Who wrote Genesis 1? Poll

How was Genesis 1 written?

  • God (or Adam) wrote Gen1 on a tablet. Tablet was passed down to Moses. [or something similar]

  • God spoke to Moses in a dream/vision. Moses wrote it down in Gen1. [or something similar]

  • Moses wrote Gen1 all by himself, to teach theology (not history). No direct input from God.

  • A wise Israelite wrote Gen1 after the Exodus, to teach theology. No direct input from God.

  • Gosh, I don’t know! / I've never thought about it!

  • I have another theory. (Please explain in a post.)


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jereth

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Response to everyone who has advocated some form of the theory that Gen 1-3 was transmitted from Adam to Moses via tablets / oral tradition:

I think there is something else that you have all missed. Besides the obvious difficulty of believing that a "divine message" could have been faithfully transmitted for over 2000 years, there is another perhaps even bigger problem.

Joshua 24:2 tells us:
And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land o f Canaan, and made his offspring many.'"

Let's remember that everyone from Adam to Abraham (with the exception of Enoch and Noah) were pagans! They had rejected the true God and lived in sinful depravity, worshipping other gods. Why then would these men have faithfully transmitted a story about how the true God created the world?

I think this means we can safely write off the "tablet theory"altogether. The only viable theory for YECists is that God spoke to Moses directly about Genesis 1, or perhaps he spoke about it to Abraham who then passed the story down to Moses.

Judging by the poll, it seems that not many people agree with the tablet theory anyway! ^_^
(Does anyone want to let AiG know so they can stop teaching it too?)
 
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shernren

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Excellent catch, jereth! *kowtows*

[What ChristianForums could use is a zero-point-rep. In other words if you are among the last ten people I have repped, I can still rep you as many times as I want, just that the next n times will count as zero rep points until I rep another 10 people besides you. That would be swell!]
 
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ChetSinger

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jereth said:
Response to everyone who has advocated some form of the theory that Gen 1-3 was transmitted from Adam to Moses via tablets / oral tradition:

I think there is something else that you have all missed. Besides the obvious difficulty of believing that a "divine message" could have been faithfully transmitted for over 2000 years, there is another perhaps even bigger problem.

Joshua 24:2 tells us:
And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land o f Canaan, and made his offspring many.'"

Let's remember that everyone from Adam to Abraham (with the exception of Enoch and Noah) were pagans! They had rejected the true God and lived in sinful depravity, worshipping other gods. Why then would these men have faithfully transmitted a story about how the true God created the world?

I think this means we can safely write off the "tablet theory"altogether. The only viable theory for YECists is that God spoke to Moses directly about Genesis 1, or perhaps he spoke about it to Abraham who then passed the story down to Moses.

Judging by the poll, it seems that not many people agree with the tablet theory anyway! ^_^
(Does anyone want to let AiG know so they can stop teaching it too?)
A closer look at scripture reveals that maintaining an oral tradition doesn't have the difficulties you've stated.

First, pre-flood:

Lamech, Noah's father, was aware of the creation story. Genesis 5:28-29 states: "And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah, saying, This [same] shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.".

How would Lamech know this? Perhaps because both Adam and Seth were still alive, even long after Lamech reached adulthood. He could have heard it directly from Adam's mouth. So for the creation story to survive the Flood, it had to be transmitted only twice: From Adam to Lamech, and from Lamech to Noah. As Lamech clearly had high hopes for his son, I think it likely he would pass the story on.

Second, post-Flood:

Shem, Noah's son, was still alive long after Abraham reached adulthood. So Abraham, being a direct descendant, could have heard the creation story directly from Shem himself.

So for the story to reach from Adam to Abraham, it had to be transmitted only four times: Adam > Lamech > Noah > Shem > Abraham. And they were all righteous, with the possible exception of Lamech. And even if Lamech were unrighteous, and didn't actually worship the Lord, it doesn't follow that he would be ignorant of history (since Adam himself was still walking around).
 
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jereth

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ChetSinger said:
So for the story to reach from Adam to Abraham, it had to be transmitted only four times: Adam > Lamech > Noah > Shem > Abraham. And they were all righteous, with the possible exception of Lamech. And even if Lamech were unrighteous, and didn't actually worship the Lord, it doesn't follow that he would be ignorant of history (since Adam himself was still walking around).

I don't expect you to agree with me, ChetSinger, but your theory is of course based on the assumption that the genealogies in Genesis 5 and 10 are comprehensive (i.e. every generation has been included). I think you'll find that many if not most TEs and OECs will disagree with you about this.

(My own musings on this topic can be read at http://home.iprimus.com.au/jereth/jereth/genesis&origins/age_humanity.html)

Also, even if they really were alive at the same time, it is just a speculation that Adam would have talked to Lamech and Shem to Abraham. Were they even living in the same place? Did they even speak the same language? (remember Shem and Abraham were separated by Babel) There would have been literally hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of people living on earth at the time.

ChetSinger said:
Lamech, Noah's father, was aware of the creation story. Genesis 5:28-29 states: "And Lamech lived an hundred eighty and two years, and begat a son: And he called his name Noah, saying, This [same] shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.".

I don't think this proves the point. Just because Lamech thought that the ground was cursed by the Lord, it doesn't necessarily follow that he was familiar with the creation account.

IMO the sinfulness of everyone between Adam and Abraham (including Adam, excluding Enoch/Noah) is still something major that YECists and/or tablet theorists need to contend with. Even if it is correct to assume that there was a large degree of overlap between generations, you need to take account of the fact that we are dealing with utterly depraved human beings (just like you and me pre-conversion) who had no knowledge of God, and who we are explicitly told were serving "other gods".

"The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time."
"Now the earth was corrupt in God's sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways."
Why would there be any discussion amongst such people about the true and living God? Why would there be any effort to pass on a truthful creation account?

Also, I disagree with you that Adam was righteous (see Romans 5). Furthermore, there is no evidence that Shem as an individual was righteous.

In light of all these considerations, I think the onus remains on YECists to demonstrate how the creation accounts could possibly have been passed down faithfully from Adam to Moses. Me -- I really can't see it having happened.
 
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RenHoek

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In light of all these considerations, I think the onus remains on YECists to demonstrate how the creation accounts could possibly have been passed down faithfully from Adam to Moses. Me -- I really can't see it having happened.


The onus is on you to refute the word of God. A stance I would not feel at ease with given multiple Biblical examples of wonderful things happening to those that do. Without faith it is not possible for the account to be preserved, nor a resurrection, nor a parting of the sea, nor grace…..Why do we feel the need to limit God by putting humanities restraints on Him? We are talking about a God who transcends our limited perception of reality/science/logic. I am continually surprised how much emphasis Christians put on the origins. Why do we eliminate the overwhelming possibility that God willed it and so it happened that the creation account was either passed down or retold to Moses? What is more difficult, speaking a universe into being or making sure two people meet to pass down an account (or whatever means He used, we shall not know for sure until we meet Him face to face)?

Jeremiah 17:5
Thus says the LORD,
"Cursed is the man who trusts in mankind
And makes flesh his strength,
And whose heart turns away from the LORD.
 
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relspace

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jereth said:
It's so very nice to see the TEs having their say on this thread!:)

But I actually intended it to be a challenge to YECs to explain their understanding of Genesis 1. I will therefore reissue my invitation to YECs to please come forth and make their views known. Specifically, do any of you agree with the Tablet Theory (option 1)? If not, do you then hold to some form of "supernatural dictation" (option 2)? Or do you have some other idea?

Please don't be afraid -- no one is going to jump on you! (I won't, anyway, and I hope the others won't either! :D)

Well I think that jereth has rather forgotten himself, becuse considering how this has turned into a rather obnoxious and argumentative attempt to discredit the reliability of the Bible as the word of God, it would appear that jereth merely started this thread to pick a fight with YEC proponents.

It might be time to bring this thread back under control.

If a Christian believes in some form of evolution as does a TEist then he must deal with Genesis 1 in one of these ways.

1)Genesis 1 is not the word of God and is unreliable.
2)Genesis 1 is symbolic with words like light and days representing things like energy and periods. This is quite reasonable since the proper words were not likely to have existed in the language let alone the vocabulary of the writer at the time.
3)Genesis 1 was never intended to represent any kind of accurate description of how God created the world. This is quite reasonable considering that, any such description would have been completely beyond the understanding of the people at that time and frankly may still be beyond our understanding even now, despite our advances in science.

The first of these reeks of hubris and a complete non-Christian attitude, and if you honestly believe this, then it might be better in a Christian only discussion forum to keep this rather obnoxious opinion to yourself.
 
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jereth

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relspace said:
Well I think that jereth has rather forgotten himself, becuse considering how this has turned into a rather obnoxious and argumentative attempt to discredit the reliability of the Bible as the word of God, it would appear that jereth merely started this thread to pick a fight with YEC proponents.

Will all due respect, I take exception to that.

relspace said:
1)Genesis 1 is not the word of God and is unreliable.

If you had read my posts carefully, you'd see that I believe nothing of the sort.

relspace said:
3)Genesis 1 was never intended to represent any kind of accurate description of how God created the world.

That's in fact closest to what I believe.

relspace said:
The first of these reeks of hubris and a complete non-Christian attitude, and if you honestly believe this, then it might be better in a Christian only discussion forum to keep this rather obnoxious opinion to yourself.

Just as well then that I don't believe it! ;)

By the way, I'd just like to say a big thanks to ChetSinger, since he is the one YECist on this forum who really appears to have given some substantial consideration to the origin of Genesis 1. It is refreshing to hear something more than: "It's enough for me to just have faith that Genesis 1 comes from God -- I don't care about how it actually happened". Well done, mate.
 
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relspace

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jereth said:
Will all due respect, I take exception to that.

If you had read my posts carefully, you'd see that I believe nothing of the sort.

Well I am sorry if I have misunderstood you. But I have read your posts and see nothing of the kind. Your last post is the first indication I have had that you do not believe what I thought you did. What I saw was you and shernen chortling over your success in "disproving" my own theory and that the fourth option was ahead in the poll, which includes "No direct input from God."

I would not presume to tell you what you believe but I must confess to some confusion about just what that is. Since you chose my third option that gives me some insight. But to clarify, can you state your own position in your poll and if it includes "No direct input from God", can you explain why my first option does not therefore describe you as I had supposed.
 
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RenHoek

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By the way, I'd just like to say a big thanks to ChetSinger, since he is the one YECist on this forum who really appears to have given some substantial consideration to the origin of Genesis 1. It is refreshing to hear something more than: "It's enough for me to just have faith that Genesis 1 comes from God -- I don't care about how it actually happened". Well done, mate.


Hebrews 11
1 Now FAITH is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. 3 By FAITH we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
4 By FAITH Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks. 5 By FAITH Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; F50 for before he was taken he had this testimony, that he pleased God. 6 But without FAITH it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. 7 By FAITH Noah, being divinely warned of things not yet seen, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark for the saving of his household, by which he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness which is according to FAITH. 8 By FAITH Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. 9 By FAITH he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; 10 for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. 11 By FAITH Sarah herself also received strength to conceive seed, and she bore a child F51 when she was past the age, because she judged Him FAITHful who had promised. 12 Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born as many as the stars of the sky in multitude--innumerable as the sand which is by the seashore. 13 These all died in FAITH, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, F52 embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth 14 For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. 15 And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. 17 By FAITH Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," F53 19 concluding that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense. 20 By FAITH Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. 21 By FAITH Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. 22 By FAITH Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. 23 By FAITH Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king's command. 24 By FAITH Moses, when he became of age, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in F54 Egypt; for he looked to the reward. 27 By FAITH he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible. 28 By FAITH he kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood, lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them. 29 By FAITH they passed through the Red Sea as by dry land, whereas the Egyptians, attempting to do so, were drowned. 30 By FAITH the walls of Jericho fell down after they were encircled for seven days. 31 By FAITH the harlot Rahab did not perish with those who did not believe, when she had received the spies with peace.
32 And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: 33 who through FAITH subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. 35 Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, F55 were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented-- 38 of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. 39 And all these, having obtained a good testimony through FAITH, did not receive the promise, 40 God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

Any such dissertation on science or mans ideas of what happened or the wisdom of man? Careful how you knock faith brother.


 
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Willtor

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Now, RenHoek, if one hopes for a thing and doesn't see it, is his belief equivalent to Christian faith? To put it another way, are there instances where things are not so, but people believe them, anyway?
 
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shernren

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Yes, RenHoek, we do have Bibles at home. And by the by we are told that for Abraham faith and reasoning went hand in hand:

By FAITH Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, 18 of whom it was said, "In Isaac your seed shall be called," F53 19 concluding (in some versions literally "reasoning") that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

Faith gave him inspiration to reason and reason gave him hope to have faith.

relspace: I apologize if my behaviour here has offended you. But what do you mean by "the word of God", anyway? To repeat an oft-heard line here, the Word of God is Jesus, not a book.

How does it discredit God if Genesis 1 was not handed down directly or through human intermediaries without corruption from Adam to Moses?

I think the bigger problem is that oral traditions are almost always not about "history" as we moderns understand it. An oral tradition is composed in such a manner that it contains lots of mnemonic aids to facilitate memorization - dramatization, chiasmic structure, parallelisms, and so on. Admitting that Genesis 1 was handed down by oral tradition would jeopardize the YECist contention that Genesis 1 is history in the modern sense of the word, hence the need to interpolate writing - the tablet theory.
 
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jabechler

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I would advocate since I firmly believe that the entire bible was written by men as they were lead by the Holy spirit. Moses wrote the first five books ( the penetauch) with the guidance of God. anything short of Gods direct leading in the writing of scriptures leads to a disbelief in the validity of scripture.
 
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relspace

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shernren said:
relspace: I apologize if my behaviour here has offended you. But what do you mean by "the word of God", anyway? To repeat an oft-heard line here, the Word of God is Jesus, not a book.
Not at all. I said no such thing. I just thought I saw some inconsistency in what jereth was trying to accomplish with this thread. I am not in the habit of using "word of god" to refer to Jesus. If I were to make that connection I would probably use the term Logos. Generally I use "word of god" for what it sounds like, not literally word for word but to mean ideas, instructions, commands, facts, etc.. which originally came from God.
shernren said:
How does it discredit God if Genesis 1 was not handed down directly or through human intermediaries without corruption from Adam to Moses?
I never said anything about discrediting God, but about discrediting the Bible as the word of God.

Look I am rational person, a scientist, or at least a physics instructor, so I would acknowledge the possibility that such corruption of truth in the Bible may have occurred. I just don't think that it is a productive line of reasoning. The sun may have just gone nova and we would not know it for 8 minutes. So it may have happened - we do not know. This is possible but it is not a productive conjecture, 8 minutes will tell.

I don't advocate turning off our brains and refusing to reason but all reason starts with premises that are accepted on faith. Christians even rational Christians accept the Bible on faith, that is an important part of what being Christian means. Without premises, without the foundation of faith, reason will get you nowhere and without the Bible, Christianity is nothing. It is our ultimate authority, which is indispensible because we know that man and his ideas are untrustworthy. It is the nature of man, by the testimony of history, to twist the truth to justify himself.

So even though I can appreciate the feeling that the Bible is sometimes like a straight-jacket. I think it is a healthy limitation, because our sanity cannot be taken for granted.

shernren said:
I think the bigger problem is that oral traditions are almost always not about "history" as we moderns understand it. An oral tradition is composed in such a manner that it contains lots of mnemonic aids to facilitate memorization - dramatization, chiasmic structure, parallelisms, and so on. Admitting that Genesis 1 was handed down by oral tradition would jeopardize the YECist contention that Genesis 1 is history in the modern sense of the word, hence the need to interpolate writing - the tablet theory.
Oh I agree that makes sense, and it does sound perfectly reasonable. But it is really beside the point. The Bible and all of its stories are our memory, and our memory is part of who we are, and so I do not believe that you can call yourself Christian unless accept this common memory on faith, because that memory is part of what being Christian is.

I am not sure what you mean by "history in the modern sense of the word". You have to take into account the period of human history which is involved. There are speculative accounts that historians try to justify with the use of historical documents and there are the documents themselves. The Bible is an historical document with few rivals for the period of time involved.
 
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jereth

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relspace said:
I would not presume to tell you what you believe but I must confess to some confusion about just what that is. Since you chose my third option that gives me some insight. But to clarify, can you state your own position in your poll and if it includes "No direct input from God", can you explain why my first option does not therefore describe you as I had supposed.

Thanks relspace for giving me the chance to explain what I think.

In my original post, I included this statement:
Please note that although options 3 and 4 say "no direct input from God", all this means is that there was no supernatural dictation/dream/vision etc. Choosing either of these options does not mean that you reject the divine inspiration of Scripture.

It seems that many YECs on this forum confuse "inspiration" of Scripture with "direct or supernatural dictation" of Scripture. They are not the same thing. For instance, we believe that the gospel of Luke and epistles of Paul were "inspired", but virtually no one would say that God dictated these to the authors. Luke and Paul wrote "naturally", Luke using ordinary tools of research (see the first few verses of Luke 1) and Paul using his own wisdom and understanding. We call these epistles "inspired" because we believe that the human writings also convey a divine message.

I believe the same applies to Genesis, and Genesis 1 in particular. I reject the idea that Genesis 1 was somehow given by supernatural dictation to Moses, Adam or whoever. I believe that an ancient human author (Moses, or someone else) wrote it using their own wisdom and creativity, in order to convey an edifying theological message. This does not undermine the "inspiration" of the passage, since what the human author wrote can also be considered truth from God -- just not historical truth.
 
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RenHoek

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Now, RenHoek, if one hopes for a thing and doesn't see it, is his belief equivalent to Christian faith? To put it another way, are there instances where things are not so, but people believe them, anyway?

Absolutely. You can believe in an Easter bunny with all your might but it does not make it real. Of course Jesus never supported the existence of an Easter bunny.

My point is, what if mans wisdom/common sense prevailed at Jericho? To me the Christ-accepted/Christ-confirmed word of God tells us how it happened throughout the OT. Interpret how you like and we have had that debate to no agreement:sleep: , but I felt that jareth made a dangerous statement in “It is refreshing to hear something more than: "It's enough for me to just have faith…” As one Christian to another I am merely offering some cautionary rebuttal. I can think of no instance where it is wise to find mans opinion more refreshing than the word of God, also called sword of the Spirit, our only offensive weapon to battle an evil age lead by the father of lies. I just have a hard time with Christians dismissing the Bible off hand because of mans best guess based on finite knowledge. To me the Bible is either fact or full of lies for us to sift through.

Matthew 14:
29 So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Again, Christ does what man believes to be utterly against the prevailing knowledge of the day (and this day for that matter) and it is faith that is required, not “knowledge”.

 
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RenHoek

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Yes, RenHoek, we do have Bibles at home. And by the by we are told that for Abraham faith and reasoning went hand in hand:

I disagree here,:eek: big shock. Faith was at the base of his reasoning and built off of as a firm foundation to his reasoning. This, to me, is why we need to build our knowledge off of Christ-confirmed scripture. If we do not start with faith in the word, we are building on a faulty premise/weak base.

Either way, it is not reasoning that was praised but the faith.
 
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relspace

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jereth said:
In my original post, I included this statement:
Please note that although options 3 and 4 say "no direct input from God", all this means is that there was no supernatural dictation/dream/vision etc. Choosing either of these options does not mean that you reject the divine inspiration of Scripture.
Thanks for the explanation. I did miss this portion of your post. However, it does not change my conclusion, for it is still an attack on the idea that the Bible is truly God's word. I believe that this is unfruitful, unwarranted, un-neccessary, and un-Christian. The Christian attitude is to see the weakness on the part of man and not on the part of the things of God. All things can be said to be inspired by God (and that includes you and me), the question is whether the Bible is of man or is of God. Is the Bible God's chosen vehicle for the most important message that God has for us or not? If so, then surely God would not fail, and that is what makes the Bible a thing of God and not of man.

The weakness of man still remains in understanding what God is trying say in the Bible however. The point is whether you are going to point to the Bible and say "seek God there" or whether you are going to point to yourself and say "seek God here". The questions of "Sola Scriptura" and how the Bible is understood or interpreted are separate issues of debate and these are more than sufficient to challenge how the Bible is being used in a point of view to which you are opposed. Arguing within those limitations is arguing within Christianity, but attacking the link between God and the Bible is arguing against Christianity, and if you really feel compelled to do so I would suggest joining groups like the LDS or the moonies (although they do not look favorably on evolution either). You will make no progress with other Christians by attacking one of the things which they take on faith.

jereth said:
It seems that many YECs on this forum confuse "inspiration" of Scripture with "direct or supernatural dictation" of Scripture.
No, I think that the YEC have different interpretive principles. Your attitude is un-neccessarily pejorative. You are saying that they are stupid to have faith in the Bible. This is unproductive. It is more productive to argue about the intent of Genesis 1 and how it is to be interpreted than to attack the connection between God and the Bible. I give my opinion that the Genesis 1 was written down from an oral tradition since the literary structure does support this but also support the idea that God is ultimately the source of the content anyway, because this is the only way to argue for rational Christianity.

jereth said:
They are not the same thing. For instance, we believe that the gospel of Luke and epistles of Paul were "inspired", but virtually no one would say that God dictated these to the authors. Luke and Paul wrote "naturally", Luke using ordinary tools of research (see the first few verses of Luke 1) and Paul using his own wisdom and understanding. We call these epistles "inspired" because we believe that the human writings also convey a divine message.
Yes but the question is how you are going to argue about something which Luke or Paul discusses in scripture. It is unfruitful and un-Christian to start saying things like "but this just Paul/Luke inspired by God and not really from God Himself."
jereth said:
I believe the same applies to Genesis, and Genesis 1 in particular. I reject the idea that Genesis 1 was somehow given by supernatural dictation to Moses, Adam or whoever. I believe that an ancient human author (Moses, or someone else) wrote it using their own wisdom and creativity, in order to convey an edifying theological message. This does not undermine the "inspiration" of the passage, since what the human author wrote can also be considered truth from God -- just not historical truth.
Yes it does "undermine", for you are saying that God would not say this. It is like like saying that "if God were to talk about creation, He would say what I do and not what it says in Genesis 1". This is simply not acceptable. It is very much un-neccessary. The third option which I gave and which you chose in my previous post is sufficient and shows the proper Christian approach of attacking the weakness of man in understanding what God says rather than attacking the things of God.
 
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Willtor

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RenHoek said:


Absolutely. You can believe in an Easter bunny with all your might but it does not make it real. Of course Jesus never supported the existence of an Easter bunny.

My point is, what if mans wisdom/common sense prevailed at Jericho? To me the Christ-accepted/Christ-confirmed word of God tells us how it happened throughout the OT. Interpret how you like and we have had that debate to no agreement:sleep: , but I felt that jareth made a dangerous statement in “It is refreshing to hear something more than: "It's enough for me to just have faith…” As one Christian to another I am merely offering some cautionary rebuttal. I can think of no instance where it is wise to find mans opinion more refreshing than the word of God, also called sword of the Spirit, our only offensive weapon to battle an evil age lead by the father of lies. I just have a hard time with Christians dismissing the Bible off hand because of mans best guess based on finite knowledge. To me the Bible is either fact or full of lies for us to sift through.

Matthew 14:
29 So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. 30 But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, "Lord, save me!" 31 And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him, and said to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?"

Again, Christ does what man believes to be utterly against the prevailing knowledge of the day (and this day for that matter) and it is faith that is required, not “knowledge”.


I think differently. I'm going to make a subtle semantic distinction between "belief" and "belief in." Keep in mind this is not a distinction that all writers make (even Scriptural authors), but I think it is important for our society because the nature of the distinction has been lost, somewhere along the way.

I'm going to relate "belief" to propositional logic. "Statement 'x' is true." Even if one doesn't necessarily have good reason to think 'x' is true, one assumes it and calls that assumption "faith." But I don't think this sort of faith is the faith that God requires (and I'm hesitant even to say that He justifies it).

Next to this is "belief in" which has an object. This is more like a trust. It ought to be found in the presence of reason. I have found God to be trustworthy, so I believe in Him. Consider this as "faith." I have found it to be far more fruitful than any propositional statement.

In this sense, one has faith in Christ. One follows his commandments because one trusts in him. It is decidedly not abstract. It is the reality, itself. When Peter sank, it wasn't because he couldn't hold the propositional statement that he could walk on water. It was because his trust in Christ wavered. Christ had commanded him to do this thing, and his faith was weak. It is profoundly symbolic when Peter is said to take his eyes off Jesus and he starts to sink.

If one is confident that he has correctly discerned the Will of God (certainly in the context of the Holy Spirit), one ought not allow his trust in God to waver, even if the way seems impossible. There is no notion of an abstract principle or idea. There is only faith in the living God Who makes Himself known in Jesus Christ.
 
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shernren

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Look I am rational person, a scientist, or at least a physics instructor, so I would acknowledge the possibility that such corruption of truth in the Bible may have occurred. I just don't think that it is a productive line of reasoning. The sun may have just gone nova and we would not know it for 8 minutes. So it may have happened - we do not know. This is possible but it is not a productive conjecture, 8 minutes will tell.

I don't advocate turning off our brains and refusing to reason but all reason starts with premises that are accepted on faith. Christians even rational Christians accept the Bible on faith, that is an important part of what being Christian means. Without premises, without the foundation of faith, reason will get you nowhere and without the Bible, Christianity is nothing. It is our ultimate authority, which is indispensible because we know that man and his ideas are untrustworthy. It is the nature of man, by the testimony of history, to twist the truth to justify himself.

But would there be any difference between God directly telling Moses Genesis 1, or having told Adam and having Adam somehow hand it down to Moses? That was what I was asking.

I also accept that God's word the Bible is infallible. I just don't like what I call the "Quranic model" of its being given to man. You know, holy man goes into a cave and starts taking notes word-for-word. I'm sure there were portions of the Bible written like that, but by and large I believe that the Bible was simply ordinary testimony by ordinary man about (what seemed to them) ordinary relationships with God, which God then took and breathed life into, in the same way that God Incarnated Himself into ordinary flesh and blood instead of a Superman-body.

Oh I agree that makes sense, and it does sound perfectly reasonable. But it is really beside the point. The Bible and all of its stories are our memory, and our memory is part of who we are, and so I do not believe that you can call yourself Christian unless accept this common memory on faith, because that memory is part of what being Christian is.

Oh, I agree too!

I am not sure what you mean by "history in the modern sense of the word". You have to take into account the period of human history which is involved. There are speculative accounts that historians try to justify with the use of historical documents and there are the documents themselves. The Bible is an historical document with few rivals for the period of time involved.

I mean things like the Iliad or the Odyssey - names, figures, people, alongside gods making deals and semi-invincible demigods trumping entire cities' worth of defenders, things like that. How the lion got his mane, how the leopard got his spots, how the giraffe got his long neck.

Our sub-genre of what I would call "scientific history / historical science" probably didn't exist until the 19th/20th century.
 
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shernren said:
But would there be any difference between God directly telling Moses Genesis 1, or having told Adam and having Adam somehow hand it down to Moses? That was what I was asking.


I also accept that God's word the Bible is infallible. I just don't like what I call the "Quranic model" of its being given to man. You know, holy man goes into a cave and starts taking notes word-for-word. I'm sure there were portions of the Bible written like that, but by and large I believe that the Bible was simply ordinary testimony by ordinary man about (what seemed to them) ordinary relationships with God, which God then took and breathed life into, in the same way that God Incarnated Himself into ordinary flesh and blood instead of a Superman-body.
Well I gave my honest opinion that it was written down from an oral tradition. But that is just my idle opinion and I wouldn't like to bring this up in a discussion of the meaning of the content to undermine someones faith in it. Whether it was taken down word for word is not such a big deal to me because it really would make no difference. The language and culture of the people to whom it was first addressed still remains the most significant limitation in how it can be interpreted. Although there are hints in words and parables of Jesus that He was at times speaking over the heads of His immediate audience.
 
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