Cheryl Schatz

Don,

There can be logic to poetry, but it does not need to be strict, it can be allusional.

No need for strict logic? God is the Master Communicator and He is the Creator of logic. I see no such category as “allusional” logic. Rather God consistently through the scriptures communicates what He means and any allegory has meaning.

I see the less order/more order as allusion/metaphor inside each creation day, it does not need to cross days.

Then the different days have no meaning. God could be helped in His endeavor if He would have removed the order of the days and removed the detail of the creation actions. He also could have been helped if He would have provided the meaning of the allegory. Without a identified meaning for the “allegory”, God has failed to be the Master Communicator if you are right and He has left the most important record of Creation’s history up for grabs. Make it say whatever you want. This does not cut the mustard with me. The God that I find in the pages of scripture has kept his word as meaningful throughout the generations. Through the history of the church, the record of creation has given us hope that there is a God who is attentive to detail and that he has created all things for our benefit. Without the detail, the proof is gone and left up for grabs to whoever thinks he knows God’s mind.

In Gen 1:4-5 God does not call night good, while daytime is called good.

The darkness is absence of the light. But even in the absence of light, God brings his smaller lights to reveal the light. There is no pure blackness in this “good” creation that is without light.

I never even thought the creation days are a mishmash, I see the order as forming a structure as I mentioned.

The order is what God has given. The structure is what God has already said. Our words can never compare to what God has already revealed. If we remove the sequential order that God deliberately has woven into the account, and we distrust that He revealed event after event after event after event, then how can we honor his grammar? The measuring stick is His word, His grammar and His eye witness account.

I see each of the 3 origins stories at first as standalone by themselves.

Adam was not created more than once. If the accounts meaning something other than the one creation account, then God has purposely set out to confuse us. Then he really doesn’t care what we can know about creation. That isn’t the God that I have found in the pages of the Bible. I have fallen in love with the Master Communicator not a parable maker who refuses to give the meaning of the parables.

But story 2 is a challenge to integrate with the others and faithful people can do it differently.

Either the chapters integrate with the other chapters without contradiction or God has failed. The question is not are people faithful, but is God faithful to inspire an account without contradiction.

By the way I haven’t read how you integrate the accounts. I only get the idea that you don’t integrate them at all, which frankly tells me that you can’t integrate them together. So if you can’t, why not let me try? All you need to do is show me the contradictions in my view. I believe that all false views will have problems and contradictions. If my view is false, there should be contradictions to expose. I welcome that if you are able.

Given that I do not see Gen 1 as requiring synchronization in universe time, there is no time problem to address in Gen 2.

This makes no sense at all. God has not revealed what is “universe time”. It also would be foolhardy to reveal the creation account in a time that is meaningless to humans on earth. It would seem that He was writing the account for angels instead of his human creation. I don’t think so.

So yes, in Gen 2 the man knows more than the woman and bears more responsibility; not because he is a man, but because he knows more.

Don, my friend, I am absolutely thrilled that we agree on one thing. May the Lord bless you real good!