Don

I agree God has given us what we need to know in Scripture for faith and practise.

As I stated, one sees the polemic in Gen 1 in contrast to the other polytheistic origins stories. These provide the cultural background for the Gen origins stories. I am far from being the first to claim this. This is what egals claim for some verses, asking to see the cultural contrast; this is what I do for Gen origins stories also. It is not reading into the text to notice this contrast, in either case.

On you being wrong, I am NOT saying that the way you understand the origins texts is impossible, just that it is not required by the text, that other interpretations are also possible. Or to put it another way, I believe both young earthers and old earthers are striving in their own ways to be faithful to the text. As I also mentioned Schroeder claims to be both. A simple example of an interpretation choice is: how long is bara/create? The Bible’s usage of bara shows that it may take a loooong time to bara/create something and that is the choice I make in Gen also; you might choose a short time and that is allowed also; my point is both are faithful possibilities.

I try my best to read every portion of Scripture as it would be understood by the original readers, not just the “gender” verses. For the Torah of Moses, I believe these original readers would be the early Israelites.

I also accept God’s word on the matter of creation. I believe what we see had a beginning and did not always exist and that it is at least 6700 years old. This eliminates a lot of alternatives.

One method of trying to interpret Scripture is to “interpret literally, except where it cannot”. The problem is that “where it cannot” differs among believers. My faith says we see thru a glass darkly and faithful believers can believe differently about origins and end times.