If the 6 days of creation are not literal, then explain, 'and then there was a morning ....

ecman51` · Jan 22, 2011

....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

Willamena · Jan 22, 2011

There's tonnes of ways of looking at it nonliterally. A 'morning' and an 'evening' need not refer to a period of time. 'Morning' brings new light to the world, sheds light on things. 'Morning' is a time of awakening, of coming into being, of realization; 'evening' a time of falling into slumber, to escape into dream, or nothing.

ecman51` said:
What was the sense of saying those words then?

According to the "Accuracy in Genesis" website, "...the transfer from darkness to light adds the picture of an improvement or a progression in the state of the creation process with each time phase." It suggests the evening and the morning might more appropriately be read: "And from chaos/disorder to order..."

http://www.accuracyingenesis.com/day.html

Pegg · Jan 22, 2011

ecman51` said:
....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

evening darkness and morning light

I heard a lecture by Dr Gerald Shoeder who explains the meaning behind 'morning and evening'... it has something to do with the hebrew root words meaning 'chaos', and then then came 'order'

in the evening there was chaos because the creative process was incomplete, but in the light of 'morning', the creation came into focus and was clearly defined

i cant remember which part contains his explanation of 'morning and evening'...if you are really interested though im sure you'll be keen to keep watching his whole lecturer

[youtube]gRxEeHFHc-Y[/youtube]
YouTube - The Science of God - Dr. Gerald Schroeder Part 1

EverChanging · Jan 22, 2011

For one thing, there are two contradictory creation accounts mashed together in the same book. These were stories, not facts. The Hebrew people had no problem mashing together conflicting stories because the truth wasn't in the details, as if they were facts, but stories as a way of explaining life and putting it in perspective.

outhouse · Jan 22, 2011

According to the "Accuracy in Genesis" website, "...

that site is far from accurate

from what i read the whole site is a sham and I would not trust one sentence as it is only personal interpretation

outhouse · Jan 22, 2011

ecman51` said:
....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

genesis is a ficticious compilation of previous pagan religions. It was compiled after storys were told orally for hundreds of years passed down through generations.

there are 4 authors known to have written it and 1 redactor. moses was not even put as the author for hundreds of years until the greko roman period in which unauthored works were attributed authors

EverChanging · Jan 22, 2011

Ficticious in the sense of conveying facts, perhaps, but that is not how the Hebrews wrote their scriptures. They edited, re-interpreted, and retold them. They did, after all, have a pre-existing tradition that these scriptures evolved from. They also use techniques like midrash to convey meaning. It isn't supposed to be a modern history text book, so ficticious is a bit simplistic. It only addresses the most shallow possible meaning in a purposefully nuanced text.

Skwim · Jan 22, 2011

Willamena said:
There's tonnes of ways of looking at it nonliterally. A 'morning' and an 'evening' need not refer to a period of time. 'Morning' brings new light to the world, sheds light on things. 'Morning' is a time of awakening, of coming into being, of realization; 'evening' a time of falling into slumber, to escape into dream, or nothing.

According to the "Accuracy in Genesis" website, "...the transfer from darkness to light adds the picture of an improvement or a progression in the state of the creation process with each time phase." It suggests the evening and the morning might more appropriately be read: "And from chaos/disorder to order..."

The Days of Genesis for those who can't read Hebrew

And this is one of the Bible's lesser attributes, it's use of both metaphorical and literal descriptions can leave the reader wondering how X should be understood. One would think that in a tome deemed to be the guidebook to salvation its message would be far less equivocal. :shrug:

EverChanging · Jan 22, 2011

And this is one of the Bible's lesser attributes, it's use of both metaphorical and literal descriptions can leave the reader wondering how X should be understood. One would think that in a tome deemed to be the guidebook to salvation its message would be far less equivocal.

I find a book full of straightfoward rules and commands far more boring, but I'm also not a fundamentalist who believes it dropped out of the sky. Nor, however, are most Jewish people.

Levite · Jan 23, 2011

ecman51` said:
....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

Poetic metaphor. A day was a time period that the earliest Israelite audiences understood. And most early cosmogonical myths of that period in the Near East have a structure of days. So the authors of this one borrowed the structuring.

In any case, if one is looking at Genesis for literality, trying to make it into a textbook for cosmology or biology or geology or physics or what have you, the one is looking at Genesis for all the wrong reasons.

Genesis is mythopoeic cosmogony, and mysticism. Trying to take the account literally, and at face value, just leads to error.

mohammed_beiruti · Jan 23, 2011

ecman51` said:
....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

have you ever read this verse before

psalm
90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.

the day which God's had told us in his sight as thousands year.

I mean, six days will be counted as 6000 years.

esmith · Jan 23, 2011

One must remember that there were numerous creation stories being told throughout the ancient near east. The problem with them were that they were from a polytheistic view point. This could not work for a Jewish audience so it was reworked to a monotheistic perspective. If you think about it, the 7th day is Shabbat (Sabbath). We can not have God working on Shabbat; Therefore He worked for 6 days and the 7th day was holy. Notice that the Sun and Moon are called "greater light and lesser light". This is because the Canaanite word for their Sun and Moon gods were the same words in Hebrew and we can not have pagan gods mentioned. The Canaanites and Israelites spoke the same language, just a different dialect.

Breathe · Jan 23, 2011

mohammed_beiruti said:
I mean, six days will be counted as 6000 years.

But... Six thousand, sixty thousand, six hundred thousand, six million, or even sixty million years, they are still not long enough for the events of Genesis to be taken literally (formation of the universe, water, mountains, and then life, etc). Not to mention some things are in the wrong order, which would create a problem, for example, plants without insects (for pollenation), and plants without any sunlight. I'm very doubtful plants would be able to survive 6000 years without the sun.

I'm in total agreement with Levite, here. I think he is spot on, once again.

mohammed_beiruti · Jan 25, 2011

Odion said:
But... Six thousand, sixty thousand, six hundred thousand, six million, or even sixty million years, they are still not long enough for the events of Genesis to be taken literally (formation of the universe, water, mountains, and then life, etc). Not to mention some things are in the wrong order, which would create a problem, for example, plants without insects (for pollenation), and plants without any sunlight. I'm very doubtful plants would be able to survive 6000 years without the sun.

I'm in total agreement with Levite, here. I think he is spot on, once again.

you are right Odion, maybe It was meant "stages" not "days"

I mean 6 stages for forming the heavens and earth and which in between.

Pegg · Jan 25, 2011

mohammed_beiruti said:
you are right Odion, maybe It was meant "stages" not "days"

I mean 6 stages for forming the heavens and earth and which in between.

Hi Mohammed,

i just wanted to add that the hebrew word translated to 'day' is Yom.

Genesis uses the same word Yom at 2:4 where all the creative periods are called one 'day'
"This is a history of the heavens and the earth in the time of their being created, in the day (yom) that Jehovah God made earth and heaven"

So it can be gleaned from the use of the word 'yom' in the bible that it is not always a 24hour day.

Tree)O(Life · Jan 25, 2011

If it says it in the bible it is literal without debate basically. To say that it has various reasons is what has caused upheaval throughout the centuries surely the Bible should be taken word for word. How can we presume to interpret the Bible in a mannor that exaggerates the text within it.

lockyfan · Jan 25, 2011

It can also mean "in Grandmas day" so grandmas day can span 90 years.

So a Day can span as long as Jehovah needed it to span to use his creation power to get it to being "good" in his eyes.

Breathe · Jan 25, 2011

Tree)O(Life said:
If it says it in the bible it is literal without debate basically.

Far from true, sorry.

There is much that is lost within the translation of the Bible, and much that is copied word for word as opposed to idea for idea.

The Bible has quite a lot of imagery and symbolism, despite what evangelical literalists or those just picking it up without any understanding of it would have you believe, but I'll leave it up to a Bible-believer to go into more detail as I don't have the space to type much at the moment.

lockyfan · Jan 26, 2011

Yes it does I completly agree. Thus when they say day, they can mean a period of time.

Because remember that the sun and moon were created on the Third day. There was light and dark because God had created that, but he had not yet created to rotational pull of the sun for us to spin around and he had not yet created the moon to spin around the earth.

So it is literal in some places such as the physical creation of the earth and sun and moon etc, but the time period is not 24hrs it is way too unrealistic to think that it takes 24hrs to do all that, when it took the first star to be formed 300 billion years after the universe began.

So it refers to a period of time rather so like I said earlier "back in Grandmas day" or some such meaning or the word "day"

angellous_evangellous · Jan 26, 2011

ecman51` said:
....and an evening', after each day of creation? What was the sense of saying those words then?

IF the creation account is literal, then if it took one day for God to create Adam, then why did he go thru so much trouble with sending this flood, that lasted for many days, and sparing Noah and the animals...putting Noah thru all that work building the ark and gathering the animals and the necessary feed etc.

It wouldn't be a symbolic day without a symbolic morning and evening.:yes:

If the 6 days of creation are not literal, then explain, 'and then there was a morning ....

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