From: bivalve (bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com)
Date: Sat Oct 11 2003 - 21:35:57 EDT
Two additional difficulties that must be addressed in harmonizing Gen. 2:4 and following with Genesis 1:1-2:3:
The use of day (yom) in 2:4 to refer to multiple days of chapter 1. The NIV harmonizes in its wording; other translations give a more literal rendition. Yom also occurs in 1:5 to mean not night. Declaring a 24 hour interpretation mandatory results in self-contradiction.
The naming of the animals. How many names did Adam give? How long did this take? Male and female humans exist on day 6 of chapter 1; if it is a 24 hour day, Adam had to name things very quickly.
The point is not that one cannot try to harmonize the accounts, but that the harmonization that is necessary to make Genesis 1 a single week requires non-literal or non-obvious interpretations of Genesis 2. Thus, complaining that a non-literal interpretation of Genesis 1 is non-literal is hypocritical. Likewise, other creation-related passages in the Bible differ in many details. Only two verses in Exodus regarding the Sabbath repeat the seven-day formula of Genesis 1 (assuming we can take a Lutheran approach to 2 Esdras). This suggests that the timing and means of creation were not regarded as very important.
This is also in keeping with the basic point of the Bible-what we are to believe concerning God and what duties he requires of us (Westminster Catechism), or how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go.
Dr. David Campbell
Old Seashells
University of Alabama
Biodiversity & Systematics
Dept. Biological Sciences
Box 870345
Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com
That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
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