According to Genesis, was the world created in 7 24-hour days?

I suppose a Rabbi, who is fluent in Aramaic, would be the one to ask. Except they don't speak to women :D ? So,I'm not going to call up one and ask, especially as a Gentile.

I have heard that the Aramaic word in Genesis refers to a "span of time," not literal 24-hour days.

Most of us have heard that one day equals a thousand years (referring to Genesis and the Aramaic term).

There is no way any Christian could know, is there?


Also, in Psalms (I think it's Psalms - I have forgotten so much), God speaks of compressing the curtain of time, which one could infer as creation happened rapidly because God willed it. I suppose we could take any passage in the bible and infer something or another, whatever suits our fancy :/ Sometimes, expository preaching becomes very interesting.


Does anyone know what the Aramaic says? Maybe you went to synagogue and had this explained to you? What do Jews believe about creation (I realize there are liberal Jews and fundamental Jews - believe the same about creation or no?)?


As a Christian, what were you taught? Have you heard other interpretations?

I was always taught the 7 literal days, but then again I've been hearing about how the creation story was originally a zoroastiran(sp) text that kept going in and out of favor, I assume with the jewish religion, for a long time before it was accepted as truth...anyways I've got some jewish friends who can read some of the old text, or they can probably get in touch with their rabbi if they don't know.

The Aramaic language is 3000 years old and Zoroastrianism supposedly came about In Iran around 250 years before Christ.

I was taught the same as you about creationism. I think the 7 days is popular in most fundamental churches.

I would love to know what the original Aramaic text says.

It is funny to think of in literal calendar days though it was what I was taught as well.

So many people never, ever question this. I can imagine the vehement arguments that have been sparked, at least when people start asking questions, lol.

I have heard two pastors say the opposite. One said the Aramaic word meant a literal 24 hour day. The other said the Aramaic word meant a span of time. I wonder who is right?

In my quest for the truth, I've visited a lot of different denominations. Interesting.

Deduct this.

The bible makes no mention of dinosaurs. To take it literally the dinosaurs were created before the world was created, as Orthodox Jewry believes the world is only about 6000 years old.

Considering that we know that the world is older than 6000 years thanks to radiocarbon dating and strata layers in rock, we know the bible is not literal.

I know of one Orthodox Jew who divided the known age of the universe by 6000 and came out that each year in Jew years are equal to so many million real years. I don't buy his logic, but that's that, I threw it out there for thoughts.

heh that's mildly amusing...I first heard that bit about the zoroastrianism on a documentory on the history channel...sounds like they may have screwed up a bit...for got where I heard abotu it the second time though...

Sicne you brought it up I would actually like to know was well, mainly because I don't see any reason god make a claim like the creation story if it's not true...but translation can change through time, which can change our understand of what he ment...Part of me wants to start studying some of these older languages so I can do the research myself.

why would it take him/her 7 days anyways? if the supreme being is all mighty and all that jazz why not just say poof and everything be formed? by making it take so long it implies that the supreme being is not really supreme after all, that there is a fault or weakness

My conclusion is that it was a simple story for a simple people. They wouldn't have understood the word "eon" or "era", and the idea of so many millions of years was simply beyond their understanding at the time. So they called them "days" to make it easier on the idiots.

although, if it took "God" 7 days to make earth, how long did it take him to get the other galaxies done?

Thank you, Jason. That helps clear things up.

In Genesis, the Leviathan is mentioned which sounds like either a dinosaur or a large crocodile-type animal.


Good question. God has always existed. But where did He come from?

I much prefer "If god has always existed and created all things, then where did he exist in the start?"

he didn't come from anywhere, he always was.........thats the line i've been fed at church for as long as i can remember. you can't ask for facts inside a religion, the two are set against each other

True. We are asked to believe by faith.

Faith is a tool for idiots to feel intelligent when they aren't.

If I remember correctly you have views that you can't back up with science either, which would mean you have faith that they are true... Which makes you an idiot who desperately wants to feel smart, right?

The Bible just got it all back to front.

In the present epoch, man created God in his own image, after nature had kindly created man from a woman's genome...

The absence of data does not make the men of the time idiots. It is very clear that men have been as smart as us for at least a hundred thousand years, probably a lot longer. If we were still working with Roman Numerals, there's an excellent chance that none of us could conceptualise a million either. Even now we can't conceptualise it in much real sense except as an abstract idea.

Try it. Picture in your mind two hundred thousand hands holiding up a million fingers. Unless you are a complete liar or a complete fool, you'll admit that you can't. Apart from John Probe, nobody could.

What you are doing is as absurd as someone from the 31st century coming back here and accusing us of being simple because we don't have a GUT yet...

Kelly you cannot argue about faith to people like this...

The cannot comprehend or grasp what it means to have faith. Of course they come up with words that will explain it for them in some cynical way that will make sense and make them smirk at the idea.

To me words and numbers can't explain how the universe works..all they do to me is allow my mind to think that it may someday understand...which I know it can't. An ant trying to visualise the vastness of the park...when in essence the park is just a fragment within itself.

The problem with faith is that you have people who have faith that is just as strong as yours, but different.

In certain parts of the world, certain people have total faith that God wants them to wipe us out because we let our women dress like whores. In this part of the world certain people have total faith that profit is more important than human life. You have people who have total faith that there is no point in dealing with our current entropy crisis because the antichrist is coming before we run out of oil.

It does not help when people base their decisions on faith instead of reason and are then totally unamenable to arguement. It is our duty to admit that we are fallible and can be wrong, and to be amenable to adapting to sudden changes in the data available to us.

If we are not, most of us will die here within another generation or two... The time is coming where intelligence and critical thinking is going to be under selection pressure again, and I'd advise that you indulge in a bit less of the smug remarks like "Kelly you cannot argue about faith to people like this..." and get with the fuckin program before it's too late.

Just a piece of impartial advice. Take it or leave it, the choice is yours...

I am sorry if you took offense to what I said. You want to make an argument for people who have faith in one god or another because they have views that don't agree with yours. Even belief in god in itself it seems is a hunderance that is wasted time that should be spent on intellectual study according to you...and that is all well and good. If that completes your life then so be it.
It takes different things for different people and we are all not going to agree all the time...some even most of the time.

Many americans are taking a lot of time to get use to thinking about people on the other side of the world as people...and the same goes for those people on the other side. We are all human and guess what...without us...it really doesn't matter what the universe is made of or how long it takes for light to travel..I understand it's importance in the light of science...but in the light of humanity..unless there is a common theme to unite people...they will tear themselves apart like animals....for many that thread is religion...I may not believe much of what people believe..But I do see it's importance to have faith in something...If you have ever seen the movie contact..I would suggest you do..because it teaches of this fact... that science alone is not going to propell us forward..without people who have faith that it will work...

You don't believe in god? hey no one is forcing you..but I would advise you to think about this world a little harder..because if you think this world is simply explained by science...then you haven't really looked at anything. But I guess that is the part that doesn't really matter in your equations.

You didn't offend me. I was not angry with you when I made that return post. I hope I was not overly harsh sounding.



No, because they don't have views at all, and I want to help them. I have nothing against Deism when people support it with an argument that is rational and individual to them, what I have a problem with is sheep being led by psychopaths.

People must learn to think critically for their own protection, not to keep me happy. I want everyone to think their own way, whether I agree with them or not... I respect and prefer a Christian who came to believe in Christ through his own individual ideas and experiences to an atheist who does not believe in God, because he's read Richard Dawkins and has blind respect for scientific authority figures...



Only if that belief is blind and ill thought out. I don't want to see people trapped in a pathetic web of untruth so they can be used as tools by bible black tyrants.



So how come more people have died at the hands of religious zealots than anyone else?



I am open to spiritual experience and compassionate influence, however it is important to separate objective and subjective truth.

I'm interested in a woman at work who to me is the most beautiful woman who I've ever seen in my lifetime, a goddess in fact. To me, her every move is a sublime paragon of femininity. You could see her and think that she looks like the back end of a horse, because this is a subjective point of view that is unique to me, I am the only seat of consciousness in the Universe that sees her as I see her.

Objective truth, like conservation of angular momentum for example, would be seen the same by every human, indeed by every possible type of intelligent life form in the entire Universe, no matter if it had completely different sensory and processing apparatus to us.

If you expect everyone to believe you know an objective truth, like there is a God, his name is Yahweh and his son is called Jesus, you damned well better have compelling evidence to prove it before you lead the whole of humanity on a wild goose chase with a dead duck at the end of it!

oh ok..so that's what you meant...well that makes sense.

Thanks old pal. I certainly wasn't meaning to fall out with you...

Um, what the hell is a GUT (and please don't say it's another word for stomach or I'll use internet violence as PUNishment)?

Oh I know...It's cool..I mean I am not a christian and don't believe as they do..
I just think it is important in ways of social structure, that we can accept that we believe differently...not accept their beliefs..just accept that we believe differently, so we can get beyond the meaning of life stuff and move in the same direction with other things, like space exploration..That is an earth project..not just one nation against another. Maybe I watch too much star trek and look at how their government in the future is and wish for better things.
of course it is a pipe dream.

It's short for Grand Unified Theory, a theory that reconciles Relativity with Quantum Theory.

Attempts at it have involved invoking hyper dimensional and sub dimensional space. You've probably heard the latter mentioned in star trek, if I remember correctly, it owes it's existence to early Kaluza Klein Theories... The problem is that these theories cannot be verified or falsified, so to believe them requires faith, which kind of defeats the purpose...



I agree. What I was trying to say, in my inimitable lack of style, is that I don't agree with people who have fundamentalist beliefs foisting them on other people. Training people to be resistant to brainwashing from an early age would be a good way to combat this, but since the governments of the world want unquestioning minions instead of well informed thinking people to rule over, I don't see it being in the elementary school curriculum any time soon.

There is a history to this as well from a numerological angle. In earlier mesopotamian cultures certain numbers had meanings and associations. For example, seven is often associated with holy or complete (God) in judeo-christian accounts. However again it is seen in earlier cultures too. Seven plants in Enki and Ninhursag ( http://www.gatewaystobabylon.com/myths/tex.../enkininhur.htm ), Seven Sages [of Enki/civilization] ( http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Adapa.htm ), and he seven gates of the underworld ( http://stason.org/TULARC/education-books/s...-Mythology.html ), "The seven who decreed fate" http://home.comcast.net/~chris.s/sumer-faq.html ....

It is also the same for "40" in a way (in the bible, forty days and nights) as forty was thought to simply mean something like "an indeterminate time" (along with other posisble associations too).

It is highly probable then that it more refers to things symbolically. Not to mention the logic behind the creation of the earth (etc) being based on a unit of time which is in itself based upon that which is to be created. Not to say that it is impossible (with such things you cannot say) but that logically it seems improbable.

Wrong.



Wiki...(merely for backup)

Thank you, Vore.