A fresh look at the genre of the creation story provides more context of Genesis 1, and what its contents meant for the early users of the Pentateuch.
A great and interesting read. Thanks for sharing. God bless.
This is a great argument for one issue in reading Genesis – not taking the seven days of creation as literal seven 24 hour periods. Of course I support that conclusion. But I think this argument suffers from the very same flaw as reading it as a science text or as a history text. The flaw is the idea that the book must fall into the categories of modern specialization. I, on the contrary, would simply add calandar-law narrative to the list of the many functions and genres which the book of Genesis was intended to fill.
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The Feast of Weeks was held in the third month, seven weeks after Passover (Leviticus 23:15-16).
Exodus 19 appoints the festival preparations for approaching God to enter into covenant with him through the narrative of Israel’s arrival at Sinai. Naturally, the story dates these narrated events to the timing of the Feast of Weeks “in the third month” (Exodus 19:1, a.t.).6All this seems straightforward, until one compares the dates in these calendar narratives with the actual length of Israel’s journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai recorded elsewhere in Exodus.
Seven weeks separate the observance of Passover and Weeks, and that timing is reflected in the narratives just reviewed. But the book of Exodus reports in three different passages that the actual time for that journey from Egypt to Mount Sinai was only three days!
This is interesting. Just yesterday I found a web site discussing the Exodus route which comes to quite different conclusion.
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1 Many Christians falsely assume there is little information contained in scripture about the 50 locations of the exodus, much less the timing. Many preachers never give this subject a look stating that we don’t even know for certain any more than 4 of the 50 exodus stops.
2 In fact, scripture specifically tells us the day they left, the day they entered the Wilderness of Sin, the day they arrived at Sinai and the total number of days the exodus took. There is a wealth of information in scripture about many of the 50 exodus locations.
3 We know four locations for certain and using key clues in scripture, we are able to discern several others. Using careful analysis, we have calculated the distances between each of the stops. We have calculated total distances as well as daily average travel rates.4 An examination of the Wilderness of Sin allows us to calculate the days of the week. They left Goshen on Passover, which fell on a Thursday that year. They crossed the Red Sea on a Sunday and entered the Wilderness of Sin on a Saturday. They arrived at the Sinai on a Friday and Pentecost Sunday fell about a week later, 52 days after leaving Goshen. God descends on Mt. Sinai on the following Wednesday.
5 Before you snort in smug disbelief, or quote Deut 29:29 and dismiss this work, we suggest you take a close look at the material provided herein. While there are some assumptions that could be wrong, the basic overall data is correct. We know where they crossed the Red Sea, Mt. Sinai and Kadesh Barnea are located.
6 Directly below is a master summary table of the Exodus journey. There is a second table that itemizes the distances and travel rates.
Hello, I wanted a reply here to keep this topic alive another ten years, but also to say that I’d like to read more about this way of understanding the seven days of the first chapters of Genesis. Is there somewhere that might go into more detail and examples of how this plays out as we read? Do different days of the week match up somehow with different festivals and part of the Torah, or is it just very general such as to say that we have a day of the week to celebrate each part of creation, even if the days of the week don’t actually historically line up with creation part days?
't’is rather obvious that it’s all about political hegemony by the priesthood through murderously strict Sabbatarianism. Nothing whatsoever to do with history let alone geology.
Hi Glenn,
The intro to Michael LeFebvre’s book on the topic (The Liturgy of Creation) is available on Academia if you are interested.
Welcome, @glenn.shrom. Good to have you here and look forward to hearing your voice. Christy’s suggestion looks like a great reference for what you want, I also am very partial to John Walton’s Lost World books in giving a helpful perspective on early Genesis.
Merry Christmas a little late, and have a bless New Year!
Thank you both! I’ve read Walton’s Lost World books and loved them! I am indeed interested in the Liturgy of Creation book as well, now that I have heard about it. - Glenn
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