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Saint Augustine's writings are not accepted Scripture.
What is that supposed to mean? That no one is qualified to interpret scripture?
What is it that you think you're doing now but taking a 21st century view and overlaying it into an ancient narrative?
When in modern times have you ever heard anyone use the word "day" in a context which doesn't involve orbital patterns of earth around the sun? It's obvious that scripture is not referring to 24 hour days because the sun wasn't even created until day 4.
There is no sun and thus, there is no temporal rotation or orbit around such.
.It's like those YECs that read about the firmament and they argue that there was some kind of giant ice dome around the earth, that shattered during Noah's flood. It's just an awful exegesis that completely misses the meaning of the historical narrative. And it's caused by this 21st century perspective where every little jot and tittle must be absolutely flawless in this glass castle perspective, as if it's just a giant house of cards that couldn't dare be tested.
And for those who are familiar with the ANE narrative, it just looks awful.
Translations are made in an effort to explain concepts. But you have to understand the context of the word being used. You can't just say "well, the words the same so I guess that's just that".
If someone in scripture, late in the new testament says "today I went to the alter", you can't just automatically assume that "day" in a creation week, before the sun even exists, when the cosmos are being created (or more specifically they're being organized), that this is somehow equivalent. Even in light of things like a framework perspective days 1-3 involving ordering of environments, then 4-6 being the matched filling of those spaces, poetically used numerous times throughout scripture to depict concepts far more thought provoking than simple words on paper.
This kind of approach just completely misses the massive body of historical information available on the origins of Genesis that suggests otherwise. It's a lot like that ice dome view of YECs.
And, such a perspective will never make sense. No one would ever know how the windows closed after the flood with this 21st century overlay, nor could this modern perspective explain how it is that a 24 hour day could exist before the sun does or in an absence of any mention of rotation or orbital patterns of earth.
Indeed, these topics only make sense when we drop our modern scientific perspective of the universe, and put ourselves into the shoes of the original authors, to understand their context. And I hope you understand every word of this post. If you don't, please make an effort to understand, given how important this topic is to the faith.
Genesis 1:5. God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day. (NRSV)Your response reminds me of a preacher I once talked with who went through great pains and research to prove that where wine is mentioned in the Scriptures it is referring to a nonalcoholic drink. He skirts the clear Scriptural references to the fermented drink and passages which specifically state that one should not get drunk on wine.
God makes plain the meaning of the word day in Genesis...no need to do this if not to disprove doubters.
There are great earthly minds...and they are the worse cases when it comes to faith issues because they can't get over themselves enough to believe that their own extensive and exhaustive education proves of very little value in the understanding of the Scriptures.
Scripture is there to instruct both the simple and the wise and where Paul speaks of delivering a message of wisdom to the mature it is not some scientifically matured mind...it is just the opposite, it is a developed spiritual mind based on acceptance and faith in our omnipotent God.
God speaks to Job of his lack of wisdom relative His own. Paul records for us in I Corinthians exactly the situation between God and man in reference to intellect...
I Corinthians 1:20-23:
20 Where is the wise person? Where is the teacher of the law? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles
So enough of your earthly wisdom then. Come and accept the Word of the Lord...
Psalm 33:8-10:
Let all the earth fear the Lord;
let all the people of the world revere him.
9 For he spoke, and it came to be;
he commanded, and it stood firm.
10 The Lord foils the plans of the nations;
he thwarts the purposes of the peoples.
All peoples bent on proving God's Word to be true or false are in fact in a state of doubt of the Bible's authenticity and set themselves up to be a kind of equal of God in intellect. It may sound very naive to you to be so reliant upon the truth and trustworthiness of God's Word, but it is not...it is a process of spiritual maturation.
Also worth mentioning is the fact that Jesus speaks to the adding to Scripture and through this course coming to negate His very Word. (Mark 7)
So enough of your earthly wisdom then. Come and accept the Word of the Lord...
It says that nowhere in the Bible. Therefore you trust man's vain imaginations over God. I know better than to take that stance. Just look at our economy and all the things going wrong every day. All this is because of faith in evolution theory over God. It says all this in Romans 1:18-32. When you learn to trust God a heavy weight will be lifted off your sholder. The people behind evolution are no different than Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, AOC, Omar, Chuck Schumer, and the rest of the criminals destroying our culture and economy. Same players, same team.I believe God created evolution
Let God be true and every man a liar. I trust Scripture over man's vain imaginations.
Refusing to believe that evolution is taking place right around us every minute of the day just because one has not “gone to the trouble” to study the Bible for oneself is causing thousands upon thousands of young people to “say no” to the Bible and the Christ that it proclaims.Trusting evolution theory is no different than trusting leftist politicians with your financial future. You'd be better off trusting a fortune cookie over evolution theory.
Do you trust Genesis 6-8 to tell you the truth? What is that truth that you trust this passage of Scripture to tell you? Do you believe that the length of the ark was literally “three hundred cubits, its breadth fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits? Or do you believe that these measurements are symbolic, and that the ark was really 1,000 times as large and that all the animals managed to be squeezed into it along with billions of cubic feet of meat and billions of cubic feet of fresh ☺ produce.
At least as early as the first half of the third century Christians looked around and observed many thousands of kinds of animals and realized that if the measurement for the ark were to be understood as literal, the ark would have been ridiculously too small. These Christians had never been to Australia, or New Zealand, or North or South America, or northern Europe or northern Asia. They had never seen the fossil remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex or an Allosaurus fragilis. They had never seen the fossil remains of a Spinosaurus—the largest of the carnivorous dinosaurs. Indeed, they had never seen the fossil remains of any of the huge carnivorous dinosaurs—or any of the huge herbivorous and omnivorous dinosaurs. As for mastodons and mammoths, saber-toothed cats and giant sloths, and many other kinds of huge mammals that are now extinct but which would have necessarily been represented aboard the ark….
Bottom line: a literal interpretation of Genesis 6-8 gives us a wildly imaginative farce! And yet, in homes across the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, millions of fathers are telling their kids that the story of Noah and the Ark is true as written. The children reply, “But Dad, it can’t be true.” And the fathers are rebuking and even punishing their children for failing to believe the Bible! The fathers are losing their credibility, the families are being torn apart, the churches are being split, and millions of children are walking away from Christ and abandoning their faith—all because the fathers are refusing to believe the truths that are being revealed by God through science.
Refusing to believe that evolution is taking place right around us every minute of the day just because one has not “gone to the trouble” to study the Bible for oneself is causing thousands upon thousands of young people to “say no” to the Bible and the Christ that it proclaims.
That the teaching of the theory of evolution is harmless to the Christian faith is proved around the world by the tens of millions of faithful Christians who believe that the theory of evolution is good science.
And not only is denial of an old earth or evolution a refusal to believe what God has revealed through science,
I would go on to say that it's also a refusal to believe what God has revealed through scripture^.
YEC views tend not to acknowledge things like Cain's fearing for his life when he left Eden, or that he went on to a village which already existed and met his wife in the world beyond the garden.
You can trust in God AND science. God created science. The Bible is more than factual information. It has parables, poetry, and instructions on how to live right. It's not a science, biology, or geology book. If you look at the 7 day creation story, it goes in the same order as the scientific theory of creation. "Let there be light" is the big bang, then it goes in order of the Earth forming and the waters receding to reveal land, then the plants and animals, and finally the human being.Trust in God!
There is no evolution in Scripture apart from the prophecies in Romans 1:18-32 and 2Peter 3:3-10. The 5th word in Genesis is "created." That says it all right there.
This is because we actually understand the passage. First, people back then lived up to 1000 years. Cain was the first born. Adam and Eve had other sons and daughters. You will find Cain's wife in Genesis 5. Cain married a sister. Adam and Eve were the first parents of earth. There is no death before Adam. T
You just ignored 99% of my post. And scripture doesn't say that Cain married his sister. You just made that up in your imagination.
In fact, if we read Genesis, the idea that Adam and Eve had more children isn't described until well after Cain already found his wife in this pre-existing and pre-populated, land of Nod.
Look, you have driven me out today from the face of the ground, and from your face I must hide. I will be a wanderer and a fugitive on the earth, and it will happen that whoever finds me will kill me.”
Genesis 4:14 LEB
Who exactly was Cain afraid of that might kill him if no other people exist? Indeed other people did already exist, other pre-existing people beyond the garden of Eden in the Land of Nod or elsewhere, is who he feared, of course.
And Cain went out from the presence of Yahweh, and he settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Genesis 4:16 LEB
Settled in the land of Nod that was, as we will see in the following verses, pre-inhabited by his wife.
And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And when he built a city he named the city after his son, Enoch. And Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who live in tents and those who have livestock. Then [meaning afterwards at a later point in time] Adam knew his wife again, and she gave birth to a son. And she called his name Seth, for she said “God has appointed to me another child in the place of Abel, because Cain killed him.”
Genesis 4:17, 20, 25 LEB
Described as if Eve had finally had another child to replace Abel, well after Cain had already married and had children.
Then moving on to the next chapter:
And when Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he fathered a child in his likeness, according to his image. And he called his name Seth. And the days of Adam after he fathered Seth were eight hundred years. And he fathered sons and daughters.
Genesis 5:3-4 LEB
Repeating what we observed, Adam and Eve had given birth to Seth, and then [afterwards] Adam had later fathered sons and daughters, as it is written.
And that's what scripture actually says. It doesn't say anything about Adam and Eve having other children contemporary with Cain and Abel that left the garden of Eden before Cain so that Cain could meet his sister once he was eventually exiled from the garden. Scripture just doesn't say what you're proposing it says, indeed it tells a completely different story.
By proposing that Cain married an unnamed sister, you're just slapping professional scientists and Biblical scholars on the face and boldly disregarding detailed information and studies provided by both.
The reality is that Cain was exiled from the garden, he feared for his life (read the text), he feared that other people beyond the garden would harm him when he was eventually to be exiled. He went to a land of Nod and met a woman who was not his sibling (as Adam and Eve are not described as having had other children that already left Eden or any children other than Cain or Abel at all), Cain married and had children, and then later on Adam and Eve gave birth to Seth (considered a long awaited replacement of Abel) and further other children well after Cain had already married and had children of his own.
And that's what scripture actually says. And that's just one topic of the several I noted in my prior post.
Indeed, young earth creationists are arguing for a history that is in actuality very different from what scripture actually describes, and it's not coincidence that YECs also regularly bump heads and argue with scientists as well. Science and scripture do ultimately align, but they don't land on YECism at all.
You can trust in God AND science. God created science. The Bible is more than factual information. It has parables, poetry, and instructions on how to live right. It's not a science, biology, or geology book. If you look at the 7 day creation story, it goes in the same order as the scientific theory of creation. "Let there be light" is the big bang, then it goes in order of the Earth forming and the waters receding to reveal land, then the plants and animals, and finally the human being.
No, the Bib Bang is what spit out the Earth. "Let there be light" BOOM! There was light, a million million stars sent through the cosmos.The light is not the big bang. In Genesis 1:2 God is moving over the watery blob of the earth. Now the earth is in it's most fetal stage of creation but it already exist. Had God caused some sort of big bang this close to the earth the watery blob of the earth would have been vaporized by the immense heat. The sun and stars were not created until Day 4. This is a good thing because creating the sun before the earth would have destroyed the earth. In Genesis 1:3, God created the earth's core.
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