The Bible is 100% correct on creation
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That’s not really much of a discussion starter.
Also, if you’re happy with your beliefs, why should we try to de-convert you? Go in peace and serve the Lord. If you have questions about certain claims of science or interpretations of the Bible, people would be happy to share what they find compelling. But at the end of the day you can believe what you want.
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Welcome to forum, Reb. While Christy remains above the fray, I’ll bite as am on vacation and have nothing better to do. Obviously, the problem resulting in conflict is in the interpretation. There are many parts of the Bible that sincere believers look at and consider inerrant yet get vastly different ideas about. Thus we disagree on such things as predestination, baptism, free will, church government, patriarchy, and creation, yet can come together as fellow Christians and celebrate our commonalities and differences in love.
So, back to your question. I would answer yes, but probably not in all the ways some other Christians might see it.
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Actually, what I’m looking for are the “science” folks who claim that Bible creation story is impossible. I’ve seen numerous discussions where the time frame, the sequence of the creation, and other “flaws” are pointed out. As has been said there are many ways to interpret scripture, but I’ve not awareness of any that haven’t been dismissed the folks who consider Genesis to be a nice fairytale. I’m looking those hard core folks who are willing to have a polite conversation.
It does point out how we can use the same words but have different meanings. Some may see anything not accepted in a strictly literal fashion as being demoted to “fairy tale” status, but to many, the deeper, more true meaning is non-literal and figurative and symbolic. As such, it is far from being a “fairy tale.”
You make it sound like the only way to approach Genesis is literal history/science or a nice fairy tale. Most people around here are not in the business of dismissing the Bible or scientific consensus.
Obviously if someone doesn’t accept the authority of Scripture, then they don’t have much to gain by interpreting it. But there are plenty of Christians, including lots of Christians who work in scientific disciplines, who have no problem affirming the authority of Scripture and the accuracy of scientific consensus on the age of the earth and the evolutionary model of the diversity of life. Their interpretation of Scripture allows room for science to be true as well as the Bible. Whether or not people who don’t believe in the Bible dismiss those Christians’ interpretations of Genesis as a fairy tale is kind of irrelevant, wouldn’t you say?
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I’m not sure what I posted as I’m not familiar with your template. All I’m seeing is what I thought was my header.
What I wanted to discuss is an understanding of Genesis that is both faithful to the text, AND is not in conflict with any current theory of evolution.
My understanding is as follows:
The people who received Genesis’ creation story, had a world vie that did not contain computers. Thus they were not given details, which were and are unnecessary for a theological and philosophical understanding of the act of creation.
God did use 144 hours to develop his program, debug the code and call it good (Gold code) at the end of the 144 hours, God spoke the Word and we are the result.
If anyone see a conflict between this understanding and either scripture or scientific theory I’m very interested in have a polite and civil discussion.
This was supposed to be part of my initial post, and I apologize for my mistakes
This still presumes the point of the creation story was to tell them how the world came to be. I would say that’s wrong. The point was to tell them why the world came to be. It was to explain theological truths about the nature of God (source of creation, life, purpose, ruler of everything, not created by anything else, the one God, not the winner of some contest among gods) and the nature of creation (given its purpose and function by God), and the nature of humanity (men and women created for unity in representing God and ruling creation justly on his behalf).
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The whole passages uses anthropomorphic imagery to picture God as an artisan/ruler creating the world as his domain and delegating tasks to his subjects. The six day work week with a Sabbath rest is part of the work = creation imagery.
There is no conflict with science because the Genesis account isn’t a rival account of the origin of the universe. It’s truth in a different domain, using different vocabulary, to answer a totally different set of questions and with a different set of observations.
Fair enough. I personally am not looking at the early chapters of Genesis for scientific explanations. I am looking for more philosophical or theological statements.
I probably would personally say God created the code instantly and then we came around some thirteen billion years after this particular universe had some sort of beginning.
Accepting or denying Scripture is a much broader topic than what I am presenting. I have never seen the creation story accepted as scientific fact. I’ve never seen a “scientist” accept that creation was accomplished in 144 of the hours we use today. Yet that is exactly what I am saying happen. I’m inviting anyone to challenge my understanding of the Genesis account as 100% accurate in its presentation.
I have seen Creation Science ridiculed and numerous attempts to explain it scorned. I’ve seen numerous folks take the position that since the universe wasn’t created in 144 hours (six days or 8640 minutes) the Bible can’t be accepted as fact. If the folks here support the inerrancy of the Bible, I’m in the wrong place.
Okay. I challenge that the earth and all plant and animal life as we know it came to be in six calendar days. This is demonstrably false given the piles of evidence that say otherwise in every major field of science including astrophysics, biology, geology, and cosmology. But I’m not going prove it to you. If you care to learn about it, there are bazillions of resources out there. Creation science isn’t science.
“If …then the Bible can’t be accepted as fact.” That’s a false choice. Some people here would say they believe in inerrancy, others wouldn’t. You can accept inerrancy and still claim the Bible doesn’t teach science.
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There’s a multitude of good reasons for that, both scriptural and scientific.
Your are to be commended for inviting a challenge to your understanding of the Genesis account - an all-too-rare acknowledgment that there may be a difference between scriptures themselves, and your understanding of them. It is indeed your understanding of scripture that many here deem not only fallible, but fallen, in terms of truth and accuracy. And we (I include myself) see ourselves as not challenging scriptures so much as challenging you. But (perhaps the occasional sarcastic edge aside - I hope we can graciously absorb any such prophetic sharpness at least as much as it may get dished out here) we should nonetheless rise above mockery. Feel free to hold us to this. The pursuit of truth that you and so many of us should celebrate as a common goal is a high calling, and I think the Lord expects no lesser ambition of us, sinful creatures as we are.
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Can anyone disprove that the universe was created this morning?
Very little can be disproven. So more people are interested in what is reasonable to believe, consistent with all evidence. It is more meaningful to live according to an understanding which takes all our memories and the evidence seriously.
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We all know it was created last Thursday. 
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It does bring up the interesting question of why did God take 6 days to create all creation then stop to rest?
Is he not all powerful? The question becomes not why so short a time but rather why so long? I have heard it said Augustine held all was created instantly, but spread out for illustrative purposes.
Regarding inerrancy, I am not sure what you are looking for, but there is a wide variety of views here on that subject, as there are in Christianity in general. There are a few threads on the forum on that subject. A lot depends on how it is defined.
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Reb:
Welcome to the forum. I strongly believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible. After years of study, I arrived at the following logic associated with Genesis. All scripture must be interpreted in the content of all scripture, nothing can be interpreted on its own.
First in terms of the number of days, it is true that the Hebrew word “yom” can refer to short or long periods of time. The terms “in that day” or the “day of the Lord” refer to long periods of time. However, every time the word “yom” is used with an ordinal number, it refers to a short period of time. I believe that creation was revealed to an individual (either Moses or kept alive via oral tradition until codified by Moses) over a 7 day period, similar to The Revelation was revealed to John. It is amazing to me that creation begins with “Let there be light” and this was documented thousand of years ago, when for a long time after the Big Bang, all matter was in the form of subatomic particles and all energy was in the form of protons. The individual to which creation was revealed had to put creation in the terms they knew, which explains some similarities between this creation account and Ancient Near East creation myth.
With regard to the creation of Adam and the Garden, there are clear discrepancies in the creation sequence. Note that no sea life was created in the Garden account. In the Garden account, the sun, moon stars and the earth have already been created. It is clear to me from scripture (writing of Paul) that through one man all have spiritual death and through on man all have spiritual life, so as Jesus was a real man, so too would Adam have been a real man. I don’t see how you can argue that Adam was made directly by God because of the very plain text in Genesis and in Luke, Adam is referred to as the “son of God”.
There is a clear pattern in the genealogies in the Old Testament, the line or lines leading to the Messiah are always given after the line or lines not leading to the Messiah with one exception, Adam. The first creation account closes with the phase “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth” using the same Hebrew word for generations as in many of the genealogies. I believe the first creation account describes the line not leading to the Messiah, and the Garden account shows the start of the line leading to the Messiah.
With Genesis 1 and 2 being sequential, there is no conflict with evolution.
I agree with all of this. It would seem that Adam was created on day 6 with a group of humans both male and female though. It does not seem like he was a descendant of humans that came first. There had to be some time between day 6 of creation and the advent of the Garden. It does not seem that God would rush things, but neither would he have to wait billions of years. God does not wait though. Creation being good and mature, not needing long periods of time. In Hebrew theology though, they thought God did have to keep making and destroying life on earth. That is not in the Bible though. Human interpretation then, just seems similiar to now. They did have secular friends and enemies, whose purpose in life was to explain the natural world around them.
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I’m sorry, I won’t be able to continue until Saturday afternoon. I’m in hospice with IPF and have a weird schedule of days when the meds have up and alert. I hate it when someone stops answering without an explanation, but while I’ve started a response, I simply ran out of time… and I also got caught in the guilty pleased of listening to one of my favorite books, “Have Spacesuit will Travel” on Audible. I’ll be back Saturday evening.
I’m sorry to hear that! And now I would soften my words from before - even if disagreement persists. Take whatever time you need to get to replies. And enjoy that book!
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