In the previous post I mentioned the existence of a couple of approaches in interpreting the days of Genesis other than six consecutive 24-hour days. I briefly mentioned the day-age theory. Now I will discuss the so-called "Framework" approach. For this I am using information gathered from Lee Irons and Meredith Kline (Kline is a major developer of the hypothesis) from the book The Genesis Debate, and Wikipedia.
There are several observations that can be made about Genesis chapter 1. The first I'll note is that there are parallels between the first six days in Genesis. In day 1 God creates light and in day 4 God creates the lights in the heavens. In day 2 God separates the waters from the heavens and in day 5 God populates the waters with fish and the heavens with birds. With day 3 God brings plants from the earth and in day 6 God brings animals from the earth. These parallels make two groups of three. The groups of three (days 1-3, days 4-6) are referred to as triads. The chart below illustrates the two triads and shows the parallels of the days within the triads, each parallel having the same color (my apologies to people with color visual disabilities). You can click on the diagram to enlarge the image.
What could these parallel arrangements of the days of each triad mean? When I saw this pointed in Meredith Kline's presentation, I could see immediately where he was headed. This is a form parallelism is a recapitulation, where day 4 revisits the activities of day 1, day 5 recapitulates the activities of day 2, and day 6 revisits the activities of day 3. This kind of recapitulation is seen elsewhere in the Bible. One prime example is the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, where there are a series of sevens, the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, etc. While one popular approach in Revelation is to view each of those sevens as sequential, but the literary structure that makes the most sense is that the sevens in Revelation are recapitulations of each other. They describe the same sequence of time, from Christ's first advent until his second coming, examining different facets or aspects of the same periods.
Genesis, the first chapter, and Revelation, the last book, are both displaying a style or framework of recapitulation make that style of writing bookends to the Bible, where the Holy Spirit displayed an artistic style through the human authors, Moses of Genesis, and John for Revelation. This framework opens the door that the primary meaning of the days in Genesis are not to be thought of as 24-hour days, but a framework for which the creative acts of God are described. It is possible that the days in this framework hypothesis are 24-hour days, but it is also possible that these days are not tied to any earthly 24-hour periods. Since the days are literary devices to display God's activity, so are the beginning and ending descriptions, evening and morning. Further, these beginnings and endings don't have physical realities in the first days in a literalistic reading of the days of Genesis, since the sun and moon are created in along with day and night in day 4.
The whole sequence marches to the climax for the seventh day. This is the day that God rested from his creative activity. But the book of Hebrews indicates that the seventh day did not end, it continues and will continue into all eternity (Hebrews 4). It is ultimately an eschatological rest that all of God's people will participate in with God in the new heavens and earth.
There is much more to be said in the framework hypothesis, perhaps as time permits I will explore some of the other avenues -- but I have other things I need to prepare for in August, so I will not be devoting much time to the topic in the next couple of months. I recommend The Genesis Debate, it provides an excellent description of the framework hypothesis.
I've heard several objections to not taking the days of Genesis 1 as 24-hour days:
1. Numbers assigned to days are only done to literal 24-hour days in the Bible. In the Bible, numbers can be assigned to periods of time that do not refer to an actual literal period of time. For instance, the book of Daniel in the Old Testament there is a non-literal use of the concept of week.
2. Exodus 20:8-11 -- the commandment of working six days and resting on the seventh only makes sense if Genesis creation days are 24-hour days. If you consider that the language God uses the language of resting and working in a highly analogous human descriptions, then this objection does not have any force. Consider the following passage:
This passage describes God's rested to refresh himself. The Hebrew word for refresh is used in two places, Exodus 23:12:
and 2 Samuel 16:14:
I will take up the discussion further, time permitting, in a couple of months. For now other pressing commitments are demanding my time. I welcome comments. If these series of blog entries do not make sense, don't pursue this. I personally think this makes a lot of sense, but I certainly understand if you don't think so.
There are several observations that can be made about Genesis chapter 1. The first I'll note is that there are parallels between the first six days in Genesis. In day 1 God creates light and in day 4 God creates the lights in the heavens. In day 2 God separates the waters from the heavens and in day 5 God populates the waters with fish and the heavens with birds. With day 3 God brings plants from the earth and in day 6 God brings animals from the earth. These parallels make two groups of three. The groups of three (days 1-3, days 4-6) are referred to as triads. The chart below illustrates the two triads and shows the parallels of the days within the triads, each parallel having the same color (my apologies to people with color visual disabilities). You can click on the diagram to enlarge the image.
What could these parallel arrangements of the days of each triad mean? When I saw this pointed in Meredith Kline's presentation, I could see immediately where he was headed. This is a form parallelism is a recapitulation, where day 4 revisits the activities of day 1, day 5 recapitulates the activities of day 2, and day 6 revisits the activities of day 3. This kind of recapitulation is seen elsewhere in the Bible. One prime example is the last book of the Bible, the book of Revelation, where there are a series of sevens, the seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls, etc. While one popular approach in Revelation is to view each of those sevens as sequential, but the literary structure that makes the most sense is that the sevens in Revelation are recapitulations of each other. They describe the same sequence of time, from Christ's first advent until his second coming, examining different facets or aspects of the same periods.
Genesis, the first chapter, and Revelation, the last book, are both displaying a style or framework of recapitulation make that style of writing bookends to the Bible, where the Holy Spirit displayed an artistic style through the human authors, Moses of Genesis, and John for Revelation. This framework opens the door that the primary meaning of the days in Genesis are not to be thought of as 24-hour days, but a framework for which the creative acts of God are described. It is possible that the days in this framework hypothesis are 24-hour days, but it is also possible that these days are not tied to any earthly 24-hour periods. Since the days are literary devices to display God's activity, so are the beginning and ending descriptions, evening and morning. Further, these beginnings and endings don't have physical realities in the first days in a literalistic reading of the days of Genesis, since the sun and moon are created in along with day and night in day 4.
The whole sequence marches to the climax for the seventh day. This is the day that God rested from his creative activity. But the book of Hebrews indicates that the seventh day did not end, it continues and will continue into all eternity (Hebrews 4). It is ultimately an eschatological rest that all of God's people will participate in with God in the new heavens and earth.
There is much more to be said in the framework hypothesis, perhaps as time permits I will explore some of the other avenues -- but I have other things I need to prepare for in August, so I will not be devoting much time to the topic in the next couple of months. I recommend The Genesis Debate, it provides an excellent description of the framework hypothesis.
I've heard several objections to not taking the days of Genesis 1 as 24-hour days:
1. Numbers assigned to days are only done to literal 24-hour days in the Bible. In the Bible, numbers can be assigned to periods of time that do not refer to an actual literal period of time. For instance, the book of Daniel in the Old Testament there is a non-literal use of the concept of week.
Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, and to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. (Daniel 9:24, ESV see the passage to 9:27)The seventy weeks are a period of time from Daniel to when the Messiah comes and the destruction of the Jerusalem, the Temple, and possibly to the end of history. This is a period longer than a literal 490 years.
2. Exodus 20:8-11 -- the commandment of working six days and resting on the seventh only makes sense if Genesis creation days are 24-hour days. If you consider that the language God uses the language of resting and working in a highly analogous human descriptions, then this objection does not have any force. Consider the following passage:
14 You shall keep the Sabbath, because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among his people. 15 Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death. 16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed. (Exodus 31:14-17, ESV)
This passage describes God's rested to refresh himself. The Hebrew word for refresh is used in two places, Exodus 23:12:
Six days you shall do your work, but on the seventh day you shall rest; that your ox and your donkey may have rest, and the son of your servant woman, and the alien, may be refreshed. (Exodus 23:12, ESV)
and 2 Samuel 16:14:
And the king, and all the people who were with him, arrived weary at the Jordan. And there he refreshed himself. (2 Samuel 16:14, ESV)Here you see in these passages, and particularly in 2 Samuel, that people need to be refreshed because they are weary. However, God in Exodus 20:11 is not weary in a literal sense. That Exodus 20 passage makes sense even when we understand we do not take it the part of it saying that God was refreshed in a literalistic fashion. In the same way the week in Genesis need not be a consecutive series of seven, 24-hour days for it to make sense. Considering that the seventh day in Genesis 1 continues from what Hebrew says, we see that tying our hands to only reading the Genesis days as only 24-hour days makes no sense with other passages (e.g., Hebrews) in the Bible.
I will take up the discussion further, time permitting, in a couple of months. For now other pressing commitments are demanding my time. I welcome comments. If these series of blog entries do not make sense, don't pursue this. I personally think this makes a lot of sense, but I certainly understand if you don't think so.
6 comments:
Hey Earl,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-07-23-scopes23_ST_N.htm
Interesting article. I disagree with the major premise of the article -- that either you accept a 6000 year old universe or believe in evolution (presumably theistic evolution, like Francis Collins, director of NIH).
When I have time in a few months, I'll write some thoughts in this area. I don't think that theistic evolution fits with the tone of the biblical creation accounts.
...also, theistic evolution is not going to make friends or inroads with scientists. It runs counter to the mechanism of purposeless, undirected mutation and natural selection.
While I think there is a lot more merit in the framework hypothesis it is still lacking in some very key places.
First, the kingdoms/kings "parallelism" doesn't work exactly the way Kline sets forth because birds/fishes are never said to "rule" anything. Neither are the land animals said to rule the land (that "kingdom" is given to man alone). Also, Genesis doesn't say that the birds "dwell" in the air, rather they only travel in it (or "across the expanse"). They, in fact, do most of their living on the land.
Second, seeing Genesis 1 primarily as a framework practically destroys the historicity of it. No longer is the author giving us an account of what actually happened, rather he is only delivering "literary devices" in which we are free to interpret the "details" however we wish. As you aptly demonstrate: "since the days are literary devices to display God's activity, so are the beginning and ending descriptions, evening and morning." This, of course, is precisely what you need to prove. Moreover, applying the framework hypothesis only to the first chapter is arbitrary. The narrative that starts in 1:1 and ends at 2:3 is then chaistically repeated in 2:4 to introduce a narrowing of focus from the creation as a whole to man in particular. In other words, the framework hypothesis needs to be relevant not just to the initial account but to the entire book. The phrase "These are the generations" is one that structures all of Genesis and makes the historical narrative a seamless whole, so if the hypothesis is relevant for one section it should be relevant for all the sections since the book is really just one long story. Both the framework hypothesis and the day-age theory are hermeneutical travesties in this regard.
And lastly, the "beginnings and endings" of the first few days have their "physical realities" in God. It is not insignificant that the first and last "things" God creates are mirrors of himself. That the sun and moon are specified as the particular governors of what was created on day one is not problematic to the previous days functioning normally since God is all-sustaining anyway.
Now, you answered a couple of objections that six-day creationists bring up so let's see how you did:
1. It seems you've missed the force of this objection by not correctly recounting it. The objection is that in the writings of Moses whenever the word "day" appears with a numerical adjective ("first", "second", etc.) it never refers to anything other than a normal day. It should also be noted that in the Pentateuch the phrase "evening and morning" (or "morning and evening") used in conjunction with "day" never refers to anything other than a normal day (see Exodus 18:13-14, 27:21, Lev. 6:20, 24:3, Numbers 9:15 and Deut. 16:4). Your observation that numbers can be assigned to periods of time that do not refer to a literal period of time is a red herring to the actual objection. Furthermore, if the framework hypthesis is correct then we learn that "day" primarily doesn't mean 24-hour period and that "evening and morning" primarily doesn't refer to the actual constituents of "day". As for your example, it is fairly clear from the context that the weeks in Daniel 9 are meant to be understood as other than actual weeks (or even as exactly 490 years). There is no such context for the days of Genesis 1.
2. God rested to (among other things) delineate the completion of his work. Scripture makes it clear elsewhere that God does not get tired or weary. The Hebrew word translated as "refreshed" in all three of these passages can also be translated as "to cease from working" or "to take a breath". Its first appearance occurs within the context of God referring back to his resting at the end of the creation week. In all three of its uses we can see that the same thing is meant, that those being refreshed are "taking a breath" or "ceasing" from their "work"; so we see that God was, in fact, "refreshed" in as literalistic a way as man on the Sabbath is to be "refreshed" and as David and his men were "refreshed" from the stone-throwing and cursing of Shimei. I must say, it altogether baffles me that you would try to bolster your case with an example from a word that occurs only three times in the OT. On the other hand, the word "day" used with a numerical adjective occurs 119 times in the Pentateuch and 357 times outside of it, and in all 476 instances it always refers to a normal day (unless we take Genesis 1 as an exception, but there's no reason to do this given the preponderance of usage). We also find that when the words "morning" and "evening" occur in reference to "day", it always indicates a normal day. It makes no exegetical or biblical sense to assign a different meaning to them in Genesis 1.
As far as I can tell, the only real motivation one could have for wanting to understand the days of Genesis as something other than normal days is a giving of preferential treatment to the supposed "scientific" evidence of the Earth's age. I will readily grant that the framework hypothesis is significantly more biblical than the day/age theory but it is still hermeneutically and theologically lacking.
Jared,
Thanks for the comments. Sorry I took so long to approve the moderation. I don't frequently write in my blog these days, and I don't check all the notices.
I don't want to argue too much on the viewpoint of an old universe in the Genesis account. I think the arguments of Kline hold weight, but I don't want to change the mind of anyone who sees that the Bible has no real option for an old universe. So, if you see my position as unbiblical, then by all means don't change your position and pray that the Holy Spirit will open my eyes to see the truth.
From what I see, God has created a universe that is billions of years old. The evidence is very straight forward as I have documented in various posts in this blog. I also believe the Bible is inerrant. Given that, I look around to see possible explanations. So far, Meredith Kline, C. John Collins, and various others offer, in my unprofessional opinion, some reasonable approaches to this.
Again, thanks for the comments, they are always welcome and feel free to comment further.
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