Literal Creation Story

Before this thread goes any further and BobRyan accuses Catholics of spiritualizing Genesis to the point of disbelieving the narrative altogether, I intend to point out the nine requirements that all Catholics must affirm with regard to the truths of creation.

1. Cration out of nothing (ex nihilo) (CCC #296)
2. Special and immediate creation of the human soul (CCC #366)
3. Unity of man and woman (CCC #371-373)
4. Original happiness of our first parents (CCC #375)
5. Divine command to test man's freedom (CCC #396)
6. Man's transgression of the divine command (CCC #397-398)
7. The fall of our first parents (CCC #390)
8. The doctrine of original sin and its effects (CCC #402-406, #417-419)
9. The promise of salvation (CCC #410, 411)

Reading the Creation Account (which I believe is integrally "one", not two disparate accounts strung together - Gen 1 & 2) within the genre of mythical literature does not mean that the events described (esp. the creation of Adam & Eve) really didn't happen. A mythos does not tell a fable; that is to misunderstand the nature of mythos altogether.

I personally ascribe to M.G. Kline's framework hypothesis.

 

Without seeming harsh, I will explain once again.
First, there were no chapters and verses in the Bible when it it was originally written. What we see, starting in chapter 2, is a reprise of the creation story with MAN as the focus. It is a literary style. It IS NOT a second creation story. This isn't about another place or time.
The focus has shifted from the ENTIRE UNIVERSE to
GOD's prime objective MAN.
Secondly, there was a literal ADAM and a literal EVE. If there wasn't, then Jesus could NOT be a SECOND ADAM. If YOU have problems with a literal creation I would advise praying to the LITERAL CREATOR and not talking to some "enlightened" church offical. They don't know everything and very often they know even less then you may believe. Read the ENTIRE WORD of GOD and remain in prayer that the Holy Spirit will give you the light you need.

 

Chapter 1 is meant to be read as a step by step account of creation. Chap. 2 is meant to be read as a narrative of the events that occured in those days.

If you start to look at the Genesis creation story as just a story showing us that mankind is fallen, then you start a slippery slope of trying to claim scripture as absolute truth.

I used to say, before I was saved that "The Adam and Eve story is an explainable way to explain something that is unexplainable"

Boy was I clever back then About as clever as Bill Clinton I would say.

In Christ,
Brian

 

It is also noteworthy to point out that God has a name in Chapter two but not in Chapter one (God versus LORD God, or, Elohim versus Yahweh Elohim).

 

Trying2understand:

It makes perfect sense to mideastern cultures. That is whom it was originally written to and through. You are looking at it through the eyes of a 21st century weastern skeptic and searching for flaws the really don't exist, but might lend your evolutionary ideals more validity...

 

A_Christian,

You can't have your answer as "it makes sense to them" and then not explain it. You accept it literally, so there should be no explaining necessary anyway, because literally requires the least amount of interpretation.

Further, no one has yet addressed how it was in six literaly 24-hour days when the sun was not created until the fourth day.

 

Grant, Light is seperate from the sun. God decided how much light He needed to maintain the earth at a perfect illumination and temperature and then created the Burning ball of fire that fit the criteria and added it to the light and placed it in its perfect spot. He also created the stars light and then added the stars. Look at NT verses dealing with light without a need for the sun. Light is God created. Thats my take anyway. Also chap. 2 can be literal in the sense that it is just as true, it just is a descriptive account and not a reportive account.

In Christ,
Brian

 

Brian,

I am in agreement that light exists without the sun; that's common sense. The problem is that the 24-hour cycle that is what we call "a day," is dependant on the position of the sun away from the earth and the earth's rotation. These exact positions are what what give us a 24-hour period. I'm sure you can see the sun from Mars, too, but its "day" is not a 24-hour period because of its different distance from the sun.

To have literal 24-hour days is not dependant on light and darkness alone, but also the existence of the sun itself.

 

No offense, but that sounds like clever language to avoid a real answer. It's literal, but not reportive, so it can have discrepencies? Then it isn't literal. Animals either came first, or they didn't. Genesis 1 and 2 provide different orderings SPECIFICALLY. In Genesis 1, God created animals, and man was on top of all that as the greatest of creation. In Genesis 2, God created the animals in order to find a suitable partner for man, which ended up being, of course, woman.

Both cannot be literal.

 

GraceSaves:

I read the Biblical account of Creation when I was a child and had no problem either accepting it nor understanding it as a literal account. It makes TOTAL sense to anyone who is willing to accept the TOTAL concept of G O D and not try to place HIM in a nice neat little box and insist that SCIENCE has ALL the answers. There are NO descrepancies----it just is beyond your comprehension at this moment. If you connot understand GOD, what makes you suppose that you can think like HIM at HIS level.

GOD created the DAY. It has nothing to do with a fact of the earth's rotation. What came first, the chicken or the egg. If you read your Bible, you will see that the chicken did in fact come first. If you are going to dwell on scientific theories, you will come to a different conclusion. What is correct, human theory or GOD's revelation to man?

 

P.S.

GOD is the GOD of time also. Time is also an element of GOD's creation. Is that so hard to understand? GOD created TIME.

 

I see, so we throw science out the window...until it comes to transubstantiation, and then God has to follow scientific laws again?

Either way, your answer is not an answer. You simply say that God is above science and so we must take what Genesis says literally even though it purposelessly makes no scientific sense.

You are arguing that 24-hour days exist without the sun, even though it is the sun and the sun alone that designates what we call "days."

And yes, that's wonderful that as a child you understood the Genesis account; thats the purpose - to make the complexity of the creation of the universe (something beyond our human comprehension) EASY to understand.

Again, you insist that they were 24-hour days, which is a LAW OF SCIENCE, but then go on to say that science plays no part. Self-contradictory.

 

Good job. Then you should realize that God is not bound by time, for as Scripture says,

2 Peter 3:8 - But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

And there you go, IGNORING this FACT.

 

Your confusion stems from failure to understand the words and assuming there must be a conflict. The shrubs and herbs in 2:5 are those things that require the cultivation of man as talked about in 3:18 in teh curse. They are not the same plant life created in chapter 1. One word is the same, the other is different. There is no need ot assume a contradiction. It is better to assume that God did know what he was talking about.

As for animals, there is no indication in chapter 2 that they were created after man was created. They were in fact created before man, as indicated in chapter 1.

One of the problems in a discussion like this is that people approach the Bible with the idea that it must be wrong if they cannot immediately put it together. These types of issues are solved by study of the Word.

So both chapters 1 and 2 should be taken as chronological accounts of a literal creation in six, successive, 24 hour days. There is no contradiction between them that cannot be resolved by simply reading the text and thinking through it with the assumption that inspiration means God was correct.