Deceiving the Nations.

[Melethiel]

There isn’t anything to back up. Here’s the short answer. The text says it and there’s no reason not to believe it. God, as the text says, literally made Adam from the dust of the earth. BTW, the snake and tree of life were literal too. What wasn’t literal is the bruising of the snake’s head that was figurative. I cleared that up just so you can see that Genesis was literal here too.

Looking only at Genesis, what would make you think that the bruising of the snake's head is figurative? You will likely say that the rest of Scripture clarifies this. If I'm wrong, let me know. TEs likewise say that the rest of Scripture (Psalms, Peter) clarifies that the days in Genesis are not literal.

 

[laptoppop]

Looking only at Genesis, what would make you think that the bruising of the snake's head is figurative? You will likely say that the rest of Scripture clarifies this. If I'm wrong, let me know. TEs likewise say that the rest of Scripture (Psalms, Peter) clarifies that the days in Genesis are not literal.

Yes, looking at the figurative language is quite interesting and a great area for discussion.

A couple of the many problems with trying to get figurative with the "days" of Gen 1-- the text goes way out of its way to identify it as a single day that people would understand -- "morning and evening". Exodus uses the days of creation in the context of the sabbath week. Sometimes "day" means "day"!

 

[Mallon]

Sometimes "day" means "day"!

But you're assuming that the length of a day has always been the same. There is much evidence to suggest that, like the speed of light and radioactive decay, the length of a day is constantly changing and that in Genesis, a "day" might equal 1,000,000 years.
Remember: the foolishness of God is wiser than men.

 

[Melethiel]

Yes, looking at the figurative language is quite interesting and a great area for discussion.

A couple of the many problems with trying to get figurative with the "days" of Gen 1-- the text goes way out of its way to identify it as a single day that people would understand -- "morning and evening". Exodus uses the days of creation in the context of the sabbath week. Sometimes "day" means "day"!

However, to the ancient Hebrews, a "day" was from evening to evening. In a similar vein, earlier in Genesis, God defined "day" to be the period of light only - explicitly stating that it is NOT 24 hours, or a full rotation.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

However, to the ancient Hebrews, a "day" was from evening to evening. In a similar vein, earlier in Genesis, God defined "day" to be the period of light only - explicitly stating that it is NOT 24 hours, or a full rotation.

Specifically, the word is yom. Yom does not mean a literal 24-hour day. It can, but it can also be an unspecified time period.

 

[gluadys]

Yes, looking at the figurative language is quite interesting and a great area for discussion.

A couple of the many problems with trying to get figurative with the "days" of Gen 1-- the text goes way out of its way to identify it as a single day that people would understand -- "morning and evening". Exodus uses the days of creation in the context of the sabbath week. Sometimes "day" means "day"!

I wish people would stop confusing TE with Day-Age OEC. TEs (certainly myself, at least) do not necessarily reject the identification of the Genesis creative "day" with a solar day. Yes, sometimes "day" means "day".

What we do reject is that these are historical days. Because the reference to these "days" does not occur in a historical context. It is a genre error to connect the days of Genesis with days in the history of the earth.

 

[Assyrian]

I’m not aware of any legitimate theories that have ever been introduced that were contrary to the text. Maybe you can enlighten?

I think you have forgotten what we were discussing here.

Vossler: Only TEs and those Christians who believe homosexuality is fine seem to continually make the challenge "that is your interpretation." Why is that? That's the same challenge I hear from atheists. If that's the standard answer how can it be considered truth for you?
Assyrian: Christians have been arguing about bible interpretation for two thousand years, the Jews for longer. Disagreements about what the bible says are hardly a new phenomenon. Catholics Orthodox and Copts argued over the interpretation of scripture. Later it was Protestant and Catholic, Calvinist and Arminian. What is disturbing is the way you are totally unaware that your interpretation is not identical with the word of God.
Vossler: Of course disagreements are hardly new. I believe what is new is the introduction of theories and ideas that are completely contrary to the text.
Assyrian: Are you serious? Don't you think that most sides in these arguments might think the other has introduced theories and ideas that are completely contrary to the text? Of course what is really happening is that the ideas are completely contrary to their interpretation of the text.
Cosmas Indicopleustes thought that Christians who believed in a spherical earth had introduced a pagan idea completely contrary to the text. Luther thought Copernicus was a fool with a love of novelty whose ideas were completely contrary to the text.
Vossler: That's one way of looking at it, I happen to see it differently.
Assyrian: Care to back it up?
Vossler: I’m not aware of any legitimate theories that have ever been introduced that were contrary to the text. Maybe you can enlighten?

We are not talking here about whether the theories are legitimate or not, or even if they are contrary to the text, but your weird claim that questioning someones interpretation is some strange new phenomenon exclusive to [poison well] TEs homosexuals and atheists[/poison well]. Christians have been arguing over each others interpretation for millennia.

You try to change this into 'a legitimate theory can never be contrary to the text', which is something we never claim. We have said repeatedly that God's creation and his word are both true. there is no disagreement between them.

But can a legitimate theory disagree with a wrong interpretation of the text? Sure. We have seen it again and again. Scientific theories of a spherical earth, heliocentrism and geological age have all disagreed with bad interpretations of the text.

And disagreeing with a bad interpretation is not limited to 21st century TEs, homosexuals and atheists.

How can one rely on Scripture if when it is used to tackle a tough issue, the standard response is, that’s your interpretation. That’s why I said in order for Scripture to be meaningful one has to be able to trust and rely on it.

In other words if your interpretation can possibly be wrong then scripture is meaningless untrustworthy and unreliable.

But your question is a very good one.
How do we argue for our interpretation of scripture when someone else has a different view. How do we even get to the truth? We can't simply do it by throwing proof texts around, especially we really mean our interpretation of the proof text.

I think we have to get to grips with the other view, understand it and find the flaws from the inside, not just throw rocks from the outside. We have to show that even within its own framework, it is inconsistent with scripture.

You are starting from a difficult position to defend. You have to show that six day creationism is the only possible interpretation. While we can show that six day creationism is a very unreliable reading, all we have to show is that other interpretations work, and we have won our case, simply because the interpretation that fits what we know of the natural world is much more likely to be right as Copernicus has shown. If there are other valid interpretations you can't say geological ages are unscriptural.

As I said this is a good question. Those are just some thoughts on the subject off the top of my head.

My point is that only TEs and atheists use this methodology. The similarities are striking. Why is that? You never answered my question, but then expect me to answer yours.

I did answer your question. You whole premise is faulty. It is not only TEs and atheists (glad you have dropped the homosexual) who use this argument. I popped into General Theology and the Dispensationalism section. I only had to skim through two threads before I found people arguing over 'interpretation'. The same argument has been used throughout church history.

Why does it sound strikingly similar? Possibly because the whole concept that your interpretation might be wrong is otherwise completely alien to you.

Look this isn’t just some TE trait, Christians the world over approach Scripture from a relativistic point of view, even some YECs. I’m not just smearing TEs, I’m smearing the majority of Christians. Does that make you feel better now?

Feel better that you are smearing the majority of Christians? Hardly.

Your claim is still a smear, and as you have been shown, it is wrong.

No, the primary thing that allows for lots of interpretations is human pride.

No it is just pride that keeps people closed too the possibility that their interpretation might be wrong. It is limitations of our human intellect trying to understand the mind of God that causes the misunderstandings in the first place.

You told Deamiter:

I believe a primary reason for the many denominations is human pride.

Don't you believe that the leaders responsible for these splits probably consider themselves humble before God and listening to the Holy Spirit showing them the meaning of scripture. You can have pride that thinks it is being humble.

This isn’t about my interpretation. Its

about what the words say. If I told you that your children weren’t really yours, would you believe me or not? Of course not, you’d probably unequivocally tell me I’m full of it. It would take something extraordinary like DNA for you to even consider it. Even then you’d still probably hang on to the possibility that the DNA is wrong because you just know. That’s a little bit how I see this discussion, you’re trying to tell me God didn’t quite know what He was saying and that He needs to send me an expert (TE) to assist me in understanding His creation.

No it is about what the words mean.

If I told you your baby is not your baby any more, would you think I meant your child had a DNA change, or just that that your kid was all grown up?

You claim to believe what the words say, but ignore all the evidence the God is speaking in metaphor.

What about in the areas where both speak?

Are they speaking about the natural world or about the spiritual? As you said yourself:
Science is good at studying the natural world.

If you want to hold science accountable to religious dogma we are left back with the Inquisition trying Galileo and that was not good for science or the church.

Instead of dogma how about the Scriptures, God’s Holy Word?

That is what Luther, Melanchton and Pope Urban VIII though they were using. It was a mistake.

Agreed, but it’s also intruding when it attempts to change what Scripture says.

If science is talking about the natural world and we think it is intruding on what scripture says, science has a very good track record of proving our interpretations wrong.

However anytime the bible makes claims about the natural world, or people's interpretations say the bible is making claims about the natural world, then these claims have entered the realm where they are open to naturalistic investigation. 1Cor 15:14

If Christ has not been raised then your faith is in vain. Deut 18:22 when a prophet speaks in the name of the LORD, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the LORD has not spoken; the prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. Jer 28:8 The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. 9 As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the LORD has truly sent the prophet." When the word of speaks about the natural world it can be tested against the natural world.

Where does it say in the Bible to test it against the natural world? The Scriptures you highlighted are prophetic and those are always tested. Genesis 1 is hardly prophetic, it’s historical.

1Cor 15:14 is talking about the claim we find throughout the NT that Jesus was raised from the dead. Yet Paul says that if this did not factually occur, if Christ's body is still in the grave, then our faith is in vain. This was Peter and John's response to the news that Christ was risen. They went and checked the facts. If they had found Jesus' body they would not have believed in his resurrection. When scripture talks about events in the natural world these event are open to verification.

Deutonomy and Jeremiah are talking about how to tell true prophets from false. Many of the true prophets they talk about are ones whose words you find in the bible. Both Deut and Jeremiah tell us that a true prophecy, that is what we know as scripture, can be verified against the real world. The one difficulty with this is that some prophecies are hard to understand and it can be our interpretation that is not fulfilled. But is we can test prophecy against the natural world, we can certainly test interpretations of prophecy.

Is Genesis prophecy? It is God telling us what happened, and not the work of eye witnesses. It is God speaking of his actions a time no one has seen. That sounds prophetic to me.

My wait and see comment was directed toward findings that have little to no bearing on the overall truth of Scripture.

How is being wrong about the bible teaching geocentrism any different from being wrong about the bible teaching a six day creation? How does being wrong about either have a bearing on the truth of scripture? And if the church would have been right to wait and see about Copernicus, why is it wrong to wait and see about geological ages and evolution?

Scripture doesn’t contradict Scripture, whether in the beginning or the end and all points in between. If God said He created us in His image then to take that and surmise that 1.) This involved a lengthy process 2.)That it was an image that required numerous changes 3.) His image is related to other parts of creation are all extra-biblical events conjured up by man in an effort to show himself smarter than he is. I haven’t even mentioned the why and that’s a separate list.

God creating us in his image has nothing to do with how he formed us.

If we find the process of forming us 1) took a long time 2) was a complicated process and 3) shows we are related to other creatures, how does that contradict the scriptural teaching that 1) it was God who made us and 2) his plan all along was to form us in his image?

Why is scripture contradicted to say God made us from the same DNA he made chimps from, but not that God made us from the same mud he made chimps from? It is just silly.

The evidence is as plain as the nose on your face. When telling a story of such magnitude and describing the events as Genesis does, the vast majority of non-biased people would clearly see the foundational and historical purpose of it. I see it as foundational because that’s how God wanted me to and that’s also how most people do, even those who don’t espouse to the Christian belief system.

And the vast majority, no sorry everybody who read scripture before Copernicus read a wide range of different of passages as teaching geocentrism. What you are saying is you interpret the passage literally, therefore it is foundational. You need to show why a six day creation is foundational and where the rest of scripture treats the six literal days as foundational.

You thinking it is plain does not make it foundational and you thinking my nose is plain is just insulting.

 

[Assyrian]

How about the Sabbath? How about the doctrine of work?

The Sabbath does not depend on God working six literal 24 hour days any more than it depends of God having literal arms and hands which is the metaphor used to illustrate the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy. Moses mentions the six days in the middle of a metaphor describing God as a weary labourer being refreshed after a days rest. If it is used in the middle of a metaphor how is a literal six day timescale foundation to the Sabbath? And why does NT treat God's day of rest figuratively?

Did God stop work? Not according to Jesus, John 5:17
"My Father is working until now, and I am working." Was the Sabbath instituted to commemorate God's day off?
That is what Genesis and Exodus say. The Jews observe the Sabbath because God rested on the seventh day and made it holy. That is not how Jesus interpreted it.
Mar 2:27 And he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Did God's rest last 24 hours? Not according to the writer of Hebrews. According to him God's seventh day rest is still going on and we are called to enter it 'Today' Heb 3&4. According to Paul the Sabbath is just a shadow Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

Please show us a biblical doctrine with a literal six day creation as its foundation.

How about no one questioned them? It was a given. The only people doing any questioning are those who don’t believe.

You mean like Moses in Psalm 90? The bible kept repeating God is the creator. Why keep saying that but not that he did it in six days?

There were plenty of letters written to Gentiles who had never heard of a six day creation, but while the epistles repeat that God created the world through Christ, they don't bother with the six day part. How can that be a foundational doctrine?

You think no century Jews questioned the Genesis creation accounts being literal? Philo and Josephus did. Philo interpreted the six days and Adam and Eve allegorically, Josephus just though Adam and Eve was allegorical. The literal interpretation of Genesis was being seriously questioned in the first century, so why did no one think it important enough to reiterate the foundational doctrine of a six day creation?

Simply claiming the scientists are wrong does not solve the problem that your hermeneutic is incapable of showing you when science, or scientists are wrong.

That’s the beauty of God and His Word, I don’t have to show it, my job is to believe and proclaim.

Then why not believe and proclaim geocentrism?

Let’s be correct here, there is no literal flat earth.

Who told you that? Some scientist you choose top believe rather than believe the word of God?

I said: You reject the literal flat earth and geocentric readings because you know and accept the science. There is no literal flat earth, there is a literal flat earth interpretation of scripture. You have a very sensible approach to geocentrism and flat earth interpretations. Why are you so inconsistent with six day creationism?

Given the Bible says six days and doesn’t talk about a flat earth or geocentrism and that those issues are irrelevant I think I’m perfectly content to stand on what it does talk about.

How can you stand on what it does talk about when you hermeneutic cannot tell you what it talks about? You think it talks about a literal six day creations, but the sun rushing around the earth, or standing still for Joshua is not literal. You don't think the corners of the earth or it standing on pillars or people coming from the end of the heavens are literal. Why? Because you believe the science.

You say you stand on what it does talk about, but you decide what it talks about when you decide between the literal interpretation and the science. Saying you stand on what it does talk about, is simply claiming your interpretation is correct. You haven't shown any basis for arriving at the correct interpretation, or tell us when the science is right and when it is the literal interpretation.

After looking at this through multiple sources I could find nothing that the Israelites did in fact sow poppy. Here is a link that explains the problem you seem to have with the mustard seed.

(1) Jesus does not say the smallest seed planted by farmers in Palestine but that it is the smallest of all seeds. If you want to take the statements of Jesus as te inerrant word of the Son of God to be taken literally unless it is clearly a metaphor, then it is not the smallest seed.

(2) The poppy featured in Jewish coins

You haven’t answered the question: Is Jesus lying or is He just being ignorant?

Did you ask? Sorry I missed the question part. I though you were just saying I "ultimately... see Jesus either lying or being ignorant."

Basically I think Jesus didn't care. He was teaching about faith not agriculture. We can learn a lot about how God speaks in the bible through how Jesus taught his disciples. We learn God's love of communicating in stories. We learn how easy it is mistake metaphor for literal. We also learn that it is a mistake to read science from scripture when that is not what God is teaching. God seemed quite happy to explain his real meassage in terms people could easily grasp, even if it meant speaking through the geocentric even flat earth framework they understood. God's message was not the science of creation, but a revelation of the creator.

You are correct in saying you want to stand on what the bible does talk about. When the bible seems to get it wrong about mustard seeds and geocentrism, it is because that is not what God is talking about. If a six day creation is wrong, it is because it is not what the bible was talking about.

But you need an approach to scripture and science that can tell these apart. Simply saying if it sound literal, and it makes sense literal, and the context does no contradict literal then it is true literally, does not work.

Remember we have more reasons in scripture for adopting non literal days than we have with geocentrism or mustard seeds. From early on the church saw the contradiction is a literal interpretation of day and we are even told we can't take God's days as 24 hours. We have nothing like that with geocentrism and mustard seeds.

Then what is the right answer? Inquiring minds want to know.

Check both science and interpretation. If the science stands up to scientific testing and there are other ways to read the text then the interpretation that contradicts the science is wrong.

So what does the Word of God have to say on this matter?

Read Psalm 90.

Read what the prophets and the NT says about a six day creation.

So are you implying that science and Scripture are on the same plane?

How many times have we told you that the natural world and scripture are both created by God and both true. That any conflicts come because we are dealing with our interpretation of nature and an interpretation of scripture? We have told you this so why do you keep asking is we are implying science and Scripture are on the same plane?

But that was answering a digression from the real question. We said

Assyrian: The plain sense of the geocentrist passages does make common sense. The facts of the context do not indicate any other reading. Only the science tells us it was wrong.
Vossler: Good except for when you use ‘the science’ I would substitute ‘our scientific understanding.’
Assyrian: Does that mean you are dropping the David Cooper quote in your sig?

You agreed the plain sense of the geocentrist passages made common sense and that there was nothing in the contest to indicate another reading. According to the David Copper quote in your sig you should take the plain sense. But you don't because of what I called science and you referred to as 'our scientific understanding'. Your David Copper sig gives you the wrong interpretation for geocentrism and you agree, so why not drop the sig?

Not that I’m aware of.

Then why do you believe the earth rotates? It couldn't be you believe the scientists rather than the literal interpretation of God's word?

What does it matter what I believe? If it can’t be proven scientifically it holds no weight, right?

A non answer.

I’m sure Augustine, Origin and Aquinas saw it that way too, not to mention Luther, Calvin, Edwards, Spurgeon, Moody etc. Right?

Still with the non answers.

You failed to defend your claim that God is active in evolution. Why? Would your relationship with the world become tainted by defending it?

You agree wholeheartedly that:

1. The force of gravity does not exclude an omniscient transcendent being like God from being in control of the Solar System.
2. Natural processes like meteorology does not exclude an omniscient transcendent being like God from sending rain.
3. Plate tectonics do not exclude an omniscient transcendent being like God from creating the continents, mountains and valleys?
4. Natural processes like genetics and obstetrics do not exclude an omniscient transcendent being like God from forming me in my mother's womb.

You even agreed that he could handle evolution. You just did not think he chose to do it that way:

Assyrian: But Evolution is way too big. There is not way an omniscient transcendent being like God could ever handle natural processes like that, of course it excludes him.
Vossler: No! He could handle anything, He just chose to do it His way instead of yours.

The following points are continually made to me by atheists and TEs alike.
1. Man and all of life evolved from a common ancestor.

And that is a problem why? The bible describes the whole of the creation account as a genealogy.

2. All life that exists in its present form became so via natural processes.

I was born by natural processes, yet the bible teaches God formed me in my mother's womb. Is there a contradiction.

3. The Bible is loaded with wrong assertions.

Like mustard seeds being the smallest seed and the sun hurrying around the earth. But that has nothing to do with misreading God's days as 24 hour days which we are warned against in the Old Testament and the New, Nor has it anything to do with mistaking a potter metaphor for a literal description of how God works.

Did I miss something? Was an announcement made by TEs rescinding all these claims? If so, I have reason to rejoice and will be the first to offer an apology to each and every TE here. I will be happy to rescind all of my misrepresentations. Please tell me it is so.

I wish you would rescind the misrepresentations we tell you about.

Think of it this way, if a hundred things happened last week and we can say accurately state we know of 2 things that happened. Does that give us an accurate picture of what happened? To an evolutionist it certainly appears to, but to a YEC it just reaffirms the awesome splendor and majesty of God. So yes science can tell us something about the past.

We only need a few details, like 'this rock cooled from molten magma 250 million years ago' to know YEC is totally off the wall.

 

[Assyrian]

I’m sorry but I truly don’t even know what the original point was here. Give me the question and I’ll do my best to answer it.

You claimed that in spite of Psalm 90, Moses sounded literal in Genesis and millions of people believed him. I pointed out the Jesus sounded literal about turning bread and wine into his body and blood and that millions of Catholic believe that too.

There isn’t anything to back up. Here’s the short answer. The text says it and there’s no reason not to believe it. God, as the text says, literally made Adam from the dust of the earth. BTW, the snake and tree of life were literal too. What wasn’t literal is the bruising of the snake’s head that was figurative. I cleared that up just so you can see that Genesis was literal here too.

So in spite of Jesus saying physical food can't give eternal life, you believe a literal tree can. And in spite of the bible telling us the snake was Satan, you believe there was literal snake too.

And even though God tells the snake that the seed of the woman would crush his head, you think this is figurative? What is there in the account that never mentions Satan but holds the snake responsible for tempting Eve, that tells us the snake was cursed for his crime by having to crawl on his belly and eat dust every day and that he was going to have his head bruised because of what he had done.

No, what I’m suggesting is that only TEs who are scientifically enlightened or possess a special revelation know the Truth because their claims are so far removed from Scripture itself. Origin, Augustine and Aquinas I suspect used Scripture as a foundation to support their assertions, not science or some other man-derived source. To use Augustine as an example, he had questions whether God created in six days or instantaneously because the nature of God supported that. Where did he arrived at that conclusion from, Scripture. He arrived there not because of what he saw in creation, but what he saw in Scripture. TEs don’t do that.

How are TE's non literal interpretations 'so far removed from Scripture itself' when people like Origin, Augustine and Aquinas were able to see from scripture that the days were not literal? All TE's have is scientific confirmation that these scholars of the past were right to question the literal interpretation.

Sorry your interpretation makes no sense. You insist the made of dust bit has to be literal, in spite of being a common biblical metaphor, but that crushing the snake's head has to be figurative even though there is no suggestion it refers to anything other than the snake.

This probably deserves another thread.

 

[Assyrian]

Yes, looking at the figurative language is quite interesting and a great area for discussion.

A couple of the many problems with trying to get figurative with the "days" of Gen 1-- the text goes way out of its way to identify it as a single day that people would understand -- "morning and evening". Exodus uses the days of creation in the context of the sabbath week. Sometimes "day" means "day"!

Do details like the pigs and what the pigs ate mean the prodigal son was real?

Why do evening and morning mean God's days can't be figurative a Moses says in Psalm 90, when he also used evening and morning figuratively a few verse down in the same Psalm?

How 'evening and morning' identify it as a single day that people would understand, when they contradict the biblical calendar people understood, which ran from evening to evening?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The Sabbath does not depend on God working six literal 24 hour days any more than it depends of God having literal arms and hands which is the metaphor used to illustrate the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy.

Moreover, proponents of the framework interpretation of Genesis 1 see the entire narrative are geared toward support of shabbat practice, not away from it....

 

[vossler]

We are not talking here about whether the theories are legitimate or not, or even if they are contrary to the text, but your weird claim that questioning someones interpretation is some strange new phenomenon exclusive to [poison well] TEs homosexuals and atheists[/poison well]. Christians have been arguing over each others interpretation for millennia.

I thought that’s what I was talking about. The questioning isn’t new, I admitted that. What’s new is to question something without any legitimacy or support for the questioning.

You try to change this into 'a legitimate theory can never be contrary to the text', which is something we never claim. We have said repeatedly that God's creation and his word are both true. there is no disagreement between them.

Just because you don’t claim it doesn’t mean you don’t do it. My children can claim they weren’t disrespectful and believe it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

And disagreeing with a bad interpretation is not limited to 21st century TEs, homosexuals and atheists.

I agree, they just happen to be the ones with whom I’ve had most disagreements with.

But your question is a very good one.
How do we argue for our interpretation of scripture when someone else has a different view. How do we even get to the truth? We can't simply do it by throwing proof texts around, especially we really mean our interpretation of the proof text.

I think we have to get to grips with the other view, understand it and find the flaws from the inside, not just throw rocks from the outside. We have to show that even within its own framework, it is inconsistent with scripture.

That’s an interesting approach. I suppose it can work for you and others but I prefer to stick to the Scriptures themselves rather than spend a lot of time understanding theories not related to the text so that I can find flaws from the inside.

You are starting from a difficult position to defend. You have to show that six day creationism is the only possible interpretation. While we can show that six day creationism is a very unreliable reading, all we have to show is that other interpretations work, and we have won our case, simply because the interpretation that fits what we know of the natural world is much more likely to be right as Copernicus has shown. If there are other valid interpretations you can't say geological ages are unscriptural.

No I don’t have to show that a six day creation is the only possible interpretation, it already is the most biblically sound and trusted one, the one that has stood the test of time. It is those that wish to challenge the viability of it by presenting an alternative who must demonstrate a stronger case for their interpretation with whom the responsibility lies. Also, any interpretation that begins from the premise that the words of the Bible do not mean what they plainly say has a very difficult job substantiating such a claim from within Scripture itself.

I did answer your question. You whole premise is faulty. It is not only TEs and atheists (glad you have dropped the homosexual) who use this argument. I popped into General Theology and the Dispensationalism section. I only had to skim through two threads before I found people arguing over 'interpretation'. The same argument has been used throughout church history.

Why does it sound strikingly similar? Possibly because the whole concept that your interpretation might be wrong is otherwise completely alien to you.

No what’s alien is someone stating an interpretation to be incorrect and then not presenting a viable alternative, typically that is what you’ll see in GT.

Don't you believe that the leaders responsible for these splits probably consider themselves humble before God and listening to the Holy Spirit showing them the meaning of scripture. You can have pride that thinks it is being humble.

Most people would probably see themselves as humble. As the typical person on the street and almost without exception they’ll tell you that they are a good person. We’re not the best judge over how to see ourselves.

No it is about what the words mean.

Touché.

You claim to believe what the words say, but ignore all the evidence the God is speaking in metaphor.

I used to live in Missouri and it was called the Show Me State. Please show me that the literal meaning is purely a metaphor and if you’re going to use Psalm 90 again to prove it then we’re not going to get very far.

Are they speaking about the natural world or the spiritual? As you said yourself:

Science is good at studying the natural world.

Yes it is, but what about when science and Scripture talk about the same thing and an apparent conflict exists, in your opinion, who’s got the trump card?

That is what Luther, Melanchton and Pope Urban VIII though they were using. It was a mistake.

As I’ve stated before, they were wrong to apply dogma to an area that Scripture doesn’t speak. Where it does speak, and speak clearly, science should be held accountable.

1Cor 15:14 is talking about the claim we find throughout the NT that Jesus was raised from the dead. Yet Paul says that if this did not factually occur, if Christ's body is still in the grave, then our faith is in vain. This was Peter and John's response to the news that Christ was risen. They went and checked the facts. If they had found Jesus' body they would not have believed in his resurrection. When scripture talks about events in the natural world these event are open to verification.

So if someone were to make the scientific claim that they have the bones of Jesus and can prove it, you’ll look at the evidence and if the science is good you’ll believe it?

Is Genesis prophecy? It is God telling us what happened, and not the work of eye witnesses. It is God speaking of his actions a time no one has seen. That sounds prophetic to me.

I always thought prophesy was the foretelling of an event. Are you claiming it also the telling of history?

How is being wrong about the bible teaching geocentrism any different from being wrong about the bible teaching a six day creation? How does being wrong about either have a bearing on the truth of scripture? And if the church would have been right to wait and see about Copernicus, why is it wrong to wait and see about geological ages and evolution?

The Bible doesn’t teach geocentricism, somewhere in the past some people have in error made it into a teaching and the church suffered for it. That is one area where it is critically different from a six day creation, that is a teaching of Scripture. The two cannot ever be compared.

If we find the process of forming us 1) took a long time 2) was a complicated process and 3) shows we are related to other creatures, how does that contradict the scriptural teaching that 1) it was God who made us and 2) his plan all along was to form us in his image?

That one little word is what should throw this whole synopsis out the door, especially when the results contradict what God said.

Why is scripture contradicted to say God made us from the same DNA he made chimps from, but not that God made us from the same mud he made chimps from? It is just silly.

What seems silly to you is vital to me.

And the vast majority, no sorry everybody who read scripture before Copernicus read a wide range of different of passages as teaching geocentrism. What you are saying is you interpret the passage literally, therefore it is foundational. You need to show why a six day creation is foundational and where the rest of scripture treats the six literal days as foundational.

Six days are foundation when we look at Exodus 20: 8-11 where it states:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

​

You can read that anyway you wish, but it’s pretty clear to me. It not only shows me that God worked for six days and rested, not because He needed to, but because it was to be a model for us. It’s an important model we continue to observe today.

 

[vossler]

Did God stop work? Not according to Jesus, John 5:17
"My Father is working until now, and I am working." Was the Sabbath instituted to commemorate God's day off?
That is what Genesis and Exodus say. The Jews observe the Sabbath because God rested on the seventh day and made it holy. That is not how Jesus interpreted it.
Mar 2:27 And he said to them, "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Did God's rest last 24 hours? Not according to the writer of Hebrews. According to him God's seventh day rest is still going on and we are called to enter it 'Today' Heb 3&4. According to Paul the Sabbath is just a shadow Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

I like what you wrote here, please tell me, someone who you believe doesn’t understand, what it means then. Is the Sabbath important? If not why not? What’s the meaning of it all?

You mean like Moses in Psalm 90? The bible kept repeating God is the creator. Why keep saying that but not that he did it in six days?

So you believe Moses is questioning the words God inspired him to write?

There were plenty of letters written to Gentiles who had never heard of a six day creation, but while the epistles repeat that God created the world through Christ, they don't bother with the six day part. How can that be a foundational doctrine?

Again, it was a given, very few if any doubted it.

You think no century Jews questioned the Genesis creation accounts being literal? Philo and Josephus did. Philo interpreted the six days and Adam and Eve allegorically, Josephus just though Adam and Eve was allegorical. The literal interpretation of Genesis was being seriously questioned in the first century, so why did no one think it important enough to reiterate the foundational doctrine of a six day creation?

If there was such a seriousness to the question you’d think there would have been countless discussions at the many church councils concerning this topic. I don’t know if it ever came up, do you?

Then why not believe and proclaim geocentrism?

Because it doesn’t teach it, one can be led to believe it but it doesn’t teach it. I’ll proclaim what the Bible teaches.

You reject the literal flat earth and geocentric readings because you know and accept the science. There is no literal flat earth, there is a literal flat earth interpretation of scripture. You have a very sensible approach to geocentrism and flat earth interpretations. Why are you so inconsistent with six day creationism?

I’m glad to hear you say there is no literal flat earth, maybe we can drop at least that one. I see no inconsistencies what so ever with a six day creation.

How can you stand on what it does talk about when you hermeneutic cannot tell you what it talks about? You think it talks about a literal six day creations, but the sun rushing around the earth, or standing still for Joshua is not literal. You don't think the corners of the earth or it standing on pillars or people coming from the end of the heavens are literal. Why? Because you believe the science.

Just because my hermeneutic relies on Scripture almost exclusively doesn’t mean it cannot tell me what I need to know. I don’t know how you should know that the story of Joshua wasn’t literal, I trust God’s Word that it is until someone can present a solid biblical reason demonstrating otherwise. Science fills in a lot of blanks and thank God for that, but that’s a lot different than using it to create more blanks than what previously existed.

You say you stand on what it does talk about, but you decide what it talks about when you decide between the literal interpretation and the science. Saying you stand on what it does talk about, is simply claiming your interpretation is correct. You haven't shown any basis for arriving at the correct interpretation, or tell us when the science is right and when it is the literal interpretation.

That’s true, I am claiming my interpretation is correct. The Scriptures to which we are referring are not very complicated to understand, they’re pretty straight-forward and they certainly don’t need science to justify what is written. I just believe if someone is going to present an alternative interpretation it is on them to make their case. I have yet to see an even remotely viable presentation and until I do I will proclaim, as truth, the common interpretation.

(1) Jesus does not say the smallest seed planted by farmers in Palestine but that it is the smallest of all seeds. If you want to take the statements of Jesus as te inerrant word of the Son of God to be taken literally unless it is clearly a metaphor, then it is not the smallest seed.

If the Jewish farmer knew the mustard seed to be the smallest seed then he wouldn’t care about the poppy or any other seed because it would have no relevance to him. If he knew it wasn’t the smallest seed because they also were familiar with sowing poppy then they would reason to doubt him. BTW, why would Jesus use the mustard seed, an actual seed, as a metaphor to be something it isn’t. How does that make sense?

(2) The poppy featured in Jewish coins

That was an interesting read but I don’t know if that proves your point either. One doesn’t know if the audience to which Jesus was speaking grew poppy or whether the poppy was sown or grew naturally. There’s a lot that really isn’t known, what is known is that Jesus said it and I believe it and it would appear those He was speaking to did also.

Basically I think Jesus didn't care.

So Jesus didn’t care that He was making a mistake. Hmmm…

You are correct in saying you want to stand on what the bible does talk about. When the bible seems to get it wrong about mustard seeds and geocentrism, it is because that is not what God is talking about. If a six day creation is wrong, it is because it is not what the bible was talking about.

All of these determinations are somehow based on the idea that God, when He speaks, doesn’t always know what He’s talking about or that He somehow says one thing but clearly means another.

But you need an approach to scripture and science that can tell these apart. Simply saying if it sound literal, and it makes sense literal, and the context does no contradict literal then it is true literally, does not work.

It works well enough for me and a lot of other Christians.

Remember we have more reasons in scripture for adopting non literal days than we have with geocentrism or mustard seeds. From early on the church saw the contradiction is a literal interpretation of day and we are even told we can't take God's days as 24 hours. We have nothing like that with geocentrism and mustard seeds.

They, the few, that saw a contradiction did so, I believe, because it didn’t make sense to them. I see very little reason in Scripture to doubt six days, however, I could see a case for geocentricism, if a case was needed. As far as the mustard seed, I don’t believe that’s an issue for anyone other than TEs and atheists.

Check both science and interpretation. If the science stands up to scientific testing and there are other ways to read the text then the interpretation that contradicts the science is wrong.

I’d like you to tell us in your own words how Genesis 1 plays out. Please give us your interpretation.

How many times have we told you that the natural world and scripture are both created by God and both true. That any conflicts come because we are dealing with our interpretation of nature and an interpretation of scripture? We have told you this so why do you keep asking is we are implying science and Scripture are on the same plane?

Because you substitute science for the natural world and then go on to use science to trump Scripture, that’s why.

You agreed the plain sense of the geocentrist passages made common sense and that there was nothing in the contest to indicate another reading. According to the David Copper quote in your sig you should take the plain sense. But you don't because of what I called science and you referred to as 'our scientific understanding'. Your David Copper sig gives you the wrong interpretation for geocentrism and you agree, so why not drop the sig?

Wherever you can pull out a Scripture that talks about what you describe as geocentrinstic passages, I would claim that not a single one is in fact a geocentrinstic passage, but a passage or chapter about something entirely different. Please pull out your best passage and show me where it is a teaching about geocentricism.

Then why do you believe the earth rotates? It couldn't be you believe the scientists rather than the literal interpretation of God's word?

I believe the scientists about that and many, many other things. I happen to like science. I just don’t like some things called science that contradicts God.

A non answer.

Actually it is the appropriate answer because it is only an answer that is scientifically viable that can answer anything with regard to our earth. I’m not a scientist and therefore would be immediately disqualified from answering questions regarding science. My beliefs are of no value.

We only need a few details, like 'this rock cooled from molten magma 250 million years ago' to know YEC is totally off the wall.

Well at least it’s clear where your trust and my trust lie.

You claimed that in spite of Psalm 90, Moses sounded literal in Genesis and millions of people believed him. I pointed out the Jesus sounded literal about turning bread and wine into his body and blood and that millions of Catholic believe that too.

That’s why one needs to know the three most important words in understanding Scripture. Context, context, context. Mix that with some humility and Holy Spirit and you’ve got quite a foundation from which to understand.

So in spite of Jesus saying physical food can't give eternal life, you believe a literal tree can. And in spite of the bible telling us the snake was Satan, you believe there was literal snake too.

I said a literal tree can give eternal life? Where? Yes there was a literal snake.

And even though God tells the snake that the seed of the woman would crush his head, you think this is figurative?

Yes.

What is there in the account that never mentions Satan but holds the snake responsible for tempting Eve, that tells us the snake was cursed for his crime by having to crawl on his belly and eat dust every day and that he was going to have his head bruised because of what he had done.

I don’t understand the question. Is there one?

How are TE's non literal interpretations 'so far removed from Scripture itself' when people like Origin, Augustine and Aquinas were able to see from scripture that the days were not literal? All TE's have is scientific confirmation that these scholars of the past were right to question the literal interpretation.

Even if you can make an argument for the days not being literal, which I don’t believe you can, that’s still far removed from birthing that man evolved as did all other animals from a common ancestor. It would appear that because you believe the days to be figurative that then allows everything else to be also. That then opens the door to all sorts of extra-biblical interpretations. In other words give me a crack and I’ll bust down the door.

Sorry your interpretation makes no sense. You insist the made of dust bit has to be literal, in spite of being a common biblical metaphor, but that crushing the snake's head has to be figurative even though there is no suggestion it refers to anything other than the snake.

I’m not surprised that it doesn’t make sense and yes this does deserve another thread.

 

[theFijian]

Yes it is, but what about when science and Scripture talk about the same thing and an apparent conflict exists, in your opinion, who’s got the trump card?

It depends what that 'thing' is. For example, Doctrine of Justification? Best check special revelation. Fluid mechanics? Best check general revelation.

Regardless, you are still trying to play one type of revelation off against the other despite this being explained to you numerous times (do you ever actually read what people write?) Its not a question of general revelation 'trumping' special revelation. It's a question of re-analysing our understanding of special and/or general revelation.

 

[gluadys]

Yes it is, but what about when science and Scripture talk about the same thing and an apparent conflict exists, in your opinion, who’s got the trump card?

Neither. Truth does not trump truth.
The only thing truth can trump is a mistaken interpretation. The only source of an apparent conflict is a mistaken interpretation.

As I’ve stated before, they were wrong to apply dogma to an area that Scripture doesn’t speak. Where it does speak, and speak clearly, science should be held accountable.

As far as they could see, scripture was speaking very clearly. You can't get much clearer than Psalm 93:1b

the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

I always thought prophesy was the foretelling of an event. Are you claiming it also the telling of history?

That's divination, not prophecy. Actually prophecy does have more to do with the past than foretelling the future. The prophets were continually calling the people back to the covenant which they had forsaken. They were to remember the covenant and keep it, lest disaster befall them. Of course, it doesn't take divination to foresee that disaster will be the consequence of forsaking the covenant. Nor to see that shalom, (peace, harmony, prosperity) will be the consequence of keeping it.

 

[vossler]

Neither. Truth does not trump truth.
The only thing truth can trump is a mistaken interpretation. The only source of an apparent conflict is a mistaken interpretation.

When talking to an evolutionist that means Scripture is mistaken and when talking to a creationist that means science is mistaken. Given that God gave us the universals from which we’re to figure out the particulars with, I don’t know if I’d put much confidence in man and his abilities.

As far as they could see, scripture was speaking very clearly. You can't get much clearer than Psalm 93:1b

the world also is stablished, that it cannot be moved.

So do you interpret that to mean it cannot be figuratively or physically moved?

That's divination, not prophecy. Actually prophecy does have more to do with the past than foretelling the future. The prophets were continually calling the people back to the covenant which they had forsaken. They were to remember the covenant and keep it, lest disaster befall them. Of course, it doesn't take divination to foresee that disaster will be the consequence of forsaking the covenant. Nor to see that shalom, (peace, harmony, prosperity) will be the consequence of keeping it.

Sure prophets spoke about what people did in the past and attempted to get people to remember the past, all in an effort to correct behavior in the future, but I wasn’t aware that they also were historians or interpreted the past.

 

[gluadys]

Given that God gave us the universals from which we’re to figure out the particulars with, I don’t know if I’d put much confidence in man and his abilities.

What you are advocating here is called deductive reasoning. It does play an important role in science. However, in science, pure deductive reasoning without reference to empirical experience, often leads to error, as we can make mistakes in logic.

Inductive reasoning, from the particular to the universal also plays an important role in science, but it also has a flaw. We can only be sure that a conclusion is sound if we have investigated every particular in the class. In most cases we cannot know that we have investigated every particular. Any day can turn up an instance which is an exception to the general rule we have deduced from the particular instances.

Science works best when it does not rely exclusively on either inductive or deductive reasoning, but uses each as a check on the other. Deductive reasoning leads to predictions about empirical particulars. Checking out the particulars tells us whether or not our deductive reasoning is accurate. Inductive reasoning can lead us to propose universal rules, and that leads to further predictions obtained deductively that we can again check against empirical particulars.

I don't know what to make of your suggestion that God has given us the universals. In the sense that they already exist, I suppose one can say that. But it seems to me that they are not just handed to us on a silver platter. We need to discover what they are, and that takes observation and logical reasoning.

So do you interpret that to mean it cannot be figuratively or physically moved?

I think the plain meaning that any pre-Copernican would have drawn from this is that the earth does not move. Nothing in the text, or anywhere else in scripture, suggests it does not refer to physical movement. I do not see how one would interpret this differently without the extra-biblical information that the earth does move. So if you can for a few moments put yourself in their shoes, how would you convince them, without reference to scienctific theory or discovery, convince them of their interpretive error. How could you convince them the assertion of a motionless earth around which the heavens move is merely dogma and not the plain speaking of scripture?

Galileo did not try to convince them from scripture. He said that the evidence of our senses and the necessary demonstrations of fact should be enough to convince them their scriptural interpretation was incorrect.

If that is good enough to change the Christian perspective on the structure of the cosmos, why is it not enough when it comes to the age of the earth or the origin of humanity?

Sure prophets spoke about what people did in the past and attempted to get people to remember the past, all in an effort to correct behavior in the future, but I wasn’t aware that they also were historians or interpreted the past.

I wouldn't call them historians. But yes, they did interpret the past. And not everyone agreed with their interpretations. After the fall of Jerusalem, some Jews went to Egypt, taking Jeremiah with them. Jeremiah interpreted the fall of Jerusalem as God's judgment on them for, among other things, their idolatry. But some of the women said, (paraphrase) No, that's not it. The troubles started when we stopped making cakes for the queen of heaven. So we need to start honouring the queen of heaven again. (Jeremiah 44:16-19)

 

[Assyrian]

I thought that’s what I was talking about. The questioning isn’t new, I admitted that. What’s new is to question something without any legitimacy or support for the questioning.

Isn't that what Luther thought Copernicus was doing? Or do you mean what is new is questioning the interpretation when you don't think the theory is legitimate?

Just because you don’t claim it doesn’t mean you don’t do it. My children can claim they weren’t disrespectful and believe it, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

Should I call you 'Dad' now?

Why not argue about something we actually say rather than spending your time and energy on a strawman?

I agree, they just happen to be the ones with whom I’ve had most disagreements with.

That will be the reason then.

That’s an interesting approach. I suppose it can work for you and others but I prefer to stick to the Scriptures themselves rather than spend a lot of time understanding theories not related to the text so that I can find flaws from the inside.

You won't get far in a discussion about how to interpret scripture if you think your interpretation of scripture is identical to scripture itself.

No I don’t have to show that a six day creation is the only possible interpretation, it already is the most biblically sound and trusted one, the one that has stood the test of time. It is those that wish to challenge the viability of it by presenting an alternative who must demonstrate a stronger case for their interpretation with whom the responsibility lies. Also, any interpretation that begins from the premise that the words of the Bible do not mean what they plainly say has a very difficult job substantiating such a claim from within Scripture itself.

Geocentrist interpretations stood the test of time until Copernicus came along.

Beside you only claim the literal interpretation of Genesis day is 'the most biblically sound' 'trusted' or that it 'has stood the test of time'. For the longest period of church history Augustine's interpretation was the most trusted. The literal interpretation did make a come back with the reformation, but is Martin 'That fool Copernicus' Luther the best person for reading scientific interpretations from the bible?

No what’s alien is someone stating an interpretation to be incorrect and then not presenting a viable alternative, typically that is what you’ll see in GT.

We do present viable alternatives, you refuse to see if they are viable or not and try to throw literalist rocks it from the outside. You have never show why the TE interpretations are non viable.

Most people would probably see themselves as humble. As the typical person on the street and almost without exception they’ll tell you that they are a good person. We’re not the best judge over how to see ourselves.

And yet you fallback position is that YEC is what the Holy Spirit showed you and you are humble and open to him, so it must be right.

I used to live in Missouri and it was called the Show Me State. Please show me that the literal meaning is purely a metaphor and if you’re going to use Psalm 90 again to prove it then we’re not going to get very far.

Sure, because you just shut your ears and go 'nah nah nah'. I have shown you plenty of reasons for reading the days metaphorically but you just don't deal with them.

Yes it is, but what about when science and Scripture talk about the same thing and an apparent conflict exists, in your opinion, who’s got the trump card?

I just answered that.

As I’ve stated before, they were wrong to apply dogma to an area that Scripture doesn’t speak. Where it does speak, and speak clearly, science should be held accountable.

Luther, Melanchton and Pope Urban VIII believed that scripture spoke plainly and clearly about geocentrism and that science should be held accountable. Their dogma was simply holding the literal interpretation of these passages, as you dogma is about YEC. They were wrong.

So if someone were to make the scientific claim that they have the bones of Jesus and can prove it, you’ll look at the evidence and if the science is good you’ll believe it?

If someone produced solid evidence that Jesus' body was still in the grave Paul would have believed it.
1Cor 15:14 if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. Peter and John would never have been convinced that Sunday morning if they had found evidence Jesus was still in the tomb. The bible say we can test it against reality. Your problem is you are trying to support an interpretation that has failed the test.

I always thought prophesy was the foretelling of an event. Are you claiming it also the telling of history?

History is when there are human witnesses. Why should the way God reveals the unseen future be different from the way he reveals the unseen past?

The Bible doesn’t teach geocentricism, somewhere in the past some people have in error made it into a teaching and the church suffered for it. That is one area where it is critically different from a six day creation, that is a teaching of Scripture. The two cannot ever be compared.

The only difference is no one questioned the geocentrist reading before Copernicus, while many questioned literal days. Both are misinterpretations that have been shown to be wrong by science. Neither effect the truth of scripture because they simply misread what it says.

I will repeat my questions:

1. How is being wrong about the bible teaching geocentrism any different from being wrong about the bible teaching a six day creation?
2. How does being wrong about either have a bearing on the truth of scripture?
3. And if the church would have been right to wait and see about Copernicus, why is it wrong to wait and see about geological ages and evolution?

Simply saying they were wrong and you are right does not count.

If we find the process of forming us 1) took a long time 2) was a complicated process and 3) shows we are related to other creatures, how does that contradict the scriptural teaching that 1) it was God who made us and 2) his plan all along was to form us in his image?

That one little word is what should throw this whole synopsis out the door, especially when the results contradict what God said.

No more than when we learned the earth rotated.

You claimed God using evolution meant we weren't made in his image. You haven't backed other than to take potshots at science and claim you literal interpretation is right. Of course the problem is you can't back the claim up.

What seems silly to you is vital to me.

A pity you can't back it up then. You claim there is a contradiction but you can't show any.

Six days are foundation when we look at Exodus 20: 8-11 where it states:

"Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.​

You can read that anyway you wish, but it’s pretty clear to me. It not only shows me that God worked for six days and rested, not because He needed to, but because it was to be a model for us. It’s an important model we continue to observe today.

Is God being refreshed after a rest foundational too?

Exodus 31:16 Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations, as a covenant forever. 17 It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested and was refreshed.'"

Are God's literal arms and hands foundational too?

Deut 5:13 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 14 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter or your male servant or your female servant, or your ox or your donkey or any of your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates, that your male servant and your female servant may rest as well as you. 15 You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath day.

Same Sabbath command in the ten commandments in the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy. Why is a literal description of the creation necessary as an illustration of the Sabbath when a Moses didn't stick to a literal description of the Exodus from Egypt when he gave the Sabbath command in Deuteronomy?

Are you even right to claim the Sabbath is foundational? Col 2:16 Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. 17 These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.

You claim a literal six day creation is 'foundational' but you have only show how it is used in an illustration of the Sabbath, and illustration in the middle of a metaphor describing God as a weary labourer being refreshed after a day's rest. And far from the Sabbath itself being foundational, we find in the NT that the Sabbath itself is just a shadow.

 

[Assyrian]

I like what you wrote here, please tell me, someone who you believe doesn’t understand, what it means then. Is the Sabbath important? If not why not? What’s the meaning of it all?

As Paul says Rom 14:5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. I fit the second category, esteeming all day alike. I go with the Sabbath was made for man... as Jesus told us. That is, we need the rest, and we need laws that allow worker to have some sort of rest. This is a major theme in a lot of what the OT says about the Sabbath. It is a human rights issue. Sabbath observance is not because the Sabbath is intrinsically holy, not because God rested that day and declared it holy, though that is what a literal reading of Genesis and Exodus says, but the literal meaning is turned upside down by Jesus: the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.

Paul hints at the real meaning of the Sabbath in Col 2:16. The reality behind the Sabbath is in Christ. The writer of Hebrews takes this much further in chap 3&4. There is a seventh day rest God entered, but it is a rest we are commanded to enter 'as long sa it is called 'Today'. In other words God's seventh day rest is still going on. Interestingly the writer treats the word 'Today' in Today if you harden not your hearts... as another day-age that is still going on. The rest we are called to enter, God's seventh day rest, is actually a picture of the Gospel and the relationship we are called into in God through Christ. [/quote]

So you believe Moses is questioning the words God inspired him to write?

I don't think he was questioning God's words, just interpreting them figuratively. Don't you think Moses was also inspired when he wrote Psalm 90?

Again, it was a given, very few if any doubted it.

A six day creation was a given among Gentile converts to Christianity?

If there was such a seriousness to the question you’d think there would have been countless discussions at the many church councils concerning this topic. I don’t know if it ever came up, do you?

By the time the church councils began discussing Genesis very few had any contact with Jewish rabbis and their view on Genesis. Jerome was the only real exception and he believe Moses wrote the creation story 'after the manner of a popular poet'. Meanwhile interpretation of the Genesis days in the early church range from literal, to 1000 years, to the purely figurative of Origen and Augustine.

Because it doesn’t teach it, one can be led to believe it but it doesn’t teach it. I’ll proclaim what the Bible teaches.

The bible proclaims geocentrism as clearly as it proclaims a six day creation. Your approach is inconsistent.

I’m glad to hear you say there is no literal flat earth, maybe we can drop at least that one. I see no inconsistencies what so ever with a six day creation.

Because a plain literal interpretation will give you a flat earth and geocentrism as easily as it gives YEC, in fact more easily because the bible does present alternative readings for the Genesis days. The only reason you drop geocentrism and flat earth as mistaken readings is because you accept the science. If it is wrong to let science show you where a YEC interpretation is wrong, it is wrong to let science show you flat earth and geocentrism interpretations are wrong too.

Just because my hermeneutic relies on Scripture almost exclusively doesn’t mean it cannot tell me what I need to know. I don’t know how you should know that the story of Joshua wasn’t literal, I trust God’s Word that it is until someone can present a solid biblical reason demonstrating otherwise. Science fills in a lot of blanks and thank God for that, but that’s a lot different than using it to create more blanks than what previously existed.

Because the biblical account of the miracle only makes sense if the length of our day is determined by the motion of the sun around the earth. Joshua commanded the sun to stand still. It is the earth's rotation that give us day and night. Luther understood this.

"People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth."

Sciences tells you the literal reading of the account is wrong and you believe the science. This is just one of many passages that present a clear geocentrist view. This is not just science filling in a lot of blanks, it is science overturning the plain literal reading of scripture. Which you seem quite happy with.

That’s true, I am claiming my interpretation is correct. The Scriptures to which we are referring are not very complicated to understand, they’re pretty straight-forward and they certainly don’t need science to justify what is written. I just believe if someone is going to present an alternative interpretation it is on them to make their case. I have yet to see an even remotely viable presentation and until I do I will proclaim, as truth, the common interpretation.

How about showing how your interpretation can distinguish between flat earth, geocentrism, mustard seeds and YEC. Simply claiming you are right does not hack it as a hermeneutic.

If the Jewish farmer knew the mustard seed to be the smallest seed then he wouldn’t care about the poppy or any other seed because it would have no relevance to him. If he knew it wasn’t the smallest seed because they also were familiar with sowing poppy then they would reason to doubt him.

That was an interesting read but I don’t know if that proves your point either. One doesn’t know if the audience to which Jesus was speaking grew poppy or whether the poppy was sown or grew naturally. There’s a lot that really isn’t known, what is known is that Jesus said it and I believe it and it would appear those He was speaking to did also.

What point do I need to prove? We know Jesus said the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds. We know the poppy seed was smaller. You claim that the mustard seed is the smallest seed planted in Palestine is doubly irrelevant because that is not what Jesus said, he said it was the smallest of all seeds and because, as I have shown, they did have poppies and valued them.

BTW, why would Jesus use the mustard seed, an actual seed, as a metaphor to be something it isn’t. How does that make sense?

Could you rephrase your question?

So Jesus didn’t care that He was making a mistake. Hmmm…

The mustard seed is not the smallest of all seeds. Are you willing to learn from our master or keep reading scripture your own way?

All of these determinations are somehow based on the idea that God, when He speaks, doesn’t always know what He’s talking about or that He somehow says one thing but clearly means another.

Like Jesus said he was a door. You are beginning to get it.

It works well enough for me and a lot of other Christians.

Not if it keeps damaging the church like it did with Cosmas Indicopleustes's flat earth and Luther calling Copernicus a fool.

They, the few, that saw a contradiction did so, I believe, because it didn’t make sense to them. I see very little reason in Scripture to doubt six days, however, I could see a case for geocentricism, if a case was needed. As far as the mustard seed, I don’t believe that’s an issue for anyone other than TEs and atheists.

The 'few' as you put, the most important scripture scholars in the church for over a thousand years, saw a problem with literal days but any problems with geocentrism totally passed them by? Yet you think you can make a case for geocentrism (I presume you mean heliocentrism?) when the plain reading is very simple and you reject the idea of letting science influence your choice of interpretation?

I’d like you to tell us in your own words how Genesis 1 plays out. Please give us your interpretation.

Long question. I'll get back to you.

Because you substitute science for the natural world and then go on to use science to trump Scripture, that’s why.

No science never trumps scripture. It can trump a dogmatic interpretation of scripture that refuse to test itself or look at other ways of reading the information, because science does just that.

Wherever you can pull out a Scripture that talks about what you describe as geocentrinstic passages, I would claim that not a single one is in fact a geocentrinstic passage, but a passage or chapter about something entirely different. Please pull out your best passage and show me where it is a teaching about geocentricism.

Jos 10:12 At that time Joshua spoke to the LORD in the day when the LORD gave the Amorites over to the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, "Sun, stand still at Gibeon, and moon, in the Valley of Aijalon."
13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jashar? The sun stopped in the midst of heaven and did not hurry to set for about a whole day.
14 There has been no day like it before or since, when the LORD obeyed the voice of a man, for the LORD fought for Israel.
The passage is talking about the miracle of the sun standing still.

Eccles 1:5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises.
6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns.
7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again.
The writer is describing a number of natural processes continuing on in the world around us. There is nothing to suggest they are not meant literally. Melanchton drew on this passage in his assault on heliocentrism.

Matt 5:45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. Is there any reason not to think Jesus is being as literal here as he was about mustard seeds?

I believe the scientists about that and many, many other things. I happen to like science. I just don’t like some things called science that contradicts God.

How does geological time 'contradict God' when heliocentrism doesn't? You can never give an answer for this.

Actually it is the appropriate answer because it is only an answer that is scientifically viable that can answer anything with regard to our earth. I’m not a scientist and therefore would be immediately disqualified from answering questions regarding science. My beliefs are of no value.

I would lime that for truth, only you think no such thing. You happily decide between which sciences you accept and which you reject, and the ones you reject you think are because the literal reading is the only possible reading, while you merrily think up alternative interpretations for passages where you accept the science.

We only need a few details, like 'this rock cooled from molten magma 250 million years ago' to know YEC is totally off the wall.

Well at least it’s clear where your trust and my trust lie.

Yes, you trust Eratosthenes and Copernicus but not modern geologists.

That’s why one needs to know the three most important words in understanding Scripture. Context, context, context. Mix that with some humility and Holy Spirit and you’ve got quite a foundation from which to understand.

The context of Psalm 90 is that it was written by the only person in the whole bible to mention creation days and that it was a Psalm about the creation. Psalm 90:1 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

I said a literal tree can give eternal life? Where? Yes there was a literal snake.

You said:

There isn’t anything to back up. Here’s the short answer. The text says it and there’s no reason not to believe it. God, as the text says, literally made Adam from the dust of the earth. BTW, the snake and tree of life were literal too. What wasn’t literal is the bruising of the snake’s head that was figurative. I cleared that up just so you can see that Genesis was literal here too.

You mean there was a tree of life but it couldn't make people live for ever, in spite of what God said in Gen 3:22?

I don’t understand the question. Is there one?

Sorry: And even though God tells the snake that the seed of the woman would crush his head, you think this is figurative? In an account that never mentions Satan but holds the snake responsible for tempting Eve, that tells us the snake was cursed for his crime by having to crawl on his belly and eat dust every day and that he was going to have his head bruised because of what he had done, what would makes you think the part about the snake's head being crushed was figurative?

Even if you can make an argument for the days not being literal, which I don’t believe you can, that’s still far removed from birthing that man evolved as did all other animals from a common ancestor. It would appear that because you believe the days to be figurative that then allows everything else to be also. That then opens the door to all sorts of extra-biblical interpretations. In other words give me a crack and I’ll bust down the door.

You don't have to show the bible really teaches heliocentrism (it doesn't) to argue against geocentric interpretations. In the same way all you have to show is that non literal days are a reasonable interpretation and that God forming people out of clay like a potter is a common scriptural metaphor, then there is nothing in long ages and evolution that contradict scripture.

The only things that ever crack are mistaken interpretation of scripture.

 

[vossler]

I don't know what to make of your suggestion that God has given us the universals. In the sense that they already exist, I suppose one can say that. But it seems to me that they are not just handed to us on a silver platter. We need to discover what they are, and that takes observation and logical reasoning.

I believe they have been handed to us on a silver platter, it's just He won't force them onto us we must choose to believe them.
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I think the plain meaning that any pre-Copernican would have drawn from this is that the earth does not move. Nothing in the text, or anywhere else in scripture, suggests it does not refer to physical movement. I do not see how one would interpret this differently without the extra-biblical information that the earth does move. So if you can for a few moments put yourself in their shoes, how would you convince them, without reference to scienctific theory or discovery, convince them of their interpretive error. How could you convince them the assertion of a motionless earth around which the heavens move is merely dogma and not the plain speaking of scripture?

I wouldn’t attempt to convince them, the only way I know that the earth moves is by what science has taught me. I accept it at face value because I have no reason not to. It really plays no role in my life and is essentially unimportant. I see this as a figurative statement, whereby God is telling us the earth is established and fixed just like He is.

Galileo did not try to convince them from scripture. He said that the evidence of our senses and the necessary demonstrations of fact should be enough to convince them their scriptural interpretation was incorrect.

If that is good enough to change the Christian perspective on the structure of the cosmos, why is it not enough when it comes to the age of the earth or the origin of humanity?

As I’ve said before because it had little to no bearing on the Christian’s walk with God. [/FONT]