Evolution

Assyrian · Nov 15, 2010

1whirlwind said:
I didn't say I couldn't support it but that I have done what I could. To me, the support has been accomplished and there is nothing more I can say to bolster it further. You accept it or you don't. I repeat....
Kinds, as described in the Blue Letter Linear are.....families, kindred, kinds, clan, tribe, species.

Kinds, as described in the dictionary are...nature, family, lineage, category

So, where it is written that they were to "bring forth the living creature after their kind," means they/we are to produce offspring within one's family, one's lineage, one's species...one's kind.

That is still mishpachah not the word kind miyn.

However mishpachah is even closer to the nested hierarchy evolution produces than miyn which simply refers to different varieties. The mishpachah of a nation like Israel are descended from a common ancestor Jacob, but they are not simply just the one mishpachah, that mishpachah has diverged too. From that common ancestor and his mishpachah are derived the mishpachoth of the tribes of Israel, within each tribe and descended from their common ancestor Judah or Benjamin, are the mishpachoth of the different clans, within each clan are the mishpachoth of families.

The two, house of Israel (Christians) and house of Judah (Jews), are one nation, His holy nation...for all twelve tribes comprise the nation of Israel. In the above verse He doesn't say He will increase populations but that He will sow His chosen ones with "seed of man, seed of beast." Does that mean that the three types will intermingle producing mixed offspring or that He will place us among man and beast (both being humans) in order to teach? I don't know.

His chosen ones were already men, who when they were prosperous owned plenty of livestock. This is a promise of restoration Jer 31:28 I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the LORD. The house of Israel and the house of Judah referred to the northern kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah that all Israel was divided into after the death of Solomon.

The above verse in Jeremiah shows the difference in literal beasts and man being referred to as beast.

Where does the verse in Jeremiah distinguish literal beasts and beastly men?

I'll add....
Jonah 3:8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands.

A literal beast, tiger, bear, etc....doesn't cry unto God and change their evil ways. The ways of a literal beast are not evil for they live as God intended them to. It is humanity that must turn from their ways.

This is the Assyrian king speaking here, so don't expect him to be that familiar with biblical metaphors. However it isn't lions and tigers and bears he is talking about (oh my!)
It is livestock, behemah, the cattle and sheep that were to be covered with sackcloth like the people were, and denied food and water until they cried out to God. Jonah 3:7 "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.
I am pretty sure the livestock would have cried out mightily as a result, you could even argue they cried out to God Job 38:41. I doubt the Assyrian king actually thought the animals lived evil lives, what he was doing was including the whole city, man and beast, in a single corporate act of repentance, the cries of man and beast reaching to the heavens.

Consider too who the beasts of Revelation are.

Cherubim? Oh you mean the other beasts. Of course. I am not denying the bible uses beast a metaphor for people, or a symbol for angelic beings, just that you can't say every reference to a beast refers to beastly men there is certainly no basis for saying 'beast of the field' refers to people and 'beasts of the earth' are all animals.

Your question about "God," and the "Lord God," in the two chapters I overlooked. And, I must say, I really never noticed or thought about that difference before. Interesting question.

They are different titles for the same being. For instance, God or Elohim, is connected with creation, God is the Creator. Other titles are The Lord = Yahveh, The LORD (all caps) = Adonai, Almighty = Shaddai, Most High = Elyon.

It is the same with people. Father, son, husband, friend, scientist, football fan, Christian...different names/titles but all are the same being.

Like 'beast of the field' and 'beast of the earth' may be different ways to refer to the same creatures?

Specifically? No. Nor is it written that Moses penned Deuteronomy, or Leviticus but....we know he did. However, it is written.....
John 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me.

John 1:1-4 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.

God tells us that Moses wrote of Jesus. Jesus was "in the beginning," or in the genesis of creation and He made all things. So, Moses wrote of Him in the beginning, in the genesis....Moses penned Genesis.

Luke wrote about Jesus too and Jesus existed from the beginning, does that mean Luke wrote Genesis?

There is some debate about whether the title refers to the days of creation in Gen 1:1-2:3, or the the following account of Adam and Eve in the garden. But I am happy with it referring to the previous section as you say. The thing is, it means the creation account in Gen 1:1-2:3 finishes here. these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth, "these" refers to Gen 1:1-2:3. From Gen 2:5 on, is not part of "these" in Gen 2:4, it is a different document.

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All things were created within that time frame....all things and that includes all the generations of the created entities. Those future generations are in the seed. The seed of man is either heaven or is earth. We are "of the earth" and upon receiving salvation...we are then of the heavens.

What has that claim got to do with whether the title in Gen 2:4 refers to Genesis 1, Genesis 2 or the whole of Genesis 1 & 2? What specifically does 'these' in 'these are the generations' refer to?

Yes, it speaks metaphorically but it speaks of literal events and entities. Adam was literal and God formed him to be the first man in the line to the Savior. The herb of the field is a metaphor but it represents people...real people. Same with beasts. I'm not sure what your point is about the clay???

I have mentioned to you before that you just confuse the issue referring to 'literal' events. What you mean is real events it is the description that are literal or metaphorical. God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt on eagles' wing is a metaphorical description of a real event. If the eagles' wings are not literal, why do you think the metaphors you see in Genesis have to be literal? You take the plants of the field as a metaphor in Genesis 2 because the bible speaks of people as wheat and tares, we the bible talks of God being a potter making people and nations from clay, it is a very common biblical metaphor, if you take the plants of the field as a metaphor, why not God making Adam from clay? Did you know that the word for potter is the same word used used for God forming Adam?

Clearly, but the same applies to creationist interpretations of Genesis. Why should we think geocentrists were mistaken because science contradicted their interpretation, but when science contradicts your interpretaiton it must be science that is wrong?

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Yes, the same would apply. But, we have the written word and need not rely on anyone's interpretation. This takes us back to the beginning of the thread. The Creation is written...evolution is not even hinted at. To believe evolution you must overlook what is written.

Evolution not being mentioned in scripture isn't relevant when heliocentrism isn't mentioned either. The fact you think you understand the scripture, and you think the geocentrists got it wrong makes absolutely no difference to the problem. The geocentrists though they understood the written word too. Why should I believe you instead of science, but believe science instead of the geocentrists? How do I tell you apart?

If you take the metaphorical words literally, the Isrelites flew out of Egypt which tells a different story from the literal account of them walking. It is exactly the same in Genesis. If you take the Genesis account literally and God made Adam from a lump of clay then clearly that contradicts mankind evolving, but if God making Adam from clay is a metaphor, just like "you are the potter and we are the clay", then there is no contradiction. It tells us a different aspect of the story, like God carrying the Israelites on Eagles' wings, but it doesn't tell a different story.

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The metaphorical words, such as eagle's wings, is just a flowery, poetic way of telling the true story. He is the eagle and His wings protect and carry us away from harm, away from bondage. As the eagle and His wings are a metaphor for the literal God the clay is a metaphor for the literal makeup of earth and water....flesh and spirit. Adam was flesh/earth and God formed him with living water...He molded the earth/water - the clay and.......
Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

It is the same with us if we are to be of the "heavens." It is His Spirit, and the living water/His Words/Truth that gives us life....true life:
Psalms 33:6 By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; And all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.

So why would the flowery language of Adam being made from clay contradict evolution, when the flowery language of God bearing the Israelites out of Egypt on eagle's wing's does not contradict the real event where they walked out?

Mankind was created on the sixth day however of those men...."there was not a man to till the ground." Why? Because until that time men weren't given His Words, "for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth." The rain is knowledge and understanding. Man/earth wasn't yet ready....
Genesis 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

So Adam was formed to "till the ground" or to bring knowledge and understanding to the earth/mankind by planting seeds of truth. The plants, trees, herbs (men) were here but not the rain that would turn dry earth into malleable clay so it could be formed. This continues today. We are nothing more than trees, plants....dry earth until His Spirit forms us into a child of God.

If you take one time scale metaphorically, what makes you think the the other one isn't metaphorical too? You are big into numbers being symbolic, seven is the most symbolic number in the bible. We even see how the seven day creation is used in scripture to illustrate the Sabbath, which is a symbol of all we have in Christ. Actually I just remembered you take the timescale in Genesis 1 metaphorically too. So timescale really isn't an issue.

You need to explain this because I see no reason why God is able to make man in his image using mud, but isn't able to make man in his image through evolution. It isn't a problem with evolution, just you limiting God.

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I understand you thinking that but....I don't agree.

You don't agree that he did? Or you don't agree that he could? Not agreeing he did is fine, you are a creationists. But it doesn't mean God couldn't make man in his image through evolution, and so it means evolution does not contradict God creating man in his image. No agreeing God could do it simply limits God.

Along with man being earth and water (which fits into evolution) you have a set time-frame, you have man being created, not evolving, and being created in His image and His likeness, and of entities being restricted to producing within their own kinds/species....none of which coordinate with evolution.

You don't take the time frame literally. Creating people, along with describing them being made from clay, if perfectly compatible with the having a normal biological origin. The smith God created was born naturally, God said he created Jacob and formed Israel, that Israel was the clay the God the potter formed. Yet there is contradiction with normal biology going on there too. Being formed in God's image is not incompatible with God using evolution. As we have see God commanding the earth to produce the differnt kinds does not contradict evolution either. Is ther anything in scripture that contradicts evolution apart from God making people from clay, which contradicts human reproductive biology as well as evolution, but only if you make the mistake of taking it literally.

You're right. That wouldn't be a contradiction. Being male and female from the beginning...with either creation or evolution is a draw. But, there are still other points to consider.

Ok, but don't forget you are claiming scripture contradicts evolution. You need more than a draw here, and none of the other points hold either.

Assyrian · Nov 15, 2010

1whirlwind said:
The point is God gave us dominion over the creatures you believe we evolved from. Your comparing that to David doesn't carry weight. David didn't evolve into another creature as you say man did. David had dominion, or authority over his subjects but he was still a human. God gives us dominion, or authority, over creatures but they are not human.

But you haven't explained why it is a problem being given dominion over creatures we evolved from (or rather their descendants). It is because we are different species? I don't see why that is a problem, you believe we were given dominion over different species. Is it because we were once the same species? Well David was given authority over fellow Israelites. Or is it because you bought the rhetoric that the monkeys in the zoo are our mother and father? They aren't, they are just distant cousins.

Is "miyn" not also...family, species?

Species maybe, in fact that is how the Latin Vulgate translates miyn, though that was before species took on its modern meaning. It refers to different varieties different sorts of animal and plant.

What happened in the previous age isn't detailed. That was the age of hundreds and millions of years of life. It is in this present age that mankind was created in His image.

You are still reading you interpretation of Genesis into evolution, you need to see how the theory of evolution itself works. If evolution is true, then your gap theory interpretation isn't. Your question was about how evolution would work.

I do have some hairy, knuckle dragging, distant cousins but even they don't climb trees.

I try not to load them up with bananas each family get-together.

We came down from the trees a long time ago, it is not like riding a bike which you never forget.

Geocentrism was just as based on the written text as creationism, the only difference is, you believe creationism.

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I try not to base anything on man's "isms" but rely on His Word. The creation is written.

Geocentrists based their views on what was written in scripture just like creationists do.

The problem is the spiritual meaning will never conflict with the literal. It is a deeper understanding of what is written.

.

There you go mixing up real and literal again. The spiritual meaning of God bearing the Israelites out of Egypt does not contradict the literal, unfortunately the literal meaning is that they really did fly away on the backs of giant eagles like Frodo and Sam. The literal interpretation of the passage does conflict with what really happened, the Israelites walking out of Egypt through the Red Sea. However the spiritual meaning does not conflict with the real event. You just can't take it literally.

So if there is a conflict between the literal interpretation of Genesis and evolution, and you realise Genesis has a deeper spiritual meaning, why can't it be the deeper spiritual meaning God is talking about here, not the literal interpretation, just as it was the deeper spiritual meaning of bearing the Israelites on eagles' wings, not the literal meaning, that was what God meant?

1whirlwind said:
Me wrong?

It is not my understanding or view of Scripture but Scripture itself that contradicts this theory of science...it does not contradict science itself.

Scripture only contradicts science if you take it literally. Your literal interpretation contradicts the theory of evolution, the geocentrist's literal interpretation contradicted Copernican theory. The differences are evolution has much more evidence supporting it than Copernican heliocentism had when the church dropped their literal interpretation of the geocentric passages. And while there was no indication of any metaphor in Joshua's miracle commanding the sun to stop, or Solomon's description of the sun hurrying to the pace it rises, even you realise there is much that is figurative in Genesis. How do you know the parts you think contradict evolution aren't figurative too, in a passage that contains so much metaphor and symbolism?

You both have interpretation of what is written in scripture, they both contradict scientific theories, the only different is you have less excuse not to take the passages figuratively. Claiming your interpretation is what is written simply means you think your interpretation is right.

Evolution contradicts Creation. Creation is written.

Evolution contradicts your interpretation of what is written in the creation accounts not creation. Creation is the work of God. The creation accounts are the inspired written description of God's creation. But God frequently inspired metaphors, and the metaphors can contradict reality if you mistakenly interpret them literally.

I don't drop the literal in order to understand the spiritual. When the Israelites were brought out of Egypt, a literal fact, it was the Lord literally leading them (He is the eagle and they were carried on His wings.)

Did he literally carry them on eagles wings?

Try to get to grips with this, otherwise we are just going round in circles and you are unable to explain why God really had to make Adam from clay but he didn't really fly the Israelites out with eagles.

Then would He not have written....And God said, Let Us evolve man into our image and our likeness, eventually giving them dominion over the creatures they are to evolve from. And when they finally evolve into a human they should be fruitful and multiply and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning was the millioneth or billioneth year of evolution? Or, something to that effect.

Like it says
Josh 10:12 At that time Joshua spoke to the lord... "Earth stop rotating so I can see the sun above Gibeon, and moon, no you're fine your orbit isn't noticeable in the time I need, I can still see you over the valley of Aijalon once the earth stops rotating. 13 And the earth stood still, and the moon didn't stop orbiting, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Or, something to that effect?

He doesn't have to give an explanation for evolution as the subject has been covered with what He did tell us. That is my point. He has explained what He did (whether or not we understand it)and for man to form a contradictory view isn't a good thing. If what is written is wrong or needs to be understood in a deeper way then within Scripture that way would be covered. So far, I haven't seen it.

Back to geocentrism then.

The genealogy wasn't "as was supposed." Only the relationship of Jesus to Joseph was "as was supposed." You're correct in that Luke didn't comment on the other geneology but that doesn't matter. The truth of both is still the truth. The line from Adam to Abraham and Abraham to David would still be the same line, the same great, greats and more great, greats.

Actually Luke doesn't distinguish whether he meant the genealogy was supposed or just Joseph being the father. So there is no reason to think the rest of the genealogy has to be literal. And none of the genealogy is Jesus' real genealogy. You are construction your genealogy from Jesus to Adam from a genealogy of someone else. That is not the bible giving us Jesus genealogy back to Adam.

No, I think not. Whether wolf or dog they are within their kinds. Wolfs don't become cats. That would be a species jumping into unchartered territory by evolving into another species.

Evolution doesn't say species jump like that either. But there is no reason wolves and cats could not have diverged from an earlier carnivora kind the same way poodle kind and alsatian kind diverged from earlier wolf kind.

If you draw a circle with a compass it is a round circle on a flat piece of paper. It doesn't mean the circle is flat...just the paper is flat. Now if the one drawing the circle was artistic enough to use shading then the image of the roundness would be more evident.

If you draw the circle on a flat piece of paper the circle is flat. It might be a drawing of a sphere but it is still a flat circle. And if the bible doesn't tell you it isn't a flat circle, but is in fact a sphere, then the bible doesn't tell you the earth is spherical.

Perhaps...But you asked.

We are to "keep on forgiving" but...
[sorry not enough room for quote]
Biblical numbers, as do names....can carry great meaning (I don't know if that is always true or sometimes true).

I am not saying number sometime do have symbolic meanings, of course they do. But numbers can also be used non literally, but without a symbolic meaning either. Jesus' forgiving 70 times 7 simply means a great many times as often as you need to, and God's thousand years as a day, can simply mean God days are a very long time, not literally each day lasts exactly 1000 years.

No, for there weren't two creations. Mankind was created and Adam was formed.

So why couldn't God have used the homind species we find in the fossil record in his creation of mankind?

Understanding the spiritual doesn't negate the literal.

No it doesn't negate the literal, not always anyway. But can. God did not literally use eagles.

Jacob, as all mankind, was created. Jacob, unlike mankind, was also formed...formed as Israel for a specific destiny.

That is certainly how you interpret it. They could also be synonyms.

Those called by His name have been created (as has every human) for His glory but we, His children that carry His name, are also formed...the others are not.

No that is not a biblical distinction.
Psalm 33:14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, 15 he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.
Isaiah 27:11 For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made (asah) them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favour.

Isaiah 45:18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it
Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,

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I'm not sure about those two verses and how they would apply to this topic. However I will add....
Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

To form and create should not, in my opinion, be understood as meaning the same thing.

If you want to understand these scripture you need to realise how poetic parallels work. They are no distinguishing between create and form, they are using them as synonyms to say the same thing in different slightly ways. People wind themselves into knots trying to distinguish one part of a poetic parallel from another when that is not what is being said.

He is telling us more than that Assyrian.

Prov 19:5 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape. Making two different points or saying the same thing twice in slightly different ways?

That isn't what I'm saying. Their judgment, as well as ours, takes place where we were created...and that wasn't on earth. He may destroy the Ammonites on earth but they are judged where they "were created," not where they were born.
Revelation 20:12-13...

The judgement Ezekiel was talking about was God sending the Babylonians judging the Ammonites in the place the were created, in the land of their origin. Now they will all stand before God's throne at the last judgement too, but the reference to the place they were created was their homeland Ammon. That is where God says they were created

His people are in captivity if they don't have truth...they are being misled.

I though you said the spiritual doesn't contradict the literal? So even if you interpret their captivity figuratively, (though God goes on to describe the army with sharp pointy arrows) the the literal still holds and they have gone into real captivity too. Unless God is using the perfect tense to describe the completeness of their future exile.

John was taken to the future when that was written so it would be written as having happened.

The bible still uses the past tense to describe the future judgement.

How does that apply?

God incarnate died on the cross and was hurriedly buried before the Sabbath began, Jesus spent the seventh day in the grave, that Sabbath Jesus did no work, unlike so many Sabbaths before, he just lay there dead. If you want to find a time God literally took a Sabbath rest, this was it.

Thats a can I don't want to open (yet) either.

Let's stick to the tinned spaghetti.

That verse speaks of the Lord. He formed the light and created the darkness.

And he created the evening of the seventh day, whenever that comes, so there is no need to read it as night in any bad sense. Though is you wanted to read it as Jesus being handed over to the enemy at the crucifixion there is probably plenty of scope for that allegory.

None of the days mention night! Rather night is excluded from all of them. Isn't that strange? I'm still trying to understand what that means.

Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night..."
Cat, meet pigeons, pigeons, this is cat

As all of the seven days were during God's time of creation then I attribute His reckoning of time to them....one day as a thousand years. I see those seven days of creation as being completed. The next day would be the eighth and it means....new beginnings. The formation of Adam was a new beginning and with it man's concept of time when a day means a day. [Hebrews 4], to me, speaks of the millennium. .

It certainly does speak of the millennium, though probably not a literal thousand years. How long has it been since day six began? It still hasn't been evening of the seventh day, unless you take it as the evening after the crucifixion.

1whirlwind · Nov 15, 2010

Assyrian said:
That is still mishpachah not the word kind miyn.

However mishpachah is even closer to the nested hierarchy evolution produces than miyn which simply refers to different varieties. The mishpachah of a nation like Israel are descended from a common ancestor Jacob, but they are not simply just the one mishpachah, that mishpachah has diverged too. From that common ancestor and his mishpachah are derived the mishpachoth of the tribes of Israel, within each tribe and descended from their common ancestor Judah or Benjamin, are the mishpachoth of the different clans, within each clan are the mishpachoth of families.

And each of those in the various clans are still one species, all derived from Adam. Just as mankind is derived from their common ancestors...created on the sixth day.

His chosen ones were already men, who when they were prosperous owned plenty of livestock. This is a promise of restoration Jer 31:28 I will watch over them to build and to plant, declares the LORD. The house of Israel and the house of Judah referred to the northern kingdom of Israel and the kingdom of Judah that all Israel was divided into after the death of Solomon.

Where does the verse in Jeremiah distinguish literal beasts and beastly men?

They aren't literal beasts Assyrian....

Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

This is the Assyrian king speaking here, so don't expect him to be that familiar with biblical metaphors. However it isn't lions and tigers and bears he is talking about (
oh my!)
It is livestock, behemah, the cattle and sheep that were to be covered with sackcloth like the people were, and denied food and water until they cried out to God. Jonah 3:7 "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

I am pretty sure the livestock would have cried out mightily as a result, you could even argue they cried out to God Job 38:41. I doubt the Assyrian king actually thought the animals lived evil lives, what he was doing was including the whole city, man and beast, in a single corporate act of repentance, the cries of man and beast reaching to the heavens.

The beasts are not livestock.

Cherubim? Oh you mean the other beasts. Of course. I am not denying the bible uses beast a metaphor for people, or a symbol for angelic beings, just that you can't say every reference to a beast refers to beastly men there is certainly no basis for saying 'beast of the field' refers to people and 'beasts of the earth' are all animals.

It may be if it was us doing the writing but it isn't when written in the Bible. When there is a different use of words, such as what you previously pointed out in God and the Lord God in the two chapters of Genesis...something is being noted. This is just as sickness, illness and evil spirits carry different meanings and shouldn't all be seen as one problem.

Like 'beast of the field' and 'beast of the earth' may be different ways to refer to the same creatures?

Well, the name is the same but are they the same entity? The name of the Lord is given differently yet He is the same entity. There, discernment enters the picture and with it...understanding.

Luke wrote about Jesus too and Jesus existed from the beginning, does that mean Luke wrote Genesis?

Did Jesus say, "Luke wrote of Me?" Was Luke living when the Torah was written?

What has that claim got to do with whether the title in Gen 2:4 refers to Genesis 1, Genesis 2 or the whole of Genesis 1 & 2? What specifically does 'these' in 'these are the generations' refer to?

It refers to the generations of the heavens and the earth and all the host of them. People. All the humans created in the beginning and all their offspring until the end of days...all, all their generations, were created in the beginning.

I have mentioned to you before that you just confuse the issue referring to 'literal' events. What you mean is real events it is the description that are literal or metaphorical. God bringing the Israelites out of Egypt on eagles' wing is a metaphorical description of a real event. If the eagles' wings are not literal, why do you think the metaphors you see in Genesis have to be literal? You take the plants of the field as a metaphor in Genesis 2 because the bible speaks of people as wheat and tares, we the bible talks of God being a potter making people and nations from clay, it is a very common biblical metaphor, if you take the plants of the field as a metaphor, why not God making Adam from clay? Did you know that the word for potter is the same word used used for God forming Adam?

To me, literal means real/true. So, although the eagles' wings may be metaphorical it is still referencing a literal thing. The plants of the field speak of literal/real/true humans...He just gave them a figurative name.

Yes, I did know about forming and potter. He forms the clay...He formed Adam and He forms us. Clay is simply earth and water. Whatever the materials are of the earth used to create man...it produced a dry ground, living beings, humanity, and yet they were not spiritually alive. Enter the breath of life and the living soul of Adam, previously a living man but without a living soul.

Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring:

Evolution not being mentioned in scripture isn't relevant when heliocentrism isn't mentioned either. The fact you think you understand the scripture, and you think the geocentrists got it wrong makes absolutely no difference to the problem. The geocentrists though they understood the written word too. Why should I believe you instead of science, but believe science instead of the geocentrists? How do I tell you apart?

You don't understand what I'm saying. What you, I, heliocentrics understand about Scripture isn't the issue. What is written is. For any of us to attain understanding it must conform to Scripture. Evolution doesn't. That is how you tell. You shouldn't believe me or science. You, as I, should believe His Word. So, although evolution isn't written we know that Creation is. Only one can be true.

So why would the flowery language of Adam being made from clay contradict evolution, when the flowery language of God bearing the Israelites out of Egypt on eagle's wing's does not contradict the real event where they walked out?

Because the flowery language of being made from clay is literal. What goes into the makeup of a human? Amino acids, proteins, etc. Are they all not of earth?

The contradiction arises in the time frame, in the words creation and evolution, in being in His image and likeness, in being created to produce after his kind.

If you take one time scale metaphorically, what makes you think the the other one isn't metaphorical too? You are big into numbers being symbolic, seven is the most symbolic number in the bible. We even see how the seven day creation is used in scripture to illustrate the Sabbath, which is a symbol of all we have in Christ. Actually I just remembered you take the timescale in Genesis 1 metaphorically too. So timescale really isn't an issue.

I don't take the time scale as being metaphorical. He tells us His time reckoning is a day being as a thousand years. Timescale is an issue.

You don't agree that he did? Or you don't agree that he could? Not agreeing he did is fine, you are a creationists. But it doesn't mean God couldn't make man in his image through evolution, and so it means evolution does not contradict God creating man in his image. No agreeing God could do it simply limits God.

He did what He told us He did. With that, I agree.

You don't take the time frame literally. Creating people, along with describing them being made from clay, if perfectly compatible with the having a normal biological origin. The smith God created was born naturally, God said he created Jacob and formed Israel, that Israel was the clay the God the potter formed. Yet there is contradiction with normal biology going on there too. Being formed in God's image is not incompatible with God using evolution. As we have see God commanding the earth to produce the differnt kinds does not contradict evolution either. Is ther anything in scripture that contradicts evolution apart from God making people from clay, which contradicts human reproductive biology as well as evolution, but only if you make the mistake of taking it literally.

But I do take the time given literally. Man's time is a day (24 hours) but His day is as a thousand years.

If you are speaking of "the smith," being the smith that bloweth the coals of [Is. 54]...he wasn't born.

Mankind wasn't formed into His image...they were created in His image.

Ok, but don't forget you are claiming scripture contradicts evolution. You need more than a draw here, and none of the other points hold either.

Oh, but the other points do hold.

.

1whirlwind · Nov 15, 2010

Assyrian said:
But you haven't explained why it is a problem being given dominion over creatures we evolved from (or rather their descendants). It is because we are different species? I don't see why that is a problem, you believe we were given dominion over different species. Is it because we were once the same species? Well David was given authority over fellow Israelites. Or is it because you bought the rhetoric that the monkeys in the zoo are our mother and father? They aren't, they are just distant cousins.

He told us that He created the beasts, fish, fowl, etc. after their kind! He also told us that He later created man. As the previous creatures were restricted to having offspring of "their kind," then man didn't evolve from them.

Consider too that man was already created "in the beginning" when He created heaven and earth (and that was long before this age began) and all the host of them. We are among the "host of them," but in this age we needed to be placed in a flesh body, to be created in His image as a man. We were already an entity but had to put on a flesh body.

In the previous age, the age in which Satan rebelled, we were in angelic, spiritual bodies...and before you laugh please consider that as a Christian you recognize that those are the bodies we'll be in in the following age so...it isn't far-fetched to understand we'll just be returning to our first state. At physical death our same spirit/soul steps out and we are again as we were. After all, we know that when first introduced to Satan in this age...he was already in his fallen state. We were there too. God didn't recreate our spirits...He just put us in flesh/man bodies in this age in order to prove us.

Species maybe, in fact that is how the Latin Vulgate translates miyn, though that was before species took on its modern meaning. It refers to different varieties different sorts of animal and plant.

I don't see your point though. Isn't after his kind still referring to the kinds, varieties, sorts?

You are still reading you interpretation of Genesis into evolution, you need to see how the theory of evolution itself works. If evolution is true, then your gap theory interpretation isn't. Your question was about how evolution would work.

There are scriptures telling us of the "gap." There are none referring to evolution.

Geocentrists based their views on what was written in scripture just like creationists do.

What their views are, whether they got those views from Scripture or not, doesn't matter Assyrian.

WW - The problem is the spiritual meaning will never conflict with the literal. It is a deeper understanding of what is written

A - There you go mixing up real and literal again. The spiritual meaning of God bearing the Israelites out of Egypt does not contradict the literal, unfortunately the literal meaning is that they really did fly away on the backs of giant eagles like Frodo and Sam. The literal interpretation of the passage does conflict with what really happened, the Israelites walking out of Egypt through the Red Sea. However the spiritual meaning does not conflict with the real event. You just can't take it literally.

Frodo and Sam.

Yes, there I go again. Real is literal to me and you'll just have to work with it Assyrian. I'm old and I'm stubborn...sometimes I remind myself of Patton. Old blood and guts himself. (I've been watching a lot of war documentaries.)

So if there is a conflict between the literal interpretation of Genesis and evolution, and you realise Genesis has a deeper spiritual meaning, why can't it be the deeper spiritual meaning God is talking about here, not the literal interpretation, just as it was the deeper spiritual meaning of bearing the Israelites on eagles' wings, not the literal meaning, that was what God meant?

The two don't gel. Evolution isn't a deeper metaphorical understanding...it is a completely opposite un-metaphorical understanding.

Scripture only contradicts science if you take it literally. Your literal interpretation contradicts the theory of evolution, the geocentrist's literal interpretation contradicted Copernican theory. The differences are evolution has much more evidence supporting it than Copernican heliocentism had when the church dropped their literal interpretation of the geocentric passages. And while there was no indication of any metaphor in Joshua's miracle commanding the sun to stop, or Solomon's description of the sun hurrying to the pace it rises, even you realise there is much that is figurative in Genesis. How do you know the parts you think contradict evolution aren't figurative too, in a passage that contains so much metaphor and symbolism?

That isn't true Assyrian. Understanding Scripture literally or figuratively tells us nothing of evolution. The teaching of an evolutionary process is a big black hole in Scripture. Not only isn't it there but Creation is there.

You both have interpretation of what is written in scripture, they both contradict scientific theories, the only different is you have less excuse not to take the passages figuratively. Claiming your interpretation is what is written simply means you think your interpretation is right.

Discard all interpretation....see what is written. Allow Him to explain.

Evolution contradicts your interpretation of what is written in the creation accounts not creation. Creation is the work of God. The creation accounts are the inspired written description of God's creation. But God frequently inspired metaphors, and the metaphors can contradict reality if you mistakenly interpret them literally.

No. Evolution contradicts what is written...my interpretation has nothing to do with it.

Did he literally carry them on eagles wings?

What are the wings? Who is the eagle? They were literally carried on metaphorical wings.

Try to get to grips with this, otherwise we are just going round in circles and you are unable to explain why God really had to make Adam from clay but he didn't really fly the Israelites out with eagles.

Not all things can be explained. I have no problem understanding this Assyrian.

Like it says
Josh 10:12 At that time Joshua spoke to the lord... "Earth stop rotating so I can see the sun above Gibeon, and moon, no you're fine your orbit isn't noticeable in the time I need, I can still see you over the valley of Aijalon once the earth stops rotating. 13 And the earth stood still, and the moon didn't stop orbiting, until the nation took vengeance on their enemies.
Or, something to that effect?

Well...that's a tough one.

Back to geocentrism then.

Actually Luke doesn't distinguish whether he meant the genealogy was supposed or just Joseph being the father. So there is no reason to think the rest of the genealogy has to be literal. And none of the genealogy is Jesus' real genealogy. You are construction your genealogy from Jesus to Adam from a genealogy of someone else. That is not the bible giving us Jesus genealogy back to Adam.

The Bible does give us the lineage back to Adam. And, I don't see how you can understand the following as anything except Luke writing that Jesus was "as was supposed," the son of Joseph. It has nothing to do with the genealogy.

Luke 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

Evolution doesn't say species jump like that either. But there is no reason wolves and cats could not have diverged from an earlier carnivora kind the same way poodle kind and alsatian kind diverged from earlier wolf kind.

Evolution, as taught in schools, does teach that species jump.

WW - If you draw the circle on a flat piece of paper the circle is flat. It might be a drawing of a sphere but it is still a flat circle.

A - And if the bible doesn't tell you it isn't a flat circle, but is in fact a sphere, then the bible doesn't tell you the earth is spherical.

I have never heard anyone, anywhere call a circle "flat." I just asked a couple of guys in the office....choose one word to describe circle. They all replied...round.

Continued....

lucaspa · Nov 15, 2010

1whirlwind said:
He told us that He created the beasts, fish, fowl, etc. after their kind! He also told us that He later created man. As the previous creatures were restricted to having offspring of "their kind," then man didn't evolve from them.

You are reading Genesis 1 too literally. Genesis 1 was never meant to tell history. It was meant to tell that the Babylonian gods did not exist. If Genesis 1 was meant as history, then there would not be so many contradictions with the creation story in Genesis 2.

However, in evolution creatures always have offspring "after their kind" or species. You don't have one generation a H. ergastor and the next generation an H. sapiens. Evolution doesn't work that way, so there is no contradiction between having offspring "after their kind" and evolution.

But the biggest error you are making is defending the Bible instead of defending God. Your emphasis is that "the Bible" must be correct, not what God actually did. And it's not even "the Bible", but your interpretation of the Bible. You are caring more about "the Bible" than you are caring about God.

Consider too that man was already created "in the beginning" when He created heaven and earth (and that was long before this age began) and all the host of them.

Oops. You just contradicted your previous paragraph. Notice you said "He later created man". Now you have man already created in the beginning? Can't have both.

but in this age we needed to be placed in a flesh body, to be created in His image as a man. We were already an entity but had to put on a flesh body.

There's an interpretation that goes against Christian theology. Your interpretation would make us co-existent with God instead of God's created creatures.

In the previous age, the age in which Satan rebelled, we were in angelic, spiritual bodies.

That's not Biblical. According to Genesis, we were never in anything other than you see us now. You have mixed in way too much Paradise Lost with scripture.

..and before you laugh please consider that as a Christian you recognize that those are the bodies we'll be in in the following age so...it isn't far-fetched to understand we'll just be returning to our first state.

Yes, very far-fetched that there was a previous state. We are to be resurrected into new bodies. Nothing about that says those were bodies we had before the physical ones we have now.

At physical death our same spirit/soul steps out and we are again as we were.

There is no "were". If there "were", then you have God putting souls into our bodies after conception. There is nothing in scripture that gives us a previous life separate from our bodies. You are way off the Christian reservation and way outside scripture.

Now, you can make this stuff up if you want. But none of us, particularly the Christians here, are going to think you are actually describing God or how He works. You are on your own at making up your new religion.

I don't see your point though. Isn't after his kind still referring to the kinds, varieties, sorts?

There are scriptures telling us of the "gap." There are none referring to evolution.

There is only a very strained hermeneutic talking about a "gap". There is an overemphasis on scripture here. You are forgetting what God created. You are again off the Christian reservation because you are refusing to look at God's other book.

Real is literal to me and you'll just have to work with it Assyrian. I'm old and I'm stubborn...sometimes I remind myself of Patton.

Patton was dismissed for his stubborness. Stubborness is not always a virtue. Were the Pharisee's good because they were stubborn and insisted on their literal view of scripture instead of listening to Jesus?

Think about that. I think the comparison to Pharisees is more apt.

Evolution isn't a deeper metaphorical understanding...it is a completely opposite un-metaphorical understanding.

Evolution explains our tendency to disobey God, and thus our need for salvation. Science in general -- including evolution -- provides the only valid answer to the problem of why bad things happen to good people.

You should start listening to God about how He created.

The teaching of an evolutionary process is a big black hole in Scripture. Not only isn't it there but Creation is there.

Scripture teaches us the Who and why of Creation. Science finds the how of Creation. Evolution is just as much "Creation" as what you think.

Discard all interpretation....see what is written. Allow Him to explain.

The irony meter just pegged at maximum. You should take your own words to heart. You should also remember that He does explanations other than "what is written". God has "two books".

No. Evolution contradicts what is written...my interpretation has nothing to do with it.

Your interpretation has everything to do with it. You are imposing your 21st century views on people in 500 BC. You need to understand first and foremost how the people of the time understood the 2 creation stories. You aren't doing that. Nor are you letting God help with your interpretation. In fact, you are shutting God out and insisting that your interpretation is correct even when God is telling you differently.

I have never heard anyone, anywhere call a circle "flat." I just asked a couple of guys in the office....choose one word to describe circle. They all replied...round.

But not "round" in 3 dimensions. Round in two dimensions or "flat". Ask them to draw a circle and they will all draw a flat object. None of them will draw a ball. Hebrew has a word for "ball" and it was used elsewhere in Isaiah. If Isaiah had wanted to say a ball or globe, he would have used that word. Isaiah wanted to say "circle" as in flat, because that is how people of the time thought the earth was shaped.

lucaspa · Nov 15, 2010

1whirlwind said:
Evolution, as taught in schools, does teach that species jump.

Not true. Evolution is taught as populations changing over the course of generations into new species. "jump" is never part of it.

Maybe your "schools" are just as reliable as your co-workers and circles being flat. Or maybe, like your misunderstanding of your co-workers, you misunderstand what is being taught.

I'm trying to be kind. However, in the light of your made-up theology, another possibility is that you are making this up, too.

1whirlwind · Nov 15, 2010

Continued....

WW - We are to "keep on forgiving" but...
[sorry not enough room for quote]
Biblical numbers, as do names....can carry great meaning (I don't know if that is always true or sometimes true).

A - I am not saying number sometime do have symbolic meanings, of course they do. But numbers can also be used non literally, but without a symbolic meaning either. Jesus' forgiving 70 times 7 simply means a great many times as often as you need to, and God's thousand years as a day, can simply mean God days are a very long time, not literally each day lasts exactly 1000 years.

There are many uses of 1000 that appear to be literal...in the counting of people. Until I see something explaining that it is not literal, I accept that it is.

WW - No, for there weren't two creations. Mankind was created and Adam was formed.

A- So why couldn't God have used the homind species we find in the fossil record in his creation of mankind?

Because He tells us He created animals and then He created man...in His image.

WW - Understanding the spiritual doesn't negate the literal.

A- No it doesn't negate the literal, not always anyway. But can. God did not literally use eagles.

As the eagles are sybolic of the literal then He did literally use a symbolic eagle. Perhaps this is a "girl thing," but I have no problem with this.

WW -
Jacob, as all mankind, was created. Jacob, unlike mankind, was also formed...formed as Israel for a specific destiny.

A - That is certainly how you interpret it. They could also be synonyms.

No, that is how it is written.

WW -
Those called by His name have been created (as has every human) for His glory but we, His children that carry His name, are also formed...the others are not.

A-
No that is not a biblical distinction.
Psalm 33:14 from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, 15 he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds.
Isaiah 27:11 For this is a people without discernment; therefore he who made (asah) them will not have compassion on them; he who formed them will show them no favour.

I stand corrected. It would be better to say He forms those that carry His name for a specific purpose...to carry His name as His elect. In Isaiah those He formed are the children of Israel...not the heathen.

WW - Isaiah 45:18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it

Amos 4:13 For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind,
I'm not sure about those two verses and how they would apply to this topic. However I will add....

Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

To form and create should not, in my opinion, be understood as meaning the same thing.

A-
If you want to understand these scripture you need to realise how poetic parallels work. They are no distinguishing between create and form, they are using them as synonyms to say the same thing in different slightly ways. People wind themselves into knots trying to distinguish one part of a poetic parallel from another when that is not what is being said.

The difference in form and create is meaningful. He doesn't throw words around to simply be poetic.

WW - He is telling us more than that Assyrian.

A - Prov 19:5 A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape. Making two different points or saying the same thing twice in slightly different ways?

They are different.

Proverbs 6:16-19 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

He lists seven things. Seven separate things that He hates. Among them is lying and false witness. My understanding is that a false witness speaks against another in order to harm him. A liar is one who lies to keep himself out of trouble or just enjoys lying. (I don't mean Uncle Colin down at the pub telling a big fish story...a little embellishment doesn't seem too wicked. )

WW - That isn't what I'm saying. Their judgment, as well as ours, takes place where we were created...and that wasn't on earth. He may destroy the Ammonites on earth but they are judged where they "were created," not where they were born.
Revelation 20:12-13...

A - The judgement Ezekiel was talking about was God sending the Babylonians judging the Ammonites in the place the were created, in the land of their origin. Now they will all stand before God's throne at the last judgement too, but the reference to the place they were created was their homeland Ammon. That is where God says they were created

He isn't saying they were created where their homeland is but they were created where they will be judged.

WW - His people are in captivity if they don't have truth...they are being misled.

A- I though you said the spiritual doesn't contradict the literal? So even if you interpret their captivity figuratively, (though God goes on to describe the army with sharp pointy arrows) the the literal still holds and they have gone into real captivity too. Unless God is using the perfect tense to describe the completeness of their future exile.

The house of Israel was taken captive by the Assyian :o and the house of Judah by the king of Babylon. Both are types for us today. We are in captivity to the anti-christ and his temptations. Many shall be taken captive by the king of Babylon (Satan) in the end of days. The sharp pointy arrows have meaning too.

God incarnate died on the cross and was hurriedly buried before the Sabbath began, Jesus spent the seventh day in the grave, that Sabbath Jesus did no work, unlike so many Sabbaths before, he just lay there dead. If you want to find a time God literally took a Sabbath rest, this was it.

Thank you for that explanation.

WW -
That verse speaks of the Lord. He formed the light and created the darkness.

A-
And he created the evening of the seventh day, whenever that comes, so there is no need to read it as night in any bad sense. Though is you wanted to read it as Jesus being handed over to the enemy at the crucifixion there is probably plenty of scope for that allegory.

WW -
None of the days mention night! Rather night is excluded from all of them. Isn't that strange? I'm still trying to understand what that means.

A -
Gen 1:4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
14 And God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night..."

Cat, meet pigeons, pigeons, this is cat

Huh?

WW - As all of the seven days were during God's time of creation then I attribute His reckoning of time to them....one day as a thousand years. I see those seven days of creation as being completed. The next day would be the eighth and it means....new beginnings. The formation of Adam was a new beginning and with it man's concept of time when a day means a day. [Hebrews 4], to me, speaks of the millennium.

A-
It certainly does speak of the millennium, though probably not a literal thousand years. How long has it been since day six began? It still hasn't been evening of the seventh day, unless you take it as the evening after the crucifixion.

Assyrian, this is a very profound teaching. I don't know what it means but there is something being said within this puzzle. Something for us to discover.

.

shernren · Nov 15, 2010

1whirlwind said:
None of the days mention night! Rather night is excluded from all of them. Isn't that strange? I'm still trying to understand what that means.

St. Augustine has a very medieval but interesting view on this. First he says that there are different ways of knowing a creature:

There is a vast difference between knowledge of a thing in the Word of God and knowledge of the same thing in itself. The first kind of knowledge can be considered as belonging to day; the second kind, to evening.

He defends his classification of the second kind of knowledge as "evening":

In comparison with the light that is seen in the Word of God, all knowledge by which we know any creature in itself can be rightly called night. But this latter kind of knowledge in its turn is so different from the error or ignorance of those who know not even the creature, that in comparison with this darkness it deserves to be called day.

That is, to know something in itself (without knowing also its place in the rationality / Word of God) is not totally day - being obscured without the full knowledge of God - but also not totally night - being better than not knowing about that thing at all.

He then uses this idea to interpret the six days of creation in a manner surprisingly similar to the "days of proclamation":

The holy angels, whose equals we shall be after the resurrection, if to the end we hold to Christ our Way, always behold the face of God and rejoice in His Word, the only-begotten Son, equal to the Father, and in them first of all wisdom was created.

They, therefore, without any doubt know all creation, of which they are the creatures first made, and they have this knowledge first in the Word of God Himself, in whom are the eternal reasons of all things made in time, existing in Him through whom all things have been created.

And then they have this knowledge in creation itself, as they look down upon it and refer it to the praise of Him in whose immutable truth they behold, as in the source of all creation, the reasons by which creature have been made.

There the knowledge they have is like day, and so that blessed company, perfectly united by participation in the same Truth, is the day first created; here among creatures their knowledge is like evening. But immediately morning comes (and this happens on all six days), because the knowledge angels have does not remain fixed in a creature without their immediately referring it to the praise and love of Him in whom they know not the fact, but the reason, of its creation.

Having done so, he is in a position to say why there is no night for the six days:

The angels, then, know creatures in themselves, but their love is such that they willingly prefer (to this sort of knowledge) the knowledge they have of creatures in the Truth by which all things have been made. For they themselves have been made to share in that Truth.

Through all six days, therefore, no mention is made of night, but after evening and morning there is one day; again after evening and morning, another day; then after evening and morning, a third day; and so on to the morning of the sixth day, and after that the seventh day of God's rest begins. These days have their nights, but it is the days, not the nights, that are described. For night belongs to day, not day to night, when the holy angels of heaven refer their knowledge of creatures in themselves to the honor and love of Him in whom they contemplate the eternal reasons by which creatures were made.

I'm not really sure what that means either but I think what Augustine had in mind is that, although in his scheme the angels continually have their attention turned to different things (hence beginning different days), they never lose their knowledge of the prior things they have seen as the word "night" would imply. I suppose that's what it means that "night belongs to day, not day to night".

Interestingly, all this is taken from Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Literal? Even to a TE like me this sounds like a whole load of postmodernist emergent poppycock! But Augustine says:

Now it must not be thought that these interpretations are applicable to "day" and "evening" and "morning" not literally but only in some figurative and allegorical way. These interpretations, of course, are different from our ordinary understanding of light in its material sense. But it is not true that material light is literally "light", and light referred to in Genesis is metaphorical "light" [that is, Augustine considers his "spiritual" light to be a very real thing and a literal meaning of Genesis 1, not a metaphorical meaning!] ... Christ Himself is not called the Light in the same way as He is called a stone: He is literally the Light but metaphorically a stone.

How interesting. Hey, I take Genesis literally just like Augustine!

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

shernren said:
Through all six days, therefore, no mention is made of night, but after evening and morning there is one day; again after evening and morning, another day; then after evening and morning, a third day; and so on to the morning of the sixth day, and after that the seventh day of God's rest begins. These days have their nights, but it is the days, not the nights, that are described. For night belongs to day, not day to night, when the holy angels of heaven refer their knowledge of creatures in themselves to the honor and love of Him in whom they contemplate the eternal reasons by which creatures were made.

I'm not really sure what that means either but I think what Augustine had in mind is that, although in his scheme the angels continually have their attention turned to different things (hence beginning different days), they never lose their knowledge of the prior things they have seen as the word "night" would imply. I suppose that's what it means that "night belongs to day, not day to night".

Interestingly, all this is taken from Augustine's The Literal Meaning of Genesis. Literal? Even to a TE like me this sounds like a whole load of postmodernist emergent poppycock! But Augustine says:

Now it must not be thought that these interpretations are applicable to "day" and "evening" and "morning" not literally but only in some figurative and allegorical way. These interpretations, of course, are different from our ordinary understanding of light in its material sense. But it is not true that material light is literally "light", and light referred to in Genesis is metaphorical "light" [that is, Augustine considers his "spiritual" light to be a very real thing and a literal meaning of Genesis 1, not a metaphorical meaning!] ... Christ Himself is not called the Light in the same way as He is called a stone: He is literally the Light but metaphorically a stone.

How interesting. Hey, I take Genesis literally just like Augustine!

I too see much of this as "poppycock" but...not all. His statement, "These days have their nights, but it is the days, not the nights, that are described. For night belongs to day, not day to night," rings true for me.

Is that the answer? The nights are included in the "morning and evening were the second day" but not mentioned? Not mentioned as the night isn't of the morning or evening and it is they which are termed...day.

Thank you Shernren...very interesting and helpful.

.

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

lucaspa said:
Not true. Evolution is taught as populations changing over the course of generations into new species. "jump" is never part of it.

Perhaps I imagined those charts showing amphibian creatures crawling out of the mud, morphing into land dwelling reptiles, morphing into mammals, morphing into dogs, morphing into apes, morphing into humans?

Maybe your "schools" are just as reliable as your co-workers and circles being flat. Or maybe, like your misunderstanding of your co-workers, you misunderstand what is being taught.

Oh I assure you....I would rely on my co-workers and their astute common sense well over that of yours if, as you appear to claim, when you read of a circle you see it as flat.

I'm trying to be kind. However, in the light of your made-up theology, another possibility is that you are making this up, too.

Your attempt is failing. May I ask, what "made-up theology" are you not yet ready to understand? Perhaps I can help?

.

Assyrian · Nov 16, 2010

1whirlwind said:
And each of those in the various clans are still one species, all derived from Adam. Just as mankind is derived from their common ancestors...created on the sixth day.

It is probably best to stick to one argument at a time. The biblical mishpachah kind, nation tribe, clan, family, fits perfectly with with the common ancestry we find in evolution, even if my illustration was from a single species. I am not saying the bible teaches that different species come form a common ancestor, just addressing you claim mishpachah contradicts it. It doesn't. Being created on the sixth is a different argument and given you don't take the days in Genesis literally, not a really that much of an argument.

They aren't literal beasts Assyrian....

In Jeremiah? Sure they are. people needed to restock their farms and flocks.

Ecclesiastes 3:18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

That is the literal beasts too Solomon was discussing the nature of people and animals and saying humans are animals too. But even if beast in Ecclesiastes did refer to people, you can't say that means beast in Genesis 2 has to be people too, especially when you thing beast in Genesis 1 really are animals.

The beasts are not livestock.

It is the same word you find in Jonah 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Pretty hard to tie sack cloth to lions and tigers and bears.

It may be if it was us doing the writing but it isn't when written in the Bible. When there is a different use of words, such as what you previously pointed out in God and the Lord God in the two chapters of Genesis...something is being noted.

Is God a different deity from LORD God? Yet that is how the two creation account describe God. Why is it alright for Genesis 1 to say God and Genesis 2 to say LORD God, but both refer to the same creator, while when the first accoutn says beasts of the earth and the second account says beast of the field it must mean beast of the field are people. Where does the bible tell you that? Where does the bible tell you two different accounts can't use two different terms for the same thing? You point out quite rightly that we do. Where does it say the bible doesn't?

This is just as sickness, illness and evil spirits carry different meanings and shouldn't all be seen as one problem.

Coming up with example of different terms having different meaning does not mean you can't also have different terms with the same meaning, like God and the Lord God. And aren't sickness and illness more or less the same thing?

Well, the name is the same but are they the same entity? The name of the Lord is given differently yet He is the same entity. There, discernment enters the picture and with it...understanding.

And opinion and understanding the different styles of different writers in the bible. God may have inspired them he didn't take away their writing style and vocabulary, other wise all the books in the bible would sound the same. They are very different.

Did Jesus say, "Luke wrote of Me?" Was Luke living when the Torah was written?

Was Moses living when the Torah was written? But that is another can of worms. Whether Jesus said "Luke wrote of me" or not, Luke did write of Jesus and you argument for the Mosaic authorship of Genesis was based on that Moses writing about Jesus. It simply does not follow.

What has that claim got to do with whether the title in Gen 2:4 refers to Genesis 1, Genesis 2 or the whole of Genesis 1 & 2? What specifically does 'these' in 'these are the generations' refer to?

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It refers to the generations of the heavens and the earth and all the host of them. People. All the humans created in the beginning and all their offspring until the end of days...all, all their generations, were created in the beginning.

That is what "generations of the heavens and the earth means", I asked you what 'these' means. The writer is saying that soemthing written that he refers to as 'these' are the generations, or genealogy of the heavens and the earth. What passage of scripture is writer is referring to as 'these'?

To me, literal means real/true.

Unfortunately the word can be used very loosely, but its real meaning comes from the word 'letter' and means exactly the way it is written (or said). Normally other uses aren't a problem, people come in from the rain saying "I was literally drowned" which is neither real nor literal, but we know what they mean.

The big problem is if we are comparing figurative and literal interpretation of a text, if we use the word literal both to talk of an event being 'literal' meaning it actually happened, and the description being literal, meaning it is described the way it happened, we just end up in a muddle. Lets call the events 'real' and leave the word 'literal' for descriptions.

So, although the eagles' wings may be metaphorical it is still referencing a literal thing. The plants of the field speak of literal/real/true humans...He just gave them a figurative name.

Eagles wing's are metaphorical not literal. The events are real.

Yes, I did know about forming and potter. He forms the clay...He formed Adam and He forms us. Clay is simply earth and water. Whatever the materials are of the earth used to create man...it produced a dry ground, living beings, humanity, and yet they were not spiritually alive. Enter the breath of life and the living soul of Adam, previously a living man but without a living soul.
Isaiah 44:3 For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground: I will pour My spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring:

If God the potter forming us is metaphorical not literal, and the actual way God made us through human reproductive biology does not contradict the metaphor of God making us from clay, why does God the potter making Adam from clay contradict him actually having a biological origin and God using evolution? If it is a metahor like God making us from clay, where is the problem?

You don't understand what I'm saying. What you, I, heliocentrics understand about Scripture isn't the issue. What is written is. For any of us to attain understanding it must conform to Scripture. Evolution doesn't. That is how you tell. You shouldn't believe me or science. You, as I, should believe His Word. So, although evolution isn't written we know that Creation is. Only one can be true.

I understand what you are saying, you think your understanding of Genesis is simply what is written, you do not realise you are interpreting scripture just as much as the geocentrists did. In fact their interpretation of the geocentric passages was much more literal than your pretty metaphorical interpretation of Genesis. You are obviously convinced you understand what Genesis actually says, but that does not mean your understanding is the same as what is written. Your understanding of scripture is just as human and fallible as the geocentrists. And I do not see why your interpretation should be treated any differently from theirs when it is contradicted by scripture.

You introduce a second argument, for you to change your mind about the meaning of Genesis, you would want to be shown evolution in scripture. But I simply do not see why this should be so. The geocentrists were not shown heliocentrism in scripture, they had to find an new interpretation because science showed them their old interpretation was wrong. Simply claiming your interpretation is right, is what is really written, does not change this.

Because the flowery language of being made from clay is literal. What goes into the makeup of a human? Amino acids, proteins, etc. Are they all not of earth?

Flowery language is not literal it is metaphorical, though I have no problem with it describing among other things, God making us from the stuff of the earth. The only problem with evolution is if we interpret the flowery language literally, thinking God took a lump of mud slapped it on his potters wheel and worked with his fingers until it was manshaped. That would be the same as thinking God used real eagles to bring the Israelites out, or that God took a lump of potters clay to make me too.

The contradiction arises in the time frame, in the words creation and evolution, in being in His image and likeness, in being created to produce after his kind.

No we have look at those too. No contradiction there either.

I don't take the time scale as being metaphorical. He tells us His time reckoning is a day being as a thousand years. Timescale is an issue.

Taking a day to mean a thousand years is metaphorical. It is not what day literally means. You certainly base your metaphorical interpretation on scripture, but it is still metaphorical and it is not the only way to interpret the days based on the same scripture, other people simply do not assume as you do that Moses is telling you to use a thousand years:day conversion scale.

You don't agree that he did? Or you don't agree that he could? Not agreeing he did is fine, you are a creationists. But it doesn't mean God couldn't make man in his image through evolution, and so it means evolution does not contradict God creating man in his image. No agreeing God could do it simply limits God.

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He did what He told us He did. With that, I agree.

OK so God could have created man in his image through evolution, you just don't think that God did. That means evolution is not incompatible with God making man in his image.

But I do take the time given literally. Man's time is a day (24 hours) but His day is as a thousand years.

That is a metaphorical interpretation.

If you are speaking of "the smith," being the smith that bloweth the coals of [Is. 54]...he wasn't born.

Stork?

Mankind wasn't formed into His image...they were created in His image.

You assume there is a difference. Genesis 1 uses create and make to describe God making us in his image, Genesis 2 used 'form' and the metaphor of a potter. Two different descriptions of the same thing.

Oh, but the other points do hold.
.

None have so far.

1whirlwind part 1 said:
But you haven't explained why it is a problem being given dominion over creatures we evolved from (or rather their descendants). It is because we are different species? I don't see why that is a problem, you believe we were given dominion over different species. Is it because we were once the same species? Well David was given authority over fellow Israelites. Or is it because you bought the rhetoric that the monkeys in the zoo are our mother and father? They aren't, they are just distant cousins.

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He told us that He created the beasts, fish, fowl, etc. after their kind! He also told us that He later created man. As the previous creatures were restricted to having offspring of "their kind," then man didn't evolve from them.

That is the kind argument. You need to support the dominion argument.

Consider too that man was already created "in the beginning" when He created heaven and earth (and that was long before this age began) and all the host of them. We are among the "host of them," but in this age we needed to be placed in a flesh body, to be created in His image as a man. We were already an entity but had to put on a flesh body.

No it doesn't say man was already created "in the beginning" but this has nothing to do with your dominion argument either.

In the previous age, the age in which Satan rebelled, we were in angelic, spiritual bodies...and before you laugh please consider that as a Christian you recognize that those are the bodies we'll be in in the following age so...it isn't far-fetched to understand we'll just be returning to our first state.

Oh I recognise the doctrine, I just don't think it is supported by scripture. It has nothing to do with the claim that if we evolved God would not have given us dominion over the animals. An 'if we evolved' argument assumes the Gap theory is wrong.

At physical death our same spirit/soul steps out and we are again as we were. After all, we know that when first introduced to Satan in this age...he was already in his fallen state. We were there too. God didn't recreate our spirits...He just put us in flesh/man bodies in this age in order to prove us.

And what has this to do with dominion over the animals?

I suggest if you want to discuss the Gap Theory you bring it up in another thread, this thread is too long and cumbersome as it is.

I don't see your point though. Isn't after his kind still referring to the kinds, varieties, sorts?

Yes. In the past creationists equated kinds with species, but the bible does not say they are, and most creationists have abandoned the idea now.

There are scriptures telling us of the "gap." There are none referring to evolution.

There are certainly passages in scripture some people interpret as a gap, but that is not the problem. Evolution and Gap Theory are completely different explanations of the history of earth. If you are discussing how evolution works you can't import ideas from Gap Theory. You can claim evolution did not happen because the bible teaches Gap Theory instead, but not that evolution would not work because you mix in gap ideas.

Assyrian · Nov 16, 2010

1whirlwind part 2 said:
What their views are, whether they got those views from Scripture or not, doesn't matter Assyrian.

Of course they do. We are all discussing ideas we got from what is written in scripture, and as someone who accepts neither creationism nor geocentrism I think geocentrism has a more solid basis in scripture, there is more reason to take the passage literally and the geocentric meaning is quite clear unless people approach the passage trying to read heliocentrism into them.

Frodo and Sam.

Thought you'd like that.

Yes, there I go again. Real is literal to me and you'll just have to work with it Assyrian. I'm old and I'm stubborn...sometimes I remind myself of Patton. Old blood and guts himself. (I've been watching a lot of war documentaries.)

Then you will never be able to distinguish between a literal text and the event the text describes. I have talked to creationist who swear black and blue (well not literally) that Genesis is the creation. No Genesis is a book describing the creation, the creation is God making the heavens and the earth a long time before the account was written down. You need to be able to distinguish between real events and literal descriptions of the events.

The two don't gel. Evolution isn't a deeper metaphorical understanding...it is a completely opposite un-metaphorical understanding.

Of course it isn't a metaphorical understanding. I told you before the bible does not speak about evolution. But it is part of the real event God's creation. The metaphors in Genesis describe God creating mankind and all the different species, but the metaphors are about God doing this and why he did it, not the mechanics of the processes he used. People study the different processes God might have used to part the Red Sea and God certainly used some sort of process whether it was natural or supernatural. But the process God used is not a metaphorical understanding of eagles' wings. The eagles' wings are talking about God's deliverance, not the process he used. You can look at the life cycle of locusts in Arabia how they swarm and how a wind from the east can blow them over the land of Egypt, but none of the metaphorical descriptions of the Exodus are talking about the life cycle of locusts. Locust life cycle is not a metaphorical understanding of Exodus, it is not even an unmetaphorical understanding, because the text does not literally describe it either. But it is a real part of what went on when God sent the plague of locusts to set his people free (unless of course God miraculously created a swarm of locusts over the Red Sea but the bible doesn't say that, just that an east wind brought them).

That isn't true Assyrian. Understanding Scripture literally or figuratively tells us nothing of evolution. The teaching of an evolutionary process is a big black hole in Scripture. Not only isn't it there but Creation is there.

Heliocentrism isn't in scripture either, but so what? Of course creation is in scripture, God is the creator of everything. But there is only a contradiction between creation and evolution if you take Genesis literally, same as the geocentrists though there was a contradiction between heliocentrism and the scriptures they took literally. How many times do I need to say this? Scripture itself doesn't contradict either heliocentrism or evolution.

Discard all interpretation....see what is written. Allow Him to explain.

By 'explain' you mean asking God to show you how to interpret it?

No. Evolution contradicts what is written...my interpretation has nothing to do with it.

Sure it does, you just don't see the difference between the text of scripture and your understanding of the text.

What are the wings? Who is the eagle? They were literally carried on metaphorical wings.

Metaphorical wings wouldn't carry their weight.

Try to get to grips with this, otherwise we are just going round in circles and you are unable to explain why God really had to make Adam from clay but he didn't really fly the Israelites out with eagles.

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Not all things can be explained. I have no problem understanding this Assyrian.

If you cannot explain it, then you have no basis for the claim that God making Adam from clay still contradicts evolution if it is a metaphor.

Well...that's a tough one.

But really, it isn't that difficult, the bible teaches us about God, his relationship with mankind and how to walk in fellowship with him, it simply isn't about teaching science, or correcting our scientific mistakes.

The Bible does give us the lineage back to Adam. And, I don't see how you can understand the following as anything except Luke writing that Jesus was "as was supposed," the son of Joseph. It has nothing to do with the genealogy.
Luke 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age, being (as was supposed) the son of Joseph, which was the son of Heli,

That would be the lineage of Joseph back to Adam, not Jesus. You have to construct the lineage of Jesus yourself by tacking different genealogies together. And that is still assuming 'supposed' stops at Joseph. Luke says "being, as was supposed" the supposed is attached to the verb 'being'. Being what? Being the son of Joseph the son of Heli.. of Adam of God. You see there is no new verb without a 'supposed' attached. Luke does not say "being as was supposed the son of Joseph, who really was the was the son of Heli..." There is one verb 'being' that covers the whole genealogy and the 'supposed' is tagged onto that. Luke is describing the whole genealogy when he says supposed.

Evolution, as taught in schools, does teach that species jump.

If you were taught that evolution means wolves jumped species and became cats, then you should sue your school

I have never heard anyone, anywhere call a circle "flat." I just asked a couple of guys in the office....choose one word to describe circle. They all replied...round.

What makes you think a circle can be described in one word? If you have to pick one word, you end up with a characteristic that can describe many different shapes. You need more words than that to distinguish them. But just because a circle a sphere and Fatty Arbuckle can all be describe as round does not mean a circle is a sphere, any more than a triangle is a pentagram or Star of David because they can all be describes as pointy.

1whirlwind said:
Continued....
There are many uses of 1000 that appear to be literal...in the counting of people. Until I see something explaining that it is not literal, I accept that it is.

Actually you are taking 1000 years as a metaphorical meaning of day, not literally. And I have shown you how numbers can be used non literally, simply to mean a very large number, without having to have a symbolic meaning. There is no reason Moses' poetic description of a thousand years as a day cannot be taken that way too, in fact I have show you how it is a better reading of the text than as a 1000x360:1 conversion scale.

Deut 32:30 How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had given them up?
Where in Pentateuch before that did we read of one person literally chasing a thousand soldiers and two Israelites routing ten thousand? It isn't literal, it isn't a symbolic used of the number 1000 either, it is a poetic description of God giving them victory over overwhelming numbers.

So why couldn't God have used the homind species we find in the fossil record in his creation of mankind?

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Because He tells us He created animals and then He created man...in His image.

That doesn't answer the question.

As the eagles are sybolic of the literal then He did literally use a symbolic eagle. Perhaps this is a "girl thing," but I have no problem with this.

The eagles are symbolic of the real. But you can say God literally used a symbolic eagle, but the word 'literally' will refer to your description of God using symbolism, not God's use of the symbolism itself.

No, that is how it is written.

Synonyms can be written too.

I stand corrected. It would be better to say He forms those that carry His name for a specific purpose...to carry His name as His elect. In Isaiah those He formed are the children of Israel...not the heathen.

Psalm 33 describe God forming the hearts of all the inhabitants of the world.

The difference in form and create is meaningful. He doesn't throw words around to simply be poetic.

The certainly describe different aspects of how God made us, but there is no reason to think these are completely different processes that occur at completely different times. Don't knock Hebrew poetry, it is how most of the bible was written, if you don't understand how Hebrew poetry was written you will keep misunderstanding what it says, reading convoluted explanations into places where none are needed or intended.

They are different.

Proverbs 6:16-19 These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto Him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.

He lists seven things. Seven separate things that He hates. Among them is lying and false witness. My understanding is that a false witness speaks against another in order to harm him. A liar is one who lies to keep himself out of trouble or just enjoys lying. (I don't mean Uncle Colin down at the pub telling a big fish story...a little embellishment doesn't seem too wicked.

)

Your quote from Proverbs 6 simply illustrates my point, false witnesses speak lies, False witness and liar in Prov 19 were simply two different ways to say the same thing. It is like Prov 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. People have read all sorts of convoluted explanations into the the differences between pride and a haughty spirit and why pride results in destruction and a haughty spirit instead leads to a fall. They are simply two different ways of saying the same thing, they might highlight slightly different aspects but they are saying the same thing.

He isn't saying they were created where their homeland is but they were created where they will be judged.

If you want to read your understanding of create into the text rather than letting the text speak for itself, then how can you to learn about how God actually uses the word create from the bible? Instead of making these claims, why not show it from scripture?
Ezek 21:30 Return it to its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
Ezekiel describes the land of the origin as the place they were created and the place where God would judge them.

That word origin only come up three time in scripture and each time it refers to a nation's homeland where the nation started
Ezek 16:3 and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
Ezek 29:14 and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom.
The land of the Ammonite's origin means the kingdom of Ammon to the east of the Jordan river, and this is where God says he created them.

The house of Israel was taken captive by the Assyian

It seemed like a good idea at the time

and the house of Judah by the king of Babylon. Both are types for us today. We are in captivity to the anti-christ and his temptations. Many shall be taken captive by the king of Babylon (Satan) in the end of days. The sharp pointy arrows have meaning too.

Yet Isaiah's prophecy describes this as if it had already happened, before the Assyrians took them captive and long before any allegorical apocalyptic fulfilments.

OK if you want a different take on it look at Rom 4:17 As it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations." This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. God speaks of things that are not, that haven't happened yet, as if they were, he describes them in the past tense, as if they have already happened even though they are still far in the future. If you look at the passage Paul quotes Gen 17:5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. God uses the perfect tense, I have made, to describe something still far off, but that is certain in the will and promise of God.

Thank you for that explanation.

You are welcome.

Huh?

Plenty of reference to the word night in Genesis 1.

Assyrian, this is a very profound teaching. I don't know what it means but there is something being said within this puzzle. Something for us to discover.

.

We will all find out eventually

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

lucaspa said:
You are reading Genesis 1 too literally. Genesis 1 was never meant to tell history. It was meant to tell that the Babylonian gods did not exist. If Genesis 1 was meant as history, then there would not be so many contradictions with the creation story in Genesis 2.

Genesis is the beginning and therefore is history. There are no contradictions in the two chapters...just the inability of man to see, to understand, what is written.

However, in evolution creatures always have offspring "after their kind" or species. You don't have one generation a H. ergastor and the next generation an H. sapiens. Evolution doesn't work that way, so there is no contradiction between having offspring "after their kind" and evolution.

Apes are not my kind. Apes are apes and therefore....not human. They don't give birth to humans and humans don't give birth to apes. Never have, never will.

But the biggest error you are making is defending the Bible instead of defending God. Your emphasis is that "the Bible" must be correct, not what God actually did. And it's not even "the Bible", but your interpretation of the Bible. You are caring more about "the Bible" than you are caring about God.

That is a ridiculous statement. Because you are unable to deflect the written Word and the message it carries on this subject you dismiss it, saying...the Bible isn't what God actually did. That alone should send a shiver up your spine! My emphasis is on what is written within the pages of the Bible. We either go there or we go to man....your choice.

John 5:39 Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me.

Mark 13:5 And Jesus answering them began to say, Take heed lest any man deceive you:

Oops. You just contradicted your previous paragraph. Notice you said "He later created man". Now you have man already created in the beginning? Can't have both.

What man is, our spirit and soul, was created in the beginning. What man is today is the same spirit and soul but encased in a flesh body...the one made of earth. So, we do have both. This same thought carries into the next age. We shall be the same person we now are...just in different bodily form.

You don't have a soul...You are a soul...You have a body ~ C.S. Lewis

WW -
but in this age we needed to be placed in a flesh body, to be created in His image as a man. We were already an entity but had to put on a flesh body.

L -
There's an interpretation that goes against Christian theology. Your interpretation would make us co-existent with God instead of God's created creatures.

How so?

That's not Biblical. According to Genesis, we were never in anything other than you see us now. You have mixed in way too much Paradise Lost with scripture.

Again, how so? Where do you read that?

Yes, very far-fetched that there was a previous state. We are to be resurrected into new bodies. Nothing about that says those were bodies we had before the physical ones we have now.

There is no "were". If there "were", then you have God putting souls into our bodies after conception. There is nothing in scripture that gives us a previous life separate from our bodies. You are way off the Christian reservation and way outside scripture.

You are mistaken...greatly mistaken.

Now, you can make this stuff up if you want. But none of us, particularly the Christians here, are going to think you are actually describing God or how He works. You are on your own at making up your new religion.

In the Bible is where you will find all the things I have mentioned...all of them. None are interpretations...they are written.

There is only a very strained hermeneutic talking about a "gap". There is an overemphasis on scripture here. You are forgetting what God created. You are again off the Christian reservation because you are refusing to look at God's other book.

His other book? Nature? Oh, I am surrounded by nature. It led me to Him. The two agree...it is when man asserts his ideas over those of God that cause problems and misunderstandings. That is the choice we are to make in this flesh life. He allows these misunderstandings to test us.

Deuteronomy 13:3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

Patton was dismissed for his stubborness. Stubborness is not always a virtue. Were the Pharisee's good because they were stubborn and insisted on their literal view of scripture instead of listening to Jesus?

Think about that. I think the comparison to Pharisees is more apt.

Yes, I know why he was dismissed but....would the war have ended as it did without him? God places people in positions to do His will. Patton, I believe (and so did he), thought he was fulfilling his destiny. He also, as did McArthur, thought the fight should continue with taking on Russia. Who was right?

Of course, God controlled that decision. Russia was to be an obstacle in the last days and...they are.

Being stubborn, I agree...isn't a virtue if one is wrong or blind or whatever. But, when someone is stubborn because they have truth then...I'm all for that stubborness.

Evolution explains our tendency to disobey God, and thus our need for salvation. Science in general -- including evolution -- provides the only valid answer to the problem of why bad things happen to good people.

No it doesn't. Your answers are written and evolution isn't it.

You should start listening to God about how He created.

I do. Oddly, evolution and/or the process, isn't mentioned.

Scripture teaches us the Who and why of Creation. Science finds the how of Creation. Evolution is just as much "Creation" as what you think.

When science gives the "how of creation" as a diametrically opposing process than what is written...a problem arises.

The irony meter just pegged at maximum. You should take your own words to heart. You should also remember that He does explanations other than "what is written". God has "two books".

Oh, don't misunderstand me. I see spiritually into all the words but for those that don't, for those that don't accept interpretations then they should, "Discard all interpretation....see what is written. Allow Him to explain." I say that as the plain written word dispels evolution as well as interpretation. Evolution is a lie either way it is approached.

Your interpretation has everything to do with it. You are imposing your 21st century views on people in 500 BC. You need to understand first and foremost how the people of the time understood the 2 creation stories. You aren't doing that. Nor are you letting God help with your interpretation. In fact, you are shutting God out and insisting that your interpretation is correct even when God is telling you differently.

Through the centuries God allowed His saints to understand just what He thought they could understand, just what He wanted them to understand at their point in life. The Bible was not written for those of 500 BC, or of 1,000 AD or of 2010. It is written for all for all times.

As for "not letting God help." His Spirit guides me daily. He shows the meaning of the written word...who do you think provides the interpretations?

But not "round" in 3 dimensions. Round in two dimensions or "flat". Ask them to draw a circle and they will all draw a flat object. None of them will draw a ball. Hebrew has a word for "ball" and it was used elsewhere in Isaiah. If Isaiah had wanted to say a ball or globe, he would have used that word. Isaiah wanted to say "circle" as in flat, because that is how people of the time thought the earth was shaped.

This is so SILLY! If you want to see it as flat then be my guest. A circle is round. People are not idiots now or were they then!

.

Servant of Jesus · Nov 16, 2010

If we interpret the Bible completely literally, as 1whirlwind would have us do, we quickly get ourselves into a serious contradiction with science; for example, let's look at Genesis 1:1-19 as a start:

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Astronomers maintain that the Universe- the heavens- were there first, and that the sun was only another star that formed much later- from a nebula of rotating gases that slowly coalesced to form the sun in the middle, and the planets revolving around it. So the formation of the earth was a much later event than the formation of the "heavens" or the sun and the solar system.

So a literal interpretation of the Biblical account states that the heavens- i.e., the stars and galaxies- along with the earth- formed first; no mention of the Sun until verse 16! Besides, there couldn't have been a sun since "darkness was over the surface of the deep".

3 And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morningthe first day.

So Genesis could be interpreted as saying that light (daytime) and darkness (night) was a separate entity- not caused by the rotation of the earth in the blazing light of the sun (again, a literal interpretation here would say that the sun didn't come along until much later; see verse 16).

6 And God said, Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water. 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault sky. And there was evening, and there was morningthe second day.

So presumably this refers to clouds that carried water in the sky, and the oceans below. But evaporation and condensation to water vapour to form clouds is caused by the heat of the sun- problem again is that the sun hasn't been formed yet if you accept a literal interpretation.

9 And God said, Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear. And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas. And God saw that it was good.

Geologists would say that the earth was totally flat originally- and therefore completely covered with water. It was not until plate tectonics came along and plates started to collide and were thrust up that dry land formed. So water doesn't just gather together to form a sea- it flows downhill from dry land into depressions to form a sea.

11 Then God said, Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morningthe third day.

Biologists would tell us that life started in the oceans- and geologists would support this be stating that seas were there first, and that it was a long time before dry land and continents formed where vegetation could flourish.

And how could there be evening and morning when no sun is around yet?

14 And God said, Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth. And it was so. 16 God made two great lightsthe greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morningthe fourth day.

Astronomers tell us that innumerable galaxies and stars in the Universe formed and died out long before our solar system with its sun was ever born- a literal interpretation here would suggest that earth is somehow special and formed before either the sun or other stars.

Oh- and finally, in verse 16, we have the formation of the sun and presumably, the moon. Trouble is, the moon also is believed to have formed at about the same time as the rest of the solar system- and that it only reflects the light of the sun; it does not produce its own light.

--------------------------

So again- I'm not presenting this to get into a big debate about the details- just pointing out two things: 1. that us mortal human beings have a tendency to interpret things from a very narrow and biased perspective at times; and 2. that the Bible only gives a generalized account of how the Universe was formed by God, and is not a science textbook that can be taken literally.

And one more point to emphasize: just because some people do not take it literally does not mean they are not saved, or somehow, lesser Christians. I think it would be appropriate for you to acknowledge that.

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1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

Assyrian said:
It is probably best to stick to one argument at a time. The biblical mishpachah kind, nation tribe, clan, family, fits perfectly with with the common ancestry we find in evolution, even if my illustration was from a single species. I am not saying the bible teaches that different species come form a common ancestor, just addressing you claim mishpachah contradicts it. It doesn't. Being created on the sixth is a different argument and given you don't take the days in Genesis literally, not a really that much of an argument.

To my eyes, it fits perfectly with creation. Each creation is only equipped to produce of it's kind. As Mom and Dad are...so is the offspring. That would limit greatly one species producing another species would it not? Now, you may see us being the same species as an ape but...I don't. As disgusting as this subject is...should a man mate with an ape or an ape with a human what would happen? A hairy little baby or...nothing? (sorry, that was really gross.)

In Jeremiah? Sure they are. people needed to restock their farms and flocks.

Jeremiah 31:27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.

That has nothing to do with restocking cattle.

That is the literal beasts too Solomon was discussing the nature of people and animals and saying humans are animals too. But even if beast in Ecclesiastes did refer to people, you can't say that means beast in Genesis 2 has to be people too, especially when you thing beast in Genesis 1 really are animals.

It is the same word you find in Jonah 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle? Pretty hard to tie sack cloth to lions and tigers and bears.

He tells us there is a difference in beasts by specifying "of the field" or "of the earth." In Jonah...what are the cattle? What is the great city? Both are to be seen spiritually.

Jonah 4:11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?

The great city is Babylon...a world-wide city. Cattle are controlled, fed, led by the nose creatures...creatures counted as worth to be bought and sold by those with the mark or the number. They blindly follow their master as we follow our Master when He gives us eyes and ears to dispell the blindness.

Is God a different deity from LORD God? Yet that is how the two creation account describe God. Why is it alright for Genesis 1 to say God and Genesis 2 to say LORD God, but both refer to the same creator, while when the first accoutn says beasts of the earth and the second account says beast of the field it must mean beast of the field are people. Where does the bible tell you that? Where does the bible tell you two different accounts can't use two different terms for the same thing? You point out quite rightly that we do. Where does it say the bible doesn't?

I don't see the two accounts telling us there is a different God.

The beasts being symbolic of people was revealed as was the spiritual meaning of many things....

11 Corinthians 3:6 Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

Coming up with example of different terms having different meaning does not mean you can't also have different terms with the same meaning, like God and the Lord God. And aren't sickness and illness more or less the same thing?

Yes, but they aren't the same as having a demon.

And opinion and understanding the different styles of different writers in the bible. God may have inspired them he didn't take away their writing style and vocabulary, other wise all the books in the bible would sound the same. They are very different.

The vocabulary is that of God. Words matter, words have meaning, words are important, certain words are explicitely used throughout the Bible and carry the same meaning from Genesis to Revelation.

Was Moses living when the Torah was written? But that is another can of worms. Whether Jesus said "Luke wrote of me" or not, Luke did write of Jesus and you argument for the Mosaic authorship of Genesis was based on that Moses writing about Jesus. It simply does not follow.

I disagree. It is a valid argument. Jesus tells us Moses wrote of Him and Moses is mentioned as being the one God instructed to write throughout the Torah.

That is what "generations of the heavens and the earth means", I asked you what 'these' means. The writer is saying that soemthing written that he refers to as 'these' are the generations, or genealogy of the heavens and the earth. What passage of scripture is writer is referring to as 'these'?

Ah, I see. Another interesting question.

Genesis 2:4 These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

I believe the "these" refers to both the generations of the heavens and of the earth. I'm not being facetious here. Stick with me on this. The generations of the earth (mankind) were given us in the first chapter. Then He gives us the generations of the heavens (Adam and his family).

Deuteronomy 32:1 Give ear, O ye heavens, and I will speak; and hear, O earth, the words of My mouth.

The heavens are those that have ears to hear and allow Him to speak through them. They speak His words, "words of My mouth," as they teach those of the earth.

Unfortunately the word can be used very loosely, but its real meaning comes from the word 'letter' and means exactly the way it is written (or said). Normally other uses aren't a problem, people come in from the rain saying "I was literally drowned" which is neither real nor literal, but we know what they mean.

The big problem is if we are comparing figurative and literal interpretation of a text, if we use the word literal both to talk of an event being 'literal' meaning it actually happened, and the description being literal, meaning it is described the way it happened, we just end up in a muddle. Lets call the events 'real' and leave the word 'literal' for descriptions.

I'll try but...I promise nothing! As well as being stubborn, I am forgetful. I can work on stubborn but forgetful is tough.

Eagles wing's are metaphorical not literal. The events are real.

If God the potter forming us is metaphorical not literal, and the actual way God made us through human reproductive biology does not contradict the metaphor of God making us from clay, why does God the potter making Adam from clay contradict him actually having a biological origin and God using evolution? If it is a metahor like God making us from clay, where is the problem?

We are created on the sixth day in His image, in His likeness, to have dominion over all creatures, and those creatures were all to produce after "their kinds." "And, it was very good."

I understand what you are saying, you think your understanding of Genesis is simply what is written, you do not realise you are interpreting scripture just as much as the geocentrists did. In fact their interpretation of the geocentric passages was much more literal than your pretty metaphorical interpretation of Genesis. You are obviously convinced you understand what Genesis actually says, but that does not mean your understanding is the same as what is written. Your understanding of scripture is just as human and fallible as the geocentrists. And I do not see why your interpretation should be treated any differently from theirs when it is contradicted by scripture.

Where is it contradicted by scripture? I do have a very metaphorical interpretation but I ask you to forget that if you don't agree and just see what is written. Evolution is not even hinted at.

You introduce a second argument, for you to change your mind about the meaning of Genesis, you would want to be shown evolution in scripture. But I simply do not see why this should be so. The geocentrists were not shown heliocentrism in scripture, they had to find an new interpretation because science showed them their old interpretation was wrong. Simply claiming your interpretation is right, is what is really written, does not change this.

That isn't a second argument. I asked to be shown any scripture concerning evolution from the beginning of the thread. You continue to compare this with geocentrists but it isn't applicable. The Scripture stands...it was their concept that was in error. The Scripture continues to stand...evolution isn't mentioned. So to me, if there is anyone that needs to alter their thinking...wouldn't it be evolutionists?

Flowery language is not literal it is metaphorical, though I have no problem with it describing among other things, God making us from the stuff of the earth. The only problem with evolution is if we interpret the flowery language literally, thinking God took a lump of mud slapped it on his potters wheel and worked with his fingers until it was manshaped. That would be the same as thinking God used real eagles to bring the Israelites out, or that God took a lump of potters clay to make me too.

Probably because I have a completely unscientific mind...understanding and accepting all of this for what it is isn't a problem. Seeing the metaphorical language for the beautiful lessons they contain is something I cherish. And, I see them as literal descriptions of the real event but spoken in a poetic manner. Oops, did I already break my non-promise?

No we have look at those too. No contradiction there either.

Taking a day to mean a thousand years is metaphorical. It is not what day literally means. You certainly base your metaphorical interpretation on scripture, but it is still metaphorical and it is not the only way to interpret the days based on the same scripture, other people simply do not assume as you do that Moses is telling you to use a thousand years:day conversion scale.

The day is literally to God as a thousand years. That IS His literal reckoning of a day.

OK so God could have created man in his image through evolution, you just don't think that God did. That means evolution is not incompatible with God making man in his image.

He could do whatever He wishes. However, He tells us man was created in Our image, in Our likeness on the sixth day...not evolved over the millennia to eventually become in Our image. (who is "Our?")

That is a metaphorical interpretation.

Not when it's written as it is.

Stork?

The only births happening are in this age. Satan wasn't born of woman so has never been in a flesh body. He, as the other fallen angels cannot enter the kingdom in the eternity. They are doomed.

John 3:5 Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Men must pass through this life, be born of water (through the birth process...the bag of waters) and then they must also be born of the Spirit to be spiritually alive, to enter His kingdom.

You assume there is a difference. Genesis 1 uses create and make to describe God making us in his image, Genesis 2 used 'form' and the metaphor of a potter. Two different descriptions of the same thing.

He shapes us, forms us, to do His will. He leads, guides and directs our lives if we are His elect. In other words, we have a destiny and He paves the way for it to be fulfilled...no mater what it is. I know you must have experienced that working in your life. I don't believe in coincidence!

None have so far.

Whether the points hold or not is in the eye of the teller. You may not see the velcro but...it's there and holds firmly.

Part 2 coming up.....

.

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

continued....

Assyrian:

WW -
He told us that He created the beasts, fish, fowl, etc. after their kind! He also told us that He later created man. As the previous creatures were restricted to having offspring of "their kind," then man didn't evolve from them.
A -
That is the kind argument. You need to support the dominion argument.

True...it is the "kind argument," but to my mind, our Father creating creatures that we eventually evolved from and then ordering us to rule over them and then later giving them to us to consume seems rather ungodly. It's like seething a kid in it's mother's milk. Sure, we evolved from you but so what....we can be canibals...God said so.

WW -
Consider too that man was already created "in the beginning" when He created heaven and earth (and that was long before this age began) and all the host of them. We are among the "host of them," but in this age we needed to be placed in a flesh body, to be created in His image as a man. We were already an entity but had to put on a flesh body.

A -
No it doesn't say man was already created "in the beginning" but this has nothing to do with your dominion argument either.

Our soul/spirits were created in the beginning (the beginning was before this age began). Our flesh bodies were created on the sixth day.

I can't provide anything else for the dominion argument....it has to stand as is.

WW -
In the previous age, the age in which Satan rebelled, we were in angelic, spiritual bodies...and before you laugh please consider that as a Christian you recognize that those are the bodies we'll be in in the following age so...it isn't far-fetched to understand we'll just be returning to our first state.

A -
Oh I recognise the doctrine, I just don't think it is supported by scripture. It has nothing to do with the claim that if we evolved God would not have given us dominion over the animals. An 'if we evolved' argument assumes the Gap theory is wrong.

There 'ya go. Evolution is wrong because what I'm saying is documented in Scripture.

WW -
At physical death our same spirit/soul steps out and we are again as we were. After all, we know that when first introduced to Satan in this age...he was already in his fallen state. We were there too. God didn't recreate our spirits...He just put us in flesh/man bodies in this age in order to prove us.

A -
And what has this to do with dominion over the animals?

Oh, I'm just meandering...it happens every now and then.

A -
I suggest if you want to discuss the Gap Theory you bring it up in another thread, this thread is too long and cumbersome as it is.

True as that is...it still has to do with the subject and...you brought it up.

WW -
I don't see your point though. Isn't after his kind still referring to the kinds, varieties, sorts?

A -
Yes. In the past creationists equated kinds with species, but the bible does not say they are, and most creationists have abandoned the idea now.

Well then, they deserted a perfectly functional ship. Shame on them.

WW -
There are scriptures telling us of the "gap." There are none referring to evolution.

A -
There are certainly passages in scripture some people interpret as a gap, but that is not the problem. Evolution and Gap Theory are completely different explanations of the history of earth. If you are discussing how evolution works you can't import ideas from Gap Theory. You can claim evolution did not happen because the bible teaches Gap Theory instead, but not that evolution would not work because you mix in gap ideas.

Well, the Bible does teach about the previous age and the Bible doesn't teach evolution. Isn't this a problem for some? Or, perhaps evolution happened in the previous age as we aren't told about how that world age came about. A point though would be the creation of man. Man wasn't in the previous age as a flesh being. He/we were there but in spiritual bodies. Animals were flesh. Did they evolve in that age? I don't know.

.

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

Originally Posted by Assyrian

Of course they do. We are all discussing ideas we got from what is written in scripture, and as someone who accepts neither creationism nor geocentrism I think geocentrism has a more solid basis in scripture, there is more reason to take the passage literally and the geocentric meaning is quite clear unless people approach the passage trying to read heliocentrism into them.

True, we all discuss what Scriptures tell us but the beginning point is what is written. It is what people read into the Words that were wrong...not the Words themself.

WW -
Yes, there I go again. Real is literal to me and you'll just have to work with it Assyrian.

I'm old and I'm stubborn...sometimes I remind myself of Patton. Old blood and guts himself. (I've been watching a lot of war documentaries.)

A -
Then you will never be able to distinguish between a literal text and the event the text describes. I have talked to creationist who swear black and blue (well not literally) that Genesis is the creation. No Genesis is a book describing the creation, the creation is God making the heavens and the earth a long time before the account was written down. You need to be able to distinguish between real events and literal descriptions of the events.

Being stubborn doesn't make one unable to distinguish truth.

WW -
The two don't gel. Evolution isn't a deeper metaphorical understanding...it is a completely opposite un-metaphorical understanding

A-
Of course it isn't a metaphorical understanding. I told you before the bible does not speak about evolution.

But it DOES speak of creation. Both cannot be truth.

Heliocentrism isn't in scripture either, but so what? Of course creation is in scripture, God is the creator of everything. But there is only a contradiction between creation and evolution if you take Genesis literally, same as the geocentrists though there was a contradiction between heliocentrism and the scriptures they took literally. How many times do I need to say this? Scripture itself doesn't contradict either heliocentrism or evolution.

Well, there is the problem for Scripture does contradict these things.

By 'explain' you mean asking God to show you how to interpret it?

No, by explain I mean the written word, without interpretation, tells us of the creation.

Sure it does, you just don't see the difference between the text of scripture and your understanding of the text.

What is written is written.....

Genesis 1:26-31 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so. And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

Metaphorical wings wouldn't carry their weight.

What they represent could and did.

If you cannot explain it, then you have no basis for the claim that God making Adam from clay still contradicts evolution if it is a metaphor.

I can't explain how a television works either but I know it does. And, I need not explain creation for it is written. Man is made of clay. That is creation of man from earth...not a metaphor for evolution.

But really, it isn't that difficult, the bible teaches us about God, his relationship with mankind and how to walk in fellowship with him, it simply isn't about teaching science, or correcting our scientific mistakes.

Would our Father lie to us as He was teaching and correcting?

That would be the lineage of Joseph back to Adam, not Jesus. You have to construct the lineage of Jesus yourself by tacking different genealogies together. And that is still assuming 'supposed' stops at Joseph. Luke says "being, as was supposed" the supposed is attached to the verb 'being'. Being what? Being the son of Joseph the son of Heli.. of Adam of God. You see there is no new verb without a 'supposed' attached. Luke does not say "being as was supposed the son of Joseph, who really was the was the son of Heli..." There is one verb 'being' that covers the whole genealogy and the 'supposed' is tagged onto that. Luke is describing the whole genealogy when he says supposed.

If that were true would you not have to ask yourself...Assyrian, why did Luke bother to write it in the first place? Why write a bogus "as was supposed" genealogy and take up all that space in the Bible. What would be the point?

If you were taught that evolution means wolves jumped species and became cats, then you should sue your school

What makes you think a circle can be described in one word? If you have to pick one word, you end up with a characteristic that can describe many different shapes. You need more words than that to distinguish them. But just because a circle a sphere and Fatty Arbuckle can all be describe as round does not mean a circle is a sphere, any more than a triangle is a pentagram or Star of David because they can all be describes as pointy.

Okay, next time I'll give them a chance to describe a circle in say...oh, ten or more words. I wonder if I'll hear "flat" being mentioned?

Actually you are taking 1000 years as a metaphorical meaning of day, not literally. And I have shown you how numbers can be used non literally, simply to mean a very large number, without having to have a symbolic meaning. There is no reason Moses' poetic description of a thousand years as a day cannot be taken that way too, in fact I have show you how it is a better reading of the text than as a 1000x360:1 conversion scale.

Deut 32:30 How could one have chased a thousand, and two have put ten thousand to flight, unless their Rock had sold them, and the LORD had given them up?

Where in Pentateuch before that did we read of one person literally chasing a thousand soldiers and two Israelites routing ten thousand? It isn't literal, it isn't a symbolic used of the number 1000 either, it is a poetic description of God giving them victory over overwhelming numbers.

The thousand sounds very specific in certain verses Assyrian. I can't attribute it to simply meaning overwhelming numbers.

That doesn't answer the question.

I think it does.

WW -
The eagles are symbolic of the real.

A -
But you can say God literally used a symbolic eagle, but the word 'literally' will refer to your description of God using symbolism, not God's use of the symbolism itself.

Synonyms can be written too.

Psalm 33 describe God forming the hearts of all the inhabitants of the world.

The certainly describe different aspects of how God made us, but there is no reason to think these are completely different processes that occur at completely different times. Don't knock Hebrew poetry, it is how most of the bible was written, if you don't understand how Hebrew poetry was written you will keep misunderstanding what it says, reading convoluted explanations into places where none are needed or intended.

I don't knock it. I love it. Because I wrote, "The difference in form and create is meaningful. He doesn't throw words around to simply be poetic," doesn't mean I'm knocking it. Whether those words are poetic or literal they carry meaning.

Your quote from Proverbs 6 simply illustrates my point, false witnesses speak lies, False witness and liar in Prov 19 were simply two different ways to say the same thing. It is like Prov 16:18 Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall. People have read all sorts of convoluted explanations into the the differences between pride and a haughty spirit and why pride results in destruction and a haughty spirit instead leads to a fall. They are simply two different ways of saying the same thing, they might highlight slightly different aspects but they are saying the same thing.

You are mistaken for God specifically listed "seven things" and in those seven the two in question count as two. They are not the same.

If you want to read your understanding of create into the text rather than letting the text speak for itself, then how can you to learn about how God actually uses the word create from the bible? Instead of making these claims, why not show it from scripture?

Ezek 21:30 Return it to its sheath. In the place where you were created, in the land of your origin, I will judge you.
Ezekiel describes the land of the origin as the place they were created and the place where God would judge them.

We know where we are judged and in the above He tells us they/we will be judged where we were created. Our origin would be the place of our beginning, our creation...not our birth.

That word origin only come up three time in scripture and each time it refers to a nation's homeland where the nation started
Ezek 16:3 and say, Thus says the Lord GOD to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite.
Ezek 29:14 and I will restore the fortunes of Egypt and bring them back to the land of Pathros, the land of their origin, and there they shall be a lowly kingdom.
The land of the Ammonite's origin means the kingdom of Ammon to the east of the Jordan river, and this is where God says he created them.

The word "origin" isn't in any of the King James translations. In [Ez 16:3] it is rendered as nativity and in [29:14] it is "land of their habitation." Neither one have to do with where they were created.

It seemed like a good idea at the time

Yet Isaiah's prophecy describes this as if it had already happened, before the Assyrians took them captive and long before any allegorical apocalyptic fulfilments.

Prophecy?

OK if you want a different take on it look at Rom 4:17 As it is written, "I have made you a father of many nations." This is in the presence of him whom he believed: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that are not, as though they were. God speaks of things that are not, that haven't happened yet, as if they were, he describes them in the past tense, as if they have already happened even though they are still far in the future. If you look at the passage Paul quotes Gen 17:5 No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. God uses the perfect tense, I have made, to describe something still far off, but that is certain in the will and promise of God.

Okay but...what was the question about this?

You are welcome.

Plenty of reference to the word night in Genesis 1.

We will all find out eventually

1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

Servant of Jesus said:
If we interpret the Bible completely literally, as 1whirlwind would have us do, we quickly get ourselves into a serious contradiction with science; for example, let's look at Genesis 1:1-19 as a start:

I have NEVER said to interpret the Bible literally. I am often admonished for seeing too much of the spiritual.

.

Servant of Jesus · Nov 16, 2010

Just out of curiosity 1whirlwind and Assyrian: do you not have jobs? I mean, you spend an amazing amount of time here on CF debating issues that are of questionable value compared to other Christian activities, such as going to church and participating in small group and prayer activities, or just helping out fellow human beings.

There is only so much time that we have on this earth- and then it's over.

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1whirlwind · Nov 16, 2010

Servant of Jesus said:
Just out of curiosity 1whirlwind and Assyrian: do you not have jobs? I mean, you spend an amazing amount of time here on CF debating issues that are of questionable value compared to other Christian activities, such as going to church and participating in small group and prayer activities, or just helping out fellow human beings.

There is only so much time that we have on this earth- and then it's over.

.

Go to church? You mean a building where I would sit on a pew and hear one or two lines of Scripture?

As for being with fellow human beings and groups....what do you think we are doing now? Also, I need not be with others to pray. I do that all the time.

God controls my life. He gave me artistic talent and with it I paint portraits for a nice amount of money, although it isn't steady income. He also opened the way to a job where I work four days a week from 8:00-3:00 for my daughter. Perhaps one or two hours is occupied and then I'm free to do as I wish for the remainder of the day as long as I answer phone calls. That allows me to obtain a steady salary that covers health insurance as well as building social security (I never worked during previous years...too much time on the tennis courts.)

I am exactly where I am supposed to be and doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. It's a wonderful feeling.

.

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