It’s true that Genesis 1 does not make scientific claims and the age of the earth and universe must be determined by scientific investigations and observations.
I think the question of Bible-concordism has been hindered for many years because there has not been an interpretation of Genesis 1 that has achieved a consensus status within the broader Christian community. This I believe, has encouraged commentators to shy away from advocating a concordist position.
The objective of my PowerPoint program is to present a concordist interpretation of Genesis 1 that is faithful to scripture in all respects and also is in harmony with science so that it might become the consensus understanding of how the world was created.
Well, you presented your view…or the concordist view in general. Well done. It is likely that there will “never” be an interpretation of Genesis 1 that “acheives a consensus status within the broader Christian community” — aside from the notion that God was the Initiator ----and even Augustine appears to have rolled his eyes at people making claims about science-religion matters that he felt were unwarranted…I like Soden’s version of things and think it makes sense. No one in 2000 BC (or thereabouts) was concerned about evolution or the nature of quarks…and the name Charles “as in Darwin” was centuries away from even being a word…But they had their own controversies — such as a universe created by dueling deities who created humanity to work for them (so they did not have to) and then destroyed us because we were too noisy (by some versions). There may be other perspectives – and I am curious about that place at the bottom of the Persian Gulf—but that is as far as I go with it all…
It is likely that there will “never” be an interpretation of Genesis 1 that “achieves a consensus status within the broader Christian community.”
You may very well be right and it probably will take a very long time to move from the situation that exists today toward that goal. But, I think we are obligated to continue to search for the truth since I believe there can only be one correct interpretation of Genesis1.
St. Augustine, in his study of the creation narrative, wrote in his book, the City of God, “What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible to determine.” But, in the 21st century, the scientific community, through many years of theoretical and experimental investigations, has resolved many of the heretofore deep mysteries of how the universe came into being. As a result, many myths about origins have been dispelled and it’s now possible, with the help of this new knowledge, to reexamine the creation account to determine its correct interpretation.
Well, Augustine was right. And we should not think that we have, with “theoretical and experimental investigations” of the 20th and 21st centuries, come so close to comprehending the whole of the universe. If it is truly infinite, that is likely something we will never be capable of. It would be a small Universe indeed, if so. And at any rate, we are looking at a text that was composed by those with an even smaller base of knowledge than what we now possess. But whatever those things are that we yet need to learn, God created it and the rest is up to us to explore.
Why do you (or anyone else) see the need to hamonise Genesis 1 (1-11) with science?
The need to harmonize Genesis 1 with science is not generated by the observer, Instead, God created the natural world and the inspiration of the biblical creation account . Since, both of these revelations are emanations of God, it’s logical that he would not cause them to be in conflict with each other.
If when scientists study the universe and theologians interpret the scriptures they are mutually able to demonstrate the harmony of the two, they can be confident that they have correctly interpreted the data of the natural world and the exegesis of scripture.
You are assuming that God authored Genesis 1. Genesis 1 is an aural tradition. There is no need to harmonise it because it is not attempting to be scientific. It is basically answering the Babylonian version (which has 8 days) and emphasising or establishing the Sabbath.
Evidence indicates, however, that the Jews may have borrowed the idea of the week from Mesopotamia, for the Sumerians and the Babylonians divided the year into weeks of seven days each, one of which they designated a day of recreation.
page 8
To maintain the harmony between general and special revelation requires the willingness to adjust your interpretation/exegesis of special revelation when it conflicts with the reality of the physical world.
page 15
The process is just about totally wrong.
The correct sequence is:
The earth is formless as the rocky material around the sun slowly starts to gather.
When the earth finally reaches a spherical shape it is totally dry “land”.
Gradually water collects on the surface and it is speculated that at some point the entire surface is covered with water.
Dry “land” appears out of the water as plate tectonics starts to move and force land upwards.
Life begins in the ocean and includes plant and animal life.
Plants move onto dry land.
Fish with 4 limbs move onto the dry land.
Tetrapods become reptiles and then mammals.
Somewhere along about here the moon is formed.
Along comes Man.
Problems with your analysis.
First day is wrong. No cloud cover due to the lack of water.
Second day is wrong. No vegetation yet.
Third day is wrong. No moon yet.
Fourth day is wrong. No birds yet.
So since science says the interpretation of Genesis as outlining/detailing the transformation of the earth is wrong what has to change is how you read Genesis. Perhaps it is trying to say something else.
From a scientific standpoint, the process of the earth’s formation is understood as:
The earth’s formation began after the sun was formed by the gravitational contraction of gas and dust.
Subsequently, the earth was formed from the accretion of material in orbit around the sun and/or other material coming within the gravitational field of the earth. Because of the energy released from these material collisions combined with gravitational contraction forces, the earth became molten.
The collision of a large object with the molten earth caused material to be broken off to form the moon. At this point, both bodies were still molten so they each took on a spherical shape before they cooled.
The primordial earth was formless and void (Gen 1:2) and it began its cooling process. During this time the earth was covered by a thick cloud cover and this condition is verified by Job 38:4,9
The primordial earth then underwent a long transformation process that resulted in its current condition. The transformation process is documented in the eight decrees of Genesis 1:3 thru 1:31. The decrees are general mandates and not scientific explanations. So, trying to compare these mandates with a detailed sequence of actual events is not warranted and the account ought not to be declared to be in error. The decrees were not meant to provide this level of detail.
I’m assuming you mean the refrain of “evening… morning”.
I always wonder why people who claim to take the account literally fail to see that this describes night, not a day! What comes after evening? Nighttime. What ends nighttime? Morning.
In the view of all ancient near east religion/mythology, night is a period of darkness that belongs to the great enemy who opposes creation, a foe that the gods must fight against every night to make sure the day returns. By including nighttime as just an ordinary part of the creation process, the Genesis writer conveys the message that the night is so far from being an enemy of anything that it doesn’t even get named, only demarcated; it isn’t even assigned a function, which is how the sun and the moon appear in this account, as mere functions not worthy of being named.
Not naming something was considered a way to negate it, so by not even naming the night, indeed not even assigning a function, so this refrain mocked the Mesopotamian view that darkness was to be feared; it was a declaration that the powers of darkness don’t even rise to the level of YHWH-Elohim or His writer taking notice, let alone be something to worry about.
Because the actual transformation and filling of the earth was very complex, it’s futile to try to get strict agreement of the biblical narrative with the earth’s geological ages. Noted geologist and author Davis A. Young has written extensively on why that view should be abandoned. Nevertheless, even though Genesis 1 does not provide a scientific explanation of the earth’s transformation, a proper interpretation of the creation account harmonizes with the scientific evidence developed by modern science.
The decrees do get the broad outline of the transformation correct!
“And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.” And so forth.
Hebrew linguist C. John Collins, investigated the applications of the refrain by conducting a linguistic analysis of its wording:
"The syntax of each verse contains two verbs, which means that the evening and morning terms, are successive events, that after each work period, mark the coming of evening, and then of morning, which brings that day to a close, and prepares us for the next one.”
Collins concludes that this wording of the refrain establishes a workday pattern for man.
Which cosmologist was it who flat out called string theory and membrane theory and the rest “mathematical metaphysics” and not science?
I’ve watched that full discussion before, and always wonder what really bugs Penrose about a conscious intellect behind the universe.
The moral question was a chasm to cross for some in our unofficial intelligent design club in university (before the young-earth-creationists hijacked the term): concluding from science that there must be a Creator didn’t necessarily indicate that the Creator was good.
Not merely that: they take it literally and operate with the unstated premise that in order to be true it has to be 100% scientifically accurate. I have challenged YECers before to show me where the Bible gives that definition of truth, and with just a couple exceptions the result has been a blank look – they don’t even realize that they have a worldview that does not come from the Bible, and in fact I couldn’t get most of them to grasp that any other worldview than theirs was even possible. But for those who grasp that reality, it’s not hard to get them to see where that unstated premise comes from, which is scientific materialism, a worldview that is inherently atheistic – at which point their certainty about things comes crashing down, and they either flee back to the YEC refuge or start asking questions.
And there is beauty.