Bible and nature - GOD 's creation interpretation

Kyle Greenwood introduces readers to ancient Near Eastern cosmology and the ways in which the Bible speaks within that context. He then traces the way the Bible was read through Aristotelian and Copernican cosmologies and discusses how its ancient conceptions should be understood in light of Scripture?s authority and contemporary science.

Excerpt from Creation, or the Biblical Cosmogony in the Light of Modern Science Further: the third day, or last of the first triad, ends with the creation of plants, as its second great work, or the introduction of the new element, life, which was to be the chief feature of the progress during the succeeding era; and on the sixth day, the last of the second triad, the second great work is the creation of man, a being made in the image of God, and destined through his spiritual nature to immortal progress. This system in the divine record is not a figment of the student's fancy. It is a fact; a fact that displays purpose in the author of the document, and knowledge beyond that of ancient or any time, and philosophy more than human. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1884 edition. Excerpt: ... VII. THE FIRST COSMOGONIC DAY. Light Appears. "And God said, Let there be Light and Light was." We now have a starting-point, but yet no activity, no progress. All beginnings are in darkness and silence. The era of progress opens with the first day's work. At God's command, movement begins and the first result is the production of light. This was no creation, but a simple manifestation of the activity of matter; for, according to modern physics, heat and light are but different intensities of the vibratory motions of matter. To understand the process, let us also note that the present theory of light requires the presence of a general ethereal medium, in which matter is plunged, by which, it is penetrated, and which, by its vibration, is capable of transmitting movement to all parts of the universe. Are matter and force one and the same, or is matter a sub-stratum and an instrument for force, as the body is for the mind % This vexed metaphysical question is not likely ever to be solved. If we incline to the last view we may conceive that God then endowed inert matter with the forces which we find always associated with it-- gravitation, the general quantitative force, and the specific qualitative forces and their correlatives. Under the uniform action of gravitation, which tends to unity, and from which no molecule can be screened by an interposing body, that immeasurable mass of gaseoUs matter contracts. In this process, latent heat is given out, atoms conglomerate into molecules; nearer approach begets continual chemical combinations on a multitude of points. In the more concentrated parts, heat is intensified and light is produced; and the result is the appearance in the dark space of heaven of a large luminous mass--the primitive, ...

The ancient Near Eastern mode of thought is not at all intuitive to us moderns, but our understanding of ancient perspectives can only approach accuracy when we begin to penetrate ancient texts on their own terms rather than imposing our own world view. In this task, we are aided by the ever-growing corpus of literature that is being recovered and analyzed. After an introduction that presents some of the history of comparative studies and how it has been applied to the study of ancient texts in general and cosmology in particular, Walton focuses in the first half of this book on the ancient Near Eastern texts that inform our understanding about ancient ways of thinking about cosmology. Of primary interest are the texts that can help us discern the parameters of ancient perspectives on cosmic ontology—that is, how the writers perceived origins. Texts from across the ancient Near East are presented, including primarily Egyptian, Sumerian, and Akkadian texts, but occasionally also Ugaritic and Hittite, as appropriate. Walton’s intention, first of all, is to understand the texts but also to demonstrate that a functional ontology pervaded the cognitive environment of the ancient Near East. This functional ontology involves more than just the idea that ordering the cosmos was the focus of the cosmological texts. He posits that, in the ancient world, bringing about order and functionality was the very essence of creative activity. He also pays close attention to the ancient ideology of temples to show the close connection between temples and the functioning cosmos. The second half of the book is devoted to a fresh analysis of Genesis 1:1–2:4. Walton offers studies of significant Hebrew terms and seeks to show that the Israelite texts evidence a functional ontology and a cosmology that is constructed with temple ideology in mind, as in the rest of the ancient Near East. He contends that Genesis 1 never was an account of material origins but that, as in the rest of the ancient world, the focus of “creation texts” was to order the cosmos by initiating functions for the components of the cosmos. He further contends that the cosmology of Genesis 1 is founded on the premise that the cosmos should be understood in temple terms. All of this is intended to demonstrate that, when we read Genesis 1 as the ancient document it is, rather than trying to read it in light of our own world view, the text comes to life in ways that help recover the energy it had in its original context. At the same time, it provides a new perspective on Genesis 1 in relation to what have long been controversial issues. Far from being a borrowed text, Genesis 1 offers a unique theology, even while it speaks from the platform of its contemporaneous cognitive environment.