Tonight’s the big event that I’ve been dreading since it was announced: Bill Nye (The Science Guy on TV) vs. Ken Ham (renowned Young Earth Creationist) debating Evolution versus Creation (watch live here or on Bill Nye’s site that I linked to above).
Poetics examines the structure of text from the text; poetry is a type of structured text.
Regarding Genesis 1 and 2, I’ve often heard an offhanded and basically unsubstantiated comment to divert attention away from creation and evolutionary debates. Indeed, reading my own blog, you might see a variation of that very comment when I discuss conclusions from the text: the emphasis is not on the What or the How as much as the Who.
That is still true. The text is emphasizing the person of Elohim over the celestial objects, over the waters, over mankind—but some have used that very real main point to detract from the fact that the text does actual contain “what” and some “how” in it as well. Yes the text says that the Who is Elohim but it also expressly says What He did (he created) and how (by speaking).
Links to the Genesis series.
I should acknowledge that on this text, interpretations differ. And here I don’t speak of the theistic interpretation versus a naturalistic interpretation, but rather between Christians who look at the Bible as inspired, inerrant and profitable. That being said it would behoove any believer to tread lightly when considering tearing an alternate interpretation of this text as being worldly or Satanic. We can agree that these things are true—but our interpretations may be false. That being the case, here are some views, with their Scriptural support and their inherent problems.