Wow! What a lot of posts since I checked in last. Being busy, etc. has its disadvantages.
Thanks for the tips on importing quotes, etc., Christy.
I did get most of the way through forming a reply to some of the posts, but the number seems to have radically increased. I’ll post what I had and appologise for any duplication of overemphases on any subject.
Restrictive, yes. Misleading, I don’t belive so. The “plain meaning” of the words simply means what would be understood by someone reading them without prior knowledge of the argument and in an unbiased way as it is possible to be - although this part might be difficult. If a child, who knew nothing about evolution or creation, etc., read the text, what would they conclude from it? I would argue (without doing any extencive research) that almost all (if not all) children would understand the text as indicating a solar day each - even if they understood or were aware of the other definitions of the word. It is my belief - mainly due to the instructive nature of God - that the original readers would have understood it this way.
Quite right, except for evening and morning in this context actually mean just that - the context makes that quite clear. To change it’s meaning here corrupts the text.
Perhaps, but not biblical creationism. Biblical creationists rely on the biblical account partly because the scientific evidence matches the account. (An argumentthat biblical creationsists ignore scientific evidence (nature) because it doesn’t follow their interpretation of Scripture - and I know this isn’t exactly what you said - shows a lack of knowledge of the biblical creationists’ models.)
It is my belief that interpreting Scripture by external sources is a very dangorous thing to do. The only ways to interpret Scripture are either divine inspiration or Scripture itself. History has shown we are very good at misinterpreting scientific evidence, so how can we use it to interpret Scripture - the inspired word of God who was there at the beginning.
This statement implies that “All scientists have determined…” and this is far from true. Many scientist (significantly qualified in their fields), albeit a minority, have determined that the universe is far from “old”. Some of these are even atheists.
This is not exegetical and the text is certainly not poetic.
But the text (that God created in 6-days 6,000 years ago) does match nature! and it describes the Creator very well. And it certainly is no myth.
This not a good exception as it is not entirely clear whether the prophecy refers to the restoration of Israel or the resurrection of Christ. If the latter, then it clearly does indicate solar days.
Besides, exceptions (especially if it only one out of hundreds) don’t break the rule.
I think what you mean is that it has been argued against by those who wish to interpret it differently. I see no “debunking”.
One might argue that this interpretation has been “debunked”. It is clearly not poetry, whether in a historically Hebrew way or any other. Examples of poetry can be found elsewhere and they show no resemblance to the general text of Genesis 1.
Another thing to consider is the 4th commandment. “… For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day…” Are we to assume that God did not mean this? Maybe He should have written “For in six great-big-lengths-of-time the Lord made…” If He didn’t mean six solar days, He would then be classed as a deceiver.
In Genesis there could have been other words used that would mean extended lengths of time. Why didn’t God/Moses use any of these?
Of course, another way to look at it is, if God really had created everything in six solar days, how could He have made it much clearer?
Matt
p.s. is there a spell checker on here?