River Channels in the Geologic Column Disprove Global Flood

[keyarch]

A minister I know has a program which can find all occurrences of ha'erets.

The source I used is not a transliteration, but the Hebrew text.

I’m confused on what you are saying. Aren’t the words we’re quoting and searching for “transliterated”? Or, do you have a program that searches the original Hebrew script?

My PC Study Bible program shows all of it together as I have put in my posts, so that I can compare the transliteration to the Hebrew script.

If you will notice, the Hebrew word for [haa’aarets] has a symbol on the right that is like a broken upside down U. That is to mark a definite article. Definitions:
1. joined with substantives: a. to mark a definite concrete object,
2. with an adjective to denote one who exhibits a quality,
3. with nouns which are not definite in themselves, but acquire their definition from the context, or from the manner in which they are introduced.

The same symbol is used to differentiate between the upper heaven (bottom of clouds and stellar firmament) and the lower heaven (sea level up to the clouds).

I have found the Hebrew script to be very precise on the words chosen and if there are differences, there is a specific reason. Some of them can’t even be transliterated, much less be given a definition in English.

But that is my point. You say haa’aarets means country here. But you said that it meant planet. Abraham didn't leave the planet, thus the word can't mean planet. I don't understand at all what you are saying here.

If you look at the quote again, you will see that I never said haa’aarets meant “country”.

It isn't my contention that there are no cases where erets means planet. There are some

I haven’t found any. I’d be curious to see your reference.

Thanks for taking the time to get into this. You are very challenging. God Bless.

 

[Vance]

First of all, I must say that I have enjoyed and learned from this discussion so far, and appreciate the spirit within which it is being engaged. And, not to sidetrack it in the least, I though I would add my thoughts in here.

My position is that, as interesting as the meaning of "erets" is, this all becomes moot if the story was not meant to be read as literal history! :0) If the author was telling a non-historical story for the purpose of passing on great truths from God, then the writer (inspired by God) could very well tell that story using the language of a global flood.

I am with C.S. Lewis on this one when he says:

I have therefore no difficulty in accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell us that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semitic stories which were Pagan and mythical. We must of course be quite clear what "derived from" means. Stories do not reproduce their species like mice. They are told by men. Each re-teller either repeats exactly what his predecessor had told him or else changes it. He may change it unknowingly or deliberately. If he changes it deliberately, his invention, his sense of form, his ethics, his ideas of what is fit, or edifying, or merely interesting, all come in. If unknowingly, then his unconscious (which is so largely responsible for our forgettings) has been at work. Thus at every step in what is called--a little misleadingly--the "evolution" of a story, a man, all he is and all his attitudes, are involved. An no good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights. When a series of such retellings turns a creation story which at first had almost no religious or metaphysical significance into a story which achieves the idea of true Creation and of a transcendent Creator (as Genesis does), then nothing will make me believe that some of the re-tellers, or some one of them, has not been guided by God.

Thus something originally merely natural--the kind of myth that is found amongst most nations--will have been raised by God above itself, qualified by Him and compelled by Him to serve purposes which of itself would not have served. Generalising this, I take it that the whole Old Testament consists of the same sort of material as any other literature--chronicle (some of it obviously pretty accurate), poems, moral and political diatribes, romances, and what not; but all taken into the service of Gods word. Not all, I suppose, in the same way. There are prophets who write with the clearest awareness that Divine compulsion is upon them. There are chroniclers whose intention may have been merely to record. There are poets like those in the Song of Songs who probably never dreamed of any but a secular and natural purpose in what they composed. There is (and it is not less important) the work first of the Jewish and then of the Christian Church in preserving and canonising just these books. There is the work of redactors and editors in modifying them. On all of these I suppose a Divine pressure; of which not by any means all need have been conscious.

If I start with this as a legitimate possibility, and then consider the historical and cultural background, I am strongly compelled to the view that what Lewis described is probably what happened with the flood story. Given the similarities to the Sumerian flood story, the fact that Abraham probably lived in that region and would have known that story and could have passed it down to his descendents, etc. I just think this is more likely and I don't have any theological problem with God pre-empting an existing story to convey His own truths to His people.

So, even just based on theological, literary, historical and cultural considerations, I think that a global flood was not intended. When you add in the geological data, I am solidly convinced. While there is a possibility that the story was meant to be a literal, local flood or a figurative global flood (as above), I am fully convinced that the possibilities of it being a global flood are very small.

 

[grmorton]

I’m confused on what you are saying. Aren’t the words we’re quoting and searching for “transliterated”? Or, do you have a program that searches the original Hebrew script?

Original Hebrew script. IT is the only definitive way to do it. The program is not mine but belongs to someone I know. He did the search for me and concluded that the data didn't support your thesis.

I have found the Hebrew script to be very precise on the words chosen and if there are differences, there is a specific reason. Some of them can’t even be transliterated, much less be given a definition in English.If you look at the quote again, you will see that I never said haa’aarets meant “country”.I haven’t found any. I’d be curious to see your reference.

Thanks for taking the time to get into this. You are very challenging. God Bless.

Gen 12:1; H776 is ha'erets and is what Abe was told to leave. Hopefully it doesn't mean he was told to leave his planet.
Gen 19:28;Gen 20:1;Gen 24:4; etc. There are lots of ha'erets (H776) translated as 'country' in KJV and other versions. I don't know what program you are using, but I would get a new one.

 

[keyarch]

Original Hebrew script. IT is the only definitive way to do it.

Ok. Then let’s look at Genesis for the definitions and the original script.
Gen 1:1 - In the beginning God created the Heaven and

[definitely the planet here].
Gen 1:10 - And God called the dry land

;

Gen 12:1; H776 is ha'erets and is what Abe was told to leave. Hopefully it doesn't mean he was told to leave his planet.

Gen 12:1 - Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of

[this is not the same word as the planet earth; he is told later in the sentence to go to a place on earth that He will show thee].

Gen 19:28 - And he looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the

[land] of the plain, and beheld, and, lo, the smoke of the

went up as the smoke of a furnace.

Gen 20:1 -And Abraham journeyed from thence toward the south

, and dwelled between Kadesh and Shur, and sojourned in Gerar.[this is not the planet earth or ha'erets].

Gen 24:4 - But thou shalt go unto my

, and to my kindred, and take a wife unto my son Isaac. [this is not the planet earth or ha'erets].

There are lots of ha'erets (H776) translated as 'country' in KJV and other versions. I don't know what program you are using, but I would get a new one.

I’m still waiting to see where

is translated as ‘country’.

 

[Non-ape Jase]

It seems that none of the YECs are trying to explain the geological data I am presenting.

I can only speak for myself, but maybe it's because we don't feel the need to fall back on science to defend the Bible (or maybe the post is just too long ). You are a geophysicist (which does sound very interesting) but I haven't a hope of understanding your post. Our Father is such a great God. I believe he has intentionally made his Word easy for the most humblest peasant to understand and defend. He so often used simple people to show us the way (David, Peter and James immediately come to mind).

Demonstrable science is great, but when we, as a race, believe that we know what happened hundreds of thousands, millions, and billions of years ago, we slide into arrogance. (Before anyone gets too excited, I'm not calling any one person arrogant.)

Finally, as God's Word is eternal, I don't think we should be questioning it with statements like "River Channels in the Geologic Column Disprove Global Flood".

Bless you.

 

[Vance]

Jase:

I think we need to be cautious of being not being humble about our own inpertreptive abilities. Yes, all things necessary for salvation are plain, but beyond that . . . Well, here are two powerful Christian sources on that point:

Westminister Confession of Faith:

Chapter 1, VII. All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all; yet those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, ut the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.

So, those objective truths regarding the matters of salvation are truths that anyone can see and believe if only they will. Other times, the objective truth is not so obvious and plain, and thus our subjective interpretation is used to seek that objective truth. Since we are fallible humans, we must seek the Spirit's guidance and pray, but even then, God in His infinite wisdom sees fit to allow Spirit-led Christians to hold different opinions on this matter of origins.

I think Augustine echoes this necessary humbleness regarding Genesis in particular:

"37. In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such as we may find treated in Holy Scripture [and remember, he IS speaking of Genesis here], different Interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it."

In fact, I would refer you to both of my threads with Augustine in the title, and the ones with C.S. Lewis in the title.

You will find, if you take the time to peruse these posts a few important facts you may not have been aware of:

1. Christians differ in their interpretation of Genesis, even Spirit-led, Bible-believing Christians

2. Even many Christians who believe that everything in the Bible is true and Holy do not think it was written down and meant to be read as literal history, but instead as figurative presentations of great and holy truths. Great theologians like C.S. Lewis hold this view.

3. Great minds like St. Augustine and others throughout history have believed that the six days of creation were one of those Scriptures that were NOT meant to be read literally.

4. EVERY Christian alive today allows scientific discoveries to inform how they read Scripture to some degree, whether they know it or not. Were you to be alive in 1400, you would be absolutlely positive that the Scripture spoke of a geocentric universe.

5. Evolution does not equal atheism, as has been pointed out, and actually most Christians worldwide have no problem at all accepting evolution with no harm to their Christian faith. It is only here in the US that young earth creationism is becoming the norm.

 

[grmorton]

I can only speak for myself, but maybe it's because we don't feel the need to fall back on science to defend the Bible (or maybe the post is just too long ). You are a geophysicist (which does sound very interesting) but I haven't a hope of understanding your post. Our Father is such a great God. I believe he has intentionally made his Word easy for the most humblest peasant to understand and defend. He so often used simple people to show us the way (David, Peter and James immediately come to mind).

You underestimate your ability or intentionally down play it to avoid the very simple logic. A river flows in a channel. The channel takes some time to form. That time is longer than 1 year. Finding a river channel in the geologic column says that that column took longer than 1 year to form.

What is so difficult about that?

Demonstrable science is great, but when we, as a race, believe that we know what happened hundreds of thousands, millions, and billions of years ago, we slide into arrogance. (Before anyone gets too excited, I'm not calling any one person arrogant.)

Are we equally arrogant when we give a guy the death penalty for murder when we were not there 10 years ago when someone bludgeoned a young person to death? Your concept of what we can and can't know is inconsistent with much of what you do. When your children do something bad, and you werent there are you arrogant to think you can determine who the ringleader for the misbehavior is?

With stars, we ARE looking at the past. We see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. With some of the stars we are seeing the star as it was 1000 years ago. With the galaxies we are directly seeing what the galaxy was like a million or a billion years ago. So, you are wrong that we can't know about the past.

Finally, as God's Word is eternal, I don't think we should be questioning it with statements like "River Channels in the Geologic Column Disprove Global Flood".

Bless you.

It isn't God's word I am questioning. I absolutely agree with you that God's word is eternal. What I am questioning is YOUR intepretation of God's word. Are you infallible like him? Is your interpretation therefore the one God ordained as immutable truth? Are you that special? And you think the TEs are arrogant when, in order to say what you say, you must assume that you have been utterly and specially blessed by God with immutable truth which all your other fellow humans lack. Who sounds more arrogant?

 

[Non-ape Jase]

And you think the TEs are arrogant...

Read my post. I said our race is arrogant.

 

[grmorton]

Read my post. I said our race is arrogant.

Is that all you are going to say? It seems rather useless to engage you.

 

[Non-ape Jase]

Is that all you are going to say? It seems rather useless to engage you.

I have already stated that I haven't a hope of understanding your post. Not that I'm interested in engaging people who misquote me anyway. I made it very clear that I wasn't calling anyone arrogant, which I notice you don't deny.

If the Flood was not global, then why did Noah build the Ark??

 

[Vance]

Jase:

Because he was told to. Obedience.

 

[Non-ape Jase]

Jase:

Because he was told to. Obedience.

Anything else?

 

[grmorton]

I have already stated that I haven't a hope of understanding your post. Not that I'm interested in engaging people who misquote me anyway. I made it very clear that I wasn't calling anyone arrogant, which I notice you don't deny.

If the Flood was not global, then why did Noah build the Ark??

Regardless of your disclaimer that you weren't calling anyone arrogant, the only ones who think they know what happened hundreds of millions of years ago are TEs and thus that statement of arrogance logically follows. Logic trumps meaningless disclaimers in my book. An example. If I said "everyone who uses the word ape in their nom de plume is a no good lazy, thoughtless scum, but I am not calling anyone here a no good lazy, thoughtless scum."

Would you feel that the bullet dodged you? Logic trumps disclaimers my friend.

I would also say, that if you have no hope of understanding the logic I laid out in my penultmate reply, then you are truly in need of help and should not be saying anything in the creation-evolution debate because you are incapable of saying anything worth listening to. That is what your disclaimer on your abilities tells me--one must be careful how one tries to escape an argument because some of the ways don't shine favorably upon the escapee.

 

[Vance]

To put it more mildly than Glenn, why would you take a dogmatic stance on an issue (which you have) when you admit you don't really understand and seem to have no interest in learning? I don't have a problem with people not knowing the science, none of us can know all of it, that is for sure! But, to come in making conclusory statements about evolution and the age of the earth is basically implying that you DO know the science, since only one that has done some basic research on these points really can make any type of dogmatic conclusions.

 

[Non-ape Jase]

Regardless of your disclaimer that you weren't calling anyone arrogant, the only ones who think they know what happened hundreds of millions of years ago are TEs and thus that statement of arrogance logically follows. Logic trumps meaningless disclaimers in my book. An example. If I said "everyone who uses the word ape in their nom de plume is a no good lazy, thoughtless scum, but I am not calling anyone here a no good lazy, thoughtless scum."

I tried very hard to make it clear that I was not calling TEs arrogant because my words have been twisted before, and because it is very easy to be misunderstood when there's no face-to-face contact. Notice the use of 'we', 'as a race', and the disclaimer. Are TEs a separate race? I pray not. If you cannot accept the word of a brother, then I mourn.

Would you feel that the bullet dodged you? Logic trumps disclaimers my friend.
I would also say, that if you have no hope of understanding the logic I laid out in my penultmate reply, then you are truly in need of help and should not be saying anything in the creation-evolution debate because you are incapable of saying anything worth listening to. That is what your disclaimer on your abilities tells me--one must be careful how one tries to escape an argument because some of the ways don't shine favorably upon the escapee.

Now that's just nasty.

 

[grmorton]

Would you feel that the bullet dodged you? Logic trumps disclaimers my friend.
I would also say, that if you have no hope of understanding the logic I laid out in my penultmate reply, then you are truly in need of help and should not be saying anything in the creation-evolution debate because you are incapable of saying anything worth listening to. That is what your disclaimer on your abilities tells me--one must be careful how one tries to escape an argument because some of the ways don't shine favorably upon the escapee.

Now that's just nasty.

You are telling me that you can't understand why a river channel means a certain amount of time had to elapse in the geologic record because you are incapable of understanding that, and then when I note that if you are correct, then you don't have anything worth listening to, you think I am nasty? You are the one who said you didn't have the said abilities, but seem to know what the answer is regardless. I am amazed; always am amazed at the damage YEC does to people.

I would presume that both of us have no skill in brain surgery. I know I don't. It is not nasty to note that I have nothing of importance or worth listening to in the area of brain surgery. If you want to disagree with that, let me consult on your next brain surgery. It is just a plain fact of life that most mature people understand--not all opinions are worth listening to. Don't listen to me in areas of sports, brain surgery, electronics, making jams or cooking, etc etc. I wouldn't think it nasty if someone said my opinion in those areas wasn't worth much. They would be right. Only your ego prevents you from acknowledging the same in those areas you have no abilities in.

 

[grmorton]

Ok. Then let’s look at Genesis for the definitions and the original script.
Gen 1:1 - In the beginning God created the Heaven and

[definitely the planet here].

Actually not definitely the planet. Most ancient creation stories from other cultures start with God created the sky and the land. They had no concept of the planet. Now, we understand it that way, but that most assuredly does not mean they understood it that way.
Gen 1:10 - And God called the dry land

;



Gen 12:1 - Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of

[this is not the same word as the planet earth; he is told later in the sentence to go to a place on earth that He will show thee]. [/quote]

No,it is the same word as what you define as planet earth. That is our difference.

I would suggest that your transliteration should not be trusted as an authoritative source.

 

[william jay schroeder]

THanks for the clarification. I have a good friend, Art Chadwick, who holds that YBC view. He and I used to go to dinner and disagree happily together. I miss those dinners with him.

I will look into that view about haa'aarets and get back to you. I do like it when people teach me something new.

How do you deal with how Genesis one is written in hebrew with the word day being singular and not pluarle. This would strongly make God deceptive or a lier.

 

[william jay schroeder]

You underestimate your ability or intentionally down play it to avoid the very simple logic. A river flows in a channel. The channel takes some time to form. That time is longer than 1 year. Finding a river channel in the geologic column says that that column took longer than 1 year to form.

What is so difficult about that?

Does not water flow were it is least resistant, escpecialy if it is moveing fast. So if this spot had loose soile from say a crack from an earth quake or some tyope of thing like it that would soften this route, then if water were to flow down this area would it not go over this loose dirt or substance and wash it out creating a channel. just wondering. Geology to me is the hardest to explain and understand for me. As in disproving an old Earth.

Are we equally arrogant when we give a guy the death penalty for murder when we were not there 10 years ago when someone bludgeoned a young person to death? Your concept of what we can and can't know is inconsistent with much of what you do. When your children do something bad, and you werent there are you arrogant to think you can determine who the ringleader for the misbehavior is?

With stars, we ARE looking at the past. We see the sun as it was 8 minutes ago. With some of the stars we are seeing the star as it was 1000 years ago. With the galaxies we are directly seeing what the galaxy was like a million or a billion years ago. So, you are wrong that we can't know about the past.



It isn't God's word I am questioning. I absolutely agree with you that God's word is eternal. What I am questioning is YOUR intepretation of God's word. Are you infallible like him? Is your interpretation therefore the one God ordained as immutable truth? Are you that special? And you think the TEs are arrogant when, in order to say what you say, you must assume that you have been utterly and specially blessed by God with immutable truth which all your other fellow humans lack. Who sounds more arrogant?

As for the rest its hard to say who is right and who is wrong. Mans wisdom only goes so far. We may be interpreting some of science really wrong and not no it. We must assume a lot of things so its hard to be certain about anything except what we no to be true from a spiritual point when it goes with the word of God. This may not be very well put but i Tried.

 

[grmorton]

How do you deal with how Genesis one is written in hebrew with the word day being singular and not pluarle. This would strongly make God deceptive or a lier.

No it doesn't. The ancient Hebrews, surely not a group to have been influenced by modern science and who most assuredly were familiar with the language, believed

1. That Genesis 1 does not give the order of the creation events.

2. That the Torah was pre-temporal (akin to what I do for Genesis 1 only) and because of this ancient, Judaic view of Genesis, you can't claim that I am doing something contrary to the linquistics or to the way that the ancient Jews read the account.

Here is documentation for my first claim. It is from Rashi, a medieval Rabbi:

"Bereshith bara. In the beginning God created. This verse calls aloud for explanation (2) in the manner that our Rabbis explained it: God created the world for the sake of the Torah, which is called (Proverbs 8:22) "the beginning (reshith) of His way," and for the sake of Israel, who are called (Jeremiah 2:3) "the beginning (reshith) of His increase." If, however, you wish to explain it in its plain sense, (3) explain it thus: At the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth when the earth was without form and void and there was darkness, God said, Let there be light. The text does not intend to point out the order of the acts of Creation -- to state that these (heaven and earth) were created first; for if it intended to point this out, it should have been written Barishona bara, "At first God created..." Because wherever the word reshith occurs in Scripture, it is in the construct state. (4) For example, Jeremiah 26:1, "In the beginning of (reshith) the reign of Jehoiakim," Genesis 10:10, "The beginning of (reshith) his kingdom," Deuteronomy 18:4, "The firstfruit of (reshith) thy corn." Similarly here you must translate bereshith bara elohim as though it read bereshith bero, at the beginning of God's creating. A similar grammatical construction (of a noun in the construct followed by a verb) is in Hosea 1:2, tehillat dibber [yahweh] behosheah, which is as much to say, "At the beginning of God's speaking through Hosea, the Lord said to Hosea""
http://www.bible-researcher.com/rashi.html

accessed 12-30-04

Emphasis mine

Here is documentation for claim 2 that the Jews believed that the Talmud was pre-temporal:

And there is a hint of my view that Genesis 1 is pre-temporal in what else Ramban notes that the Torah was written in the 3rd person and interprets it thusly:

[cite=Ramban (Nachmanides) Commentary on the Torah, Trans. by Dr. Charles B. Chavel, (New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971), p. 8] “In either case it would have been proper for him to write at the beginning of the book of Genesis: ‘And G-d spoke to Moses all these words, saying,’ The reason it was written anonymously [without the above introductory phrase] is that Moses our teacher did not write the Torah in the first person like the prophets who did mention themselves.” [/cite]

Ramban then goes on to explain why it was written in the third person:

[cite=Ramban (Nachmanides) Commentary on the Torah, Trans. by Dr. Charles B. Chavel, (New York: Shilo Publishing House, 1971), p. 8] “The reason for the Torah being written in this form [namely, the third person] is that it preceded the creation of the world, and needless to say, it preceded the birth of Moses our teacher.” [/cite]

Note that he claims that the Torah was pre-temporal. That was Their view of it. Thus, I would say that the atheists are closer aligned to how the ancient jews viewed their creation story than you. There is one more interesting viewpoint in this. To document the pre-temporal existence of the Torah, Ramban cites Shabbath 88b. That is part of the Babylonian Talmud which was compiled in the 500s A. D. So these views are ancient and not in alignment with what most TEs claim about the views of the Jews.

Ramban cites Shabbath 88b which is part of the Babylonian Talmud. It says:

“R. Joshua b. Levi also said: When Moses ascended on high, the ministering angels spake before the Holy One, blessed be He, 'Sovereign of the Universe! What business has one born of woman amongst us?' 'He has come to receive the Torah,' answered He to them. Said they to Him, 'That secret treasure, which has been hidden by Thee for nine hundred and seventy-four generations before the world was created.” http://www.come-and-hear.com/shabbath/shabbath_88.html#PARTb

The Babylonian talmud was compiled in something like the 5th century from 1st century sources. This was a 1st century view, not a modern science view. Yet too many people seem to think that the days in Genesis 1 mean a normal day? How can one have a normal day when there is no sun? That is our hint that these days are not normal days and thus, God is telling us in the scripture that we are not to interpret it as you are doing.

How do you deal with the fact that the ancient Jews didn't read this passage as you do?



Describe a sequence of events that God might have performed in pretemporal times. You can't do it without using some temporal terms.