Hi everyone,
(since I can't answer posts in the section where non-believers are allowed to post)...
a little challenge to everyone believing in the so-called theistic evolution, which I believe is untrue.
Ok?
So if day 1 to day 6 is said to have lasted many millions of years each, how long is day 7 - which is God's rest - following this line of thought?
On one occasion, I've heard a reply in the sense that it simply lasted shorter than the other days... is this how you think?
So why would God's word the Bible choose "day" for a long time span at the beginning of chapter and just a few verses later, "day" describes a rather short period of time? And who is supposed to understand God jumping from one meaning to another in the same chapter?
Someone else said he believed that God still is resting as of today. However, he's worked hard in the mean time initiating the flood, for instance.
I'm curious to learn what you think on this one.
Regards,
Thomas
Since there is no indication in the Jewish myth that is Genesis 1 that *yom* means anything but “day (of 24 hours)”, I take the Hebrew word as referring to days of 24 hours: not to unspecified epochs, not to geological ages, not to periods of unknown length in a re-creation, but to 24-hour days making up a week of 7 days. In other words, as referring to normal familiar human times and days. And, just as though God were imagined it to be a human workman, God is said to rest on the seventh day from his labour which he had done/made, just as a human workman might do.
The story is comparable, not to the modern sciences, but to the creation myths of the cultures which were the neighbours, and often the enemies, of Israel and Judah.
The Jewish creation myth, or rather myths, should be compared, not with the information provided by modern science, but with the myths and other theological ideas of its neighbours. The Jews, or some of them at least, were familiar with the creation myths of their neighbours; but, for obvious reasons, they knew absolutely nothing about the scientific ideas of the modern era. so it makes no sense, to compare Darwinian biology with the creation myth in Genesis one; they are not comparable. To compare them is as sensible as to compare a modern ICBM missile with an 18th-century musket; the two cultures are not contemporary, and the earlier culture had no way of knowing of the later culture, so the comparison is flawed from the outset, and consequently, meaningless.
The authors of the text
Why would a Jewish author in the eighth century BC (or so) have meant anything other than a 24-hour day ? What reason is there to suppose that the Old Testament authors knew anything of, or were even concerned with, modern geology, geography, palaeontology, speciation, hydrodynamics, or any other subject that so much exercises so many modern Bible-reading Christians ?
I think that the current fuss and palaver about the meaning of Genesis 1 has much less to do with the text, than with how different groups of people think the text should be interpreted. As to whether peoples’ expectations of how it should be interpreted are justified, that is another kettle of fish.
