Sensual History

Originally posted by Proper Knob
The variation of mitochondrial DNA between different people can be used to estimate the time back to a common ancestor, such as Mitochondrial Eve. This works because, along any particular line of descent, mitochondrial DNA accumulates mutations which survive at least until the next generation approximately once every 3624 years.

I don't understand how you connect that to the age of the mitochondrial eve. Can you explain?

Also (very surprisingly to me) the Wiki page also shows this:

Rohde, Olson & Chang (2004) showed that all humans alive today almost certainly share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5000 years, even for people born on different continents.

Moreover, how can we know the genetic difference between Noah and the others he supposedly took with him?

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
And to that, I would say, their knowledge was borrowed.

Nonetheless... our interpretations are closer than you think, as we're saying about the same thing. The point I'm making here is the Ginnungagap myth does not account for that state prior to chaos. In other words, it has creation deriving not from nothing, but from something, which is unlike the ...[text shortened]... it also informs us that prior to the chaos, God spoke everything into existence from nothing.

The Bible speaks of the re-creation that followed a chaos, but it also informs us that prior to the chaos, God spoke everything into existence from nothing. (My italics.)

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Umm… Actually, it doesn’t say that—at least not in the creation account in Genesis. There is nothing (except God) in the Genesis account before tohu v’bohu: “shapeless and formless” in Richard Elliot Friedman’s translation of the Torah—and by “nothing”, I do not mean some kind of “nothingness”.*

The commentary in Etz Chayim (the Conservative Jewish Torah, with JPS translation) says: “The Hebrew for this phrase [‘unformed and void’ in the JPS translation] means ‘desert waste’. … There is no suggestion here that God made the world out of nothing, which is a much later conception.”

Friedman’s translation: “when the earth had been shapeless and formless…”

He explains: “Here is a case in which a tiny point of grammar makes a difference for theology. In the Hebrew of this verse, the noun comes before the verb (in the perfect form). This is now known to be the way of conveying the past perfect in Biblical Hebrew. The point of grammar means that this verse does not mean ‘the earth was shapeless and formless”—referring to the condition of the earth starting the instant after it was created. This verse rather means that “the earth had been shapeless and formless”—that is, it had already existed in this shapeless condition prior to the creation. Creation of matter in the Torah is not out of nothing (creatio ex nihilo), as many have claimed. And the Torah is not claiming to be telling events from the beginning of time.” [Italics in the original.]

Two points: (1) I am not as convinced (based on my reading of other Jewish scholars) that the Biblical Hebrew is as grammatically “tight” as Friedman seems to posit; at the same time, I also don’t have the scholarship to argue with him. (2) That last sentence of his comments may leave an opening for philosophical/theological speculation about “events from the beginning of time”, including some creation ex nihilo.

The rabbinical tradition was quite willing, on the one hand, to indulge in such speculation (but without any agreement or doctrinal conclusions), including multiple, sequential creations. On the other hand, that tradition was although bothered by any notion of a “nothingness” that somehow “existed” vis-à-vis God. There was not, for them, God—and then some “nothing”. “Where could there have been that God was not?” There was just God. This principle is the starting point for cosmogony developed by the Kabbalists, for example—an essentially non-dualist cosmogony.

* There does seem to be a tendency for some to treat "nothing" as a "queer kind of 'something'" (G.E. Moore); e.g., like empty space.

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Aside from metaphysical problems—and the arguments on both sides—with creation ex nihilo, it simply is not given in the Biblical account.

With that said: Of course, as a “midrashist”, I would not reject a “midrashic” reading that put God’s speaking anything before tohu v’bohu. I would accept it as a reading; but certainly not as the (necessary) reading. Offhand, I cannot think of a supporting text that would make it clearly the necessary reading; certainly it has not been so for Jewish exegetes.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]The Bible speaks of the re-creation that followed a chaos, but it also informs us that prior to the chaos, God spoke everything into existence from nothing. (My italics.)

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Umm… Actually, it doesn’t say that—at least not in the creation account in Genesis. There is nothing (except God) ...[text shortened]... t clearly the necessary reading; certainly it has not been so for Jewish exegetes.[/b]

When the Face could not see Face?
😵

Originally posted by Palynka
I don't understand how you connect that to the age of the mitochondrial eve. Can you explain?

Also (very surprisingly to me) the Wiki page also shows this:

[i]Rohde, Olson & Chang (2004) showed that all humans alive today almost certainly share a surprisingly recent common ancestor, perhaps even within the last 5000 years, even for people born on diffe ...[text shortened]... how can we know the genetic difference between Noah and the others he supposedly took with him?

As far as i understand it, and bear in mind i'm no geneticist, it's the rate at which human mtDNA mutates. Here's another page from the oracle which gives the topic a little more breadth than i can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_molecular_clock

Originally posted by Proper Knob
As far as i understand it, and bear in mind i'm no geneticist, it's the rate at which human mtDNA mutates. Here's another page from the oracle which gives the topic a little more breadth than i can.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_molecular_clock

I'm not being contrarian for the sake of it, I would be very surprised if you weren't right, but I'm still not understanding how that proves that it is impossible that a bottleneck like the Biblical flood happened 5000 years ago. (or even what is the estimated age of the mtEve)

I'll try reading it again later.

Originally posted by Palynka
I'm not being contrarian for the sake of it, I would be very surprised if you weren't right, but I'm still not understanding how that proves that it is impossible that a bottleneck like the Biblical flood happened 5000 years ago. (or even what is the estimated age of the mtEve)

I'll try reading it again later.

No problem, i know you're not doing it for the sake of it.

I want to get this tied down also.

I'll get back to it later.

Originally posted by Palynka
😵

It's enough. Until you are willing to engage the points I've raised, I don't see why I should continue to provide pearls before swine.

So essentially you're saying you have no standard by which you can judge a document's authenticity. That probably makes it a lot easier to hold your entrenched thinking!

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
So essentially you're saying you have no standard by which you can judge a document's authenticity. That probably makes it a lot easier to hold your entrenched thinking!

Says the guy whose entrenched thinking depends on ONE document. 😵

It's also interesting contrasting your science-phobia, with a sudden obsession in the historical method.

Originally posted by Ullr
And I ask you where you think their knowledge was borrowed and from whom?

For the record I did not try to argue that Ginnungagap attempts to explain "that state prior to chaos". My personal belief is we don't really know the answer to that. I realize that your answer and belief is that it was God but then that begs the question whom or what created God? G ...[text shortened]... s in this forum and is interesting discussion to have but ultimately speculation nonetheless.

And I ask you where you think their knowledge was borrowed and from whom?
Same place every culture borrowed their Flood motifs from: the actual event!

For the record I did not try to argue that Ginnungagap attempts to explain "that state prior to chaos". My personal belief is we don't really know the answer to that.
Neither does the Bible. As you will see in my conversation with v, although the Bible is not overly illustrative or specific about that non-time, it nonetheless spells out that such a state 'existed' prior to existence as we know it.

I realize that your answer and belief is that it was God but then that begs the question whom or what created God? God is something and so God cannot have created something out of nothing because God himself would have been something and so there was more than nothing. If God exists, whom or what created God? Neither of us can answer this.
You couldn't be more spot on. Absolutely nailed the salient issue: if no beginning, always existent?
Also, that God stands outside of existence tells us a little bit more about what makes His 'something' really something!

Thus creation myth is myth regardless if it is Norse, Greek, Hindu, or Judaic.
Well, your start was much better than the finish. I have to vociferously (via typing, of course) object to the term myth as it is applied to Genesis. There is nothing within the account--- nor anything known outside of the account--- which would suggest that the narrative is a distortion of actual events. The account is emphatically not allegorical, does not suggest any type of personification (possible exception of the serpent), nor has it been tied to any known rituals.

Within the account, the Hebrew is overwhelmingly specific with precious little exception... and those exceptions are non-essential. In fact, the account is so specific it makes itself a target for dissension: instead of speaking in broad generalities across the board--- and thus leaving itself open to any manner of interpretation--- it speaks of the actual order of God's re-creation in terms highly contested of late. Here, I am speaking of the account beginning in verse three through the end of chapter one.

All of these discussions are therefore just speculation on all our parts, Atheists included. Granted it is of a spiritual nature and belongs in this forum and is interesting discussion to have but ultimately speculation nonetheless.
And yet I noticed you didn't call any of the scientific accounts 'myth?'

That being said, you can only call it speculation if the ideas are based on conjecture. On matters wherein the Bible could be disproved, it never has been. Is it that much of a leap of faith to consider it a reliable source of truth for those matters wherein no testing is possible? Moreover, while we are the final arbiters of our individual beliefs, given our penchant for getting it wrong so notoriously, how much do we really want to rely on our methods of testing?

Originally posted by Palynka
Says the guy whose entrenched thinking depends on ONE document. 😵

It's also interesting contrasting your science-phobia, with a sudden obsession in the historical method.

ONE document? Please tell me your study of the question at hand has yielded better results than this.

ONE document?! O, vey.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
ONE document? Please tell me your study of the question at hand has yielded better results than this.

ONE document?! O, vey.

Do you even know what "document" means? Yes, your thinking is entrenched in ONE document. The rest is fluff.

Originally posted by vistesd
The Bible speaks of the re-creation that followed a chaos, but it also informs us that prior to the chaos, God spoke everything into existence from nothing. (My italics.)

____________________________________________


Umm… Actually, it doesn’t say that—at least not in the creation account in Genesis. There is nothing (except God) in ...[text shortened]... t clearly the necessary reading; certainly it has not been so for Jewish exegetes.[/b]

Umm… Actually, it [b]doesn’t say that—at least not in the creation account in Genesis. There is nothing (except God) in the Genesis account before tohu v’bohu: “shapeless and formless” in Richard Elliot Friedman’s translation of the Torah—and by “nothing”, I do not mean some kind of “nothingness”.[/b]
The account doesn't say it, but you just did!

... There is no suggestion here that God made the world out of nothing, which is a much later conception.”
I'd have to read the couching of the commentary's take on this, but I'd have to say that instead of it being a 'later conception,' that it was actually an earlier conception... as in 'the sentence earlier than this one!' The first part of verse two of the first chapter transliterated:

"and.the.earth she-became chaos and.vacancy... "

That transliterated 'she-became' is from eithe which is defined as "to exist, i.e., be or become, come to pass (always emphatic, and not a mere copula or auxiliary)."
This phraseology follows in the remaining narrative of becoming, is becoming and so forth... a natural progressive account of building, which begins in verse one.

"in.beginning he-created Elohim the.heavens and the.earth"

Since descriptive verse two follows verse one, there is nothing (ha-ha) to suggest anything other than Him creating out of nothing.

It is my suggestion that verse two happened an undetermined amount of time following verse one. By that, I mean that God created heaven and earth and at some point later, whatever was initially created became chaos, vacancy and darkness. From that point, the re-creation that follows from the latter part of verse two onward.

The main point, however, is that the first three words of the account tell the story as fully as is necessary to to get the picture, i.e., in beginning, God created. The remaining narrative speaks of God forming, letting, causing, building and so forth, apparently from material of things in existence, with each instance using words describing those acts. Only in two places is the word bara used: in the first verse when it's just Him, and then later when He creates the essence of man. Note that this term is not used when describing how He formed man's physical body from the dirt; instead it is used when making man in His image, i.e., what orthodox doctrine holds to be the Triune nature of Him reflected in the initial creation of man.

Originally posted by Palynka
Do you even know what "document" means? Yes, your thinking is entrenched in ONE document. The rest is fluff.

Perhaps it would be helpful if you took a crash course in the history of the Bible, as it relates to the canon. You seem to be under the impression that the 66 books therein somehow popped out in toto sometime in the last 2000 years.

Originally posted by FreakyKBH
Perhaps it would be helpful if you took a crash course in the history of the Bible, as it relates to the canon. You seem to be under the impression that the 66 books therein somehow popped out in toto sometime in the last 2000 years.

You still haven't gotten it? Your thinking is shaped by the document in your bed stand. My God, what a dunce.

Originally posted by Palynka
You still haven't gotten it? Your thinking is shaped by the document in your bed stand. My God, what a dunce.

And your thinking is shaped by the document in your living room whose remote you haven't quite mastered yet. My dog, what a genius.