nsTeam2RO, nsTeam2RW, nsTeam2_talkRO, nsTeam2_talkRW
13,254
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 1:
Line 1: + + Line 11:
Line 13: + + + + + + + + + +
Add Narrative or poetry? section, and put in another heading
The '''Creation Week''' is the seven days described in the [[Bible]] during which God created the universe, including the day of rest. The length of time that people believe Creation Week to take is a good test of orthodoxy.
The '''Creation Week''' is the seven days described in the [[Bible]] during which God created the universe, including the day of rest. The length of time that people believe Creation Week to take is a good test of orthodoxy.
== Length of the days ==
The Bible does not of course say that each day was 24 hours, because hours are a later human invention, but there is sufficient reason for believing the days to be normal days. These reasons include:
The Bible does not of course say that each day was 24 hours, because hours are a later human invention, but there is sufficient reason for believing the days to be normal days. These reasons include:
That the passage describes normal days is the consensus of the experts. Professor James Barr, former Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oxford University, wrote:
That the passage describes normal days is the consensus of the experts. Professor James Barr, former Oriel Professor of the interpretation of the Holy Scripture at Oxford University, wrote:
{{quoteBox|...probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: ... creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience ... Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time ... are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.<ref>Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson, quoted in [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/943/ Should Genesis be taken literally?] by Russell Grigg, ''Creation'', vol. 16 No. 1 p. 38.</ref>}}
{{quoteBox|...probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that: ... creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience ... Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time ... are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.<ref>Letter from Professor James Barr to David C.C. Watson, quoted in [http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/943/ Should Genesis be taken literally?] by Russell Grigg, ''Creation'', vol. 16 No. 1 p. 38.</ref>}}
== Narrative or poetry? ==
Since the rise in popularity of ideas that the Earth is much older than would be indicated by a straightforward reading of Genesis, many people have proposed that the creation account is poetry rather than literal history.
However, there are a number of reasons to reject this proposal.
The quote from James Barr (above), points out that the language indicates that the writer intended it to be understood as actual history.
The style of writing does not conform to the distinctive style of Hebrew poetry, which includes, among other characteristics, parallelism of thoughts.
A statistical analysis of the verbs used in the [[Old Testament]] shows that percentage of [[preterite]] verbs in narrative accounts have a median value of 52%, whilst the percentage in poetic passages have a median value of 4%.
The creation account in Genesis has a preterite verb percentage of about 65%.<ref>DeYoung, Don, "Thousands... not Billions", Master Books, 2005, p.157-167.</ref>
==The Sabbath Rest==
==The Sabbath Rest==