In the last two weeks I discussed both a "young earth" creation interpretation for Genesis 1 and an "old earth" creation interpretation.
Today we look at an additional interpretative option.
A Hebrew literary framework
But first we summarize:
Wearing my religious hat; I have no problem with God being able to create the earth or even the entire universe in seven twenty four hour periods. That was my opinion on the creation in my childhood and youth. He is omnipotent and therefore can do anything that is expedient for Him.
As I hit high school I found fulfilment for my passion in the natural sciences and they became my favorite subjects. I have always been fascinated by how everything works, from plants to animals to the earth and the universe.
Now wearing my natural sciences hat; I see plenty of evidence both biological and geological, geomorphological and astronomical that indicate that the earth is older than a couple of thousand years. That the processes by which the rock sequences of the earth have been deposited and changed over the years are well preserved and easy to interpret, once one has learned the language of rocks.
The story in the geological record as preserved is very consistent. It has since been strengthened by the use of isotope dating for rocks containing radioactive minerals and by paleontological sequencing for rocks containing fossils. Biology and Genetics are now piling up further mountains of evidence that all continue to present and confirm the same picture. Astrophysics, and observations of the celestial bodies surrounding us confirm what we see on earth occurring all around us.
The Earth is very old and has arrived at its current highly complex state through iterative processes with each layer of complexity relying upon and being built upon the slightly simpler layer before it.
This level of understanding did not cause me to question my faith but simply to examine the depth of my knowledge and understanding.
I came across interpretations that allowed for longer periods for Genesis days – an “old earth creation”.
This sufficed for a while but as I studied the creation account I began to see discrepancies of sequence even in an “old earth creation” interpretation as discussed here
Once again this did not prompt a questioning of faith but simply a quest to delve deeper and broaden my understanding of all facets of the matter even more.
I then came across the framework hypothesis; a third possible way too look at the Genesis creation.
To approach Genesis using the framework hypothesis one needs to understand Hebrew writing styles and literary devices. The ancients wrote very differently to us today and so these devices are not readily apparent to the modern reader. I fact the West’s understanding and rediscovery of these devices is somewhat recent, with some only a century or two old. Some of these devices are composed of repeating element in various orders depending on the type of device chosen.
One simply need to study the Genesis account in great detail and then the repetitive elements of the framework become glaringly obvious.
So what does the detail of the Genesis creation account reveal?
Let’s look at each day and how it relates to all the other days and discover the repeated elements.
Each day begins with the phrase “And God said, Let…” and ends with the sentence “And the evening and the morning were the … day.”
These can be seen as the opening parenthesis ( { )and closing parenthesis ( } ) defining the beginning and end of each group of elements in the structure.
Let’s now look at the repeated elements within each grouping.
When laid out in this manner it is plain to see that there are many repeated elements laid out in a very intricate and progressively more complex structure.
Days 1 and 4 are parallels of one another as are 2 and 5 and 3 and 6.
Days 3 and 6 are the final day and most complex days of a pair of triads.
All elements from days 2 and 3 and days 5 and 6 are tied together and wrapped up neatly on the most elaborated day, day 6
Day seven is screamingly unique, so much so, that one may consider it with a sort of emphasis in relation to the entire account.
Suddenly, when viewed at this level of detail it becomes very apparent that the account is simply the means of conveying a far deeper and more complex message, much like The Master Teacher would later do with his parables.