George Andrews Jr. wrote:
...............................
> "Many Hebrew scholars believe the Hebrew of the opening verse of Genesis starts out
> with a dependent clause (e.g., Speiser; The Anchor Bible: Genesis), with verse two
> being parenthetic. Additionally, this is the same grammatical structure as Enuma
> elish. Thus, the opening verses have nothing to do with the creation of time in the
> sense of modern physics but simply begin the creation story in a linguistically
> naturally way: 'When God set about to create heaven and earth - the world being
> then a formless waste, with darkness over the seas ....',
>
> If this view is accepted then it precludes any attempt at reading in relativistic
> mechanics.
> If the view that "In the beginning....." implies a "t=0", then it does just that and
> nothing more.
> It still has nothing to do with relativistic mechanics.
>
> To read into Genesis modern scientific notions is worse than any behavior of an ostrich;
>
> it is imposing upon the text extra biblical material that simply does not belong. ...........................................
Seems to me both sides in this debate may be trying to prove too much.
There is no justification for trying to get Minkowski & space-time out of the Bible
or the doctrine of creation. OTOH, if it doesn't make sense to talk about time
until there's something which changes, then time began with the creation of the
universe. That time is God's creation may not be an explicit teaching of Scripture
but is a reasonable deduction therefrom. & as I pointed out in an earlier post,
this is significant for the way we evaluate becoming & history.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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