If semantics become relevant it is because words are being misunderstood and misapplied. There is another scripture that compares it to the heavens being stretched out like a gauze. This was not a statement limited to Isaiah.
Didn't see the quote so I didn't comment but the same semantics apply - you would say that "being stretched" is a continous process, whereas I would say that it is descriptive of its present status eg that ma, being stretched out on the beach, is tanning. Pedantic maybe, but I would like to see the context of the guaze text - I am not discounting that it may be as you say.
The Bible does explain it but you immediately use that very explanation to throw suspicion on the Bible. In other words the Bible is damned if it doesn't and damned if it does from where you stand.
Re. the time situation, please let me have the ref and I will follow it up.
This period has been mentioned in Genesis for thousands of years.
Ok showing my ignorance
Are you now saying that as soon as the Big Bang theory was put forth people began adding verses to Genesis? Or are you saying that Bible scholars should never view the Bible as being in harmony with scientific theories because if it is then it means that you will immediately accuse them of tampering with it?
No I am merely enquiring as to whether this "preparation period" was interpreted as such before the big bang theory. If I look at the beginning of genisis:
"1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day."
Now from the above I don't see too much evidence of a long preparatory period, verses 1 and 2 could be interpreted to mean any length of time but reading the verses together implies the heaven and earth was created on day one. However, other interpretations are possible and I was merely wandering if these have varied over time in line with conventional scientific wisdom? I am certainly not implying that people changed the bible to match this same wisdom.
Perhaps I should join in the party and say that when the evolutionists had sea creatures followed by land creatures just like Genesis tells us the Evolutionists were happily copying that order from the Genesis? Or that when geneticists found that interbreeding of different animal kinds is impossible they got their inspiration from Genesis that tells us that animals multiply according to their kinds?
Er, no. The above conclusions were derived following scientific theories and evidence such as fossils etc. The theory that sea creatures came first is relatively recent to sceince (as far as I know) and if they wanted to base this theory on the bible then they could have had this view wrapped up long before evolutionists came along. My point was merely a question - if the preparatory period did arise after the big bang or the real age of the earth came to be known then there would be a suspicion that interpretations had changed, particularly given peoples' absolute belief until relatively recently in creation and the time scale laid out in genesis.
Or even that maybe that the Greeks and other ancient scientists got their idea of a round earth from the Bible?
Is this practically possible given the known dissemination of the OT around the time of the Greeks? I do not know?
Or that the Big bang idea with the stretching of the universe was borrowed from the book of Isaiah?
See above
Or that the concept of germs was inspired by the cleanliness stipulations of Levitucus with its quarantine requirements when infectious decease was involved?
Quarantine is common sense, you do the same with sick people.
Or that te water cycle idea was gotten from the first chapter of Ecclesiastes which mentions it?
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
Given our current knowledge this could refer to the water cycle, alternatively given the scientific knowledge present when the bible was written, it could also mean that "somehow the water gets from the sea to the springs (underground?) because otherwise the sea would fill up" I don't know - again we are looking at this with modern eyes rather than the eyes of people three-odd thousand years ago.
Btw
What is RE?
Religious Education - bible studies at my school were called this
About the Genesis prep days you ask about,
The preparatory periods are periods translated as days.
The period which can encompass the Big Bang and billions of our earth years is before the first prep day.
Before that first day the earth is described as being covered by water [again how did the writer know] and as being dark and void.
See previous comments
BTW
That darkness could have been due to the still present original nebula from which the earth was formed blocking out the much of the sun's light.
Could have been although I am not sure there is room for a nebula between the earth and the sun (astrologers? - what is a nebula anyway?). On the other hand as the sun was not made until the fourth day this does not appear possible
As to the water, geologists admit that earth was covered by water before dry land appeared. Maybe the Genesis writer was a geologist? Or maybe as soon as Christians and Hebrew scholars they found out about all this the Bible fanatics immediately began rewriting the Bible to fit in with the recent wrinkles.
See comments above re. re-writing, as to the earth being covered by water yep - both the same.
Of course such an idea is ludicrous but it does have the saving grace of assuaging the fears of those who might begin to feel a bit twad uneasy with so many biblical scientific harmonious coincidences.
So many?
I fail to see how inserting an appropriate date makes the concept acceptable. An Egyptian scientist had speculated that the earth is round and even calculated it circumference.
So there were certain observations on earth that indicated to the ancients that the earth is round. For example, the earth's curved shadow could be observed on the moon. The ships in the distance would present their masts first before presenting their hulls.
I have forgotten the context here but that means (and I agree) that the writers of the bible could have known that the earth was a sphere. However, I was not implying that the bible was the source of flat earth beliefs merely that they were prevalent for a long time.
BTW, as I have mentioned elsewhere, this is all a trifle academic because if the bible was not written by god, these arguments are baseless (but they are interesting
Regardless of how much wishful thinking may be involved.
