As for the weekly cycle.. why did God then tell the Israelites to work six days and then rest every seventh day as a sabbath? And then He gave them the example of His own creating in six days and ceasing that work on the seventh day... God did not expect the Israelites to work a six thousand years or more, then take a break for a thousand years... in other words, He told them the truth about creation again, and did not lie to them. If you deny this, you are calling God a liar, not me.
What
did God say?
Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.
(Deuteronomy 5:12-15 NIV)
Wait a minute here! God didn't give them the example of the creation week! God said that since He brought His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, His people would celebrate the Sabbath in remembrance of that.
"Ahh," you will say, "you are quoting the wrong passage. God
does quote the creation week in Exodus 20." And you would be right.
Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.
(Exodus 20:8-11 NIV)
However, first note that both are retellings of the same incident. Both are prefaced directly and clearly with either "
And God spoke all these words:" (Ex 20:1) or "
The LORD spoke to you face to face out of the fire on the mountain ... And He said:" (Deut 5:4,6). So which
did God speak? Did God command the Israelites to observe the Sabbath because He created the heavens and the earth in six days and rested on the seventh, or did God command the Israelites to observe the Sabbath because He rescued them with an outstretched arm from Egypt? And if He did both, why is the second part missing from Exodus and the first part missing from Deuteronomy? Wasn't accurate recording important? Did Moses run out of paper or ink?
Secondly, note that the six-day creation week is not essential to the command. After all, Deuteronomy gets on fine without it. In Deuteronomy, the Sabbath is a commemoration of God's mighty work in redeeming Israel. So how is the six-day creation week essential to the Exodus command? The message is surely parallel to Deuteronomy: as the Sabbath is a commemoration of God's mighty work in redeeming Israel in Deuteronomy, it is a commemoration of God's mighty work in creating the heavens and the earth in Exodus. The point isn't surely a number-to-number correspondence of days: not that God worked six (and not seven and not five) days and stopped, so you too must work six (and not seven and not five) days and stop. Or else Deuteronomy would have said the same thing.
Indeed, Scripture in other places makes explicit parallel between the creation of the heavens and the earth and the covenant holiness (setting apart) of Israel:
This is what God the LORD says--
he who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it,
who gives breath to its people,
and life to those who walk on it: [creation]
"I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness;
I will take hold of your hand.
I will keep you and will make you
to be a covenant for the people
and a light for the Gentiles, [redemption]
(Isaiah 42:5-6 NIV)
and again
For this is what the LORD says--
he who created the heavens,
he is God;
he who fashioned and made the earth,
he founded it;
he did not create it to be empty,
but formed it to be inhabited--
he says:
"I am the LORD,
and there is no other. [revelation in creation]
I have not spoken in secret,
from somewhere in a land of darkness;
I have not said to Jacob's descendants,
'Seek me in vain.'
I, the LORD, speak the truth;
I declare what is right. [revelation in covenant]
(Isaiah 45:18-19 NIV)
So is it any surprise that the same parallel would be present in parallel accounts of the giving of the same law? And that this parallel - not the silly minutiae of day-counting - is the true purpose and origin of Sabbath observance?
Furthermore, from the Genesis 1-2 narrative it is clear enough that the seventh day doesn't stop. Note that I say "narrative", not "narratives". If you want to treat it as a single narrative, instead of as two different narratives pieced together (which is surely a liberal abomination to you), you have to acknowledge that Genesis 2 goes back to the sixth day - and Genesis 3 happens on the seventh day - and that nowhere, never ever, in Scripture are we told where the seventh day stops, how long the seventh day is, or indeed that we are in anything besides the seventh day. Therefore, if you want to adopt a literalistic reading of Genesis 1-2, you have to concede that the seventh day covers all of human history as recorded in the Bible. Indeed, in Hebrews 4 we are told that we can enter His rest, and if that passage is applicable to us today, this means that God is still resting today: the author of Hebrews even explicitly calls it a "Sabbath" (4:9).
But that is absurd: was God commanding the Israelites, in Exodus 20, that they should work six days and then rest six thousand years? Surely not. For God has rested and finished His creation: indeed, how could God call it very good if it was not complete and He had to take up the shovels and spades again on day 8? And yet that is the pattern God is telling us to fulfill, not the pattern of working six days and then not working for the rest of a lifetime.
(If you want Scripture to prove that God is working today, how about:
So, because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath, the Jews persecuted him. Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working." For this reason the Jews tried all the harder to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. (John 5:16-18 NIV, emphasis added) But oh no! Jesus Himself is saying that not only is God working today, God has
never rested! Have fun.)
So your insistence that the Ten Commandments necessitates a YEC view falls flat. Firstly, it completely ignores the fact that there are two quite different versions of the Ten Commandments, and in one of them the Sabbath gets along perfectly fine without a single mention of creation. Secondly, it ignores the fact that the seventh day is very different from the first six, and therefore an exact correspondence would require the Israelites to observe Sabbath for the rest of their lives, not just on one day before resuming work for the next week.
And before you call me an unbiblical liberal (just because I have disagreed with you, the biblical True Christian and defender of all things good, sweet and savory), let me remind you that in this thread and in reaching my conclusions
I have not quoted a single scientific fact. In fact, I have only quoted Scripture; furthermore, I have explicitly assumed that the world is 6,000 years old in reaching my conclusions (otherwise, why would I say that the seventh day is 6,000 years old?), and I have not relied on a single chronological fact external to the Bible to do this. What am I trying to prove here? I am showing you that the Bible itself does not allow your view. I am showing you that even when I try my very best to take your view, it falls apart from the inside, like an unstable house of cards that doesn't even need an external gust to collapse.
And note that I have not condemned the Bible. Indeed I have
quoted the Bible, which means that I have had to assume beforehand that it is authoritative, to condemn
your views. Believe it or not, not everybody who disagrees with you is a Bible-burning heretic!