Hi Graham. Responding here to your questions in our other thread. I like the content of this essay. I like how you came up with your proposed meaning of resting through analogy to other creation stories rather than parsing every word and phrase and looking for specific mistranslations to get back to some original Christian or Judeo Christian meaning as if that original meaning is correct. More correct than current versions, for sure. I see you leaning towards that in your reply to Spike, who is way too certain of their-I-Amness for my taste. "God is not life but is consciousness" is way too irrelevant a difference to be pointed out, in my view. Have you heard the term "narcissism of small differences?" I first read about it in this David Todd McCarty essay. https://medium.com/ellemeno/something-wicked-this-way-comes-8de3f4bf0db7 He's an excellent writer. He gives this explanation with citations:

"Freud was initially seeking to understand why religious groups who fundamentally believed the same thing, such as Muslims, could become such intense rivals or even enemies, based on their disagreements over minor differences that wouldn’t even register to an outsider. To this day, the conflict between the Sunnis and Shiites is far more combative than between Muslims and Christians, or even Jews. Glen O. Gabbard, MD, has since suggested that members of a community might even be inclined to focus on or even exaggerate differences in order to preserve a feeling of separateness and self.⁴ Which would explain the rationale for purity tests among the most vocal participants and those who feel threatened by opposing voices."

I feel Spike fits that term with each of his points to you. I have been guilty of this in the past. I'm working on being aware of it (small example is when I would insist on pointing out to anyone and everyone who would say "no mere coincidence" or "I don't believe in coincidence" that coincidence does not mean happenstance and is in fact a synonym for synchronicity--that's pedantic of me because their definitional misunderstanding is without substantive meaning and thiu I'm arguing over nothing but small differences--it simply annoys me because I think I know better).

I do see merit in part of what Spike said. As I've touched on before, I'm not sure your tremendous talent and intellect is well utilized trying to fit the square peg of any translation of the bible into the round hole of correctness, as opposed to "I believe in X, Y and Z and I can see elements of that in the bible, and in this text and in that text, and in Jung and ......" Like we have discussed regarding the eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge and banishment from Eden story as reflecting reincarnation (I know you had a much more detailed interpretation). Anyway, it's for you to decide whether this exercise best serves you and people who read your work. It definitely has value. I like the approach I talk about here because it seeks to connect kernels of truths of various religions and philosophies rather than assert preeminence of one or more over others and you are so well read and continue to devour content that you are "perfect" for that exercise and you do often engage in it. Note I do not propose syncretism. I see no need to distill and synthesize a true religion from any religion for myself or for humanity. Tolerance would more than suffice.

I took a quick look at SS's profile just now and see you have engaged with the account before. I wouldn't bother. I don't like the energy SS emits. For that reason alone, I might consider not engaging and possibly even blocking.