Days of Creation

[PatienceAndLove]

From a Catholic video on the Holy Eucharist:

“God said it, and I believe it, and that’s the end of it.”

Catholics need not be hypocrites. We can and should believe everything that God says to us in His Word. You should say to your boyfriend (assuming this is true): Well, I believe that the earth is billions of years old because that is what I was always taught. But I’m willing to listen to the other side because, after all, God did say He created everything in six days. But will you consider that perhaps Our Lord Jesus was being literal when He said that the bread and wine become His Body and Blood?
God bless.

That is where I am personally running into an issue. If Our Lord was speaking literally when He said He is the Bread of Life, then couldn’t the scribes of old, who were moved by the Holy Spirit, be speaking literally when they stated the creation occurred in 6 days?
Until I can wrap my own head around it, I don’t want to bring it up with him (the boyfriend)

 

[buffalo]

Gen 1 and 2 are complementary. Gen 1 seems to be written from God’s perspective.

One way to reconcile this is to imagine a rolled up tape measure say 7 thick. God sees the whole tape at once. Humans live on the tape itself and have to look backward past the graduations.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

From the Catholic Answers Library:

“Much less has been defined as to when the universe, life, and man appeared. The Church has infallibly determined that the universe is of finite age—that it has not existed from all eternity—but it has not infallibly defined whether the world was created only a few thousand years ago or whether it was created several billion years ago.”

Peace,
Ed

@Ed- that was the type of answer I was looking for.
@Alan- I am still wading through your answer. It is very detailed, and I am not of the right frame of mind to read it all (I got through 2 of your posts, though!)
@buffalo- great analogy!

 

[Poco]

That is where I am personally running into an issue. If Our Lord was speaking literally when He said He is the Bread of Life, then couldn’t the scribes of old, who were moved by the Holy Spirit, be speaking literally when they stated the creation occurred in 6 days?
Until I can wrap my own head around it, I don’t want to bring it up with him (the boyfriend)

I suppose the scribes of old could very well have been speaking literally, but I doubt it. That’s why it’s important to try and understand the times and places when Scripture was written. Just one of the many things that make it so much fun!

Look at it this way. If I was to tell you, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse!” You would know I couldn’t really eat a horse. I was just saying I was very hungry. But if I said, “I just ate a hamburger.” You would know that, well, I just ate a hamburger.

I hope this helps.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

I suppose the scribes of old could very well have been speaking literally, but I doubt it. That’s why it’s important to try and understand the times and places when Scripture was written. Just one of the many things that make it so much fun!

Look at it this way. If I was to tell you, “I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse!” You would know I couldn’t really eat a horse. I was just saying I was very hungry. But if I said, “I just ate a hamburger.” You would know that, well, I just ate a hamburger.

I hope this helps.

It does. However, I foresee “Why should John 6 be taken literally if Gen 1 and 2 are not?”

 

[buffalo]

It does. However, I foresee “Why should John 6 be taken literally if Gen 1 and 2 are not?”

Both should be taken as what the author intended to convey together with the constant understanding and teaching of the Church.

 

[Third_Day]

It does. However, I foresee “Why should John 6 be taken literally if Gen 1 and 2 are not?”

I don’t have that problem because I read them both literally. Even though the Church has not “infallibly” decreed the literalness of Genesis 1-11 the consensus of the Church Fathers was that Genesis is to be read literally. Belief in Evolution and the “age of the earth” are based on assumptions. Both are theories that cannot be proven and therefore I find no reason to stray from what the Church has always taught. I find great comfort in believing that the bible is without error and that includes matters of faith, morals and science.

 

[Poco]

It does. However, I foresee “Why should John 6 be taken literally if Gen 1 and 2 are not?”

Ask him if he thinks Matt. 5:30 “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away…” RSV-CE, should be taken literally. Does he really think we should go around lopping off body parts every time we sin?

As for John 6, after many of the disciples left Him, He did not call out to them and say, “Wait, come back. That was only a metaphor.”

The only thing else I can add is what buffalo said a couple of posts back.

 

[Crumpy]

I was reading in The Jewish Study Bible today which uses the Jewish Publication Society translation of the Hebrew Scripture.

In the first chapter of Joshua, the verse that uses the word ‘torah’ in the Hebrew is rendered as “teaching.” In other words, the first five books of the Bible were referred to as “teaching” – not history or science.

This study bible explains that the Jewish writings were not history or science, and they did not attempt to write history in the same way that we understand history today.

Likewise, the New Testament at 1 Tim 3:16 says that the scripture (i.e. the Old Testament) is useful for “teaching.”

So that is good agreement about the value of Genesis to both Judaism and Christianity.
For teaching. So, what is it trying to teach?

Well, in an old discount book that I picked up with Protestant sermons, there was one that explained the radical nature of Genesis. The book, in the first place, is credited to Moses, who was brought up with a good Egyptian education. And, there, he would have learned that the universe was created this way, that there was an egg flying around (with wings, I guess) and it hatched into the universe that we see.

So, the upshot of Genesis is this small space, is the assertion of monotheism, there is one God, and God is the creator of everything from nothing.

That is so “big” and radical as to dwarf any worry about six days of creation. This account overturns all the Egyptian deities, like cattle and frogs and even the sun. So, you might say, monotheism would have been the headline about Genesis. Monotheism was totally different from the Egyptian religion and all the other pagan beliefs in the middle east.

It is plainly wrong, as the Church teaches, to overlay our 21st century prejudices over the ancient writings.

The Church also teaches that we need to consider the “genre” (type of literature) of biblical writings. Genesis has several “genre” of writing.

The first creation account is done in what is called the priestly scribal type. There is language there that is similar to other pieces of priestly texts in the Torah (first five books of the Bible), whereas the second creation account is done in the Yahwistic scribal type. The priestly uses the word “elohim” for God. This is a word that has other uses in the Old Testament to mean “gods” and “spirits.” And, it has a sense to it, of God being a “judge.”

So, if you recall, God creates something and then “judges” that it is good. So, we learn how creation comes from the very word of God, and that He is a judge – amongst other things, that man and woman were created in the image and likeness of God.

Now, the second creation account is interesting, enormously, from a literary standpoint, because it is Yahwistic. Eve uses the word YHWH for God. Big deal? You bet. Read the first couple chapters of Exodus and there is a really big deal there, where God reveals His name (YHWH) to Moses. got it? see the problem? How did YHWH roll off of Eve’s lips back in Genesis, if it was not revealed until Moses comes along? And, there is not tangible explanation in Genesis how Eve would have learned this special Name for God.

see my next post

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Ask him if he thinks Matt. 5:30 “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away…” RSV-CE, should be taken literally. Does he really think we should go around lopping off body parts every time we sin?

As for John 6, after many of the disciples left Him, He did not call out to them and say, “Wait, come back. That was only a metaphor.”

The only thing else I can add is what buffalo said a couple of posts back.

Very interesting example.

Just now I thought of one way it would make sense – dunno if it’s what God meant, but maybe it is…

In a literal human body, the arm has no will of its own, so the arm cannot cause evil except under direction from the brain. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about Jesus meaning to cut off your arm.

But in a spiritual body, each individual has a free will, and is thus capable of causing sin and evil.

Just my :twocents:

Alan

 

[Crumpy]

continued, (where was I?)

so, the literary analysis of Genesis reveals some very interesting things about what, in all likelihood, God is teaching us there.

Another feature about the first creation account is that the number seven is emphasized.

Not only are there obviously seven days referred to, but the verses in that account have either seven Hebrew words or a multiple of seven words.

Now, another point that I have not rigorously verified: The phrases like “God said” “and it was so” “God saw that it was (very) good” are repeated – what? seven times? I think it’s like that.

What would seven days mean culturally to people of the Middle East? Well, study of ancient texts and culture outside the Bible show that seven days was like the time for weddings, funerals, coronations, parties, etc. People had to travel so far, that a party was not just an ice cream social. It was a seven-day event. So,loosely, from non-bibilical study, it would make sense to the listeners that something as big as creation took seven days (actually six). The Hebrew account makes the seventh day a special day, which is my next point.

The Torah was attributed to Moses, even in the Gospels. But, that is not a generally accepted idea in scholarly circles. For one thing, Moses death is recorded in the Torah, so how could he have written it? and much more evidence against that is there. But, the particular study of vocabulary shows that many books of the bible were not just written, but edited and modified over and over and even up to the time of Ezra-Nehemiah, after the second captivity.

And, these books were modified over and over to be consistent with each other, but not completely so. There are problems like “YHWH” that I referred to above.

And, the point or punchline is this, that the first creation account justifies the later establishment of the LORD’s day, the Sabbath. The seventh day was NOT a legal sabbath at that time. the commentaries point out that God did not need to rest on the seventh day. That story was an explanation or “torah” or “teaching” about what later was to be established as the Sabbath.

And, that is far, far more important (and logical) than Gen 1 making scientific statements about the time it took God for creation. it seems that the purpose was much more homiletic about what is important to Judaism.

At another level, Jewish commentaries fill in the gaps where the Genesis accounts seem to overlook things. The sages needed to account for everything being created in those six (seven) days. So, for example, the Sabbath was not a later creation, but was created, in its essence, in those seven days. Elsewhere, the rabbis reasoned that God also created the tablets with the ten commandments back then, and they were not created in a special way (to violate the six day creation story) when Moses was up on Sinai.

They also reason that the Torah was composed by God at least 2000 years before the actual creation (the Torah having been revealed to man at a later time). Judaism actually has a feast celebrating the revelation of the Torah. I think it’s the last Sabbath in the three year cycle in which they read and proclaim the Torah in the synagogues.

So, bearing on the main question here, Genesis is God’s teaching, as declared by both Testaments. A careful study, for centuries, suggests a much more profound purpose in the account of a seven-day creation than to provide a scientific explanation. That doesn’t seem to be the purpose of the writing, at all. The two accounts of creation, perhaps conflicting in detail in our minds, reveal profound and essential theological truths which are the basis of the entire Bible.

As the Book says, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts, and His ways are not our ways.

The saying goes, that if all you believe is what you understand, then you don’t understand what God has revealed.

 

[Poco]

Very interesting example.

Just now I thought of one way it would make sense – dunno if it’s what God meant, but maybe it is…

In a literal human body, the arm has no will of its own, so the arm cannot cause evil except under direction from the brain. Therefore, you don’t have to worry about Jesus meaning to cut off your arm.

But in a spiritual body, each individual has a free will, and is thus capable of causing sin and evil.

Just my :twocents:

Alan

Well, I needs must be honest. I just heard it on Catholic Answers Live today or yesterday.

Did you hear it as well? That’s pretty much how they continued the example. They said imagine being in a store and suddenly you notice your right hand taking things off the shelves…

But you probably got it on your own.

 

[Faith1960]

Hi. I’ve read the other replies, and some of them I find pretty compelling.

First, as a 52-year-old cradle Catholic, I never realized there were conflicting versions of creation within Genesis until I read this thread. I think this is a powerful key that directly addresses your situation. I don’t know, of course, if your boyfriend is in any way open to hearing anything that may possibly be different than what he already believes, because most people just aren’t able to be that open. Check this out, anyway, and see if it doesn’t give you an answer, personally, regardless of whether it is productive to try to tell your boyfriend this or anything else. If he already believes the Church is in error, then I’m not sure anything but the black-and-white verses of the Bible is going to even have a chance at getting his attention. IMO, that is. Basically, I’m guessing – though I may be wrong – that he is also sola scriptura, rendering any teachings of the Church outside the Bible irrelevant.

It’s extraordinarily simple. First, we establish on what principle he bases his belief on a literal view of creationism? Is it because every word in the Bible is God breathed, and every one is true in a literal sense? If it is, then we have something to work with.

Genesis is very clear. In one place it clearly states that the vegetation was made a few days before man was made. In another place, just a few verses after that, it states specifically that at the time man was made, there were no trees or shrubs. Then, AFTER man was made, God planted vegetation.

So which is it; did God create man first, or vegetation first? If every word in Genesis is true, the we must be able to claim that both accounts are literally true, and consequently we would have a direct answer to the question.

If he cannot explain how, in a literal sense, both accounts are true at the same time, then you have shown that he is unable to substantiate the claim the EVERY word in Scripture is LITERALLY true… all it takes is on word that is not correct, or is an estimate or example rather than literally what actually happened, to disprove that claim.

So I contend that to maintain his position, he has to be able to answer that question of which came first, and has to be able to explain how two seemingly different opposite accounts are true at the same time. He cannot say, “well we just don’t understand God,” because I would then counter with, “then how do we know what we mean when we say something is literally true, if it is above our heads so that it doesn’t make any sense?”

Alan

That answer would also fit in with a couple threads I’ve started in the Back Fence.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Well, I needs must be honest. I just heard it on Catholic Answers Live today or yesterday.

Did you hear it as well? That’s pretty much how they continued the example. They said imagine being in a store and suddenly you notice your right hand taking things off the shelves…

But you probably got it on your own.

Cool. I love it when that happens. :yyeess:

No, I just thought, if I were God, what would I want from a human being that telling him to self-mutilate would help the human accomplish?

Well, it would give him a pain and loss experience, like job, but that’s been done. How about making him less capable of taking care of himself and his family? No, that must not be it… :nope:

But this whole thing was about sin. How does chopping off a man’s arm make him less likely to sin? It doesn’t. But it does make him less able to work and support himself and his family. Is that love?

Doesn’t compute: :whacky:

Different story for the members of Christ’s body. :newidea:

Alan

 

[Crumpy]

In a previous post, I mentioned that the verses in the first creation account of Genesis were found to have seven Hebrew words, or a multiple of seven words – to add further emphasis to the number seven.

Counting words may seem to be the essence of boredom and maybe it is. This fact is something that I did not uncover myself, I read it in a Jewish commentary that was explaining this as part of a legitimate literary analysis of Genesis.

This word count (if we can take the commentary as being accurate) is really remarkable. You (and I) have to appreciate that the Hebrew did not have verse numbers, and the Hebrew words do not have vowels, capital letters, and the sentences do not have punctuation. the original Hebrew just looks like a written block of Hebrew alphabetic characters.

Verse numbers (and chapter numbers) were put there by Christian scholars and the convention of verse numbers and chapter numbers was adopted by Jewish scholars.

It is, therefore, quite remarkable that this structure of the text was uncovered centuries later and that it works out quite this way, around the number seven.

It smacks of the whole idea of hidden meaning and messages in the text, which, I suppose we can evaluate and accept on a case-by-case basis, as well as considering what possible purpose or meaning it might have.

Other literary analysis of Genesis shows that the text is divided into twelve parts. That contrasts with the much-later decision to overlay text into 50 chapters.

Well, this sounds far-fetched and perhaps irrelevant as counting words. I’d be the first in line with a show-me attitude. The point about this is that the writer(s) of Genesis and the redactor(s) [editors] structured the text in a very deliberate way, for a very deliberate purpose – which is not obvious at all when the text is translated into another language and has arbitrary chapter numbers, creating divisions in the text which were not a part of the original.

To end the suspense on part of this, these divisions were discovered by means of repeated words that are used to transition from one section to the next. So, there are eleven sets of these identical words, which divides the text into twelve parts. I don’t think enough research has been done to speculate on more meaning other than there would be twelve tribes of Israel.

There are other literary structures throughout the Torah, and here in Genesis. They have a name and the singular is “chiasm.” The structure of a chiasm is like this: ABCDEXE’D’C’B’A’, where A, B, C, etc. are verses or phrases. So, they are repeated in this symmetrical fashion to highlight verse X, whatever that happens to be.

I have to let you look this up for further elaboration. “trust me.”

But, these comments about structure are relevant to this thread, and the first creation account. in particular – because all those sevens ARE saying something, and they’re pointing to God and the Sabbath.

The “null” hypothesis would be that all those sevens mean nothing. We can reject the null hypothesis because scripture itself rationalizes the Sabbath on the basis of the seventh day of creation. The sevens do mean something OTHER than a scientific claim of six days of creation. They are a literary device (a motif), not an assertion of scientific fact.

 

[seagal]

I find great comfort in believing that the bible is without error and that includes matters of faith, morals and science.

The Bible is a book of faith and morals, but it is not, and was not ever intended to be, a book of science. I’m not disputing your right to believe as you like, just pointing out that that particular statement is in error.

 

[seagal]

Now, the second creation account is interesting, enormously, from a literary standpoint, because it is Yahwistic. Eve uses the word YHWH for God. Big deal? You bet. Read the first couple chapters of Exodus and there is a really big deal there, where God reveals His name (YHWH) to Moses. got it? see the problem? How did YHWH roll off of Eve’s lips back in Genesis, if it was not revealed until Moses comes along? And, there is not tangible explanation in Genesis how Eve would have learned this special Name for God.

Very interesting stuff here but I’m curious about a couple of things.

1. In the text quoted above you say (I’m assuming the question actually came from the Torah scholars?) How did Eve know God’s name before it was revealed to Moses? My response would be Couldn’t God have also revealed it to her?
2. Did the Jewish people in Moses’ time also believe literally in the 6 day creation period or were they aware that it was a way of telling a story? What do Jewish people today believe?

 

[AlanFromWichita]

The Bible is a book of faith and morals, but it is not, and was not ever intended to be, a book of science. I’m not disputing your right to believe as you like, just pointing out that that particular statement is in error.

There are a lot of things that good people, trying to hear the truth, disagree on.

So I take this strategy: what if I’m wrong? I ask this of myself on even (especially) my most staunchest of convictions. It’s not that I’m doubting, it’s just a mind exercise.

So I thought, “what if I’m wrong?” What I don’t want to happen is that however many years I’ve been wrong, I’ve been missing out on something important.

So I had to come up with a strategy on how to conduct my life, with contingency plan for if I’m wrong about any given thing. I’m an engineer, so I look at it as an engineering design.

My strategy became, “how can I read, pray, and live the Bible, when I admit that I don’t understand everything in it, and even then the things that I’m sure I understand I may find out later that I don’t”

That is, I don’t want to waste whatever good time I have in my life because of one “little” error in my thinking. Essentially, it’s a baby and bathwater issue. Wheat and weeds. Whatever.

The strategy I designed called for setting priorities on how I respond to God’s word, and all the different senses through which I experience Truth when it is preached, read, explained, or demonstrated to me.

Alas, I have to go to work so I can’t spend much more time on it; gotta go to work.

Quick synopsis: First and foremost, I look at the Bible as a tool God uses to carve me into whatever He wants. To do that I have to sit tight and let God do surgery on me, using the sword of His Word. The less I speak and think, and just let God’s word soak in (as in Lectio Divina) the closer I let him get to my defenses.

Second, I look at it as a story of how the human psyche works and how it interacts with the truth. It tells me how and why people resist truth, for example. It shows me ways to be alert against hypocrisy in myself and others.

Third, is the issue of literal truth. I don’t claim to know the mind of God, so I can’t humbly say I totally understand anything. So whatever literal truth I believe or not, if it isn’t necessary for salvation, I don’t get hung up over it, and don’t get upset when others disagree.

We can all benefit from experiencing God’s word in our personal ways, to let the difference in those way give satan an excuse to divide and destroy us.

Alan

 

[FCCopleston]

The Bible is a book of faith and morals, but it is not, and was not ever intended to be, a book of science. I’m not disputing your right to believe as you like, just pointing out that that particular statement is in error.

Really? So Genesis is without any historical content? The Gospels? The Acts of the Apostles? These are merely teaching “faith and morals”?

If the Bible is a book composed purely of “faith and morals,” then why be a Christian? Faith and morals, separated from any claim on history, are worth nothing more than Aesop’s fables.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Really? So Genesis is without any historical content? The Gospels? The Acts of the Apostles? These are merely teaching “faith and morals”?

If the Bible is a book composed purely of “faith and morals,” then why be a Christian? Faith and morals, separated from any claim on history, are worth nothing more than Aesop’s fables.

I’m asking my brothers and sisters on both sides of this issue, if we have honest, deeply held disagreements about the literal meaning of scripture, on an issue that is not necessary for salvation, should we keep hitting each other over the head with it? (see my signature) We’ve been arguing the same arguments for centuries and look where it has gotten us, divided just as satan would have it.

If our desire to be right on an issue that doesn’t really matter is so strong that it causes ill will and divisions among us, then into whose hands are you playing by engaging in such bitter debate – is that what God would have?

Are we going to ever agree on the exact meaning of scripture? No, but in love, kindness, and patience, and tolerance for others’ opinions, maybe we can heal our divisions anyways.

Alan