Seperating Metaphor from Literal Truth.

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Exd 14:22 And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon the dry [ground]: and the waters [were] a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left.

Here, the writer of the BIble, the Holy Spirit, doesn't understand fluid dynamics or gravity (he says tongue in cheek).

The miracle of the parting of the reeded sea is just that- a miracle, a specific event that defies normal laws of physics.

But the miracle of Joshua 10- the long day- is premised upon a general understanding of our star system. I have no problem with biblical miracles. Divine interaction in human history is the basis of our faith. But it is not the miracle in Joshua that is the problem- it is the fact that the narration of the miracle is premised on a faulty understanding of astronomy.

Was there a long day? Did the sun stop in the sky? Sure, why not. It's in the Bible, and the Bible's purpose is to record the mighty deeds of God. But the record of the miracle is based upon an incorrect understanding of System Sol.

Tell me what happened on Joshua's long day and I will tell you what the writer thought about celestial mechanics.

I can't. That event lies in the past. We don't have direct access to it.

The only record of the event is in Joshua, which records the event as though it took place in a geocentric universe, and that is not how it happened.

This is a frivolous example as an assault on inerrancy.

Ok....

There are a number of mechanisms discussed as a basis for this miracle. None of them are entirely satisfying. Why we should need to be satisfied in the face of a miracle, is beyond me. Many TEs accept the idea of miracles such as the parting of the red sea.

And the parting of the reeded sea is a particular event of divine interaction, premise merely on the existence of some such sea. The particular divine event of Joshua- the long day- is premised upon a a geocentric system.

Lets also put it this way. Here are your suspects: the "WOrd of God" (a title of Jesus); the HOly Spirit (All scriptur is God breathed); and Moses as scribe for Genesis.

*loud buzzer* EEEGGGHGH

Christ is the Word of God. He is not the Bible. Christ is the ultimate and final declaration of the Father's own self, the Father's self-reflected image coeternally existant. The Bible is not eternal. It is not coeternal with God. There was a time when the Bible did not exist. The Bible as the Word of God and Christ as the Word of God are two very seperate concepts and to compare them is akin to blasphemy.

As for the Holy Spirit- I have no biblical reason to believe that every word was literally, verbally given to the biblical authors.

I also think it's degrading to the Holy Scriptures to say that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit like a muse inspires fiction. Scripture is not fiction. The Holy Spirit guides the biblically-authoring community, and the divine events in that authoring community inspire biblical writings to record those events. That is how non-fiction is inspired.

Allow me to make this point abundantly clear.

Fiction is inspired by a conceptual 'aha!'

Nonfiction is inspired by the events it records.

Does the Bible accurately record the Spirit's word in laying down doctrine and ethics and working in the realm of redemptive-history and metascience? You bet it does.

But since the Spirit is not specifically directing events outside the metascientific and redemptive-historical sphere, I have no reason to suspect that the biblical authors are inerrrant in those matters.

So again, to get back to the example at hand- the Scriptures accurately record a divine event taking place in Joshua 10- the long day- but we have no guarentees that they accurately record non-directly inspired events, like, the existence of a geocentric system upon which the passage is premised.

And Moses? This is Joshua. Moses was quite dead.

Here is your accusation: Error in understanding the way the world works.

In Joshua or in the Scriptures as a whole?

I would say the Scriptures may possibly contain error in the way the natural world works, and that Joshua's geocentricity is an example of this.

Guilt until proven innocent?

No. Irrelevant. The Bible is not a textbook of science.

Would you say a rock is guilty for not being alive? No, that's not it's purpose.

Presumed guilt on the basis of vague language? Are you seriously going to conclude guilt here when you have no idea what Joshua was talking about here, since you have a very spare description of an apparent miracle?

It says the sun stopped, and that this stopping was the cause of the long day. That passage assumes geocentricity.

Period.

The best you can do is and the best any TE can do is to say there is ambiguity here as to what the writer meant. There is no other intellectually honest position.

That, or we can say that the ancient Hebrews as a whole assumes a flat earth and a geocentric system with fixed stars, just like the rest of the Near East, and in so doing as intellectually responsibly by interpreting the passage in it's context.

Before you potentially insult the HOly Spirit, a word of advice: prove guilt beyond a resonable doubt. Anything else is presumption.

I have no intention of insulting the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a coeternal person of the Trinity, and the great and powerful force that effected the miracle of the long day.

I'm simply saying that the author who recorded the Spirit's mighty deed (a deed that inspired him to write the passage) assumed a geocentric system.

Did he mean when the sun appears to stop moving it must mean it stops revolving around the earth? To this day as with a sextant, a weather report or Broadway songs, we speak of the sun "Rising". Does it rise? Does anyone think the sun is moving? Why not assume so? Wouldn't that be just as fair?

Yes, and these expressions come from the nigh-universal assumption of geocentricity of the ancient world!

If you want to say that YECs don't have a consistent basis to distinguish metaphor from literal expression, that is a more reasonable criticism.

YECs and TEs are both quite capable of distinguishing metaphor from literal truth.

I don't think anyway actually thinks that God led Israel out of Egypt with an outstretched arm.

But the stopping of the sun is not a metaphor. It is perfectly reflective of the geocentric cosmology found throughout the ancient world. It is a clear example of human error embedded in a divine-event-inspired text.

 

[busterdog]

I have no idea what they are talking about, could you break this down to kindergarden level and give me a clue what this is all about?

Whether saying the earth doesn't move proves a denial of rotation or orbital motion. Stable means ... well, its obvious what stable means, which was the KJV translation. This verse is just obviously about stability.

 

[busterdog]

Busterdog, I was quite confused by your multiple responses, and since they seem to contradict each other, I'm going with the latter. Is someone manipulating your account?



Let me reply from bottom up. Let's say the rule in operation is "if science allows it to be, it is not metaphor." I don't think the connection to "it means whatever you want" is clear at all.

Have you ever read Gaston Leroux's Phantom of the Opera? I don't mean simply having watched the movie. The novel itself quite obviously pretends not to be a novel. It's a while since I read it myself, but if I recall correctly: The author begins not in narrative but with assertions that everything in it is true and has been alluded to and alleged in various newspaper articles, and ends again by saying how he has gotten all this information and further asserts that he has found no less than the skeleton of the Phantom with the score for his masterwork Don Juan Triumphant. In fact, when I read this novel for the first time in its entirety, I thought for a while that perhaps this Phantom was a real, historical figure!

Now, on text alone it is entirely obvious that the author wrote his work as history. If we went from there and said, however, that "The author wrote it as history, therefore it is history", we would be mistaken! The author may have wrote his work as history for every other reason: he wanted it to sound authentic, he wanted it to have dramatic power, he wanted to lend solemnity to veiled criticism of the powers of the day, he wanted to have fun. But he certainly would not intend for his work to be read as history, simply because he wrote it as history!

Not only that, the application of external evidence (in this case, we know the Phantom of the Opera simply didn't exist) does not allow it to "mean whatever you want"! The external evidence will not allow me to read it as if it is history if I want it to be history. Even if I want it to be history, the evidence will not allow it to be. In that way external evidence places even more stringent criteria upon the interpretations of the Bible than text alone does. Believe me, there are days when I want the Bible to be simply historical, to have a poor Adam and Eve tottering around the Middle East and biting the wrong fruit and landing us all in this mess. Life would be a lot simpler. But the evidence does not allow me to read the text any which way I want.

But alright. Let's say the rule is that "whenever a passage has any metaphorical element to it, then the whole passage must necessarily be metaphorical, instead of a scientific description of the world as we know it". Now, we will have to consider a lot of things in the Bible as metaphorical, for as Galileo said

Hence in expounding the Bible if one were always to confine oneself to the unadorned grammatical meaning, one might fall into error. Not only contradictions and propositions far from true might thus be made to appear in the Bible, but even grave heresies and follies. Thus it would be necessary to assign to God feet, hands ans eyes, as well as corporeal and human affections, such as anger, repentance, hatred, and sometimes even the forgetting of` things past and ignorance of those to come. These propositions uttered by the Holy Ghost were set down in that manner by the sacred scribes in order to accommodate them to the capacities, Of the common people, who are rude and unlearned. For the sake of those who deserve to be separated from the herd, it is necessary that wise expositors should produce the true senses of such passages, together with the special reasons for which they were set down in these words. This doctrine is so widespread and so definite with all theologians that it would be superfluous to adduce evidence for it.

I might ask, for example, did God literally speak? Does God have a literal larynx and lungs and literally expel sound from a literal mouth? If not, then every mention of "God said" in Genesis 1 is necessarily a metaphor.

Or was the Spirit of God literally hovering over the waters? God as Spirit cannot have a physical location, and so any mention of His hovering is a metaphor as well (not to mention the fact that the word is often translated "brooding" in more flexible translations, giving rise to a whole new dimension of metaphor).

Did the land literally produce vegetation? No less a literalist than mark kennedy argues that the plain, obvious meaning of the text must be amended here and that the land produced seeds, not vegetation.

Did God literally exhale into man's nostrils the breath of life? And did God literally wait until He had created and commanded Adam of everything he should do before realizing (as if God ever needed to realize anything!) that Adam had no helper?

Even with the one literary rule you put on the table, Genesis 1-3 are riddled through with metaphor for purely theological reasons, and hence deserved to be considered as metaphorical texts.

Lousy account manipulators!

The first couple statements were just trying to frame the debate. I was trying to restate some of the TE arguments, and hope this was close enough for government work.

 

[busterdog]

First, I want to thank busterdog for taking me up on my challege to address those Scriptures that, on their surface, seem to support to geocentrism. I've debated with other YECs about the correct interpretation of these verses before, and all I ever got for a response was something to the effect of "the Holy Spirit leads me to interpret these verses metaphorically." Nice to see someone using their God-given brain on the matter.
I noticed, though, that you only addressed a handful of the verses I quoted, and assume that you just didn't have the time to address them all. I think you've still got some work to do, though. Ecc 1:5, for example, states clearly that the sun revolves around the earth, and the scriptural context of the passage hints that there is nothing metaphorical about it. And what of the simile in Job 38:14? As gluadys noted, that is something that must be addressed on its own, for a simile is internally-consistent. Surely the consistent usage of flat-earth, geocentric metaphors in the Scripture must cause you to pause for a moment. Why would God chose to describe shaking a metaphorical flat earth by its ends when shaking a ball would just as easily (and more accurately) serve the purpose?
Like others here, I also think you're applying your hermeneutic inconsistently. If I understand you correctly, you are essentially arguing that if a passage was clearly written to make a point about some spiritual matter, then everything in that passage must necessarily be understood non-literally. That is how you deal with the Psalms, after all.
But what about Genesis? I think we can all agree that in the grand scheme, Genesis was written to address spritual matters about the relationship between God and His creation, the Fall, the Sabbath, God's righteous wrath, etc. Yet here you break your own hermeneutic when you insist that the opening chapters of Genesis must necessarily be read literally, even when juxtaposed with metaphorical allusions to crafty snakes and gates of heaven. Where's the consistency in that??? (If the story of Noah's Ark is entirely accurate, what of Genesis 7:11? Are there really gates in the sky, too?)
Your counter-argument to this amounts to fear-mongering: "If TEs had their way, they would have us appeal to observation of the outside world in order enlighten our interpretation of God and the Scriptures!" And yet I would point out that this approach is entirely biblical (Rom 1:20)!

Thanks for trying so far, busterdog. Really. But I'm far from convinced of your approach. Methinks it's too full of holes.

I will get through the list with a little more time. However, arguably, I have to make some money first.

I provided a pretty specific distinction regarding the manifest object, parameters and established idioms. You have simplified that to fit your argument. But boiling it down as you do, do you have a hermeneutic of your own left?

There is a difference between accentuate of a theme within an established thesis and introduction of the character of the subject by specific quantities. "Pillars" merely accentuates the sovereignty established in the Psalms. Six days stands on its own. That quanitity is the manifest subject of the verses in question, not an accenutation of an identified theme. You have implied another theme not expressed to make it otherwise.

Your method would also leave vast portions of history in which human beings would be left clueless and deceived. That is just not concistent with the announced intentions of scripture.

Psa 6:6
I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears.
Was David bed swimming? Since science tells you the beds don't swim, you have your answer on your terms. But, you terms are not capable of distinguishing surface text on plain meaning except on your terms based on your experience. There is no literary formula in TE to make the distinction.

Psa 18:29
For by thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.

The latter seems to be otherwise, since by context and other witnesses we know that David fought with a confession of the power of God. It does not require the hermeneutic I have used. Not all of the Psalms are only metaphorical.

Scripture provides multiple witness on essential points. Witness Exod. 20. Different context, different issue. Exod. 20 is about counting days to identify a sabbath. Gen. 1 is its primary example.

 

[busterdog]

The miracle of the parting of the reeded sea is just that- a miracle, a specific event that defies normal laws of physics.

But the miracle of Joshua 10- the long day- is premised upon a general understanding of our star system. I have no problem with biblical miracles. Divine interaction in human history is the basis of our faith. But it is not the miracle in Joshua that is the problem- it is the fact that the narration of the miracle is premised on a faulty understanding of astronomy.

Was there a long day? Did the sun stop in the sky? Sure, why not. It's in the Bible, and the Bible's purpose is to record the mighty deeds of God. But the record of the miracle is based upon an incorrect understanding of System Sol.



I can't. That event lies in the past. We don't have direct access to it.

The only record of the event is in Joshua, which records the event as though it took place in a geocentric universe, and that is not how it happened.



Ok....



And the parting of the reeded sea is a particular event of divine interaction, premise merely on the existence of some such sea. The particular divine event of Joshua- the long day- is premised upon a a geocentric system.



*loud buzzer* EEEGGGHGH

Christ is the Word of God. He is not the Bible. Christ is the ultimate and final declaration of the Father's own self, the Father's self-reflected image coeternally existant. The Bible is not eternal. It is not coeternal with God. There was a time when the Bible did not exist. The Bible as the Word of God and Christ as the Word of God are two very seperate concepts and to compare them is akin to blasphemy.

As for the Holy Spirit- I have no biblical reason to believe that every word was literally, verbally given to the biblical authors.

I also think it's degrading to the Holy Scriptures to say that they were inspired by the Holy Spirit like a muse inspires fiction. Scripture is not fiction. The Holy Spirit guides the biblically-authoring community, and the divine events in that authoring community inspire biblical writings to record those events. That is how non-fiction is inspired.

Allow me to make this point abundantly clear.

Fiction is inspired by a conceptual 'aha!'

Nonfiction is inspired by the events it records.

Does the Bible accurately record the Spirit's word in laying down doctrine and ethics and working in the realm of redemptive-history and metascience? You bet it does.

But since the Spirit is not specifically directing events outside the metascientific and redemptive-historical sphere, I have no reason to suspect that the biblical authors are inerrrant in those matters.

So again, to get back to the example at hand- the Scriptures accurately record a divine event taking place in Joshua 10- the long day- but we have no guarentees that they accurately record non-directly inspired events, like, the existence of a geocentric system upon which the passage is premised.

And Moses? This is Joshua. Moses was quite dead.



In Joshua or in the Scriptures as a whole?

I would say the Scriptures may possibly contain error in the way the natural world works, and that Joshua's geocentricity is an example of this.



No. Irrelevant. The Bible is not a textbook of science.

Would you say a rock is guilty for not being alive? No, that's not it's purpose.



It says the sun stopped, and that this stopping was the cause of the long day. That passage assumes geocentricity.

Period.



That, or we can say that the ancient Hebrews as a whole assumes a flat earth and a geocentric system with fixed stars, just like the rest of the Near East, and in so doing as intellectually responsibly by interpreting the passage in it's context.



I have no intention of insulting the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a coeternal person of the Trinity, and the great and powerful force that effected the miracle of the long day.

I'm simply saying that the author who recorded the Spirit's mighty deed (a deed that inspired him to write the passage) assumed a geocentric system.



Yes, and these expressions come from the nigh-universal assumption of geocentricity of the ancient world!



YECs and TEs are both quite capable of distinguishing metaphor from literal truth.

I don't think anyway actually thinks that God led Israel out of Egypt with an outstretched arm.

But the stopping of the sun is not a metaphor. It is perfectly reflective of the geocentric cosmology found throughout the ancient world. It is a clear example of human error embedded in a divine-event-inspired text.

Do you still call the sunrise 1. the sunrise, or do you call it 2. a apparent sunrise resulting from revolution of the earth? If you say 1., I will give you the benefit of the doubt as an informed person. Joshua gets at least as much deference. All we know is that the sun appeared to stop.

If your only issue is that maybe Joshua was wrong, I guess I can't quibble too much.

However, I think it worth noting that many religious people have in fact indicted God for a sloppy job on the Bible based upon their own misunderstanding of what it says. If Joshua were offered as conclusive proof of a mistake of fact, that would be a lousy, muddled case indeed.

As for the proposition that these verse were not exactly as intended by the HS, that is a very complex case indeed and it is one that is mostly made very poorly by academia generally.

 

[busterdog]

Even if you can show that the geocentric passages are all found in figurative passages, that doesn't show that the Bible comprehends the Copernican solar system. Nor does it show that the figure was not intended to have a literal referent.

All it shows is that cosmology was not the focus of the passage.



However, it does not show that he would be an idiot to think the earth had an edge.

But for your comfort, you might consider the NRSV translation which says "so that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it." I think that qualifies as a completely figurative metaphor under both cosmologies.

More problematical is the next line "It is turned like clay to the seal.." This simile suggests a likeness between the earth and a piece of clay that has been impressed by a seal. One such likeness would be a flattened shape.




Indeed not, but that doesn't show that the writer envisaged a spherical earth. He is certainly suggesting that it takes the power of God to get rid of the wicked, a power great enough to shake the earth like a woman shaking out a rug. So while he certainly does not envisage God literally dealing with sinners in this way, the image he chooses to use is one that implies a flat earth that does not normally move. If that was not his image of the earth, and one he expected to be the image familiar to his readers, he would probably have used a different metaphor.





No, the issue here, in terms of cosmology, is why does the devil show him all the kingdoms of the world from the top of a mountain. No matter how exceedingly high a mountain is, one cannot see all the kingdoms of the world from a mountain top if the earth is a sphere.

One way you can get around it is your option 2. The "whole world" in this case is not literally the whole world. It is, perhaps, the Roman Empire and does not include India, China or the Mayan or Incan empires. But then, that same reasoning can also apply to Noah's flood.



Basically the metaphor is saying that the LORD can set a beggar on a throne, just as he has set the earth on its pillars. Now, if the LORD has not set the earth on pillars, what does that imply about the beggar? Again, if the writer did not envisage the earth set on pillars, he would probably have used a different metaphor. Why would he even think of this metaphor if his cosmology did not include pillars supporting the earth?




An orbiting earth may be stable, but it does move. If the point of stability is that it does not move, then the writer clearly thinks the earth does not move.

What we need to realize is that every writer uses the cultural context of his/her time and place even when writing metaphorically. For example, no where in the bible do you find the common medieval figure of "the music of the spheres". That is because this metaphor refers to the Ptolomaic cosmology which did not come into the popular imagination until after biblical times. It is equally rare today, because it doesn't fit into a Copernican cosmology either. We no longer think of the planets as being encased in crystal spheres which carry them around the earth. Instead our cosmological figures will encompass notions of immense space.

To go back to your first instance, had the writer of Job had a Copernican understanding of the cosmos, instead of using a metaphor that suggests shaking the earth by its edges, he might have used one that suggested bouncing the earth out of its orbit. The fact that the biblical writers use the cosmological metaphors they do suggests that these metaphors reflect their actual understanding of the structure of the cosmos.

Since this same understanding is also found in the serious astronomical works of the time, it makes sense that it was seriously held by the writers of the time. It is because they believed in the literal physical referents that they used these particular metaphors in their imagery.

I think we have agreement about much in the beginning. Nothing here has proven a Copernican worldview, though geocentrism is even less in evidence.

My immediate aim is: 1. eliminating arguments of geocentrism used to attack the Bible and the inerrant position; 2. trying to develop consistent rules to distinguish metaphor from literal truth..

As for the whole world, well that is a problem. As for using this hermeneutic in Genesis, I see the argument. I just don't think we have penetrated the idea of the "whole world" in the NT well enough for this to be conclusive. By the way, a better problem for the use of "whole world" is the order that all peoples be registered. Were there technical details of that order that save the text? Don't know. Wavoka the Paiute Messiah was said to show people the whole world in his hat. Did the devil do the same? Don't know. There were surpising issues with the mustard seed that resolved the problem quite nicely. I am assuming we will get to them also here.

My recommendation is that the global flood be crossed checked against its own language to see whether the analogy would be enough.

As for a "nonmoving" earth implying more that tectonically stable, you just don't have a basis to assume error. This is guilt until innocence is proven. At the very best you have ambiguity on this point only, and I don't even think you have that. As such, this point is just too aggressive in its prosecution of the text.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

As for the proposition that these verse were not exactly as intended by the HS, that is a very complex case indeed and it is one that is mostly made very poorly by academia generally.

The records of the salvific mighty deeds of the great king are the responsibility of the vassal state.

More later after pizza..

 

[busterdog]

Ecc 1:5
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

Do men see pillars in the earth? No.

Do men see God holding anyone's skirt, much less the earth's? No.

Do men see the sun seem to rise? Yes. Does the phrase demand anything more than a reflection of apparent motion? No. Should you supply an illogical conclusion about celestial mechanics if the text does not demand it? No.

Until recent centuries, men had no purported witness to an old earth. While man could deny that earth had a skirt or a man holding it and shaking it, man did not have a witness to the beginning. That was indeed the point of Gen. 1.

None of the offered examples of pillars, seals or skirts represent a human condition for which the point of the exposition was the missing knowledge of physical reality. Clearly, most of Gen. 1. was intended to provide that information as the primary subject.

Now you have another hermeneutic to distinguish metaphor.

Again, Ecc. 1 is not even a probable evidence of geocentrism. It is at best ambiguity with a forced TE gloss, since TE is so incredibly hot for evidence of a Biblical mistake. I see no other explanation for (at best) arguable ambiguity being transformed into evidence beyond a resonable doubt for a conviction of error.

 

[gluadys]

My immediate aim is: 1. eliminating arguments of geocentrism used to attack the Bible and the inerrant position; 2. trying to develop consistent rules to distinguish metaphor from literal truth..

Well, I am with you on aim #1. But I don't think you get to it by denying the geocentric passages. Better to simply acknowledge that the world-view of the time and of the writers was geo-centric (and flat earth) and that they expressed inerrant truth within those cultural parameters.

I think aim #2 is admirable. And that is the real point of contention. Does the hermeneutic which many YECs profess consistently distinguish metaphor from literal truth? (One can, of course, ask the same question of TEs). From a TE perspective, the answer is "no". And the basis of this "no" is that the proclaimed hermeneutic of YECs disallows any appeal to extra-biblical information in making that determination.

I do not see how the geocentric passages of scripture can not be considered literal unless one appeals to extra-biblical information about the structure of the solar system.

Even when teaching cosmology is not the principal point of the passage (it seldom is), there is nothing to suggest the writer was not writing according to a cosmology he believed to be literally correct. Even when the teaching is expressed poetically, in conjunction with many figures of speech, those figures of speech are chosen in conformity with a cosmology the writer believed to be literally correct.

One sees the same sort of thing in Shakespeare, whose plays and sonnets were obviously not written to teach cosmology, but are replete with similes, allusions and metaphors drawn from a Ptolomaic view of the cosmos, which he believed to be literally correct. Likewise, when he references medicine, it is within the framework of the notion that disease is caused by a disorder of bodily humours. This sort of thing shows that just because a "fact" is part of a metaphor or metaphorical passage, it doesn't mean that the writer thinks it is any less a literal fact.

So, without an appeal to extra-biblical information which shows the writer was wrong in his secular beliefs about cosmology, there is no mechanism in the YEC hermeneutic to show that the obvious literal interpretation is not the correct one and therefore the one that ought to be adopted by anyone using this hermeneutic.

But if one admits the relevance of extra-biblical information to permit a non-literal interpretation of these passages, then consistency requires that other relevant non-biblical information also be admitted to elucidate the true meaning of scripture.

Finally, I want to express my discomfort with the term "metaphor" as if the presence or absence of this particular figure of speech is all that needs to be established. There are other ways of being non-literal than the use of figures of speech. Especially for extended passages, one needs to look at the genre as a whole. Some instances were already given. The pseudo-history of The Phantom of the Opera. It looks for all the world like a real, sober, literal history. In fact, it was deliberately written to look as much like real history as possible. Yet it is fiction.

The framework interpretation of the first creation story does not deny that the text looks like it is referring to actual chronological days. But because they are days in a literary framework, they need not be real days. Nor do they need to be allegories of long ages as required by day-age interpretations. They don't need to be metaphors or symbols or any kind of figure of speech at all. They just need to be elements of a literary composition that is not intended to be an actual historical record. The most relevant teaching here is the embedding of the Sabbath in creation, not about how long creation took. In this respect, the relation of the days to history is no different than the relation of the Good Samaritan to history. A literary construct, not a literal event.

 

[gluadys]

[B Should you supply an illogical conclusion about celestial mechanics if the text does not demand it? No.

But how, with reference to scripture and only to scripture, would anyone know the literal meaning is an illogical conclusion? Doesn't it first take extra-biblical information to know the conclusion is illogical before it occurs to anyone that the surface meaning is not the true meaning?

 

[Mallon]

Do men see the sun seem to rise? Yes.

And therein lies the rub, busterdog. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are admitting here that this passage, at least, is written from a fallible, human perspective. Not from God's universal, infallible perspective. Not that any of this matters, of course, because God gets His point across regardless. But as gluadys has been saying all along, we wouldn't know that the earth is indeed round and orbits the sun without some appeal to human observation. There is certainly nothing to suggest a modern cosmology in the Bible. Flat-earth geocentrism is indeed there in the literal surface text, but it takes some digging and an occasional peek beyond the Scriptures to see the truths God intended. TEs are only suggesting that we do the same with Genesis.

It is at best ambiguity with a forced TE gloss, since TE is so incredibly hot for evidence of a Biblical mistake.

I take offense to that. I am not at all interested in finding "mistakes" in the Bible. I am interested in finding the right interpretation that allows God's inspired word and creation to jive. The only thing I feel is mistaken is the YEC hermeneutic. I would love it if the Bible was scientifically accurate in its entirety -- it would certainly require less faith. But clearly it is not. The fact that you are forced to play apologetics on behalf of the Bible says as much. If the ANE cosmology wasn't there in the surface text, we wouldn't be having this conversation!

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Ecc 1:5
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.

Do men see pillars in the earth? No.

Do men see God holding anyone's skirt, much less the earth's? No.

Do men see the sun seem to rise? Yes. Does the phrase demand anything more than a reflection of apparent motion? No. Should you supply an illogical conclusion about celestial mechanics if the text does not demand it? No.

Until recent centuries, men had no purported witness to an old earth. While man could deny that earth had a skirt or a man holding it and shaking it, man did not have a witness to the beginning. That was indeed the point of Gen. 1.

None of the offered examples of pillars, seals or skirts represent a human condition for which the point of the exposition was the missing knowledge of physical reality. Clearly, most of Gen. 1. was intended to provide that information as the primary subject.

Now you have another hermeneutic to distinguish metaphor.

Again, Ecc. 1 is not even a probable evidence of geocentrism. It is at best ambiguity with a forced TE gloss, since TE is so incredibly hot for evidence of a Biblical mistake. I see no other explanation for (at best) arguable ambiguity being transformed into evidence beyond a resonable doubt for a conviction of error.

That's great and all, and Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature (part of the Ketuvim) so I have no problem with elaborate metaphors.

In fact, I wouldn't argue for geocentricity in the biblical worldview from most of the passage you've cited.

But it remains the case that the vast majority of ancient peoples thought that the sun revolved around the earth (or was obscured by mountains, in a flat-earth scenario), and this is the context in which we must interpret the Joshua passage. There is no reason to think that Joshua 10, as part of a historical narrative, is anything but a literal description of the cosmological mechanisms assumed on the part of the author.

 

[busterdog]

And therein lies the rub, busterdog. Whether you acknowledge it or not, you are admitting here that this passage, at least, is written from a fallible, human perspective. Not from God's universal, infallible perspective. Not that any of this matters, of course, because God gets His point across regardless. But as gluadys has been saying all along, we wouldn't know that the earth is indeed round and orbits the sun without some appeal to human observation. There is certainly nothing to suggest a modern cosmology in the Bible. Flat-earth geocentrism is indeed there in the literal surface text, but it takes some digging and an occasional peek beyond the Scriptures to see the truths God intended. TEs are only suggesting that we do the same with Genesis.

I take offense to that. I am not at all interested in finding "mistakes" in the Bible. I am interested in finding the right interpretation that allows God's inspired word and creation to jive. The only thing I feel is mistaken is the YEC hermeneutic. I would love it if the Bible was scientifically accurate in its entirety -- it would certainly require less faith. But clearly it is not. The fact that you are forced to play apologetics on behalf of the Bible says as much. If the ANE cosmology wasn't there in the surface text, we wouldn't be having this conversation!

Not at all. Everyone speaks in the idiom of appearance. They did it then. We do it now. To conclude that more is being said, as in a statement of actual celestial mechanics, requires more evidence in the text.

Why assume otherwise?

I know how you feel about what you are trying to find, but your methods are what they are. The very fact that the large sections of the OT Bible are presumptively human content unless it corresponds to science is really the pattern of the TE hermeneutic. I understand that TEs believe many of the essential Gospel stories and so the claim of being "Christian" as in being saved is beyond my authority to challenge. That being said, outside of a certain realm of Biblical statements, as in Genesis, absolutely every bet is off. God is allowed to speak in unprovable spiritual generality, but none of His particulars have any meaning.

There are some conflicts that are irreducible. This is one of them. If I believe as I do, should I say, no problem. Maybe God was serious, maybe he wasnt. It would be like saying to a Catholic, just flush the leftover host down the John when you are done, since too many Protestants would be insulted for you to take this process so much more seriously than they do. I can't apologize for this division.

TE had a choice to give God the benefit of the doubt or not in some of these arguably vague "geocentrism" passages. TE made its choice. I think TE continues to miss that point. Simply pointing out a possible implication of the passage is one thing. Concluding "error" (which is what geocentrism is) is an entirely different and precipitous step of reason. It is a standard of proof issue. TE accepts a very low standard of proof in deciding when the Word of God is in error.

Am I forced to play apologetics? Well, I have admitted problems in the text. The "whole world" is an unresolved problem. I am not above admitting problems where they exist.

This is the nature of language itselt. It is one of the bases for the design of the Word of God. It was a problem that God Himself had to overcome to speak to people. (And he didn't do it by rocks, except on Mt. Sinai.) I am simply showing you how He did overcome the problem.

 

[busterdog]

That's great and all, and Ecclesiastes is wisdom literature (part of the Ketuvim) so I have no problem with elaborate metaphors.

In fact, I wouldn't argue for geocentricity in the biblical worldview from most of the passage you've cited.

But it remains the case that the vast majority of ancient peoples thought that the sun revolved around the earth (or was obscured by mountains, in a flat-earth scenario), and this is the context in which we must interpret the Joshua passage. There is no reason to think that Joshua 10, as part of a historical narrative, is anything but a literal description of the cosmological mechanisms assumed on the part of the author.

The "No reason" part of your argument is a demonstration again of an intractible cleavage. You assume that Joshua is like every other piece of ancient literature. What gives you the right to do so? Was Jesus just like every other holy man? What claims did he make of Himself? What claims does the Bible make of itself?

The intractible problem is that you cannot disprove the supernatural origin of the Bible. (The editing/translational issues are minor and a distraction to the essential point, by the way.) You can only assume that the BIble was an expression of the times more than it was a communication from God in its every word. The identity of Jesus presents a similar problem.

So why is the zeitgeist of ancient Israel the default meaning of Joshua? Because academic studies are a higher authority for you in this mattter.

Are academics a higher authority for you in deciding who Jesus was? I don't wish to insult you, because I really don't know you well. I simply wish to point out that I recognize that this is a seperate question and one outside of my jurisdiction. I am not looking for division on that point. I raise it as a point of comparison for the difficulty of ultimate claims and the caution required of us in pronouncing judgment, such as assuming Joshua was wrong.

Also, recognize, that I made NO assumption about Joshua's knowledge of celestial mechanics. I simply said it was unnecessary to assume error. You convicted. I didn't. My hermeneutic is thus considerably more rational and scientific because I have not assumed anything unnecessarily. I am the real scientist here.

 

[The Lady Kate]

The "No reason" part of your argument is a demonstration again of an intractible cleavage. You assume that Joshua is like every other piece of ancient literature. What gives you the right to do so? Was Jesus just like every other holy man? What claims did he make of Himself? What claims does the Bible make of itself?

Was Joshua like Jesus?

The intractible problem is that you cannot disprove the supernatural origin of the Bible. (The editing/translational issues are minor and a distraction to the essential point, by the way.) You can only assume that the BIble was an expression of the times more than it was a communication from God in its every word. The identity of Jesus presents a similar problem.

In every word? The divine origin of the Bible eliminates and expunges every single trace of historical, cultural, and scientific limitation?

So why is the zeitgeist of ancient Israel the default meaning of Joshua? Because academic studies are a higher authority for you in this mattter.

Are academics a higher authority for you in deciding who Jesus was? I don't wish to insult you, because I really don't know you well. I simply wish to point out that I recognize that this is a seperate question and one outside of my jurisdiction. I am not looking for division on that point. I raise it as a point of comparison for the difficulty of ultimate claims and the caution required of us in pronouncing judgment, such as assuming Joshua was wrong.

but what connection are you drawing between Joshua and Jesus?

Also, recognize, that I made NO assumption about Joshua's knowledge of celestial mechanics. I simply said it was unnecessary to assume error.

Which means you assumed that Joshua knew something that the rest of the world didn't.

You convicted. I didn't. My hermeneutic is thus considerably more rational and scientific because I have not assumed anything unnecessarily. I am the real scientist here.

You assumed that for supernatural reasons, the author who related the story of Joshua had special access to knowledge of the workings of the universe, which he chose not to relate, instead speaking in the terms of the people of the time... and you are the real scientist.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Not at all. Everyone speaks in the idiom of appearance. They did it then. We do it now. To conclude that more is being said, as in a statement of actual celestial mechanics, requires more evidence in the text.

Why assume otherwise?

The evidence you seek is part of the underlying assumption of Biblical literalism... that the Bible means exactly what it says, down to the last word, and nothing else.

 

[Mallon]

Not at all. Everyone speaks in the idiom of appearance. They did it then. We do it now. To conclude that more is being said, as in a statement of actual celestial mechanics, requires more evidence in the text.

Who's "they"?
I thought that the YEC understanding was that the words were directly from God (verbal inspiration), unfiltered through the fallible mind of man. This is certainly AiG's take on the matter.

The very fact that the large sections of the OT Bible are presumptively human content unless it corresponds to science is really the pattern of the TE hermeneutic.

No. The TE hermeneutic is that ALL content is divinely inspired, yet reflects the historical and cosmological context of the ANE people. They had to relate to the stories they were circulating, afterall.

TE had a choice to give God the benefit of the doubt or not in some of these arguably vague "geocentrism" passages. TE made its choice.

The point has been made here time and again that the concept of biblical geocentrism has been around for far longer than evolutionary creationism, busterdog. Don't try to pin the blame of geocentrism on TEs. We're not your scapegoat. Biblical geocentrism and the revealed ANE cosmology is a direct result of the same superficial, "plain reading" of the Scriptures that YECism espouses. It is no surprise that the cosmology described in the Bible lines up with that of the Talmud!

 

[busterdog]

The evidence you seek is part of the underlying assumption of Biblical literalism... that the Bible means exactly what it says, down to the last word, and nothing else.

As Wittgenstein said, one always starts with an assumption. Picking the right one might keep a person from hell, depending on your assumptions about that particular problem. That the choice may be difficult or momentous does not obviate its reality.

Psa 138:2 I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

The foregoing is evidence, but no doubt some assumption must be made to convict.

 

[busterdog]

Who's "they"?
I thought that the YEC understanding was that the words were directly from God (verbal inspiration), unfiltered through the fallible mind of man. This is certainly AiG's take on the matter.

No. The TE hermeneutic is that ALL content is divinely inspired, yet reflects the historical and cosmological context of the ANE people. They had to relate to the stories they were circulating, afterall.

The point has been made here time and again that the concept of biblical geocentrism has been around for far longer than evolutionary creationism, busterdog. Don't try to pin the blame of geocentrism on TEs. We're not your scapegoat. Biblical geocentrism and the revealed ANE cosmology is a direct result of the same superficial, "plain reading" of the Scriptures that YECism espouses. It is no surprise that the cosmology described in the Bible lines up with that of the Talmud!

TE still has a choice now in its hermeneutic. No one else is here to prosecute the geocentrism point.

Again the point of cleavage: error is error. Whether you excuse it because of the cultural millieu is really of no moment to the inerrant position. There is evidence that God is speaking through the Word. It is a long way round to suggest that factual error can somehow be seperated out unless the Word is attributing it to the speaker explicitly, such as Pilate or satan.

 

[Mallon]

Again the point of cleavage: error is error.

Fair enough. And I'll admit it: a plain reading of the Scriptures would sugget that they are just plain wrong on issues of science and cosmology. But the Bible never claims to be inerrant on such issues. It claims inerrancy on issues of spirituality and righteousness -- the very purpose for which they were written. Cite me a passage that says otherwise.

All the more reason not to simply cling to superficial readings of Scripture.