Reasons to Believe - RTB old earth

[darinhouston]

Would we not use "days" in this way today? Surely "the days of our lives" are not millions or billions of years.

And yet even this example doesn't seem to relate to 24 hour periods -- at best, it seems to be an indeterminate expression.

[Apollos]

I don't think we can treat these views as equal possibilities; the days of Genesis one are clearly intended as literal, and were understood so by simple and educated alike for thousands of years, until recent, post-enlightenment times. When a word like 'day' is used metaphorically, it is very clear. In Genesis, these days are numbered, and are marked off by evening and morning, and are spoken of within prosaic, not poetic, narrative. Of course all that is not going to convince anyone whose mind is made up, but pretending that Genesis can be understood as anything other than a historical account of creation is wishful thinking, as has been recognized even believing and unbelieving scholars alike. I've taken enough college science classes to have very little confidence in modern theoretical science (and I'm not talking about technology which has the advantage of checks and balances - i.e. whether it works or not in the real world), since it was clear to me that professors cannot be honest about their own presuppositions, and in fact read their presuppositions into the very definition of science (creation science cannot be correct, they say, because science is about finding answers in nature, not in the supernatural - I thought it was meant to be about trying to determine truth). I have often been angry when told something in class, only to get the other side from a competent creation scientist (like Duane Gish or Walt Brown) which completely put the matter in a new perspective, and showed up a selective presentation of facts in the classroom. Those who can't hold to the literal view need to simply say that the account is wrong. You may not appreciate being looked down on, but I cannot look upon you as doing anything other than trying to accommodate the text to dominant modern theories at the expense of an honest appreciation of the text. If people are claiming that old earth creationists are unsaved, that is, of course, very wrong. As humans we have to strenuously fight the tendency to make the text conform to what we want it to say. Ross et al have failed to do this, in my opinion.

[darinhouston]

Don't confuse metaphor with a word having a wide range of semantic meanings. I also understand there are talmudic traditions about the matter and that it hasn't always been seen as 24 hour days. I would be surprised if it even mattered to most folks until after the enlightenment as I don't really think it is the essential point of the creation story. Just because something has been the mainstream traditional view in modernity, that doesn't mean it was always so.

[Apollos]

Words only have a wide range of semantic meanings based upon metaphorical expansion; the root idea is simple, and in a prose text, we look for the literal, base idea of the word, especially when other indications are given of that - such as evening and morning.

It's no different from English - if I say I did something on the third day, all the clues are there and there is no discussion.

Looking over the plus three thousand times the word is used in the OT, I can barely see any that don't simply mean day. I would like to see where the word is qualified by a number and still isn't being used as a literal day. But you know all this, instinctively as an English speaker. The evening and morning were the second day - it's a statement, qualified by a number and by time markers.

The verb 'is', furthermore (implied but not expressed always in Hebrew), shows that this cannot be metaphorical or non-literal, since one thing is being compared in terms of another, and you cannot compare one metaphor with another metaphor, but only a metaphor with a real thing (cf. Song of Solomon - My beloved is like a roe or a young hart). 'The evening and morning, the second day' - it doesn't work. You cannot have one metaphor (the evening and morning of the world - what would that mean?) in terms of another (the second day). Not without full-scale allegorization of any historical text, such as was done by Philo, Clement and Origen.

My point isn't that it has been mainstream in modernity, but the opposite - that simple people and educated, instinctively understanding what we in the modern age feel the need to define, understood this as literal before the Enlightenment.

It is not that it didn't matter before the Enlightenment - it is that there was no debate. You either believed what it said, or you didn't. No one had come up with the idea that you could simply re-categorize it as non-literal, and still claim to believe it.

I have looked at the Talmud, and cannot find this. I did find that the justification for reciting the Shema morning and evening was that 'there was morning and there was evening, the first day'. I also found this:

And said R. Judah said Rab, “Ten things were created on the first day, and these are they: heaven and earth, chaos and desolation, light and darkness, wind and water, the length of day and the length of night.

Jacob Neusner, vol. 7d, The Babylonian Talmud: A Translation and Commentary (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2011), 45.


This one from Josephus is interesting too, since he is speaking on behalf of his nation:

On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also formed man. (33) Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world and all that is therein was made; and that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations;—whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath; which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.

Flavius Josephus and William Whiston, The Works of Josephus (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1996).

If you were right, then the conventions of language would be meaningless, and the account would have mislead mankind until western post-enlightenment man came along.

[Paidion]

Excellent, Apollos! You have stated your thoughts in a clear, convincing, and comprehensive way.

Steve7150, that's an interesting point you made about the evening and morning of Psalm 90:6, though I think it is the grass which is denoted there, rather than the thousand years.

[backwoodsman]

As humans we have to strenuously fight the tendency to make the text conform to what we want it to say. Ross et al have failed to do this, in my opinion.

You recognize this tendency, yet you commit the same error of which you accuse RTB. All your points are either easily and decisively resolved by RTB's model, or based on a complete misunderstanding of that model. All could be resolved by spending a little time on their website reading what they really say, instead of taking the word of those who are intent on discrediting them. I'll hit a few points now, but I can't afford much time on this at the moment.

the days of Genesis one are clearly intended as literal

I assume that by "literal," you mean 24-hour periods? The problem is, the Hebrew word has a wider range of literal meanings than the English word "day," and one of those literal meanings is a long period of indeterminate length. Forcing it to mean a 24-hour period creates problems with other Scriptures, which are resolved by RTB's model without compromising the text, but can't be resolved by the 24-hour day view.

So, there are many who take Gen.1 as literally as you do, but it's just as clear to them that the days are of long, indeterminate length, rather than 24-hour periods.

and were understood so by simple and educated alike for thousands of years, until recent, post-enlightenment times.

This is incorrect; both views were held by Christians long before modern times. For most of the church's history it simply hasn't been a big issue, until modern times when some have made it into a "litmus test" issue.

In Genesis, these days are numbered, and are marked off by evening and morning, and are spoken of within prosaic, not poetic, narrative.

http://www.reasons.org/theology/bible-d ... nsPart4of5
Go down about half way to the section titled, "Evening-Morning-Day in Genesis 1." Their website has much more detailed explanations as well, but that'll get you started.

Of course all that is not going to convince anyone whose mind is made up

Is your mind made up beyond the point of convincing? Mine was for most of the time I believed the young-earth view.

pretending that Genesis can be understood as anything other than a historical account of creation is wishful thinking

RTB agrees with you here. As it happens, the Biblical account of creation exactly matches what's been found so far in the scientific record. This is the bedrock on which their model is built.

only to get the other side from a competent creation scientist (like Duane Gish or Walt Brown) which completely put the matter in a new perspective, and showed up a selective presentation of facts in the classroom.

Yet, those guys, and all the other prominent YEC's, commit the same error to promote the position opposite that of your instructors'. If you disagree, educate yourself on the basics of RTB's position, and you'll find that the YEC's usually (in fact, in my experience and observation, universally) grossly misrepresent what RTB actually says.

[Apollos]

You recognize this tendency, yet you commit the same error of which you accuse RTB. All your points are either easily and decisively resolved by RTB's model, or based on a complete misunderstanding of that model. All could be resolved by spending a little time on their website reading what they really say, instead of taking the word of those who are intent on discrediting them. I'll hit a few points now, but I can't afford much time on this at the moment.

I think any honest assessment would agree that the traditional reading is the one that comes to the text as it is.

I'm not sure whose word I am supposed to have been taking. If I've been taking anyone's word, it was Steve7150 on here, who spoke of the evening-morning figuratively. But if these are not figurative, then the question - asked by Paidion - still remains: what are they?

It is not difficult to misunderstand a model which tries to argue that the days of Genesis One can be long ages - we are not talking, therefore, about misunderstanding. We are talking about definitions - whether anything other than the 24-hour view can be a literal reading of the text. And since these days are defined in terms of evening/morning, what can the evening and morning be?

You claim that you hold to a literal meaning of the word day, but where, in the whole of scripture, can a day be qualified by a numeral and have a meaning anything other than the normative meaning of the word 'day'? How can 'day' be quantified in terms of evening and day and not be a normal, literal day?

I assume that by "literal," you mean 24-hour periods? The problem is, the Hebrew word has a wider range of literal meanings than the English word "day," and one of those literal meanings is a long period of indeterminate length. Forcing it to mean a 24-hour period creates problems with other Scriptures, which are resolved by RTB's model without compromising the text, but can't be resolved by the 24-hour day view.

This is very important. First, how do you determine that the Hebrew word has a wider range of meanings than the English? What is your evidence for such an assertion?

Second, what is your evidence that it can refer to a period of indeterminate length?

So, there are many who take Gen.1 as literally as you do, but it's just as clear to them that the days are of long, indeterminate length, rather than 24-hour periods.

Until you provide the evidence requested above, this is just a redefinition of Hebrew words without grounds. In Hebrew, whenever the word day is used, qualified by a number, it always refers to 12 (or 24) hours. Even if this were a possible meaning (which, without any evidence, I cannot do), the fact that the word is qualified numerically, and the fact that the bounds of this day are set off by a literal evening and morning throw all the weight of possibility to the most basic and normative meaning of the word.

This is incorrect; both views were held by Christians long before modern times. For most of the church's history it simply hasn't been a big issue, until modern times when some have made it into a "litmus test" issue.

Is this about what the text says, or is it about reacting against hyper fundamentalists? Whether some make it a litmus test or not is really not relevant - people make a lot of less important issues a litmus test - that says more about them than anything else.

You say that both views were held by Christians before modern times. I am not aware of any who held your view, but if you could provide some evidence, I will consider it. But I don't think you will be able to, because I don't think they exist. Most Christians, learned or simple-minded, understood the passage as written, while a small clique of educated allegorists in Alexandria possibly didn't (I say possibly because their views are not totally clear to me). But a non-litereal allegorical interpretation is not what you are arguing for, so Origen won't help you. This is what Origen said:

"For who that has understanding will suppose that the first and second and third day existed without a sun and moon and stars and that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? . . . I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance and not literally" (The Fundamental Doctrines 4:1:16).

But the question with them is whether they accepted instantaneous creation or six days - I'm not aware of anything make each day into aeons. Again, if I am wrong, you will need to cite the evidence and we can evaluate it.

http://www.reasons.org/theology/bible-d ... nsPart4of5
Go down about half way to the section titled, "Evening-Morning-Day in Genesis 1." Their website has much more detailed explanations as well, but that'll get you started.

This is not a serious source, and the errors are numerous - no source says that 'rabbis' translated the LXX - the Letter of Aristea mentions 'elders'. The Hebrew nephilim has been demonstrated to mean 'giants', and it cannot mean 'fallen ones' as the non-defective spelling of the word shows. He says that the KJV was commissioned in 1611 - it was commissioned in 1604 and published in 1611.
To the passage in question - 'the second day' or 'a second day' would be fine, but the consecutive nature of first, second etc in English means that we need 'the' to show that it is in relation to the first day. The fact that there is a numerical qualifier shows that there is a specific time period in view. He is making a big fuss over nothing.

Is your mind made up beyond the point of convincing? Mine was for most of the time I believed the young-earth view

.
Let's see if you can provide a single example of the word 'day' qualified by a number as ever being anything other than literal, to determine which one of us has their mind made up. So far you've not offered me any reason to suppose that you were right to change your view, though you have given reason to suspect there might have been some anti-fundamentalist reaction involved.

Yet, those guys, and all the other prominent YEC's, commit the same error to promote the position opposite that of your instructors'. If you disagree, educate yourself on the basics of RTB's position, and you'll find that the YEC's usually (in fact, in my experience and observation, universally) grossly misrepresent what RTB actually says.

Can you provide examples? I checked both sides and never saw a selective use of data with them - in fact, unlike the professors, they had to interact with both sides. Maybe they call your view 'non-literal' and you don't agree with that designation, but that is not the same as selective use of data.

[TK]

Oh, I don't know. Genesis 1 reads like a poem to me. And cramming everything that happened on "day 6" into a single day seems a bit much, although I suppose it is not impossible.

TK

[darinhouston]

Oh, I don't know. Genesis 1 reads like a poem to me. And cramming everything that happened on "day 6" into a single day seems a bit much, although I suppose it is not impossible.

TK

I'm with TK -- he could have done it in an instant -- a day just silly, though I'm prepared to believe it if that's the only way to read it -- unequivocally qualifying yom with talk of cardinals and ordinals and the like seems a bit contrived -- we don't have a lot of source material of widely varying styles to draw from here. The fact that day and night had no meaning before light was separated further emphasizes this is not a historical text of the normal type. I believe this is truly a sui generis form of writing by virtue of the fact that nowhere else has to deal with the difficulties in a narrative describing the beginning of time and of all physical reality, especially if it was done over a period of time (whatever that is). Any unwavering textual position would seem suspect to me. Order and purpose and the creator seem the most important aspects -- other aspects seem poetic or stylistic to aid in memorization or retelling or the like. But, that's just me.

[alastairblake]

TK, I agree... it would be quite the busy day....