scombrid

You’d think he’d put out a new edition every now and again then. Don’t tell me god dumbed it down for the goat herders but won’t update it for the modern world thus forcing reliance on the interpretation of the bible by “holy” men. No, god didn’t dumb it down for the goat herders; they just wrote and created myths based on what they knew at the time. Indeed, it was the science of the day and it was wrong thus hinting at the likelihood that men were the imaginers of the original text without divine dictation and revelation. You can throw out the word hermeneutics until you’re blue in the face trying to sound authoritative but it’s still just interpretation and despite your likely protest, there is no real science behind scriptural hermeneutics.

Sunday school stuff is where 99% of Christians get their beliefs. The bible is “revealed” to deliver them the truth but if their interpretation is incorrect then what; you and your hermeneutic specialist friends are the only ones with a line on the truth?

Oh, and please share with us the statistically significant pattern in chapter 5.

You’d think he’d put out a new edition every now and again then. Don’t tell me god dumbed it down for the goat herders but won’t update it for the modern world thus forcing reliance on the interpretation of the bible by “holy” men. No, god didn’t dumb it down for the goat herders; they just wrote and created myths based on what they knew at the time. Indeed, it was the science of the day and it was wrong thus hinting at the likelihood that men were the imaginers of the original text without divine dictation and revelation. You can throw out the word hermeneutics until you’re blue in the face trying to sound authoritative but it’s still just interpretation and despite your likely protest, there is no real science behind scriptural hermeneutics.

Sunday school stuff is where 99% of Christians get their beliefs. The bible is “revealed” to deliver them the truth but if their interpretation is incorrect then what; you and your hermeneutic specialist friends are the only ones with a line on the truth?

Oh, and please share with us the statistically significant pattern in chapter 5.


ALSO:
I read the page that emotional linked to. It’s disingenuous of you to claim this Evolutionary creationism is not rare. I went to Catholic School grades 8-12 and unless my school was doctrinally fowled up, the Catholic Church accepts this position even most of the conservatives. My own mother is borderline fundy and accepts both a personal responsibility with Jesus and Evolution. Rare indeed. It's been a more than a decade since I was introduced to the concept that science is just a tool for exploring wonderous creation, including evolution. Maybe my gradeschool theology teachers were just really progressive


I saw “Evolutionary creationism claims…” and “Evolutionary creationism asserts…” regarding the hand of god in evolution. Here’s one assertion Uh, where and when did god reveal this intention?
Never did I see anything supporting these claims and assertions.

I was an evolutionary creationist for the better part of my schooling until I realized that I had to force the God interpretation into the reality that I observed.

I’m sure that the Aztecs attributed many great fortunes to their gods.

Oh well, at least Evolutionary creation accepts science as the best tool for dealing with physical reality.

As for the personal relationship stuff, signs, and wonders, I don’t buy it. My 9th grade theology teacher related a story of divine intervention in her life. Her daughter was climbing up to the high dive and fell backwards from the top step landing squarely on her feet thus she received no head or back injuries. Praise be to god she was protected by her mothers faith. Of course both ankles were shattered but that’s minor compared to what could have happened. So it goes in the world of signs and wonders. Shove god into the picture where you can. Anything can be a sign.

Denis Lamoureux

I'm not going to waste my time by responding to this tedious and much too long post other than comment on the two items above.

First, considering your brimming self-confidence and self-acclaimed intellectual prowess, I'm surprized you can't see the pattern. Surely, an astute scientific mind like yours would easily see it immediately. Science is the threshing machine to produced refined Truth, isn't it?

Second, check out _Nature_ (3 Apr 97). [BTW, that is a scientific journal] 40% of leading US scientists wouldn't "buy" your PERSONAL rejection of God activity in people's lives.

Denis

Kevbo

Denis -

That's great that you're not a fundy and all, but do you think that an almighty, omnipotent being could have found a more efficient way to communicate a pretty important message than allowing an isolated, pastoral society to write a few things down, some of which are obviously physically incorrect today, and then expect people to believe it as truth?

Is that a more likely situation than the Hebrews simply creating their own mythology and then having it spread virally by saying that it's scary conclusions of not believing are applicable to everyone?

-Kevin

CJD

ex-creationist, insofar as Exodus 20:11; 31:17 intended to hammer in Sabbatarian theology, my point is bolstered rather than undermined. Why must the readers keep the Sabbath holy? Because God created the universe in a strictly chronological and literal seven-day week? No, because he (re)created the earth in six days and rested on the seventh. "Therefore, the LORD blessed the Sabbath," etc. The lynchpin upon which the Sabbath is kept is not a literal week-long creation but the fact that God "rested on the seventh-day." The literary framework I pointed out in the above post has as its pinnacle the Sabbath. Surely, we all can see this. Whether or not (re)creation was accomplished in a literal week is quite beside the point. That's why modern science, insofar as it is not abused (by rabid atheists or YEC-scientists), never contradicts biblical theology; rather, they are complimentary (not in harmony!) with one another.

Even though we can see the literary framework in our English translations, it jumps out more clearly in the Hebrew, as do the many other literary elements of the Genesis narrative. One such example is Noah's flood, as you have already pointed out. Just because something is written poetically does not mean it is not "historical," it just means it cannot be read like a modern historical textbook (in fact, none of the Scriptures should be read in that way). What the biblical writer/editor intended for the flood account, I think, was for it to be a polemic against other circulating ANE flood myths (Sumerian epic, et al.). Besides, I assume your problem with the account is not that a local flood in the Mediterranean valley occurred about 5,000 years ago (there's nothing stupendous about that), but that the account itself asserts that God was governing the whole event.

As an aside, if the average reader could just take a glimpse at the sophisticated structure of the Tanak as a whole, I think they would be far less willing to criticize its stories (unless, of course, they've decided at the outset that it is worthless). Can someone tell me what the text means while not knowing how the text means? To be sure, meaning can be garnered from the text without knowledge of formal textual criticism, etc., but the reader is missing out if the message conveyed in the structure of the text is entirely ignored.

emotional: thanks for your thoughtful response. Serious theological enquiry is rare around here--and refreshing when found.

First, "the Christian view death" assumes that there is a long line of Christian majority opinions from the time of Christ Jesus that agree on when, where, and how death came into the world. A short historical study will reveal to you that such is not the case. Nonetheless, I do think you have espoused something close to a "Christian view of death"--with a few oversights.

It seems to me that you have not considered one possibility re: death before the Fall. It is "the death of the chase." Maybe violent death came as a result of the Fall? (my apologies to you and steadele if this was already mentioned). At any rate, I disagree with you when you write that bible--without doubt--teaches that all death came into the world as a result of one man's sin, etc. I don't think it's all that clear. At any rate, one need not be a YEC and hold that human death entered into the world through a literal Adam at the time of the Fall. The fossil record proves the YEC view wrong anyway. In fact, right before the first humans appeared, massive death is recorded in the rocks for us. It's interesting that all kinds of animals, including bipedal something-or-others, have been found dead and very old. But it's also interesting that, AFAIK, we have no human deaths recorded earlier than 12,000 BCE. In sum, and based on your own criteria, Xianity remains relevant insofar as it speaks about overcoming human death and "the death of the chase"--not to mention the most significant death of all, that of spiritual death--which may be the only death in view when the biblical authors speak of death coming into the world through one man, etc. What does nature groan about? It seeks for the time when "the lion will lay down with the lamb," when "the death of the chase" is no longer a threat.

It seems to me, emotional, that your personal reasons for rejecting the Xian faith are on shaky ground, because I think you may misunderstand "the whole Christian mission." How can I say such a thing? Well, if you are right, then I am wrong, and I would subsequently be the most miserable of fools.

Regards,

CJD

excreationist

Though Martin Luther believed in a literal 6 days, I also talked about this:
"3761 BCE: Ancient Jewish scholars placed creation at this date; this became the basis of the Jewish Calendar."
And wouldn't *ancient* Jewish scholars be more knowledgeable about the oral traditions - like whether it was intended to be literal, etc?

Besides not responding to a lot of my points you come up with personal attacks like this.

Are you saying that my reason for living is posting stuff like this? Even if it is, it is irrelevant to the accuracy of my posts.

Well that genealogy page I linked to earlier was actually created by me.
Basically, the people before the flood lived to about 900. The exception is Lamech - he only lived to 777. That seems to emphasize Genesis 4:24 which talks about 7 and 77. The other ages don't seem to have much special significance. The age when the ancestors gave birth to the next at line ("age at fatherhood") varies a lot before the flood - from 65 years, to Noah's 502.

After the flood there is a statistically significant pattern... the lifespans *generally* got smaller. This would be to explain why no-one today lives to be 900. The "age at fatherhood" is usually about 30 but it varied too.
Anyway, you said (something like) that Genesis 1 had very clear symmetry, etc - and therefore wasn't literal... so where are all the obvious patterns in this? I see only maybe 4 isolated patterns - like the 777, the average age of about 900-950 before the flood, the *rough* decline in lifespans after the flood, and that the age of fatherhood of the next in line is *often* *around* 30. (Not always, and not exactly 30). Also, they made sure that all of Noah's ancestors were dead and none of his kids' kids were alive during the flood. That would be for the sake of realism though - I don't see the poetic significance of that.
If they wanted the ages to decline, why didn't they make the ages e.g. 900 then 800 then 700 then 600, etc? That would seem more obviously artificial. WHY did they go to the trouble of all that realism? WHY did the well-respected ancient Jewish scholars who calculated the date of creation assume the dates were literal? Wouldn't they be aware of the meaning of the passages through their ancestors and peers? (Like how we might speak of Santa in a literal sense, but be aware that he isn't literal due to others telling us)

Well basically it says "the son of.... the son of...", etc, then ends with "the son of Adam, the son of God."
And the genealogy happens to exactly agree with the one in Genesis (with the exception of Cainan, but this problem isn't present in the Greek Septuagint version of Genesis). (Answers In Genesis resolves this by explaining that there was a copying error in Luke 3.)
So what part of Luke 3 proves that those ancestors were fictional? Joseph is also part of that same genealogy - is he fictional?

I asked you things like whether you believe that the poem-like structure of the flood proves that it was intended by its authors to be viewed as non-literal... that is a yes or no question. I guess you'd rather make personal attacks.

Jack the Bodiless

Denis:

...Um, no. It should be rather obvious that the atheists around here do not believe that God came out of heaven, put a pen in a scribe's hand, and starting dictating away. What with him not existing and all.

And you accuse US of using strawmen?

This sort of pompous, condescending attitude is familiar to us, and entirely counterproductive. Do not assume that we "don't understand hermeneutics" simply because we disagree with your position. You need to understand that OUR position is that hermeneutics, and Christian apologetics in general, are largely excuses necessitated by the actual falsehood of the Bible. I suggest that some of the people here understand them better than any Christian theologian does.

Now are we going to discuss evolution or Biblical creation here, or are we not?

excreationist

steadele:
I do not think it is the same tree though,
It says "THE" tree of life in Revelation... maybe it is a copy... or maybe a more accurate translation is "A" tree of life.

since I believe Eden was destroyed during the flood (but that is a different ball of wax entirely).
Well the flood apparently covered the tops of mountains so it would imply that Eden was underwater and therefore probably destroyed.

Actually, my point is that the garden was a special (it had at least two trees with spiritual properties), prepared (not chaotic, and requiring little work to maintain compared to wild environments), and protected place. So my point is......if the entire world was "perfect" then a "garden" would not have been necessary. The entire world would have been a paradise.........But it wasnt. Which is why a "garden" was made for man.
If there wasn't any work to do, the man wouldn't have anything to do... I mean after he had named the animals, etc, things would get a bit boring. And God did some "work" too - for the 6 days of the creation week. BTW, early Genesis just says that things were good or very good - not that they were perfect. (i.e. some hardships were involved) You had already said that though.
Anyway, I agree with what you said.

I accept your answer, but with some reservation. I say this because I have never met or interacted with (or even heard of) a YEC who believed in animal death before the fall.
Well, how about I make the people I'm talking about the ancient Jewish scholars who made the Jewish calender (rather than "YEC's") - they seemed to have believed in 6 literal days yet might have also believed in animal death before the fall.

If you think the animals diet was important enough to mention in Genesis 1, then it is inconsistant to think a fundamental change in that diet would have been omitted. It really just does not make sense, and I have heard 0 good YEC answers for it.
The ancient Hebrews and early Christians who believed in 6 literal days might have believed that animals were always carniverous. I don't know what they believed. Whatever they believed, they would have some justification for it. BTW, in early Genesis it mentions them eating some plants but it doesn't explicitly mention the existence of meat-eating animals. Perhaps this is evidence that there were only meant to be plant eating animals at that time.
It seems that humans may have been vegetarian before the fall, then omnivores after. In Genesis 2:16 it says "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden" - but there is no mention of any other kind of eating. In Gen 3:21, God gave them garments of skin (YEC's would say he sacrificed an animal), then there is mention of Abel being a shepherd. (for meat)
BTW, Isaiah 65:25 and 11:6-9 talks about lions eating straw, etc, though is at God's mountain (where he lives?). YEC's would interpret that as being a hint at what the restoration of fallen creation would be like - so that the original creation was also like that.

Maybe it means empty space with no stars? Maybe.....but I think you are really straining here. I find that one hard to swallow.
I think "heavens" doesn't include the sun though... because light was created on day 1... it seems that before the start of day 1, there was no light on the earth. Either the sun wasn't created then (which goes against astronomy) or somehow no light at all was visible from the earth. If that was the case, the surface of the earth (which was supposed to be just water) would be frozen - unless there was a huge amount of volcanic activity ensuring that the water remained a liquid... but volcanic activity generates light.... (I'm not sure what my point is now)

No way do I buy that one. Evening and morning were always connected with the setting and rising of the sun, not some mysterious light source (which would have to be localized of course to produce the effect).
It could be localized... just not as concentrated like the sun... like how fluorescent lights are quite spread out. I think I'll do some research sometime about whether the ancient Hebrews thought the sun existed before day 4.

They dont do the same basic job? Okay, lets take a look at what the text says............
The sun, moon and stars does what the light source does - but they also do more (marking seasons, etc).

I see a connection here. The sun IS the light source from day 1.
Genesis 1:14-18
The highlighted words are the words that are in the original Hebrew texts. You can see alternate meanings for those words by clicking on the links.

`asah
In Genesis 1:16, that Hebrew word was translated as "made".
I guess there may be a way to translate that word into one that would suit your views better. e.g. "reveal" - "God revealed the sun" or "God presented the sun". That might fit into the definitions they have there. But I'm not a Hebrew scholar so I don't know if that would be a translation that would be likely to be accurate.

I am familiar with that article as well. Alot of "maybes" and possibilities. Alot of speculation, but no real answers as to why the non-solar localized light source was needed to do the exact same thing the sun does, and was replaced after being declared "good".
The exact same thing - and more.
BTW, saying "let there be light, and there was light" sounds better than "let there be a sun, and there was a sun, which created light". In the first one, God is directly creating/providing the light, rather than indirectly. It would be interesting to find out what the ancient Hebrews believed about this. I suspect they mightn't have known the purpose for why that was so, but still believed that the sun was created after light existed anyway.

It doesnt have to mention it to establish the general principle that it implies about God sustaining the creation through ordinary means.
Well he did from day 4 onwards (except for the tree of life). It would just be from days 1-3 that things were different.

It conflicts with my beliefs about scripture. The science issue is another matter entirely.
If the sun was really created on day 1 (based on your problems with scripture), are there any other scriptural reasons why the world definitely wasn't created in 6 days?

lpetrich

The ones that Denis Lamoureux really needs to get to are the fundies, those who propagate what he calls "4th-grade Sunday-School" interpretations of the Bible.

And it must be conceded that there is a certain simplicity about Biblical literalism, one that is lacking from all the huffing and puffing about "heremeneutics" and "exegesis" that one sometimes sees from self-styled allegoricalists. If the Bible states that rabbits chew the cud, then rabbits chew the cud. If the Bible states that grasshoppers have four legs, then grasshoppers have four legs. If the Bible states that Joshua told the Sun and not the Earth to stop moving, then the Sun moves around the Earth rather than the Earth moving around the Sun. If Jesus Christ could see all the kingdoms of the world from a certain mountain, then that mountain must have existed and the Earth must be flat. If the Book of Revelation states that the stars will someday fall from the sky, then the stars are little lights attached to a bowl overhead.

"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

Was it a fourth-grade Sunday-School teacher who said this?

And there is also a certain simplicity in regarding Genesis 1-11 as pure fiction, with no more historicity than many other such "histories".

In fairness, there are also allegorical theological views with some bumper-sticker simplicity; Galileo himself stated that he believed that the Bible tells us how to get to Heaven, not how the heavens go. But what what Mr. Lamoureux seems to be stating is that the Bible also tells us how the heavens go --- as discovered by a long, convoluted, and contrived process of "interpretation".

lpetrich

And on the subject of allegorical views of the Bible, let us consider these:

The Bible's errancy was divinely inspired in order to provide hints that that book is not 100% literally true. Thus, God Almighty had inspired the different orders of creation in the Genesis 1 and 2 creation stories in order to hint that those stories are not literally true.

The genealogies in the Bible are neither very edifying nor very entertaining, meaning that they must have some other purpose(s). And they could be present as a hint that genealogies are very important and worth looking for -- and evolutionary biology is based on genealogies. Thus, those Biblical genalogies are a hint that evolution happens.

emotional

If you say the theme of Christianity is about overcoming human death alone, then you are contradicted by the fact of evolution. Evolution makes no distinct between animals and humans - all are animals on a continuum. Animals dying as a natural order of things means that humans also die.



Oh, you know what the YECs say about the fossil record: its interpretation varies according to the beholder. YECs look at the fossil record and claim it is a mark of judgement - death by the Flood, which was after the Fall.



How did "death of the chase", human death and spiritual death come about? The evolutionary scenario depicts death as the natural order of things. If you don't adhere to the doctrine that the world was created without all these maladies, how can you believe that Christ came as a cure for them?

The YEC/Literalist scheme is so easy to understand: God created the world "very good" (which may not be perfect, but surely not the savage Darwinian one), Man ruined it with an act of disobedience, God sent His Son to fix things. That's the whole gospel in such simplicity. Trying to insert this theology into an evolutionary world is just too complex to be plausible.

Well, the first thing I hear about Christianity, at least on each visit to a Christian website, is that, in the end of all things, the vast majority of humankind will be consigned to a chamber of eternal torture. Naturally, I can in no way wish Christianity to be true, and I seek every evidence I can for it not to be true. I'm only too glad to believe and say that the fact of evolution destroys Christianity from the ground up.

Even without this bias, the question I ask myself regarding any religion is this: is it real? Is it true that Adam sinned, and Jesus rose from the dead, and most humans are headed for hell? Did those things happen? Evolution tells me that Adam never existed, so that Jesus falls away, and eternal hell need not be feared. I can believe in a God who created Adam and Eve, or I can believe in a God who created an evolutionary universe; but I can't believe in a God who is both, because it simply doesn't work. The God of evolution is not the God of the Bible. He did not create the same way as the God of the Bible did, so He cannot be the same God. Evolution, like heliocentrism, is a change in cosmology, and a change in cosmology requires a change in theology.