I thought I'd post something on the opening of Genesis ...
The English translation 'In the beginning' has long been assumed to denote a temporal order of events, thus apologists get tangled up in knots 'explaining' how Genesis, and specifically the Hexameron (6 Days) corresponds to temporal science.
The Hebrew b'reishit, or bereishit is open to various interpretations, and the usual one has recently become the most literal, that 'beginning' signifies a temporal event.
This is not the only reading of the term however, and it's notable that the Jewish scholars who rendered a Greek translation of the text – the Septuagint – chose the Greek term En arche as the equivalent term, signifying that what the Hebrew text speaks of is not science, but metaphysics. It's not a temporal beginning, it's the beginning in the Ordinal sense (hierarchical), rather than the Cardinal sense (numerical).
Thus John, in the prologue to his gospel, reflects the Hebrew understanding in the first verse 'En arche'.
Likewise, the Vulgate (Latin) translation shows this was how the hebrew was traditionally understood when it translated 'b'reishit' as 'In principio'.
If a temporal beginning was the primary reading, then the Fathers of the Septuagint would have used the Greek protista, and the Latins inceptium or initium.
This metaphysical reading is the Traditional reading of scholars of all three Abrahamic Traditions. It's there in Josephus, in the Greek and Latin fathers ... in fact an 'esoteric' reading makes great play of the fact that b'reishit breaks down into:, be = 'at' or 'in'; reish = ''head'; it ='of'. The wordpay here being that God caused creation all-at-once in principle, which then unfolded hierarchically in the vertical order of the Hexameron – logically God knew Creation all at once, as it were, He didn't discover it or make it up as He went along ... or to stretch the analogy even further, God brought creation into existence by the power of His will, not by utilising some unformed substantia that happened to be to hand, as it were ... Jews and Christians (and Moslems, I think) agree in creatio ex nihilo.
The metaphysical is the reading of the Kabbalists, Hermeticists and esoterists. The Gnostics, of course, are wedded to an absolute dualism even the Hellenes don't adhere to.
Once one accepts the metaphysical ordering, then the scientific/temporal contradictions evaporate – how can there be light if the celestial bodies are not made until day four ... that kind of thing.
The English translation 'In the beginning' has long been assumed to denote a temporal order of events, thus apologists get tangled up in knots 'explaining' how Genesis, and specifically the Hexameron (6 Days) corresponds to temporal science.
The Hebrew b'reishit, or bereishit is open to various interpretations, and the usual one has recently become the most literal, that 'beginning' signifies a temporal event.
This is not the only reading of the term however, and it's notable that the Jewish scholars who rendered a Greek translation of the text – the Septuagint – chose the Greek term En arche as the equivalent term, signifying that what the Hebrew text speaks of is not science, but metaphysics. It's not a temporal beginning, it's the beginning in the Ordinal sense (hierarchical), rather than the Cardinal sense (numerical).
Thus John, in the prologue to his gospel, reflects the Hebrew understanding in the first verse 'En arche'.
Likewise, the Vulgate (Latin) translation shows this was how the hebrew was traditionally understood when it translated 'b'reishit' as 'In principio'.
If a temporal beginning was the primary reading, then the Fathers of the Septuagint would have used the Greek protista, and the Latins inceptium or initium.
This metaphysical reading is the Traditional reading of scholars of all three Abrahamic Traditions. It's there in Josephus, in the Greek and Latin fathers ... in fact an 'esoteric' reading makes great play of the fact that b'reishit breaks down into:, be = 'at' or 'in'; reish = ''head'; it ='of'. The wordpay here being that God caused creation all-at-once in principle, which then unfolded hierarchically in the vertical order of the Hexameron – logically God knew Creation all at once, as it were, He didn't discover it or make it up as He went along ... or to stretch the analogy even further, God brought creation into existence by the power of His will, not by utilising some unformed substantia that happened to be to hand, as it were ... Jews and Christians (and Moslems, I think) agree in creatio ex nihilo.
The metaphysical is the reading of the Kabbalists, Hermeticists and esoterists. The Gnostics, of course, are wedded to an absolute dualism even the Hellenes don't adhere to.
Once one accepts the metaphysical ordering, then the scientific/temporal contradictions evaporate – how can there be light if the celestial bodies are not made until day four ... that kind of thing.
