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shernren said:No, Cal, we start by believing that the Bible is inerrant, believe also that reality possesses the properties it displays (i.e. evidence for evolution and an old earth?) and then see what the Bible's inerrancy means in the light of reality. At no point whatsoever do we adjust the Bible itself, or doubt its inerrancy. In fact we come up with all this to cement and defend its inerrancy, by finding what form of inerrancy is the most defensible.
Actually, the "appearance of age" argument may be a problem--or at least more of a problem than the one it attempts to dodge. If we attempt to buttress a questionable interpretation of scripture by claiming that God attempted to deceive us by leaving false clues regarding the age of the universe, we may be guilty of ascribing attributes to God that are contrary to those taught in the Bible.....ChristianMuse said:If I draw an old man, the picture is new but the image of the person appears old. If I can do that with my imagination what can God do with his? Create a universe that appears older (to all scientific investigation) yet be freshly minted. That isn't a problem at all.
I'm not sure I understand why you "see that as a problem." If God said that His creation--including life, death or any other natural processes He may have set in motion--was good, why does that pose a problem?Calminian said:God looked at the entire universe after He had created man and said it was all "very good." This would have to include the death and suffering before man got here. I see that as a problem, I'm not sure if you do.
Vance said:No, SBG, the point is that YEC's have put the "origins" issue into play. It is already effecting the message. It is already effecting people's faith. We don't need to bring it up. I have had many Christians and non-Christians alike express doubts in Scripture due to the YEC teaching. This means I have to spend some time trying, with the Spirit's help and guidance, to help them over this hurdle, and show them that Scripture IS still true and reliable, before the discussion can move forward to the Gospel message, since the Scriputre is the foundation of that message. If I say, "but that doesn't matter, because all you need to do is accept Jesus!" they simply respond, "yes, but if Scripture is not true, then why should I believe any of that stuff?" and I have to go back to the issue which is causing them doubts.
shernren said:Calminian, where in the Bible is animal death moralized? God killed animals to provide Adam and Eve with fur skins. Where in the Bible do animals suffer, or have the moral capacity to avoid suffering?
SBG, I agree that sometimes it is not the evidence itself but what the evidence says. However two positions that can explain all the physical evidence, may not be able to explain all the philosophical evidence. For example, let's take the picture and autopsy of JFK with a bullet in his brain. Person 1 says JFK was killed by a bullet to the brain. Person 2 says God stopped JFK's heart miraculously, and then created a fake bullet track and a bullet in his brain to make it look like he was shot dead.
Both theories explain the physical evidence. But doesn't theory 2 seem unlikely in light of the character of God and the nature of creation and the world He has created?
That's what we mean by the difference between appearance of age and appearance of history.
ChristianMuse said:It doesn't bother me at all. If it is just six days of creation and nothing before then well and good for the statement. If it is billions of years, these billions of years occured before the six day period and were not a part of it. It is the six day creation period that God said was very good. I believe there may have been a period between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2. Either way it doesn't change the veracity of God's statement. The bible reflects the covenants that God has made with man. It does not cover the previous ages, if there were previous ages.
http://www.grisda.org/origins/21005.htm said:V. LITERAL INTERPRETATION OF CREATION "DAYS"
We shall consider the usage of "day" (Hebrew yôm) along major lines of current scholarship. There are liberal and non-liberal scholars who have concluded that the word "day" (Hebrew yôm) in Genesis 1 must be singularly understood in a literal sense. We will review some of their reasons and provide additional ones.
4. Considerations Based on Semantics
The field of semantics in linguistic study refers to what is called signification.92 It deals with the issue of "the accurate evaluation of the meaning of expressions [words, phrases, clauses, sentences, etc.] which have actually been used."93
Semantics calls for attention to the crucial question of the exact meaning of the Hebrew word yôm. Could the designation "day" in Genesis 1 possibly have a figurative meaning in this chapter? Is it to be understood on the basis of the norms of semantics as a literal "day"? This matter of semantics is particularly important in view of the fact that the Hebrew term yôm in the singular and plural has a large variety of meanings, including extended meanings such as "time," "life time," and so on. Is it possible to import an extended meaning from the Old Testament into Genesis 1? Could this not solve the problem of the conflict of a short creation week and the long ages called for by naturalistic evolution?
The Hebrew term yôm, in its variety of forms, can mean aside from a literal "day" also a time or period of time (Judges 14:4) and in a more general sense "a month [of] time" (Genesis 29:14), "two years [of] time" (2 Samuel 13:23;14:28; Jeremiah 28:3,11), "three weeks [of] time" (Daniel 11:2, 3). In the plural form it can mean "year" (1 Samuel 27:7), a "life time" (Genesis 47:8), and so forth. Any good lexicon will provide a comprehensive listing of the various possibilities.94
It is important to keep in mind that "the semantic content of the words can be seen more clearly in their various combinations with other words and their extended semantic field."95
What are the semantic-syntactical guidelines for extended, non-literal meanings of the Hebrew term yôm? The extended, non-literal meanings of the term yôm are always found in connection with prepositions,96 prepositional phrases with a verb, compound constructions, formulas, technical expressions, genitive combinations, construct phrases, and the like.97 In other words, extended, non-literal meanings of this Hebrew term have special linguistic and contextual connections which indicate clearly that a non-literal meaning is intended. If such special linguistic connections are absent, the term yôm does not have an extended, non-literal meaning; it has its normal meaning of a literal day of 24-hours.
In view of the wealth of usages of this Hebrew term, it is imperative to study the usage of the term yôm in Genesis 1 so that it can be compared with other usages. Does this chapter contain the needed indicators by which yôm can clearly be recognized to have a literal or non-literal meaning? How is this term used in Genesis 1? Is it used together with combinations of other words, prepositions, genitive relations, construct state, and the like, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, which would indicate a non-literal meaning? It is exactly these kinds of semantic-syntactical combinations which inform us about the intention of the meaning of this term.
Let us present the facts of the usage of the term yôm, "day," in Genesis 1 as any scholar who knows Hebrew can describe them:
1. The term yôm is always used in the singular.
2. The term yôm is always joined to a numeral. In Genesis 1:5 it is a cardinal and elsewhere in Genesis 1:1 - 2:3 it is always an ordinal. We will pay attention to this below.
3. The term yôm is never combined with a preposition, genitive combination, construct state, compound construction, or the like. It always appears as a plain noun.
4. The term yôm is consistently defined by a temporal phrase in the preceding sentence, "and there was evening and there was morning." This clause serves in a defining function for the word "day."
5. The complementary creation account of Genesis 2:4-25 contains a non-literal, figurative meaning of the singular of the term yôm, "day." When the non-literal meaning is intended the semantic-syntactical conventions known from the remainder of the Old Testament for such a meaning are employed. This is the case in the non-literal usage in Genesis 2:4.
Let us note these criteria as they are employed in Genesis 2:4. The noun yôm is joined to the preposition be to read beyôm. Secondly, it is used in a construct relation with the infinitive form of 'asah, "to make." It reads literally, "in the day of making." This combination of the singular with a preposition in construct with an infinitive98 makes this combination a "temporal conjunction,"99 which serves as a "general introduction of time."100
Genesis 2:4b reads literally, "in [the] day of the Lord God making the earth and heaven. Proper English calls for the literal "in [the] day of," which is syntactically a temporal conjunction that serves as a general introduction of time, to be rendered with "when." This sentence then reads, "When the Lord God made ...." This clear-cut case of an extended, non-literal use of yôm in the creation account of Genesis 2:4-25 shows that the contrary usage of yôm in Genesis 1, without any expected qualifier that marks it as a non-literal use, has a literal meaning. The term yôm in Genesis 1 has no prepositions; it is not used in a construct relation and it has no syntactical indicator expected of an extended, non-literal meaning. Thus, in Genesis 1 yôm can mean only a literal "day" of 24 hours.
In short, the semantic-syntactical usages of yôm, "day," in Genesis 1 as compared with semantic-syntactical usages and linguistic connections of this term in other Old Testament passages where it has an extended meaning, does not allow it to mean a long period of time, an age, or the like. The Hebrew language, its grammar, syntax, linguistic structures as well as its semantic usage allows for only the literal meaning of "day" for the creation "days" of Genesis 1.
Does it have to be an eithor/or dichotomy?shernren said:I take the Bible as a moral guideline, and therefore the Bible probably doesn't have much if anything at all to say about scientific theories. In fact, the matter is the only time I have changed my interpretation of scripture for scientific theory. Then again, is it more reasonable to adopt an interpretation of scripture that makes the world make sense, or to adopt a scientific interpretation of the data that doesn't make the world make sense?
Sinai said:
Since Hebrew is a rather ancient language that lacks the large vocabulary available in English, the same word or phrase may have many different possible meanings. The person or persons translating Hebrew into English generally use the most common meaning that is possible within the context--but that may cause what appears to be a conflict with a different verse or with a scientific or archelogical discovery.
However, most such apparent conflicts disappear upon a closer inspection of the range of meanings and the full context of the passage in question. When dealing with scripture that has scientific implications, in order to avoid reading a meaning into a passage that it probably should not have, I like to cross reference it with analysis and commetary from outstanding biblical scholars who wrote more than 700 years ago (well before modern scientfic discoveries).
Biliskner said:You are calling your brothers and sisters of the Kingdom of God liars.
nice one.
gluadys said:Would you really want to contend that no Christian has ever lied?
However, you are ignoring what I really said. I did not accuse anyone of lying. Rather I said that creationism is built on a foundation of lies.
That is not an accusation that creationists are liars. I am of the opinion that most creationists quite sincerely believe their position and are not liars in the sense of wishing to deceive anyone. They believe that what they are saying is the truth. Even that it is God's truth. So I am not saying that the people who believe in creationism are liars.
I am saying that the foundation of this belief is a lie. By that, I mean that the belief cannot be reconciled with evident truth. It has to avoid evidence; it has to say that what has been observed has not been observed; it has to deny the accuracy of accurate measurements; it has to pretend that the elephant in the room is not there.
But if the elephant is there, your belief that it is not is based on a lie, even though you are not personally a liar.
Which is one of many reasons that it is a good idea to go back to the original language whenever possible--especially on difficult issues.Biliskner said:Sinai said:If God's word is true (as I believe it is), then we can believe the Bible when it tells us that God is the truth and does not lie, nor is He deceitful or false. Thus, both His word and His world should give consistent and true accounts of His creation. If we reach a point where we think they appear to be inconsistent and contradictory, it might be helpful to make a closer study of both.
A study of physics, astronomy, biology and other sciences at a good accredited university--including Christian universities like Notre Dame, Baylor and SMU--would probably be a good place to start, and there are many excellent scientific journals and books that cover the tremendous scientific discoveries that have been made over the past 70 or so years that are giving us a much clearer picture of the creative process.
Similarly, one could get into the actual meanings of what the Bible says by studying the original languages of the Bible--Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek--and ancient commentaries on the scriptures in question. Even if a word-for-word translation were possible, it would still not really be fully "literal" and true to the original meanings, since it would not express all the nuances of the original language.
Since Hebrew is a rather ancient language that lacks the large vocabulary available in English, the same word or phrase may have many different possible meanings. The person or persons translating Hebrew into English generally use the most common meaning that is possible within the context--but that may cause what appears to be a conflict with a different verse or with a scientific or archelogical discovery.
However, most such apparent conflicts disappear upon a closer inspection of the range of meanings and the full context of the passage in question. When dealing with scripture that has scientific implications, in order to avoid reading a meaning into a passage that it probably should not have, I like to cross reference it with analysis and commetary from outstanding biblical scholars who wrote more than 700 years ago (well before modern scientfic discoveries).
There are more ways than just semantics-analysis to translation...
SBG said:Maybe you can clarify your position. Is creation 'the science' built on 'science' lies or is creation 'the faith' built on 'theological' lies?
I suspect the OECs could even go along with a 24-hour yom (actually six consecutive 24-hour yoms) if the resulting 144-hour time period were measured forward in time from the approximate moment of "the beginning" at the speed of the outward flow of creation. Because of time dilatation [a slowing of time in accordance with the theory of relativity that occurs in a system in motion relative to an outside observer and that becomes apparent especially as the speed of the system approaches that of light], such a 144-hour period would equal the billions of years mainstream science says is the age of our universe.....shernren said:Biliskner, I agree that yom is almost exclusively used as a 24-h day. My question is whether the whole account is literal historical or not. Come to think of it, only OECs have a problem with a 24-hour yom because they are trying to say the yom was something else, a few million years or whatever. To me, I would say that yom is a day in the context of the story, but the story may not be history in the context of the real world.
gluadys said:However, you are ignoring what I really said. I did not accuse anyone of lying. Rather I said that creationism is built on a foundation of lies.
shernren said:Biliskner, I agree that yom is almost exclusively used as a 24-h day. My question is whether the whole account is literal historical or not. Come to think of it, only OECs have a problem with a 24-hour yom because they are trying to say the yom was something else, a few million years or whatever. To me, I would say that yom is a day in the context of the story, but the story may not be history in the context of the real world. I hope I'm being clear: I have a sneaky suspicion I'm not.
shernren said:To me, I would say that yom is a day in the context of the story, but the story may not be history in the context of the real world. I hope I'm being clear: I have a sneaky suspicion I'm not.
shernren said:And a dino bone being either 10K or 10M (sic, since it's supposed to be around 65MYA) years old is very literally a smoking-bullet problem. In the first place, you have to contend with rocks which date at a few billion years old. The rock ages are based on isochron dating which is based on the rate of radioactive decay and basic logarithmic/exponential mathematics. Upset any of these and you basically turn the world upside down. Ditto for dino bones.
shernren said:Ok, maybe you can tell me that God created a bone that looked 65 million years old for the dino to live out its short life. Fine. But what about things like, say, meteor impacts? We have craters too old for the creationist timeline, both here and I daresay on the Moon as well. Did God create a crater 6000 years ago to look like a meteor hit it 65MYA, when there were no meteors to hit it 65MYA? That's exactly like saying He created JFK's bullet hole without there being a bullet.
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