Re: Days of Proclamation

GRM: One can play this game for all eternity. Why would God give us a totally untrue story of the Creation?

DW: It's not untrue, it's just not history. In my view, Genesis 1 was the patriarchs' way of coming to terms with the world as they saw it. It was God's gift because, unlike the prevailing myths among the nations, it presented a worldview consistent with both God and their world. And the language itself conveys the gravitas of God.

The article by Conrad Hyers on Dinosaur Religion that Ted Davis justifiably praised is relevant here:
http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1984/JASA9-84Hyers.html<http://www.asa3.org/ASA/PSCF/1984/JASA9-84Hyers.html>

GRM: For someone for whom it isn't an issue, you sure present a long list of arguments for literal days. :-)

DW: I have no doubt that the author intended that "day" here should mean a particular, isolated increment of time (not necessarily 24h). This conviction does not come from imposing modern literary criticism on an ancient text. Such meaning, I think, would come through clearly to ingenuous readers in any language of any time. The text is as unsubtle and straightforward as can be. Why the author felt the creating should have been broken up into precisely those increments is obscure.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Glenn Morton<mailto:glennmorton@entouch.net>
  To: Don Winterstein<mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com> ; jack syme<mailto:drsyme@cablespeed.com> ; Asa<mailto:asa@calvin.edu>
  Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 4:19 AM
  Subject: RE: Days of Proclamation

    -----Original Message-----
    From: Don Winterstein [mailto:dfwinterstein@msn.com]
    Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2004 2:58 AM
    To: jack syme; Asa; Glenn Morton
    Subject: Re: Days of Proclamation

    Glenn,

    This "Days of Proclamation" scenario would be so much more cogent without the "Days." Why would God announce his plans in increments of a day?

    GRM: One can play this game for all eternity. Why would God give us a totally untrue story of the Creation? Why would God give us a story which requires modern literary technques to decide that it is not historical at all? Why would God have no ability to convey to an anceint people that evolution occurred (he did to others). One and on and on. Better go ask God for an answer to your question.

    Whenever the ingenuous reader comes across "...the evening and the morning were the [nth] day," he's going to interpret this as a clear demarcation.

    GRM: I would infer from this that you are not ingeneous cause you don't believe it means a day? :-) And remember, the word day is also used as a long period of time. This is the basis upon which the Day-Age theory is advanced. Apparently the Hebrews didn't necessarily mean a day is a day any more than we do in this DAY.

     The stuff that happens on one day is clearly separated by such comment from the stuff that happens on the next day. It's an effective literary device, and the author absolutely had to have intended it as a sharp demarcation.

    Why he incorporated such demarcation I don't know; but because I've regarded Genesis 1 more or less as Abraham's myth--and hence not history--for some time now, it's not an issue for me.

    GRM: For someone for whom it isn't an issue, you sure present a long list of arguments for literal days. :-)
Received on Wed Feb 11 19:41:51 2004