Did Genesis indicate literal creation days?

by M.J. 18 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  M.J.

  The WTS and others say the 6 days of creation in Genesis are symbolic of longer time periods, while many others insist that a proper (and uncompromising) exegis reveals literal days. I have a hunch that the author literally meant what he wrote. The JW counter-argument to this is that Genesis was written by Moses and Moses wrote Psalm 90, which reads in part (v4):

  For a thousand years in your sight
  are like a day that has just gone by,
  or like a watch in the night.

  Therefore, time passage in God's sight is not necessarily equivalent to time in ours...

  I dunno, pointing to a song lyric in order to substantiate a certain theory about the creation of the universe is a bit of a stretch, I think.
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  Leolaia

  Yes, within the logic of the creation narrative, they are literal days; the rhythm of "day" and "night" is set in motion by the division of light and darkness. I had a lengthy post a while ago on the cosmological conception of the creation narrative, which has been misunderstood by almost eveyone who imposes a modern view of the universe on the text.
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  tetrapod.sapien

  M.J.,

  I agree. the writer obviously had no clue what he was talking about because he was repeating some neolithic legend, or god was lying to him. the writer had the ability to write 6000 years if he wanted to. hell, he could have written 2 190 000 days if he wanted to.

  i find it funny how the Society will grasp at straws to make their credulous interpretation of genesis sound scientific, but totally blow science off in most of the other parts of genesis.
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  doofdaddy

  To me, the creation account was not important to the writer. It's brief, summarised. From a scientific or literal point of view, it makes no sense. Doesn't that indicate that the bible is not literal but a beautiful book of fiction to help people understand their place and purpose?
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  tetrapod.sapien

  doof,

  yes. if only more people saw it like that, it wouldn't be such a big issue.

  cheers
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  Leolaia

  To me, the creation account was not important to the writer. It's brief, summarised. From a scientific or literal ;point of view, it makes no sense. Doesn't that indicate that the bible is not literal but a beautiful book of fiction to help people understand their place and purpose? ;

  It does have its own internal logic, within a mythological conception of the cosmos. To me, the question of how "scientifically accurate" the creation narrative is should be moot when this is taken into account. It is patently geocentric in ways that most apologists have not yet imagined. As long as people keep reading it while picturing the creation of a spherical earth spinning on its axis, and fail to realize that the creation of "land" and the "earth" are one and the same thing, as the creation of the "sky" and the "heavens" is as well (they are the same words in Hebrew, but rendered differently in English), the internal logic of the story is lost.
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  Narkissos

  As Claus Westermann pointed out, Genesis 1--2:4a does show a sort of pre-scientific intention, within the generic conceptions of its time and the specific priestly perspective (the notion of separating being the key); it reflects a taxonomy of beings and a sort of "logical" development; it demythologises the older cosmogonies and even, perhaps, has an intuition of some sort of "evolution" (with the earth bringing forth vegetation or the waters bringing forth fish). But time here is not a factor as the only point of the literal week frame is to provide the basis for the priestly sabbatical system.

  All those pre-scientific features are completely lacking in the more mythical-sapiential second story (2:4b--3).
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  nicolaou

  Literal days or days of 7000 years in length - it's unscientific either way. That's not to say there's no value in reading Genesis.
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  Leolaia

  Some of you rmight find this thread of interest, on the literary and mythological background of Genesis 1:

  http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/73734/1.ashx
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  M.J.

  Thanks Leo. I was hoping to stumble onto a play-by-play analysis of it.