The "cosmogonic" of Genesis

[PaulSacramento]

An interesting two part article:
http://biologos.org/blog/the-cosmogonic ... s-1-part-1

An exert:

A basic mistake through much of the history of interpreting Genesis 1 is the failure to identify the type of literature and linguistic usage it represents. This has often led, in turn, to various attempts at bringing Genesis into harmony with the latest scientific theory or the latest scientific theory into harmony with Genesis. Such efforts might be valuable, and indeed essential, if it could first be demonstrated (rather than assumed) that the Genesis materials belonged to the same class of literature and linguistic usage as modern scientific discourse.
A careful examination of the 6-day account of creation, however, reveals that there is a serious category-mistake involved in these kinds of comparisons. The type of narrative form with which Genesis 1 is presented is not natural history but a cosmogony. It is like other ancient cosmogonies in the sense that its basic structure is that of movement from chaos to cosmos. Its logic, therefore, is not geological or biological but cosmological. On the other hand it is radically unlike other ancient cosmogonies in that it is a monotheistic cosmogony; indeed it is using the cosmogonic form to deny and dismiss all polytheistic cosmogonies and their attendant worship of the gods and goddesses of nature. In both form and content, then, Genesis I reveals that its basic purposes are religious and theological, not scientific or historical...


http://biologos.org/blog/the-numerology-of-genesis-1

AN exert:
In its way of organizing the material of creation, Genesis 1 uses a numerological structure built around the number three—a hallowed number, as is apparent in the sacred formula, “Holy, holy, holy.” Three is the first number to symbolize completeness and wholeness, for which neither number one nor two is suitable. Three also symbolizes mediation and synthesis, as the third term in a triad “unites” the other two. These symbolic uses of three are evident in the way in which phenomena are organized in terms of two sets of opposite forms which are separated from one another (days 1 and 2, 4 and 5), then completed and mediated by days 3 and 6. Light and darkness of day 1, and sky above and waters below of day 2, are completed and mediated by the earth and vegetation of day 3. The triadic movement is then repeated as the first three days are populated by the second three: the sun, moon (and stars) of the day and night skies (day 4), and the birds of the air and fish of the sea (day 5), are completed and mediated by the land animals and humans of day 6...