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Since God is eternal, matter is supposed to be eternal, I assume the earth is eternal. When I read Genesis, it starts out with God’s spirit brooding on some waters in a void. He divides them into upper and lower waters and then says “let there be light,” and so on. Then He divides the lower waters again and dry land “appears”. So the young earthers seem to miss this because of ex nihilo theory. But then in CH. 8 after the flood, God promises never “again” destroy the earth via water. Jewish sources say the earth was populated and destroyed several times before Adam and Eve came on the scene. Maybe this was a watery destruction that had happened to earth several times. The “again” can mean once, twice, or a hundred times. That would explain why all that water was there and a nul and void earth? What do you think? (and if you believe it is all metaphorical, dont throw cyber tomatos at me, lol)
rachael wrote:(and if you believe it is all metaphorical, dont throw cyber tomatos at me, lol)
😆 😆 Very nice!! Haha. We would never! Haha.rachael wrote:Jewish sources say the earth was populated and destroyed several times before Adam and Eve came on the scene.
I would love to read some of these sources. Can you point me to some of them, or do you have quotes or references for me?
rachael wrote:But then in CH. 8 after the flood, God promises never “again” destroy the earth via water.
It is hard for me to believe it was ever destroyed by water and repopulated by the animals in the ark. So it is hard to think about if that happened “again”, when I don’t believe it happened at all.
I think most Jewish lore is egotistical. They don’t spend much time understanding things before the Jewish nation is in the story, or after. A few lines to talk about the creation, to me, just opens up possibilities that it could have happened over millions of years in a myriad of ways, and they sum it up with a quick story to get back to the Jewish nation and their role in history.
I believe there are many other things going on in the World, and with God, other than what we read in the bible, which was mainly an oracle traditional account for generational education.
(Just my opinion…no hurling cyber tomatoes!
Here is an excerpt from “Legends of the Jews” by Louis Ginzberg, which can be found at sacred-texts.com. Quote:“….Nor is this world inhabited by man the first of things earthly created by God. He made several worlds before ours, but He destroyed them all, because He was pleased with none until He created ours. But even this last world would have had no permanence, if God had executed His original plan of ruling it according to the principle of strict justice. It was only when He saw that justice by itself would undermine the world that He associated mercy with justice, and made them to rule jointly. Thus, from the beginning of all things prevailed Divine goodness, without which nothing could have continued to exist. If not for it, the myriads of evil spirits had soon put an end to the generations of men. But the goodness of God has ordained, that in every Nisan, at the time of the spring equinox, the seraphim shall approach the world of spirits, and intimidate them so that they fear to do harm to men…”
And yeah I can see the egoism sometimes. But just their existence as a people is kinda miraculous after the diaspora over 2000 years ago. There are more resources, but none would be any more convincing. Really the Jewish writings didn’t get me to considering pre-Adamic civilizations as much as reading unorthodox archaeological material such as “Forbidden Archaeology” (even despite the authors are Hare Krishna believers). I just hate throwing Genesis out completely. It is a slippery slope of throwing out everything to me
Karen Armstrong has some good narratives too. I don’t think it is necessary to throw out Genesis…just learn some new perspectives and fit it in to other things we know so that Genesis isn’t the ONLY narrative.
I have no problem with theories like this – as long as they don’t deny basic science that I feel is clearly accurate truth. We really don’t know about SO much, so I am open to almost anything that could add meaning and insight – but we shouldn’t justify Young Earth Creationism, for example, simply because we can’t let go of Biblical timeline inerrancy. I have no doubt there were pre-Adamic peoples of some sort, I’m not sure of the level of civilization or culture. My personal view, not doctrine or in any way scriptural, is that the start of civilization (neolithic revolution, perhaps) was about when God decided these were people and where the idea of Adam and Eve comes from. I don’t believe Adam and Eve were necessarily individuals, but were representative of these people in general (and of us for that matter). DarkJedi wrote:I don’t believe Adam and Eve were necessarily individuals, but were representative of these people in general (and of us for that matter).
I could see the temple ceremony supporting that idea.
I have heard of this based on the phrase “ Repopulate the earth” However, the word translated as “repopulate” might better be rendered as “to fill.” So mark that point of evidence down as inconclusive.
Ray said: “…but we shouldn’t justify Young Earth Creationism, for example, simply because we can’t let go of Biblical timeline inerrancy…” I don’t justify YEC but I have no problem with the chronology of the Bible. The Bible doesn’t ever say that God said, “Let there be water” or “Let there be land”. The Bible doesn’t justify YEC either. Nor Jewish traditions. But why read them though if you are a beliver in Christ? After all, we are warned about “Jewish fables.”
However, in the BoM we have Nephi saying it is hard to understand the words of Isaiah because we “know not the manner of the prophesying of the Jews.” Then we have the Lord saying “great are the words of Isaiah.” Then an admonishment about our ingratitude and “what thank have ye,?” regarding the suffering of the Jews for giving us Gentiles the Bible. So I wanted a more Jewish perspective.
So fter giving up on learning Hebrew, i settled for some commentaries on the Torah. I really gained a greater appreciation for the OT afterward. I still don’t understand the manner of prophesying of the Jews but I’ve learned that what the Bible doesn’t say is sometimes louder than what it does.
Ray, I really hope you didn’t put me in a young earther box just because I have a more literal perspective than you and the majority of stayers. I m getting that vibe. Perhaps unfounded. Maybe my own projection. Like you, I find young earth theories extremely annoying. Unlike you, I do not benefit from LDS culture. I do not have an eternal spouse. I don’t have most things LDS culture would just assume members have.
I live in a predominately African American community. These people are my friends. I can’t be that member missionary given our history. I virtually live in a ‘ghetto’ area. I have to cling to something literal. I’ve had spiritual experiences in pondering lds concepts. I just think of this era as another Pharisaic period.
I will shout it from the roof tops! The earth is older than dirt!!! rachael wrote:Ray, I really hope you didn’t put me in a young earther box just because I have a more literal perspective than you and the majority of stayers. I m getting that vibe. Perhaps unfounded. Maybe my own projection.
Like you, I find young earth theories extremely annoying. Unlike you, I do not benefit from LDS culture. I do not have an eternal spouse. I don’t have most things LDS culture would just assume members have.
I live in a predominately African American community. These people are my friends. I can’t be that member missionary given our history. I virtually live in a ‘ghetto’ area. I have to cling to something literal. I’ve had spiritual experiences in pondering lds concepts. I just think of this era as another Pharisaic period.
In fairness, Rachael, you have stated you take a very literal view of the Bible. I understand, and I think Ray does too, that you can take a literal view and still understand that a “day” doesn’t necessarily mean a 24-hour period and/or that the word is not necessarily translated correctly or as it was intended or understood thousands of years ago. I think you are both on the same page and Ray is simply trying to point out that we can’t use the literal view to justify young earth creationism given issues with translation and other likely inaccuracies in the OT. And who can blame Nephi for not understanding Isaiah? I’m not even sure the people who claim to understand him really do.
rachael wrote:I have a more literal perspective than you and the majority of stayers.
I like reading your views and how you balance a literal acceptance of the bible with skepticism on the church and speculative doctrines.You are right darkjedi, far be it from majorityomote the idea that the earth is only 6000 yrs old. I’m guessing that it was probably around while we were just little “gnalums” running around in the preexistence. IMO the YEC theory is the main roadblock for otherwise intelligent people to outright reject all things science. I love science but when the think tanks that decide what they want to be empirical, published, and depart from their own methods of objective riguor, it also seems to smack of religious dogma with the “Origin of the Species” as their bible.
If science (not science itself but the majority of biased scientists in power) were really objective, it would be more agnostic in approach.
far be it from me… not whatever that last word was. My cursor uses its free agency whether I like it or not
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