How about -
Filipp 4:7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This sort of stand off is unhelpful.
For the record, I have experience of actual miracles, that is fact.
For me the definition of a “Miracle” is something that defies normal results. Sometimes it can be as simple as a “coincidence” or timing, and sometimes it can be a healing that defies medical attention or diagnosis. One was a case of multiplication on the lines of the feeding of the 5000, although clearly not in that magnitude. (Interestingly enough the feeding of the 5000 is often looked at as a miracle of sharing rather than multiplication).
IOW I can testify to the existence of the miraculous in this day and age which contests cessationism, and confirms the possibilities of Biblical miracles.
This is not blind belief or fantasy. This is a witness.
Richard
Actually, I am assuming that the Hebrew did not intend for the meaning of an epistemic translation of Genesis. It was inadvertently recognized after it was written. We do not assume that the Romans or the Jews intended to fulfill Hebrew prophecy when Jesus was crucified. It was recognized by believers after it happened. For all we know, the Roman soldiers took Jesus’s body from the tomb to play a joke on the disciples but the passion for a messiah produced the translation of events that we read in the Gospels. Jesus said, about the Roman soldiers, to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing. The crucifixion is made significant by the assumption that those who brought it about did not know what they were doing. The same would be true for an epistemic translation of Genesis. The Hebrew did not know what it was speaking. It is the not knowing that makes it significant.
All translation from Hebrew to another language is a rewriting. An epistemic translation does not change the Hebrew. It is no more of a rewriting than any other translation. There are many so-called literal translations of Genesis that are all based on certain academic principles. Epistemic translation also has principles that can be applied to any ancient literature. Epistemic translation does not eliminate or replace the literal translation nor does it denigrate Genesis as the ancient literature that it is. The many literal translations that exist show changes in the text to fit someone’s preferences. Finding a translation that suits a preference is not a valid criticism as long as the original Hebrew text is unchanged. The second coming of Jesus will never be brought about by human intention no matter how well someone thinks that they understand the prophecy about preceeding events and attempt to make them happen.
Thank you Jerry, i sincerely appreciate your comments there and i largely agree with the premises that you suggest…particularly the notion that we cannot tell by any observation that God created the universe [6,000 years ago].
however, given that i believe the writings of the bible to be true, i have no option but to also believe that the writings mean what they say and that the men who wrote them also existed.
We have little evidence that Moses existed, little evidence that Joseph was second in charge of Egypt, however, we have:
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a nation of over 15 million people who cite that as their history.
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We have all Muslims claiming Abraham was also the father of their “nation” if you like
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we have a huge amount of correlating evidence in writings of ancient individuals that support the biblical narrative and its internal history.
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The consistency of the bible is only experienced when it is read normally without interpretation. whether or not any of you agree here, it is plainly evident that anyone claiming that the bible interpretation must be different because science doesnt support its statements, those individuals are reading into scripture their own interpretations (there is simply no way around that fact). One cannot say to me, that my reading of 2 Peter Chapter 2 is twisting scripture…Peter in all of his epsitles tells us he got his revelation from Prophets, Christs ministry, and from Heaven and that the flood and sodom/gomorah accounts are literal history (we can know exactly that Peter got that information from God in heaven via dreams/visions based on the experiences of Daniel in the Old testament) If he got it from heaven via dreams and visions, from talking with Christ (God directly) and from reading Moses writings (Moses was a prophet), then how can anyone here possibly be so stupid as to complain “nope there is no evidence Peter got his revelation directly from God”? Peter was a eyewitness to Gods own mouth regarding the flood and sodom/gomorah…if God told him the exact same story that God clearly told Moses, then I’m sorry, but naturalisms version of science on the age of this earth is completely wrong! Another reason i know the TEism doctrine here is false is because the very same scientists who TEists align with laugh and say your delusional in a belief of God…there is no God and science proves it! So TEists are aligning themselves with a world view that doesnt even agree with their religious belief. The contradiction there is mind blowing…I’m incredulous that you guys are blind to that very obvious rejection of your own world view…and yet you blindly follow them anyway!
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One of the challenges to the notion of my linking dreams and visions with the prophet daniels writings…“oh daniel didn’t exist” or “someone else clearly wrote the book” …this is despite the historicity of the book of Daniel being accurate!
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Now i get on to the most important point…historical writings and artefacts align with the biblical narrative as historical in every area i can think of where they talk about the same events. These are clearly not allegorical/metaphorical…so why then does it suddenly become vital to discredit the exodus as a fairytale? (especially when apparently a man talked with God face to face and got from our Lord the very law that we claim to found our entire religious belief upon).
Christ died on the cross specifically to pay the wages of sin is death. There is absolutely no getting around that fundamental Christian belief!!! So if we choose to turn Moses into a fairytale, that becomes our religion…Santa Clause.
I can disbelieve the science and it will in no way affect my salvation.
If i disbelieve the bible, then that very definitely affect my salvation! Therefore, i take the high ground on this and say the naturalistic approach to developing theories within science is wrong and the model that Answers in Genesis promote is correct.
Does that mean i agree with all of the scientific statements of AIG? Absolutely not…they make some huge bungles. However, i have no problem with their search for scientific theory that is consistent with the bible and whether or not anyone here agrees with that notion, AIG has shown a dedication to finding evidence proving the biblical account that the earth is not millions of years old (soft tissue in dinosaur bones…once denied now accepted all over the world, zircons in crystals, folding of rock layers in the grand canyon, the distant starlight problem, genetic lineage tracing, and many others).
What I have seen with TEism is a dedication to proving the bible wrong, then desperate attempts to navigate the catastrophic dilemmas to the entire notion of salvation one encounters as a result of that…starting with the Christian doctrine that dead bodies can be resurrected and rise up into the sky against the fundamental principle of gravity.
Let me just add to the above paragraph…I DO NOT CARE IF ERRORS ARE MADE IN SOME ASPECTS OF THE ABOVE…there are huge stuffups in evolutionary belief…thousands of them…these are all pushed aside without even so much as a whimper as being irrelevant…so i do same with errors in AIG and i do that because generally the science they come up with, aligns perfectly with the bible (my world view).
`Given i am first a Christian (not an atheist who denies there is a god in his science hypotheses), I am completely comfortable with that! Anyone who demands uniformatarianism as the basis for ancient studies can never reconcile":
- the notion that Christ was even raised physically from the dead,
- that he will come again and all those who believe on him will rise against gravity up into the sky, along with millions of rotted dead bodies and bones, or from animals faeces as a result of having eaten Christians and pooped them out of its anus`
…none of that even remotely makes any scientific sense…and yet you believe it right, so why do you have a problem with taking biblical history as literal given it also isn’t scientific???
Can you not see why i have a significant problem with TEism there?
If you are still having trouble…please read
Exodus 20:8-11 (in six days the lord created the heavens and the earth…)
8Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
2 Peter 1:
16For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. 17For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”c 18And we ourselves heard this voice from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.
19We also have the word of the prophets as confirmed beyond doubt. And you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. 20Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one’s own interpretation. 21For no such prophecy was ever brought forth by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
2 Peter 2: 5if He did not spare the ancient world when He brought the flood on its ungodly people, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, among the eight; 6if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction,b reducing them to ashes as an example of what is coming on the ungodly;c 7and if He rescued Lot, a righteous man distressed by the depraved conduct of the lawless 8(for that righteous man, living among them day after day, was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard)— 9if all this is so,
Then finally note that Revelation 14:12
9And a third angel followed them, calling out in a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image, and receives its mark on his forehead or on his hand, 10he too will drink the wine of God’s anger, poured undiluted into the cup of His wrath. And he will be tormented in fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11And the smoke of their torment rises forever and ever. Day and night there is no rest for those who worship the beast and its image, or for anyone who receives the mark of its name.”
12Here is a call for the perseverance of the saints who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus
Whatt Revelation tells us is that its extremely important that we do both of the above things:
- keep the commandments of God
- follow the testimony of Christ
Note what Christ says about the flood in Mathew 24
37As it was in the days of Noah, so will it be at the coming of the Son of Man. 38For in the days before the flood, people were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, up to the day Noah entered the ark. 39And they were oblivious, until the flood came and swept them all away.
One cannot possibly read allegory or metaphor into Christs statement above…its very very obvious he was not speaking in parables or making some moral illustration…he was warning those around of past direct consequences of disbelief in that God wiped out all those who refuse to believe Noahs preaching of the oncoming doom (remember Noah preached for 120 years…the flood wasn’t an event that came with no prior warning).
BTW, do we not have archelogists claiming they think they know where the tower of Babel was built? If its a fairytale, why the dedication to the tower as literal history? A great deal of money and effort is being put into locating that structure. Now lets for a moment consider the following…
If in the future, the location of the tower is proven…what then of the TEist claim the flood never happened and wiped out the then known world? How does one reconcile that the tower was built specifically to avoid future deluges? That would then prove the flood event happened and that the historicity of the bible regarding the flood is not metaphorical or allegorical, but that it really did happen. Then we are just left arguing over how big it was, however whats crucial is that it would be the TEist view that is having to compromise…not the historical biblical view that i hold.
We already have a number of evidences where the bibles historical account has been proven correct (consider the Hittites, pontius pilot, King Jehu bowing before Shalmenessar III on the Black Obelisk, silver scrolls dating prophet Isaiah to at least 600-800 B.C)
Every example of “epistemic translation” ever posted here has in fact changed the Hebrew, adding in meaning that cannot be found from the text. It boils down to inserting the writer’s own thoughts instead of trying to draw out the intent of the writer.
The difference is that they are trying to bring the sense of the ancient words into modern language, they are not making things up that they think fit which is what “epistemic translation” does.
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Words and their meaning are all made up in the first place so making something up with words is what language does. Translation is the process of putting the words of one language into the words of another language. Literal translation limits the meaning of the original words to the assumed human knowledge at the time of writing. Epistemic translation adds meaning to particular words of the translated language based on expanded knowledge without changing the original word since no better word existed in the vocabulary of the original language to express that knowledge. Words that are alleged to express the knowledge of an omniscient entity should have that flexibility.
That’s not possible because all reading is filtered through a worldview. The only question is which worldview to use, that of the ancient writer and his audience or that of the reader. YEC, by insisting on stuffing modern scientific meanings into the text, is not reading from the worldview of the ancient writer and his audience.
That is not in the text.
That is not in the text.
No, they’re only applying the same scientific method that idiot atheists wrongly think ways more than it can.
In truth, it is YEC that applies the same worldview as those atheists because they accept the criterion that no study is needed to understand the scriptures.
Christianity does not rest on the Law but on Christ. Once again we see that YEC has bad Christology.
No it doesn’t. You don’t need the Bible to be able to declare that Jesus is Lord. I knew a guy in university who never read the Bible or listened to anyone talk about it, he heard about Jesus because a neighbor played Christian music all the time, and what was in that music was enough to bring him to Christ.
It can’t be, on two counts: first, it does not align with the text of the scriptures or the biblical worldview; second, we are to know them by their fruit and the fruit of AiG is lies and driving people from Christ. In technical terms, AiG is antichrist.
The Bible makes no such claim. It only qualifies as “the biblical account” if the Bible actually says it.
Actual Hebrew scholars have concluded from Genesis that the earth is old beyond counting and the universe older still. AiG has no Hebrew scholars, so what they have to say is irrelevant. They are violating the admonition to not become teachers, they make themselves self-appointed teachers contrary to apostolic admonition!
Then you’re not reading science, you’re reading someone’s propaganda. In my university biology and botany courses I read thousands upon thousands of pages that involved ToE, and God was never even mentioned, nor was the Bible, nor any kind of religion.
There’s a basic principle of scholarship involved: read the actual sources! AiG lies about the actual sources regularly, insistently, monotonously. No actual scientific source tries to “prove the Bible wrong” because no scientific source even cares about the Bible – it is not data, it doesn’t pose any hypotheses, it doesn’t claim at all to talk about science let alone get it right, so scientists don’t care about the Bible in their work.
Scientists, e.g Dawkins, sounding off on their own has nothing to do with science, any more than the multiple failed predictions about Christ’s return have to do with the Bible, and it is only in those opinions that you will hear anything about disproving the Bible.
Nope – your world view is the on that the OP here saw through, namely an interpretation of the Bible based on forcing it to talk science. A worldview based on the Bible would set aside all scientific knowledge and ask what the original writers meant, especially asking what their definition of truth is – and their definition has nothing to do with scientific or historical accuracy, it has to do with who was authorized to speak for God.
You mean like the prophets, who told us that the seasons and such will keep going as they always have? who told us that God is faithful and does not change His ways?
Uniformitarianism is what we should expect given those and other teachings from the Bible.
Really? Show me where uniformitatianism has anything to say about the supernatural. Actually never mind; it doesn’t, it only refers to natural processes. Are you claiming that the Resurrection was a natural process? If not, then uniformitarianism is irrelevant.
The problem is that YEC is demanding that the Bible be taken as scientific – the whole enterprise is aimed at justifying the scriptures through the use of science. But you only try to justify one thing with another if you consider the second thing to be a legitimate judge of the first, and that’s an error.
ToE scientists
You’re the only one who ever refers to events/stories in the Bible as “fairytale” – why is that?
Not by any reputable archaeologist I’ve heard of! Most think it has been found, though they argue over which structure qualifies.
That’s not in the text, either. You are really good at adding to the text!
You’re also the only one saying anything about the Flood account being metaphorical, and almost the only one who mentions allegorical – why is that?
It isn’t either of those, but it isn’t historical narrative, either.
BTW, I’ve noticed that you totally ignore the fact I’ve put forth repeatedly that the books of Tom Clancy, John Grisham, James Michener, and John Steinbeck match all the criteria you use to say that the OT writings are historical narrative. That destroys your claim.
We also have evidences that Babylonian and Sumerian accounts have been proven correct. All that shows is that they got those items right, and it doesn’t show any more than that with the Hebrew scriptures.
They don’t, which has been explained to you repeatedly.
You need to learn and apply a rule that was pounded into us in grad school: don’t claim more than the text, or evidence, actually shows.
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That’s no justification for making up new words and shoving aside the original.
Not possible – putting in “expanded knowledge” inherently changes the meaning. It’s like the people who want to put “space and time” into Genesis 1; those just aren’t there. Likewise saying that “earth” in Genesis 1 means “planet”; there was no such meaning then.
All that “epistemic translation” is is a justification for writing someone’s interpretation into the text instead of letting the text be what it is. It’s no different from the whole YEC effort trying to force a modern worldview into the ancient literature. The moment you acknowledge that you’re “adding meaning” you’ve admitted that you are changing the text.
And the only one who can add meaning without changing the intent would be that deity.
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Im do not see how that can be the case ST Roymond…I AM NOT JEWISH, NOR GREEK, NOR ROMAN, AND ESPECIALLY NOT CATHOLIC… and yet i read the bible with the same comprehension that all of the above do given their own cultural influences!
i also do not agree with your claim from the point of view of translating language. We know that scholars were able to decipher ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs based on the other two languages found alongside it on the Rosetta Stone. The bible is no different…especially given the vast time and distances between many reference sources that we have today (ie silver scrolls, Dead Sea Scrolls, majority text, critical text, papyri, external biblical writers, and ancient Jewish and pagan artefacts that all point to the traditional reading of scripture as literal history).
Yes, i agree that we find fewer words in some other languages (particularly Hebrew) and that makes translating difficult, however, as I’ve clearly said many times before on these forums, that is exactly why context and cross-referencing become extremely important. We know we have the right translation because of the consistency, not because it suits naturalistic scientific theory (as is very obviously your premise for interpretation). Whenever i bring up cross referencing, you cry foul or avoid it altogether…that alone proves my point.
I haven’t a clue what you are talking about…not seen any of the posts that reference these writers or read their writings.
What i would suggest however is that despite your apparent “white knight there” which writers do i use to support my claims again??? were they not bible ones such as the prophets, apostles etc? Do i not always cross reference and ensure context so that no mistake can be made?
Lets face it…Moses writes in Genesis
and the evening and the morning…day 1,day 2, day 3 etc
Exodus 20 says
“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God…11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day.
Luke 4:6 says
And He came to Nazareth where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read
Christ states in Matthew 24
Matthew 24:19-30****Pray that your flight may not be in winter or on a Sabbath. For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been from the beginning of the world until now, no, and never will be. And if those days had not been cut short, no human being would be saved.
I mean i dunno there but you know…it seems to me that its quite obvious how long a day is right…and given the new testament uses the exact same inferences that the old testament does, i think i could safely say its proven its a single 24 hour day! I mean i don’t think one can extrapolate from Christs statements in Matthew 24 that its a Sabbath year!
Now what were you saying about those authors you keep bringing up that i don’t respond to again? Perhaps it may very well be that i cant be bothered insulting my intelligence by discussing whatever it is you glean from them and that would be because i really do not need to!
Are you claiming that you do not have a worldview?
Ah – so you admit you have cultural influences. Those cultural influences gave you what is called a worldview, which is something that you don’t choose, it’s something you gain as you grow, something that seeps into your brain all your life from the culture around you. And the worldview you absorbed was one that conditioned you to see scientific meanings in everyday terms, thus “earth” becomes “planet/globe”, regardless of the actual meaning of the term. Part of that worldview that we have all soaked up without realizing it is that things have to be scientifically accurate to be correct.
But that piece – that definition of truth – cannot be found in the Bible. And since it cannot be found in the Bible, it cannot be applied to the Bible.
But you ignore the greater context, the historical and cultural and literary. And if you’re cross-referencing in English, you’re not getting actual links, you’re getting some that don’t belong and missing some that do.
Because cross-referencing in English is flawed, and because cross-referencing is not theology.
Consistency in translation can be and often is an artifact of tradition, and can also be an artifact of doctrine.
Besides which, printed translation is not the issue, the issue is the translation that goes on in your head when you render “earth” as "planet/globe’, a translation that leads to numerous inconsistencies as others have shown as well as being unfaithful to the text – resulting in the symptoms in your last post where you several times added to the text.
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Odd, since I’ve been using them as illustrations for over a week.
None – you use your own judgment. Your argument boils down to “it reads like historical narrative”, but that fails because so do the books of Clancy, Grisham, and so on – but they aren’t historical narrative, so what a piece of literature looks like is not a valid way of deciding what it is. You actually acknowledged this in a response to a reference to Harry Potter when you said the difference is that we know it’s fiction – the thing is, we only know it is fiction not because of how it reads, i.e. because of internal evidence but because that’s how it’s published, i.e. we rely on external evidence.
Which is meaningless unless you know from external evidence what kind of literature it is. It’s like looking at the top crust of a pie and deciding it must be cherry because the crust looks like what your mom used to put on cherry pis and because it looks like there’s a little red tint where you think juice is showing through – but since you haven’t actually looked under the crust your conclusion that it is cherry is just a guess.
All those references show is that the Jews had a rule about every seventh day – it means nothing about Genesis because the context is different.
The criteria you use to say that things in the Hebrew scriptures are historical narrative describe the works of those authors perfectly – which since those are not historical narrative shows that your criteria fail.
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Adam, my problem with YEC, having been there, done that, and the interpretation that the bible is absolute truth - historic, scientific, medical, etc., taken out of context and interpreted in a worldview that neither the writers nor the original audience would have any way of comprehending, is based on observed, currently known facts. I believe that God created this entire universe, out of nothing. However, if that is really true, then I have no choice but believe that God created a universe for me to live in that is demonstrably uncertain at its very core: He has chosen not to leave unambiguous proof of His existence in His universe.
Why would God do this? Certainly He does not want us to believe in Him because He showed Himself to us in an unarguable manner; if He wanted us to just know that He exists, that would have been much easier to do than to ensure that there is no absolute, unambiguous proof!
Now consider: If you only believe that God exists, and cannot know for sure based on absolute proof, then how can it be that something written by humans must be absolutely God’s truth, inspired by God so perfectly that the words written by ancient authors also mean exactly what you interpret those words to mean in your modern worldview?
I am convinced from my past experience in YEC that the most attractive aspect of YEC is a search for absolute certainty. Fundamentally, I was taught that our understanding of what the bible means is so true that it must apply to all people, whether they believe it or not; that is, we have a perfect 100% true source for anything, we are right, everybody else is wrong.
On the other side of the search for truth: If you believe that God created this universe, then I ask: Do you believe that God knew what He was doing, as I do? And, if God knew what He was doing, then it is certain that any evidence of any kind in the physical universe - fossil records, geological, cosmological evidence from the James Webb telescope (and all other evidence from all the observations of this universe that have ever been made), then all these observations are showing something that God Himself put into the universe, and we don’t have to make our human judgement of whether the human who claims to be speaking for God is really speaking for God, or for himself.
And then we get to St. Roymond, who points out so very clearly that interpreting the bible using a 21st century Western civilization worldview most certainly does not capture the intent of the original authors in writing the bible.
Fortunately, Jesus said He wont judge us based on what we believe about the bible. And also, as James pointed out (and Martin Luther had a real problem with this, because he really wanted to be speaking absolute truth) that believing the truth isn’t going to save anyone - the devils believe, and tremble.
And that is why I pointed out that we who are quite thoroughly convinced by our observations of a universe where the evidence that God put into it says that the universe is very old, that God really did reate a universe a long time ago, with almost certainly many other places where intelligent life exists, those places designed by Him for Him to use for His purposes, that we cannot say for sure that God didn’t create the universe 6000 years ago with every single particle - including photons, gravitons, electrons, protons, neutrons, and all the host of other things - in exactly the same states that each would have had if it had been created in the Big Bang. But I do insist that whoever says God created the universe 6000 years ago had better come up with an explanation for why God would put all that other evidence into our view.
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Absolutely i do have cultural influences…i agree with you on that. However, in answer to the inferred dilemma… do those cultural influences impact on specific bible theology?
At a fundamental biblical belief level, my answer to that question would be no. The reason why is because I do not think it requires cultural influence to understand translated language beyond the scope of being able to derive the appropriate words so that the original meaning is not lost.
That is the key…the original meaning is maintained when translating language.
This is why i deny that any translations of the bible made by specific religious groups with outrageous doctrines should be used (Watchtowers NWT point and example). That organisation have specifically gone looking for evidence of translation where it specifically fits in with pre existing beliefs …which is the opposite of how “we” are supposed to use the method of translation.
This is why i also disagree with your view on bible interpretation…you seek out only that which justifies evolutionary beliefs and from that you derive doctrine. I do not do it that way…my belief is taken without any secular influence of any kind. I will openly admit my way of doing this presents some significant challenges one of them exposes a seemingly aggressive and brutal God who would have his subject kill off hundreds/thousands of women and children in ancient biblical times.
I cannot present a moral answer to that question…because there isn’t one. I cannot possibly claim that God, in his apparent mercy, slaughters women and children.
Having said the above, how can any Christian rationalise that at the end of time, any individual who does not get saved, is going to be thrown into the lake of fire and burned (and that will also likely include thousands/millions of women and children)!
So the dilemma i face in taking a literal reading of Old Testament writings, in that God is merciless…that is what all Christians must reconcile because its a New Testament doctrine at the end of time as well!
I appreciate your criticism on this St Roymond, I really enjoy your posts “when” they present serious and important challenges to ones beliefs…and this one is a good one that goes way beyond just YECism, it impacts on Christianity in general. Actually, i think the question of Gods morality and how that influences biblical translation and interpretation in a TEist vs YEC debate would be interesting (if you have some links to any youtube debates on that i would be interested in watching them)
BTW I have loved your comment not because i agree with all of it but because certain parts of it are excellent criticisms.
I love this comment, another absolute ripper and thank you for it. It is a long one and generally i accept all of the dilemmas that it presents. There are answers to each of them though.
I haven’t the time this morning to go through each one in great depth, i am taking the family out today.
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I disagree that biblical interpretation is being taken out of context. Cross referencing fundamental beliefs using statements made by Moses, Christ, the apostle Peter about the flood are very much referencing the exact same event. There is no contextual argument against those linked statements. This denies that argument on the flood of Noah (particularly because we are also given detail about the ages of individuals in the ark, how long they lived after the flood, and how the lineage of Christ is traced down through one of the sons of Noah!
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Your comment about why would God trick us with a falsified geological history? An excellent comment however, the answer is rather obvious…read the story of Job. Its very clear that Satan has the power to interact with the elements to produce catastrophes (scale/size is irrelevant btw). The TEist argument is that God must give specific permission…that argument has some severe limitations…Adam and Eve allowed Satan in when he tempted them in the garden of Eden. God has already given that permission. This does not mean that Satan isn’t limited when God chooses to limit him (as the story of Job also demonstrates).
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Your scientific dilemmas…I believe that given YEC has only in the last few decades found a calling to seriously address those dilemmas and, noting that the YEC scientific focus is still in its relative infancy, almost all of them have now received serious boost in that there are many “evidences” within science that now support the YEC vew there (mount St Hellens, soft tissue in dinosaur bones, genetic tracing of civilisations/people, folded rock seams etc). It does not matter if YEC scientists make mistakes…secular scientists have changed their minds countless times over decades and no one challenges those corrections by saying…throw it out the window. No they still stick rigidly to the fundamental claim, there is no God. So i do not need to defend that criticism any further here.
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I agree that Christ wont judge us on our knowledge of the bible. You are 100% correct there. However, if that is such an important distinction, why do you insist on defending TEism and evolutionary doctrine given its demonstrated by your side that the science and the bible are not relevant to each others ultimate goals? If science isn’t important in salvation, why do individuals here insisted on preaching it to the world…in fact that’s what Francis Collins spends most of his time doing…he even writes ridiculous songs about it!
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The biblical interpretation argument presented by St Roymond is 100% wrong. During my academic years, i had the opportunity to study philosophy of Christian education. There are serious fundamental flaws in St Roymonds theology there that are untenable. Whilst he doesnt see it, i can observe from the issues he has with other like minded believers on these forums that he is on the outer with those beliefs. As i have present many times, his argument about genre is utter nonsense…the bible is written over thousands of years, in different cultures, different social influences affecting people at the time, and yet despite all of that, the translations are almost identical (point and examples, sliver scrolls, Dead Sea Scrolls, Majority Text, and Critical Text)…its very clear that cultural interests/habits/beliefs has had no significant impact on any intrinsic biblical doctrines or even major translations. The most obvious example of where it has had an impact is where a religious denomination has intentionally rewritten their own bible translation in order to promote specific beliefs that are not traditional…example NWT (Watchtower) and it has been absolutely trashed from its first publication and continues to be trashed today (so the lie is very easily exposed)
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The quote believe is an excellent criticism, however, its deeply flawed
And that is why I pointed out that we who are quite thoroughly convinced by our observations of a universe where the evidence that God put into it says that the universe is very old, that God really did reate a universe a long time ago, with almost certainly many other places where intelligent life exists, those places designed by Him for Him to use for His purposes, that we cannot say for sure that God didn’t create the universe 6000 years ago with every single particle - including photons, gravitons, electrons, protons, neutrons, and all the host of other things - in exactly the same states that each would have had if it had been created in the Big Bang. But I do insist that whoever says God created the universe 6000 years ago had better come up with an explanation for why God would put all that other evidence into our view.
the most significant flaw in the above statement is the belief that Satan has no physical impact on this world nor does he physically entice/control humans such that they perform his will in order to promote destructive goals of sin. One of TEisms most problematic doctrines is exactly the one you highlight above. Philosophically, TEism doesnt have a great answer to it that doesnt also produce destructive crictisms of the entire world view…and mostly these leave TEism as a luke warm belief system stuck halfway between YECism and Atheism (neither side consider their beliefs well founded or even workable). Its relying on secular naturalisms hypotheses (that stem from the fundamental principle, “there is no God” “there is no room for God in science”) and yet blindly thinks it can develop a religious belief out of that principle. I as a YEC do not face such a devastating dilemma.
Epistemic translation does not make up new words. It actually requires that the spelling and syntax of the words in the original text remain intact. It adds to the meaning of those words in translation based on the context of the information while being related to the impression of the literal meaning and the nature of the message. It does not shove aside the traditional literal translation but rather requires that it be preserved as a necessary foundation. That is why I call it an epistemic translation rather than a new or correct literal translation.
How do you know that the omniscient source of inspiration for scripture is not making this adjustment in translation by inspiring the concept of an epistemic translation? It may be thought of as the reverse of what YEC attempts to do. It has more validity since the creation came into existence without any of the human involvement that words require.
I remember a speaker who talked about the difference between certainty and certitude, defining certainty as trust in your own conclusions while certitude is trust in someone else. I think that’s something that has always bothered me about YEC: they sound far more like they have certainty than certitude. Certainty doesn’t allow for considering that you might be wrong, but certitude does. Certitude is why it didn’t bother me to see all the thousands of variant readings in the New Testament; plainly God allowed them and the question was just why. Certitude is why it didn’t bother me to learn that the opening Creation account in Genesis is an edited version of the Egyptian creation story; plainly God allowed that and the question was just why.
But YECers can’t for a moment consider that any part of Genesis might actually be some type of ancient literature, because that would mean they are wrong. They don’t dare suppose for even a moment that it might not be what it appears to be to them, because that would also mean they are wrong–
And they can’t stop and look at themselves and ask what their actual worldview is, the one that makes them see science in the text regardless of the actual meanings of the words, so they blunder on imposing that modern worldview without realizing it.
And along with that why I point out that honest scripture-believing scholars in the past have not only had no problem with a very old earth but actually found that in Genesis as well as other parts of the scriptures.
Amen.
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Yet you determinedly resist using the original meaning; you put in modern scientific meaning instead – it’s the only reason to insist that “land” means “planet/globe”.
Ever heard the adage, “It loses something in translation”? That’s a truism because words in one language rarely match one-to-one with words in other languages – proof of that is how there are no translation that always use the same English word for every Hebrew word; even such a supposedly simple word like “and” doesn’t translate straight across. And the reverse is also true; words gain meaning that doesn’t belong there.
Back to lying again, I see.
I know, you have to lie in order to put me in the only slot your mind allows – you have to put me in that category because your YEC thinking has no room for the truth that someone who refuses to budge from the text could disagree with you, because the YEC doctrine demands that you have to be right. Lie all you want, but the one you’re lying to is yourself; your lie carries no weight with anyone else here, and your lies won’t get me to budge from the text.
Then why do you replace the actual meanings of words with scientific meanings? Reading “planet” when the text says “land” is giving it a scientific definition, and so is ignoring the solid sky-dome that the Hebrew tells us about.
Though it could also be the human traditions about the text if it was just personal, but the connection to YEC and YEC sources sort of rules that out since they are measuring the truthfulness of the scriptures by their understanding of science – that’s the only reason to care if any of the Hebrew scriptures is scientifically accurate.
I don’t know about any such debates because I don’t care about TE vs YEC unless it is based on the text. I once listened to Dawkins debate a YECist and concluded it was a total wast of time. I also watched the Bill Nye vs Ken Ham fiasco. I dip into such debate here when it impinges on things I’ve studied, but have no interest in any more science than that (except occasionally to satisfy my curiosity).
You regard information about the Creation to be supremely important yet you think that God would allow Satan to totally remake the entire universe in order to deceive humans? That doesn’t fit with the various Psalms which depict nature praising God.
You’ve demonstrated that you don’t even know what genre is. It has nothing to do with translation. It isn’t possible to read literature without genre, the only question is whether you have the right one or not. The YEC view is wrong because it changes the meanings of words, ignores the normal use of Hebrew, tramples on Hebrew grammar, and adds to the text – that’s the literary equivalent of assault.
No, it just inserts words without any cause for that in the text.
Because the Holy Spirit would not change the meaning of the text in the ways that your “epistemic translation” does.
It does the very same thing that YEC does, inserting modern meanings into the ancient text and ignoring the original literary genre.
It has no validity, because of the above.
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as planet, globe, or earth in Exodus 1:7.