Examining the Assumptions of Mosaic Creationism vis-a-vis the Assumptions of Evolutionary Creationism

[Mike_Gantt]

@Jay313

Because when you have two (or more) interpretations that both appear faithful to the Scripture, it is allowable to take into account extra-biblical information when deciding which to prefer. Protestant theologians throughout the centuries have agreed on this principle. If you will not allow extra-biblical information, from whatever source, to inform interpretation, then you either arrive at an impasse, or you run the risk of accepting interpretations that make sense of the Bible but make no sense of the world around us.

If I get to the point that I see two (or more) interpretations that both appear faithful to Ex 20:8-11; Ex 31:12-17; and Gen 1-2 in the matter at hand, I think this principle will make for a helpful guide. Until then, however, the problem is that I see no other faithful way to interpret those verses other than that “the Lord created for six days and then rested on the seventh.” There can be no reasonable dispute that this is what the three passages say; the only reasonable question is, “What does that mean?” Few people here have tried to say that it means something other than what it says; those who have, have not been persuasive.

As for the willingness to consider extrabiblical material, it was this willingness - specifically regarding the heavy weight of modern scientific testimony - that led me to BioLogos, and, in the most recent instance, consider what I labeled as the fifth stipulation for MC failure in the OP: namely, planned obsolescence of some or all of OT history. This contingency is easier for me to imagine than that someone will come up with a cogent interpretation of the three passages that blunts the prima facie meaning of the words.

I may need to re-think the term “obsolete” as, for me, it implies a spectrum from “fuhgetuhboutit” on the one end to significant revision on the other. That is, obsolescence does not necessarily mean that the OT history in view would be immediately considered faulty, but that 1) the parts that conflicted with SGH would be re-interpreted to fit SGH, and 2) the rest would be considered true but subject to revision at some point in the future should SGH eventually take positions in conflict with any of them. For example, we are seeing revised interpretations of the historicity of Adam and Eve in the wake of the Human Genome Project. This periodic revising of interpretation is the way things have generally been going in biblical interpretation in the scientific age. Stipulation #5 is an attempt to try to identify a scriptural warrant for this approach.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Chris_Falter

“Mechanistic” seems a bit ambiguous to me; my concern is that some readers might think it implies adherence to metaphysical materialism, which is not where I stand. I do not think that you necessarily use the word [mechanism] that way, though.

Not at all. I simply view “mechanistic” as it is used in science as synonymous with what you were saying, not philosophically.

[Jay313 (Jay Johnson)]

@Mike_Gantt

This periodic revising of interpretation is the way things have generally been going in biblical interpretation in the scientific age.

It has become more apparent in the scientific age, just because the speed of changes in our knowledge has accelerated. But the very first Christian interpreters of Scripture in the Patristic era (100-450) took the science of their day into account, as did every Christian theologian until the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920s. Your approach is actually the more recent one, invented as a tool to battle the “evolutionists” of that era. Unfortunately, the battle lines hardened and only became worse over time.

[Mike_Gantt]

@Jay313

It has become more apparent in the scientific age, just because the speed of changes in our knowledge has accelerated. But the very first Christian interpreters of Scripture in the Patristic era (100-450) took the science of their day into account, as did every Christian theologian until the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the 1920s. Your approach is actually the more recent one, invented as a tool to battle the “evolutionists” of that era. Unfortunately, the battle lines hardened and only became worse over time.

If we let this history of interpretation prevail over sola scriptura, we will only have instituted a Protestant magisterium to replace the Roman Catholic one.

[Jonathan_Burke (Jon)]

@Mike_Gantt

If we let this history of interpretation prevail over sola scriptura, we will only have instituted a Protestant magisterium to replace the Roman Catholic one.

Such a situation emerges when individuals privilege their own interpretation, but lack a method of testing and validating their interpretation. A hermeneutic without any controls looks like sola scriptura, but is just personal opinion elevated to the level of inspiration.

[Christy (Christy Hemphill)]

@Mike_Gantt

I may need to re-think the term “obsolete” as, for me, it implies a spectrum from “fuhgetuhboutit” on the one end to significant revision on the other. That is, obsolescence does not necessarily mean that the OT history in view would be immediately considered faulty, but that 1) the parts that conflicted with SGH would be re-interpreted to fit SGH, and 2) the rest would be considered true but subject to revision at some point in the future should SGH eventually take positions in conflict with any of them. For example, we are seeing revised interpretations of the historicity of Adam and Eve in the wake of the Human Genome Project. This periodic revising of interpretation is the way things have generally been going in biblical interpretation in the scientific age. Stipulation #5 is an attempt to try to identify a scriptural warrant for this approach.

When you say obsolete, I think of something that no longer matters and is no longer instructive and should be thrown out or forgotten. So I’m never going to say that any of God’s word is obsolete. Even when the tabernacle was replaced by the temple or the temple replaced by Jesus the final high priest, people can still learn about God by learning about the history of the tabernacle and the temple. The directions for building them no longer have the same function as they did for the original audience, and we no longer have the same perspective on the texts as people living in a time when the tabernacle and temple were relevant to daily worship, but their history is still instructive and still points us to important truths.

I think there is a parallel with the narratives of Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, Job, Jonah, etc. At points in Christian history the perspective on these narratives and their role in worship have been different (i.e. they have been viewed at various points as literal history, whatever that entails.) With the coming of certain areas of scientific knowledge and expertise in ancient literary analysis, we now have different perspectives on the role the narratives should play in constructing our understanding of history. But that doesn’t make them obsolete or negate the fact that these narratives can communicate essential truths about God and humanity.

When Paul talks about the Law in Romans he talks about it like a babysitter that was taking care of the people until something new and better came along. (Gal 3:15-29) I know it’s not perfectly analogous, but maybe in some way, the literal interpretation of OT narratives played a similar role, protecting people’s hearts and understanding from competing ideas, and guiding them to important truths, until a point in history where new knowledge made a different perspective more helpful when it came to that same task of guiding people to important truths. That doesn’t make the OT narratives “lies” any more than Christ’s work made the Law sinful (Rom 7:7).

[Casper_Hesp]

@Mike_Gantt

To say it another way, they were thinking about things in terms of a single physical dimension and a spiritual dimension whereas we think about things in multiple physical dimensions - and, to our detriment, often forget about the spiritual dimension.

Mike, the suggestion you made above may be helpful in overcoming your current conundrum. If we talk about the “physical world”, time and space are both physical dimensions. We live in 4 dimensions, 1 (temporal) + 3 (spatial). In Einstein’s equations of relativity, time and space are treated in almost equivalent ways (crucial difference: observers can only move forward in time). In astronomy, there is no practical difference between observing what happened millions of years ago and what happened millions of lightyears away from us (as I’ve made clear on another thread). Also, all physical processes extend over both space and time. If we understand anything at all about the natural world, this understanding has to deal with both space and time. Now, suppose we keep that idea (physical dimensions = time + space) in mind and then take seriously the follow statement of yours, with which I wholeheartedly agree:

@Mike_Gantt

A proper way to compare our view with theirs is that we have more awareness of what is going on physically than they did, but this has nothing to say about what was going on behind-the-scenes spiritually. Viewing things in this proper way helps us to see that it’s not that the ancients were wrong about science, it’s that they weren’t thinking about things in scientific terms. That is, they weren’t thinking about the physical dimension existing in multiple forms.

In this statement, the “physical” should actually include the time dimension. Moses’ authority would have applied within the world of the original audience (!), in which spiritual takes precedence over the physical world (which is largely unknown in time and space). I have no problems with the Bible operating within the “status quo” of that picture, in order to clearly convey salvation-related matters.

Now, I perceive both YEC and your MC view as arriving at conclusions that stem from inadvertently projecting modern concerns about “physical history” onto the ancient text of Genesis. This is undesirable because, as you said, the ancient audience of these Scriptures was primarily concerned with the spiritual (or “spiritual history”, already linking the spiritual to the time dimension). When we eliminate that particular projection of our “modern” mindset, we can appreciate fully not only the imagery of heavenly storehouses of hail and the spiritual aspects of disease, but also the wisdom and truth expressed in the Creation account and Adam & Eve, without having to “butt heads” with what scientific research can tell us about the natural world (across time and space).

Peace,
Casper

[made edits for clarification]

[Mike_Gantt]

@Christy

When you say obsolete, I think of something that no longer matters and is no longer instructive and should be thrown out or forgotten. So I’m never going to say that any of God’s word is obsolete.

I agree with all that you say in your post. I went back and added a note to the fifth stipulation in the OP to emphasize this point.

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Mike_Gantt

This contingency is easier for me to imagine than that someone will come up with a cogent interpretation of the three passages that blunts the prima facie meaning of the words.

That’s not what prima facie means. You’re interpreting the words from a translation. Moreover, IIRC your goal is to extrapolate through a six-day creation based on these three passages, to a young earth, to a denial of evolution, correct?

[benkirk (Benjamin Kirk)]

@Mike_Gantt

…most saying that the history recorded in Gen 1-11 may be discarded in favor of SGH with no loss to our faith.

But you’ve already done so for many things.

[Mike_Gantt]

@Casper_Hesp

Now, I perceive both YEC and your MC view as arriving at conclusions that stem from inadvertently projecting modern concerns about “physical history” onto the ancient text of Genesis.

Can you explain further what you mean about my “inadvertently projecting modern concerns about ‘physical history’ onto the ancient text of Genesis”? It’s not apparent to me from the post, even though I can at least partially appreciate what you think consideration of the dimension of time does to a perception of the problem at hand. If I am motivated by a “modern concern about ‘physical history’,” it’s not apparent to me. What is “physical history” vis-a-vis “what happened”? Was the original audience of Genesis unconcerned about “what happened”? I’m not being obstinate to your suggestion (at least, not yet); I’m just trying to understand it.

[Casper_Hesp]

@Mike_Gantt

Can you explain further what you mean about my “inadvertently projecting modern concerns about ‘physical history’ onto the ancient text of Genesis”?

Hi Mike,
One example of what I mean (but there are more such examples) is that you are using the description of 7 days in Genesis 1 to “generate” a supposed physical history of 7 times 24 hours, while the receiving audience could have simply understood the working week as a framework for communication about God’s creative activity. If they did see this connection, it seems probable that they did not attach “physical” significance to the duration/order of the days.

You still seem to weighing very heavily on the connection with those quotations from Exodus, and I do not understand why. As I explained before, those “prooftexts” fit very well with the idea of grounding God’s creative activity in an everyday reality to support the Jews in worship of God. At the very least, this means there are alternate explanations that do not support the claim on which your “Mosaic Creationism” seems to rely completely. Your claim is that the connection between Genesis 1 and Exodus must mean that the events in Genesis 1 are literal-historical. I think this is one of the weakest links in your “theory”. If that one were false, your framework falls apart.

@Mike_Gantt

Was the original audience of Genesis unconcerned about “what happened”?

They were concerned with “what happened” (Creation), “by who” (God), and “for who” (mankind), “how” with respect to purpose (good, very good) but not with the mechanistic “how” and the precise “when”. For example, I think there are textual reasons to suggest that the order of the days is not meant as a chronological description. You have probably read about this before, but there is a clear pattern in the days that develops the motive introduced in Genesis 1:2 “The earth was formless and empty.” Every time, God fixes the “formlessness” (Hebrew: tohu) by creating order (days 1, 3, 5) and then fixes the “emptiness” (Hebrew: bohu) by filling the created order with creatures (days 2, 4, 6):

Day 1 => Day 4:
Separate light and darkness / day and night. => Fill with sun (during the day), moon, stars (during the night).

Day 2 => Day 5:
Separate waters above and below with the skies in between => Fill with fish (in the waters below) and birds (in the skies).

Day 3 => Day 6:
Separate water from land (with plants) => Fill with animals and humans (both on the land)

Day 7:
Sabbath

After somebody had pointed out this structure in Genesis 1 to me, the text has come to make sense to me on a much deeper level than before. For me it is of the level of “cannot unsee”, and I think this structure in the text itself already indicates that the focus is not on chronology of physical events. It is likely that the audience would perceive the same structure: it was much more readily apparent to them because they were native to the ancient Hebrew language and mindset. If they indeed did readily see this structure, the Hebrew audience would also have understood that the focus of this particular text (including its connection to Exodus) is not on the “physical” chronology of things, but on theological matters.

I think we’ve been through much of this already, and I don’t want to make this exchange tiresome for you, so don’t feel obliged to respond.

Peace and blessings in your pursuit of truth,
Casper

[Mike_Gantt]

@Casper_Hesp

I think we’ve been through much of this already, and I don’t want to make this exchange tiresome for you, so don’t feel obliged to respond.

Casper, I appreciate the time you took to try to explain what I asked you about. And I do indeed appreciate the symmetry and conceptual artistry in Genesis that you describe. I also agree that we’re probably now digging up old terrain and should probably lay down our hoes.

As for the chronology of creation, I honestly don’t know how to avoid thinking about it when it is practically the only thing the three texts (Ex 20:8-11; Ex 31:21-17; Gen 1-2) have in common. And when you and others tell me that the original audience didn’t care about chronology, you’re essentially asking me to ignore something that’s in the text for something that’s not in the text. One thing I’ll readily concede though: there are a lot more people on this board who think like you than who think like me.

[Casper_Hesp]

@Mike_Gantt

As for the chronology of creation, I honestly don’t know how to avoid thinking about it when it is practically the only thing the three texts (Ex 20:8-11; Ex 31:21-17; Gen 1-2) have in common.

As I said before, their commonalities are explained by the connection between a “human working week” and God’s establishment of Creation. Specifically, both have a beginning, a “work plan”, and reach completion in the end (Sabbath). I don’t know how often this should be repeated to bring the point across: There is an obvious purpose for making this connection, because (1) it illustrates God’s creative work and (2) it establishes a practice of worship in the daily lives of the Jews. I honestly don’t think you can justify a strict literal-historical interpretation of Genesis 1 based on a connection that has a completely different purpose: establishing the holiness of the Sabbath. I don’t think I can repeat this point often enough because you keep returning to this claim in every exchange.

@Mike_Gantt

you’re essentially asking me to ignore something that’s in the text for something that’s not in the text.

That’s somewhat ironic because I have been trying to explain from the text (and its context) why your conclusion is not warranted by the text. An example I gave from the text (and which you could appreciate) is the remarkable ordering of the days, creating three realms (days 1-3) which are subsequently filled (days 4-6) to be completed in the Sabbath (day 7). It is the unfathomable activity of our Creator fashioned according to an ordinary working week. For me, the kind of interpretation you are imposing on this passage would require a separate clause stating something along the lines of: “In the following passage it may seem like the author has intentionally fashioned the account to mirror a human working week, but actually the author did no such thing so you have to interpret the days in a literal-historical sense.”
If that would be stated in Genesis chapter ‘zero’, I would be able to agree with you.

Anyhow, it appears we’ve come full circle again!

[Mike_Gantt]

@Casper_Hesp

I don’t know how often this should be repeated to bring the point across:

@Casper_Hesp

I don’t think I can repeat this point often enough because you keep returning to this claim in every exchange.

I think the reason we keep repeating ourselves is that you and others don’t think I get “the connection between a ‘human working week’ and God’s establishment of Creation.” Meanwhile, I do get the connection but don’t think that you and others get the reason given in the text for the connection.

(Just completing my part of the circle.)

[Casper_Hesp]

@Mike_Gantt

Meanwhile, I do get the connection but don’t think that you and others get the reason given in the text for the connection.

(Just completing my part of the circle.)

Okay, to continue the circle one more time ( ) : Meanwhile, I think the actual reason for the connection given in the text differs significantly from your interpretation of it.

[Mike_Gantt]

@Casper_Hesp

Okay, to continue the circle one more time ( ) : Meanwhile, I think the actual reason for the connection given in the text differs significantly from your interpretation of it.

I’ll let yours be the last word…at least this time around.

[Casper_Hesp]

Thanks, lol! When I come up with some new thoughts that may be helpful I’ll pop in again

[Bill_II]

@Mike_Gantt

I wanted to be sure you saw this post so I’m posting it a second time.

@Mike_Gantt

I know this thread has kind of blown up, but I did answer your questions here if you are still interested.

[gbrooks9 (George Brooks)]

@Mike_Gantt,

You complained to @Casper_Hesp that he was “…essentially asking [you] to ignore something that’s in the text for something that’s not in the text.”

Indeed, this is the crux of virtually the entire discussion. The Genesis Creation details (what’s in the text) invalidates its own credibility on many levels and in many places … which warrants a conscientious reader to replace error with scientifically supported correct descriptions (what is not in the texts!).

Otherwise, a great number of the new generation of Christians will be compelled to question even the spiritual truths of the Bible because of your claim that everything is inextricably linked together!

Let me offer my soul up to you in a one time only demonstration!

You say that you cannot reject the appearance of error (The figurative use of days) because to do so would lead you to greater error (we need the literal meaning ‘days’ to justify the Sabbath, and that God created the Sabbath to show he “completed” creation).

And yet the point of the objections you have been hearing here is that the linkage doesn’t save the 6 days of creation if the entire scriptural chain is not defensible for other reasons.

For example, this linkage also incorporates capital punishment for not honoring the Sabbath - an eternal covenant!

Not only do YECs, for the most part, reject Saturday as the Sabbath, even if Sunday can be justified as the new Sabbath, nobody is put to death for working on that day.

The rationalization usually proffered is that the O.T. wording of the Sabbath being an eternal covenant was incorrectly worded. It really wasn’t intended to be eternal… it just needed to run until Jesus, which was a good deal short of eternity!

This is pretty much the same point we have been making all along!: the O.T. wording is not inerrant.

So, @Mike_Gantt, if you can convince me that the O.T. text - asserting the eternal covenant of the Sabbath - is being mis-translated, I will fly to your church on any Sunday of your choosing and accept the faith and baptism of your congregation for all time!

In other words, you are trying to use the alleged integrity of scriptural corpus on the Sabbath as the reason why we must accept 6 literal days of creation! But the only way to preserve the corpus is to explain why God allowed the Sabbath to change … and why the death penalty was allowed to lapse for any reason.