Can the Big Bang and Genesis Both Be True?

[alanmolstad]

Hi Disciple !

I just read your post above, and I did not really understand what you were pointing to?

Perhaps if you posted a bit more about your "firmament" point and maybe this time I would catch what you refer to in what I have said I can understand and respond better.


Be that as it may, I should write something so as to move the conversation along, and so let me address a few ideas over the next few posts-



What I have been taught, and now saying is the following:

That first I should talk about the word "Firmament'.
Many times in the writings of people as to the meaning of this term we find that they always seem to come out with another term they like - "dome"

This is an error.

The word "Firmament" should not thought of as if the writer of the Genesis story had in mind a great hard-shell dome over the earth.
The idea of a type of "hard shell dome", be it made of fired clay or some type of an "invisible covering", was just not a common way for the people at that time to understand their world.

Their understandings had to have some type of common concept that people could grasp.
Something that all of them could see true in their daily lives.

This is why the term "Firmament" was not talking about a hard-shell dome over the earth, (because no one lived inside a hard shell ) rather it is talking about a "tent".

The word firmament is dealing with the common and historical concept of a tent known to all the people who would study and recite the Genesis story for generations and generations because they all lived in tents and they all understood the concept of light poking though the small holes in the tent.

The people at this time understood that rain, and snow came down not just "from" the firmament, it was thought to come "though" the firmament....just the way it came though the tent they lived in...

The concept they had in their minds as to what the Genesis story was saying was understood as being something they all saw true in their own lives whenever it rained or snowed.


BE THAT AS IT MAY -
Once the story was written down and placed into the Holy Text it also gives us the opportunity to study the story today and we also can come to an understanding of the story that does still agree with the historical understanding, yet also can be understand in the context of our modern point of view as well.

I don't see any need to force the story to be in conflict, just because we gave up living in tents.

Thus when I see the word "Firmament" I can understand that to the historical student of the past, the story it meant to them a term that talked about the "fabric" of the universe over the Earth.
And although I have a greater understanding of the universe due to the advancement of science, I yet can still understand the term "Firmament as also pointing to the very fabric of the universe!


So although science has truly advanced over recorded history yet no contradiction is found between how we understand the text, and how it was written to be understood.