Tom 1

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This is a false dichotomy. If there is a justification for your preferred "context based interpretation" can you please explain what it is?

Sure, scholars like John Walton and David Rosenberg, among others, use their familiarity with what can be learned about the culture and thinking of the time to create a means to gain some understanding of the text as it was written. Literary devices such as the use of periods of time to represent ideas of sequence and completion, the meanings of specific terms in their original setting and so on add up to provide a coherent and useful framework for understanding the text. I find that useful. What are essentially personal interpretations, which vary quite a bit even when more or less in the same ball park, less so.
 
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Jonathan Walkerin

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The THEORY of evolution defies science (2nd LAW of Thermal Dynamics)

For that to be true earth would need to be a closed system which it demonstrably is not.
 
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MrsFoundit

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If you take the text 'exactly as it is written' then you have to add your own interpretation. The 'plain meaning' of a day has always been from sunrise to sunset. That is what a day is. Since the world has been the world, a day has been a day.

Genesis says there were days before there was a sun, or before it was in position, so on this you are just plain wrong.

Once you start inventing ideas about a 'day' where there is no sunrise or sunset, you are into the realm of random speculation - you are no longer taking the text exactly as it is written.

This is outright defiance of the actual text, because the word "day" is right there, no one is "inventing" it.

Since human language first developed every language has had some means of referring to the period between sunrise and sunset; that is what a day is.

You do realise that belief in direct miraculous creation means there is no "since human language first developed" ?

Reading the text 'exactly as it is written' makes it supremely obvious that is was never meant to be taken as a literal desctription, as it simply does not meet any criteria for a literal description.

The "criteria" here can only be illogically applying human science to test the viability of a supernatural event. If you are going to do that, the existence of God cannot be literally true either.
 
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Tom 1

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Genesis says there were days before there was a sun, or before it was in position, so on this you are just plain wrong.

A day where there is no sun is not a day as we understand it. Hence, it must mean something else.
 
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Tom 1

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The "criteria" here can only be illogically applying human science to test the viability of a supernatural event.

No, that isn't the only option. The question of interpreting the text in those terms only arises through modern ideas about the intent of the original writers, ideas that are born out of modern thinking. In other words, if you take the text to be an actual attempt to explain the physical origins of the universe, then you impose artificial limitations on its meaning.
 
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Jamsie

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Let me withdraw and modify that --- it actually does not support evolution, it supports abiogenesis.

How does it support abiogenesis when clearly it is based on God's fiat/command? The sole agency is "And God said"...God set in motion at the beginning all of the "laws" for the "incipient powers, elements, material, etc. as to the natural processes of phenomena to be produced". So how does God's command equate to abiogenesis?
 
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Jamsie

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Which is when you look at other scripture to get further information or confirmation.
Genesis 2
19 Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.


So yes, they were produced out of the land, ground, dirt, by God. The land didn't do it by itself if that's what you are trying to imply.

No, the earth/ground/land didn't do it by itself... it was by God's command/fiat which is exactly what the text states. How did God "form" the "wild animals" and "birds"? One would need to suggest that God's commands were insufficient to accomplish his purpose.
Psalm 33:6 – "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ..."
Hebrews 11:3 – "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command,..."
2 Peter 3:5 - "...that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water by water."

Either God's commands were all sufficient or they were not... the only implication is those who claim his commands required further effort!
 
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coffee4u

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If you take the text 'exactly as it is written' then you have to add your own interpretation. The 'plain meaning' of a day has always been from sunrise to sunset. That is what a day is. Since the world has been the world, a day has been a day. Once you start inventing ideas about a 'day' where there is no sunrise or sunset, you are into the realm of random speculation - you are no longer taking the text exactly as it is written. That is quite simple a factual statement; there are many figurative uses of the word 'day' in many languages, but taken literally it has and has always had a single meaning that everyone understands. Since human language first developed every language has had some means of referring to the period between sunrise and sunset; that is what a day is.

Reading the text 'exactly as it is written' makes it supremely obvious that is was never meant to be taken as a literal desctription, as it simply does not meet any criteria for a literal description.

"Once you start inventing ideas about a 'day'"
Scripture is my invention now?
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

No, a day is what God says it is because he makes the rules for it not us.

God said it was a day not me.

Yes, there are and as we all know in Hebrew literature yom with numbers and evening and morning only ever means a literal day.

You read it and want to fit millions of years into it that is the only reason you don't want it to be a day. A child reading Genesis will understand that God created over 6 days because that is the plain reading of it. Invent whatever fabrications you like, because that is what they are.

Exodus 20:11
"For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.

6 days.
 
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coffee4u

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No, the earth/ground/land didn't do it by itself... it was by God's command/fiat which is exactly what the text states. How did God "form" the "wild animals" and "birds"? One would need to suggest that God's commands were insufficient to accomplish his purpose.
Psalm 33:6 – "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made ..."
Hebrews 11:3 – "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command,..."
2 Peter 3:5 - "...that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water by water."

Either God's commands were all sufficient or they were not... the only implication is those who claim his commands required further effort!

I believe all those scriptures
and yes Gods command was sufficient
What are you are on about?
 
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Jamsie

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I believe all those scriptures
and yes Gods command was sufficient
What are you are on about?

I thought it obvious … Genesis states that God's commands were all sufficient, that God commanded the water and land - which explicitly is mediate creation, that any statements beyond "And God said" with command is parenthetical, That the reference to "day" must refer to the command. So that given that then much is open to interpretation as to the how, timeframe, etc. … simple as that!
 
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Tom 1

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You read it and want to fit millions of years into it that is the only reason you don't want it to be a day. A child reading Genesis will understand that God created over 6 days because that is the plain reading of it. Invent whatever fabrications you like, because that is what they are.

You have to see the irony here - as well as creating the notion of a 24hr day without a sun or a moon, you're also inventing thoughts that you think I have. Which of the two of us is making fabrications?

The question isn't about the length of the days, as that comes from the same later thinking imposed on the text. The importance of the 7 days for the original writers lies in the sequence and ordering of the stages of 'creation' and the placement of God and his creation in relation to each other.
 
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JackRT

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I believe that the main difficulty is that we are trying to reconcile the understandings of a pre-scientific culture three thousand years ago with modern scientific understandings. Some solve the problem by simply rejecting modern understandings by insisting on a literal reading of the Biblical text. Others reject the Biblical text or attempt to read it in an allegorical way. It is the difference between a "true story" and a "truth story". Personally I read it as a truth story like the parables of Jesus.
 
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MrsFoundit

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What are essentially personal interpretations, which vary quite a bit even when more or less in the same ball park, less so.

Creationism is really not "essentially personal interpretation", it is a simple matter of if the text says "day" we believe it means "day".
 
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Job 33:6

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Creationism is really not "essentially personal interpretation", it is a simple matter of if the text says "day" we believe it means "day".

But you are left interpreting the meaning of the word day, none the less. "Day" is just a word. But behind the word, you interpret it to mean something specific.

If there was no sun, then the meaning of day, of course isn't a 24 hour period, as such a period requires a son.
 
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MrsFoundit

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Sure, scholars like John Walton and David Rosenberg, among others, use their familiarity with what can be learned about the culture and thinking of the time to create a means to gain some understanding of the text as it was written.

"As such, evolutionary creationism would be a perfectly acceptable view for Christians who take both the Bible and science seriously." John Walton, deliberately accommodating human science, with no biblical reason to do it.
“Natural” and “Supernatural” are Modern Categories, Not Biblical Ones - Articles

"However, what Walton thinks of as the typical ANE mind-set has been criticised elsewhere as being “simply false”, based on an over-generalization from very little data." Lost World of John Walton - creation.com . John Walton not so well regarded as an expert on the culture and thinking of the time there.

"Rosenberg believes that, when we read biblical poetry, we are simultaneously learning about “our history, and with it our souls”. He stresses a “Hebraic culture” and the concomitant imperative to set “ancient Jerusalem on an artistic par with Athens, Elizabethan London and [Modernist] Paris”.

In approaching the Torah as ancient literature, he aims to show “that the Bible’s hundreds of lost writers can take their imaginative place beside Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Virgil”."
https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/bible-as-our-shakespeare-homer-plato-and-virgil-1.489174
David Rosenberg, who seems to regard it as fiction.
 
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MrsFoundit

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But you are left interpreting the meaning of the word day, none the less. "Day" is just a word. But behind the word, you interpret it to mean something specific.

If there was no sun, then the meaning of day, of course isn't a 24 hour period, as such a period requires a son.

I do not deny interpreting, nor do I deny others doing it. The text says "day", no one is inventing that. 24 hours can happen without a sun.
 
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Tom 1

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"As such, evolutionary creationism would be a perfectly acceptable view for Christians who take both the Bible and science seriously." John Walton, deliberately accommodating human science, with no biblical reason to do it.
“Natural” and “Supernatural” are Modern Categories, Not Biblical Ones - Articles

"However, what Walton thinks of as the typical ANE mind-set has been criticised elsewhere as being “simply false”, based on an over-generalization from very little data." Lost World of John Walton - creation.com . John Walton not so well regarded as an expert on the culture and thinking of the time there.

"Rosenberg believes that, when we read biblical poetry, we are simultaneously learning about “our history, and with it our souls”. He stresses a “Hebraic culture” and the concomitant imperative to set “ancient Jerusalem on an artistic par with Athens, Elizabethan London and [Modernist] Paris”.

In approaching the Torah as ancient literature, he aims to show “that the Bible’s hundreds of lost writers can take their imaginative place beside Homer, Sophocles, Plato and Virgil”."
https://www.thejc.com/culture/books/bible-as-our-shakespeare-homer-plato-and-virgil-1.489174
David Rosenberg, who seems to regard it as fiction.

Well, you can simply take the word of some other people who have similar ideas to your own, or you can read the books yourself and make up your own mind.
 
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coffee4u

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Creationism is really not "essentially personal interpretation", it is a simple matter of if the text says "day" we believe it means "day".

Yes, thank you.
It says day I believe day. It's that simple. There is no interpreting.
This is not my invention, it is what the text says.

But you are left interpreting the meaning of the word day, none the less. "Day" is just a word. But behind the word, you interpret it to mean something specific.

If there was no sun, then the meaning of day, of course isn't a 24 hour period, as such a period requires a son.

No, it's not 'just a word' Words have meaning and God said it was a day-so it was a day, a plain 24 hour day. God said there was light, evening and morning. I don't care that the sun wasn't there. If God can make a day without a sun, he can make a day without a sun. I am done arguing with you over your semantics over the word day and trying to pin the one being inventive on me.
 
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Jonathan Walkerin

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A child reading Genesis will understand that God created over 6 days because that is the plain reading of it. Invent whatever fabrications you like, because that is what they are.

Then the child asks since the God is omnipotent why did He take so long to create all the stuff ? Why did He rest since perfect being probaply does not get tired ?

And your answer will be "it is what the text says."

After which the child thinks you are dumb with your literal interpretation for not to seeing certain inconsistencies in your logic but humors you to get some ice cream.
 
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MrsFoundit

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Then the child asks since the God is omnipotent why did He take so long to create all the stuff ? Why did He rest since perfect being probaply does not get tired ?

And your answer will be "it is what the text says."

After which the child thinks you are dumb with your literal interpretation for not to seeing certain inconsistencies in your logic but humors you to get some ice cream.

What child?
 
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