Ice

[tango]

We all know that water freezes if it goes below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also curious in that when it freezes it enlarges slightly - if it did what most liquids do and condense then the earth would be uninhabitable.

But here's a question. It's another one from Genesis:

Gen 1:1-5 NKJV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. (4) And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

v2 says how the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (other translations say things like "moving over the waters", "hovering over the waters" etc.

So here's the question. Since the sun wasn't created until day 4, and light wasn't created (v3 refers to "then God said 'Let there be light'" (emphasis mine), we're seeing a world in darkness without even a source of light, yet apparently a source of heat strong enough to stop the water turning to ice.

What was stopping the water from freezing?

 

[MoreCoffee]

We all know that water freezes if it goes below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also curious in that when it freezes it enlarges slightly - if it did what most liquids do and condense then the earth would be uninhabitable.

But here's a question. It's another one from Genesis:

Gen 1:1-5 NKJV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. (4) And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

v2 says how the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (other translations say things like "moving over the waters", "hovering over the waters" etc.

So here's the question. Since the sun wasn't created until day 4, and light wasn't created (v3 refers to "then God said 'Let there be light'" (emphasis mine), we're seeing a world in darkness without even a source of light, yet apparently a source of heat strong enough to stop the water turning to ice.

What was stopping the water from freezing?

The sun was keeping the water from freezing if it was already melted and the sun melted it if it was frozen.

 

[Rens]

Day One (Genesis 1:3-5)

God reintroduces the light of the sun to reach and shine onto the surface of the deep frozen flood waters that completely covered the ruined earth. The effect of this heat and sudden change in temperature resulted in a massive global ice melt.
The massive ice sheet covering the surface of the whole earth must have been so thick that the Spirit of God first needed to shake, break and soften it in preparation for the melting process. We believe that this is exactly what happened as Genesis 1:2 says that 'the Spirit of God was moving (rachaph) over the face of the waters (ice)'. The Hebrew word rachaph translated to mean ‘moving’ in some versions of the Bible also means ‘shaking’, as confirmed by Strong’s H7363. God’s Spirit first actively shook, broke up and softened the deep ice sheet covering the whole earth in preparation for the great ice melt that took place, once the intense sunlight with its heat was reintroduced onto the earth's surface on Day One.

http://www.godsplanforall.com/preadamicage

 

[Josiah]

You can have heat without visible light....

But I tend to not "take" the two creation celebrations in Genesis 1 and 2 as science.

 

[tango]

The sun was keeping the water from freezing if it was already melted and the sun melted it if it was frozen.

Except that "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" before the sun was created, so unless "the waters" can be interpreted to include a sea of ice that doesn't work.

 

[tango]

You can have heat without visible light....

But I tend to not "take" the two creation celebrations in Genesis 1 and 2 as science.

You can have heat without light, although the text doesn't indicate what the source of the heat might be. You'd need a fair amount of it, if the oceans were to remain liquid rather than solid.

I wouldn't regard Genesis as necessarily being a clear scientific account of things although when it explicitly states something we need to figure there's a reason for it. We might discuss just what is meant by "a day", especially in the three "days" before the creation of the Sun (where, by definition, there could be no sunrise or sunset) but if the text clearly says God did something then I think if we want to disregard it entirely we need to come up with some clear and consistent guidelines for when we regard Scripture as absolute truth and when we regard it as metaphorical. Otherwise we can so easily stray into little more than picking and choosing the parts that suit us.

 

[tango]

Day One (Genesis 1:3-5)

God reintroduces the light of the sun to reach and shine onto the surface of the deep frozen flood waters that completely covered the ruined earth. The effect of this heat and sudden change in temperature resulted in a massive global ice melt.
The massive ice sheet covering the surface of the whole earth must have been so thick that the Spirit of God first needed to shake, break and soften it in preparation for the melting process. We believe that this is exactly what happened as Genesis 1:2 says that 'the Spirit of God was moving (rachaph) over the face of the waters (ice)'. The Hebrew word rachaph translated to mean ‘moving’ in some versions of the Bible also means ‘shaking’, as confirmed by Strong’s H7363. God’s Spirit first actively shook, broke up and softened the deep ice sheet covering the whole earth in preparation for the great ice melt that took place, once the intense sunlight with its heat was reintroduced onto the earth's surface on Day One.

http://www.godsplanforall.com/preadamicage

That's an interesting comment on rachaph which, as you say, is confirmed in H7363 from Strong's. But the intense sunlight wasn't reintroduced on Day One - the text is clear the sun wasn't created until day 4. On the first day God said "let there be light" and divided the day from the night, but the sun didn't come until later:

Gen 1:3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light.
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
Gen 1:5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Gen 1:6 Then God said, "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."
Gen 1:7 Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so.
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. So the evening and the morning were the second day.
Gen 1:9 Then God said, "Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so.
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters He called Seas. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:11 Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth"; and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.
Gen 1:14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
Gen 1:15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
Gen 1:16 Then 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.
Gen 1:17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
Gen 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

so clearly there was something that divided the day from the night before the creation of the sun.

On the second day God divided the waters with the firmament and called it Heaven, so the waters above and the waters below were divided. Presumably this is talking about the waters below being the seas and the waters above being clouds.

On the third day God caused dry land to appear and separated the waters into seas, divided by the earth, and then the earth brought forth grass, herbs, trees etc. Since there was obviously some light source by then there could have been photosynthesis, although the sun wasn't created until the next day.

 

[Pedrito]

Pedrito is glad that Genesis Chapter 1 has been brought to our attention.

Genesis Chapter 1 can teach us many things, especially with regard to translation and pre-conditioning.

By observing some of the examples Genesis 1 provides, our minds can potentially be opened to the ways in which some translation (i.e. hasty or convenient) and religious (denominational) conditioning can and do obscure truth and hinder open minded investigation into God's Holy Message.

Pedrito for one, thanks tango for initiating the threads he has in this regard.

In Post #1, tango presented:

So here's the question. Since the sun wasn't created until day 4, and light wasn't created (v3 refers to "then God said 'Let there be light'" (emphasis mine), we're seeing a world in darkness without even a source of light, yet apparently a source of heat strong enough to stop the water turning to ice.

What was stopping the water from freezing?

That was a good question. It was one of many that could have been asked, and have been asked over the years. And unfortunately the traditional answers given have driven many people away from God, and maybe that should give pause to the people who have given those answers in modern times.


==============================================================================================

Science versus the Bible. The Bible says this, Science says that. So we are told.

But could it be that if the text of Genesis 1 were to be looked at with a modicum of thought, might an alternative conclusion await?

Could

“Science and the Bible are in conflict.”

be replaced by

How could the writer have known?”

If we look at what Genesis 1 actually says, instead of relying on what we have been told it says, could there be a different recounting,
a recounting that modern science actually confirms?​

==============================================================================================


Why don’t we dive into the realm of translation and pre-conditioning, and see what pops out?


Continued...

 

[MoreCoffee]

Except that "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" before the sun was created, so unless "the waters" can be interpreted to include a sea of ice that doesn't work.

Why does it not work?

 

[Josiah]

ONE of the factors that leads me to believe it's eisegesis to view the Creation Celebrations in Genesis 1 and 2 as "science" is that neither is correct, scientifically. The Bible cannot be wrong.... but we can be wrong in our "take" on it.

 

[tango]

Why does it not work?

Because if "the waters" doesn't mean a sea of ice then the Spirit of God couldn't have been "moving over the waters".

If "the waters" could be taken to mean a sea of ice then "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" still works.

If "the waters" means water in the literal sense (i.e. water in its liquid form) then "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" means that the waters must have been liquid, in which case it's not clear what was preventing the water from freezing.

 

[Pedrito]

In Post #1, tango presented:

So here's the question. Since the sun wasn't created until day 4, and light wasn't created (v3 refers to "then God said 'Let there be light'" (emphasis mine), we're seeing a world in darkness without even a source of light, yet apparently a source of heat strong enough to stop the water turning to ice.

What was stopping the water from freezing?

Pedrito replies, where does the Bible say that the sun wasn't created until day 4?

The first verse of Genesis tells us “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

(In Hebrew narrative, that form of statement can be either a blanket statement that is going be explained in detail thereafter, or the first statement in a consecutive or additive series. Let’s explore the second possibility to see where that leads. That would mean all the celestial bodies were already in place, and that the following statement commences a focus on our Earth.)

What comes after Verse 1? “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.”

In scientific terms, Earth, once molten because of the heat generated by its accretion of material via collisions (and it still largely is molten), had cooled enough for water to condense, but retained a murky atmosphere because of the large amounts of water vapour remaining in the air.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

As the Earth cooled, the atmosphere became less murky. Diffuse light reached the surface.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.”

Clear atmosphere appeared near the surface, with heavy cloud cover. Sun etc, still not visible.

Next, land appeared via the motion of tectonic plates and volcanos. It is still happening.

There was enough light for plant life to come into being.

Then the remaining cloud cleared, and the Sun, Moon and stars became progressively visible. (The Hebrew word עשׂה (`asah) translated "made", also means "appoint" or "furnish" or "bestow".)

All of the above is described from the vantage point of an observer standing on the Earth, and agrees with the understandings of modern science.

Well may it be asked: "How did the writer of Genesis know?" Can Genesis Chapter 1 be anything but Divine Revelation?

And if Genesis Chapter 1 is divine revelation, can the creation account be anything but a message from God to modern Man, saying “Hey you! If you really want proof I exist, here it is!”

==============================================================================================

(By the way, in the sequence as described, at what point would the Earth have become cool enough for ice to form?)

==============================================================================================

We can see from the above how important it can be to understand how translation and pre-conditioning can constrict a person’s ability to recognise plain, meaningful statements placed for us by God in His Holy Bible.

May Pedrito be so bold as to suggest that Genesis Chapter 2 may also display Divine Messaging targeting modern Man?

 

[MoreCoffee]

Because if "the waters" doesn't mean a sea of ice then the Spirit of God couldn't have been "moving over the waters".

If "the waters" could be taken to mean a sea of ice then "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" still works.

If "the waters" means water in the literal sense (i.e. water in its liquid form) then "the Spirit of God was moving over the waters" means that the waters must have been liquid, in which case it's not clear what was preventing the water from freezing.

It is also possible that the Spirit of God moved (hovered?) over the waters without reference to the state of the waters or the source of heat that kept the waters warm (or cool).

 

[Sword7]

We all know that water freezes if it goes below 32 degrees Fahrenheit. It's also curious in that when it freezes it enlarges slightly - if it did what most liquids do and condense then the earth would be uninhabitable.

But here's a question. It's another one from Genesis:

Gen 1:1-5 NKJV In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. (3) Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. (4) And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (5) God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

v2 says how the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters (other translations say things like "moving over the waters", "hovering over the waters" etc.

So here's the question. Since the sun wasn't created until day 4, and light wasn't created (v3 refers to "then God said 'Let there be light'" (emphasis mine), we're seeing a world in darkness without even a source of light, yet apparently a source of heat strong enough to stop the water turning to ice.

What was stopping the water from freezing?

in essence it says the spirit of god reverberated over the waters (moved vibrated etc ) .
as for ice. who is to know ? it does not say there was none ,nor was any . It says the waters covered the earth they were no separated from dry land perhaps the whole was warmed from the core of the earth ?
what does it matter ? the question of light is a more fun one any way

 

[tango]

in essence it says the spirit of god reverberated over the waters (moved vibrated etc ) .
as for ice. who is to know ? it does not say there was none ,nor was any . It says the waters covered the earth they were no separated from dry land perhaps the whole was warmed from the core of the earth ?
what does it matter ? the question of light is a more fun one any way

It may or may not be important, it's just curious to see that there was apparently water on a barren rock with no identified source of light or heat at that stage. So logically we'd expect the water to turn to ice.

 

[tango]

In Post #1, tango presented:


Pedrito replies, where does the Bible say that the sun wasn't created until day 4?

Sorry it's been a while, haven't been here as much as I like to be.

We can see when the sun was created from a little later on in Genesis:

Gen 1:14 Then God said, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;
Gen 1:15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so.
Gen 1:16 Then 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.
Gen 1:17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,
Gen 1:18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.

The greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. It isn't a huge leap of faith to figure these are the sun and the moon, although "he made the stars also" might be used to argue that it doesn't refer to the sun since it is itself a star.

The first verse of Genesis tells us “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

(In Hebrew narrative, that form of statement can be either a blanket statement that is going be explained in detail thereafter, or the first statement in a consecutive or additive series. Let’s explore the second possibility to see where that leads. That would mean all the celestial bodies were already in place, and that the following statement commences a focus on our Earth.)

What comes after Verse 1? “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.”

In scientific terms, Earth, once molten because of the heat generated by its accretion of material via collisions (and it still largely is molten), had cooled enough for water to condense, but retained a murky atmosphere because of the large amounts of water vapour remaining in the air.

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.”

As the Earth cooled, the atmosphere became less murky. Diffuse light reached the surface.

“And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.”

Clear atmosphere appeared near the surface, with heavy cloud cover. Sun etc, still not visible.

Next, land appeared via the motion of tectonic plates and volcanos. It is still happening.

There was enough light for plant life to come into being.

Then the remaining cloud cleared, and the Sun, Moon and stars became progressively visible. (The Hebrew word עשׂה (`asah) translated "made", also means "appoint" or "furnish" or "bestow".)

All of the above is described from the vantage point of an observer standing on the Earth, and agrees with the understandings of modern science.

This is an interesting thought, working from the idea that the sun was there but not necessarily visible yet. I must admit I don't know enough Hebrew to know whether alternative interpretations of asah are relevant here, although it does appear to make at least some sense.