Correct. The trick is knowing the difference.
Right. I look forward to you saying just how you do that in this case.
I'm suggesting that no matter who "cherry-picks" it, it's a question of which is most logically the correct one as well as can be established. Since the term day is applied to all six days collectively you or Christians or whoever has a problem with a literal interpretation. Conceptually I have no problem with God conceptually being capable of creating the heavens and earth in 144 hours. What do I know? Actually it makes little difference to me in general. The text indicates something else. The language. The imperfect/perfect complete/progressive.
You assert your opinion as though it is fact, but offer no reason why I should suppose that is the case.
Open the Bible to any random or chosen place and I can tell you which it is. Simple. I've laid out the problems a literal interpretation has. You have to address those. Your interpretation doesn't add up just with the simple fact mentioned above. 6 days collectively as 1. Shoots your interpretation directly between the eyes. Figuratively.
Again, this is just your opinion - until you can say what your reasoning is.
Then why did psalmist and then Paul say it wasn't. That it continued.
Where? Quote the verses. Or at least tell me exactly which.
The Sabbath was based upon God's rest. They aren't the same.
How so? Again, this is just your opinion - until you can say what your reasoning is.
Okay, then what about what I mentioned above as well as the fact that the Bible points out God doesn't get tired, need rest, or had stopped working? It says all that plain and simple. So you have a problem with conflating the two.
So there is a contradiction, and in one place it says god rested and in another it says he has no need of rest.
Solution 1: In Genesis 2:2 it just means God did nothing; he was not taking a nap to recover from his hard work the previous six days.
Solution 2: The author of genesis 2:2 had a very different idea of God, and understood him to be more of a superhuman, more like Thor or Zeus. This also explains God making man in his image - the author understood God to look like a man.
Of course. Romans 8:22; Isaiah 40:28; John 5:17; Psalm 95:11; Hebrews 3:16-19; 4:1-11. I touch on the reason for this in this post about the
meaning of the Bible for skeptics. In summary, many things from the Bible repeat thematically. The Sabbath day, for example, Abraham's Sacrifice of his son, the promise land. The seventh day, God's rest, is the period of time in which God intended for man to fulfill his purpose for them and become their perfect potential. Like the angels had already done before man's creation. Thus, it says "man has become like us, deciding (knowing) what is good and bad" prematurely. God can't have anything to do with sin much like a proper judge of law can't hang out in drug dens with prostitutes. It compromises his authority. So, there was this separation
before man sinned. God had created everything and it was good. His anger with the Israelites resulting in their 40 years wandering in the wilderness is a model or foreshadowing of our entering into his rest. The number 666 (Roman 600, 60, 6) is imperfection or incompleteness, tripled for effect. Incomplete. He, mankind, can't enter into God's day of rest, when everything is complete, until there is no imperfection.
At last!
Romans 8:22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
Hmm, I see nothing there that supports your position.
Isaiah 40:28 Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
Okay, so that has God never resting, but that was resolved above.
John 5:17 In his defense Jesus said to them, “My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I too am working.”
How you can interpret this to mean the day of rest is continuing I cannot fathom.
Psalm 95:11 Therefore I swore in My anger,
They certainly shall not enter My rest.”
I guess this could be understood to mean God is resting all the time - which is very much in contradiction to John 5:17 which says the exact reverse! However, it is quite a leap from this to concluding this is the seventh day of Genesis 2:2.
I will not quote all Hebrews 3:16-4:11 as it is quite lengthy, but the point about Psalm 95 applies, as hat is what Hebrews is referencing. The author of Hebrews probably understood God's rest to behe peace of the afterlife that the righteous would experience.
Hebrews 4:3 For we who have believed enter that rest, just as He has said,
“As I swore in My anger,
They certainly shall not enter My rest,”
although His works were finished from the foundation of the world. 4 For He has said somewhere concerning the seventh day: “And God rested on the seventh day from all His works”; 5 and again in this passage, “They certainly shall not enter My rest.” 6 Therefore, since it remains for some to enter it, and those who previously had good news preached to them failed to enter because of disobedience, 7 He again sets a certain day, “Today,” saying [c]through David after so long a time just as has been said before,
“Today if you hear His voice,
Do not harden your hearts.”
It is interesting that it references Genesis 2:2 too, which does provide a link between the two "rest"s, but again, it quite a reach.
I will note that it may be the author of Hebrews making that reach. This was written perhaps eight centuries later, by someone with very different beliefs. To suppose we can know what the author of Genesis 2:2 meant when writing before the fall of the Northern Kingdom by reading a Christian text is very dubious.
Which question? There were several rhetorical questions.
"Who was there to see it?"
Okay. What's the Hebrew word for create? Bara. Perfect state. That means everything was already created. Later the Hebrew word asah (make, made etc.) is used. Imperfect state meaning progressive action. There is only one way to read Genesis chapter 1. The heavens (universe) and earth were complete and then the "days" of creation were periods of indeterminate time in which the already created were being prepared and arranged. So, when Genesis chapter one talks about the gradual appearance of light from the already created sun followed some time by the gradual appearance of the source of that light, coupled with the swaddling band mentioned in the book of Job where the angels are also mentioned watching this go on you have a problem with a literal interpretation which, I hate to say, is ignorant of a lot of stuff.
I am, struggling to understand your reasoning here.
Firstly, to me, Genesis 1:1 is a summary of what comes later. This is the same as Genesis 2:4; this too is a summary of what is about to be described. You can label those who disagree with you as "ignorant", but I am certainly not alone in this position.
What exactly are you saying happened? The text says the sun was created on the fourth day. Let us suppose "day" is figurative, and it means much much later. And you seem to be saying the sun already existed by this time.
Genesis 1:16 God made the two great lights, the greater light [x]to govern the day, and the lesser light [y]to govern the night; He made the stars also. 17 God placed them in the [z]expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and [aa]to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
Are you proposing the sun was there the whole time, but it was too cloudy to see for this indeterminate amount of time? If so, why does the text not say that? It says "made" and "placed" not "revealed". To me it looks like you decided what you wanted to read first, and are then struggling to force the words to fit.
