@EarlyActs:
Intro and recap:
As a result of my experience both as a former young-earth creationist (YEC) and later engaging fellow Christians who subscribe to the YEC view, I have come to believe that such creationist views are not really an interpretation of the Genesis account at all, despite all protestations to the contrary. They are rather more like vivid and detailed imaginations of what the text says, with an occasional foray into exegesis here and there to bolster the presentation. (For example, they make a solid lexical and syntactical analysis of the Hebrew word
yom to support their calendar-day view.) I have spent a few years now asking for the historical-grammatical exegesis that would establish their view as a genuine interpretation and, to this day, none has ever been presented.
Hence, the hint of cynicism in my response to your claim that the science of the recent creation week view (RCW) is closer to biblical reality. For that to be true, the RCW view would have to be an interpretation of the text. "Something reflects biblical reality only if it's drawn from the biblical text," I pointed out. But the RCW view is "an assumption imposed on the text, not a conclusion drawn from it." Now, candidly, I must admit that I had conflated the YEC and RCW views (thinking they were the same thing) but it turns out there are important differences between them. (I held a similar view during my transition away from the traditional YEC view; I was an old-universe-young-earth creationist for a brief period.)
Nevertheless, it turns out that the RCW view is likewise an assumption imposed on the text, not a conclusion drawn from it. In your explanation of the RCW view, you had made a number of claims that just did not seem very close to biblical reality at all. In fact, they had the whiff of anachronistic knowledge, ideas, and categories of thought (e.g., ontology), like the earth being an oblate spheroid or an "orb." You insisted that this view really was drawn from the text, not imposed on it from without, so I asked to see the exegetical material. "If these were interpreted from the text," I replied,
please provide the exegesis that demonstrates where and how the text identifies (a) that the earth is an orb or spherical in shape, (b) that it exists in a solar system, and (c) that existence was determined by empirical properties (such that creation regards material origins). Please observe that these are direct and specific questions for which I am seeking relevant and clear answers.
Let us now engage what you had supplied in response to my request.
1. In Genesis they understood the earth was an orb or spherical in shape.
I was curious about whether you could present the historical-grammatical exegesis which demonstrates how the text identifies the earth as an orb or spherical in shape. And you answered by telling me that the average person looking at the moon can deduce that it's a sphere and infer that other planetary objects must be, too, and that the ancient Hebrews well over three thousand years ago would have thought the same. Your response did not exhibit any link to the text in question, which suggests that this part of your claim was not drawn from it. What you described was clearly an assumption, and you do impose it on the text.
On a historical note, nobody had any concept of planets as planets until Aristarchus, a Greek astronomer and mathematician who lived in the third century BCE. Given Cassuto's views, the text of Genesis 1 was over a thousand years earlier, which strains the credibility of your assumption to the breaking point. To learn about the cosmology of the ancient Hebrews, I would recommend starting with Kyle Greenwood,
Scripture and Cosmology: Reading the Bible Between the Ancient World and Modern Science (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2015).
2. In Genesis they understood the earth exists in a solar system.
You did not answer this question at all. If you have any historical-grammatical exegesis demonstrating how the text describes the earth as belonging to a solar system, this would have been the time to present it. I don't know why you didn't, but it's a natural inference to think it's because, as with the previous claim, you don't have any for this one, either. It came from elsewhere and is being imposed on the text.
3. In Genesis they understood existence in terms of empirical properties.
This is the core governing assumption that all creationists impose on the text from without. This assumption is the fundamental reason why they believe the Genesis creation account is about material origins. Ontology is about what it means for X to exist. Creation is about bringing X into existence. That means ontology determines what creation means. Our concern, then, as students of scriptures, is to interpret this creation text according to the ontology of the ancient Hebrews, not people who lived centuries or millennia later. What was the "normal understanding" for them? Not us, but them. Not the Sequalish, but them. If you want to claim that the RCW view more closely reflects biblical reality, that it is genuinely and properly an interpretation of our biblical text, you need to show that this was the normal understanding of the ancient Hebrews in the 14th century BCE. Yes, God spoke things into existence—but what does that mean? How did the ancient Hebrews define existence (and thus creation)?
On the RCW view, God creating stuff was about bringing it into material existence (i.e., constituted by matter and energy)—light, sky, land, plants and animals, and mankind. That reflects our own ontological categories, but is that what it meant for the original author and audience? Did they share our view? As it turns out, that's not a question creationists have ever asked. We just assumed they did and imposed that assumption on the text (and THEN delved into arguments about whether
yom refers to 24-hour days or indefinite ages and so forth). But running with an assumption imposed on the text is not a literal interpretation—it's not an interpretation at all. It doesn't even ask the question, much less attempt an answer. It is a failure to even recognize that a question should be asked here.
christianforum.boards.net
