Close enough for guvmint work.
Were you naked when you took this exam? It sounds a lot like a recurring nightmare of mine. On the other hand, some folks picture the final judgment just like this. Unless we have the correct answer to every question of doctrine, St. Peter opens the trapdoor beneath our feet.
quote=“Christopher_Michael, post:152, topic:42104”
@gbob Thank you for joining in! When I read especially the first part of your article I was thinking (in a kind of endearing way) “where has this guy been all thread!?” you were saying so many of the things I was attempting to communicate, about the unsettling implications of the idea that God couldn’t have communicated both to an ancient culture and communicated truth. I plan to unpack this more in Part 2 of my Summary on this thread - along with the many other ideas so won’t get into a deep analysis now … but I’ll bring out one thought that is sticking with me that I’d like to hear your answer on
Thank you for the kind words Christopher. I had a moderator basically try to isolate me on another thread and you give me a chance to come out of my exile. lol Also, it gives me a chance to post this wonderful quote from the Lexham Research Commentary, Gen. 1-11:
"Eugene Carpenter (1988, 741) feels strongly about the need to accept the basic historicity of account, yet he recognizes the biblical writer’s concerns were more theological than historical in the modern sense:
'Thus if the historical bedrock of God’s dealings with mankind is dissolved, then the message of God evaporates into thin air (or at best into abstract religious concepts). It is, in short, not possible to hold to the religious-moral message of the Pentateuch without holding to its basic historicity, which constitutes a necessary but not a sufficient condition for its truth. Hence, in the Pentateuch we understand that, because of the nature of God, mankind, and the world, we are not dealing with myth, fable, mere astrological tales, or literary creations, but with the truth communicated by God to mankind through history in concrete word and concrete event. But as the preceding section has shown, the biblical writers and compilers wrote history from a theological or religious-moral point of view to bring out, as part of God’s communication to mankind, the meaning of His mighty acts in the events of history".Mangum, D., Custis, M., & Widder, W. (2012). Genesis 1–11 . Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press., 2012, in Genre part of Introduction. Electronic copy.
That quote and you, make me feel much less lonely here. Thank you.
You wrote:
So, firstly - love your idea that Genesis 1 didn’t explicitly say when the things God proclaimed were made and on the earth and water being given creative power. But, Day 4 has always been a real stickler for me … and I was hoping you might bring a fresh perspective. I had my fingers crossed reading your comments in the proceeding days “yep, reckon he’s gonna get struck into Day 4 too, great” - in why God spoke about the stars a good way into the story of having proclaimed other things … when the stars in cosmological/actual factual historical order come first. There are certain logical elements in the first part of your article suggesting “Doesn’t God know his creation?” asked kind of sarcastically that could be picked up here - what I mean is, if God so knew that stars were the very means of how more complex elements and atoms were even formed to then later become the building blocks for the earth and for everything … why were not stars spoken about in Day 1 or 2 instead of Day 4? From a logical timeline view … it perhaps doesn’t make sense.
Admittedly I am somewhat anthropomorphizing God’s planning skill, but being an anthropomorph myself, it is hard to step into the mind of God. Planning of anything can take place in any order. Often building or the finished product must be dealt with in a particular order. Consider an author who is doing a mystery. It is best to start at the end and know what the twist to the story is. One of my favorite movies is Sixth Sense, but Shyamalan had to have started at the end, knowing the guy was dead and seeing ghosts and then planned the rest of the movie to subtly reveal but not reveal that secret. An architect often starts with a drawing of the façade to get the client’s interest. I recall a story about Frank Lloyd Wright doing a façade and then having to spend a bunch of time figuring out how to support the structure. Again, this is out of order. So, I don’t pay much attention to the order in Genesis. God had proclaimed the future existence of earth, water and plants, and backed up to produce the mechanism to create the atoms.
Now, that said, there is another point at which all the physics could have been planned, when God created light. The existence of light requires E=Mc^2, which is the interchangeability of matter and energy, General relativity, which governs gravity and gravity causes stars. In this option, why would God mention stars? Maybe it was a plan to make lots of them near earth. Otherwise I don’t know. I do know I don’t get too hung up on order of planning because it can be done in any order–in other words, it doesn’t have to have a logical planning order.
For about 20 years I was a manager of lease sales. I would plan from 5 years ahead, backwards in time to figure out how big my budgets should be based upon how much seismic data I needed to acquire, and how many wells we would drill.
The only ‘exit route’ on this I see is to heavily emphasise the word ‘set’ (or whatever the Hebrew is) in Day 4, that is “God created/set the stars in place” with the Hebrew actually meaning “set” more so than created - or perhaps a combination, given stars are always being created and set (the exit route logic of this being exactly that the creation of stars is always an ongoing process in the universe and God knew this … and so Gen 1:1 incorporates that and the setting of the stars can then sit comfortably part way into the creative proclamations as an ever ongoing process).
Remember, this is planning, not actual creating. Thus,nothing would have been set on Day 4. It was just a plan for the arrangement of stars in the galaxy that we can see with our naked eye. The galaxy formed billions of years after the Big Bang.
This logic still has some flaws though, to my mind … stars still come first as they are ‘first and last’ in creative order - have always been being created and will be right up until the concept of a new heavens and earth and probably after.
Hope all this makes sense. Would be interesting to hear your answer/s to this.
Genesis 1, if taken as an actual step by step creation event, so mismatches geologic events that such a view makes it totally false. By following St. Basil’s lead, and having the days be planning, no order is required, and it doesn’t matter if stars come after plants, sun comes after plant, or whether or not whales are thought of along with the fish(geologically whales appear about 400 myr later than the fish and this point is often used by atheists to criticize the bible as being false. And Christians often agree with the atheists that it is false but want to believe it anyway–For the life of me I can’t figure out why. But again, order of planning and proclamations of what has been planned, can be in any order whatsoever. to me, this solves the problem of setting the stars. They weren’t set on day for but long after that proclamation.
Just so anyone who reads this understands why, each day has God saying Let there be… and the human writer says, something like “and it was so” but it doesn’t say WHEN it was so. There is no grammatical need for instantaneous creation in Genesis 1.
You wrote:
Also - and I can’t help but put this in here as it’s so deeply relevant to a concordist view - concordist is the sense that the Bible concords with actual observable factual history and is not some version of narrative based make believe (harsh, but sometimes harsh is okay, as long as not said with anger or with intention to hurt - cause that is not, and it even hurts me to say it, so yeah).
Anyway … what am I getting at? Well - a strictly concordist view has to believe that comments about how all the ways Israel’s enemy nations came into existence are historical fact (referring to last 10 minutes of episode 100 of Bible for Normal People Podcast). It also has to believe everything described in Exodus happened as described (I’ve studied the historicity of Exodus to what feels like a dizzying degree - it was for me anyway - and I just can’t grasp that it was historical, despite looking pretty intently and turning over every stone… my painful conclusion is still hovering … but if it did happen - which in my heart I painfully think it didn’t as described - it’s proper annoying - outrageously annoying even, that literally no clear extra biblical references exist to it … except some super vague broken tablet describing a disaster that could’ve been anything (the paintings of Semites in tombs only depict them being there, not their mighty deliverance … surely a few tomb reliefs would’ve depicted sons dying and the Hebrews trialling our with gold if it happened … but none).
You need to read two books. Contrary to the widespread belief, there is good evidence that Joseph and the exodus occurred a couple of hundred years before the normally accepted value. Indeed, Joseph’s Palace in Goshen may have been found. The palace has 2 rows of 12 pillars. Out back are 12 tombs, one of which is a pyramid, a high honor for a semite. We know that the guy buried there was a semite because there is a big statue of him in a multicolored coat. His skin was lighter an Egyptians depicted themselves as and his hair was red. Here is a reconstruction of that statue.
All the tombs except one have bones in them. The tombs had been raided by tomb robbers, but they don’t take bones which are worthless to them. There were no bones in the big pyramid tomb. Remember, Joseph asked that his bones be taken back to the promised land.
The palace is built atop a semitic village whose houses are the very same shape and layout as were common in northern Syria, think Harran, where the patriarchs got their wives. the town was emptied suddenly of its semites, something one would expect if the Exodus happened. Also, after the palace time, the graves were filled with too few adult men and too many babies. David Rohl is an agnostic but he believes the Bible is a good history book. This is one of the books you should read.
“According to the archaeological evidence at Tell el-Daba, conditions then began to deteriorate
with skeletal remains in the graves showing signs of malnutrition(Harris lines in the bones).
Anthropological studies show that adults were dying in their early thirties. Strangely there
were far more burials of infants and young children than normal(25%) for this sort of ancient
civic society. Moreover there were more females than males in the adult grave population.
For every three females there were only two males. Where had the adult males gone? The Bible
provides the answer. The opening chapter of the Book of Exodus tells us that the Egyptians
first enslaved the Israelites, then culled the male infants because the slave populations
was getting too large and Pharaoh perceived this as a threat. Obviously, in archaeological
terms, this would mean an increase in infant burials and a skew in the adult population
in favor of females.” David Rohl, Exodus, (Thinking Man Media, 2015, p. 127
Pushing the exodus back matches the fall at Jericho. The reason you find no evidence of the Exodus is because the Scholars got stuck on Ramses as the pharaoh of the exodus when the Semites were there earlier in town Avaris, (which may mean “Hebrew man”) which was older than the city of Ramses which was built on top of it in Goshen. Rohl believes that the Bible called it the City of Ramses because no one would know where Avaris was at the time of the writing or maybe later it was inserted. It would be like using the roman name for Norfolk England. No one would have a clue where it is or what you were talking about.
The second book you should read is Patterns of evidence by Timothy Mahoney.
The Bible is absolutely choc block full of other such apparently historical occurrences that barely hold out to scrutiny - I mean some things do but certainly some don’t … and they especially don’t when held together in the cohesive, timelined narrative the Bible presents.
Being a Biblical concordist - cause I have held on tightly to the idea in the past - felt like/feels like a continuous experience of doing a final exam. A final exam on every topic of question there is about the bible’s legitimacy. And doing that exam not having all the strong answers to weave a clear argument … so having to get creative and work with what you’ve got, over and over - and over. It’s stressful. It’s exhausting. Having to defend God and his truth shouldn’t be so, err, so hard! So complicated . It’s ridiculous. But a concordist view is so hard, is so complicated … hopefully not so ridiculous… because really, if it is ridiculous… and maybe it is but if it is … we are left out in a cold and scary land of nothing really being true or reliable. And in my heart I know that’s the land we’re in. That’s the landscape. I want to believe in concordism. But I don’t … I’ve tried … it collapses like sandcastles washed away by the tides of logic and rationalism. Peter Pan is dead in this landscape, he’s drowned in those tidal waters and his sandcastles didn’t save him (sorry for the harsh language folks … but we’re all adults … and God is God … and I think he likes raw honesty - I think he finds it special, well I hope he does ha)
People may be detecting me venting from personal emotion. Some of those feelings and emotions I didn’t quite know were there - but they were and I’ve vented them. It’s cathartic.
Anyway, I’ve slidden into another rant. Sorry to dump that on you @gbob
Hang in there my friend. You really can believe God’s word is historically valid, contrary to the popular view.
Oh stop. I highlighted your ideas by giving them their very own platform. This persecution complex does not become you.
After telling me you were mocking me in a pm, and telling me you could have done worse? now you say you were helping me? nice.
Do I have your permission to post the screen shot of your note?
I’m glad Jesus took care of that whole salvation business for me, or I’d be in trouble. Still, striving to become more like Him! 
Anyone interested in the data on Joseph’s palace, and the events surrounding the Exodus should go look at The Choices We Make - #49 by gbob
Interesting find. That helps support the historical nature of the Biblical account after Abraham, but not sure that can be transferred deeper in time to the first 11 chapters of Genesis. It is interesting to me to consider why Israel,was enslaved. Was it the abandonment of Canaan for the rich pastures of the Nile delta and the protection of Joseph? Was it Joseph’s action in taking a foreign wife and being the mastermind that enslaved Egypt under Pharaoh? Oh, well, that will have to go to,a different post as too off topic.
God sends us trials that are for his honor (as well as for our strengthening) – the Exodus is pretty notable, and as a redemptive allegory, too.
No, of course, this find says nothing about earlier parts of Genesis. They have to stand or fall on their own. However, I am not one to bet against the Bible IF our God is really the God he claims to be.
All we can do with earlier genesis is provide a scenario that works. It is highly unlikely we will find a ziggurat we could identify with the Tower of Babel nor will we find the tree of life. But much of my life was spent working on the flood–a part of the Bible few think about and if they do think about it they chose Mesopotamia as the site of the flood and that site can’t possibly match the description in the Bible. My flood site can match exactly the Biblical description, from rain, to duration of the flood, why an ark was needed, the high mountains etc. But it requires God to have dealt with us hominids far longer than people want to believe, and that is a matter of choice, not data
As to the topic of this thread, I don’t see ethical implications for God using evolution. Who are we, the clay to complain to God about what he has done?
Amen. I don’t doubt that you’re ahead of me on that path. I’ve always been a straggler.
Here’s a thought: If the garden was a literal place and the trees also literal, I can imagine the “normal” trees dying and the physical spot on Earth being over-run and taken over, but what became of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life? Did the tree of life die, or did it ascend into heaven like Christ?
Random thoughts …
Haha, I don’t know about that. What I do know is that we’ll all get there eventually.
God be with you, my friend.
Sure, post away. I think you are totally overreacting. Plus, I offered multiple times to change the thread title to whatever you wanted. I’m not going to apologize for moving something that got long and involved and off-topic to another thread. That’s how we do things here.
Random reply 
:
They needed to be tended, and they lost their attendants and died.
I will let it die at this point. I guess there is no reason to make our disagreement hotter. So god bless you, but please try to be a wee bit fairer.
According to Rev 22.2 the Tree of Life made it to Heaven somehow, after the Cherabim guarded it.
The only incomplete sentence in Scripture concerns the Tree of life:
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever …
The Holy Bible: King James Version. (2009). (Electronic Edition of the 1900 Authorized Version., Ge 3:22). Bellingham, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
I changed the colon to … which is more appropriate because" now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever," has no action like at the end of it.
It should read something like : " now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, we will put man in a cage."
or
" now lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live forever, we will make them eat their spinach". but there is no finish to that sentence which Arthur Custance said indicated that it was the most horrible thought, too horrible for god to finish the sentence.
There are others too. A famous one is Romans 5:12: “Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned—”. Then, rather than complete the “just as” with a “so also,” Paul goes on in verse 13 to deal with some of the ways his comparison isn’t very exact after all. It isn’t until verse 18 that he takes another crack at making the comparison into a full sentence.
Sometimes I wonder if Paul’s writings are a good example of early ADD.
Addendum–he was brilliant!–but had so much information flowing that the flow reminds me of that. Maybe I have it too, because I kind of like the pattern. Thanks.
PRELUDE TO SUMMARY POST PART 1B:
ON THE ISSUE OF DEATH IN EVOLUTION
Hi again all, I hope you continue to enjoy this thread, it’s been a long one hasn’t it! I actually feel there is much more to come haha! So many interesting ideas continue to be generated/mentioned here, it has been really enriching and interesting for me. I’d love to think others are at least partially getting as much out of it.
This section here was going to be a summary of the key ideas responding to the second of my two original grievances (outlined below) … but then I found myself writing preliminary comments about it all. I now feel it best to make this a prelude to that summary part.
So, the issue at hand that will be discussed in summary form given so much up thread has touched on it is this:
that God would use evolution as his method of creating when there is so much death involved - and that this would seem to be inherently contrary to how God is described in the Bible, as being adverse to death and the bringer of life.
I’m aware this is a very deep topic, and not one that can be treated lightly, flippantly or with too much of a ‘pie in the sky’ tone. Death is a painful topic. We, will all die. Death brings grief, confusion, a desire for consolation. The fear of letting go. For those observing it in others, it brings the pain of loss - not wanting separation from those we love. Afterwards in can bring loneliness, sadness. Human emotion probably runs no higher or deeper than in the shadow of the face of death. From this fount of emotion - all kinds of things flow.
It would be true to say, from a historical anthropological view, that many many ideas about the afterlife no doubt originated from the flowing of this human fount of emotion. The Nordics have their view, as did the Egyptians, as did no doubt the many ancient islander cultures, ancient Aztecs, Myans, American Indians, Australian Aboriginals and so on. It would in fact be fascinating to study what these beliefs and rituals were - I know mostly only some of the Egyptian and tiny parts of only some of the others. I feel very ignorant as I consider this.
Anyway, all that is to hopefully bring some perspective to this issue. It goes without saying that the concept of Evolution would have been mind blowing and probably in most instances very confusing for all those ancient cultures to get their head around. How would they have understand Evolution in relation to the general concept of death and their afterlife beliefs? What would it have meant generally for their spiritual beliefs? This whole topic however is something generation after generation has never had to confront. It has been the unique challenge of only the last handful of generations whom have had to grapple with this. Looked at this way, as a phenomenon for the human species even, perhaps brings a certain somber humility to this whole issue, before we get into it.
Indeed, this phenomenon of the last handful of generations trying to synch the idea of evolution with various spiritual beliefs is definitely ‘a thing’, at least to my mind. From my understanding though … it has never really been called out specifically as ‘a thing’ which has been given a name and studied in detail by anthropologists and psychologists (having said that now, I’m totally expecting it probably has and I just haven’t heard about it).
Personally, I think it’s important and grounding to have this wider ‘all of humanity experience’ context in mind before we get into this discussion. It’s very easy for us in the Christian world to get one eyed, to get defensive, to get mean about our theological and related ideas. I’ve seen many times how people can switch into a kind of ‘battle mode’ about their theology … and sadly (and ironically given the whole ‘love thy neighbour’ golden rule) act like a total so and so, inadvertently and virtually subconsciously, in the process. I know especially in my younger days - I have definitely been guilty of this sin and I pretty deeply regret my harsh fool hardiness in some instances, no more so in fact (something I’ve actually just remembered) of when I made some stupid comments to a housemate and friend about how God plans and controls all things, without me properly realising how painful what I was saying was in the face of her mum being very unwell (and later dying). I just didn’t properly hold that in mind before I went into that mode (this is quite some time ago, but still - it destroyed the relationship, understandably, and apologies afterwards did not heal the wound). Its a powerful reminder to me: be very careful of words and mindful of people’s experiences and emotions.
I think there’s something in the ‘fight’ aspect of our human nature that causes us to literally forget this - like our brains switch into a different system that puts the blinders up to others emotions and/or feelings when we are ‘pushing forth’ our ideas.
I know I don’t really need to be saying all this here - the vast majority of people in BioLogos are decent, mature folk and the ones that ‘rush in’ or get all ‘fighty’ are probably not going to read this anyway.
As things precede, I know we’ll ‘play the ball not the man’ to use the old sporting phrase. I’m looking forward to some gung-ho engagement with the content - don’t hold back here - but with respect for the actual person delivering it.
The actual summary post will have lots and lots of quotes - maybe about a third to a half from articles this time.
The record goes to A.Suarez’s Treatment on a Pope’s Formulation for Original Sin’s Transmission! with 1058 posts and counting.
Just in case you want to be aspirational.
Oh my goodness that post is huge! I just clicked on the link then and it started at like 960, I kept scrolling up and quickly realised it’d take too long to get to the top … so I clicked the up arrows on people’s posts … after doing that for a bit I only got into the 700s before I gave up. I’ll look it up later in the forum headings.
Anyway - ha - I cant see this post getting anywhere near that much and especially after seeing that one have no such aspirations lol.
I’m already picturing that once this post has wrapped up (there’s a thing that tells me “this post will close 7 days after the last post” - and all this is new to me so I’m taking it as it comes) it will act as a good go to for me, quite possibly years into the future. A time capsule of sorts. To that end (and cause I’m at least a little OCD re things having a good structure) I’m trying to be deliberate in organising the summaries etc … will be interesting how that all plays out. For me it feels a bit like a mining expedition of ideas - digging deeper and deeper to get to the gold
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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