Cheryl Schatz

Don,
At this point I would like the conversation to stop the discussion of OE and YE. This is taking us away from the points that I would like to make. Please stay on track and talk about the creation of Adam and Eve and the animals. The account is a historical account. Here is what I see as the problem:

Sally woke up and had breakfast. Then she went to school and dropped off her two younger children. Next she went shopping to pick up some bread. Then she dropped off her older children at high school. Then she went to the dog store and bought some dog food. Then she went home.

This is a historical account. It is not rocket science. The question is did Sally drop off children after she went shopping for bread?

Can we say that we cannot answer this question because of the schema of the person asking the question? The fact is that we are talking about history, not the plans to build a house or disputable theology. We are also not talking about Calvinism or whether tongues is for today or any other doctrinal issue where we can have differences. We are also NOT talking about the length of the “days”. We are talking about whether animals were formed by God after Adam was formed from the dirt by God. Are these historical events? I say they are historical events. From your inability to answer my questions, I don’t think you see history at all. Would you do the same things with the gospels? Is John historical but Mark is allegorical? Is Luke half allegory and half history and is Matthew completely pie in the sky, with no historical information? If you do not do this to the historical gospels, why will you not answer questions about the historical account of creation?

So no more discussion about the length of the days, please and thank you.

Was Adam formed by God? If it was a real, literal event, then it has a set point in time. Were animals created after Adam? If animals exist and they were formed by God, then we should be able to answer this question without accusing the person asking the question of having a “schema”?

While I agree with Paula that you have not given any reason why you believe as you do, I also believe that you have not given out what you do believe. I cannot get a handle on what you believe and instead of helping me understand, you attack me for asking questions. This is not right.

I do not know if you actually believe that animals were really created after Adam or if these animals were a piece of poetry that said one thing but was not actually a historical event. If you cannot answer this question so that logical people like me can figure out what you believe, then this conversation will have to end. It is extremely frustrating to me that you do not directly answer questions but want to accuse me of seeing history as merely history and thus somehow I must be illogical.

Perhaps you do not see Adam as a real man created at one point in history. Perhaps I have misunderstood and you believe that everything is poetry. Adam is poetry and Eve is poetry and the first animals are poetry. Then we actually know nothing at all about the history of creation, but we can “feel” God’s love and that is about all we really know.