Wow, so what do you really believe? ...Statement of Faith

[davo]

…but is an evening and a morning of the Day of the Lord itself ever mentioned in the Bible?

Not to my knowledge (Zech 14:1, 7 is interesting). Such a Day was an event so I suppose an evening and morning would simply be assumed, given they book-end said day. And of course if such was considered would no doubt be understood within the same “figurative” parameters.

On the other hand, concerning the 6 days of creation, an evening and and a morning of every one of them is mentioned.

The use of this for me would simply be natural “accommodative language”.

I tend to view the Creation account of Adam as a personification in story-like language as the story of Israel, i.e., Adam is Israel, or proto-Israel. IOW… this is the story in micro / macro form of Israel, and in particular here, the birth or origins of Israel reflected in the Adam account etc.

In a similar vein I think this bears some consideration…

[LLC]

I really don’t know what is meant by the “evening and the morning” of each creation “day”, but I can’t see how it would be in reference to the beginning and ending of a certain time period as suggested. I can understand for example that plant life would come before animal life, however, generally speaking, these “days” have not ended yet as the creation is still going on.

[maintenanceman]

…but is an evening and a morning of the Day of the Lord itself ever mentioned in the Bible?

Not to my knowledge (Zech 14:1, 7 is interesting). Such a Day was an event so I suppose an evening and morning would simply be assumed, given they book-end said day. And of course if such was considered would no doubt be understood within the same “figurative” parameters.

On the other hand, concerning the 6 days of creation, an evening and and a morning of every one of them is mentioned.

The use of this for me would simply be natural “accommodative language”.

I tend to view the Creation account of Adam as a personification in story-like language as the story of Israel, i.e., Adam is Israel, or proto-Israel. IOW… this is the story in micro / macro form of Israel, and in particular here, the birth or origins of Israel reflected in the Adam account etc.

In a similar vein I think this bears some consideration…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BP1PpDyDCw

I think wright is right.

I heard it said somewhere that Genesis is simply God’s way of telling the creation story to the exodus people. Though I do think the division between chapters one and two can be seen as the creation and the creation of Israel, thus this also opens the door for old earth and all the possibilities that come with that.

[davo]

Though I do think the division between chapters one and two can be seen as the creation and the creation of Israel, thus this also opens the door for old earth and all the possibilities that come with that.

I firmly believe in an old earth but I’m nowhere convinced of biological evolution. But that said, I tend to see both accounts as differing aspects of the same thing, i.e., Israel’s story.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

@davo

@maintenanceman

Though I do think the division between chapters one and two can be seen as the creation and the creation of Israel, thus this also opens the door for old earth and all the possibilities that come with that.

I firmly believe in an old earth but I’m nowhere convinced of biological evolution. But that said, I tend to see both accounts as differing aspects of the same thing, i.e., Israel’s story.

We just need to wait for the scientists, to come up with the right, convincing evolutionary proof:

https://cdn.andertoons.com/img/toons/cartoon1914.png

What we need is a “revolutionary, evolutionary” proof.

In the meantime, I run with the Old Earth and Big Bang, but keep an open mind (i.e. agnostic) to biological evolution

https://thechive.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/evolution-cartoon-photos-27.jpg

[anon47460357]

I really don’t know what is meant by the “evening and the morning” of each creation “day”, but I can’t see how it would be in reference to the beginning and ending of a certain time period as suggested. I can understand for example that plant life would come before animal life, however, generally speaking, these “days” have not ended yet as the creation is still going on.

“Morning” is naturally descriptive of a beginning, and “evening” is naturally descriptive of an ending.

My understanding is that we are still partially within the seventh day. Note that evening and morning are not mentioned in its regard. Jesus Christ’s resurrection inaugurates the eighth day, which shall be fully realized at the Second Coming.

[Holy-Fool-P-Zombie]

@Geoffrey

@LLC

I really don’t know what is meant by the “evening and the morning” of each creation “day”, but I can’t see how it would be in reference to the beginning and ending of a certain time period as suggested. I can understand for example that plant life would come before animal life, however, generally speaking, these “days” have not ended yet as the creation is still going on.

“Morning” is naturally descriptive of a beginning, and “evening” is naturally descriptive of an ending.

My understanding is that we are still partially within the seventh day. Note that evening and morning are not mentioned in its regard. Jesus Christ’s resurrection inaugurates the eighth day, which shall be fully realized at the Second Coming.

I found this article helps to clarify “evening and morning” at How Long an Evening and a Morning{1}l. Here’s some segments from the article:

Let me add a footnote here. Idiomatic expressions in any language presents difficulty. I remember an American professor, who spend a great deal of time in China. He said that Chinese folks learning English, have trouble with idiomatic expressions - like “to kick the bucket”. Joe kicked the bucket means he died. But historically, they forced people to stand on buckets, before hanging them. And they kicked the bucket out from under them (i.e. according to this professor). However, let me add a footnote from Wiki, at Kick the bucket. Even though this professor had 2 PhD degrees, Wiki points to multiple theories - as to the kick the bucket, historical idiom meaning.

Now I can work with English, Mandarin, Russian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. But if I didn’t know a sentence or expression is idiomatic, I might come up with a “goofy” literal translation. That is, until an expert in the language, let me know it was an idiomatic expression. And shared its actual meaning.

That the Hebrew word for “day,” yom, can mean a period of time other than 24 hours is abundantly evident. In Genesis 2:4 we read, “In the day that the Lord god made the earth and heavens…” (RSV). “Day” here refers to all the creations days, what ever we believe about their length. In fact, any student of Scripture can find at least nine meanings of yom. (Perhaps the easiest way is to use a computerized word search.) While it does most often refer to a 24-hour period, it is also used to mean time, today, forever, continually, an age, a life span, and perpetuity.

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to acceptance of the six creation days as long epochs is the “evening and morning” refrain framing each day’s creation events. In fact, I have often seen it argued in creationist literature that this expression seals the case for a 24-hour interpretation. But the argument simply does not hold, and the basis for my statement is the Bible itself, not some obscure linguistic reference.

“Evening and morning” is an idiomatic expression in Semitic languages. Like all idioms, its meaning is nonliteral but clearly understood by native speakers. The phrase “evening and morning” can, like yom, denote a long and indefinite period. The Old Testament itself unambiguously uses the “evening and morning” phrase in just such a way. In Daniel 8 we read the account of Daniel’s ram and goat vision and the interpretation given by Gabriel. The vision covers many years; some commentators believe the time has not yet been completed. Daniel 8:26 says, “The vision of the evenings and the mornings that have been given to you is true, but seal up the vision for it concerns the distant future” (RSV). In Hebrew manuscripts, “the evenings and mornings,” is not in the plural but in the singular, identical to the expression we find in Genesis 1. Translated literally, the verse would red, “And the vision of the evening and the morning that has been given you” Here we have a clear indication from scriptural usage that this phrase does not demand a 24-hour-day interpretation and can refer to an indefinite epoch.

One might raise the objection that during the many years between the writing of Genesis and the writing of Daniel, the Hebrew usage could have changed, making the extrapolation from Daniel back to Genesis questionable. My response to such a challenge would be to underscore the stability of the ancient languages (perhaps due to the lack of general literacy and the rigorous professional training of those who served as scribes.) I see no way to escape this example of flexibility usage.

The method and length of time God used to create the heavens and the earth and life cannot be stated with absolute certainty from science, but these are matters for scientific inquiry, not for dogma. If only I could remove from those Christians who struggle with it the sense of threat they feel when presented with the possibility of long days and an old earth. I know it is linked with their supposition that to accept the fossil record and its time scale is to concede the case for a radically materialistic worldview, i.e., nontheistic evolution. But this supposition is false. In fact, if Christians would cease to attack paleontologists and biologists (among others), the researchers themselves would be free to raise more questions about the validity of their theories rather than combining forces to fend off Christian attacks. Let’s not interfere with the investigative process. We Christians have everything to gain and nothing to lose from the advance of scientific discovery. For the God who speaks to us through His works of creation is the same God who speaks to us in the words of the Bible.

All this discussion, reminds me of a song

[LLC]

Randy, thanks for the helpful information you provided on “morning and evening”.

Geoffrey, I think we would still be in all the “days”. For example,the creation of all plant varieties or all animal species did not occur in one fell swoop and then it was over. It is still going on. I don’t really know how God created the heavens and the earth. I agree with Davo in that I am not a fan of the Big Bang biological evolution theory. I don’t think science is able to tell us, nor do I think the Bible is able to tell us either. This is just one of the mysteries of God that will have to remain a mystery.

Maintenance man, The two different accounts of creation could be as you suggest as that between the creation of the earth and the creation of Israel. However it seems to me to be that of two totally different stories of how everything came about. I would even say that there is a third account as well.

Back to the Bible being the “infallible” word of God- When Jesus said “You study the Scriptures, and in them you think you find life…”, I believe He was basically saying that Scripture is not infallible; that when it comes between the words of the Bible and that of common sense, then we should go with the common sense.

[anon47460357]

Holy Fool, thank you very much for that extensive quote from the article, particularly the part about Daniel 8:26.

A personal note, if I may:

I was raised as a non-denominational, non-churchgoing Protestant. As a young child, I never read any religious books or articles except for the occasional browse through a book of children’s Bible stories.

The first time I read the early chapters of Genesis was in my tenth year. It was excruciatingly obvious to me that the days of Genesis 1 were not 24-hour days. How obvious? It was so obvious that it never occurred to me that anyone could possibly think otherwise. The thought that they might be 24-hour days never crossed my mind. Not once.

I dabbled in Protestant books and articles in later years, but it wasn’t until I was 16 or 17 that I first encountered someone teaching that Adam and Eve lived at the same time as dinosaurs because the days of Genesis 1 were 24 hours long. I was bewildered at the notion. Not only did it make no sense (i. e., how did Adam and Eve manage to not get eaten by dinosaurs long enough to have babies?), it utterly affronted what I took (and still take) to be the clear meaning of Genesis 1. I initially thought the guy was a lone nut, but it didn’t take long for me to discover that that was not the case.

My point? I have seen young earth creationists appeal to how a naive child would read Genesis 1, and they say that this child would naturally read the days as 24-hour days. I can say from my own experience that that was not the case with me. I never had a simple, childlike faith in 24-hour days that was later corroded by geology, thus forcing me to use pretzel interpretation to square the two together. No. My naive, simple, childlike faith was what we call old earth creationism. Whatever else I know about controversies over origins, I know beyond any shadow of a doubt that young earth creationism is not the clear and obvious teaching of Genesis 1.

[Eusebius]

When I think of all the time (100 years), blood, sweat and tears Noah must have put into building that massive ark, I find it hard to believe in a local flood. For instance, the Mesopotamian valley is approximately 500 miles long by roughly 250 miles wide. All Noah would have had to do would be to gently walk all the animals out of that valley to safety in about a week or so.

Furthermore, to the east are the mountains and to the west the plains. Imagine the waters going above the mountains to the east. What held the waters to the west? Did God build a magic wall to hem in all the waters at the same height as they were to the east? No.

Also, people ask: “Where did all the water come from to go above Mt. Everest and where did it all go after it went above Mt. Everest?” To which I reply: “Who said Mt. Everest was even around back them. If it was, it surely was not as high back then as it is today.”

Recently archeologists, about a week ago, spoke of a great flood in China. Here it is:
telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/05/first-evidence-of-legendary-china-flood-may-rewrite-history/

What do you think?

[jeff]

There are a number of models that reasonably propose tectonic plate movement. For example suppose there was a Pangea which seems plausable even to a child looking at a world map with the continents as puzzle pieces. Then suppose a meteor hits the planet that breaks the Pangea tectonic plate and also exposes sea water to hot lava which send billions and billions of gallons of water into the atmosphere. Consider that numerous large 50 and 100 mile craters are evident on the earth right now. So then the water rains producing the global flood and the broken tectonic plates are set into motion producing our current continents and mountain ranges. One model proposes that when the tectonic plates were set in motion that they lowered (for some reason given which I forget) and then when they came to rest, they floated up to their current level with respect to the sea. Consider that crude oil which is pumped from +5 miles underground is the result of 1,000s of years of organic decay. How did the organics get down that far? The flood was much more cataclysmic than we might first imagine. Of course the Bible says nothing about HOW the flood was caused and the simple model proposed above meets with and does not contradict scientific evidence.

[anon47460357]

When I think of all the time (100 years), blood, sweat and tears Noah must have put into building that massive ark, I find it hard to believe in a local flood. For instance, the Mesopotamian valley is approximately 500 miles long by roughly 250 miles wide. All Noah would have had to do would be to gently walk all the animals out of that valley to safety in about a week or so.

Furthermore, to the east are the mountains and to the west the plains. Imagine the waters going above the mountains to the east. What held the waters to the west? Did God build a magic wall to hem in all the waters at the same height as they were to the east? No.

Noah did not walk all the animals to safety because God commanded him to build an ark. That was reason enough for Noah. We can speculate why God told Noah to build an ark rather than leave the area. I think it was because of witness. Noah building that ark was a giant invitation sign to all of humanity to repent. Instead of merely quietly walking away and leaving mankind to face an unannounced Flood, Noah made sure that he gave every single person on planet Earth a good, long chance to repent and take shelter in the ark. (This, incidentally, is an indirect indication that all of mankind lived in a small area, rather than being spread abroad over the planet. If mankind had lived all over, most people at the time of the Flood would not have even heard of Noah and his ark.)

I am not dogmatic about where mankind lived in the days before the Flood. It could have been, for example, on an island in the Persian Gulf that was destroyed by the Flood.

[Eusebius]

But if jeff@gdc is correct concerning Pangea, and if Noah preached righteousness for 100 or more years while building the ark, I see no problem with humans back then on Pangea knowing what Noah was up to. There may have been 10 to 11 million people on the planet back in Noah’s day. biblescienceguy.wordpress.com/2014/06/18/4-population-growth-how-many-died-in-noahs-flood/ There may have been many more than that. I’m sure Noah was the butt of all jokes in his day. People probably traveled for many miles just to make fun of him.

Imagine living in Noah’s day and seeing this:

And yet they still didn’t repent.

I have conversed with many atheists on message boards over this issue of God flooding the earth. They call God a baby killer and so on. I tell them they are not looking at the whole picture. They need to see that God is going to save all those people who died in that flood. None of them are going to complain to God, so why do you atheists?

Also, I doubt if Noah lived on an island in the Persian gulf that God would have Noah take 100 years to build a massive ark to save his family and the animals if it was just going to be a local flood.

And just one more little tid bit: I think people did live all over Pangea since we have ancient structures around the globe which some archeologists date to 10,000 years ago or further.

[anon47460357]

I suspect that the size of the ark was commensurate with the human population at the time of the Flood. The ark was basically saying, “Look! There is room for ALL of you!” Thus we are talking about a population in the thousands rather than in the millions or trillions (as claimed in the article). With a vast population size, the ark could only say, “Look! Virtually all of you are doomed no matter what. There’s no room!”

I think that a huge and mostly-empty ark, which could have saved every single human being, is a powerful testimony to God’s love and to man’s wickedness.

[jeff]

Highly unlikely that the ark could house the world population in Noah’s day!

However, just because the ark couldn’t house all doesn’t mean there wasn’t opportunity to repent and be saved. The world could have repented as did Nineveh to Jonah’s preaching and maybe it would have been a different story. Or they could have built their own arks had they believed with holy reverence as did Noah.

[anon47460357]

Highly unlikely that the ark could house the world population in Noah’s day!

Why?

Note that the Flood was the only time in mankind’s history that God essentially wiped-out everyone and started over. This implies that the time of Noah was markedly worse than any other time. That means worse than Stalinist gulags, worse than Nazi death camps, worse than massive Aztec human sacrifice, worse than the current abortion holocaust, etc. Whatever atrocities have been recorded in human history, the wickedness of Noah’s generation was far worse.

Does the text give details? A bit: “The end of all flesh has come before Me, for the land is filled with violence through them” (Genesis 6:13). These men were violent, more violent than anyone in history. It is possible to read this passage as saying that, left to their own devices, pre-Flood mankind was nearing the point of causing the extinction of all mankind (who were therefore few in number). Therefore God had to act to save His created image. The Flood was not meant to annihilate mankind, but to prevent the annihilation of mankind. This called for severe amputation.

Clearly, those men who were recalcitrant in their unparalleled violence had to be killed. Otherwise they would have encompassed human extinction. The Flood saved mankind. With the Flood there were eight survivors. Without the Flood there would have been zero survivors. Let us thank God for His merciful Flood!

[davo]

Furthermore, to the east are the mountains and to the west the plains. Imagine the waters going above the mountains to the east. What held the waters to the west? Did God build a magic wall to hem in all the waters at the same height as they were to the east? No.

Also, people ask: “Where did all the water come from to go above Mt. Everest and where did it all go after it went above Mt. Everest?” To which I reply: “Who said Mt. Everest was even around back them. If it was, it surely was not as high back then as it is today.”

Isn’t your “Mt. Everest” rationale just a tad convenient WHEN you excuse away with a “magic wall” the possibility of something in-kind in terms of geological formation holding the said waters of a ‘local flood’? Consistency??

[jeff]

Why?

Hmmm, I guess I was just speaking from a guesstimate of the world population based on calculations. I probably need to step back from speculation on this point. I was drawn into the discussion because you suggested that available seats on the ark for all mankind seemed to be a necessity to prove that God is gracious. I was merely pointing out that this was not necessary because grace was available to those lost through alternative means… as I pointed out they also could have built arks in holy fear or repented as the Ninevites, but apparently none did. Thus the number of those lost in the flood is not critical to the point in question. God was and is always gracious regardless of the number lost in the flood.

Also you make a point that mankind’s violence was the primary concern. Certainly it was a concern and perhaps the primary concern, but you might be going too far with your conclusion that the ark was created to save mankind from self-destruction through violence. All certainly agree that the nature of the sin warranted radical measures. However, the first sin listed, perhaps by way of importance, is the marrying of any they chose. The emphasis here is that God was not joining husband and wife together, but instead man himself. One might read a sexually related sin into this crime. I could imagine sins in this department that would likewise provoke God to have to clean the slate. Perhaps both sins provoked God to his radical decision.

[Paidion]

“Evening and morning” is an idiomatic expression in Semitic languages. Like all idioms, its meaning is nonliteral but clearly understood by native speakers. The phrase “evening and morning” can, like yom, denote a long and indefinite period. The Old Testament itself unambiguously uses the “evening and morning” phrase in just such a way.

There is clear evidence that “evening and morning” is literal.

Psalms 55:17 Evening and morning and at noon I will pray, and cry aloud, And He shall hear my voice.

Throughout Hebrew and Jewish history, the literal day began at sundown and ended just before sundown 24 hours later.

Why Jewish holidays begin at nightfall

[davo]

As embarrassing as it is (IMO) Ken Ham’s ‘Answer in Genesis’ was an Australian creation. I remember as a young teenager in the early 70’s attending one of his ‘creation-science’ seminars, which at the time were all the rage in evangelical circles. After his first couple of forays into the US he twigged pretty smartly as to where the lucrative market lay and has been there ever since.