Let’s remeber that when you look into the Bible to see what God has said about the Genesis account of Creation week, he has this to say:
“And God spoke all these words: “I am the Lord your God…”
“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”
Some people will try to claim that there is not intended to be a day by day comparison here, which to me strains credulity. I mean, He actually MAKES the day to day comparison. Six days and one day to six days and one day. He didn’t bless a seventh undefined very long period of time. He blessed the seventh DAY. To me this is pretty hard to mess up.
The Old Earth Creation model tries to say God intended this merely to be a numerical comparison.
This fails for a couple of reasons. First, why does God need to make a numerical comparison? Surely the Children of Israel were smart enough to understand the concepts of six and one without some clever analogy? And if that’s all this is, why does He not do it again when he makes decrees involving six years and one year? Exodus 23: 10-11 says this: “For six years you are to sow your fields and harvest the crops, 11 but during the seventh year let the land lie unplowed and unused.” No reference to creation is made for this six to one ratio.
In fact, verse 12 references the work week and Sabbath day, making a literary “work six rest one” parallel, but not a day for day comparison. In Exodus 21 another “six years and then on the seventh” reference is made, and again no reference to days or creation. Several of these are made in Leviticus 25, but again no reference to creation week, or mention of days as a metaphor for years. What is the point of doing it just that once in the middle of the Ten commandments unless it actually means what it says? In fact, why would God say something He doesn’t mean? I didn’t know God back then, but from what I can tell He has always been a most honest gentleman with no need to lie to anyone. Not only that, but I suspect it well within reason to suppose that God was very familiar with the Hebrew language, Him being Omniscient and all. If this is so, then He would have known that there were other Hebrew words for LONG PERIODS OF TIME so that He wouldn’t have to use the word DAY to mean BILLIONS OF YEARS. But we’ll talk about that more soon.
And the final call is this: Unless you assume deep time at the start and are trying to cram it into the Bible, there is no reason to try to interpret Exodus 20 to mean Billions of Years, or just some pointless metaphor. There’s also no reason to try to interpret Genesis 1 in this manner either. We can just let “day” mean “day.” But there is one more objection before we get all that grammatical. Some people will still try and argue that, while He is very Honest, God simply doesn’t understand how time works. They try to use the Bible to make this argument. You join me next time, and in the mean time, I shall practice NOT rolling my eyes. Odds are six to one that I will be rolling my eyes anyway.
#JesusLovesYou
A Bit of Orange 
You seem to conflate what Genesis 1 says with what Genesis 1 means. There are many passages in the Bible where a literal reading of the text is actually not what the author of said text means. And many scholars argue that Genesis 1 is one of said passages.
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Greetings Brady! Thanks for your comment.
I agree that the Bible contains a variety of literary genres, not all of which ought to have a literal interpretation, but this is not the case in Genesis 1. The text, while not wholly free of poetic flavor (what text outside of tax codes truly are?) is not poetic in the same sense that the Psalms are, nor is it told with the style and structure of a contemporary mythology. Furthermore, it is linked directly into the history which follows and there is no separation between the creation account and the histories of Abraham or Joseph as there are between, for example, the parable of the Prodigal Son and the healing of the lepers. Where the Bible is intended to be NOT literal, the separation between literal account of historical narrative and allegory or poem is made clear.
Many scholars do agree that Genesis 1 ought not be taken literally, but NOT because of the text itself. Rather, those scholars have an a priori dedication to deep time, evolutionism, or some other extra or even anti-biblical stance which forces them to betray the clear intent of the text itself. Hebrew scholars have made clear for decades and through the centuries that the text itself makes clear a literal creation of the heavens and the earth and all living things in six literal days around 6,000 years ago. As for me, I shall not change the meaning of a text to suit my own preconceptions. Let it say what it says and then do what you must with its actual meaning.
Thanks for your comment.
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Thanks for taking your time to respond!
I would agree that Genesis 1 is not poetic in the same sense that the Psalms are. Genesis 1 seems more like a poetic narrative, similar to what Moses’s song in Exodus 15 would be.
Actually, lots of biblical scholars argue that Genesis 1 is semi-poetic because they looked at the text. They noticed how repetitive and structured it is and have come to the conclusion that Genesis 1 is semi-poetic. Many repeated phrases, such as “And God said,” “let there be,” and “God saw that it was good,” and the two triads of days in Genesis 1 have led many scholars to interpret Genesis 1 as a semi-poetic piece of literature.
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Hello again, Brady. I’m always happy to reply when I have the time.
I agree that scholars will say Genesis 1 is not as dull as much ordinary prose, but neither does it have the structure of a mere poem, and much less does it have the structure and characteristics of mythology. It is directly tied into the history which follows, even including the number of years between events. But the bigger picture here is the fact that Genesis is real history which fits with observational science. The fact that the first depiction of it is, as you say, semi-poetic, does no more to diminish this fact than the Star Spangled Banner proves the USA is still an English Colony. Some will try to say Genesis 1 is poetic, and thus should not be considered historical narrative, and they are simply mistaken.
Thank you for your questions.
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Thank you for responding and continuing to be civil in our discussion.
Actually, Genesis 1-11 has a lot of similarities with pagan mythologies. The other creation myths start out with chaotic waters, which Genesis also starts out with. They also feature a garden as well as a serpent of some kind. Also, these myths tend to feature a flood of some sort. These are just a few of the many similarities between Genesis 1-11 and other creation myths.
A lot of Christians find me using the term “myth” as if I am calling the Bible into question or saying that it isn’t true. However, this is a modern definition of the word, and I am referring to Genesis 1-11 as the classical definition of “myth.” This is a type of story where an ancient group of people told stories about the world that reflected the nature of their god or goddesses. What makes Genesis 1-11 true isn’t its history, but rather its theology.
I hope that made sense.
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Greetings again,
Yes, Genesis shares a lot of similarities with older mythologies, as one would expect were the events of Genesis true. When reading skepticism into history, it is easy to say “Genesis is like THOSE stories, but OBVIOUSLY the Jews were plagiarizing their neighbors.” However, many historians have noted that the stories converge at the Genesis accounts, meaning that, the further back you go into the stories of any people, the more those stories look like the Genesis account. For example, there is a flood account in The Epic of Gilgamesh which parallels the Genesis flood story in many ways (As more than 200 stories from other cultures do as well). In the past decade, an even older account of the Epic of Gilgamesh was found which is even MORE similar to the Genesis account. One detail I seem to recall is that, the “Ark” in the account we first discovered was a cube. It would have been a nightmare to keep upright in moving waters. In the older version, the boat was not a cube. That was a change made in later versions.
To compare further, the proportions of the Ark have been shown in scientific testing to be maximally stable and strong. If God designed it, this is what we would expect. When the story was passed down for hundreds or thousands of years, we would expect people to change it to fit their own cultures as we tend to do with all stories which we don’t put effort into preserving. The flood accounts in the South Pacific have their Noah character putting animals in a canoe, as one example.
For another great example of the Genesis account being the focal point of ancient history, check out this video about the Chinese language. The Ancient Chinese language is best understood, and makes the most sense when considered in a history where in the Genesis account is actual history: https://youtu.be/qgfTlEfAA_g?t=5m29s
As for your use of the word Myth- in common usage, I think we tend to understand a myth as a fairytale with a purpose. A false story invented to teach a lesson. If I understand you, you are using the word more how CS Lewis used the word. He did not believe the word implied the falsity of the story, but only the universal applicability of it. The stories in the Bible are historical accounts- real events of real people in real places and times- which are linked as much as possible to the rest of world history (Which false Myths never or rarely do nor attempt to do) but they are still stories of archetypes and universal truths which can be learned from their hearing. Suffice it to say I am not offended, nor do I think your usage of the word inappropriate.
I would, however, argue that Genesis is true history. It ties the people and events and family lines into the later events up to and including the New testament. The parables told by Jesus are true theology in a not (necessarily) true history, but Genesis is linked to all later events by accounts in genealogies and events recounted by God himself in Exodus 20. Similarly it is linked from Jesus back by his genealogies. I do not see a way of separating the theology from the history and preserving the integrity of only one. It seems to me that God in the OT and Jesus in the New refer to the creation and the flood as real events, and thus they either are, or we have bigger theological issues to discuss.
thanks again for your comments and questions.
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