Are the 7 days of Genesis 1 a list or a chronology?

I ran into an interesting article by Sterchi in JETS who argues based on the Hebrew grammar the 7 days are NOT in chronological but theological order. His argument (of which below is a very small snippet) is pretty interesting. It certainly makes more sense of the evening & morning being time markers for days 1-3 before the sun and moon are made on day 4. Not such a good read for literalists who dislike Bible scholarship.

The general point is sound

Why was Cain’s offering rejected?

Why was Cain’s sacrifice rejected in Genesis 4 and what are we meant to learn from this event?  We are not told what was missing from the offering.  There are no explicit revealed pre-existing criteria.  All we have is the comparison to Abel’s accepted offering.  Abel’s offering was his best, Cain’s perhaps not.  What the incident revealed was an underlying issue with Cain’s pride, which led to murder.

Before sin Adam was?

“La mortalité est sa condition, mais sa mort est cependant conditionnelle” Humbert [1]

Sometimes the French say it best?

[1] Van Ee, J. J. (2013). Death and the Garden : : An Examination of Original Immortality, Vegetarianism, and Animal Peace in the Hebrew Bible and Mesopotamia. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0qm3n0mt.

Augustine on over enthusiastic “purists”

there are some men who see in Scripture nothing else except those passages which admonish us to be strict, to rebuke the unruly, not to give what is holy to dogs, to regard as a heathen any man who does not heed the Church, to cut off from the body any member that gives scandal. Such persons only make trouble for the Church; they try to separate the cockle from the wheat before the appointed time. But because of their blindness they themselves rather are separated from union with Christ [1]

[1] Lombardo, G. J. with St. Augustine. (1988). St. Augustine on Faith and Works. (W. J. Burghardt & T. C. Lawler, Eds., G. J. Lombardo, Trans.) (Vol. 48, pp. 11–12). New York; Mahwah, NJ: The Newman Press.

Rewriting the chronology of Genesis 5

So some evangelicals are now claiming the Gen 5 is missing some years. Based on the LXX and Samaritan Pentateuch they place Adam at 5500bc. Smokes the 7000 year plan but means a few less archaeological problems can be ignored. Wonder if this will eventually leach into our community…

Pouring cold water on theistic chemists?

The Lampstand Magazine March 2021 issue tries to discredit evolution by asking where Earth’s water came from. This is a question for those pesky chemists and geologists, not evolutionists. The article misrepresents the state of the science, makes a nonsense assertion about Genesis and then selectively quotes and misreads Proverbs 8. Seems like they are lurching towards young earth creation rather than our pioneers’ old earth model too.

The oldest wooden artefacts found

Shigir Idol in the Sverdlovsk Regional Museum

A 12,500 year old wooden installation – probably an idol? – was found in Russia in the 1890s and made the news when more dating work was recently published. While we have some amazing examples of rock art, perishable material rarely survived. In this instance we were lucky – our ancestor’s work was preserved by peat bog. Clearly humans have long had an interest in artistic endeavour.

Today is the anniversary of James Ussher’s death

James Ussher died on 21 March 1656. His timeline of biblical history is beloved of 7,000 year plan types. The 7000 year plan is to Christianity what QAnon is to politics…beloved by loud uncles, disconnected from reality and continually reinventing dates as predictions fail. Yet both seem to continue in some quarters.