It’s pretty much the same approach as you isolating 3 verses from Genesis and insisting it has to have a binding meaning on all of Genesis…
I can’t tell whether you are agreeing with my criticism of Walton or rejecting it.
Neither do I follow the analogy you are trying to draw with my question about Genesis 2:1-3 - a passage ostensibly about a period of time that is intended to be read in conjunction with the passage immediately preceding it, which describes what happened in the six previous periods of time. I don’t know where you’re getting “insisting it has to have a binding meaning on all of Genesis.”
I’m simply saying that my bona fide interpretation of Genesis 2:1-3 materially conflicts with my bona fide interpretation of creatio continua. I am prepared for the possibility that my interpretation of either, or both, may be wrong, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t see a conflict between the two. I’d also be lying if I said I had sought this conflict. It happened when @Swamidass introduced me to the term and pointed to an offsite definition of it in the previous thread. In studying the term, Genesis 2:1-3 came spontaneously to my mind. After some rumination, and other things, I decided to start this thread because I could not resolve the conflict by myself.
I’m disagreeing with your assessment.
I could decide that the meaning of Jesus’ comment about humans being Gods is a fundamental sentence … rather than a comment about how little the Jewish elders about their own rules. But would that be fair to place so much meaning on just a few sentences?
John 10:33-34
The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods? If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came…
One might even suggest that that over-emphasizing the significance of a sentence ‘here’ and a sentence ‘there’ is the hallmark of petty sectarian differences between denominations in what should be the United family of Christ!
Just as I reject the use of a few lines to justify boycotting Birthday celebrations … I reject the use of a few lines to justify boycotting the immense matrix we know as God’s natural law.
I agree the garden was presented as a sacred space. But the seven day structure of the creation of the rest of the world fits the structure of other ANE temple inauguration narratives, per John Walton.
If I remember correctly from his book, he was arguing that the fact that material creation was created by God was taken as a given by all the ancient people and not questioned. So asserting that God was the (material) Creator was a premise that would be immediately granted. By no “account” I think he means no description of the process or time frame involved in material creation, not no assertion that it was God who did it.
The dispute over Continuous Creation is a man-made discussion about what some people think is opposed in Genesis.
Compare the fact that the Bible doesn’t attempt to prove your point at all in that paragraph (or anywhere) … vs. the New Testament verse where Jesus defends himself with the scripture “I said, Ye are Gods…”
And yet only the Most extreme sectarian attempt to “make hay” on these words by Jesus.
@Mike_Gantt I appreciate that you genuinely seem to be seeking understanding. I would just caution other people here to not mistake his persistence as trying to insist on a non-existent contradiction (as often happens on these boards). Mike appears to be genuinely wrestling with this.
Mike, I think this comes to to whether or not you think Genesis 2:1-3 is an absolute statement about simultaneously two things:
- A promise of cessation of all of God’s creative activity that entirely binds Him.
- That we are 100% certain that the seventh day extends till now.
Both interpretations are possible but not corroborated anywhere else. I think this is similar to the statements about Jesus being “alone in the Garden”, but then somehow we have a long detailed transcript of His supposedly private prayer.
In this case, Jesus is “alone” but this is a relative term. In the same way I might say I am “alone at home” even though my wife and kid are in the next room, or that I am “alone in a crowd”. I’d either be making a relative statement about my status of company or using it as an image of how I viewed the situation. A argumentative person pointing out I my pet was there, or that I was not actually alone because I had a phone is missing the point. I have not said anything inconsistent. There is just that must elasticity in language, and without more information we cannot know.
I think that there is sufficient evidence that Genesis 2 is to be taken this way:
- Textually, after this statement we see additional creations.
- In the cannon, we observe more creations of God.
- Traditionally, theologians have positive the special creation of the whale that swallows Jonah.
- Scientifically, we observe things being “created” all the time, from a new river, a new star, a new mountain, to a new species.
This is all evidence that it permissible in Scripture to take this cessation in the same way we take “alone in the garden.” It is an entirely true, but relative statement. Creatio Continua is just a statement of the doctrine.
I do not think this derivable from Genesis 2:1-3 alone. One has to look at the surrounding verses to see the initial possibility. The traditional interpretation, the full body of Scripture, and the undisputed observations of nature all make my final interpretation coherent and clear.
Perhaps you do not see it. That is fine. I hope at least you find this plausible.
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I wouldn’t call Gen 1-11 parables as a parable is totally made up. It contains truth that is based on events that did happen (God did actually create) but not at the time indicated (creation is more than 6,000 years ago). Remember I mentioned the difference between history and literal history.
Yes with one more addition. It was a YEC preacher that pointed out that if you take the Bible as a record of history of the earth, half of that history is covered in Gen 1-11. It struck me that why would we have such a detailed history (99% of the Bible) for one half and almost nothing for the other half? That is when I decided that God wasn’t trying to give us history in those first 11 chapters.
And let me add I believe we can trust the truth contained in the oral histories that were recorded we just can’t trust the history, the when it happened part.
Easy. You let Scripture interpret Scripture. We know that God doesn’t need rest in the human sense. We know the Sabbath (which is what this is picturing) was made for man. We know God’s creation is an ongoing process. So I do not take this as saying God’s creation was completed, finished, perfect, and never to be repeated again.
Where do I begin? Creation in 6 literal days 6,000 years ago. The order of creation. Woman being created from Adam’s rib. The two different versions of creation. A talking serpent. Magical trees. God walking in the garden and speaking in an audible voice to Adam.
The actual verse in Genesis couldn’t be referring to Adam and Eve. Gen 2:24 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” A&E did not have a father or mother.
Yes. Paul was working with what he knew.
Edit to add:
Do I trust Paul when he speaks of God, yes. He learned of God from the OT.
Do I trust Paul when he speaks of Jesus, yes. He learned of Jesus from Jesus.
Do I trust Paul when he speaks of Adam, not so much. He learned of Adam from the OT.
Do I trust Paul when he speaks of medicine, no, but I would trust Luke to the extent of his knowledge at that time.
As I have said I have no problems with miracles. Some of them, such as the sun standing still, are only a problem because of the way people interpret what the Bible is saying. Off the top of my head I can’t think of any that I would say are simply false.
Wow this is a record for me but I hope it helps.
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I’ve got one other idea. But it’s not really an idea of it necessarily will help Mike, but it is that the Israelites actually did believe the creation was finished and complete. Much in the same way that you glean from passages like Jeremiah 31:35 where the heavens were perfect and fixed.
And lo and behold Tycho Brahe’s supernova in 1572 caused a stir as he himself was in disbelief as everybody just knew that creation was done. So in this sense, the Israelites were using the best knowledge of their day to tell their story and God didn’t give them any supernatural knowledge that he was still creating her things were still being created - instead speaking to them in for familiar terms and familiar knowledge of their era.
Also, the point earlier about other creation myths including the fact that the gods rested bears large witness to the scriptural account because it explains why the Genesis writer felt compelled to have Yahweh rest and the end of our story. It’s just what the gods did when they were done with it all (culminating in man).
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I share your disdain for sectarianism; however, I have not found its presence or absence correlated with a number of verses cited. Jesus Himself might use a single verse to vanquish His opponents (e.g. Matt 22:23-33) while, on the other hand, sect leaders have been known to quote verse upon verse. Just as “the Lord is not restrained to save by many or by few” (1 Sam 14:6), it seems the devil is not restrained to corrupt by many or by few.
@Mike_Gantt… I’m not talking about sermonizing… I’m talking about building important doctrine on a single Bible verse.
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The fact that he needs you to explain what he might have meant helps to demonstrate why he’s unconvincing to some. Whether the fault lies with his logic (as my comment suggested), or his word choice (as your comment suggests), the point is that there is reason someone might not be convinced by his arguments.
By the way, that excerpt of his I chose was not some random part of the article; it was the main point of the article! One could argue it’s the main point of his book. If you want people to accept that Genesis 1-2 has nothing to do with material origins after 2,000 years of mostly thinking otherwise, you ought to give them some clear prose.
Actually, I don’t hold to either of these views, but I don’t want to belabor the point. I’d rather just move to directly addressing the solution you are offering.
I take your point about “relative terms” and allowing for “elasticity in language.”
As for your four points, they all raise the question of what constitutes a “creation.” In Genesis 1 we see one new thing created after another, but after Genesis 1 we only see more of the same things being created (e.g. more rivers, more stars, more mountains). That, to me, evokes the dividing line of Gen 2:1-3. But I do not want to debate this with you as that, too, could be a digression.
The main thing I want to ask you is this:
Having granted that Genesis 2:1-3 might have a “limited” meaning (a la Jesus being “alone”) what then is that meaning for you - because it can’t mean nothing, right?
And if it means more than nothing, why isn’t that limitation acknowledged in definitions of creatio continua? (I did not limit my research on the term to the one link you gave, and, while I found slightly differing definitions, I did not find any of them acknowledging that Genesis 2:1-3 might impose some limitation, however small, on the doctrine. If this is the case, then has not Genesis 2:1-3 been stripped clean of its primary thrust?
In summary, I need to come up with some reasonable amount of meaning for Genesis 2:1-3; I can’t just let creatio continua make me ignore Genesis 2:1-3, can I? In all that you said here, I did not see where you defined what you think the limited meaning of Genesis 2:1-3 actually is for you. If this solution to the conflict is to make sense to me, I need to understand what you understand Genesis 2:1-3 to be saying. I did not hear in anything you said a way for me to view creatio continua differently - and that’s not necessarily a problem. But if the only thing I am to change is my view of Genesis 2:1-3, what, specifically is that change? What do you see as the passage’s scope in terms of cessation, and what limitation, if any, does this passage place on creatio continua? And if Gen 2:1-3 places no limitation at all on creatio continua, are we not just saying that the latter trumps the former?
(I apologize for the redundancies in this comment, but I erred in that direction to increase the probability that my perception of the dilemma might be better appreciated. Thanks for indulging me.)
I very much appreciate your patience with me. Just a few more clarifying questions, please.
If you’re uncomfortable with “parable,” can you give me some other genres or categories I can use to describe it when contrasting it with the history or facts you see from Gen 12 onward? Based on what I’ve understood you to say, it seems like you consider Gen 1-11 as a mixture of facts and fictions - but I don’t want to use terms that you might feel are pejorative. It just feels awkward saying that Gen 1-11 is “figurative” and having no other way to describe your view.
Again, please refresh me on this distinction. It is not familiar to me.
I’ve already understood you to say that you are not uncomfortable with a talking donkey; what then is the problem with a talking serpent?
Was it then Jesus or Paul whose view was out of sync with 1st-century Judaism? (Since you’ve already told me that you thought Jesus held your view, I’m trying to figure out if you think He held it by divine revelation or if that’s what the Pharisees and Sadducees of Palestine also thought…or something else.)
Lastly, where do you find this view in Jewish or Christian history and how did you come by it?
You are probably aware that the OT verse most often quoted in the NT is Ps 110:1, and, as you are also probably aware, quite a bit of doctrine is based on it. How many other OT verses are there upon which to build the doctrine that Jesus arose to “sit at the right hand of God”?
By the way, I’m not arguing for single-verse doctrines. I myself like to have 2 or 3 (per the 2 Cor 13:1 standard, itself found multiple places in the Bible), and the more verses the merrier. However, I have noticed that God and His spokesmen sometimes attach a lot more importance to a single verse than I would feel comfortable doing - and who am I to say they’re wrong to do it?
Besides, Genesis 2:1-3 is not the only place that speaks of creation the way it does. There are multiple references to God’s rest and completion of creation (as @pevaquark even says above).
I deem you to be too familiar with the Bible to need such help.
Yeah… but they were wrong. Tycho’s Supernova showed that the heavens weren’t fixed. That actually is a huge deal because it means that the Scriptures were either wrong or God simply spoke to them according to their understanding of nature and reality.
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I hope you don’t mind if I jump in here to expand on my earlier comment #74 of this thread; I realized I was so excited I neglected to either quote or @ you, so it may have been easy to miss.
One thing I have been wondering about lately is that if we interpret Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 as not referring to the same events, as I believe it makes more sense that they do not, what theological interpretations are lost or less well founded, and must be reevaluated?
Primarily what we need to be concerned about is the fundamental equality and relatedness of the human race. Combining Gen 1 and 2 into the same story provides the interpretation that Adam and Eve are the sole humans from which all other humans descend. We know that our DNA doesn’t look anything like it would if that were true. Fortunately, that’s not the only possible interpretation.
But how do we still know that humans are all equally human, if we are not all descended from only a single couple? We are all declared to be created in the Image of God, and given dominion over the animals. God then cessates His creating, not of individuals or land or sea or new species, but of the capstone of creation, that which it was the purpose of creation to bring into being: humankind, something which could be an Image of God. After Gen. 2, God is not creating any better varieties of human or humans who are more in the Image than other humans, or any who are more in charge of (have more rights to) the fish and birds and other animals and plants. There is a firm line drawn after the initial creation of humankind, that God is not continuing to improve the species in any way significant to how human we consider each other.
I think the idea of God resting is also interesting in that it opens scope for God to not be doing things: there are some things that happen that are not (directly) because of God. This points me to Free Will (or deism, but I’ve never liked deism much) and it makes a great deal of sense that God resting is a necessary component of humankind being able to properly exercise Free Will, and to fully inhabit the Image of God role laid out for them.
I would be very interested to know if this is at all helpful to you in your search for an actual figurative meaning to the verses in question!
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