Young Earth or Old?

[Tambora]

What is life?

That's the question people are sharing their perspectives on ---- what did life and death mean in the creation narrative.
If life and death for the creation narrative doesn't include corporeal physical life and death but is spiritual life and death, then there should be no objection to corporeal physical death being present before the fall and there could be skeletons of corporeal physical creatures dating before the fall.
Or did the type of death that befell upon mankind at the fall also fall upon all living things of creation only after the fall of mankind?
Will there be a restoration of all of creation and living plants and animals in the eternal kingdom like there was in Eden?

Feel free to share your perspective of what sort of life and death the creation narrative was speaking of and what will be restored.

 

[Tambora]

that's one definition
(John 6:53) Then Jesus says to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you do not have life in yourselves
(I John 5:12) He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

there is
physical death
death as a person
death is a place
and spiritual death

Yep, when discussing biblical terms of life and death, it can go in all sorts of directions.
It can make one's head spin!

is your question: what if an animal ate from the tree of knowledge of good & evil ?

Yes.

my answer :nothing would have happened , creatures don't know intuitively good and evil now

Neither did Adam and Eve before they ate it.

Hey , I get that we don't all agree but we should be pursuing truth

(I Thessalonians 5:21) Prove all things, hold fast to the good

Exactly.
Which makes it good to investigate every angle and perspective.

 

[way 2 go]

That's the question people are sharing their perspectives on ---- what did life and death mean in the creation narrative.
If life and death for the creation narrative doesn't include corporeal physical life and death but is spiritual life and death, then there should be no objection to corporeal physical death being present before the fall and there could be skeletons of corporeal physical creatures dating before the fall.
Or did the type of death that befell upon mankind at the fall also fall upon all living things of creation only after the fall of mankind?
Will there be a restoration of all of creation and living plants and animals in the eternal kingdom like there was in Eden?

Feel free to share your perspective of what sort of life and death the creation narrative was speaking of and what will be restored.

is death good ?
as creation was seen as good

 

[way 2 go]

Yep, when discussing biblical terms of life and death, it can go in all sorts of directions.
It can make one's head spin!

there are long threads here on death.

Yes.


Neither did Adam and Eve before they ate it.

we know good and evil , creatures do not
yet all creation is cursed

Exactly.
Which makes it good to investigate every angle and perspective.

yes.

how thin is the line between heterodox and heretical

(I Thessalonians 5:21) Prove all things, hold fast to the good

 

[Tambora]

is death good ?
as creation was seen as good

Hmm, that's one of those type questions that could be answered in one sense by yes and in one sense by no.
It seems to have been the plan of God all along since God planned the death of Christ before the foundation of the world.
Life of a man (Adam) brought death and death of a man (Jesus) brought life.

 

[Tambora]

there are long threads here on death.

I'll bet there will be many more.

we know good and evil , creatures do not

Yeah, we have the sense of morality now and creatures do not.
But did Adam & Eve know both good and evil before they ate the forbidden fruit?
Can one be moral without knowing both?

yet all creation is cursed

Yeah.
If critters had any morality they would be pissed ----- "Dang humans messed up everything for us!"

how thin is the line between heterodox and heretical

ha!
The amount of varying perspectives on that would be mind boggling.

 

[steko]

Scripturally, death appears to be an enemy.

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

 

[way 2 go]

Hmm, that's one of those type questions that could be answered in one sense by yes and in one sense by no.
It seems to have been the plan of God all along since God planned the death of Christ before the foundation of the world.
Life of a man (Adam) brought death and death of a man (Jesus) brought life.

so that's death is bad but with an example of a death could be seen as good , I think I get what you are saying,
but without Jesus resurrection would it still be seen as good
that is to say that what the death accomplished was good not the death ,

just thinking out loud

"God planned the death of Christ before the foundation of the world"
his foreknowledge of his death in of itself doesn't make it good.
Jesus was murdered by the state.

 

[Tambora]

is death good ?
as creation was seen as good

You know, there is a lot of speculation as to what was meant by "good" in the creation narrative.

I remember what a scholar said years ago about it that I found to be interesting.
He suggested that "good" could be viewed as meaning "orderly" since God created from the formless and void chaos of the deep (Gen 1:2).
In other words, God created order out of chaos.
And the fall sent the world into chaotic state again.
In the end God will once again restore order out of chaos.

 

[way 2 go]

Scripturally, death appears to be an enemy.

1Co 15:25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

thank you, will add that to the list

there is
death as an enemy
physical death
death as a person
death is a place
and spiritual death

 

[Tambora]

so that's death is bad but with an example of a death could be seen as good , I think I get what you are saying,
but without Jesus resurrection would it still be seen as good
that is to say that what the death accomplished was good not the death ,

just thinking out loud

"God planned the death of Christ before the foundation of the world"
his foreknowledge of his death in of itself doesn't make it good.
Jesus was murdered by the state.

Yeah, in some sense I think it could be argued either way.
Just as one could argue in one sense that killing Christ was a bad thing, yet Him being killed was a good thing.

But God is so brilliant!

"So, ye old serpent, you think introducing death to man is a victory for you?​

Let me show you that My death will conquer your death."​

God's ways are soooooo superior that even God's death is superior to all other death.
One death was the enemy, one death was the victory.

 

[JudgeRightly]

That's the question people are sharing their perspectives on ---- what did life and death mean in the creation narrative.
If life and death for the creation narrative doesn't include corporeal physical life and death but is spiritual life and death, then there should be no objection to corporeal physical death being present before the fall and there could be skeletons of corporeal physical creatures dating before the fall.
Or did the type of death that befell upon mankind at the fall also fall upon all living things of creation only after the fall of mankind?
Will there be a restoration of all of creation and living plants and animals in the eternal kingdom like there was in Eden?

My issue with your answer to "what is death" is that it defines it as the loss of something that you don't even have a definition for.

Do you not see the problem with that?

I AGREE with your definition of "death," but you shouldn't define words by their opposites.

Feel free to share your perspective of what sort of life and death the creation narrative was speaking of and what will be restored.

Bob Enyart (and a few others) came up with this definition:

"Life is God, and the property which He imparted to entities within creation that makes them either beings or organisms. The effects of this property may be further described, but it's nature, being tied up in the very nature of the essence of the Godhead, cannot be otherwise defined."

 

[7djengo7]

You know, there is a lot of speculation as to what was meant by "good" in the creation narrative.

I remember what a scholar said years ago about it that I found to be interesting.
He suggested that "good" could be viewed as meaning "orderly" since God created from the formless and void chaos of the deep (Gen 1:2).
In other words, God created order out of chaos.
And the fall sent the world into chaotic state again.
In the end God will once again restore order out of chaos.

I don't get where the idea of disorderliness and badness comes from that some people eisegete into "and the earth was without form, and void". And, is the word "chaos" even to be found anywhere in the Bible? It's a Greek word, if I'm not mistaken; is it from the Septuagint? (I can't remember if I ever found out whether or not it is.)

 

[7djengo7]

My issue with your answer to "what is death" is that it defines it as the loss of something that you don't even have a definition for.

Do you not see the problem with that?

I AGREE with your definition of "death," but you shouldn't define words by their opposites.



Bob Enyart (and a few others) came up with this definition:

"Life is God, and the property which He imparted to entities within creation that makes them either beings or organisms. The effects of this property may be further described, but it's nature, being tied up in the very nature of the essence of the Godhead, cannot be otherwise defined."

"Life is God..."

Which, if you ask me, goes to show that "questions" like "What is the origin of life?" are nonsensical, and not questions at all, since life/God never originated/has no origin.

 

[way 2 go]

You know, there is a lot of speculation as to what was meant by "good" in the creation narrative.

I remember what a scholar said years ago about it that I found to be interesting.
He suggested that "good" could be viewed as meaning "orderly" since God created from the formless and void chaos of the deep (Gen 1:2).
In other words, God created order out of chaos.
And the fall sent the world into chaotic state again.
In the end God will once again restore order out of chaos.

not "chaos" , just without form

block of marble isn't chaos just without form
this from a block of marble. link

God called light before he gave it form good on day 1

day one earth and light without form

day two and three gave form to the earth

day four form to the light

day six form to man from dust

 

[7djengo7]

Isaiah 45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the LORD; and there is none else.

I've often seen grasping gappers refer to this verse imagining it somehow helps prop up their gapism. It doesn't. It's pretty clear by the parallelism in "he created it not in vain"/"he formed it to be inhabited" that what is meant by "he created it not in vain" is that, though initially He created it without any inhabitants, God did not create the earth to be always without inhabitants. He pronounced it good both before it was ever by anything inhabited, and after it had become inhabited.

 

[Tambora]

not "chaos" , just without form

I know my brief statement didn't express the scholars view in any detail.

He didn't mean chaos of the deep as a crazy jumbled mess, but a lifeless and empty abyss with no structured order that could sustain any life.
When God created, He placed put things in a structured order that would sustain life.

sun, moon, stars had a structured order cycle to sustain life​

vegetation had a structured order of seeding to sustain life​

animals had a structured order of kind after kind to multiply to sustain life​

and so forth​

When death came by eating the forbidden fruit, that put a kink in the structured order.
The abyss was a term that ancient cultures viewed as being a place that was lifeless, a place of the dead.

Anyway, don't want to take this thread too far off course with rabbit trails of more details about it.
I just thought his viewpoint was an interesting one.

 

[Tambora]

I don't get where the idea of disorderliness and badness comes from that some people eisegete into "and the earth was without form, and void". And, is the word "chaos" even to be found anywhere in the Bible? It's a Greek word, if I'm not mistaken; is it from the Septuagint? (I can't remember if I ever found out whether or not it is.)

Here's a link giving several different bible translations.

Isaiah 24:10 - God's Judgment on the Earth

The city of chaos is shattered; every house is closed to entry.

biblehub.com

You will see that several bible versions translate the same word (tohu in Genesis 1:2) as chaos in Isaiah 24:10.

Example:
New American Standard Bible
Is 24:10 The city of chaos is broken down; Every house is shut up so that no one may enter.

 

[Rebel for truth]

no , that would be you ignoring context of the days description

(Genesis 1:4-5) [4] And God saw the light, that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. [5] And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

evening and morning is achieved by the rotation of the earth

1 rotation of the earth = 1 day

I learned what the rotation of the Earth was in represented in elementary school in the early1960s.

And I am very familiar with scripture.

Just like these newer versions is omitting scriptures, changing the meaning of scriptures, leaving out important words _ it cannot be said as an absolute that the Hebrew word yom stands for a literal 24-hour period in Genesis chpt 1

You don't agree with the definitions of the Hebrew word yom fine. You don't agree with Paul when he said a day to the Lord is as a thousand years and A thousand years is as one day = God is Not subjected to time in any manner fine.

 

[Rebel for truth]

Ssssooooo... It's wrong to argue over Scripture?