Genesis 1 and the 7 day week

[jereth]

The 7 day week poses major problems for YECism. YECs typically believe that God created the world in 6 days, rested on the 7th, then told Adam about this pattern so that Adam and his descendants would continue to observe a 7 day week in imitation.

However, by the time of the Patriarchs -- a mere 20 generations! (and mind you, according to YECism Adam's son Seth was still alive when Noah's father was born, and the sons of Noah were still alive when Abraham was born) -- every culture and civilisation on Earth had stopped observing the 7 day week save for the Babylonians.

Is this really conceivable?

Theistic evolutionists have a more satisfactory explanation. The 7 day week began to be observed in Babylonia in the 3rd milennium BC, as a result of Babylonian astronomy which knew of 5 planets plus the sun and moon (5 + 2 = 7). Abraham (of Mesopotamian origin) inherited this week, and passed it on to his descendants. Moses adopted this week into the Law, commanding 6 days of work and 1 day of rest. When Genesis 1 was finally written, it was conformed to this established pattern of work and rest to confirm and uphold it.

What do people think of this theory?

 

[chaoschristian]

Is this really conceivable?

All kidding aside, the Babylonian theory is plausible.​

 

[XianSamurai]

The 7 day week poses major problems for YECism. YECs typically believe that God created the world in 6 days, rested on the 7th, then told Adam about this pattern so that Adam and his descendants would continue to observe a 7 day week in imitation.

However, by the time of the Patriarchs -- a mere 20 generations! (and mind you, according to YECism Adam's son Seth was still alive when Noah's father was born, and the sons of Noah were still alive when Abraham was born) -- every culture and civilisation on Earth had stopped observing the 7 day week save for the Babylonians.

Is this really conceivable?

How is it inconceivable that people would stop following God's model in 20 generations? It didn't take very long for Adam & Eve do disobey God and eat the fruit. By the time of Noah, the rest of humanity was living in disobedience. Why insist that this particular rule of God is somehow immune to human corruption?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

How is it inconceivable that people would stop following God's model in 20 generations? It didn't take very long for Adam & Eve do disobey God and eat the fruit. By the time of Noah, the rest of humanity was living in disobedience. Why insist that this particular rule of God is somehow immune to human corruption?

First, there is no evidence from Gen 1-5 that the Sabbath is a creation mandate. Can you show that even Adam worshipped God on the Sabbath?

Second, the REALLY BIG point of Gen 1 is the Sabbath, yet there is no mention of it again until the coming of the Law with Moses. Yet sacrifice is mentioned a couple of time: skins for clothing, Cain and Abel.

If, as YECist content, the Creation Week actually happened in a 6 day period and that God created in this way specifically to create the Sabbath and impress upon mankind it's importance. Then it disappeared really quickly. Look at the sins of the people in Genesis. Any of those failure to keep the Sabbath? Don't you think the very creation of the universe as a motif of 7 days would have more of a ripple effect in Genesis?

In view of this, it is better exegesis to see Creation Week as a literary projection from Moses back into the distant past as an organizing principle. But this principle is for his day not Adam's.

Put yourself in Moses's place for a moment. You are justifying being a Hebrew, you are explaining how you got here. And you are anchoring it into the great promise of God in the Sabbath. But the Sabbath is only important to you, not to the Egyptians, not to any other human group we know about on earth. Only the Mesopotamians had a 7 day week. and they didn't have a pattern of 6 work and 1 rest (rest days might have been 15 and 29). Doesn't this hint at creation as a 7 day period is not from the very beginning of the world?

Look at how the YECist defend the flood.
All these flood stories from various cultures are corruptions of the global Noahic flood. Yet the very same pattern is dismissed when applied to the knowledge of the Sabbath. curious.

 

[shernren]

This very naturally leads into the question of Sabbatarianism - and yet AiG, supposed vanguard of the literal 7-day Creation Week, while claiming that Moses and Jesus citing the Sabbath shows the literalness of that week, won't even take up an official position on the Sabbath. Talk about not putting the money where the mouth is ...

 

[jereth]

This very naturally leads into the question of Sabbatarianism - and yet AiG, supposed vanguard of the literal 7-day Creation Week, while claiming that Moses and Jesus citing the Sabbath shows the literalness of that week, won't even take up an official position on the Sabbath. Talk about not putting the money where the mouth is ...

Yeah, they should advocate vegetarianism too.

 

[jereth]

How is it inconceivable that people would stop following God's model in 20 generations? It didn't take very long for Adam & Eve do disobey God and eat the fruit. By the time of Noah, the rest of humanity was living in disobedience. Why insist that this particular rule of God is somehow immune to human corruption?

It's not a question of disobedience, it's a question of totally abandoning an established cycle of time. Belief in God is irrelevant. Pagan societies have observed the 7-day week for centuries with no reference to the JudeoChristian God. Think of how long the entire western world has observed the 365 day year and Gregorian calendar. Once these things become cultural habits, they stick.

Virtually impossible to imagine how something as basic as a 7-day week could be lost in 20 generations -- especialyl considering the huge overlaps previously mentioned (due to lifespans >900 years).

 

[rmwilliamsll]

It is interesting that Saturday Sabbatarianism, vegetarianism, and YECism all meet in George McCready Price, the grand daddy of modern YECism.

 

[jereth]

It is interesting that Saturday Sabbatarianism, vegetarianism, and YECism all meet in George McCready Price, the grand daddy of modern YECism.

Even more interestnig that the Seventh-day Adventist Church (of which McCready Price was a member) has since moved on from full-blown YECism to a form of "soft" gap theory, or 2-stage creationism, because of the scientific untenability of YECism.

 

[Assyrian]

Also rather interesting is that the SDA grew out of the Millerite movement who had predicted the Lord's return in 1843. They got that from their interpretation of the evenings and mornings in Dan 8:14. Their descendants are still claiming to give us God's timetable from their interpretation of evenings and mornings in Genesis 1. "Evening and morning mean the days have to be literal". Good track record there.

Actually the evening and morning bit is very interesting. In the biblical calendar, a day began in the evening. According to Leviticus from evening to evening shall you keep your Sabbath Lev 23:32. So we have God resting on the seventh day and declaring it holy. We have the Israelites observing the Sabbath because God declared it holy and when the Israelites observed the Sabbath it started in the evening. So lets take it literally and see what happens when we look at Gen 1 in the context of the biblical calendar. Gen 1:5...And there was evening and there was morning, day one. But evening marked the start of the biblical day, day one didn't start until the second half of verse 5! All of the numbered days come after the work of creation is done and everything has been completed by the time the sixth day starts in verse 31. A literal six day creation simply doesn't fit the biblical calendar, even though the biblical calendar was based on the creation in Genesis. I have yet to meet a YEC who can figure this out.

Assyrian

 

[shernren]

I can't resist the urge to be smart-aleck: which YEC is going to point out that placing the start of the day at 12 midnight is a piece of Babylonian astrologous cosmology? The Bible says the day starts at evening, so we should start numbering our hours from what we now call 6pm.

I'm posting this at 3 in the evening, then - rejecting the evil-izing influence of the Babylonians which all started with the first religious description of evolution in the Enuma Elish.

 

[RenHoek]

Why do I do this to myself?

The 7 day week poses major problems for YECism. YECs typically believe that God created the world in 6 days, rested on the 7th, then told Adam about this pattern so that Adam and his descendants would continue to observe a 7 day week in imitation.

Not necessary to pass it down to Adam. Just a foreshadow of the Sabbath to come.

Sooooo…

As long as we are throwing out theories…

Perhaps Adam had no need for a Sabbath law. It would stand to reason that Adam, Eve and their offspring would work only to provide for themselves. This would not necessarily require 7 days to provide for themselves, leaving them plenty of time to spend with God in undistracted rest. Would this not be the major reason for the Sabbath?

As society developed and commerce began, people found that if they work harder, they could have more material wealth. These desires lead to greed and the need for a Law-mandated period of non-work and focus on God.

This fits in a spiritually/physically degenerating Earth theory where original sin lead to the degradation of the universe. When humanity reached a certain point, God “started over” with Noah and promised not to destroy people again. Humanity continued in its tailspin so God introduced the Law to “patch” what was broken. This worked for a time. Again, another point was reached in the downward spiral, and He sent His Son as the last “patch” to humanity/creation. We are now degrading to the point where the Revelation end times scenario will unfold and the recreation of the Earth.

Fire away all!

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I can't resist the urge to be smart-aleck: which YEC is going to point out that placing the start of the day at 12 midnight is a piece of Babylonian astrologous cosmology? The Bible says the day starts at evening, so we should start numbering our hours from what we now call 6pm.

I'm posting this at 3 in the evening, then - rejecting the evil-izing influence of the Babylonians which all started with the first religious description of evolution in the Enuma Elish.

AFAIK
the Babylonians counted days from morning's dawn to mornings, the Romans from midnight to midnight, and the Hebrews from evening's dusk to dusk.

 

[XianSamurai]

First, there is no evidence from Gen 1-5 that the Sabbath is a creation mandate. Can you show that even Adam worshipped God on the Sabbath?

I never said it was a "mandate". The OP starts from the premise that it was, then it was at some point discarded. If it never even was a "mandate" from the start of creation, then it was never discarded (can't "discard" what doesn't exist), and the OP has no argument at all.

Second, the REALLY BIG point of Gen 1 is the Sabbath, yet there is no mention of it again until the coming of the Law with Moses. Yet sacrifice is mentioned a couple of time: skins for clothing, Cain and Abel.

Where do you see it as "the really big point" of Gen.1??

If, as YECist content, the Creation Week actually happened in a 6 day period and that God created in this way specifically to create the Sabbath and impress upon mankind it's importance. Then it disappeared really quickly. Look at the sins of the people in Genesis. Any of those failure to keep the Sabbath? Don't you think the very creation of the universe as a motif of 7 days would have more of a ripple effect in Genesis?

I've never seen the Sabbath put as the centerpiece of creation as you're doing here.

 

[XianSamurai]

It's not a question of disobedience, it's a question of totally abandoning an established cycle of time. Belief in God is irrelevant. Pagan societies have observed the 7-day week for centuries with no reference to the JudeoChristian God. Think of how long the entire western world has observed the 365 day year and Gregorian calendar. Once these things become cultural habits, they stick.

Virtually impossible to imagine how something as basic as a 7-day week could be lost in 20 generations -- especialyl considering the huge overlaps previously mentioned (due to lifespans >900 years).

You're assuming it became "established". If it didn't last long at all, it never became a "cultural habit".

 

[XianSamurai]

But evening marked the start of the biblical day, day one didn't start until the second half of verse 5! All of the numbered days come after the work of creation is done and everything has been completed by the time the sixth day starts in verse 31. A literal six day creation simply doesn't fit the biblical calendar, even though the biblical calendar was based on the creation in Genesis. I have yet to meet a YEC who can figure this out.

What??

You're going to have to decipher that for me. You say the numbered days don't start until after creation is done, yet I read "evening and morning, the x day" all throughout the creation account, while things are being created, not after as you state.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I've never seen the Sabbath put as the centerpiece of creation as you're doing here.

and that is my point. YECism has diverted everyone's attention away from the text of Gen 1. It is ALL about the Sabbath. The entire structure is that of Creation Week which is a justification of work-6 and rest-1.

The really interesting thing is that most YECist are not from Sabbatarian churches so they have literally never encountered the Sabbatarian arguments. For my part, being part of a denomination with Sabbatarian standards and not myself being Sabbatarian has encouraged the study, although all American Christians were Sabbatarian in the 19thC it is one of those doctrines that did not survive the onslaught of industrialization in the late 19th and early 20thC except for a few blue laws.


I never said it was a "mandate".
sorry, creation mandate is a technical term, i forgot that everyone here doesn't share a theological system where this is a common term.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

You're assuming it became "established". If it didn't last long at all, it never became a "cultural habit".

do you have any idea how conservative timekeeping things like calendars are in a society?

Yet the exact same argument made here about a 7 day calendar is what YECist propose about the various flood stories. Commonality because of common descent from an event. There is NO evidence for a 7 day week earlier than the Mesopotamians, it is a very artificial number of days, not readily derivable from the stars like a solar year, or a lunar month. Nor like 5 and 10 deriviable from our own constitution. If God gave the Sabbath to Adam, either in the designation of a 7 day week, or in the designation of the Sabbath. It left absolutely no trace in human society. odd.

Look at some of the other elements of Gen 1-5.
sacrifice--->everywhere in human societies.
sun, moon, stars, planets as timekeepers-->astrology
penalty for murder, justification for marriage and the family, explanation for work as frutile and counterproductive. etc.

The Sabbath is unique in it's presence in Gen 1 and it's subsequent disappearance from both the Bible and from human culture. that is a big hint to me that the Creation Week in Gen 1 is not a description of what happened but a projection of Moses back into the past in order to justify the Sabbath observation.

 

[Assyrian]

What??

You're going to have to decipher that for me. You say the numbered days don't start until after creation is done, yet I read "evening and morning, the x day" all throughout the creation account, while things are being created, not after as you state.

What we have in Genesis is a list of

1st work of creation, followed by
Evening and morning day 1

2nd work of creation
Evening and morning a 2nd day
.
.

6th work of creation
Evening and morning the 6th day

Now because a biblical doesn't start until the evening, the first work of creation was finished before 'day 1' began, that is, before the evening begins in verse 5. The second work of creation was finished by the time 'a 2nd day' began and so on. In fact the entire work of creation was completed before the start of 'the 6th day'.

Literal biblical calendar days do not fit the account in Genesis 1, other than to tell us they weren't calendar days

Assyrian

 

[jereth]

Not necessary to pass it down to Adam. Just a foreshadow of the Sabbath to come.

I've never seen the Sabbath put as the centerpiece of creation as you're doing here.

You're assuming it became "established". If it didn't last long at all, it never became a "cultural habit".

Come now, guys. Wake up. So now you want us to believe that God made a special point of creating the world in 7 days, but that He intended this to be meaningless as far as humanity was concerned until the time of Moses 2700 years later ??!?

So the whole point of creating the world in 7 days was that one nation would observe the sabbath for a mere 1300 years (out of 6000 and counting)?

Like rmwilliamsll, I grew up in a strongly sabbatarian church. The argument was always: God made the world in 7 days to set a pattern for humanity forevermore. This is the only logical conclusion. If you don't believe this, then the whole 7 days of creation becomes quite arbritrary and meaningless, with absolutely no application to human life.

Either (A) God created the world in 7 days, passed this "week" on to Adam, and somehow within a few generations the whole thing vanished worldwide (IMO, totally beyond credulity); or (B) The world was not created in 7 days, the 7-day week was established in 3rd millenium Sumer/Babylon, inherited by the people of Israel via Abraham, and invested with theological significance by Moses.

Just my opinion, of course, but this 7-day-week issue totally undercuts YECism.