Dizerner
Active Member
Deeper indeed. Here's some thoughts I previously wrote on the matter:
It seems we have clear indications even ancients could read Genesis 1 right off the bat as allegorical even in light of internal considerations. I still tend to imagine a literal Adam and Eve walking in a garden on earth somewhere, but my mind practically implodes trying to fit that into any scientific evidence we have. As an agnostic I simply accept that science does seem to indicate things by evidence, and I also accept the Bible is inspired and believe it to the best of my ability. I accept both and have no idea how they harmonize, no matter how contradictory they seem. I certainly have speculated on it.
But here's the deal. Does the Bible itself really indicate to us how important this particular doctrine might be? Is it as serious an issue as some people make it? Does a whole lot ride on this literal or non-literal interpretation of days? After a lifetime of serious Christian living, I really struggle to see it as a doctrine that has that much effect on us spiritually. The Bible in my view would warn far more against strife and division than an honest struggle with whether Genesis creation days were literal or not.
Some of us are deep thinkers, and we just honestly struggle maybe with that kind of childlike acceptance of a thing I guess. For example, did you know that every day the earth is slowing in rotation a tiny bit? That means there is not even an absolute standard for what a solar day consists of. Not to mention if we throw in relativity of the observer, and the effects it seems to have on the slowing down of time, or how we can even measure time. We have a simplistic 7 day creation week where hugely broad categories like plants or birds are within a certain day. There are creatures that seem both plant and animal. There are creatures with birdlike properties but without a clear consensus on their categorization. We have, several days without even a sun to orbit or create any effects of shadow. Was the earth orbiting? Was it spinning? Were our galaxy's arms created around the central solitary existing planet of earth?
Adam and Eve lived in a world in which heaven and earth merged in a glorious fashion and was very unique where everything was very good. This arrangement was stripped away after the fall of man, and it seems that we were left with mere remnants of a once perfect environment to live forever. Scientists can only study and have understanding of a fallen world/universe.
I've never heard any good explanation for why the Genesis 1 days have to be literal. They pull this arbitrary criteria out of the hat because even in the start of Genesis two we already have a figurative use of yom and we are not even out of creation. Nobody argues that God created everything in one day, but it say a singular day in Genesis 2:4:
in the day of YHWH God's making earth and heavens
And this thoughtless wooden literalism here runs into other problems for anyone that actually takes it seriously instead of some dogma to get a badge of orthodoxy. Our solar earth day is not static, the earth is gradually slowing down minutely. The Earth's rotation is slowing down from rotational energy transfer to the moon's orbit through tides. The moon is very slowly increasing its orbital radius. Every 18 months on the average, with variation, a leap second is added to planetary time keeping to keep the day consistent with atomic clocks and astronomical observations. So what exact amount of time was it? An average of every solar day the earth ever experiences? The original period of time of the very first day before it began slowing? Why does this exact amount of time matter? What about the theory of relativity that shows there is no standard time anyway, and all time is relative to each observer? If I believe the first 6 literal 24 solar days were a few seconds off of what they actually were am I going to hell for unorthodoxy?
Does John 1 find any symbolism in Jesus being the Light and the Spoken Word? Does the Spirit hovering over chaos, does night coming before day, symbolize the curse of original sin that we are born into, and the Redemption God brings in Christ? Are there not signs of poetic speech here, and allegories the rest of the Bible unpacks for us? Isn't the important thing just that God made everything when we have no earthly idea of exactly how anyway?! Might there be other spiritual meanings and significance to this passage?!! How is it relevant to anything at all outside of a spiritual and prophetic symbolism of what a day stands for? It's just ridiculous. We are getting overly dogmatic with some legalistic mindset to insist otherwise. The same kind of logic would argue dogmatically for a flat earth, since that is the wooden way to read the Bible!
Read how open the interpretation was to some ancients, who knew the original languages well, and spoke them natively:
It was not only, however, with the (Scriptures composed) before the advent (of Christ) that the Spirit thus dealt; but as being the same Spirit, and (proceeding) from the one God, He did the same thing both with the evangelists and the apostles—as even these do not contain through–out a pure history of events, which are interwoven indeed according to the letter, but which did not actually occur. Nor even do the law and the commandments wholly convey what is agreeable to reason. For who that has understanding will sup–pose that the first, and second, and third day, and the evening and the morning, existed without a sun, and moon, and stars? And that the first day was, as it were, also without a sky? And who is so foolish as to suppose that God, after the manner of a husbandman, planted a paradise in Eden, towards the east, and placed in it a tree of life, visible and palpable, so that one tasting of the fruit by the bodily teeth obtained life? And again, that one was a partaker of good and evil by masticating what was taken from the tree? And if God is said to walk in the paradise in the evening, and Adam to hide himself under a tree, I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, and not literally.
— On first principles, Book 4, Origen (born 185 AD)
“First, the account given in Scripture of the Creation is not, as is generally believed, intended to be in all its parts literal. For if this were the case, wise men would not have kept its explanation secret, and our Sages would not have employed figurative speech [in treating of the Creation] in order to hide its true meaning, nor would they have objected to discuss it in the presence of the common people. The literal meaning of the words might lead us to conceive corrupt ideas and to form false opinions about God, or even entirely to abandon and reject the principles of our Faith. It is therefore right to abstain and refrain from examining this subject superficially and unscientifically. We must blame the practice of some ignorant preachers and expounders of the Bible, who think that wisdom consists in knowing the explanation of words, and that greater perfection is attained by employing more words and longer speech. It is, however, right that we should examine the Scriptural texts by the intellect, after having acquired a knowledge of demonstrative science, and of the true hidden meaning of prophecies. But if one has obtained some knowledge in this matter he must not preach on it, as I stated in my Commentary on the Mishnah (Ḥagigah, ii. 7), and our Sages said distinctly: From the beginning of the book to this place--after the account of the sixth day of the Creation--it is "the glory of God to conceal a thing" (Prov. xxv. 2).”
— Maimonides, Guide to the Perplexed (born 1135 AD)
”What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible, to determine”
— Augustine, City of God, 420 AD.
More reading here:
Biblical Reasons to Doubt the Creation Days Were 24-Hour Periods
Scientific objections aside, the more I study Genesis 1 and 2, the more I think it is unlikely that the "days" are referring to strict 24-hour periods. Here's why.
In short: The main problems with VSL are (1) it undermines relativity, (2) it’s not clear what “varying c” means physically unless dimensionless constants change, (3) astronomical and lab measurements show c is effectively constant, (4) it fits observations worse than inflation, and (5) it lacks a well-motivated mechanism.
