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I had an interesting idea the other day that chapter one of Genesis didn't make much sense physically, but could as computer code. I wrote an R script that does accomplish this to some extent. The end result I got was impressive visually, but my code was not that faithful to the instructions. Here is how I interpreted the first two verses:
###In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
#install.packages("sphereplot")
require(sphereplot)
##Create Heavens
rgl.sphgrid(radius = 5, col.long="", col.lat="",
deggap = 15, longtype = "D", add = T, radaxis=F)
http://postimg.org/image/3wvx1cvpd/
##Create Earth
rgl.sphgrid(radius = 1, col.long='', col.lat='',
deggap = 15, longtype = "D",add = T, radaxis=F)
http://postimg.org/image/he6w4kx19/
[ED NOTE: These links go to the images output by his code, which is neat, but the image host has some ads that, while not pornographic, may not be safe for work in all settings. Use your judgement. -LaminatorX]
##Now the earth was formless and empty,
##darkness was over the surface of the deep,
bg3d(color=c("darkslategray3","Black"),
fogtype="exp2", sphere=TRUE, back="fill")
http://postimg.org/image/j3wikf68f/
##and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
view3d(phi=90, theta=180, zoom=.55)
http://postimg.org/image/9aazwxjkd/
Does Soylent have any other ideas on how to interpret these two verses? More verses to come if there is any interest.
(Score: 2) by engblom on Saturday August 15 2015, @07:41AM
Very few are aware it is actually not reading "the beginning" in the original Hebrew text. There it is reading "a beginning". Those translating it as "the begninning" consider the text to be poetic and in poetic Hebrew, you can use the "a beginning" form for something determined. To end up with "the beginning", you do not only translate, you also interprete the text.
Personally, I think "the beginning" is wrong, especially when you take the rest of the Bible into account. We can read that the "angels shouted for joy" when God created the earth. As angels are also created there must have been a beginning before this one if you look at the rest of the Bible.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday August 15 2015, @08:11AM
If you can accept that the Genesis story stems from Sumerian (and likely South African lore before that) then you can find a lot of the missing context and a time line that fits the "continuity errors" of the later religious traditions.
Good point about the original hebrew, the passages iare encoded with the ~linguistic equivalent~ of a formal code style including multiple levels of data abstraction.
Still, it's more like the rather than the DOCTYPE.
QUOTE: www.jewfaq.org/root.htm
"the first word of the Torah, "bereishit," is usually translated as "in the beginning." The root is Reish-Alef-Shin, which means "head" or "first." (See Hebrew Alphabet to learn the letters). It is the same root as the "Rosh" in "Rosh Hashanah" (first of the year, i.e., Jewish New Year). We add the prefix Beit, a preposition meaning "in," "on," and a number of other things. The word "the" is implied."