A simple excercise

[Pats]

Try to sum up in as short a post as you can, what is Gensis 1-4 about? What is its message from God to us?

For me, when I was a child, my instant response would have been that it was about "how" God created the Earth and life. I wouldn't say that now. I would say it shows that God is the Creator of all and forshadows the story of Christ's redemtion. To just quickly sum it up.

Keeping in mind that I accept the theory of evolution, I still don't see how doing so changes the main points of Gensis for me as a Christian.

 

[SNPete]

Try to sum up in as short a post as you can, what is Gensis 1-4 about? What is its message from God to us?

For me, when I was a child, my instant response would have been that it was about "how" God created the Earth and life. I wouldn't say that now. I would say it shows that God is the Creator of all and forshadows the story of Christ's redemtion. To just quickly sum it up.

Keeping in mind that I accept the theory of evolution, I still don't see how doing so changes the main points of Gensis for me as a Christian.

I view the first part of the book of Genesis as basically saying that God created everything. It should be noted that Genesis was written for the Hebrew mindset. We (westerners) are of the Greek mindset. By Greek I mean we follow the Greek way of thinking and looking at the world. We want precise answers, facts, figures order of occurrence and dates.

The Hebrew mindset is primarily interested in concepts, with facts and figures being secondary. What mattered to the Hebrews is that God created the Universe. The order and time of the events were not important to the Hebrew mind.

As I see it you run into problems applying Greek thinking to a Hebrew document. That is why the creation story does not make sense to the scientific mind. Of course we always must bear in mind that God is not limited to obey the laws of nature. So, if God wanted to create the universe in six, 24 hour days He could.

 

[laptoppop]

(in my best Shrek voice) The Bible is like an onion. Its got layers!

One the surface, chapters 1-2 are God making mankind, and chapters 3-4 are fellowship lost.

Deeper meanings include everything from differentiating the Hebrew people from the cultures around them (comparing the one true God of creation to their pantheons), to the first promise of the Messiah and the beginning of the crucial scarlet thread throughout redemptive history, etc., on and on. Wonderful depths of meaning. Wonderful poetry and imagery.

From the New Testament we learn how Jesus is the 2nd Adam, which makes the reality of the first Adam more important than it might be otherwise. By one man, sin and death came into the world. One man, not a series of sort of men leading up to real men. Not millions of years of death, but rather creation out of the dust of the earth.

One problem is that you cannot separate chapters 1-4 from 5-11, and the flood represents a greater interpretational challenge than the creation. The global flood left tons of evidence. You can either interpret the evidence as supporting the flood, or as supporting evolution. If you take away the geographic strata, then the primary evidence used to support evolution goes away. (obviously I believe that the strata gives better evidence for a flood than for evolution)

 

[KerrMetric]

The global flood left tons of evidence.

Which is curiously now missing. In fact the actual evidence says no.

You can either interpret the evidence as supporting the flood, or as supporting evolution.

However to perform the former you have to have the "no science" hat on.

If you take away the geographic strata,

Trouble is you can't do that.

then the primary evidence used to support evolution goes away.

Well the error here is that it is not the primary evidence.

(obviously I believe that the strata gives better evidence for a flood than for evolution)

The key word being believe and it really should be replaced by the phrase wishful thinking. Let's be honest now, it isn't like your belief on this was determined by a scientific program of study and work but instead by adherence to a particular flavour of Biblical interpretation.

 

[laptoppop]

I view the first part of the book of Genesis as basically saying that God created everything. It should be noted that Genesis was written for the Hebrew mindset. We (westerners) are of the Greek mindset. By Greek I mean we follow the Greek way of thinking and looking at the world. We want precise answers, facts, figures order of occurrence and dates.

The Hebrew mindset is primarily interested in concepts, with facts and figures being secondary. What mattered to the Hebrews is that God created the Universe. The order and time of the events were not important to the Hebrew mind.

As I see it you run into problems applying Greek thinking to a Hebrew document. That is why the creation story does not make sense to the scientific mind. Of course we always must bear in mind that God is not limited to obey the laws of nature. So, if God wanted to create the universe in six, 24 hour days He could.

You've said this before, and it sounds really good. However, it just doesn't hold up. If you search through Scripture on the word "Truth" you will find that it is a crucial topic and near to God's own heart. He IS Truth, in comparison to the father of lies.

In terms of detailed accounts -- look at the specific details throughout Genesis specifically designed to support the Truth. Look at the genealogies, with the specific ages of people at the time of births, and each death recorded.

Yes, the Hebrew system of logic is different than the Greek/Aristotelean way. We tend to think and reason in linear patterns -- A->B, B->C. They tended to approach a conclusion from different directions, by delineating the evidence. A->C, B->C, D->C. But *truth* did not change.

 

[laptoppop]

BTW, I decided to put KerrMetric on ignore because of his posts towards me. Please do not expect me to know or respond to what he posts, or to read any threads he starts.

 

[shernren]

Big God made universe,
don't worship anything else,
doing so kills you.

Can anybody do it in 11 words or less?

 

[KerrMetric]

BTW, I decided to put KerrMetric on ignore because of his posts towards me. Please do not expect me to know or respond to what he posts, or to read any threads he starts.

Since I know you actually take me on and off ignore to peek - please keep me on ignore.

Why fib? I've caught you looking in the threads I have started the last day or so - which means your last statement is not true. Tut, tut - you're doing the act what you claim you put me on ignore for accusing you of. Hmmmm, interesting.

 

[KerrMetric]

Big God made universe,
don't worship anything else,
doing so kills you.

Can anybody do it in 11 words or less?

UberGod made all,
don't worship others,
consequence is death.


9 words

 

[shernren]

You can either interpret the evidence as supporting the flood, or as supporting evolution. If you take away the geographic strata, then the primary evidence used to support evolution goes away. (obviously I believe that the strata gives better evidence for a flood than for evolution)

The problem is, evolution explains paleogeographical correlation. A global flood doesn't. Isn't that peculiar?

 

[laptoppop]

The problem is, evolution explains paleogeographical correlation. A global flood doesn't. Isn't that peculiar?

No, a flood explains the same evidence as ecological zonation and hydrologic sorting, etc., etc. So? You can't say the flood is falsified because the flood model does not support the TOE.

 

[SNPete]

You've said this before, and it sounds really good. However, it just doesn't hold up. If you search through Scripture on the word "Truth" you will find that it is a crucial topic and near to God's own heart. He IS Truth, in comparison to the father of lies.

In terms of detailed accounts -- look at the specific details throughout Genesis specifically designed to support the Truth. Look at the genealogies, with the specific ages of people at the time of births, and each death recorded.

Yes, the Hebrew system of logic is different than the Greek/Aristotelean way. We tend to think and reason in linear patterns -- A->B, B->C. They tended to approach a conclusion from different directions, by delineating the evidence. A->C, B->C, D->C. But *truth* did not change.

I disagree. Truth is Truth. God's Truth was given to the Hebrews in a way they could understand. If it were today, I think God would have said that He created the Earth 5 billion years ago with an event by event narrative. In order and in a way the greek mind would accept.

 

[USincognito]

Big God made universe,
don't worship anything else,
doing so kills you.

Can anybody do it in 11 words or less?

The late Johnny Carson, who was a skeptic and would regularly have James Randi and Carl Sagan on the Tonight Show, something I don't expect Jay Leno to do, had a bit where he would be "Carnack the Magnificent" and do a psychic routine where he's "mentally" explain the contents of a sealed envelope and then read the contents. One of my favorites...

Carnack: "Sinbad... Sin.. bad."
Carnack: "Summarize the Bible"

Try to sum up in as short a post as you can, what is Gensis 1-4 about? What is its message from God to us?

I'm not going to engage in "Name that theology" since I think Shernren and KM would smoke me, but expanding your question from Genesis 1-4 to 1-11, in a nutshell - YHWH created and is responsible for all things, not the Babylonian gods, and obey God's commandments and wishes regardless of what anyone else tells you or how silly they might seem (like building a giant boat).

 

[Jase]

No, a flood explains the same evidence as ecological zonation and hydrologic sorting, etc., etc. So? You can't say the flood is falsified because the flood model does not support the TOE.

If the global flood has so much evidence, why did a a creationist, who was also a minister, disprove a global flood 200 years ago? The global flood was disproven long before the theory of evolution came on the scene.

 

[USincognito]

No, a flood explains the same evidence as ecological zonation and hydrologic sorting, etc., etc.

No it does not.

It doesn't explain why we find sauropods in higher strata than trilobites.
It doesn't explain why we don't find flowering trees only in certain levels (the pollen problem isn't just the pollen but pollenating trees are, shall we say, significantly less mobile than pollen).
It doesn't explain why we never find post-Cretaceous remains in dinosaur coprolites.
It doesn't explain why we never find eagles and pteroaurs in the same strata.
It doesn't explain why we never find cattle, sheep or whales, all mentioned in Genesis, in Cretaceous or earlier strata.
It doesn't explain why we never ever find dinosaur bones or trilobite carapaces in human middens.
etc. etc. etc.

Standard geology and the theory of evolution does however.

 

[laptoppop]

If the global flood has so much evidence, why did a a creationist, who was also a minister, disprove a global flood 200 years ago? The global flood was disproven long before the theory of evolution came on the scene.

Who and how? Somehow, I suspect we know a lot more about various aspects of how things work than then. Instead of just throwing out "it was disproven" or "it was falsified" -- please lets talk about the data and the evidence.

 

[metherion]

James Hutton. Paper written in 1785, IIRC book was in 1795. 50 years + before Evolution.

Possibly I'm thinking of a different person than is Jase, as I don't remember if James Hutton was a minister or not.

Metherion

 

[Pats]

(in my best Shrek voice) The Bible is like an onion. Its got layers!

One the surface, chapters 1-2 are God making mankind, and chapters 3-4 are fellowship lost.

Deeper meanings include everything from differentiating the Hebrew people from the cultures around them (comparing the one true God of creation to their pantheons), to the first promise of the Messiah and the beginning of the crucial scarlet thread throughout redemptive history, etc., on and on. Wonderful depths of meaning. Wonderful poetry and imagery.

Agreed.

From the New Testament we learn how Jesus is the 2nd Adam, which makes the reality of the first Adam more important than it might be otherwise. By one man, sin and death came into the world. One man, not a series of sort of men leading up to real men. Not millions of years of death, but rather creation out of the dust of the earth.

I agree with you completely. One man, Adam, indeed did commit a sin from which he died. But, didn't the Scripture also say that he would die that day? Now, to a YEC days seem to be pretty important, so I think we should be paying just as close attention to the day Adam dies here as the days in which God created in Gen. 1 & 2. Adam died spiritually that day, just like each of us dies spiritually when we sin.

One problem is that you cannot separate chapters 1-4 from 5-11,

I see that now. I posted in hasted earlier. thanks.

and the flood represents a greater interpretational challenge than the creation. The global flood left tons of evidence. You can either interpret the evidence as supporting the flood, or as supporting evolution. If you take away the geographic strata, then the primary evidence used to support evolution goes away. (obviously I believe that the strata gives better evidence for a flood than for evolution)

I'll leave this arguement to US and the others. You know far more about this topic than myself.

 

[Pats]

Big God made universe,
don't worship anything else,
doing so kills you.

Can anybody do it in 11 words or less?

UberGod made all,
don't worship others,
consequence is death.


9 words

Good responses guys. I once ran a little challenge in the Creative Writing forum on posting stories that consisted of 50 words or less. This reminded me of that.

 

[shernren]

No, a flood explains the same evidence as ecological zonation and hydrologic sorting, etc., etc. So? You can't say the flood is falsified because the flood model does not support the TOE.

I linked to a previous post which you haven't answered. Why should ecological zonation and hydrological sorting cause modern kangaroos to live precisely where ancient kangaroo ancestor fossils can be found today, and precisely nowhere else?