A Literal Reading: Genesis 1

[cubinity]

TBH, I am still trying to figure out your OP. In one breath you are saying that yom must be a literal day but on another you are claiming that it is not. You use the Spirit of God as moving over the waters as part of your hypothesis that the reference from Earth would not be fixed but the Spirit was moving over the waters prior to God creating "light" and God separating the light between night and day (vs. 4 and 5). The perspective is God's perspective not man's perspective since nothing existed yet other than the void Earth.

I never claim it wasn't a literal day. If anything, I challenge the misconception that a literal day is 24 hrs, as an observer in motion experiences a day that is not 24hrs, and yet it is still a day.

In one of your posts, you argue that the Sabbath only makes sense if we discard the perceived movement of the sun and embrace a 24hrs day, right? (Please correct me if I've misunderstood you). But does that practically make sense? If a person who observes the Sabbath has been staying in London for several weeks, and then travels to California the day before the Sabbath, does he begin to recognize the Sabbath eight hours earlier, regardless of the position of the sun, or does he wait the extra eight hours for the sun and the local perception of "day" to catch up? In my experience, people wait because literal "days" are not about the amount of time that is passing, but about the transitions of light (exactly as they are described in the text, read literally).

 

[Sum1sGruj]

I never claim it wasn't a literal day. If anything, I challenge the misconception that a literal day is 24 hrs, as an observer in motion experiences a day that is not 24hrs, and yet it is still a day.

In one of your posts, you argue that the Sabbath only makes sense if we discard the perceived movement of the sun and embrace a 24hrs day, right? (Please correct me if I've misunderstood you). But does that practically make sense? If a person who observes the Sabbath has been staying in London for several weeks, and then travels to California the day before the Sabbath, does he begin to recognize the Sabbath eight hours earlier, regardless of the position of the sun, or does he wait the extra eight hours for the sun and the local perception of "day" to catch up? In my experience, people wait because literal "days" are not about the amount of time that is passing, but about the transitions of light (exactly as they are described in the text, read literally).

But you see, all this is obsolete, because the days were consistent before and after the sun and moon were made in Genesis 1.
A good analogy would be a clock maker. Make a clock, and make it's clockwork according to how you see fit. God saw a day as a certain amount of time, and He made the sun for us to mark it.

Therefore, the Sabbath is indicated by the sun, and creationists are still correct. But the sun does not have to be there, it can simply just be a clock.



What evolutionists seem to get caught up on is their own subjective logic where nothing else makes sense outside of it. This is closely marked by the abysses of theory in evolution that conveniently go ignored.

And when you have your evo-hat on, everything becomes about the workings of a godless universe whether one realizes it or not. Believing in a god essentially means jack in lieu of it.

 

[Assyrian]

Copernican science can not explain a miracle. Ross can not reconcile them with scripture.

Science cannot explain a miracle, but it can certainly tell us what didn't happen. The sun did not stop moving when Joshua commanded it to, because the sun wasn't moving, nor did it hurry along to where it sets when the miracle was over. The sun doesn't move, not in the solar system anyway, it is the earth that orbits around it, and the length of a day comes from the earth rotating. But Joshua thought it was the sun moving across the sky that determined the length of the day, and he prayed accordingly. The whole account of the miracle was written from the same world view, by a writer who also though the sun actually stopped moving. And for fifteen hundred years the church interpreted the account literally, the sun really was moving in the sky and it stopped when Joshua commanded it. It was only with Copernicus and the growing scientific evidence supporting him, that the church realised the literal interpretation was wrong and they needed new ways to interpret the passage. Creationists follow these new interpretations too, interpretations that have found ways to read scripture know science has shown us the old literal interpetation is simply wrong. Like Hugh Ross does with the Age Age interpretation.

 

[cubinity]

But you see, all this is obsolete, because the days were consistent before and after the sun and moon were made in Genesis 1.

The were consistently what? 24 hours? Or, as the text explains, containing one evening and one morning, which are defined by the text as transitions between the periods of light and darkness.

I agree with you that they were consistent, but what they were consistent regarding seems to be in dispute.

A good analogy would be a clock maker. Make a clock, and make it's clockwork according to how you see fit. God saw a day as a certain amount of time, and He made the sun for us to mark it.

Where in the text do you get that "God saw a day as a certain amount of time?"

This seems to me to be a belief you project onto the text, making you unable to read it literally as it is written. Show me where the text says this, and I will happily concede the point.

Therefore, the Sabbath is indicated by the sun, and creationists are still correct. But the sun does not have to be there, it can simply just be a clock.

Well, according to the traveler's clock (the one from London to California), assuming he is not adjusting his clock to local time in order to honor the insistence that a "day" is and must be no longer or shorter than 24 hours, his Sabbath starts eight hours before the sun indicates it ought to. What do you say of his predicament? Does he refute your claim about the consistent length of a "day" and adjust his clock, or does he refute your claim about the sun indicating the Sabbath and begin the Sabbath when his clock tells him it is time to do so?

 

[Hentenza]

I never claim it wasn't a literal day. If anything, I challenge the misconception that a literal day is 24 hrs, as an observer in motion experiences a day that is not 24hrs, and yet it is still a day.

I happen to agree with you. A day is not exactly 24 hours but it is a day-night cycle or, as Gen. 1 puts it, an evening to morning cycle.

In one of your posts, you argue that the Sabbath only makes sense if we discard the perceived movement of the sun and embrace a 24hrs day, right? (Please correct me if I've misunderstood you).

No, that is not my argument. I'll explain below.

But does that practically make sense? If a person who observes the Sabbath has been staying in London for several weeks, and then travels to California the day before the Sabbath, does he begin to recognize the Sabbath eight hours earlier, regardless of the position of the sun, or does he wait the extra eight hours for the sun and the local perception of "day" to catch up? In my experience, people wait because literal "days" are not about the amount of time that is passing, but about the transitions of light (exactly as they are described in the text, read literally).

God rested on the seventh day and sanctified it (Gen.2:3). There was only 2 people in the Earth then which would be the only two from a human perspective. They lived in the garden which marks the location of the evening to morning day distinction. There as no California, London, etc. The account is told from that perspective.

My argument regarding the Sabbath comes from Exodus 20:8-11 and 31:17. Exodus 20:11 reads '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". The word "for" ( כִּ֣י"ki"also has the sense of "because" or "when") at the beginning of the verse is a causal explanation showing that the creation week is the basis for the "work" week. In these verses it is explicit that the creation days were the same as those for the human work week. There is no point even trying to understand the bible if a word in the same passage and the same grammatical context can switch meanings without any hint in the text itself. The Sabbath day in Exodus is the same Sabbath day in Genesis. It is not thousands or millions of years long but an evening to morning "day".

 

[Hentenza]

Science cannot explain a miracle, but it can certainly tell us what didn't happen.

No it can not simply because science works from a framework of naturalism making it a priori to the exclusion of anything else. God caused events are beyond what science recognizes.

The sun did not stop moving when Joshua commanded it to, because the sun wasn't moving, nor did it hurry along to where it sets when the miracle was over. The sun doesn't move, not in the solar system anyway, it is the earth that orbits around it, and the length of a day comes from the earth rotating. But Joshua thought it was the sun moving across the sky that determined the length of the day, and he prayed accordingly. The whole account of the miracle was written from the same world view, by a writer who also though the sun actually stopped moving. And for fifteen hundred years the church interpreted the account literally, the sun really was moving in the sky and it stopped when Joshua commanded it. It was only with Copernicus and the growing scientific evidence supporting him, that the church realised the literal interpretation was wrong and they needed new ways to interpret the passage. Creationists follow these new interpretations too, interpretations that have found ways to read scripture know science has shown us the old literal interpetation is simply wrong. Like Hugh Ross does with the Age Age interpretation.

What does this have anything to do with Genesis 1 and the creation week?

 

[Jase]

Gen 1, read literally, is clear that God put forth light prior to creating the luminaries. We see the same light in the New Jerusalem at the end of Rev. Both are bookends.

But then, you probably discard both books anyway.

The entire Bible read literally also describes the earth as flat, geocentric, and has a solid dome on top of it with windows. And yet you conveniently ignore or claim metaphor for all of those references. Why the double standard?

I consider Revelation highly suspect. I believe it refers to the Roman Empire, not some futuristic apocalypse. I take the mainstream Jewish view on Genesis.

 

[Hentenza]

The entire Bible read literally also describes the earth as flat, geocentric, and has a solid dome on top of it with windows. And yet you conveniently ignore or claim metaphor for all of those references. Why the double standard?

No it does not. There is no teaching of a flat or geocentric Earth in the bible and it is a red herring.

I consider Revelation highly suspect. I believe it refers to the Roman Empire, not some futuristic apocalypse. I take the mainstream Jewish view on Genesis.

I'm not surprised and validates my comment.

 

[cubinity]

I happen to agree with you. A day is not exactly 24 hours but it is a day-night cycle or, as Gen. 1 puts it, an evening to morning cycle.

God rested on the seventh day and sanctified it (Gen.2:3). There was only 2 people in the Earth then which would be the only two from a human perspective. They lived in the garden which marks the location of the evening to morning day distinction. There as no California, London, etc. The account is told from that perspective.

My argument regarding the Sabbath comes from Exodus 20:8-11 and 31:17. Exodus 20:11 reads '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". The word "for" ( כִּ֣י"ki"also has the sense of "because" or "when") at the beginning of the verse is a causal explanation showing that the creation week is the basis for the "work" week. In these verses it is explicit that the creation days were the same as those for the human work week. There is no point even trying to understand the bible if a word in the same passage and the same grammatical context can switch meanings without any hint in the text itself. The Sabbath day in Exodus is the same Sabbath day in Genesis. It is not thousands or millions of years long but an evening to morning "day".

The Genesis account was not written from Adam and Eve's perspective, and they are definitely not the focal point of Genesis 1. Now, I won't try to convince you that God is the focal point of Genesis 1. I feel that is obvious from the text, and if you don't agree, that will just have to be a point of disagreement.

While I acknowledge that there was no London or California at the time of creation, I would contend that the geographical coordinates where London and California are now were actual locations at the time, thus their spacial differences on the globe are still relevant to the discussion, in so far as we use them as geographical points of reference on our rotating globe.

So, since we agree that the text does identify a "day" as containing one evening and one morning (and not a fixed duration of time, such as 24 hrs), and if we can agree that an entity in motion (as the Spirit was) can push back the perceived occurrence of the next transition between light and dark by traveling west, then it is not only practical, but quite literal to the description of the text, that a single day defined by one evening and one morning has an indeterminable duration.

Therefore, the length of time recorded in Genesis 1 is also indeterminable, as it is recorded as a series of indeterminably long days.

As far as the Sabbath goes, this understanding of the text does not conflict with what you have described. Knowing the physics, the Spirit was in total control of the length of his perceived day. All he had to do to give himself more time in one day was to go west, and to fast-forward or finish that day, he could go east. When he sanctified the seventh day, he identified that day as a day containing one evening and one morning. So, when he advises his followers to keep that occasion holy, there is no problem. A traveler flying east has a significantly shorter Sabbath than a traveler flying west. And, a stationary observer has a consistently long Sabbath over the course of his stay (consistent with the local perception of the author's record what God described to him). This is how it happens in the real world today, and it seems to be how it happens in the description recorded in the text.

As far as your argument that a word switches meaning without warning... I don't see that as happening, and I am not arguing that a word carries a different meaning in various places in the text, so I don't know what to tell you on that point.

 

[Jase]

Science cannot explain a miracle, but it can certainly tell us what didn't happen. The sun did not stop moving when Joshua commanded it to, because the sun wasn't moving, nor did it hurry along to where it sets when the miracle was over. The sun doesn't move, not in the solar system anyway, it is the earth that orbits around it, and the length of a day comes from the earth rotating. But Joshua thought it was the sun moving across the sky that determined the length of the day, and he prayed accordingly. The whole account of the miracle was written from the same world view, by a writer who also though the sun actually stopped moving. And for fifteen hundred years the church interpreted the account literally, the sun really was moving in the sky and it stopped when Joshua commanded it. It was only with Copernicus and the growing scientific evidence supporting him, that the church realised the literal interpretation was wrong and they needed new ways to interpret the passage. Creationists follow these new interpretations too, interpretations that have found ways to read scripture know science has shown us the old literal interpetation is simply wrong. Like Hugh Ross does with the Age Age interpretation.

This is something that always baffles me. The Biblical authors, laymen, and the church believed for thousands of years that the Sun itself literally moved across the sky. Science proved that view wrong and forced the Church to change its views.

And yet, if we look at any other literal interpretation of Genesis that conflicts with reality, once again we have people and the churches claiming science is wrong, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that dinosaurs did walk with man, that there was a global flood. All disproven by science just like the movement of the sun. And yet they have no problem ignoring the thousands of years of Church/Biblical error regarding the sun's movements, while still holding onto the other absurdities.

It's hypocrisy and a double standard like no other. I do not get the intellectual disconnect between the 2 positions.

 

[cubinity]

This is something that always baffles me. The Biblical authors, laymen, and the church believed for thousands of years that the Sun itself literally moved across the sky. Science proved that view wrong and forced the Church to change its views.

And yet, if we look at any other literal interpretation of Genesis that conflicts with reality, once again we have people and the churches claiming science is wrong, that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, that dinosaurs did walk with man, that there was a global flood. All disproven by science just like the movement of the sun. And yet they have no problem ignoring the thousands of years of Church/Biblical error regarding the sun's movements, while still holding onto the other absurdities.

It's hypocrisy and a double standard like no other. I do not get the intellectual disconnect between the 2 positions.

I appreciate your position. However, I would like to encourage you to track with the conversation specific to the thread, and perhaps you will learn something more about this disconnect. This is not a conversation about the sun moving at all, nor about 6,000 years, nor about dinosaurs walking with men, nor about floods. It is about reading a specific text literally and seeing what it tells us about the period on record.

 

[Jase]

No it does not. There is no teaching of a flat or geocentric Earth in the bible and it is a red herring.

It does, but whatever. Conservatives cannot be convinced by evidence.

 

[Jase]

I appreciate your position. However, I would like to encourage you to track with the conversation specific to the thread, and perhaps you will learn something more about this disconnect. This is not a conversation about the sun moving at all, nor about 6,000 years, nor about dinosaurs walking with men, nor about floods. It is about reading a specific text literally and seeing what it tells us about the period on record.

Yes, but a literal reading does support a flat, geocentric view which was the view held by the cultures of that time period.

 

[cubinity]

Yes, but a literal reading does support a flat, geocentric view which was the view held by the cultures of that time period.

Okay, so stick with that and keep pushing that point. It doesn't help your argument to make comments about peripheral stuff that concerns you about the church as a whole or unrelated historical debates. If you are adding comments about all that other stuff because you have nothing else to add to your argument for a flat-earth perception, then let the point you made be enough and hang tight until you have more to say on that. Know what I mean?

 

[Hentenza]

The Genesis account was not written from Adam and Eve's perspective, and they are definitely not the focal point of Genesis 1. Now, I won't try to convince you that God is the focal point of Genesis 1. I feel that is obvious from the text, and if you don't agree, that will just have to be a point of disagreement.

Brother you are misunderstanding my argument. The perspective that I am talking about is the evening-day perspective from Earth not that the account was from Adam and Eve's perspective. Your argument seems to say that because there are different time zones then that muddles the night-day relationship. It doesn't.

While I acknowledge that there was no London or California at the time of creation, I would contend that the geographical coordinates where London and California are now were actual locations at the time, thus their spacial differences on the globe are still relevant to the discussion, in so far as we use them as geographical points of reference on our rotating globe.

The spacial differences between one side of the world and the other is inconsequential. First God called it evening to morning prior to the creation of Adam and Eve and second, He still calls it evening to morning after the creation of Adam and Eve. From God's perspective it merely speaks to a rotating Earth and from Adam and Eve's perspective the 'day' was indeed an evening to morning day.

So, since we agree that the text does identify a "day" as containing one evening and one morning (and not a fixed duration of time, such as 24 hrs), and if we can agree that an entity in motion (as the Spirit was) can push back the perceived occurrence of the next transition between light and dark by traveling west, then it is not only practical, but quite literal to the description of the text, that a single day defined by one evening and one morning has an indeterminable duration.

There is nothing in the text that would require such a constraint. Whether a day is 23 hours and 56 minutes or exactly 24 hours does not in any way suggest anything beyond the time that it takes the Earth to rotate. The text bounds the time to an evening-morning cycle which can not include thousands or millions of years.

Therefore, the length of time recorded in Genesis 1 is also indeterminable, as it is recorded as a series of indeterminably long days.

That would not be supported by the text.

As far as the Sabbath goes, this understanding of the text does not conflict with what you have described. Knowing the physics, the Spirit was in total control of the length of his perceived day. All he had to do to give himself more time in one day was to go west, and to fast-forward or finish that day, he could go east. When he sanctified the seventh day, he identified that day as a day containing one evening and one morning. So, when he advises his followers to keep that occasion holy, there is no problem. A traveler flying east has a significantly shorter Sabbath than a traveler flying west. And, a stationary observer has a consistently long Sabbath over the course of his stay (consistent with the local perception of the author's record what God described to him). This is how it happens in the real world today, and it seems to be how it happens in the description recorded in the text.

The Spirit did not set the evening-morning cycle. The Father did. There is nothing in the text to indicate that the Spirit affected "yom" in any way.

As far as your argument that a word switches meaning without warning... I don't see that as happening, and I am not arguing that a word carries a different meaning in various places in the text, so I don't know what to tell you on that point.

The word would have to change meanings to support something other that an evening-morning cycle. The command is for "one" evening-morning cycle not for anything beyond that.

 

[Hentenza]

It does, but whatever. Conservatives cannot be convinced by evidence.

 

[cubinity]

Brother you are misunderstanding my argument. The perspective that I am talking about is the evening-day perspective from Earth not that the account was from Adam and Eve's perspective. Your argument seems to say that because there are different time zones then that muddles the night-day relationship. It doesn't.



The spacial differences between one side of the world and the other is inconsequential. First God called it evening to morning prior to the creation of Adam and Eve and second, He still calls it evening to morning after the creation of Adam and Eve. From God's perspective it merely speaks to a rotating Earth and from Adam and Eve's perspective the 'day' was indeed an evening to morning day.



There is nothing in the text that would require such a constraint. Whether a day is 23 hours and 56 minutes or exactly 24 hours does not in any way suggest anything beyond the time that it takes the Earth to rotate. The text bounds the time to an evening-morning cycle which can not include thousands or millions of years.




That would not be supported by the text.



The Spirit did not set the evening-morning cycle. The Father did. There is nothing in the text to indicate that the Spirit affected "yom" in any way.



The word would have to change meanings to support something other that an evening-morning cycle. The command is for "one" evening-morning cycle not for anything beyond that.

Okay, so let's just clarify something that came up earlier. Maybe it will help me understand where we both may be in agreement.

~ A faithful observer of the Sabbath (he observes it on Saturday, for the sake of this example) is looking forward to the beginning of the Sabbath on Friday at sunset (734pm, local time).

He catches a flight west to a destination 8 timezones away. He waits until sunset (734pm, local time) to begin observing the Sabbath.

Did he begin the Sabbath on time, or eight hours late?

If we say that he began it on time, then we therefore acknowledge that his "day," which contained one evening and one morning, last approximately 32 hours (not simply the few minute difference described in your post). ~

When does the Sabbath begin? Is that beginning the same for someone in a dramatically different time zone? If not, then I believe it is absolutely appropriate to consider the phenomenon behind timezones absolutely relevant in how we understand time and thus how we literally interpret this text.

(I say the phenomenon behind timezones intentionally because it is physical phenomenon we are really discussing, not blocks of time historically attributed to bordered locations. In other words, even I think it is absurd that there can be a one hour difference between me and my neighbor just because our addressed fall in different time zones, even though we can both watch the same sunset at the same time)

 

[Hentenza]

Okay, so let's just clarify something that came up earlier. Maybe it will help me understand where we both may be in agreement.

~ A faithful observer of the Sabbath (he observes it on Saturday, for the sake of this example) is looking forward to the beginning of the Sabbath on Friday at sunset (734pm, local time).

He catches a flight west to a destination 8 timezones away. He waits until sunset (734pm, local time) to begin observing the Sabbath.

Did he begin the Sabbath on time, or eight hours late?

He started it on time. The Sabbath command relates to sunset not a particular time.

If we say that he began it on time, then we therefore acknowledge that his "day," which contained one evening and one morning, last approximately 32 hours (not simply the few minute difference described in your post). ~

When does the Sabbath begin? Is that beginning the same for someone in a dramatically different time zone? If not, then I believe it is absolutely appropriate to consider the phenomenon behind timezones absolutely relevant in how we understand time and thus how we literally interpret this text.

Not really. He still observes the Sabbath from sunset to sunset (one evening-morning cycle). If he observes the Sabbath then he can not travel during the Sabbath so he did not start his observance in one time zone and stopped in another.

(I say the phenomenon behind timezones intentionally because it is physical phenomenon we are really discussing, not blocks of time historically attributed to bordered locations. In other words, even I think it is absurd that there can be a one hour difference between me and my neighbor just because our addressed fall in different time zones, even though we can both watch the same sunset at the same time)

I understood that.

 

[cubinity]

If we say that he began it on time, then we therefore acknowledge that his "day," which contained one evening and one morning, last approximately 32 hours (not simply the few minute difference described in your post). ~

When does the Sabbath begin? Is that beginning the same for someone in a dramatically different time zone? If not, then I believe it is absolutely appropriate to consider the phenomenon behind timezones absolutely relevant in how we understand time and thus how we literally interpret this text.

Not really. He still observes the Sabbath from sunset to sunset (one evening-morning cycle). If he observes the Sabbath then he can not travel during the Sabbath so he did not start his observance in one time zone and stopped in another.

Look again at my example and following questions...

The beginning of the Sabbath has nothing to do with whether or not the person is traveling on the Sabbath. It starts at different times for different people because of their differing locations, not because they are traveling. It would have started for our observer eight hours earlier if he had not traveled the day before.

In my example, the person travels the day before the Sabbath, and the day that we are identifying as approximately 32 hrs long is not the Sabbath day, but the day preceding the Sabbath (Friday, in this example).

Therefore, we may conclude since the Spirit is resting on the seventh day (not traveling?), that the seventh day is likely our standard ~24 hour day. However, that says nothing about the duration of the previous six, when free motion is allowed, just as observing the Sabbath says nothing about the length of the day immediately preceding it for the observer.

 

[Assyrian]

No it can not simply because science works from a framework of naturalism making it a priori to the exclusion of anything else. God caused events are beyond what science recognizes.

And yet naturalist Copernican astronomy showed the church that their literal understanding of the Joshua miracle was wrong.

What does this have anything to do with Genesis 1 and the creation week?

It tells us science can challenge our interpretation of the bible, that literal interpretations can be wrong and when they are we need to find better interpretations. Science cannot say God is unable to create or make the day longer, it can say the universe people think was created 6000 years ago has been around vastly longer, and the sun people thought stopped moving at Joshua's command wasn't moving. These are areas within science's field of study, telling us about the material world. Science cannot say God didn't do a miracle, it can show us it couldn't have happened the way some interpretations think it did.