Well… God did not say these were 24 hour days, anywhere. No biblical text says or indicates physical laws or physics changed. That would be a big change, bigger than creating earth. Yet, the text is silent.
Gen 1 shows the pattern of process and causality. The process God started with, from the beginning, is the process we see today. Find me a passage (not the exception in Joshua 10) that says God’s natural laws changed so dramatically.
Gen 1 does not say things magically appeared. It does not say God toiled to get everything done within the time slot. And yes, I have heard preachers say animals like the platypus are strange because God got in a hurry. Gen 1 and 2 do not say God used clay to mold statues and then “poof” the statues were alive. God rejects our use of magic because it is wrong/evil in His sight, therefore His use of magic here would be just as wrong/evil. None of God’s miracles should ever be considered as magic. Nature shows us natural causes for an exceptionally amazing creation. That is because God created those causes. They are His creation tools.
ALL of the English versions I can find on Bible Gateway plus a few others not on that site like the Jewish Bible. Gen 1 has stanzas, like poetry. The text does not flow like the Eden story, a text in the traditional story form. The text does not jump like history from Exodus or Kings. It is something else. It is CIRCULAR POETRY, which does not require rhyme or meter. These things you look for in “poetry” are not found here like other poetry. Yet it is poetry because there are circles inside of circles. It fits the pattern beautifully. When the pattern is read, the text then matches standard science without ANY conflict. If those two are not in conflict then the text gives evidence that it is reliable. It gives evidence for inspiration from the Creator mentioned.
Evidence for a 7 day creation with 24 hour days (or any such variation of that) has been hunted for for centuries. It has yet to be demonstrated as an accurate physical model. That interpretation has been in conflict with natural science since at least Augustine’s time (400 AD). Conflict does not give evidence for inspiration because it is not found reliable. It makes the God mentioned no more believable than any other man made god.
[quote=“Jon_Garvey, post:18, topic:4217”]
it seems to assume either …
[/quote]Why only two options? Are there others? I would suggest a third–that Scripture, the revelation of the God who cannot lie, is inevitably correct and when nature and Scripture are properly understood, there will be seen to be no conflict at all. Confusion or uncertainty is due to our human finitude and limitations.
One of the big problems is whether or not the theologian or scientist is willing to admit the supernatural. The heart of liberal theology was a denial of the supernatural. In some ways, that is showing up once again in the left fringes of evangelicalism.
So I think it is a bit more complex than giving two options.
[quote=“GJDS, post:20, topic:4217”]
God could have chosen to create in 6 days, or 6 seconds - it is nonsensical to claim either of these as things that have bound God to time. However, it is just as sensible to understand God revealing Himself to the Biblical authors as one who is sympathetic to us, and it is His will that we labour creatively for six days, and rest in worship of God on the seventh.
[/quote]Thanks for that. I don’t think this is about us binding God to time. It is about what God said, and about what, by his word, he bound himself to. God is certainly outside of time in a sense, but he works in time. Do you think God was inaccurate when he said he created the world in six days and rested on the seventh?
[quote=“Jo_Helen_Cox, post:21, topic:4217”]
Well… God did not say these were 24 hour days, anywhere
[/quote]If you thtink God inspired Genesis 1, then he did say they were 24 hour days because that is what the word yom means as it is used in Genesis 1. There are no exceptions to that anywhere. All the places where yom means a longer period of time have another grammatical form.
[quote=“Jo_Helen_Cox, post:21, topic:4217”]
Gen 1 does not say things magically appeared.
[/quote]No, it says God created. I don’t think it was magical.
[quote=“Jo_Helen_Cox, post:21, topic:4217”]
Gen 1 has stanzas, like poetry.
[/quote]Not actually. Again, (and I won’t press further), but Hebrew grammar and syntax has certain ways to note historical narrative and poetry. Genesis 1 is historical narrative. The fact that it is a succession of days doesn’t make it circular. It is sequential in the text. Now, you can say (as some do), that the text is metaphorical in some sense. Remember, Hebrew scholar Bruce Waltke said the days in Genesis 1 are our 24 hour days; they are simply metaphorical. But they are historical narrative in form. It’s a simple matter of fact of Hebrew grammar. You can read more on this in Robert McCabe’s chapter in Coming to Grips with Genesis where he interacts at length with the Hebrew. It is imperative reading for those who want to be informed, even if you don’t agree in the end.
[quote]Evidence for a 7 day creation with 24 hour days (or any such variation of that) has been hunted for for centuries. It has yet to be demonstrated as an accurate physical model.[/quote]True only if you rule out the evidence for it and the questions that other models cannot answer. And remember how much natural science has changed and continues to change. That’s because they don’t have answers that satisfy. I am not saying that points necessarily towards a young earth. I am simply saying that should give pause to place all our faith in the science.
Me: "which is that the truths of nature and the truths of revelation ultimately concur."
You: “when nature and Scripture are properly understood, there will be seen to be no conflict at all.”
I can’t see the difference…
But anti-supernaturalism is, I agree, one of the issues today, and it’s left over from the Deism of over two centuries ago, re-theologised to make God’s non-immanence a virtue. I’d make the proviso, however, that the distinction between “supernatural” and “natural” is in itself an Enlightenment one.
Before that the question was one of what God does and how he does it, since all things come from his providential will. Nowadays things are divvied up into what God may or may not be allowed to do - the weather or evolution are “science”, so God is said to “let them happen”, which is the equivalent (in biblical terms) of a musician “allowing” his violin to play a concerto.
I think that when it was impossible for nature to permit a human being to identify physically a day or a night, God determined each of these events to be understood in a human context of timely and ordered events. God saying “let there be …” is a command, and as John 1 shows us, it is the power of His Word that creates, not Nature (or a supernatural version of Nature). Setting everything in order, and showing the Creation is subject to God’s command, is taught and provided for us. So yes, if the biblical author is inspired to teach us, that just as God created over six days and rested on the Sabbath, so we should do likewise, than I will understand it as such. However this does not mean that my working week is the same as the week of creation - that is unbiblical, as such a human being would believe his physical acts and creative work on this earth to be the same as God’s - that too is unbiblical.