Scriptural Evidence?

How the very first lifeforms appeared is a very interesting question for biologists, but it cannot be answered by the theory of evolution, which assumes the existance of life.

Morallyangelic said:

So evolution doesn't deal with the ' HOW ' it all got started, it mostly deals with what has happened or is happening?

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Evolution doesn't deal with the "Why", such as "Why are we here." Evolution deals with the "How", such as "How did mammals evolve from reptiles". Abiogenesis deals with how life started, and cosmology deals with how the universe, galaxies, and solar systems came about. If we shift to a different subject, cosmology deals with how iron appeared in the universe, mining deals with where iron can be found in the ground, and car manufacturing deals with how to shape the metal to form a car. Philosophy and theology deal with the question of why humans like to make metal sculptures.

Morallyangelic said:

If you don't take the stories literally how do you take them?
You just leave them up to your own interpertation? or how?

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Many of the stories in the Bible (such as the Parables of Jesus) are stories meant to teach a lesson. They're didactic.

As far as interpretation goes...one thing to take into account is when the Bible was written. We're talking 2,000+ years ago here. You have to consider the culture, for instance. And the fact that people did not have the knowledge we have today. Think of it this way. Imagine going back 2,000 years and trying to explain the Internet. You'd probably compare it to things they were already familiar with. Then imagine how they would explain it...how it would change through oral tradition...until it would finally be written down, then later translated and re-translated.

The Bible may've been divinely inspired, but it was written by fallible men.

Angelic,

Morallyangelic said:

Where does it say in the Bible that if I don't believe in a YEC that I am not a child of God? or that I will be judged poorly?

I mean all I ever hear over and over again from MY christian community is that when you have a question you should always rely on scripture for the answer and not the voice of man.

Is believing in evolution any worse in the eyes of a Biblical God then smoking, drinking, or whatever ?

I realize what Genesis says about the creation but where does it say that was meant literally?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

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Before Henry Morris wrote his book in '68, the only YEC's were 7th Day Adventists. Your Christian community used to call 7DA's cultists. They might still.

What did christians believe before that? Any number of things.

An aside: Where does the Bible say drinking and smoking are sins? It doesn't.

Likewise, I don't think you know what Genesis says. Those who've told you they take it literally ignore a lot of stuff in the book.

Gen. 2:4, The one day of creation was many generations of the heavens. We just got through reading about 6 days. 6 days = 1 day = many generations.

Gen. 1 contains several figures of speech that are used elsewhere in Scripture. Figures of speech are not to be taken literally. The most common one is "evening and morning." It is used two other times in the Old Testament and refers working hard over a long period of time. Paul uses the same expression when he says, "we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you." I Thess 2:9.

Gen. 1:2 places the "observer" of creation on the earth's surface. Everything that takes place until somewhere in Chapter 2 must be viewed from that perspective.

In Gen. 1, 2 different words are translated "make." One requires creation and is used sparingly. The other (more common) is very general and requires no act from God at all but to acknowledge what is occuring. That is, most of the creation account allows pure naturalistic evolution. (I reject evolution for other reasons.)

Who says Gen. 2 is a retelling of Gen. 1? The Bible says no such thing and needs to be considered as if they are 2 separate events.

Cain was driven "from the face of the earth." The exact same noun phrase for what was destroyed by the Flood. Either Cain went into outer space, or the Flood was local.

Cain was driven to a strange people. He was afraid these people would kill him. Eventually, he became the ruler over these people. These were not his brothers as YECs commonly say. His brothers might have spared his life, but they would not make him ruler.

The purpose of the Flood was to destroy Adamites, descendants of Adam, not man in general. There is another word in the passage for man. The Hebrew makes a distinction that no translation makes. All English translations have assumed that Adam was the first man. Scripture declares that Christ is the last Adam. If Adam means man, then there's a problem.

The Nephilim in Gen. 6 are also in Deut. 2. They survived the Flood by being elsewhere.

Adam's descendants have exceptionally long lives which Pharoah finds remarkable. That is, only Adam's descendants had these long lives. No other men did. This is more evidence that Adam was not the literal first man, but was instead some special man.

What you've been told at church is the literal interpretation is far from literal.

Don't lose heart.

Morallyangelic said:

1 Corinthians 6:10 lists drunkards among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God.

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Which would make getting drunk the sin, not drinking per se.

Morallyangelic said:

1 Corinthians 6:10 lists drunkards among those who will not inherit the kingdom of God. "Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, NOR DRUNKARDS, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."


Galatians 5:21 "Envyings, murders, DRUNKENNESS, revelings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have told you in time past, that THEY WHICH DO SUCH THINGS SHALL NOT INHERIT THE KINGDOM OF GOD."

Titus 2:11-12 tells us, "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world.

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This seems to run counter to Jesus turning water into wine. Paul seems to be more asthetic than the teachings of Jesus would seem to indicate. A liberal reading of Paul's letters could lead you to the conclusion that ALL christians (ie children of God) should abstain from sex, not just the priestly orders. From my own readings (and memory), the Bible warns christians that drunkenness can lead to sin, but drunenness itself is not sinful.

I prefer Benjamin Franklin's view of drinking. "Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." To each their own.

Angelic,

Your quotes are against drunkenness not against drinking. There are similar condemnations against gluttony but not against eating. Jesus said he was called a glutton and a drunkard because he ate and drank, but that John the Baptist was didn't eat or drink and was said to have a demon.

For my thoughts on evolution, please look for my postings 'evolving' elsewhere.

Morallyangelic said:

Are you saying here that Scripture says that Jesus was the last man and because we know that not to be true that the word Adam couldn't have meant man literally?

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In Paul's use, it could not have meant man literally. Adam was the first Adam. Jesus was the last Adam. I Cor. 15:45

What do you mean by ' special ' ?

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I don't really know. We agree that Jesus was a special man. Likewise, so was Adam. It ties in with Paul's statement. I'm currently toying with some ideas that are too preliminary and too involved to discuss here now.

I wouldn't want to sidetrack into a discussion of drinking, but Mathematician is right on this one - these are condemnations of habitual and lifestyle drunkenness - not drinking, or even drunkenness per se - the Wedding at Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine for people who were already one over the eight and probably approaching two over the sixteen. I can't really imagine why an anti-drink God would routinely turn the essence of wine into His blood on a daily basis at masses around the world*, but I digress.

I'm not sure I'd go as far as Mathematician with regard to the two accounts of the creation of man in Genesis 1 and 2. Church tradition has never endorsed (can you tell I lean in a Catholic direction ) the idea that man was created twice, and has always seen Adam as a type for all mankind. However, they are clearly seperate accounts. A simpler (to my mind) resolution of this issue is to suggest that the two accounts have different sources - and one cannot help notice that we have "God" throughout the first version, and "The LORD God" throughout the second story. IIRC, the former is a translation of "Elohim", which is originally a plural "The Gods" which became considered a plural (a royal "we"?) as monotheism became established; the latter is "YHWH Adonai" - implying a post-Exodus priestly source for the story.

In short, I think that the redactors of the Genesis we now have (Moses? Traditionally, yes, but most scholars consider this highly unlikely**) had two creation stories from his oral tradition. Both were considered holy tradition, and the contradictions between them clearly didn't matter too much, because they're not historical accounts, but myths - and that's "myth" as in "story which is a vehicle of truth whilst not being literally true in every detail itself", rather than "myth" as in "not true at all".

Our task, thousands of years later, if we consider these texts to be divinely inspired, is to ask what theological messages they conveyed to their readers.

*replace with "use wine to represent His blood when instituting the Lord's Supper" according to personal theology

**indeed, some suspect that when the Book of the Law was found while cleaning the temple, the ink wasn't completely dry.

Morallyangelic said:

I have heard some people from my church say that the wine in the Bible was not fermented ( sp? ) Does anyone know if that is scriptural?

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Not really. Proverbs talks of wine as an intoxicant. Besides, keeping grape juice from fermenting in a warm climate is pretty hard to do. The yeasts are already on the grapes before you start.

Angelic,

Morallyangelic said:

I have heard some people from my church say that the wine in the Bible was not fermented ( sp? ) Does anyone know if that is scriptural?

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If it wasn't fermented, then how did people get drunk?

Contrary to what Karl said, it's actually not difficult to keep grape juice from fermenting. But until Dr. Welch invented his process a little over 100 years ago, the results would have killed you. With ancient technology, you have basically 4 choices.

1) Botulism.
2) Alcoholic Wine.
3) Vinegar
4) Using a lot of scarce wood to boil it down to heavy syrup.

Before the US Civil War, all churches had weekly communion with wine. After the Civil War, the US churches started preaching against demon rum and changing to less frequent communion. Welch invented his process to created a non-alcoholic communion wine. Then the churches started supporting Prohibition.

Before Welch, no one would have suggested that ancient wine was non-alcoholic. To come up with that, it required someone who was raised on Welches and told that all alcohol is sinful.