YEC's, answer this...

[shernren]

First of all nature was never intended to interpret Scripture. If you believe that is, I'd like you to support that.

points down ->

No, there also isn't any that tells me that Jerusalem is at it's present location of 31 47 N and 35 13 E either. Who knows, maybe it was somewhere else for a while. The point is since Scripture doesn't say where it is of course we're free to figure that out, not that it would take a lot of figuring.

That's "nature" interpreting Scripture right there (in the sense of what we are able to observe and verify scientifically).

Here's the bottom line. If I were to change the plain meaning of what Scripture says I had better have something strong to refute or amend it with. The strongest means, by far, to do this is within Scripture itself. Does that mean there are no non-Scriptural means to do so? No, but they had better be a slam dunk. So, to answer your question of why a scientific interpretation of Scripture would please man I would say that we should only seek the assistance of science in areas where Scripture itself doesn't speak or speaks in a limited way. If Scripture speaks strongly and we choose to ignore or dismiss it in favor of a scientific explanation then we've done so with the intent to please man and not God.

But the plain meaning of Scripture is determined by science in the first place, and thus scientific changes would obviously change the plain meaning of Scripture.

Look at Genesis 1:1, say: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. What does this verse mean? To you (and to me) it says that right at the start God created outer space, with all its galaxies and stars and vacuum and all, and the planet earth in orbit around the sun spinning on its axis.

But this meaning which is plain to you (and to me) would not have been plain to someone living in 1200AD, say. Then, nobody could even conceive a vacuum. The planets did not orbit in an empty space, but hung on celestial globes which rotated around the earth. The stars were not flaming balls of gas hung in a 3-D nothingness, they were lights on the very outermost sphere (and unchanging) of the universe, beyond which dwelt God. They would have had a very different plain meaning for Genesis 1:1: the "heavens" were the celestial crystal globes upon which the planets spun.

To him, our plain meaning would not have been plain at all. Thus it is seen how science can affect the plain meaning of a passage.

I would immediately have a BIG problem with this approach because it states: "...we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences..."

Galileo, 1615, speaking of heliocentrism.

First of all I would change your definition of categories 3 and 4 where it says 'young-earth' to 'biblical' because I base everything on a biblical framework.

Now when I do read a talk.origins article that I can understand , most of my responses for a majority of articles would probably fall into all four categories. Parts I would agree with because I know it to be true, other parts I agree with because it sounds reasonable, still others that may even be biblically supported, but it's those parts that are in part four that wipe out the other parts that made it through the other three. Once you have one false statement, especially in the summation, all other statements made are now questionable.

But why would one false interpretation ruin true statements? Let me construct an example:

Dinosaurs once walked the planet. (True; I know this.)
They were huge reptiles. (I might not be able to confirm this but it sounds reasonable.)
However, they were only confined to the Mesozoic strata. (I can't confirm this, but there might well be a creationist explanation.)
Therefore they only existed many millions of years in the past, wiped out 650 million years ago by a large meteor impact. (False, the Bible says Earth is 6,000 years old.)

Now, just because the last statement "contradicts the Bible" would not cause you to cast doubt on dinosaurs' existence, their appearance, or the strata in which they appear (which creationists explain via flood fossilization).

What that most likely says is that an interpretation or for me a better term speculation occurred and that is what caused the findings to fall into category 4 overall. I can't accept speculation in scientific findings if that speculation is contrary to the Word of God.
Not because it influences it, but because it manipulates and ultimately dominates it.

But scientific findings are contrary more to your interpretation of the Bible rather than to the Bible itself.

 

[Assyrian]

I would guess the reason they didn't question it was because it didn't matter. Just like today, it doesn't matter.

They just read the 'plain meaning' of the text and got it wrong, the same as YECs today read what they consider the plain meaning of Genesis and get it wrong.

As do people who interpret it literally today.

So you do agree there are different possible meanings to the word day in Genesis? And you do agree that Moses' exposition of a day in God's sight, in Psalm 90:4 is relevant to the meaning of day in Genesis?

So you believe, I clearly don't see that.

It is a matter of historical fact. Throughout most of church history Augustine was the leading theologian and his interpretation of figurative days was the most influential.

I'm sorry if I was a bit cavalier with my response, I apologize.

That's ok

I was just trying to make the point that wonder isn't an excuse or justification for legitimizing a contrary position.

No, but serious bible scholars seriously attempting to get to grips with the meaning of the text is.

The Bible does teach a six day creation, you just choose to discount it.

Actually no. Genesis does not teach a six day creation. The works of creation do not fit six biblical days and include other days than the six numbered days. Exodus does not teach a six day creation, it teaches Sabbath observance and the six days are simply brought up as an illustration.

Now this is an important distinction for two reasons. Firstly God in his word never treated six day creationism as a lesson important enough to be taught directly and as we have seen the subject is never mentioned again in the Old or New Testaments, even when the gospel went out to Gentiles who had never heard of the Genesis creation accounts.

More importantly, being an just an illustration, there is no reason to think it is either literal or even precisely accurate. The mustard seed is not the smallest seed, but Jesus wasn't teaching horticulture, he was talking about faith. The illustration used for the very same Sabbath command in Deuteronomy is clearly an anthropomorphism that can't be taken literally. God does not have hands and arms. In fact is we do take the 'six day' illustration we run into another anthropomorphism that we can't take literally. God does not get tired. He is not refreshed after having a rest.

There are a lot of things in the Bible that would sound very strange to me if I thought I needed to understand it in a manner that I could easily explain it to others, unfortunately or probably fortunately, they’re not. Faith, in this case, means that I trust it to mean what it says even though I can’t see it or fully grasp it.

Could I point you to your signature? David Cooper: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal meaning, unless the facts of the context indicate clearly otherwise." If the plain sense doesn't make sense to you, why don't you look at the figurative meanings? In fact it was because the literal meaning did not make sense that early Christians like Origen and Augustine realised it was being figurative.

Your example however isn’t that difficult for me to grasp, the Genesis 1:5 verse is just summarizing the first day.

No Gen 1:5 uses the waw consecutive which tells us the evening came after all the actions in the previous 4½ verses.

Genesis 2:4 states “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens.”

Clearly ‘in the day’ is referring to a period of time that isn’t constrained.

So a few verses after the seven 'days' of creation, the very next verse after the seventh 'day', the bible uses the word 'day' to mean an unconstrained period of time.

Why this is an issue to be brought up here is quite interesting. I don’t think there is a YEC, OEC, TE, Gapper, etc. that would read this as anything other than figurative. Now just as I say that someone will come out of the woodwork and disprove me. Will that be you?

Mormons might take it literally, you'd have to ask them.

What I want to know is what basis you have to decide that the illustration of God rescuing Israel with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm is figurative, but the illustration of God creating the world in six day is clearly literally.

What you consider plain facts are clearly not plain or factual for many, many people.

They are plain facts of science to scientists and anyone with any knowledge of science outside the YEC community. Believers denying the plain scientific facts of the age of the earth do as much harm to the credibility of Christianity as those who deny the plain scientific facts of the earth's rotation and orbit around the sun.

It is a serious issue which ever way we look at it. YECs claim TE is damaging biblical faith, but if they are wrong they are dragging the bible into disrepute.

Again, geocentrism is a non-issue for me, but obviously a major one for you.

It isn't an issue for me at all, though it is a tragedy when sections of the church don't learn from past mistakes.

It is also ironic that you have so totally taken on board the church's reinterpretation of the geocentric passages after Copernicus that you simply don't realise that this is what you have done. You think it is the plain reading of these passages. Yet you utterly reject the church's reinterpretation of Genesis after Lyell even though the people doing the reinterpreting were the original Fundamentalists.

Don't you think that if you had been alive in the 16th or 17th century you would have been just a fervently campaigning against heliocentrism?

As far as Jesus’ return being soon, trust me, no trust God, it will be soon!

A claim believers have been getting wrong for 2000 years, most interestingly, the forerunners of Seventh Day Adventism and the modern YEC movement who were certain Jesus was coming back around 1843/4.

Yes I hold on to a literal six days out of fear, but that fear isn’t an earthly fear but a reverential fear. God said it and who am I to even think I could supplement or change what He said. Secondly I don’t believe in compromise, at least not when referring to the Word of God. If you look back to the church fathers I don’t believe neither geocentrism or the Eucharist positions being held today would be considered compromises. I can’t possibly imagine finding a ‘fact’ that would be contrary to God’s Word, if I did I would know it wasn’t the Bible that was wrong but my own interpretation of it.

Yet people did fear the denial of the literal body and blood of Christ in the eucharist. They did fear the consequences of denying the literal meaning of the bible by geocentrists. You have been raised a geocentrist and don't see that it as an issue. The only difference between you and them is a few centuries of the feared 'compromise' being established as church tradition and your education and acceptance of the scientific understanding of the solar system

But I don't understand why you would fear to interpret a literal passage figuratively, but you have no concern about mistakenly interpreting a figurative passage literally. Did Jesus every rebuke anyone for interpreting anything figuratively? What about interpreting figurative language literally? Did he ever correct people for making that mistake?

It seems to me your fear comes from preachers constantly warning about the evils of evolution and the dangers of not believing the 'plain meaning' of scripture. They play on you godly fear, but the fear is not from God it is from men.

Nah…if it were they would be looking for someone else.

Someone with experience looking after animatronic dinosaurs? Try Spielberg.

I noticed how you said ‘supposedly’ but then once you realized the scriptural backing didn’t exist you changed your belief. That’s exactly what we’re called to do. Yet interestingly enough, in the six day creation you take the opposite approach.

No, I take exactly the same approach. Though at that stage I was more agnostic on origins that YEC anymore, ("I wasn't there, was I.") It was the ugliness and intolerance of creationist arguments I came across that made me realise I could no longer sit on the fence. I reread Genesis to see what it actually said, and was gobsmacked to see it didn't actually teach a six day creation, even when read literally. After studying it further and checking the Hebrew as best I could, I turned rather enthusiastically TE.

Sure now you want to take the literal approach.

 

[theFijian]

I would immediately have a BIG problem with this approach because it states: "...we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages but from sense experiences..."

Someone is lacking in irony, how would you even know what scripture says except through your sense experiences?

 

[Assyrian]

ok, i admit i've skipped about the last 25 posts, because the topic was to post a scientific evidence that supports the YEC view, but all that i seem to be reading is theology. Maybe there was something i skipped, but i doubt it.

Lets please revert the conversation back to the topic, science. Somehow i fear that switching to science will kill this thread because the YECs won't have anything to talk about anymore.

I replied to Vosslers previous post before reading your request to get back on topic... Oops

Would it be possible to split the thread into an original science version and a YEC's, answer this... bible exegesis thread?

 

[vossler]

That's "nature" interpreting Scripture right there (in the sense of what we are able to observe and verify scientifically).

I don't have a problem with nature filling in a few relatively unimportant blanks that Scripture doesn't cover. In the example of where Jerusalem is that's exactly what it does. The key thing is that nature didn't supercede what Scripture actually said. So for me nature still never interprets Scripture, at best it may enlighten it.

But the plain meaning of Scripture is determined by science in the first place, and thus scientific changes would obviously change the plain meaning of Scripture.

Look at Genesis 1:1, say: In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. What does this verse mean? To you (and to me) it says that right at the start God created outer space, with all its galaxies and stars and vacuum and all, and the planet earth in orbit around the sun spinning on its axis.

But this meaning which is plain to you (and to me) would not have been plain to someone living in 1200AD, say. Then, nobody could even conceive a vacuum. The planets did not orbit in an empty space, but hung on celestial globes which rotated around the earth. The stars were not flaming balls of gas hung in a 3-D nothingness, they were lights on the very outermost sphere (and unchanging) of the universe, beyond which dwelt God. They would have had a very different plain meaning for Genesis 1:1: the "heavens" were the celestial crystal globes upon which the planets spun.

I'm with you on that. Here's where we depart, in your example above science doesn't change any of the basic elements of what is said, stars are still stars, planets are still planets. In your example science works as it should, it explains what I see or already know to exist. It doesn't attempt to speculate on how it got there, in effect it is a reporter. Just like a real life reporter it only gets into trouble when it attempts to speculate or color what it sees. My senses don't see millions of years or evolution. All science should do is give us a better understanding of what we actually see, if it does that how can I or anyone else have a problem?

Scripture is very limited on what it says about the heavens and the earth, therefore there is a lot that can be said about the subject without contradicting Scripture. If I have't said it already I'll make it clear now; if Scripture is silent then science can speculate, but if Scripture speaks then science doesn't have license to speculate. Scripture says six days, science says billions of years and only one can be right. You choose science, I choose Scripture.

But why would one false interpretation ruin true statements? Let me construct an example:

Dinosaurs once walked the planet. (True; I know this.)
They were huge reptiles. (I might not be able to confirm this but it sounds reasonable.)
However, they were only confined to the Mesozoic strata. (I can't confirm this, but there might well be a creationist explanation.)
Therefore they only existed many millions of years in the past, wiped out 650 million years ago by a large meteor impact. (False, the Bible says Earth is 6,000 years old.)

Now, just because the last statement "contradicts the Bible" would not cause you to cast doubt on dinosaurs' existence, their appearance, or the strata in which they appear (which creationists explain via flood fossilization).

Good example! In this example let's assume the headline to this article stated "Dinosaurs prove millions of years." With that as the headline, which is typically how these things are presented, then the false interpretation proves the summation false. Some or most of the data may be correct but the actual interpretation of the findings is lacking.

But scientific findings are contrary more to your interpretation of the Bible rather than to the Bible itself.

That's always the easy way out, pinning it on an interpretation.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I don't have a problem with nature filling in a few relatively unimportant blanks that Scripture doesn't cover. In the example of where Jerusalem is that's exactly what it does. The key thing is that nature didn't supercede what Scripture actually said. So for me nature still never interprets Scripture, at best it may enlighten it.

the problem is that you are drawing a distinction between enlighten and interpret that does not exist. You are trying to "quantitize" authority so that at the end of your reasoning you will say-see Scripture trumps general revelation. or Scripture interprets the creation not science interpreting the Scriptures. The problem is that this one way analysis of Scripture talking to creation is not the right way to imagine the issues.

maybe i can show the relationship better and clearer by looking at a single point.

I'm with you on that. Here's where we depart, in your example above science doesn't change any of the basic elements of what is said, stars are still stars, planets are still planets.

Gen 1:14 ¶ And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:

Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: [he made] the stars also.

Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,

Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that [it was] good.

what do these few verses say?
what do these verses teach as an authoritative declaration of God to all believers?
how do these verses help us understand the rest of Gen 1?

You can not begin to understand what these verses say until you can understand the social and proto-scientific culture dominate at the time they were written. You can not understand them without reference to Babylonian cosmology and the knowledge that the moon, stars and sun were worshipped in this culture. You can not understand them without understanding that these are fighting words, they are a direct polemic aimed at the heart of both Egyptian and Babylonian astrology and the whole reason for their political and religious system. Because the rulers and priests knew the skies, they knew the will of the gods and were the mouthpieces from heaven to the people. their justification for their rule was that gods gave them their power to exercise it over the common people.

this is a polemic against the neighbors. God is telling the Hebrews not to fear the knowledge and power of the mighty empires that surrounded and dwarfed them. He is telling the Israelites that the sun and moon and stars are but timekeepers at His beck and call.

You can not understand any of this without understanding and reading the archeology, the political and religious documents of these opposing people, in short, if you use modern common sense to look at these verses you will not see what the first readers saw---them is fighting words. And all of these things come from general revelation, not from Scripture.

and that is just the beginning of a proper hermeneutic for Gen 1. You not only do import lots of information from the world to understand these words, you must do so. Otherwise what you are doing is importing your common sense, man in the pew, 20thC analysis underneath your heremeneutic, literally expecting that everyone is like you and has your intellectual system which is all that is needed to read these verses. This hermeneutic is first cousin the the American travelling somewhere in the world and expecting that the people will speak English if he only says it slowly and distinctly as he would talk to a child. Your common sense modern ideas will not only not properly understand Gen 1 it will lead you off into the wild blue yonder, where you will completely miss God's point.

i found a good word for it the other day.
intuitionism.

 

[vossler]

They just read the 'plain meaning' of the text and got it wrong, the same as YECs today read what they consider the plain meaning of Genesis and get it wrong.

Given that they didn’t have anyone really challenging the ‘plain meaning’ where today we have most people doing so, I don’t think they can be compared.

So you do agree there are different possible meanings to the word day in Genesis? And you do agree that Moses' exposition of a day in God's sight, in Psalm 90:4 is relevant to the meaning of day in Genesis?

Yes and No.

It is a matter of historical fact. Throughout most of church history Augustine was the leading theologian and his interpretation of figurative days was the most influential.

All the history I’ve read and come across paints an entirely different picture.

Actually no. Genesis does not teach a six day creation. The works of creation do not fit six biblical days and include other days than the six numbered days. Exodus does not teach a six day creation, it teaches Sabbath observance and the six days are simply brought up as an illustration.

Now this is an important distinction for two reasons. Firstly God in his word never treated six day creationism as a lesson important enough to be taught directly and as we have seen the subject is never mentioned again in the Old or New Testaments, even when the gospel went out to Gentiles who had never heard of the Genesis creation accounts.

More importantly, being an just an illustration, there is no reason to think it is either literal or even precisely accurate. The mustard seed is not the smallest seed, but Jesus wasn't teaching horticulture, he was talking about faith. The illustration used for the very same Sabbath command in Deuteronomy is clearly an anthropomorphism that can't be taken literally. God does not have hands and arms. In fact is we do take the 'six day' illustration we run into another anthropomorphism that we can't take literally. God does not get tired. He is not refreshed after having a rest.

After reading this multiple times I’m still as amazed as I was the first time. We truly do have entirely different worldviews. How two people can read the same text and get such totally different meanings is beyond me. I guess that’s what happens when two different worldviews come together. We come at this from entirely different perspectives and I don’t see how the two shall ever meet except by the grace of God.

Could I point you to your signature?

David Cooper: "When the plain sense of Scripture makes common sense, seek no other sense;therefore, take every word at its primary, ordinary, literal meaning, unless the facts of the context indicate clearly otherwise." If the plain sense doesn't make sense to you, why don't you look at the figurative meanings? In fact it was because the literal meaning did not make sense that early Christians like Origen and Augustine realised it was being figurative.

In the case of Genesis and the creation week, let me assure you that the plain meaning makes perfect sense. There are some elements within each day that may not be perfectly clear, but the overall meaning certainly is.

So a few verses after the seven 'days' of creation, the very next verse after the seventh 'day', the bible uses the word 'day' to mean an unconstrained period of time.

Yes, that’s what the context asks.

What I want to know is what basis you have to decide that the illustration of God rescuing Israel with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm is figurative, but the illustration of God creating the world in six day is clearly literally.

Common sense! That’s the short and easy answer, but I’m guessing you won’t like it. Given that it’s not one I’ve ever really questioned I’ll then defer that to the Holy Spirit. I hope you’ll like that one better.

They are plain facts of science to scientists and anyone with any knowledge of science outside the YEC community. Believers denying the plain scientific facts of the age of the earth do as much harm to the credibility of Christianity as those who deny the plain scientific facts of the earth's rotation and orbit around the sun.

It is a serious issue which ever way we look at it. YECs claim TE is damaging biblical faith, but if they are wrong they are dragging the bible into disrepute.

Believer’s denying the Word of God do far more to harm Christianity than anyone denying scientific ‘evidence’ ever would or could. God will never hold those who hold His Word as accurate and true in disrepute.

It is also ironic that you have so totally taken on board the church's reinterpretation of the geocentric passages after Copernicus that you simply don't realise that this is what you have done. You think it is the plain reading of these passages. Yet you utterly reject the church's reinterpretation of Genesis after Lyell even though the people doing the reinterpreting were the original Fundamentalists.

Don't you think that if you had been alive in the 16th or 17th century you would have been just a fervently campaigning against heliocentrism?

That’s impossible to say, I would have been brought up with a different mindset and environment so I couldn’t even begin to speculate what I would or wouldn’t have done.

A claim believers have been getting wrong for 2000 years, most interestingly, the forerunners of Seventh Day Adventism and the modern YEC movement who were certain Jesus was coming back around 1843/4.

Those who believe in Jesus’ return being soon have never been wrong on this account. What has been wrong is how some believers interpret this message. Time isn’t something that God is constrained by and neither should we, it’s all relative.

Yet people did fear the denial of the literal body and blood of Christ in the eucharist. They did fear the consequences of denying the literal meaning of the bible by geocentrists. You have been raised a geocentrist and don't see that it as an issue. The only difference between you and them is a few centuries of the feared 'compromise' being established as church tradition and your education and acceptance of the scientific understanding of the solar system

That could very well be true, I don’t know. What I do know is what is written in my heart and that isn’t based on tradition, science or any other artificial understanding that I know of. I pray that it is God’s Word and the Holy Spirit which act as my rudder. To date that has yet to be seriously challenged.

But I don't understand why you would fear to interpret a literal passage figuratively, but you have no concern about mistakenly interpreting a figurative passage literally. Did Jesus every rebuke anyone for interpreting anything figuratively? What about interpreting figurative language literally? Did he ever correct people for making that mistake?

I don’t have a fear of interpreting literal passages figuratively. Many, many passages demand just that. The Bible is full of passages that have multiple meanings.

It seems to me your fear comes from preachers constantly warning about the evils of evolution and the dangers of not believing the 'plain meaning' of scripture. They play on you godly fear, but the fear is not from God it is from men.

I would admit there is a certain amount of that, not the playing part, but I believe it is right for preachers to do just that. If they don’t do it who will? It certainly will not come from the world! It is the preacher job to warn the flock and if they don’t they will be held accountable.

No, I take exactly the same approach. Though at that stage I was more agnostic on origins that YEC anymore, ("I wasn't there, was I.") It was the ugliness and intolerance of creationist arguments I came across that made me realise I could no longer sit on the fence. I reread Genesis to see what it actually said, and was gobsmacked to see it didn't actually teach a six day creation, even when read literally. After studying it further and checking the Hebrew as best I could, I turned rather enthusiastically TE.

This is one of those areas where it will be difficult to reach a common ground. What you see one way I see completely different and common ground, it would appear, can’t exist.

The fact that creationists could be viewed as intolerant isn’t really a concern for me. I’m not one to sit on the fence about many things so being labeled as intolerant on the issue of Genesis is fine with me.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

After reading this multiple times I’m still as amazed as I was the first time. We truly do have entirely different worldviews. How two people can read the same text and get such totally different meanings is beyond me. I guess that’s what happens when two different worldviews come together. We come at this from entirely different perspectives and I don’t see how the two shall ever meet except by the grace of God.

this is exactly the feeling i have when i read Christian defenses of slavery in the American South. Especially with Dabney, he contends that the last real Christian civilization will die when the french revolutionary equalitarianism that controlled the North subdues and destroys the Southern agrarian Christianity. i have maybe a dozen websites that argue that very point today, just as i have good geocentric ones that argue that the YECists have already compromised the true Gospel by accepting the false Copernicanism that will just take them down the slippery slope to evolutionary thinking.

sometimes i just have to accept this gulf that separates my thinking from theirs. odd, sad, but at this point i see no alternative. i've read them, i've tried to put myself into their positions, i've tried to willing suspend disbelief as i read them, but i reach a point that they are just too different from me to really understand.

 

[vossler]

You can not begin to understand what these verses say until you can understand the social and proto-scientific culture dominate at the time they were written. You can not understand them without reference to Babylonian cosmology and the knowledge that the moon, stars and sun were worshipped in this culture. You can not understand them without understanding that these are fighting words, they are a direct polemic aimed at the heart of both Egyptian and Babylonian astrology and the whole reason for their political and religious system. Because the rulers and priests knew the skies, they knew the will of the gods and were the mouthpieces from heaven to the people. their justification for their rule was that gods gave them their power to exercise it over the common people.

this is a polemic against the neighbors. God is telling the Hebrews not to fear the knowledge and power of the mighty empires that surrounded and dwarfed them. He is telling the Israelites that the sun and moon and stars are but timekeepers at His beck and call.

You can not understand any of this without understanding and reading the archeology, the political and religious documents of these opposing people, in short, if you use modern common sense to look at these verses you will not see what the first readers saw---them is fighting words. And all of these things come from general revelation, not from Scripture.

and that is just the beginning of a proper hermeneutic for Gen 1. You not only do import lots of information from the world to understand these words, you must do so. Otherwise what you are doing is importing your common sense, man in the pew, 20thC analysis underneath your heremeneutic, literally expecting that everyone is like you and has your intellectual system which is all that is needed to read these verses. This hermeneutic is first cousin the the American travelling somewhere in the world and expecting that the people will speak English if he only says it slowly and distinctly as he would talk to a child. Your common sense modern ideas will not only not properly understand Gen 1 it will lead you off into the wild blue yonder, where you will completely miss God's point.

I believe your attempt at the intellectualization of Genesis and Scripture in general will discourage many people from attempting to understand it's many times simple and timeless meaning. What you do is confuse people to the point that they don't believe they've got a clue as to what Scripture is really saying. This then will cause then to look for someone who is a scientific 'expert' and who is capable of interpreting both the scientific and spiritual. The problem is, God never intended that. That's part of what Luther fought so hard against.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

I believe your attempt at the intellectualization of Genesis and Scripture in general will discourage many people from attempting to understand it's many times simple and timeless meaning. What you do is confuse people to the point that they don't believe they've got a clue as to what Scripture is really saying. This then will cause then to look for someone who is a scientific 'expert' and who is capable of interpreting both the scientific and spiritual. The problem is, God never intended that. That's part of what Luther fought so hard against.

you misunderstand the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture.

the things necessary to salvation are so clearly taught that even the ignorant can understand them. It doesn't say anything about the difficult or the complex or those things not essential to salvation. Nor does it say that these simple things are not at heart complex and sophisticated and hard to understand. only that those things essential to salvation, Jesus as the Messiah, fulfilling the Law, dying in our stead, and rising to heaven are simple enough to teach children.

why would you expect the Creator of the Universe to speak only in baby talk to us? it is one thing to recognize accommodation and another to require simplicity throughout the Scriptures without any sophistication underneath them. This is what fuels the historical progressive nature of revelation, it is complex, multiple levels.

for instance, how many people recognize how much humor there is in the Hebrew Bible? does this failure to recognize it because Hebrew is not our native language mean that the humor is not there? of course not, only that the sophisticated puns are not necessary unto salvation.

 

[vossler]

you misunderstand the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture.

the things necessary to salvation are so clearly taught that even the ignorant can understand them. It doesn't say anything about the difficult or the complex or those things not essential to salvation. Nor does it say that these simple things are not at heart complex and sophisticated and hard to understand. only that those things essential to salvation, Jesus as the Messiah, fulfilling the Law, dying in our stead, and rising to heaven are simple enough to teach children.

I don't think I'm misunderstanding the doctrine of perspicuity of Scripture. The doctrine seems rather straight-forward. Yes the things necessary for salvation are clearly taught, yet many still don't understand it. The salvation message is simple enough to understand, just not easy to accept as it is written. If you don’t believe me go ask a Mormon the salvation message. It is difficult for the human mind to grasp that God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to earth so that He could die for our sins. If it wasn't difficult to understand and accept why aren't there more Christians? It surely isn't because they haven't been told or know about Him.

why would you expect the Creator of the Universe to speak only in baby talk to us? it is one thing to recognize accommodation and another to require simplicity throughout the Scriptures without any sophistication underneath them. This is what fuels the historical progressive nature of revelation, it is complex, multiple levels.

Neither I nor any other true Christian that I know expects God to speak to us in baby talk. As a matter of fact that statement could be considered rather insulting. If there is one thing I can definitively state, the Bible is extremely complex and in places very difficult to understand. The role of understanding its buried truths doesn't come from some 'expert' here on earth, but solely the Holy Spirit. The day we look to an 'expert' whether scientific or spiritual, is the day we begin down a path fraught with problems and ultimately destruction.

 

[rmwilliamsll]

f it wasn't difficult to understand and accept why aren't there more Christians?

i'm a calvinist.

Neither I nor any other true Christian that I know expects God to speak to us in baby talk.

like i said, i am a calvinist

For who even of slight intelligence does not understand that as nurses
commonly do with infants, God is wont in a measure to "lisp" in speaking to us?
Thus such forms of speaking do not so much express clearly what God is
like as accommodate the knowledge of him to our slight capacity. To do this he
must descend far beneath his loftiness.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Book I:13:1.

from: http://www.untothebreach.com/CalvinAccommodation.html

it is one of the most famous quotes from Calvin. God accommodaties Himself to our frame by lisping as a nursemaid does to infant's....babytalk. i was directly referencing Calvin. so lots of people believe that God talks to us in babytalk and it is not at all insulting, but rather comforting that the Creator would stoop down to talk to us in our own feeble language.

btw:
i wrote why would you expect the Creator of the Universe to speak only in baby talk to us? the ONLY is important.

 

[shernren]

I believe your attempt at the intellectualization of Genesis and Scripture in general will discourage many people from attempting to understand it's many times simple and timeless meaning. What you do is confuse people to the point that they don't believe they've got a clue as to what Scripture is really saying. This then will cause then to look for someone who is a scientific 'expert' and who is capable of interpreting both the scientific and spiritual. The problem is, God never intended that. That's part of what Luther fought so hard against.

Does Scripture forbid us from looking to science to interpret it?

 

[vossler]

Does Scripture forbid us from looking to science to interpret it?

I think you already know.