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| Photo by Ian Bailey-Mortimer |
...you see what I did there? I swear that it's only by coincidence that my first blog post involves the book of Genesis. You see, my wife and I host a Bible study in our home, and we are currently going verse-by-verse through Genesis. Part of what I love about Genesis is the scientific fact and theory that can be found in it. I'm not talking about reconciling the Christian view of creation with evolution or the Big Bang Theory--the Bible has no support for that--but science and the Bible are not the opposite forces that a lot of people make them out to be.
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| Photo courtesy of gnews pics |
This time around Gen 1:9 grabbed my attention: "And God said, 'Let the waters under the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.'" (ESV).
Let the waters be gathered into one place? But there are seven oceans! Not to mention numerous seas, lakes, rivers, etc. One question that I often ask myself when coming across a seeming incongruity in the Bible is "was this meant to be literal, or figurative?" Of course there are other things to consider, such as translation, context, idioms; reading God's word should always be an active process to ensure that you are interpreting the passage as accurately as possible.
I'm going to go ahead and stop myself here to clarify a couple of points. Number one, prayer is indispensable in reading the Bible. God's word is a reflection of Him, and it's only by His will that man can understand it at all (1 Cor 1:18).
Secondly, I like to read about and discuss biblical theories, but understand that they are only theories. I'm not trying to spout them off as established canon, and I'm also not trying to take away from the message of the cross. The most important thing in the Bible is the message of what Christ did for our salvation and the instructions on how to accept that salvation. Everything else is just icing, but hey, who doesn't like icing?
Now back to our program
As many times as I've read this verse, this time around it immediately made me think of the theory of Pangaea. I provided a link to the Wikipedia article, but the short version of the theory is that early in Earth's history there was only one "supercontinent" that later broke up to form our modern-day continents. Discounting fresh water, if there was only one continent at the beginning of creation, wouldn't the waters be "gathered into one place"?
That thought led me to another thought, I seemed to remember something during a previous reading of Genesis about the earth being divided. I found what I was looking for in Gen 10:25 "To Eber was born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided..." (ESV). Most people don't take this to refer to a literal division of the earth. It could refer to a sociopolitical division, or a cultural division - such as the one caused by God at the Tower of Babel. Further studies into the Hebrew word used for earth (erets) were inconclusive, the word is used just like we use 'land', it can refer to the actual land or the people of the land.
This was a find that I filed away under "Interesting and possible, but ultimately irrelevant and insignificant conjecture" (I really need to shorten my file names). What can you do with this? I don't know, but if you're looking for earth-shattering (pun intended) realities, you should probably skip this blog, or move it to the bottom of your RSS reader.
So tell me, do you think the Pangaea theory is possible? Impossible? Do you have any insights? Do you like icing?? Let me know down in the comments.
That thought led me to another thought, I seemed to remember something during a previous reading of Genesis about the earth being divided. I found what I was looking for in Gen 10:25 "To Eber was born two sons: the name of the one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided..." (ESV). Most people don't take this to refer to a literal division of the earth. It could refer to a sociopolitical division, or a cultural division - such as the one caused by God at the Tower of Babel. Further studies into the Hebrew word used for earth (erets) were inconclusive, the word is used just like we use 'land', it can refer to the actual land or the people of the land.
This was a find that I filed away under "Interesting and possible, but ultimately irrelevant and insignificant conjecture" (I really need to shorten my file names). What can you do with this? I don't know, but if you're looking for earth-shattering (pun intended) realities, you should probably skip this blog, or move it to the bottom of your RSS reader.
So tell me, do you think the Pangaea theory is possible? Impossible? Do you have any insights? Do you like icing?? Let me know down in the comments.
I like the bread better than the icing...unless you mean metaphorically...because then I love the icing!
ReplyDeleteI think about the Pangaea theory every now and then. I find it an interesting way to explain how several of the same species of animals were found on completely separate continents. I think it's possible, I don't see why it would be impossible. You should talk about the canopy theory sometime...OOH or that part in Isaiah where it says "the circle of the earth" before anyone had discovered the earth was round!