The Sabbath commandment directly refutes Evolution's teaching on origins

[BobRyan]

The Sabbath commandment starts with

"Remember the Sabbath day... Ex 20:8
"Six days you shall labor... the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD (YHWH)
"for in SIX days the LORD made... and rested the seventh day therefore the LORD bless the Sabbath day AND sanctified it (made it holy)" Ex 20:11

That Ex 20:11 statement is pointing directly at Gen 2:1-3
Gen 2:2 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Some will say "that is fine - I choose to ignore both the Sabbath and the Creation facts in Gen 1 and 2". Well they have free will and can choose to ignore whatever they wish.

But this thread is for those who choose to pay attention to the details in the text.. It does not support evolution, it does not teach evolution, it does not even make room for it. And all scholars agree that "Moses was not a Darwinist trying to teach darwinism's doctrine on origins to the newly freed slaves at Sinai".

 

[BobRyan]

James Barr makes a similar statement about the Genesis account - saying that the text is written as a historic account and intended to be fully accepted by those readers at Sinai. Accepted at face value. He says this as one who does not believe what the text is saying about knows enough to Hebrew and OT studies to admit to what it says at what he calls "world class universities".

There was no creative spin doctoring going on at Sinai in the case of those readers/hearers. They were not trying to squeeze evolutionism's doctrines on origins out of the text -- or even to make room for them.

 

[BobRyan]

So then those who were keeping the Sabbath in the NT as seen in Acts 13 and in Acts 17 and in Acts 18:4 "every Sabbath" - had no basis for a task of deconstructing Genesis and reconstructing it into darwinism.

 

[public hermit]

The Sabbath commandment starts with

"Remember the Sabbath day... Ex 20:8
"Six days you shall labor... the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD (YHWH)
"for in SIX days the LORD made... and rested the seventh day therefore the LORD bless the Sabbath day AND sanctified it (made it holy)" Ex 20:11

That Ex 20:11 statement is pointing directly at Gen 2:1-3
Gen 2:2 Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

Some will say "that is fine - I choose to ignore both the Sabbath and the Creation facts in Gen 1 and 2". Well they have free will and can choose to ignore whatever they wish.

But this thread is for those who choose to pay attention to the details in the text.. It does not support evolution, it does not teach evolution, it does not even make room for it. And all scholars agree that "Moses was not a Darwinist trying to teach darwinism's doctrine on origins to the newly freed slaves at Sinai".

I'm curious, do you think God works really hard and then needs a rest?

 

[BobRyan]

I'm curious, do you think God works really hard and then needs a rest?

The text does not say "and then God - being fully exhausted and unable to take one more step or speak one more word - fell into a coma for a day".

I think we would both agree that that is not in the text. IT does not say "And God needed a rest"

Creation week is 7 days... not six days.

The 7th day was God creating/making the Sabbath day a holy day for mankind to observe.

 

[public hermit]

The text does not say "and then God - being fully exhausted and unable to take one more step or speak one more word - fell into a coma for a day".

I think we would both agree that that is not the text.

Okay, we agree; it's figurative. God did not take a rest from working. God is still working today, perhaps? If you can allow for that statement to be figurative, then don't you wonder how you can pit it against a theory based on evidence? I don't see the Genesis account and evolution to be comparable, much less in competition.

That being said, I do recognize that you want to establish Sabbath law. I think you can argue for that without confusing the import of Genesis with evolution. What I see are early Jewish Christians observing the Sabbath as well as meeting on the Lord's day. Admittedly, Gentiles quickly abandoned Sabbath observance for observing the Lord's Day. That's an interesting point to debate, but it has nothing to do with evolution, I don't think..

 

[BobRyan]

Okay, we agree; it's figurative.

No, we agree it does not say "God needed a rest".

It also does not say "God did not rest - but pretend like He did".

Gen 2
Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The text specifically and literally points to the work of creation as that which He rested from.

God is still working today, perhaps?

Ex 20 makes it clear that the period of rest is one day.

If you want to say "well ok maybe for planet Earth - but on some other planet He did something" I will give that one to you since I don't know what He did at some other location in the Universe. But the text is clear that God was not making something else on Earth on day 8.

If you can allow for that statement to be figurative, then don't you wonder how you can pit it against a theory based on evidence?

Well first of all I don't see a need to make it figurative since nothing in the text demands it.

And secondly a theory based on Evidence would not be arguing for dust,gas,rocks and sunlight - creating a horse given enough time and chance.

There is no theory today observing a lifeless planet coming up with humans or horses or rabbits . That is not a science observation of any kind.

 

[BobRyan]

I don't see the Genesis account and evolution to be comparable, much less in competition.

The Genesis doctrine on origins and evolutionism's doctrine on origins are in direct contradiction.

Evolutionism never argues for plants on Earth appearing before the Sun appears.

Both Creationism and Evolutionism provide an explanation for how the Sun came about, how the moon came about, how our atmosphere formed, how the dry land appeared, how we got all life on land and how we got all life in the seas.

And they give flat out contradictory explanations for how that all came about. Dawkins admits it. Darwin admitted it. All the professors of Hebrew studies and OT studies in world class universities admit to it according to James Barr. Provine admitted to it. This is not something that nobody but creationist christians happen to notice.

That being said, I do recognize that you want to establish Sabbath law.

On the contrary - I simply point that you can't take legal code and bend it into metaphor rather than an appeal to some historic fact as it states.

I did not write it. I am not trying to establish it. I am just pointing to that detail in what it is, and what it says.

I think you can argue for that without confusing the import of Genesis with evolution. What I see are early Jewish Christians observing the Sabbath as well as meeting on the Lord's day.

In Acts 18:4 (and in Acts 13, and Acts 17) we see both gentiles and Jews in the synagogue every Sabbath, hearing the Gospel Sabbath after Sabbath and accepting it - as they continue to observe it "every Sabbath".

 

[BobRyan]

Admittedly, Gentiles quickly abandoned Sabbath observance for observing the Lord's Day.

There is not one reference in the NT to anyone doing something "on the Lord's Day" other than John who was a Jewish Christian.
There is not one reference to gentiles "abandoning the Sabbath" - most of them were pagans and never kept it before becoming Christians.

The gentiles that had first converted to Judaism (As we see in Acts 13, 17 and 18) never mention abandoning the Sabbath.

 

[Fervent]

Okay, we agree; it's figurative. God did not take a rest from working. God is still working today, perhaps? If you can allow for that statement to be figurative, then don't you wonder how you can pit it against a theory based on evidence? I don't see the Genesis account and evolution to be comparable, much less in competition.

That being said, I do recognize that you want to establish Sabbath law. I think you can argue for that without confusing the import of Genesis with evolution. What I see are early Jewish Christians observing the Sabbath as well as meeting on the Lord's day. Admittedly, Gentiles quickly abandoned Sabbath observance for observing the Lord's Day. That's an interesting point to debate, but it has nothing to do with evolution, I don't think..

I think a lot of the debate misses what is really being discussed, focusing so much on minutiae that the two sides talk over each other. Those pushing the Sabbath law are pushing for a formal legalism, which is what those who object are actually objecting to rather than Sabbath observance. From my reading of Deuteronomy, it was never meant to be applied in a formal sense instead giving a framework for action. The principle underlying Sabbath rememberance, namely acting to remember God's past action in the exodus and creation on a regular basis, remains in effect. Whether that be observing every Saturday, or some other intentional rememberance seems less important giving Paul's words to the Corinthians and Colossians among others. So the dispute is not over the Sabbath law, but our relationship to the law in general.

 

[BobRyan]

I think a lot of the debate misses what is really being discussed, focusing so much on minutiae that the two sides talk over each other. Those pushing the Sabbath law are pushing for a formal legalism,

You are skipping too many details in thread at this point.

The reason the Sabbath law is mentioned is that the "kind of text it is" makes it impossible to spin into poetic symbol or allegory. It is legal code which is always literal in the Bible. That is the reason for the reference. This thread is not about telling someone to keep God's commandments. I do that on other threads but that is not the purpose of this one.

From my reading of Deuteronomy, it was never meant to be applied in a formal sense instead giving a framework for action.

It is irrefutable that the Jews were keeping a 7 day week and that the Sabbath was always a day of rest and worship for them. That is just historic fact. And it is a problem if one is trying to get the link of Ex 20:11 and Gen 2:1-3 to both be somehow speaking of allegory and not a literal day since obviously the newly freed slaves at Sinai had no motivation to engage in that sort of spin doctoring.

We are talking about the literature itself.

Deuteronomy is a text written 40 years later and is referencing back to the Exodus 20 text, not chiseling new stone. And there is no record in history or among the Jews that they stopped keeping the 7 day week setup in Ex 16 and Exodus 20 once they get to the Deut 5 point some 40 years later.

 

[BobRyan]

The principle underlying Sabbath rememberance, namely acting to remember God's past action in the exodus and creation on a regular basis, remains in effect.

Well the text is very specific "The seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD (YHWH)" and Israel's acceptance of that was very literal at the time. In fact there was a case in Ex 16 were someone side stepped it and was stoned. So it appears from the literature that they took it at face value.

Whether that be observing every Saturday, or some other intentional remembrance seems less important giving Paul's words to the Corinthians and Colossians among others. So the dispute is not over the Sabbath law, but our relationship to the law in general.

Paul never says to ignore the commandments of God. Rather in 1 Cor 7:19 he says "what matters is keeping the Commandments of God". But my argument is not that if you do or don't keep the Sabbath then this changes the contradiction in the Sabbath when it comes to the doctrine on origins found in evolutionism. Regardless of how you choose to comply with the imperative in scripture on that doctrine - the issue is the text, the literature, the exegetical meaning it has for the writer and the hearers at Sinai in Ex 20. And the fact that the details in that doctrine on origins flat out contradict the doctrine on origins found in evolutionism.

And note that the agnostic and atheist professors of Hebrew and OT studies in all those world class universities also do not argue that their rejection of the Sabbath and their rejection of the Bible as an accurate historic record - some how clouds their ability to see that the doctrine on origins found in the text of the Bible contradicts what we find in the teaching of Darwinism.

Darwin , Dawkins, Provine and many other Christians-turned-atheist who did not keep the Sabbath a day in their life - still admit to the contradiction between the text vs Darwinism's teaching on origins. This is not about who keeps the Sabbath - but rather what the text says.

 

[public hermit]

No, we agree it does not say "God needed a rest".

It also does not say "God did not rest - but pretend like He did".

I'm not seeing the distinction. We rest because we were working and now we're tired and need it. Isn't that essentially what Sabbath rest is about? Are we just Sabbath resting because God said to, and God said to even though God did not need rest after creating, or is it because it makes sense for tired humans to rest.? If it is the latter, than God saying we should rest makes sense because the Sabbath was made for us to rest. If it is because God rested but didn't really need to, then we don't need to either. In other words, either we understand God's resting as figurative and the law was made for our sake and our need of rest. Or, God gets right tired after all that creating and needs a nappy just like we do.

You want it to be literal because God said, but you don't want God to literally need rest. You treat it both as figurative and not figurative. I say it's figurative, God did not need rest, but we do. It's literal-ness, if we need that, is it's practical application. Humans need rest. Do we need that rest on Saturday, or some particular day called "Sabbath"? That's more regarding the letter than the Spirit of the law, I would say.

 

[public hermit]

There is not one reference in the NT to anyone doing something "on the Lord's Day" other than John who was a Jewish Christian.
There is not one reference to gentiles "abandoning the Sabbath" - most of them were pagans and never kept it before becoming Christians.

The gentiles that had first converted to Judaism (As we see in Acts 13, 17 and 18) never mention abandoning the Sabbath.

You do realize Christianity continued after the writing of the New Testament? Yes, Gentile Christians quickly began to observe the Lord's Day, i.e., the day of resurrection (or, I don't want to freak you out-the "eighth day"), and did not observe the Sabbath of Judaism, much less attend synagogue.

 

[public hermit]

I think a lot of the debate misses what is really being discussed, focusing so much on minutiae that the two sides talk over each other. Those pushing the Sabbath law are pushing for a formal legalism, which is what those who object are actually objecting to rather than Sabbath observance. From my reading of Deuteronomy, it was never meant to be applied in a formal sense instead giving a framework for action. The principle underlying Sabbath rememberance, namely acting to remember God's past action in the exodus and creation on a regular basis, remains in effect. Whether that be observing every Saturday, or some other intentional rememberance seems less important giving Paul's words to the Corinthians and Colossians among others. So the dispute is not over the Sabbath law, but our relationship to the law in general.

Okay, that make sense. Then the point is to set aside a day of remembering the works of the Lord. I don't think the need for rest is outside the import of the day, but your point is the legal aspect. Or, it is a formal legalism, which I take to mean keeping the "letter" of the law. Which, of course, gives no importance to the purpose, and I would say that's a mistake. That is why Jesus said it was made for us, not us for the Sabbath.

 

[BobRyan]

I'm not seeing the distinction. We rest because we were working and now we're tired and need it.

And we could "read that into the text" but that is eisegesis not exegesis. The text only says that God ceased to do His creative work. IT does not say "God was exhausted" so we could then say that we now gave a door for taking it as symbolic. And it is very clear that those reading that text at Sinai kept a literal 7 day week and were even being stoned in Ex 16 for ignoring the exact day wrong.

In fact the system they had meant that meant that for 40 years people would be going hungry for 1 day each week if they could not figure just how literal it was.

Isn't that essentially what Sabbath rest is about? Are we just Sabbath resting because God said to

No doubt we get a lot of benefit from it. But the text does not say that God is human or God is like us in "needing" it. In fact it appears that God does not even need to eat much less rest.

or is it because it makes sense for tired humans to rest.? If it is the latter, than God saying we should rest makes sense because the Sabbath was made for us to rest.

Indeed. And in Lev 23:2-3 we see that it is a day of holy convocation as well - so it is also a day for humans to worship God. And I think we both agree that God does not need to stop and worship God once a week.

If it is because God rested but didn't really need to, then we don't need to either.

Only if we are God.

As soon as you try out the "God does not need to eat so neither do I" or "God does not need to sleep so neither do I" it does not take very long to realize there is a flaw in that logic.

 

[BobRyan]

You do realize Christianity continued after the writing of the New Testament?

Agreed.

Yes, Gentile Christians quickly began to observe the Lord's Day, i.e., the day of resurrection

Do you have a Bible text for that? A text saying "We gather each Lord's day instead of every 7th day?". Notice that in all the NT the term "Sabbath" always means the 7th day of the week. And notice that every reference to Sunday in the NT is simply "Week day 1" never any other term.

Or are you saying that the text for switching to week-day 1 is not found in the first century? Is not in the Bible?

If your argument is that this is not something known to the NT church in the first century ... not known to Bible writers - then that is a big step away from doing something based on a supposed Apostolic command or Bible statement in the first century.

Here again I would add - the thread is really about the language used in legal code and in Gen 1-2 regarding origins as compared to the doctrine on origins in evolutionism. The idea above that some changes to week-day-1 1500 years after Sinai is certainly disputed but does not change the issue one way or another for the point dealing with the teaching about origins in Genesis and Exodus - as versus Darwinism.

 

[BobRyan]

That is why Jesus said it was made for us, not us for the Sabbath.

Jesus said "the Sabbath was made for mankind not mankind made for the Sabbath" Mark 2:27 which speaks to the making of Both the Sabbath and mankind-- just as we see in Genesis 1 - Genesis 2:3

He then says "The Son of man is LORD of the Sabbath" Mark 2:28

Neither of those statements say "stop keeping the seventh as you find it in scripture". Rather they appear to be two excellent reasons to keep it.

An example of an argument AGAINST keeping a given OT command would look something like we find in Heb 10:4-9 where it says of the animal sacrifices "HE takes AWAY the first to establish the second". That's the kind of language you need to remove something.

 

[public hermit]

Agreed.

Do you have a text for that. Or are you saying that the text for that is not in the first century? Is not in the Bible?

If your argument is that this is not something known to the NT church in the first century ... not known to Bible writers - then that is a big step away from doing something based on a supposed Apostolic command or Bible statement in the first century.

I'm saying early Jewish Christians attended synagogue, and perhaps met on the 1st day to break bread, eventually the vast majority were Gentile, and they met on the 1st day of the week, i.e., the Lord's Day, and worshiped then and not on the Sabbath. The earliest attestation to the practice that we have is probably the Didache, definitely a clear attestation by Justin Martyr.

 

[BobRyan]

I'm saying early Jewish Christians attended synagogue, and perhaps met on the 1st day to break bread, eventually the vast majority were Gentile, and they met on the 1st day of the week, i.e., the Lord's Day, and worshiped then and not on the Sabbath. The earliest attestation to the practice that we have is probably the Didache, definitely a clear attestation by Justin Martyr.

So you seem to be saying it is not in the Bible but might be in the Didache? An anonymous document from ?? century?

Didache - Wikipedia

http://www.historicism.org/Documents/Didache.pdf

The Didache is mentioned by Eusebius (c. 324) as the Teachings of the Apostles following the books recognized as canonical:[21]

"Let there be placed among the spurious works the Acts of Paul, the so-called Shepherd and the Apocalypse of Peter, and besides these the Epistle of Barnabas, and what are called the Teachings of the Apostles, (Didache) and also the Apocalypse of John, if this be thought proper; for as I wrote before, some reject it, and others place it in the canon."​

"Many scholars have dated the text to the late 2nd century CE, a view still held today, other scholars have the Didache might go back to the first century. The document is a composite work, and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls with its Manual of Discipline provided evidence of development over a considerable period of time, beginning as a Jewish catechetical work which was then developed into a church manual. Additionally, apart from two minuscule fragments, the Greek text of the Didache has only survived in a single manuscript, the Codex Hierosolymitanus. Dating the document is thus made difficult both by the lack of hard evidence and its composite character. The Didache may have been compiled in its present form as late as 150,

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Some have supposed that the Didache uses the term " Lord’s Day " or week-day-1… – but in fact – it does not.

The Greek expression in verse 14.1 in the Didache, is:

Κατὰ κυριακὴν δε κυριου​

The Greek term κυριακὴν is often transliterated as kuriaki/kyriake.

the Greek term for "day" (ἡμέρᾳ) is missing in verse 14.1 and is not required by the context so it cannot simply be "inserted"
=====================

In any case - regardless of anonymous works like Didache (considered spurious in the 4th century according to Eusebius) the point of this thread is the text of Genesis and Exodus and how it differs with the doctrine on origins that we find in the Bible