Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Genesis 1:12

1:12, 13 And the Earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good. And the evening and the morning were the third day.

The Earth, following God's directions to it, brings forth what God said, green growing plant life, some with spores and some with seeds, but all of which give rise to offspring which are basically identical. There is no hint given here that Darwinian processes are occurring. The words here are clear, after its kind-meaning like the same. It doesn't mean that slime gave rise to Redwoods.

You've had three days-yom- listed and still no sun, moon, or stars to mark time. So, what does day-yom- mean in these contexts? How can we as Biblical readers and critics give any set time period to at least these 3 "days" within the creation story. None is given so if we are to biblically follow God's command we are not supposed to add something into the text that is not there and in this instance, in order to get to 3, 24 hour days we would have to add something else into the text that isn't there, namely time!

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Genesis 1:11

1:11 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

This is a very generic text. However it does follow very closely the geologic record which we can see.

God speaks and these thing come into being. Literally it says - Let the earth green with green plants, vegetation yielding offspring (non seed bearing plants), and fruiting trees (trees which bear some sort of a seed-properly called spermatophytes or seed plants) creating fruit (seed pods), according to its species with its offspring in them, upon the earth and it was so.

We have first green, slimy plants called blue green algaes in the geologic record. Fossilized filamentous algae from the Vindhya basin have been dated back to 1.6 to 1.7 billion years ago. We then follow in progression to other plants on land such as ferns, fossils of isolated land plant spores suggest land plants such as ferns may have been around as long as 475 million years ago. You then progress on to seed bearing plants somewhere in the Devonian period about 400 million years ago.

This doesn't contradict in any way the Hebrew rendering of the text. Only when you read the text in English is the text unclear and confusing and this in turn leads to confusion in how we interpret the geologic record. You don't have to force interpretations upon the text in order to make science not contradict the Bible.

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III

Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Genesis 1:10

1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called He Seas: and God saw that it was good.

"Dry land" should be rendered more as dryness. Earth is not the name of the planet, but God calls this dryness earth or land as "Eretz" is sometimes rendered.

God saw what He had created and that it was Tov or good, in the sense of good for what it's purpose is and pleasing, pleasant or excellent.

Mountain building was beginning as the land rose out of the seas.

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Genesis 1:8, 9

1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the morning and the evening were the second day.

1:9 And God said, "Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear.": and it was so.

God named the expanse above the waters the heaven. Naming creation upon the earth will be a function for Adam later. Here in 1:8, Heaven is the generic name for all the area above the ground.

We see a dark development later in Homer's Illiad when Althaia invokes the underworld gods by lying flat upon the earth, beating the ground (9.565ff). In the ancient's minds, if you were down upon the earth you were in the realm of hell or Domos Hades, the dwelling place of the unseen, not heaven. Quite different from the way God shows us the grandeur of His creation.

God speaks with a purpose again and that purpose is to give us a dry habitat to dwell in. God commands (Hebrew command form is here translated as Let-It Be is understood) that the waters underneath the expanse are gathered into an area so that a non-water covered place would arise. And it happened just this way.

The words Dry Land here are better translated as Dryness. So God says, Let-it be, the dryness appear.

This is the beginning of the Precambrian Supereon into the Archeazoic eon.

The largest defined unit of time is the supereon, composed of eons. Eons are divided into eras, which are in turn divided into periods, epochs and ages.

The most common large-scale time scale is millions of years (Megaannum or Ma), or also Mya for "millions of years ago." But long-term measurements still requires very large numbers. By using the galactic year this gives numbers that are easier to remember. The Galactic Year (GY) is the time it takes for the solar system to revolve once around the galactic core, or about 250 Ma.

By this measure, oceans appeared on Earth after 4 GY, life began at 5 GY, and multicellular organisms first appeared at 15 GY. Dinosaurs went extinct about 0.4 GY ago, and the true age of mammals began about 0.2 GY ago. The age of the Earth is estimated at about 20 GY or about 4.570 billion years old.

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Genesis 1:7

1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.

Again, this was a time in Earth's history for the separation of the troposphere cloud layer from the stratosphere, mesosphere and the ionosphere.

This space, expanse, or firmament became a dividing line for those waters on the Earth from those waters above the Earth.

God made this space or expanse or firmament. The word in Hebrew is Asah. This word has the connotation of fashioning something, bringing it about by one's handiwork. This is different than Barah, or to create from nothing as in 1:1.

Again, God spoke and this was so, so what is God's purpose in having waters above us and below us?

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III

Sunday, August 23, 2009

Genesis 1:6

1:6 And God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. KJV

God speaks again with a purpose and a firmament or expanse appears which divides waters.

What is an expanse? Something which is pulled apart and divided could be classified as could what we call the sky or the heavens above. Why did God separate the waters into two places. I can see where God did this for our protection as water vapor is well suited for us to live in as it serves as a protection against many forces which could be detrimental, ie; sunlight, radiation, heat, etc. And by separating the waters it provided a space or expanse for us to live in.

An interesting tidbit about water is that it can exist in three forms but still be water-H2O. Steam is the gas form, water the liquid form and ice the solid form. And when Ice is melting, it exists in three forms simultaneously. Sort of like we see God, existing in different forms at the same time.

Scientifically, when the waters are separated this would equate to the time when the Troposphere is separated and the cloud layers begin to form into the Stratosphere, Mesosphere and Ionosphere.

Psalms 148

© 2009 Roy Blizzard III