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Henry said:
Hi Brian,

Welcome. I do have one initial question: in your opinion, is the framework hypothesis something that arises naturally out of the text of Genesis in such a way that skilled exegetes of the past centuries recognised it? Or is it something that we only recognised once science told us the earth was older then we thought?

Hi Henry,

Well, first I would take issue with the way you attempt to frame the question. It is entirely possible that a correct interpretation can be arrived at naturally out of the text, and for it not to have been seen before by skilled exegetes. As I say in the paper:

"Although an interpretation that has the majority report in church history must be taken seriously, it is simply inappropriate to let history dictate our conclusions. As our knowledge of societies and cultures much different than our own increases we must be prepared to revise our views in light of new context. Semper reformanda (always reforming) must be our motto in both word and practice as we investigate what Scripture has to say."

The discovering of the supporting arguments for the Framework Interpretation might be the product of us having to go back and revisit something we thought we knew, once we discovered that God created things longer ago than we thought. Study of nature can lead us to re-examine things. Actually, a really good question is whether or not this pattern was seen in the text long ago:

Day 1 Light----------Day 4 Luminaries
Day 2 Sky / Seas-----Day 5 Sea / winged creatues
Day 4 Land----------Day 6 Land animals
------Vegetation----------Man

[arg, having difficulty with the formatting..oh well]

I don't think there's much dispute that this parallel framework is found in the text. Did past exegetes see it? I'm not really sure. I've been more concerned with evaluating the present arguments for each side rather than the history of interpretaiton, which is certainly an interesting issue.

Hopefully that communicates my thoughts well enough. Thanks for the question.

Brian