Why a literalist presumption?

[TwinCrier]

God speaking is a complex metaphor.
it is not technic, but a visual image.

I think that is my main problem with TE theory. God speaking isn't really God speaking. God spoke the world into existence with the YEC ideal. Those who suppose that creation is a parable, written to appease those too simple to understand the complex greatness of evolution try to undermind that plainess and make most of the word into a "complex metaphor." Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

 

[Didaskomenos]

Really? How about when John the Baptists heard God speak when Baptising Jesus? Or how about Jesus' transfiguration when the Apostles heard God speak? Did they really hear it?

And when Genesis says, 'God said,' God didn't really say? How about all those other times this is used on the OT?

Do you know what the Psalmists says about when God speaks?

The slippery slope will not work. We interpret the Psalms as lyrical poetry because of literary/historical reasons. We interpret Ezekiel, much of Daniel, and Revelation as apocalyptic literature because it matches up so well to that known prophetic genre.

Similarly, we interpret Genesis 1-3 as myth for literary/historical reasons, not for scientific reasons. The ancient peoples didn't do history. They created stories to give meaning to their world, and this is mythology. The motiffs and language of the Genesis creation stories show strong affinities to the mythologies of surrounding contemporary (and precedent) cultures.

History was a science not developed until the Greeks, and it even took them a long time to get it to what we would call pure history (if they ever did). Then the Word of God became flesh, invading history and giving it a meaning all His own, and Providentially the Greek mindset of history had infiltrated even the Holy Land so that this most important historical occasion would be recorded as actual events. We find Luke, for instance, cross-referencing his sources, and remarkable agreement among the Synoptics and even John at points in which their subject matter coincides. Therefore, we interpret the Gospels as historical for literary/historical reasons.

This is as it should be. Because the story of early Christianity is written as history, we have something that we in the modern era can point to and bank our faith on; the significance of the universe's beginning is not peculiar to our faith, but the advent of Jesus of Nazareth is.

 

[Vance]

Did God have physical vocal cords with which to make physical sound as we know it? As Remus said, God "breathing" is a figurative phrase which gives us an impression of what really happened, it does not mean that God actually took physical form to have lungs from which to breathe out. "God said" is much deeper than what we call speaking. If you agree with that, then you must look to the other descriptions of the account. If those can be figurative representation of what really happened, then it is just as easy for other sections to be figurative representations.

No TE is calling the Creation stories a parable to appease anyone. That is a blatant strawman. The literary presentation of the creation, IF figurative and non-literal, is a brilliant and complex literary presentation that would be understood by subtle and sophisticated minds, which those in the ancient near east definitely had. More subtle and sophisticated than many today, that is for sure.

At a time when they did not have mass media, the internet, thousands of magazines or books, iPods or DVD players, the stories they told about their past were IT. They had to be incredibly powerful, deep and satisfying. A simply "cigar is just a cigar" would NEVER work in those days. It works now, but that is simply a sign of the times for modern man. We need things to be straightforward, literal, surface, plain.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I think that is my main problem with TE theory. God speaking isn't really God speaking. God spoke the world into existence with the YEC ideal. Those who suppose that creation is a parable, written to appease those too simple to understand the complex greatness of evolution try to undermind that plainess and make most of the word into a "complex metaphor." Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

It does a great injustice to Scripture to argue in that manner.
It is a great responsibility to correctly exegete Scripture, the purpose is to understand what it is that God is teaching us.

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The "said" is a metaphor, it is in Calvin's words an accommodation to our human weaknesses that we must have things explained as to a child in babytalk. God is Spirit, He doesn't have lungs, nor lips, nor were there molecules to vibrate to create sound, nor is God localized in a single spot. The point is that God is framing the discussion in human terms, God did not literally speak, it is a human analogy. It is an anthropomorphism, the same as describing God with great wings, or the back of God. What is the big deal with understanding this as a complex metaphor?

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4, emp. added).

from: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/530

does that mean that God desires me to understand that He used fingers to create the moon and stars? or course not, we know from other verses that God is a spirit, He doesn't have fingers, but human beings do and we have a set of ideas build up on that fact. We have language to express fingers as creative instruments and the Scriptures are using it in the same way, not as a didactic passage to teach us that God has fingers.

this should not be a big deal, something every beginning Christian learns in hermeneutics 101, identify the figures of speech, the anthropomorphisms, the metaphors, understand what they mean and what they are trying to say.
....

 

[SBG]

we are discussing Gen 1 and God speaking creation into existence.

I see. So when it says "God said" in Genesis, it isn't the same as in Matthew when it says "God said?"

Can you tell me why you treat the two exact phrases differently?

 

[SBG]

The slippery slope will not work. We interpret the Psalms as lyrical poetry because of literary/historical reasons. We interpret Ezekiel, much of Daniel, and Revelation as apocalyptic literature because it matches up so well to that known prophetic genre.

I see. So are you saying what is written in Psalms cannot be true, since it is poetry? Or can we treat it as truth? And if we can, can we take statements about God to be factual? How about when the Psalmists calls God Holy, can we trust this to be true? Or when the Psalmists says God punishes the evil doers, can we trust this to be true? Can we believe the Psalmists when says God is a merciful God? How about all the other characteristics the Psalmists describes God as, can we trust them to be truthful? Such as, God is Holy, God is just, God is righteous, God is merciful, God is loving, God is kind, God good to His people.... Can we trust these?

When Revelations says Jesus will come again, can we treat this as truth, even though it is apocalyptic?

I am not sure what your point is about these books, other than you trying to lend support that because they contain certain things they cannot be taken to be what they are, truth.

Similarly, we interpret Genesis 1-3 as myth for literary/historical reasons, not for scientific reasons. The ancient peoples didn't do history. They created stories to give meaning to their world, and this is mythology. The motiffs and language of the Genesis creation stories show strong affinities to the mythologies of surrounding contemporary (and precedent) cultures.

We are aware you and most TEs see Genesis 1-3 and even 1-11 as a myth. That is how you treat God's Word, it can only be true in one sense.

Really, ancients didn't do history? Have you seen the findings in Ur, Lagash, Accad, Jemdet Nasr, Obeid, Nineveh, Nippur, Babylon? There countless books there about history and many other subjects, including science. Have you seen the Weld Prism? It contains the names of 10 pre-flood kings, yes literal kings. Sounds like recorded history, you know what you claim they didn't do.

Have you seen the Hammurabi's Code? It contains writings on admin of Justice, Taxes, Wages, Interest, Money-lending, Property, disputes, marriage, partnerships, public works, canal building, care of canals, regulations regarding passenger and freight service by canal and caravan, international commerce, and many other subjects. Sounds like they were a bit more well-developed then you or any TE will credit them for.

In Ur, history texts were found, dated to the time of Abraham.

But, you can remain willfully ignorant and say these aren't true, even though they are archaeological facts.

History was a science not developed until the Greeks, and it even took them a long time to get it to what we would call pure history (if they ever did). Then the Word of God became flesh, invading history and giving it a meaning all His own, and Providentially the Greek mindset of history had infiltrated even the Holy Land so that this most important historical occasion would be recorded as actual events. We find Luke, for instance, cross-referencing his sources, and remarkable agreement among the Synoptics and even John at points in which their subject matter coincides. Therefore, we interpret the Gospels as historical for literary/historical reasons.

Really, history wasn't around till the Greeks... Greeks coined many things, but history was being recorded long before the Greeks. It is your choice to deny the EVIDENCE, you know, what you blame YECs for.

And you are deny the rest of the Old Testament as history, I take it, by this claim that history wasn't developed until the Greeks.

This is as it should be. Because the story of early Christianity is written as history, we have something that we in the modern era can point to and bank our faith on; the significance of the universe's beginning is not peculiar to our faith, but the advent of Jesus of Nazareth is.

I see, so anything before Jesus Christ really isn't significant for us. I guess that is why Jesus quoted the Old Testament so much, to show it isn't significant....

And God told us in Genesis 1-2 how He created, what He created, and when, and gives this to us so we can know. And you say this isn't significant to our faith... Wow.

God gives us His Word - the Bible - and you say that parts of what God says aren't significant to us and our faith.

As I said, TEs do not treat God's Word with care, as it is painfully clear here with what Didaskomenos has said.

 

[SBG]

Did God have physical vocal cords with which to make physical sound as we know it? As Remus said, God "breathing" is a figurative phrase which gives us an impression of what really happened, it does not mean that God actually took physical form to have lungs from which to breathe out. "God said" is much deeper than what we call speaking. If you agree with that, then you must look to the other descriptions of the account. If those can be figurative representation of what really happened, then it is just as easy for other sections to be figurative representations.

Can God speak without vocal cords? This is the problem with TEs they must completely understand what God does, before they can believe it.

Did God speak on the Mount, when Peter, John and James saw Jesus transfigured? Or is this just a myth too...

No TE is calling the Creation stories a parable to appease anyone. That is a blatant strawman. The literary presentation of the creation, IF figurative and non-literal, is a brilliant and complex literary presentation that would be understood by subtle and sophisticated minds, which those in the ancient near east definitely had. More subtle and sophisticated than many today, that is for sure.

There it is. Vance has just stated that Genesis can only be understood by sophisticated minds. This is not God's way of speaking to man to tell him something, but can only be understood if that man has a sophisticated mind. This also Vance's not-so-humble way of stating something about himself, to exalt himself.

At a time when they did not have mass media, the internet, thousands of magazines or books, iPods or DVD players, the stories they told about their past were IT. They had to be incredibly powerful, deep and satisfying. A simply "cigar is just a cigar" would NEVER work in those days. It works now, but that is simply a sign of the times for modern man. We need things to be straightforward, literal, surface, plain.

You are claiming that everyone told the same type of stories. There is evidence to the contrary. Seriously, learn about archaeological finds. Actual historical writings have been found, not mythical, but historical. This disproves what you try and lead people to believe. This is why you are a false teacher. You purposely mislead people to believe the wrong things about God, that God speaks to only the sophisticated...

This goes against what the Bible teaches about the unwise making the wise foolish.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I see. So when it says "God said" in Genesis, it isn't the same as in Matthew when it says "God said?"

Can you tell me why you treat the two exact phrases differently?

you are skipping many intermediate exegetical steps and trying to find parallels and application long before you are done the first hermeneutical task which is to understand what the words say.

how can Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
and Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

be saying exactly the same thing? Gen is in Hebrew and Matt in Greek, separated by 2K years and to a signficantly different culture. But the point is that there is an important exegetical task to do before you start saying things like:
Can you tell me why you treat the two exact phrases differently?[

of course i treat them differently, they are different verses, just because each has the idea of "and God said" in them doesn't change or alter the task of understanding what it is that God wishes for us to learn via careful study, not conflating things based on personal or private theories.

 

[SBG]

It does a great injustice to Scripture to argue in that manner.
It is a great responsibility to correctly exegete Scripture, the purpose is to understand what it is that God is teaching us.

It is a great responsibility. Why do so many TEs not give God's Word better care?

Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

The "said" is a metaphor, it is in Calvin's words an accommodation to our human weaknesses that we must have things explained as to a child in babytalk. God is Spirit, He doesn't have lungs, nor lips, nor were there molecules to vibrate to create sound, nor is God localized in a single spot. The point is that God is framing the discussion in human terms, God did not literally speak, it is a human analogy. It is an anthropomorphism, the same as describing God with great wings, or the back of God. What is the big deal with understanding this as a complex metaphor?

I see. So God needs to have lungs, lips, vocal cords, in order to actually speak.

Did God literally speak on the Mount where Jesus was Transfigured?

And Calvin is just wrong.

from: http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/530

does that mean that God desires me to understand that He used fingers to create the moon and stars? or course not, we know from other verses that God is a spirit, He doesn't have fingers, but human beings do and we have a set of ideas build up on that fact. We have language to express fingers as creative instruments and the Scriptures are using it in the same way, not as a didactic passage to teach us that God has fingers.

this should not be a big deal, something every beginning Christian learns in hermeneutics 101, identify the figures of speech, the anthropomorphisms, the metaphors, understand what they mean and what they are trying to say.
....

Explain the rest of the Old Testament where it says, 'God said.' Did God really speak to Moses on Mount Sinai? Did God really say those things to the prophets, for them to speak to the people? Did God really speak on the Mount where Jesus was transfigured?

Notice the pattern here? "Did God really say...." Nothing different than in Genesis 3, the devils method of temptation to sin.

 

[SBG]

you are skipping many intermediate exegetical steps and trying to find parallels and application long before you are done the first hermeneutical task which is to understand what the words say.

how can Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
and Mat 4:4 But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Explain the steps I skipped.

I wasn't comparing those exact verses, you chose those.

Did God really speak all the words Exodus 20:1 says He did?

Explain why God isn't talking in Genesis 1:3 and the difference of God speaking in Genesis 1:3 and Genesis 3:17. I want to know why you think when Genesis 1:3 says 'God says' it is different than Genesis 3:17 that says "God said."

Why is Genesis 1:3 different than Matthew 17:5 where in both, God speaks.

be saying exactly the same thing? Gen is in Hebrew and Matt in Greek, separated by 2K years and to a signficantly different culture. But the point is that there is an important exegetical task to do before you start saying things like:
Can you tell me why you treat the two exact phrases differently?[

of course i treat them differently, they are different verses, just because each has the idea of "and God said" in them doesn't change or alter the task of understanding what it is that God wishes for us to learn via careful study, not conflating things based on personal or private theories.

I see, so you want to say God is different in Greek than He is in Hebrew. So God changes, now?

I see you didn't even understand what I said, or you don't want to focus on what I said. If you don't want to answer, that is fine. I am just curious why you say in Genesis 1-2 where it says God said, it is just a metaphor. But elsewhere where it says God said, it is not a metaphor. What exegetical method do you use that treats God speaking so differently, when it is written exactly the same? We are not talking about what God speaks, but God actually speaking. One area that says God is speaking, you say He isn't. Another area where God is speaking, you say He is.

Or are you saying God never has spoken before, never?

 

[rmwilliamsll]

It is a great responsibility. Why do so many TEs not give God's Word better care?



I see. So God needs to have lungs, lips, vocal cords, in order to actually speak.

Did God literally speak on the Mount where Jesus was Transfigured?

And Calvin is just wrong.



Explain the rest of the Old Testament where it says, 'God said.' Did God really speak to Moses on Mount Sinai? Did God really say those things to the prophets, for them to speak to the people? Did God really speak on the Mount where Jesus was transfigured?

Notice the pattern here? "Did God really say...." Nothing different than in Genesis 3, the devils method of temptation to sin.

i do not understand this driving need to explain the words "and God said" in Gen 1 in terms of other passages without grasping what the immediate context is. You are simply short circuiting the exegetical process. The fact that we disagree that these words are an extended metaphor versus actual historical words physically spoken is obvious. Equally obvious is that we do not study the Scriptures in the same manner. To me you are allowing your desires to see Gen 1 as a literal historical newspaper reporters-type of document to cloud your reading. And you are primarily doing so by jumping the gun and aligning all these other passages about "God speaking" up to see what "God speaking" must mean. i think it bad exegetical and hermeneutical technic to enter into a discussion of that sort before you even understand what kind of writing the chapter is, what kind of images the author is using, to determine from the structure of the passage itself whether the "God said" is a metaphor or a description of an actual event.

o'l well, such is online discussion boards.
i tried.


btw

I see. So God needs to have lungs, lips, vocal cords, in order to actually speak.

you could add air molecules to vibrate to your short list as well.

if you notice, in all the cases you quote as parallels, there are human beings around to hear the words. communication occurs, and it is human communicate, human words. the fundamental difference between Gen 1 and your parallels, no one to talk to in Gen 1 therefore it can not be an issue of human communication, and must be something else parallel to, or like human communication, (burst of insight) a metaphor that God's creativity activity is like speaking human words....wow.
....

 

[SBG]

I suppose you are not a fan of this teaching:

Psalms 33:6
'By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth."

Psalms 33:7-9
"He gathereth the waters of the sea together as an heap: he layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear the LORD: let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast."

That's right though, the Psalms doesn't speak truth, as one TE has hinted at.

 

[shernren]

I see. So are you saying what is written in Psalms cannot be true, since it is poetry? Or can we treat it as truth? And if we can, can we take statements about God to be factual? How about when the Psalmists calls God Holy, can we trust this to be true? Or when the Psalmists says God punishes the evil doers, can we trust this to be true? Can we believe the Psalmists when says God is a merciful God? How about all the other characteristics the Psalmists describes God as, can we trust them to be truthful? Such as, God is Holy, God is just, God is righteous, God is merciful, God is loving, God is kind, God good to His people.... Can we trust these?

When Revelations says Jesus will come again, can we treat this as truth, even though it is apocalyptic?

See, the core discordance is that the ultra-reductionist ontological mindset of fundamentalism needlessly segments the written genre into truth and fallacy, when in fact there are many degrees of authenticity, veracity and relevance in texts that need not have a literal-historical nuance.

{uber-philosopher-talk over} Quite simply: it seems that to the YEC, there is only:

False: poetry, apocalyptic, oracular, lament, parable, chiasm...
True: literal/historical.

But that's simply not the case. Why can't a poem be true? Why can't an apocalypse be true? Why can't a lament be true? Show me that a poem must necessarily be false: and false not just in the sense that it may not adhere to factual reality, but that it will teach us the wrong things about life and motivate people to wrong actions, just because it is not literal. Until you can prove this effectively you have no grounds whatsoever to accuse TEs of making the Bible false. Truth is subtle, and the ancients never dealt with truth in such cold and calculative ways as we do today.

Anyway, I can turn this around:

Is the form of the Psalms historical, just because they are true?
Is the form of Revelation historical, just because they are true?
Are the forms of the Epistles historical, just because they are true?



And Strong's definition of "said" ('amar):

1. to say, speak, utter
a) (Qal) [my note: the tense used in Genesis 1] to say, to answer, to say in one's heart, to think, to command, to promise, to intend... [emphases added]

(from http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=0559&page=1 )

As you can see, even the ancients themselves didn't think "say" was just, well, "say".

 

[gluadys]

Alright. John speaks of Jesus as the Word. We atleast agree here, I presume. Do we want to understand why John as used this word, logos? Scripture is almost always dualistic in meaning. It speaks of this reality and the spiritual one. Vance does have it correct, as you do as well, that logos also speaks that Jesus is infinite wisdom. No one denies this.

This is what I like to see. As we continue the conversation, we challenge each other to clarify our statements, and we find there is less of a difference that there seemed to be based on initial positions. Not that there is no difference, but I sense a rapprochement.

I believe John refers to Jesus as the Word, to speak to His audience about the claims of Jesus Christ.

Yes. That audience being mostly Gentile Christians of the 1st century who would be more familiar with the thought of Plato than with the Hebrew scriptures. John is borrowing what they are familiar with (the concept of Logos) to explain to them who Jesus is. At the same time, he is changing the concept of Logos to bring it closer to the Judaic understanding of the Word of God, and away from the pagan Platonic understanding. Plato would have been scandalized by the idea of Logos becoming flesh.

In fact, the controversies that shook the Church in the first 3-5 centuries often have their root in the scandal of the Incarnate God. Docetism, adoptionism, Arianism, etc are all attempts to avoid this scandal by suggesting that Jesus was either not fully God or not fully man.

Jesus claimed, He was the 'I AM.' This is the sacred name of God that is used in the Bible to tell us who God is. The Bible thorouthly tells us who God is. What is said in the Bible about God, the Word, is who Jesus is. The Old Testament, when speaking of God, is speaking also of Jesus.

Yes, this is phrased much more moderately than your earlier statements. This I can accept.

When Jesus was on the mountain and Satan tempted Him to turn the stones into bread, Jesus said, 'man does not live on bread alone, but on the Word of God.' There are two meanings to this, one the Word of God that we can learn and know by our physical means, is the Bible.

Here, I would differ. I don't think Jesus is necessarily referring to scripture, although his reference would include scripture. The Word of God is a larger concept than scripture. IOW, one can say that all of scripture is the Word of God, but one cannot say that all of the Word of God is scripture. There is more to the Word of God than scripture.

The Word of God that we can learn and know from our spiritual means is Jesus Christ. When Jesus said we cannot live on bread alone, but on the Word of God, He was also referring to Himself as the Word of God, not just the Scriptures.(Matthew 4:4, Deut. 8:3)

Ah, there we do agree again. I think we can also go on again to affirm (as the bible itself often does) that creation is the Word of God in concrete, physical form. And we can add other ways in which the Word of God is transmitted to us as well. Scripture has a unique and irreplaceable function among the ways God speaks to us, but it has never been the sole means by which God speaks to us.

Through the Scriptures we learn and know who Jesus/God is.

That may be true for many in our generation. But it begs the question of how people learned who God is before there were any scriptures. How did the writers of scripture learn who God is, so that they could tell us?

No one can put the Bible before God or Jesus. Jesus/God have always existed, nothing came before them. We all know this, don't we?

It is interesting that you focus on a chronological "before". You are right, but I would also say that it is incorrect to put the bible before God or Jesus logically and theologically as well as chronologically.

Really, John cannot recognize Scripture while writing it?

Sorry. I should have specified that John would not recognize his own gospel as scripture as he was writing it. (Or indeed at any time during his life.) Just as Paul would not think of his letters as scripture. It was only when many documents were being circulated in the churches, some of poor quality, some heretical, some complete fabrications, as well as those that were sound historically, morally and theologically, that there was a felt need to delineate those that were genuine scripture from those that were not. It was only then that these writings began to be recognized as scripture.

I agree about Logos. But John in this simple little passage - that is not so simple - is telling everyone that Jesus is the same God that is spoken of in the Old Testament. Can't you see how beautiful of a statement this is, that John makes about Jesus?



Excellent. I never meant for it to be implied that Jesus is because of Scripture. Scripture is not a cause of Jesus, it tells of who Jesus is, God. That is why John calls Him the Word, to show that Jesus is the same God that is testified about in the Old Testament.

If you don't believe me, read this again and see where John is going:

John 1:1
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."

Notice how John concludes it with the Word was God?

Jesus is beyond the word or words. The Word describes what we need to know about Jesus. It teaches us who He is.

The Word is Jesus; Jesus is the Word incarnate. For that reason, scripture describes Jesus as the Word. Let's keep things in order here. The fact precedes (both chronologically and logically) the teaching about the fact. The way you are phrasing it above almost suggests that Jesus is the incarnation of scripture, rather than the incarnation of the Word of God. I don't think you meant that (at least I hope you didn't), but it is the sort of tangle one gets into when the Word of God is limited in meaning to the written word.

Let's try to get off this physical perception of a book and realise that what is written about God, which is all of the Bible, is the Living Word. We are not talking about bindings and pages made from trees. We are talking about the messages and the teachings. Is it your intention to seperate what is taught by God from God?

I was not thinking about the physical construct of the book, but about its content, its message, what the authors wrote. I disagree in part with what you say above. The bible is not the Living Word; it is a collection of writings which testify to the Living Word. The Living Word is the spoken Word of God by which all things were created and which was given to the prophets for the guidance of God's people. The Living Word is the Son of God who appeared in flesh among us. The bible points us to the Living Word. It is not itself an incarnation of the Living Word, but a vehicle or medium that presents us with the Living Word. This is the sense in which the bible can also be called the Word of God. But we always need to keep the larger reality in mind, which lies behind this designation.

When God speaks, it is truth. It is not dependent on anything. The Bible is God's Voice speaking. Are you suggesting that God speaking needs to be seperated from God and who He is? That somehow what God says, is less than who God is?

When Jesus said He is the truth and the way, is this less than who Jesus is? Is He somehow not really what He said He is?

I am not at all suggestig a separation of what God says from what God is. I am suggesting a distinction between God's Voice and the bible. God's Voice, God's Word, as I said above, is a larger concept than the bible. Because when all is said and done, the bible is still a book and there is no way that any book can contain the whole of God or of God's Word. By its very nature a book (and I mean that in the full sense of the term, not just paper pages) is limited and can only say so much. God & God's Word are not limited/cannot be limited to the dimensions of a book.

The most important things we need to know about God and about ourselves are the subject of the bible. But we need to listen for God's Word when it is given to us in other media besides the written word as well. Otherwise, we will have only a written word and not the Living Word in all its fullness.

 

[gluadys]

The Bible tells us how, by God's Word, not evolution.

Why can God's Word not be evolution?

And to say the Bible does not record literal history is an insult to the Almighty God.

Why?

Note that no one is claiming that the bible never records literal history. Nor is anyone claiming that all the bible is literal history. Since the bible clearly contains passages that are literal history and passages that are not, and everyone agrees to this, how is it an insult to God to say that some passages of the bible are not literal history?

If God chooses to inspire David to write songs, is it an insult to God to say they are songs? If God chooses to inspire Paul to write letters or John to write an apocalypse, is it an insult to God to say that is what they wrote?

If God chooses to inspire a biblical author to write fiction, such as the story of Job may be, is it an insult to God to say it is fiction? And, if God inspired a writer to compose a mythical account of creation, how is it an insult to God to identify it for what it is?

Why should we insist that God communicate with us only in the form of literal history?

Ever read Job and see what God says to someone who questions the integrity of God and His Word?

But who here is questioning the integrity of God's Word?

Did Jesus literally walk on water? Did God literally cause the plagues on Pharaoh? Did God literally die on a Cross? Did God literally give Moses the 10 Commandments? Did God literally write on the stone tablets with His finger? Did Jesus literally write on the ground to symbolize that He wrote those 10 commandments? Is Jesus literally God? Did Jesus literally redeem us?

I am assuming you will say yes to all these questions. So tell me the dangers of believing the Bible literally....

Don't assume. In the case of some of these my only honest answer would be "I don't know." In the case of others my honest answer would be "This is what I believe to be true." Does that mean I can affirm it is literally, objectively true? No. I walk by faith here, not by sight. So even if I do believe it is literally true, my belief does not make it so. I could be wrong.

 

[gluadys]

I’m not quite sure of what you’re trying to say. Just because one says that the Bible is the Word of God doesn’t in anyway state that the Bible comes before God.

That's not what I am getting at here. Have you ever worked with Venn diagrams. Usually they are shown as intersecting circles that describe the relationships between two or more categories. For example, if we were to take the categories "people under 15" and "people who live in the state of Iowa" we would have two circles that intersect each other, but don't coincide with each other. Some people under 15 live in Iowa, but many don't. Those who don't will be in the part of the "people under 15" circle which falls outside of the "people who live in Iowa" circle. Similarly, some people who live in Iowa are under 15, but not all of them. So part of the "people who live in Iowa" circle will be outside the "people who are under 15" circle. But some people fit both categories: they are under 15 and they live in Iowa. The overlapping sections of the circles represent this group.

You can have two circles which do not intersect at all. e.g. "seaports" and "cities 10,000 feet or more above sea level". One group does not include even part of the other group.

And you can have two circles where one is entirely inside the other. e.g "cocker spaniel" and "domestic dogs". All cocker spaniels are domestic dogs, but not all domestic dogs are cocker spaniels. So we represent this as a small circle (cocker spaniels) completely inside a larger circle (domestic dogs).

What I am suggesting here, is that the relationship between the bible and the Word of God is like the relationship between cocker spaniels and domestic dogs.

The Word of God is the large circle. The bible is the smaller circle inside of it. The bible, (and all the bible) is the Word of God. But the Word of God is not limited to the bible, just as domestic dogs are not limited to cocker spaniels. We truly do encounter the Word of God in the bible, but we can also encounter the Word of God outside the bible. And we need to listen to the Word of God wherever we find it, not just when we find it in the bible.

Yes, but it is the only source of truth that was given to us as life manual or guide for every decision we make. All other information can’t even begin to hold a candle against the truths found in the Bible.

I would certainly agree that the most important truths we can know are those found in the bible. But that doesn't mean the truths found outside the bible are untrue. Nor does it mean that we have instantaneous insight into either sets of truth. I am sure that, like most long-time students of scripture, you have had the experience of reading a familiar passage of scripture only to find a fresh new meaning in it that you were never aware of before. Or of discovering a text you had never paid attention to before. It is because we learn truth, biblical or not, bit by bit that the Holy Spirit is given to guide us into truth.

Which “truth” of evolution is correct today? Why wasn’t it yesterday? What will it be tomorrow? No one really knows, yet we place an incredible amount of trust in a “truth” that shifts and transforms itself quite regularly.

Truth is always true. It is our knowledge that changes, not the truth itself. That is why we have to be humble about what we know. Again, this applies as much to biblical truth as to scientific truth. We once thought it was true that the bible taught the earth does not move, or that it was not wrong to own slaves. We were wrong on both counts. Does that mean the truth of the bible changed--or that our knowledge of biblical truth changed?

Same goes for scientific truth. The truth is always true. But what we know of the truth can change.

If man evolved from the soup of evolution you may not see that as degrading, but I most certainly do!

Why would you be ashamed of the way God made you, whatever it was? Do you complain about being made of dirt? I could never see any method by which God brought humanity into existence as degrading. That's like being ashamed of the method of conception God has given us.

Which “facts” are established? The earth, back in 1862, according to the “truths” that scientists at that time could surmise was 20 million years old. It has since then gone up exponentially. Today it is 4.5 – 5.0 billion years old. That original 20 million is nothing but a drop in the bucket compared to 5 billion.

In 1862 that was a decent estimate of the age of the earth based on the available evidence. I also think it likely that scientists of the time presented that as an estimate and as a minimum estimate of the age of the earth. On that basis they were not wrong.

Today we have better, more accurate ways of measuring the age of the earth, so we know the current figures are more accurate. We may get to even more accurate estimates in the future. But since what we have now is more accurate than the 1862 figure, any new date will be closer to today's than to that of the 19th century. In fact, it will likely fall inside the error bars of today's estimates. And those error bars are already quite narrow.

The Bible’s truth tells us the earth is approximately 6,000 years old.

Obviously we don't have agreement that this is what the bible says.

This hasn't changed in over 3,000 years. Yet evolution has, just in the last 150 years, adjusted or changed its numbers so far that one can’t hardly know what to believe.

Evolution says nothing about the age of the earth. The theory of evolution actually doesn't say a lot about numbers at all. It is more of a logical propostion than a numbers game. Where you get numbers is more in tracing the history of specific species. Then new data can call for revising previous estimates. Science is an ongoing process of collecting and analysing data. So changes are to be expected. This is a given of the nature of science.

No but there were a few reliable witnesses.

How do you know they were reliable?

None of Man's scientific age estimation methods can be considered foolproof, whether young or old. I prefer to stick with the testimony of the only eyewitness, God.

No one claims they are foolproof. But they are very accurate most of the time. Like those polls that say: "accurate to within 3%, 19 times out of 20". I think scientific measurements of dates are a good deal more accurate than that. But no, not foolproof.

That’s an interesting position. I would certainly agree with the hard-headed skepticism part, yet I never get the impression from TEs that they hold science accountable to anything except itself.

If science is to be science, what else would it be accountable to? You can't discover truth scientifically if you depart from scientific procedure.

I pray for wisdom a guidance each day that I may be salt and light in a world that is in desperate need of it. At the same time I also pray for a humble spirit and discerning mind that when presented with the truth I not only recognize it, but act on it.

 

[gluadys]

I see. So are you saying what is written in Psalms cannot be true, since it is poetry? Or can we treat it as truth? And if we can, can we take statements about God to be factual? How about when the Psalmists calls God Holy, can we trust this to be true? Or when the Psalmists says God punishes the evil doers, can we trust this to be true? Can we believe the Psalmists when says God is a merciful God? How about all the other characteristics the Psalmists describes God as, can we trust them to be truthful? Such as, God is Holy, God is just, God is righteous, God is merciful, God is loving, God is kind, God good to His people.... Can we trust these?

When Revelations says Jesus will come again, can we treat this as truth, even though it is apocalyptic?

I am not sure what your point is about these books, other than you trying to lend support that because they contain certain things they cannot be taken to be what they are, truth.



We are aware you and most TEs see Genesis 1-3 and even 1-11 as a myth. That is how you treat God's Word, it can only be true in one sense.

Really, ancients didn't do history? Have you seen the findings in Ur, Lagash, Accad, Jemdet Nasr, Obeid, Nineveh, Nippur, Babylon? There countless books there about history and many other subjects, including science. Have you seen the Weld Prism? It contains the names of 10 pre-flood kings, yes literal kings. Sounds like recorded history, you know what you claim they didn't do.

Have you seen the Hammurabi's Code? It contains writings on admin of Justice, Taxes, Wages, Interest, Money-lending, Property, disputes, marriage, partnerships, public works, canal building, care of canals, regulations regarding passenger and freight service by canal and caravan, international commerce, and many other subjects. Sounds like they were a bit more well-developed then you or any TE will credit them for.

In Ur, history texts were found, dated to the time of Abraham.

But, you can remain willfully ignorant and say these aren't true, even though they are archaeological facts.



Really, history wasn't around till the Greeks... Greeks coined many things, but history was being recorded long before the Greeks. It is your choice to deny the EVIDENCE, you know, what you blame YECs for.

And you are deny the rest of the Old Testament as history, I take it, by this claim that history wasn't developed until the Greeks.



I see, so anything before Jesus Christ really isn't significant for us. I guess that is why Jesus quoted the Old Testament so much, to show it isn't significant....

And God told us in Genesis 1-2 how He created, what He created, and when, and gives this to us so we can know. And you say this isn't significant to our faith... Wow.

God gives us His Word - the Bible - and you say that parts of what God says aren't significant to us and our faith.

As I said, TEs do not treat God's Word with care, as it is painfully clear here with what Didaskomenos has said.

Sounds like the frustration level is getting too high here. Almost everything you have written in this post is a distortion and misrepresentation of what Didaskomenos was saying. Time to take a break and come back in a calmer frame of mind.

 

[SBG]

See, the core discordance is that the ultra-reductionist ontological mindset of fundamentalism needlessly segments the written genre into truth and fallacy, when in fact there are many degrees of authenticity, veracity and relevance in texts that need not have a literal-historical nuance.

{uber-philosopher-talk over} Quite simply: it seems that to the YEC, there is only:

False: poetry, apocalyptic, oracular, lament, parable, chiasm...
True: literal/historical.

But that's simply not the case. Why can't a poem be true? Why can't an apocalypse be true? Why can't a lament be true? Show me that a poem must necessarily be false: and false not just in the sense that it may not adhere to factual reality, but that it will teach us the wrong things about life and motivate people to wrong actions, just because it is not literal. Until you can prove this effectively you have no grounds whatsoever to accuse TEs of making the Bible false. Truth is subtle, and the ancients never dealt with truth in such cold and calculative ways as we do today.

Uhm, you might want to reread what I said. I didn't say poems cannot be true, I asked you why you might think because it is poetry that it cannot be true. Please reread what I said, because what you wrote above doesn't even come close to what I said.

Anyway, I can turn this around:

Is the form of the Psalms historical, just because they are true?
Is the form of Revelation historical, just because they are true?
Are the forms of the Epistles historical, just because they are true?



And Strong's definition of "said" ('amar):

1. to say, speak, utter
a) (Qal) [my note: the tense used in Genesis 1] to say, to answer, to say in one's heart, to think, to command, to promise, to intend... [emphases added]

(from http://www.blueletterbible.org/cgi-bin/words.pl?word=0559&page=1 )

As you can see, even the ancients themselves didn't think "say" was just, well, "say".

Hm, you forgot b, c, and d where it talks about speaking. You will see that the overwhelming meaning of 'amar is to actually speak or say.

If you are confused about whether God actually spoke creation into being and you don't want to believe what is written in Genesis when it says, 'God said,' you can go look to elsewhere, like the Psalms where it says God spoke everything into being.

As I said, are you going to deny what the Psalmists says about God because it is poetry? Are you willing to believe God?

 

[shernren]

Uhm, you might want to reread what I said. I didn't say poems cannot be true, I asked you why you might think because it is poetry that it cannot be true. Please reread what I said, because what you wrote above doesn't even come close to what I said.

Well, you seem to be implying then that poems can only be true in a literal way. I.e. when the Psalms say "God speaks" it means He causes His larynx to vibrate to form audio waves with coherent meanings. Question: aren't there poetic forms of truth in which the idea is more important than the details?

I believe that whatever God desires will be accomplished. I don't believe, just because of that, that God has a vibrate-able larynx. Do you?

Hm, you forgot b, c, and d where it talks about speaking. You will see that the overwhelming meaning of 'amar is to actually speak or say.

If you are confused about whether God actually spoke creation into being and you don't want to believe what is written in Genesis when it says, 'God said,' you can go look to elsewhere, like the Psalms where it says God spoke everything into being.

I was quoting the tense used in Genesis 1. The overwhelming use of 'amar appears to be speak, yes, but not the universal use. I'd say it's like how "sharp" normally can be replaced with "pointy", but "pointy words" makes much less sense than "sharp words". Right?

 

[vossler]

gluadys, just when I was beginning to think we have very little in common you come up with this post. Go figure. God even works in Christian Forums.

What I am suggesting here, is that the relationship between the bible and the Word of God is like the relationship between cocker spaniels and domestic dogs.

The Word of God is the large circle. The bible is the smaller circle inside of it. The bible, (and all the bible) is the Word of God. But the Word of God is not limited to the bible, just as domestic dogs are not limited to cocker spaniels. We truly do encounter the Word of God in the bible, but we can also encounter the Word of God outside the bible. And we need to listen to the Word of God wherever we find it, not just when we find it in the bible.

I can't speak for anyone else but for me the Bible and only the Bible is the Word of God. To use your analogy, the Bible would be within the circle of God, but not the Word of God because it and the Bible are one in the same. Your use of the Word of God can be very confusing and an unnecessary obstacle to your witnessing opportunities. Why not just call it the evidence of God. It certainly makes things much easier and would keep people like yourself from calling people like me idolaters or blasphemers.

I would certainly agree that the most important truths we can know are those found in the bible.

Woohoo agreement, I love it!

But that doesn't mean the truths found outside the bible are untrue. Nor does it mean that we have instantaneous insight into either sets of truth. I am sure that, like most long-time students of scripture, you have had the experience of reading a familiar passage of scripture only to find a fresh new meaning in it that you were never aware of before. Or of discovering a text you had never paid attention to before. It is because we learn truth, biblical or not, bit by bit that the Holy Spirit is given to guide us into truth.

Without a doubt I find new meaning in Scripture that I wasn't aware of earlier. This awareness, as you stated, is always precipitated by the Holy Spirit and His leading. I couldn't agree more.

Truth is always true. It is our knowledge that changes, not the truth itself. That is why we have to be humble about what we know. Again, this applies as much to biblical truth as to scientific truth. We once thought it was true that the bible taught the earth does not move, or that it was not wrong to own slaves. We were wrong on both counts. Does that mean the truth of the bible changed--or that our knowledge of biblical truth changed?

I couldn't agree more with this.

Same goes for scientific truth. The truth is always true. But what we know of the truth can change.

Herein is the crux of the problem. Biblical truth is revealed through the Holy Spirit, whereas scientific truth is "revealed" by man.

Why would you be ashamed of the way God made you, whatever it was? Do you complain about being made of dirt? I could never see any method by which God brought humanity into existence as degrading. That's like being ashamed of the method of conception God has given us.

Since the Bible tells me that God formed man from the dirt fully formed and then man tells me that we "evolved" from some other form, yes I would be ashamed if man were right and God was wrong. That would make God out to be a liar.

In 1862 that was a decent estimate of the age of the earth based on the available evidence. I also think it likely that scientists of the time presented that as an estimate and as a minimum estimate of the age of the earth. On that basis they were not wrong.

Today we have better, more accurate ways of measuring the age of the earth, so we know the current figures are more accurate. We may get to even more accurate estimates in the future. But since what we have now is more accurate than the 1862 figure, any new date will be closer to today's than to that of the 19th century. In fact, it will likely fall inside the error bars of today's estimates. And those error bars are already quite narrow.

Today "we think" we have more accurate ways of measuring things like the age of the earth and other things. But since man, even by evolutionary standards, is thousands of years old while the measurements being made are billions of years, I think I'll stick with what the Creator Himself said.

Evolution says nothing about the age of the earth. The theory of evolution actually doesn't say a lot about numbers at all. It is more of a logical propostion than a numbers game. Where you get numbers is more in tracing the history of specific species. Then new data can call for revising previous estimates. Science is an ongoing process of collecting and analysing data. So changes are to be expected. This is a given of the nature of science.

Evolution doesn't come out and declare the age of the earth but I think we can all agree that it's theory requires us, in order to accept it, to continuously look at our beliefs and adjust them according to its precepts. Let me ask you something. If science, through all the modern wonders, were to catagorically declare that an asteriod large enough to immediately kill the majority of people on earth were to impact earth in 6 months would you respond accordingly? For me, it would have little or no effect. Not because I don't fear death, but because I don't, according to God's Word, believe it will happen.

How do you know they were reliable?

Are you questioning the reliability and authenticity of the words written by the apostles???

No one claims they are foolproof. But they are very accurate most of the time. Like those polls that say: "accurate to within 3%, 19 times out of 20". I think scientific measurements of dates are a good deal more accurate than that. But no, not foolproof.

This is a good comparison. If a poll of 1,000,000 people all agreed 100% with the statement that "the earth is flat" it wouldn't make it so. That's how I see scientific measurements of things that were never actually seen but were extrapolated through all sorts of "scientific" means. Means which, depending on what your theology is can say whatever you want them to say.

If science is to be science, what else would it be accountable to? You can't discover truth scientifically if you depart from scientific procedure.

It should be accountable to the ultimate and absolute truth of God's Word, the Bible.