God’s Days and Our Days
by Jack Hoehn
Genesis 1 and 2 is not about human labor, it is about God’s labor. God, not man, is the only functioning character of these chapters, He occupies central stage. (Everett Fox, “The Five Books of Moses”, p. 10.) Genesis 1 is not about human work, or human days, it is about God’s work, and God’s days. The Genesis creation story divides God’s work into 6 Heavenly Days, plus a seventh for His rest.
Man’s work, of course, can also be divided into 6 days, plus a seventh for man’s rest.
Man’s days are 24 hours long. Must God’s Days, upon which our week is modeled, also be 24 hours long?
Heavenly and Earthly Sanctuaries
Moses was shown a Heavenly Sanctuary, upon which he was instructed to model an earthly sanctuary.[1] The earthly was a “shadow” of the heavenly things; it followed the “pattern” of the heavenly sanctuary.
Now, we know for sure that the earthly sanctuary in the wilderness has a court of 50 x 100 cubits (90 x 180 feet) , and the sanctuary was 10 x 20 cubits (18 x 36 feet). This was Moses sanctuary; does it mean that God’s Heavenly Sanctuary was 10 x 20 cubits? Does God’s Court have to measure 50 x 100 cubits?
You and I both suspect that the Heavenly Court and the Heavenly Sanctuary are infinitely larger than 90 x 180 or 18 x 36 feet. The earthly sanctuary was modeled on the heavenly. It was made after the same pattern. But it was scaled to fit our human needs.
So the earthly week with its 6 days of labor and 7th day of rest, is patterned, modeled on God’s Creation Week.[2] But it is scaled to fit our human needs. As God divided His work of creation into 6 yom or Days, so he asks humans to divide their work into 6 yom or days followed by the Sabbath.
Reading Genesis Literally
When I read the Genesis story literally, it appears to me that a literal reading of the Bible requires Creation Days to be longer than 12 hour daylight days or 24 hour solar days. This is clear especially for Creation Days 3 and 6.
Creation Day 3
First on the 3rd great Creation Day dry land appears. Ur, Artica, Nena, Atlantica, Pangaea, or Gondwana[3] lift above the waters. Then “God said, Let the earth sprout forth with sprouting-growth, plants that seed for the seeds, fruit trees that yield fruit, after their kind, in which is their seed upon the earth! It was so. The earth brought forth the sprouting-growth, plants that seed for the seed, after their kind, trees that yield fruit, in which is their seed, after their kind. God saw that it was good. There was setting, there was dawning: third day.”[4]
So after appearance of the continents, land drying off, how quickly can a plant sprout? And it was not instant creation, God doesn’t say “let plants be”, it was a spoken command “let earth bring forth sprouts”! God’s command to the earth requires days, weeks, months or years for obedience. The “earth brought forth” plants, God watches and approves. Now if you want to read it symbolically that it all happened suddenly, not really “sprouting forth”, OK, but recognize you are not reading the text literally!
A Very Busy 6th Day
If we read Genesis 1:24-31 and 2: 4-25, about the 6th Creation Day, scripture reveals God’s following accomplishments on this one day:
a.) God creates land animals, domestic herds.
b.) God creates crawling things.
c.) God creates wild animals not domesticated.
d.) God discusses the creation of mankind with heavenly associates.
e.) God forms Adam, vitalizes him, on the earth, outside of Eden.[5]
f.) God then plants a garden in Eden which grows. [6]
g.) Then God puts Adam into Eden. [7]
h.) God Gives Adam his work and explains the Great Controversy existing outside of Eden.[8]
i.) God next tasks Adam as a scientist with taxonomy naming “all the animals”.[9]
j.) Adam notes the sexual dimorphism of the animals.
k.) Adam experiences his aloneness.
l.) God performs surgery under anesthesia.
m.) Eve formed and vitalized as the crown of creation.
n.) Adam wakes smitten with Eve, saying “it’s about time, here is what I’ve been missing”.[10]
o.) God explains to the two of them dominion responsibilities for the creation.[11]
p.) God explains botany. Teaches them in a no killing animals world, plants were meant to grow and then die a painless death in service to animals.[12]
q.) The humans then figure out how to become one flesh, naked and not ashamed![13]
r.) And all this on one 12 hour day or even 24 hour night and day? Talk about a frantic Friday, this would be the worst preparation day in history, to try and rush all this before sundown and the first Sabbath!
Time it for me, people. Use your stopwatches. I can see it taking days at least, and yes, years are quite plausible. This can NOT all happen from sunrise to sunset of a solar day. If you read your Bible literally, with a real God working with real humans, and not just a felt board cartoon of these events, the 6th great Creation Day surely must be longer than 12 or 24 solar hours.
Dividing our work and rest into 6 x 24 hour days followed by a 7th 24 hour Sabbath is patterned after God’s Creation Week. Our work and worship is modeled after God’s Work and Rest pattern. But just as the earthly sanctuary and court are smaller than the Heavenly Sanctuary and Courts, there is no reason to conclude that God’s Great Creation Week was 144 solar hours long. We need not make the Bible impossible by imposing an assumption about the length of Creation Days on it. Listen again to our Bible.
“But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”[14]
[14] 2 Peter 3:8, New Living Translation.[1]Hebrews 8:5 “… the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, [that] thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.”
Wow… Jack, I don't know. I admire your efforts to morph the understanding of these chapters to better fit time frames suggested by science.
Yet, I find your line up deeply troubling. You have even gone as far as suggesting that Adam's sense of "need" for a companion suggested he had been lonely for more than a day! And, then, explore the idea of how long it would take to have or learn to have sex! After that you suggest that we should not trivialize it?
I certainly did not appreciate Stephen Foster's analysis of my theology in your last blog, and I do respect your efforts to find ways to reconcile biblical text with scientific undeniables, but I really feel you are getting into linguistic gymnastics to do it.
Personally, I no longer think it is possible to fit the Genesis story into an understanding of this world that does justice to its age, and its incredible evolutionary journey it appears to have undergone. Not to mention what we know about the universe.
Don't be troubled Chris. I'm just trying to slow people down from their assumption that this was a normal 12 hour sunrise to sunset day, or a normal 24 hour sundown to sundown day. I'm just asking people to
think about what Genesis is saying, and make it real instead of immaginary. I suspect that although poetic , summarized, and condensed, the Bible is telling me what God did on his Creation Day. You appear to have given up on having Genesis and Science harmonize. I'm sorry. But I hope you'll let the rest of us try!
Ditto, wowwww. Thank you Jack. i was greatly inspired. i view this rendition different than cb. The logic is superb, and you have not fixed the actual time of each day period. No one knows. No boxes. Thought the openness would appeal to all. And it is so convincing of God's days of creation.
Jack
Your posit a false analogy when you compare creation to the sanctuary. Your assertions are speculative at best and are just your opinions. You can try and grapple at straws to strengthen your position but I am not impressed to say the least. CB25 is right this is linguistic gymnastics of the highest order. Gravity is a scientific undeniable so did Jesus ascend into the heavens?
And like Stephen I do not believe in a plethora of interprations as equally valid that concept in and of itself is unbliblical. So what is deception, what is apostacy? These cannot exist in a pluralistic reality as Jack And Co believe. If the Bible can say anything , then it says nothing. Believing in theistic evolution makes one's belief in the Gospel is preferential. I believe you believe God created the laws that govern nature, then is He rigidly bound by these laws?
Tapiwa thank you, but again you burn hot against a false choice. Like you, Long Term Creationists agree that theistic evolution is not a satisfactory explanation for the Creator God of the Bible. We believe in an intelligently designed, sequentially instituted story of creation. We think science reveals that life was indeed designed and implemented by non-naturalistic interventions of a wise and supernatural intelligence.
We think that the Bible truly shows us what God did. We just don't think it shows us when He did it.
This is not saying the Bible can be made to say everything or anything. We say the Bible tells us the truth. But we may have misunderstood the pattern of creation for a chronology of creation. It is an understandable error, but to hold to that error after the evidence is in, makes an error into a sin.
I'm always amazed at how much effort is expended in an attempt to make Genesis 1 say something that any 10 year old can see that it doesn't say. If Genesis 1 is confusing (and it isn't) the 4th commandment nails it down: Remember the Sabbath day to keep in holy . . . . for in 6 days the Lord made heaven and earth . . . . Seems pretty straighforward to me; but then I'm just a simple layman, unable to discover the subtle nuances inherent in the Genesis narrative. The evening and the morning were the first day. Yeah, that's really tough. I need a lot of help with that one.
Yes Jean, but you and I are no longer 10.
Jack,
Time, in scripture, is significant as much for how often it is not described as when it is detailed. One characteristic of Hebrew writings is the absence of details within a story. Adam required time to realize that he was alone and reach such a state of loneliness that he would return to God with that observation and seeking a solution for himself. We're not given the time period of which it happened, but are simply told that it happened. We're given simple declarations that God created the world and provided a mate for Adam. Period.
Past discussion of your columns has focused on time in this world. So I ask the question: What is the length of a day on other worlds also created by God? Astronomers have located tens of thousans of thousands of potentially habitable planets with conditions that appear similar to Earth. Some of those planets spin on their axis much faster than Earth and some far slower. On some you would experience four or five days in the time we experience one, while on others a single day would continue for longer than one of our years. Which provides the basis for God's use of the term "day" in scripture where we are told that "a day with God is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day."
More questions without possible answers, yet reason to be amazed by seeing what God has done!
Wow, very well put and explained, Thanks Jack.
We know absolutely nothing about heavenly days. We are only limited to earth time, and God has no limitations of time: "a thousand years is as a day, a thousand days is as a year." The futililty of setting days for any event in Hebrew Scripture is very implausible.
At least one verse from the oldest creation story in Chapter 2 was mentioned. The story with the sequence of days in Chapter 1 has been attributed to the priests during the Persian Exile, and bears too close a resemblance to the Babylonian creation story to be conincidental. The sabbath had been falling into disrepute and the prophets blamed this apostasy on neglect and disobedience of sabbath (this is found throughout the prophets of that time). In an effort to reinforce the Sinaitic Code, the Law was codified and the exact wording for proper observance for sabbath was very distinct and unambiguous.
This is in complete contrast to the early creation story which described creation in reverse order, and no mention of God's resting. Although myths were a favored method to relate one's origins, how were two different stories chosen as a basis for Chistian sabbath observance when the NT is completely silent about any day as holy for Christians? Adventists are fighting theological battles based on Law from Hebrew Scripture that became obsolet with Christianity
More unmitigated nonsense. Genesis 1 and 2 are complimentary, not contradictory.
So it's "implausible futility" (whatever that means) to profess to understand the time frame of any event in the OT? Moses didn't spend 40 days on Mt. Sinai? It didn't rain for 40 days and 40 nights (oh, yeah, you don't believe in the Flood anyway). So, it must be true that only accomplished Hebrew scholars can shed any light on these things. What does it mean that God created the world in 6 days and rested on the 7th, if it doesn't mean just what it appears to mean? This is crazy. I must have entered an alternate universe where up is down and down is up; or maybe I've entered the world of Alice in Wonderland. A day could be a million years, even if it says that Jesus was in the tomb 3 days and 3 nights. Superhuman efforts to discredit Scripture. All so we don't have to get laughed at for believing in the Flood and a literal 6 day creation; and so that we don't have to keep the Sabbath.
Elaine insists that the law is obsolete for Christians. Paul says the opposite. Her argument is with Paul and Jesus (who came to fulfill the law, not abolish it), not with Adventists.
Elaine, Don't you think all these stories came from an original source? It wasn't the Babylonians, but they would have gotten it from some other source. this is why similar stories in every land appear among peoples so far removed from each other, especially the flood story. They all spread out from one location and carried with them the same stories which became distorted over time due to their diminishing capacity to remember. There were no Jews in Noah's time or before.
Because I believe the Bible story (not always literally), I believe pre-flood peoples did not need writing but depended on superior memory to pass stories on.
The numbers, I believe, are symbolic and we know the meanings of some of them today as do Jewish scholars.
It's all entirely coincidental that all the 40 days and 40 years in the Bible magically were exactly 40, not 39, not 41, but 40. Keep believin', there is a need for more Adventists. The latest figures for the NAD show that during the past six years there have been 240,891 new converts; and during that same period, 130,929 are dead, left, or unaccounted for, with a net gain of 109,962,
In the book "The Science of God", Gerald Schroeder, a Jewish Genesis scholar and an MIT-trained physicist and cosmologist does an excellent job of analyzing Tadmudic, Midrashic and medieval commentaries on Biblical creation accounts, in an attempt to reconcile a six day creation as described in Genesis with the scientific evidence that the world is billions of years old using the idea that the perceived flow of time for a given event in an expanding universe varies with the observer’s perspective of that event. In his book he attempts to reconcile the two perspectives numerically, calculating the effect of the stretching of space-time, based on Einstein's theory of relativity. He presents the hypothesis that the Genesis 6-day account of creation matches perfectly the paleo-biological record for the appearance of life on the planet if one uses a logarithmic scale rather than a linear scale for the creation week. I would suggest that anyone who is interested in relating the Genesis account to the scientific account should read Gerald's book. It really makes a lot of sense. Jack has set the foundation for some of these principles in his blog. Thanks Jack.
This sounds like an interesting book I would like to read. Thanks for pointing it out.
Yes Barry, Gerald Schroeder's book is on my library shelf. He helped me think about the fact that God's Days and our days may be different. I don't know that I know enough to agree or disagree with his suggestion that the chronology can be made to fit to the second, so I am more comfortable agreeing that God's Work in Genesis took whatever God Time it needed, and has been organized into a pattern that I remember each week. And that our week is patterned on God's work, but need not be the same number of hours, minutes, seconds.
We are all free to speculate, and it is actually "fun." But as I have said before, it is most important what the story means than if it actually happened as stated. The story tells us a lot about God, that He was our Creator and all of earth. Only humans want to know the details rather than the big picture–they look at the trees rather than the forest. But I have done lots of speculating too along the same lines; I think we all have. We want answers, and we want to make Genesis fit in with current science. I don't think it ever will in this lifetime. Our science is not God's science–He knows a lot more–believe it or not! Our science must be laughable to Him.
I do think the earth was quite different–maybe with different natural laws than it has now. I think God could make the earth in six days but doubt they were 24-hour days (but can't say with certainty they weren't–does it really matter to our salvation?) Time differs all over the cosmos. God's time is certianly different than ours. But the point is the presence of death before the Genesis story. We can't explain that with long histories. I suspect there was a previous "creation" that ended in chaos. We also need to keep in mind the Bible is not always chronological and the numbers used are highly symbolic. Jewish scholars know that. The Jews of the NT knew the meanings that seem so strange to us now.
Thank you, Jack, for showing the possibilities.
For those who 'know' the Bible says exactly and precisely what they believe it says, in our 21st century western culture and understandings, I feel truly sorry. When we sarcastically carve up others who think differently, it becomes obvious why the church is only attractive in North America to immigrants.
Read Romans 14 this weekend. Paul allows for difference of opinion, not only on diet, but on which day to worship! Paul is much more interested in true Christian unity–unity in caring for the needy, in support for the weaker brother, in sharing in the gospel. John 3 and Romans 1 are much more important than 'correctly' understanding Genesis 1 and 2. It truly should be 'fun,' but as long as we agree that God was responsible for whatever happened, why must we insist that He did it 'our way?'
A deeper look at the third commandment suggests that if we claim to be a Christian without the loving actions associated with that claim, we are fooling ourselves.
"For those who 'know' the Bible says exactly and precisely what they believe it says, in our 21st century western culture and understandings, I feel truly sorry."
Funny enough, I believe the Church Fathers Origen and Augustine weren't so certain some 1700 years ago that Genesis should be read so literally. Origen noted that there were aspects of the story that didn't lead to a literal 6×24 hour chronology, such as the sun and moon being made on day 3. Augustine noted that the Sabbath was missing the 'it was evening and morning' refrain, again supporting the Jack's general thrust that God has been resting ever since creation.
That Augustine view very much also fits into how I view theodicy. Ever since God began His Sabbath, he has given essential dominion over this planet to we humans, made in His divine image – for good or bad as we so chose. Of course God still generally 'maintains the universe', and is 'working' to do that, a point Christ also made when He took the grain from the field on the Sabbath.
But God otherwise is not so active in Creation, except through His Spirit through us – but only persuading us to action, never coercing. The Jews themselves understand this every Friday night that they light the Sabbath candles, which they believe is in effect mankind re-enacting the creation story on a weekly basis as God's partners.
Ella, I have Gerald Schroeder's books, but I would suggest you consider two more very helpful books on the Creation Days:
John C. Lennox, SEVEN DAYS THAT DIVIDE THE WORLD.–John Lennox is an Oxford Don, a C.S. Lewis for our time. A reviewer says, "This book is a delight to read: It is thoughtful, perceptive, friendly, and bold when it needs to be."
Hugh Ross, A MATTER OF DAYS–Hugh Ross is an astronomer who takes the Bible very seriously, and takes Science very seriously, and is the champion of this time on helping Christians see how they are in fundamental agreement.
PS. Here is a quote from a review of Ross's book by R.E. Buehler, that I'll add since he agrees with me!
" Those who insist that the Bible "plainly" speaks of 24-hour days in Genesis …are not merely reading what's in front of them. They are accepting what other men have told them about how the Bible "must" be read. Whenever you hear someone say: "God said it, I believe it, that settles it," what they are actually saying is, "I say God said it, I believe it, and I say that settles it." It may masquerade as humility before "God's word", but it is more often pride, or a fearful conformity to churchified traditions of men."
I have both books also and I think Lennox's book is by far the best I have read on this whole subject. It is quite compact, and takes the notion of biblical inspiration and authority seriously. It is the sort of book you could give any Christian friend. I wholly add my own voice (whatever it is worth) is recommending Lennox.
TO's comment above: "God's ways are certainly beyond our lexiconic challenges and experiential definitions;" sums it up best. Humans do not have language to objectively describe creation. We probably would do well to read God's chiding of Job as often as we read Genesis : "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me if you think you are so smart! When viewing the pictures coming back from the Hubble, I suggest that there is only one appropriate response: profound silence!
Yes, I believe the Bible actually describes 6 or 7 creation stories – Genesis only has one of them (or two of them according to some theories). Job and Pslams both very much emphasise that i) mankind is in fact just another animal; and ii) mankind has no comprehension of creation. The other accounts include Ecc (the description of creation by Wisdom).
James Kugel, a orthodox Jew, Harvard professor of Classical, Modern Jewish, and Hebrew Literature, has written a book explaining how we came to receive the texts we have today.
They were orally repeated for possibly several thousand years before putting in writing, and each time they were told, the were interpreted and so transformed the apparent meaning of the biblical texts. The story of Adam and Eve, for example, only became the story of the Fall of Man thanks to a certain ancient interpretation of one of the verses in the story. The snake in the story came to be identified as the devil–but only by later interpreters, not by the story itself!
And it was only because of another interpretation that the Garden of Eden (also known as paradise) came to be thought of as a heavenly garde, one in which the righteous would live eternally after death.
Similar transformations occurred with other biblical narratives. Abraham became known as the first person to believe in one God, but this is never stated outright in the Bible
And so it was this interpreted Bible– not just the stories, prophecies, and laws themselves, but these texts as they had, by now, been interpreted, and explained for centuries–that came to stand at the very center of Judaism and Christianity. This was what people in both religions mean by "the Bible." This is not unlike what all Bible believers do today: interpret the text.
Hogwash! Undadulterated at that. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. II Tim. 3:16–I'll take that to the bank.
Assuming your source is right, do you leave no place for the Holy Spirit of God leading in the process of the Bible being written and gathered together? God does work through human beings. Whether He inspired your source or not is another question.
Jean, take this to the bank as well: 1 Cor 13 (NCV): "Now we see a dim reflection, as if we are looking into a mirror,…" or (KJV): "For now we see through a glass darkly…"
Exactly – exactly! The Bible is inspired and true, but it indeed is limited. It indeed contains all there is required for salvation (per sola scriptura), but that doesn't mean it contains all the information there is in the world. It isn't nor was ever intended to be a science book. In fact, the book of Job makes that very clear.
Ditto Timo & Floyd & Elaine. Man has no words sufficient to describe or contemplate the majesty, the holiness, the ALL MIGHTINESS of our Creator God. The heavens DECLARE the GLORY of our GOD. Look up. As Floyd stated, in these end times, man has fashioned a fantastic instrument, for us to view with our naked eyes, the beauty and majesty of the heavens, through the lens of the Hubble telescope. Yes, silence, awe, wonder of wonders. God has permitted us to look into infinity. I am undone. And yet, He knows & considers each one of us creatures, even though we are less than equal in size to a single atom, compared to the size of the Universe. Our connection to God is Spiritural.
"Where were you when I laid the foundations????" No human was there. The verbal description was
passed down for approx 3000 man years before it was first written. Some variations of the Creation of
everything was subject to many generations interpreting what they heard. The salient parts obviously
presented by inspired scribes, but with a time frame of dubious intrepretation, so we are led to expect
God will give us additional information as we gain knowledge of His Almighty power.
Jack,
Thanks for trying to grapple the difficulties of Genesis 1-2.
I don't believe Gen 1 is inconsistent with itself as far as timeliness is concerned, provided you are willing to accept the underlying narrative framework. Although you attempt to take Genesis at face value, your approach is still heavily influenced by naturalistic assumptions. We can't play hopscotch between 21st century's naturalistic worldview and the creative process that is being described in Genesis by primitive Hebrews: a supernatural, God driven phenomenon.
Was there a lot to create in only 6 days? Yes. Was the Creator limited by our notion of the time it would to create that? It does not appear so.
Maybe the following could be a tentative way to explain this. How long would it take to walk 80 miles? 27 hours. How long would it take to drive 80 miles? 1 hour. How long would it take to fly 80 miles? 12 minutes. How long would the space shuttle take to fly 80 miles? 15 seconds.
In all instances the passage of time kept the same rate, the distance was the same, only the speed changed. So, while God may be operating "within" the time/space continuum, he may not be limited by any rate of speed in which he acts within such constraint.
After tackling the time problem of Genesis, you conclude that: "We need not make the Bible impossible by imposing an assumption about the length of Creation Days on it. Listen again to our Bible."
I think your proposal is flawed because it does not factor in "divine expedition", which is a sine qua non condition for understanding Genesis 1-2 from the Hebrew standpoint. If there's any "time warp" in Genesis, it is certainly not in the direction of "deep time" but rather "quick time".
There's no need to make the "Bible impossible" by assuming God is limited by the constraints of speed in the time/space continuum.
True enough, but in many ways you are also applying something beyound a strict literal or plain reading of the texts. It is certainly possible that God created the world in quick time, but then I suspect for some YEC that would likewise not be satisfactory, as somehow undermining the notion that God really created the world in 6×24 hour days.
If God somehow altered the space-time continuum, say so the sun literally didn't rotate so quickly or some other Star Trek type phenomina, that would still arguably support Jack's central argument that creation occured in 'God days'. You likewise seem to be advocating creation in something other than 'ordinary' 24 hour days.
Andre, we are not Hebrew, so yes, we 21st century humans try to understand the chronology of creation from the recent evidence found in the earth of what God did, evidence that is much clearer and more complete now than at any other time in History.
In BC 5 before the Babe was delivered into a manger, it was appropriate for people to speculate on who and how and what Messiah might do, and when he might do it. But after AD 30, all such speculations on Messiah were inappropriate, because the evidence was in. Jesus was the Messiah and no one else, and this (not some other way) was how God was going to answer the accusations of Satan. Using for his own purposes a virgin uterus, a placenta, 9 months of growth and development, suckling at Mary's breast, learning in Joseph's workshop, increasing in wisdom and knowledge, walking, bathing, hungry, thirsty, and subject to death. God did his salvation on earth using natural processes, accomplishing the supernatural by exploitation of natural life and following natural laws. I appeal again to analogy.
If God recreated or redeemed earth in harmony with natural laws, why would we expect his creation was not in harmony with and working with supernatural wisdom and plan through natural ways? Genesis 1,2 is full of appeals to natural processes, "let the earth bring forth" "of the dust of the ground" "waters above" "it shall be to you for food" "know his wife" "took a rib" "sleep".
It just seems to me, now that I have learned that YOM can be used multiple ways, and that Creation Days seem unique from human days, that Genesis is asking me to see God working with and through nature, getting supernatural results using the framework and processes God has carefully (and as the Ancient of Days over a very long period of time) implemented.
I agree that a short chronology of life on earth is pleasant and tidy. But in 2012 it has become a hindrance to faith, since it does not seem to be true. I am not asking Adventism to accept long age creationism, but I am asking them to permit it to be considered and fully explored as an alternative answer, since it seems to now be required by the evidence. Time warps are a Holywood answers to fitting a story into a 30 minute time slot. I am not limiting God to my ideas, I am suggesting God uses what he designed.
Jack, "virgin birth" = natural ways? Seems like a very "un-natural start" for that time in history. Doesn't such an un-natural start undermine the string of "natural" things you add to it?
Chris, humans can now create and design DNA and implant them into Ova to make intentionally different creatures. Would you deny the Creator God this ability? There is no logical reason to doubt that the Creator was inferior in ability to his creatures, and could not design the creation of Christ without Joseph having intercourse with her. Of course it was supernatural, and of course it was done using nature and following the designed plan of natural birth. Christ was implanted without intercourse, using Mary's ova, and then grew like all artifically implanted ova do in her woomb. 100 years ago this may have been a mystery, but it should appear to you as quite an obvious possibility today, and a very minor problem for acceptance of the doctrine of virgin birth.
Yes but creation through a Hollywood or Star Trek time warp would still support your general argument – that creation was not necessarily in 'ordinary' 24 hour days. Some sort of warped day would indeed simply be another type of 'God day'. Thus, I think your arguments still stand.
The point is we don't really know what a 'God day' entails exactly and I don't think you are suggesting you know the answer to that question. Rather, one is saying that creation perhaps was not in 'ordinary' days. To say the latter, that creation did not occure in 6 x 'ordinary days', is not to suggest knowledge of the former, of what a 'God day' is.
"Naturalism is the more likely to be related to its ontological truth." Since everyone missed my very funny joke earlier, :'( I will attempt to address the egregious breach of logic in the statement above.
The very thing used to make the above statement and the thing I am using now to write this, are the product of meaningless forces which luckily mutated its way to the human brain.
Under Naturalism, ontological truth is inaccessible.
But if our thoughts are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It’s like expecting that the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milkjug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.’
C.S. Lewis (1898–1963), The Business of Heaven, Fount Paperbacks, U.K., p. 97, 1984.
Darwin said the very same thing, but not as well as Lewis: Letter to William Graham, Down, July 3rd, 1881. In The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin Including an Autobiographical Chapter, ed. Francis Darwin D Appleton and Co. 1887), vol 1 Pg. 255
Richard Rorty says it best I believe. Why is it so painful for most Naturalist to admit that materialist doctrine destroys all epistemology. We who believe in God are scolded for “choosing what comforts us,” while naturalists try to have it both ways. Let Rorty’s logic sink in:
“The idea that one species of organism is, unlike all the others, oriented not just toward its own prosperity but toward Truth, is as un-Darwinian as the idea that every human being has a built-in moral compass—a conscience that swings free of both social history and individual luck.” ”Untruth and Consequences,” The New Republic, July 31, 1995, pp. 32-36.
Please think through what Shaw says. Humanist religion destroys the very things that make us human.
“Darwinism seems simple, because you do not at first realize all that it involves. But when its whole significance dawns on you, your heart sinks into a heap of sand within you.
There is a hideous fatalism about it, a damnable reduction of beauty and intelligence, of strength and purpose, of honor and aspiration.”
George Bernard Shaw Back to Methuselah 1921
Your hit a home run, Darrel. Excellent points, but an attempt will be made to explain them away in some sort of convuluted fashion. The blind lead the blind.
Jack,
Creation in a matter of days is part of the author's argument. I don't see how he could have articulated it otherwise and still be able to keep the specialness of creation week.
Creation as a sequence of events is part of the author's arguments. But if those events are chronology or functionality is debated by creationists. And if they are chronology the internal evidence suggests that they can not be simple 24 hour solar days for all the reasons given above, about days 3 and 6, and now our readers add the obvious issue of day 4. The YOM of creation are best understood as events, and the chronology is best understood as 6 eras or 6 events. Please see the notes below, including mine.
Just to add to the literalist linguistic calisthenics, what are we to make of this conundrum? 'The evening and the morning were the first day, second day' etc. Are we speaking of literal 24 hour days? These things we call 'days' are defined solely by the rotation of the earth on its axis as it receives the light flowing/streaming/pouring forth from Sol, that bright fire / light at the centre of our solar system. Morning equals 'sun rise' above the horizon, Evening is 'sun set,' its disappearance below the horizon. (I know you know this, but stay with it.)
But, even though 'Light' was created on the first day, ALL of the objects in our universe which send 'light' to this earth, Sun included, were not created until the FOURTH 'day.' So the first actual/literal rotation of planet earth in the full 'light' of the sun for a 24 hour period, a literal DAY, would have been day FIVE. In literalistic terms then, the first day is actually the fifth day. (Words can be so wonderfully abstruse at times, can't they?)
While you check on this, and I hope you do, note also the connections between that which was created on days 1 compared with 4, 2 with 5 and 3 with 6. This alone, for me, is enough to take Gen.1 out of the realm of the literal or so-called 'scientific' and into another space altogether. It is Hebrew poetry of the first order trying to tell us far, far more than the mere mundane making of a moon and other stuff.
Serge, your point is so clear that it cannot be easily ignored. When combined with real geological and paleontological evidence, a very different picture of the earth and its age emerges than the one we were taught in SDA schools. When instructed as we were, there was no choice but to teach us unreasonable and convoluted cognitive styles. For those at risk of developing mental health issues, learned patterns of bizarre rationalization cannot have helped. I'm afraid many of the true believers are deeply committed to paranoid processes of thinking.
It's quite a stretch to believe that our best scholars and theologians are all plagued with "paranoid processes of thinking." I believe what Ellen White said (which already labes me as a fanatic in the minds of many of the denizens of this site) when she spoke of those who take what is simple in Scripture and try to complicate it. Genesis is very straightforward and not difficult at all, but too many among us feel the need to put it under the microscope of scientific scrutiny. The scientific method is great for some things, but it was developed by fallible human beings. When it tries to unpack mysteries of God it falls flat on its face.
Real geological and paleontological evidence is too often interpreted according to the biases of those studying it. Scripture has proved to be reliable 100% of the time. I'll stick with its simple, but profound message.
Pretty sure EGW was not describing creation in Genesis when she was thinking of what is simple in Scripture. More likely she was thinking of parables like the Shepherd for whom 99 out of 100 is 1 too few, or if you prefer to focus on Genesis, probably 3:14-19 where the Creator said, I'll take care of the serpent, you, Eve, take care of the children, and you, Adam, take care of feeding the family.
"I believe what Ellen White said (which already labes me as a fanatic in the minds of many of the denizens of this site) when she spoke of those who take what is simple in Scripture and try to complicate it."
Of the Christian denomination with convoluted theological frameworks of prophecy, with Beasts, powers, connections in history etc etc. Don't get me wrong, I believe these things too so I am not mocking them. I am mocking the notion that we should simply read the scriptures so literally and plainly, given as a demonination we have historically been one of the biggest champions of seeing deeper metaphorical spiritual meaning in everything.
Of course, no one has suggested that the entire universe was created on creation week of the world that we know. In fact, the Genesis narrative clearly states that the world existed before creation week.
Just how dumb do we think the author of Genesis was, compared to us, to have not noticed himself that the light which God initially commanded to appear, apparently appeared prior to the creation of the sun in the sequence of events?
Even with license, it wouldn’t follow (or make sense) for a poet to chronicle the appearance of light as arriving before the creation of the source of light.
I will offer no speculation as to the Source of the Light prior to what seems to have been the creation of what appears to be the sun (except to the extent that capitalization clues).
That is why until about the 19th Century many of the ancients didn't read the Gen account of creation so literally. John Haught has described Gen as reverse eschatology. We don't read the end of the world so literally, with all its symbols, yet we insist on such a plain literal reading of the beginning of the world.
The Church Fathers Origen and Augustine noted all this some 1700 years ago or more. Indeed, because it makes no logical sense for light to be made on day 1 but the sun and moon on day 3, don't you think if the author was going to go for something to be taken so literally and 'scientifically' true that this absurdity would be as it is?
Are we perhaps missing the more important theological point, that the surrounding pagan nations worshipped the sun and moon and stars, so in the Hebrew account God de-deifies them. The same goes for the Leviathan sea monsters.
One really needs to understand the Hebrew context, where the Gen account is composed (through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit) by Moses to teach the Children of Israel the basics of monotheism. One needs to understand the similar, yet importantly different, pagan creation stories such as Enuma Elish. Moses was trying to provide a scientific textbook but rather a highly poetic, eschatological account full of deep religious symbolism.
There are physical and earth history scientific explanations of if God created time first (we need to be reminded that he didn't create light and then call it "light"–he created light and called it "day" which is the creation of time), but didn't reveal the source of the light and the reason for days, months, years because of physical conditions in the atmosphere. Then by the fourth Great Creation Day His light source and time keepers (the day keeper/year keeper, the moon-th keeper, the heavenly clocks ) become visible as atmospheric changes progressed. Earth and astronomical sciences can support this scenario I am told.
So it is permissible to consider the 6 days of creation as Divine interventions and innovations, and not be confused by the invisibility from the surface of the evolving planet, of Sun, Moon, and Stars, which had been in place starting with the first Great Creation events.
It is also possible to consider the Great Creation Days as an analysis of creation, not a chronology, which Serge suggests. The analysis of Creation shows that God fought back the darkness by creating domains.
Day 1 creation of the universe and time which starts with the Big Bang.
Day 2 creation of sea and sky by development of an atmosphere.
Day 3 creation of land and plants.
Then God inhabits these domains–
Day 1 Universe/Time– filled by the astronomical bodies as time keepers on the 4th Day.
Day 2 Sea/Sky–filled with fish and birds on the 5th Day.
Day 3 Land/Plants–filled with animals and mankind on the 6th Day.
Both suggestions may be truth. Hugh Ross can make a case for the Great Days being an outline of Chronology of God's actions, John Walton on the other hand thinks it does not describe the material creation but the functional creation, not six steps in the physical creation, but six vital functions that God accomplished. And others say it is a Creation Poem/Hymn with 6 parallels followed by a 7th conclusion.
"God did this,this,this — God did that,that,that. Worship"
These suggestions are all more easily understood over much longer periods of time that 144 hours.
These suggestions all allow God to give us a human week modeled on his creation work of 6 events, 6 eras, 6 notable activities,6 YOM followed by the Great Sabbath YOM.
"You do this, this this. You do that, that, that. Worship."
Live with an earthly week, based on the Heavenly Week, on the Creation Events, on the 6 Great Accomplishments of God, to make your life now possible.
"These suggestions are all more easily understood over much longer periods of time that 144 hours."
Only because the finite mind cannot penetrate into the mysteries of the Eternal. I can conceive of an instantaneous creation, with everying accomplished in a nanosecond. What did it take God so long? He didn't need 6 days or even 6 hours. Trying to fit God's actions into the parameters of modern scientific thinking is destined to create more problems than it solves.
How can we account for "our best scholars and theologians" reaching conclusions that are quite different from the conclusions reached by the "best" non-adventist scholars? All the others are deluded? There is a strange sort of anti-realism afoot, when there is a commitment to living in an imaginary dimension. A commonly accepted definition of schizophrenia is "splitting off from reality." For those at risk of irrational thinking and progression into schizophrenia, indoctrination in belief in the dominance of an imaginary dimension may be the nudge needed to push them over the threshold. Whether or not psychosis ensues, patterns of paranoid thinking may well persist. That really can't be good for anyone.
A faith/belief/confidence that is held, but is also recognized to be irrational, is quite another matter. We have serious problems "rationalizing" the irrational. Why bother? It is not going to happen in any intellectually satisfying way. What probably can be most satisfying "spiritually" is a faith that does not demand evidence in reality or denial of evidence from the tangible, physical, material world in which we actually exist.
Joe,
I understand the problem you are having in being tolerant of other perspectives.
I have to stifle myself, as Archie Bunker, would say when dealing with what I believe to be the idiocy of doubting the existence of an Original Intelligence.
Such existence is a self evident to me as is the “tangible, physical, material world” which has resulted from This Intelligence apparently is to your way of thinking.
But, although it is occasionally tempting, I don’t call others complete idiots for doubting. You should likewise suppress the urge to call those who believe in God crazy.
…stifle myself, as Archie Bunker would say,”
Dear Brother Stephen,
Your point is well taken, and I should clarify.
I do not mean that people who believe in God are crazy. I do mean that teaching distorted patterns of thinking (e.g., that evidence is not evidence or that scientific method is baloney) promotes mental health problems in those who are already at risk. This could mean that mental problems are overrepresented in exceptionally religious populations. On the other hand, religion could well reduce incidence of some mental health issues. My guess is that some kinds of religion are helpful and that others are harmful. The ones that teach their young highly distorted patterns of reasoning (relative to empirical evidence-based reality) probably push more people over the edge, and, I imagine, also have special appeal to people who are just plain nuts.
You're right, friend. I need to "stifle…."
But we know the only reason to emphasize a six-day creation is to protect the perpetuity of the sabbath, and believers will rationalize anything that might introduce questions about its continued validity. This is the reason so many books have been written trying to defend the young age of the earth, because if that can no longer be defended, there goes the entire reason for the SDA church. So it is a life-and-death struggle for the very existence of Adventism.
Elaine,
Do you think God wants the SDA doctrine of the Sabbath to survive?
No one can know what God thinks, so it is a totally irrelevant question. That is an old trick I heard too much as a child and Adventist "What would God think about……" Since human wrote about God, it is no different than what the person wants to emphasize by giving God power to induce guilt.
Stephen, not wishing to speak for Elaine, but I ask this: The 'sabbath doctrine' SDA style, arose from the post 1844 mistaken sanctuary/DOA 'doctrine.' Can you perhaps explain how a truth can come from an error?
Failing that, should He wish it to survive, He has millions of Orthodox Jews who really know how to KEEP Shabbat, not counting 7th day Baptists, and who knows how many other denominations.
Elaine there are many Sunday keepers who believe in a young age of the earth, but they also understand that the Sabbath makes no sense if the earth was not created in 6 literal days. It has nothing to do with the existence of "Adventism." It has to do with the foundations of Christianity, which, although you and those who believe as you do, will not accept it, crumble to dust if the Genesis record is passed off as myth or allegory.
Right on time, here is where Elaine's ex-Adventist comments combine and feed off conservative Adventist views in some sort of odd couple. I believe Jack has made quite a convincing argument, one that I largely came to independently myself, about what God's Sabbath, certainly has no reaason to abrogate mankind's weekly and perpetual model.
As God created the whole universe in six God days, so makind works six weekly days in a continual cycle. Remember, the Sabbath command isn't merely to rest but to work. We all know God's creation is much different from our own, yet to admit that doesn't somehow abrogate mankind's weekly responsibility to keep working.
If the working component is not affected by acknowledging mankind's work is a mere immitation of God's work, why would mankind's weekly rest be abrogated because it is merely a pattern or model of God's rest? God made the Sabbath for us remember!
Nnn
What you say Elaine is true gor many, yet think Jack's understand the Week is 'modeled after' and commemorizes the actual creation week is very biblical and logical.
"Dividing our work and rest into 6 x 24 hour days followed by a 7th 24 hour Sabbath is patterned after God’s Creation Week. Our work and worship is modeled after God’s Work and Rest pattern. But just as the earthly sanctuary and court are smaller than the Heavenly Sanctuary and Courts, there is no reason to conclude that God’s Great Creation Week was 144 solar hours long. We need not make the Bible impossible by imposing an assumption about the length of Creation Days on it. Listen again to our Bible."
“But you must not forget this one thing, dear friends: A day is like a thousand years to the Lord, and a thousand years is like a day.”
Joe, Stephen, you can relax now, its not you. "The Gods Must Be Crazy." That is also the title of a great little movie where a bottle, thrown from a passing small plane, is found by a Kalahari bushman. He takes it back to the tribe and they find all sorts of uses for 'the thing' as they call it. They thank the gods for sending them such a useful object. But, it is a rare and precious 'thing' and soon they begin to squabble over it. Then it is used to hit people over the head. The tribe decides 'the god must be crazy' to send them such a thing and the rest of the story is about the task of the bushman assigned to get rid of 'the thing.'
Seems to me that 'the thing' is great metaphor for many aspects of 'religion' in the current age. After all, the word derives from the Latin 're' = thing, 'ligios' = binding. But as with all things in this life, it has two aspects which can be either uplifting and liberating or severely binding and restrictive. Hence the great significance of Jesus' words, 'Truth shall set you free.'
Joe has highlighted the issue very well when he says: "What probably can be most satisfying "spiritually" is a faith that does not demand evidence in reality or denial of evidence from the tangible, physical, material world in which we actually exist."
The real problem for SDAs is their binding to the material world. ('Kosmos' in the greek, which seems to extend the concept far beyond the bounds of our littel planet). And so while Jack makes laudable efforts to 'marry' these two aspects of the material creation and a spiritual worship which it is deemed should result, this road is fraught with the potential for irrationality. For 'ratio' is a function of 'mind,' while 'Spirit' interacts in the realm of 'heart.' 1Cor 2:14 says it clearly:
The natural man, psychikos, relies on mind, and how it interprets the 'natural' kosmos. This is not the realm of Spirit. As the parable fo the rich man and Lazarus teaches, 'between us there is a great gulf, fixed.' A monist materialist view of human or divine nature will not enable one to 'see' this. And the need to support the seventh day sabbath by appeals to a material creation miss the point, imho. It is highlighted in this: For SDAs, keeping of the seventh day sabbath equals 'the seal of God.' Its called 'the Sabbath test.' But this is a grievous error. For the seal of God is not Sabbath-keeping. As Paul says:
There is no benefit in trying to 'prove' a literal seven day material creation on the basis of a text (Gen 1,2) which is speaking about other matters, imho again. Our whole emphasis ought to be on the 'new creation' by the Spirit of Christ. Only this can motivate true worship. Only this can seal us unto the day of redemtion. Only this can enable us, here and now, 'to enter into His rest.' (Heb 4)
Serge, are you advocating perhaps something contrary to the traditional SDA materialist view of the State of the Dead? Funny enough, a number of non-Adventist evolution-theologians, including John Haught and Pierre de Charin for two Catholics, have been influenced by evolution to move away from Platonic-Gnostic views of some spirit afterlife, and towards a more Adventist-like materialist view.
P.S. By the way, I believe the central character in the Gods Must Be Crazy was an Adventist.
Absolutely NO, Stephen. I would not presume to advocate something contrary to the traditional SDA materialist view of the state of the dead. I simply seek to heal traditional SDA blindness to an extremely obvious NT teaching. And the extent to which teh NT reflects Platonic-Gnostic views is not a matter over which I have any control.
Jesus said: 'Fear not those that can destroy the body…. but not the soul.' Seems dualist at the very least.
Paul said: 'who shall free ME from this body of death…?'
And again, 'I know a man who ascended ot paradise…… in the body or out of the body I cannot tell.'
Paul clearly differentiated body from 'soul / spirit.' It informs all of his writing.
As for the 'traditional materialism of SDAs,' can I refer you to Thomas Mcelwain (2010), Adventism and Ellen White, a Phenomenon of Religious Materialism. I was quite astounded to read how the brethren, chief among them, James White, requiring that everything 'real' msut have some physical substance. Even teh Holy Spirit was said to be made of an ill-defined form of matter. As a result, their early doctrine of the Trinity was labelled Arianism, and rightly so. But, all other doctrines have been so tainted. The most unfortunate of all is the doctrine of the sanctuary/temple of God. As far as I know, only SDAs conceive of a physical building on a physical 'planet Heaven' where a physically embodied Jesus pleads with an Ancient of Days type figure called Father God. The NT says quite clearly, 'WE ARE GOD'S HOUSE,' the spiritual trinity make their abode in us, and no materialism does jsutice to this phenomenal truth.
Serge. Yes, the Holy Spirit. The age of the Earth,or the scientific research of its age, is of little consequence in the most important issue, GOD. i see the study only as a need for:
1. Scientists honestly seeking data that gives insight to geology, biology & the natural world.
2. " attempt to disprove ID or a creator, advancing evolution & survival of the fittest.
3 " " " prove OEC, thereby debunking the 6 literal 24hr day creation.
4. ?????????????????????
If only Moses hadn't forgotton to mention a "shadow" of that described to you", re: Creation
Serge, you have nailed it. An excellent explanation.
Earl, you are correct. There is no point to science other than to honestly seek truth, and that
does not, and cannot, address matters in the spiritual realm. Science has no tools for that.
When what we think we know from careful studies of the real/tangible world conflict with
that which we think we really know from spiritual revelation, we face a problem. Depending
on what we do in life, we face a decision of varying urgency. If our focus is mostly on
dealing with physical reality, we may need to behave in accordance with the principles
and knowledge that is grounded in empirical science, but that need not necessarily cause
us to reject or disrespect spiritual possibilities. If most of our emphasis in life is spiritual,
we may not care much about science or the knowledge it obtains, but we may well
depend to some degree on truth gained from the scientific process.
So where does this lead? Perhaps it leads us to recognize that the relationship between
the natural dimension and the spiritual dimension is mysterious and that we may not be
able to reconcile the them. We can accept that there is an unreconcilable mystery, can
we not? When we use information from one dimension in an attempt to inform the other,
we run into problems, because claims are made for which there are no universally acceptable
answers.
Regardless of the dimension to which we turn most of our attention, isn't the best course
to treat others as we wish to be treated?
My favorite verse, Serge, is: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free."
The message of Jesus, it seems to me, was that we no longer need to feel enslaved by
religious traditions, whether these are legalistic commendments or stories of origins.
Sorry. I meant "commandments" as in "old covenent" "laws." I guess "commendments" would
just be advice or suggestions….
It seems to me that "spiritual knowledge" is highly private and personal. My understanding and
your understanding need not be congruent, and may need not even be very similar to each other.
Conflicts arise when I try to enforce my very personal and private spiritual understanding on
you in the real material world, or vice versa.
I'm pretty confident that we are only responsible for our own spiritual health. It is not our
job to judge the spiritual lives of others.
Joe, you are absolutely correct re spiritual health. Except that if Paul is also correct, there will be a reasonable congruence between your understanding and mine, since they both arise from the same Source, ie, the mind of Christ (2Cor 4:13 "We have the same spirit of fath…"). Your favourite text, 'Truth shall make you free,' is usually taken to mean, 'understand and assent to the doctrines, 27 fundamentals or whatever, and this shall make you free, (to be an SDA).'
But Truth is never propositional. Jesus said clearly, I am Truth. So Truth can only ever be relational. And this close relation-ship is mediated by the Spirit of Christ.
May I 'commend' to you the whole of 1Cor 2. Some gems: v 7, 'the wisdom of God in a mystery (secret which can be known by the 'wise'); vv9,10, what the eye cannot see, nor ear hear, is revealed by the Spirit; v12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. v 15, he that is spiritual judgeth all things, v 16, we have the mind of Christ.
The Corinthians (means 'self-satisfied') were slow to get the message. Paul reiterated in 2 Cor 4: 6 'For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness (Day 1 Light, now reinterpeted by Paul?), hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. v7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels,'
This 'treasure in earthen vessels' concept is quite antithetical to standard SDA teaching on human nature. I don't know which fundamental defines it, but it says that we are body soul and spirit in one indivisible whole. Just how the material is indivisibly one with the non-material defies imagination, but it is part of the irrational you spoke of earlier. Nevertheless, this text defines precisely what happened in the creation of 'man,' 'Adam.' Man is the only creature made this way, despite sharing so much else in common with other mammals. In Gen 1, Elohim (feminine plural) creates/forms/makes a 'body' from the dust of the earth. An earthen vessel, as Paul describes it. ('Miry clay' is Shakespeare's term). Into this body is 'inspired' Ruach, the divine Spirit. This is unique to Man. Somehow, in the Fall, this Spirit is lost or forgotten. Jesus promised the Comforter to bring all things to our remembrance, and so it is that when He makes us a 'new creation,' (Ga 4:6 And because ye are sons), God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
Paul continues: 16 For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.
He draws a sharp distinction between the 'outward man' earthen vessel of body and the 'inward man' of spirit. Just as Jesus distinguished material and non-material aspects of human nature: Mt 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
There is in the Poetry section of this site an attempt by yours truly to describe this experience of becoming a new creation through remembering one's divine ancestry – 'Mosaic Horizon,' should you care to look at it.
In summary: 2Cor 4:18 "We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." The 'material' creation is only temporary. The 'spiritual' is the one which endures.
Serge, thank you for your efforts to explain. It is clear to me that I am nothing more than a "natural man."
That's too bad, Joe. There is more and better. You say also that this realisation brings you much joy. Don't confuse resolution of cognitive dissonance with attainment of true understanding. For more dissonance is sure to arise. When it does, you will now know what to do. 'Let this mind be in you which was in Christos……..' ego death is the via dolorosa to wholeness and indiviuality.
The church and faithful members all skirt around the real issue behind the search for concrete evidence that the earth is young and was created in six days as we live them today. It is for one and only one reason: to prove beyond all doubt that the seventh day of God's creation, he rested, and therefore man should rest and sanctify it, despite no mention of either man resting, or its being sanctified. Sabbath, the keystone to Adventism, lives or dies by the sabbath, so there have been millions of dollars spent in GRI to validate that major doctrine.
I agree insofar as that is the underlying fear amongst Adventists – which you and conservatives seem to agree on. As for me (and it seems Jack), we have no problems with suggesting that if evolution were true, it need not undermine the belief and practice of the weekly Sabbath. I would respectfully submit that your own views merely feed conservative Adventist paranoia on the issue.
Jack much thanks. After doing my own research on this topic for several years, you have pretty succinctly summarized what I strongly suspect is the case, if evolution were true that is (but I'm no scientist to categorically judge).
It seems to me that most Adventists are scared that if evolution were true, it would somehow undermine the Sabbath. But I think you have made a very good case that in the same way the model of the Sanctuary on earth was a model or pattern of the one in heaven, so the weekly human cycle (which should be remembered is not just a command to rest but to work) is merely a model or pattern of ‘God days’ of creation and rest.
As I have mentioned in these blogs before, I think you will find all the commandments are in some ways found in Gen 1 and 2. The only slight point I would disagree on is to say Gen 1 and 2 aren’t just about God’s activities – it also includes mankind imitating God. And again, an image, model or pattern is not the same as the real thing.
God commands in the Decalogue that there be no other gods but Him, but God gives god-like dominion to mankind. God commands that no graven image be made of anything in heaven or earth, yet God makes Adam and Eve in His image. God commands His name not be taken in vain (as to name something is to own it), yet God commands Adam to name all the animals. As to the other commandments, to love one another as ourselves, Adam was to love Eve as someone who literally was as himself – made from his own rib!
Yet when we get to the Sabbath, we insist God’s actions must match exactly mankind’s. We don’t do that with the other commandments. Go figure.
I feel there is something very deep in this Gen story, and perhaps we are only scratching the surface.
Human beings have a wide range of reasoning and intellectual capacity. Given this and people's life experience it seems that some people are incapable of anything, but fairly simplistic literal interpretations of scripture. If we assume the scriptures are in any way inspired by God, then surely He knew and knows this. On the other hand, some people are compelled to apply their intrinsic reasoning to interpreting the scriptures in the context of the observable knowable world. Given the differences in time and language between the production of the scriptures in its original form, this will never be simplistic nor literal interpretation. And certainly a God who inspires scripture knows that as well. So, how did he expect the two opposite ends of the spectrum to coexist. My guess would be that if we truly believe in and truly encounter God we will be humbled in a way that few of us seem to exhibit. Human arrogance (including mine) seems to stand as a monument to how little we know the God we are all claiming to prusue with such devotion (of whatever form).
I was indoctrinated in young earth interpretations of scripture. It was never very comfortable for me consider other points of view. But, one day I asked myself what if after all is said and done some of the ideas and explanations of an old earth are the truth. That God has not tried to provide us with scientific explanations, but spirtitual truth and my young earth is simply wrong. How would I explain to God my dogmatically clinging to what made me comfortable rather than truly seeking the truth.
I am agnostic about the age of the earth (with leanings to an old earth view). But, I do believe in a God with personal motivations who created all that we know in the natural world. I believe that my search to know Him and about Him should involve all my intellectual capacity. But, I also believe that if God is who we claim when we accept him as the being behind the creation narrative of scripture we should be extremely humbled.
We can exhibit our lack of humility in many ways. We can profess awe and worship for such a God, but when we feel free to "impose" our puny views of God on others we demonstrate how little we comprehend the difference between Createor and creature.
Thanks Rudy, your position and experience is pretty much the same conclusion I have reached on the issue as well.
Starting with the premise that Genesis is about God's work, not man's, and that it's about God's time, not man's, we are then asked to estimate how long it took God to do something, working at man's rate of speed.
With that same approach, the Wedding at Cana is another event that must have take much longer than described. Usually a first century wedding lasted a week or so. But that clearly was not enough time. Jesus had to:
1 grow grapes from seed to vines bearing grapes or
1a at least grow grapes on existing vines.
2 gather the grapes to the winepress
3 trample them to extract the juice.
4 somehow get the juice (fermented wine would have taken much longer) into the great stone jars.
Even if the wedding was at the time of the grape harvest, steps 2, 3, and 4 would have taken longer than the time given in the narrative.
C.S. Lewis lists this as a miracle of the 'old creation,' meaning something God does all the time. God usually uses grapevines and soil and sun and rain to make grape juice, but in this one instance he bypassed those tools.
In Genesis we have God creating a world, surely a miraculous act if ever one existed, and yet we must confine him to the tools and time constraints of the here and now. If Genesis really is about how fast God can do something–including imparting understanding–then it's about how fast God can do something, not about how long it would take us under normal circumstances.
P.S. I particularly like the part about surgery under anesthesia. Wonder why God used general anesthesia (putting Adam into a deep sleep) considering the risks are greater? Did he use an intravenous or inhaled anasthetic? How long did induction take?
I think there are some confusions here. My reading of Jack's list was about there not being enough time really for Adam to perform all the necessary tasks on the 6th day, as much as God doing anything. For example, how could Adam have named all the animal species or kinds in all the world in a 24-hour period (or 12-hour period)? How could Adam have found the time to do this whilst also being created, learning about sexuality, undergoing the operation for Eve etc etc?
No one is denying God could have created the whole universe in the blink of a nanosecond. In fact, the truth is God may have only created the whole universe one second ago, and implanted memories into our brains – we just don't know. But ordinary mankind cannot, to our observation, perform tasks such as name all the billions and billions of animal species in all the world, plus a whole range of other activities, in a single 24-hour (or 12-hour) period.
Some have attempted to explain this away by suggesting God did something to the space-time continuum, perhaps lengthened the days, maybe like for Joshua. But then creation wouldn't be in 'ordinary' days any longer, but in some form of 'God day'.
Yes Ed, nothing in my presentation doubts the miraculous or demands that miracles be done at my speed. But the stories themselves, not anti-miracle speculations, suggest that God: asked the earth to spring forth, that he discussed the creation of humans, that he planted a garden, that he formed the man, that he brings him the animals and commands him to name them, that Adam slept, that God explained the two alternative trees and the difference between life and death, and that we are to leave our fathers and mothers and cleave to our wifes, because they were naked and unashamed. I am not adding unnecessary steps by speculation, I am listing what is revealed, and suggesting if it is real, and not myth we take it seriously, not magically. I'm not trying to inflate the story, I'm trying to time what the story itself reveals about that Day, and all that I am saying is that it could not have happened from sunrise to sunset on a normal Friday not because God couldn't do things faster, but becaue the story tells me he did things at a human speed with real humans. I am not suggesting that it took a 9 month gestation to make Adam, to bolster my point. I am sticking very closely to the revelations of holy writ.
The bottom line is, to make it fit, to make all these events occur in just one day, then it requires one to read the texts with something going beyond a plain and literal reading.
Jack, you are in fact assuming that it was done at human speed, and not just at human speed, but at the speed of humans today. You're also pouring all of chapter two into the sixth day, which is not necessary to the narrative. You're assuming that God brought each and every animal to Adam, who then named them, but neither is that required by the text. A teacher might assign a chapter of outside reading on Friday, not expecting it all to be done that day. It goes on and on and on.
The whole thing reminds me of the story of Gauss, who, as a punishment in school, his teacher required him to add all the numbers from 1 to 100, assuming it would keep him out of trouble for most of the day.
But Gauss understood that you didn't have to go 1+2=3; +3=6;=4=10, etc. He added 1+99=100;2+98=100 . . . and quickly realized he would have 49 pairs each equaling 100; 100 at the end, and 50 in the middle to make a total of 5050. He was done in a minute or so.
You're assuming the arithmetic approach; God and Adam might have taken the mathematical one.
Ed, your excuses still appear to be doing something other than a plain and non-literal reading of the text. One you do that, much of the whole argument to that approach to interpretation is gone.
You seem to suggest that God's command to Adam to name all the animals in Gen 2 means Adam didn't have to finish that task on day 6. But Gen 2:20 makes clear that Adam had names all the animals before realising he was alone in Gen 2:21, so God then made Eve. But Gen 1:27 makes clear that he made humanity, both male and female on day 6 per Gen 1:31.
So if you think Gen 1 and Gen 2 are congruent stories, my plain reading is Adam indeed did have to name all the animals on day 6. Even if Adam could do things at a speed beyond what we humans understand today, explain to me how all that taxonomy of millions or billions of species within a 24 (or 12) hour period?
Moreover, once you start conjecting different timeframes for things, such as God's activities or mankind's activities, something not explicitly made clear in the text according to a plain and literal interpretation, it undermines the whole argument that timeframes for things in Gen must be understood in a plain and literal way.
I struggle to see how if you are saying God's work and Adam's work was something beyond which we humans today understand as 'ordinary' sense of time, that their timeframes of reference are different from ours, how that is fundamentality different from saying the notions of 'days', where 'yom' in Hebrew is likewise ambiguous, could also be something beyond what today we consider 'ordinary' understanding of time.
What I'm doing is reading the text as a literary work. Most of the analysis in this discussion assumes that Genesis 1 and 2 describe exactly the same process, with everything in chapter 2 crammed into the 6th day. That's the way we read it. But the question is not so much what it means to us, as what it meant to the audience for whom it was intended. Our reading–as exemplified in this debae, is linear, and actually pretty rigid. But the ancients were far less linear than we are.
Granted, in the first chapter, linearity is supplied by the succession of days. But there is another order in chapter 1, one which is mirrored in the account in chapter 2.
Each of the 2 accounts begins with a Declaration of Chaos:
Genesis 1:2 And the earth was formless and void
Gen 2:5 Now no shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground.
Without rain and cultivation the land was barren and chaotic.
In each account there follow the same steps, in the same order:
The creation of something out of nothing (light from dark/life from dust)
Distinguishing between good and not so good (light from darkness/tree of life from tree of knowledge)
Dividing of waters
Land bounded by waters
God creates vegetation/Adam to order vegetation
God appoints rulers for heavens/Adam rules land alone; not good
God creates sea animals; rules over sea/ Adam to name animals; rules over land
God creates land animals; they can reproduce/ Adam names land animals; he cannot reproduce
God makes male and female/ Adam joined by female; can fulfill commission to multiply
At the end of the first account, the entire heavens and earth have become ordered. At the end of the second account, the Garden is ordered.
Forcing everything in ch. 2 into the sixth day is simply a modern prejudice, required by our linear approach. But Genesis 1 and 2, as everyone keeps insisting, is not what one of my OT professors described as "a pick-and-shovel definition" of creation. It is a literary account written for a different audience. Forcing our grid onto it does violence to the text.
As for the speed of things: if God can create a human being out of a clay sculpture by 'breathing' into it, he can create a full-grown sequoia instantaneously. Adam wouldn't have to go very far naming the land animals before he noticed they were in mated pairs. If Adam was mentally superior to us, a great deal might have been communicated in a short time, perhaps even telepathically. The text doesn't say that, but then, Moses and his audience wouldn't have known what to make of it, anyway. There's simply no reason to assume that Adam had to go through Grey's Anatomy (the book ;)) at the reading rate of a college freshman.
those interested in a more detailed examination of the two accounts can read more here: http://edoutlook.wordpress.com/2009/08/15/harmonizing-genesis-1-2/
Ed all you are describing is the theory, long held by many scholars, that Gen 1 and Gen 2 were originally two independent creation stories. One from the Yahwist source (J) from Judea, whilst the other is from the Elohist source (E) from the north in Israel. These were later collated together by the Jews in Babylon when they made the OT cannon.
I think Ed is doing much more than that, Stephen. And I agree with him (though he may prefer I didn't). He is asking us to consider looking at this text in ways quite unlike our rigid pseudo-scientific linear logico-cognitive meta madness method.
The original audience? Who knows, but likely to be upper classes of post restoration community in Judah, centred around Jerusalem. Likely they could read and would interpret. But we know that this kind of literature is written with many layers of meaning within it. It is called PARDES, as I recall, which comes from the four Hebrew words which indicate each level of meaning to be teased out. The word itself means Paradise, and that also holds a clue as to how they went about their task. Deciphering the meanings of each of these levels will convey the one who can understand it, into Paradise. As I recall it, the first, lowest, level of meaning is the 'obvious' literal one. Then metaphoric, then symbolic, then….. its a bit much for me, and I like the concept. The literal approach certainly leaves me cold.
Here's an example. The Hebrew text begins with 'Bara,' usually translated 'created.' (There are likewise four words in Hebrew which are all part of the 'creative' process, including 'formed' and 'made' and I forget the other.) One of the little-known/spoken-of meanings of bara is 'cut out.' ('to be fat' is another but I have no idea how that would help here.) SO what could that give us, literally:
"Cut out in the beginning the Gods earth from heaven."
The remainder of the 'creative process,' you may observe, appears to be one of drawing out, apart, or separating in some way, one thing from another. Light out of darkness, dry land out of wet, vegetation out of dry land, Eve out of Adam. Even the seventh day is cut off, set apart as it were.
So we have a story which tells us of the great separation of earth from heaven. Fits with the idea of the text, 'your sins have made a separation between you and your God.'
The task is to find the way home. The sanctuary is perfect analogy for this and Moses knew it. The veil represents the quantum fabric point of separation between earth and heaven (between material and spiritual realms). Study the veil…… on the earthly side it is the four colours of the earth which match pretty well with the earth, water, air, fire system of the ancients. On the inner aspect of the veil, angels woven in celestial blue. The heavenly realm. The author of Hebrews tells us that the veil is Christ's flesh (Heb 10:20), so I will have to leave you to work out how that fits in the temple symbolism.
Now, the 'firmament' fits very nicely into this scheme of thinking.
Does anyone, Jack maybe?, have any suggestions as to what is literally meant nowdays by the firmament?
If you want to read more of the higher order understanding of this text, as a Jewish mind highly trained in this multi-level of meanings, can I recommend Carlo Suares, 'The Cipher of Genesis.' Not easy to find nowdays, but seek, and ye may find.
@Serge
I don't agree with everything you said, but I did find it interesting and worthwhile. I must say, I'm particularly fond of your formulation "rigid pseudo-scientific linear logico-cognitive meta madness method."
I think the logic of Genesis, and it's relationship to Exodus, indicates it was originally aimed at Israel as slaves in Egypt. It is the perfect remedy to Egyptian and Canaanite cosmology, and it's a great preparation of slaves for liberation. "You were not meant to be slaves" is a central part of the message. But I'm not inspired, so that might be mistaken.
Your tale of separation put me in mind of N. T. Wright's emphasis on the union or mingling of heaven and earth. You might find it interesting.
Ed,
I'm having trouble with the slaves in Egypt as original target audience. Did Moses write it while in Midian? While on the journey, which he never completed? And of course, the old question of whether there was an exodus, as described, at all. The 'evidence for' is quite limited. I am happy to add it to the 'true myth' category. As history, it doesn't do much for me. Those who require a 'Bible as history' approach, in order to 'prove' certain doctrines, miss the point, imho. As myth/metaphor/symbol, it gives me a lot to work with.
I would be interested in N T Wright's material. Any specific refs? Of course, Peter's mind-boggling statement that we may now 'partake of the divine nature' is the ultimate 'union of heaven and earth.' 2 Peter 1:4.
PS, Warning, do not deconstruct the formula, it will explode, the mind.
Serge,
I'm not hung up on precisely locating the audience. Obviously, the more we understand the original audience, the better we can understand the text itself. But I am keenly aware that we "know in part, and we prophesy in part." Neither am I at pains to prove doctrines from the text. My loyalty is to the text. When it happens to confirm a doctrine–Hallelujah! A bonus! But I find the power in the text.
Some approach scripture as a collection of remnants of cloth. They think the task is to cut up the pieces of cloth and reassemble them into a charming quilt.
I like quilts, but I approach scripture as a group of tapestries of different sizes, which also fit together to make a master tapestry. My task is to reveal and restore the original design. To change the metaphor slightly, my task is that of the archeologist, to unearth and reveal the original artifact(s). To the degree that I leave scratches and toolmarks, in other words, the more evidence there is for my involvement, the greater my failure.
The tapestry or artifact is the product of a greater artisan than myself. The more fully it is revealed, the greater the beauty.
It's interesting you should bring up the lack of evidence. Just last night I stumbled across this short video from N. T. Wright.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSPJD9fp_lM&feature=relmfu
FWIW, I'm not much into deconstructing anything.
Ed,……….. thanks for the link to NT Wright's interviews. Most interesting. Also there is an interview with Bart Eahrman, describing why he is leaving Christianity altogether. Seems he finds too many mistakes in the original biblical mss so he's given up. He should look at the Wright video. Actually, in the one on Gnosticism, he mentions Eahrman and Pagels, in a critical way, and says a big part of their problem is their rather rigid approach to the source material. Whereas he is prepared ot be a bit more forgiving with both the material itself, and the vastly different mindset of our modern age compared with the type of thinking in ancient times.
I like your tapestry/quilt analogy. Mine is a variation on that theme… Its about how we form the 'big-picture' by which we guide our lives through the chaos. While we 'work out our own salvation' as it were. For me at present, the choice is between a fairly rigid, dogmatic, literalistic, rationalist materialism in the red corner, vs a more dynamic, free-flowing symbolical/metaphoric 'between the lines' conception and how that can inform my spiritual/emotional side in the blue (for the non-material heavenly realm. The one to which Christ raises us, here and now. Eph 2:6 and did raise us up together, and did seat us together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus).
But it is 'hard work,' requiring constant attention to detail, study study study. But I am sure you know how enjoyable it is too.
Shalom.
Yes, Serge, the joy is in the journey as much as in arrival.
Shalom.
@Stephen: actually, I'm explicitly disagreeing with that theory, which I find unnecessary and artificial. My point is that chs. 1& 2 are a unity, showing the same process from two perspectives not separate forcefit accounts.
The two accounts are joined by the double reference to the Sabbath, one stressing completion, the other sanctification.
I've never been fond of JEPD or Q, for that matter.
Ed, I am very comfortable with your literary reading of these two chapters. I just am surprised that with your flexible understanding that you find holding to 24 hour literal solar days important or necessary? Since you are pragmatic, reading behind the lines to find the purpose and organization of the story, why is is important to maintain that the days so broadly and flexibly described must be from sunrise to sunset of a solar day? I freely admit I was writing as a literalist to literalists. Now you surprise me by suggesting that my taking the stories literally shouldn't be allowed to question your holding the chronology to literal 24 hour days? Run this by me again.
@Jack
As a writer myself, particularly in reference to the story of Jacob (see http://www.amazon.com/Torn-Jacobs-Story-Ed-Dickerson/dp/0816323631) I have learned several things.
One of them is, as an author, you never include unnecessary information. IF a character or event is not going to play an important role, you give only a minimum of information. Otherwise it disrupts the narrative, distracts and misleads the reader.
Second thing is, if its mentioned, it matters. Like Jacob leaving Laban "at shearing time," or the mention of a name in any number of biblical narrative. If that thing is emphasized and mentioned repeatedly, it's really important.
From a literary standpoint, it is impossible to ignore that the evening/morning day unit forms the framework for the entire first part of the narrative. It's not me who emphasized the evening/morning day, I'm just honoring the author's emphasis. He made it central to the passage.
If he intended us to be 'flexible' in the length of the day, he went out of his way to conceal that by specifying evening/morning every time.
By contrast, "the day" is only mentioned at the beginning of the second account as in "the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven." This could either mean "the single day," or "the specific 24 hr. period," or it could be a figure of speech meaning "when," which occurs often in the Bible. Since there is no reference to 'evening/morning,' nor any other reference to 'day' in this account, the specific 24 hr. period is not obviously required. Given the events described, the meaning "when" would be more likely.
Note also the unusual 'earth and heaven' formulation which occurs only here in all of Genesis. In the first account, action commences with light in the heavens and moves to earth. This account commences on the earth.
Again, from a literary point of view, the events described in the second account are mentioned in an order designed to mirror the movement from chaos to cosmos in the first account. They need not have hapened in that order, because the particular evening/morning on which each event took place is not mentioned, and thus not important, in this account.
The four rivers, for example, could easily have been formed when the waters were separated on the second day. The ordinal day is not important in this account, but rather the progression from chaos to cosmos in the Garden. They are mentioned after the creation of man in this account because that's where they belong in chaos-to-cosmos progression of the Garden.
I hope that makes it clear.
I am not sure if I do understand. Further to Jack's question, I am happy to accept these various different possibilities implicit in rejecting a "rigid pseudo-scientific linear logico-cognitive meta madness method." But wouldn't insisting everyone must accept a YEC 6×24 hour method, and no other, itself amount to "rigid pseudo-scientific linear logico-cognitive meta madness method"?
As for the suggestion that the evening/morning formula must mean a 24hour period, otherwise it wouldn't have been added as an emphasis by the authory, what then of the seventh day, who the author deliberately left out of the evening/morning formula?
Also as to the formula re evening/morning, I think you need to read Brian Bull and Fritz Guy's latest explanation on Spectrum:
"There was gathering-darkness; there came to be dawning, one [Creation]-day."
I don't see how the formula can only be read as a 24-hour period.
Stephen,
First of all, I don't insist on what people must believe. Second, it is a mistake to assume that I believe in 6000 yo earth. I see no indication whatsoever that any OT writer is interested in the question of the age of the Earth. There is interest in the lineage and ages of certain of the patriarchs, but I find no textual evidence linking those genealogies to the age of the Earth.
As far as 6×24 being rigid, not my problem. I simply examine what is in the text. The author clearly thought that "evening/morning day" was important to the account. The question is 'Why?' As already mentioned, that formulation is missing in the second account. It's present in the first account for some reason.
Mark, for example, uses "immediately" to indicate a transition from one scene to the next. The author of Genesis could have used a similar, nonspecific transition–"then" or an equivalent comes to mind.
"God created light; then he divided the waters; then. . . " etc. But he did not. He specifically repeats the 'evening/morning day.' Any interpretation of th text has to explain that intentional repeated formulation, in terms of what the original author/audience would have understood. Other than a regular evening/morning day, what would you propose?
The absence of the formula for the Sabbath simply indicates that the 7th day is of a different quality or type than the first 6 days.
Why did the writers of the earliest Creation story in Gen. 2, make no mention of separate days and activities? Can we assume that there was no reason to identify, specifically, each day's activities? Why is that story very seldom included in discussions of Creation? If so, it would eliminate all the many discussions concerning the days which were of such importance to the first chapter's writers. Should there not be some explanation for such contradictory stories? Since the numbering of days is never mentioned until several millennia later when the Exodus was recorded, that story is of much later origin and no sacredness is ever included in the story.
In the early story, God's resting on the 7th day was of no importance to those writers. Why was it unmentioned and why do SDAs choose the story of God's resting from work as sabbath was never mentioned, only the ending series of days? Have some readers made very significant what was so insignificant to the writers as to never mentioning the day as sacred to man?
Since I don't accept JEPD or Q, I'm not persuaded by other theories rooted in them. So I don't accept that Genesis 2 was written before Genesis 1.
I'm not inclined to believe in imaginary documents which no one has seen, of which we have no fragments, which ancient sources never mention, and which were invented by scholars to solve problems which may also be imaginary.
I'm especially skeptical when those imaginary documents are contrary to archological evidence and textual evidenc in the documents we do possess.
I've already given my answer concerning the text we actually have.
I apologize for the multiple entries. Something went haywire with the software. If someone can delete all but one, please do so.
Again, I apologize. Don't know what happened.
Everything depends on how one reads and interprets the Bible. If it is read as a prescription that all that was written is to be followed forever by all those who read it, world without end, it will have that influence on the reader.
However, if it is read as a description of how men thought and believed at that time, the affect on us today will be entirely different.
But no one can completely accept that everything written therein is a prescription for how we should live today. It is, however, a most informative historical insight into man's thinking long before writing was learned, and these stories were told for perhaps thousands of years before being set in writing.
It also mattes somewhat what part, if any, you allocate to God in the production of the Bible. And I don't believe that a verbally inspired, inerrant and literal Bible or a book of myths are the only options.
The other big problem with this debate is in has become a debate about science (i.e. what actually historically occured), totally missing Moses' intended point to be about theology (i.e. teaching the Children of Israel something fundamnetal about monotheism and the nature of our Creator). To understand Gen theologically I believe one has to understand and compare it to the other creation stories of the ancient near east – such as the Enuma Elish.
The ancient Israelite, upon hearing the Gen story, would be struck by how similar it was to these other pagan stories, which they probably well knew in Egytpian captivity and elsewhere. But the pagan creation stories are subtley but raddically different: there is a plurity of gods, there is a darwinian struggle or war, earth and creation occurs as a result of that darwinian struggle, and mankind is created as mere slaves for rebelling gods.
I have often contemplated that in many ways these pagan creation myths are actually more 'scientifically' accurate than our Hebrew story. Yet, I suspect God was trying to teach ancient Israel and us about His nature and His creation. Despite the horrorible darwinian struggle that is life around us, which we observe in nature everywhere and science has confirmed, there is only 1 God, life isn't a meaningless darwinian struggle for survival, human life is valuable, and God and His creation is 'very good' – despite what our eyes and science might tell us.
In that sense, I share notable evolution-theologian John Haught's view that Genesis probably shares more with Revelation than any other book.
Elaine, I knew it would happen, I knew it. If I keep reading your long enough I would find something I agree with you on! Thank you for the encouragement to read the Bible as a description not as a prescription! Dr. Jack approves.
Oh, how literalists destroy these ancient myths: stories that were never intended to be parsed, studied and explained, ad infinitum. Just as the Grecians who reveled in hearing the Homeric stories regaling them in their glorious past, the Israelites who first put these stories into writing, told their children for perhaps thousand of years, giving them a sense of their origin and roots, originating with God.
But moderns who must find biblical sources for man's religious doctrines, mine them and find and interpret to fit their preconceived positions, making of the Bible a book of laws for all time, and in so doing, emasculate and destroy the reason it has always been a wonderful collection of legends, myths, and much more. Even the Jews, for whom it was their own, were not quite as insistent in all its rules as are some fundamentalists today.
You're preaching to a very small choir, Elaine. Most of us accept the Bible as the inspired word of God, not a collection of "ancient myths." Only if you were there when they were written could you categorically state that they are a "collection of legends and myths." I know you are older than I am, Elaine, but I didn't think you were that old. What's your secret? 😉
Relegating the Biblical narratives to the status of myth and legend provides a convenient excuse to ignore the lessons and admontions contained therein. It also casts suspicion on the rest of the Bible; maybe the NT is nothing more than myth and legend. And so, we have an excuse to do our own thing; no judgment, no problem. Instead of the heavenly city we will reside in compost city for eternity.
The Bible is an interconnected unit. Destroy one part and the whole suffers.
I agree it is a difficult subject. Adventists well know that the book of Revelation is some literal, mostly symbolic (or mythical), and somewhat both literal with a double symbolic meaning.
Take the message to the seven churches in Asia. Adventists recognise that these were real and actual Churches, and the problems John describes are real. But Adventists believe there is a double meaning, that each Church also represents a Church age.
In many ways, our discussion isn't about whether the Bible has symbolic myths etc, because we all know they do. Again, Adventists have long argued that Jesus' parable about hell is not literal but merely a parable, which is a 'myth.'
Rather, the question is really one of form criticism. Why type of genre and what social setting in life is Genesis meant to be? Was it intended to be a literal, conveying a 'scientific' explanation of origins? Was it intended to be a parable, to convey a theological message about monotheism and the nature of the Creator, in contrast to the pagan stories of the surrounding nations of Israel? Was it a bit of both?
Understanding the intended genre is key to this issue. No one reads a real estate add, a legal contract, a newspaper article or a comic strip in the same way. Likewise, Christians have long recognised you don't read a parable, a proverb, a prophecy, a history, a biography, a letter or a homily in the same way.
So what genre is Genesis 1 and 2?
They are 'myth'. I would agree with Tolkien that they are 'true myth'. The intention is to explain the beginning, and why things are as they are, i.e a 'myth'. They are presented as if an eyewitness account. Did Moses intend them to be taken literally? I don't know, but they certainly read that way. The repetition of 'evening, morning, day X' certainly gives the impression that we are to understand literal 24 hour days. I am not committed to a literal reading, but no one has yet provided another explanation that I find satisfying and that grows out of the story rather than being imposed on it.
I still believe that the main point is found right at the beginning: in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth'. The rest – including the Sabbath – may be important, but this fact is the bedrock on which the Bible is constructed: God created. Lose that, and the rest of the story makes no sense.
The repeated phrase after each day's activity is a perfect example of poetry: repetition following each statement. This is not how literal prose is written, but just as many ancient myths were all in poetic form–in the original language. Poetry expresses an idea, not literal objective facts. The first chapter has all the qualifications for poetry.
BTW: it is a common error to equate the sabbath with creation. That word was not used in the text at all. Its first use was introduced several milennia later in Sinai. We should not substitute or add words to the text, but honor it as written. It is only in retrospection that it has been miscalled "sabbath," a term unknown and unused by all the patriarchs until the Exodus.
Stephen,
'What genre is Gen 1,2?' See Elaine's post………… it is poetry. Nice explanation Elaine.
Is it science? I t cannot possibly be. 'Science' as we know it is of recent invention. It began in the middle ages by Alchemists. And their motive was not to understand the physical properties of things per se. They worked on the basis of the Hermetic formula, 'as above (spiritual, non-material realm),' 'so below (physical realm).' Their aim was to learn of the ethereal / quintessential / divine realms through the study of that which could be learnt form teh physical realm. They hoped to learn teh secret of turning lead into gold. Physically? No. They wanted to work with the divine in transforming the 'lead' of base human nature into the 'gold' of the divine nature. Hardly the stuff of 'modern science.' Nevertheless, they, Elias Ashmile, Isaac Newton et al et al, Rosicrusicans, Freemasons, Magicians, etc, went on to form The Royal Society (1660) and the 'scientific method' was born. But its descendents are quite unlike its parents. Unfortunately. For now we are truly stuck in the mud of earth, physically and spiritually.
Perhaps we also need a better appreciation of the value of myth. A 'true' myth contains within its centre a primal truth about human, and divine, nature. Its is well worth reading the works of Joseph Campbell. "Thou Art That" is a good place to start. His basic schema of quality myth is that of Separation (from God and our divine home), Initiation (remembrance of God and our divine sonship), and Return (to our divine home). Prodigal Son is a myth of identical proportions. Yes, parables are a type of mythology, say, a mini-myth.
With this concept in our armoury, stories such as we find in Gen 1,2 fit the scenario pretty well.
Even our alphabets, those that derive from Hebrew and Greek, start at the divine Alpha, go all the way down to Mu, symbol of watery matter (Mary being the prima donna of this class) and then return to Omega.
Ah, there is so much to enrich our lives if only we can escape the bonds of earth, ie, materialistic literalism. Come, Holy Spirit, come!
Serge, I think your point and Jeans before yours are very helpful-a degree factual, a degree parabolic. The stories resinate with humanities corporate sense that we have list something, something is spiritually wrong with ourselves and the world, and we have collective hope of a new order of things.
in a sense people everywhere and at all tines have been Adventists in that humanity has hoped the coming of a great day of healing any 'returning' to that better place.
We praise the beauty of God's creation while at the same time praying to leave it for a better place. Man has always posited that there was once a garden with all that man could desire; and the wish to return to that edenic place and state is much like wishing to return to the safety and comfort of the womb where there is no pain, and no suffering. It is an eternal wish to return to what we imagine once was.
Serge,
I definitely agree about myth. Here's a short excerpt on myth you might like.
“You’re going to speak of Myth again, aren’t you,” said Lucas.
“We can hardly speak at all of the true meaning of Christmas without speaking in myths. The power of Myth hovers over Christmas like a luminous cloud,” I said. “The Mythical power of the central Christmas story is so potent, that it continually spawns new myths.”
“What do you mean, ‘new myths,’” asked Mark.
“Santa Claus, for one. ‘Frosty the Snowman,’ ‘the Night before Christmas,’ Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol,’ the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’– ”
“Oh. . . sure. . .now I get it,” Mark said, waving his hand in surrender. “There are a lot of them, aren’t there? Christmas is a Myth that spawns other myths, and even some of them spawn further myths. Wow! Why is that?”
“Well, what is myth?” I asked.
“Myths are the stories we use to describe reality greater than nature, reality that includes the spiritual and supernatural,” Mark said. “At least, that’s the definition we’ve been using in our discussions.”
Yes, Ed, I like that. The definition in teh final line is well worth thinking about.
A more simplified version goes like this: Myth, a story thats not true on the outside, but is true on the inside.
General posting to all. Adventist Today is publishing a beautiful article on Creation, in the next print edition.
I find it a common meeting ground that Adventist Creationists of all chronologies can meet on and worship together. Please come with me for the pleasure of stopping arguing about the details and enjoying the beauty and comfort of the beauty in creation. It is available to you even if you are not yet a print subscriber. Go to HOME and click on the Bernard Bernstater article. Happy reading.
Creation is beautiful – both it is also horrible and frightening. If evolution is true and the old truly old, I still have a problem with a God who would choose to create and design everything through billions of years of suffering. It is easy to see the beauty above the surface of the waves, but under the surface, it is nothing but abject terror. I still have a major problem about what that would say about God – whether He and His creation are indeed 'good' and 'very good'?
Stephen Ferguson ,
It would be better for you to believe what God said. That is to say, believe God and not godless science; which is an oxymoron.
Unless Moses was lying, God Himself said He created the world in six days.
Do you believe that Moses was lying?
Do you see (now) how insidious disbelieving the Bible, for whatever reason, can be?
Stephen you make some good points. As you know, I do have doubts about YEC, both based on science and based on suggestions in Gen itself that 'day' may not be intended to mean 24 hours, such as how all the events on day six could really have occured in one 24-hour period.
However, I also have serious problems and doubts evolution. Whilst people might call YEC Christians naive from a scientific put of view, I find a certain naivity in those who advocate the view that God 'designed' the universe and life through billions of years of suffering. Attempts to simply gloss over all the suffering don't quite sit right with me deep down.
Of course, if evolution were true, and given the pagan creation against are actually very pro-Darwinian, there is every possibility that Gen is theologically saying the Creator God and creation itself is indeed 'good', despite the clear observation to the contrary of tooth and claw. I don't know all the answers but it does make me think. I also think of a God who came and shared in the suffering and death with His creations.
Stephen. Likewise, i find the billions of souls, suffering horrible mental distress & bloodletting &
death, all because of War in Heaven, to be stomach turning, and an unsolvable issue to my mind.
If God knows the end from the beginning, and Lucifer is to die in the end, why the neccessity
for mankind to suffer endlessly? Man worth how many sparrows? Lucifer worth how many
earthlings? Jesus says "you've seen me you've seem the Father". Father/death? Jesus/life? a
dichotomy?
The only way the universe can be harmonious is on the basis of trust. Trust cannot be forced, since force is only necessary because trust is absent. Rebuilding trust in any relationship is long, costly, and difficult. The more important the relationship, and the greater number involved in the relationship, means that it takes longer, is infinitely costly, and almost unimaginably difficult.
Suffering only exists because of the breakdown of trust in the universe. The only way to eliminate the problem would be to euthanize every living being with the disease of distrust. Those were the choices.
God chose to take the suffering into/upon himself in his Son. This eliminated doubt in those who had not given in to it, and made salvation available to those fallen who are willing to trust again.
Could a God who is love have chosen euthenasia? It seems a contradiction in terms.
Either God is in charge or he is not. Humans deciding when he was, and when he chose not to, cannot be found in the Bible, but it is man's futile attempt to explain God, which should be recognized as man's feeble attempt of which he knows absolutely nothing.
Today, unlike long ago when God was considered the cause for all natural disasters, even pain and suffering; humans seek to find natural explanations for those disasaters. It is called "science." What is called supernatural is religion's seeking to understand, but the hubris is to believe his explanations are confirmed by God.
"Either God is in charge or he is not." Interesting statement, which, like that to which you object, cannot be found in the Bible.
Stephen,
Personally (for what it’s worth) I understand your doubts “based on science” more than I do those “based on suggestions in Genesis itself…[relating to] such as how all the events on day six could really have occurred in one 24-hour period.”
Why can’t your doubts about what might or might not have occurred on day six be chalked up to not being clear of the proper 'interpretation' about this? After all, your doubts about the entire six days have to do with interpretation.
In other words, interpretation is selectively appropriated depending on convenience of belief or disbelief.
Yes, Jack. I Read it and…
I made a decision a few days ago, I am leaving AT to its peace and quiet, hopefully for a good while, otherwise I would have already commented there…
You have no idea how tempted I was to comment on its leaps in logic, imaginative extensions of evidence, and eventual clutching at biblical authority to back up the world view it began with and through which it ultimately interpreted and saw science.
As I read comments now on AT, after reading Wilbur's book, and The Demon Haunted World.., I get this recurring thought as I read: "this is delusional." I could be wrong. I may not be.
I find the details do matter, and it is frustrating to me. Too often I become too blunt and unkind, and I've come to the point it is not worth it.
I have a couple of blog ideas that may surface one day and drag me back in, but otherwise…cheers to all
CB,
Cheers
dl
Chris, I don't know if taking a leave of absence is a good idea or not, but I know you can not leave the subject of creation and why it is alone. So please be kind enough to come back and share with us, if your ruminations come up with new or helpful insights. You have been kind and encouraging to me while disagreeing, and I'd welcome your contributions back at any time. Jack
Chris,
We will miss your very cogent logic which, sadly, has far too little space in this blog.
Dave, Elaine, Chris, John, Tim, let's continue to keep in touch. agingapes AT gmail DOT com.
Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved. That which is body is body, that which is spirit is spirit. They can kill the body, they cannot kill the soul.
When we appear at the gate, St Peter won't apply the great litmus test,"Do you believe in a young Earth , or a old Earth??"……No, won't happen.
"And the Spirit and the bride say, "Come". And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
Timo, it seems to me that the openness and flexibility that you express signals a willingness to reach out to those whose views differ from yours in a very loving and harmonious way that can foster respect and communication. Brittle entrenchment on either extreme advances neither perspective and probably does no good for any of us. Thank you for your successful efforts to promote reasonable conversations.
Here is the thing, guys, about agnosticism regarding something that God is quoted to have said: it constitutes de facto disbelief.
I am personally persuaded that Stephen happens to believe everything that God has said. So, if he is agnostic about whether the six days were actually six days, as God is quoted by Moses to have said, then he either questions whether God said it, or literally meant it. If God never said it, then Moses simply did not tell us the truth.
Jack believes God didn’t mean earth days. Jack does not believe this was possible. There is no Biblical reason to doubt that God meant anything other than earth days; there are ‘scientific’ or speculative reasons.
(2 Peter 3:8 has nothing to do with the creation but is a simile for purposes of addressing scoffers regarding the longsuffering nature of God and apparent delay.)
If ‘science’ (or scientific consensus) is the primary reason for doubting, this constitutes disbelief.
I am not judging disbelief; I am just describing it as not actually believing.
“Is not the vociferous belief in a unquestioned, and potentially wrong truth-despite the convenient interpretation that "confirms" it , likewise, de facto disbelief?”
Brother Timo, I have read and re-read this question a few times in hopes of understanding what your reasoning is on this; unfortunately, to no avail.
I do not believe that believing the Biblical account is a form of disbelief, if this is what you are asking.
Or if when you spin the faith roulette, does it count that you merely got lucky?
I will readily admit that I have been blessed beyond measure by being born to the parents I have, who introduced me to the concept of the God of is Son Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and His Son Jesus Christ—if that is what you are asking.
Your testimony is to be able to demonstrate why you believe. If you cannot (or fear to), does this also not constitute at least a degree of disbelief?
I couldn’t agree more that our testimony is to be able to explain why we believe. If we could demonstrate why we believe, it would not be faith. I also agree that if we cannot (or fear to) provide a reason for our belief, that it does constitute at least a degree, or sort, of disbelief.
Personally, I believe because of unconditional love. For me, unconditional love is the inexplicable constant, as God is the inexplicable Constant; because it is of God, and it is God. It is, to me, no accident that the John declared that God is love. Unconditional love is approximated in the procreation in which, like other creatures, mankind is privileged to share, but unlike other creatures we are blessed to have full appreciation. I have seen unconditional love demonstrated and have had it miraculously extended to me. When you see it and feel it, you know it is divine. Unconditional love is the theme of the Bible as expressed and demonstrated in the life and death of Jesus.
So much love as been personally demonstrated toward me that I would be a fool, an idiot, an imbecile to dare not believe.
There are plenty of other reasons why I believe, but there is a start. (By the way, there is a significant difference between being “vociferous” and being insistent.)
Sorry for the typographical errors:
“…to the concept of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…”
“…that it does constitute, at least a degree—or sort—of disbelief.”
“…to me, no accident that John declared…”
STOP THE PRESSES! I agree with Timo!
Worst of all is the insanity is that there is some ultimate, unknown reason behind all this. If it offers hope then it is the hope that no matter what, it will be explained some day, is the only possible way to get others to also accept this phantom explanation.
Is it comfort to a mother standing at her child's casket to be told "There is a reason behind this, someday you will be grateful for God taking your child. Just wait patiently until at some future, unknown date, you will agree"? Would you thank such person, or would you be tempted to floor him? This is exactly what Jim Jones told his followers, and they drank the Kool-Aid. How many are eagerly drinking their Kool-Aid today? I believe we call them "converts."