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Darwin Debunks himself? what did we miss?
- Thread starter Bouke285
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You seem to be arguing past whatever point I was making, I certainly never mentioned the word metaphor. Since Burke is claiming that you can only interpret the Bible literally then he must view Jesus's words about himself literally pertaining to the bread, gate, vine imagery etc. I am not the one with the 'one literary device' so that accusation should be directed towards Burke and not myself.
To suggest that because I don't believe Jesus was not physically a loaf of bread should lead to a dismissal of his incarnation is a stark misrepresentation of my beliefs. Perhaps if you were to put a bit more effort into reading my posts you would see this?
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I wasn't saying anyone has said that here. I'm saying what you believe causes this to happen more than you realise.
And again Jesus CLEARLY stated that the parables were meant to give a better understanding in a simple way for the apostles. When talking about creation this is not the case. There is no hint that Genesis is any type of story meant to explain anything. You can also take a look at the Biblical time lines and get a clear understanding if you would ever take the time.
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by Russell Grigg
Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book under discussion. This is not as difficult as it may seem, as the Bible obviously contains:
The author
The Lord Jesus Himself and the gospel writers said that the Law was given by Moses (Mark 10:3; Luke 24:27; John 1:17), and the uniform tradition of the Jewish scribes and early Christian fathers, and the conclusion of conservative scholars to the present day, is that Genesis was written by Moses. This does not preclude the possibility that Moses had access to patriarchal records, preserved by being written on clay tablets and handed down from father to son via the line of Adam–Seth–Noah–Shem–Abraham–Isaac–Jacob, etc., as there are 11 verses in Genesis which read, ‘These are the generations [Hebrew: toledoth = ‘origins’ or by extension ‘record of the origins’] of … .’1 As these statements all come after the events they describe, and the events recorded in each division all took place before rather than after the death of the individuals so named, they may very well be subscripts or closing signatures, i.e. colophons, rather than superscripts or headings. If this is so, the most likely explanation of them is that Adam, Noah, Shem, and the others each wrote down an account of the events which occurred in his lifetime, and Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, selected and compiled these, along with his own comments, into the book we now know as Genesis2 (see also Did Moses really write Genesis?).
Chapters 12–50 of Genesis were very clearly written as authentic history, as they describe the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons who were the ancestral heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jewish people, from earliest biblical times to the present day, have always regarded this portion of Genesis as the true record of their nation’s history.
So what about the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are our main concern, as these are the ones that have incurred the most criticism from modern scholars, scientists, and sceptics?
Genesis 1–11
Are any of these chapters poetry?
To answer this question we need to examine in a little more depth just what is involved in the parallelism of ideas that constitutes Hebrew poetry.
Let us consider Psalm 1:1, which reads as follows: ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’ Here we see triple parallelism in the nouns and verbs used (reading downwards in the following scheme):
walkethcounselungodlystandethwaysinnerssittethseatscornful
As well as this overt parallelism, there is also a covert or subtle progression of meaning. In the first column, ‘walketh’ suggests short-term acquaintance, ‘standeth’ implies readiness to discuss, and ‘sitteth’ speaks of long-term involvement. In the second column, ‘counsel’ betokens general advice, ‘way’ indicates a chosen course of action, and ‘seat’ signifies a set condition of mind. In the third column, ‘ungodly’ describes the negatively wicked, ‘sinner’ characterizes the positively wicked, and ‘scornful’ portrays the contemptuously wicked.
Other types of Hebrew poetry include contrastive parallelism, as in Proverbs 27:6, ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful’, and completive parallelism, as in Psalm 46:1, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need.’3.
And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?
Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew scholars of substance are agreed that this is so (see below).
Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g. ‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times; ‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times; ‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’ six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above; rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.
Are any of these chapters parables?
No, because when Jesus told a parable He either said it was a parable, or He introduced it with a simile, so making it plain to the hearers that it was a parable, as on the many occasions when He said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like … .’ No such claim is made or style used by the author of Genesis 1–11.
Are any of these chapters prophecy?
Not in their full context, although two promises of God are prophetic in the sense that their fulfilment would be seen in the future. One of these is Genesis 3:15, which was the pronouncement by God to the serpent (Satan) in metaphorical form: ‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’ (NASB). Many have interpreted the ‘seed’ in this verse as the Messiah, including most evangelicals and even the Jewish Targums4 hence the Talmudic expression ‘heels of the Messiah’5. The Messiah would suffer wounds to His feet (on the Cross), but would completely destroy Satan’s power. This verse also hints at the virginal conception, as the Messiah is called the seed of the woman, contrary to the normal biblical practice of naming the father rather than the mother of a child (cf. Genesis chapters 5 and 11, 1 Chronicles chapters 1–9, Matthew chapter 1, Luke 3:23–38).
The other is Genesis 8:21–22 and 9:11–17,
This is where we need to consider some of the subscripts mentioned above.
If Adam knew the events of Creation Days 1–6, they must have been revealed to him by God, as Adam was not made until Day 6, and so he could have known them only if God had told him. This view is reinforced by the words, ‘These are the generations of [NIV: ‘This is the account of’] the heavens and of the earth when they were created …’ in Genesis 2:4a. The details of Day 7, the rest day, are included before this in Genesis 2:2–3, thereby completing (as we might expect) the record of a full seven-day week, before this subscript or closing signature appears.
Then follow the events of Genesis 2:4b–5:1a. This section tells us about Adam, his wife Eve, and their sons, and reads very much like a personal account of what Adam knew, saw, and experienced concerning the Garden of Eden, and the creation of Eve (chapter 2), their rebellion against God (chapter 3), and the deeds of their descendants (chapter 4 to 5:1), albeit written in the third person6. This section ends with the words, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam.’
Is it feasible that Adam could have written Genesis 1:1–2:4a as the result of his pre-Fall conversation with God, and Genesis 2:4b–5:1 as the record of his own experiences? There is no problem concerning his ability to have done so. Adam was created a mature man, endowed with all the DNA, knowledge and skill he needed to perform all the tasks assigned him by God. No cave-man he! Adam knew enough horticulture ‘to dress and to keep’ the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15), and ample intelligence to recognize and name the distinct kinds of animals (Genesis 2:19). He (and Eve) could converse with God without ever having learned an alphabet, and there is no reason to suppose that he was not fully skilled in writing also7.
Supposed contradictions
What about the supposed contradictions between the order of events in Genesis chapter 2 and the order given in chapter 1?
There are none! See also Genesis contradictions?
If, with the NIV, we read ‘Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east …’ (Genesis 2:8) and, ‘Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field …’ (Genesis 2:19 with emphasis added), it is clearly seen that chapter 2 states that the plants and animals were formed before Adam. When Adam named the animals (Genesis 2:20), they obviously were already in existence. There is no contradictory significance in the order of animals listed in Genesis 2:20; it is probably the order in which Adam met the animals, while the order of their creation is given in Genesis 1:20–25. Dr Henry Morris comments:
Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book under discussion. This is not as difficult as it may seem, as the Bible obviously contains:
- Poetry—as in the Psalms, where the repetition or parallelism of ideas is in accordance with Hebrew ideas of poetry, without the rhyme (parallelism of sound) and metre (parallelism of time) that are important parts of traditional English poetry. This, by the way, is the reason why the Psalms can be translated into other languages and still retain most of their literary appeal and poetic piquancy, while the elements of rhyme and metre are usually lost when traditional Western poetry is translated into other languages.
- Parables—as in many of the sayings of Jesus, such as the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–23), which Jesus Himself clearly states to be a parable and about which He gives meanings for the various items, such as the seed and the soil.
- Prophecy—as in the books of the last section of the Old Testament (Isaiah to Malachi).
- Letters—as in the New Testament epistles written by Paul, Peter, John, and others.
- Biography—as in the gospels.
- Autobiography/testimony—as in the book of Acts where the author, Luke, after narrating the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus as a historical fact (Acts 9:1–19), then describes two further occasions when Paul included this conversion experience as part of his own personal testimony (Acts 22:1–21; 26:1–22).
- Authentic historical facts—as in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, etc.
The author
The Lord Jesus Himself and the gospel writers said that the Law was given by Moses (Mark 10:3; Luke 24:27; John 1:17), and the uniform tradition of the Jewish scribes and early Christian fathers, and the conclusion of conservative scholars to the present day, is that Genesis was written by Moses. This does not preclude the possibility that Moses had access to patriarchal records, preserved by being written on clay tablets and handed down from father to son via the line of Adam–Seth–Noah–Shem–Abraham–Isaac–Jacob, etc., as there are 11 verses in Genesis which read, ‘These are the generations [Hebrew: toledoth = ‘origins’ or by extension ‘record of the origins’] of … .’1 As these statements all come after the events they describe, and the events recorded in each division all took place before rather than after the death of the individuals so named, they may very well be subscripts or closing signatures, i.e. colophons, rather than superscripts or headings. If this is so, the most likely explanation of them is that Adam, Noah, Shem, and the others each wrote down an account of the events which occurred in his lifetime, and Moses, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, selected and compiled these, along with his own comments, into the book we now know as Genesis2 (see also Did Moses really write Genesis?).
Chapters 12–50 of Genesis were very clearly written as authentic history, as they describe the lives of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and his 12 sons who were the ancestral heads of the 12 tribes of Israel. The Jewish people, from earliest biblical times to the present day, have always regarded this portion of Genesis as the true record of their nation’s history.
So what about the first 11 chapters of Genesis, which are our main concern, as these are the ones that have incurred the most criticism from modern scholars, scientists, and sceptics?
Genesis 1–11
Are any of these chapters poetry?
To answer this question we need to examine in a little more depth just what is involved in the parallelism of ideas that constitutes Hebrew poetry.
Let us consider Psalm 1:1, which reads as follows: ‘Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.’ Here we see triple parallelism in the nouns and verbs used (reading downwards in the following scheme):
walkethcounselungodlystandethwaysinnerssittethseatscornful
As well as this overt parallelism, there is also a covert or subtle progression of meaning. In the first column, ‘walketh’ suggests short-term acquaintance, ‘standeth’ implies readiness to discuss, and ‘sitteth’ speaks of long-term involvement. In the second column, ‘counsel’ betokens general advice, ‘way’ indicates a chosen course of action, and ‘seat’ signifies a set condition of mind. In the third column, ‘ungodly’ describes the negatively wicked, ‘sinner’ characterizes the positively wicked, and ‘scornful’ portrays the contemptuously wicked.
Other types of Hebrew poetry include contrastive parallelism, as in Proverbs 27:6, ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful’, and completive parallelism, as in Psalm 46:1, ‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of need.’3.
And so we return to our question. Are any of the first 11 chapters of Genesis poetry?
Answer: No, because these chapters do not contain information or invocation in any of the forms of Hebrew poetry, in either overt or covert form, and because Hebrew scholars of substance are agreed that this is so (see below).
Note: There certainly is repetition in Genesis chapter 1, e.g. ‘And God said …’ occurs 10 times; ‘and God saw that it was good/very good’ seven times; ‘after his/their kind’ 10 times; ‘And the evening and the morning were the … day’ six times. However, these repetitions have none of the poetic forms discussed above; rather they are statements of fact and thus a record of what happened, and possibly for emphasis—to indicate the importance of the words repeated.
Are any of these chapters parables?
No, because when Jesus told a parable He either said it was a parable, or He introduced it with a simile, so making it plain to the hearers that it was a parable, as on the many occasions when He said, ‘The kingdom of heaven is like … .’ No such claim is made or style used by the author of Genesis 1–11.
Are any of these chapters prophecy?
Not in their full context, although two promises of God are prophetic in the sense that their fulfilment would be seen in the future. One of these is Genesis 3:15, which was the pronouncement by God to the serpent (Satan) in metaphorical form: ‘And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, And you shall bruise him on the heel.’ (NASB). Many have interpreted the ‘seed’ in this verse as the Messiah, including most evangelicals and even the Jewish Targums4 hence the Talmudic expression ‘heels of the Messiah’5. The Messiah would suffer wounds to His feet (on the Cross), but would completely destroy Satan’s power. This verse also hints at the virginal conception, as the Messiah is called the seed of the woman, contrary to the normal biblical practice of naming the father rather than the mother of a child (cf. Genesis chapters 5 and 11, 1 Chronicles chapters 1–9, Matthew chapter 1, Luke 3:23–38).
The other is Genesis 8:21–22 and 9:11–17,
‘And the LORD said in His heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man’s sake … and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.’
Are any of these chapters letters, biography, or autobiography/personal testimony?
This is where we need to consider some of the subscripts mentioned above.
If Adam knew the events of Creation Days 1–6, they must have been revealed to him by God, as Adam was not made until Day 6, and so he could have known them only if God had told him. This view is reinforced by the words, ‘These are the generations of [NIV: ‘This is the account of’] the heavens and of the earth when they were created …’ in Genesis 2:4a. The details of Day 7, the rest day, are included before this in Genesis 2:2–3, thereby completing (as we might expect) the record of a full seven-day week, before this subscript or closing signature appears.
Then follow the events of Genesis 2:4b–5:1a. This section tells us about Adam, his wife Eve, and their sons, and reads very much like a personal account of what Adam knew, saw, and experienced concerning the Garden of Eden, and the creation of Eve (chapter 2), their rebellion against God (chapter 3), and the deeds of their descendants (chapter 4 to 5:1), albeit written in the third person6. This section ends with the words, ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam.’
Is it feasible that Adam could have written Genesis 1:1–2:4a as the result of his pre-Fall conversation with God, and Genesis 2:4b–5:1 as the record of his own experiences? There is no problem concerning his ability to have done so. Adam was created a mature man, endowed with all the DNA, knowledge and skill he needed to perform all the tasks assigned him by God. No cave-man he! Adam knew enough horticulture ‘to dress and to keep’ the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:15), and ample intelligence to recognize and name the distinct kinds of animals (Genesis 2:19). He (and Eve) could converse with God without ever having learned an alphabet, and there is no reason to suppose that he was not fully skilled in writing also7.
Supposed contradictions
What about the supposed contradictions between the order of events in Genesis chapter 2 and the order given in chapter 1?
There are none! See also Genesis contradictions?
If, with the NIV, we read ‘Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east …’ (Genesis 2:8) and, ‘Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field …’ (Genesis 2:19 with emphasis added), it is clearly seen that chapter 2 states that the plants and animals were formed before Adam. When Adam named the animals (Genesis 2:20), they obviously were already in existence. There is no contradictory significance in the order of animals listed in Genesis 2:20; it is probably the order in which Adam met the animals, while the order of their creation is given in Genesis 1:20–25. Dr Henry Morris comments:
‘It was only the animals in closest proximity and most likely as theoretical candidates for companionship to man that were actually brought to him. These included the birds of the air, the cattle (verse 20—probably the domesticated animals), and the beasts of the field, which were evidently the smaller wild animals that would live near human habitations. Those not included were the fish of the sea, the creeping things, and the beasts of the earth mentioned in Genesis 1:24, which presumably were those wild animals living at considerable distance from man and his cultivated fields.’8.
more here http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/genesis.asp
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Take a look at this article it may help some of your understanding.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/genesis.asp
Here is a piece of the article that you will probably miss.
7. Adam and Eve knew how to sew fig-leaf ‘aprons’ for themselves (Genesis 3:7). Within a few generations, Adam’s descendants founded a city (Genesis 4:17), were tent-makers, cattle farmers, musicians with the ability to make both stringed and wind instruments, and metallurgists with the ability to smelt the ores of copper, tin and iron and then to forge all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Genesis 4:20–24). Dr Henry M. Morris comments in The Genesis Record (Baker Book house, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, pp. 146–147):
http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v16/i1/genesis.asp
Here is a piece of the article that you will probably miss.
7. Adam and Eve knew how to sew fig-leaf ‘aprons’ for themselves (Genesis 3:7). Within a few generations, Adam’s descendants founded a city (Genesis 4:17), were tent-makers, cattle farmers, musicians with the ability to make both stringed and wind instruments, and metallurgists with the ability to smelt the ores of copper, tin and iron and then to forge all kinds of bronze and iron tools (Genesis 4:20–24). Dr Henry M. Morris comments in The Genesis Record (Baker Book house, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1976, pp. 146–147):
‘It is significant to note that the elements which anthropologists identify as the attributes of the emergence of evolving men from the stone age into true civilization—urbanization, agriculture, animal domestication, and metallurgy—were all accomplished quickly by the early descendants of Adam and did not take hundreds of thousands of years.’ Return to text.
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Just a friendly tip - you might want to cut out the condescending comments. It won't make people inclined to listen to you. Just because we don't agree with you, doesn't mean we don't take Scripture seriously, or that we haven't done serious study.
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What evidence do you have for saying so? What is it about a belief in evolutionary creationism that you think causes people to fall away from Christ? If anything, I suspect evolutionary creationism is what STOPS people from falling away when they realize they can accept Christ while maintaining their intellectual and scientific integrity.
You keep saying that, but you haven't demonstrated it. What about the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus given in Luke 16:19-31? What about the story of the trees in Judges 9:8-15? What about the story of the thistle and the cedar in 2 Kings 14:9? Nowhere does the Bible tell us that these are parables or metaphors or other figures of speech. Surely you must read them literally, then.
Genesis wasn't meant to explain anything? Might want to think that one through some more...
Is the fact that the people in the early chapters of Genesis are described as being capable of making tents, farming cattle, playing music, and forging tools supposed to give credence to their being literal, historical figures? Because they do that in Star Wars and the Lord of the Rings, too. The above argument is another non sequitur. It does not follow that because narrative figures are described as performing activities we are familiar with today, they must necessarily be historical people.
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No, you should read the article. Thie piece is showing that man doesn't have to evolve over thousands of years to go from using a stone tool to smelted metal tools for example.
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Please read this article. it explains very well in better words than I can put it I will paste another part of the article for you to see.
Creationists are often accused of believing that the whole Bible should be taken literally. This is not so! Rather, the key to a correct understanding of any part of the Bible is to ascertain the intention of the author of the portion or book under discussion. This is not as difficult as it may seem, as the Bible obviously contains:
- Poetry—as in the Psalms, where the repetition or parallelism of ideas is in accordance with Hebrew ideas of poetry, without the rhyme (parallelism of sound) and metre (parallelism of time) that are important parts of traditional English poetry. This, by the way, is the reason why the Psalms can be translated into other languages and still retain most of their literary appeal and poetic piquancy, while the elements of rhyme and metre are usually lost when traditional Western poetry is translated into other languages.
- Parables—as in many of the sayings of Jesus, such as the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:3–23), which Jesus Himself clearly states to be a parable and about which He gives meanings for the various items, such as the seed and the soil.
- Prophecy—as in the books of the last section of the Old Testament (Isaiah to Malachi).
- Letters—as in the New Testament epistles written by Paul, Peter, John, and others.
- Biography—as in the gospels.
- Autobiography/testimony—as in the book of Acts where the author, Luke, after narrating the Apostle Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus as a historical fact (Acts 9:1–19), then describes two further occasions when Paul included this conversion experience as part of his own personal testimony (Acts 22:1–21; 26:1–22).
- Authentic historical facts—as in the books of 1 and 2 Kings, etc.
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You may say I am contradicting myself again, but I have always thought this way I just didn't think it was so hard for you to understand what is meant to be a metaphor or a parable or a poem.
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- Oct 30, 2003
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Yes you are contradicting yourself. First you say that it's a misunderstanding that some things can be taken literally and that other things can't. Now you tell us that you've always understood there to be metaphors in scripture. Give it time and who knows where your position will have shifted to!
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I'm with you, theFijian. Bouke has gone from saying this:
... to this:
To be honest, I don't know what to think of Bouke's position anymore. He accuses evolutionary creationists of not having put any thought into their position, but I wonder if the shoe might be on the other foot!
Let the back-tracking begin...
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- Oct 30, 2003
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If he came out and just admitted to it I for one would certainly appreciate that kind of humility, as opposed to the condescending and ungracious manner which has marked his posts thus far.
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You want to hear my position? again.
Taking the Bible literaly is the most important thing you can learn, but because some people are too dense to understand when a metaphor or a poem or a story is being used then I guess I will have to make that clear when laying out my belief next time around.
You say I am contradicting because I didn't say anything about the odvious in the first post about taking the Bible literaly. That was outside the point the only reason the examples you gave were brought up was for you to have something to continue arguing with me about. You would have never started bringing poems metaphors etc... into this otherwise. You know that I know what a story, a metaphor, a poem is and when odviously it is being used.
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