Which came first, the chicken or the egg?
Did Adam have a belly button?
On the third day, God made trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds. On the sixth day, God made man. If Adam cut a tree down the following week, would the tree have rings?
What do you think?
Posts
28 comments:
Did you make this up yourself, Craver? I'm impressed.
Ah, an interesting question indeed. Which lends itself to whether or not you believe the 6 "days" of creation are days as we know it, or some other division of time. And when he created trees, did it appear as a full grown tree or did it start as a sapling and grow at some warp speed (or not, depending on the answer to the first quesiton)? And if it had fallen down in the forest and no one was there to hear it - did it make a sound?
Yes, I'm a first timer (second timer now, I guess), although I have been enjoying your comments over at Seedlings in Stone. So I popped over to check out your blog.
Yes, it would have rings. I am going to use a tree photo in my next post..... Now that was some news you really needed wasn't it.
I see three fishies admiring the lure, but only one has ventured to nibble on it. Anyone else?
The discussion I am hoping for is not so much the yeas & nays, but why yea or why nay.
Oh, and be sure to visit Jazzycat's blog soon for another picture of a tree. :-)
I'm swimming around that lure and wondering, is the fisherman trying to catch me? Will he fry me up and eat me with a side of tartar sauce?
Craver, you have the uncanny ability to bring out the food lover in all of us. How do you do it... even when simply talking tree rings?
I suppose the trees would have rings, so as to show all the other trees coming down the pike what they should do. (Oh, my heavens, did I say "pike"? See, you did it again. Food, food, food. Seems fishy to me.)
okay then.
The chicken came first. It seems to me that God created all of the animals and that the first ones were probably "mature". I can't say I have any sort of Biblical proof of that, but would there be a purpose in having the chicken start from an egg? I can't think of one.
No, I would think Adam would not have a belly button since he had no umbilical cord. It's not biologically necessary (the button, that is), so I see no need for him to have had one.
Yes, I'm of the opinion that tree probably had rings. I'm not convinced that the six days of the creation story are measured in 24 hour increments. I do believe in taking the Bible literally, but that still doesn't mean that the word "day" referred to 24 hours. So maybe that tree had some time to grow...
chomp, chomp.
There you go! Thank-you LL Bravekat and Spaghettipie. Anyone else?
And please, if anyone should disagree, please do it nicely. No chomping allowed. Besides, wouldn't you slurp spaghetti?
I was too busy looking for something for my headache to answer at first.
I agree with spaghettipie on the chicken/egg question. Besides, Adam and Eve were busy eating fruit. No scrambled eggs with their pancakes and maple syrup.
But for syrup they would have needed a mature tree (am I right?). So, um... I still can't figure about those tree rings. I think it's because I'm stuck thinking about food now.
Must .. have... breakfast food... for dinner!
I say "yes." If it was tall enough to chop down, and it was only a week old, then I say God must have made an old tree to start with. Otherwise, if God planted the seed for the tree when he created it, it wouldn't have been large enough to chop down a week later. Probably woudln't have even peaked out of the earth yet. And if it had, Adam would have been able to pluck it out rather than cut it.
In other words, I don't know.
are you stealing these questions from mrs. craver's genesis precepts study?
a. chicken
b. no
c. i think god created the trees, like man, in a more mature state, so sure...rings.
Yes. A good argument that I heard some time ago, that made sense to me at least, was that you can compare the Universe, earth, etc. to, well, time. When you create a watch, you don't start time when the watch starts right? God created a Universe that was in motion; trees were grown, they had plants, etc. Adam, as the chief example, was not created as a baby - he was created as an adult.
(which, btw, when was his birthday? Was he created as a 25 year old and if so, when he died at 980 years old was he really 980 or was he 965?)
Craver
I could take lessons from you on how to make my posts more interesting...you're the master. Here are my answers as I chomp on the lure
Chicken - consistent with the plain reading of creation account
No - I mean yes...ok, I'll settle on no.
Rings - I don't know why but I don't imagine the creation of trees as starting with little shoots or saplings...there were some I suspect but there were also mature trees...which leads me to ask, which tree did Adam cut down?
Thanks for the comments. And Andre, I promise not to let such a kind remark go to my head.
Let's see, where do I start? Okay, here's the way I see it:
Chicken. (Several of you are tracking with me on that one.)
Bellybutton? Sure.
Tree rings? Probably.
And Pete, I think you did a good job with explaining why. God knew the end from the beginning, because He ordained all things to be a certain way.
I figure, God may have finished creating with the b-button as a punctuation mark. An angel gives Him a quizzical look, and God says, "you'll see what that's about later."
spaghettipie said... "I'm not convinced that the six days of the creation story are measured in 24 hour increments"
This is a common thing that I have heard said. The problem with this statement is that it questions the clarity, and the in-errancy of scripture.
Scripture says the earth and all its fullness was created in six days. Why can't that be literal? Why does it have to be dummed down to make it more believable? As if the believability of God's infinite power isn't.
I think the questions Craver ask are irrelevant to what really happened. Why ask such a question except to cause questions of whether or not scripture is literal, clear and in-errant. Which by the way is what the Devil did to Eve in Genesis 3 and which lead to a path of sin. ... interesting.
Frank, your posts have impressed me with passion and enthusiasm and an honest-to-goodness zeal for the Lord. I was careful to “lure” these fishies; let’s not frighten them away.
But you’re right about one thing. Bellybuttons and tree rings are a smoke screen. The thing I really want to know is what my friends believe about the Word. The devil tried to convince Eve that God’s word was untrue. Here, we are exposing our own thoughts in an effort to question ourselves, not God. Why do I believe what I do? Does my opinion line up with Scripture? Etc.
Be gentle. (1 Pet. 3:15-16)
To be clear, I do believe in the inerrancy of the Scripture, and I do believe that God is big enough to do something like create the world in six literal (our 240hour) days.
To be honest, I have not studied that Hebrew poem enough to know exactly what is trying to be conveyed when the author uses the word "days". But I am open to the fact that that you can take the word "day" literally, and it still mean something different than what we now share as the meaning of day (24-hours). I like a point an author makes - "it's interseting that we measure days by the sun and the moon, which weren't created until day four". We talk about "taking things literally" from the Bible - but truly it does still boil down to your interpretation. I'm not proposing he did not do it in six days - I'm just throwing out there that I'm not certain it was days as we currently definte them. I mean, what if, at some point in the future the powers that be determine that a day actually has 26 hours? And our grandchildren at that time say the world must have been created in 6, 26 hour days?
I'd love to hear more about why people think that the word "day" in the Genesis account must stand for our concept of a day (24 hours). Like I said before, I'm just not convinced.
spaghettipie...
You make a good point, and I wasn't saying you don't believe in inerrancy :)
But check out this verse ... Genesis 1:5... "God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day."
Cheers!
Actually let me add to that...
What's amazing about that verse is he just defined our full 24 hr period that we have today.
It's funny that at one point various civilizations used the moon to determine the calendar... but when in fact God used the sun from the very get-go (hence the "light" in the verse).
Ah-Maz-ing... peace out.
Thanks for being open about discussing these things. I know you take a risk when discussing controversial subjects, and I hope we each handle it well.
If you think it was foolish of me to bring it (controversy) up, let me know. I'm not saying that it won't hurt, but at least I'll know better for future posts.
I'm curious about why Genesis would be referred to as poetry. I thought it was presented as an historical account. Anyone?
Okay, admittedly I referenced the creation story (not the whole of Genesis) as being written in poetry form because a speaker who I respect explained it that way, convincingly. I have not done my own research on it. I am taking his word for it.
However, neither that particular speaker, not do I believe that something is either poetry or historical account. Just because it is written in poetry form does not mean that it is intended to be metaphorical (or exaggerated). I could write something I intended to be taken literally and as historically true, but in the form of poetry.
But, I will do some research on the topic perhaps over the weekend. :)
Thanks for the input folks. If you want to see an interesting article, check this out: How long were the days of Genesis 1?
Gotta go. Mrs. Craver called and said she's making pancakes for dinner.
Now I'm jealous. I love having pancakes for dinner! Much better than cheeseless "pizza." ;-)
what a fun post - you do have a way of drawing people in - I am still looking for the hook in that fat juicy worm!
Chicken first - eggs not mentioned - besides he said be fruitful and multiply - so they would have had to be mature enough to multiply (spoken like a true nerd, I know)
Tree with rings - because they neede to be sturdy enough trunks to support sturdy enough branches to hold the fruit up - too much fruit on young trees breaks the branches off - can't see that happening before sin.
pancakes for supper, not breakfast - unless breakfast is really brunch and I've been awake a while
creation - literal, not figurative because the animals needed to be slain to start the "scarlet thread" - poetry only, no need for immediate mature animals for sacrifice to cover the sin.
Breakfast food for dinner is fun sometimes. LM, it was one of your posts that prompted me to ask Mrs. Craver if she would like to do that once-in-a-while. Of course, it would have been better if I had gotten home earlier last night. I left at the usual time, but caught two trains.
Halfmom, "scarlet thread." Interesting. And it was clever of you to recognize and incorporate the significance of the command to multiply.
If anyone is still hanging around here, you absolutely must follow the link to see Armchair Theologian's thoughts on this kind of stuff. He's a total nutcase, so make sure you don't read his blog if you have a full bladder. And don't try to drink anything while reading his stuff, 'cause you'll end up shooting Pepsi through your nostrils!
I like this. And the picture!
The older I get, the less I know about these kind of things. But fun to speculate.
I would say, "Yes", to the tree ring thing. Aren't they artful?!
Hmmm, seeing that I'm linked here, I'll throw some comments regarding the Genesis debate:
1. Genesis 1 is written in a historical narrative form; it is NOT poetic in structure or form. The Hebrew uses a distinctive form known as a "wayyiqtol" form in order to distinguish historical narrative from non-historical narrative. Genesis 1 is written in a "wayyiqtol" construct and is a historical narrative account. It's a simple recounting of real events and real history.
2. Frank is correct in commenting that "day" and "night" are NOT marked by the sun and the moon. "Day" and "night" are marked by light and darkness. Hence, The first day could have been a real solar day.
3. The inclusion of the ordinal numbers and the phrase "evening and morning" both indicate a literal, 24 hour solar period. Nowhere, in the rest of scripture, is the word "yom" (Hebrew for "day") used with an ordinal number and the phrase "evening and morning" and meaning anything besides a literal, 24 hour solar period.
- I don't mean to chop heads off or anything, but this is one of those questions that is basically a marching band of ideas tromping around a picolo of truth. There's so MUCH opinion and very little biblical, exegetical, fact.
- As for the belly button and whatever else, I understand Genesis to be refering to complete and functioning ecosystems, hence some things would have the appearance of age; like chickens, trees and Adam himself.
- This also actually touches on another "brain buster" question that I always get thrown my way"
The question of distant star light.
People often ask "if stars are billions of light years away, and God made their light 'en route' so that they look older than they really are, then isn't God being deceitful?"
But, seeing that God made plants to "bear(ing) fruit after their kind" (Gen 1:11) and he made animals and commanded them to "be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth" (1:22), God had to make both the plants and animals mature and of sufficient age for reproduction.
If they would not have been able to reproduce, they would NOT have fulfilled their created purposes.
The same goes for stars...
What was their created purpose?
"Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth" (Genesis 1:14-15)
- Stars were made to be seen (and thereby mark seasons, days and years) AND to give light on the earth.
If the light from the stars hadn't reached the earth, those stars wouldn't be fulfilling THEIR created purpose.
Stars were NOT created to give us data on the age of the universe. They were created for the PURPOSE of being seen (for the purpose of being signs and markers) and illuminating the sky.
If we want to know the age of the universe, we have the eyewitness account of Yahweh himself in the book of Genesis. THAT is the real source of data regarding the age question, not the stars.
(And as people like Russell Humphries have stated, space is infinite, bounded, curved, expanding, and light is not a constant. In a bounded and infinite universe, calculating the distance of starlight is USELESS if the universe ITSELF is expanding in an unknown accelerating or decelerating rate)
Post a Comment