Assyrian
Originally Posted by 1whirlwind
WW - But creationist never told me it means reproduction. To me, it is self-evident. I did look at what you said but I don't agree...at all.
Assyrian - Yet all you can do is claim it is self evident and disagree with my exegesis, but not actually answer my analysis of the text.
That is all I can do Assyrian. I don't agree with your interpretation.
WW - It is not that I "want there to be a difference," but that God tells us there is a difference.
Assyrian - Where does God tell you there is a difference? The bible can use synonyms too. If beast of the earth (Gen 1), and beast of the field (Gen 2) have to refer to completely different sorts of animals, does God (Gen 1) and LORD God (Gen 2) refer to completely different deities?
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.
Three types of man. His chosen (
house of Israel and house of Judah), man and then beast...all are men.
WW - There is One author and one account of creation. Deep mysteries are contained in Genesis and each word should be taken into account. It is fascinating.
A - (I had a hard time abbreviating your name

so I settled on "A")
There is certainly only One God inspiring all scripture, but the bible does not tell us there was only one human author for Genesis 1-3, nor does it tell you it is only one account, in fact the bible puts a new heading right in the middle in Gen 2:4. If you want to take each word into account why not answer my questions about when 'living creatures', 'all livestock' and 'every bird of the heavens' were created?
The Torah was penned by Moses...not an assortment of prophets.
Exodus 17:14 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua: for I will utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven.
Exodus 34:27-28 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel. And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Exodus 24:4 And Moses wrote all the words of the LORD, and rose up early in the morning, and builded an altar under the hill, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel.
Numbers 33:2 And Moses wrote their goings out according to their journeys by the commandment of the LORD: and these are their journeys according to their goings out.
Deuteronomy 31:9 And Moses wrote this law, and delivered it unto the priests the sons of Levi, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, and unto all the elders of Israel.
Deuteronomy 31:22 Moses therefore wrote this song the same day, and taught it the children of Israel.
Mark 12:19 Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
John 5:46 For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me; for he wrote of Me.
The one account of Genesis is given in both chapters. Chapter two begins with the end of chapter one...they were "
finished and all the host of them." If you read the words as written, with no chapter and verse numbers it would be....
Genesis 1:31-2:4 And God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made. 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.
Everything created and made before that last verse was encapsulated in "
these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth." Then He tells us that all the plants and herbs
of the field (
not the earth) were not yet "
in the earth." Who is wheat symbolic of (
gather My wheat into the barn)? Who are the tares....Matthew 13:25
But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way. The herbs and plants "
of the field" are
not literal vegetation.
Mankind was created on the sixth day as well as these people but they were not yet born, "
every plant of the field before it was in the earth." In other words...they were the seed of mankind, already created but not yet born.
WW - But there is a difference Assyrian. What is written is written. The creation is written. For an interpretation of the written word to be accepted it cannot be in conflict with God's account. Evolution is.
A - There is no difference. The passages quoted by the geocentrists were written too. Why should I believe you and not them? Or why should I reject their interpretations when they conflict with science but not yours?
Because the geocentrists quoted them doesn't mean they correctly understood them. Many people quote things and have no clue. Some see [1Cor.14] as Paul teaching women should not speak and ask their husbands if they want to learn anything. They never go to the very next verse where Paul exclaims, "
What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? [14:36]
WW - All of [Ex.15] I see figuratively...all of it. From who the Pharoah is, what his chariots are, where they are now...all the way to the twelve wells of water and ten palm trees. It is loaded with symbolism.
A - Great. Genesis 2&3 is loaded with symbolism too. But that is not what we are looking at, but why you think a metaphorical interretation of Genesis would still conflict with evolution, when a metaphorical understanding of Exodus 19:4 does not conflict with the way the Israelites really left Egypt.
Because understanding the metaphorical words doesn't tell a different story, it just uses different words.
WW - But evolution is a contradiction...not just a different description. The conflicts are that evolution happens over the millennia, the creation didn't.
A - Not if God making Adam from clay is a metaphor like all the other potter metaphors in scripture. None of them are describing timescale.
He gives us a timescale. Man was created after all else and all those other things continued as they were.
WW - Also, at that creation we were in His image, in His likeness,
A - No conflict with evolution there, because the theory of evolution says nothing about God or his purpose.
We will have to disagree on this. To me, to be created in His image, isn't to evolve eventually into His image.
WW - male and female from the beginning
A - The human race was male and female from the beginning. Where is the conflict.
How can evolution produce a glob of whatever and at the same time produce another glob but one is male and one female. Then said globs find each other in this vast world and produce other globs and somehow those globs decide...okay, "
I'll be a land mammal and you be a fish." And, they do this within God's timeframe as written in Genesis 1. And, they have dominion over the very things they once were.
WW - in order to procreate,
A- The purpose of male and female in evolution certainly is evolution.
WW - we didn't evolve into that
A - That is just assertion, not a conflict between evolution and scription
WW - and that upon that creation man was given dominion over the very creatures you believe we came from.
A - I don't see why that is a problem. David was given dominion over Israel when he was made king, didn't stop him being an Israelite. Incidentally mankind wasn't given dominion, they were told to subdue the earth and have dominion over the creatures.
That isn't dominion over the creatures you say we came from? "
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." [1:28]
David was made king and then had dominion but David didn't become another creature...just the same creature with more authority.
WW - And, in these created entities He placed seed so they produced after their kind.
A - You never did support you claim about kinds.
Genesis 8:19 Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds, went forth out of the ark.
How can that mean anything other than among their own species, clan, family?
WW - Last night I watched a show I recorded...National Geographic's Great Migration. As I watched, with awe, I thought of you Assyrian, questioning how you can believe this came about from evolution? How can the myriad creatures on this earth and in our oceans come from some single life form that somehow evolved into all the wonderous creatures, including man, that are here today?
A - Small variations over billions of generations. Look how far dogs have come in a few thousand years. Now think of the early tetrapods like Tiktaalik crawling out of the sea 375 million years ago. Don't forget, each new species to emerge has the possibility of varying and diverging just like dogs have.
We don't have that much time to fiddle with. There was a previous age and who knows how many millions or billions of years it lasted but...in this present age, beginning with mankind on the sixth day...that option is gone.
WW - Indeed He did. Did He honor the ape some say He came from?
A- He never mentioned apes, but why is there a conflict with honouring your father and mother, if there is no conflict with David calling the Messiah, his child, 'Lord'?
I was being smart-aleck. If we are to honor our parents and our parents are apes then we shouldn't ogle them at the zoo.
WW - No. The scoffers are those that "walk after their own lusts." When one walks according to His written words then they aren't scoffers...they are followers.
A - You quoted the scoffers. It may be written in the bible but it is recorded as the words of scoffers. Listen, I am not trying to nail you on this, it was a simple mistake, but as they say, when you are in a hole stop digging.
I'll take your word for it and stop digging. I don't remember.
WW - Ok, a really BIG can of soup with geothermal vents and lightning bolts...still it would be a really BIG can of soup.
A - And it is still simple assertion to claim life would not arise by abiogenesis, and it is still nothing to do with the evidence for evolution.
True.
WW - I don't see any geocentric passages.
A - You know these were godly men, some of the greatest bible scholars in the history of the church men like Augustine Athanasius and Chrysostom, reformers like Luther and Calvin who thought the bible described the sun going round the earth. If we cannot understand how they could make such a mistake, if we cannot understand how they read these passages as teaching the sun went round a fixed earth, how can we ever hope to avoid similar mistakes ourselves?
Just as the campbells soup can has nothing to do with evolution....neither do these misconceptions of men, godly men. The point is...No where does the Bible tell us the sun goes around the earth. Creation however is written.
Yes, Genesis is full of symbology.
A - So if there is a conflict between a literal interpretation of Genesis and science, perhaps the real meaning of Genesis is found in the symbolism.
I think so. I actually believe the greater story, fuller understanding, is realized through the spiritual meaning.
