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Originally Posted by Finny61
For me the Genesis book is very relevant and so is our discoveries in science...
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If you believe this, then you clearly do not understand the Book of Genesis.
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Originally Posted by Finny61
1. God created the world in days, 1 at a time. Whose to say this means an actual 24 hour day, 1 day could mean 1,000 or 100,000, or 1,000,000 million years.
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No. The first creation myth states quite explicitly that the cosmos were created in six 24-hour days. To think otherwise is silly because the parametres for what constitutes a day are defined in vv. 4, 6. 13, 19, 23 as "evening and morning". The sun rose and set on each of the first six days of creation.
The notion of "day-ages" comes from misguided theologians who are desperate to reconcile the ancient tribal myth with the modern reality that our universe is ancient. Such a sentiment is borne from a conviction that Scripture must be and always is accurate; thus, when there is a clear contradiction with what occurs in the real world, the "logical" conclusion is that we were wrong to use our common sense when reading the text in the first place.
The creation stories in Genesis are ancient Near Eastern myths. They were written from a primitive template through which people necessarily understood and constructed their world in theological terms. The Genesis 1 account is based on an even more ancient myth of epic battle between two or more gods that resulted in the creation of the world and everything. However, the story was redacted and in many respects "re-written" by a priest, who was ultimately concerned to show that there was only one god, and not several, and that this god's creative activity echoed his own cultic convictions: it was no accident that God observed the first "Shabbat".
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Originally Posted by Finny61
2. God molded Adam in his own image, Eve was created from Adam. Why can't evolution still exist with this biblical statement? Can 'molded' not be the evolutionary chain from where we started whatever that be (a cell) to a human?
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First of all, you are confusing the details from two DISTINCT creation stories. There is no moulding of dust and no Adam and Eve in the first creation story in Genesis 1, and there is no "image of God" in the second story in chapters 2 and 3. And there is really no room at all for evolution between the gaps that we invent when we read these stories.
I read an interesting article this week about this idea of the "image of God" as it appears in Genesis 1:22. It is widely agreed upon in scholarly circles that the creation account in Genesis 1 is based on old, Akkadian "creation war" myths, but in which the nature of the struggle between the deity (or deities) and the cosmos has been decidedly neutered. Regardless, we are naive to think that the conflict in Gen 1 is gone altogether. John T. Strong writes that the language used in God's proclamation in v. 26 to "make humankind in our likeness" is identical to the formulae used by ancient Near Eastern kings in establishing victory stelae over their vanquished enemies. Victory columns were commonly erected by ancient rulers to signal to outsiders that they had conquered a given city or region, and that they now wielded absolute control—or "dominion"—over that place. Because of the similarities between the account in Gen 1 and several of these stelae, Strong arrives at the following conclusion:
"God had just brought order to the formless void (Gen 1:2 [what I have described as 'watery chaos']), and before resting he established his victory stele to testify to his domination over his vanquished enemy. Humankind, then, was set up after God's victory and to declare God's dominion in a conquered region" (p.631).
So then, in light of the ancient context for the writing of the Genesis 1 creation account, the presence of humanity serves as a declaration of "dominion" over the vanquished foe: "Watery chaos" has been obliterated, and humanity essentially exists in place of the ancient phallic symbols to enforce this fact.
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Originally Posted by Finny61
Personally I believe there is room for both and I accept the religious belief with the advances in science. They can go hand in hand even if evolution one day becomes 100% fact it doesn't change the faith aspect. Ultimately the reason why there is struggle in teaching is that it is so wide open to discussion and firm answers can't be given and that's where the disagreements are coming out.
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I agree that there is "room for both", but I disagree that the old creation myths can in any way be reconciled with modern science. They are religious stories with NO factual bearing. I am a Christian, but that does not mean that I must find a "niche" for every nonsensical or obsolete story or teaching that happens to appear in the Bible. Misconstruing the Bible by making it into something that it most obviously is not is the problem in all of this, and the sooner that people begin to recognize it for what it is—an ancient collection of religious literature in the form of myths, folk-tales, poems, songs, and propoganda—the better off we all shall be.