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

For the simple reason He was establishing a pattern of one day of rest out of seven and He wanted to make it memorable? Does He really need more reason than that? Can we ever come up with the reason God did something if He doesn’t tell us? I am pretty sure Scripture says we can’t know the mind of God. Which would imply we can’t know His reasons.

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Exactly! That is my very point. And that is why your position surprises me.

Unfortunately once my meeting begins (as soon as my guests arrive any minute now), I will be tied up the entire day. I hope to resume tomorrow. Perhaps I will get breaks allowing occasional comments. For now:

"[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:99, topic:36410”]
“And there was evening and there was morning, X day”
[/quote]

You asked of my view and the quoted CHORUS plays a prominent role: the six YOM of Genesis 1 are stanzas composed around an outline based upon the days of the week, each sharing the same chorus. And that brings up a question for you: Why evening and morning? That is NOT the Semitic components of a day. (Evening and morning? What about the afternoon?) How do you know this is not an idiomatic expression rather than a “literal” evening and morning. (One again, I’m speaking Socratically. I do think the two words refer to the usual meaning of those words, evening and morning, but that doesn’t preclude an idiomatic application, such as “from start to finish” and using a six day week in a poetic type of literary structure. That’s why the author(s) weren’t concerned about the inherent internal contradictions, such as evenings and mornings without a sun to give them “literal meaning”, etc. etc.)

Gotta go.

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There are several features of the text which the YEC has to wrestle with, not least which are the solid firmament and a 24 hour day before the sun exists. And I’m glad you raised the evening/morning part here, because it’s good evidence for the day/vision view. The evening/morning construction here is showing the passage of a natural 24 hour day, but it is able to do this precisely because the Jewish day originally began in the morning, not in the evening.

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Bill, it doesn’t seem that you understand the question I’m asking. I’m not asking why God chose a pattern for us of working six days and then resting one. I’m actually not asking God anything about this. I’m asking you, others, and myself, why God would choose to tell us that He worked six days and rested one if He did not in fact work six days and rest one? My answer to that question is that I cannot think of a reason; and so I’m seeing if anyone else can.

Why would God leave a huge amount of evidence indicating that the universe is very old, if in fact the universe is very young? It’s the same issue.

To answer your question directly, the reality is that God did work six days and rested on one, but not in the way that you think. This is the real issue here; you need to be able to separate your interpretation of the text, from the actual text.

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I’m asking you why God would allow a description of Moses’s death to be included in the Pentateuch if God wanted us to be certain (or at least as certain as you claim to be) that the Pentateuch represents Moses’s testimony?

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This statement leaves me completely perplexed.

Tomorrow or the next day is fine.

I know you like to be socratic, but was my question about your position not worthy of a direct answer?

I don’t. I’m open-minded about that.

Perhaps we are talking past each other. I said He chose to tell us that He worked six days when we known it wouldn’t take that long simply because He was establishing the pattern of 6 + 1. The intent wasn’t to say that He actually did work for 6 days it was just the framework, if you will, for the reason for the command that follows. A reason that had to be memorable. You could call this an accommodation to the original audience who would have no concept of vast periods of time. The Hebrew language doesn’t handle time as well as English does, or so I have been told.

I have given you my reason. Can you accept it?

I could also ask why did God make it quite certain that the earth does not move when it fact it does move. Is He lying about that or just accommodating the original audience?

Tricky! I think Mike actually raised this himself earlier.

I’ve got a short break in which I can share something I noticed in the words of a colleague just yesterday. This theologian and church history scholar said, “When Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses to the church door…” Yet, I know (and discussed this issue with him later in the day) that he and other historians know that Luther never nailed a long document to a church door to launch the Reformation. No, that is just a popular legend. Yet, most people assume that it is “literal history”. So my colleague simply took on a popular perception and used the literal meanings one would expect of common English words to refer to an event which never happened. Was he knowingly telling a lie? No. He was basically using that entire introductory clause as a way of connecting with something this audience already knows something about and establishing the historical CONTEXT of what he was about to explain. But the fact that this eminent historian said “When Martin Luther nailed those 95 theses to the church door…” when speaking to some non-historians does NOT mean that he believes that such an historical event actually occurred. (The Reformation and Luther’s role in it really happened but not the nailing of theses to that church door!)

That is a good illustration of how people, including the writers of the Bible, can make literal statements which are NOT indicative of historical facts. Indeed, it is similar to someone today saying “The sun rose this morning” even though it did not “literally” do so except in a relative sense—and “Planet earth is a sphere” is an acceptably true statement even though the earth is actually an oblate spheroid. Connecting with one’s audience, even through beliefs they hold which are not true, is often more important than rigid, 100% accurate, careful details. We don’t hold modern day authors and speakers to such a “legalistic literalism” and we should give the Bible the same freedom to communicate.

Mike, do you think this example and the linguistic concept behind it could be helpful in interpreting Bible texts which may be interpreted literally but not be intended as historical events in exactly those literal details?

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@Mike_Gantt, that is an awful rebuttal.

You insist that you do not hold to strict inerrancy…and yet you have twice refused to show how your views are effectively no different from Strict Inerrantists.

“Your Honor, please let the court records show that the visitor is, indeed, an uncooperative witness.”

This is your biggest mis-step to date, Mike. It goes without saying that the only way someone can find a Biblical reason for you to accept scientific evidence is to know precisely how “non-strict” your Inerrantism really is.

And yet this is precisely what you won’t tell your audience… or me… or @Swamidass… or @cwhenderson… or @Jonathan_Burke… or @Christy…or @Chris_Falter.

I must conclude that, despite your protests otherwise, you are a full blown Strict Inerrantist.

People don’t have to discuss things they aren’t interested in discussing, even if that means you have less fun, George. Please stop badgering. :wolf: (there was no badger emoji, but if you pretend and use your imagination, this one looks kind of like one.)

Yeah but I don’t actually care. His exact view of inerrancy isn’t relevant to the issues we’re addressing. We know enough about it to understand how it affects his hermeneutic.

I’m not resisting the acceptance of your reason - I’m just trying to identify it.

Perhaps we are. However, I’m trying not to do that.

I can’t imagine that anyone would believe that God would promote a fiction about having worked 6+1 in order to establish a 6+1 pattern in the behavior of the Israelites - because 1) He’s God and does not promote fictions (i.e. lie), and 2) He ought to be able to command the Israelites to follow a 6+1 pattern just as He commanded them to not steal and to avoid pork (i.e. just because He said so, without having to offer the additional justification of His own personal behavior). Yet, if you assure me that this indeed is what you’re saying, then I’ll accept it and cease further discussion with you about it.

I’ve heard this before, but do not follow the logic of it. I’m no Hebrew scholar but I can read in my English Bible about “ancient” things (Jer 6:16; Dan 7:13), about times “long ago, from the days of eternity” (Mic 5:2), about things “of old” (Pr 8:22; Ps 102:25), and so on. I also see places in the Old Testament when God wants to be vague (e.g. the time of Job) or even reveal nothing at all. All He had to say in Gen 1 was something like “Long before the earliest of times…” So all I can do is scratch my head when people say God had no way to express that the earth was old when the Scriptures were written. It wasn’t necessary for Him to say billions or even millions or even thousands. All He had to do was be vague or silent about chronological issues involving creations. Instead we get statements like “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day.” That’s God talking - not Ken Ham.

If God had made it quite certain that the earth does not move scientifically speaking when it in fact does move scientifically speaking, I could see the analogy. But I don’t think the Bible teaches science. That’s why I see no conflict between the Bible and science. My only issue is SGH.

If you think that you and I have gone as far as we can, I don’t want to press you further. However, I do want to say that I appreciate the way you’ve tried to engage me in this thread. It seems clear to me that you’ve tried to understand me even when you couldn’t agree.

First, let me say that I’m sorely disappointed to hear that no less than a theologian and church history scholar made such a sloppy statement when he could just as easily have said something like “At the time of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses,” or “At the time Martin Luther wrote his 95 Theses” and gotten his point across. Second, I hope you’re not intending to use this anecdote as a sweeping authorization to discount biblical history, Third, however, and most important, I support the fundamental warning that such an anecdote can make - which is that in interpreting any text, and especially the Bible, we should not major on minors.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let’s see how you want to use this principle to make your ultimate point.

@christy,

Yes, I can stop “wolfing”.

But all I am doing is drawing attention to a most unusual proceeding.
Say, for example, a man arrives in town and asks if someone can help him find where his father lost his watch. And he says his father lost the watch in the prettiest part of town.

A crowd gathers, and they express excited interest in helping him find his father’s watch (“lost … in the prettiest part of town”). As the men turn to begin the search, one fellow wearing a badger suit stops and asks: “Hey, where did your father think was the prettiest part of town?”

The man shouts back: “Thank you for your question, but I don’t care to discuss that!”

Mike, that’s just sad that you resort to such equivocations. The Bible is full of such “fictions” and “lies.” Most people call them parables:

Matthew 13:

3And he spake many things unto them in parables, saying, Behold, a sower went forth to sow; 4And when he sowed, some seeds fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: 5Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: 6And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. 7And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: 8But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. 9Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

10And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables? 11He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given. 12For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath. 13Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.

[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:114, topic:36410”]
If God had made it quite certain that the earth does not move scientifically speaking when it in fact does move scientifically speaking, I could see the analogy. [/quote]
The Bible is a whole lot more certain about that than it is about than a young earth.

[quote]But I don’t think the Bible teaches science. That’s why I see no conflict between the Bible and science. My only issue is SGH.
[/quote]You’ve already shown that you don’t use that as a principle.

There’s simply no set of principles of Biblical exegesis that you can use that would lead anyone to accept a moving earth but reject an old earth.

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@Mike_Gantt

I have to agree with Ben on this one. What you call “lies”, other people call legends, parables or poetic license.

Weeks ago, I showed you that on the face of it, Job’s description of God’s teasing Job about his ignorance (including specific ignorance of where God stores his snow and hail) was much more explicit than anything you can extract out of the Genesis creation account (unwitnessed by any human, and most likely not literally whispered into a scribe’s mind by God himself).

But your reaction was: “No, the Job texts are figurative.”

You never attempted to prove it … for the basic reason that it is impossible to do so. I would think the Job texts are the perfect example of you opposing Strict Inerrantism. But the problem is that if you let the Job texts go, you have to let the even more figurative texts of Genesis Creation go too.

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Final Note: You also wrote “If God had made it quite certain that the earth does not move scientifically speaking when it in fact does move scientifically speaking, I could see the analogy.”

But here’s the awkward part . . . you and many others have been focusing on the inter-planetary movement of the Earth. But The Continental Drift theory is only some 50 years old. And if the Biblical texts on an immoveable Earth doesn’t apply to the planets … it certainly does apply to the Earth’s crust we stand on! The Bible is clearly wrong about the Earth’s crust not moving. It moves all the time. And sometimes with devastating effects.

Talking about the Earth not moving is even more of a “wow-zer” than the Firmament.

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God had made it quite certain to the original audience that the earth does not move just as their senses confirmed. It is not stated as a scientific fact but repeatedly as simply a fact. I don’t know how you would apply “scientifically speaking” for something written before the advent of science. And if God says it you really should believe it. You don’t see a problem because you apply the “Bible does not teach science” filter or the “not SGH” filter. The problem is the Bible claims to teach only truth so how do you address the conflict? The standard apologetic reply is to say the Bible is written in phenomenological terms (something foreign to the original audience as they only had the evidence of their senses) but that results in at least two categories of truth which you then have to worry about identifying and keeping separate.

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@Bill_II,

What kind of moving are we discussing? The Earth’s 24 hour rotation? It’s 365 day orbit? Or the shifting of the continents that we actually stand upon?

You might as well talk about the 3rd choice, because the YEC’s aren’t going to let you do anything with the first two.