A Literal Reading: Genesis 1

[philadiddle]

So... are you saying that the line of reasoning that points out the futility of another line of reasoning is futile?

I feel like what I am doing here is pointing out how futile it is to argue the age of the earth from a text that was meant, as you put it, to tell us something far more important about God.

Is doing so futile?

I think that the way you are doing it is not effective. Take the following two different approaches as examples:

1. You are wrong to use the text as meaning a literal day because the word itself...

2. You are wrong to use the text to mean that the literal day took place because God is giving us these other truths through the text and whether it was a day or not doesn't affect the truth that God was giving us.

Which one do you think will be more effective when addressing someone's worldview? By focusing on the aspect of their worldview that is most important (the meaning of the text) we can then explain why an historical day doesn't actually affect those truths. If they have the literal day tied to the meaning of Genesis then focusing on the word "day" will be futile because they have already associated it with those other truths, so there is no budging on the matter. This is just how I like to approach it.

 

[philadiddle]

Oh, and what in all of Christianity have you found that we can all agree on? I am yet to find anything that matches that description.

God created everything.
Jesus died for our sins.

 

[cubinity]

I think that the way you are doing it is not effective. Take the following two different approaches as examples:

1. You are wrong to use the text as meaning a literal day because the word itself...

2. You are wrong to use the text to mean that the literal day took place because God is giving us these other truths through the text and whether it was a day or not doesn't affect the truth that God was giving us.

Which one do you think will be more effective when addressing someone's worldview? By focusing on the aspect of their worldview that is most important (the meaning of the text) we can then explain why an historical day doesn't actually affect those truths. If they have the literal day tied to the meaning of Genesis then focusing on the word "day" will be futile because they have already associated it with those other truths, so there is no budging on the matter. This is just how I like to approach it.

I guess we sometimes post stuff to teach ourselves something.
Since I had an idea to be committed to the literal reading of the text, but saw in the literal reading a conclusion other than that which I was taught, I thought I would bring it up here to see if anyone had anything really disproving to say about my statements.
If they did not, I would know I was onto something about the futility of trying to say how long this process actually took based on the evidence in the text, futile or not.
Of course, ultimately I agree with you that it is futile, but I also believe it is futile to try to be countercultural, which is what I saw myself doing when I would make such arguments about the age of the earth.
Btw, if you do feel as though the material facts of origins theology are so futile, why do you hang out here? Just curious.

 

[LinuxUser]

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[philadiddle]

I guess we sometimes post stuff to teach ourselves something.

It makes sense for you to do this. I didn't really need to bud in.

Btw, if you do feel as though the material facts of origins theology are so futile, why do you hang out here? Just curious.

Because the topic of origins theology covers more than just the material facts, if I'm understanding your choice of words correctly.

There's also the odd science topic that pops up, and I enjoy those talks.

 

[cubinity]

It makes sense for you to do this. I didn't really need to bud in.

Because the topic of origins theology covers more than just the material facts, if I'm understanding your choice of words correctly.

There's also the odd science topic that pops up, and I enjoy those talks.

Right on. Thanks for the encouragement.

 

[Assyrian]

Good thread. When I abandoned young earth creationism, it was through going back to Genesis and reading it for myself. I read it literally, but realised to my amazement, it says nothing about the world actually being created in six days. What we seem to have are these great works of creation that are followed by a new day starting - "and there was evening and there was morning nth day". The works of creation aren't actually part of the numbered days, remember days in the bible begin with the evening, that means day one didn't start until all the work of creation in verses 1-5a was finished.

If you look at the works of creation, they seem to describe events unfolding over long periods of time. We read of the Holy Spirit brooding over the waters. Did the Spirit of God just have time for a quick brood before the evening? Or does this describe eons?

You have creation starting in darkness then God creating light, God separating light form darkness and calling the light day and the darkness night, so we have at very least day and night before the evening of day one even began. If the evening of day one is the start of the very first night, how come you have night before it?

The earth brought forth trees and herbs which bore seeds and fruit. People assume this was instantaneous but they text doesn't say that or even suggest it. Now it could have been miraculous, but if the trees brought forth the fruit themselves, then that takes years.

We read of God creating the heavenly lights to mark out seasons and days and years...and it was so. That means before the evening of fourth day, seasons, days and years were going past, with the sun and moon marking them out.

Genesis talks of six day but it does not say anything about them being six consecutive days. What I really like is the way Genesis counts the day out very differently to any of the series of consecutive days we read about in the rest of the OT. The list does not begin 'the first day', but 'one day'. It is followed not by 'the second day', but 'a second day'. In other words it does not say it was the second day ever, simply the second day counted out in this list in Genesis.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

If you do not believe Genesis 1 as it is literally read, then you cannot believe it at all because it remains just as contradictory to scientific ideas no matter the gap between each day.

 

[Assyrian]

Day Agers like Hugh Ross do a pretty good job reconciling the Day Age with the geological record.

 

[Jase]

Not to mention that the Sabbath "day" would not make any sense if yom meant something other than a normal "day" in the Genesis account.

It most certainly would. Jews have been taking Genesis allegorically for hundreds of years. Some rabbis have said that Genesis was actually written as an anthropomorphism based on the human week (meaning, the human week came first, so they wrote the 6 day creation to match it). The Sabbath is a designation for the Jews to take a day off out of each week of work to worship God. It is completely irrelevant to how long the actual universe took to create.

Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform Judaism all accept the theory of evolution and an old earth. They do not believe the creation account is meant to be taken literally.

A literal interpretation of the biblical Creation story among classic rabbinic commentators is uncommon. Thus Bible commentator Abraham Ibn Ezra (11th Century) wrote,
If there appears something in the Torah which contradicts reason…then here one should seek for the solution in a figurative interpretation…the narrative of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, for instance, can only be understood in a figurative sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judaism_and_evolution

 

[Sum1sGruj]

Day Agers like Hugh Ross do a pretty good job reconciling the Day Age with the geological record.

Hugh Ross is a creationist and does not believe in evolution, which goes against scientific ideas. He believes in a Day-Age idea and a more 'local' great flood.

 

[elopez]

If yom = a sunset to the sunrise, and the sun was not created until day four, then there cannot be any days that would occur in the first place! If there is no sun, there are no days as we know it. Biblical literalism undermined from the get go.

 

[Assyrian]

Hugh Ross is a creationist and does not believe in evolution, which goes against scientific ideas. He believes in a Day-Age idea and a more 'local' great flood.

I know. My point was that he can interpret the days of Genesis in line with geology and paleontology. As other creationists do, Old and Young Earth, he rejects evolution but it has more to do with literal interpretation, Adam being made from dust, and creationist anti evolution traditions, than science, because science simply doesn't contradict evolution.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

If yom = a sunset to the sunrise, and the sun was not created until day four, then there cannot be any days that would occur in the first place! If there is no sun, there are no days as we know it. Biblical literalism undermined from the get go.

The sun (among other things obviously) is to separate day and night on Earth. Evening and morning was already set, perhaps by the Earth's rotation, and there was just yet to be a sun and moon.

I know. My point was that he can interpret the days of Genesis in line with geology and paleontology. As other creationists do, Old and Young Earth, he rejects evolution but it has more to do with literal interpretation, Adam being made from dust, and creationist anti evolution traditions, than science, because science simply doesn't contradict evolution.

I guess I'd agree with you there. I was just saying that Genesis goes beyond scientific ideals no matter how it is interpreted. Natural cause and effect takes a mighty purge in the context

 

[elopez]

The sun (among other things obviously) is to separate day and night on Earth. Evening and morning was already set, perhaps by the Earth's rotation, and there was just yet to be a sun and moon.

So the sun isn't meant to mark days? Again if the meaning of yom is in correlation to the sun, one cannot reasonably say that the sun was not present until the fourth day.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

So the sun isn't meant to mark days? Again if the meaning of yom is in correlation to the sun, one cannot reasonably say that the sun was not present until the fourth day.

To mark the days is not the same as being day. The North Pole is night for months at a time., are we to say that people who travel there do not still go by a determined time of evening and morning?
It's interesting that Genesis uses both day/night and evening/morning, but not in the same instance.

 

[cubinity]

The sun (among other things obviously) is to separate day and night on Earth. Evening and morning was already set, perhaps by the Earth's rotation, and there was just yet to be a sun and moon.

I'm pretty sure Genesis describes evenings and mornings as the transitions from the period of light to dark and dark to light, and that each recognized day has one of each of these transitions.

If you confess that there was no sun for the first four of these "days," then what was the light source? Where was this light source? Was it constant the way the sun was, or was it the thing flickering to cause the periods of light and dark?

If we are going to assume, as the OP does, that this source, though not the sun, stood where the sun stands, and was a constant illumination, thus implying that the evenings and mornings were caused, as they are today, by the earth's rotations (none of which is in the text, btw), then the definition of a "day" still comes down to the reference point experiencing one of each of the transitions described.

Since the reference point is in motion (that is very literally and specifically recorded in the text), then the literal reading of the text lends itself to the idea that these days are of undetermined length, as the length of a day for a moving observer is directly related to the speed and direction of their movement around the earth.

If we don't make the assumptions about the light source that do not appear in the text, then the length of the "days" is also undetermined because we don't have any sufficient description of the light source that is causing the periods of light and darkness, and therefore cannot sufficiently concluded that they are the same duration as a non-moving local observer might assume.

Thus, the argument stands that a literal reading of the text does not support an argument for "24 hour" days.

 

[elopez]

To mark the days is not the same as being day. The North Pole is night for months at a time., are we to say that people who travel there do not still go by a determined time of evening and morning?
It's interesting that Genesis uses day/night different then evening/morning, isn't it?

Your simply dancing around the issue. Are you now saying that yom does not mean a day? Is yom in correlation to the sun or not? If not then how are you defining yom? If yom is in connection with the sun, then how can it be read chronologically that the sun was not present till day four?

 

[Sum1sGruj]

Your simply dancing around the issue. Are you now saying that yom does not mean a day? Is yom in correlation to the sun or not? If not then how are you defining yom? If yom is in connection with the sun, then how can it be read chronologically that the sun was not present till day four?

You are asking the same question, just in different ways.
God put the sun and moon in place for us to mark days and nights. That does not mean a day was anything more or less without them. The context is consistent with days/nights and mornings/evenings before and after the sun and moon were created, so it is actually fits more then whatever it is you are trying to prescribe.

 

[elopez]

You are asking the same question, just in different ways.
God put the sun and moon in place for us to mark days and nights. That does not mean a day was anything more or less without them. The context is consistent with days/nights and mornings/evenings before and after the sun and moon were created, so it is actually fits more then whatever it is you are trying to prescribe.

I'm asking the same question because it was not and has not been answered.