Why not deep time?

[Truthseeker]

OK, what activities were before the "evening" at the start of day one? "It was evening and it was morning, day one." Again, the Levant/Jewish/Muslim culture starts a day at dusk.

Again, "day." Yes, the Jews starts the Sabbath (24 hours) at dusk, but on the basis of my reading of the PDF, I'm not sure about the other "days"--Oh, wait a minute, maybe you refer to phrases like "came the evening and came the morning" taken to mean a 24-hour "day." I guess I will give the PDF another look.

[Truthseeker]

So, there was the Beginning, Shamayim and Eretz, Chaos, Spirit of Elohim "moving over the face of the 'water'", then there was light, then there was the "evening" which started Day 1.

Will you please read the PDF? I am not sure that is OK. In that context, it may be better to translate it as "phase one" or "aspect one" or "facet one"? The facets can actually overlap.

[Quantum Weirdness]

OK, what activities were before the "evening" at the start of day one?

The passages I quoted

"It was evening and it was morning, day one." Again, the Levant/Jewish/Muslim culture starts a day at dusk.

Interesting points to chew on.

K54

Perhaps a day, but I don't think a yom started at the evening. The "yom" is defined as being the light in Genesis 1:5. That would suggest that it starts at morning. Another thing would be that the "day" was from evening to evening. A day is thus not from evening to morning.

Also, Exodus 20:8-11 uses this 7 "yom" concept to show the Israelites their work pattern. People work from morning to evening (Psalm 104:23). God also begins to make (work) at the morning. Thus, after the morning (and day number) is mentioned in a previous passage, God begins to make again and it ends on the evening (i.e. And there was evening).

[Quantum Weirdness]

That's a good point, but the PDF author argues that sometimes yom is used to mean a long period of time, like several hours, I guess. If one were wanting a generic word that would include one night or more nights, I guess yom would be used, then.


Yes, that's possible in the sense of an indefinite period of time, or a period greater than 12-14 hours, I guess.

Can I get a quote on this? Perhaps I didn't read him properly. The long periods of time I read about were all longer than 12-14 hours.

[klaus54]

"Day 1" . . . so you don't accept what the PDF says? I wonder why not.

My comment was simple. Your reply should be simple.

Do you agree with me or not? What I gave was my version of "clear reading".

Oh, it's obviously you don't go immediately from "evening" to "morning". That's nonsense.

Here's the direct sequence of events of Ge 1:1-3.

What was going on in the "day" before the first "evening"?

Please answer in your own words, not upbraid me for not reading the PDF file. (BTW "PDF file" is the correct terminology. "File" is not redundant. This is a pet peeve of mine. LOL)

So, there was the Beginning, Shamayim and Eretz, Chaos, Spirit of Elohim "moving over the face of the 'water'", then there was light, then there was the "evening" which started Day 1.

Is this correct in your estimation?

...(And the post you quoted)...

OK, what activities were before the "evening" at the start of day one? "It was evening and it was morning, day one." Again, the Levant/Jewish/Muslim culture starts a day at dusk.

Interesting points to chew on.

K54

[Truthseeker]

Can I get a quote on this? Perhaps I didn't read him properly. The long periods of time I read about were all longer than 12-14 hours.

I think you can quote a number of short passages from the PDF or the book. If you need the exact number or size, you will have to write the author for permission.

[Quantum Weirdness]

I think you can quote a number of short passages from the PDF or the book. If you need the exact number or size, you will have to write the author for permission.

Well, can you give me a page number?

[Truthseeker]

My comment was simple. Your reply should be simple.

Not necessarily. You might see later on.

Do you agree with me or not? What I gave was my version of "clear reading".

No.

Here's the direct sequence of events of Ge 1:1-3.

What was going on in the "day" before the first "evening"?

Please answer in your own words, not upbraid me for not reading the PDF file. (BTW "PDF file" is the correct terminology. "File" is not redundant. This is a pet peeve of mine. LOL)

I'll just discuss the distinction in ancient Hebrew between indefinite words and definite words--for example, a thing versus THE thing. The way it is done in ancient Hebrew to make a word definite is to prefix the letter that looks like pi to the word. E.g.--oh, I have to explain that reading the text always go from right to left. Read the Hebrew words here from right to left. OK, then, evening עֶרֶב becomes the evening הָעָֽרֶב So, if you see there is no prefix on the word for evening, usually the translation must be "an evening."

I am aware that "and came the evening and came the morning" is supposed to be idiom for a full, 24-hour day, but I'm suspicious that is ALWAYS so.

So you are not correct to translate the Hebrew to "the first evening." This is a better translation: "and came an evening . . . " A part of what that means is that there was an indefinite period of time since the beginning. There is no "the" prefix on "morning" either, so again, there was another indefinite period from evening to morning. So you see why it is a bad mistake to translate yom one as "day one."

[Truthseeker]

Well, can you give me a page number?

Sorry! You are correct, it can be much longer than 14 hours. The reason for that number is that at the latitude of Israel (about 31 degrees), the sun can take more than 12 hours from sunup to sundown June 21 or thereabouts.

[klaus54]

Not necessarily. You might see later on.


No.


I'll just discuss the distinction in ancient Hebrew between indefinite words and definite words--for example, a thing versus THE thing. The way it is done in ancient Hebrew to make a word definite is to prefix the letter that looks like pi to the word. E.g.--oh, I have to explain that reading the text always go from right to left. Read the Hebrew words here from right to left. OK, then, evening עֶרֶב becomes the evening הָעָֽרֶב So, if you see there is no prefix on the word for evening, usually the translation must be "an evening."

I am aware that "and came the evening and came the morning" is supposed to be idiom for a full, 24-hour day, but I'm suspicious that is ALWAYS so.

So you are not correct to translate the Hebrew to "the first evening." This is a better translation: "and came an evening . . . " A part of what that means is that there was an indefinite period of time since the beginning. There is no "the" prefix on "morning" either, so again, there was another indefinite period from evening to morning. So you see why it is a bad mistake to translate yom one as "day one."

Ok, thanks for your response.

What I'm trying to get at is if "day" begins with "evening" (dusk?), was there a day zero?

I agree that some kind of Ge 1:1-2 and Ge 1:3 "gap" can be read from the text, as well as yom not necessarily being one terrestrial rotation.

I gather that you're trying to make the first Genesis story as literal as possible, at least accommodating to Deep Time (but not necessarily history).

Good luck with that. And I really mean it. It may help some brainwashed YEC be open to other possibilities other than a 10Ka Creation.

K54

[Kbertsche]

You are shrewdly moving away from the main point - could there have been millions/billions of years before Adam?

That aside for now, although I used the word "Millennium" (following the content of your post), I shouldn't have done that. The full restoration may (may! - I don't know for certain) not be until after the Millennium. IOW, the Millennium may be a 'partial' restoration between what we have now and the full restoration. I could not today say with absolute certainty.

"Biblical evidence for the notion of restoration"? Restoration is a very important theme (as well it should be) found in over 100 Bible verses (e.g., "He restoreth my soul ..." Ps 23:3)

I thought my comment was clear in context, but perhaps not. I meant that there is no biblical evidence for the notion that the Millennium will be a restoration of the original creation. The Bible does not equate the original state and the Millennium (And neither does it equate the original state and the final, eternal state.)

The 'punch-line' for what you specifically ask is found in Revelation 21:1,4 "And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea ... And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away."

Note that pain, crying, sorrow ("suffering") and death are gone. God doesn't say that there will be less of these things - God says that these shall be "no more".

First, note that Rev 21 does not describe the Millennium; this is in Rev 20. Rev 21 describes the eternal state which follows the Millennium.

Note a number of things from Rev 21:
1) this is not described as a cleaned-up earth, restored to its original state. Rather, it is an entirely new heavens and earth, with the old (original) ones destroyed.
2) the new creation is very different from the original. It is described as having no sun. Its Capitol city extends in three dimensions, perhaps a cube, a pyramid, or a sphere.
3) the context of the promise of "no death" is humans. There is no discussion of animals in Rev 21; it's not clear that any animals are even there.
4) if this were a "restoration" of the original state in Eden, it would not be very secure. Man would have the possibility of falling into sin again and being banished from heaven, as Adam and Eve were in the Garden. Instead, redeemed man is in a much better state than were Adam and Eve in the Garden. And the description of the new heavens and earth reveals a much better world than Eden.

Go ahead, give it your best shot, try reconciling that with the (mythical) world of Evolution in which pain suffering and death were the means - the instruments used by God to create man over millions of years of Evolutionary progression. If, as God promises, "the former things" shall have "passed away", then basic logic has just been tossed out the window under the gigayear Evolutionary scenario.

One last, brief comment regarding your statement: "Humans will not be sinless as Adam and Eve were in the Garden; they will be descendants of fallen Adam so will be born as sinners. People will live longer, but there will still be death, as someone has already mentioned in this thread."

I have long known that there are countless versions of "Christianity" floating around --- a Christianity falsely-so-called. What you express here is simply one of those versions. Note, first of all, that what you say contradicts what God clearly states in Revelation 21: 1,4, i.e., you say that "people will live longer, but there will still be death" - God says the opposite. Second, what you say about "people will be born as sinners" also contradicts God's Word.

My comments concerned the Millennium, the 1000-year reign of Christ on this present earth, described in Rev. 20. You are talking about something entirely different, the eternal state with entirely new heavens and earth described in Rev 21. They are very different, like apples and oranges. I agree that thee will be no death in the eternal state. But there will be death in the Millennium.

The old things will have passed away and, most especially, Christ totally erased ALL sin on the Cross - He doesn't (and won't) have to do it a second time. The resurrection is into incorruptible bodies, not sin-filled ones. Besides, sinners could not enter nor reside in God's kingdom. There are so many biblical verses testifying to those last three statements that I could spend the next year listing them all. I will therefore leave it here. What you need, KB, is some good instruction in these matters (believe me, what you have doesn't qualify as "good").

Again, this is the eternal state, which is entirely new. It is not merely a restoration of Eden.

I might lose some of the non-Christians here, but there is a theological analogy between personal salvation and global eschatology. When man is saved, he is not just restored to the "neutral" state of Adam in the Garden. He is made a new creature by receiving an entirely new nature, one which Adam did not possess. God is someone who lives inside him constantly, not someone with whom he walks for a limited time each day. A saved believer is in a much better state than was Adam in the Garden. Likewise, the new heavens and new earth are much better than the original creation.

Salvation does not restore man to the condition of Adam before the Fall. The Millennium does not restore the planet to the condition of the Garden. The new heavens and earth of the eternal state are not a restoration to the heavens and earth of Gen. 1:1.

[Truthseeker]

What I'm trying to get at is if "day" begins with "evening" (dusk?), was there a day zero?

1) The PDF is not clear, but it seems as though Hebrews didn't have a word for the 24-hour cycle--I'll explain more fully later. The closest they can come is "yom and the [Hebrew for night]." I've explained the special days that start at sundown. I believe that this phrase "came the evening and came the night" is merely a device to shift the time frame to the next morning. I'm not sure that is right. First you have yom, i.e., a time when the sun is up. Then the sundown that ends the yom, and so on. Note that yom could be anywhen between 1 second and around 12 hours.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by day zero, if you don't mean the very beginning of the cosmos. You still haven't grasped that yom should never be translated "day" except when the context specifically means the 24-hour cycle that we call day. Of course today we start the day at midnight, but the Hebrews didn't. I think if they wanted to refer to the cycle, they would have meant the sunup-next-sunup period. I don't think the Bible has a phrase like this: "From sunup to the next sunup," though. Of course that does not apply to the Sabbaths and other such special days.

3) God is out of the Time in the universe, he does not change no matter how old the universe is, so his proclamations ("God said, 'Let there be . . .'") must be right at the beginning. All of them.

4)Then what does this translation "came an evening and came a night" mean? I think it is supposed to mean oodles AND oodles of time, i.e., deep time: First, the time before that evening, then the time between the evening and that night.

[klaus54]

1) The PDF is not clear, but it seems as though Hebrews didn't have a word for the 24-hour cycle--I'll explain more fully later. The closest they can come is "yom and the [Hebrew for night]." I've explained the special days that start at sundown. I believe that this phrase "came the evening and came the night" is merely a device to shift the time frame to the next morning. I'm not sure that is right. First you have yom, i.e., a time when the sun is up. Then the sundown that ends the yom, and so on. Note that yom could be anywhen between 1 second and around 12 hours.

2) I'm not sure what you mean by day zero, if you don't mean the very beginning of the cosmos. You still haven't grasped that yom should never be translated "day" except when the context specifically means the 24-hour cycle that we call day. Of course today we start the day at midnight, but the Hebrews didn't. I think if they wanted to refer to the cycle, they would have meant the sunup-next-sunup period. I don't think the Bible has a phrase like this: "From sunup to the next sunup," though. Of course that does not apply to the Sabbaths and other such special days.

3) God is out of the Time in the universe, he does not change no matter how old the universe is, so his proclamations ("God said, 'Let there be . . .'") must be right at the beginning. All of them.

4)Then what does this translation "came an evening and came a night" mean? I think it is supposed to mean oodles AND oodles of time, i.e., deep time: First, the time before that evening, then the time between the evening and that night.

It's not a big deal, but what I mean is was there a "day" before the "evening" in the "And the evening and the morning were the first day."

I come from a mathematical background and assume non-commutativity of "evening" and "morning". So I assume Day One starts with evening.

Why is my question so hard to understand?

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.

[Jorge]

I thought my comment was clear in context, but perhaps not. I meant that there is no biblical evidence for the notion that the Millennium will be a restoration of the original creation. The Bible does not equate the original state and the Millennium (And neither does it equate the original state and the final, eternal state.)

Okay. As I stated earlier, whether or not the Millennium is a full restoration of the original state is unknown to me. I do know that opinions differ on this.

As for the "original state being equated to the final, eternal state" - let's not get overly legalistic here. The final, eternal state cannot be exactly the same as the Garden state because (to provide one of many differences) death was a possibility in the Garden (a possibility that materialized when sin occurred) while death will have been conquered forevermore in the final state (that's what the Bible plainly says). On that point alone we see that they're not exactly the same - nor can they be. That said, there will nonetheless be a "restoration" - below I provide my rationale.

First, note that Rev 21 does not describe the Millennium; this is in Rev 20. Rev 21 describes the eternal state which follows the Millennium.

Note a number of things from Rev 21:
1) this is not described as a cleaned-up earth, restored to its original state. Rather, it is an entirely new heavens and earth, with the old (original) ones destroyed.
2) the new creation is very different from the original. It is described as having no sun. Its Capitol city extends in three dimensions, perhaps a cube, a pyramid, or a sphere.
3) the context of the promise of "no death" is humans. There is no discussion of animals in Rev 21; it's not clear that any animals are even there.
4) if this were a "restoration" of the original state in Eden, it would not be very secure. Man would have the possibility of falling into sin again and being banished from heaven, as Adam and Eve were in the Garden. Instead, redeemed man is in a much better state than were Adam and Eve in the Garden. And the description of the new heavens and earth reveals a much better world than Eden.


My comments concerned the Millennium, the 1000-year reign of Christ on this present earth, described in Rev. 20. You are talking about something entirely different, the eternal state with entirely new heavens and earth described in Rev 21. They are very different, like apples and oranges. I agree that thee will be no death in the eternal state. But there will be death in the Millennium.

Again, this is the eternal state, which is entirely new. It is not merely a restoration of Eden.

The Millennium is certainly a sort of "transitional state" - i.e., not meant to be eternal. As a transitional state it seems clear that certain things will cease to be when the Millennium is over - this is of logical necessity. To wit: logically, if everything in the Millennium continued to be unchanged forever then the Millennium would be eternal, not a "Millennium" (fixed amount of time).

Does any of that imply unequivocally that death will continue to occur during the Millennium? No, not logically necessarily.

I might lose some of the non-Christians here, but there is a theological analogy between personal salvation and global eschatology. When man is saved, he is not just restored to the "neutral" state of Adam in the Garden. He is made a new creature by receiving an entirely new nature, one which Adam did not possess. God is someone who lives inside him constantly, not someone with whom he walks for a limited time each day. A saved believer is in a much better state than was Adam in the Garden. Likewise, the new heavens and new earth are much better than the original creation.

Salvation does not restore man to the condition of Adam before the Fall. The Millennium does not restore the planet to the condition of the Garden. The new heavens and earth of the eternal state are not a restoration to the heavens and earth of Gen. 1:1.

Okay ... interesting.

The way I see it is that before sin entered the creation God was upholding His creation perfectly. When sin occurred, God continued to uphold His creation except that now it was partial - enough to keep the creation in existence yet not enough to prevent decay ("death" - and the pain and suffering that accompany death) which was necessary as per God's decree ("ye shall surely die")

Thus, the restoration will once again see God perfectly upholding His creation.

In summary: We are explicitly told that there will be differences in the "restored" eternal state compared to the Garden. But there will be a "restoration" (in the sense that I just outlined) to the way that it was at the Garden. I believe that this is both logical and consistent within the Scriptures.

****************

All of that said, allowing "millions and billions of years" before Adam and the original sin blasts the Gospel right out of the water. Let's not lose sight of this.

Jorge

[klaus54]

Jorge,

Why was there a paradisaical Garden if all of creation were "perfect" before the Fall?

Thanks for finally addressing this basic question.

K54