Dinosaurs on the Ark?

[AV1611VET]

No.

Can you name me six persons ... by name ... living prior to the earth coming into existence?

 

[Lily of Valleys]

Perhaps I should have said that they appproach those rules with some unshakable preconceived notions. Take, for example,

Principle 7: Be sensitive to the type of literature you are in.

Genre determination is very important, not an easy task at all, especially with such ancient texts. Yet the creationists decide a priori that the text of Genesis must be 100% accurate literal history.

This is again a generalization. Creationists are not one person, but are individuals who have their individual opinions and ways of seeing things. I can't speak for other creationists; neither can any creationist speak for me, but I have not come across anyone in any church I have ever attended that "decide a priori the text of Genesis must be 100% accurate literal history".

Keep in mind that creationists or non-creationists alike, the majority of professed Christians have not attended Bible college or have received any training to interpret the Bible, so misinterpretations are bound to happen at times. What is of utmost importance is, as Christians, we should let the scripture shape our understanding instead of interpreting the scripture to fit our view, but it can only be done with a humble heart.

With regard to genre, other than the obvious ones such as Psalms that almost everyone know that they are poetry and songs, many others could be subject to interpretation, so I wouldn't just assume an entire book is allegory without any scriptural support that it is.

If you believe that the texts of the Bible are fully authoritative based on divine inspiration, you would expect that there shouldn't be any inconsistency throughout the Bible. If an interpretation is inconsistent with some other clear Bible passages which cannot be interpreted any other way, then that interpretation cannot be the correct interpretation.

That's how we decide that the book of Genesis cannot be 100% allegory, as you can see the Bible verses I and some others have listed that are against that interpretation. And we are able to explain in details why from a scriptural perspective, not because of any unshakable preconceived notions other than that the scripture is the inspired word of God.

 

[Speedwell]

T

Keep in mind that creationists or non-creationists alike, the majority of professed Christians have not attended Bible college or have received any training to interpret the Bible, so misinterpretations are bound to happen at times. What is of utmost importance is, as Christians, we should let the scripture shape our understanding instead of interpreting the scripture to fit our view, but it can only be done with a humble heart.

That's what the church is for. The Bible is not a message from God to individual Christians, but to the whole community of the faithful and must be read with all of the scholarly resources available--literary, linguistic, archaeological, etc. Anything less would demean the word of God.

 

[Papias]

And I'll reiterate that an allegorical book of Genesis is an anti-Semite book of Genesis.

And you say that again? I thought that was settled when you realized you were saying that the whole Synagogue of Conservative Judaism was using an anti-Semite book of Genesis! I hope we both see how absurd that is. But please, keep saying it - it makes everything you say look pretty silly. Do you want that link again? Did you forget it so fast?

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Papias]

Do you see Adam's name in First Chronicles? A name in a genealogy with all those other names, a person as real as all those other people are? The truth is right in front of you.

Eryk, we already saw that the Holy Spirit has shown that those are allegorical genealogies, back in post #63 on this thread, remember? Here is that post:

Specifically, the writers of Mt and Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, show us that the genealogies are allegories, and not literal. The Holy Spirit, author of both of them, shows this by the fact that they disagree with each other, and that Mt's list is altered so as to make his "14 generation" thing work.

Compare Mt with the same genealogy given in Chronicles:

Mt Gen# .................Gospel of Matthew has............... 1st Chron. Has:

1..............................Solomon the father of Rehoboam, ...Solomon's son was

2 .............................Rehoboam the father of Abijah,...... Rehoboam,

3 .............................Abijah ..............................................Abijah his son,

4..............................Asa ..................................................Asa his son,

5 .............................Jehoshaphat .....................................Jehoshaphat his son,

6............................. Jehoram ...........................................Jehoram his son

................................Skipped.......................................... Ahaziah his son,


................................Skipped .........................................Joash his son,

................................Skipped .........................................Amaziah his son,

7......................Uzziah the father of Jotham, .................Azariah his son,

8............................ Jotham ............................................Jotham his son,

9 ............................Ahaz ...............................................Ahaz his son,

10...........................Hezekiah ........................................Hezekiah his son,

11.......................... Manasseh .......................................Manasseh his son,

12 ..........................Amon .............................................Amon his son,

13.......................... Josiah the father of Jeconiah, ….....Josiah his son.


Since we know that the Holy Spirit is behind the writing of the gospel of Matthew, it cannot be in error. If it seems there is an error, it must be with our interpretation. We also know that the Holy Spirit, being also behind 1 Cr, would know if 1 Cr was symbolic, not literal, and could thus tell us about how to interpret 1 Cr by what is written in Mt. Since they both literally list the generations, and Mt clearly skips people, the Holy Spirit seems to be clearly telling us that the geneology in 1 Cr (and by necessity then in Mt) is figurative, and not literal, and hence that the Holy Spirit is telling us not to interpret genealogies literally nor historically.

In Christ-

Papias

@EpiscipalMe​

 

[Eryk]

Eryk, we already saw that the Holy Spirit has shown that those are allegorical genealogies, back in post #63 on this thread, remember? Here is that post:

Specifically, the writers of Mt and Luke, inspired by the Holy Spirit, show us that the genealogies are allegories, and not literal. The Holy Spirit, author of both of them, shows this by the fact that they disagree with each other, and that Mt's list is altered so as to make his "14 generation" thing work.

Compare Mt with the same genealogy given in Chronicles:

Mt Gen# .................Gospel of Matthew has............... 1st Chron. Has:

1..............................Solomon the father of Rehoboam, ...Solomon's son was

2 .............................Rehoboam the father of Abijah,...... Rehoboam,

3 .............................Abijah ..............................................Abijah his son,

4..............................Asa ..................................................Asa his son,

5 .............................Jehoshaphat .....................................Jehoshaphat his son,

6............................. Jehoram ...........................................Jehoram his son

................................Skipped.......................................... Ahaziah his son,


................................Skipped .........................................Joash his son,

................................Skipped .........................................Amaziah his son,

7......................Uzziah the father of Jotham, .................Azariah his son,

8............................ Jotham ............................................Jotham his son,

9 ............................Ahaz ...............................................Ahaz his son,

10...........................Hezekiah ........................................Hezekiah his son,

11.......................... Manasseh .......................................Manasseh his son,

12 ..........................Amon .............................................Amon his son,

13.......................... Josiah the father of Jeconiah, ….....Josiah his son.


Since we know that the Holy Spirit is behind the writing of the gospel of Matthew, it cannot be in error. If it seems there is an error, it must be with our interpretation. We also know that the Holy Spirit, being also behind 1 Cr, would know if 1 Cr was symbolic, not literal, and could thus tell us about how to interpret 1 Cr by what is written in Mt. Since they both literally list the generations, and Mt clearly skips people, the Holy Spirit seems to be clearly telling us that the geneology in 1 Cr (and by necessity then in Mt) is figurative, and not literal, and hence that the Holy Spirit is telling us not to interpret genealogies literally nor historically.

In Christ-

Papias

@EpiscipalMe​

The fact that genealogies are arranged in different ways does not mean that the people named are not real. Again, Matthew and Luke have a different sequence for Jesus' temptations in the desert. This does not put the historicity of the event in question.

We can trust in the verity of God's Word and assume that there is a perfectly valid reason for the different genealogies of Jesus. You have rejected descent through Mary with a wave of the hand. Ooooh, scary hand.

 

[Papias]

The fact that genealogies are arranged in different ways does not mean that the people named are not real.

Um, did you not read your own Bible? The genealogies, if read literally, contradict each other - giving different people as the father of many of the names on the list, and giving a different number of generations. If you insist on a literal reading, you are insisting that one (or both) of these are wrong. For instance, who impregnated Amaziah's mother, causing Amaziah to be born?

Dismissing this shows that you actually don't care what the word of God says, but instead will insist on your human view, even if that means ignoring the word of God.

We can trust in the verity of God's Word and assume that there is a perfectly valid reason for the different genealogies of Jesus.

But that's exactly what you refuse to do - trust God's word. God is showing us that these aren't literal. You posit some other human idea as a reason - yet refuse to state what that reason is.

You have rejected descent through Mary with a wave of the hand. Ooooh, scary hand.

What does any of this have to do with Mary? Did you read the passages in question?

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Eryk]

The genealogies, if read literally, contradict each other - giving different people as the father of many of the names on the list, and giving a different number of generations.

The list in Matthew is abridged and we can only guess as to the reason. Here's one theory:

Omissions of Ahaziah, Joas, Amaziah

We may reckon with a punishment. The ungodly king Joram was not permitted to register Ahaziah; Ahaziah was not permitted to register Joas, Joas did not register Amaziah. Amaziah (2 Kings 14:3) was permitted to continue the old tradition of registering his sons in the tempel archives. It is not acceptable to suppose that it was the initiative of Joram, Ahaziah and Joram to not register thier sons. As kings they should have done so. This is especially true for Joas who was a pious king in the beginning of his reign. So what was the reason that these three kings didn't register their sons? King Joram killed his brothers, six in number, as soon as he became king. This had never occurred earlier in Israel and it did never occur later in the royal house of David. We have to consider the probability that priests denounced these murders with a ban on registering the names of three royal generations in the temple archives. After the exodus out of Egypt, the Israelites got the commandment to not allow Egyptians to enter into the assembly of the Lord during three generations (Deuteronomy 23:8). Maybe a comparable punishment was laid on the royal family of David by the priests right after Joram's murders. The gap of the three excluded royal generations remained visible forever in the documents of identification circulating in the royal family: a shame forever, also in the document Joseph owned.​

What about Jesus’ genealogy according to Matthew compared with Chronicles? | Contradicting

We don't have temple records and this can't be proven (and the author does say "maybe"). But it shows that there could be a perfectly good reason for leaving out the names.

This ain't my first rodeo on these here internets, and I know that if a person wants to reject Biblical history, they'll reject every argument.

 

[Papias]

This ain't my first rodeo on these here internets, and I know that if a person wants to reject Biblical history, they'll reject every argument.

Which is completely unscriptural. Mt doesn't say any of that. So if you are going to insist these are to be interpreted literally, you still have the same contradiction (in addition to the fact that Matthew lists just 13 generations in his last set (not even listed here) and says they are 14. In fact, you can see that Mt says "generations" not "list of kings".

I know that if a person wants to reject what the Spirit is telling us, they'll come up with unscriptural excuses to ignore what the text stays.

The upshot is, as pointed out before, that the holy spirit is showing that this is not intended to be taken literally.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Eryk]

Mt doesn't say any of that.

Matthew is transparent about the genealogy being an abridgment in the first verse: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." When we read the Bible we interpret "son of" in different ways. The conjectures about how to reconcile different genealogies are fine as long as we admit that these opinions are not Scripture.

 

[Papias]

Matthew is transparent about the genealogy being an abridgment in the first verse: "The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." When we read the Bible we interpret "son of" in different ways. The conjectures about how to reconcile different genealogies are fine as long as we admit that these opinions are not Scripture.

Except that Mt explicitly *counts* the generations, showing that it's not interpreting "son of" any different way. Again you are justifying ignoring scripture - and then turning around and accusing others of ignoring scripture because they don't interpret it the same way you do.

Papias

 

[Eryk]

Except that Mt explicitly *counts* the generations, showing that it's not interpreting "son of" any different way. Again you are justifying ignoring scripture - and then turning around and accusing others of ignoring scripture because they don't interpret it the same way you do.

Papias

These are names of real people.. and the names are arranged in a specific way. We can assume that this would not have been controversial to the original Jewish audience of Matthew's gospel. I'm just saying that everyone in Biblical genealogies is a real person, which is the normal practice in recording a family tree.

 

[Papias]

or where does allegory end? How do we know that the whole Bible is not allegory? Once one begins a slippery slope there is no end to the sliding.

That train left the station back around 1600 AD. The Bibles (*especially Genesis*) are clearly wrong, if read literally with no interpretation, on a numbers of things, like the Earth being flat, under a hard dome, or diseases being caused by demons, or there being impossible amounts of gold in Solomon's temple, and so on. In all of those cases, Christians have already moved to non-literal interpretations or other ways of getting past the literal reading, and had already done so for over 400 years.

Unless you are a flat earther, you already recognize that the slippery slope fallacy is just that - a fallacy.

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Papias]

KW, that's a big post with a lot of topics. I'll try to cover them, because I think we might actually be having a respectful discussion.

And I've asked as many times, "an allegory for what?"
There isn't much doubt among scholars of ancient Hebrew that the author of Genesis intended to convey a six day creation.

"Allegory" is too simple for the view of hundreds of millions of Christians (including many theologians) and myself, hold.

Regarding a literal view, let's first look at a couple other topics. A literal reading of the scriptures make it clear that slavery is OK. Slavery is supported from Genesis to Revelation, and Jesus himself talks about slaves being severly beaten without ever suggesting there is anything wrong with that. Slavery is affirmed twice in the 10 commandments as well.

Similarly, the scriptures say again and again that the earth is flat, under a hard dome. I can again give the dozens of verses that show this, with Genesis and Revelation being especially clearly and undeniable. These dozens of verses are given in post #1169, here (Flat Earth V.S Round Earth? (Also helio/geocentrism)), along with video showing that this is well known, accepted by Bible scholars, taught in seminary, and it's been the standard Christian interpretation from the start of Christianity until ~1600 AD.

Are these "allegory"? It's not so simple, right? God speaks to us at our level. He does not expect readers to be omniscient. So when communicating in the ancient world, His words fit the ancient world - they had to, or no one would have understood or accepted the message. Thus, yes, it describes a flat earth under a hard dome, because if God had literally described our Universe, it would have been too incredible to understand. At the same time, there is enough poetic indicators to show the full glory of a message that may literally show a flat earth under a dome, while simultaneously giving room for our understanding to grow with modern evidence. The words are symbolic, being both acceptable to the ancients if a literalist interpretation is used, and deep enough to grow symbolically. That is much more to me than a simply allegory. What would be a good word for that? Divine allegory? "A message with multiple layers of meaning"? It is this greater understanding of Genesis that is called by some simply "allegory".

not a single TE can point to ANY passages of Scripture to support their argument.

As described above, none are needed, in the same way that neither of us can point to any scripture that describes the solar system, heliocentrism, a spherical earth, stars as distant suns, slavery as immoral, etc.

Yet, even though it is not needed - in this case, there is some scripture that supports evolution. Heb 1:3 reminds us that God is the one doing the creating, even when He is using his natural laws (preventing the creationist/atheist line that God isn't doing the creating if it is happening "naturally"). In John 5:17 Jesus tells us that he and the Father are "always working", which is consistent with the ongoing creation through evolution, since there aren't supernatural miracles popping up around us 24 hours a day. Another is Ps 102:18, which tells us that people are being created all the time. Since we all know that these people are "actually" being created through "normal" biology and reproduction, and we know that mutations area always being introduced, it means that God is creating through reproduction and mutation - a clear statement of God's creation using evolution - because that 's exactly what evolution is.

God said He created man from dust. You say He did no such thing.

In Ex 19, God says that he carried the Jews out of Egypt using eagles' wings. You say He did no such thing.

Show me Scripture that supports what you espouse and I'll listen to your argument.

As described above, none are needed, in the same way that neither of us can point to any scripture that describes the solar system, heliocentrism, a spherical earth, stars as distant suns, slavery as immoral, etc.

It also contends that prior to the fall there was no death. No death, no evolution. The fall isn't rejected because it is allegory, it is rejected because one cannot believe it and accept evolution.

False. The "no death before the fall" is rejected because it is absurd and contrary to the idea of God making a working (good) creation, regardless of evolution. Please see post #15, here, on the "mantisplosion", and subsequent posts by others Since animals and man ate plants in Genesis 1, how does that fit theistic evolution? .

You don't contend it never happened because there are passages in the Scripture that show it to be a metaphor, you say it never happened because such an event would disprove
that man evolved over millions of years and was not created by God.

Again, simply false. A literal flood is rejected because it's logically absurd (and also blasphemous) to mistake it for literal history. There are literally dozens of reasons to see this, none of which are "because it's required for evolution". In fact, Christians figured this out and rejected the flood long before Darwin published his book - long before anyone heard of Darwin's evolution. Just look at the history of the demise of flood geology, which happened around 1780 to 1830. Here's a summary of some of the reasons why a literal interpretation of the flood is absurd. Problems with a Global Flood, 2nd edition

We here the same arguments from atheists.

Atheists point out how absurd the scriptures are, giving only a literal reading. You only help the atheists when you fall for that bait and go along with a literal reading.

Show where you do not.

In every single one of my posts. That's because in none of my posts have I ever "stood against what was written". I may have stood against your personal interpretation of it (which is usually the personal interpretation that the atheists take), but I'm not ashamed at all of standing against the atheists' interpretation.

Graham was wrong.

So you may think. I don't think Billy Graham was wrong about accepting a non-literal reading. As shown above, you already accept a non-literal reading in many areas that are more clear literally than evolution denial.

Good. Demonstrate it.

You claimed that by accepting evolution I was "standing with the unbelievers" and I pointed out that most of the support for evolution in the US is from Christians, to which you asked for evidence. Here it is:

You can see there that 38% of the evolution support is from Christians (theistic evolution), and 19% is from atheists. Thus, Christians account for 67% ( = 38/(19+18)) of evolution support.

Arguments by popularity are not relevant.

I wasn't claiming that TE was right because it was popular. I was pointing out that your claim that evolution is supported only by unbelievers was false. That's not the argument from popularity. Basic logic again.

I'll answer these without formatting because this has already taken an hour.
Does belief in evolution contradict the special creation of man by God; yes or no? No, not any more than than the belief that babies grow by cell division contradicts Ps 139:13

Does belief in evolution contradict the entry of sin and death into the world by Adam's sin; yes or no? No. There are many ways to have sin enter through Adam that are consist with evolution. I've described many of them. For one, just search "Adam, transitional ape"

Does belief in evolution require one to disavow the great flood that destroyed "all who had in them the breath of life;" yes or no? No, but as described above, a global flood is absurd on it's face for many other reasons, as Christians recognized long before hardly anyone had heard of Darwin.

Does belief in evolution require one to disavow the Fourth Commandment as recorded in Exodus 20:11; yes or no? Of course not. Not any more than being against slavery causes one to disavow the 5th & 10th commandments.

Does belief in evolution require one to disavow Christ's statement that "From the beginning they were created male and female;" yes or no? Of course not. Anyone reading the text can see that he's talking about humans, and of course sexes evolved long before there were humans, so humans had both sexes from the beginning. In fact, it's obvious that this is yet another verse that shows evolution is true (and Jesus is the one proving evolution!), because in a literal reading of Genesis, humankind was not "Male and female" from the beginning. Adam was the beginning, and he was just male, not "male and female". If Jesus had wanted to support creationism, he'd have said "from the beginning, humankind was just male".

You get the picture.

The rest of your post looks like trash talk, which I don't think is very productive, nor likely to win souls for Christ. We agree that both creationists and evolution supporters will be among those in heaven, right? That one's interpretation of Genesis is not a salvation issue, right? That Jesus' saving power is stronger than the idolatry of this or that interpretation?

In Christ-

Papias

 

[Papias]

These are names of real people.. and the names are arranged in a specific way. We can assume that this would not have been controversial to the original Jewish audience of Matthew's gospel. I'm just saying that everyone in Biblical genealogies is a real person, which is the normal practice in recording a family tree.

What you are saying is that the writer of matthew is a liar, or that the writer of Cr is. In either case, that writer is the Holy Spirit, whom I will not call a liar.

 

[Eryk]

What you are saying is that the writer of matthew is a liar, or that the writer of Cr is. In either case, that writer is the Holy Spirit, whom I will not call a liar.

Matthew's original audience had Chronicles as a reference, so there was no point in him trying to deceive. It's like historically literate Americans knowing, "Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy..." Matthew was not trying to re-write the history of Israel. Using the names the way he did must have been thought of as a normal way to make a point.

 

[Papias]

Matthew's original audience had Chronicles as a reference, so there was no point in him trying to deceive. It's like historically literate Americans knowing, "Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy..." Matthew was not trying to re-write the history of Israel. Using the names the way he did must have been thought of as a normal way to make a point.

All extrabiblical speculation - one humans (Eryk's) opinion. Sorry, I'm not taking that over the Word of God.

 

[Eryk]

All extrabiblical speculation - one humans (Eryk's) opinion. Sorry, I'm not taking that over the Word of God.

I didn't ask you to. I'll leave you to the Book you regard so highly.

Hugs,
Opinion Guy

 

[AV1611VET]

Sorry, I'm not taking that over the Word of God.

What makes you think Eryk is?

 

[Speedwell]

What makes you think Eryk is?

You're right, and it's unfair to Eryk to suppose so. But you must admit that among biblical literalists there is a tendency for them to take their interpretation as the same thing as the Word of God.