Comments on: Creation chronology – my reading of Genesis http://moscowcoffeereview.com/carpecakem/2009/11/27/creation-chronology-my-reading-of-genesis/ A scrapbook of thoughts on arts, culture and the Christian life. Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:43:29 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Matthew http://moscowcoffeereview.com/carpecakem/2009/11/27/creation-chronology-my-reading-of-genesis/comment-page-1/#comment-857 Matthew Mon, 30 Nov 2009 00:46:20 +0000 http://moscowcoffeereview.com/carpecakem/?p=1513#comment-857 I've got plenty of duct tape on hand for the same purpose if you need to borrow some. I liked your bullet points about design because it seemed like a decent way to fill in some of the cracks I had in my thoughts on the subject. If you ever feel like developing it a bit more, you'll have at least one reader. :) There is just no good reason why we have to insist that Genesis 1 and 2 are synchronized. That does nothing for my faith, hope, and love. Nor does working so hard to get them line up seem to have any positive effects on anyone else I know either. Does it not feel like a new sort of geocentricism? We have GOT to shoehorn all this biblical creation stuff into a scientific timeline because WE ALONE must be the center of the whole freakin' universe. Go us. My wife commented that she still believed in YEC, but just because it is the most simple reading of the passage. God created the earth in a day. He separated the land and water on the next day. How would a child read it? I have to say that THIS take on it (and this take on the whole Bible) has a lot of merit. If all the really important stuff in God's word can't be understood by a layman without a pile of academics under his belt, then what good is it? My problem is with the distraction to play the rationalist's game and chop the scripture up into something you can perform calculus on, and then feel good about the fact that you have the second-order integral of Genesis in your pocket. You feel so good in fact that you write it into your church's creed and wield it as a club against your brother who things the creation narrative is more beautiful but less exact. Nice. OK, I'm going to stop ranting now. I’ve got plenty of duct tape on hand for the same purpose if you need to borrow some. I liked your bullet points about design because it seemed like a decent way to fill in some of the cracks I had in my thoughts on the subject. If you ever feel like developing it a bit more, you’ll have at least one reader. :)

There is just no good reason why we have to insist that Genesis 1 and 2 are synchronized. That does nothing for my faith, hope, and love. Nor does working so hard to get them line up seem to have any positive effects on anyone else I know either. Does it not feel like a new sort of geocentricism? We have GOT to shoehorn all this biblical creation stuff into a scientific timeline because WE ALONE must be the center of the whole freakin’ universe. Go us.

My wife commented that she still believed in YEC, but just because it is the most simple reading of the passage. God created the earth in a day. He separated the land and water on the next day. How would a child read it? I have to say that THIS take on it (and this take on the whole Bible) has a lot of merit. If all the really important stuff in God’s word can’t be understood by a layman without a pile of academics under his belt, then what good is it? My problem is with the distraction to play the rationalist’s game and chop the scripture up into something you can perform calculus on, and then feel good about the fact that you have the second-order integral of Genesis in your pocket. You feel so good in fact that you write it into your church’s creed and wield it as a club against your brother who things the creation narrative is more beautiful but less exact. Nice. OK, I’m going to stop ranting now.

]]> By: Tim http://moscowcoffeereview.com/carpecakem/2009/11/27/creation-chronology-my-reading-of-genesis/comment-page-1/#comment-856 Tim Sat, 28 Nov 2009 13:12:53 +0000 http://moscowcoffeereview.com/carpecakem/?p=1513#comment-856 Matt, Thanks for even taking the pain to read that. It's a series of bullet points, really, and I mean to get back to it and fill in some awful big cracks. But I do think the intended stages in Genesis 1 were to go from "a little bit designed" to "a whole lot designed", and then even those stages were interrupted. So when some Christian starts an argument that sounds like "Design or not? Answer yes or no, or I'll shoot you." -- well, I just have to wrap my head in duct tape. Matt,
Thanks for even taking the pain to read that. It’s a series of bullet points, really, and I mean to get back to it and fill in some awful big cracks.

But I do think the intended stages in Genesis 1 were to go from “a little bit designed” to “a whole lot designed”, and then even those stages were interrupted. So when some Christian starts an argument that sounds like “Design or not? Answer yes or no, or I’ll shoot you.” — well, I just have to wrap my head in duct tape.

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