Is Genesis the story of the earth's creation?

[Guest shiloh357]

it should be an issue because i feel you want to say "i think dinosaurs existed long before Adam." If you felt they both co-existed then there's a problem because some dinosaurs were carnivores which means that dinosaurs went from herbivores to carnivores after the fall; which, again, means they co-existed.

but you don't want to say that just yet.

It really isn't an issue. If they did or didn't coexist with man, it doesn't really matter. Again, there is no Christian doctrine that is threatened either way. I was not there. So I don't know, and to be honest, it really isn't very important to me. If man and dinosaurs coexisted or lived in separate eras, it doesn't really change anything for me.

i never said God created mankind twice.

I never accused you of saying that.

What I said is that there are people who hold to the theory that a pre-adamite humanoid race existed prior to the creation account. They also claim that Lucifer and the fallen angels were cast down to earth at that time and corrupted the pre-adamites. That is the theory I am most familiar with. There may be variations on that in some circles, I dunno. At any rate, they hold to that theory as a means of explaining the cavemen and the fossil record. Their position is that the human remains we find that are millions of years old are from that pre-adamite era. They hold this position to reconcile the young earth that seems to be presented in the Bible with the fossil record that says the earth is millions of years old.

Again, the problem is if there was a pre-adamite race of humans that fell into such abject sin that God had to destroy it, that raises some questions as to why God did not offer plan of redemption to the fallen pre-adamites? It also challenges the Bible's claim that sin and death came into the universe via Adam. The creation account in Genesis is just a case of God building a new creation on top of an older one and there is simply no biblical reason to believe that. If there was a former human race, then that makes us a second go around a do over, which diminishes us and it diminishes God because it implies that God failed the first time.

yet you are quick to jump to the "do-over" arguement. well, if there aren't any do-overs then you should proudly say "YES Adam walked with dinosaurs" and not take the "i dunno stance"

I don't know because I wasn't there. I don't know how long the creation process took. I am not going to take the foolish route and just make up an answer I can't provide a basis for. I simply don't know.

I don't believe that dinosaurs walked with Adam.

Believe what you want. It really makes no difference to me.

I also don't see pre-Adamic creation as a do-over.

Which is simply intellectual suicide.

You don't have to be a scientist to take a stance. there are museums full of evidence that these huge monsters that existed a long long long time ago.

Whatever. All that is important is that God made them. They were a part of God's creation. That is all that is really important in the long haul.

[exrockstar]

Whatever. All that is important is that God made them. They were a part of God's creation. That is all that is really important in the long haul.

you are in a "Is Genesis the story of the earth's creation?" thread.

I figured i'd ask you a simple question about earth's creation.

thanks

[Guest shiloh357]

Whatever. All that is important is that God made them. They were a part of God's creation. That is all that is really important in the long haul.

you are in a "Is Genesis the story of the earth's creation?" thread.

thanks

Yes, but if you notice in that thread, I pointed I only made couple of posts AND in those posts I pointed out the same things I am saying to you, that the age of the earth is not important and misses the point of why Genesis was written and I also point out in that thread as I have said in this thread, that the Bible is not a book of science, so for evolutionists to criticize the Bible because it does not provide a scientific account of creation is like criticizing a hammer for not being able to cut down a tree. It was not designed for that purpose and likewise the Bible is not designed to be a book of science, and thefore, it is foolish to find fault with the Bible for not addressing what it wasn't designed by God to address in the first place.

[exrockstar]

Yes, but if you notice in that thread, I pointed I only made couple of posts AND in those posts I pointed out the same things I am saying to you, that the age of the earth is not important and misses the point of why Genesis was written and I also point out in that thread as I have said in this thread, that the Bible is not a book of science, so for evolutionists to criticize the Bible because it does not provide a scientific account of creation is like criticizing a hammer for not being able to cut down a tree. It was not designed for that purpose and likewise the Bible is not designed to be a book of science, and thefore, it is foolish to find fault with the Bible for not addressing what it wasn't designed by God to address in the first place.

the bible doesn't need to provide scientific accounts to prove it's validity.

However, what Genesis does do is provide a sequence of events which, of coarse, includes time.

time is not a scientific matter. as a matter of fact, time is very important in the bible because it prophesises using it.

so with that being said, i was not looking in the bible for evidence of evolution. I was using the fundamental idea of time to ask "where are the dinosaurs, in time, via the book of Genesis?"

a great point of reference could be "Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." which, we know, means animals were vegetarians.

You don't have to be a scientist, or have the bible portray itself to be scientific when someone brings up dinosaurs.

Someone could say "IF the dinosaurs ate meat, then in the biblical timeline, they MUST exist in Adam's time after the fall. Afterall, dinosaurs are animals."

I'm not trying to beat the point. i simply wanted to know your thoughts and not get all scientific about it.

[nebula]

Exrocker -

Trying to pin down the dinosaurs in a Biblical world view is not an easy task.

Scientifically, there is no evidence of man and dinosaurs walking the planet at the same time. The bed of rock with footprints of "man and dinosaur" has been disproved - the smaller prints are in fact another dinosaur. As for leviathan and behemoth - no one can know for sure what was being referred to; so even that can not be used as sufficient evidence or proof.

Biblically and theologically, dinos could not exist before the Fall since that's when death entered the world.

So the Christian has to jump through hoops in order to reconcile one over the other.

So, you can spend energy trying to pin down how dinos fit into the Bible and Creationism, or you can accept that the Lord didn't reveal such information (any more than He revealed information on photons) - either because the people back then didn't have access to the fossils the way we do, or because He did not deem dinos important to the message He was bringing.

Scholars have found Genesis 1 to be written in the Hebrew poetic format of parallelism - where one thought echos or contrast another. Psalms and proverbs express a simplified version of this, where two lines interact with each other. Genesis is a more complex version because it deals in segments. Days 4-6 are a reflection to Days 1-3.

The fact that there are obvious problems with taking the order of events depicted in Genesis 1 in literal, chronological fashion (e.g. light is created and days pass before the sun is made) should immediately suggest the possibility that the order and structure have some other purpose than chronology in mind. If we set the days side by side, we immediately see a parallelism between days 1-3 of creation and days 4-6:

Forming --------------------------------------------- Filling

Day 1: light & dark, day & night ------------------ Day 4: sun, moon, stars

Day 2: waters above & below --------------------- Day 5: birds and fish/sea animals

Day 3: dry land ------------------------------------- Day 6: land animals

Day 7: Sabbath rest

By looking at the structure of this passage and its description of the seven days of creation, we see that the emphasis lies, not on the order of events in which creation took place, but on the completeness of it. God made all places, and all things that dwell in them. This parallelism certainly alerts us to the very real possibility that the order of the days intends to emphasize something other than the chronological order of events.

Source

As I stated before, looking at Genesis for what it says rather than trying to figure out what it doesn't say is a much more fruitful venture.

[Guest shiloh357]

the bible doesn't need to provide scientific accounts to prove it's validity.

Correct.

time is not a scientific matter.

I don't think scientists would completely agree with you on that. They tend to make a big deal about time.

so with that being said, i was not looking in the bible for evidence of evolution. I was using the fundamental idea of time to ask "where are the dinosaurs, in time, via the book of Genesis?"

And my answer, since were asking me was, "I don't know" 'cause I was not there.

a great point of reference could be "Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so." which, we know, means animals were vegetarians.

Yes, that would presumably be true.

You don't have to be a scientist, or have the bible portray itself to be scientific when someone brings up dinosaurs.

But you are asking a scientific question that I am not equipped to answer.

Someone could say "IF the dinosaurs ate meat, then in the biblical timeline, they MUST exist in Adam's time after the fall. Afterall, dinosaurs are animals."

There is a lot we don't know about the dinosaurs. Most of it is assumption based on the bone evidence. To my knowledge, we have never observed a real living dinosaur so we draw what we believe the bone evidence is telling us. Not all herbivores became carnivores or omnivores.

In the end, we simply need to be honest and admit that we don't have enough light on the subject and withold dogmatic positions until we have the light we need.

[Massorite]

I am a Biblical conservative or at least that is how I define myself. But it seems to me that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. I believe however that Genesis 1:1 is the story of the restoration of the earth from a previous state of existence. I believe that series of creative events recorded on the earth were 6,000 years ago. What say you? Am I way off base or close to the truth in your opinion?

I believe that you are correct. "The earth was void and darkness was on the face of the deep" tells us that the earth was already in place before God decided to change what He had already created. In Genesis 1:2 the bible says "and the Spirit Of God moved upon the face of the waters" the word "moved" is interpreted from the word spelled "brood" or "brewed". If the spilling is "brood" the word would mean 'to loom or hang heavily and ominously" or "to be preoccupied with an unwelcome or troublesome thought". If the word is spilled "brewed" it means "to concoct something ominous or threatening" or "to form or develop ominously".

The words " was upon the face of the deep" tells us that satan who represents darkness was already on (or fallen from heaven onto the earth) the face of the deep which were the waters God moved or brooded upon. I prefer to think that God was thinking " HMMMMM! What is it that I can do with this earth". And it would be threatening to satan because the creation of man to replace satan would signaled the end of satan.

Is that cool or what.

[Massorite]

I am a Biblical conservative or at least that is how I define myself. But it seems to me that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. I believe however that Genesis 1:1 is the story of the restoration of the earth from a previous state of existence. I believe that series of creative events recorded on the earth were 6,000 years ago. What say you? Am I way off base or close to the truth in your opinion?

I believe that the age of man as we know it started 6000 years ago. But the bible says "there is nothing new under the sun". Taken literally that would mean that this presant age of technoligy for example is not new, but has already been done at least once before.

Certainly an interesting thought to ponder.

[Massorite]

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said,

[Guest shiloh357]

I am a Biblical conservative or at least that is how I define myself. But it seems to me that the earth is more than 6,000 years old. I believe however that Genesis 1:1 is the story of the restoration of the earth from a previous state of existence. I believe that series of creative events recorded on the earth were 6,000 years ago. What say you? Am I way off base or close to the truth in your opinion?

I believe that the age of man as we know it started 6000 years ago. But the bible says "there is nothing new under the sun". Taken literally that would mean that this presant age of technoligy for example is not new, but has already been done at least once before.

No, that is not a "literal" understanding of that phrase. "Literal" means to understand something the way it was intended to be understood by author or speaker. The literal meaning is the meaning they place into the text. The approach you are suggesting is a "face value" approach that is often mistaken as "literal."

The writer of Ecclesiastes is writing from personal observation. He is talking about what he has seen and experienced in life and his experience shows how the human experience comes full circle. Even in Bible days, people had to deal with disappointment, hatred, oppression, etc. Details may change, but the experience is the same. The writer of Ecclesiastes is referring to revolution of the seasons, seed time and harvest, the wind which goes and returns, the rising and setting of the sun, and so forth as a means of illustrating how that there is nothing new in the human experience.

As far as technology is concerned, man has always delved into the medicinal sciences, has always longed to be able to fly for example.

If we were to take YOUR approach, then there would have to be an unending line of recreations of earth going back on an infinite timeline if there can be "nothing new under sun" from a face value approach.