I thought this was rather clever...

[staveoffzombies]

My brother began to dictate in his best oratorical style, the one which has the tribes hanging on his words.

"In the beginning," he said, "exactly fifteen point two billion years ago, there was a big bang and the Universe--"

But I had stopped writing. "Fifteen billion years ago?" I said incredulously.

"Absolutely," he said. "I'm inspired."

"I don't question your inspiration," I said. (I had better not. He's three years younger than I am, but I don't try questioning his inspiration. Neither does anyone else or there's hell to pay.) "But are you going to tell the story of the Creation over a period of fifteen billion years?"

"I have to," said my brother. "That's how long it took. I have it all in here," he tapped his forehead, "and it's on the very highest authority."

By now I had put down my stylus. "Do you know the price of papyrus?" I said.

"What?" (He may be inspired but I frequently noticed that the inspiration didn't include such sordid matters as the price of papyrus.)

I said, "Suppose you describe one million years of events to each roll of papyrus. That means you'll have to fill fifteen thousand rolls. You'll have to talk long enough to fill them and you know that you begin to stammer after a while. I'll have to write enough to fill them and my fingers will fall off. And even if we can afford all that papyrus and you have the voice and I have the strength, who's going to copy it? We've got to have a guarantee of a hundred copies before we can publish and without that where will we get royalties from?"

My brother thought awhile. He said, "You think I ought to cut it down?"
"Way down," I said, "if you expect to reach the public.
"
"How about a hundred years?" he said.

"How about six days?" I said.

He said horrified, "You can't squeeze Creation into six days."

I said, "This is all the papyrus I have. What do you think?"

"Oh, well," he said, and began to dictate again, "In the beginning-- Does it have to be six days, Aaron?"

I said, firmly, "Six days, Moses."

 

[Tinker Grey]

I like it.

 

[Vance]

And I think it came out pretty well! :0)

 

[LittleNipper]

Cute story; however, it isn't what GOD did.

 

[pgp_protector]

LOL
tagging thread

 

[busterdog]

Easy to make up. Hard to prove.

I am not sure of the intent, either. Is it to suggest that Genesis is best explained by corrupt human processes? That is, not that the content has miraculously survived by the Holy Spirit, but that the content in the first place was the product of people being cheap, or otherwise frivolous about the content?

This is what many expect of evolutionary theology: these types of conclusions. I hope someone will clear this up and show that these prejudices are in error.

 

[wannabeadesigirl]

What a great story scenario! Lol. Pretty funny.

 

[artybloke]

I am not sure of the intent, either.

Then think about the first audience of the book of Genesis. Do you really think they'd be up to hearing about the Big Bang Theory, abiogenesis, the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, punctuated equilibrium etc etc? They were however familiar with lots of different stories full of exciting gods and goddesses and heroes and heroines doing exciting things.

The first audience had no maths, no literacy to speak of, no scientific method to check the story with. They did however have imaginations. Why is it so difficult to imagine that God used the imaginations of ancient writers to stimulate the imaginations of their audience in order for them to follow the true God, rather than a lot of false ones?

Is the imagination so dangerous, God isn't allowed to use it?

 

[busterdog]

Then think about the first audience of the book of Genesis. Do you really think they'd be up to hearing about the Big Bang Theory, abiogenesis, the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution, punctuated equilibrium etc etc? They were however familiar with lots of different stories full of exciting gods and goddesses and heroes and heroines doing exciting things.

The first audience had no maths, no literacy to speak of, no scientific method to check the story with. They did however have imaginations. Why is it so difficult to imagine that God used the imaginations of ancient writers to stimulate the imaginations of their audience in order for them to follow the true God, rather than a lot of false ones?

Is the imagination so dangerous, God isn't allowed to use it?

Excuse me, I would appreciate some clarity here.

For evolutionists it may be all well and good to take lack of sophistication and muddle it together with casual disregard for the truth. It may be. I am tending to think it is so, since no evolutionist will answer the bell on this question. Your post certainly suggests that mistake. You do understand the difference, I hope, though you have written otherwise.

I keep hearing from evolutionists that they exalt the Word of God as much as creationists. I keep hearing that they revere it and regard the Word as communicating the truth. If you think the laziness of an author really could have had such a substantial impact on Biblical content, I think we find some clarity on how "exalted" scripture really is within this view. Elsewhere maybe you do a wonderful job. The confusion exhibited here, however, is appalling.

Understand what has been said here. This is not Shakespeare axing half a scene of MacBeth, a character already well drawn and rich in content. This is the subject and character of the work, namely creation, being informed mostly by laziness, if not mere chance, in an author's habits.

Nothing in what we know of the scribal traditions supports that view, first of all. These were about the most disciplined human beings that one could imagine. So, the freakin' assumption made in the OP is so much elephant feces thrown at the Madonna upon the assumption that if anything sticks, it deserves a healthy NEA grant. The OP is not art, but whim. There is no historical basis for it.

Further, there are several deliberate choices from which the author retreats. That retreat is not into a better, more aristic and concise rendering. The mythical author simply descends into obfuscation out of convenience. Hello?

Wake up and smell the coffee.

 

[Citanul]

I am not sure of the intent, either.

The OP is actually an Isaac Asimov short story. So I would guess that the intent was to write something a magazine editor would be willing to buy, and nothing more than that.

 

[busterdog]

The OP is actually an Isaac Asimov short story. So I would guess that the intent was to write something a magazine editor would be willing to buy, and nothing more than that.

Here is a joke that is not theologically offensive.

Two Romans are standing at the foot of the cross. One says to the other, Sure he was a great teacher, but he didn't publish.

As Homer Simpson says, Its funny because its true.

What exactly is the OP? If it was a joke, or whimsy, its not that funny. I don't think it was really a joke at all. Though, the idea of a joke provides cover for a bad OP.

If those hear want to take it as just goofy and not "clever", fine.

 

[artybloke]

For evolutionists it may be all well and good to take lack of sophistication and muddle it together with casual disregard for the truth. It may be.

What casual disregard for the truth? Is a work of imagination not the truth? Or does truth only exist if it can be verified "scientifically"? Don't poets and storytellers deal in truth?

Again, I ask: why can't God stimulate the imagination of the writers of Genesis to tell stories that would appeal to the listeners of their age?

I keep hearing from evolutionists that they exalt the Word of God as much as creationists.

I think we exalt it more, because we don't try to shoe it into a post-enlightenment view of "factualness"; we see it for what it is: a great work of art, as well as a fountain of spiritual truth.

If you think the laziness of an author really could have had such a substantial impact on Biblical content

"Laziness of the author?" What does this mean? You mean it was "lazy" of the author to create a great work of art? As a poet and writer, and as a reader of fiction and poetry, a frequenter of the theatre and art galleries, I feel insulted that you so disparage the writers of Genesis artistic talent in that way. It is not lazy to use your imagination.

What is it with this fundamentalist hatred of the imagination? Why is it wrong for the book of Genesis to be a work of imagination rather than history? You still haven't answered that question. In fact, nobody has.

If the book of Genesis is poetry, fiction, parable or allegory rather than factual, it doesn't stop it from being true. In fact, I would suggest that it makes the truth it imparts much deeper, more spiritual, more real, than if it were factual.

 

[shernren]

For evolutionists it may be all well and good to take lack of sophistication and muddle it together with casual disregard for the truth. It may be. I am tending to think it is so, since no evolutionist will answer the bell on this question. Your post certainly suggests that mistake. You do understand the difference, I hope, though you have written otherwise.

For you it may be all well and good to take simple sheer scientific ignorance and muddle it together with lack of sophistication. Don't let anyone be fooled for a second by this.

Haven't you really let your hand show here? artybloke said nothing about "sophistication". Indeed, he talked about them having imagination, and it takes imagination to have sophistication. You don't need to know science to be sophisticated, as any modern novelist will show you; you don't need sophistry to be scientific, as you will find out from any episode of Star Trek.

The fact is that we are not calling the Israelites bumpkins. (A modern country bumpkin probably has at least a car and metal fittings in his house - more science than the typical Israelite could ever dream of.) Indeed, you need to be sophisticated both to write stories and to appreciate them. You need to be sophisticated to look at a story and, instead of believing in knee-jerk fashion that the author is automatically making some kind of scientific statement about the world we're in (and then either damning him for being wrong or absurdly striving to prove him right) - because science is the only thing you'll look to for guidance - delve into the author's worldview and cosmogony and see what points he's trying to make with the materials he has at hand.

In other words, God was sophisticated enough to take the pagan, uninformed, darkened myths of the time and turn them into vehicles to communicate His divine message. And the Israelites were sophisticated enough to get it. You, however ...

 

[artybloke]

Indeed, you need to be sophisticated both to write stories and to appreciate them.

You can tell from the great dearth of good fundamentalist poetry & fiction just how unsophisticated most creationists are. The ancient writers of Isreal, however, with their subtle understanding of story, poetry and myth, had far more sophistication than any modern day creationist.

 

[busterdog]

What casual disregard for the truth? Is a work of imagination not the truth? Or does truth only exist if it can be verified "scientifically"? Don't poets and storytellers deal in truth?

Let's look at Alice in Wonderland. Nontruth (fantasy) is tailored carefully to make a point (truth) about reality. But, in a natural history story about cats, describing their ability to disappear simply as a matter of convenience would made no sense.

So, yes, fantasy and nontruth can be used to illustrate truth. But, that is not what the OP does. The OP obscures truth not for art sake, but for convenience. There is no point to the literary device in the OP other than crass efficiency.

The premise that the OP starts with is the time it took for creation. The truth is cloaked in nontruth not to make a point but for convenience sake.

That the OP might be cute does not resurrect it. That fact that anyone thinks it is cute is disturbing. The cuteness is best found in the world view that the Bible is laughable for its error. THere is no other "literary device" in view other than crass efficiency. So, the evolutionary tendency to scoff at Biblical error is about I all I can fathom from the above responses.

Again, I ask: why can't God stimulate the imagination of the writers of Genesis to tell stories that would appeal to the listeners of their age?

The OP is cheap. If you want to cite an artistic view of creation, post away. The OP is not it.

I think we exalt it more, because we don't try to shoe it into a post-enlightenment view of "factualness"; we see it for what it is: a great work of art, as well as a fountain of spiritual truth.

Again, what is the premise? If the premise is Biblical error, fine, go ahead and guild the lilly by finding artistic ways to reinterpret.

But, one would think that TE implies an T view of inspiration. What exactly is inspired in the OP example? THere is no inspiration. THe text is guided by crass efficiency and nothing else.

Again, you guys talk about art and creativity. THis is OP is about being niggardly. WHy can't you make the distinction?

"Laziness of the author?" What does this mean? You mean it was "lazy" of the author to create a great work of art? As a poet and writer, and as a reader of fiction and poetry, a frequenter of the theatre and art galleries, I feel insulted that you so disparage the writers of Genesis artistic talent in that way. It is not lazy to use your imagination.

Very funny. In other words, you are to tailor the premise of the author (inspired by God) to your imagination (laughable)? That is the question. What is the premise of Gen. 1 and how does it compare to the OP? Seems there are radically different assumptions in the two.

I quite understand the argument that Gen. 1 was premised upon the need to make an inspired hymn about creation. Presumptively God informed that creative inpulse. Lets put aside the debate about whether the text is signalling a historical voice in the first place, since even the high road of God-inspired art is not the premise of the OP. The OP's view of the author and his premise is pretty darn satirical. How is that fair to the text? NO, the OP made it out of whole cloth. The OP is busted. The TE jury must convict.

As TS Eliot coined the phrase, it strikes me that the TEs are now "pinned and wriggling." Again, the only basis on which to compare crass efficiency with inspiration is to have no regard for real inspiration (from God) in the first place. That's what might make it funny to some and that's why I am not laughing with you.

What is it with this fundamentalist hatred of the imagination? Why is it wrong for the book of Genesis to be a work of imagination rather than history? You still haven't answered that question. In fact, nobody has.

Rhetorically effective, but completely divorced from the fundamentalist view of Biblical literature. Your OP is not about imagination. IT is about being cheap. Who is hating imagination now? Not us.

If the book of Genesis is poetry, fiction, parable or allegory rather than factual, it doesn't stop it from being true. In fact, I would suggest that it makes the truth it imparts much deeper, more spiritual, more real, than if it were factual.

Never was this conclusion every challenged here. I challenge your confusion between such literary brilliance and satire about the lack of inspiration that causes the truth to be altered.

Maybe we can now simply say that the text "self-organizes" like snow flakes and DNA. Its just lucky. How exalted!

 

[artybloke]

Let's look at Alice in Wonderland. Nontruth (fantasy) is tailored carefully to make a point (truth) about reality

Fictiion is not nontruth. The best fiction (whether fantasy, allegory, parable, poetry, is a species of truth.

If you want to cite an artistic view of creation, post away.

Read Genesis Chap. 1.

 

[busterdog]

For you it may be all well and good to take simple sheer scientific ignorance and muddle it together with lack of sophistication. Don't let anyone be fooled for a second by this.

Haven't you really let your hand show here? artybloke said nothing about "sophistication". Indeed, he talked about them having imagination, and it takes imagination to have sophistication. You don't need to know science to be sophisticated, as any modern novelist will show you; you don't need sophistry to be scientific, as you will find out from any episode of Star Trek.

The fact is that we are not calling the Israelites bumpkins. (A modern country bumpkin probably has at least a car and metal fittings in his house - more science than the typical Israelite could ever dream of.) Indeed, you need to be sophisticated both to write stories and to appreciate them. You need to be sophisticated to look at a story and, instead of believing in knee-jerk fashion that the author is automatically making some kind of scientific statement about the world we're in (and then either damning him for being wrong or absurdly striving to prove him right) - because science is the only thing you'll look to for guidance - delve into the author's worldview and cosmogony and see what points he's trying to make with the materials he has at hand.

In other words, God was sophisticated enough to take the pagan, uninformed, darkened myths of the time and turn them into vehicles to communicate His divine message. And the Israelites were sophisticated enough to get it. You, however ...

"Me however" dealt some serious literary criticism. You want to talk about a completely different issue regarding science in the scriptures. And you want to get the word "sophistication" out of context.

 

[shernren]

Well, if I may be honest, I thought the OP was a touch too crass, too. I like my own satires better.

God: And so I said to Noah: "Take seven of every kind of ... "
Moses: Wait a minute. You just said two.
God: Did I?
Moses: Yes, just a moment ago. Look: "Take two of all living creatures ... "
God: Oh, did I? *chuckles*
Moses: What's so funny?
God: It was actually about 300 each. Except for the pigs. I hate pigs.
Moses: But God! There wouldn't have been enough space on the ark!
God: Well, Noah wanted me to warp space and time. That lazy bugger. Bet he wanted the 40 - wait, 150 - whatever amount of days to pass faster.
Moses: And did You?
God: In the end we threw the dinosaurs overboard. And the australopithecines. Filthy naked homs.
Moses: But why did you need 300? Wouldn't two, or seven, be enough?
God: You've never read Lewontin, have you?
Moses: Lewon-who?
God: Never mind. Anyway, you need about that number of animals to preserve enough genetic diversity after a mass extinction event like the global Flood.
Moses: Genetic diversity? What's that?
God: Well, it's like this. Life on Earth carries in them DNA, which -
Moses: Look, first You said it was 2, then You said it was 7, and now You're saying it was 300, for some incomprehensible reason involving some strange substance which none of us have ever seen before. The people are waiting for answers, and if you think the golden calf was bad, wait 'till they finish the rest of the golden menagerie. Now what do You want me to write down?
God: Alright, keep it as it is. Leave it as 2 the first time round and 7 the second time.
Moses: But that's an inconsistency!
God: Who cares? I'm going to leave the infidels with something to laugh at for a few more millenia and have fun watching them.
Moses: But don't You want them to come to the faith? Doesn't your Bible have to be completely accurate to do that?
God: Well, there's a reason it's called "faith", right?



... I've never heard a better creationist explanation for the conflicting numbers in Genesis 6-8.

 

[artybloke]

I guess I do find it strange that people find it objectionable that the Bible could contain fiction, poetry, allegory, myth, call it what you will. The assumption that somehow if it's fiction, it's a lie, is just weird to me; all art is about truth, or it's not really art, it's just decoration. People tell stories to get to the truth of the world through something other than scientific reasoning, don't they? Isn't that way people write poetry, write symphonies, paint pictures, tell stories?

And Jesus himself was a storyteller; why is it so difficult to imagine the writers of Genesis as storytellers too?

I keep asking this question, and maybe one day I'll get an answer. Even supposing that God "wrote" the Bible, why can't God tell stories, write poetry etc in order to send the truth into peoples' hearts? It seems a much more direct route than to just give a bunch of dry facts.

What is so bad about storytelling that God cannot be a storyteller?

 

[Assyrian]

Gen 6:16 A window shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it.