Thanks. Please look at my ideas concerning Gen 1 in the thread “Poetically Harmonizing Genesis With Science.” This is the very short version of the creation interpreted by standard science to show how circular poetry works in the text.
You see the Bible and science as contradictory. I do not. That is why God did not give you inspiration. You see a history of cosmologies as having too many contradictions to integrate. I see variations with common themes and images.
You want everything in neat little boxes. You are so rigid that you cannot see the fluidity and moment within the biblical texts. The bible is messy, history is messy, and science is messy. My point is that if you start in the wrong place (theology or science) you will probably end up in the wrong place. It might be an interesting place, an acceptable place, but not the correct place. How do you know if your exegesis is correct if someone else does not do an apologetic analysis of the passage first, during, or after you complete it? How do you know if your exegesis is correct if an anthropologist does not do the legwork first? How do you know your exegesis is correct if you do not show interest in finding out if maybe possibly you did not start in the correct place? Exegesis is not an isolated endeavor.
Not sure which “Classical Christianity” you refer too. I’ve seen too many references that would say “God can do anything, even the impossible,” but I’ve never seen one mention logic in that statement. However, I do believe that God’s miracles are based in the natural, even if we find them logically impossible. I never said God was defying natural laws in providing proof of His existence. That is what you believe. My proposal is not a square-circle. It is orienting a peg to fit into its matching hole, which is impossible until rotated. You refuse to rotate.
Believers in each of those generations understood Gen 1 as a description of creation. Harmonization kept them from discarding it as a myth. That means their understanding of creation and the text matched. You have set a limit for God because you do not want Him to do the same today, even though the world desperately needs a miracle from God.
You have stated “further discussion is useless,” repeatedly. The problem here is that you do not discuss anything. You argue and continue arguing when it is obvious that you have yet to look at my proposal. Why? Because it does not agree with your exegesis and therefore it is useless. Yet, you continue to argue against something you do not understand and are not likely to try to understand even to make a good argument. You assume that arguments used against others who have attempted harmonization will be suitable against mine. Wrong. You assume that making ridiculous statements about what you think I am saying is logical. Not.
Well, you can if you don’t think the Bible provides relevant information about the age of the earth and prefer to ask a geologist instead. 
I don’t think it’s foolish to be a concordist and all of us are in it to “relate two unrelated things.” I think concordism is a commitment that drives one’s approach to evidence. It’s not BioLogos’ commitment, though they have their own. It’s not my commitment, but that does not necessarily imply disrespect for those for whom it’s important.
I’m not refusing to see your reasons. I have heard them out and they are not compelling to me, and in the end I disagree with you. But people can respectfully disagree. Yes, I don’t think it is at all preferable to “insist that Gen 1 must match our understanding of nature for it to be reliable as a reference of who God is.” or that “Gen 1 could have been inspired by God to match today’s standard science.” But here we are, at BioLogos, hosting a very long discussion for the benefit of those for whom it matters.
I think you’ve got things the wrong way round.
The whole point of 2 Peter 3:8 is that it explicitly makes the length of the creation days and therefore the age of the earth an open question. Deferring to geologists on the matter means accepting its relevance here, not dismissing it.
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This is beautifully summarized.
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I’ve been very busy with other projects and hadn’t planned to return for a while, but two developments brought me back to the Biologos website:
(1) Yesterday I learned that @BradKramer used some of my explanations on this thread to launch a new series:
Dispatches from the Forum: On the “Plain Meaning” of Genesis One at Brad Kramer - Person - BioLogos
I’m delighted to assist Biologos in this way, and in contrast to the many technical topics I normally address to academics in my work, it has long been my desire in retirement to deal with more basic topics for a general audience of non-academic readers. Sadly, the webpages of creation science ministries tend to have no comment section for discussions. And if they do allow them, the censorship is so immediate and aggressive that Young Earth Creationists rarely get the opportunity to see the “party line” meaningful challenged by knowledgeable people. [[The Bible.and.Science.Forum once tried an experiment on AIG’s and Ken Ham’s Facebook pages asking “inconvenient” questions which exposed flaws in Ham’s claims. Such comments survived an average of 20 minutes before being deleted and the posters banned. Their censors are apparently on duty 24/7 to reduce the danger of readers learning something.]] So many YECs have no idea just how poorly their traditional arguments hold up during serious debate. Leaders like Ken Ham and friends make it all sound so decisive and simple when preaching to the choir, but the moment readers take their newly mastered arguments to more diverse and learned settings, they get annihilated, and wonder what happened to them. The origins-ministry entrepreneurs rarely engage formidable opponents nor enter a debate environment which they can’t control and censor. So the average eager but unprepared advocate for “creation science YECism” who wanders elsewhere on the Internet suddenly gets a massive dose of reality for which he/she is totally unprepared—and YEC leaders will never be there to help them. We have a responsibility to patiently assist our brethren so that they can hear what is routinely withheld from them.
Hopefully the Dispatches from the Forum series will not only help educate sincere seekers looking for better answers. It should also serve to remind us to respond with compassion toward those who have been misled by people who they sincerely thought they could trust. (That was certainly my story nearly sixty years ago.) I’ve had far too many students come to my office hours in shock after discovering dishonest quote-mines, misrepresentation of academic degrees, straw-man arguments, bogus definitions of scientific terms, and countless ethical travesties which they suddenly realized were the product of anything-goes entrepreneurs, not actual scientists or Biblical scholars. We have a responsibility to our brethren to help them find their way out of the influence of false teachers. I wish I could have had help in those days when I was struggling with the contradictions and logical fallacies I had inherited from my church fellowship and the various Christian authorities I trusted.
(2) I’ve been receiving emails from Biologos readers asking me to address several questions related to topics discussed here since my last log-in. Saito sent me a particularly interesting list of questions. In the name of good stewardship, I don’t like to put a lot of time into private correspondence Q&A unless I know that there’s a broader audience to justify it. Therefore, seeing that what I post here can be reposted/recirculated to a broader audience (as in #1 above), it makes this public effort well worth my while. Nevertheless, I regret that I cannot take the time to address all of the questions and requests which readers sent me. Sorry.
I hope to start posting answers to those pending questions in the next few days because most of them were relevant to the OP of this thread.
P.S. I also just learned that during 2015 this thread’s Saito managed to achieve a truly amazing feat, the academic’s equivalent to the alchemist’s philosopher’s stone: He managed to transform a long-standing, stable and all-too-lifeless ABD into a completed Ph.D. Such an achievement is sometimes rumored, but rarely actually achieved. I was also told that this was not Saito’s first doctorate. However, many young earth creationists are unlikely to be impressed because Saito still has a long way to go before catching up with Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind’s seven doctorates. (One of Hovind’s phone calls recorded from prison informed his supporters that one of the great things about spending years in a penitentiary was that it gave him “lots and lots of time to work on additional doctor’s degrees!” In contrast, our humble Saito doesn’t have that same advantage.)
CONFESSION: I too have often used the “space-alien linguist visiting earth in the distant future” illustration which Saito shared with us. Imagine if someone unfamiliar with our language and culture had to interpret the meaning of the first two sentences of my previous paragraph after having discovered just a few surviving English texts! Consider that not even all contemporary native speakers of the English language in our era would understand what I posted therein. That too is a problem that frequently arises in the study of ancient languages and in preparing quality translations.
Ancient language translation is much like law-making and sausage-making: It can be difficult to watch and the process can get quite messy.
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Wow! We agree on something! Genesis is not messy. It was written by a master poet to connect concepts that to the normal person would not connect, just like scientists do. Hum… isn’t that what I have been saying all along? Yes.
I suspected that is what you meant, but I still don’t think many of them said it like you said it. Your emphasis was very much this generation, not theirs. Most of them thought of God as someone who did “impossible” things like bringing a dead man back to life.
You limit God. You limit what I keep saying by putting words into my mouth. I never said that the writer or any of the readers mentioned had to know quantum physics for the passage to be understood “correctly.” I said the passage could be interpreted by each to their understanding of cosmology. I said the passage can be interpreted for our generation and the next. That capability is miraculous and shows inspiration.
But you prefer to think God did not do a miracle, that this text can only show us what some old Bronze Age guy believed. You want me to base my beliefs on a creator god that is incapable of actually getting the first chapter correct in his holy book. How is that any different than the beliefs of ANY other religion?
Interesting ending to a paragraph that provides evidence that you are not open to the opinion of others.
The apologist gives you reason to spend 10 years studying an ancient text. The apologist gives the next generation reason to keep studying that same text. All people have agendas. You have an agenda. That is just human. You make it sound like your job is more pure and important than everyone else’s, that the world would be better without apologists. However, you are not an island. If you isolate yourself emotionally from those people, then you only get an exegesis based on your agenda, because your ego will reject what God has to say.
Hi Jo_Helen_Cox,
I’m having trouble understanding your responses to Eddie. His argument is straightforward enough that it seems difficult to deny. Every time you zero in on the core of the problem that he is pointing to, you pass it over with terms like “miracle” or “God”, without my really knowing what is meant by this invocation – maybe Eddie understands your argument better than I do. Are you saying that the words in Genesis can miraculously mean much more than normal words, despite the fact that they apparently are normal words? Or that the particular combination of words in Genesis can miraculously mean more than any other particular combination of words? It seems to me that Eddie’s point is fairly obvious; if the text is more vague and general, a greater range of positions can harmonize with it, if it is more specific, fewer positions can harmonize with it without direct contradiction. If it is more vague and general, the fact that it harmonizes with a greater range of positions is unremarkable and will fail to impress anyone who does not already accept its authority. If it is more specific, it will simply lack the flexibility to harmonize widely without serious and often tortured reinterpretations (which is apparently what we often see happening with Genesis). This goes without saying when it comes to normal linguistic usage and it doesn’t seem to be something that really needs to be debated. You seem to be suggesting a special state within the text of Genesis where this logic no longer applies and where the language can both be highly flexible and highly specific, but I simply can’t envision what is meant by this, so perhaps you can explain how you see this happening.
As for the issue of whether or not God is capable of doing the impossible, I suspect you were just mixing up two available meanings of the word impossible. Eddie’s reference was to the longstanding theological position that God cannot perform logical impossibilities (not physical impossibilities). Logical impossibilities are merely meaningless linguistic constructs that can’t correspond to reality by definition, and this is a generally accepted facet of the term omnipotence when describing God. Of course, physical “impossibilities” are a matter of divine intervention, and this is not at all objectionable from the Biblical point of view (or even from the scientific point of view for that matter). I think your issue with how this position corresponds to classical Christianity might clear up if you distinguish between these definitions.
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I’m aware that the overly generous flowery introduction a pastor gave me before I spoke at his mega-church’s Sunday services got passed along in ways I hadn’t anticipated, so honesty requires me to puncture any inflated expectations. While having three doctorates might impress some, the details are actually far less impressive. My first “doctorate” was a Th.D. from an unaccredited denominational school. (Enough said.) My second “doctorate” was an honorary sheepskin customarily awarded commencement speakers of the type you Yanks call “favorite sons”. I think the custom began in order to make up for the fact that those speakers get travel expenses but no honorarium! (Enough said.) As for the news reaching Professor OldTimer about my finally scrubbing that nagging ABD (i.e., All But Dissertation) from my CV (Curriculum Vitae) so that I FINALLY have a real live bona fide passport to respectability, guilty. [Imagine our space-alien linguist sorting through that text littered with acronyms and Latin words without my descriptive annotations! The Bible is no less cryptic at times, despite ghastly abuses and sorry misapplications of the Doctrine of Perspicuity.]
My new status has not yet caught up with my reflexive habit of automatically explaining, “No. None of my ‘Dr.’ titles are real ones.” Now that I’m officially in the club, I no longer feel I can safely complain about the lamentable tendency in Christian circles to parade meaningless honorary “Doctor of Humane Letters” and diploma mill titles [Yes, I’m talking about you, Kent Hovind.] without sounding elitist and condescending. But perhaps finally conquering that habit is a good thing because I’m often reminded of the time I managed to put my foot entirely in my mouth, having just repeated my complaint about “bogus doctorate titles paraded by far too many Christian leaders in hopes of automatic credibility” only to be interrupted by our Academic Dean. He had tapped me on the shoulder because he wanted to introduce me to the visiting “Dr.” Billy Graham! (Swarthy skin tones occasionally have advantages as lighter skin in that situation would have betrayed my embarrassment with a rapid change to pale white!)
I think we can all agree with that. Few of us consider the Biblical text to be messy but we can all agree with Professor OldTimer that the tedious processes of exegesis, translation, textual criticism, and interpretation can get very very messy. It is very easy for the Bible translators and Sunday pulpit expositors to make the text appear “plain and obvious.” Yet I wonder if we cheat our audiences and readers when doing so too often.
OldTimer, I look forward to your responses to the questions I sent you. I’m especially interested in the details of your past dialogues with Dr. McCabe concerning his logic failures and pseudo-stylometrics. (Was that you or Professor Tertius who had that discussion with Dr. McCabe on John Hartnet’s blog?)
This thread has veered away from THE MEANING OF THE WORD “DAY” IN GENESIS 1 and some casual readers might mistakenly assume that the waw-consecutive rule-that-isn’t-a-rule but might-as-well-be-a-rule is actually a conclusion of the academy. I’d hate for any new readers to wrongly assume that McCabe and his waw-consecutive arguments had NOT been soundly dismissed by academics long ago. I can understand why @OldTimer often cites it as one of the worst products of amateur stylometrics and what Professor Tertius called “armchair dilettantes.”
In re-reading this topic within the thread, I’m glad to see that LT_15 now recognizes (privately if not overtly and publicly) the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent. No matter how true or obvious “If P, then Q.” may be, the truth of Q is IRRELEVANT to some particular allegation of P! This would normally be considered a matter of common sense. Nevertheless, we should never underestimate the power of TRADITION and COGNITIVE DISSONANCE. I admit that those influences have dominated far too much of my spiritual walk. I doubt that I’m alone in that.
If someone took the waw-consecutive argument to a stylometry conference or even a SIL workshop where genre studies are a constant theme, they’d assume it a joke if someone claimed that a single language feature provided a sweeping identification of a genre like “historical narrative.” Yet, because McCabe will never expose himself to such scholarship, he has no idea why his claim gained no traction in the academy. He will assume that it is all due to “godless denials of the Word of God” and “compromising Christians who crave the respect of their godless academic peers.” (If I recall their face-off, that is what he told Professor Tertius some years ago.)
Would anyone make such a claim in their own native language? If I told a story and kept saying, “And then he did this.” and “And then the next day she did that.”, would the use of AND THEN phrases convince you that the events described were ACTUAL HISTORY and could NOT be part of a Lewis Carroll story about Alice in the Looking Glass or an Uncle Remus tale? And if someone thinks a story on the street is just an unsubstantiated rumor, will the reporting journalist avoid such wording and grammatical constructions because it would demand “historical narrative”? (Of course, this is why journalists often use caveat words like “allegedly”. But they don’t avoid “historical narrative” grammatical constructions out of fear that those language structures would assert historical narratives which never happened!)
It is truly astounding that the waw-consecutive rule (or non-rule) continues to be called “undeniable” in some young earth creationist communities when it NEVER made any sense and always defied even a layperson’s common sense. Of course, as has already been stated throughout the this thread, you will find this affirming the consequent in creationist literature and obscure, non-peer-reviewed creationist periodicals but not major Hebrew grammars or university textbooks. (And certainly not in JBL.) Once computers came along, stylometric studies confirmed what linguists had been saying for centuries: human languages are not that mechanical and trivial.
I’ll say it again: Many of us once passionately defended such logical fallacies. So we should always be humble when dealing with our brethren who happen to be at different points along the way in their spiritual and intellectual journeys. As one of my mentors liked to put it, WE’VE ALL BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. Nobody gets to choose their parents, when they were born, what knowledge was available to them, and what influences confused them. In my Master’s program (in linguistics, not my theology Masters), for a while I pursued a famous English maxim which I was never able to conclusively source: “There but for the grace of God go I.” I try to keep that wisdom in mind when I read origins debates on the Internet.
I’ve seen this “waw-consecutive” rule mentioned a few times on this thread now but not being a Hebrew scholar I have absolutely no idea what you guys are talking about here, and consequently this aspect of the debate sounds very pedantic to me. Could somebody please summarise (a) what it is, (b) what YECs claim it proves, (c) why they claim it proves it, and (d) why non-YECs dismiss it as bunkum?
(1) No.
(2) Hardly.
(3) Of course not.
I’m not trying to be overly blunt or unkind. And because I don’t like to post rebuttals that are simply declarations of the converse, I will show full respect for the position I deny by going through the concepts very very slowly. Even verbosely.
If I simply mention 2 Peter 3, few will bother to read it. So in an effort to force the matter, the context, to center stage, I’ll insert it here:
2 Peter 3 (KJV) This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance: 2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour: 3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, 4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. 5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: 6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: 7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. 8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up. 11 Seeing then that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness, 12 Looking for and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. 14 Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless.
Please don’t trust your memory. Please read the passage. Slowly. What is the purpose of the passage?
(1) This second epistle was written to challenge the readers to remember the words of the prophets and of Jesus. Readers are exhorted to PURIFY THEMSELVES and be prepared for the coming judgement.
(2) Readers are encouraged to learn from the patterns of scoffers in the past. What is the pattern? Prophets warn sinners that JUDGEMENT is coming and that GOD ALWAYS COMES THROUGH BY FULFILLING HIS PROMISES.
(3) Yet, human nature always seems to do what it does: Prophets tell them what is going to happen. Some audiences will respond as they should, even if just for a while. But as the years go by, people start to question and even scoff. After all, life continues according to its familiar patterns. People are born. People wed. People die. the cycles of life go on and on AS THEY ALWAYS HAVE. People start doubting what the prophets have told them, just as in the era when 2 Peter was written, people start doubting the promises Jesus made about future judgement.
(4) Thus, scoffers started their scoffing in the first century just as they had done when the ancient prophets warned Israel about coming judgment.
“Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.”
“From the beginning” is a reference to the first book of the Torah. (The Hebrews titled a book based on the first word(s) of the book. Thus, the book we call GENESIS was called BARASHIT/BARASHITH by the Hebrews.) So the scoffer is simply saying, “From the beginning of the story of God’s people, life goes on as it always has.”
(5) In other words, the scoffers were saying, “Human civilization continues it always has.” But the text of 2 Peter 3 claims that the timeline of history is one of GOD INTERVENING, carrying out his divine will according to HIS plan, not ours.
(5) Moreover, God’s schedule for intervention may seem slow to us. The enslaved Children of Israel labored under the whip for centuries and would certainly have wondered why the YHWH ELOHIM who made so many promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob appeared to be silent. Even aloof. Likewise, in the Promised Land the Israelites turned away from God and worshiped pagan idols. They had been taught from the Torah that rebellion against God would be judged. Yet life continued as it always had.
(6) Similarly, Jesus promised to return after preparing a place for his followers. Predictably, the scoffers complained, “Where is the promise of his coming?” Imagine what people were thinking when, one-by-one, the very people who personally witnessed Jesus’ sermons which made these promises, died without seeing the fulfillment of Jesus’ prophecies.
(7) 2 Peter 3 reminds readers of the fact that NOT ONLY had their always been long periods when life seemed to continue in all of its mundane, familiar patterns with no obvious evidence of impending changes, both patient people and impatient people throughout history HAD ALWAYS waited with angst for God to intervene and do what he had promised to do. In this way the early church was in much the same circumstances as every other generation in human history.
(8) Thus, the readers is reminded that God is operating under the same experience of time as humans. (The passage COULD have stated that God is the Alpha and the Omega. God is outside of time because God created time when he created a matter and energy universe. Post-Einstein, we have the advantage of better understanding that time is a natural attribute of a matter-energy universe.)
==> 2 Peter 3 is NOT a physics, cosmology, or geology treatise. It refers to past events, such as Creation and the Great Flood only to remind readers that God’s interventions in the normal cycles of the natural world are few and far between. Likewise, 2 Peter 3 admits to a similar “waiting period” until God’s final judgment of the world in a destruction by fire.
Readers on this website know the Bible well, so I don’t have to remind you that in the many centuries of human history spanned by the 66 books of the Bible, miracles and divine intervention are FEW AND FAR BETWEEN. The instances mentioned in the Bible were restricted to a very few, narrow periods of time separated by centuries. The miracles covered in every Sunday School curriculum are mostly associated with the Exodus, the conquest of Canaan, the ministries of Elijah and Elisha, the three year ministry of Jesus, and a short period spanned by the Acts of the Apostles. So even in “Bible times”, miracles and divine intervention were rare! So it shouldn’t be surprising that most of the humans who’ve ever lived have responded to talk of God and judgment by saying: “Where is this God you speak of? What about Jesus who promised to come back? I don’t see anything happening. Instead, life continues as it always has. So why should I be concerned about repenting and preparing for a future judgment by fire?”
So, is “one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” a lesson in Relativistic Physics? Is it an explanation of YOM in Genesis 1? Is it meant to define the Hebrew and Greek words for DAY?
Of course not! That would make absolutely no sense in the context. The text reminds people, who think three score and ten years is a very long time, that for a timeless God (the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) the passage of time is not a burden or impediment. God and the scoffers don’t share the same view of time!
The Bible doesn’t say that God WAS the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” but IS that God. “I AM THAT I AM” is a reminder that God is OMNIPRESENT at every point on the timeline of human history just as God is OMNIPRESENT in all three spatial dimensions. We humans, scoffers and non-scoffers alike, are confined to the ARROW OF TIME. God is not.
I don’t apologize for this very long posting of my comments. I know from teaching that when something new or controversial is presented, some need a very thorough, even ponderous walk through the concepts. I also know from experience what points will be resisted, so I’d rather cover the rebuttals now rather than later when I may not be available.
I can’t be any more emphatic. So I will be redundant and say this: The Greek text of 2 Peter 3:8 has nothing to do with our understanding of the Hebrew YOM in Genesis. The first century church was not in a tizzy over Genesis 1 interpretations. Instead, scoffers outside the church were mocking Jesus’ promises of coming back to establish his kingdom. Believers inside the church were perplexed and weary, and wondering why Jesus had not yet returned. So 2 Peter 3 reminds them that: “This is how it has always been, people! God and his prophets promise coming judgment and demand repentance. Everyone waits and waits and waits. Scoffers scoff. But God’s intervention DOES eventually come. Exactly as prophesied. So get yourself prepared! God doesn’t see time as you and I do. Many generations of human history is just a blink in time to God!”
I think a good analogy in terms of time perspectives is when parents (and grandparents) make promises to children. To a child, mere minutes can seem like hours. And months seem like forever. And, “someday, when you grow up and have your own family” seems absolutely incomprehensible to a five-year old. Yet, for parents and other adults, a promise to a child to return for them in a few hours is as so very routine and obvious, even while it seems questionable and even frightening to a small child! Small children who lose hope (and feel consumed by fear) will often disobey when their exasperation with waiting leads them to take matters into their own hands. Thus, an experienced parent may even reflect upon those differing understandings of time-spans by observing: “A week of waiting for a child can feel like an entire YEAR to an adult.”
I doubt that there is an experienced parent on this thread who would be baffled by that observation. 2 Peter 3:8 is a very similar type of observation. It is not a astronomical, geological, cosmological, or lexicographic declaration. It certainly not an equation!
It’s a reminder that God doesn’t think like us. And we don’t think like God.
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The waw-consecutive is not a rule. It is a particular grammatical form in Hebrew verbs. It is often, though not always, an indicator of historical narrative in the Hebrew OT. This is standard Hebrew grammar. I cited several sources for that above, but it is largely undisputed.
YECs typically point to the waw-consecutive in Gen 1 as indicating that Gen 1 is most likely historical narrative indicating six, consecutive, normal days. The claim is based on the common use of the waw-consecutive in the OT Hebrew and the reading of Gen 1 which is very much like narrative and very much unlike poetry. Non-YECs dismiss it, IMO, because they don’t like where it leads. If they acknowledge it, as they do elsewhere in the OT, it severely weakens their position on Gen 1. However, I say that as my opinion of their rejection. They can speak for themselves on that.
[quote=“Saito, post:180, topic:4219”]
I’m glad to see that LT_15 now recognizes (privately if not overtly and publicly) the fallacy of Affirming the Consequent
[/quote]It is not a matter of “now” recognizing this. I never did this. Either you don’t know what affirming the consequent is, or you don’t know what I have said. Perhaps going back and reviewing what affirming the consequent means would be helpful. I don’t mind you disagreeing with me. But if you are going to do so, then please disagree with me. Don’t make up my position and then disagree with that .
I think you read your own thoughts into what I was saying. What I said about the grammar is not particularly disputable. It is basic Hebrew grammar that when you see the waw-consecutive, it most typically points to a narrative sequence of events that are related to each other chronologically. I cited major Hebrew grammars above in support of the point. I can cite it from Waltke/O’Connor, from Driver, from GKC, from more recent ones like Futato, Ross, Van der Merwe/Naude/Kroeze, and more.
You are too kind. I am not an expert. But my response was connected to what you were responding to. Mr. Molinist questioned why it mattered if the interpretation was “normal” and said there was not reason to assume the “normal” interpretation is valid. My point was that "normal’ has a recognized meaning and it is the basis of all rational communication. Some people may not know that “normal” is not just a word. It is more of a technical term of sorts in hermeneutics.
But yes I did detect your sarcasm in calling me an expert.
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[quote=“bren, post:162, topic:4219”]
The argument is sort of fluctuating, you seem to go back and forth from more to less confident versions of a rule that doesn’t exist.
[/quote]I have never invoked it as a rule. The only point is that the waw-consecutive typically points to a narrative sequence and when we see series of waw-consecutives, we default to reading it as a narrative sequence. It may not be, but it typically is in Hebrew. All the talk about it being a hard and fast rule is coming from somewhere else, not me.
Being narrative and having the waw-consecutive doesn’t mean it is necessarily a true story. The parable of the trees in Judges 9 is a narrative sequence with waw-consecutives. So even if Genesis 1 is not describing the actual creation in six successive normal days, it seems certainly to be communicating that, as Waltke said both in the article cited and seems to say in his commentary.
[quote=“bren, post:162, topic:4219”]
You don’t think that the account is really rooted in the ANE context at all or that it is addressing the particular concerns of the Israelites.
[/quote]Quite false. I do think it is rooted in a ANE context and that is addressing particular concerns related to the Israelites.
What you said about grammar was trivial and and as it happens, no one has disputed this point, which makes your repetitions not particularly fruitful. You continue to successfully defend a position that no one is attacking. Worse; every time you want to sound even more concrete and reasonable (is this the reason?), you lengthen the list of grammatical references without observing that it is entirely beside the point. Yes, according to the standard grammars, we are here dealing with a narrative. I think we all agree on that one and it is difficult to see why a point that we all understand and agree on gets such a royal treatment.
You then make the leap that you don’t seem very inclined to defend. You are making what amounts to a questionable statistical inference (thankfully no longer disguised as sort of a rule in this forum) on a basis that is wholly inadmissible from a stats standpoint (all things being equal is a serious problem here), and that without even a rudimentary justification.
I’m also amazed that your above summary of the waw-consecutive… whatever-it-is, doesn’t even acknowledge the above criticisms, let alone address them. It’s spin: we “dismiss it because we don’t like where it leads”? Without even going into how low that reaches: dismiss what? You haven’t formulated the reasoning underlying a leap that is hard to distinguish from affirming the consequent unless you deny it even the status of a rule of thumb.
As I said, there is simply nothing here, but perhaps a more careful formulation of how you get from the generally accepted grammatical position to a sweeping inference about genre could bring the idea back to being an arguable position. I tried to formulate the actual argument above, insofar as I could understand what you intended it to be. How exactly does my formulation differ from your own version? How is it not a statistical inference? In what way does it not fail to support even the most basic requirements for a workable stats treatment? You have stated an inference that you see and we simply don’t, now it needs to be supported.
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