Science, Creation & EvolutionNon young creation astronomy failed Genesis 1:2-5
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.
The First Day. - Though treating of the creation of the heaven and the earth, the writer, both here and in what follows, describes with minuteness the original condition and progressive formation of the earth alone, and says nothing more respecting the heaven than is actually requisite in order to show its connection with the earth. He is writing for inhabitants of the earth, and for religious ends; not to gratify curiosity, but to strengthen faith in God, the Creator of the universe. What is said in v. 2 of the chaotic condition of the earth, is equally applicable to the heaven, "for the heaven proceeds from the same chaos as the earth."
"And the earth was (not became) waste and void." The alliterative nouns tohu vabohu, the etymology of which is lost, signify waste and empty (barren), but not laying waste and desolating. Whenever they are used together in other places (Isaiah 34:11; Jeremiah 4:23), they are taken from this passage; but tohu alone is frequently employed as synonymous with 'ayin (OT:369), non-existence, and hebel (OT:1893), nothingness (Isaiah 40:17,23; 49:4). The coming earth was at first waste and desolate, a formless, lifeless mass, rudis indigestaque moles, hu'lee a'morfos (Wisdom 11:17) or cha'os.
(from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
Another commentary has this: 2. the earth was without form and void--or in "confusion and emptiness," as the words are rendered in Isa 34:11. This globe, at some undescribed period, having been convulsed and broken up, was a dark and watery waste for ages perhaps, till out of this chaotic state, the present fabric of the world was made to arise.
the Spirit of God moved--literally, continued brooding over it, as a fowl does, when hatching eggs. The immediate agency of the Spirit, by working on the dead and discordant elements, combined, arranged, and ripened them into a state adapted for being the scene of a new creation. The account of this new creation properly begins at the end of this second verse; and the details of the process are described in the natural way an onlooker would have done, who beheld the changes that successively took place.
http://www.site-berea.com/B/jfb/v01c1.html
This is an incomplete excerpt from Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible. Here is what is the part that is relevant to this discussion that is not included on the above Internet site: Genesis 1:2
Without form and void, [tohuw (OT:8414) waabohuw (OT:922)]. The first of these words denotes wasteness, emptiness, a desert (Deuteronomy 32:10; Job 12:24; Psalms 107:40), a desolate city (Isaiah 24:10, etc.) [bohuw (OT:922) is found only in connection with the former]; and, in passages where they occur conjointly (Isaiah 34:11, and Jeremiah 4:23) they are used to describe the desolations which were to overspread Idumaea and Palestine respectively, and by which those countries would be reduced from the settled and flourishing condition which they exhibited at the time of the predictions into universal disorder and ruin.
The analogous use, therefore, of this rare and peculiar phraseology in the verse before us may imply, according to the first sense of the term, that the world at its creation had neither received its proper shape nor was fit to be tenanted; and accordingly it is rendered in the Septuagint version 'invisible and unfurnished.' Or it may signify, according to the second acceptation in which the words are used, that the world, which had formerly been a scene of material beauty and order, was by some great convulsion plunged into a state of chaos or widespread disorder and desolation. Hence, some eminent critics, who take this view, render the clause thus: 'But (or afterward) the earth became waste and desolate.' This translation is declared by Kurtz to be inadmissible, as being contrary to the rules of grammatical construction; but Dr. McCaul has shown that the verb [haayªtaah (OT:1961)] 'was,' is, in some twenty places, in this chapter, used as equivalent to 'became,' and that elsewhere it has the same signification without a following Lª - (preposition) (Isaiah 64:5,9). That the earth was not originally desolate seems also to be implied in Isaiah 45:18 - "He created not the earth in vain" - Hebrew, 'a desolation.'
(from Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown Commentary, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1997 by Biblesoft)
Now you brought up Hebrew scholars so lets look at what they taught:
http://custance.org/Library/Volume6/Par ... pter3.html
I will repeat, I did not post I agree that Genesis 1:2ff is a recreation of the earth, however Bible Scholars disagree as do some rabbi's as to the meaning of Genesis 1:2ff.
From a purely scientific view I suggest you check out Barry Setterfield on the decay of the speed of light.
As to your appeal to terms used in logic and debating, since most people (including those with higher degrees) did not study logic to use such terminology is arrogant. Educating the masses must be done in a manner the masses understand and in my experience when those involved in a debate appeal to terms used in logic they stop reading.
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