No, it doesn’t – the Bible uses the worldview of each writer, not any other. You just refuse to admit that ancient people didn’t share your worldview.
Nope – otherwise Jesus and Paul were wrong when they talked about the Holy Spirit providing teaching and doing it through men given to the church.
So why do you fight so hard against doing just that? You ignore how Hebrew and Greek worked in terms of grammar and vocabulary, you ignore the historical and cultural and other contexts – all of which are necessary to “get back to the original”!
That is a completely inaccurate view of how the canon was formed.
Because most of the Bible does not show any interest in describing the past in the way that modern humans think of that process.
If the Holy Spirit had been interested in describing the past, why did He allow Moses to use the Egyptian creation story as the framework for Genesis 1? Do you really think that the Egyptians had it that close to right?
You cite material from a very narrow perspective; for the most part you ignore the vast majority of biblical, theological, and scientific material. And that narrow perspective throws out the majority of the theology of the opening of Genesis!
I agree that such a salvation isn’t real – salvation happened on the Cross, once and for all. The Second Coming is just a result of the Cross.
YEC leads tens of thousands of individuals each year into the theological error of believing that in order to be true the Bible has to be scientifically accurate.
Good point…he certainly did that when he killed 180,000 Assyrians who were beseiging the city of Jerusalem recorded in 2 Kings 19:35, Isaiah 37:36-38, and 2 Chronicles 32:21.
I can use any number of worldviews to record my words…the meaning doesnt change because of that…its known as translation.
Secondly…your argument fails because Moses wrote 1000 years before Christ and Peter wrote 30 years after Christ…and the 3 lf them all cite Noahs flood as an historical event (2 in different languages to Moses!)
Third,
either God can protect His Word (Bible) from the lies of Chinese whispers, or He cant.
If God cant protect His own word, then He isnt capable of speaking (because science proves spirits cant talk), He isnt capable of providing salvation, and He certainly cant raise people from the dead!
I understand that you are a believer, has been for a long time and respect the teachings of the biblical scriptures. I could say the same from me.
What is a bit different between us is not the theological training, although I have received less formal training in theology than you. After reading and believing the claims in YEC books, I was trained as a researcher in natural sciences (biology). Whatever claims the YEC books made about biology or geology, I could compare it to the data and when needed, search the original scientific reports about the findings. That made me realize that the claims in YEC books did not stand closer inspections and the writers did not know the matters they told.
For me, truth is important as both a beliver and a (now retired) scientist. I believe that truth stands the crash tests of reality, so I am not afraid to search information from various sources and try to find out what is the truth.
When I applied that approach to the claims in the YEC books, the first claim that got the stamp ‘busted’ was the claim that Earth is very young, <10’000 years old. Practically all scientific findings in geology and biology fit to the hypothesis that our planet is old, while the findings do not fit to the hypothesis that Earth is young.
If you read just the claims written by YEC writers, including those that claim to be ‘creation scientists’, the hypothesis of a young Earth may seem to be possible or even likely - it is living in a bubble with filtered information. If you dig deeper and read the actual facts, the ‘young earth’ claims just do not stand the crash test of reality.
I had to face the conflict between the biblical interpretations I supported and the results of the crash tests of reality, what the data showed. My response to this conflict was not to deny the reality, it was to go where the most credible explanations led me as a believer.
I have not rejected the possibility that some YEC interpretations might be correct and therefore, I read with interest all the claims that have some evidence to support them. If any of the claims would prove to be the most credible explanation, I could support that one. It would not even be socially difficult because many of the believers I know and live with are supportive to YEC-type beliefs. What I want is good justification - it is not enough that anyone claims that something is true, I want to inspect the claims in detail. Read the methods, results and conclusions based on the results myself to evaluate the credibility of the conclusions.
The more I have learned about the scriptures, the more evident it has become that our interpretations about the scriptures are just that, subjective interpretations. A claim that anyone could read and understand the scriptures in the same way is simply not true. The crash tests of reality have been difficult for some.
A simple example is Proverbs 16:3:
“Commit your works to the Lord, And your plans will be established”
Many have started a project or enterprise by committing it to the Lord and then expecting it will be successfull. When the project or enterprise fails, is bankrupt, they wonder how could it happen? Why did you Lord let it happen even if You have promised in Your word that [Proverbs 16:3]?
The problem here is that these persons have misunderstood the genre. It is not a promise of the Lord, it is a proverb - common wisdom of life, generally true but not a promise.
They have also not considered the context of the proverb. The proverb was written in a world where people worshipped many gods. Some committed themselves to some deity, many tried to maximize their luck by worshipping many deities. Many played the role of a worshipper but they were not fully committed. The proverb seems to tell that if you commit your life to the true God (Yahweh) and live accordingly, He will take care of you - your life and works will become established.
Translation does not and cannot include worldview – no translation will tell you, for example, the primary element of the source worldview, which is the definition of truth.
Your definition of truth requires scientific accuracy, but you have never shown how you get that from the scriptures! But from the culture that ancient Israel was part of we can find their definition of truth, and it has nothing to do with science.
Where does it say that? Again, you are relying on the traditions of men and adding to the text by doing so. Neither Christ nor Peter reference the Flood any differently than I might reference The Matrix – which I certainly don’t consider historical.
Protecting His word has nothing to do with the matter. But since you brought it up, what do you make of the fact that there are multiple variant readings for every page of the New Testament? They certainly seem to indicate that God wasn’t “protecting His word” (which is what happened to Bart Ehrman) . . . which tells us that protecting the written word is the wrong issue, the issue is why He allowed it to be less than perfectly protected.
And that points to how to look at the Old Testament: specifically in Genesis, rather than deny the fact that Moses used the Egyptian creation story as an outline, ask why God let it be done that way – what is the lesson? or lessons? what is the theology?
I remain ever thankful that I didn’t really run into the science until after I had encountered the text in the original languages – that allowed me to regard the whole affair as entertaining, at least until I found out just how dangerous YEC is to faith, and after allowed me to see how to help people traverse the chasm that YEC throws in front of both believers and seekers.
It’s not just the matter of being in a bubble, it’s that they use all the classic tricks of propaganda to make their case seem strong – in other words they employ the wisdom of the world rather than proclaim the Gospel.
Amen! I keep hoping someone will actually find Noah’s Ark . . . .
I’ve bumped up against, tripped over, and slammed into that one multiple times. I’ve learned to modify it by applying the idea of “sufficient to the day” from the Gospels, and just pray that God will make my plans for each day be established – keeping in mind what James has to say about that!
Yes! In some ANE literature there are references to committing one’s work to Ba’al, to Marduk, etc., which lets us see the context: it’s a comment on to Whom to commit one’s works if you want to see your plans established – not Ba’al, not Astarte, not Ra, not Marduk, but Yahweh, for only He has such authority.
If those scholars really did take more than 1,000 years commencing after the apostles died, the last of those scholars would have been working circa 1100AD.
That’s not only after the expanse of Islam, which is usually taken to be the end of ‘ancient’ history, it’s even after the Norman conquest and the rebuilding of Canterbury cathedral. It’s closer to today than it is to Jesus’s time.
Calling scholars from that era ‘ancient’ is absurd.
The writer of the Torah had no problem doing it. The starting point is easy:
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of humans and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.
“Also afterward” indicates times after the Flood. They get new names – Anakim, Rephaim. We find in Numbers that the Anakim were Nephilim descendants:
And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim)
The reference in Numbers indicates such a component.
That’s not the question – the question is why God would leave them in effective childhood by protecting them from everything so they wouldn’t have to grow up.
The references by Jesus and Peter to the Flood do not mean that the modern creation science version of the flood is true. Again, there is no reason to doubt that Noah’s flood was a real event. Big fllods happen and are memorable. But even in the early church and medieval times, people wondered whether the flood was a one-time or repetitive event and how extensive it was. In the late 1700’s through about 1830, it was widely thought that Noah’s flood was the most recent if a long series of major geological catastrophes. However, with the demonstration that the deposits matched glacial rather than liquid water features, by the 1840’s it was clear that the flood must have been a regional event.
These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua. 17 And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain: 18 and see the land, what it is; and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many; 19 and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strong holds; 20 and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the firstripe grapes. 21 So they went up, and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath. 22 And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.) 23 And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs. 24 The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence. 25 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days. 26 And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land. 27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it. 28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there. 29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan. 30 And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it. 31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we. 32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature. 33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
That the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim isn’t in the description of the land, or in the report provided to Moses and Aaron. It’s only in the “evil report” that some of the men were “saying”. It’s a claim.
That they saw Nephilim is the claim – that the sons of Anak come from the Nephilim is an editorial explanation that is not part of the claim, it just explains why the “evil report” mentioned Nephilim.
They why isn’t that ‘editorial explanation’ attached to either the first or second mention of the sons of Anak? Why is it only included with the “evil report”? Why is it only included with what the spies said, and not with the factual description of the inhabitants of the area? Why is their report “evil” or “bad” if it’s truthful?
These questions are easily answered if the mention of giants/Nephilim is part of a false rumour the spies are spreading because they don’t want to attack a stronger nation.