Overlapping creation days in Genesis 1?

XXX wrote:
> ... As I was pondering the evening/morning refrain, I came up with a possible
> illustration and if you are a Star Wars fan you may like it as well:

Unfortunately, I don't know it at all... So my comments below may reflect some
lack of understanding.

> --------------------------------------
> And the Emperor said, Let there be armor on Vader, and let him breathe
> artificially and be strong in the dark side of the force.
>
> And it was so, the Emperor created a suit of armor with various apparatus,
> breathing devices and taught him the dark nature of the force.
>
> And there was an evening (ending of work) and a morning (thus a new
> beginning), One day.

Yes, this is formulated in a way which quite closely mirrors the language of
Gen.1, including the important point that what has been created persists and
continues into subsequent days. I don't know whether the Vader has been
programmed to evolve his software about the "dark nature of the force".

> Can evening not represent the ending of an activity? The actual work does not
> extend into anything beyond that. Following the ending/evening, the morning
> which represents a new beginning or birth comes (in our example, Vaders' rise)
> but it is still part of the 'day' being described.

This would correspond to the novelty of the general situation arising in a given
creation day (1. illumination of the earth, 2. water cycle, 3. continents with
vegetation, 4. clear oxygenated atmosphere, 5. sentient life, 6. terrestrial
life and spiritual life), which is definitely accomplished in the given day, but
also persists definitely until today.

> What then, is the morning? Could it not be as in our Vader example above, the
> beginning of a new era after the work of completion? It was certainly a new
> beginning for the Empire on the day which ended with Vader stepping off the
> operation table.

Yes, I called it the dawning of a new epoch.

> Imagine the Emperor going forward at the end of Vaders' week long construction
> and announcing to the Empire the beginning of a new era because of his new
> Apprentice. In the meantime, the Emperor had began construction on the Death
> Star, another 'day'.

Why in the meantime? In Gen.1, it is at, not before, the beginning of the new day.

> Then the Emperor said, 'Let there be a great space station built to conquer
> the galaxy. Let it dwarf all other bases in size and power. And it was so, the
> Emperor constructed the Death Star. And it was evening and morning, a second
> day.

In the case of a divine Creator, a proclamation, "Let there be...", could be
sufficient to produce the entity intended. A lesser being always has to follow
up with construction work. God is free, however, to proceed in any way he
pleases, be it a sudden "creation" out of nothing, a protracted "making" using
preexisting materials and natural processes, or even an assignment to some
creature to do something ("Let the earth produce...").

> Again, we see the evening brings the end of a long activity but the completed
> activity is the birth of something (in this case, the Death Star).

I wouldn't call it birth, though.

> The Emperor strode across the floor and stopped suddenly and slowly turned to
> the legions of troops. 'With the construction of this base now complete, a new
> era for the Empire has begun'.
>
> In short, with the completion of each item fulfilled, a new birth occurs.

Why do you want to call it a birth?

> Jewish Day
> Sundown - Evening
> Night
> Sunrise - Morning
> Noon
> Sundown - Evening
>
> Evening is reckoned as being the start of day. If the evening marks the
> beginning, why do the days start with what is a 'halfway point'?

I recently quoted U.Cassuto, a renowned biblical Hebrew scholar: "The day is
considered to begin in the morning; but in regard to the festivals and appointed
times, the Torah ordains that they shall be observed also on the night of the
preceding day". The reason for prefacing a festival day by a spiritually
preparatory night seems to be the need of us humans for a quiet time to settle
in our innermost being, before being ready for coming before God. Now, if this
applies to the Sabbath, why not for every day? Our attitude before the Lord
should be the same on work days.

This is, in effect, the divinely ordained schedule for the Jewish day.

> Should it not be: Darkness hovered over the deep and God said, 'Let there be
> light' and there was light. And God divided the light from darkness and he
> called the light day and the darkness night. And it was good. The evening came
> and that was the first day.

This is what I read in Gen.1:2-5: "...darkness was over the face of the deep...
And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light... And God separated the
light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called
Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day." What's the
difference? I don't see why you ask, "Should it not be:..."

(The full text being: "The earth was without form and void, and darkness was
over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of
the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw
that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. God
called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening
and there was morning, the first day.")

Of course, we have here, in Gen.1, the sequence <day's work, evening, morning>,
rather than the Jewish day sequence <evening, morning, day's work>. For me, this
is one more reason for rejecting the 24-hour creation day interpretation, both
in Gen.1 and in Ex.20:11 (the decalog reference is even less convincing as an
argument for short creation days, as it just refers back to the Genesis narrative).

> And there was morning then God said 'Let there be XYZ' and it was so, God made
> XYZ and it was good. And evening came, the second day.

Now, here you have a third sequence version, <morning, day's work, evening> -
which is of course the one we are used to, but not the one of Gen.1.

> The days should not end with morning because the day does not actually end
> until evening! What then, does the morning represent?

The "morning" (Heb. "boqer") really does mean "dawning", which even in Enlish
and other modern languages is used for the beginning of long epochs as well as
days. I don't see a problem.

"boqer. Morning, dawn. (ASV and RSV similar.) Linked with the root baqar, boqer
(c. 200 times) denotes the breaking through of the daylight and thus dawn or
more usually morning." (Harris et al., Theological Wordbook of the OT).
"boqer. morning (NH id.; from split, penetrate, as the dawn the darkness, light
through cloud-rifts, etc.)... 1. morning (of point of time, time at which, never
during which, Eng. morning = forenoon)... 2. morrow, next day (cf. Germ.
Morgen, morgen) without art. ..." (Brown, Driver, Briggs, Hebrew and English
Lexicon).
"boqer. Morning... daybreak... dawn..." (Holladay, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of
the OT).

As soon as we consider the creation "days" to represent epochs rather than
24-hour days, the question arises: why should there be punctuations at all? The
history of the earth is continuous in time, and God is not dependent on any time
demarcations. He doesn't need a night's rest after a day's work (or a day's rest
after a week's work, for that matter). The refrain of "evening and morning" has
therefore to be taken in a figurative sense to frame the contents or
characteristics of God's "day's work" just described. These characteristics
(light, water, land, atmosphere, soul, spirit) are the "names" of the creation
"days", no matter how fast or slowly they graded into each other. The refrain
just indicates a transition to something new; therefore its placement at the end
of the "day's work" is suitable.

> What about the seventh day? There is no evening (and hence no end) for God's
> rest. It is not seen as complete. Only when all His children enter into his
> rest will a new morning arise. The act must be complete for the birth to take
> place.

Here we have another, very strong, piece of evidence that the Gen.1 creation
days are long epochs, rather than 24-hour days. Heb.4:3-11 harkens back to God's
seventh day of rest after the creation work and, at the same time, indicates
that we may enter into God's rest, emphasizing that this seventh day has not
passed by the time of Joshua, nor David, nor our present "day of salvation". As
you indicate, it is not complete. (And if the seventh day is a long epoch,
consistency would lead us to accept the first six as being long epochs, too).

Yes, only after God has led all his children to enter into his rest will the
Lord come back and raise and transform us all into eternal life. In this sense,
the building of the Church must be complete before that event. Here, too, I
don't see why you call it birth. In this context, "birth" may even be
misleading, as the new birth is what we experienced when we put our trust in
Christ. When he comes back, there will be resurrection, not birth.

> Another angle:
>
> In 1961, Ford Division Vice President and General Manager Lee Iacocca had a
> vision: a sporty car that would seat four people, be no more than 180 in.
> long, weigh less than 2500 lb, and sell for under $2500. On March 9, 1964,
> vision became reality as the first Mustang rolled off the assembly line. By
> the end of the day on April 17--the Mustang's official on-sale date--Ford had
> sold over 22,000 units, and the ponycar revolution was on.
>
> So, we would call from 61-64 a 'day' of creation, ending with the morning as
> the Mustang was finished in full. An evening (finished construction, deemed
> good) and yet a morning at the same time, representing a new beginning. If
> written in Genesis 1 style, it could be:
>
> Lee Iacocca hovered over the pile of parts and said, 'Let there be a sporty
> car that would seat four, be no more than 2500 lbs and sell for under 2500.
> And it was so, Lee made a small car less than 2500 lbs which was sporty and
> sold for under 2500 and seated four. And he called it the Ford Mustang and it
> was good. And there was evening and a morning (the end of work which resulted
> in a birth), one day.

The Ford Mustang allegory has the same shortcoming as the Star Wars one: it does
not model the way God usually works, namely as an invisible First Cause working
through second causes like evolutionary mechanisms. Even if the Bible gives us
many hints about God's hidden creative out-of-nothing work, we must not forget
that he usually works as a "primary Mover" behind "natural" processes he got
going previously. Furthermore, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle implies that
God has plenty of "hidden options" of providing creative out-of-nothing work,
without science being able to detect any of it.

Peter

-- 
Dr. Peter Ruest, CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern, Switzerland
<pruest@dplanet.ch> - Biochemistry - Creation and evolution
"..the work which God created to evolve it" (Genesis 2:3)