[quote="TruthInLove"]Hi Dwight,
Yes, the 7 day range is the aspect of the creation week that I was referring to. The question is, is 7 significant because it's the number of days it took God to finish the creation or is 7 significant for other reasons? 7 is obviously used many, many other times in Scripture. Many of those in Genesis itself. Would you say that all of those occurences somehow allude to the Creation Week? If there are many cases where 7 does not seem to allude to the Creation Week, then we might ask ourselves what the use of 7 does allude to?
Dwight: You are looking for something that IMO, does not exist. You are looking for symbolism where there is none. But even if there were symbolism, fine. It still does not negate the literal truths in Genesis.
In my opinion, 7 would seem to be a means of alluding to perfection and finality - not necessarily the perfection and finality of the original creation. If the original creation had been either perfect or final, why isn't it still in the state it was created in?
Dwight: The literal truth of Genesis gives you that answer. It's because Adam and Eve sinned!
Further, eschatological prophecy seems to me to indicate more than a mere restoration of the original creation.
Whereas the original creation was corruptible, the new heavens and new earth will endure forever in an incorruptible state.
Dwight: There is no indication that the original creation was corruptible. God said that it was GOOD! The corruption only came when Adam and Eve sinned. The fact that they even had the freedom to choose to sin, does not mean that the original creation was inferior (or lesser) in any way to the new heavens and the new earth. If that were true, then God would not have said: "God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was VERY GOOD."
Dwight: The literal words of Genesis, in and of themselves, refute your very argument.
Therefore, since the standard for describing the heavens and earth that are better than the originals ...
Dwight: A totally false premise. Nowhere is scripture are we told that the new heavens and earth are better than the original creation, which God called VERY GOOD.
is non-literal language, how much less should we expect the picture of a "lesser" paradise
Dwight: an oxymoron. There's no such thing as a "lesser" paradise, except in your mythological interpretation. The garden of Eden (and all of creation) was VERY GOOD then and the new heavens and the new earth will be VERY GOOD in the future.
to be described using a stricter standard of literalness?
Dwight: Your whole argument crumbles, having been based on a false premise.
Beyond the number 7, other numbers that appear to have symbolic use in the Bible also appear in Genesis.
- The number 8 pops up several times in connection with rebirth, particularly the account of Noah (1 Peter 3:20).
Dwight: Circumcision on the 8th day is a literal event, even as it is today. Sure there might be symbolism attached to it, but that doesn't mean it didn't literally happen.
- There are 10 generations prior to Noah and beyond Noah until the time of Abraham.
Dwight: I think I know why. Because that's how many there actually were. Imagine that.
Further, names very similar to if not identical to nearly all the pre-flood patriarchs from the line of Seth appear in the line of Cain as well.
Dwight: There are 8 men's names listed in the line of Cain and 7 names listed in the line of Seth. Two are identical: Enoch and Lamech. Three are similar: Enosh is similar to Enoch, Mahalalel is similar to Mehujael, and Methuselah is similar to Methushael.
Is that just by chance or is it deliberate and artificial?
Dwight: So you're asking if this is just a coincidence or is it consciously and intentionally false? I choose the former because I do not suspect the author is lying. Why would the author lie?
- Every person before the flood fails to attain an age greater than 1,000 years.
Dwight: Once again, Adam and Eve sinned. they were not going to live forever.
Yet, at the recreation of all things, Christ, the last Adam, finally achieves a reign of 1,000 years.
Dwight: Now you are switching books. The 1000 years reign is only mentioned in the book of Revelation, which is saturated with symbolism, because it is identified clearly as a vision given to the apostle John. So you're comparing what appears to be the literal language of Genesis with the obviously symbolic language of Revelation.
You cannot accurately compare apples and oranges.
Won't Christ's reign last forever, not just a literal 1,000 years?
Dwight: Of course His reign will last forever. I never said that I believed that His reign would be a literal 1000 years nor have I said that it would not be that long. That has not been our topic. Our topic is the book of Genesis and specifically the creation story, although we have extended it to the first eleven chapters, which is reasonable, because there we can compare apples to apples.
Further, the calendar used to reckon the age of Noah when the world was reborn after the flood (Genesis 8:13) serves as a basis for God's establishment of the distinction between the liturgical and civil calendar of Exodus (Exodus 12:2; 13:4). This distinction, which results in a difference of 7 months between the two calendars
Dwight: Genesis 8:13 would be 1657 years after Adam was created and the year in Exodus 12:2 is said to be 1446 BC. There is much speculation about the number of years between those 2 dates. Some of the problem is the question about whether Terah had triplets, Abram, Nahor and Aaron, (Genesis 11:26) or were they born separately? So if there are 2 calendars (I'll take your word for that, I don't know), I would be surprised that they were only 7 months apart. I would expect that they would be years apart, with no way of knowing which one is accurate, if either. Bottom line here - I don't get your point here at all.
For example:
- Why should the 40 days it took for the flood to arrive (7:17a) be paired with a mention of different 40 day period (8:6a) within the 150 days that it took for the waters to abate (7:21-24).
Dwight: There is no reason to pair those two 40-day periods at all, since the Bible itself doesn't.
- Why should the two mentions of Noah's 7-day wait for the flood after entering the ark be paired with another two 7-day periods of waiting before coming out of the Ark (7:7-10 vs. 8:10-11, 7:4-5 vs. 8:12-13)?
Dwight: Again, the Bible doesn't pair the two 7-day periods, so why do you?
- Why should the convenant with Noah that is mentioned before the flood be paired with the covenant with all flesh after the flood (6:18-20 vs. 8:8-10)?
Dwight: I think you meant 9:8-10 for your 2nd reference. Once again, the Bible does not compare these 2 references.
- Why is the command for the flood to arrive paired with the promise to never flood the earth with water again (6:17 vs. 9:11-17)?
None of these aspects seem to simply be the natural reversal of earlier events.
Dwight: The only one pairing two references is you. The Bible doesn't do it. I'm not doing it. Why are you? At the very least, if the Bible was pairing anything, I would think the 2 things would be mentioned in the same verse or the next verse. But that's not the case for all the things you have claimed are "paired".
And, there are other chiasms in Genesis that don't seem to me to be natural. For example, the chiastic arrangement of the scenes of Chapters 2-3 and that of the Tower of Babel in Genesis 11:1-9. Much literature has been written on this and I'm not going to repeat it all here. If you are interested, a short book on this topic that I've found helpful is
"Rethinking Genesis 1-11" by Gordon Wenham.
Dwight: No disrespect meant here, but why would I be interested in a book that apparently does the same thing that you are doing? That is, looking for evidence of mythology in Genesis when there is none.
Further, there are the ancient cultural epics of Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish; the Sumerian Flood story and Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta to consider. To me, they sound an awful lot like the Biblical accounts of the Creation, Noah's Flood, and the Tower of Babel. It seems possible then, that the corresponding Biblical accounts may have been written as rival accounts which challenged the perception of God and the spiritual realm that these other accounts put forth at the time. God has certainly done this sort of thing on more than one occassion in the Bible.
Dwight: If you want to, IMO, waste your time reading mythology, that's up to you. I would rather read the truth in the Word of God, the Bible.
Do these constitute compelling evidence that Genesis 1-11 may not be literal? In my opinion, yes.
Dwight: IMO, there's no way.