When you said that God "created" all life on Earth, what do you mean? According to the Genesis text you referenced, what does it mean for God to create something? Bring it into material existence (ex nihilo)?
have you read the text.?
How is that part the least bit confusing??
It's one thing to say "I don't believe the text" it is another to claim that the very simple and basic nature of the text is too confusing to read and know with some level of certainty what the author writing 4000 years ago was conveying to the newly freed slaves at Sinai.
Of course.
It's not confusing, nor am I confused.
And since I am not confused by the text, none of that is applicable here.
To be very clear, I am asking you for an exegetical argument—because I've assumed that your belief is based on (drawn from) that particular text of Scripture.
hmm we have two in this case -- a section in Genesis and one in Exodus 20 which is in the very highest form of "legal code" in what they called "The Law of Moses".
Gen 2:
2 And so the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their heavenly lights. 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 on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.
Where that verse comes in the context of --
Gen 1:
11 Then God said, “Let the
earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed,
and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit according to their kind with seed in them”; and it was so. 12 The earth produced vegetation,
plants yielding seed according to their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, according to their kind; and God saw that it was good. 13 And there was
evening and there was morning, a third day.
20 Then God said, “
Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” 21 And God
created the great sea creatures and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed, according to their kind, and every winged bird according to its kind; and God saw that it was good. 22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” 23 And there was
evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
24 Then God said, “Let the
earth produce living creatures according to their kind: livestock and crawling things and animals of the earth according to their kind”; and it was so. 25 God made the animals of the earth according to their kind, and the livestock according to their kind, and everything that crawls on the ground according to its kind; and God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “
Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the livestock and over all the earth, and over every crawling thing that crawls on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him;
male and female He created them. ...31 And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and
there was morning, the sixth day.
Gen 2:1-3
Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended 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.
So I would ask again - what part of that is confusing - for those 'who read the text"..
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The other text we read is from Ex 20:8-11 - a very short summary of the Genesis text.:
8: "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
SIX DAYS you shall labor... the seventh day is the Sabbath of YHWH...
11 For
in six days the Lord made the heavens and the
earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
So then very simple text. I understand "I agree with the text" or "I don't agree with the text" - but I don't understand "What does the text say -- I can't figure out what it is say".
The text locks the time units in Gen 2:11 with those of Ex 20:11 and Ex 20:8-10. Pretty hard to insert darwinism into the text at that point, Nor is it reasonable to assume Moses was darwinist or that the newly freed slaves at Sinai would be trying to smuggle darwinism into their reading/hearing of the text.
Once more: "According to the Genesis text being referenced, what does it mean for God to create something? Does it mean bringing it into material existence?"
How could it not?
Given that plants come into being in a single evening and morning -- and that this happens before the sun is created. Jamming billions of years into one evening and morning is hardly a reasonable treatment of the text.
Given that animals in the sea and land are eating those plants for food 2 to 3 days later - those plants would be mature in that "day".
And of course the text does not lead the reader to suppose that God created Adam as a zygote - held him in His hand for 9 months then raised him into a an adult for 20 years then had him go through 9 months of gestation to have Eve. So the readers were not being pointed to that kind of timeline in the case of humans either.
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One does not have to be a christian creationist to see this easy part of the issue so far --
The text above is so incredibly obvious in its simple meaning that even the agnostic/atheist professors of Hebrew and OT studies in world class universities - admit to the "intended meaning" of the text.
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.’