Genesis 1 is myth. It's not SUPPOSED to be scientifically or historically accurate. .
God takes it literally as we see in His own summary of the Genesis 1:2-2:4 "Account" -- historic "account"
As already noted -- "SIX DAYS you shall labor...for
IN SIX days the LORD created the heavens and the earth - and rested the 7th day"
This is irrefutable - and the failed attempts to marry the Bible to evolutionism do not survive this "Bible detail"
Gen 2 -
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their hosts. 2
By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then
God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Ex 20 - legal code (not poetry - not symbolism)
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9
Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God.
In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who
is within your gates. 11
For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
this is a bible detail that cannot be ignored when admitting that the Bible describes a real - literal "six days you shall labor...for in six days the Lord made" 7 day week for creation that maps exactly to the week of Exodus 20.
Irrefutable.
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So much so that atheists have no problem admitting to what the text says -- even though they do not agree with its teaching.
Genesis 1 is myth. It's not SUPPOSED to be scientifically or historically accurate. .
Atheists (who take the Bible as "myth" without question) often don't mind "admitting" to what the Bible says - they simply reject what it says. As in rejecting the virgin birth, the bodily ascension of Christ, the miracles of the bible and in this example they freely admit to what the Bible says - while rejecting it as 'truth'.
In this case the genre the "kind of writing that it is" -- is the kind of writing known as historic account - as even atheist professors of Hebrew and OT studies in all world class universities - the will admit.
Professor James Barr, Regius Professor of Hebrew at the University of Oxford, has written:
‘Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of
Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: (a)
creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience (b) the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story (c) Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood,
are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.’
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That is the opinion of professors not at all inclined to accept the 7 day creation week that we find in Gen 1:2-2:3 yet they can still 'read' and point to the author's intent - whether they agree with the author or not
Bible believing Christians are not in a conflict-of-interest on this Bible detail because they freely reject blind faith evolutionism - so no Bible bending the text of Genesis for them.
Atheists are not in a conflict of interest position on this Bible detail because they freely reject the Bible - so they too do not engage in Bible bending in Genesis as Dr Barr points out.
