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

[rmwilliamsll]

When the people of God fall and backslide we go tot he world and accept its philosophies. This has been true since the dispersion at Babel. When you look historically at eh Jews since the exodus-- you see that when they backslid against God-- they took on the ANE cosmologies and made them their own. Bu t when they got right with God again -- they went back to teh inspired revelation!! Teh ANE cosmologies are simply corruptions of the true revelation of cosmology. The 226 other flood accounts are simply corruptions of the true account, The varied myths of pagan cultures all have as their basis a germ of the truth.


if what you are saying is that the cosmology of the Bible, especially the cosmology of Gen 1 is the truth about the universe, you are simply wrong. This ANE cosmology is being used, not being taught, it is culturally bound to the ancient Hebrews, it is not trans-culture and authortatively speaking data to our science.. ..
This is the YECist problem, confusion the why and who of Creation with the how and what. The how and the what are being used to communicate, to set the stage, to wrap the love letter in an envelope so it can be delivered. It is not the message itself. To make a flat earth, geocentric solar system, explicitly binding on the conscience of all believers is not only foolish, but unrequired of our God.

i believe you are in the exact same position as the Presbyterian missionaries to the Kingdom of Hawaii.
They understood the transcultural mandate to be suitably and modestly adorned, yet mistook the form of that and put mumus on the Hawaiians. And told them that God was displeased with their naked breasts. This is cultural imperialism not Scriptural preaching. Likewise when the YECist insists that a flat earth and geocentric solar system are not being taught by Scripture but an anti-evolutionary science yes, he is not only missing the point, he is missing all the point, too far to the left to be consistently literal, to far to the right to be correct.
....

 

[shernren]

Well then you are opposed to God for Jesus said the word is not inspired myth but inspired logos. The pagan cultures after the dispersion at Babel made upi myth (like hercules and gilgamesh) but there has always been the truth that God inspired people to write down even as Peter said. God is not a big story teller-- and the times Jesus did tell stories (parables) the purpose He said was to hide the truth from unbeleivers!!!

And before I go down this "myth " path anymore- I want an explicit definition of what yuo mean when you use the term myth and I also want to know what the person meant when they said thew physical resurreftion was both historical and myth as well!! untilthen I shall notr answer anynmore about "myth"

Now he figures out that he's missed something. Here's a complete log of what has happened with this whole myth thing.

The resurrection is historical fact.
The resurrection is a myth as well.

If you don't understand how we can say this you will never learn how we think, and you will never understand the deep respect and knowledge we have of Scripture which we supposedly "reject".

It isn't TEs who are stuck in the rut of always wanting to prove things by science ... it's scientific creationists.

Well then please define myth for me. For I know of myth only as this:

an ancient story or set of stories, especially explaining in a literary way the early history of a group of people or about natural events and facts:

which uses fiction to show some truth IOW>

and I know fact as this:

something which is known to have happened or to exist, especially something for which proof exists, or about which there is information:

so unless you use myth in another way your statement is contradictory. It woulkd be like saying it si abright dark day. or a wet dry rain.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time, God came to earth and became man. The God-man walked and talked with His chosen people, but they did not recognize Him for who He was. In fact, He offended them so much (though this was all part of God's plan) that they crucified Him like a common criminal. Little did they know that three days later He arose from the dead! And by that He demonstrated His complete victory over sin and death.

What I just told you is the resurrection myth: an ancient story or set of stories explaining in a literary way the early history of Christianity. It is a story that also happens to be entirely historical. And myths never have to be untrue even if they are ahistorical.

I like your definition of myth.

The resurrection is of course history. We can assign a specific (range of) date(s) to it, plot a plausible sequence of cause-and-effect which led up to and led away from it, we know the main players, we see evidence of them elsewhere in history, we know how implausible any other explanatory theory is. History tells us that:

"on (such and such date) in (such and such year - 30AD, for discussion's sake) Jesus of Nazareth was crucified outside Jerusalem. Three days later He arose from the dead."

But the history part of it really doesn't touch emotions other than giving Christians (embedded in a scientism cultural matrix like flies on flypaper) a visceral satisfaction that their beliefs are "true" (in the modern sense of the word). I don't think any Christians are touched by the fact that Jesus died and rose again in AD30 - instead of AD50, or AD90, or AD300 ... that's what logos / history is, to me. A historical occurrence, pinned down to a specific date, pinned down to a specific locality, pinned down to a specific set of scientific (or supernatural) principles and happenings. And nobody believes Jesus because of the pinned-down-ness of His pivotal death and resurrection.

We believe because the death and resurrection are right here, right now (to some degree or other - not completely, but in part; the kingdom officiated but not consummated). We believe not because Jesus died and rose again 2000 years ago (or to the dot 1976, if it happened in AD30), but because Jesus' cleansing power and Jesus' victory over sin are available and present for us. When we participate in Jesus' death and resurrection in baptism - going down into the waters "of death" and rising up again "in new life" - we do not claim that we have been teleported back to the specific moment in AD30 when He performed His victory - the truth of His death and resurrection are present, available to us to recognize how we are reconciled to God. And in my personal meditation I have always found comfort and strength in meditating on the theme of the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, and on how I am in it in knowing Jesus' death and yet not having seen the fullness of His power firsthand - of course I do not mean that I am actually alive and functioning in that set of moments long ago, but that the truth of those moments have entered my life.

Considering the extreme emotional and dogmatic attachment many YECs have to YECism it may be instructive to consider just what the myth of YECism really is (in the same way that the "myth" behind the "history" of resurrection is that God has overcome death). YECs believe that the earth was created circa 6,000 years ago. And yet there is no typological or numerological significance to the number 6,000; creationists have no problem believing it might have been 8,000 or even 15,000. Where is the myth that drives them? It is not that God created the universe 6,000 years ago.

The myth of YECism is a Manichean myth: a long time ago, God told people how He created the world, and from Satan evolutionists came along and said a completely different thing, and now the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness are fighting to make people believe one or the other.

Notice how utterly abstract and distant this myth is from the actual text of Genesis 1. The real myth of Genesis 1 is the desacralization of creation, the establishment of the Sabbath, the proclamation of man as God's image: YECism takes this and replaces it with a narcissistic, anachronistic reflection of fundamentalism's eternal struggle.

 

[Gwenyfur]

You mean this thread isn't dead yet?

 

[nolidad]

mrwilliams11 writes:

You are allowing your major principle of history-Israel backslides and becomes like it's neighbors-to dictate the data and evidence to you. You are doing top down theorizing and missing the point entirely of using a cosmology.

Well when critics like try to impose a cosmology on a people who did not use that thinking- well that is dishonesty. And what is top down theorizing anyway?

flat earth, stationary earth, pillars, place of judgement underneath your feet, sun moves through the sky, etc etc.

well you show me Hebrew writing declaring flat earth. Teh sun does move through the sky though it does not revolve around the earth.

And the place of torments (the temporary abode oft he lost awaiting the lake of fire) is in the earth.

ANE cosmology is the Israelite/ancient Hebrew cosmology expressed in Gen 1. the big difference is the emptying of the universe of gods, the desacralization of the universe, God is separate from and above the physical creation, He created it and supervises it. Otherwise the cosmologies are the same between Babylonia, Egypt, Israel.

Now prove by literary demonstration that Israeli cosmology is the same as Babylons, Egypt and the other ancient civilizations desacralized.

gluadys writes:

It is a question of who is doing the imposing. If you had ancient documents that clearly spoke of outer space rather than outer waters, that would support your case. If they actually spoke of infinity--not just height-- that would support your case. They could do it with their vocabulary. If one can speak of time without end, one can speak of length or width or height or depth without end.

First off no one but God knows if space is infinite or not!
Second off all the evidence available clearly shows that eh Hebrews and the antecedant bible beleivers held to two materrial heavens. Job did speak of extreme space but not even modern science can accurately say space is infinite.

But since these concepts do not show up in ancient times, it seems those imposing them are those who try to read modern science into scripture.

Well you must be compalining of someone else for I have consistently said they had a rudimetnary understanding- not a modern undertstanding. They were mor einvolved in getting to know God than in theorizing about the stars.

Let's not forget as well just how modern science is. There are 1500 years of church history between the first century and the Copernican revolution. Although the cosmology Christians of that period accepted was somewhat different from that of the bible it was similar in some respects: no infinite expanse---and they did understand the concept of infinity; they attributed infinity to God, but never to the universe. No outer space--instead several firmaments of clear, solid crystal.

Well if you want to get in to various errors held by different sects of "christendoom" that is an entirely different subject for its own thread.

Show any Christian writing about the cosmos from that period which points to scripture speaking about infinite space, outer space. If the concept is in scripture, why is it not discovered by biblical scholars until after it is discovered by science? Why for over a millennium do Christian educational institutions describe the cosmos differently?

Well I know I can't find one on infinite space-because space is not infinite! As for concepts of 2 heavens (atmosphere and space) I will post many. ZJust remember untilt eh telescope was discovered nearly all cosmologies were very rudimentary and limited in their scope. But hte bible was the first to teach of the atmosphere and space (the heaven of heavens is a coimmon term in the OT)

Job may be an older story than Moses or even Abraham, but what we have in the bible was written long after Moses. Most scholars place it in the 5th century BCE. Writers can and do write about olden times, even in biblical days.

You mean most secualr scholars--but Jewish historians and bible scholars place jpob as the oldest written book of the bible.

And "very big" is not "infinite".

Well I do not beleive space is "infinite" Scripture declares that space is bounded so outer space though far vaster than we can imagine- does have finite boundaries. Science cannot prove otherwise.

They had a perfectly adequate technical vocabulary to describe what they wanted to describe. The circuit of heaven is the boundary of the non-infinite heaven, called a circuit because its shape is a circle as noted in other passages of scripture.

Circuit is defined as a path not a circle and some of the circuits were circles.

But since these concepts do not show up in ancient times, it seems those imposing them are those who try to read modern science into scripture.

Well if we were to say they understood 9 planets and hydrogen expansion and supernovae-yes we would be imposing modern though to the ancient texts. But taking the ancinet texts, exegeting the worda carefully and looking at the commentaries going back as far as possible is simply puttin their underrstanding in to moder terms. No one I know of who is YEC goes further than to say they had just a rudimetnary understanding. They just knew that there were massive amounts of stars, they knew of 2 heavens-one in which the birds flew and the one in which the sun, moon and stars all had their circuits.

 

[gluadys]

First off no one but God knows if space is infinite or not!

Einstein showed that space is not infinite. It is finite but unbounded.

However, subsequent to Copernicus up to the days of Einstein, it was assumed that space is infinite.

Job did speak of extreme space but not even modern science can accurately say space is infinite.

The reference you gave did not speak of space at all. It referred to the "height of heaven", which simply means the topmost point of heaven. That could be as little as 3 miles. If the zenith is 3 miles high, that is still the height of heaven.

Well if you want to get in to various errors held by different sects of "christendoom" that is an entirely different subject for its own thread.

I am not talking about obscure sects. I am talking about the majority consensus of the time, both in and out of the church. Have you never heard of Ptolemaic cosmology? It was THE standard secular and ecclesiatical understanding of cosmic structure for a millennium and a half.

Well I know I can't find one on infinite space-because space is not infinite!

You can find references to infinite space in the three centuries between Copernicus and Einstein, because that was the scientific view of the time. Of course, it was wrong, but that didn't mean people did not believe it right at the time. So they referred to it, as Pascal did.

You cannot find references to infinite space post-Einstein or pre-Copernicus. So why, in post 741 did you claim:

Actually teh infinity of space is first spoken of by Job.​

But hte bible was the first to teach of the atmosphere and space (the heaven of heavens is a coimmon term in the OT)

The bible nowhere speaks of space. You are assuming that references to heaven are references to space. That is imposing a modern scientific view onto an ancient text. Ancient peoples, including the Israelites, did not think of heaven as space. Even the heaven of heavens was not space.

At the very least, you would have to demonstrate from the ancient texts that this understanding (heaven=space) existed then.

You mean most secualr scholars--but Jewish historians and bible scholars place jpob as the oldest written book of the bible.

No, I mean the majority of Christian and Jewish biblical scholars as well as secular biblical scholars.

Well I do not beleive space is "infinite" Scripture declares that space is bounded

Bait and switch. You earlier claimed the bible spoke of infinite space. Now you claim scripture declares that space is bounded. Which is it--or does scripture contradict itself?

so outer space though far vaster than we can imagine- does have finite boundaries. Science cannot prove otherwise.

In fact, today's science claims space does not have finite boundaries but is finite in scope.

Circuit is defined as a path not a circle and some of the circuits were circles.

A circuit may not be a circle, but usually refers to a path that ends at its starting point, as a circle does.

They just knew that there were massive amounts of stars, they knew of 2 heavens-one in which the birds flew and the one in which the sun, moon and stars all had their circuits.

OK, I see what you mean by 2 heavens now. However, this is consistent with their flat-earth cosmology. It does not imply that the sun, moon and stars had their circuits in space. The bible clearly connects them with the firmament--which was thought to be a solid structure, not space. Birds, of course, flew within the enclosing dome of the firmament.

 

[shernren]

So let me get this straight:

Science is the study of the natural world. We agree.

God is the divine creator of the natural realm. I hope we agree.

All that we can see, feel, touch, taste in the natural world was ordered by God. I think we agree.

God definitely has things to say about the natural world in His book. But it can't be scientific because to say that would be reading "scientism" into the bible??

So I suppose we should accept the criticisms of secular historians as well and dsay the bible does not deal with history as well!!

Wow!!! I don't even know how to respond to such an off the wall statement like yours!! You should teach my wife how do to that-- she would not beleive that someone could make me speechless!

The Bible documents the science of its time, and the history of its time. The Bible doesn't teach me quantum physics but that doesn't make me doubt quantum physics, and the Bible never recorded World War II but that doesn't make me doubt that it happened. The trouble is that you believe that for the Bible to be true it must be true according to modern interpretations of truth and modern interpretations of science, and are reading modern science into a book written with ancient science.

In history, antiquity augments the value of a record; in science it diminishes the value, due to the fact that past measurements are invariably less precise than contemporary measurements (unless, of course, one is studying the history of science). You have chosen a most unfortunately inapplicable analogy.

Here I cannot stand firm on! For this could be an opening statment and then the rest of the chapter fills in the blanks of this opening statement but I disagree with that thought simply because of the construct of Genesis 1B and the earth weas tohow wavh bohuw- that is enough to convince met hat Genesis 1:1 a is an intial creation and the shamayim was just an empty vastness!!

Well, I won't pick a fight with you on this one - my main contention is that the further raqiya shamayims of the passage are all referring to the same firmament.

Well "my contention" comes from Hebrew linguisdtic sacholars and Hebrew historians. And you miss the point of the whole matter. Genesis 1:1 God creates a heaven.

vses3-5 God seperates the light from the dartkness in this newly created heaven

vse 6: 6And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.

He calls forth something new in this verse that wasn't present before-- an expanse that divided the waters! The expanse is called raqia-which is defined as a vaulted dome or stretched out thiness! Now this new thing which did not exist before God also calls shamayim as well! So now in the first 6 verses of Genesais we have two heavens created. and for the rest of the OT AFAIK htey use a lkinguistic tool to help identify the two.

Alright, refer above.

I could agree as well if God had so worded it that way but He didn't.
1:14 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

God says here that let there be the stars in the expanse of the heaven (remember raqia has several meanings and context determines which one it is)

Now 1:20-- 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

How is this raqiya different from the raqiya of 1:6 and 8?

This is a different construct of the Hebrew and firmament is not an adjectival noun of heaven! K&D and Dr. Fruchtenbaum render this that teh birds were commanded to fly in the face of the domed expanse called heaven.

Wasn't God in Gen 1:6 and 8 precisely creating a domed expanse called heaven?

Or you are talking about an antedeluvian ecology which was vastly different than ours and there would havew been some type of matrix holding the waters God divided in 1:6 and then had come crashing down in Chapter 6-9

And I suppose you can find the remains of this matrix fossilized in the earth.

I freely admit that I use TRUE science to understand Scripture i nplaces. Though not a textbook on science--When God wrote of matters scientific- they wqere 100% correct and factual and not allegorical or mythical or whathave you!! Once again God is the author of TRUE science so why should I not use methods God ordained to understand His word!

It's not that evolution is false science. It's (to be frank) that evolution is science you don't understand and so feel perfectly licensed to call false science.

Been there, done that and that turkey just won't fly!! All Gluadys did is point out that some modern liberal nominal beleivers that are well educated in mid east history have sought to impose upon the Hebrew race and the pre Noahic peoples the common beleif of the day when the Biblwe shows the elect beleived different! I fully know that most neighboring cultures have wrecords showing they beleived in a domed sky and the stars were like painted on that dome. But to say the Hebrew and pre Hebrew elect beleive this is utter nonsense!! Especially when so many Jewish linguists have so stated iotherwise. Teh beleif in the three heavens of the bible (air, space, Gods throne) dates back to well before the kings and judges and patriarchs!

This could be interesting. As far as I know the very first record of a heaven being explicitly called "the third heavens" is Paul in 2 Corinthians talking of being caught up to there. Hardly patriarchal times.

Let's study this!

I can't-- nor can you show me anywhere that they did not leave the Meso region either. But to again point out your dilemna-- archeologists unearthed the cave drawings and dated them back to over 4,000 years before the flood- so we have sin and death outside the Meso region in your beleif systems!! Now you have to reconcile them. And even if they never did leave the fertile crescent-- God said He was going to destroy the world, and He emphasized that when He said everything that hath the breath of life in it!!! So according to Gods own Words only the survivors of the ark were spared!!!!

But I never said the flood was 4,000 years ago, did I? (scratches head. This is a really long thread and I've been learning new things between back then and now.)

Do you think Darwin and Asa Grey were the first to vccome up with these ideas?? I hope not. there was growing thought and theorizing on these ideas- they were not readily accepted but the idea of an old earth (ont he beleivers side) and naturalistic evolution (on the unbeleivers side) were beginnig to grow-- I use Darwin as a demarcation for his book help popularize the idea and got the balls of both these courts rolling faster than ever before. Okay now?? UNderstand?

Cuvier and Agassiz started by believing in a young earth and a single global flood. The evidence told them otherwise.

 

[Assyrian]

Sorry for the delay folks, I've been in Ireland seeing the inlaws.

Assyrian: Actually the literal translation is 'dying you will die'. This grammatical structure was the common Hebrew idiom meaning 'surely die'. But it is really a bad idea to try to squeeze some meaning out of a direct translation of an idiom rather than what the idiom actually meant...

nolidad: Well I think I will stick with my Hebrewe language teachers-- they both have read and written Hebrew probably longer than you have been a live-- one was actuallyt he son fo a chief rebbi! So sorry

Not much of an 'appeal to authority' if you don't actually tell us what your authorities say. But if you want to rely of the literal meaning of the words that make up a common idiom, if I told you there was no one in the room when the lights went out, would you take it as evidence of poltergeist activity? All by themselves the lights went out. How did they leave without any help? 'Dying you will die' is an idiom. It means surely die. It doesn't mean gradually die any more than 'the lights went out' means they left the room. The bible tells us Adam would surely died the day he ate from the tree. The only death he died that day was spiritual.

Assyrian: I'm not sure where you get this idea of primary meaning being 'manage'. the primary meaning is to hedge about (with thorns) or guard. In other words, protect. Were the cherubim with the flaming sword meant to manage the garden after Adam left? It is the same word shamar.

nolidad: Its called a hebrew dictionary

Again we just have to take your word for it. Nor have you looked at the use of shamar in just the next chapter of Genesis when we have cherubim with a flaming sword commissioned to shamar the garden after Adam was thrown out.

Well then you and shernren and mrwillians and mallon must be another category for you dont beleive in genesis as I do nor as most bible beleiving Christinas. You hold to a reintrerpreted account of Genesis- not the one written.

Here we have this quaint view that YECs don't interpret Genesis. You interpret it the same way atheists do, and it is just that, an interpretation.

Even stranger is your insistence that Genesis says some of the YEC doctrines that simply aren't in the text, like a literal six day creation, or God creating vegetarian lions or no animal death before the fall or that all the animals were cursed during the fall. These are all human theories read into a text that doesn't support them.

Its been qoute mined alot by your side. This is the third forum I have debated E/C material and all you guys say the identical stuff (sometimes almost verbatim) and its all on talkorigins.org. Seems to be the clearing house for anrtibiblical thought on origins.

No answer then? You claimed talkorigins knew that the scriptures speak of a young earth.

Wow!! This is so bad I don't even know how to repsond to this stuff!! the groaning is because GOD (read GOD not man) subjected the whole creation to decay, destruction and persihing (phthora) against its "will"

ands will keep it such until all the sons of God are revealed. Now you have the burden of proof to show that it is before the fall as you reject it is connected with the fall.

Actually your are the one who claims it is connected to the fall, it is your responsibility to back that up. As it is you don't have a single verse that connects animal death to the fall.

'Against its will' is a good try, but again it is not what the bible says. There is a word which mean unwilling, akon, which puts the negative a- in front of the word Paul used, but what Paul is saying is that the bondage to decay is not because of the will of creation but because God subjected it. Given that the bible tells us clearly the fall was the result of an act of will on the part of created man, then I don't see how the bondage to decay in Romans 8 could be the result of the fall.

If you are right that the 'bondage to decay' in Romans is all part of the 'death' Adam was warned about if he sinned, then Adam did willingly choose death and decay when he rebelled. But Paul say decay is not of the creation's will. The bondage to decay in Romans cannot be the result of the fall, rather, as Paul tells us in 1Cor 15, it is the way God originally made us.

3 impotrtant words here

Every: it means ALL
herb--vegetation, green plant

meat--means food to be devoured

I have a verse-- now you show me one that supersedes this command. He didn't say "every" (with the exception of the carnivores) he said to every beast of the earth!

Despite all the fancy twists and turns-- youy have not yet been able to refute this simple verse which is a command of God to teh animals!!

I think God put in th ewords "and it was so" just to help those who have become confused by Darwin and the gang!!!

'All' is simply not the issue. I never said 'with the exception of the carnivores'. Every beast of the earth gets it food from the plants God provided, lions included. The simple issue is that the passage never says lions were vegetarian before the fall. It never says God only create herbivores. It does not say God 'commanded' any creature to stick to veg. It simply says what God provided. We see the same provision today.

Did the all the Israelites and the foreign labourers eat clay every seven years? That is how your interpretation would read Lev 25:6And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. It is the same term in Hebrew, but there is no problem in Leviticus with the Israelites getting their food indirectly through the land growing plants rather than eating the land itself, and even through sheep and cattle being raised on the plants the land produced before being eaten by the Israelites.

Comeon Assyrian(see I can do that to for dramatic effect!) The bible clearely says that every beast of the earth was given the the vegetation for meat and then God say it was so!! So somewhere between the time they were spoken into existence by God and the first bite on undercooked patties-- there was a change in the original order! You need to quit thinking bercause it doesn't say the didn't east meat it means it does when you have a so very clear command of God saying what he ordered the land animals to eat in the beginning. You also have to make the first men carnivorouos as well, God also didn't tell him he could not eat meat-- ber consistnet in you rillogical logic!! Then God scommand that it is okay to eat merat in Genesis 9 is just God having an senior moment!!

I don't care at all what men who were not there and did not observe what happened when God spoke it all into existencve theorize about what had to haver happened when I have the Words of the GOD who was there and gave it in simple straight forward words.

OK you can do the dramatic effect, but then you don't provide any evidence. As they say over your way, where's the beef?

Just show me a verse that say animals were all herbivores before the fall or that meat eating was the result of the fall rather than claiming commandments where none exist. God never commanded animals to eat only plants. The fact that God was there doesn't help you, because you don't have the Words of God to support your claims. If you want to claim evolution is wrong because it contradict the bible, show us the passages that support this.

I don't see where you get the idea that this would make the first men carnivores. I never claimed antelopes and sheep were carnivores. God providing lions with prey that had been fed on grass doesn't mean that man had to be a carnivore too, though there is nothing in the bible that says he wasn't. I do wonder what Abel with the rest of the animals after he sacrificed the fat portions. Gen 9 is a command not to eat blood. But when he talked about eating meat, was God making a new provision or was it the renewal of an old one? After all God bases it on having already given man all things. I have given you all things. Are you saying when God gave man dominion over every creature he meant as long as he didn't kill or eat any? I don't think it makes any difference whether people before the flood were veggie or not, you just don't have scriptural evidence saying they were. Gen 9 certainly doesn't tell us what people ate before the flood.

Do you really want to use this? Didn't you ever learn that the word "as" is used as a comaprative to describe something and n ot to be literal?? Aren't you in college?? So if God uses the word day and it means a thousand years- then you must mean that Jesus is taking three thousand years to rise from the dead!!! It still doesn't help you rcase cause that puts God taking 6,000 years to create everything which is at a minimum 11,999,999,994,000 years short of the youngest age of the universe!! But it does fall into the scinetific view of TE's of 6-10K years for creation!! But it is not written to be construed as an absolute, but a comparative passage. And it is not even speaking concerning creation either

Why do you insist that if God's idea of day is different to ours that every mention of the word day in scripture has to be interpreted as a thousand years? Do you think Moses would have agreed with your stilted literalist interpretation of his Psalm? I find YECs get very touchy when Psalm 90 and 2Pet 3 are mentioned and launch into an argumentum ad absurdum that try to take every mention of day as a thousand years.

So, happy having taken a biblical truth to the absurd, they ignore the wisdom and advice of the only writer in the bible who mentions God creating the world in 'six days' that God's view of a day is very different from ours.

'As' gives us a comparison, Gods days to our timescale. Moses uses 'as' in the Psalm to describe God's days. Do you really think God's days are only as a thousand years in Psalm 90? Is Psalm 90 a thousand years long and we don't realise it? Or is Moses telling us what time is like from God's perspective? He uses an 'as' to compare God's perspective to ours, but the difference between God timescale and ours exists outside the simile in Psalm 90. The simile is used to explain it to us. Interestingly, it is when Moses talks about the creation he reminds us that God's days aren't the same as ours.

to shernren:

Simple answer?? You and I both know that if we go to the sacriptures without any bias and just seek to learn what it says we come up with the following conclusions

1. Six 24 hour days for all of creation

Not in any passage I know of, however we are warned not to forget this one thing, that God's days can be much longer than ours.​

2. Earth first then the stars

and yet the morning stars sang when the foundations of the earth were laid...​

3. An atmosphere to seperate earth bound from airbound water

We call it 'clouds'​

4. Things were specifically created

True, but we are not told how they were created​

and ordered to reproduce after their own kind

Not in my bible.​

6. Material universe is 6-10 K years

Not in my bible.​

7. All animal liferestricted to fruits and veggies at first.

Not in my bible.​

8. Man fell god cursed creation as a result​

No, in my bible says God just cursed Adam and Eve, a snake and the ground Adam farmed​

9. God destroyed the world with a flood and only spared 8 adults and 2 of each kind of animal and 7 pairs of the clean animals.

Or God destroyed the whole land.​

These ideas of a local flood and long ages were unheard of amongst beleivers until Darwin and Wallace and Lyell et al. came on the scene!! These were unbeleivers- The same Biblew you say you respect also says they are in darkness- why should we trust them with what God meant when He inspired the writers to write??

The idea of a globe was unknown when the OT was written. How far is the east from the west on a globe? Are you getting your cosmology from unbelievers like Pythagoras Aristotle and Eratosthenes? In the NT, when the the more educated would have understood the shape of earth, people writing about the flood neglect to tell us it was global. Peter switches from God creation the earth ge, to the kosmos being destroyed in a flood. I don't think he meant the universe was underwater, rather, as Genesis tells us, human civilisation was wiped out. He then switches back to talking about the earth being destroyed by fire. Why do you think Peter sidestepped the idea of the 'earth' being flooded when he used 'earth' for both the creation and end of the planet?​

Oops post too long... more later​

Assyrian​

 

[Assyrian]

No one is arguing that!! Context determines meaning!! And the flood account with terms like all, every, whole heavens-- it can only mean the planet, unless you can prove that other men in other areas were living holy lives and were spared destruction by God.

Or that the human race was confined to that land.

The whole heavens doesn't help you much when Genesis describes the heavens as a flat expanse. This is true if you are describing the sky from horizon to horizon, not if you think it is a sphere enclosing the globe. Remember we are talking about Noah's description of what happened under what he meant by 'the whole heaven'.

Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. This is a description of the sky we see above us, it does not tell us the atmosphere and space surrounds the planet in all directions.

He was a fugitive onthe whole planet (erets), that is why he was given an identifying mark so no one would kill him in his weanderings. And he was booted out of his area (erets) and settled into another erets. C,mon look atr all the verses and know the whole context.

If he was to be a fugitive and wanderer on the whole planet (erets) how did he settle in the land (erets) of Nod? God said he was going to be a fugitive and wanderer, either that erets meant an area or God got it wrong. He did not remain a fugitive on the planet earth, he settled down and built a city.

to shernren:

Well I should have looked a little deeper on line before saying I didn't know of any commetnaries calling Psalm 104 a creation account- cause it appears commentators calling it a creation account outnumber those calling it the flood! While I hold most of the commentators I saw who hold to it being in creation ingreat respect- I think they were just wrong (BTW they all were global flood folk that I read likekBarnes, Henry, Spurgeon, Wesley et al.) Just because the loine that they should no more cover the earth again!

So Psalm 104 talks about the creation and follows the sequence of days in Gen 1. It speaks of a time we when the earth was covered in water as Gen 1 does before God created the land. It tells us God established boundaries to the water so that the earth would not be covered in water again, as were also told in the creation accounts in Job 38 and Proverbs 8. But you reject this clear and consistent teaching of the OT creation accounts because it contradicts your interpretation of the flood. Yet there is nothing in the flood account that tells us the whole planet was flooded rather than Noah's land. While Psalm 104, Job 38 and Prov 8 tell us your interpretation of the flood is wrong.

Which leaves us with a creation account in Psalm 104 that contains carnivorous lions.

Well I hate to break this news to you-- but unbeleivers are not blessed by God with the ability to understand the Scriptures--It is a supernatural book which requires a person to be filled with the Spirit in order to beleive and fully understand it! So sorry Darwin et al. really cannot help us in understanding Scripture-- and that includes those areas of ther bible that deal with Scientific things.

So when YECs and atheists come up with the same interpretation of Genesis, it must mean the YEC interpretation lacks the supernatural interpretation we need to understand scripture?

Or do you believe atheists are being inspired like the Caiaphas when they interpret Genesis?

...Isaiah 40:22, Job 22:14 tell us that the earth is a sphere!! But even so that is not importing Science into the bible that is the Bible telling science what is true!!

Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. Sounds like he is describing a flat, circular earth with a bowl shaped heavens above it.

Job 22:14 Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.'That is Eliphaz speaking so not the most inspired account, however he uses the same word 'circle' to describe the heavens as Isaiah uses for the earth. I suspect you are reading your pagan Greek globe interpretations into the godly flat circle we see in scripture.

How did Elihu view the cosmos? Job 37:18 Can you, like him, spread out the skies, hard as a cast metal mirror?

My proposition is that anything labelled "science falsely called" by creationists is really science falsely understood by creationists.

Anything labelled "science falsely called" by creationists is really bible falsely understood by creationists who rely to heavily on the AV. The word used is gnosis or knowledge, not science.

I could agree as well if God had so worded it that way but He didn't.
1:14 14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

God says here that let there be the stars in the expanse of the heaven (remember raqia has several meanings and context determines which one it is)

Now 1:20-- 20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

This is a different construct of the Hebrew and firmament is not an adjectival noun of heaven! K&D and Dr. Fruchtenbaum render this that teh birds were commanded to fly in the face of the domed expanse called heaven.

If you really really are interested I will see if I can dig up the nuance diiference of these two passages. But if you want you can do a search of Hebrew commetnary of Genesis and see thaT many will say this as well.

How is the expanse of the heavens raqiya ha'shamayim in Gen 1:14 different from raqiya ha'shamayim in Gen 1:20?

Anyway, here is my take on the subject. I see two meanings of the word heaven in Genesis. There are the heavens God created in Gen 1:1 which are the heavens that exist today both the physical universe and the spiritual realms. We are told God created them but they are not explained to us, but Genesis tells here us that the universe astronomers study today, God created in the beginning.

God creates what looks like a flat or bowl shaped expanse to separate the waters below the expanse (sea) from the water above the expanse (clouds). The expanse is what we call the sky. It is described as an expanse is because it stretches out flat or bowl shapped from horizon to horizon. Then we get a cosmology for neolithics lesson. God calls the expanse 'heavens'. Now we were already told God had created the heavens before he created the expanse, but this is a simplified version. See the sky with the clouds streatched across it? Lets call that 'heavens' for now. So in this purposely simplified cosmology, clouds are in the flat stretched out expanse of the heavens, bird of the heavens fly across its face, the sun moon and stars are lights in the heavens marking our days seasons and years. Gen 1:1 tells us there is more to the heavens than the sky, but that understanding will do for now.

There is no reference to the atmosphere curving completely around the earth, what Genesis calls the heavens, what Genesis teaches its neolithic listeners to call the heavens is simply the sky above them, the seemingly flat expanse from horizon to horizon. so when Noah talks of the high hills under the whole heaven being covered with water, he is using the vocabulary God gave us in Gen 1, he is talking about the hills under the visible expanse of the sky from horizon to horizon.

Been there, done that and that turkey just won't fly!! All Gluadys did is point out that some modern liberal nominal beleivers that are well educated in mid east history have sought to impose upon the Hebrew race and the pre Noahic peoples the common beleif of the day when the Biblwe shows the elect beleived different! I fully know that most neighboring cultures have wrecords showing they beleived in a domed sky and the stars were like painted on that dome. But to say the Hebrew and pre Hebrew elect beleive this is utter nonsense!! Especially when so many Jewish linguists have so stated iotherwise. Teh beleif in the three heavens of the bible (air, space, Gods throne) dates back to well before the kings and judges and patriarchs!

It's a pity then the bible called the sky flat.

But iI do not think it an accident that after genesis 6 when the atmosphere is spoken of it is referred to as heaven. Because the raqia was shattered in Genesis 6-9 with the flood and the heavens underwent a large change!!

Where does the bible say the firmament was shattered with the flood?

Cheers Assyrian

 

[nolidad]

gluadys writes:

Einstein showed that space is not infinite. It is finite but unbounded.

However, subsequent to Copernicus up to the days of Einstein, it was assumed that space is infinite.

Let us be correct--Einstein theorized space is finite and unbounded. Itr matters not what people assume- it is what can be proven that matters and the bible declares that space has bounds set on it by God!

The reference you gave did not speak of space at all. It referred to the "height of heaven", which simply means the topmost point of heaven. That could be as little as 3 miles. If the zenith is 3 miles high, that is still the height of heaven.

Well in the hebrew th e heights are considerd very high fo rthe second heaven. Once again how high we do not know, but JOb knew the stares were innumerable and the pleides and orion were there in space so in his prescientific understanding he knew space was very high.

The bible nowhere speaks of space. You are assuming that references to heaven are references to space. That is imposing a modern scientific view onto an ancient text. Ancient peoples, including the Israelites, did not think of heaven as space. Even the heaven of heavens was not space.

No this is imposing Jewish teachjing on Jewish writings!! Even as far back as 200B.C. c. there are extrabibloical records speaking of the different heavens--that takes it out of the realm of modern thought and into ancient Jewish teaching!

I am not talking about obscure sects. I am talking about the majority consensus of the time, both in and out of the church. Have you never heard of Ptolemaic cosmology? It was THE standard secular and ecclesiatical understanding of cosmic structure for a millennium and a half.

Well I care not about church cosmology wehen the church was ensnared in pagan philosophies during the dark ages.

You cannot find references to infinite space post-Einstein or pre-Copernicus. So why, in post 741 did you claim:

That is my bad I meant that space was known to be vast-- I guess I can chock that up to typing faster than my brain was thinking.

At the very least, you would have to demonstrate from the ancient texts that this understanding (heaven=space) existed then.

Deut. 10:

14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

1 Kings 8:

27But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?

2 Chron.6:

18But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!

Neh.9:

6Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Psalm 19:

1The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psalm 115:

16The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

2 Cor.12:

2I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven.

So I think we see the bible clearly showing the concept of three heavens--the air, space and the city of God.

No, I mean the majority of Christian and Jewish biblical scholars as well as secular biblical scholars.

I think you mean liberal nominal Chroistian and Jewish Scholars-- I think we can banter this about for pages showing different schilars showing why-- I go with JOb being the oldest Just simply by its context and language and narrative.

OK, I see what you mean by 2 heavens now. However, this is consistent with their flat-earth cosmology. It does not imply that the sun, moon and stars had their circuits in space. The bible clearly connects them with the firmament--which was thought to be a solid structure, not space. Birds, of course, flew within the enclosing dome of the firmament.

A flat earth cosmology is imposed on Jewish and pre Jewish beleivng culture by scholars without evidence!! They say because the surrounding cultures beleived it- the Jews did as well and that is simply not true based on the earfliest extra biblical Jewish teachings we have!!

 

[rmwilliamsll]

Well I care not about church cosmology wehen the church was ensnared in pagan philosophies during the dark ages.

this is a curious statement. Church history is a field for evidence of what people believed that the Bible taught. The contention is that since the church was "ensnared by pagan philosophies" that the ideas that they held are not evidence at all for what they believed? or are not evidence for what the Bible teaches?

the really curious thing is that this directly contradicts the doctrine of the perspecuity of Scripture. That is Scripture does speak clearly about the essentials of the Gospel to all people, all tongues, all ages. Not just to those currently living and writing on this forum. How brasen, how self centered and conceited to believe that those now living are the height of Biblical interpretation, that everything that went before use is nonsense and pagan influenced. That our time alone has the clear, literal, accurate picture of what the Bible teaches.

what is clear is that such an attitude can be shown as very wrong with the simple question:
when was the last time that denominations split because of this attitude?
yesterday, the day before?
for they have on continuity with the past, they depreciate everything that went before them on the grounds that it is contaminated by pagan philosophy. Like YECism has incorporated the historicisim and scientism of our age, that it was fallen sway to the Scottish Common Realism of the earlier 19thC and never seems to understand the distinctions between interpretation and the text itself.

given this attitude, what do people think the successors to today's YECist will say about their theology in 200 years? it was pagan influenced and how could they even thought that they had read the SCriptures, for we know that we alone have the right truth.

 

[Willtor]

As far as various "heavens":

. . .

In the world-picture of antiquity, particularly in that of the Near East, the visible world was thought to be spanned by a huge bell-shaped bowl, the so-called firmament. This firmament from our standpoint constitutes, so to speak, the begininning of heaven, a reality we cannot see. Above the firmament there comes a tremendous ocean, which is separated from the earth by the firmament. It is only above this ocean that the third, the real heaven comes, which constitutes the throne of God.

. . .

- Karl Barth (Dogmatics in Outline, p.61)

I am fairly concerned about the attempted adoption of ancient Hebrew cosmology as our own, albeit reading what is "obvious" into it. The fact that Biblical cosmology fits so well with ANE cosmology ought to indicate something of the background of the ancient Hebrews with respect to the surrounding societies.

 

[gluadys]

Let us be correct--Einstein theorized space is finite and unbounded. Itr matters not what people assume- it is what can be proven that matters and the bible declares that space has bounds set on it by God!

What makes you think Einstein "assumed" this. You were right in your first sentence--he theorized this to explain some troubling observations and suggested ways of testing the theory to see if it held up against reality.

Why would other scientists accept Einstein's assumptions if they were only assumptions? He wasn't a famous scientist when he proposed his theory. He's famous because, upon testing, his theory did hold up against reality. He was right.


You haven't even shown me yet where the bible speaks of space, much less that it says space is bounded.

Well in the hebrew th e heights are considerd very high fo rthe second heaven. Once again how high we do not know, but JOb knew the stares were innumerable and the pleides and orion were there in space so in his prescientific understanding he knew space was very high.

He knew the firmament was a long way up. He knew nothing of space.

No this is imposing Jewish teachjing on Jewish writings!! Even as far back as 200B.C. c. there are extrabibloical records speaking of the different heavens--that takes it out of the realm of modern thought and into ancient Jewish teaching!

But you have not shown that the heavens are equivalent to space or that ancient Jewish teachers thought of the heavens as space.

Well I care not about church cosmology wehen the church was ensnared in pagan philosophies during the dark ages.

what rmwilliamsll said

That is my bad I meant that space was known to be vast-- I guess I can chock that up to typing faster than my brain was thinking.

Noted.

Deut. 10:

14Behold, the heaven and the heaven of heavens is the LORD's thy God, the earth also, with all that therein is.

1 Kings 8:

27But will God indeed dwell on the earth? behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded?

2 Chron.6:

18But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!

Neh.9:

6Thou, even thou, art LORD alone; thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the earth, and all things that are therein, the seas, and all that is therein, and thou preservest them all; and the host of heaven worshippeth thee.

Psalm 19:

1The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork.

Psalm 115:

16The heaven, even the heavens, are the LORD's: but the earth hath he given to the children of men.

2 Cor.12:

2I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth such an one caught up to the third heaven.

So I think we see the bible clearly showing the concept of three heavens--the air, space and the city of God.

Air below the firmament, yes. God above the firmament, yes. But there is not a single word about space in these verses. The words are heaven and heavens and heaven of heavens. And in Genesis the firmament is called heaven. The firmament is not space. So where is the evidence that the biblical writers or the old rabbinic teachers ever thought that heaven or the heaven of heavens consisted of space?

I think you mean liberal nominal Chroistian and Jewish Scholars-- I think we can banter this about for pages showing different schilars showing why-- I go with JOb being the oldest Just simply by its context and language and narrative.

If by liberal you mean people that do not deny evidence because of religious ideology, you would be right.

A flat earth cosmology is imposed on Jewish and pre Jewish beleivng culture by scholars without evidence!! They say because the surrounding cultures beleived it- the Jews did as well and that is simply not true based on the earfliest extra biblical Jewish teachings we have!!

And how early are those teachings?

 

[nolidad]

Willtor writes:

I am fairly concerned about the attempted adoption of ancient Hebrew cosmology as our own, albeit reading what is "obvious" into it. The fact that Biblical cosmology fits so well with ANE cosmology ought to indicate something of the background of the ancient Hebrews with respect to the surrounding societies.

Yes there are some similarities, but teh differences between Hebrew and ANE cosmology are enormous. Just like there are similarities between capitalistioc and communistic economies, but it is the differences that make them unlike each other. Once again 20th century opines do not make the Hebrews adopting the cosmologies of their pagan neighbors. They were given a divine revelation that was vastly different from the ir pagan enemies.

Gluadys writes:

Why would other scientists accept Einstein's assumptions if they were only assumptions? He wasn't a famous scientist when he proposed his theory. He's famous because, upon testing, his theory did hold up against reality. He was right.

And the empirical evidence that proves his theory is??

You haven't even shown me yet where the bible speaks of space, much less that it says space is bounded.

I did , you just refuse to accept the answer

But you have not shown that the heavens are equivalent to space or that ancient Jewish teachers thought of the heavens as space.

They recognized two different material heavens, it may not be technical enough for you, but it is space they werwe referring to . Check out Jewish teachings on the three heavens-- then you will see what they taught and believed.

Air below the firmament, yes. God above the firmament, yes. But there is not a single word about space in these verses. The words are heaven and heavens and heaven of heavens. And in Genesis the firmament is called heaven. The firmament is not space. So where is the evidence that the biblical writers or the old rabbinic teachers ever thought that heaven or the heaven of heavens consisted of space?

After Noahs flood firmament(raqia) almost completely disappears and heaven takes its place. When the heavens of heavens is used in a nonmetaphorical use- it always refers to wehere the stars abide. That is space in non technical terminology. You just simply need to accept that tehy had an understanding given to them from God--not their pagan neighbors.

If by liberal you mean people that do not deny evidence because of religious ideology, you would be right.

Well actually they do reinterpret passages to make it say someothing not intended by the authors and they are abler to get away with it cause they got PHD after their name.

And how early are those teachings?

Which ones? Teh bible teachings? They go back to Job.

 

[Willtor]

Yes there are some similarities, but teh differences between Hebrew and ANE cosmology are enormous. Just like there are similarities between capitalistioc and communistic economies, but it is the differences that make them unlike each other. Once again 20th century opines do not make the Hebrews adopting the cosmologies of their pagan neighbors. They were given a divine revelation that was vastly different from the ir pagan enemies.

Actually, the only significant difference I can find deals with the theology. Yes, that is different. But the world view is pretty much the same.

 

[gluadys]

And the empirical evidence that proves his theory is??

Pretty well all of modern physics and cosmology--except for quantum mechanics which he never accepted.

I did , you just refuse to accept the answer

You just keep repeating stuff about heaven assuming that this is equivalent to "space". You haven't shown that the biblical writers or their readers connected the two concepts as the same.

They recognized two different material heavens, it may not be technical enough for you, but it is space they werwe referring to . Check out Jewish teachings on the three heavens-- then you will see what they taught and believed.

The Jewish teachings on the heavens will not tell me about space unless they make it clear that they considered the heavens to be space. Can you not find one reference to support this claim?

After Noahs flood firmament(raqia) almost completely disappears and heaven takes its place.

The firmament IS heaven (sky). See Psalm 19:1, 150:1, the first chapter of Ezekiel and Ezekiel 10:1 and Daniel 12:3. In all cases the firmament is spoken of as a present reality, long after the flood. There is no scriptural support whatsoever for the notion that the firmament disappeared in Noah's day. Such a thing is not mentioned in the flood account or anywhere else in scripture. The idea is a modern YEC invention inserted into scripture to support its pseudo-scientific theories about the flood and about pre-flood earth.

When the heavens of heavens is used in a nonmetaphorical use- it always refers to wehere the stars abide. That is space in non technical terminology.

Only to a post-Copernican. Prior to the 16th century no one in the Middle East, North Africa or Europe thought of the stars existing in space. They believed the stars to be fastened to or encased in the firmament. In Ptolemaic cosmology, the stars, with the exceptions of the five planets (which were considered to be stars as well) were positioned in the sphere of fixed stars. The sphere was held to be made of solid, but perfectly transparent crystal. There is simply no place for space in either medieval or ancient world-views.

Inserting the notion of space into ancient texts is an interpretive anachronism.

You just simply need to accept that tehy had an understanding given to them from God--not their pagan neighbors.

I accept that they had a different theological understanding because that is plainly recorded in their writings both biblical and extra-biblical. I will accept that they had a different cosmological understanding when that is shown in their writings. I see no reason to believe they had a different understanding in their heads and never wrote it down.

Which ones?

The earliest extra-biblical Jewish teachings you spoke of.

 

[nolidad]

mrwilliams11 writes:

i believe you are in the exact same position as the Presbyterian missionaries to the Kingdom of Hawaii.
They understood the transcultural mandate to be suitably and modestly adorned, yet mistook the form of that and put mumus on the Hawaiians. And told them that God was displeased with their naked breasts. This is cultural imperialism not Scriptural preaching. Likewise when the YECist insists that a flat earth and geocentric solar system are not being taught by Scripture but an anti-evolutionary science yes, he is not only missing the point, he is missing all the point, too far to the left to be consistently literal, to far to the right to be correct.

No that is letting the hawaiins know their cultural traditions run against the dictates of Scripture not vice versa.

As for being anti evolution--well we just report the facts--just the facts!!

if what you are saying is that the cosmology of the Bible, especially the cosmology of Gen 1 is the truth about the universe, you are simply wrong. This ANE cosmology is being used, not being taught, it is culturally bound to the ancient Hebrews, it is not trans-culture and authortatively speaking data to our science.. ..
This is the YECist problem, confusion the why and who of Creation with the how and what. The how and the what are being used to communicate, to set the stage, to wrap the love letter in an envelope so it can be delivered. It is not the message itself. To make a flat earth, geocentric solar system, explicitly binding on the conscience of all believers is not only foolish, but unrequired of our God.

I find it amusiong that it is only you who hold to a very liberal interpretation of scripture keep yacking about flat earth and geo centric cosmology especially when the bible doesn't, nor do many bible beleivers over the centuries. Columbus beleived the world was round from His studies of the Scripture which ran contrary to the scientific/religious though tof the day.


Shernren writes:

Notice how utterly abstract and distant this myth is from the actual text of Genesis 1. The real myth of Genesis 1 is the desacralization of creation, the establishment of the Sabbath, the proclamation of man as God's image: YECism takes this and replaces it with a narcissistic, anachronistic reflection of fundamentalism's eternal struggle.

Well for all your elucidating on your theory and all yoru attacks against YEC beleivers you have yet to answer the simple question I asked--- How do yu define the resurrection as myth and what is your definition of myth in these terms?? Is the question to simple for your apparent superior vocabulary to enumerate in words?? And all your accusations and attacks still do not impress me! Were they designed to intimidate YEC people to abandoin the truth for a lie that you hold Genesis 1 to be?? No matter how you cut it, You have God instructoing people in something completely untrue according to your beleif to teach a moral lesson as true. And in case you think not then let me give you another verse:

Exodus 20:

8 "Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your animals, nor the alien within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

You have completely reversed the reason for the Sabbath.

You: God told a fabricatred story to get people to honor a sabbath

Bible: God told people to honor the Sabbath because HE created all things in 6 days and rested the seventh so He wanted His OT people to do the same!!

The Bible documents the science of its time, and the history of its time. The Bible doesn't teach me quantum physics but that doesn't make me doubt quantum physics, and the Bible never recorded World War II but that doesn't make me doubt that it happened. The trouble is that you believe that for the Bible to be true it must be true according to modern interpretations of truth and modern interpretations of science, and are reading modern science into a book written with ancient science.

So you are saying God was incapable of telling His children the truth and had to resort to letting them buy into the pagan cosmologies of their day???

No we accept the bible as is it is you who have to reinterpret the scriptures to fit what you beleive is the truth concerning science!! Your response is to attack YEC's as being unscinetific and out of touch, but we will accpet the Bible as written and we do knwo the difference between God speaking literally and God speaking parabolically. And the Bible when kept in its contexts was written as doctrine for all men for all cultures for all of temporal time!! It s not subject to change according to the latest cultural or educational "theories" unless the Bible itself leaves the room for it.

In history, antiquity augments the value of a record; in science it diminishes the value, due to the fact that past measurements are invariably less precise than contemporary measurements (unless, of course, one is studying the history of science). You have chosen a most unfortunately inapplicable analogy.

maybe in applicable but still true!

Alright, refer above.

And you are the one who relies on "expert" opinion of science to beleive in evolution but you reject those who are far more skilled in the Hebrew language cause it is uncomfortable for yyou and your thesis?? And you accuse US YEC folk of ignoring "facts".

How is this raqiya different from the raqiya of 1:6 and 8?

Well simply and I hope I don't butcher the explanation:

When a noun (raqia) is used as an adjectival noun it is clarifying or distinguishing the noun from other uses.

Genesis 1:6&8 is describing a creation that God called heaven as well as the heaven created in 1:1 1:6 is a second heaven that God created. So you have the first heaven (shamayim) and you have the second heaven which is called (raqia).

1:14

14And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

here firmament modifies heaven to help identify it. So the stars are thrown in the expanse(raqia) of the heavens (shamayim) This is the case where raqia is used as an adjectival noun (I think that is the correct term)

1:20

20And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.

In this verse raqia is not modifying shamayim as it does in 1:14. It is defining where the birds fly and as such context determines definition and here shamayim is the air with raqia as the boundary where they fly to . Once again raqia as a term to describe the atmosphere disappears except one time after the flood--very powerful evidence there was some type of matrix holding waters in the atmosphere some whare.

Wasn't God in Gen 1:6 and 8 precisely creating a domed expanse called heaven?

Yes that is what happened. But raqia also means a stretch out expanse wor w/o a dome or vault. So the raqia shamayim is different than the raqia that God called shamayim in vses 6&8. Once agian it is how the words are used not JUST that the words are used--but you know that.

And I suppose you can find the remains of this matrix fossilized in the earth.

Well we don't even know what this matrix was made of and if it was even a material that can be fosillized or was destroyed after trhe flood!! God didn't eloborate, He just simply said He made it and it was made! The what and how Her di dnot eloborate so I cannot either.

It's not that evolution is false science. It's (to be frank) that evolution is science you don't understand and so feel perfectly licensed to call false science.

No that is your opinion and you are free to hold that opinion. I choose to accept the wor dof the God who was there and gave clear words to what He did instead of reinterpreting the Scriptures to meet the newest trends in secular science!!

This could be interesting. As far as I know the very first record of a heaven being explicitly called "the third heavens" is Paul in 2 Corinthians talking of being caught up to there. Hardly patriarchal times.

Well then when I get the time I shall again (Idid this on another thread with an atheist who writes just like you)
post all the websites showing the Jewish teachings on the three heavens and that they date back to the 3-4th centuries B.C. which is about as early as we can get given the scribal movement di dnot really get going till the 6th century B.C.

But I never said the flood was 4,000 years ago, did I? (scratches head. This is a really long thread and I've been learning new things between back then and now.)

So you reject teh chronology of Noah as well as the language showing it to be a global flood? Noahs flood occured c. 2,600 B.C. which makes it 4,600 years ago--are you saying it happened much further back in time than what the bible says?

Cuvier and Agassiz started by believing in a young earth and a single global flood. The evidence told them otherwise.

Not surprising--nearly all european scientists held to as young earth and global flood at the turn of the 19th century-- but as the suppossed "evidences" appeared to mount to refute that-- many mnay turned to the new ideas being expounded by Lyell, Darwin . Lamarck. Wallace et al.

Assyrian writes:

Not much of an 'appeal to authority' if you don't actually tell us what your authorities say. But if you want to rely of the literal meaning of the words that make up a common idiom, if I told you there was no one in the room when the lights went out, would you take it as evidence of poltergeist activity? All by themselves the lights went out. How did they leave without any help? 'Dying you will die' is an idiom. It means surely die. It doesn't mean gradually die any more than 'the lights went out' means they left the room. The bible tells us Adam would surely died the day he ate from the tree. The only death he died that day was spiritual.

And this is you taking a modern use of idioms and imposing it backwards in time! Idioms in ancinet Hebrew are not like our use of idioms. Go check with a rabbi and learn something new. The term dying you will surely die shows the result and the process. the result is mortal death. The process is dying--meaning that as time progresses youa re reaching the goal of death- so you are dying to wards death!

Again we just have to take your word for it. Nor have you looked at the use of shamar in just the next chapter of Genesis when we have cherubim with a flaming sword commissioned to shamar the garden after Adam was thrown out.

And AGAIN context determines definition. An angel with a sword is definitely going to be construed as guarding- while a command to dress a garden and shamar it- is not going to be construed as guarding except to those who have to make it say that!! Remember Adam was not going to have to work hard in th egarden until after the fall and Goid made work hard--but yoiu ahve him working hard before the fall!!

Here we have this quaint view that YECs don't interpret Genesis. You interpret it the same way atheists do, and it is just that, an interpretation.

Sorry but wrong again. Having to "interpret" something means to give definition or define terms-- we just simply accept it at its face value in light of rules governing grammar!! We don't nned the latest advancements of "science" to let us know what teh bible is saying! We don't have to relegaste clear simple stastements to "myth" because to accept them at their face value destroys ouyr thinking-- we allow Gods word to form ourt thinking and then funnel all other thoughts through that (or at least we struggel to do so) while you will elt a-theistic science tell you what you should beleive and then alter the scriptures to fit what they tell you is truth! Big difference here!!

Even stranger is your insistence that Genesis says some of the YEC doctrines that simply aren't in the text, like a literal six day creation, or God creating vegetarian lions or no animal death before the fall or that all the animals were cursed during the fall. These are all human theories read into a text that doesn't support them.

WOW !!! I read your fanciful opinion of you think God might have meant when He told the animals that vegetation was to bew food for them, and I stand amazed that you and your fellow TE's would even think of accusing any YEC of imposing modern thinking in to the scriptures! I truly am saddened for you! Even linguists have come outr and said trhat genesis 1 does teach a 6 day creation, vegetarianism for all animals and no death before sin-- they just do not beleive they are true. You go further down the slip[pery slope and say that even though that is what the words say you can no longer see that and look through the jaded glasses of reinterpretation!! It really breaks my heart for you to read the biblew and look at wordsa and then say I know what it says but it soesn't mean what it says.

No answer then? You claimed talkorigins knew that the scriptures speak of a young earth.

'Against its will' is a good try, but again it is not what the bible says. There is a word which mean unwilling, akon, which puts the negative a- in front of the word Paul used, but what Paul is saying is that the bondage to decay is not because of the will of creation but because God subjected it. Given that the bible tells us clearly the fall was the result of an act of will on the part of created man, then I don't see how the bondage to decay in Romans 8 could be the result of the fall.

Well then you show by verse when God subjected the universe to the bondage of phthora (decay destruction and persishing) You are great to say that it is unrtelated to the fall but I don't see you giving a time frame when God placed creation under servitude to phthora. (that is what subjected means BTW to make one a slave)

Well when I get teh time I will finds them again and hopefully will allow you to shut up for a change.

 

[nolidad]

SHERNREN:

You implied in your last posting that you reject the biblical date of c. 2600B.C. as the date f the flood.

So that would mean you reject teh chronologies following form NOah on and the geneologies. Well then in order for us to further debating I want specifics form you

1. When you beleive Noahs flood occured in JUST the Meso vaslley area.

2. What evidence you present to supersede the biblical datin gof Noahs flood

3. Also how do you reconcile NOah being thousands of years older than the bible shows and yet accepot Jesus as @2,000 years ago when we have direct line geneologies tying Jesus to NOah??

I cannot respond to any more ofyour threads until you get specific with this. And form now on I will ask very specific quetions for now I have to assume that you and I disagree on most dating points of Scripture.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I find it amusiong that it is only you who hold to a very liberal interpretation of scripture keep yacking about flat earth and geo centric cosmology especially when the bible doesn't, nor do many bible beleivers over the centuries. Columbus beleived the world was round from His studies of the Scripture which ran contrary to the scientific/religious though tof the day.



an interesting statement when the people defending the flatearth and geocentricism as Scriptural are certainly more literal in their hermeneutically principles than the YECist and in fact, believe that abandoning a geocentric solar system is the first step to liberalism. They are the ones doing the majority of the talking on the issue, i'm just listening and realizing how parallel their arguments are to those of the YECist aimed at OEC's.

the response to this:
Here we have this quaint view that YECs don't interpret Genesis. You interpret it the same way atheists do, and it is just that, an interpretation.


is:

Sorry but wrong again. Having to "interpret" something means to give definition or define terms-- we just simply accept it at its face value in light of rules governing grammar!! We don't nned the latest advancements of "science" to let us know what teh bible is saying! We don't have to relegaste clear simple stastements to "myth" because to accept them at their face value destroys ouyr thinking-- we allow Gods word to form ourt thinking and then funnel all other thoughts through that (or at least we struggel to do so) while you will elt a-theistic science tell you what you should beleive and then alter the scriptures to fit what they tell you is truth! Big difference here!!

which really proves the point that YECists are so caught up in a particular hermeneutic that they are completely unaware of it's importance. To reduce exegesis to looking up words in a dictionary, while at the same time to insist that interpretation is nothing more than "simply accept it at its face value in light of rules governing grammar" essentially proves my big point, YECists in general make no distinction between the text and an interpretation of that text. It is a shame, both God and the Scriptures deserve more effort towards their elucidation and understanding, at least the effort ought to be directed towards reading the book of Words as is directed towards reading the book of nature. But science has long since put believers to shame in their intensity and passion for study.

 

[Willtor]

I find it amusiong that it is only you who hold to a very liberal interpretation of scripture keep yacking about flat earth and geo centric cosmology especially when the bible doesn't, nor do many bible beleivers over the centuries. Columbus beleived the world was round from His studies of the Scripture which ran contrary to the scientific/religious though tof the day.

No. No educated person in Columbus' day thought the Earth was flat. Given that the Church was the educator, one must infer that the Church did not teach a flat Earth. It wasn't because of the Bible that they thought the Earth was round. It was because of the pagan philosophers you dislike so much. And Columbus sailed for China, not because the Church gave him inaccurate numbers regarding the dimensions of the Earth, but because it gave him accurate numbers and he didn't like them, so he made his own.

Where do you get your information about Columbus learning that the Earth was round from the Bible?

 

[nolidad]

assyrian posits:

'All' is simply not the issue. I never said 'with the exception of the carnivores'. Every beast of the earth gets it food from the plants God provided, lions included. The simple issue is that the passage never says lions were vegetarian before the fall. It never says God only create herbivores. It does not say God 'commanded' any creature to stick to veg. It simply says what God provided. We see the same provision today.

Nice try but no! Then Adam also was omnivorous for he was told to eat fruit and veggies only. So He must have eaten meat from animals who ater lettuce (rabbits) corn(raccoons, beavers etc) seeds (fowl of varied kinds). So when God told Noah it was OK to eat meat in Genesis 9 that was a redundant statemetn for Noah was already doing it, if we are top remain consitent with your interpretation.

Did the all the Israelites and the foreign labourers eat clay every seven years? That is how your interpretation would read Lev 25:6And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. It is the same term in Hebrew, but there is no problem in Leviticus with the Israelites getting their food indirectly through the land growing plants rather than eating the land itself, and even through sheep and cattle being raised on the plants the land produced before being eaten by the Israelites.

HAve you been so long twisitng the Scriptures that you cannot understand its simple text anymore???

Let us look at you rverse in context and see how foolish your accusation is:

Lev.25:

3Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the fruit thereof;

4But in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of rest unto the land, a sabbath for the LORD: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.
5That which groweth of its own accord of thy harvest thou shalt not reap, neither gather the grapes of thy vine undressed: for it is a year of rest unto the land.
6And the sabbath of the land shall be meat for you; for thee, and for thy servant, and for thy maid, and for thy hired servant, and for thy stranger that sojourneth with thee. 7And for thy cattle, and for the beast that are in thy land, shall all the increase thereof be meat.

The subject IS NOT Israel eating dirtr-- but that the land will know rest every 7th year. And in that year there is to be no farm activity on the land-but it is to grow of its own accord- and the food that grows is not to be harvested but used as food, and according to rabbinic thought- on an as needed basis- no storing or large harvesting done. C'mon you should know better than the silliness you proposed.

Just show me a verse that say animals were all herbivores before the fall or that meat eating was the result of the fall rather than claiming commandments where none exist.

Well it is a command whether you like it or not-- you just dont like the implications so you add all sorts of complicated "added addendums" to try to prove Scripture doesn't mean what it explicitly says! And in Chptr one it explicitly says that vegetation was to be food for all the beasts! Not indirectly but directly!! If God wanted to show that animals were carnivores in the beginning He could have used the same language He did in the Psalms or Genesis 9 or elsewherein Scripture--but He didn't. So the burden of proof is actually on you.

Gen 9 is a command not to eat blood. But when he talked about eating meat, was God making a new provision or was it the renewal of an old one? After all God bases it on having already given man all things. I have given you all things. Are you saying when God gave man dominion over every creature he meant as long as he didn't kill or eat any? I don't think it makes any difference whether people before the flood were veggie or not, you just don't have scriptural evidence saying they were. Gen 9 certainly doesn't tell us what people ate before the flood.

You guys should write your own vwersion of the bible and stop twisting this one so much!! Gen. 9 was a permission to eat meat weith a "proviso" added-- don't eat the blood! 3Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

This is so clear!! Now animals can be food just like the green herb was!! I have biblical evidence and have displayed it-- you just twist and complicate it with all side theories to hold onto TE. Genesis 9 refers back to what people ate before the flood and Genesis 1 definitively shows what was eaten before the flood.

29And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
30And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.

Tell you what--go find a child of say 6-7 and show trhem these verses in say the NIV and ask them what it means. Dont hint- dont explain just ask them what it means--See God gives wisdom to the childlike but hides His face from the sophists of the world.

Why do you insist that if God's idea of day is different to ours that every mention of the word day in scripture has to be interpreted as a thousand years? Do you think Moses would have agreed with your stilted literalist interpretation of his Psalm? I find YECs get very touchy when Psalm 90 and 2Pet 3 are mentioned and launch into an argumentum ad absurdum that try to take every mention of day as a thousand years.

I don't! I was just simply responding to the foolishenss of Shernrens commetns-- you know as it says "answer a fool accordin gto their foolishness lest they become wise ion their own eyes"? I as a matter of publicvly stated fact oin this thread do not hold to the day/millenail concept! Why? Because both passages use that big little word "as" which is supposed to let the reader know that a comparison is bein g made and it is not meant to be taken literally. So if you want to rebuke soomeone goto Shernren and tell him to stop bein gso literal!!

Reread my post and see the sarcasm:

Do you really want to use this? Didn't you ever learn that the word "as" is used as a comaprative to describe something and n ot to be literal?? Aren't you in college?? So if God uses the word day and it means a thousand years- then you must mean that Jesus is taking three thousand years to rise from the dead!!! It still doesn't help you rcase cause that puts God taking 6,000 years to create everything which is at a minimum 11,999,999,994,000 years short of the youngest age of the universe!! But it does fall into the scinetific view of TE's of 6-10K years for creation!! But it is not written to be construed as an absolute, but a comparative passage. And it is not even speaking concerning creation either

If you bothered to read the first sentence you would see I am telloing shernren he is incorrect, and He still has numerous problems even if he wanted to say God meant each Genesis 1 day was 1,000 years!!! C'mon for such supposed educated people you sure seem mighty ignorant when itr comes to reading and understanding context.

'As' gives us a comparison, Gods days to our timescale. Moses uses 'as' in the Psalm to describe God's days. Do you really think God's days are only as a thousand years in Psalm 90? Is Psalm 90 a thousand years long and we don't realise it? Or is Moses telling us what time is like from God's perspective? He uses an 'as' to compare God's perspective to ours, but the difference between God timescale and ours exists outside the simile in Psalm 90. The simile is used to explain it to us. Interestingly, it is when Moses talks about the creation he reminds us that God's days aren't the same as ours.

No I think Moses and Peter werte using phraseology to tell us that God is longsuffering and patient and time is not an issue with God. And if you t hink the thousand years is referring ot creation then you really do not know how to read things in th ebible at all.

The whole heavens doesn't help you much when Genesis describes the heavens as a flat expanse. This is true if you are describing the sky from horizon to horizon, not if you think it is a sphere enclosing the globe. Remember we are talking about Noah's description of what happened under what he meant by 'the whole heaven'.

Genesis describes the heavbens as a stretched out expanse-- not a flat expanse, but if you looked up the root of raqia (raqa) you would understand that.

And no we are not talking about Noahs ideas- we are talking about what God said to Noah and what God did, and NOah just wrote it down! Remember if you hold that you have to come upo with unrecorded miracles like shernren and declare that the waters just piled up 22.5 feet above the Meso valley mountains and did not spill over them! You also have to come up with Noahs flood being at least 8,000 B.C. or older for according to archeologists and C-14 we have european cave drawings approx 7,000B.C. so yo uhave some real problems to solve in you r flood theory even if you want to protrest it bein g just a local event,

Isaiah 40:22 It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in. This is a description of the sky we see above us, it does not tell us the atmosphere and space surrounds the planet in all directions.

Did you talk to Isaiah?? Or are you just taking surrounding cosmologies again and trying to force the Jews to beleive those without evidence!

If he was to be a fugitive and wanderer on the whole planet (erets) how did he settle in the land (erets) of Nod? God said he was going to be a fugitive and wanderer, either that erets meant an area or God got it wrong. He did not remain a fugitive on the planet earth, he settled down and built a city.

12When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear. 14Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

Ok why don't you prove he just meant region and not the planet or the whole earth. You guys keep demanding proofs and we give it and you reject it--now its your turn-- show that this means just the local area.

So Psalm 104 talks about the creation and follows the sequence of days in Gen 1. It speaks of a time we when the earth was covered in water as Gen 1 does before God created the land. It tells us God established boundaries to the water so that the earth would not be covered in water again, as were also told in the creation accounts in Job 38 and Proverbs 8. But you reject this clear and consistent teaching of the OT creation accounts because it contradicts your interpretation of the flood. Yet there is nothing in the flood account that tells us the whole planet was flooded rather than Noah's land. While Psalm 104, Job 38 and Prov 8 tell us your interpretation of the flood is wrong.

Only to those with a negative bias to ward Scripture!

Which leaves us with a creation account in Psalm 104 that contains carnivorous lions.

Amazing isn't it?? Before the fall God declared that every herb would be food for the beasts but in Psalm 104 written after the fall it now says this:

21The young lions roar after their prey, and seek their meat from God.

Maybe God was having a bad day in Genesis 1 and couldn't tell Adam this very simple thing like He said here?? Let me see--

Genesis herb for meat
Psalm prey for meat! something sure changed!!

Job 22:14 Thick clouds veil him, so that he does not see, and he walks on the vault of heaven.'That is Eliphaz speaking so not the most inspired account, however he uses the same word 'circle' to describe the heavens as Isaiah uses for the earth. I suspect you are reading your pagan Greek globe interpretations into the godly flat circle we see in scripture.

ir the Godly orb that circle also means that got corrupted by pagans and then corrupted Jews t hinking and the churches thinking for centuries! I have seen many of yoiru "scholars" declaration of the Jews and pre Jewish bible writeres as declaring they haeld to the same cosmologies as the pagans surrounding them, but they never seem to produce the evidence to prove that!! HMMM??? Is it because they have none other than their own "superior intellect"????

Anything labelled "science falsely called" by creationists is really bible falsely understood by creationists who rely to heavily on the AV. The word used is gnosis or knowledge, not science.

Well seein ghow gnosis is the root word that became the english word science your protests are rather juvenile. And I will take my use of the AV over any other english translation (with the possible exception of the NAS) and my greek and Hebrew aids and dictionaries and commentaries anyday over your "modern" benighted view based on the sceptics view of God.