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b-hebrew - Re: My understanding of Gen 1:1-3

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Subject: Biblical Hebrew Forum

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  • From: Mike Sangrey <msangrey AT BlueFeltHat.org>
  • To: Biblical Hebrew <b-hebrew AT franklin.metalab.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: My understanding of Gen 1:1-3
  • Date: 19 Aug 2002 11:02:22 -0400


On Mon, 2002-08-19 at 09:20, Yigal Levin wrote:
> At 08:42 AM 8/16/2002 -0400, Mike Sangrey wrote:
> >Just an additional piece of information for Peter and Ian (unless it's
> >been said and I missed it): you can't have `time' until you have
> >`light'. For references, see Einstein. So, the author couldn't talk
> >about `days' or use the term until the light was created. It's an
> >impossible condition.
>
> C'mon, y'all: this is ridiculous. The biblical authors didn't know about
> Einstein's time=energy equation

And nor were the Biblical authors there at the time--and yet they tell
the story. So, how did they know? Questions like: Was it revealed?
Was it made up? Were people then a lot smarter than we think they
were? are interesting discussion questions (and, no, I'm NOT suggesting
that we discuss them here!). Just because you make certain assumptions
and I make other assumptions doesn't make something either of us says
ridiculous.

My point was that the language of this story, as I understand the
discussion of it on this list, is quite consistent with modern physics.
Whether one chooses to say, "Wow, that helps validate Gen. 1:1" or to
say, "Wow, that helps validate Einstein" is a matter of one's basic
theological presuppositions.

In any case, the consistency is not ridiculous. The consistency is what
it is.

BTW, I can quite easily think of a belief system that assumed that both
what we call energy and what we call matter needed to be in place in
order for sequencing of events to take place. I mean, without energy,
what can matter do? And without matter, what can energy do? Until you
have both, sequencing of events makes no sense.

Is there evidence the people of the time believed in this kind of
duality? Well, this same author will shortly describe the entrance of
human life as a lump of dirt (analog to `matter') being infused with the
breath of God (analog to `energy') and therefore becoming a living being
(analog to `moving through time').

--
Mike Sangrey
msangrey AT BlueFeltHat.org
Landisburg, Pa.
"The first one last wins."
"A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."





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