Slayer,
I am not sure how you are pulling this thread off but so far so good
No flaming as of yet and I hope it does not start with my post
My beliefs come from the Bible. Yet, when I read Genesis I see something that most people don't (not saying my way is right).
I have had this view for a very long time and it could be backed up with science. The more discoveries that are made about the ancient world the more
truth I find in my theory, I will try and explain it as best as I can.
First I would like to explain my view:
As a Christian I believe the Bible, as it is written, yet I believe we must also look at what is not written, what does the bible leave out and why?
What truths can be found therein and how does it relate to what we know today.
When I was younger, as I read the bible, I would have questions and many times I would not get an answer that suited me from other Christians.
The first question that bugged me was "Who did Cain marry?", this is what got me looking at what the bible actually says. A sister or an angel did
not sit well with me. So I started looking deeper at what is actually written.
Now a word on the writings in Genesis. Many feel that this book was written by Moses yet the bible does not state that it was. In truth there may
have been up to ten different author of Genesis.
No one was around to witness Chapter One so we know that God must have passed this information onto Adam and his descendants.
When this knowledge is passed from God to man, man would have had to put it in context that they and others would have understood. Imagine you trying
to explain to a lost tribe in the Amazon how the computers of today are made and ask them to put it in their own words. They might get the gist of it
or the outline but how much would be left out?
This is what has led to my thoughts on Creation and why I believe we have to look at what is not written as well as what is. I don't think I did a
great job of explaining it but perhaps you will see what I mean as I explain my views on Creation and modern man.
This may take more than one post
A look at Genesis One and what I see when I read it.
1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
In the beginning God created time (beginning), space (heaven) and matter (earth).
(Day 3) 11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
(Day 5) 20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open
firmament of heaven.
(Day 6) 24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his
kind: and it was so.
26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air,
and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Do you see what I see?
The first visible life on earth was probably plant life according to our understanding of biology. Basically this is what is written in the bible. On
day three God created plant life (Remember that early man would have told this story from their view point).
Next, according to biology, simple life forms then more complex life forms would have "evolved" in the oceans.
This is the exact order we find in the bible so far. On day 5, God created all of the life in the oceans. Yet it also states that birds were made on
the fifth day. I had a problem with this up until a few years ago.
A new study of ancient fossils suggests that birds are ancient enough that dinosaurs may have evolved from them. In fact, ancient raptors, usually
classified as dinosaurs, may actually have been flightless
birds.
io9.com...
and....
The paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee has recently described the fossil Protoavis, from Late Triassic deposits in Texas. Chatterjee claims that
Protoavis is a true bird that is actually closer to modern birds than Archaeopteryx. If this is true, this would push the origin of birds back by
about 80 million years. It would also show that the first birds lived at the same time as the earliest dinosaurs
www.ucmp.berkeley.edu...
Next we see on Day Six that God created all other life forms on earth, ending with man. This is encompassing a lot of information but basically it is
what is found in biology and "evolution".
Continued in the next post.