“Bob, do you accept a literal six day creation account?”
I have no problem believing that an all powerful God could have created the world in six literal days. He could also have done it in six minutes or six seconds. Having said that, we are not forced to this conclusion.
Before I elaborate, please do not misunderstand me. I myself do not believe in the theory of evolution, that is Macro- Evolution, evolution from one species into another. (Micro- Evolution is another story.) I am also skeptical when people claim science has “proven” that our world is several billion years old. I do not think Christians or Orthodox-Jews need to bow down to such ideas or be intimidated by what science has allegedly settled. There are many good arguments for a much younger Earth, far better than one would expect given the climate and indoctrination that takes place at so many of our universities. People should take the time to study the case for a young Earth . They might be pleasantly surprised.
At the same time it should still be pointed out that Genesis was not written as a science book, but rather, as a history of the people of Israel. Only the first three chapters talk about the creation of the world and the fall of human beings into sin. This tells us something about the priority of the writer. He was obviously giving a quick review of an oral tradition already known to the people. Only when Abraham comes on the scene in Chapter 12 does the narrative slow down and begin to give intricate detail. We learn about everything from Abraham’s journeys, to his livestock to his sex life. We conclude that specifics about creation were not the writer’s intention. As Genesis moves on, we realize it is a prologue to the seminal event of the Old Testament, the Exodus from Egypt of God’s chosen people, Hebrews, descendents of Abraham. That is why Genesis was written. Genesis is to the rest of the Torah what The Hobbit is to The Lord of the Rings, with the exception that Tolkien was writing fiction and Moses was sharing a factual account.
I would gladly trade eighteen chapters of Leviticus for more information about how God created the world, but God has made His choice about what to say in the Bible and what to omit. It’s quite apparent that he didn’t consult me first.
The first chapter of Genesis is written in a style of writing known as Hebrew Poetry. It is not seeking to give any kind of order to creation as evidenced by the fact that the world exists with water and vegetation prior to the creation of the sun (Gen 1:14). The word for day (yom) is a Hebrew word that did not have to mean a literal 24 hour day, but could also be referring to an event (Joel 1-3). This poem then, could simply be God’s way of discussing different events in the stages of creation.
The Bible portrays God as being completely removed from time ( 2 Peter 3:8, Revelation 13:8). Time is a human limitation. When we ask whether it took God six days or six million years to create the world, the question is irrelevant. In fact, it took God no amount of time at all to create the world because God does not exist in time. To speak at our level, God is using language we will relate to. Since we live in time and space, it is possible that a very long process over the years (as we understand years) created the world and universe in which we live.
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