It is also clear that God created life by the earth bringing forth living things. Creationist claims that He created living things from nothing is another of their additions to Scripture.
Not out of nothing really. Our omnipotent,omniscient Creator spoke our universe into existence.
Psalm 33:6
"By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
their starry host by the breath of his mouth"
Genesis 1
3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.”
9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.”
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation
14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky
20 And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures
24 And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures
26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image,
Endorsements by modern revisionists don't really mean much to me. The ancient Christians, like St. Augustine, knew even then that Genesis was not a literal history,
It isn't new that people compromise on the plain clear teaching of God's Word. It has been this way since the Garden of Eden when the serpent asked "Did God say...?"
As to your "modern revisionist comment, You might do well do examine how the Bible authors and Jesus referred to Moses writings as literal history. Hebrew scholars and historians declare the text is literal history... not poetry, and the church has traditionally accepted Genesis as history.
For example...Dr Benno Zuiddam (historian) this world in a very short period of time, under ten thousand years ago. Whether you read Irenaeus in the 2nd*century, Basil in the 4th, Augustine in the 5th, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th, the Reformers of the 16th*century, or Pope Pius X in the 19th, they all teach this. They all believed in a good creation and God’s curse striking the earth—and the whole creation—after the disobedience of a literal Adam and Eve."
Re Augustine....Why are you appealing to him? He seems to have always accepted that Adam, Eve, the Garden and the flood were literal events to go along with with his young earth interpretation. He did have some ideas which I think were off but he wrote against pagan ideas of the earth being many thousands of years old. (Augustine used the Septuagent and said creation took place in 5600 BC). Perhaps the reason you appeal to Augustine is thought earlier in his life that the days in Genesis were symbolic. But later he wrote "De Genesi ad litteram." Translated 'On the necessity of taking Genesis literally.'
Interesting thing about this Hebrew professor, is that he does not believe Genesis, but says the text is written as literal history
James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University, former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford.
"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a)
creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; .. Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.".
and the "days" (which in Hebrew were used to mean "24-hour day", or "in my time", or "an era" or "unspecified length of time", were not intended to be taken as actual days.
No, that's not even close to correct. The Hebrew word for 'day' is YOM. The Hebrew word is used exactly the same as our English word 'day'. In other words the meaning is made clear by context.
EXAMPLE...I could say "in my fathers day, it took 7 days to complete harvest, working only in the day"
I used the word 'day' 3 times...3 different meanings....all easily understood by context.
The Hebrew is the same... same meanings...same easy to understand context.
The days of creation are literal 24 hour days.
:think:
