A Literal Reading: Genesis 1

[Hentenza]

Not just on the Earth, but have a localized point of view, too, right? I mean, a thing that is all around the planet isn't going to experience the evening-morning thing either. In is an observed phenomenon from the point of view of a localized perception, right?

Sure but the narrative is told historically. The writer of Genesis, being himself in a localized point on Earth, understood the cycle perfectly.

 

[cubinity]

Sure but the narrative is told historically. The writer of Genesis, being himself in a localized point on Earth, understood the cycle perfectly.

So, does the localized point of view of the writer limit the text's content to realities within the writer's perspective.

In other words, if the writer believed in a flat earth with pillars holding up a sky that only existed overhead, through which the sun and stars and moon move (not saying that is what this author necessarily believed, I'm just raising it as an example), rather than a global earth spinning through open space that exists all around so that it is the globe moving through space being perceived, not the sun and stars; does that mean the reality described in the text is a narrative describing the world he believes in, or the world as it really exists?

If the text can only describe the world he believes in, and that reality fundamentally differs from the real world, where does that leave us?

 

[Sum1sGruj]

The one thing that I am not understanding about what is being argued about the word day, is that the word was debated among AiG and OEC's such as Hugh Ross.
They both reconcile the fact that a day is constant through the passages. It would have to be for all of it to be grammatically correct. If God uses the sun to indicate the days, then that means that days were already set, and that the sun merely marks them.
Like a clock.

They differ with the days being literal or ages, but either way, it's one or the other. The term simply does not sway between both in the same uniform passages.

 

[cubinity]

If God uses the sun to indicate the days, then that means that days were already set, and that the sun merely marks them.
Like a clock.

How does the sun indicate the days?
How does the sun merely mark them?
Describe your understanding of that phenomenon, in terms of what parts of it are caused by the sun, and which parts just happen to be correlated with the sun, and maybe that will shed light on what is being talked about.

In the case of a polar observer, where there are no evenings and mornings (understood here as transitions between day and night) for several-month-long stretches, defining a single day in terms of separating day from night doesn't really make a lot of sense, does it?

And yet, that is how the text describes a day.

So, if the text describes the experiences of a local observer that experiences a daily routine of evenings and mornings, but does not describe the daily routine of someone who does not, then what does that tell us about the text's ability to describe reality, versus describing a local, human, fallible perception of the physical phenomenon being described?

I'm not asking the question as an argument. I legitimately have that question unanswered in mind, and I'm curious how others answer it.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

How does the sun indicate the days?
How does the sun merely mark them?
Describe your understanding of that phenomenon, in terms of what parts of it are caused by the sun, and which parts just happen to be correlated with the sun, and maybe that will shed light on what is being talked about.

The sun indicates morning to the half of the Earth facing it. But the moon can be seen at times on the same side as well. Does that mean that it is night and day at the same time? It doesn't.
And even the local observer at the time would have been aware of that, and it seemed to fit perfectly to him, right?

The fact of the matter is that nothing makes sense if one breaks everything down to extreme semantics. It's doomed to render anything a phenomenon.

 

[cubinity]

The sun indicates morning to the half of the Earth facing it.

Not half, as the polar observer has been seeing it all night, but I get what you're trying to say.

However, the point I was trying to make is: Does the "rising" of the sun make it morning, or merely indicate that it is morning? Is the sun rising the very phenomenon of morning, or is it simply a correlation that the sun appears to rise at the time predetermined to be morning because of some other cause?

 

[Hentenza]

So, does the localized point of view of the writer limit the text's content to realities within the writer's perspective.

In other words, if the writer believed in a flat earth with pillars holding up a sky that only existed overhead, through which the sun and stars and moon move (not saying that is what this author necessarily believed, I'm just raising it as an example), rather than a global earth spinning through open space that exists all around so that it is the globe moving through space being perceived, not the sun and stars; does that mean the reality described in the text is a narrative describing the world he believes in, or the world as it really exists?

If the text can only describe the world he believes in, and that reality fundamentally differs from the real world, where does that leave us?

I think we are over thinking what should be simple. I also think that we are getting a bit off track and off the text.

Moses wrote Genesis but Moses did not witness creation. Moses spent 40 days with God were, so the theory goes, God revealed it to Moses. The only witness to creation is the Trinity. The account as written as God revealed it to Moses so Moses is merely recounting what God told him. The narration is historical. The perspective is God's perspective but God is omnipresent so He could see both evening and morning at the same time.

Now, from Moses perspective and having already experienced both evening and morning, the narration would make sense. Moses would have known very little about cosmology so to him basically God created the Earth and the heavens. He separated the light from the dark and named them day and night. He named the cycle one day. This would have been within Moses understanding. The rest of Genesis 1 and 2 would have also been within Moses understanding. So whether Moses, or anyone for that matter, believed that the Earth was flat or spherical would not have distorted their understanding of the text. Even today we know that one day consists of one evening-morning cycle.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

Genesis doesn't call the sun day, He calls it a marker to indicate days. He calls the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'.
But the passages state 'there was evening, there was morning- the x day'
It does not say there was night, there was day.

So the passages themselves show that evening and morning are not dependent on the sun and moon, but rather God made the sun and moon to be dependent on what He considers a morning and evening.
But it's not so black and white:

The moon is not always there. In an event of a new moon, it is the absence of the sun that makes it night. And since we see the moon sometimes during the day, it all amounts to one conclusion- they govern and separate, but they are not personas of night and day themselves. They are indicators and work together to mark the calender. The sun is constant, and the moon phases.

It's a system, indications, to let us be aware of evenings and mornings, so that even when we are at the North Pole during it's time of darkness, we know when day will eventually approach.

 

[cubinity]

Genesis doesn't call the sun day, He calls it a marker to indicate days. He calls the light 'day', and the darkness 'night'.
But the passages state 'there was evening, there was morning- the x day'
It does not say there was night, there was day.

So the passages themselves show that evening and morning are not dependent on the sun and moon, but rather God made the sun and moon to be dependent on what He considers a morning and evening.
But it's not so black and white:

The moon is not always there. In an event of a new moon, it is the absence of the sun that makes it night. And since we see the moon sometimes during the day, it all amounts to one conclusion- they govern and separate, but they are not personas of night and day themselves. They are indicators and work together to mark the calender. The sun is constant, and the moon phases.

It's a system, indications, to let us be aware of evenings and mornings, so that even when we are at the North Pole during it's time of darkness, we know when day will eventually approach.

I'm going to go on ignoring the stuff you say about the moon, but I want you to know it is not out of any kind of disrespect. I have never, and do not intend to, discuss the moon as any kind of factor in this. Therefore, I simply have nothing to discuss about that. Just to let you know.

As far as your other comments, I would say this in relation to the OP:

The argument is often presented that today we understand the universe in a certain way, and we believe it is consistent in its operations, and has been since the beginning. Therefore, we find no problem projecting unto that beginning the same circumstances we encounter today. Therefore, projecting back as we do, we find no fault project onto the first days of Creation that same duration and measurements of time we observe today.

This is not an argument I accept for a number of reasons. First, the object in space that causes the phenomenon we call day, morning and evening (the sun) is not said to exist until the fourth day. Second, the phenomena described in the text are only observed from the ground on Earth, and do not represent a cosmological perspective beyond that of a casual observer, and thus do not suffice as credible on a cosmological level. Third, the argument ignores the history behind the development of our modern ways of measuring time, and assumes we have always measured in the same way throughout the ages. Therefore, I cannot accept the text as evidence that Creation took six 24-hour days as we understand days today.

It is simply speculative that mornings and evenings in an approximately 24-hour cycle would exist without cosmology being just the way it is today, since there is no way to test/prove this. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to believe the sun and rotation of the Earth just happen to correlate with days rather than actually causing them, as you suggest.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

It is simply speculative that mornings and evenings in an approximately 24-hour cycle would exist without cosmology being just the way it is today, since there is no way to test/prove this. Therefore, there is absolutely no reason to believe the sun and rotation of the Earth just happen to correlate with days rather than actually causing them, as you suggest.

It's all a system. Not only did He make a clockwork of the sun and moon, but they serve other purposes as well. Life needs sunlight, and the Earth needs the moons counter-gravity to help support life.
What you have is a bunch of gears working with one another and producing a consistent reality how He wills it.

There is no reason to not take the texts literally. Why do so?
The irony is that, inside your mind, there is no reason not to until contrary thought takes over. And that's the point- People base conclusions on Creation, which is not subject to contrary conclusions because it is of God, which is not subject to anything.

Mornings and evenings are not subject to anything except what God wills them to be, so there is no need to test anything.

 

[cubinity]

It's all a system. Not only did He make a clockwork of the sun and moon, but they serve other purposes as well. Life needs sunlight, and the Earth needs the moons counter-gravity to help support life.
What you have is a bunch of gears working with one another and producing a consistent reality how He wills it.

Interesting. You say that life needs sunlight, and yet lifeforms precede the sun in the creation process. It doesn't make sense for God to create something before creating the thing it needs, does it? (Again, ignoring discussions about the moon)

 

[shernren]

The text tells me (ex. Matt. 1:23). If the word mother appeared in any of the texts modified by virgin then the grammatical construction would be mother as a noun and virgin as an adjective describing the noun. The semantic range definition of mother does not need to include virgin since virgin would be the modifier defining the "kind" of mother. For example, the semantic range definitions for mother does not include "good" or 'bad" but we can use either word to define what kind of mother. In this case the kind of mother is a virgin mother.

Good, so words can be stretched when the context demands so. Furthermore, this kind of stretching may well be singular, i.e. Mary is a virgin mother even if she is the only virgin mother in all history and Scripture.

First, a day is not exactly 24 hours.

Well, about 24 hours; we both know what we're referring to don't we?

Second, where in the text does it evidence a day longer than an evening-morning cycle? Where are the modifiers?

Firstly, there is neither sun nor moon on the first three days. God Himself says that they determine the length of a day, so before they existed, a day need not have been about twenty-four hours long.

But I think there is a simpler fact which completely changes the tone of the passage, and it is this: how much time passes between an evening and a morning? It's not a day, you know, it's a night. Chew on that and see if your interpretation survives.