Is the Bible reliable?

[Root of Jesse]

No, Jesse, science does not have an agenda of its own.
Individual scientists have agendas, and they are parts of communities that have agendas, and people with agendas lie, even as scientists.
Communities and social forces shape the minds of scientists even, for being an outsider to communities, even the liberal, left-leaning 'tolerant' ones of universities, are not kind to those who do not share their agenda.

This is a difference without a distinction, or whatever. That's what I meant.

I am in political forums regularly to blast against those agendas. That is the place to do that kind of thing.

But here it is all about theology, and popes, as educated men, understand fully that the future of Christianity does not lie with a willing suspension of disbelief when it comes to placing a literalist reading of scripture over and above the known and knowable measurements of the universe.

It is not a manner of personal opinion and pride in man's wisdom over God's wisdom that the popes all fully understand and believe that the age of the universe is measured in light years rather than millennium, in thousands of millions of years rather than 6 days plus the Biblical sacred history that follows. They do not have an ant-Christian agenda, not even the current one with his liberal Jesuit tendencies that likely neither you nor I share with him.


If we are all Creationist as believers in the Creator God, we all believe in what the Bible is trying to convey. That would include those labeled as heretics here by certain others, such as including the popes and myself, and it includes those who have been deemed to be holding simplistic, childish, even wooden interpretations of scripture, who in turn are absolutely certain that they have the truth about Scripture in their back pockets.

To the extent that we honestly post here as Christian adherants of the Nicene Creed, we are all accepting of what the Bible says.

Cool.

 

[elliott95]

This is a difference without a distinction, or whatever. That's what I meant.

It is a very important distinction that needs to be made, in light of the arguments against the popes in this thread.

The contention often is that the popes advocate heresy , and the proof is to show how overreach and bias of scientists discredit science to where it cannot be considered to be true.

 

[Root of Jesse]

It is a very important distinction that needs to be made, in light of the arguments against the popes in this thread.

The contention often is that the popes advocate heresy , and the proof is to show how overreach and bias of scientists discredit science to where it cannot be considered to be true.

Well the point is that the majority of science that's reported in the MSM is biased toward those who promote atheistic views of evolution. Ever watch the Science Channel, etc? While a lot of scientists view evolution from a Christian standpoint, none of them ever get aired. So it is very easy to say "Science tells us...whatever." Most scientists in academia have an agenda, most scientists in government have an agenda, and we can say that most scientists in the business world have an agenda. Most scientists do not do science for science's sake.
I don't believe the popes have ever advocated heresy. Anyone who says so, would be, in my view, wrong. Also in the view of the Church.

 

[elliott95]

Well the point is that the majority of science that's reported in the MSM is biased toward those who promote atheistic views of evolution. Ever watch the Science Channel, etc? While a lot of scientists view evolution from a Christian standpoint, none of them ever get aired. So it is very easy to say "Science tells us...whatever." Most scientists in academia have an agenda, most scientists in government have an agenda, and we can say that most scientists in the business world have an agenda. Most scientists do not do science for science's sake.
I don't believe the popes have ever advocated heresy. Anyone who says so, would be, in my view, wrong. Also in the view of the Church.

See post 252 in regards to who says this is heresy. Like all charges of heresy on GT, it does more to discredit the poster than those being posted against. It is a trivial charge, but it is where the conversation has gone.

I think that the subject raised by the OP is still a very authentic and valid one nevertheless. It is not the bias of the MSM and the agenda of many scientists that are the challenges. It is the indisputable data that science has revealed that cries out for understanding. That includes a universe that is measured in a time frame of billions of years rather than days, and a human lineage of thousands or maybe even a million years ago. Rest assured that an Adam and Eve of even twenty thousand years ago are in no way historic characters any more.
We see the popes say that evolution is acceptable and we see Catholics struggle to synchronize the two accounts of our origins in a thousand different ways. and to pretend that it is just Catholics who have to struggle with this is part of the same pathetic joke that labels the popes as the heretics. It is not a question of heretic popes or scientists with an agenda. Not at all.

And where does it end?

Poetry or not, the Genesis account of creation is an integral step of a sacred history of the human race that continues through all the centenarian patriarchs through Abraham and Jacob and David right up to the cross itself.

We are all in the position of having to pick and choose which miracles are historic and which are poetry and literary devises.

 

[BobRyan]

I think if we are going to debate YEC and OEC doctrines than I think this thread should be moved to the origins forum.

In the case the focus is the text of Genesis 1-2 and Ex 20:11. The question remains "is the Bible reliable" or should we toss it out the window as the atheist evolutionists would have it.

Is the pure eisegesis of the Bible bending/wrenching efforts to marry the Bible to blind faith evolutionism doing damage to the Word of God for the sake of an outside external-to-the-text agenda?

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

It is your opinion, and that, only, that we believe the Bible to be unreliable. But the Gospel was spoken before it was written, sir. The Catholic Church holds to a literal Adam and Eve, .

one man - one woman the parents of all mankind - and one sinless perfect Adam created in the 7 real days of creation so real a 7 day week that "SIX DAYS you shall labor...for in SIX DAYS the Lord made..."

Arguments against the 7 day timeline that we find both in the historic account of origins and in the legal code of the Bible - are not made because of the text -- they are made in spite of the details in the text as noted below.


Arguments against the text - and its 7 day literal timeline are made "in spite of the text" -- not because of it.

The self-conflicted cognitive dissonance that some denomination will swallow in an effort to marry blind faith evolutionism to the text of Genesis - is apparent.

==========================================


Originally Posted by BobRyan

A perfect example of the much-to-be-ignored 7 day timeline that is given in the Bible account of our origins.

Gen 1

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.


Gen 2
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.
4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens

Ex 20:8-11 "SIX days you shall labor...for in SIX Days the Lord MADE ...."

Need even more help??

Ex 20:11
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.


=====================

And there is simply no way the newly free egyptian slaves were going to go through all the "flights of fancy" that some have inserted on this thread trying to wrench the text away from its stated 7 day timeline when they themselves would have to hold to it - on a weekly basis,.
​

 

[BobRyan]

The evolution of mankind would not have happened from one man and one woman, but as a group .

One of many contradictions between blind faith evolutionism and the Bible - which brought Darwin to his final anti-Gospel conclusion.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

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,

I am not sure that there is any part of that statement that is wrong.

 

[BobRyan]

I notice that Walter Veith shows up a number of times in that post - #260

He was an atheist pro-evol professor who loved to destroy the faith of Christian students in his class - until he became a Christian.

 

[Root of Jesse]

one man - one woman the parents of all mankind - and one sinless perfect Adam created in the 7 real days of creation so real a 7 day week that "SIX DAYS you shall labor...for in SIX DAYS the Lord made..."

Arguments against the 7 day timeline that we find both in the historic account of origins and in the legal code of the Bible - are not made because of the text -- they are made in spite of the details in the text as noted below.


Arguments against the text - and its 7 day literal timeline are made "in spite of the text" -- not because of it.

The self-conflicted cognitive dissonance that some denomination will swallow in an effort to marry blind faith evolutionism to the text of Genesis - is apparent.

==========================================


Originally Posted by BobRyan

A perfect example of the much-to-be-ignored 7 day timeline that is given in the Bible account of our origins.

Gen 1

24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind”; and it was so. 25 And God made the beast of the earth according to its kind, cattle according to its kind, and everything that creeps on the earth according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.
26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
29 And God said, “See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be for food. 30 Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. 31 Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day.


Gen 2
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.
4 This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens

Ex 20:8-11 "SIX days you shall labor...for in SIX Days the Lord MADE ...."

Need even more help??

Ex 20:11
11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.


=====================

And there is simply no way the newly free egyptian slaves were going to go through all the "flights of fancy" that some have inserted on this thread trying to wrench the text away from its stated 7 day timeline when they themselves would have to hold to it - on a weekly basis,.
​

Why do you restrict God to the laws God made for Man? And where, in Scripture is it shown that Archangel Michael incarnated as Jesus Christ? By the way, I have never argued against a 7 day timeline...FYI.

 

[elliott95]

One of many contradictions between blind faith evolutionism and the Bible - which brought Darwin to his final anti-Gospel conclusion.

in Christ,

Bob

What is your basis for that kind of understanding?

 

[BobRyan]

What is your basis for that belief>

The Belief that Darwin claimed his rejection of the Bible was false once contrasted with his devotion-to-the-death to the idea of blind faith evolutionism?

[FONT=&quot]By further reflecting… that [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracle become[/FONT][FONT=&quot], - that the men of the time were ignorant [/FONT][FONT=&quot]and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible to us,- that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,- that they differ in many important details…[/FONT][FONT=&quot]


[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation[/FONT][FONT=&quot]…. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans… which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate but was at last complete.[/FONT][FONT=&quot] The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct[/FONT]...
[FONT=&quot]I can, indeed, hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true[/FONT]

You are wondering how I came to believe this was Darwin's view??

in Christ,

Bob

 

[elliott95]

The Belief that Darwin claimed his rejection of the Bible was false once contrasted with his devotion-to-the-death to the idea of blind faith evolutionism?



You are wondering how I came to believe this was Darwin's view??

in Christ,

Bob

No I am wondering of where all the adjectives you employ (blind faith, anti-gospel) are coming from.

I suppose I am wondering too whether or not the idea of there was at one time environs of one thousand breeding pairs ties back to anything that Darwin specifically wrote too?

 

[BobRyan]

What is your basis for that belief>

The Belief that Darwin claimed his rejection of the Bible was false once contrasted with his devotion-to-the-death to the idea of blind faith evolutionism?

(Can't edit that post on CF -- so have to post the edited version here)

[FONT=&quot]But I had gradually come by this time, i.e. 1836 to 1839, to see that [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the Old Testament was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindus[/FONT][FONT=&quot]….[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]By further reflecting… that [/FONT][FONT=&quot]the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracle become[/FONT][FONT=&quot], - that the men of the time were ignorant [/FONT][FONT=&quot]and credulous to a degree almost incomprehensible to us,- that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events,- that they differ in many important details…[/FONT][FONT=&quot]


[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation[/FONT][FONT=&quot]…. But I was very unwilling to give up my belief; I feel sure of this, for I can well remember often and often inventing day-dreams of old letters between distinguished Romans… which confirmed in the most striking manner all that was written in the Gospels. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]But I found it more and more difficult, with free scope given to my imagination, to invent evidence which would suffice to convince me. Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate but was at last complete.[/FONT][FONT=&quot] The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct[/FONT]...
[FONT=&quot]I can, indeed, hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true[/FONT]

You are wondering how I came to believe this was Darwin's view??

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

No I am wondering of where all the adjectives you employ (blind faith, anti-gospel) are coming from.

Blind faith as in no science showing the salient points of the argument to be even possible.

No abiogenesis.

no prokaryotes become eukaryotes.

No single cell eukaryotes on their way to becoming horses.

No "massive decrease in entropy" that Isaac Asimov admits would be 'needed' for the molecule to human mind evolutionism story to happen.

And their own "best examples" of evolutionism shot out from under them when it comes to Othaniel Marsh's fraudulent horse series fully discredited (even by atheist evolutionists as something "that never happened in nature") and still on display in the Smithsonian.

I suppose I am wondering too whether or not the idea of there was at one time environs of one thousand breeding pairs ties back to anything that Darwin specifically wrote too?

Darwin simply notes that the Bible denying elements of his own blind faith devotion to evolutionism (complete with single celled organisms comprised of little more than "protoplasm") - fully and completely contradict the OT account of origins.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[elliott95]

Blind faith as in no science showing the salient points of the argument to be even possible.

Yes. That is what blind faith means. I don't know that anyone is stating this as a blind faith argument though.

No abiogenesis.

Positing that there were 1000 breeding pairs of humans is not referring to life arising out of non-life.

no prokaryotes become eukaryotes.

This is beyond the scope of the statement I made too. Hominids of any nomenclature are not classified as single cell. Indeed breeding pairs imply that it is not even a single organism being referred to.

No single cell eukaryotes on their way to becoming horses.

No "massive decrease in entropy" that Isaac Asimov admits would be 'needed' for the molecule to human mind evolutionism story to happen.

Again, this is far beyond the simple statement of breeding pairs that I made.

And their own "best examples" of evolutionism shot out from under them when it comes to Othaniel Marsh's fraudulent horse series fully discredited (even by atheist evolutionists as something "that never happened in nature") and still on display in the Smithsonian.

The agendas of many evolutionists have already been discussed by myself and Jesse. We all agree then that there is an agenda. I think that if my Berlinski posts had been addressed or looked at, we would all be seen to be agreeing of that agenda at the bottom of many baseless and/or unverified and unverifiable claims.
On the other hand, even taking all of that in account, the timeline of man's history and prehistory on earth, and the age of the universe itself cannot reasonably be made to conform to a Genesis timeline.
Even if the best evidence does not lead to the conclusions of the existing paradigms of science, the evidence does not lead to a literal reading of Genesis either.

Darwin simply notes that the Bible denying elements of his own blind faith devotion to evolutionism (complete with single celled organisms comprised of little more than "protoplasm") - fully and completely contradict the OT account of origins.

Darwin did deny the truth of the Bible for sure. That does not mean he had a blind faith devotion to evolutionism, but that he studied the natural world in order to find out the nature of life in this world.
That is what scientists do.
David Berlinski criticizes the existing paradigm of evolution on scientific grounds that it is unsupported by the facts. For sure that is how a valid criticism needs to be laid out. Bad science disproves itself precisely because it cannot be reproduced.

But this thread is not about proving evolution. It is about how scientific findings of evolution scientists have laid out severe challenges to the historical timeline of the Bible.
and that is according to indisputable, unbiased, valid scientific measurements.

 

[BobRyan]

The evolution of mankind would not have happened from one man and one woman, but as a group and a species.
The individuals within that group would have been real enough, and as soon as they had language, they would have given each other names.
There would have been no time when the human species existed as one pair.

The statement you are making presumes the story of evolutionism.

many hominids all over the planet and evolution taking place due to some pressures in the environment and in genetic breeding that "hopefully accumulates advantages and new novel ability" - bringing animals from some early primate status to having the ability to do calculus and physics as a thought experiment.

So then many Adam's .. many Eve's.

Not even remotely "y-chromosome Adam" or "Mitochondrial Eve" but rather "many" -- no matter the science observation to the contrary when it comes to the human genome.

And no accomodation at all for the perfect Eden, the one man and one woman who having sinned - doom ALL of mankind and require the death of God Himself to recover/restore them to their first paradise state back to the Tree of Life.

But my purpose here is not to drift off into the myriad problems for evolutionism's stories that exist in science and observation - but rather to focus on the damage it does to the Bible.

But this thread is not about proving evolution. It is about how scientific findings of evolution scientists have laid out severe challenges to the historical timeline of the Bible.
and that is according to indisputable, unbiased, valid scientific measurements.

No it is not at all about any scientific findings of anyone -- it is about an honest appraisal of the actual text speaking of a 7 day creation week in Gen 1:2 - 2:3 and Ex 20:11 regardless of how that may stress one's devotion to blind-faith evolutionism stories to the contrary. Setting evolutionism aside - just looking at the text and the damage that it does when eisegesis is employed to apply external agendas - external to the text - to the Bible and the obvious intended meaning of the author and the understanding to the obvious first-order primary intended contemporary reader. (I.e. exegesis).

in Christ,

Bob

 

[elliott95]

The statement you are making presumes the story of evolutionism.

You have to recall why the original statement of breeding pairs was made. It was never to 'prove' evolution, but only to demonstrate the ramifications of believing evolution to be true, in the light of the statement being discussed at the time.
Namely, the statement was the Catholic one, that either way, Adam and Eve are real people.

.....

But my purpose here is not to drift off into the myriad problems for evolutionism's stories that exist in science and observation - but rather to focus on the damage it does to the Bible.

As a side note, evolution is the less provocative term. In general, it does not help the literalist case to continually use adjectives and change nouns to depict the other point of view in as inflammatory a way as possible.

...... Setting evolutionism aside - just looking at the text and the damage that it does when eisegesis is employed to apply external agendas - external to the text - to the Bible and the obvious intended meaning of the author and the understanding to the obvious first-order primary intended contemporary reader. (I.e. exegesis).

Now that is getting close to the point that I have always been stressing to the people here people who accept many of the finding of evolution and genetics and physics. It is not a trifling thing to presume evolution in the light of what it does to our traditional understandings of the Bible. We cannot just interpret Genesis Creation as poetry and plop Adam and Eve back into the Bible as if nothing in the subsequent history gets changed. What does it even mean to say that Adam and Eve are real people nevertheless?

Adam and Eve are the first in a long Biblical family tree, which includes David who can positively be dated back to circa 1000 BC. If you move the dating of Adam and Eve up by 37,000 or so years, give our take thousands or hundreds of thousands, the whole family tree gets disjointed. The timeline between Adam and David is not absolute, but there is no way that we can stick 30k years into it to and still conform to the fixed date of David's reign circa 1000 BC.

To place Adam and Eve into the evolution narrative as the first people is to place them into a population of no less than 1000 breeding pairs, and add at least tens of thousands of years to the Biblical narrative. Since there are fixed historical dates in the Bible too, and everything is connected, this can be no trifling matter. Fair enough that the teaching for Catholics is that Adam and Eve are real people. So would their sons and daughters and their progeny be real people, as recorded in the Bible, and there does come a point that as real people some of their progeny become a part of the known and knowable historic record, which is not poetry.

It is not unusual for Christians today, who mostly do believe in the findings of science and physics and the genetic record, like the popes do, to dismiss away a literalist view of Genesis as a nineteenth century fundamentalist intrusion onto what has already been taught, a rural American phenomena even. But Darwin, who has already been discussed, was in no way a fundamentalist. His ultimate rejection of the Bible as a source of truth was made on his initial presumption that the Bible was a true historical record, literally. He was not a fundamentalist. He was just a regular well-educated Christian making the assumptions that all Christians had made before the scientific revolution, and those assumptions included the Bible being a true historical account.

You may think that I am making the literalist case for you against acceptance of evolution. But as you may have discerned, I could not be because I am not accepting the idea that the heavens of the earth are 7 days plus 5000 years as a literalist must believe. I accept the fact that universe is measurable to the billions of years, and the age of mankind extends to the tens of thousands of years, at least.
All that I am saying is that the implications of this to the Bible cannot be cleared up by plopping Adam and Eve into a new and revises evolution narrative, and saying that they are real people. The implications are not contained to a few verses at the beginning of Genesis. The implications resound through everything that comes after.

 

[BobRyan]

You have to recall why the original statement of breeding pairs was made. It was never to 'prove' evolution, but only to demonstrate the ramifications of believing evolution to be true, in the light of the statement being discussed at the time.
Namely, the statement was the Catholic one, that either way, Adam and Eve are real people.

Then I agree - one cannot have it "both ways".

Good point!

As a side note, evolution is the less provocative term. In general, it does not help the literalist case to continually use adjectives and change nouns to depict the other point of view in as inflammatory a way as possible.

Creationism, literalist... evolutionism.

The point is that it is a religion. For as even our atheist evolutionist case-in-point shows regarding stories from the fossil record "about one thing coming from another... stories easy enough to tell but they are not science" -- Collin Patterson - British Museum of Natural Hist.


Far be it from me as a creationist to be less objective about evolutionism than their own atheist professors.

Now that is getting close to the point that I have always been stressing to the people here people who accept many of the finding of evolution and genetics and physics. It is not a trifling thing to presume evolution in the light of what it does to our traditional understandings of the Bible. We cannot just interpret Genesis Creation as poetry and plop Adam and Eve back into the Bible as if nothing in the subsequent history gets changed. What does it even mean to say that Adam and Eve are real people nevertheless?

Indeed -- either the details in the Bible are true -- or the Bible is fiction and evolutionism is true. It cannot be both ways. You cannot have a pristine, sinless Adam and Eve - the pinnacle of human existence -- eating only fruit and all animals eating only vegetables - in pure paradise as the "start" and still cling blindly to "evolutionism" as if the details in the Bible as stated above do not totally wreck the entire foundation and premise for evolutionism.

And it does not work to pretend that the mechanism for creation is evolutionism even though not one word of it is accomodated or included in the text.

Adam and Eve are the first in a long Biblical family tree, which includes David who can positively be dated back to circa 1000 BC.

Indeed and ages for various persons in than lineage ranging from 990 years to 80 years and everything in between.

The Bible has the long-lived, perfect humanity with access to the tree of life at the start - and the degenerate short-lived fast-dying specimens showing up later.

And legal code has "SIX DAYS you shall labor .... for in SIX DAYS the Lord made.."

All the efforts to marry evolution to the Bible and destroy the Bible's 7 day timeline are added "in spite of the text" ... not "Because of the details in the text".

To place Adam and Eve into the evolution narrative as the first people is to place them into a population of no less than 1000 breeding pairs, and add at least tens of thousands of years to the Biblical narrative. Since there are fixed historical dates in the Bible too, and everything is connected, this can be no trifling matter.

Agreed. their efforts to dilute/edit/wrench the text come from outside agendas external to the text and the self-conflicted result is as you say.

Fair enough that the teaching for Catholics is that Adam and Eve are real people. So would their sons and daughters and their progeny be real people, as recorded in the Bible, and there does come a point that as real people some of their progeny become a part of the known and knowable historic record, which is not poetry.

It is presented as one long historic narrative from Genesis 1 to the end of 2nd Kings.

Wrenching it to fit evolutionism has to be done "in spite of the facts in the text".

It is not unusual for Christians today, who mostly do believe in the findings of science and physics and the genetic record, like the popes do, to dismiss away a literalist view of Genesis as a nineteenth century fundamentalist intrusion onto what has already been taught, a rural American phenomena even. But Darwin, who has already been discussed, was in no way a fundamentalist. His ultimate rejection of the Bible as a source of truth was made on his initial presumption that the Bible was a true historical record, literally. He was not a fundamentalist. He was just a regular well-educated Christian

He actually had training in theology.

And he claimed he tried every way possible to marry the two.

But the "impossibility" he observed is included in what you and I have both posted --

You may think that I am making the literalist case for you against acceptance of evolution. But as you may have discerned, I could not be because I am not accepting the idea that the heavens of the earth are 7 days plus 5000 years as a literalist must believe.

I maintain that the contradiction between the Bible and evolution is apparent and the only way they solve the problem - is by agreeing not to talk about or be serious about the blatant contradictions.

Pretending that they read a Genesis 1 poem of the form "in the beginning God did something in some way and took the credit for all that took place as if he had spoken it into existence in 7 days though of course he did not do that - just sayin" and then later picks up with an actual historic account once evolutionists are happy with the text.

I accept the fact that universe is measurable to the billions of years, and the age of mankind extends to the tens of thousands of years, at least.

What I accept is that the universe is very large and that even the evolutionists claim it expanded out faster than the speed of light at the start. And of course Genesis 1 does not claim the entire universe was made in that 7 day timeline.

in Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

All that I am saying is that the implications of this to the Bible cannot be cleared up by plopping Adam and Eve into a new and revises evolution narrative, and saying that they are real people. The implications are not contained to a few verses at the beginning of Genesis. The implications resound through everything that comes after.

Indeed - the self-conflicted self-contradicting position they adopt not only is a horrible wrench/bend of the Bible text - it does not fit any narrative - evolutionist or bible.

Darwin was unnable to marry the two - so also Dawkins, Provine, Meyers all admit to being unnable to merge the two mutually exclusive views - and so admit almost all atheists and also Bible believing Christians that choose not to wrench the text of Gen 1:2-2:3 in the direction of blind faith evolutionism about "stories easy enough to tell but they are not science" when talking about "stories based on the fossil record...stories of how one thing came from another".

in Christ,

Bob