought(1), brought about(4), brought forth(1), ... gave(4) .... introduced(2) ..., offer(35), ... prepared(19), preparing(2), presented(1), .... put into effect(1), put forth(1), ready(1),... show(16), showed(6), showing(2), shown(9), shows(3), ... .
#6213b.
עָשָׂה
asah (796b); a prim. root; to press, squeeze:—
NASB - handled(3).

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 113 by JehovahsWitness]

I'm bowing out of this discussion. It looks to me like you're arguing over something completely irrelevant.

[JehovahsWitness]

[Replying to post 113 by JehovahsWitness]

I'm bowing out of this discussion. It looks to me like you're arguing over something completely irrelevant.

Fair enough,

Godspeed,

JW

[Neatras]

My argument is that Day 3 has an event happening that, per science, cannot happen before the event that is talked about as happening on Day 4.
Quibbling over the word 'create' or 'made' or whatever does not alter my argument.

I know JW is trying to make the passage fit a timeline that comports with what you consider to be important. However, to your point, if the presumption is that this chapter is taken as a detailed literal description, how "scientifically" do these things happen in seven days? If that can happen, why can't there be an alternative source of radiation for one day? In for a penny, in for a pound. I will agree with you though that making Gen. 1 a scientific treatise rather than a philosophical one does not make sense.

We'd need evidence of this radiation. Also, we can't have a planet Earth existing some undefined period of time before the sun. Science tells us the sun existed before the Earth.

Science only hypothesizes that the sun came first. There is no evidence to support that the sun is older than the Earth. It is just a hypothesis that is widely accepted with no supporting empirical evidence.

In fact we actually have evidence that supports the earth may be older than the sun, but this evidence is ignored because it does not align with the widely accepted nebular hypothesis.

I am begging you, please show us any of this evidence.

And please do not shrug it off by telling me to Google it. If I have the patience to post the evidence for common ancestry based on this post to one of the more stubborn Creationists on this site, then you should demonstrate the same courtesy to me when I ask for a demonstration of what you're making a positive, falsifiable claim for.

[bluethread]

At best we can surmise the Bible is not clear on a very basic question. i.e. How did we get here? If it can't even answer that in a reasonable, clear, conforming with observation way, then why should we believe anything written between its covers? It would have been better to leave that out of the canon since it's clearly mythology (and contradictory on top of that).

A couple pages in and the book has already shot itself in the foot.

This is the precise thinking that I was just posting DtD about. Since a philosophical argument, designed to counter despotism based on truly unscientific thinking, does not line up as a scientific explanation it is discarded as useless. Do we throw out the works of Copernicus, because the orbits on his drawings are not elliptical?

[DanieltheDragon]

[Replying to post 117 by bluethread]

I don't think we need to discard the bible from philosophical standpoint because it doesn't line up with science though. There are already perfectly valid philosophical reasons to discard regardless of science . But whatever floats your boat if the bible helps you more power to you.

[benchwarmer]

At best we can surmise the Bible is not clear on a very basic question. i.e. How did we get here? If it can't even answer that in a reasonable, clear, conforming with observation way, then why should we believe anything written between its covers? It would have been better to leave that out of the canon since it's clearly mythology (and contradictory on top of that).

A couple pages in and the book has already shot itself in the foot.

This is the precise thinking that I was just posting DtD about. Since a philosophical argument, designed to counter despotism based on truly unscientific thinking, does not line up as a scientific explanation it is discarded as useless. Do we throw out the works of Copernicus, because the orbits on his drawings are not elliptical?

If Copernicus was claiming to be the creator of the universe and didn't draw his orbits correctly then yes, we should probably consider all of his work suspect. Is Copernicus the creator of the universe? Does he claim to be? What's the point here?

The main problem is that Christians themselves can't seem to agree on which parts of the Bible are correct, true, should be followed, etc. Some go so far as to deny scientific observation in order to prop up their belief system and the Bible it's based on. Others simply dismiss parts of the Bible as non-literal in one way or the other in order not to appear in denial of reality. The problem is, the more we learn, the more must be dismissed.

Eventually we are only left with what appears to be teachings on morality mixed in with a bunch of non literal stories. However, even these moral teachings are contradictory and more things need to be dismissed. It never ends.

Are there some useful insights in the Bible? Sure. Sadly they are saddled with a ton of contradictory, immoral, and frankly ridiculous stories that lead many to toss the whole thing.

[KingandPriest]

My argument is that Day 3 has an event happening that, per science, cannot happen before the event that is talked about as happening on Day 4.
Quibbling over the word 'create' or 'made' or whatever does not alter my argument.

I know JW is trying to make the passage fit a timeline that comports with what you consider to be important. However, to your point, if the presumption is that this chapter is taken as a detailed literal description, how "scientifically" do these things happen in seven days? If that can happen, why can't there be an alternative source of radiation for one day? In for a penny, in for a pound. I will agree with you though that making Gen. 1 a scientific treatise rather than a philosophical one does not make sense.

We'd need evidence of this radiation. Also, we can't have a planet Earth existing some undefined period of time before the sun. Science tells us the sun existed before the Earth.

Science only hypothesizes that the sun came first. There is no evidence to support that the sun is older than the Earth. It is just a hypothesis that is widely accepted with no supporting empirical evidence.

In fact we actually have evidence that supports the earth may be older than the sun, but this evidence is ignored because it does not align with the widely accepted nebular hypothesis.

I am begging you, please show us any of this evidence.

And please do not shrug it off by telling me to Google it. If I have the patience to post the evidence for common ancestry based on this post to one of the more stubborn Creationists on this site, then you should demonstrate the same courtesy to me when I ask for a demonstration of what you're making a positive, falsifiable claim for.

Ok, Lets start with the facts we do know

There is empirical evidence that supports the age of the sun being about 4.6 billion years old ± 1-5% margin of error depending on the method used. The actual calculations show the Sun is 4.57 billion years old ± 1% margin for error.

The age of the Sun can be estimated from the ages obtained from radioactive dating of the oldest meteorites. This may seem odd at first, but in fact it is extremely likely that the solar system (i.e. th Sun, planets, asteroids etc.) formed as one unit. Therefore the age of the Sun should be close to the age of the meteorites, which can be found using the method of radioactive dating.

G.J. Wasserburg obtained a meteoritic age of (4.57 +/- 0.01) x 10^9 years and D.B. Guenther (1989, Astrophysical Journal 339, 1156) estimated that hydrogen burning started shortly thereafer (40 million (0.04 +/- .01) x 10^9 years later).

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qage.html

This would yield a date range of 4.5243 - 4.6157 billion years ago. By contrast we have more evidence supporting a date range of the planet earth between 4.492 - 4.596 billion years ago. We also have additional evidence on the Earth to support the possibility that the water on the planet Earth, is older than the sun, but by marginal amounts.
See:

How do scientists know Earth is 4.54 billion years old? It’s actually difficult to tell from the surface of the planet alone, since plate tectonics constantly reshape its surface. Older parts of the surface slide under newer plates to be recycled in the Earth’s core. The oldest rocks ever found on Earth are 4.0 – 4.2 billion years old.

Scientists assume that all the material in the Solar System formed at the same time.

http://www.universetoday.com/75805/how- ... the-earth/

The oldest Earth rocks are also about 4.4 billion years old. The oldest fossils, found in Australia, are about 3.5 billion years old. The presence of fossils in rocks indicates that the Earth was a suitable place for life when the fossils formed. This implies that the Sun was luminous at that time. (Of course we can't say exactly how long before the fossil formed the Sun was like it is today, but it does give us a lower bound.)

http://solar-center.stanford.edu/FAQ/Qage.html

Based on the presence of rocks that were 4.4 billion years ago, and the presence of fossils at least 3.5 billion years ago, it is presumed that the sun must have been luminous prior to the formation of plants. This makes sense, but the time line does not explain why the sun had to form and become luminous prior to the earth. Only that it had to become luminous prior to plant life. The accretion process for the earth could have began millions of years before the sub began to form.

So once again, lets compare the date ranges for the age of the sun vs earth
Earth: 4.492 - 4.596
Sun: 4.5243 - 4.6157

The evidence suggests that all of the planets and sun in our solar system formed around the same time, meaning it is not possible to confirm which began to form first. It is only assumed and theorized that the sun formed first. This is not a fact, and has not been corroborated by our observations of other solar systems in the universe. The older date for the sun was chosen for the sole purpose of aligning with the nebular hypothesis which predicts that solar systems form from the inside out. This same hypothesis though would then have to support an older age for the gas giants than currently calculated. We know and have observed planetary migration, which could account for how these gas giants formed closer to the sun, and then migrated to the orbits we see today, but this would create another problem of not leaving sufficient material to form the inner planets.

So the same theory that presumes the sun is older that all the other planets (which has not been validated by empirical evidence), fails to explain many other phenomena we see in our solar system today. It is presumed to be true, despite much contrary evidence.

There is overlap between these two dates. The older date for the sun was chosen because it was assumed that the sun came first. There is no empirical evidence to support that the sun was formed first. Just an assumption made by cosmologist.

It is just as possible that the earth is 4.59 billion years old and the sun is 4.52 billion years old. There is nothing in science that prevents this except for the assumptions made by some individuals.

See also:
http://www.livescience.com/43584-earth- ... ircon.html
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-bri ... ELFxvkrI2w
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun
http://www.space.com/58-the-sun-formati ... stics.html