Thank you.
I like this analogy of a man saying he is cutting wood, but doesn't say what he is using to cut the wood.
It is assumed, of course, that he used a saw, as would analyzing the cut ends should attest to this fact.
That can be easily changed.
HOWEVER:
God says plainly that He spoke, and the universe came into existence.
The man cutting wood said he was going to cut wood, but he didn't say with what.
God didn't do it that way, though.
God didn't say He was going to make the universe; He spoke and the universe came into existence as an act of obedience to His command.
Can you show me the passage where it says that God spoke the plants into existence. Because I can quote you a passage where it says that God used the Earth as a tool to create plants.
Put another way: your example, Tiberius, has a man making a declarative statement; whereas Genesis 1 has God making a series of imperative statements, called divine fiats.
You are trying to bog this down in minutiae.
IN ADDITION:
The order of events, coupled with the statement in Exodus ...
Exodus 20:11a For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:
... clearly rule out evolution.
It does not clearly rule out evolution. Show me where it says that God never used any tools while creating the universe.
What would Adam have mated with had not God made Eve of Adams rib?
Keep in mind Adam lived less than 1000 years.
BTW, evolution does not work.
Do not think that evolution states that an individual of one species will give birth to an individual of a different species. The change from one species to the next is very slow (from our point of view) and takes place over many generations.
For example, if a modern Human went back in time five thousand years, they would find species that they would say are identical to them.
If one of these 5 thousand year old people went back another 5000 years, then they would likewise claim that the people of 10,000 years ago were the same species as the people of 5000 years ago.
And if a person of 10,000 years ago went back to 15,000 years ago, they would also claim that their two species were the same.
You could keep going back like this for millions of years, and each individual would claim that they are the same species as the species that lived 5000 years before them. One continuous sequence. This is becayuse the changes made by evolution operate on much greater time scales than 5000 years. And if you go back a million years, you would say that the species are very different, even though you do not see any appreciable change when you look at it in 5000 year intervals.
So evolution tells us that there was no "first" human, it's just that the species we evolved from became more and more human like until they actually were humans.
Then why do you believe that unicorns once existed? And that there are species of insects with only 4 legs? And that there was some kind of "fowled bat"? Why do you not see these parts of the Bible as metaphorical?
