Amos

Sorry spin, you don't have to accept anything I write. I have lots and lots source texts but the same interpretation problems will arise there as well and therefore it does not help me to resort to these.

Let me just point out to you that on the seventh day of creation evening did not follow the day because that is the day wherein redemption is attained and therefore is called Sunday. It is celebrated on Easter Sunday and last for two days to reinforce the idea that evening did not follow the day. Here, we will have arrived at the time where there is not need for the light of common day etc. as is found in Rev.21:23-25.

The NAB is best for this as it reads in verse 5 "thus, evening came and morning followed-the first day." This day-count continues very rythmic (except for the "thus" which only belongs in verse 3), until the seventh day when evening does not follow the day. This sudden omission means something and deserves us to ponder what it could possibly mean.

I like the "stream of consciousness" trips into wonderland and most often come back with some good stuff. Didn't Zamjatin go there often near the end of WE?

spin

This is just special pleading. What we get is, though there is no evidence for it, the view "from man's perspective". Why? Just trust Magus55. He/she doesn't consider 2:18ff in which yhwh 'elohym said that it wasn't right that man should be alone, then he formed every animal of the field...

Why oh why can't pundits read what the text actually says before delivering these miraculous revisions?


spin

spin

In this case you don't have lots and lots. We are dealing with a specific source text and before you read anything into it from outside, you need to deal with what it says literally. Until you do so, you have no tangible starting point.

Next, once the literal content is evaluated, the only texts of any value to that which we are studying are those which came before so as to provide a context for the writing of our source text, so that we have comparisons for the period from which to draw an evaluation framework.

Sunday? Interesting revision. Saturday is the English equivalent of the sabbath. Sunday is the first day of the week. xians had to use Sunday to show their difference from the Jewish sabbath (just as the Muslims chose Friday). God rested on the seventh day, not the first day.

Easter Sunday and Revelation have nothing at all to do with our source text.

It's not quite what the text says. It's been tarted up for easy reading.

I'll let you ponder!

I don't think we can get too much further here. We were dealing with what the text says, not what one brings to it. The task is for us to shed as much of what we bring as possible so as to get closer to what the text can mean.


spin

Amos

But these mythmakers were inspired freelancers were they not?

That may be true but where I come from (Netherland) Sunday was the seventh day of the week and 'moony' Monday was the first day on the calender. Of course that was Catholic and not Christian--if that helps you any.

They are similar in that Easter is where our Church calender comes full circle just as the bible does in the book of Revelation.

Yes it's very gracefully poetic and not very misleading. Thanks, I will. It's been fun.

spin

How would you know?

No. We are left with the Sabbath as the sabbath. What the Netherlands and catholicism have done is irrelevant in changing the calendar has no reflection on the original data. You should try not to look on the past as though it were a reflection of the present.

Sadly you wouldn't know if it were misleading or not.


spin

TheDiddleyMan

After reading the passage a bit more in depth, that seems implausible IMHO.

First of all, what indication is there that it is from "man's perspective"? How is it from a different perspective than chapter 1?

Second, why do you assume there was "nothing but himself" around? There were plants around, so why wouldn't there be animals?

Thirdly, the reason for the creation of animals is given - Adam needs a helper. Now if that was the reason that animals were created this indicates that they wouldn't be there before there was a reason, because if they were the reason given in text seems odd.

Finally, God explaining that he created Adam first when he didn't would be a lie, plain and simple, and an absolutely unecessary one at that.

The only thing I can see that might mean something or give a "loophole" so to speak is verse 20, which mentions beasts of the field and birds of the sky, but nothing of water. Why that is, I don't know....


Kevin

Spaz

I dunno, the only thing that seems to make sense is if the 2 stories were separate stories that were (confusingly) stuck together. The first story seems to end with the third verse of the second chapter of genesis, then a completely different story is started.

Amos

That is what inspired means by definition and I even think that they were on a stream of consciousness trip they want us to follow.

You seem to forget here that the "infallible church" has every right to use the original data and take it to any height they want to. They made this clear with the genealogy of Jesus that goes right back to God and no ancient Sabbath is going to prevent this.Well now that is where "grace" is a faith-builder.

Doctor X

DiddleyMan:

Spaz gives the answer--two separate creation stories stiched together.

Friedman's Who Wrote the Bible? gives a good explanation of the process.

--J.D.

Magus55

Lets look at Genesis 2:

Gen 2:8 Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

Gen 2:19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air.

Notice its in past tense? God had planted the garden, and had placed the animals in the garden, and put man in the garden. The plants and animals had already been created prior to putting man in the garden.

I think you getting confused. Eve was created to be a help mate, not the animals. God brought some of the animals to Adam to be named and used for Adam's purposes.

Gen 2:19 He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air and all the beasts of the field.

God didn't explain that He created Adam first. God said He created Adam. Then after saying that, He said, He had planted the garden and put in the animals. Day 2 focuses on Adam, which is why God mentions the creation of Adam, but only references to the creation of everything else in past tense. Gen 2 isn't written chronologically. Essentially its saying, God created man out of dust, and put man in the garden full of plants and animals He had created, and then brought those animals to Adam to be named. The Garden was already in existence before Adam was formed, but since Gen 2 focuses on Adam and day 6, not the rest of Creation, it just makes reference to the garden having been formed already. There is no need to put it in chronological order again, since that was the purpose of Gen 1.