My View of Genesis 1&2: Second try

[SNPete]

OK, I posted this view of Genesis 1&2 as it relates to my understanding of Origins in the wrong section of this forum. Creation And Evolution.

http://www.christianforums.com/t5651049-how-i-see-genesis-12.html

I basically ended up with the usual ridicule regarding the things of God from the atheists. All I wanted was input from fellow Christians about this interpretaion of Genesis 1.

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Regarding the first part of Genesis:

I view the first part of the book of Genesis as basically saying that God created everything. It should be noted that Genesis was written for the Hebrew mindset. We (westerners) are of the Greek mindset. By Greek I mean we follow the Greek way of thinking and looking at the world. We want precise answers, facts, figures order of occurrence and dates.

The Hebrew mindset is primarily interested in concepts, with facts and figures being secondary. What mattered to the Hebrews is that God created the Universe. The order and time of the events were not important to the Hebrew mind.

As I see it you run into problems applying Greek thinking to a Hebrew document. That is why the creation story does not make sense to the scientific mind. Of course we always must bear in mind that God is not limited to obey the laws of nature. So, if God wanted to create the universe in six, 24 hour days He could.

For me science gives us the How. Religion gives us the Why

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So, what do you think?

IMO the earth is older than 4004BC since our written history goes back much further-not to mention that the tree rings on Bristle Cone pines show some to be over 10,000 years old. I see problems with the literal rendering of Genesis which gives the date of creation as September 4004BC as I noted above. IMO if something is not provable by scripture or science it is mere conjecture and speculation. I have yet to see any evidence from scripture that would indicate anything but the 4004BC date.

With that said, I contend that the misapplication of Greek thinking to a Hebrew document has caused the strict creationists to come to an incorrect conclusion regarding specie change via adaptation and the age of the earth and universe.

I see no problem with a 5 Billion year old earth or a theistic evolutionary view, which I lean towards.

 

[archaeologist]

I see problems with the literal rendering of Genesis which gives the date of creation as September 4004BC

please do not confuse the literal reading of genesis with bishop ussher's conclusions. the 2 are not the same.

a literal reading of genesis looks to the phrase "in the beginning...' and realizes that exact dates are impossible to determine nor are germane to the biblical account.

{to be consistant--neither is an OEC view of the age of the earth as they do exactly what 4004 b.c. adherents do, attempt to place an exact time on the age. doesn't work that way}

For me science gives us the How. Religion gives us the Why

the problem with this idea is that it assumes that science has all the data which it doesn't. science can only guess at best and should not be looked upon for any concrete answers.

science, like archaeology, deals wit bits and pieces of evidence and must make up for that lack with theory and hypothesis with no way of obtaining verification. the limited amount of evidence science uses is appalling when you look at the whole theoretical constructs they apply to it. Lucy comes to mind as does the 'walking' fish fossil i posted in another thread.

this is a constant with scientist and is one of the evidence one must use to support being discerning when it comes to scientific thought.