Light before the Sun

Keep in mind the first creation account is written in a poetic form. A common element of Hebrew poetry is parallelism. With this in mind, if you look at the order of creation, the first three days are actually paralleled with the second three days: On the first day, night is seperated from day and on the fourth day night receives the moon and day receives the sun. Likewise, the second day is echoed by the fifth: the sea-water and rain waters of day two get appropriate inhabitantson the fifth day, sea-life for the sea waters and rain-life, the birds, for the rain waters. Similarly, vegetable-life for land in day three gets its counterpart in day six -- "crawling things and wild beasts". This first creation story is not meant to tell the actual scientific order that God created the world, it is a poetic account that uses Hebrew parallel structure to tell a tale about creation. Notice in the second creation account of Genesis 2 that the events happen out of sequence from the first account -- for example, animals do not enter the picture until after humans in the later account.

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Well dont tell that account to all Jews rabbis because most of them will just shrug and say you don't know what youa re talking about. There is a sense of singsongness to Genesis 1 but it is nto true poetic form as the psalms are. And it is meant to tell how God created things for all beleived it and even Jesus referred back to creation as true. So you have to say Jesus was either an ignorant God-man or withholding the truth of creation from people.

As for Genesis two it is not designed to replicate Genesis 1 it is a filling inthe blanks and adding new material to the account.

nolidad said:

[Clement]was converted by Peter and discipled by Peter. But Peter did not carry around an OT with him.

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Yes, he did. In his head.

But I don't doubt that Clement had access to OT writings as well. Maybe not the whole OT. In his day the OT canon was not even fully established yet. But he would be familiar with the Septuagint or significant portions of it as churches regularly used it in their worship.

In his time the Septuagint was the scripture for Greek-speaking churches.

Well dont tell that account to all Jews rabbis because most of them will just shrug and say you don't know what youa re talking about.

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What are you basing this on?

The first chapter of Genesis was even recorded in a poetic form, rather than traditional prose, like the second chapter of Genesis.

Also, this view is not uncommon among Jews and scholars of Hebrew.

There is a sense of singsongness to Genesis 1 but it is nto true poetic form as the psalms are.

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There is poetry scattered all throughout the Bible, both new and Old Testament. Just because it is only one chapter in a poetic form does not negate the fact that it is, indeed a poem.

And it is meant to tell how God created things for all beleived it and even Jesus referred back to creation as true. So you have to say Jesus was either an ignorant God-man or withholding the truth of creation from people.

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Interesting, I must have missed the part of the Bible when Jesus says, "Behold, I say unto you, creation, as described in Genesis is meant to be taken literally. Word for word."

In the time of the writing of Genesis, it was common to tell stories to get points or messages across. I believe that the creation account is mythopoetic in nature -- especially in light of the evidence for evolution.

Jesus certainly is not lying when he refers back to some of the mythical passages in the Bible. They are stories and as such they can be used to illustrate valuable lessons.

The bible commonly uses such methods to get points across. For example, Matthew cites the geneology of Joseph to show that Jesus has royal blood in him, because it is his intent to paint a picture of Jesus as King of the Jews. However, Jesus actually did not have any of Joseph's blood in him -- it was a virgin birth. Does that make him any less royal? No. It just means the author wanted to get a point across.

The same thing happens in Genesis. The author wants to explain that God was behind the creation process -- whether it took 6 days and was created with the appearence of evolution, or it took millions of years and actually evolved.

As for Genesis two it is not designed to replicate Genesis 1 it is a filling inthe blanks and adding new material to the account.

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Then why are the events in the second chapter out of sequence from the first?

Also, it is a commonly held belief that the first and second chapters of Genesis are not only two different "creation" accounts, but that they are written by two different authors -- a priestly author and a common author. This means that there are different stories with different voices and different themes that need to be sorted out before we can really understand what is happening contextually.

The Bible is a rich book full of history and life. It is a literary masterpiece. To say that Genesis 1 can only mean one specific thing is extremely limiting not only of the book itself, but perhaps even God's intended use of the book.

philN said:

Also, it is a commonly held belief that the first and second chapters of Genesis are not only two different "creation" accounts, but that they are written by two different authors -- a priestly author and a common author. This means that there are different stories with different voices and different themes that need to be sorted out before we can really understand what is happening contextually.

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It is also commonly held that the date of composition of the first (priestly) story is much later than that of the second (common) story.

So if any "filling in" was done, it is the first story filling in gaps in the second.

But then one still has the problem that the sequence is different.