Creationism, Myths & Catastrophism

[Brigit Bara]

catastrophism subsection: the two great lights in Genesis 1


As the saying goes, "A text without a context is a pretext." So as an aside on an aside on a subsection, I will place the verse in its context, and make an observation about the plain statements found here regarding the constellations, the great lights, and the keeping of time in the ancient world.

• Text
  Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
  
  and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.
  
  Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.
  
  God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
  
  and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
  
  So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

Gen 1:14-19

What is remarkable about this is that God's intentions are clearly expressed: He is ordering the heavens and earth so that the days, seasons, and years could be reliably marked off by using the motions of the celestial bodies. This also says that the heavens will sometimes contain signs, and that the earth will receive light during a cycle of day and night.

In the ancient world, there were many festivals marking the time of planting, the time of harvesting, and the times of rain or of extreme heat, etc. etc.. Practically, the reason for this is that any one on the entire globe who plants even a few days too soon may have everything killed by a frost; and anyone who plants too late will experience the loss of young sprouts not mature enough for higher temps of late spring and summer. So to say that the festivals which mark time and seasons are the property of one culture is false: the festivals marking the changing seasons and/or the shortening and the lengthening of days, as well as timing for planting and reaping, are not the invention of "pagan" culture.

Keeping time, and even marking off signs such as eclipses and conjunctions, using the celestial motions was necessary for all people, and has nothing to do with "pagan Rome" or "pagan Greece." It is simply a necessity -- and one developed long before the Romans or the Greeks were even an apple in their mothers' eyes. The use of spring, summer, or harvest festivals, or the observation of constellations to mark time, does not place any culture after Greece and Rome chronologically -- least of all the people of Israel. And more importantly, it does not necessitate the "worship" of these heavenly bodies. Instead, it is clear that in this ancient tradition, the heavenly constellations and the celestial spheres are for use as time pieces.

[perpetual motion]

'And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.' Bad phrase!

I can not find where this planet was formed.

'Creationists err by supposing only one era of catastrophe, with that point I can most wholeheartedly agree. Whether there was catastrophism prior to The Flood? The only place you can put it in Biblical chronology is Genesis 1:2, and I am not convinced that it either belongs there nor is supported by rigorous exegesis of the Hebrew.'

'The real understanding comes with the overall scenario. The creationists try to place all the events on Earth into 6 thousand years. And they do terrific work showing that most things happened quickly rather than the standard slow change. However the 6 thousand year story is a constraint on clear thinking and is not really found in the bible with correct translation and interpretation.'
I would say that given the present terrain it is much, much younger.'

'Lloyd does rightly note that Baumgartner in particular seems open to the idea (based on the sedimentary geology) of a planetoid on an elliptical orbit around the earth causing successive tidal-waves of global sedimentary deposition. Where I think Baumgartner gets it wrong is that the only geological event preceding the Flood was the creation event itself, which most creationists suppose was the very opposite of a catastrophic event'.
' It was orderly, organized and deemed "very good" at its climax on the 7th day Creationists see chaos, destruction and catastrophe as an antithesis of the declaration that,( prior to the Fall, creation was "very good”)' Do not think so.

'Berthault's experiments showed that all 3 types are sorted by flood waters and deposited at the same time, one layer upon another. So they must have been deposited over short timespans, such as hours, days, or weeks. Also, the upper and lower strata surfaces are generally straight.'
'The supercontinent was then struck by a large asteroid that split it up into continents and moved some of them (i.e. the Americas, Australia, Antarctica etc) a few thousand kilometers away within days (rapid continental drift which event also formed mountain chains etc'. Do not think so.
Also on this forum someone was talking about theseBolides could not come into contact with this planet, and that they would explode in the upper atmosphere!
All of these “craters” around the world are from planetary lightning, just like most of all the holes in all the rocky
Bodies that we know of.

What happened in my opinion, is this super continent broke apart from centrifugal force. Can we imagine that this
Land mass was on one side of this planet, wondering through this solar system, sorry wobbling, through the solar
system. Can we imagine such mass wobbling around the sun.

'Yet at the beginning of the inquiry, when we first realized we had a problem, how did we know what of our current "understanding" would have to be tossed, and what new insights would have to be gained, in order to make sense of the observations? We didn't. Were the physical principles different back then, and/or were the conditions different? This we do not know in advance. IMO, even if we think that we have fully reconciled the relevant theory with the observations, we might still be fooled, where ongoing investigations might reveal phenomena not handled by the theory. So it's important to keep track of the assumptions, because they might have to be revisited, even after we think that we understand’.

Please everyone, try and use logic and not depend on one book that is written of local history. LOCAL HISTORY.
It has nothing to do with the rest of the world.
And besides that it is really hot over there and we all know what happens to our brains when it gets really hot.

[JP Michael]

The quotation cited above from Psalm 136:7-9 is a significant challenge to Saturnian interpretations of Genesis 1:14-16 and I do not think it is so easily dismissed.

The verse from Genesis 1:16 has a feminine plural ending, and the verse from Psalm 136:7 has a masculine plural ending.

Whilst מאור (H#3974) certainly has a feminine plural ending in Genesis 1:14-16, in the Hebrew language an adjective always agrees with its parent noun in number and gender. מארת is, grammatically, an irregular masculine noun,[1] as evidenced by its plural masculine adjective in verse 16, גדלים, and its masculine ordinal, שני (two), as well as its masculine singular comparative adjectives המאור הגדל and המאור הקטן later in that same verse respectively. I cannot find any commentary on why it is taking the feminine plural here in Genesis 1:14-16, whereas its only other attested plural in the Hebrew corpus takes a regular masculine ending (Ezekiel 32:8 in the masculine plural construct form, מאורי).

The use of אורים in Psalm 136:7 could possibly be considered poetic liscense (parellism-synonym) of מאור in Gen 1:14-16, although even Kiel and Delitzch [2] note that its use in Ps 136:7 is unique but offer no explanation why. אור (H#215) is a grammatically feminine noun which, opposite to מאור above, takes an irregular masculine plural form אורים. Yet in Ps 136:7 it also takes a masculine plural adjective, גדלים, and not the feminine plural, גדלות, perhaps a deliberate attempt to copy and/or link the phrase to Genesis 1:14-16. As with מארת above, I could not find any decent commentary as to why this is the case.

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that, at the very least, the unknown author of Psalm 136 is readily interpreting Genesis 1:14-16 as meaning the sun and moon in their observable sky. The combination of all the language (lights & greater; sun & day; moon, stars & night; ruling over [same Hebrew verb, משל]) of Genesis 1:14-16 in Psalm 136 is a very strong argument for direct and intended allusion. This leaves two significant implications:

• 1. The original lightbringers of Genesis 1:14-16 are the current Sun and Moon, as Biblical interpreters of all ages (including the author of Ps 136) have believed.
  • a)This implies that, in the mind of the ancient Hebrews, Saturn was not the original Sun and earth did not begin as a moon of Saturn, sheltered within its plasmasheath.
    b) The only way to explain Saturn's undeniable prominence in history-mythology as the ancient sun, is that God's original created order was usurped, somehow, at some period in the past significantly prior to the authorship of Psalm 136.
    c) The author of Psalm 136 did not know, or care to know, that Saturn had ever imposed on the celestial scene in the past.
  2. The Author of Psalm 136 is (erroneously) imposing his understanding of the sky in his time back upon the text of Genesis 1:14-16.
  • a) Saturn can still be interpreted into Genesis 1:14 at the expense of intra-Biblical accuracy. The Psalmist's view of Genesis 1:14-16, howsoever poetically alluded, was incorrect.

I find both 1. & 2. above to bring with them rather significant difficulties of their own and I am unsure how these problems are easily resolved.

[1] Brown, Driver & Briggs, Hebrew Definitions, #3974.
[2]Keil & Delitzch, Commentary on the Old Testament, Psalm 136.

Please everyone, try and use logic and not depend on one book that is written of local history. LOCAL HISTORY.
It has nothing to do with the rest of the world.

The supposition that the Hebrew scriptures relates only to local history is so easily falsified I shouldn't really bother wasting my time with it. Nevertheless, here's some real logic for you to chew on:

If the Hebrew Scriptures relate only to local history, it should not describe any global history.

• The Hebrew Scriptures describe global history:
  1. Genesis 1:1-2:4 describes, undeniably, the creation of the whole universe, including:
  • a) The universe's primordial state (1:1-2).
    b) The creation and division of light and darkness upon the primordial world (1:3-4).
    c) The first axial rotation of the primordial world (1:5).
    d) The creation of the primodial world's surrounding space/atmosphere (1:6-7).
    e) The second axial rotation of the primordial world (1:8).
    f) The creation and separation of seas, plural, and a continent, singular, upon the primordial world (1:9-10).
    g) The creation of all vegtation, herb and tree, upon that continent (1:11-12)
    h) The third axial rotation of the primordial world (1:13)
    i) The creation of luminaries within the primordial world's surrounding space/atmosphere (1:14-18)
    j) The fouth axial rotation of the primordial world (1:19)
    k) The creation of every sea creature, great and small, male and female, and every flying creature, male and female, to fill and swarm in the seas and the space/atmosphere (1:20-22)
    l) The fifth axial rotation of the primordial world (1:23)
    m) The creation of every animal and crawling creature, male and female, to fill and swarm the continent (1:24-25)
    n) The creation of the human race to rule over the other creatures (1:26-28)
    o) The appointment of (g), the vegetation, as food for the birds, animals and humanity (1:29-30)
    p) The sixth axial rotation of the primordial world (1:31)
    q) The completion of the entire created universe in every aspect (2:1)
  2. Genesis 6-9 describes the annihilation of the whole world with a flood.
  • a) God's intention to annihilate the entire world and every living thing on it with a global flood (6:11-13, 17).
    b) God's choice to preserve a selection of humanity and creatures from annihilation of the entire world with a global flood (6:8, 18-21)
    c) God's execution of annihilation of the entire world with a global flood (7:17-23).
    d) God's preservation of chosen life from annihilation with the entire world by a global flood (8:16-22).
    e) God's promise to never again annihilate all life by means of a global flood (9:9-17)
  3. Genesis 9-11 describes the dispersal of the entire human race over the entire, post-Flood world.
  • a) The initial world-wide dispersal from Shem, Ham and Japheth (9:19)
    b) The dispersal across the world of the descendants of Japheth (10:1-5)
    c) The dispersal across the world of the descendants of Ham (10:6-20)
    d) The dispersal across the world of the descendants of Shem (10:21-32)
    e) Historical record of resistance to disperse across the whole world (11:1-7)
    f) Historical record of the confusion of human languages and resulting dispersal across the whole world (11:8-9).
  4. Historical account of Abram as a vehicle of 'blessing' to all the families of the world (12:3)
  • a) Reaffirmation by oath that Abraham's descendant will be a vehicle of 'blessing' to all the nations of the world (22:8).
    b) Reaffirmation by oath that Isaac's descendant will be a vehicle of 'blessing' to all the nations of the world (26:4)
    c) Reaffirmation by oath that Jacob's descendant will be a vehicle of 'blessing' to all the nations of the world (28:14)
  5. Historical confirmation of 4. above in the Greek (New Testament) Scriptures:
  • a) Fulfillment of the oath of 'blessing' for all the nations of the world in Messiah (Luke 2:25-33; Galatians 3:8-16)
    b) Mission of Messiah's disciples to bring his blessing to all nations of the world (Mark 16:15; Matthew 28:19; The Acts of the Apostles).
  and I could go on and on...

Therefore, the Hebrew scriptures do not relate to only local history.

[Lloyd]

THREAD SUMMARY

I don't know if this is worthwhile. I wanted a summary for myself, to help me grasp what's been discussed here so far. And I thought it might be worth sharing here. So here's what I got.

1. I said JP is interested in biblical clues that hint of the ancient Saturn configuration and I quoted JP: Mention of the 'sun' (shamash) does not occur until Gen 15:12, and the moon (yareach) until Gen 37:9, and in both cases translating them "Saturn" and "Crescent" (following David Talbott's The Saturn Myth, pp.276-280) [is plausible]; we agreed that "Fountains of the Great Deep" refers to outer space, not the oceans; I quoted JP's suggested bible resources and I said I learned that there are a lot of different meanings for each word in Hebrew; finally I mentioned Charles Chandler's "Torah Historicity", Mike Fischer's rapid continental drift and John Baumgardner's article on Noah's Flood
2. I referenced links to discussion of Shamash
3. I asked WHICH PLANETOIDS DID WHAT regarding cataclysms; I mentioned some of my ideas and my plan to compare catastrophist models.

4. Moses said Noah's flood did not produce the geological column or strata.

5. I explained why Floods must have produced the strata.

6. JP mentioned Guy Berthault's Experiments in Stratification as evidence that the Flood produced strata; he said other creationist geological modelling erroneously rejects most hypothesised events prior and subsequent to Noah's Flood; he said Baumgartner seems right about tidal-waves of global sedimentary deposition, but they were caused by Earth orbiting Saturn, not something orbiting Earth, and the linear Saturn system formation occurred at the mid-point of the flood (Gen 8:2-4) and Earth retained this position for some centuries after the Flood and didn't stabilise to the present system until ~700 BCE

7. Moses said: Mount St Helens strata had no oceanic flood waters so the geological column didn't need a flood, just Electrical discharge machining, and there were separate events of deposition in the geological column; also, 6 thousand years since creation is a constraint on clear thinking and not really found in the bible; and the geological column was formed before the ice ages and Noah's flood was after the ice ages

8. JP said creationists say there was only one Ice Age precipitated by warmer post-Deluge oceans, but electrical discharge machining is a missing piece of creationist modeling and there was more than one era of catastrophe

9. Brigit discussed Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 1:2 saying There was an indefinite interval between the first verse of Genesis and the second; she agreed that the Bible does not say God created the sun and moon, but two great lights to rule the day and night; so it's possible that Saturn and another body were the original sources of light.

10. JP discussed Gap Theory for Genesis 1:1-2 similar to Brigit's idea and said creationist models focus on the "very good" statement at Gen 1:31 and no death or suffering prior to Adam's fall at Gen 3:19; Romans 5:12 which do not allow cataclysmic events before Genesis 7 in their models.

11. Brigit said sorry about missing a couple of paragraphs on the thread.
12. Brigit said she's only interested in comparing scripture with scripture in understanding Genesis and studied two years of Hebrew and the Bible makes it plain there was a catastrophic event between Genesis 1:1 and 2.
13. Brigit said Did God make a waste and emptiness, or a vanity and void, as a preliminary condition for creation, regarding "And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep."

14. JP said old-earth interpretations of Genesis 1:1-2 are recent and the Scriptures teach about 6200 years since creation, but the length of the pre-Flood day and year is difficult to ascertain; he'd like comments on the detailed objections he hyperlinked in the previous post.

15. I said regarding "And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep" that the Earth may have referred to an apparition in the sky and the "deep" referred to the sky and the "face" of the deep maybe referred to the Saturn configuration; I want to compare several catastrophist models.

16. JP said the Bible has the best discernable chronology.

17. I quoted from Charles Chandler's "Torah Historicity" and referenced his Chronology at http://qdl.scs-inc.us/?top=6883

18. Brigit expressed interest in discussing JP's arguments about Gen. 1:1 & 1:2.

19. JP claimed that Chandler's Torah chronology messes up Christ's genealogy in Luke.

20. Brigit said the second verse of Genesis is illuminated further by many other verses in Genesis, and the rest of the Bible, revealing an event which lead to utter chaos and ruin of the primitive creation and will list them next.

21. JP said Guy Berthault's flume tank experiments in stratigraphy and Andrew Hall's waterless electrical-catastrophic ionic winds hypothesis show that Long periods of time are simply not required for sedimentary desposition, similarly with Fossilisation and solidification.

22. Brigit said Thanks for the link to the fossilized wire etc.

23. I asked re Genesis 1, how do you know "God" referred to the Creator, "Earth" referred to our planet, or that "created" meant made from nothing.

24. Younger Dryas said something about folks in the 7th century b.c. I guess re editing the Hebrew bible.

25. I said On my private forum at http://futureschool.boards.net/thread/2 ... crollTo=30 I'm trying to compare several catastrophist models.

26. JP said Chandler's reconstruction conflicts with that of Luke's recorded genealogy; "God" referred to the Creator Because the Bible repeats emphatically that Elohim is YHWH; the Genesis narrative makes it clear that it is the Earth being referred to by the Hebrew word aretz.

27. I said all of the 13 biblical examples that JP cite for aretz referring to our planet Earth can equally be regarded as referring to the ancient Saturn configuration and I quoted from Cardona's Aeon article, Darkness and the Deep, regarding eretz etc; and we should clarify our catastrophist views in a little detail.

28. Charles said Luke got Jesus' genealogy from the 2nd Temple scribes and They got it from King Josiah (640-609 BCE), who canonized everything from Genesis to 2 Kings, And he got it from the 1st Temple scribes, But he apparently did not copy it verbatim.

29. kmcook said some 'secret' traditions say Akhenaten=Moses.

30. JP said the ancient Hebrew worldview was not Saturnist; aretz apparently always refers to some aspect of terrestrial Earth and never refers to anything in the sky; other mytho-theological traditions do support The Saturn Myth, but The Hebrew Bible does not; it's correct that he favors Velikovsky's model quite a bit alongside Talbott, Cardona, Cook, van der Sluijs and Peratt; it's incorrect that he doesn't accept that Earth, Venus and Mars were in polar axial alignment with Saturn's poles; re Creation Ex-Nihilo, he remains undecided.

31. Brigit said she wouldn't dream of criticism of DT or the Saturnian Configuration theory but is skeptical of psychoanalysis and imagery to re-write history.

32. Moses described his catastrophist model. [Note to Mo: I posted it at http://futureschool.boards.net/post/30/thread ]

33. JP said the JEDPR analysis of Hebrew Scriptures that Charles seems to follow has been thoroughly debunked.

34. I asked Brigit to reference what psychoanalysis and imagery she was referring to re rewriting history; I told Mo I'd post his model soon; I told JP that Charles bases much of his thesis on archeological findings and JP should do similarly; the oldest known Torah remnants were from 300 something BC [or later].

35. Charles agreed with JP that the Saturn theory ignores the gist of the whole Hebrew narrative, but There might be a catastrophist thread in it, as recent research has identified evidence of a meteoric airburst over the Dead Sea in the Middle Bronze Age, around 1740 bce, reminiscent of Sodom & Gomorrah; he thought Brigit referred to Freud; he told JP if redactors didn't rework bible chronology it would take divine intervention to get the conventional chronology to work.

36. Moses said he didn't get his model from Thornhill.

37. JP disagreed with Charles re little astronomy/astrology in Judaism and showed Hebrew words for all of the planets out to Saturn; he showed that Jesus did not critique second temple prophets as Charles thought, but just the Sadducees; there is significant absence of explicit Saturnian imagery in Scripture, but there are many places where it can be deducted accurately; JEDPR can never demonstrate, 1. What the 'original' documents were; 2. How/when/where the 'original' documents were changed to become the present documents; Josephus' Antiquity of the Jews referenced Christ; most of the clear editorial comments in the Torah are glosses explaining some early cultural or linguistic phenomenon to a later, culturally-linguistically divergent readership.

38. Younger Dryas said take a wider view of this period to realize the altered night skies would generate a half dozen new religions worldwide at almost the same time; most history cannot be traced back before 600 or 700 BC; he quoted Irving Wolfe; no new Gods were added.

39. Charles said he's taking all of the historical details from the Torah and the Deuteronomic History to be rooted in fact, unless they're just not physically possible.

40. Maol asked if anyone is familiar with the Urantia Book. [I'm not impressed by it.]

41. JP said though it may not be possible to live to 900 now, it may have been possible in Noah's ante-deluvian world; proto-Saturn encased in 'mist' of water agrees with the Bible as it mentions that characteristic of the ante-deluvian age; maybe plasmaspheric reflection warmed the globe; the ancient Hebrew scriptures indicate their world was not anything like our world; the Chinese Shang Dynasty supports biblical claims of past longevity.

42. JP thanked Younger Dryas re no new Gods were added after 600 BC.

43. Charles agreed that the applicability of the "here & now" to the "there & then" needs to be questioned; it's difficult to understand how dinosaurs such as the Argentinosaurus could have ever roamed the Earth, since their legs weren't strong enough to support their body masses, and their hearts weren't powerful enough to pump blood all of the way to their brains; perhaps the atmosphere was a lot thicker then, providing a lot more buoyancy, enabling larger/taller animals; Then came the KT impact, which caused a dramatic reduction in atmospheric buoyancy; less atmospheric pressure might have affected vulcanism, and help explain the flood basalts in India.

44. Brigit said the Bible does not say that God created the sun and moon at the time of the six days of the reformation of the earth, in Genesis
45. Brigit said Gen 1:16 God made two great lights; Psalms may seem to say the "two great lights" were the sun and the moon, but there is a small difference between the terms for "lights", so the Psalms passage may refer to the new lights only.
46. Brigit added some context for the two lights passages; God was ordering the heavens and earth for Keeping time.

47. perpetual motion seemed to say Earth is much younger than 6,000 years; rapid continental drift isn't likely; someone says these Bolides could not come into contact with this planet, they would explode in the upper atmosphere; All “craters” are from planetary lightning; the super continent broke apart from centrifugal force; use logic and don't depend on a book of local history, the bible.

48. JP said it seems the unknown author of Psalm 136 was wrongly interpreting Genesis 1:14-16 as meaning the sun and moon; perpetual motion's supposition that the Hebrew scriptures relates only to local history is easily falsified in Genesis etc.

[Brigit Bara]

Thanks Lloyd, for the beautiful Cliff Notes! So very handy.

[Brigit Bara]

catastrophism subsection: the two great lights of Genesis 1

by JP Michael » Sun Dec 08, 2019 3:29 am

I find it hard to avoid the conclusion that, at the very least, the unknown author of Psalm 136 is readily interpreting Genesis 1:14-16 as meaning the sun and moon in their observable sky. The combination of all the language (lights & greater; sun & day; moon, stars & night; ruling over [same Hebrew verb, משל]) of Genesis 1:14-16 in Psalm 136 is a very strong argument for direct and intended allusion.

I read the several points of your response with great interest, JP.

I'd like to address them, and support a moderate, limited claim that the "two great lights" of Genesis may refer to a time when there was a different sky than the one we have now, but does not in itself prove it conclusively.

For the sake of anyone not familiar with the texts through direct experience, the books of the Bible are made up of many different types of literature. There are histories, literature, philosophical musings, poetry, hymns, advice/proverbs, personal letters, civil law, ceremonial law, ritual law, and finally, the prophetic writings which contain statements about past, present and future events. So I would like to point out that the two verses we are comparing, Gen 1:16 and Psalm 136:7-9 are from two different types of literature. Genesis 1-11 is a historical account and the Psalm is a hymn of thanksgiving. The purposes of the two texts are different, and in this Psalm there is an unusual style of language which makes it clear that these are absolutely lyrics to a melody. Some say Jesus sang this hymn on the night of Passover.

Therefore, when looking at history, an allusion to a verse in a song is not necessarily weighted the same as a historical statement, but the two can illuminate one another in wonderful ways. For instance, the Psalmist in giving thanks can be thankful for the present sky without making statements about the ancient world.

{Possibility#} 2. The Author of Psalm 136 is (erroneously) imposing his understanding of the sky in his time back upon the text of Genesis 1:14-16.
a) Saturn can still be interpreted into Genesis 1:14 at the expense of intra-Biblical accuracy. The Psalmist's view of Genesis 1:14-16, howsoever poetically alluded, was incorrect.

There is not necessarily any error if the psalmist refers to the present sky. Let's see how this can be so.

• Text
  O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!
  For HIs steadfast love endures forever...
  To Him who alone does great wonders,
  For His steadfast love endures forever.
  To Him who by wisdom made the heavens,
  For His steadfast love endures forever;...
  To Him who made great lights,
  For His steadfast love endures forever--
  The sun to rule by day,
  For His steadfast love endures forever;
  The moon and the stars to rule by night,
  For His steadfast love endures forever.

The emphasis in this lyrical piece is on the truth that God made all of these things by His wisdom, not on which lights were created when. In this case, He has also made the present sky, as well as any previous order, because the planets, the sun, the stars, and all the hosts of heaven are merely a part of what He made. This is very countercultural, as I said before, in the ancient world. You could even prove that many societies actually worshiped the planets by the fact that in the Law, Israel was forbidden from ever worshiping anything in the heavens, or idols representing them, or from practicing astrology.

And how stupid would it be to worship an object in the sky that has been replaced in the past? And may even be replaced or completely altered in the future, ie a new heavens and a new earth? To sum, I think the the planets and the stars receive less emphasis in this gloss in Ps 136, and in the case of the historical account in Genesis, are clearly set in motion by God for light, beauty, and the keeping of signs, seasons, days and years.

Now I will make the case that the word for lights -- the "great lights" -- in Genesis 1 is a different word than the "great lights" in this Psalm.

Also, whether there was day and night, and two great lights, at some point in the changing Saturnian Configuration, I don't actually know.

[JP Michael]

Thanks for the clarification on genre, Brigit Bara.

On second thought, your citation of the KJV English just made me realise a signficant deficiency in Psalm 136:7 in the ESV translation: there are no definite articles in the Hebrew of Ps 136:7. I believe this is significant.

If the Psalmist had said, "You made the great lights...", as per ESV, a much stronger case could be made for direct allusion to Gen 1:14-16.

But that is not what the Psalmist wrote. He wrote, "You made great lights..." The article is lacking in the Hebrew and the KJV accurately reflects this.

So I quite agree that this Psalm does not necessarily have to contradict an alternative sky in the past. Neither does it have to mean that the Psalmist was (incorrectly) imposing his view upon the ancient sky. The Psalmist is extolling God's establishment of the current sky, which, like the earlier Genesis sky, has two great lights in it which the Psalmist happily identifies as the sun and the moon. Are the two great lights of Genesis 1:14-16 identical to those of the Psalmist's? Not necessarily, but, as you remark, that is irrelevant to the Psalmist's exaltation and praise of the Creator of the current, orderly, clockwork system of things.

I find this passage of critical importance to iron out in exegetical detail, because I can forsee many creationist rebuttals of Saturnian theory stemming from this Psalm's apparent interpretation of Genesis 1:14-16.

[Brigit Bara]

That is an amazing point about the articles/no articles.

"I find this passage of critical importance to iron out in exegetical detail, because I can forsee many creationist rebuttals of Saturnian theory stemming from this Psalm's apparent interpretation of Genesis 1:14-16."
I had the same image!

[Brigit Bara]

catastrophism subsection: the two great lights of Genesis 1

מָאוֹר
vs
אוֹר

We find the first is used in Gen, has a feminine plural ending, and has a definite article.
We compare it to 136:7 in the Psalms, and find it has a masculine plural ending and no definite article.

We can easily see that the first is derived from the second. But why does it begin with an M? I am not fluent but I think you can safely consider this to be a different noun, and that the letter mem is probably not a shortened preposition stuck on the beginning of the word, light.

Now I will list all of the uses of the word מָאוֹר/m-ohr in the Old Testament. There are 19.

• Gen 1:14,15 & 16, already referenced.
  
  Exo 25:6
  
  “oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense;
  
  
  Exo 27:20
  
  “And you shall command the children of Israel that they bring you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to cause the lamp to burn continually.
  
  
  Exo 35:8
  
  ‘oil for the light, and spices for the anointing oil and for the sweet incense;
  
  Exo 35:14
  
  ‘also the lampstand for the light, its utensils, its lamps, and the oil for the light;
  
  Exo 35:28
  
  and spices and oil for the light, for the anointing oil, and for the sweet incense.
  
  Exo 39:37
  
  the pure gold lampstand with its lamps (the lamps set in order), all its utensils, and the oil for light;
  
  Lev 24:2
  
  “Command the children of Israel that they bring to you pure oil of pressed olives for the light, to make the lamps burn continually.
  
  Num 4:9
  
  “And they shall take a blue cloth and cover the lampstand of the light, with its lamps, its wick-trimmers, its trays, and all its oil vessels, with which they service it.
  
  Num 4:16
  
  “The appointed duty of Eleazar the son of Aaron the priest is the oil for the light, the sweet incense, the daily grain offering, the anointing oil, the oversight of all the tabernacle, of all that is in it, with the sanctuary and its furnishings.”
  
  Psa 74:16
  
  The day is Yours, the night also is Yours;
  You have prepared the light and the sun.
  
  Psa 90:8
  
  You have set our iniquities before You,
  Our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
  
  Pro 15:30
  
  The light of the eyes rejoices the heart,
  And a good report makes the bones healthy.
  
  Eze 32:8
  
  All the bright lights of the heavens I will make dark over you,
  And bring darkness upon your land,’
  Says the Lord GOD.

What's interesting about the verse in Ezekiel, which is addressed to the Egyptians, is that it uses both words in the same phrase: מְאֹורֵי אֹור
So Me-ohr becomes an adjective of the light, ohr. I think the Egyptians were about the worst when it came to sun worship. The suggestion by Ezekiel seems to be that they should have known better, after all these centuries.

[moses]

Lloyd,
Very enthusiastic effort. I am quite happy with what you wrote about my theory and thanks.
Cheers,
Mo

[JP Michael]

But why does it begin with an M?

I can answer this. מאור is indeed a noun, built from the hiphil (causative) stem of the verb אור, to light. Nouns constructed from the hiphil stem will usually, but not always, have an initial מ (mem), just like the hiphil participle does. The other marker of a hiphil-stem noun is the intrinsic yod added between the 2nd and 3rd root letters. מאור is not just a light, it is a light-giver. Hence its use throughout Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers (quoted above) as synonymous to the Tabernacle oil lamps. They are light-givers, they cause light, rather than just being 'light'. אורים in Ps 136:7 technically just means "lights", although the causative connotation is implied by its association with the sun in the following verse.

As an aside on Hebrew nouns, there are 4 common ways to construct a noun from a verbal root in Hebrew (listed in order of general frequency):

• 1. Addition of an initial מ before the first root consonant. Eg. מזכור (mizkor - monument - from hiphil stem of זכר, to cause to remember)
  2. Addition of an initial ת before the first root consonant. Eg. תלמיד (talmid - a disciple, from the hiphil stem of למד, to learn, lit. a causing to learn one. Note the intrinsic yod between 2nd and 3rd root letters indicating the hiphil stem here)
  3. Addition of final ון after the last root consonant. Eg. זכרון (zikhron - Ex. 17:14 - memorial record, from זכר, to remember)
  4. Addition of an initial א before the first root consonant. Cannot be added before another א. Eg. אזכרה (azkarah - Lev. 2:9 - memorial offering, from זכר, to remember. )

These are in addition to the typical construction of feminine nouns, usually by adding ־ָה or ־ֶת , which may in and of themselves be in addition to the above noun markers (eg. אזכרה, azkarah, has both the initial א marking the noun and final ה marking the feminine). Of course there are others besides these, but far less frequent and not really worth memorising.

[Lloyd]

Maybe I can keep notes on the discussion here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l3y ... sp=sharing

I'll try to get to discussing EDM soon, as many readers here consider it a realistic theory, but Charles critiques it and I agree with his analysis. He accepts that electric forces dominate the universe, but not the way the TB team supposes.

[Brigit Bara]

Nice. I created a bunch of different lightning strikes. It wasn't so difficult!


מבּרוק

תבּריק

אבּרקה


בָּרָק H1299

Actually, I think the modern Israeli word for electricity is from the ancient Hebrew word for "amber," similar to the etymology in English. So the electric sun would be
Shemesh haKhashmal

Thanks for the primer (: I am sure it is in my old grammar book from 1993.

[perpetual motion]

What I meant to say is that the earth could be older than said, but what I meant is the present terrain is not.
Could be 2-3 thousand years old but that may be stretching it quite a bit.
I have been out looking around in a few states, google earth and the terrain is not that old.

About the continents. You bet that they broke up and ended up somewhat were they are now, but I would say
they did this in around a day or so. Big time power washer and maybe a little wind behind it.
While these continents were all one , the people probably lived within five hundred mile radius of each other, and
a few tribes scattered here and there. Then when the continents broke up the people were scattered with the land masses not knowing were they ended up they just had to start over from scratch. That would be why there is a lot of
superstition in the world. Superstition in a big way. Intelligence was a big downfall, also we should add that into the equation.


"The texts might only have been known to few people, or they previously thought to be the oldest book in the world and comprised of original stories - actually drew upon much older( Sumerian) myths.”
"We can all thank Constantine for destroying the stories before the book was written".

"Might have been left out because their content does not fit well into that of the other books. Some of the apocrypha were written at a later date, and were therefore not included'.

'They will either contradict the Koran, in which case they are heresy, or they will agree with it, so they are superfluous.'

"The texts might only have been known to few people, or they might have been left out because their content does not fit well into that of the other books. Some of the apocrypha were written at a later date, and were therefore not included.The book has been translated into many languages from the biblical languages of Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek.”’
Gilgamesh sounds like he may have started something, and these liars and forgers took it and ran it into one
of the biggest fictions of all time.

“Gnostics(and we know who they are) see themselves as a privileged class elevated above everybody else by their higher, deeper knowledge, Liberal scholars and fictional authors like to purport the idea that the gospels of Thomas and Peter (and other long-disputed books) contain truths that were vehemently stomped out, but that simply has no basis historically."

"It is closer to the truth to say that no serious theologians really cared about these books because they were obviously written by people lying about authorship and had little basis in reality. That is one reason why a council declaring the canon was so late in coming (397 AD), because the books that were trusted and the ones that had been handed down were already widely known."

[Lloyd]

EDM

Here's one of the places where Charles explained that craters are formed by impacts (involving electrical effects), not EDM.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... &start=135

I don't have time to pick out the most relevant quotes right now.