The Word on Creating and Making

                    Reading the Creation Account for All It’s Worth

                                                                            by

                                                                Frank DeRemer

                                                                Del Dobberpuhl

Contents (some chapter names are hyperlinks to the chapters)

Foreword Why this book is needed

Section 0 Foundation for Interpretation                                Principles of interpretation; Overview

.1   Motivation and Approach                                                   Introduction

.11  The Contractor and Mr. & Mrs. Smith                                 Analogy:  high points, inferences

.12  Methodology  [Add Collins issues.]                                     Cooperate with the narrator

.13  God’s Own Definitions                                                       Named after man could sense them

.14  God’s Two Books                                                               Comparative ease of interpretation

.2   Why is it Important to Get It Right?                                    Mark 7:7-8 cf Is. 29:13-14, etc.

.3   What Kind of Literature is the Creation Account?               Narrative history with deep structure

.4   Who Wrote the Creation-and-Making Account (CMA)?        God &:  Moses? Eyewitnesses? Editors?

.5   Some Rules of Hermeneutics [Add Collins issues.] Principles of Interpretation

.6   Structure of the Creation-and-Making Account (CMA)         Collins-like overview

Section 1 What Does the CMA Text Actually Say?                Chapter each for v.1, v.2, God’s Actions

.1   God’s 1^st   Sketch of Himself:  Creator of All                       V1:  The basic answer to Romans 1:20

.2   God’s 2^nd  Sketch of Himself Begins:  Maker of All             V2:  Initial earthen material/cosmic clay

.3   Action 1:   Creating from Nothing the Raw Material             Day 1,  1^st  Half:  Evening – all dark

.4   Action 2:   Calling Light into Existence                               Day 1,  2^nd Half:  Morning has broken

.5   Action 3:   Making the Expanse of the Heavens                   Day 2:  Stretching Out, Spreading Out

.6   Action 4:   Making Planet Earth’s Surface                           Day 3a: Coming Together, Separating

.7   Action 5:   Bringing Forth Plants                                        Day 3b:            Grains and Fruit

.8   Action 6:   Making and Placing the Luminaries                   Day 4:  Finishing the cosmic structure

.9   Action 7:   Creating Living Creatures – Fish & Fowl            Day 5:  2^nd Creation (1^st was the clay)

.10  Action 8:   Making More Living Creatures – Animals           Day 6a: Friends, helpers for coming man

.11  Action 9:   Creating Spirits – Man                                       Day 6b:            3^rd, final Creation–the point of it all

.12  Action 10: Providing Food                                                 Day 6c: The Great Provider

.13  End of Workweek for God                                                  Day 6d:            All done; all very good

.14  Action 11: Stop to Rest                                                       Day 7a: Model: Workweek then Sabbath

.15  Action 12: Blessing the Sabbath                                         Day 7b:            Commencement Blessing

.16  Overall Analysis                                                                 Literary Structure of the Groups

Section 2     Other Analyses of the Text                                    Narrative history with chiasmic structure

.1   Literary Analysis                                                                Overall structure: more “deep structure”

.2   Statistical Analysis                                                             Summary of the RATE results, etc.

.3   Hebrew Yom Analysis                                                        OT usage, control by context

.4   Summary                                                                           Burden on naysayers to prove otherwise

Section 3 Paraphrase of the Creation-Making Text Roughly Mark’s suggested version?

Section 4 An Origins Model Consistent with the Text           By Del Dobberpuhl

.0   Foreword                                                                           To be written

.1   Introduction Overall Approach and Structure

.2   Action 1:   Creating from Nothing the Raw Material Day 1,  1^st  Half:  Evening – all dark

.3   Action 2:   Calling Light into Existence                               Day 1,  2^nd Half:  Morning has broken

.4   Action 3:   Separating the Waters & Making the Expanse Day 2:  Stretching Out, Spreading Out

.5   Action 4:   Preparing Planet Earth’s Surface Day 3a: Gathering Waters, Dry Land Appears

.6   Action 5:   Making Plants Sprout and Grow Day 3b: Afternoon–Plant Life for the Habitat

.7   Action 6:   Making and Placing the Luminaries Day 4:  Completing the Expanse and its Hosts

.8   Action 7:   Creating and Making Living Creatures Days 5&6:  Beginning to Fill Earth’s Habitats

.9   Action 8:   Summary of the Origins Model                          Days 1-6:  Constructing a Habitat for Humanity

.10  Research Suggested by Variations on This Model              Scientific Questions to be Investigated

Section 5     Modern-Science-Motivated Speculations Inconsistent with the Text     Violations of Text

.1   Evolutionary Models (Ancient, late 1700s & 19?0s) Secular (Darwin) and Theistic (Van Till? Ref?);

                                                                                    Progressive Creation (Ross)

.2   Day-Age Models (Early 1800s & 1990s) Days as Ages (Author?);

                                                                                    Days of Exponential Lengths (Schroeder)

.3   Gap Models (Early 1800s & 1990s) Classic Gap (Chalmers);

Star-Life or Soft Gap (Gray)

                                                                                    Gap + Ages (Rodney Whitefield)

.4   Framework Hypothesis  (1920s & late 1900s)           Pitting Literary Structure against Plain Sense:

                                                                                    Cycle of Literal Days (Noordtzij, Kline, Waltke)

Section 6 – Objections Answered

.1   The Church Fathers and History                             Who believed what?

.2   The Reformers                                                       Who believed what?

.3   The Founders of Modern Science                           Who believed what?

.4   The Galileo Problem                                              Why was the Church wrong? How can we learn?

.5   Death of Plants?                                                     No blood, not biblically “living”, withering vs dying

.6   Long Sabbath?                                                      Hebrew 3-4; “My Father works and I work” on S?

.7   Not Ordinary Days?                                                See Section 2: Hebrew Yom Analysis

.8   Local or Tranquil Flood?                                       Read Genesis 6-9: all…all…all…all…all…all…

.9   Other Objections                                                    And their refutations  (flat)

.10  Conclusions                                                           Ultimately may be motivated by fear and vanity:

                    (Not falsifiable, just a perception)               Fear:    plain sense of the Bible might be wrong;

                                                                                     Vanity: don’t look bad in the eyes of the world.

Appendices

.1   The Text of the Creation-Making Account (CMA)     Our emphasis on the text demonstrated

.2   Mechanical Translation                                          By computer:  phases, tables, representations

.3   Techniques Used to Justify Pet Theories                Cherry pick; ignore or allegor-/rational-/figurat-ize

(Latter line: sophomoric, even petty?)

Index

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