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One of the most important theological consequences when one rightly rejects the concordance between the first 11 chapters of the book of Genesis and reality, is the rejection of the creation in seven days and all consequences that derive from that. If the universe and all that it contains hadn’t been created in seven days the Mosaic Law couldn’t have come from God. We have to observe that God cannot lie, according to the Bible.
“19 God is not a human being, that he should lie, or a mortal, that he should change his mind. Has he promised, and will he not do it? Has he spoken, and will he not fulfil it?” (Numbers 23; 19 NRSV)
If God cannot lie He couldn’t have affirmed in the Decalogue that He created the world in seven days if He didn’t do it in that sequence of time. This is the biblical text in which God affirmed that He created the world in seven days:
“8 Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy. 9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work. 10 But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20; 8-11 NRSV)
If those are the words spoken by God directly and if He didn’t create heaven and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them in six days, then either He lied or He never said those things. As God cannot lie the conclusion is that He never said those words and they are only a human invention. In other words, the Mosaic Law doesn’t have a divine origin but has only a human provenance. If the Decalogue doesn’t have a divine origin then all the other laws of the O.T. also have a human source.
The Almighty God didn’t speak to the Jewish people from Mount Sinai or He didn’t say what the Bible maintains that He said, if He didn’t create the cosmos in six days. In this case, the entire story can either be the product of the imagination of the writer of that text or those words were said by another, lesser being than God, another being who can lie, for example, by the representative of an extra-terrestrial civilization. The context in which the Bible says that God would have addressed the ten commands to the Jewish people is very strange and seems like a contact between extra-terrestrials and human beings.
“16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, as well as a thick cloud on the mountain, and a blast of a trumpet so loud that all the people who were in the camp trembled.
17 Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God. They took their stand at the foot of the mountain. 18 Now Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, because the LORD had descended upon it in fire; the smoke went up like the smoke of a kiln, while the whole mountain shook violently. 19 As the blast of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses would speak and God would answer him in thunder.” (Exodus 19; 16-19 NRSV)
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Thunder and lighting, a thick cloud and a blast of a trumpet very loud, Mount Sinai being wrapped in smoke and the Lord descending upon it in fire while the whole mountain shook violently describes the scene of an extra-terrestrial ship coming down to the earth rather than a spiritual event. This of course is only a speculation but one thing is certain, the world wasn’t created in six days and the nature that we see on Earth today is the product of millions of years of evolution.
God cannot lie but this is not available for the representative of an extra-terrestrial civilization who can lie if he or she intends to dominate the earth. The indication that people needed to wash their clothes and the interdiction not to touch the edge of the mountain could have meant a precaution that the visitors would have taken in order to be protected from germs.
“12 You shall set limits for the people all around, saying, “Be careful not to go up the mountain or to touch the edge of it. Any who touch the mountain shall be put to death. 13 No hand shall touch them, but they shall be stoned or shot with arrows;* whether animal or human being, they shall not live.” When the trumpet sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.’ (Exodus 19; 12-13 NRSV)
At the same time, the obligation to kill anyone who would have touched the mountain without touching them with the hand is also strange and could have signified an attempt to prevent a possible transmission of foreign germs that could have become disastrous for the human beings. Touching the human beings or animals already infested could have determined a rapid transmission of those pathogenic agents.
In the O.T. God has a material side that indicates toward technologies which are more advanced than the ones existent at the present time on Earth. We can see that in the book of Ezekiel also.
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If the God of the O.T. is an extra-terrestrial civilization he cannot be what the book of Genesis tells us about Him. Such a civilization couldn’t have created our universe if it dwells in it.
An extra-terrestrial civilization could have been interested in educating the human beings and imposing laws which would have determined a higher degree of morality on the Jewish people.
If God didn’t create the world in six days all the texts which contain the supposition that He created it in this way start from a false premise. Starting from a false premise, they inevitably reach a false conclusion. We don’t know through what means God would have created the universe. We don’t know how He did it or what the level of His intervention was. We can know for sure only that He didn’t create the world in six days or in the order described by the book of Genesis. God didn’t generate rational laws of physics only to contradict them through the way in which the book of Genesis describes the creation.
If the world hadn’t been created in six days we don’t have to keep any day as the Sabbath day because the motivation for the day of rest is false.
“11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.” (Exodus 20; 11 NRSV)
God didn’t make the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them in six days and He didn’t rest the seventh day. God didn’t bless the Sabbath day and didn’t consecrate it. Jesus respected the Sabbath but rather as a tradition than as an absolute command.
“7 But if you had known what this means, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice”, you would not have condemned the guiltless. 8 For the Son of Man is lord of the sabbath.” (Matthew 12; 7-8 NRSV)
The apostle Paul also recommended personal conviction about the respect of the Sabbath which in his view could have been bypassed.
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“5 Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. 6 Those who observe the day, observe it in honour of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honour of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honour of the Lord and give thanks to God.” (Romans 14; 5-6 NRSV)
If we want to be consistent with reality we don’t have to feel obligated to respect any special day for religious reasons, neither Saturday nor Sunday, nor another day in the week, because God didn’t take any rest after the end of the creation. The creation isn’t ended, it is evolving all the time.
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