Shadowland: Beginnings

Shadowland: Beginnings: Week 3

Vowel Points

In the 8th century AD, Hebrew literacy was dying out. So Masoretic scribes invented a system of indicating vowels without disturbing the sacred text. Jerome knew nothing of vowel points, and Hebrew literacy was high at the time of Christ and the Apostles.

The First Day: Light and Darkness

Figurative Meanings

1:2 The souls of fallen men are falling into chaos. "The Lord begins his work upon man by the visitation of the Spirit, who enters the soul mysteriously, and broods over it, even as of old he moved upon the face of the waters." Spurgeon: Sunday Morning, August 29, 1875
1:3 The Word of God is the true light that enlightens every man than comes into the world. John 1:9 The light that shines from darkness - despite no sun or moon, is a mysterious light. God is the ultimate source of all light. James 1:17 "There will be no need of the sun or moon." Revelation 21:23
"And there will be no more night." Revelation 22:5
1:4 God making light to shine out of darkness prefigures the light God makes to shine from our hearts. 2 Cor 4:6 It is by the Word of God that light came into the world, and by the Word of God that light comes into our souls. God was the sole observer of that light, and is the sole observer of the true state of our souls. The Lord sees whatever He creates. The carnal man cannot understand the True Light. John 1:5

Literal Interpretations

"It is also frequently asked what our belief must be about the form and shape of heaven according to Sacred Scripture. Many scholars engage in lengthy discussions on these matters, but the sacred writers with their deeper wisdom have omitted them." Augustine, Literal Meaning of Genesis, Book 2, Chapter 9.

1:2 Gap Theory says earth *became* formless and void. Jeremiah 4:23 Without Gap Theory, 1:1-2 is part of the first day.
1:3 God the Father God creates and speaks the Word. God the Spirit moves on the waters. The Word of God makes all things.
1:5 The words for evening and morning also mean chaos and order. Each day is a reversal of entropy, progessing from formless and void to ordered and good.

Synchrony (timing and order of events) in relativity can be defined to be independent of velocity or position - pick one (or a linear combination). Most scientific work is done using the Einstein position independent convention. But sometimes the velocity independent anisotropic convention is used.

The one way speed of light cannot be measured - only the round trip time. (Think about it.) The Einstein convention defines the speed of light as ½ the round trip time, which makes relative timings independent of position. The anisotropic convention defines the one-way trip time as approaching zero coming toward the observer, and approaching the round trip time the other way. This makes the timing of events for a given position independent of the velocity of the observer.

Neither convention is right or wrong. But events 14×10⁹ light years distant that are 6 months apart from a stationary observer, are 26 million years apart from the earth because of the difference in velocity on opposite sides of its orbit with the Einstein convention. The difference in position, on the other hand, is insignificant for observations from earth under the anisotropic convention.

Big Bang

6 day science makes the light of quark confinement the cosmic clock by which the days are measured. They claim that the Bible uses light from day 1 as the time standard. The age of the universe is measured by the distance to the stars, and the speed of light using the Einstein synchrony convention.

Before quark confinement, the primary matter of heavens and earth were mixed together. Space expanded a factor of 10¹² since quark confinement. 14×10⁹ years ÷ 10¹² = 5.1 days. Corrected for acceleration of expansion: 5.5 days.

day years current science
1 8×10⁹ separation of energy and matter, early galaxies
2 4×10⁹ milky way galaxy and disk of sun
3 2×10⁹ liquid water appears on earth, earliest single cell fossils dated 3.8×10⁹ years ago
4 1×10⁹ photosynthesis turns atmosphere transparent
5 0.5×10⁹ multicellular animals, winged insects
6 0.25×10⁹ massive extinction wipes out 90% of life, making room for mammals and hominids.
Note that although this theory concentrates a huge amount (2^10⁸⁰ according to an estimate by Roger Penrose in "The Emperors New Mind") of entropy reversal in the Big Bang on the first day, the other days are also guided - God is still forming and ordering the heavens and the earth throughout.

day	years	current science
1	8×10⁹	separation of energy and matter, early galaxies
2	4×10⁹	milky way galaxy and disk of sun
3	2×10⁹	liquid water appears on earth, earliest single cell fossils dated 3.8×10⁹ years ago
4	1×10⁹	photosynthesis turns atmosphere transparent
5	0.5×10⁹	multicellular animals, winged insects
6	0.25×10⁹	massive extinction wipes out 90% of life, making room for mammals and hominids.

Young Earth (and Universe)

The young earth people know about relativity too. Answers in Genesis claims that the Bible uses the Anisotropic Synchrony Convention with the earth as the frame of reference to measure The anisotropic convention uses a near instant speed one way, and slower return trip. With earth as the frame of reference, that convention makes what we see in the sky recent (6000 years) history rather than 14 billion years ago.

Light provides support for their position. Blue stars, which are short lived, are ubiquitous, even in the most distant galaxies - and their formation is still not understood. Spiral wrapping is about the same for the nearest and most distant spiral galaxies. Earth's magnetic field should not have lasted 4 billion years.

Augustine

In 1:1, the heavens include the realm of angels as well. In 1:3, He says "Let there be" for the angels are enlightened and understand the Word of God, and thereby receive even the Word that enlightens them. They are the audience for the days of creation.

Light is not only corporeal light, but also spiritual light, by which unenlightened intellectual beings become enlightened. Even more mysterious than the origin of life is the origin of human consciousness.