Here follows the prologue and commentary on Genesis 1-2:3 from Keil and Delitzsch’s classic conservative commentary.
(from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
As with the earlier post from Leupold, the astute reader will see that nothing is new under the sun when it comes to heterodox readings of Genesis. K&D deal with those that pop up.
Genesis Ch. 1:1-2:3
The account of the creation, its commencement, progress, and completion, bears the marks, both in form and substance, of a historical document in which it is intended that we should accept as actual truth, not only the assertion that God created the heavens, and the earth, and all that lives and moves in the world, but also the description of the creation itself in all its several stages. If we look merely at the form of this document, its place at the beginning of the book of Genesis is sufficient to warrant the expectation that it will give us history, and not fiction, or human speculation. As the development of the human family has been from the first a historical fact, and as man really occupies that place in the world which this record assigns him, the creation of man, as well as that of the earth on which, and the heaven for which, he is to live, must also be a work of God, i.e., a fact of objective truth and reality.
The grand simplicity of the account is in perfect harmony with the fact. "The whole narrative is sober, definite, clear, and concrete. The historical events described contain a rich treasury of speculative thoughts and poetical glory; but they themselves are free from the influence of human invention and human philosophizing" (Delitzsch). This is also true of the arrangement of the whole.
The work of creation does not fall, as Herder and others maintain, into two triads of days, with the work of the second answering to that of the first. For although the creation of the light on the first day seems to correspond to that of the light-bearing stars on the fourth, there is no reality in the parallelism which some discover between the second and third days on the one hand, and the third and fourth on the other. On the second day the firmament or atmosphere is formed; on the fifth, the fish and fowl. On the third, after the sea and land are separated, the plants are formed; on the sixth, the animals of the dry land and man. Now, if the creation of the fowls which fill the air answers to that of the firmament, the formation of the fish as the inhabitants of the waters ought to be assigned to the sixth day, and not to the fifth, as being parallel to the creation of the seas. The creation of the fish and fowl on the same day is an evident proof that a parallelism between the first three days of creation and the last three is not intended, and does not exist.
Moreover, if the division of the work of creation into so many days had been the result of human reflection; the creation of man, who was appointed lord of the earth, would certainly not have been assigned to the same day as that of the beasts and reptiles, but would have been kept distinct from the creation of the beasts, and allotted to the seventh day, in which the creation was completed-a meaning which Richers and Keerl have actually tried to force upon the text of the Bible. In the different acts of creation we perceive indeed an evident progress from the general to the particular, from the lower to the higher orders of creatures, or rather a steady advance towards more and more concrete forms. But on the fourth day this progress is interrupted in a way which we cannot explain. In the transition from the creation of the plants to that of sun, moon, and stars, it is impossible to discover either a "well-arranged and constant progress," or "a genetic advance," since the stars are not intermediate links between plants and animals, and, in fact, have no place at all in the scale of earthly creatures.
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10 comments:
So obvious it is that there is no mirroring and yet the heretics still go on and on and on about this being a reality. It's almost as though they've never even read the text and that they are merely regurgitating an expert's opinion. Hmmmm...now that's an idea!
In any case, even if there were this mirroring in the days, how does this necessarily mean that Genesis 1 isn't historical? None of the heretics has ever spelled this out in detail. It seems quite a truly base begging of the question i.e. if there are literary devices, then ahistorical...look there are devices so therefore ahistorical. What masterful logicians these Moore heretics are.
Interesting Blog Eric,thanks for your efforts.
Elsewhere a contributor made a very apt comment. A compromizer said there was no need believe in 144hr creation,so I asked him to supply Biblical support for this, but received no answer. I asked again and again-same result. Of course he did not/could not answer as there is no Biblical support for this. His was an obvious attempt to force a non-Biblical view on Genesis. Another blogger agreed, saying that in his experience people who would not accept the straight-forward meaning of Scripture did so because of sin in their lives. I wondered about this and came to the conclusion he was right. Those with whom we have argued here are imposing a worldly view upon scripture which is a sin. Romans 14:23 says that which is not of faith is of sin,and it is by faith we accept the creation account and other Biblically recorded events.
The AngloNasties are definitely uncritically swallowing the big-bang,long-ages evolutionary myth which secular folk so passionately,and universally promote. But Hebrews 11:3 says the creation we see was not made out visible matter,therefore not the result of matter created in the mythical big-bang,nor eternal matter involved in any big-bang,but spoken into existence, from nothing.
In supporting an unproven anti-Biblical philosophy these compromisers are clearly sinning. Despite their claims to the contrary they are reinterpreting Genesis through the filter of a Godless view, which is not of faith but of blatant obvious sin.
No wonder they ridicule and abuse those who shine a bright light on their sinful compromise.
Thanks for the comments. I thought it might be instructive to see what older scholars had to say about Genesis 1.
I suppose that the SADists will come back to criticise the lack of currency here, but on the other hand, I would say that I would be wary of scholarship that put the dubious philosphically rooted materialism on the same footing as the Bible! I am futher chilled by modern theologians running from 'science' as they want to call it, instead of articulating a prophetic stand against those who set out with the assumption that there is no God.
Eric, some may think a commentary written in the late 19th century,has to be inferior to something more modern. I disagree as so much modern material comes from minds biassed and clouded by the acceptance of 'modern' evolutionary thinking. Evolution is fact, they believe, so Genesis cannot mean what it appears to.
In reality this so called 'science' also says that people don't rise from the dead but that does not appear to have dawned on SAD theistic-evolutionists yet. Others just a little further down the slippery-slope to unbelief have already given up believing in the physical death and resurrection of Jesus, for this reason. By definition they are no longer Christian.
We are continually bombarded with the 'facts' of evolution so it is no wonder most people consider it an established reality. When was the last time your heard the Biblical case for creation on TV, for one example? Don't waith for it either.
I remember once talking to an atheist who said there was no evidence for God. I asked him what he would accept as evidence and he said he didn't know! Such clear thinking! No wonder he couldn't see any evidence for God. And it is people of this ilk who have penetrated the church and set the SAD on a path to liberaliam.
In this weekends SMH Goodweekend magazine Dr Karl Kruszelnicki had a piece called 'Has the missing link been found.' In it he trots out the usual tired old and discredited formula to make his case. He define evolution as 'the process of change from one generation to the next, of inherited characteristics.' Vague enough and broad enough to mean anything, and nothing. He writes about micro-evolution, pushing the fallacy that if you get enough micro changes they will add up to a macro change. This is nonsense and does him no credit. We see changes within a 'kind' occuring, and can artificially produce certain changes, but all these changes lose genetic information, the opposite for what would be needed to produce a totally new 'kind.'
He then goes on to say that Archaeopteryx is a 'missing link between reptiles and birds! Bunkum. From what I have read fossils of birds have been found in the fossil record in sedimentary rock evolutionists would insist is older that the rock in which Archy was found! How can Archy be a missing-link if birds existed before him? Further some evolutionist paleontologists would disagree with him. Far from fact.
He also brought up the cannard of bacteria 'evolving' to beat antibiotics, when no bacteria has evolved rather certain bacteria had characteristics which allowed them to resist the antibiotic. This has nothing to do with one 'kind' i.e.reptile evolving into another 'kind', a bird. It is solely an example of unnatural selection,and again a loss of genetic information. This is the opposite of onwards, upwards evolution which obviously needs uniquely new genetic information.
I don't mean to ridicule Dr. Karl, as I think him an interesting and pleasant man. But has he been fooled by others he trusts,or is he trying to fool us? I would prefer to think the former.
So many evolutionary scientists have just accepted the belief, trusting what others have told them, without investigating such matters for themselves.
This reminds me of a talk where the non-Christian scientist was discussing dating methods which he promoted as fact,to prove the earth was far older than the Bible allowed. He spoke very confidently about this 'proof.' In question time I asked whether he had investigated these 'facts' firsthand, to which he embarassedly replied that he hadn't just trusted that others were correct! Such scientific rigor, not.
When I have challenged Anglican theistic-evolutionists about evolution they have known precious little about what evolutionists actually believe. They just trust that the scientists have got it right. Most likely scientists like those in the examples above. It's the blind leading the legless!
Time for bed.
This is ironic: SAHs dismiss a 19th-century critic of this "triads of days" theory by devout Hebrew Christians, but accepting a 19th-century theory of origins by a rabid Christophobe.
When it comes to triads, the text is what it is. So it shouldn't make any difference how old K&D is, they show that the triads don't exist in the text.
As Eric pointed out, there is no reason, even granting triads, that they couldn't have reflected real history.
I love this blog, thanks for inviting me over John!
I get to read more about the beliefs of Young Earth Creationists and their rationale for rejecting every single piece of evidence against them.
I get to see them reject the Vatican astronomer in charge in favour of an obscure canadian. I get to see them reject everything the modern world knows in favour of a book written in the Bronze age.
Warwick I do have some interesting things to add.
You say it is a loss of information when a bacteria uses an inherent ability to beat antibiotics. I have to say the following.
1) So God built into the bacterium the ability to resist modern anti-biotics. These bacteria have been sitting around with the ability inherent within, and for some inexplicable reason just "decide" to turn on this hidden ability. This ability that, I might add, was not present in the genes before... Was it perhaps stored in the cells magic repository somehow? And how is evolving (sorry, "turning on") the ability to resist antibiotics a loss of information?
2) What do you say to the news that a bacterium has evolved a previously unknown ability to synthesise a new and novel food source? An ability no other bacterium of its "species" (E. Coli) has? Is that too a loss of information?
The last thing is about theistic-evolutionists. You obviously don't understand their beliefs. You say "evolution says people can't rise from the dead". For a start, it says no such thing. For a finale, those people are THEISTIC evolutionists. Maybe you don't understand what that means, so I'll tell you.
IT MEANS THEY BELIEVE IN GOD.
Mmmk? So, they believe in the same things you do. They believe in GOD, they also generally believe in your Jesus. So, how does their belief in evolution rule out their belief in the story of Jesus rising from the dead? Believing in evolution doesn't stop them from being able to honestly believe in that, warwick. It's disingenuous of you to imply that it does.
Oh one more thing! YES! I see up there you claim that because Hebrews said the universe wasn't created out of visible matter then the Big Bang can't have happened.
Let's ignore for a moment that this is a bronze age fantasy book. Let's instead move on to the part where MOST OF THE UNIVERSE IS COMPOSED OF INVISIBLE DARK MAATTER. And not to forget that the currently held theory is that the big bang issued from a dense ball of ENERGY. There was NO SUCH THING AS MATTER up until a certain time after the Big Bang.
So how does that fit with your Hebrews fantasy?
Also sorry for dragging this out. You claim that fossils of birds have been found in rock evolutionists would call older than "archy". Firstly, proof please. References. Secondly, the world is a big place - who says birds couldn't have evolved from seperate species in seperate parts of the globe? Archaeopteryx might even had still been alive after genetic isolation and selective pressured had evolved birds elsewhere.
Evolution does NOT say that a species evolves and automatically all members of the previous species dissappear. If that happened there'd be ONE single species on the planet.
I was going to comment on the latest "blah blah blah creationism" post at the top but I think I'll leave it with this one.
Thanks again to Paul for the invitation, this shit is beyond hilarious.
More boring old arguments, from one of the immature "don't trust anyone over 30" brigade.
See Bacteria ‘evolving in the lab’? for an accurate account of Lenski's work on allegedly new citrate-eating ability. Note that citrate digestion is already part of the ubiquitous Krebs cycle.
It's natural that bacteria have some enzymes that would break down dangerous chemicals, so they can cope with the normal environment. But they generally control this manufacture to avoid wasting resources on overproduction. But if a patient is dosed with antibiotics, then the germs are overwhelmed.
But suppose one germ has suffered a mutation that disables the control. It wastes resources overproducing the enzyme it normally doesn't need. So it can't normally compete with the other germs and dies off. But in a patient dosed with antibiotics, this overproduction means it can overcome them.
This is one of many examples of where a loss mutation can confer resistance to antibiotics. See also Anthrax and antibiotics: Is evolution relevant?.
How about the lizards places on a remote island that evolved larger jaws, a new stomach arrangement and the ability to digest plant material, in what way was that a loss of information?
And your example of a bacteria losing genetic information due to a mutation is interesting and yet in no way does it disprove evolution. Nowhere does it say "evolution is the act of a species getting more genetic information"
Hey man! Thanks for the quote - I read it the other night and was so inspired!
God bless!
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