"Perhaps the biggest criticism that should dare to be leveled at the Genesis account, isn't that it's wrong, but that it's simplistic for OUR culture in OUR day. It suffices for the rest of the world for all the time until now." Very good, metmom! I wouldn't call that criticism -- just an honest assessment in the light of today's knowledge.
Some of you have seen me ask this question here of those who think they have all the "Answers In Genesis":
"How many Galaxies could Moses (or whoever recorded Genesis) see?""
I have asked it many times but I have received not a single answer.
Of course, my purpose is to shed light on the limitations -- both in language and in knowledge -- of mankind at the time that God chose to share with us the truths of His creative acts. And, by extension, the absurdity of claiming that all the answers to understanding the magnificent complexity and magnitude of Him and His Creation are spelled out in those few sentences...
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There is no way (aside from direct vision from God) that folks of Moses' time could have imagined a vista like this (today's "APOD" -- Astronomy Picture Of the Day):
And there is no way their proto-language and vocabulary could have described it with any fidelity -- even had they been shown the vision...
As for me, my first reaction was, "Praise the Lord!!!" -- as I was (one again) overwhelmed with the magnitude, majesty, and beauty I AM has established as testimony to His awesomeness...
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For those who are so inclined, I recommend frequent visits to http://apod.nasa.gov/. I find it to be particluarly helpful when I'm needing a lesson in humility -- which is often...
I find it to be devastatingly dangerous to attempt to cram God Almighty into a box (or timeframe) that our puny minds are capable of grasping. To once again borrow one of my favorite phrases from A-G:
Man is not the measure of God.
[ "How many Galaxies could Moses (or whoever recorded Genesis) see?"" ]
Galaxy's were and are not the issue in Genesis..
This planet is.. so its understandable there is no reference..
except a vague sense of cosmology..
Actually Genesis implys a dark something here before God remodeled the place..
Genesis could be observed as the "remodeling".. instead of the creation of the planet..
Even that is a stretch since Genesis is a cartoon( a metaphor/ ch 1-3)..
Genesis does not expect you to believe there was an actual Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil except metaphorically.. as was the metaphorical snake and metaphorical proto-humans as well.. Some will not like this assessment as they will not like that Jesus was not Jesus name and Jehovah not Gods name.. since Hebrew had zero "J's" in it.. (and for other reasons)..
I have a friend that says there are "literal believers" and "metaphorical believers" and that literal believers seem to miss most of the content of Jesus metaphors.. if not all.. The Jews implied many things by idiom and simile in Hebrew as they do in Yiddish.. as a matter of course.. You know ...... as Jesus did..
Metaphors paint good cartoons.. and cartoons trump language and dialect.. Must be why the Islamic mullahs HATE cartoons.. even a moron can grasp a cartoon.. Cartoons can trump mind control and brain washing.. and cherished world views.. I like the fact Genesis is vague about things most then and NOW can barely understand.... if at all..
[[I find it to be devastatingly dangerous to attempt to cram God Almighty into a box (or timeframe)]]
I think if i remember right that your position is that ‘days’ meant ‘measure of time’? If so, how does reading God’s word in context, and understanding that day meant ‘day night’ put God ‘in a box’? I’ve studied both positions on htis issue, and have coem to realize that it takes a tremendous amount of word manipulation and out of context rendering to come up with ‘measure of time’ when reading the creation days. The underhanded and not so subtle insult about ‘putting God in a box’ is infact an insult to those who have studied this issue and simply can not agree that ‘day’ meant ‘indefinate measure of time’
It seems to me that it is ‘putting God in a box’ and an attempt to reconcile Creationism with hte world view of evolution by tryign to assign an old oge timeline to the creation week- if you will note- it takes fudging the numbers to come up with a mathematical ‘formula’ in order to arrive at an old age timeline- so I’m not sure how it is that you can state that YEC belief is ‘putting God in a box’ when folks like Schroeder do the EXACT same thing:
“Not realizing that the big bang theory has no “edge” to its matter, Schroeder imagines such an edge and appears to believe that clocks near such an edge run slow compared to clocks on Earth. He does not appear to realize that standard big bang theory has all its clocks running at the same rate everywhere. Anyhow, he imagines that clocks at the edge of the universe would register only days, while clocks here would register billions of years. This is the exact opposite of how standard general relativity says clocks in a cosmos with an edge actually would behave, according to Dr. Russell Humphreys’ book Starlight and Time. Pages 103–104, 128, and 132 of the book point out this discrepancy in Schroeder’s ideas of several years ago. It is not clear if Dr. Schroeder has substantially modified his views since that time.
Even if Dr. Schroeder’s scientific view (that clocks far away tick slowly) were correct, they still would run aground on an important biblical question: where does God measure time? Did the days He mentioned in Genesis elapse at the edge of the universe, or did they elapse on Earth? The Bible teaches that the universe runs on Earth time, which involves (approximately) 24-hour, and very regular, rotations of the Earth. The Bible teaches a young Earth, but Schroeder’s theory does not.
Finally, Dr. Schroeder’s numbers have not kept up-to-date with the latest scientific fashion. According to his theory, to get 6 days you need a 16 or 17 billion-year-old universe. This no longer fits the prevailing (ever-changing) “accepted” age of the universe, which now is about 13 billion years. If we use his “back of the envelope” method of finding out the equivalent of creation days to observed years, we get 16.4 billion years. But the universe is now said to be about 13 billion years old. Thus we find that we are in day 4.8 instead of 5.5! Creation Week is still going on, man has not been created and God has not rested yet!”
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4356news8-2-2000.asp
Moreover, Dr. Schroeder’s arbitrary numbers are not consistent with each other. He chooses to divide the 15 billion years by the degree of expansion of the universe, which he defines as a million million (1,000,000,000,000), and then multiplying that by 365 for the number of days in a year. He states that the answer is approximately 6, proving his theory. However, the actual answer is 5.475, meaning that we have not yet completed the sixth day. Therefore, according to his theory, animals and humans should not be around.
Dr. Schroeder continues by saying that because we are in the “sixth day” of creation, the Sabbath Day, the seventh day of rest, has not yet occurred. However, Genesis 2:1–2 clearly states that God “ended his work”, “he rested”, and “he blessed it and sanctified it because in it he rested.” All of these statements are made in the past tense. How could this be if we are still in the sixth day as Dr. Schroeder claims?
Dr. Schroeder also states that the basic Hebrew root word for “evening” is “chaos” and the basic Hebrew root word for “morning” is “order.” He cites no Hebrew scholar supporting his view, which appears to many scholars to be without foundation. The Hebrew word for “evening” is (’ereb); it appears to have no relation to the word most scholars would expect for “chaos” (tohu). Similarly, the word for “morning” (boqer) has no discernible connection to the word we would expect for “order” (seder). Since Dr. Schroeder offers no details supporting his alleged Hebrew word relationships, readers should not take him seriously on this point. (In any case, even if there were a root word relationship, there are logical fallacies and dangers involved in using word roots to interpret the Bible, which have led people astray on many issues. For a study of the Hebrew word tohu, see The alleged biblical evidence for a gap.)
Proceeding with this argument nonetheless, Dr. Schroeder asserts that this shows the universe started with the chaos of the big bang and was later ordered by God. Does this then mean that each “day” started with chaos and ended with order? Did things go through a six “day” cycle of chaos-to-order-to-chaos-to-order?
In Dr. Schroeder’s creation scenario, the sun was actually created on Day Two. However, since the atmosphere was merely translucent, it could not be visibly discerned from the earth until the atmosphere became transparent on Day Four. In contrast, Genesis 1:14–19 clearly states that the sun and moon were made on Day Four and placed in the firmament. This is another standard claim of the old “day-age” theory, a claim which evaporates upon examination of the passages involved. For example, the biblical account does not use the Hebrew word for “appear” to say the sun and moon “appeared” on the fourth day. Instead, Genesis 1:16 says he “made” them then.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2/4355news8-1-2000.asp
Not sure how you come to hte conclusion that YEC beleif is being ‘inconsistent’ with the bible, but aaccording to the above- it seems to me it takes a tremendous amount of number manipulations, and arbitrarily applied time periods, to come to hte conclusions Schroeder comes to, and at that, he is off by his own reckings and we’re still aparently in the creation week and haven’t been created yet- gives awhole new meaning to the ideology that we are just a figment of our own imaginations.