1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
This verse ends in a comma. That's even worse than a colon.
Apparently God made the sun, moon and stars somewhere else, and then put them in heaven. Maybe he had a workshop on earth.
Between the repetition and the bad numbering of verse, I've got nothing else new to say here.
Friday, October 2, 2009
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Lesser light
1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
This is more specific than just lights in heaven. They're not explicitly named here, but it's clearly the sun and the moon. And the stars are named.
The first point I want to make is this: the moon is radically different from the sun and stars. The sun and stars are actually light sources; the moon just reflects sunlight. The moon is technically not a light.
I mentioned before that this tells us something about heaven: it contains the sun, the moon, and the stars.
The most interesting bits here are the new purposes. The purpose of the sun here is "to rule the day"; the purpose of the moon is "to rule the night". This is pretty strange if taken literally; it makes the sun and moon sound like kings or gods. I think this is one of the hints that this story is older than monotheism.
The other thing about this is: the moon isn't always out during the night, and isn't always visible during the night. It doesn't rule the night the same way the sun rules the day. And the moon is sometimes visible during the day, although never nearly as bright as the sun. But, during total solar eclipses, the moon passes in front of the sun, blocking it out. At that moment, you could say that the moon rules the day. Ironically, that is also when the sun seems most kingly, as that is when you can most clearly see its crown.
It notable that the only purpose (ruling) given here for the sun and the moon is not even listed among the six purposes previously mentioned for the lights.
This is more specific than just lights in heaven. They're not explicitly named here, but it's clearly the sun and the moon. And the stars are named.
The first point I want to make is this: the moon is radically different from the sun and stars. The sun and stars are actually light sources; the moon just reflects sunlight. The moon is technically not a light.
I mentioned before that this tells us something about heaven: it contains the sun, the moon, and the stars.
The most interesting bits here are the new purposes. The purpose of the sun here is "to rule the day"; the purpose of the moon is "to rule the night". This is pretty strange if taken literally; it makes the sun and moon sound like kings or gods. I think this is one of the hints that this story is older than monotheism.
The other thing about this is: the moon isn't always out during the night, and isn't always visible during the night. It doesn't rule the night the same way the sun rules the day. And the moon is sometimes visible during the day, although never nearly as bright as the sun. But, during total solar eclipses, the moon passes in front of the sun, blocking it out. At that moment, you could say that the moon rules the day. Ironically, that is also when the sun seems most kingly, as that is when you can most clearly see its crown.
It notable that the only purpose (ruling) given here for the sun and the moon is not even listed among the six purposes previously mentioned for the lights.
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
For lights
1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
If you recall, the last verse ended in a colon. So, let me summarize to better understand the first phrase. "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven ... And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven ...". In other words, God is explaining that he's creating lights, and that the purpose of those lights is to be lights. In fact, this is apparently the sixth purpose, after the five listed in the previous verse. "I'm making lights, and they're going to do all this stuff, and they're going to be lights." It's just plain silly.
He does go on to say "to give light upon the earth". That is, he views lights as I do, as a source of light. And this light has not just a source, but a target; and that target is the earth. It suggests that these lights aren't just supposed to shine any which way, but to shine earthwards. This is clearly geocentric thinking.
This purpose for these lights makes the earlier creation of light even stranger; that light wasn't made to illuminate the earth, but just to illuminate God's workspace for the first few days until he got around to making lights. Or something.
Of course, "and it was so" sounds like the end of it. But, we've seen this phrase used redundantly before, so we shouldn't be surprised when the next couple of verses effective repeat it, albeit with elaboration.
Let me discuss something that continues to surprise me. Most of us grew up with this story, to some degree or another. We kind of knew it, we heard it in bits and pieces, we may even have read it. And it seemed fine; dramatic and progressing forward, if a little heavy in lists. God made this one day, and God made that the next, and in the end God made everything. But when we actually read it carefully like this, think about it line for line, it borders on incoherent at times. The purpose of the lights is to be lights? Light was created three days before lights? What is going on here?
Not to mention that at times it sounds the way teenagers talk: "We thought maybe we'd go to the mall, so that we could, you know, be at the mall. So we went. And we got in a car and drove to the mall, and then we got to the mall. And it was cool being at the mall. That's where we went. to the mall."
There are probably lots of explanations for why it's as badly written as it is. It was probably passed along orally without being written down for thousands of years, and mangled a bit along the way. It probably predates people thinking seriously about how to tell stories, also by thousands of years.
More interesting is why no one comments on how incoherent is. It's not common to hear things like "The Bible reads like it was written by someone with attention deficit disorder." There's some societal force at work, preventing basic criticisms, no matter how obvious they are. There's also some issue about becoming familiarized with something since childhood, before we could reason clearly. We've been brainwashed.
If you recall, the last verse ended in a colon. So, let me summarize to better understand the first phrase. "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven ... And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven ...". In other words, God is explaining that he's creating lights, and that the purpose of those lights is to be lights. In fact, this is apparently the sixth purpose, after the five listed in the previous verse. "I'm making lights, and they're going to do all this stuff, and they're going to be lights." It's just plain silly.
He does go on to say "to give light upon the earth". That is, he views lights as I do, as a source of light. And this light has not just a source, but a target; and that target is the earth. It suggests that these lights aren't just supposed to shine any which way, but to shine earthwards. This is clearly geocentric thinking.
This purpose for these lights makes the earlier creation of light even stranger; that light wasn't made to illuminate the earth, but just to illuminate God's workspace for the first few days until he got around to making lights. Or something.
Of course, "and it was so" sounds like the end of it. But, we've seen this phrase used redundantly before, so we shouldn't be surprised when the next couple of verses effective repeat it, albeit with elaboration.
Let me discuss something that continues to surprise me. Most of us grew up with this story, to some degree or another. We kind of knew it, we heard it in bits and pieces, we may even have read it. And it seemed fine; dramatic and progressing forward, if a little heavy in lists. God made this one day, and God made that the next, and in the end God made everything. But when we actually read it carefully like this, think about it line for line, it borders on incoherent at times. The purpose of the lights is to be lights? Light was created three days before lights? What is going on here?
Not to mention that at times it sounds the way teenagers talk: "We thought maybe we'd go to the mall, so that we could, you know, be at the mall. So we went. And we got in a car and drove to the mall, and then we got to the mall. And it was cool being at the mall. That's where we went. to the mall."
There are probably lots of explanations for why it's as badly written as it is. It was probably passed along orally without being written down for thousands of years, and mangled a bit along the way. It probably predates people thinking seriously about how to tell stories, also by thousands of years.
More interesting is why no one comments on how incoherent is. It's not common to hear things like "The Bible reads like it was written by someone with attention deficit disorder." There's some societal force at work, preventing basic criticisms, no matter how obvious they are. There's also some issue about becoming familiarized with something since childhood, before we could reason clearly. We've been brainwashed.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Signs
1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
Having created light back in verse 3, God is now getting around to creating lights. I understand "lights" to be what I might call "light sources", such as light bulbs or fireflies. In this context, I would guess neither, but rather stars. "Light" is what I think of as coming from light sources; so having it around first is strange. The obvious way for me to create light is to start a fire. But apparently these are the first light sources; the other light was just there.
The phrase "the firmament of the heaven" is an odd, redundant construct. The firmament is named Heaven; the heaven is the firmament.
But this tells us a little about the firmament, about heaven. The lights are in it. These lights, therefore, are below the waters above the heaven, but are above earth and sea.
This is a very interesting "divide" phrase. The purpose of the lights being created in heaven is "to divide the day from the night." But, this is very confusing. Recall that God divided light from darkness in verse 4. After that, he named the light Day and the darkness Night. So, God divided day from night in verse 4. Now in verse 14, he is planning lights to divide day from night again.
When we first got to verse 8, it read like heaven was being created for the second time. We used that to reinterpret the earlier structure, and conclude it was not as sequential as it seemed. In particular, we now interpret the first verse as introductory.
So, now that it seems like day is going to be separated from night for a second time, can we go back to verse 4 and find a non-sequential interpretation? Unfortunately, no. Verse 5 identifies the separation of day and night as the first day. Verse 8 marks a second day, and verse 13 marks a third day. I don't want to jump ahead too much, but we seem to be clearly on the fourth day at this point. That all seems starkly sequential to me.
That leaves us with this question: Was day divided from night on the first day or the fourth? The rather unsatisfying answer is that the text pretty clearly says: Both.
The idea of lights somehow dividing day from night is a bizarre one. I can picture heaven as a big (horizontal) dam, dividing water from water. But I don't really get how lights are supposed to divide day from night, divide light from darkness. But that is the first purpose of the lights God is here creating in heaven.
And the lights have other purposes: they are for signs, seasons, days, years. At first glance, it seems like one of these things is not like the others: the last three are all time periods, while "signs" are not. An annoyance about the three time periods is that they are not in order; it should be days, seasons, years; or years, seasons, days.
But there is an interpretation of "signs" which makes it related to time periods, and particularly to seasons. It can be considered a sign, or indication, of when to plant various crops. This is a bit of a stretch; crops aren't explicitly mentioned, but let me elaborate on this a bit.
Like the "seed after his kind" earlier, this would be considered important technology to an early farmer. Understanding how to recognize the seasons in the stars to clearly identify from year to year the best time to plant would be useful.
We can use the stars for navigation: to determine where we are on earth; to determine which direction is which. But this is not the purpose stated here. The authors did not care about navigating; or did not know about navigating. They were not navigators.
We can use the stars to understand physics, gravity, special and general relativity. But this is not the purpose stated here. The authors were not physicists.
If the lights being created in heaven include the sun (suggested by the "for days" purpose), we can use that as an energy source, to power cars, to burn ants; as a light source to read by, to paint by, and so on. But the authors did not care about these uses. They cared about marking times of the year, about when to plant, and when to harvest.
I like the fact that this verse ends in a colon. The traditional division into verses is completely insane. So why is my blog verse-oriented? I have no response to that.
Having created light back in verse 3, God is now getting around to creating lights. I understand "lights" to be what I might call "light sources", such as light bulbs or fireflies. In this context, I would guess neither, but rather stars. "Light" is what I think of as coming from light sources; so having it around first is strange. The obvious way for me to create light is to start a fire. But apparently these are the first light sources; the other light was just there.
The phrase "the firmament of the heaven" is an odd, redundant construct. The firmament is named Heaven; the heaven is the firmament.
But this tells us a little about the firmament, about heaven. The lights are in it. These lights, therefore, are below the waters above the heaven, but are above earth and sea.
This is a very interesting "divide" phrase. The purpose of the lights being created in heaven is "to divide the day from the night." But, this is very confusing. Recall that God divided light from darkness in verse 4. After that, he named the light Day and the darkness Night. So, God divided day from night in verse 4. Now in verse 14, he is planning lights to divide day from night again.
When we first got to verse 8, it read like heaven was being created for the second time. We used that to reinterpret the earlier structure, and conclude it was not as sequential as it seemed. In particular, we now interpret the first verse as introductory.
So, now that it seems like day is going to be separated from night for a second time, can we go back to verse 4 and find a non-sequential interpretation? Unfortunately, no. Verse 5 identifies the separation of day and night as the first day. Verse 8 marks a second day, and verse 13 marks a third day. I don't want to jump ahead too much, but we seem to be clearly on the fourth day at this point. That all seems starkly sequential to me.
That leaves us with this question: Was day divided from night on the first day or the fourth? The rather unsatisfying answer is that the text pretty clearly says: Both.
The idea of lights somehow dividing day from night is a bizarre one. I can picture heaven as a big (horizontal) dam, dividing water from water. But I don't really get how lights are supposed to divide day from night, divide light from darkness. But that is the first purpose of the lights God is here creating in heaven.
And the lights have other purposes: they are for signs, seasons, days, years. At first glance, it seems like one of these things is not like the others: the last three are all time periods, while "signs" are not. An annoyance about the three time periods is that they are not in order; it should be days, seasons, years; or years, seasons, days.
But there is an interpretation of "signs" which makes it related to time periods, and particularly to seasons. It can be considered a sign, or indication, of when to plant various crops. This is a bit of a stretch; crops aren't explicitly mentioned, but let me elaborate on this a bit.
Like the "seed after his kind" earlier, this would be considered important technology to an early farmer. Understanding how to recognize the seasons in the stars to clearly identify from year to year the best time to plant would be useful.
We can use the stars for navigation: to determine where we are on earth; to determine which direction is which. But this is not the purpose stated here. The authors did not care about navigating; or did not know about navigating. They were not navigators.
We can use the stars to understand physics, gravity, special and general relativity. But this is not the purpose stated here. The authors were not physicists.
If the lights being created in heaven include the sun (suggested by the "for days" purpose), we can use that as an energy source, to power cars, to burn ants; as a light source to read by, to paint by, and so on. But the authors did not care about these uses. They cared about marking times of the year, about when to plant, and when to harvest.
I like the fact that this verse ends in a colon. The traditional division into verses is completely insane. So why is my blog verse-oriented? I have no response to that.
Monday, September 28, 2009
Third day
1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third day.
Day one: light.
Day two: heaven.
Day three: dry land, grass and trees.
I was complaining that the parallels weren't quite parallel, but the evening/morning sentences are exactly the same. The only difference here is that someone decided this one should be a verse by itself, unlike the first two. And that decision leaves me with pretty much nothing to write about on this, the thirteenth day.
Day one: light.
Day two: heaven.
Day three: dry land, grass and trees.
I was complaining that the parallels weren't quite parallel, but the evening/morning sentences are exactly the same. The only difference here is that someone decided this one should be a verse by itself, unlike the first two. And that decision leaves me with pretty much nothing to write about on this, the thirteenth day.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Seed after his kind
1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw it was good.
There's not much new here, but let me point out that, for all the repetition, the verses rarely perfectly parallel one another. Here, for instance, the "it happened" follows the "and it was so" from the previous verse, while verse 7 reads "it happened: and it was so." Here, as with light and dry land, God saw it was good. But that didn't happen with the creation of heaven.
Also, there's a subtle difference between the repeated parts of this verse and the previous. In the previous verse we had "grass, the herb yielding seed"; now we have "grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind". Before we had "the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself"; now we have "the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind". The distinctions seem too subtle to be important, and apparently God thought it was good enough; but the distinctions are there nonetheless.
This version is a slight improvement technically, since it clarifies that you can't grow barley from wheat seeds. Other than that, what's the point or the differences?
It just makes me want to take a red pen, scribble notes, and get the author to fix the inconsistencies. Or perhaps I should just do the rewrite myself.
There's not much new here, but let me point out that, for all the repetition, the verses rarely perfectly parallel one another. Here, for instance, the "it happened" follows the "and it was so" from the previous verse, while verse 7 reads "it happened: and it was so." Here, as with light and dry land, God saw it was good. But that didn't happen with the creation of heaven.
Also, there's a subtle difference between the repeated parts of this verse and the previous. In the previous verse we had "grass, the herb yielding seed"; now we have "grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind". Before we had "the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself"; now we have "the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind". The distinctions seem too subtle to be important, and apparently God thought it was good enough; but the distinctions are there nonetheless.
This version is a slight improvement technically, since it clarifies that you can't grow barley from wheat seeds. Other than that, what's the point or the differences?
It just makes me want to take a red pen, scribble notes, and get the author to fix the inconsistencies. Or perhaps I should just do the rewrite myself.
Seed
1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Now that the earth has been formed, it's time to fill the void. If I'm parsing this correctly, two things are being created: "grass" and "the fruit tree". The grass is then described or defined, for no immediately obvious reason as "the herb yielding seed". Similar the fruit tree is described as "yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself".
This leaves "Let the earth bring forth grass and the fruit tree upon the earth." I'm not sure at all the significance of the final "upon the earth". I don't see the earth bringing grass forth upon the seas as being a reasonable alternative.
Interesting is that this reads as if God is instructing the earth to do the work, But, since we've already been let down on the magic bits, I can just as easily see a bunch of guys scurrying around, first creating some plant RNA in a lab, then using that to make a few plant cells, which they cultured, and then ran around the dry land planting, watering, fertilizing, lighting.
Going back to the descriptions, there's a couple of points of interest. One interesting phrase is "after his kind." The author had noticed that apple seeds grow into apple trees which bear apples; that fig seeds don't grow into apple trees; that apple trees don't grow figs. We pretty much take this for granted, but this is perhaps the key insight that led to the invention of agriculture. And it's something the author didn't take for granted, but thought was significant.
There's a focus on seeds in both descriptions. Seeds, of course, are important for the plants to reproduce themselves. And they're important for agriculture.
Also, it's striking that "fruit trees" are being created, not just "trees". In fact, based on the "herb yielding seed," I'd suggest that "grass" includes or means grains, wheat and so on. Grains and fruits, the very products of agriculture.
In short, this verse seems to be completely focused on agriculture; specifically on early agriculture. So at this point I'm ready to speculate that this may have been written by a relatively early farmer.
Not much else to say on this verse. It has the same structure as verse 9, "And God said, Let the ...: and it was so." But it has more detailed description than any previous verse. And there's no reason for the descriptions. They make no sense actually being spoken by God as part of a command; they were just very important to the author.
Mildly off track, I can't help but observing that "grass, the herb yielding seed" today sounds like marijuana. It's tough writing something that's going to be read for hundreds of years.
Now that the earth has been formed, it's time to fill the void. If I'm parsing this correctly, two things are being created: "grass" and "the fruit tree". The grass is then described or defined, for no immediately obvious reason as "the herb yielding seed". Similar the fruit tree is described as "yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself".
This leaves "Let the earth bring forth grass and the fruit tree upon the earth." I'm not sure at all the significance of the final "upon the earth". I don't see the earth bringing grass forth upon the seas as being a reasonable alternative.
Interesting is that this reads as if God is instructing the earth to do the work, But, since we've already been let down on the magic bits, I can just as easily see a bunch of guys scurrying around, first creating some plant RNA in a lab, then using that to make a few plant cells, which they cultured, and then ran around the dry land planting, watering, fertilizing, lighting.
Going back to the descriptions, there's a couple of points of interest. One interesting phrase is "after his kind." The author had noticed that apple seeds grow into apple trees which bear apples; that fig seeds don't grow into apple trees; that apple trees don't grow figs. We pretty much take this for granted, but this is perhaps the key insight that led to the invention of agriculture. And it's something the author didn't take for granted, but thought was significant.
There's a focus on seeds in both descriptions. Seeds, of course, are important for the plants to reproduce themselves. And they're important for agriculture.
Also, it's striking that "fruit trees" are being created, not just "trees". In fact, based on the "herb yielding seed," I'd suggest that "grass" includes or means grains, wheat and so on. Grains and fruits, the very products of agriculture.
In short, this verse seems to be completely focused on agriculture; specifically on early agriculture. So at this point I'm ready to speculate that this may have been written by a relatively early farmer.
Not much else to say on this verse. It has the same structure as verse 9, "And God said, Let the ...: and it was so." But it has more detailed description than any previous verse. And there's no reason for the descriptions. They make no sense actually being spoken by God as part of a command; they were just very important to the author.
Mildly off track, I can't help but observing that "grass, the herb yielding seed" today sounds like marijuana. It's tough writing something that's going to be read for hundreds of years.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
