LinkToday the Creation Museum opens in Cincinnati. It costs $27 million dollars and has plenty of Protests going on. I saw one article earlier then this one and in my local paper quote a protester proclaiming that they are teaching children fairy tales and hurting their education and that's why they're protesting.
Now I can understand protesting government actions and corporate actions. But to protest a museum that the children are taken to by their parents and its not required, I don't see how its "hurting" their education. Or threatening science. Its a private museum and they can put their information and items out there any way they want.
But Genesis 1 is an interesting chapter of the Bible. I have a Biblical Studies degree and am attending Seminary this fall. There are many different ways that scholars look at the chapter. Some take the literal 24 hr day approach. Others believe the days are vast ages. Then there's one called a gap theory where there are days but's time between the days of creation. Finally there's a literary Framework approach.
Now the others are mentioned in the article that I link to at the top so I'll describe the one that's not mentioned. The literary framework looks at the days of creation and notices that Day one and Day four go together, Day Two and Day Five go together, and Day Three and Day Six go together. It claims that the days are literary devices to explain the creation. Or in other words, the first chapter is in topical order instead of chronological order.
And an interesting thing about the original Hebrew of the Bible. The word yom that is translated as Day in most modern translations can mean the following:
from crosswalk.com lexicon on the Old Testament
day, time, year
day (as opposed to night)
day (24 hour period)
as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1
as a division of time 1b
a working day, a day's journey
days, lifetime (pl.)
time, period (general)
year
temporal references
today
yesterday
tomorrow
And in the New American Standard, it was translated like so throughout the Old Testament:
afternoon* 1, age 8, age* 1, all 1, always* 14, amount* 2, battle 1, birthday* 1, Chronicles* 38, completely* 1, continually* 14, course* 1, daily 22, daily the days 1, day 1115, day of the days 1, day that the period 1, day's 6, day's every day 1, daylight* 1, days 635, days on the day 1, days to day 1, days you shall daily 1, days ago 1, days' 11, each 1, each day 4, entire 2, eternity 1, evening* 1, ever in your life* 1, every day 2, fate 1, first 5, forever* 11, forevermore* 1, full 5, full year 1, future* 1, holiday* 3, later* 2, length 1, life 12, life* 1, lifetime 2, lifetime* 1, live 1, long 2, long as i live 1, long* 11, midday* 1, now 5, older* 1, once 2, period 3, perpetually* 2, present 1, recently 1, reigns 1, ripe* 1, short-lived* 1, so long* 1, some time 1, survived* 2, time 45, time* 1, times* 2, today 172, today* 1, usual 1, very old* 1, when 10, when the days 1, whenever 1, while 3, whole 2, year 10, yearly 5, years 13, yesterday* 1
The number after the word indicates how many times it was translated that way.
So you might ask, well how on earth do you know what word to use when your translating the passage. You have to use the context of the rest of the sentence. Its obvious that the passage is dealing with time so all the possible words that don't deal with time, can be removed like holiday, whole, while, ect...
The use of the Hebrew words ereb translates into evening. Which makes the context seem to indicate day for Yom. However, ereb can also mean the following according to the Lexicon:
evening, night, sunset
evening, sunset
night
And in the NAS its translated into the following:
evening 114, evening* 1, evenings 2, every evening 1, night 2, sunset 1, twilight 11
And the use of the Hebrew word boger or boqer depending on how you want to pronounce it translates into morning. However the word can mean the following according to the Lexicon:
morning, break of day
morning
of end of night
of coming of daylight
of coming of sunrise
of beginning of day
of bright joy after night of distress (fig.)
morrow, next day, next morning
And the NAS translates it accordingly:
dawn 1, dawn* 2, day 1, daybreak 1, every morning 5, morning 195, mornings 2, soon 1, tomorrow morning 1
In addition to those meanings I've seen at least one Lexicon that gives the meaning high tide and low tide to these two words.
But this all seems to indicate that we are in deed talking about the typical day. But like English with words can be combined and used outside their meaning. Like "Get Out of Here" it can mean get out of here. It can also mean that's so off the wall I don't believe you. Could the phrase that we're translating "And there was evening and morning the first day" mean simply that time passed? Hence the Day Age Theory...
In addition for the young earth creationists who take it literally, how long did Adam and Eve live in the Garden of Eden without sin? The Bible does not indicate. It could have been any number of years so to hold onto the earth is only 6000 years old is not Biblical. The Bible does not say how old the earth is because its not important.
Labels: Biblical Studies, Christianity, Religion, school
