BobRyan said:
When you admit that Moses DOES intend us to BELIEVE that "IN SIX DAYS the LORD made the heavens and the earth" you ADMIT that your views conflict with the INTENDED MEANING of scripture.
I don't think Exodus 20:11 points to a literal six-day creation any more than Luke 22:19 points to real presence within the bread. In both verses, an ordinance is being instituted (the Sabbath and the Lord's Supper). In the first, creation is equated with six days and God's rest with the seventh day. In the second, bread is equated with Jesus' body which was given for us. I do not believe the bread really is Jesus' body. I think it's symbolic. Similarly, I do not believe creation really happened in six literal days; I believe the days are symbolic.
In order for us to have a way of remembering what Jesus did for us, he gave us an observance whereby we can remember his sacrifice every time we partake of a piece of bread and a cup of wine (the symbolism is detailed more fully in John 6:25-66, although not in a way that makes the symbolism obvious).
In order for us to have a way of remembering creation, God gave the Israelites an observance whereby they (and we) can remember God's act of creation and God's rest through our week of six days' work and a Sabbath rest (again, the symbolism is detailed more fully in Genesis 1:1-2:3, although not in a way that makes the symbolism obvious).
On day 4 "God created TWO GREAT LIGHTS" count them TWO!! The addendum "He made the stars also" is not stated in the language as having to have occured on day 4 as if "ON Day 4 God made a zillion lights in the sky" -- the number is still just TWO.
Yes, two great lights, and also the stars. The number of great lights is two, but God also made the lesser lights, the stars. All are described on the fourth day.
As I have already responded on this - the obvious fact you have ignored - failed to exegete - is the OBVIOUS MEANING Moses gives to his intended reader - the first order primary audience - HIS contemporaries! IT is "obvious" that they would view "EVENING and MORNING as ONE DAY" - nothing is more obvious! It is obvious that they would see him saying that God CAUSED vegetation to exist BEFORE the light of the sun - the DAY BEFORE not a ZILLION YEARS before!
Well yes, it's as obvious that vegetation is mentioned on the third day as that the stars are mentioned on the fourth day. However, you pick and choose where you accept the details of the days as being tied to the day they are mentioned on. At least Scott is consistent in this regard.
I agree there's no reason the primary audience would have read billions of years into the text, just as there's no reason they would have read billions of light-years into the size of the universe. Genesis 1 describes stars and birds as inhabiting the same place -- the firmament -- which was created to separate the waters below and the waters above. Stars and birds are placed into this firmament. No hint of the immensity of space here, just as there's no hint of geological time frames. I don't see that as a problem because I don't think Genesis 1 is where God reveals science to us. I think it reveals theology: important truths about God, creation, humanity and their relationships to each other. As for scientific truths, God made humanity the regent king and steward over his creation, and that implies a mandate for us to learn about our domain. God has many surprises waiting for us in creation, and he hasn't spoiled them all by blurting the answers before we uncover them. "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out" (Proverbs 25:2).
As for why vegetation is described on the third day, that has to do with the symmetry of the creation days. Days 1 and 4 correspond (making light; filling light with luminaries). Days 2 and 5 correspond (making sea and sky; filling sea and sky with creatures). Days 3 and 6 correspond (making dry land; filling land with creatures). Each of the first three days creates a realm, and those realms are complete except for the creatures that inhabit them. This includes making dry land with all the vegetation. The second set of three days is all about making creatures for the realms, and this is why the luminaries are described as "ruling" day and night: they are described as creatures, not as mere set dressing, like the vegetation. This symmetry also explains why animals are created over two days while humans share a day with other land animals. Because the division is based on which realm creatures inhabit, and not on importance, humans don't get a day for themselves separate from the animals.
AS I have stated a dozen times on this topic - Genesis 2:5 through the end of the chapter is NOT a chronology - but Genesis 1-2:4 IS!!
Genesis 2:4 and following has a sequence of events just as clearly as any historical text, including the gospels. However, you ignore that sequence because it contradicts the sequence in Genesis 1. Genesis 2:4-6 describes a time when no plants of the field existed because there was no man and no rain. Then, a mist is described, man is formed, and rivers are described. Then God plants a garden and causes trees to grow, since the impediments to plants have been solved. Similarly, verse 18 describes a problem with man being alone, then all the beasts and birds are formed and brought to him to name, and when he doesn't find a fit helper among them, Eve is formed from his flesh and bone. The only time the sequence of events is interrupted in the account, the author repeats the same event to mark this (Genesis 2:8, 15).
The account has a very clear sequence, but it is a sequence different from Genesis 1. This is only a problem if one expects these accounts to reveal historical and scientific details. Instead, Genesis 2-3 is no more (or less) historical than Ezekiel 16. Both these passages are revealing the broad strokes of history, but they do it through a story that includes characters that represent more than individuals and elements that are not literal. The lady Jerusalem is not just a woman any more than Adam is just a man (a point that Genesis 5:2 also demonstrates). The two trees are not merely magic trees, but rather are symbolic (indeed, the tree of life shows up again in Revelation with the same symbolic meaning).
Most literalists know that Genesis 3:15 cannot merely be literal because we have no record of it literally being fulfilled. Most understand that it is to be taken allegorically to refer to Jesus and Satan. However, that verse is not an aberration, and the entire account is suffused with the same potent imagery. Just as we'd miss the point of that verse if we thought it was just about human descendents fearing snakes and stepping on them, we can also miss much of the depth of the rest of the account by reducing it to entirely literal description. The loss is at least as great as reading Ezekiel 16 as just being about a promiscuous woman.
Step 1 - the PRIMARY meaning to the first order intended audience! Moses' contemporaries. AS they read the text WHAT is the obvious intended meaning for them.
I encourage you to do this too. In our post-Enlightenment scientific age, it is tempting to turn these texts into scientific treatises. That is not how the original audience would have taken them. In fact, many of the interpretations creationists reach from these chapters have only come about due to our increased scientific knowledge. Nobody would claim that the firmament wasn't a literal solid dome if not for what science has taught us.
Step 2 - understand the difference between a chronological sequence and a discriptive narrative intended to show the basis for Marriage that does not employ a chronology!
If the only way a sequence can be shown is through an account structured neatly into days with a repeated refrain after each day, then there would be no other sequential accountings of events in the Bible. The gospels never use this approach. Neither does Acts. Instead, Acts and other narrative accounts, whether historical or parable or otherwise, show sequence much the same way Genesis 2-3 does: through describing one event "and" another event "and" another event.
AS they read the text WHAT is the obvious intended meaning for them. "WAIT for atheist darwinism so you can NOT believe what I am writing dear friends"??? Do you really think that idea of yours could be eisegeted into the TEXT?? If so -- you have been "talking to yourself" too long.
Another example of a creationist misquoting an evolutionist. What you quoted is not an idea of mine, but rather your false witness against me. As long as you claim I believe "atheist darwinism" you are being intentionally dishonest.
