If evolution is not valid science, somebody should tell the scientists.

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

It is a fulfilment of Gen1:29 that we see around us today, but it was just as easily observed by nomadic herdsmen. Sheep eat grass, wolves eat sheep. It's not rocket science. The concepts you force back however, are.

Also I should have remembered this sooner- all carnivorous animals can revert back to full herbivorous diets and not suffer ill effects. So even today we see the evidence of the original creation i nthe animal kingdom!

The meaning of a text is what the original author intends it to mean, not a meaning that is obscure to all scholars not conversant with 21st century scientific knowledge.

And that is not always true biblcally as Peter says that many times the prophets wrote and wondered what it meant and wne the time of it s fulfillment was to be.

The only reason WE call it space is because we have access to modern scientific models of the cosmos from which the concept of 'raqia' is missing.

Well can the raqia cause that was a seperation of waters and may have formed the boundary of the atmosphere and space- but that I cannot be sure of. And the only reason we call it outer space is cause that is the term we call it by-- the Hebrews called ti shamayim or sometimes shamayimn of shamayim to make sure people knew they werew talkingabout the aboder of the stars!

But imposing this meaning on scripture distorts its originally intended meaning.

You only saythis because you force on Hebrew culture the mesopotamian, egyptian, babylonian and sumerian cosmologies of the universe without any warrant other than supposed expertsd on ANE histopry do and they alsdo have no evidence to do so either!

The simple fact is that we really do not for sure exactrly what the ancient elect of God beleived about teh cosmos. we have no writings, we only havve commentaries that only go as far back as the 3-4th centuries B.C.

I for one do not see the Hebrew race and the pre Hebrewe race of elect holding to the pagan cosmologies at all! I can see them acceopting them when they fell into their many backslideden stages as are written about and them accepting the false ogds and practices of the cultures around them that God said He hated so much! But to have them beleive from God the pagan concpets is something that is just not warranted from the scriptures at all!! They may have had the truth and incomplete information, but they would not have beern told or allowed to accept a lie by God concerning the little knowledge they had of cosmology that just runs contrrary to all of scripture!

BOY I WISH THEY WOULD FIX THE FIX OF THE FORUM! I HAVEW CABLE INTERNET AND 5MB SPEED AND T HIS SITE IS SLOWER THAN BEFORE FOR ME!!!!

It is a comparison that tells God's view of time, what a day means to him. It tells us God's days are not always literal. Peter warns us not to overlook this one fact. Why do YECs struggle so hard to overlook it?

Well here is the Peter passage:

8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So a day is LIKE a thousand years and a thousand years is LIKE a day! Kind of a wash! And the subject that this is describing is God not being slack butr being patient so that as many as desire will come to eternal life. It is not making a dsoctring saying 1,000 human years equal one divine day. Cause if it is then you have have 1 human day equalling 1,000 divine years!! Which is of course nonsense. So to try to make this comparative stastement concerning Gods p atience the absolute for Godf reckoinuing time is hermeneutically wrong as well as exegetically wrong and even eisegetically wrong!

Plus you are still 649,994,000 years short for life to be on this earth and 11,999,994,000 years short at eh minimum for what modern secular science says is the age of the universe. God said 6 days and if His six days are 6,000 human years you still have nothing you can beleive in.

I though you used the concept of a thin raqia to describe space not just the atmosphere? Nor do I think any of the ancient Hebrews would have taken a thin beaten out raqia as a description of a spherical atmosphere surrounding the earth. Raqia described something beaten flat or at most bowl shaped. You cannot take a hammer and beat a lump of gold into a hollow sphere.

First off raqia is the act of thinning and stretching and it nearly always requires a solid object.

Second the raqia was called into existence to seperate the waters from the waters.

Thrids raqia is a vaulted dome so it would be a roof (if you will) with empty space below. This would be what we call the atmosphere! And the waters above the raqia were the antedeluvian waters.

But they would have understood raqia as the (almost) flat expanse of air between the earth and the clouds, the waters above the earth.

But they wouldn't have as I posted references to so stating from Jews.

It is interesting that they give an example of 'under the whole heaven' that only covered the promised land, Deut 2:25. However their whole argument about the height of the flood, 15 cubits above the highest mountain, is not based on linguistics, but on the mistaken notion that the ark came to rest on top of mount Ararat. If it came to rest on top of Ararat, it must have floated there and the draft of the ark was about 15 cubits. But there is no evidence the mountain we call Ararat had that name when the bible was written. The word refers to region instead of a mountain, possibly the ancient kingdom the Babylonians called Urartu. The ark came to rest, not on top of an individual hill there, but in the hills, the hill country of Urartu.

But you ignore other important comments which they conclude being the linguistic experts they are!

7:24). But if the water covered "all the high hills under the whole heaven," this clearly indicates the universality of the flood.

[
So reading all they say about the Noahic Flood they bring to bear all the evidence needed to show that teh flood was indeed global.

Where does the bible say global? Simply translating it can be difficult when erets can either mean 'the earth' or 'a land'. Simply would probably take the way erets was used in the chapters that went before. In which case, it just means Noah's land was flooded.

Nice try at twisitng but the sentence structure and the use of woreds like all make it impossible to be local. Unless of course you have the unwritten and unpassed on oral tradition of such miracles as
1. God keeping all the beasts and creeping things from escaping th eMeso valley
2. God keeping humanity of the Meso valley from escaping
3. God having the flood waters rise 22.5 feet above th ehighest mountains of the Meso Valley and not escaping over the sides but just rising up and staying i thin air!!!
4. You have the flood happening at least 4,000 before the bible says it did because you have cave drawings in Europe modern science says date back to 7-8K B.C.

or 5. You have people living outside the Meso valley who were righteous and thus spared the destruction (but why didn't God just have Noah go join those folks instead of having Him spend 120 years building a boat??? Your thesis has no basis in science or in Scripture.

And it only becoem difficult to translate as global (undere all the heavens, all life etc.etc.) when you allow men who were not there to say what happened instead of trusting th eWord of the God who was there!!

When God looks down on his children, he sometimes does have a bad heir day...

Not according to HIs word he doesn't. According to mans religious opinion yeah, but HIs ord--NEVER!!!!

As I pointed out, you are the one taking a meaning for 'science' that has only been around since the 18th century and forcing it onto the 16th century English of the AV. You are trying to bump start a stalled ox.

Actually it goes back about a century before and if it was good enough for learned men to use for three centuries--it is good enough for me!! Unless they weren't so learned after all!!!

Heb 5:11 About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk not solid food, 13 for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. :14 But solid food is for the mature...

Well modern secular science and its opinions are not the solid meat of Gods Word by any stretch of the iimagination!!

gluadys writes:

Commentaries tell us how the people who wrote them understood the meaning of the scriptural text. And that is what is at issue here. What did 'raqiya' mean to the people who read it say 2500 years ago? People for whom Hebrew was their native tongue and who shared the culture of the original writer.

In its differing contexts it means varied shades. IN Genesis it is a vaulted dome just like the atmosphere with the water above it would be called. God hammered out (that is what raqia is a verb) the expanse between the waters and called it shamayim!

Exactly. And a dome is a solid structure, of limited dimensions, not a vaccuum extending millions of light years beyond the surface of the earth.

I never said it was! I have said it was jsut some type of matrix (unknown to us) that held the flood waters up above the earth! I never said it extended into outer space-- I do not beleive that!! I would venture to say it didn't even go up to 50,000 feet but that is my own opinion and ot anything to hang a hat on!!

We do see it. The raqia is the covering dome. Like any dome, even an overturned bowl, it encloses an air-filled space. But the space inside the dome is not the raqia; the dome, the covering over the space, is the raqia. And in ANE cosmology, what was outside the dome was not space either, it was the primeval waters.

No No NO!!! Raqia is a verb not a noun!

division of the chaotic mass of waters through the formation of the firmament, which was placed as a wall of separation (מבדּיל) in the midst of the waters, and divided them into upper and lower waters. רקיע .s, from רקע to stretch, spread out, then beat or tread out, means expansum, the spreading out of the air, which surrounds the earth as an atmosphere

I know. I didn't hear about YECism until 1982, but I learned later that it got its start in 1950. In the '50s all the creationists I knew were OECs.

And the modern YEC movement is fairly young. It sprung up a s a response to TE ans OEC.

I am not going to ask about 15th century commentators since they believed the firmament was still a present reality in their own time. The idea that it disappeared after the flood would be nonsense to them.

Not surprising as Europe was still inthe dark ages and littel to no commentary oft he bible was going on. But as time permits I will see if I can find commentary on the "dome part" of the raqia being brst open at teh flood.

If it is "simply what is the text", why was that not obvious to commentators who preceded those of AiG, ICR and CRS? If it is "simply what is the text" why does Rav find the text to say the firmament was liquid on the first day and turned solid on the second day?

But hear you are straining at gnats! He may have been using oral tradition to say that the dome part of the raqia was liquid foirst then solid. I can specualte but how correct it would be I don't know. I can only give reasonable sounding answers. But the fact is he states there is a firmament that seperated waters from waters.

This is the problem I have with YEC scientization of scripture. If it really is a plain reading of the text, then it should not require a knowledge of modern science to see it in the text. It should be a common theme of ancient and medieval and pre-20th century commentators and biblical scholars as well as those of this generation.

Well your problem with YEC scientization is that they seek to explain the scriptures and pose plausible answers based onteh geologic and biblical evidence! You should then be howling at assyruians interporetaton of Gen1:29 and the command for vegetation to be food for all beasts!! talk about reading back into the scriptures!! But I At least see them seeking the answers from observed and recorded phenomena.

Te and evo beleivers seek to relegate the early miracles into fables, allegories and the like because they define what they see as true science.

If it shows up in commentary only after scientists discover it in nature, (whether pro or anti-science), it is not "simply what the text is" for it was not observable in the text without the prior work of scientists. It is, therefore, an interpretation filtered through scientific knowledge not available to the original writer and his/her audience.

Discovering facts and then looking at scripture and saying OK that is what God meant (i.e. the process of precipitation that involves evaporation condensation etc. it is all in the bible just in different terms). Taking ancient concpets and plugging in modern language is not wrong-- just making the leap from past to present! It is not reinterpreting but simply translating from one culture to another without adding.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Discovering facts and then looking at scripture and saying OK that is what God meant (i.e. the process of precipitation that involves evaporation condensation etc. it is all in the bible just in different terms). Taking ancient concpets and plugging in modern language is not wrong-- just making the leap from past to present! It is not reinterpreting but simply translating from one culture to another without adding.


this is a key point.
cultures are NOT commensurate. it is not a simple matter of plugging in a different list of words as in an electronic translation module.

culture are not directly parallel in some basic way. this is one of the fundamental problems in Bible translation and with missionary work in general. world views, interpretive grids, scientific meshes, all are metaphors that are trying to capture this essential notion that we think in terms of a system of thought, not in these little atoms of words.

it is a big topic, curious that you would touch upon it in such a direct way, showing that there is a very basic difference in the way you view the ANE cosmologies and the way that others here do. you apparently see them in terms of "plugging in different words for the same things" as if the world looked the same to all human beings, all that differs is the labels.

 

[gluadys]

You only saythis because you force on Hebrew culture the mesopotamian, egyptian, babylonian and sumerian cosmologies of the universe without any warrant other than supposed expertsd on ANE histopry do and they alsdo have no evidence to do so either!

You can show they are wrong by producing Hebrew works that do not use the common mesopotamian cosmology.

The simple fact is that we really do not for sure exactrly what the ancient elect of God beleived about teh cosmos. we have no writings, we only havve commentaries that only go as far back as the 3-4th centuries B.C.

So there is no evidence for your claim. Hence you cannot say the Hebrews did not use the common mesopotamian cosmology re-worked to be compatible with monotheism.

But to have them beleive from God the pagan concpets is something that is just not warranted from the scriptures at all!!

Actually it is, since all the cosmological references in scripture are consistent with the common mesopotamian/Egyptian concepts except in their repudiation of the pagan gods.

BOY I WISH THEY WOULD FIX THE FIX OF THE FORUM! I HAVEW CABLE INTERNET AND 5MB SPEED AND T HIS SITE IS SLOWER THAN BEFORE FOR ME!!!!

Me too. I left another popular Christian board because of its slowness. I hope I don't have to leave this one for the same reason.

First off raqia is the act of thinning and stretching and it nearly always requires a solid object.

Second the raqia was called into existence to seperate the waters from the waters.

So far so good.

Thrids raqia is a vaulted dome so it would be a roof (if you will) with empty space below. This would be what we call the atmosphere!

Atmosphere is not empty space. And although they did not use the term "atmosphere" the ancients also knew that it was not empty. They called it Air.

And the waters above the raqia were the antedeluvian waters.

And post-deluvian waters as well.

In its differing contexts it means varied shades. IN Genesis it is a vaulted dome just like the atmosphere with the water above it would be called. God hammered out (that is what raqia is a verb) the expanse between the waters and called it shamayim!

As I understand it, there is both a verb and a noun form of raqia, and it is the noun form that is used in Gen. 1:6. The verb means to stamp, beat, stretch out. The noun form refers to the finished product of the action of the verb. Obviously it is a general term e.g. "expanse", and the same item can have a specific name like "plate" "mirror" "dome" or in this case "sky/heaven"

I never said it was! I have said it was jsut some type of matrix (unknown to us) that held the flood waters up above the earth! I never said it extended into outer space-- I do not beleive that!! I would venture to say it didn't even go up to 50,000 feet but that is my own opinion and ot anything to hang a hat on!!

But you did

As to the edge of the universe, well I have debated that theory before and brought out many references to the Jewish and Christian belief of the three heavens or shamayim in the OT Godsa abode- space- and the atmosphere. When God seperated the waters and created the shamayim-that was teh atmosphere- he already created the space shamayim in 1:1

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

heaven-- shamayim:
heaven, heavens, sky

a) visible heavens, sky
1) as abode of the stars
2) as the visible universe, the sky, atmosphere, etc
b) Heaven (as the abode of God)

Post 724. And earlier in this very post:

Well can the raqia cause that was a seperation of waters and may have formed the boundary of the atmosphere and space- but that I cannot be sure of. And the only reason we call it outer space is cause that is the term we call it by-- the Hebrews called ti shamayim or sometimes shamayimn of shamayim to make sure people knew they werew talkingabout the aboder of the stars!

And you err here as well. The heaven of heavens is not the abode of the stars. They are placed in or inside of the firmament. The heaven of heavens is above the firmament.

No No NO!!! Raqia is a verb not a noun!

It is both. Or, rather raqia is a verb and there is a related noun form. The noun is the term translated in the KJV as "firmament". The KJV translators took that from Jerome's Vulgate "firmamentum" related to the adjective "firmus" =strong, firm, rigid and the verb "firmare" = to strengthen, make firm. I checked out the Greek of the Septuagint as well, and the term used there has the same meaning.

division of the chaotic mass of waters through the formation of the firmament, which was placed as a wall of separation (מבדּיל) in the midst of the waters, and divided them into upper and lower waters. רקיע .s, from רקע to stretch, spread out, then beat or tread out, means expansum, the spreading out of the air, which surrounds the earth as an atmosphere

Most of this I agree with, but how can it be a spreading out of air and also be a firmament? The firmament was understood to be solid, not gaseous. And an expanse of air could not bear the weight of waters above it by either ancient or modern scientific understanding.

Not surprising as Europe was still inthe dark ages and littel to no commentary oft he bible was going on. But as time permits I will see if I can find commentary on the "dome part" of the raqia being brst open at teh flood.

I don't think that is necessary. Scripture explains it by saying the windows of heaven (the firmament) were opened to let the waters above pass through. No destruction of the firmament is intimated. I doubt you will find any pre-modern (even pre-20th century) commentary that suggests otherwise.

But the fact is he states there is a firmament that seperated waters from waters.

Yes, a solid one.

You should then be howling at assyruians interporetaton of Gen1:29 and the command for vegetation to be food for all beasts!! talk about reading back into the scriptures!! But I At least see them seeking the answers from observed and recorded phenomena.

I find that argument rather weak too. But of course it is true that lions were not created to be vegetarians, nor T-rexes either.

Taking ancient concpets and plugging in modern language is not wrong-- just making the leap from past to present! It is not reinterpreting but simply translating from one culture to another without adding.

It is wrong, because it distorts what the original author is saying. We need to understand the concepts s/he is presenting as the author did in order to understand the metaphors, poetry, analogies and doctrinal material that use these concepts.

They are not translatable into modern scientific models and it is unfair to modern students of the bible to say they are.

It also goes against what many YECists present as a strength of the bible---that it never changes. If the bible is a coded compendium of science, it has to change continually as science itself changes. What good is it to find today's science in scripture when today's science will someday be as obsolete as ancient cosmology?

 

[shernren]

Now, I'm quite sure my Hebrew isn't the sharpest around but wasn't it "raqa" - verb and "raqiya" - noun?

 

[nolidad]

mrwilliams writes:

it is a big topic, curious that you would touch upon it in such a direct way, showing that there is a very basic difference in the way you view the ANE cosmologies and the way that others here do. you apparently see them in terms of "plugging in different words for the same things" as if the world looked the same to all human beings, all that differs is the labels.

You rfundamental error in this paragraph is that I am not viewing ANE cosmologies--I am viewing just one--the elect of God from Adam to the Jewish nation and what is written in the word of God! Remember this is Gods Word and not mans!

Did ithe writers when touching on "issues of science" fully underrstand and sometimes even have a basic understanding of what they wrote? Probably not. Th eelect were more concerned with the God of the cosmos than the cosmos itself. They just simply recorded what tehy were inspired to write-euphemisms and all! But once again to force the elect to hold to the same cosmology as the surrounding pagan nations held especially when we have at most just circumstantial evidence is just wrong.

gluadys writes:

You can show they are wrong by producing Hebrew works that do not use the common mesopotamian cosmology.

No I can't-and niether can you produce evidence that shows the Hebrews held to the pagan cosmologies. All we have is SCripture. We have literal terms and we have euphemisms inscripture. We have commonalities and we have differences. These are things to expect and are predicted when studying ancinet cultures that are near historically and geographically.

So there is no evidence for your claim. Hence you cannot say the Hebrews did not use the common mesopotamian cosmology re-worked to be compatible with monotheism.

Whjat I am saying is that the Hebrews were given th etruth by God in basic and non modern terminology. And ther evidence points to a corruption of this truth as it shows for other truths as well when the nations were dispersed at Babel. You can be given a list of thinbgs that were corrupted at the dispersion of Babel

Trinity became triads
angels and the men of reknown became the demigods and characters like Hercules
the pyramids are probably a knockoff of the heavenly Jerusalem.
The flood account.

These are but a few things that survived but gotr corrupted inteh cultures removed from the elect.

Actually it is, since all the cosmological references in scripture are consistent with the common mesopotamian/Egyptian concepts except in their repudiation of the pagan gods.

There are bigger dsifferences than that and you should know that! When I get the time I will log the differences that can be proven.

Me too. I left another popular Christian board because of its slowness. I hope I don't have to leave this one for the same reason.

Well this morning I have great speed so I am happy about that again.

Atmosphere is not empty space. And although they did not use the term "atmosphere" the ancients also knew that it was not empty. They called it Air.

Again I am not referring to outer space-- I am referring ot the space we call the atmosphere and they referred to that same as well. The dome would have been what was the dividing line that held up iteh waters that weere divided when God made the atmosphere for the planet and called it heaven like He called space heaven.

And post-deluvian waters as well.

Well I would differ here. And now we get into untestable theories because we are talking about a nonrepeateble event. I am fully persuaded that teh post deluvian watrers are carried by the clouds and that clouds were not part of the antedeluvian weather patterns ( for clouds you need the precipitation cycle and the waters above the atmosphere would have shielded from condensation).

antedeluvian-- a matrix that was called raqia (air and a dome)

post deluvian-- water gone- clouds appear moderrn weather patterns form. Reason I beleive this?

1. There is not enough water inteh atmosphere at any one time to caue it to rain 40 full days in any one given area (and the Hebrew shows it means a big downpour not drizzle).

2. Even if we took all the moisture in the atmosphere and condensed to assyrian theoriy of over the Meso Valley area-- it still qouldn't downpour for 40 straight days.

3. Life expectancy took a huge nosedive post flood- and that could have berern caused by the water barrier gone and now the harmful rays of the sun wer no longer filtered out and the level of harmful mutations and disease increased exponentially. The UV, infrared,ultraviolet and Xray bombardment to the earth that would not have been t here before the flood would be more than enough to account fro the drastic drop in ages.

These are but a few reasons why the evidence for a dome circling the earth holding large amounts of water and yet still be tranluscent somehow is real.

As I understand it, there is both a verb and a noun form of raqia, and it is the noun form that is used in Gen. 1:6. The verb means to stamp, beat, stretch out. The noun form refers to the finished product of the action of the verb. Obviously it is a general term e.g. "expanse", and the same item can have a specific name like "plate" "mirror" "dome" or in this case "sky/heaven"

my bad! In genesis the noun form fo the vereb is used. But once again itsdefinition as used is:


1) extended surface (solid), expanse, firmament
a) expanse (flat as base, support)
b) firmament (of vault of heaven supporting waters above) 1) considered by Hebrews as solid and supporting 'waters' above


here we see the base of it-- if I can find the more expanded you will see that it was considered (when used as th eword firmament) as a vaulted dome-- No one is arguing th at it was beleived to be solid-- I do as well- but it also included the atmosphere as is plainly written in the Scriptures.

But you did

well then I either expressed it wrong (very likiely) or you misunderstood what I was saying (likely but not as much)

So let me be specific here. Based onte hlanguage of Genesis 1--the raqia created in verse 6 consisted of the lower atmosphere (or the first heaven as written lateron in Jewish deuterocanonical writings) and a transparent matrix of some sort that held up the waters IN or just Above the earths atmosphere!

I do not beleive it is some watery matrix in outer space or the at the edge of the universe.

shamayim is used of all three heavens taught in scripture. Context determines which heaven is bein gspoken of. the only heaven we can definitely pinpoint all the time is when ther term heaven of heaven is used or when raqia shamayim is used (and raqia becomes an adjectival noun). When said in this dual fashion it is referring to what WE call outer space and the Jews knew it as the place where the stars travelled in their circuits.

And you err here as well. The heaven of heavens is not the abode of the stars. They are placed in or inside of the firmament. The heaven of heavens is above the firmament.

Well scriptures beg to differ. The stars were placed in the expanse of the firmament not in the firmament.

Your mistake is because you see raqia in 1:6 and then in
1:15 &1:17 you assume they are trhe same, but they are not. In verse 8 it is a noun--in vses 15&18 it is an adjectival noun ( I really do need to look that up to make sure I have the right description). So in verse 8 it could be rendered and god created a stretched out domed expanse (raiqa) and also called this heaven (in contrast ot he heaven of vse 1) .

Then verses 15 and 17 because it is used as an adjective- it would be more accurately rendered in English

So God placed the stars in the open expanse of the heavens to give light...

I know your arguments already and how much knowledge Adam had of Astronomy is very debatabvle cause we have no records other than Scripture-- but it is to be viewed this way

1. The language most definitely allows it to be this way.

2. God inspired the book and he would not have allowed intentional falsehood to be written in HIs name concerning how He ordered the universe! Like it or not this passage is definitely and absolutely talking about astronimcal science-- wqhere and how the stars were placed! Adam may not have had full understanding but God sure did and it was not the corrupted concepts of the Egyptians, Sumerians etal.

Most of this I agree with, but how can it be a spreading out of air and also be a firmament? The firmament was understood to be solid, not gaseous. And an expanse of air could not bear the weight of waters above it by either ancient or modern scientific understanding.

Well because firmament came from the vulgate and was a poor choice form the greek steroma which was teh choice for the Hebrew raqia.

Secondly it matters little how well we understand it, just that we accept it. We do not understand the trinity yet that is the truth! And raqia while used of stretrching out material mostly was probablyt he best ochoice of word to use-- God creatred an atmosphere and divcided the waters that were onthe globe to the waters above and below-the solid part is the dome of the raqia- and the air part is the vault created by the dome! I hope my inadequate attempt at expliaing helps to form a bettr mind picture for you!

Yes, a solid one.

If raqia was th eonly term used- yes you would have a strong case--but because 1:6 God names the raqia shamayim we now it to be a dome with air underneath.
Remember God had in mind all men form all time when He inspired the writings of Scripture-- He didn't inspire Adam et al just for their extant audiences.

I don't think that is necessary. Scripture explains it by saying the windows of heaven (the firmament) were opened to let the waters above pass through. No destruction of the firmament is intimated. I doubt you will find any pre-modern (even pre-20th century) commentary that suggests otherwise.

Well the construct is key here. In 7:1 opened is pathach in the Niphal perfect which expresses a single one time action. So the windows of heaven were once and for all opened here (destroy is a large word but still correct)

And in chapter 8 when God stopped th ewindows of heaven the niphil imperfect is used which is described thus:

1a) It is used to describe a single (as opposed to a repeated) action
in the past; it differs from the perfect in being more vivid and
pictorial. The perfect expresses the "fact", the imperfect adds
colour and movement by suggesting the "process" preliminary to its
completion.

Because it is inthe imperfect it is a much more stronger connotation than simply God ceasing the rains from coming. It was a forceful act of stopping with th eresult further inthe verse of:

The fountains also of the deep and the windows of heaven were stopped, and the rain from heaven was restrained;

And this also is in the imperfect!

They are not translatable into modern scientific models and it is unfair to modern students of the bible to say they are.

You say this yet you affirm assyrian in his theory that when God commanded all beasts to eat vegetation He actually was letting lions eat meat and thus indirectly eating vegetation-- you need to be consistent with your accusation.

It also goes against what many YECists present as a strength of the bible---that it never changes. If the bible is a coded compendium of science, it has to change continually as science itself changes. What good is it to find today's science in scripture when today's science will someday be as obsolete as ancient cosmology?

Well mans ability to know changes--the bible does not! If something is true today (ie the eartrh is a sphere) then it will always be true unless something causes the earth to change shape! How we understand the bible may change but the bible does not! And new theories that contradict what is evident in Scripture are wrong-- though we may not know the why of their being wrong till later!

I am not saying man has never misunderstood Scripture-- for we have too many times to keep count! I also beleive that many things written down by the original authors were not fully understood or even misunderstood by the authors. Bu tGod knew and He was having them write down for the long view because as Paul wrote ALL scripture is by inspiration of God and is profitable for DOCTRINE... So when things are not written parabolically or comparatively we know that it is meant to be what is said.

 

[nolidad]

GLUADYS:


Here is a thought for you. I do not like to put in my own personal specualtions often cause of the rabbit trails they can open but it is a theory of mine.

Teh raqia could have been the creation of the atmosphere with the ozone layer being th esolid expanse, or possibly even th eionosphere being the solid. We know that when astronauts reneter earth atmosphere they have to enter at just the right angle or they will bounce off like hitting a SOLID object!

Witht he addition of the waters fromt eh earth being held up by this layer it would be a solid, add further protection from the harmful raysof the sun(thus the longer life spans). This could answere the destruction question in that once the waters were drained form them- they were shut up because they were empty.

I write this only as a theorietical possibility. We have no way of testing to know for sure as the flood was a one time event- but it is possible nonetheless.

 

[Assyrian]

Also I should have remembered this sooner- all carnivorous animals can revert back to full herbivorous diets and not suffer ill effects. So even today we see the evidence of the original creation i nthe animal kingdom!

I know there is a vegetarian lion YECs like to talk about, Little Tyke but he died quite young, so the vegetarian diet does not seem to have been that healthy.

And that is not always true biblcally as Peter says that many times the prophets wrote and wondered what it meant and wne the time of it s fulfillment was to be.

I think Peter was talking about the prophets God spoke through in the Old Testament, not translators working in an obscure Germanic dialect a millennium and a half later. He certainly wasn't talking about people reading the translation 400 years after that, misunderstanding the archaic words and thinking their mistake was what God had intended all along.

Well here is the Peter passage:

8But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

So a day is LIKE a thousand years and a thousand years is LIKE a day! Kind of a wash! And the subject that this is describing is God not being slack butr being patient so that as many as desire will come to eternal life. It is not making a dsoctring saying 1,000 human years equal one divine day. Cause if it is then you have have 1 human day equalling 1,000 divine years!! Which is of course nonsense. So to try to make this comparative stastement concerning Gods p atience the absolute for Godf reckoinuing time is hermeneutically wrong as well as exegetically wrong and even eisegetically wrong!

And you get from this that God's days are always exactly 24 hours! I don't think you have been listening to what the apostle tells us.

Plus you are still 649,994,000 years short for life to be on this earth and 11,999,994,000 years short at eh minimum for what modern secular science says is the age of the universe. God said 6 days and if His six days are 6,000 human years you still have nothing you can beleive in.

But you have already said you realise this sort of rigid exegesis is a bad reading of the passage. Moses says a thousand years in God's sight are as a day. Peter takes this and realises it not meant as a rigid conversion scale, and applies it a thousand years is as one day and one day as a thousand years. It is an illustration of God's timescale. When the bible talks of the day of the Lord, it may actually be a thousand years. In fact when Peter talks of the day of the Lord, his description spans both the Lord's return as a thief in the night and the destruction of the earth and heaven which according to Revelation comes 1000 years later.

But if it is a flexible illustration that says a thousand years is as one day, or, one day as a thousand years I see no problem saying the thousand years may simply be a poetic expression that means a really long time.

Incidentally, you left out some key verses when you quoted the passage
2Pet 3:5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
8 But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

As in Psalm 90, the context of Peters quotation about a 'day' is in God's sight starts with the creation.

First off raqia is the act of thinning and stretching and it nearly always requires a solid object.

Second the raqia was called into existence to seperate the waters from the waters.

Thrids raqia is a vaulted dome so it would be a roof (if you will) with empty space below. This would be what we call the atmosphere! And the waters above the raqia were the antedeluvian waters.

OK no problems there, you do realise 'vaulted dome' and 'roof' only describe the atmosphere over a local region, not the spherical shell of the planet's atmosphere

But they wouldn't have as I posted references to so stating from Jews.

Did you give references to raqia?

But you ignore other important comments which they conclude being the linguistic experts they are!

7:24). But if the water covered "all the high hills under the whole heaven," this clearly indicates the universality of the flood.

Except K&D didn't think all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. They though the high peaks of the Andes and Himalayas stayed above water. They even admitted the bible used 'under the whole heaven' locally Deut 2:25.

So reading all they say about the Noahic Flood they bring to bear all the evidence needed to show that teh flood was indeed global.

You mean they don't even begin to deal with the question of whether to interpret erets as 'land' or 'the earth' and admit 'under the whole heaven' can be local too?

Why do you keep insisting on this doctrine of a global flood when the bible never teaches it?

Nice try at twisitng but the sentence structure and the use of woreds like all make it impossible to be local. Unless of course you have the unwritten and unpassed on oral tradition of such miracles as

This is rich, given the huge number of unscriptural miracles YECs invoke to explain their theories of creation and the flood.

1. God keeping all the beasts and creeping things from escaping th eMeso valley Does the bible say anything about animals not escaping. If they escape they are not in the land anymore. The flood killed the animals in the land.

2. God keeping humanity of the Meso valley from escaping According to Jesus they didn't realise the danger until it was too late.

3. God having the flood waters rise 22.5 feet above th ehighest mountains of the Meso Valley and not escaping over the sides but just rising up and staying i thin air!!! Or just the highest hills in Noah's part of the plain of Shinar. I have no problems with it being the Med valley or the Black Sea either.

4. You have the flood happening at least 4,000 before the bible says it did because you have cave drawings in Europe modern science says date back to 7-8K B.C. Does the bible give a date for the flood?

or 5. You have people living outside the Meso valley who were righteous and thus spared the destruction (but why didn't God just have Noah go join those folks instead of having Him spend 120 years building a boat??? Your thesis has no basis in science or in Scripture. God is not always pleased with prophets who run away. Anyway if there were other people as you say, why should Noah have heard of them?

And it only becoem difficult to translate as global (undere all the heavens, all life etc.etc.) when you allow men who were not there to say what happened instead of trusting th eWord of the God who was there!!

Again you assume the bible teaches a global flood without producing any scriptural evidence, and claim that must be the correct interpretation because the bible teaches it

Not according to HIs word he doesn't. According to mans religious opinion yeah, but HIs ord--NEVER!!!!

You are the one who suggested God was having a bad day.

Actually it goes back about a century before and if it was good enough for learned men to use for three centuries--it is good enough for me!! Unless they weren't so learned after all!!!

I think learned men understood what it meant.

Well modern secular science and its opinions are not the solid meat of Gods Word by any stretch of the iimagination!!

Neither is a six year old's understanding of the bible, which you seem to be saying is the optimum level of scholarship and wisdom to understand it. In your thinking be men 1Cor 14:20.

Assyrian

 

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

[QUOTEI know there is a vegetarian lion YECs like to talk about, Little Tyke but he died quite young, so the vegetarian diet does not seem to have been that healthy.][/QUOTE]

Well I never heard of little tyke-- I just know that in times of famine and travel of the pride-lions have reverted to a noncarnivorous diet and lived on. Same with bears and tigers.

I think Peter was talking about the prophets God spoke through in the Old Testament, not translators working in an obscure Germanic dialect a millennium and a half later. He certainly wasn't talking about people reading the translation 400 years after that, misunderstanding the archaic words and thinking their mistake was what God had intended all along.

Well I am not sure where you arte coming form here, but there are more than just prophecies that people di dnot understand when God spoke things.

And you get from this that God's days are always exactly 24 hours! I don't think you have been listening to what the apostle tells us.

I think I have!! He is talking about the longsuffering of God and making a comparison--not issuing forth a doctrine. Once again if you observed context you would not htink Gods days are a thousand human years-- but that still leaves you at least 11,999,994,000 human years short of trying to make genesis fit the theoretical timeframes proposed by evolutionists.

But you have already said you realise this sort of rigid exegesis is a bad reading of the passage. Moses says a thousand years in God's sight are as a day. Peter takes this and realises it not meant as a rigid conversion scale, and applies it a thousand years is as one day and one day as a thousand years. It is an illustration of God's timescale.

Other than hyper dispensationalists--who do you know beleives this theory of yours? Once agian the Peter passage is a comparison in reference to his long suffering not to a supposed fact that onew divine day= onethousand human years.

But if it is a flexible illustration that says a thousand years is as one day, or, one day as a thousand years I see no problem saying the thousand years may simply be a poetic expression that means a really long time.

and you said this earlier:

I think Peter was talking about the prophets God spoke through in the Old Testament, not translators working in an obscure Germanic dialect a millennium and a half later. He certainly wasn't talking about people reading the translation 400 years after that, misunderstanding the archaic words and thinking their mistake was what God had intended all along.

when you are far guiltier than any germanic translator.

2Pet 3:5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.

If you cannot see this as the Noahic flood- I really worry about you !!! The world is first mentioned as being formed out of the water and through the water (the seperatinf og the land form the sea and the seperating of the waters in 1:6) Then that world that was formed was then destroyed by those same waters!!! Only one place in the bible speaks of the world being overwhelmed with water--the Noahic deluge. Sorry but you are way off in your ability to discern scripture if you reject this as talking of the flood.

OK no problems there, you do realise 'vaulted dome' and 'roof' only describe the atmosphere over a local region, not the spherical shell of the planet's atmosphere

says assyrian--but teh bible says the raqia covered the erets of 1:1

Except K&D didn't think all the high hills under the whole heaven were covered. They though the high peaks of the Andes and Himalayas stayed above water. They even admitted the bible used 'under the whole heaven' locally Deut 2:25.

so why do you bother with them when you comment on a qoute from K&D said the under the whole heaven of Genesis was global!! Once again please go back to a class that teaches how to read trhings in context.

And you are wrong about K&D not thinking that all the hills were not covered--they only posited a what if:

But even if those peaks, which are higher than Ararat, were not covered by water, we cannot therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered

This is ithe direct qoute of K&D which shows you have either grossly misunderstood their writing or intentionally sought ot deceive those reading this thread. They only said and evenif as a supposition not a statemetn of beleif and then went ont o further expoound on the globaslness foft he flood

Why do you keep insisting on this doctrine of a global flood when the bible never teaches it?

No you teachit--the bible rteaches a global flood anbd then you use different uses of the same words in their much differetn contexts to try to disavow the word of God cause it does not fit with your theory. Well until you can give me more credentials in Hebrew mastery than Keil and Delitsczh and Arnold Fruchtenbaum-- I will stick with their mastery of the language and its usage and contexzt than your theories.

This is rich, given the huge number of unscriptural miracles YECs invoke to explain their theories of creation and the flood.

such as?? I haven't posited a miracle that God i s supposed to have performed but is not written down. I have posed plausible scenarios and always said this might be../ Sorry once agian your inability to keep things in contexts makes you a poor expositor.

You mean they don't even begin to deal with the question of whether to interpret erets as 'land' or 'the earth' and admit 'under the whole heaven' can be local too?

Well given your demonstrated inability to keep english statements in their context--why should anyone trust you to keep a foreign language of which you claim no mastery of in its context as well???

The bible does teach a global flood- you just can;t admit it because it would destroy your concept of evolution.

Neither is a six year old's understanding of the bible, which you seem to be saying is the optimum level of scholarship and wisdom to understand it. In your thinking be men 1Cor 14:20.

Not inthe least--if it was I woould not be a bible college graduate- not have continued my studies for 25 years since I graduated ( If I had the funds I could take 2 classes write a 25K and 50K paper and get my doctorate). I also have taight in bible college, served as a chaplain, on the misiion foeld and have completed on a privaste level several courses in greek, hebrew, creation science, and counseling and am board certified as a counselor. So your it seems is 180 degrees out of focus.

 

[Assyrian]

Well I never heard of little tyke-- I just know that in times of famine and travel of the pride-lions have reverted to a noncarnivorous diet and lived on. Same with bears and tigers.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!
Sorry couldn't help that one.

Bears are omnivores, but they wouldn't survive a winter if they didn't fatten up on meat. That lions and tigers eat vegetation when there is no prey around doesn't mean they can survive on it. Little Tyke lived on a diet of grain, milk and eggs which has much more protein than a herbivore diet and he still died young. During a famine, people eat grass if nothing else is available, it may keep them going long enough to get proper food, but if they don't get real food, they will die. Grass is not good enough, not with our digestive system.

Well I am not sure where you arte coming form here, but there are more than just prophecies that people di dnot understand when God spoke things.

I was referring to English which was an obscure German dialect when Peter wrote his epistle.

You used Peter's quote 1Pet 1:10, to claim your misunderstanding of 16th century English was somehow inspired and what God intended. But there is nothing in Peter to say a misunderstanding of a translation of the bible is really what God was getting at all along.

I think I have!! He is talking about the longsuffering of God and making a comparison--not issuing forth a doctrine. Once again if you observed context you would not htink Gods days are a thousand human years-- but that still leaves you at least 11,999,994,000 human years short of trying to make genesis fit the theoretical timeframes proposed by evolutionists.

He is also tell us not to squeeze God into our human timetables. Our idea of how God is supposed to operate may not be his.

If humans can look at God's prophetic word about Christ's return and keep getting it so wrong, keep thinking he is just about to come back and being disappointed when he doesn't fit their timetable, then we are just a likely to get his prophetic description of how he created the world wrong.

Other than hyper dispensationalists--who do you know beleives this theory of yours? Once agian the Peter passage is a comparison in reference to his long suffering not to a supposed fact that onew divine day= onethousand human years.

I don't think I know any hyper dispensationalists. But most TEs recognise the significance of 2Pet 3 and Psalm 90.

and you said this earlier:

when you are far guiltier than any germanic translator.

I didn't accuse the translators of the AV of any guilt. The problem is people who think the AV is more accurate than the original word of God and think that their anachronistic misunderstanding of 16th century English is the final revelation of God's true meaning.

If you cannot see this as the Noahic flood- I really worry about you !!! The world is first mentioned as being formed out of the water and through the water (the seperatinf og the land form the sea and the seperating of the waters in 1:6) Then that world that was formed was then destroyed by those same waters!!! Only one place in the bible speaks of the world being overwhelmed with water--the Noahic deluge. Sorry but you are way off in your ability to discern scripture if you reject this as talking of the flood.

2Pet 3:5 For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God,
Here we see the same picture we have in Gen 1, Job 38, Prov 8 and Psalm 104. The earth emerges out of the water that originally covered it.

6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
Then we have the flood. but notice Peter doesn't say the earth ge was flooded. The earth ge emerges out of water back as Gen 1 says, but when he talks about the flood, it is the world, kosmos, that is deluged and perishes. Peter doesn't talk about a global flood, though he starts off talking about the earth and finishes talking about the end of the earth and heavens. But he switches terms talking about the flood and only describes human society being destroyed.

says assyrian--but teh bible says the raqia covered the erets of 1:1

True, he created the whole planet and created an atmosphere that covers the whole planet. But when he described this to a bronze age prophet, he used a term that only described the flat section of atmosphere above the prophet's head, not the whole atmosphere.

so why do you bother with them when you comment on a qoute from K&D said the under the whole heaven of Genesis was global!! Once again please go back to a class that teaches how to read trhings in context.

You seem to think K&D are the final word in exegesis, yet even they tell us the interpretation is unclear.

And you are wrong about K&D not thinking that all the hills were not covered--they only posited a what if:

But even if those peaks, which are higher than Ararat, were not covered by water, we cannot therefore pronounce the flood merely partial in its extent, but must regard it as universal, as extending over every part of the world, since the few peaks uncovered would not only sink into vanishing points in comparison with the surface covered

This is ithe direct qoute of K&D which shows you have either grossly misunderstood their writing or intentionally sought ot deceive those reading this thread. They only said and evenif as a supposition not a statemetn of beleif and then went ont o further expoound on the globaslness foft he flood

'Even if', also means 'although', which is the way they are using it here. They didn't see any way out of having the Andes and Himalayas sticking out of the water if Ararat was submerged 15 cubits. Their answer was that the flood was still 'universal' because nothing could survive on these high peaks.

Interesting that they end up in 'local flood' terminology and have to admit the flood has to be described as 'universal' rather than actually global. They use universal differently to local flood folks who use it to describe the flood as universal for the human race, but it is fascinating that even your best 'global flood' commentators can't make the 'global' part stick.

No you teachit--the bible rteaches a global flood anbd then you use different uses of the same words in their much differetn contexts to try to disavow the word of God cause it does not fit with your theory.

I think the way erets is used in Genesis before the flood is a pretty reasonable context. It is what the word would have meant to Noah. It is how everybody before him used it.

You would have to show from context why erets has to be the globe, but this you have failed to do. Even if we were left with a situation where erets might could either, it means you cannot say the bible teaches a global flood. But as we have seen the doctrine of a global flood is contradicted in Job 38, Psalm 104 and Prov 8.

Well until you can give me more credentials in Hebrew mastery than Keil and Delitsczh and Arnold Fruchtenbaum-- I will stick with their mastery of the language and its usage and contexzt than your theories.

Sorry I don't make any man Pope. I can discuss what the bible says, I can try to look at the original languages with you, but I prefer to look at the arguments and see if they are sound, rather than rely on a fallacious 'argument from authority'.

such as?? I haven't posited a miracle that God i s supposed to have performed but is not written down. I have posed plausible scenarios and always said this might be../ Sorry once agian your inability to keep things in contexts makes you a poor expositor.

I realise that. That is why I talked of miracles YECs invoke, rather than you personally. But you get all sorts of miracles invoke in debates, They say the rate of radioactive decay was much higher in the past but God miraculously removed all the excess heat to stop it melting the planet. When confronted with the problem of a collapsing vapour canopy boiling the oceans, again God removed the heat. Many claim God miraculously removed the water after the flood. It goes on. But you seem quite restrained

Well given your demonstrated inability to keep english statements in their context--why should anyone trust you to keep a foreign language of which you claim no mastery of in its context as well???

No you haven't shown that one either.

The bible does teach a global flood- you just can;t admit it because it would destroy your concept of evolution.

I don't see what the flood has to do with evolution, the flood did not cause any extinctions did it?

Not inthe least--if it was I woould not be a bible college graduate- not have continued my studies for 25 years since I graduated ( If I had the funds I could take 2 classes write a 25K and 50K paper and get my doctorate). I also have taight in bible college, served as a chaplain, on the misiion foeld and have completed on a privaste level several courses in greek, hebrew, creation science, and counseling and am board certified as a counselor. So your it seems is 180 degrees out of focus.

It seems a waste of a very good education. You have all that learning, yet when you want to interpret Genesis you rely on the opinions of a six year old.

Cheers Assyrian

 

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

Bears are omnivores, but they wouldn't survive a winter if they didn't fatten up on meat. That lions and tigers eat vegetation when there is no prey around doesn't mean they can survive on it. Little Tyke lived on a diet of grain, milk and eggs which has much more protein than a herbivore diet and he still died young. During a famine, people eat grass if nothing else is available, it may keep them going long enough to get proper food, but if they don't get real food, they will die. Grass is not good enough, not with our digestive system.

This is why I am so glad that ther are YEC PHD zoologists, they teach differently.

From Is. 11:

6The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

http://www.enature.com/articles/detail.asp?storyID=369 this shows how carnivores turn herbivorous in the fall.

He is also tell us not to squeeze God into our human timetables. Our idea of how God is supposed to operate may not be his.

If humans can look at God's prophetic word about Christ's return and keep getting it so wrong, keep thinking he is just about to come back and being disappointed when he doesn't fit their timetable, then we are just a likely to get his prophetic description of how he created the world wrong.

Smokescreen excuse to not take God at HIs word.

He is also tell us not to squeeze God into our human timetables. Our idea of how God is supposed to operate may not be his.

But when God speaks to His beloved-- He speaks in ways we understand and we understand a day to be 24 hours.

I don't think I know any hyper dispensationalists. But most TEs recognise the significance of 2Pet 3

So arewe to assume you beleive int eh ruin restoration theory of the earth prior to Gen. 1:1??

I didn't accuse the translators of the AV of any guilt. The problem is people who think the AV is more accurate than the original word of God and think that their anachronistic misunderstanding of 16th century English is the final revelation of God's true meaning.

Well the AV is one of the better english translations due to teh fact teh OT is from the Hebrewe not the greek Septuigant.

But nonetheless I spend as much time inteh Hebrew and greek as I do in the English when I study!!

Then we have the flood. but notice Peter doesn't say the earth ge was flooded. The earth ge emerges out of water back as Gen 1 says, but when he talks about the flood, it is the world, kosmos, that is deluged and perishes. Peter doesn't talk about a global flood, though he starts off talking about the earth and finishes talking about the end of the earth and heavens. But he switches terms talking about the flood and only describes human society being destroyed.

Wow are you a lousy expositor and exegetor. You forgfet basic rules of greek exegesis to refuse to humble yoru sewlf before God.

Ge:


1) arable land
2) the ground, the earth as a standing place
3) the main land as opposed to the sea or water
4) the earth as a whole
a) the earth as opposed to the heavens
b) the inhabited earth, the abode of men and animals 5) a country, land enclosed within fixed boundaries, a tract of land, territory, region

This coincided perfectly with Genesis 1 when God caused the dry lands to appear so either 1,2,3 are the correct definitiona s has been recognized by the church for newarly 2 millenia.

Then God goes on to describe the destruction of that ge: and calls it zKosmos:


1) an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government
2) ornament, decoration, adornment, i.e. the arrangement of the stars,
'the heavenly hosts', as the ornament of the heavens. 1 Pet. 3:3
3) the world, the universe
4) the circle of the earth, the earth 5) the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family

Which being in the same comntext they would naturally complement each other so the planet would be wehat was destroyed. If you demand to use kosmos to mean civilization here then you have to say all men are lost-- because Peter goes on to say:

But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Spo the new civilization that sprang after its destruction ar enow reserved for fiery judgment.

Bu thtat is impossible according to the text. Peter lets us know kosmos means the planet because he adds the heavens and contrasts it with the judgment of ungldly men. So you really should satop playing games with the Word of God-- Peter says that when people twist it like you do--it is to your own destruction!! I say this in love to warn you!

You seem to think K&D are the final word in exegesis, yet even they tell us the interpretation is unclear.

I trhink it may be time to place you on an ignore list. Fo ryou to wtoop to such disingenuity in light they declaritively say the Noahic flood was global and you having when the statements to that effect lead me to beleive you are incapable of honest intellectual debate on the subject because you willfully deny what is plainly written. Be well!

 

[Assyrian]

This is why I am so glad that ther are YEC PHD zoologists, they teach differently.

From Is. 11:

6The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.
7And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox.

http://www.enature.com/articles/detail.asp?storyID=369 this shows how carnivores turn herbivorous in the fall.

Apart from the figurative nature of Isaiah apocalyptic prophecy, his point is that this future state will be very different from the present, not that lions can live on a diet of straw and we just haven't realised.

Your point about the bears is good. Fructose rich berries are a good way to lay down fat. However wiki points out that bears that have to rely on berries in the autumn don't grow nearly as large as the ones who stock up on fish. Why should the fish eaters be much larger if vegetation can provide the optimum diet?

Your article points out that this change in behaviour comes in the fall, in other words in the season when the the berries grow. Even your vegetarian bears are only herbivorous in the autumn. Yet according to Genesis, seasons were part of God's creation before the fall (as in, fall of man, not autumn!) Were bears only created seasonally vegetarian?

According to your interpretation of Gen 1:29&30, God only gave the fruit to Adam. So what did the bears eat?

Assyrian: Peter is also telling us not to squeeze God into our human timetables. Our idea of how God is supposed to operate may not be his.

If humans can look at God's prophetic word about Christ's return and keep getting it so wrong, keep thinking he is just about to come back and being disappointed when he doesn't fit their timetable, then we are just a likely to get his prophetic description of how he created the world wrong.

Nolidad: Smokescreen excuse to not take God at HIs word.

An 'appeal to motive' fallacy, rather than discussion of the point.

But when God speaks to His beloved-- He speaks in ways we understand and we understand a day to be 24 hours.

You mean the prophets Peter spoke about were not God's beloved?

There were many sincere believers who came to the Lord in the revivals of the 19th century, who earnestly believed the word of God proved clearly that Christ was coming back around 1843. These Millerites applied 'common sense' to the prophecies of Daniel about the evenings and mornings and sincerely felt God was, as you would put it, speaking in a very understandable way to his beloved.

1843 came and went and these simple faithful believers were shattered by the disappointment. Well the Millerites picked themselves up and reformed their movement as the Seventh Day Adventists, which in turn gave birth to modern YEC, applying the same 'common sense' literalism to the evenings and morning of Genesis 1 as their predecessors had so disastrously to the evenings and mornings in Daniel.

Peter warns us not to confuse human timetables with God's. Just because you are God's beloved doesn't mean you aren't liable to make the same simple mistake if you ignore his warnings.

So arewe to assume you beleive int eh ruin restoration theory of the earth prior to Gen. 1:1??

No not that one either.

Well the AV is one of the better english translations due to teh fact teh OT is from the Hebrewe not the greek Septuigant.

How many modern translations are based on the Septuagint? Of course good scholars will look at how the LXX translators handled difficult passages, but even the AV's translators did that. Their Psalm 8:6 is taken straight from the Septuagint.

But nonetheless I spend as much time inteh Hebrew and greek as I do in the English when I study!!

That's good.

Wow are you a lousy expositor and exegetor. You forgfet basic rules of greek exegesis to refuse to humble yoru sewlf before God.

Ge:


1) arable land
2) the ground, the earth as a standing place
3) the main land as opposed to the sea or water
4) the earth as a whole
a) the earth as opposed to the heavens
b) the inhabited earth, the abode of men and animals 5) a country, land enclosed within fixed boundaries, a tract of land, territory, region

This coincided perfectly with Genesis 1 when God caused the dry lands to appear so either 1,2,3 are the correct definitiona s has been recognized by the church for newarly 2 millenia.

Actually most commentaries I have looked at see it as a reference to the formation of the whole globe rather than just the dry ground. Verses 3 and 5 talk of both the heavens and the earth, being created and then destroyed. So 4a) the earth as opposed to the heavens.

Then God goes on to describe the destruction of that ge: and calls it zKosmos:

No, God describes the destruction of the kosmos and doesn't call it ge.

1) an apt and harmonious arrangement or constitution, order, government
2) ornament, decoration, adornment, i.e. the arrangement of the stars,
'the heavenly hosts', as the ornament of the heavens. 1 Pet. 3:3
3) the world, the universe
4) the circle of the earth, the earth
5) the inhabitants of the earth, men, the human family

Which being in the same comntext they would naturally complement each other so the planet would be wehat was destroyed.

It could hardly be the 2) or 3) the arrangement of stars or the universe, the flood waters didn't go that high. Nor was it just the outward adornment of cosmetics, jewelry and fine clothes.

If Peter had wanted to say 4) the circle of the earth, that the whole planet was deluged, he could have simply kept using ge.

That leaves 1) the harmonious arrangement of human civilisation and government, or 5) the human race.

Peter could have talked about a flood that covered the earth, a global flood. Instead he switches vocabulary and describes a flood that wiped out human civilisation.

If you demand to use kosmos to mean civilization here then you have to say all men are lost-- because Peter goes on to say:

But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

Spo the new civilization that sprang after its destruction ar enow reserved for fiery judgment.

Bu thtat is impossible according to the text. Peter lets us know kosmos means the planet because he adds the heavens and contrasts it with the judgment of ungldly men. So you really should satop playing games with the Word of God-- Peter says that when people twist it like you do--it is to your own destruction!! I say this in love to warn you!

Sorry, when Peter say the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, he switches back to ge. It is not the human race here, it is the planet again. You see Peter keeps using the world ge when he talks about the creation of the heavens and the earth and their destruction. It is when he talks about the flood that he switches to kosmos.

I trhink it may be time to place you on an ignore list. Fo ryou to wtoop to such disingenuity in light they declaritively say the Noahic flood was global and you having when the statements to that effect lead me to beleive you are incapable of honest intellectual debate on the subject because you willfully deny what is plainly written. Be well!

Yes K&D believed the flood was global, but they were honest enough to admit the difficulties in the interpretation. I realise you want them to be a slam dunk for a global flood, but the problems I mentioned about the depth of the water and 'under the whole heaven' being used locally, are all points K&D brought up themselves.

I always try to debate honestly and integrity. The problem you have is that you have been unable to back up your human traditions of a global flood and a literal six day creation from the word of God, so you think it must be my fault. If you cannot demonstrate it clearly from scripture, you really should start to re-examine the traditions.

Anyway, take care of yourself nolidad,

Blessings Assyrian

 

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

Yes K&D believed the flood was global, but they were honest enough to admit the difficulties in the interpretation. I realise you want them to be a slam dunk for a global flood, but the problems I mentioned about the depth of the water and 'under the whole heaven' being used locally, are all points K&D brought up themselves.

See once agasin
Assyrian-- you are so used to twisting words around and not looking at them int heir context you automatically do it again!! K&D had no difficulty inthe translation of the verses--they stated unequivocally th etexts could only mean a global flood! What they had difficulty with is how it may havbe worked out given vast mountain peaks that may have been 5 miles high at eh time of the flood.

It wasn't the passages-but equating it to the globes mountains (they even hedged a littel with the mountains being not submerged but rendered useless!).

I always try to debate honestly and integrity. The problem you have is that you have been unable to back up your human traditions of a global flood and a literal six day creation from the word of God, so you think it must be my fault. If you cannot demonstrate it clearly from scripture, you really should start to re-examine the traditions.

Nice try but that boat just won't float!! It is backed up by Scripture! Once again you are so ussed to interpreting Genesis through the filter of secular science you appear to not even be aware of the simple construct of genesisand your constant ignoring context and case and tense of words. YOu ahve doen t his consistently throughout our debate. Even ge- and Kosmos you do it again-- ge refers to the dry land God ordered outr of the waters in Genesis and kosmos-refers to teh whole planet--We would say what Peter said that God brought the ground out of the waters and then destroyed the planet. But I am beating a dead horse for you cannot buy that for it would throw cracks inthe foundation of your synthetic TE hypothesis. Just remember God is no thesis-antithesis-synthesis-HE IS! And He doesn't leave it up to sinful unregenearte man to find His ways-- His ways are only discoverd by8 the beleiver! As pAul said in Corinthians the natural man cannot perceive the things of God and the universe is a thing of God--Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!

What you should be doing is filtering science through the Word of God not vice versa--you would be amazed at what you see.

 

[Assyrian]

See once agasin
Assyrian-- you are so used to twisting words around and not looking at them int heir context you automatically do it again!! K&D had no difficulty inthe translation of the verses--they stated unequivocally th etexts could only mean a global flood! What they had difficulty with is how it may havbe worked out given vast mountain peaks that may have been 5 miles high at eh time of the flood.

It wasn't the passages-but equating it to the globes mountains (they even hedged a littel with the mountains being not submerged but rendered useless!).

As I said K&D based their unequivocal statement about the flood, not on the grammar, but on the traditional beliefs that 1) the ark landed on top of mount Ararat, which the text does not say and they do not analyse, and 2) the belief that mount Ararat was actually called Ararat when Genesis was written. It got the name much later. K&D pointed out some of the difficulties with a global flood, which they considered universal enough to count. And it was K&D who pointed out Deut 2:25 where under the whole heaven does no always mean global.

I mentioned out at the beginning of our discussion of K&D that: published just six years after The Origin of Species, they are hardly in a position to comment on the linguistic arguments that have gone on since. Is the co-author of Keil & Delitzsch the same Franz Delitzsch who wrote the New Commentary on Genesis in 1887? If so in the years between writing K&D and the New Commentary, Delitzsch gave a lot of thought to the linguistic arguments going on in Christian circles and came out in favour of a local (Mesopotamian) flood and the 'analogical days' interpretation of Gen 1.

Nice try but that boat just won't float!! It is backed up by Scripture! Once again you are so ussed to interpreting Genesis through the filter of secular science you appear to not even be aware of the simple construct of genesisand your constant ignoring context and case and tense of words. YOu ahve doen t his consistently throughout our debate. Even ge- and Kosmos you do it again-- ge refers to the dry land God ordered outr of the waters in Genesis and kosmos-refers to teh whole planet--We would say what Peter said that God brought the ground out of the waters and then destroyed the planet. But I am beating a dead horse for you cannot buy that for it would throw cracks inthe foundation of your synthetic TE hypothesis. Just remember God is no thesis-antithesis-synthesis-HE IS! And He doesn't leave it up to sinful unregenearte man to find His ways-- His ways are only discoverd by8 the beleiver! As pAul said in Corinthians the natural man cannot perceive the things of God and the universe is a thing of God--Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!
What you should be doing is filtering science through the Word of God not vice versa--you would be amazed at what you see.

Why would Darwin want to remove God from nature? If God's ways are only discovered by the believer, how do militant atheists and YECs come up with the same interpretation of Genesis and both come to the same wrong conclusion that if evolution is true the bible cannot be trusted?

For someone who loves to quote commentator to prove their interpretation, you certainly seem to be ignoring the rich tradition of interpreting ge in 2Pet 3 as the globe. The context in both verses 5 and 7 of the heavens and earth certainly seems to suggest the planet earth as opposed to just the land. He is certainly talking planet in verse 7, which means kosmos in verse 6 is still contrasted with it.

I believe God operates in the real world. He created the universe, the natural world around us. When God does things, the world changes. When Jesus healed someone you could take him to the medical experts to check him out, in fact he could take himself. The bible is full of accounts of this miracle happened, and here is the evidence, here are the witnesses who saw it, there is the empty tomb.

I would expect the world will show the evidence of what happened in its history from the time God created it to now. I do not expect a conflict between the scientific analysis of the world God created and God's account of what he did. If there is a conflict, it can either come from faulty science or a faulty understanding of the bible. As Christians, we need to examine both. In fact the bible lays more store on the reliability of the evidence of nature than it does on religious tradition. The advice in the bible is to test everything. Science does, rigorously, so even though there are scientists who aren't Christians, they apply biblical principles to their work. Unfortunately, I do not see the same scrupulous analysis and examination in YEC circles. They don't put their tradition to the test but seem to use any argument that they think supports it. In fact they seem to think because an argument supports their traditional interpretation it must be a sound argument. That is a very bad way to approach the bible.

Just because I point out problems in your interpretation, it doesn't mean I am twisting scripture. It might just be that there are some flaws in your interpretation

Blessings Assyrian

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!

i see things like this and just shake my head. is it really worth discussing things with people who show no interest in the facts? who don't even take the time to learn anything about what they are talking about?

There are big issues about Darwin and natural theodicy and the origin of the origins. But to roll Wallace into that boat can only be done if you knocked him out first, Wallace ended up as a rather radical spiritualist, even by the standards of the late 19thC/early 20thC (he died 1913)

for those interested, ARW has a page at: http://www.wku.edu/~smithch/index1.htm where you can find a sidebar link to many of his writings.

 

[The Lady Kate]

Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!

What a load of complete hogwash.

What you should be doing is filtering science through the Word of God not vice versa--you would be amazed at what you see.

Or, apparantly... invent.

 

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

As I said K&D based their unequivocal statement about the flood, not on the grammar, but on the traditional beliefs that 1) the ark landed on top of mount Ararat, which the text does not say and they do not analyse, and 2) the belief that mount Ararat was actually called Ararat when Genesis was written. It got the name much later. K&D pointed out some of the difficulties with a global flood, which they considered universal enough to count. And it was K&D who pointed out Deut 2:25 where under the whole heaven does no always mean global.

And again you are worng--it is not the traditonal beleifs but the text itself(the grammar) that causes them to state unequivocally the flood was global in its extent.

Ararat was probably added in by Moses (the editor of most of genesis) though that is not absdolute -but probable.

Yes K&D has some difficulties with height (and as creation science was not yet a vbalid scientific thought in their days) had to come up with some statement and they qualified it with an even if (and no it does not mean although as you desire- the context absolutely shows it to be a conditonal if).

And they di dnot have difficulty with Deut 2:25 being non global cause the context shows it to be area specific!! See it si aqmazing what you can decipher when you keep context and let Hebrew experts help guide you!!

and by the way K&D, Eddersheim, and Fruchtenbaum are not infallible, but the 2 latter are still considered expert and their grammar exegetes trustworthy. Fruchtenbaum is a modern living scholar of well qualified stature! You have yet to even bring forth any linguists experts to butress your opinions as to the meanings of the passages you reject.

I mentioned out at the beginning of our discussion of K&D that: published just six years after The Origin of Species, they are hardly in a position to comment on the linguistic arguments that have gone on since.

Well ancient languages do not change (seeing they are ancient) and there have never been any reputable scholarship I have seen invoked on several differing threads o this subject overthrow there simple but accurate exegesis.

Why would Darwin want to remove God from nature? If God's ways are only discovered by the believer, how do militant atheists and YECs come up with the same interpretation of Genesis and both come to the same wrong conclusion that if evolution is true the bible cannot be trusted?

Well the why is a lengthy subject for a more theological thread not here.

As for atheists and bible beleivers coming up with the same reading (not interpretation) of GEnesis is because it is simply what is written!! It takes faith to beleive but the evidence is clear for all to see. It is the TE beleivers that has sought to try to meld atheistic evolutionary theory with the bible.

Teh secular evo's scorn the intrusion of the divine into pure naturalistic processes and the bible beleivers who scorn the intrusion of untrue thesis into the realm of Gods creative process. You guys created your own littel space by trying to synthesize to diametrically oppossed models of origins.

For someone who loves to quote commentator to prove their interpretation, you certainly seem to be ignoring the rich tradition of interpreting ge in 2Pet 3 as the globe. The context in both verses 5 and 7 of the heavens and earth certainly seems to suggest the planet earth as opposed to just the land. He is certainly talking planet in verse 7, which means kosmos in verse 6 is still contrasted with it.

Well send some of those "rich traditons" omto this web site and let us examine them!! I know of only pauper traditions violating rules of exegesis and grammar to come up with that interpretation!!

That is becauser having studied greek formally for a year and informally for seversal years on my own I know that "ge"'s primary meaning is dirt, soil, arable land, and in some cases (the majority of the 188 times it appears in the NT) as the abode of men and animals ( not as planet but as a metaphor when kosmos is used this way) and also as planet once. However when it stands in contrast to kosmos in a sentence it means dry land or ground and kosmos unless context dorectly demands it refers to the planet!

5For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:

Verse 5 matches this:

9And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

kosmos can only be translated as the planet-- only reinterpretation allows for implying i t means men--then you leave translation and enter into opinion. But again it is not what the Word of God says but what someones opinoin wants it to say!!

The kosmos that existed perished!! And the only recorded persihing we have is the global flood of Noah!!!

Event he Hebrew word for flood is opnly used of the globasl deluge mawbbul.

The rest of the use is either nahar (streams rivers) or zoram (flood to be carried away)

Even the NT uses the word kataklusmos only for the flood for it was a devstating.

You only have circumstantial evidences that dont hold up when used int eh context they are talking about. You have to go against 4,000 years of beleivers history to hold to a local flood (like in that whole time there would be no one risingup in the church or in Israel to say hey wait a minute-- the language of the text clearly shows only a local flood ! Beleive that and we got a bridge to sell you !!! )

 

[nolidad]

assyrian writes:

[QUOTE Is the co-author of Keil & Delitzsch the same Franz Delitzsch who wrote the New Commentary on Genesis in 1887? If so in the years between writing K&D and the New Commentary, Delitzsch gave a lot of thought to the linguistic arguments going on in Christian circles and came out in favour of a local (Mesopotamian) flood and the 'analogical days' interpretation of Gen 1.][/QUOTE]

Well unless there were two Franz Delitcszh who were Hebrew linguists at teh samet ime I would venture to say they are one and the same. I do not know of this work but I am willing to bet his change is on eisegetical and not an exegetical basis. Many during this time were abandoning the normal translation for the "higher critical" interpretations beginning to flourish. This was the time that the "schools of higher criticism" in Christian philosophy were beginning to flourish in light of suppossed scientific evidence and therer was no creation science movement to rebut the onslaught of secular science.

the lady kate writes:

What a load of complete hogwash.

its well known Darwin was oppossed to supernatural intervention.

Or, apparantly... invent.

Well if taking the Word of God at its face value without stretching meanings out of their context is inventing things:

Then condemn me as very guilty!!!


mrwilliams writes:

There are big issues about Darwin and natural theodicy and the origin of the origins. But to roll Wallace into that boat can only be done if you knocked him out first, Wallace ended up as a rather radical spiritualist, even by the standards of the late 19thC/early 20thC (he died 1913)

well he took up non christian spiritsm as a philosophy-not as a worldview-- He did not renounce materialistic evolution a sa result so--God was not in the picture in a significant way for Wallace. He was like many scientists are today--They are nominally Christian and have a rather ephemeral beleif in God--but not as omnipotent creator.

asyrian writes:

I would expect the world will show the evidence of what happened in its history from the time God created it to now. I do not expect a conflict between the scientific analysis of the world God created and God's account of what he did. If there is a conflict, it can either come from faulty science or a faulty understanding of the bible. As Christians, we need to examine both. In fact the bible lays more store on the reliability of the evidence of nature than it does on religious tradition. The advice in the bible is to test everything. Science does, rigorously, so even though there are scientists who aren't Christians, they apply biblical principles to their work.I would expect the world will show the evidence of what happened in its history from the time God created it to now. I do not expect a conflict between the scientific analysis of the world God created and God's account of what he did. If there is a conflict, it can either come from faulty science or a faulty understanding of the bible. As Christians, we need to examine both. In fact the bible lays more store on the reliability of the evidence of nature than it does on religious tradition. The advice in the bible is to test everything. Science does, rigorously, so even though there are scientists who aren't Christians, they apply biblical principles to their work. Unfortunately, I do not see the same scrupulous analysis and examination in YEC circles. They don't put their tradition to the test but seem to use any argument that they think supports it. In fact they seem to think because an argument supports their traditional interpretation it must be a sound argument. That is a very bad way to approach the bible.
They don't put their tradition to the test but seem to use any argument that they think supports it. In fact they seem to think because an argument supports their traditional interpretation it must be a sound argument. That is a very bad way to approach the bible.

What a nice reasopnable sounding logical approach that has no bearing on how we should approach the bible!! You even use Pauls commendation of the Bereans out of its context to support accepting secular science over the Word of God.

Its too bad you do not expect a conflict between secular science and the bible for the world knows there is!! That is an unequivocal truth--evolution and the bible are oppossed to each other when the bible is taken as written.

I could spend pages on why there are so many faulty understandings of scripture and all of themn are very valid and real arguments.


Asw fart as not seeing the critical analysis from YECers, then it is because you spend most of yoru time looking at hte final statements and not reviewing and intensley studying the analysis and work and research involved in coming to those scientific conclusions.

Assyrian even a novice bible student armed with just a bible and concordance would know that Genesis psoitvely declares a six 24 houtr day creation!!

Any bible student novice armed with only a concordance would come to the copnclusion that the flood of Gen.6-9 is written as global.

Local floods and day/ager theories are not based on exegesis and translation--but eisgesis and interpretation.

Teh bible has only interpretation--butr numerous apllications form the one interpretation. It is this amazing arrangement of God thatr has allowed the enemy of our souls to come in with reasonable sounding phrases and get people to come to beleive eisegesis is exegesis!! Sorry I am not in the majority of peoplw who declare themselves as Chrisatians and am roundly scorned for my beleifs but they are Scripture and I will defend them--especially when the secular theories that rebut the word as written are unfounded and unproven and form what can ber observed and tested- not happening.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!

There are big issues about Darwin and natural theodicy and the origin of the origins. But to roll Wallace into that boat can only be done if you knocked him out first, Wallace ended up as a rather radical spiritualist, even by the standards of the late 19thC/early 20thC (he died 1913)

well he took up non christian spiritsm as a philosophy-not as a worldview-- He did not renounce materialistic evolution a sa result so--God was not in the picture in a significant way for Wallace. He was like many scientists are today--They are nominally Christian and have a rather ephemeral beleif in God--but not as omnipotent creator.


i point out to you that Wallace was not just a theist but a particular kind of theist, a spiritualist. Who is almost by definition a supernaturalist not a materialist by any stretch. And you proceed to run off with the goalposts and accuse many scientists of being nominal Christians.

The issue was if Darwin and Wallace were trying to remove God from nature. I remind you that Wallace was a spiritualist and you proceed to claim that Wallace never renounced materialistic evolution, something he never proposed. He was a spiritualist to the core, as a quick scan of the quotations on science and spiritualism at his website readily show. In fact, later in life he plainly denounces materialists and embraces a spiritualism that sees the material world as ephemeral and not real.

But my main point remains, no one with the slightest exposure to A.R.Wallace would accuse him of being a materialist trying to remove God from nature. He is in fact, as close to a spiritual monist.

 

[Late_Cretaceous]

Remember Darwin and Wallace et al casme up with evolution to remove God from nature!

Actually, it is YECs who separate God from nature by claiming that abiogenesis is impossible.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Well if taking the Word of God at its face value without stretching meanings out of their context is inventing things:

Then condemn me as very guilty!!!
[cut and paste from below]
You even use Pauls commendation of the Bereans out of its context to support accepting secular science over the Word of God.

I must assume that you believe that the Sun orbits around the Earth.

Joshua 10:12-13
On the day the LORD gave the Amorites over to Israel, Joshua said to the LORD in the presence of Israel:
"O sun, stand still over Gibeon,
O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon."
So the sun stood still,
and the moon stopped,
till the nation avenged itself on its enemies,
as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.
courtesy of Biblegateway
New International Version (NIV)

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society
NIV at IBS International Bible Society NIV at Zondervan Zondervan​

He was like many scientists are today--They are nominally Christian and have a rather ephemeral beleif in God--but not as omnipotent creator.

God said "Let there be light" and the singularity he had created became a universe of light.
God said "Let there be land" and the universe cooled sufficiently to allow particles to form and coalesce.

Naw, nothing omnipotent about that...

http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rncse_content/vol17/5319_many_scientists_see_god39s__12_30_1899.asp

[in separate but similar polls:]
40% of biologists, mathematicians, physicians, and astronomers include God in the process [of human origins]
40 percent of the same scientists reported a belief in a God who answers prayers and in immortality.​

Exodus 20:16

"You shall not give false testimony against your neighbor.
(see also Deut 5:20, Matthew 15:19 ,Matthew 19:18-19(see also Mark and Luke))​

We clearly don't agree with your interpretation, we may even be missing something obvious about the greater meaning of failing to agree, but at worst that puts us in the position described in 1 Cor 3

11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.[ibid]​