Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

[Job 33:6]

Well basically you summed it all up when you said that God didn’t write Genesis, Moses did. That’s the bottom line - you do not believe that Genesis was a divinely inspired historical record.

But what I've said is a fact. I think that Moses was divinely inspired. But he is still the author. The Bible didn't fall out of the sky.

I do. As a result, I do not view it through a lense of cosmology. I don’t even see cosmology in it. In Job yes, but Job is an entirely different book written for a different purpose. And even in Job when God finally speaks, He is sarcastic about cosmology.

It's not just Job. It's the whole old testament. And yes it is a different book, but the context is still ancient Near East. Job was inspired too, just like Genesis.

I don't think there's any reason to draw a line separating books like this. They're together, they're all inspired, they're all contained within one Bible.

If the psalmist says something and Job says something that sounds identical, we don't draw a line between them saying that one is historical and the other is not.

Genesis chapter 1, there's nothing about it that indicates that it was written and intended to be a historical account.

Most Old Testament evangelical scholars recognize that Genesis has a form of poetry to it. It's not just strictly a historical account. And I've pointed out Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2, nobody looks up at the sky and sees windows opening and closing to release water. This is more along the lines of poetry than it is history or a historical account that is scientifically accurate.

Genesis - no. It’s not a science textbook, but it is a historic account and as such it can be scientifically accurate. But not always because science does not account for miracles.

Again Genesis 7:11 and 8:2, nobody can look at that and say that this is a scientifically accurate narrative.

Nobody's outside with telescopes looking up at the sky trying to find windows that open and close to release water.

Scientifically, the wine that Jesus made was, I don’t know, like 3 years old? I don’t know how old is “good” wine. The guy that tasted it obviously observed aged grape juice. But the people saw it just appear from water instantly.

We're not talking about Jesus doing miracles in the New Testament, we're talking about Genesis, a book that is over 1,000 years older than the New Testament. In Jesus isn't in the Old Testament, this is a different book written in a different time about different things.

So if God could instantly make aged wine, why couldn’t God have instantly made a 4 billion year old earth? And I am not saying that He did, I am just saying that He could have. Or conversely why couldn’t God form earth over the period of 4 billion years and called it one day? He could have. Why couldn’t God have arranged carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen atoms into an organic human body of Adam? He could have. I am not saying did. Just saying He could have.

I agree, of course God could do these things, but the question is what is the text saying that God did.

Even eve created from Adam's side, we talked about that, that term for side is used with respect to construction of buildings like the tabernacle, the north side and the south side.

In that sense, Eve was made from literally like a half of Adam's body. A mirror reflection in a sense. That's not science. You don't cut a body in half and have another body grow out of it.

I would say, this is a form of poetry. It's more about Eve being equal to Adam in a sense, and so the two become one flesh, they are to be back together as they once were.

Nobody reads about Leviathan that breathes fire and has multiple heads, and starts looking for a multi-headed dragon fossil in the earth.

The Bible, and the Old Testament in particular just doesn't speak in these kinds of terms. It's not written in a context of 21st century science.

But why God could not have evolved mankind out of a primate - that is both a theological and a scientific discussion. And the short answer is, because evolution of something that is like God contradicts either science or theology, depending from which perspective you choose to describe it.

Theologically, we never actually identified a contradiction. And scientifically, 99% of biologists accept evolution, so I don't think they see a contradiction either.

If the Bible spoke in scientific language, I would agree that there is a problem. I don't find multi-headed sea serpents in the fossil record, so if the Bible were speaking in scientific terms, I would have a problem.

But, as noted, these concepts are not scientific. I don't get confused when I don't see Windows opening and closing in the sky to release rain. I just accept that Genesis isn't trying to communicate a scientifically accurate historical record. That's just not what the book is, that's not what it's about.

 

[Job 33:6]

Also, you keep saying that you and I and Abram had a mom and a dad, so Adam also had to have a mom and a dad. But Jesus didn’t have a dad (a human dad that is). And Adam was a pattern of Jesus. So why do you think that Adam had to necessarily have a human or physical mom and dad?

Genesis isn't the book of Mathew.

We're not talking about Jesus. Jesus is God. He's not man like Adam.

I'm just saying that in the Old Testament everyone has made of dust, you've seen the passages I've shared, Abraham is dust, and Abraham has parents.

When we keep ourselves in the context of the Old Testament, we see that when the Bible says that someone is made of dust, it doesn't actually suggest that they didn't have parents.

It's just not fair to say, we'll Adam was made of dust of the ground, therefore he didn't have parents.

Well that logically doesn't follow because Abraham was also dust of the ground, as was Job and the same statements are noted in ecclesiastes and Psalms, and even in 1st Corinthians, Paul recognizes that we are dust.

So it's just not a justified conclusion to say, well I guess that means Adam didn't have parents then. That's not a reasonable conclusion.

 

[Job 33:6]

Also, you keep saying that you and I and Abram had a mom and a dad, so Adam also had to have a mom and a dad. But Jesus didn’t have a dad (a human dad that is). And Adam was a pattern of Jesus. So why do you think that Adam had to necessarily have a human or physical mom and dad?

I would wonder for you,

Do you think that if the Bible were not scientifically accurate (because it contains poetry or ancient cosmology or otherwise) , do you think that the Bible would therefore automatically be wrong or false?

Do you think that the book of Job is wrong because it presents an ancient cosmology? Or Psalms?

Yet in all the world their line goes out, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has pitched a tent for the sun,
Psalms 19:4

you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind,
Psalms 104:3

He causes the clouds to arise from the end of the earth, makes lightning bolts accompany the rain, and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
Psalms 135:7

To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his loyal love endures forever.
Psalms 136:6

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

Praise Yah. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament.
Psalms 150:1

He made strong the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed, When He set for the sea its boundary So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
Proverbs 8:28-‬29

Or what about verses about Sheol?

To Him who spread out the earth above the waters, For His faithfulness is everlasting;
Psalms 136:6 NASB

“For the waves of death encompassed me; The floods of destruction terrified me; The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.
2 Samuel 22:5‭-‬6 NASB

¶The ropes of death encompassed me, And the torrents of destruction terrified me. The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.
Psalms 18:4‭-‬5 NASB

“They spend their days in prosperity, And suddenly they go down to Sheol.
Job 21:13 NASB

“He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the garbage heap To seat them with nobles, And He gives them a seat of honor as an inheritance; For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He set the world on them.
1 Samuel 2:8 NASB

¶“The departed spirits are made to tremble Under the waters and their inhabitants.
Job 26:5 NASB

“The pillars of heaven tremble And are amazed at His rebuke.
Job 26:11 NASB

He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
Job 26:10

The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. “Then the earth shook and quaked, The foundations of heaven were trembling And were shaken, because He was angry.
2 Samuel 22:6‭, ‬8 NASB

“Sheol below is excited about you, to meet you when you come; It stirs the spirits of the dead for you, all the leaders of the earth; It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.
Isaiah 14:9 NASB

Then all his sons and all his daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
Genesis 37:35 NASB2020

Most people don't rent a backhoe, dig a giant hole in the ground, and say "Well I don't see any underworld down there, so I guess that means that all these books of the Bible are wrong".

No, We don't call Genesis wrong when it mentions people going down to sheol, because we know that it's not Genesis' objective to communicate scientifically accurate historical facts.

And if you think that Genesis is a scientifically accurate historical account, then you're going to be in an awkward position of trying to explain where this underworld is. Because surely you don't actually think that there are spirits under the ground walking around or sleeping or doing whatever they're doing.

The shades of the rephaim, hanging out in the underworld.

Surely you know that this is not a scientifically accurate account.

So I would say, why are you treating Genesis this way? Are you concerned that the Bible can't be true if it's not scientifically accurate? What do you do when Genesis talks about spirits in the underworld? That's not scientifically verifiable. When I go out with a shovel there's nothing but dirt and worms.

 

[olgamc]

I would wonder for you,

Do you think that if the Bible were not scientifically accurate (because it contains poetry or ancient cosmology or otherwise) , do you think that the Bible would therefore automatically be wrong or false?

Do you think that the book of Job is wrong because it presents an ancient cosmology? Or Psalms?

Yet in all the world their line goes out, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has pitched a tent for the sun,
Psalms 19:4

you set the beams of your chambers on the waters, you make the clouds your chariot, you ride on the wings of the wind,
Psalms 104:3

He causes the clouds to arise from the end of the earth, makes lightning bolts accompany the rain, and brings the wind out of his storehouses.
Psalms 135:7

To him who spread out the earth above the waters, for his loyal love endures forever.
Psalms 136:6

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

Praise Yah. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in his mighty firmament.
Psalms 150:1

He made strong the skies above, When the springs of the deep became fixed, When He set for the sea its boundary So that the water would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth;
Proverbs 8:28-‬29

Or what about verses about Sheol?

To Him who spread out the earth above the waters, For His faithfulness is everlasting;
Psalms 136:6 NASB

“For the waves of death encompassed me; The floods of destruction terrified me; The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.
2 Samuel 22:5‭-‬6 NASB

¶The ropes of death encompassed me, And the torrents of destruction terrified me. The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me.
Psalms 18:4‭-‬5 NASB

“They spend their days in prosperity, And suddenly they go down to Sheol.
Job 21:13 NASB

“He raises the poor from the dust, He lifts the needy from the garbage heap To seat them with nobles, And He gives them a seat of honor as an inheritance; For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s, And He set the world on them.
1 Samuel 2:8 NASB

¶“The departed spirits are made to tremble Under the waters and their inhabitants.
Job 26:5 NASB

“The pillars of heaven tremble And are amazed at His rebuke.
Job 26:11 NASB

He has inscribed a circle on the face of the waters at the boundary between light and darkness.
Job 26:10

The ropes of Sheol surrounded me; The snares of death confronted me. “Then the earth shook and quaked, The foundations of heaven were trembling And were shaken, because He was angry.
2 Samuel 22:6‭, ‬8 NASB

“Sheol below is excited about you, to meet you when you come; It stirs the spirits of the dead for you, all the leaders of the earth; It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones.
Isaiah 14:9 NASB

Then all his sons and all his daughters got up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And he said, “Surely I will go down to Sheol in mourning for my son.” So his father wept for him.
Genesis 37:35 NASB2020

Most people don't rent a backhoe, dig a giant hole in the ground, and say "Well I don't see any underworld down there, so I guess that means that all these books of the Bible are wrong".

No, We don't call Genesis wrong when it mentions people going down to sheol, because we know that it's not Genesis' objective to communicate scientifically accurate historical facts.

And if you think that Genesis is a scientifically accurate historical account, then you're going to be in an awkward position of trying to explain where this underworld is. Because surely you don't actually think that there are spirits under the ground walking around or sleeping or doing whatever they're doing.

The shades of the rephaim, hanging out in the underworld.

Surely you know that this is not a scientifically accurate account.

So I would say, why are you treating Genesis this way? Are you concerned that the Bible can't be true if it's not scientifically accurate? What do you do when Genesis talks about spirits in the underworld? That's not scientifically verifiable. When I go out with a shovel there's nothing but dirt and worms.

Ok, first of, John is not the same book as Genesis but Job is? Let’s figure out how we are going to treat the Bible. Is the Bible one book, one reason, one context or multiple books, multiple reasons, multiple contexts? Or a bit of both?

Second, is all of the Bible divinely inspired? Did Moses write on his own initiative, or did Moses write what God told him to write? Same question with everyone else. John? Paul? Job? Amos? David? Solomon? etc

Third. I do not freak out when Bible talks about sheoul, or the gates of hell, or the windows in the sky, because I can tell from the language where it talks about physical world literally, physical world figuratively, spiritual world literally, and spiritual world figuratively. I also don’t freak out when a scientific theory does not seem to line up with what we understand theologically. I simply accept that we don’t know everything. There could be an error in our theology. There could be an error is science. There could be a miracle. Or maybe nothing actually contradicts and the only place the contradiction exists is in my mind because I made an error. The only thing that does not have an error is the word of God. Everything else, including my understanding of the word, is errant. So rather than freaking out, I think to myself hmm, I wonder where my error is.

 

[Job 33:6]

Ok, first of, John is not the same book as Genesis but Job is? Let’s figure out how we are going to treat the Bible. Is the Bible one book, one reason, one context or multiple books, multiple reasons, multiple contexts? Or a bit of both?

Well, Job was at least written within the same millennia as Genesis, unlike the Book of John.

Job is going to think a lot more like Moses, and Moses like Job, because they lived in a similar time., and similar cultures, with similar philosophical and theological perspectives. They lived more similar lives than John did a thousand years later in the Greco-Roman world or wherever he precisely lived. Matthew Mark Luke and John, and Paul, they lived a thousand years later in an entirely different cultural environment.

Think about that. 1,000 years. If you live in the United States, our country is what 350 years or so old? Multiply that by 3, and that's how much time has passed between Genesis and the book of John. And so Genesis and the Book of Job and the psalmist, these texts are all found together in the Dead Sea scrolls in the same cave and the same containers, they're in the same cultural environment.

So they're going to talk about some of the same things. They're going to address some of the same concerns or thoughts and ideas.

And that's why the Book of Job and other Old Testament books are more useful for interpretation of Genesis, then the Book of John is. The Book of John wasn't even written in Hebrew. It wasn't even in the same language. Let alone in the same cognitive environment.

Second, is all of the Bible divinely inspired? Did Moses write on his own initiative, or did Moses write what God told him to write? Same question with everyone else. John? Paul? Job? Amos? David? Solomon? etc

People are inspired, but they still write through their own cultural perspective. These are not mutually exclusive things.

Moses didn't need to black out and fall on the ground, his hand magically possessed and writing down scripture, and then later he wakes up and says "oh wow look at what I wrote!".

That's how Islam does it, or the Book of Mormon. Some guy looks inside a hat and he pulls out scripture and there it is written directly by God.

That's not how the Christian Bible works.

People in the Bible are inspired by God, but they themselves are the ones, that actually sit down and write the theological truths of the Bible. But that doesn't mean that God gives them advanced scientific knowledge of the universe.

Divine inspiration doesn't mandate God giving someone a futuristic scientific super brain.

Third. I do not freak out when Bible talks about sheoul, or the gates of hell, or the windows in the sky, because I can tell from the language where it talks about physical world literally, physical world figuratively, spiritual world literally, and spiritual world figuratively.

In the ancient world, these concepts aren't distinguished like they are today.

I think that I gave this an example to.

Think about the book of Daniel, the ram and its horn stretch up to the heavens and it knocks down the stars, down to earth.

Do you think that is scientific or is that spiritual?

The answer of course is that it's both, the Bible, and the Old Testament in particular, on a routine basis combines these two.

Or think about the princes of the nations. Daniel and the Prince of Persia. There's a supernatural aspect, but it's merged with the real world.

Or if we go back to the Book of Job, Job says that the stars sang when God created the earth. Well what is that supposed to mean? The answer is that job is referring to the stars as though they are spiritual beings. The physical realm and the spiritual realm combined.

The Old Testament doesn't draw a line right through the middle like that where sheol is one thing and then geology is another. They don't do that in the Bible.

You know who does draw a line in the middle like that though? Modernly influenced scientifically minded 21st century people. People who have been influenced by the material sciences.

It's the same people who read the book of Job about a fire breathing sea dragon, and they think it's talking about a dinosaur. Because people are influenced by modern materialistic sciences.

But in the ancient world, that's not how it was.

And look at Genesis, some translations call the firmament sky, some call it heaven. It's the same thing, the sky is heaven and the heaven is sky.

Or think about the book of Exodus, Moses walks up a mountain to meet with God.

Well I thought God was in heaven in the spiritual realm? So how does Moses just walk up a mountain to get to him?

Well the answer is that the ancient people didn't distinguish these things, the spiritual realm was a part of the material realm, so if moses wanted to walk up a mountain to get to God, he could do that.

And if someone wanted to go down to And if someone wanted to go down to sheol, That's what they did. Well they didn't really have a choice, but they would go down as in directionally into the Earth. You go up like Moses to heaven, you go down like Samuel to Sheol. And Samuel comes back from Sheol and he gets all upset and he says who woke me up!?

Ya know. These are not exclusive concepts in the Bible. Not in the old testament.

I also don’t freak out when a scientific theory does not seem to line up with what we understand theologically. I simply accept that we don’t know everything. There could be an error in our theology. There could be an error is science. There could be a miracle. Or maybe nothing actually contradicts and the only place the contradiction exists is in my mind because I made an error. The only thing that does not have an error is the word of God. Everything else, including my understanding of the word, is errant. So rather than freaking out, I think to myself hmm, I wonder where my error is.

Yes sure.

I think the answer is super simple.

The text is communicating theologically. It's not communicating scientific information.

Genesis 7:11 and Genesis 8:2, it's one of the most direct and simple examples of this. The windows of heaven open and close to release water.

And it's unfortunate because a lot of people grow up and they go to Sunday school and they're taught that the Bible communicates on a scientific level. And we have this entire culture constructed around viewing the Bible as something like a science textbook.

And I'm just saying, The simple solution is that, this way of thinking about the Bible, it's just not fully correct. There may be historical aspects of scripture that we can still turn to, but science doesn't need to be a part of that.

The Bible doesn't hinge upon science to be true. It's okay for the Bible to not communicate on a scientific level. And that's true for Job, that's true for the psalmist, it's true for any book that talks about the underworld.

It's okay that the Bible doesn't communicate in scientific terms. Moses can still tell a true story from a pre-scientific perspective. Moses doesn't need to be enlightened with future scientific information in order to tell a story that is theologically true.

And if we try to hold Moses accountable to science, that's just going to lead to all sorts of issues. You're going to end up with people who think that Earth is flat, you're going to end up with people who think that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you're going to end up with people who reject evolution, you're going to end up with people who reject heliocentrism. Etc.

When people try to make the Bible fit science, or make science fit the Bible, it's doing nothing but leading to all sorts of confusion in the church. And it's a giant mess.

And it's unnecessary for theological truth.

 

[Job 33:6]

Ok, first of, John is not the same book as Genesis but Job is? Let’s figure out how we are going to treat the Bible. Is the Bible one book, one reason, one context or multiple books, multiple reasons, multiple contexts? Or a bit of both?

Second, is all of the Bible divinely inspired? Did Moses write on his own initiative, or did Moses write what God told him to write? Same question with everyone else. John? Paul? Job? Amos? David? Solomon? etc

Third. I do not freak out when Bible talks about sheoul, or the gates of hell, or the windows in the sky, because I can tell from the language where it talks about physical world literally, physical world figuratively, spiritual world literally, and spiritual world figuratively. I also don’t freak out when a scientific theory does not seem to line up with what we understand theologically. I simply accept that we don’t know everything. There could be an error in our theology. There could be an error is science. There could be a miracle. Or maybe nothing actually contradicts and the only place the contradiction exists is in my mind because I made an error. The only thing that does not have an error is the word of God. Everything else, including my understanding of the word, is errant. So rather than freaking out, I think to myself hmm, I wonder where my error is.

You could think about it this way too, when you go outside on a bright sunny day and the sky is clear, and you look up, what do you see?

The sky looks like a vast blue sea.

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

When the psalmist looks up, he sees water.

When he talks about the waters above, he's just looking up and seeing the beautiful blue sky and he's expressing that through his worldview. He lives 3000 years ago before he knows why the sky is actually blue, but he's going to describe it the best way he can, he's going to describe it as this beautiful water above the heavens, the waters above.

Or at night time when you look up, Genesis tells us that God set the stars in the heavens.

Do you think that's a spiritual realm or a human realm? The answer is that it's both.

Back to Job, were you there when the morning stars sang? When they sang in praise of my creation?

‭‭Job 38:7 NIV‬‬
[7] while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

We all know this verse, here we have stars and angels singing, together. Shouting for joy.

Right?

The heavenly realm is not separate from the physical realm in the worldview of the Old Testament authors. The stars, that we think of as these burning balls of fire, in the ancient world, they were a part of the heavenly host. Especially if there was a shooting star that moved across the sky, maybe it was alive, something was moving around up there alive in the heavens doing things.

And that's why the Bible has so many verses about spiritual warfare that are combined with heavenly combat or activity. Back to the Book of Daniel, the Rams horns reach up to the heavens and strike down the stars down to earth.

Do you see it? There is no clear separate line between the real world, or the physical world, and the supernatural world.

So when you go back and you read Genesis, and it talks about Waters above and waters below, the waters above the heavens, it's not talking about clouds.

It means literally what it says, the waters above. An ocean.

That's what Genesis is actually describing.

And that's why when Noah's flood comes around, the windows of heaven open and they release that ocean. And the earth is completely destroyed, it's returned to a precreation state.

That's more of the theology that people are missing when they don't see what the Bible's actually talking about.

 

[Job 33:6]

You could think about it this way too, when you go outside on a bright sunny day and the sky is clear, and you look up, what do you see?

The sky looks like a vast blue sea.

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

When the psalmist looks up, he sees water.

When he talks about the waters above, he's just looking up and seeing the beautiful blue sky and he's expressing that through his worldview. He lives 3000 years ago before he knows why the sky is actually blue, but he's going to describe it the best way he can, he's going to describe it as this beautiful water above the heavens, the waters above.

Or at night time when you look up, Genesis tells us that God set the stars in the heavens.

Do you think that's a spiritual realm or a human realm? The answer is that it's both.

Back to Job, were you there when the morning stars sang? When they sang in praise of my creation?

‭‭Job 38:7 NIV‬‬
[7] while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?

We all know this verse, here we have stars and angels singing, together. Shouting for joy.

Right?

The heavenly realm is not separate from the physical realm in the worldview of the Old Testament authors. The stars, that we think of as these burning balls of fire, in the ancient world, they were a part of the heavenly host. Especially if there was a shooting star that moved across the sky, maybe it was alive, something was moving around up there alive in the heavens doing things.

And that's why the Bible has so many verses about spiritual warfare that are combined with heavenly combat or activity. Back to the Book of Daniel, the Rams horns reach up to the heavens and strike down the stars down to earth.

Do you see it? There is no clear separate line between the real world, or the physical world, and the supernatural world.

So when you go back and you read Genesis, and it talks about Waters above and waters below, the waters above the heavens, it's not talking about clouds.

It means literally what it says, the waters above. An ocean.

That's what Genesis is actually describing.

And that's why when Noah's flood comes around, the windows of heaven open and they release that ocean. And the earth is completely destroyed, it's returned to a precreation state.

That's more of the theology that people are missing when they don't see what the Bible's actually talking about.

And many extra biblical texts affirm this. You can read the book of Enoch or The Book of jubilees or the book of the Giants, or you can read all sorts of Jewish literature through the second temple period etc.

This is truly a traditional understanding of these texts.

Before the classical period and before we moved into more scientifically driven cultural thought. This is just how it was back then.

And it might sound really strange to us today because we're 3000 years removed. If someone came up to you today and said that there's an ocean in the sky, you think they were crazy, like what are you talking about?

But you have to understand, Genesis is such an ancient text, that the entire world view of these authors is different, the way they think is different, the way they think about the cosmos is different, the way they think about the material world and the spiritual world is different.

 

[stevevw]

I use the term evolution biologically and technically. It describes the process by which populations of organisms change over time through successive generations. It is driven by natural selection, genetic drift, mutation, and gene flow.

Can you be Christian and believe in evolution?

Sure, but you don't have to. You can assume evolution without believing in it. Let's talk about the utility of the theory of Evolution.

I am a Christian. I used the evolution model to implement AI programs. They are called evolutionary algorithms. You don't have to believe in evolution to work with it. If you search US patents in the last ten years, you will find many applications of evolution models. The theory of evolution has practical values. The US economy benefits from it. You cannot deny its utility.

Unlike other branches of hard science, evolution has less mathematical support. Nevertheless, it is a useful paradigm.

The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer

If the theory works in daily practical life, there is no need to reject it. There is no need to believe in it either in the sense of spiritual faith.

See also

• Adam, Eve, and evolution
• How old is the earth?.

I think your right in seperating the mechanistic and rational aspect from the spiritual and experiential. We can understand a mechanism or process but sometimes that seems not enough to account for what we experience and intuit about how life is and works.

I think it was Galilao who wanted to seperate science from experience, take the subject out of the measurement. Now many are calling for science and philosophy to be united again as it seems we cannot really do science without the subject and observer getting in the way.

So reality is not just about rationalities, equations and models. There's an experiential and spiritual aspect that cannot be seperated out. Any theory of evolution has to include the subject, their Mind and Consciousness and what role agency and teleology plays in evolution.

In that way living creatures are not just passive blobs of cells and proteins being changed through material mechanisms with the only aim of survival of the fittest or luckiest but we are active and central players in the game of life. Having agency and ability to direct our own evolution for better or worse.

 

[Job 33:6]

Alright, shall we move on to the science side of things? It's been awhile, I'm probably rusty. But I bet I've still got it.

 

[olgamc]

Well, Job was at least written within the same millennia as Genesis, unlike the Book of John.

Well Malachi was written about 400-500 years before the New Testament. For the first century authors it would be like reading Shakespear. Considering how fast paced the world is now, and how slowly it changed then, I don't know, it's hard to judge. I am not a historian. I just think that people are people and always had the same issues. In Moses's time the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptians. In Jesus's time the Jews were oppressed by the Romans. And throughout history people have always struggled with the same sins. Sodom and Gomorrah sound a lot like modern day, as well as stories from Acts and the New Testament churches. I mean sure, they lived at a different time and wrote in a different language, but the entire Bible still applies today.

Job is going to think a lot more like Moses, and Moses like Job, because they lived in a similar time., and similar cultures, with similar philosophical and theological perspectives. They lived more similar lives than John did a thousand years later in the Greco-Roman world or wherever he precisely lived. Matthew Mark Luke and John, and Paul, they lived a thousand years later in an entirely different cultural environment.

But not a different theological environment, assuming that they all knew the same God.

And that's why the Book of Job and other Old Testament books are more useful for interpretation of Genesis, then the Book of John is. The Book of John wasn't even written in Hebrew. It wasn't even in the same language. Let alone in the same cognitive environment.

I disagree. Jesus and the new testament writers constantly refer to the old testament, and old testament prophecies are about things that happened in the new testament. The two are very interrelated and in agreement with each other.

People are inspired, but they still write through their own cultural perspective. These are not mutually exclusive things.

Right, but they are the same people (Israelis) believing in the same God, addressing the same human concerns that we still have today. Our culture is changing so fast nowadays, that I think you overestimate the impact of a 1,000 years. I don't think their culture changed that much at all actually. Their lifestyle changed, the NT writers didn't live in tents, and the world was presumably more populated, but still, they all lived in a very traditional very slow moving time period.

Moses didn't need to black out and fall on the ground, his hand magically possessed and writing down scripture, and then later he wakes up and says "oh wow look at what I wrote!".

Right

People in the Bible are inspired by God, but they themselves are the ones, that actually sit down and write the theological truths of the Bible. But that doesn't mean that God gives them advanced scientific knowledge of the universe.

Right

Divine inspiration doesn't mandate God giving someone a futuristic scientific super brain.

Right
But think about John's vision in Revelations 8:10-11. "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter."
Roughly 2,000 years after John wrote this, there was a nuclear disaster in a Ukrainian town called Chernobyl. Chernobyl is Wormwood. Wormwood is a plant. Chernobyl is a Russian name for a plant of wormwood family. So now, 2000 years after the prophecy was written, it is obvious that John is talking about some nuclear event, maybe a bomb, maybe some other nuclear event that poisons 1/3 of the world's water. John didn't know the science behind it, so he expressed what he saw in a vision with the words that he had. "A great star, blazing like a torch" - John didn't know about ballistic weapons with nuclear warheads, or whatever God may have shown him. But we, his readers, can understand so much more than John because we know these things. Of course we will not know for sure what exactly John was talking about until it actually happens, but the point still remains - John didn't need to know science in order to communicate an event that we can now understand scientifically.

In the ancient world, these concepts aren't distinguished like they are today.

Exactly what I've been saying. Can't separate theology from science, need both, they are closely related and interwoven.

You know who does draw a line in the middle like that though? Modernly influenced scientifically minded 21st century people. People who have been influenced by the material sciences.

Big bang guy, whatever his name was, was a Catholic priest. He thought that his scientific pursuits had nothing to do with his religion. He practiced them separately. Darwin decided that he wasn't going to believe anything he didn't see. He decided to take spiritual world completely out and only study the material world, and then he ended up making spiritual conclusions. Duh.

Well the answer is that the ancient people didn't distinguish these things, the spiritual realm was a part of the material realm, so if moses wanted to walk up a mountain to get to God, he could do that.

Right. Moses went up a real physical mountain by taking real physical steps with his real physical legs in the real physical direction away from the earth's center (physics) in order to enter the spiritual presence of God (theology). I am with you.

The text is communicating theologically. It's not communicating scientific information.

Wait... you literally just made a point that it's both. Why are you now separating them? Did Moses go up a physical mountain or no?

And we have this entire culture constructed around viewing the Bible as something like a science textbook.

No, it's both material and spiritual. The study of material is called science. The study of spiritual is called theology.

And I'm just saying, The simple solution is that, this way of thinking about the Bible, it's just not fully correct. There may be historical aspects of scripture that we can still turn to, but science doesn't need to be a part of that.

Huh? Why not? History, science, theology - they are all intertwined. That was your point above, was it not?

The Bible doesn't hinge upon science to be true. It's okay for the Bible to not communicate on a scientific level. And that's true for Job, that's true for the psalmist, it's true for any book that talks about the underworld.

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that we can potentially calculate the height of the mountain that Moses went up on based on how long he took getting there and estimated length of his step, which we can get from anthropology. Or that we can calculate when Adam lived based on the genealogies. I don't get you? Biblical writers wrote about real things. We now know the science behind them. Just because they didn't, doesn't change anything. Moses could have been writing about clouds without knowing that they are water vapor. We know that they are, so? It doesn't change that he is writing about clouds. Just like he was writing about God creating an expance between the water above and the water below without ever being aware of the evaporation process or how oxygen is created via photosynthesis. Just because we know a little bit more about the physical world than Moses does, doesn't change anything.

It's okay that the Bible doesn't communicate in scientific terms. Moses can still tell a true story from a pre-scientific perspective. Moses doesn't need to be enlightened with future scientific information in order to tell a story that is theologically true.

theologically and scientifically true, right

And if we try to hold Moses accountable to science, that's just going to lead to all sorts of issues. You're going to end up with people who think that Earth is flat, you're going to end up with people who think that the Earth is 6,000 years old, you're going to end up with people who reject evolution, you're going to end up with people who reject heliocentrism. Etc.

Right, because people are too rigid. They see an apparent contradiction and they choose a side. Some people choose theology, some people choose science. And I say - why choose? Our understanding of both the spiritual and the material world is errant. Just because something seems to contradict what we know doesn't mean that it actually contradicts anything. It just means that we don't know enough. So why argue and say that we know when we don't? Just allow it to be a conflict for now, and have faith in God, who will resolve it with time. It's ok to say "I don't understand".

When people try to make the Bible fit science, or make science fit the Bible, it's doing nothing but leading to all sorts of confusion in the church. And it's a giant mess.

Right

And it's unnecessary for theological truth.

Except for when science actually helps support the theological truth.

The sky looks like a vast blue sea.

What you are describing sure sounds beautiful, but I don't know what Moses actually thought. Personally, I grew up by sea side. If anything, it's the sea that looks like the sky. It always looks like the sky, no matter what the weather is like. I think Moses just knew that rain came from above, so there had to be water up there. Plain and simple.

The heavenly realm is not separate from the physical realm in the worldview of the Old Testament authors. The stars, that we think of as these burning balls of fire, in the ancient world, they were a part of the heavenly host. Especially if there was a shooting star that moved across the sky, maybe it was alive, something was moving around up there alive in the heavens doing things.

Sure. Have you ever seen a pine tree just after it rained, and the raindrops are still on it, and the sun is shining really bright? Every raindrop sparkles like a diamond. It makes me stand there in awe, knowing that God made that sight at that time at that place just for me. So much beauty that speaks of the great love of my Lord for me, but it is still a tree with rain drops and sunshine and reflection of light. It's both physical and spiritual. I can describe both it's beauty and what it means to me, as God's child, as well as all the physics behind it. Both are true.

So when you go back and you read Genesis, and it talks about Waters above and waters below, the waters above the heavens, it's not talking about clouds.

You lost me again.

And that's why when Noah's flood comes around, the windows of heaven open and they release that ocean.

Right, God changed whatever it was in the environment that was holding the rain from raining, and the rain started raining.

And the earth is completely destroyed, it's returned to a precreation state.

That's more of the theology that people are missing when they don't see what the Bible's actually talking about.

I don't think people are missing out on that theology. The only people who are missing out on the earth being judged, destroyed, and re-created are the people that are trying to fit Bible into science by saying that the flood was local. Earth started as literally physically covered in water, then in due time Adam sinned and things went sour. God is going back to re-create the earth. He is literally covering it completely with water again, killing every land creature on it, so that He can then dry it out again like He did before and re-populate it from the people and animals in the ark. Physical process intertwined with theological depth of how serious sin actually is, and that God does judge people for their sins even when there is no law.

And it might sound really strange to us today because we're 3000 years removed. If someone came up to you today and said that there's an ocean in the sky, you think they were crazy, like what are you talking about?

Well, knowing that they were writing this 3,000 years ago, it doesn't sound crazy to me at all.

But you have to understand, Genesis is such an ancient text, that the entire world view of these authors is different, the way they think is different, the way they think about the cosmos is different, the way they think about the material world and the spiritual world is different.

Sure, our perspective is different from theirs, but how does it change how the world works?

 

[olgamc]

Alright, shall we move on to the science side of things? It's been awhile, I'm probably rusty. But I bet I've still got it.

Ok, so we decided that material and spiritual are not to be separated. Ok, go ahead.

 

[Job 33:6]

Well Malachi was written about 400-500 years before the New Testament. For the first century authors it would be like reading Shakespear. Considering how fast paced the world is now, and how slowly it changed then, I don't know, it's hard to judge. I am not a historian. I just think that people are people and always had the same issues. In Moses's time the Israelites were oppressed by the Egyptians. In Jesus's time the Jews were oppressed by the Romans. And throughout history people have always struggled with the same sins. Sodom and Gomorrah sound a lot like modern day, as well as stories from Acts and the New Testament churches. I mean sure, they lived at a different time and wrote in a different language, but the entire Bible still applies today.

But not a different theological environment, assuming that they all knew the same God.

I disagree. Jesus and the new testament writers constantly refer to the old testament, and old testament prophecies are about things that happened in the new testament. The two are very interrelated and in agreement with each other.

Right, but they are the same people (Israelis) believing in the same God, addressing the same human concerns that we still have today. Our culture is changing so fast nowadays, that I think you overestimate the impact of a 1,000 years. I don't think their culture changed that much at all actually. Their lifestyle changed, the NT writers didn't live in tents, and the world was presumably more populated, but still, they all lived in a very traditional very slow moving time period.

Your response doesn't acknowledge the significant differences between the ancient near east and Greco Roman world and their cultural contexts.

But they are extensively different. Ill disagree with your response.

Right

Right

Right
But think about John's vision in Revelations 8:10-11. "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— 11 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter."
Roughly 2,000 years after John wrote this, there was a nuclear disaster in a Ukrainian town called Chernobyl. Chernobyl is Wormwood. Wormwood is a plant. Chernobyl is a Russian name for a plant of wormwood family. So now, 2000 years after the prophecy was written, it is obvious that John is talking about some nuclear event, maybe a bomb, maybe some other nuclear event that poisons 1/3 of the world's water. John didn't know the science behind it, so he expressed what he saw in a vision with the words that he had. "A great star, blazing like a torch" - John didn't know about ballistic weapons with nuclear warheads, or whatever God may have shown him. But we, his readers, can understand so much more than John because we know these things. Of course we will not know for sure what exactly John was talking about until it actually happens, but the point still remains - John didn't need to know science in order to communicate an event that we can now understand scientifically.

No. That's just your mind playing tricks, connecting dots where there are none. John never mentioned nuclear fallout.

Exactly what I've been saying. Can't separate theology from science, need both, they are closely related and interwoven.

Big bang guy, whatever his name was, was a Catholic priest. He thought that his scientific pursuits had nothing to do with his religion. He practiced them separately. Darwin decided that he wasn't going to believe anything he didn't see. He decided to take spiritual world completely out and only study the material world, and then he ended up making spiritual conclusions. Duh.

Right. Moses went up a real physical mountain by taking real physical steps with his real physical legs in the real physical direction away from the earth's center (physics) in order to enter the spiritual presence of God (theology). I am with you.

Wait... you literally just made a point that it's both. Why are you now separating them? Did Moses go up a physical mountain or no?

No, it's both material and spiritual. The study of material is called science. The study of spiritual is called theology.

Huh? Why not? History, science, theology - they are all intertwined. That was your point above, was it not?

Sure, but it doesn't change the fact that we can potentially calculate the height of the mountain that Moses went up on based on how long he took getting there and estimated length of his step, which we can get from anthropology. Or that we can calculate when Adam lived based on the genealogies. I don't get you? Biblical writers wrote about real things. We now know the science behind them. Just because they didn't, doesn't change anything. Moses could have been writing about clouds without knowing that they are water vapor. We know that they are, so? It doesn't change that he is writing about clouds. Just like he was writing about God creating an expance between the water above and the water below without ever being aware of the evaporation process or how oxygen is created via photosynthesis. Just because we know a little bit more about the physical world than Moses does, doesn't change anything.


theologically and scientifically true, right

Right, because people are too rigid. They see an apparent contradiction and they choose a side. Some people choose theology, some people choose science. And I say - why choose? Our understanding of both the spiritual and the material world is errant. Just because something seems to contradict what we know doesn't mean that it actually contradicts anything. It just means that we don't know enough. So why argue and say that we know when we don't? Just allow it to be a conflict for now, and have faith in God, who will resolve it with time. It's ok to say "I don't understand".

Right

Except for when science actually helps support the theological truth.

What you are describing sure sounds beautiful, but I don't know what Moses actually thought. Personally, I grew up by sea side. If anything, it's the sea that looks like the sky. It always looks like the sky, no matter what the weather is like. I think Moses just knew that rain came from above, so there had to be water up there. Plain and simple.

Sure. Have you ever seen a pine tree just after it rained, and the raindrops are still on it, and the sun is shining really bright? Every raindrop sparkles like a diamond. It makes me stand there in awe, knowing that God made that sight at that time at that place just for me. So much beauty that speaks of the great love of my Lord for me, but it is still a tree with rain drops and sunshine and reflection of light. It's both physical and spiritual. I can describe both it's beauty and what it means to me, as God's child, as well as all the physics behind it. Both are true.

You lost me again.

Right, God changed whatever it was in the environment that was holding the rain from raining, and the rain started raining.

No. There never was anything holding up the waters above. The waters above were never actually waters, rather it was just the blue sky. Given its blue color, it was simply referred to as "the waters above".

I don't think people are missing out on that theology. The only people who are missing out on the earth being judged, destroyed, and re-created are the people that are trying to fit Bible into science by saying that the flood was local. Earth started as literally physically covered in water, then in due time Adam sinned and things went sour. God is going back to re-create the earth. He is literally covering it completely with water again, killing every land creature on it, so that He can then dry it out again like He did before and re-populate it from the people and animals in the ark. Physical process intertwined with theological depth of how serious sin actually is, and that God does judge people for their sins even when there is no law.


Well, knowing that they were writing this 3,000 years ago, it doesn't sound crazy to me at all.

Sure, our perspective is different from theirs, but how does it change how the world works?

Yes, so if the ancient authors looked up at the sky, and called it "the waters above" despite it not actually being water, that shows us that the text isnt scientifically accurate. The sky isn't actually made of water being restrained by windows in the sky. That's ancient near east cosmology, it's a pre-scientific worldview of the ancient isrealites and their neighbors.

 

[BeyondET]

St Augustine has similar writings, pondering how the planet Saturn might be cooled by the celestial ocean above. While also rejecting the proposal of "antipodes", or people living upside down on the opposite side of the earth, held up by an invisible force not yet discovered.

Saturn is pretty cold, -288 Fahrenheit.

 

[Job 33:6]

Saturn is pretty cold, -288 Fahrenheit.

And it's core is over 10,000 degrees fahrenheit.

 

[olgamc]

Your response doesn't acknowledge the significant differences between the ancient near east and Greco Roman world and their cultural contexts.

But they are extensively different. Ill disagree with your response.

Culture is different. Human nature is the same. God is the same. If God is going to communicate with us about a particular topic, He can pick 10 people from 10 different cultures speaking 10 different languages, and they will all communicate the same message. Their words or illustrations might be different, but the message will be the same. Agree?

John never mentioned nuclear fallout.

Do you know this for sure? Did Isaiah 7:14 mention an actual virgin?

No. There never was anything holding up the waters above. The waters above were never actually waters, rather it was just the blue sky. Given its blue color, it was simply referred to as "the waters above".

Sky is not waters. Sky is the expanse that is separating water below from water above. See, Moses is different from your near-east cosmologists and you are not even seeing that. Near-east cosmology - there is water on earth, then there is space, then there is a hard dome called sky, then more water. Moses - there is water on earth, then there is space called sky, then more water.

Yes, so if the ancient authors looked up at the sky, and called it "the waters above" despite it not actually being water, that shows us that the text isnt scientifically accurate. The sky isn't actually made of water being restrained by windows in the sky. That's ancient near east cosmology, it's a pre-scientific worldview of the ancient Isrealites and their neighbors.

How is this not scientifically accurate? Moses sees the red sea. Moses sees the rain that falls from above. Moses sees that there is space between the red sea and the place where the rain comes from. Moses says there is a space between the water below and the water above and the space is called sky. I mean, anyone can say that and be scientifically accurate, they don't even have to be divinely inspired. I bet if you asked Moses "hey Moses, how did the rain get up there?", Moses would have said "God parted the waters. I don't know how, but I know that God parted the red sea, I saw Him do it". And now in the 21st century we can explain to Moses that God invented such and such physical processes and used them to form our atmosphere. And both would be correct. God did create an expanse, and God did (as far as we can tell) use physical processes to do it.

And why do you say that there wasn't something holding the water in the sky? Do you mean something that we can touch? But there are lots of physical things and forces that we can't touch. Earth used to be very warm and very humid. Something had to happen to really cool things down in order for all that humidity to condense and turn into rain. Until that happened, the temperature was holding the water in the sky.

I think I see what you are trying to do! You are trying to say that Moses didn't know science and therefore he was not writing scientifically, and therefore nothing that he said had to do with science, and therefore nothing in Genesis has to do with science, and therefore we can't use Genesis to argue whether humans evolved or not, and therefore humans evolved. Is that what you think? Because if it is, you are separating the physical and spiritual disciplines, and we decided that Moses didn't do that. Also you are not considering that a scientific theory could be errant and does not account for miracles. Also you are not considering that God does know science better than we do, and it is God who told Moses what to write. Also you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to use science to confirm that Genesis was in fact divinely inspired. Science theorizes that life evolved in the same order as the days of creation - how would pre-science Moses have known that order if not from God?

 

[BeyondET]

And it's core is over 10,000 degrees fahrenheit.

An Ol rocky slushball.

 

[Job 33:6]

Culture is different. Human nature is the same. God is the same. If God is going to communicate with us about a particular topic, He can pick 10 people from 10 different cultures speaking 10 different languages, and they will all communicate the same message. Their words or illustrations might be different, but the message will be the same. Agree?

Do you know this for sure? Did Isaiah 7:14 mention an actual virgin?

Sky is not waters. Sky is the expanse that is separating water below from water above. See, Moses is different from your near-east cosmologists and you are not even seeing that. Near-east cosmology - there is water on earth, then there is space, then there is a hard dome called sky, then more water. Moses - there is water on earth, then there is space called sky, then more water.

I'm just referring to translations. Sometimes raqia is translated as sky, sometimes as heavens etc.

How is this not scientifically accurate? Moses sees the red sea. Moses sees the rain that falls from above. Moses sees that there is space between the red sea and the place where the rain comes from. Moses says there is a space between the water below and the water above and the space is called sky.

The waters above are not "rain". It's not clouds or anything like that. That's why Genesis says that the waters are above the heavens. The waters are not "in" in the heavens, but above it. And the psalmist says the same. And stars are "in" the expanse, and so the waters above, are above the stars.

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

And God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
Genesis 1:6

God made the dome, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
Genesis 1:7‭-‬8

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years,
Genesis 1:14

So the waters above are not rain or clouds.

I mean, anyone can say that and be scientifically accurate, they don't even have to be divinely inspired. I bet if you asked Moses "hey Moses, how did the rain get up there?", Moses would have said "God parted the waters. I don't know how, but I know that God parted the red sea, I saw Him do it". And now in the 21st century we can explain to Moses that God invented such and such physical processes and used them to form our atmosphere. And both would be correct. God did create an expanse, and God did (as far as we can tell) use physical processes to do it.

There's nothing to build because the expanse is just an expanse.

And why do you say that there wasn't something holding the water in the sky? Do you mean something that we can touch? But there are lots of physical things and forces that we can't touch. Earth used to be very warm and very humid. Something had to happen to really cool things down in order for all that humidity to condense and turn into rain. Until that happened, the temperature was holding the water in the sky.

No. The water remained in the sky.

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

Forever and ever.

I think I see what you are trying to do! You are trying to say that Moses didn't know science and therefore he was not writing scientifically, and therefore nothing that he said had to do with science, and therefore nothing in Genesis has to do with science, and therefore we can't use Genesis to argue whether humans evolved or not, and therefore humans evolved.

Yes, sort of.

Is that what you think? Because if it is, you are separating the physical and spiritual disciplines, and we decided that Moses didn't do that.

Moses didn't do that, but who's to say that we should agree with Moses? Have you ever climbed a mountain and found yourself in heaven? Have you ever dug down into the earth and found the underworld? Are the stars angelic beings when you look at them through a telescope?

Moses combined these supernatural and material worlds in the Bible. But that doesn't mean that this was a correct understanding of things.

Also you are not considering that a scientific theory could be errant and does not account for miracles. Also you are not considering that God does know science better than we do, and it is God who told Moses what to write.

God inspired Moses, but God didn't instruct Moses on specifically what to write.

When you read the letters of Paul, it doesn't say "I, Jesus, am writing to the church of Ephesus". Its Paul who is writing. Same with the old testament. Inspiration does not mean that God took over their brain and wrote for them.

Also you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to use science to confirm that Genesis was in fact divinely inspired. Science theorizes that life evolved in the same order as the days of creation - how would pre-science Moses have known that order if not from God?

No, the order is different in science than in the Bible.

 

[olgamc]

The waters above are not "rain". It's not clouds or anything like that. That's why Genesis says that the waters are above the heavens. The waters are not "in" in the heavens, but above it. And the psalmist says the same. And stars are "in" the expanse, and so the waters above, are above the stars.

Could still be clouds. Above and in are both correct, because if sky is air then you are literally touching the sky with your hand, so clouds are above the sky. Or the sky might be referring to our atmosphere + cosmos, in which case the stars are still in the sky. Or the sky could be the sky that we see. I mean, you go to a planetarium and they say "in the night sky we see...". Doesn't mean that they are talking ancient cosmology. Or it might not be clouds at all. Could be some kind of "water" that exists outside of the universe. Could be spiritual "water". He could be talking about a separation between the spiritual world and a physical world. Which, by the way, the universe does have an end and time/space bends there forming a sort of barrier that no material object can penetrate. So I don't know, there's your firmament. If God is outside of the universe and time and space and matter, then it makes sense that he would be talking about the end of the material universe with God residing outside of that. God decides to "open windows", whatever that means, and it rains. Ok. Bottom line, it doesn't fluster me in the least. We just don't know everything yet about the material world, let alone the spiritual. What flusters me more is that you are saying that I am reading Genesis with a 21st century bias, while you are reading it with the ancient cosmology bias.

No. The water remained in the sky.

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.
Psalms 148:4‭-‬6

Forever and ever.

But heaven and earth will pass away. So that's interesting. The Psalmist is obviously not talking about a material water and material sky. So ok, I can give you that one, let's just say that Moses is not talking about clouds. He does start with saying "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" - so maybe he means to say the actual spiritual heaven where God lives, and the actual material earth where people live. Ok, what's next?

Yes, sort of.

Ah, but that's kind of faulty logic. No offense. Because look at your main bottom line conclusion:

Can't use Genesis to argue, therefore humans evolved.

It's like me saying can't use Genesis to argue, therefore I had ice cream for dinner. Even if I was known to have ice cream for dinner on occasion, those two statements have nothing to do with each other.

Also, we know that humans are not just biological, we are also spiritual. In order to decide whether a bio-spiritual being could evolve, we need both science and theology. Moses gives us theology. Darwin gives us science. We need both, and I think I can prove on the basis of both that we could not have evolved.

Moses combined these supernatural and material worlds in the Bible. But that doesn't mean that this was a correct understanding of things.

"All creation manifests the glory of God". So imo if we want to understand God better, we can look at theology and science, and when we want to understand creation better, we can look at science and theology.

God inspired Moses, but God didn't instruct Moses on specifically what to write.

When you read the letters of Paul, it doesn't say "I, Jesus, am writing to the church of Ephesus". Its Paul who is writing. Same with the old testament. Inspiration does not mean that God took over their brain and wrote for them.

Paul knew which words were from him and which words were from God. 1 Corinthians 7:10 vs 1 Corinthians 7:12. John and Daniel record God literally telling them what to say. But I don't think Genesis is a prophecy where words are vitally important and you have to write exactly as you are dictated. Except for maybe some parts, e.g. Eve's offspring. But for the most parts, genesis is history, where Moses received some kind of "knowing" from God - whether it was a vision or a dream or a verbal conversation with God or if God revealed to him some kind of conceptual understanding - we don't know, but we do know that it came from God and Moses had to communicate it as best as he could, with the words that he knew.

No, the order is different in science than in the Bible.

It is? First plants, then water animals, then land animals, then humans - no?

 

[Job 33:6]

Could still be clouds. Above and in are both correct, because if sky is air then you are literally touching the sky with your hand, so clouds are above the sky. Or the sky might be referring to our atmosphere + cosmos, in which case the stars are still in the sky. Or the sky could be the sky that we see. I mean, you go to a planetarium and they say "in the night sky we see...". Doesn't mean that they are talking ancient cosmology. Or it might not be clouds at all. Could be some kind of "water" that exists outside of the universe. Could be spiritual "water". He could be talking about a separation between the spiritual world and a physical world. Which, by the way, the universe does have an end and time/space bends there forming a sort of barrier that no material object can penetrate. So I don't know, there's your firmament. If God is outside of the universe and time and space and matter, then it makes sense that he would be talking about the end of the material universe with God residing outside of that. God decides to "open windows", whatever that means, and it rains. Ok. Bottom line, it doesn't fluster me in the least. We just don't know everything yet about the material world, let alone the spiritual. What flusters me more is that you are saying that I am reading Genesis with a 21st century bias, while you are reading it with the ancient cosmology bias.

We have many ancient near east writings describing the waters above as an actual ocean, in accordance with the text. Not clouds.

But heaven and earth will pass away. So that's interesting. The Psalmist is obviously not talking about a material water and material sky. So ok, I can give you that one, let's just say that Moses is not talking about clouds. He does start with saying "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth" - so maybe he means to say the actual spiritual heaven where God lives, and the actual material earth where people live. Ok, what's next?

The waters above are material, according to many ancient near east sources. And the Bible explicitly states that the stars were set in the heavens. And the waters above are above that. That's why the psalmist says,

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.

He's not talking about spiritual water. The waters below formed the oceans, so these waters are not supernatural waters.

Ah, but that's kind of faulty logic. No offense. Because look at your main bottom line conclusion:

Can't use Genesis to argue, therefore humans evolved.

It's not faulty. The Bible becomes compatible with science when you recognize that its not describing scientifically accurate concepts.

But we know that humans are not just biological, we are also spiritual. In order to decide whether a bio-spiritual being could evolve, we need both science and theology. Moses gives us theology. Darwin gives us science. We need both, and I think I can prove on the basis of both that we could not have evolved.

"All creation manifests the glory of God". So imo if we want to understand God better, we can look at theology and science, and when we want to understand creation better, we can look at science and theology.

Paul knew which words were from him and which words were from God. 1 Corinthians 7:10 vs 1 Corinthians 7:12. John and Daniel record God literally telling them what to say. But I don't think Genesis is a prophecy where words are vitally important and you have to write exactly as you are dictated. Genesis is history, where Moses received some kind of "knowing" from God - whether it was a vision or a dream or a verbal conversation with God or if God revealed to him some kind of conceptual understanding - we don't know, but we do know that it came from God and Moses had to communicate it as best as he could, with the words that he knew.

It is? First plants, then water animals, then land animals, then humans - no?

Well the Bible also has birds in there alongside fish, and birds of course do not arrive until after land animals.

 

[olgamc]

We have many ancient near east writings describing the waters above as an actual ocean, in accordance with the text. Not clouds.

The waters above are material, according to many ancient near east sources. And the Bible explicitly states that the stars were set in the heavens. And the waters above are above that. That's why the psalmist says,

Praise him, highest heavens, and waters above the heavens. Let them praise the name of Yahweh, because he commanded and they were created. And he put them in place *forever and ever*, by a decree he gave that will not pass away.

He's not talking about spiritual water. The waters below formed the oceans, so these waters are not supernatural waters.



It's not faulty. The Bible becomes compatible with science when you recognize that its not describing scientifically accurate concepts.

Ok. We are just arguing over nothing. Let's do this. Prove to me that humans evolved.