Re: Genesis 1:1 - a standing miracle

On Thu, 15 Jul 2004, Vernon Jenkins wrote:

> Regarding the "days" of Genesis 1: perhaps you have forgotten Exodus
> 20:8-11, where we read the words of God (also the Author of Genesis 1:1):
>
> "Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour, and
> do all thy work: But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in
> it thou shalt not do any work,...For in six days the Lord made heaven and
> earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day:..."
>
> The Hebrew word 'yom' - meaning 'day' - is used throughout. Do you really
> suppose that God (Author of Genesis 1:1), in choosing to use this word,
> would have intended it to mean one thing here, and another thing there? -
> and without qualification? Hardly the stuff of _revelation_, surely.

Vernon,

The sabbath was to be a memorial of God's rest from creating (Exodus
20:11) and of the Exodus (Deut. 5:15). Commemoration does not require
exact repetition. We can have earthly symbols of heavenly realities as
with the earthly temple that was a shadow of the heavenly one (Heb. 8:5).

Exodus 20 tells us that the days in a week of the Jewish calendar
symbolize the days of Genesis 1 and 2:1-3. The days of the Jewish calendar
begin and end at sunset. If the days of Genesis 1 are to be exactly the
same as the days of the Jewish calendar, then they must also begin and end
at sunset, and the first one must begin at sunset on Saturday evening. Can
there be a sunset before anything is created? Furthermore the measurement
of solar days is recorded as having begun on the fourth day. Once we know
that the Genesis days can't all be sunset-to-sunset days, then the passage
from Exodus 20 doesn't tell us exactly what they were.

> Gary, I believe that _real_ science is limited to what has been _observed_
> by humans. So real science can tell us nothing positive about origins: it
> can tell us only that we know nothing. I hope you would accept that your
> philosophy is largely based upon a series of hopeful assumptions. I believe
> my logic to be stronger; we should accept God's revelation.
>

Would you empty all prisons of those who have been convicted on purely
circumstantial evidence since that doesn't satisfy your definition of real
science?

Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
Received on Thu Jul 15 16:34:09 2004