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Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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tat tvam asi
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Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate: Being Honest to the Text, Its Author, and His Beliefs

https://www.amazon.com/Genesis-Creation ... 498231322/
Modern readers often assume that Genesis 1 depicts the creation of the earth and sky as we know it. Yet in an appeal for textual honesty, Steven DiMattei shows that such beliefs are more representative of modern views about this ancient text than the actual claims and beliefs of its author. Through a culturally contextualized and objective reading of the texts of Genesis 1 and 2, this study not only introduces readers to the textual data that convincingly demonstrate that Genesis' two creation accounts were penned by different authors who held contradictory views and beliefs about the origin of the world and of man and woman, but also establishes on textual grounds that what the author of Genesis 1 portrayed God creating was the world as its author and culture perceived and experienced it--not the objective world, but a subjective world, subject to the culturally conditioned views and beliefs of its author. In the end, this book clearly illustrates that the Bible's ancient texts do in fact represent the beliefs and worldviews of ancient peoples and cultures--not those of God, not those of later readers, and especially not those of modern-day Creationists.
Some of you remember my "Young Earth Creation put to rest" thread with Stahrwe a few years back, some of you may not. I've been reading through Steven DiMattei's online articles which have been put together to form this new book. He and I are both members at www.exchristian.net and have been discussing his book. I felt like a thread ought to be opened on the topic here at booktalk as well. I'll be leaving Steven a link to this thread and will invite him to discuss the book here as well. Many interesting points come up which go beyond what I had known or considered previous to his research.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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Here's a link to the articles that I've been reading which contribute to the book: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/category/genesis/

And here's a few previews:
Genesis 1:1-2 — Not a Creation ex nihilo!

UPDATE: This and the following posts are now published as chapter 1 of my new book. If you’re interested in Genesis 1 and 2; in the textual data that convincingly—yes I’m sure of it; the text is quite convincing—demonstrate that Genesis’ two creation accounts were penned by two different authors who held contradictory worldviews, beliefs, and messages; in learning why Creationists’ claims about creation are not supported by Genesis 1 and/orRead More
Genesis 1:3-5 — Day is Light

Modern readers often express their perplexity at the fact that Genesis 1:3 presents the creation of light before the creation of the luminary that produces light, the sun, whose creation does not happen until day 4 (1:16). How can light be created or exist, it is often asked, before the sun was created? The problem with this and similar questions is that they impose our knowledge about the cosmos, indeed anRead More
Last edited by tat tvam asi on Tue Feb 07, 2017 9:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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tat tvam asi wrote:In the end, this book clearly illustrates that the Bible's ancient texts do in fact represent the beliefs and worldviews of ancient peoples and cultures--not those of God, not those of later readers, and especially not those of modern-day Creationists.
Isn't that the very heart of the matter? Modern-day Creationists think the Bible is literally God's word. Not only that, they believe theirs is the only valid interpretation. There's really no getting around that.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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geo wrote:
tat tvam asi wrote:In the end, this book clearly illustrates that the Bible's ancient texts do in fact represent the beliefs and worldviews of ancient peoples and cultures--not those of God, not those of later readers, and especially not those of modern-day Creationists.
Isn't that the very heart of the matter? Modern-day Creationists think the Bible is literally God's word. Not only that, they believe theirs is the only valid interpretation. There's really no getting around that.
I've long suspected that modern concerns with consistency and non-contradiction were alien to the culture that produced these ancient scriptures. The writings really wouldn't have been put out there to defend a worldview in any way close to the manner these scriptures were later employed. If one account of creation didn't jibe with the other, so what?
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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YECist do not seem to be fazed by there not being a star in our solar system to provide light. For them, If light was required to enumerate days then God merely provided that light necessary.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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DWill wrote:I've long suspected that modern concerns with consistency and non-contradiction were alien to the culture that produced these ancient scriptures. The writings really wouldn't have been put out there to defend a worldview in any way close to the manner these scriptures were later employed. If one account of creation didn't jibe with the other, so what?
A scientific understanding of nature is a relatively recent development in human history. For much of our existence we simply didn't know the earth revolved around the sun or that the earth was one of eight planets or that all matter is composed of atoms or that most diseases are caused by germs. It's only with such absolute knowledge that we can think in absolute terms. I would say that humans used to be much more comfortable thinking in metaphoric terms. All stories about the world were just that, they were stories. Which is why two creation stories could be enjoyed for the myths they were and not seen as conflicting with one another. A literal reading of the Bible is simply not the way the Bible was written or understood by the people who actually wrote it.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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Taylor wrote:YECist do not seem to be fazed by there not being a star in our solar system to provide light. For them, If light was required to enumerate days then God merely provided that light necessary.
This is one aspect that is actually very interesting. Here's a larger look at the article in question: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/gen ... -of-light/
Modern readers often express their perplexity at the fact that Genesis 1:3 presents the creation of light before the creation of the luminary that produces light, the sun, whose creation does not happen until day 4 (1:16). How can light be created or exist, it is often asked, before the sun was created? The problem with this and similar questions is that they impose our knowledge about the cosmos, indeed an objective knowledge about the workings of our solar system, onto these ancient texts whose cultures, and god(s)!, did not possess this type of knowledge. We know that the sun is the source of light for our solar system. But the ancient cultures and peoples that produced this creation account, and others of like nature, did not possess this knowledge and apparently held different ideas about the nature of their world.
Having said that, it would initially appear that the Israelite scribe who penned Genesis 1, or the larger cultural perspective from which he drew, did not see or understand the sun as the source of light, that is the source of day or daylight. Indeed, as expressed in Genesis 1:15, the sun was understood as a light emitting source, as was, erroneously, the moon. But it appears that it was not seen as the source of day or daylight. The sun and the moon were created “to distinguish between the day and the night” not as the sources for day and night. This is a radical departure from modern scientific truth and what we know today.

There are basically three things that happen in Genesis 1:3-5. Following what our biblical author has presented so far in his composition of the creation of the world, which was shaped and influenced by cultural perspectives and beliefs about the nature of the world and its origins, we see that to this primeval state of darkness that spread out over an untamed watery abyss which covered a formless, vacuous piece of earth (Genesis 1:1-2), light was added:

And God said, “Let there be light!”

Darkness need not have been created since it already existed. Second, the text informs us that God separates this newly created light from the primeval darkness, and lastly calls or identifies this light as “day,” and conversely darkness as “night.” “And there was evening, and there was morning—one day.”
So over this watery untamed abyss of formless earth, alternating sequences of day and night now exist. This is significant because what the text presents the deity creating first is the day or daylight! In other words, the light that comes into existence is not called “the sun” but rather “day.” Day was essentially conceived of as light, as being composed of light. Or, according to our ancient scribe, day by its very nature is light! The very essence of day is light. Ancient peoples might have deduced this “truth” from the observation that even when the sun doesn’t appear, it is still daylight out. Thus, the separation and alternation between day and night, light and darkness, is set by an initial action of the creator deity and not by the sun!

This idea is reenforced elsewhere in the text. There are only 3 places in Genesis 1 where God is presented creating something and then immediately naming it. It’s instructive to look at these three occurrences together:

light is created and called “day”
the firmament or expanse is created and called “the sky”
dry land is created or simply commanded to appear and is called “earth”

We notice that the name given to each of these elements expresses what it inherently or essentially is. What is earth? It is dry land (“earth” is never used to refer to the planet; no such idea existed). What is the sky? It is the firmament which God created to separate the waters below from those above. And finally, what is day? It is light. In other words our ancient author perceived day as quintessentially equivalent to light. So the source of day’s light, or daylight, was not seen as the sun, but rather was seen as the very essence of day itself.
I still think it's good to address this problem as it arises. Apologists may say this or that, and they will. But they'll look foolish trying to excuse this. And that's all it takes. The foolishness needs to be shown as self evident. It's a matter of chipping away bit by bit over and over again at the ridiculous idea that Genesis 1 somehow trumps what science has shown, or is alignment with what science has shown, depending on which direction the apologist may be taking. Neither direction works out...
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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tat tvam asi wrote:
I still think it's good to address this problem as it arises. Apologists may say this or that, and they will. But they'll look foolish trying to excuse this. And that's all it takes. The foolishness needs to be shown as self evident. It's a matter of chipping away bit by bit over and over again at the ridiculous idea that Genesis 1 somehow trumps what science has shown, or is alignment with what science has shown, depending on which direction the apologist may be taking. Neither direction works out...
The blind stubborness that creationists show in trying to defend Genesis as consistent with science also prevents them from arriving at a richer understanding of the culture they supposedly worship as sacred. The perspectives offered in this book are clarifying, and certainly the poetic thinking that went into the conceiving of light as synonymous with day, but not as synonymous with the sun, is not mere nonsense.
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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Hi All! This is the author here. I appreciate that you're discussing, and hopefully enjoying, the book. I've read through the comments thus far here and am glad that many of you are getting the gist of my thesis---which is basically a textual demonstration proving that the beliefs (archaic and culturally shaped) do not square with modern claims of believing in the text, its worldview, and beliefs.

I thought this quote rather pertinent. "The blind stubbornness that creationists show in trying to defend Genesis as consistent with science also prevents them from arriving at a richer understanding of the culture they supposedly worship as sacred."

Although the book has its sharp polemical attack on Creationist claims about Genesis 1 (stating they are hypocritical and disingenuous) there is nonetheless a sympathetic strain to the book as well. Since my expertise is in biblical studies, I feel that one of the reasons that Creationists/Fundamentalists claim belief is due to lack of education or plain knowledge about the text, and certainly about the culture and authorial beliefs and perspectives that shaped this narrative. The other main reason is the prejudiced interpretive assumptions handed down to the reader by what is implied in the label "the Holy Book," which it must be stated was created centuries later and by a readership that also were more or less ignorant about this collection of ancient texts, who wrote, them, to whom, in relation to what other texts, using what literary techniques, to respond to what historical circumstance, etc. Although modern biblical scholarship doesn't have the answers to all these questions, we know a great deal about this collection of texts, their authors, every-changing geopolitical and religious worldviews, etc.

I too have often lamented the irony of the situation: those who cherish and voice a belief in these texts the most are ironically those that are doing these texts the most harm by, in gross, neglecting their authors' beliefs and messages (and often contradictory) while unknowingly replacing them with their own modern beliefs or traditionally handed-down belief about this corpus of ancient literature.

As a way to perhaps spur more conversation, because ideally we as a culture (theists and atheists) need an open and honest conversation, objectively, about these ancient texts, what they are and are not, I might refer you to early drafts of sections of the book on my blog.

I specifically choose the subtitle for a reason: that most, or all, Creationists are not being honest to the text. What I specifically mean by Being honest to the text, its author, and his beliefs (which is part of the book's intro) can be found here http://contradictionsinthebible.com/bei ... r-beliefs/

Or here too http://contradictionsinthebible.com/def ... s-1-right/

cheers
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Re: Genesis 1 and the Creationism Debate

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tat tvam asi wrote:This is one aspect that is actually very interesting. Here's a larger look at the article in question: http://contradictionsinthebible.com/gen ... -of-light/
I do find it interesting.

Upon reading the full text of the article I found there to be a true duality between the modern apologetic thinking of YECist and what they present as likely ancient thinking/capabilities rather than what was a more likely reality for the actual ancients.

I guess I'm guilty of allowing that modern thought to influence my thinking as well. I've over-credited the ancients, I see that they were capable of developing this creation story while still being rather primitive about nature. I can see that there must have been differences in knowledge or thinking between villages despite their being 'neighbors' each with their own nuanced beliefs.
DWill wrote: The perspectives offered in this book are clarifying, and certainly the poetic thinking that went into the conceiving of light as synonymous with day, but not as synonymous with the sun, is not mere nonsense.
If my thinking is apposed to the presupposition of a creator, then I personally am guilty of judging creation as nonsense. I try not to ad hom the proponents of said creation beliefs. I've noticed that for the YECist it is not difficult for them to credit God with any 'power' necessary as Gods will is omniscient. Its the naturalist that gets tangled in the weeds because there are holes in what is known and knowable. Those holes are taken advantage of by the YECist and quite often it is those holes that are used to turn the naturalists argument in on them-selves.
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