A Telling in Six Ordinary Days

[Philosurfer (Daniel Deen)]

@swamidass

I’m not sure…I think there is compelling reason in a plain reading to recognize off the bat that this is a telling , from the ordinary perception of an observer.

I don’t think I’m disagreeing with this. In fact, I mentioned that it is a telling NOT from an eyewitness to the events. I can theoretically or, perhaps, philosophically make the double referent argument you suggested. However, as I’m reading some of the early Lutheran theologians, they seem to be saying something more akin to @deuteroKJ – why?

Now –

@swamidass

I think it will be exceedingly helpful in @Philosurfer’s context, and for many in the AIG camp.

– perhaps as a way to rhetorically get a conversation going and dislodge preconceptions about old earth, day age theories, or whatever in my particular scenario it may be helpful. It may be really helpful if I can start to grasp what “my” early theologians meant by discussing the days of genesis mainly in a homiletic context – which, I think relates to this,

@swamidass

I’m asking a different question. I’m not saying the passage is teaching day-age or that God was intending to communicate this. Rather, I am saying the author was intending to communicate his perception of a telling, that he knew it was a telling, and expected his audience to know it was a telling too.

If that is the case, we can ask ( theologically not hermeneutically) why God might have done a telling this way?

the theology that follows will always be debatable and under-determined by the text.

@swamidass

A six ordinary telling is also a really long telling, but also within the range of ordinary perception . He couldn’t tell the story in years or ages without losing the observer’s attention. So it makes sense, even, that these are six-ordinary days.

This comes to suggest (though not quite teach) that this was a really long period of time over which God created everything, because a six day telling is a very long telling.

I’ll run it by a theologian or two tomorrow to see what they say!

@swamidass

I’d say Genesis is teaching us of our origins …How we got here, which instructs us in who we are and who is God. Origins can be described from multiple points of view (including scientific and historical). I’d say Genesis 1 was given to be understood through the ages, both in the original context and into our time. There is a timeless quality to it, which is why I resist mapping it too closely to scientific claims (which are bound to our moment).

This seems exactly right to me.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Philosurfer

The vocation aspect is also related to your concern about social justice raised in your last blog post, although I am not sure we (speaking broadly Lutheran) are viewing social justice in the same way. However, I seem to be finding that the theology, science, and larger community seem intimately intertwined in the conversation.

I hope you can unpack that for me too.

[Ashwin_s]

@Philosurfer

I’m not sure it is crazy, but you may run into some of the same problems that were brought against @Ronald_Cram concerning a dual intent. In fact, I think you raised that concern against him in his discussion concerning Genesis.

One aspect i don’t get in this discussion is why people don’t read the first chapter in a more christocentric way.
We have a parallel of Genesis 1:1-2 in John 1:1-3… I teaches us that all things were created through Jesus Christ. So when a christian reads that God commanded there to be light… and there was light. He must understand that the Father’s will was done through the logos (Jesus). And the light is a product of Christs wisdom. This implies a process.The most important spiritual truth of new testament Christianity is not explicit in Genesis 1 and we must read it in between the lines perse.

So why treat it as a detailed comprehensive explanation of the act of creation? Its not even explicit on the most important truth of Creation… That Jesus is the one through whom all things are made.
If we understand this, then a lot of the presumptions in a literal interpretation will have to be abandoned. And we will have to understand that Genesis is a very condesned version of the entire process and only reading Genesis will not give us an accurate picture of creation in the area that matters most.

[gbrooks9 (George)]

@swamidass

I am no defender of this, so do not misinterpret my explication. I think the claim is that scribes would often update copies with modern dialect and the modern names of places. Also, the original tablets would not have been in hebrew. They would have been translated to hebrew.

@swamidass and the others:

This updating would be the only explanation for placing the Philistines in conversations with Abraham… since the Philistines hadn’t replaced the Canaanites on the coast until MORE RECENTLY than 1200 BCE.

This means the time of the replacement of terms/names is ALSO more recent than 1200 BCE.

While there are few takers of such a timeline… It would be internally consistent with the identity of Moses … since the Exodus of Moses would ALSO have been more recent than 1200 BCE… which is what Exodus tells us (the Exodus avoided the Way of the Philistines because of their aggressive nature).

[To @anon46279830, Thoughts? ]

Because of Egyptian hegemony over all of Canaan between the Hyksos and the Philistines, Exodus HAS to have occurred just before the Sea People period or just after (see Harris Papyrus for a surprising level of corroboration!).

[Philosurfer (Daniel Deen)]

@Ashwin_s

One aspect i don’t get in this discussion is why people don’t read the first chapter in a more christocentric way.
We have a parallel of Genesis 1:1-2 in John 1:1-3… I teaches us that all things were created through Jesus Christ. So

Yes, absolutely agree. I should have included this in my first post as a part of one of six thoughts. I believe it may be part of the early Lutheran’s homiletic approach to the days as Lutheran peaching always drives to Christ and his atoneing work for us

@Ashwin_s

The most important spiritual truth of new testament Christianity is not explicit in Genesis 1 and we must read it in between the lines perse.

And here is where I get a little nervous. What does it mean to read between the lines and how do you know that you’ve got the correct interpretation of between the lines? I take @swamidass to be doing just this and he is Christ centered!

I am more comfortable reading Genesis 1 in light of Christ and holding modern science and what Genesis 1 ‘literally’ says in tension, perhaps paradox. Christ gives me the freedom to explore options with Genesis 1, but I can’t get too excited about any of the options as a perfect match between science and Genesis.

@Ashwin_s

If we understand this, then a lot of the presumptions in a literal interpretation will have to be abandoned. And we will have to understand that Genesis is a very condesned version of the entire process and only reading Genesis will not give us an accurate picture of creation in the area that matters most.

Yes, couldn’t agree more with the last half of this statement, and would agree with first half except I think one can still presume literalism with what you are saying. Stateside, I think what you are pointing out is Christ does not require a biblicism with Genesis or, put another way, a fundamentalist literalism.

[Ashwin_s]

@Philosurfer

And here is where I get a little nervous. What does it mean to read between the lines and how do you know that you’ve got the correct interpretation of between the lines? I take @swamidass to be doing just this and he is Christ centered!

This is a genuine risk. Especially when lay people do this.One thing denominations can do is state key points such as God being creator, Creation being the work of the Triune God, the historicity of Adam etc as key dogma… and give freedom to the laity to follow their conscience in how the interpret the details…
Even when we read Luther’s commentary on Genesis. He starts off by highlighting the difficulty of interpreting the details of the text.
Assemblies of God has such an approach…

[Philosurfer (Daniel Deen)]

@Ashwin_s

give freedom to the laity to follow their conscience in how the interpret the details

I’m with you on this and I think it is the historic Lutheran position even after Luther. However, something happened in the American context where this approach is generally frowned upon, at least in terms of creation, for laity and professional church workers alike!

[Ashwin_s]

That’s a pity… wasn’t the maxim
Unity in essentials, in non essentials liberty, in all things charity?..
Anyway, these discussions are hard to resolve.

[anon46279830]

@deuteroKJ

It’s a hypothesis at best! Do the tablet theorists not know that Hebrew is a Canaanite dialect that appeared much later in human history?

Perhaps we should have a thread on this where I take the position it should be more than a hypothesis and you that it is a hypothesis at best.

Say you used your knowledge of NT Greek to translate a parchment into English. 3,000 years later someone comes along and notices your document describes events which occurred before the origin of the English language. They therefore conclude that your account must have been originally invented by you, not an account from an earlier time period. I am sure how you can see that this would be unfair. Now in our present times we have practices which mitigate against this- for example you might have footnotes or a forward where you explain you were translating from an earlier document in a language which DID exist at the time you describe. But such practices were not in place “back in the day”.

[anon46279830]

@gbrooks9 I accept the date of the Exodus as explained by Dr. Bryant G. Wood. 1406-1446 B.C. It has the most textual support once the “City of Ramses” is explained. The scribes had a habit of updating place names, much like we would if there was a document that said “Persia”. We would change it to “Iran” because that is what it is called now. This could explain the reference to the “land of the Philistines” as well. The Philistines themselves may not have been well-established 200 years earlier in that location, but someone was.

http://www.biblearchaeology.org/post/2009/03/30/The-Biblical-Date-for-the-Exodus-is-1446-BC-A-Response-to-James-Hoffmeier.aspx

[Ronald_Cram]

@Philosurfer

I’m not sure it is crazy, but you may run into some of the same problems that were brought against @Ronald_Cram concerning a dual intent.

I don’t hold to dual intent. I hold to inspiration which teaches there are two authors with the same intent. However, the divine author knows more than the human author. My view of Genesis 1 is that both authors intend to provide an historical narrative of creation. The difference is that God knows that someday we will discover through science the truth of Genesis 1 while I don’t think the human author has any idea that will happen.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Ronald_Cram

I don’t hold to dual intent.

Should have written dual author.

[Ronald_Cram]

@swamidass

I wonder if it is valid to see it as a “six-ordinary day telling ” of the creation story. A couple clues are the fact that there are mornings and evenings before the sun exists. The story does seem to evoke notions of the beginning of everything, but also seems to describe phenomena that show the earth already exists (the Spirit of God over the water). Also, no human was around to see all this in the first place, so some how it was conveyed.

What if it is that God told the story, perhaps even performing it, in six ordinary days?

If I am understanding you correctly, you are suggesting that God told the story to Moses while on Mt. Sinai over a six day period. In other words, six of their 40 days together were spent telling Moses the creation story.

I actually think this may have some merit.

I don’t think the idea God performed the events over six 24 hour days has any merit. Even if you had six 24 hour days separated by millions of years, I don’t think that would work.

But a six day telling might work. It’s interesting to think about.

[Philosurfer (Daniel Deen)]

@Ronald_Cram

I don’t hold to dual intent.

@swamidass

Should have written dual author.

Correct, I misspoke, sorry! The point is that @swamidass was picking up a little ambiguity in your thought earlier and I sensed that a similar ambiguity might be leveled against Josh’s notion of a six day telling.

[Ronald_Cram]

@Philosurfer

I sensed that a similar ambiguity might be leveled against Josh’s notion of a six day telling.

Okay, no problem. I just don’t see any ambiguity in my notion of inspiration. It is the standard theological view that is often neglected in discussions of Genesis 1.

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@Philosurfer

The point is that @swamidass was picking up a little ambiguity in your thought earlier and I sensed that a similar ambiguity might be leveled against Josh’s notion of a six day telling.

I’m still not sure how that would be valid. I’m making the case only from textual analysis and authorial intent. It is no more dual authorship than Joseph reporting his dream in literal terms to his family.

@Ronald_Cram

I sensed that a similar ambiguity might be leveled against Josh’s notion of a six day telling.

Okay, no problem. I just don’t see any ambiguity in my notion of inspiration. It is the standard theological view that is often neglected in discussions of Genesis 1.

I agree that many people hold to dual-authorship (e.g. @anon46279830 and @Ronald_Cram ) but it is currently not as accepted as authorial intent, for better or for worse. The ambiguity arises in trying to infer what God intended.

[Philosurfer (Daniel Deen)]

@swamidass

I’m still not sure how that would be valid.

Yep, I hear you and I haven’t given it much thought since your original reply.

[deuteroKJ (Kenneth Turner)]

@anon46279830

Perhaps we should have a thread on this where I take the position it should be more than a hypothesis and you that it is a hypothesis at best.

I’m working on syllabi at the moment, so probably not ready to start another discussion.

@anon46279830

Say you used your knowledge of NT Greek to translate a parchment into English. 3,000 years later someone comes along and notices your document describes events which occurred before the origin of the English language. They therefore conclude that your account must have been originally invented by you, not an account from an earlier time period. I am sure how you can see that this would be unfair.

You’re right. My point is that the text is full of word plays that work in Hebrew. Are we to assume all these were in the original, and they just so happen to also work in Hebrew? not likely

[Guy_Coe]

Once you go back that far, wordplays begin emerging as common to more than one culture. If the Hebrew simply emphasized the native ironies or paradoxes involved, the way the narratives were shaped around them would be needed to accomplish this, but the historical events themselves could go much further back in time. Mark is right, and the dating of Biblical Hebrew does not delimit the time during which the described events had to have occurred.