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[Scape211]

Jim,

I was recently talking with someone about 6 day creationism or YEC. They hold the view that it was 6 literal days which for various reasons I dont agree with. However, one point they made was when God spoke to Moses while giving him the 10 commandments. In Exodus 20:11, He says that God made it in six days. Now do we take this to mean the unspecified amount of time as in the Hebrew 'yom?' Or is there some other interpretation of this six day window?

[jimwalton]

It's a recognition of the inauguration ceremony as recorded in Genesis 1. If Genesis 1 is a Temple text pertaining to God ordering the universe to function as His Temple, and ordering the Earth to function as His place of meeting with humanity to form a relationship, then "made" in Ex. 20.11 pertains to this ordering function, just as it did in Genesis 1. You'll remember that in the ancient Near East, something was considered "created" when it had a role or function—creation had nothing to do with manufacture or with ontological existence. The wilderness and the sea were both regarded as "uncreated"—they were not ordered to function; they were wild, chaotic places. So when Exodus 20.11 says that God "made" the Earth, the reference is to His ordering it to function well ("and it was good"). And to say that He did so in 7 days underlines the Genesis account, which is a recognition of the greatness of God and a rehearsal of what He has done.

Brevard Childs writes, "The Sabbath command is not tied to the act of creation. This verse provides an etiology (cause, origin) for the sanctification of the Sabbath, which was rooted in the creation tradition. The etiology grounds the sanctity of the sabbath in the creative act of God; it is built into the very structure of the universe." In other words, since a temple was supposed to speak of God's greatness, God's person, and God's acts, and the dedication ceremony was supposed to reflect a microcosm of this work, then the 6 days is a reference to the whole package, not to 6 literal days of material manufacture. Henri Blocher writes, "The creation is an archetype of human work." It is acceptable, and in inaccurate then, to speak of it in 6 days, as Genesis 1 does. But we always have to understand the context. For instance, whenever we read about "light" in the Bible, we simply cannot think photons, to which our mind automatically goes. They never thought in photons, and we can never read "light" that way in the Bible. So also, if Genesis 1 is not material manufacture that happened in 6 days (if that was NEVER their understanding) then we can never read it that way, despite what seems obvious to us.

Your friend would probably complain that you are dodging the clear and only possible meaning of the English—except that if that's not what 6-day creation meant to the ancients, then that's not what it meant.

[Scape211]

Your friend would probably complain that you are dodging the clear and only possible meaning of the English—except that if that's not what 6-day creation meant to the ancients, then that's not what it meant.

Yes thats typically the case. I tend to brush this off as most have this struggle when it comes to various topics like slavery and genocide in the bible. We have all lived in a time where it means something specific to us so to hear other meanings is crazy or even unthinkable. But thats always going to be the case with some people. I appreciate the clarification though. I did say something to them along these lines even before I saw your post so we will see if they respond.