'Good day to you!'
Why is the second day of creation not called good?

Today, the SAB make this objection, under the interpretation category:

" Gen. 1:8
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.
The second day is the only day God didn't call "good".
St. Jerome held that the reason why God did not pronounce the work of the second day "good" is to be found in the fact that there is something essentially evil in the number two, and this was echoed centuries afterward, afar off in Britain, by Bede."

Certain skeptics make much of these types of objections in order to try and convey the picture that the Bible is open to any number of interpretations, and so it is impossible to know which one is correct. It is true that there are some passages of scripture which are open to various possible interpretations, but none of these passages involve any fundamental significant doctrine of the faith, all of which have a single interpretation which is clearly set out in scripture. None of the types of interpretive difficulties as that mentioned in this objection by the SAB change in the slightest the overall message of the Bible. But now to the objection itself,

The interpretations cited by the SAB from St.Jerome and St.Bede are typical of mystical, superstitious roman catholic interpretation of scripture and are groundless. For more information on this subject see here.

Two more common sense and logical interpretations are,

1. An interpretation given by Picherellus, that the ninth and tenth verses of Genesis 1 all belonged to the work of the second day, though mentioned after it, or rather
2. The work on the second day was part of a larger unit of work which was not completed until the third day, where it is then called good. So the larger unit of work was to create the firmament, divide the waters, then gather the lower waters into oceans and reveal the dry land. The creation of the firmament and division of the waters was the first phase of the work on day two, then the forming of the oceans and dry land the second and final phase on day three, where it is then called good. This interpretation concurs with that given by Calvin.

Either of these interpretations give a reasonable explanation why the second creation day is not called good by God, and the SAB are silenced yet again.

Join me soon for the next episode where God, the creator and sustainer of all things, is accused of being unable to sustain plant life without the sun. And get this, Genesis actually teaches evolution.

Bye for now.