Is the Bible reliable?

[Astonishing Doctrine]

...That doesn't change what evolution postulates about the origins of the human race in a 1000 breeding pairs, or make these people called Adam and Eve any more historical figures than Lucy could be. ...

Is it really any different for Adam than it is for Lucy?

*ahem*, about so-called 'lucy'-ferian shenanigans -

Breaking the ice - Genesis Week, Ep 10, season 2 with Ian Juby, aka Wazooloo - YouTube

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

I have yet to meet the person who lives outside of his own culture and his own biases.
Those who are most certain in their own Biblical understanding are often the ones who are just as certain that they are the objectives ones, and it is everybody else who has cultural baggage.

Exactly.

 

[ChristsSoldier115]

Then apparently you must think that everyone outside of the Baptist faith is lost, since they haven't deciphered the same beliefs you have from Scripture. Or you assert that they are either not sincere or do not have the Holy Spirit. Either way, you assert that your beliefs are superior to others, but have no real evidence to back it up or to prove that you do not bring your own personal bias to Scripture.

Nope.

 

[sculleywr]

Nope.

Then if you do not assert that your truth is the truth, why should we accept it?

 

[elliott95]

*ahem*, about so-called 'lucy'-ferian shenanigans -

Breaking the ice - Genesis Week, Ep 10, season 2 with Ian Juby, aka Wazooloo - YouTube

Could you sum it up in a few sentences? He sounds too much like Jed Clampett to listen to for thirty minutes.

 

[elliott95]

Exactly.

Then we have come full circle with that.

 

[elliott95]

Personally I appreciate what David Berlinski has to say about evolution.
That is something to the effect that it is much more a dogma than a science.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIOIlCQDNgg

But that has nothing to do with the Bible or Jesus either.

.....

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Lest I am being seen as coming on board for evolution, perhaps I ought to bump what I have already posted on that subject.

I am hardly in a position to have a hugely informed opinion on evolution any way, but I can only note how much it is used as a philosophy rather than actual science.

My only point was to remind people that accepting evolution means much more than plopping historic figures of Adam and Eve into a religious poem.
From anything that I have read, Adam and Eve would have not been singular parents, but members of maybe a thousand other breeding pairs that engendered all the humanity that came after.
There may have even been interbreeding with related species such as neanderthals, according to some theories.

 

[Astonishing Doctrine]

Could you sum it up in a few sentences? He sounds too much like Jed Clampett to listen to for thirty minutes.

I could, but I have already done my homework. If you refuse, the oportunity was still given you. The blood is upon you, not I.

 

[MKJ]

I know that is what the Catholic Church insists upon.

And of course, Adam and Eve were real people. Anyone that is able to procreate must be real. We are real, so our parents parents parents parents must be real too.

That doesn't change what evolution postulates about the origins of the human race in a 1000 breeding pairs, or make these people called Adam and Eve any more historical figures than Lucy could be.

Lucy must have been a real person too. Other than what her bones tell us about her, and what can be guessed about her through reconstruction of the best evidence, she is not an allegory for anything either.
But she is not a historical figure. There is no biographical details that we can fill in, as to who her mom was, and who her dad was, who she loved, or what she said.
Not like there is for Jesus or Alexander the Great, or Confucius.

Is it really any different for Adam than it is for Lucy?

Yes, I would say it is a little different. We might not have histories about them in the normal sense, but even if we read the creation in a highly allegorical way, I think it counts as a written document telling us about their existence. We certainly don't have any other kind of evidence. There are few biographical details, but that isn't uncommon.

Lucy is pre-historical - we only know anything about because of physical evidence.

You might I suppose call A&E mythological in the proper sense, but that is highly likely to be misleading and give the impression of them being only fables, so I think I would tend to avoid it, or at least if I spoke that way I would be careful to say that it didn't mean "just a story".

 

[MKJ]

There may have even been interbreeding with related species such as neanderthals, according to some theories.

I don't think we can assume they weren't Neanderthals themselves. Scripture says nothing about their species. Species anyway is in a significant way a human construct, not something where hard lines exist in a really objective way.

I don't doubt myself that Neanderthals were people in the Christian sense - the evidence shows that they had a spiritual life, so they weren't animals.

 

[elliott95]

I don't think we can assume they weren't Neanderthals themselves. Scripture says nothing about their species. Species anyway is in a significant way a human construct, not something where hard lines exist in a really objective way.

I don't doubt myself that Neanderthals were people in the Christian sense - the evidence shows that they had a spiritual life, so they weren't animals.

The only point is that the implications of that is that our human origins derive from the intermingling of at least two different branches, and not all humans derive from the neanderthal branch.

And the origins of both of those branches, like Lucy, are prehistorical. There are no details that would have possibly carried over to the people of the Bronze Age.
There is nothing historical in the sense that there can be no family tree constructed from all of this, not in the sense of the family tree we can get from ancestry.com, or Alex Haley's Roots.

 

[elliott95]

I could, but I have already done my homework. If you refuse, the oportunity was still given you. The blood is upon you, not I.

If you want to engage with me, there is no way that I have the time or the inclination to go through the amount of information that you have inundated me with. That was only one of many videos that you presented me with, and the first five minutes came off as being rather silly.

The blood of the lamb is never a curse, but always a blessing.
I accept his blood.

 

[Root of Jesse]

In speaking of the ages of the Patriarchs, and the view you take from Genesis, how do you know to turn from what you view as figurative to then literal days for the ages of the Patriarchs. How do you determine where the switch is, and based upon what Scripturally?

I don't believe in Scripture alone. The Church, which heard Jesus speak, tells us, based on the understanding of the Fathers of the Church.

Where did God define what a literal day is in Scripture, so that we may from there understand any later figurative uses?

He didn't. In Scripture. He did, in application.

Do you know of any authors which begin with a figurative example, not already having explained, or taking into account, the literal beforehand?

Huh?

 

[Root of Jesse]

You stated that Adam and Eve were created the 6th Day, however long you take that day to be.

The question, then, is asking whether or not you understand Adam and Eve, being created the 6th Day, to then have lived into the 7th Day, as Genesis 2:1-3 speaks of?

Yes, I do believe that. They certainly didn't die.

Question for you literalists...how do you reconcile the two Creation narratives?

 

[Root of Jesse]

We understand what you mean, but we are saying that by Scripture, and even Science, that it is wrong, an even incorrect position on both counts.

We can believe, and I do, that the problem isn't with Scripture or Science, it's with our understanding of them. I believe the Bible account to be accurate, and Science, to the best of its ability, to be accurate. I believe scientists who leave God out of their equation, to be wrong. Any description of Creation, when and how and by whom the Universe was made, which extracts the God of the Universe from the 'formula', to be wrong. In other words, the only problem I see between Genesis and the modern scientific theories of how the universe began is the lack of God in the theory, whether or not the theory is right or wrong. And I don't waste time worrying about it.
Creation is ancient man's attempt to describe what God did. Evolutionary theory is modern man's attempt, and often leaves God out of it. But I believe the Bible tells us how to go to heaven (Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth), and Science tries to tell us how the heavens go. Two different things which often talk past each other.

 

[Root of Jesse]

A few questions for you Root of Jesse. Please think about this.

You presently understand the "days" of Genesis 1-2, to be 'figurative', yes?

You presently understand that those "day" could be generalized as 'periods of time', yes?

Can your 'figurative' times, in regards those days, be billions/millions/thousands of Years?

Can your 'figurative' times, in regards those days, be mere seconds to minutes long?

Can your 'figurative' times actually still be 7 literal days long?

So, what is being asked, is Why do you extend the 'figurative' in your understanding, to the extreme end of length, billions/millions/thousands of years, and not to mere seconds, or to actual standard length of time, iow, 24hr period of day? What are you basing the measurement of 'figurative' by? What criteria? What is at the "root" of it?

I believe it doesn't matter what I think. It matters THAT GOD DID IT.
Days are used through many parts of Scripture and sometimes are taken as figurative periods, as in Daniel and Revelation. Also, we believe Jesus died on a Friday and rose on Sunday, and call it three days. Was it three 24-hour periods???

Why do you think, as you say the days are figurative, that God chose to use that 'figurative' language, instead of simply citing large numbers, as elsewhere in the same book of Genesis, ten thousands, thousands of thousands, or thousands of millions - Genesis 24:60, numberless as the stars, hundreds, fifties, &c?

As I said, and will keep on saying, I don't think it matters. What matters is that God did it.

Wherein did God define a literal day, week, month, year, that we may understand a later figurative use?

In the movement of the universe. Which is what "time" is. The point is that God is outside of time, and defines as he wants us to understand.

 

[Root of Jesse]

No. You are simply "inventing" the idea that legal code is "figurative" not explicit "six days you shall labor...for in six days the Lord made..."

You are simply "inventing" the idea that the Bible ever mentions "evening and morning were the nth day" as a figure of speech when we all know that there is not even one case of that in all of scripture.

And all of your insert/eisegesis/imagination/flights-of-fancy inserted into the text is the last thing that Moses or the newly freed egytian slaves at Sinai were at all likely to be engaged in.

Think about out - They would have had none of "your incentives" to do it, yet your story must imagine them doing it "anyway".

That is instructive for the unbiased objective reader.

None of your arguments against the 7 day timeline in the text come From the text.

How "instructive".

in Christ,

Bob

Actually, Bob, I didn't invent anything. I believe God did it, and it doesn't matter how. Why do you SDA's believe that I think science is right and religion is wrong?
"My" arguments are not what matters. But I still believe that Religion and Science are not at odds. When everything in this world, including our Lord and Savior, begins as something so tiny you can't see it, and takes time to grow to maturity, that, alone, tells us something about the universe. It took time to develop. By the way, I don't exclude 7-day creation. I just don't exclude other explanations. Also, I don't go about trying to explain manna and water coming from a rock. Everything, down to your last breath, is a miracle of God, and I don't need to explain how it happened. Capisce?

 

[Root of Jesse]

What you omit is that all of this happened on the 3rd "evening and morning" - the "third day".

Third evening and morning -- Third day

11 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.


The text says that the plants themselves were brought forth. The text does not say that the earth merely "brought forth seeds" -- ( a trick that the evolutionists tell us -- takes them about a billion years to do)

It says the Earth brought them forth. In my translation, which, admittedly is not Ellen White's "Then God said: Let the earth bring forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree on earth that bears fruit with its seed in it. And so it happened: the earth brought forth vegetation: every kind of plant that bears seed and every kind of fruit tree that bears fruit with its seed in it. God saw that it was good. Evening came, and morning followed—the third day.

It doesn't mean that God didn't do it. And by the way, I don't think "evolutionists", as if they all walk in lock-step, are right about that.

4Th evening and morning - 4th day


14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years; 15 and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so. 16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. 17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, 18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 So the evening and the morning were the fourth day.


The 4th evening and morning. 4th day follows the 3rd day. But in your story many years "follow the 3rd evening and morning".

Bob, do you believe a day is a day in the Book of Daniel?

Indeed it takes a few billion years according to evolutionists to make a lifeless dead planet come up with plants.

God did it in a day.

It's fine if you want to believe that. We believe the two don't exclude each other.

I think we all can see that contrast. Moses is not writing the text for Darwin. He is not an evolutionist by any stretch - and neither were the newly freed egyptian slaves. what you would read into the text - simply is not in the text at all.

How do you know Moses wrote Genesis? Where is it, in the text?

The lifeless earth does not "produce" a seed or a tree in one day according to evolutionists.

Our argument is that "God CAN" cause the flood, cause the earth to bring forth fully formed trees - etc.

I didn't know we were talking about the flood. I believe the Flood account. I don't say that God can't bring forth trees. I believe he didn't do it that way though, and the text of Genesis doesn't suggest that he did. He said "Let the earth bring forth..." And the Earth brought forth...

Actually that is exactly what it says

"Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made."

That says "God created it all." Doesn't say how.

The evolutionist's point goes directly after the Creator's own claims about what "He made" what "He Created" during each single "evening and morning" -- as HE states it -



It says God supernaturally caused the Earth to do what it did. The Text does not say "And God waited 2 billion years for the dead lifeless earth to figure out some way to bring forth plants".

We call see that clearly.

Where "evolutionists", whoever they are, as if they walk in lock-step, say that, they're wrong.

So the munging wrench of the text should read "And God created the earth then let the lifeless dead earth have a few billion years to figure out how to bring forth plants".

Really? That is what the egyptian slaves were "reading into the text"??

Who seriously goes for that??

Maybe atheists, I don't know. But that's not what all evolutionists say.

Billions of years according to evolutionists.



No it does not. It says that the earth brought forth all plants on the third evening and morning because on that third evening and morning
God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. 12 And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. 13 So the evening and the morning were the third day.


The text does NOT say - and a few billion years later the earth brought forth grass.


The text does not say "And God said let the earth bring forth plants and evening and morning were the third day -- then after a few billion years the earth brought forth plants".




The text says the time frame is 7 evening and mornings - 7 days.

And the newly freed egytian slaves were not inclined to "read into the text" many flights of fancy needed to satisfy a long-future-evolutionist-world-view.

We all know that to be true.




until you read the text and see that the 7 day timeline is "in the text" not in "flights of fancy and imagination" and is summarized in legal code as "SIX DAYS you shall labor...for in SIX DAYS the Lord made" Ex 20:8-11.

All flights of fancy come to a sudden halt as God summarizes the 7 day timeline of Gen 1:2-2:3 in pure legal code leaving no room for "imaginative insert".

Days or not figurative evening and morning, sun, moon, earth, plants etc are all real object and the timeline is "in the text" as 7 days.

Impossible to ignore.

Moses wrote it so that the newly freed Egyptian slaves would accept the historic account just as it was given.

in Christ,

Bob

Moses wasn't there. How could he give a historic account? Even if God told him, Moses had no way of comprehending numbers that big. God gave it to him in words he could understand. But that God told him is not Scriptural, either.

By the way, why did God take 7 days? He could have done it all in an instance.

 

[Root of Jesse]

The bible is reliable, but people's methods to interpret it.. are not so reliable, and that leads to verses taken out of context and misunderstood. You can see it all the time in these forums. People don't know what part of the cultural and personal baggage to leave at the door, and what to take with them to apply the Bible's teaching to their life.

Amen.

 

[Root of Jesse]

I think you'll find that the Catholic Church says quite clearly that although evolution is compatible with Catholicism, it is required theologically that Adam and Eve were real individual people, not simply types or allegorical images.

That doesn't mean that they were not part of a larger population, that is left up in the air.

True this!