What a GREAT question - and point to bring up!!
Thank-you!
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Thank you. You’ll note that the YECs ignore it.
Just to follow-up on this - since I am very intrigued by Biblical cosmology - but have never been able to nail it down, can you please provide some clear texts which substantiate this cosmology (which I understand to be the standard cosmology of that era). Thanks!
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I hope you don’t mind my chipping in …Denis Lamoureux, “The Bible and Ancient Science,” is very good
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I found this paper which is helpful. It made me realize you have to be careful reading the text in English because of the interpretation decisions that were made. But Biblical cosmology does appear to be the same as the ANE cosmology with the only difference being theological.
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Randy is correct–Denis Lamoureux is the go-to person for learning about ancient cosmology. Look for his stuff on youtube, coursera.com, and his website. He is a professor of science and religion at St Joseph’s College, University of Alberta.
Here is an a chapter on Ancient Science from one of his books.
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Bill - Thanks so much - great find!
Hey Randy,
Thanks so much!! Now if he can move beyond the whole fantastical thinking “inspired for this and that reason that is unrelated to natural science” I think he would really be onto something. REGARDLESS, the deep dive into distinguishing the cosmology of any author of the standard canon from reality is meaningful to break down the standard evangelical Bibliolatry (well, except for those flat-earthers… 
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Beaglelady - Thanks so much - cf my comment re what appears to be Denis’ desperate hold on standard Bibliolatry - which is still keeping the grave-clothes on… BUT I will work with the data - and especially your above comment.
I think if you read more if his books you will find that he is not using that dogmatically, but to communicate with fundamentalists. He has evolutionary research on teeth evolution from scales in fish on PubMed, so has really scientific thinking in real world, too. Thanks
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The author is an SIL colleague of mine. I’ve tried in the past to get him to come here to discuss ANE cosmology, since it would be a more receptive forum than some of the ones he usually engages with.
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What do you mean?
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Below is the statement from Amazon re Denis’ content - which is the data I am referencing. According to this, Denis’ is desperately trying to maintain some larger than life legitimacy of the Bible - some fantastical notions of divinity - but realizing that, in part, he cannot - so his book is essentially a gaming model for both maintaining a graveclothes of the evangelical shipwreck - and what is a compelling view of reality slowing being realized by science (method).
Does this help?
"Theologian and scientist Denis O. Lamoureux suggests that a common assumption of biblical interpretation fuels this struggle. Many Christians think Scripture is supposed to align with science in some sort of way. This idea is known as “scientific concordism” (or simply “concordism”). But Lamoureux demonstrates that the Bible has an ancient science. During the inspiration of Scripture, the Holy Spirit came down to the level of the biblical writers and allowed them to use the science-of-the-day as a vessel for delivering life-changing, inerrant spiritual truths. "
If I understand what you are saying, he is “in the meantime” trying to assuage…or, better, “save some” by using evangelical rhetoric, etc. Fair enough - I hang out in an evangelical church - for Jesus did say that he “came to save the lost sheep of the house of Israel” - and “did not come to heal the healthy but to heal the sick”.
Below is the data which I referenced as a basis for my comment - and it may not accurately represent where Denis is really at - simply for the way the Amazon content writer described the text - However, if Denis’ is still trying to game the system with a fantastical “inspiration Bibliology” that is problematic - and detracts from his effort - which, I acknowledge, can still be beneficial…picking out the bones sort of a thing.
"Theologian and scientist Denis O. Lamoureux suggests that a common assumption of biblical interpretation fuels this struggle. Many Christians think Scripture is supposed to align with science in some sort of way. This idea is known as “scientific concordism” (or simply “concordism”). But Lamoureux demonstrates that the Bible has an ancient science. During the inspiration of Scripture, the Holy Spirit came down to the level of the biblical writers and allowed them to use the science-of-the-day as a vessel for delivering life-changing, inerrant spiritual truths. "
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Christy
Completely off topic - but I really appreciate that you are actually trained educator home-schooling your children. The notion of any person hauling off to educate their children - especially in “parochial” disconnected from society schools - well, I always ask when I hear the silliness issuing from evangelicals is either which demagogue have they been listening to - or, were they home-schooled… Sad to say…
I am curious - in light of a variety of translations in Spanish - are you working on translating into a specific dialect?
No. He holds earned PhDs in theology and evolutionary science. I don’t know what you are talking about.
We work in an Indigenous community with a team of eight translators producing New Testaments in four related varieties of Me’phaa. It’s not a dialect of Spanish, it’s a language that existed in Mexico pre-colonization. There are over 350 Indigenous languages in Mexico, making it one of the most linguistically diverse countries of the world, right up there with Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Indonesia, and China.
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Awesome - thank-you!
One challenge I have with the language thing is how to deal with all these sort of dialects - there have obviously been at least hundreds that have come and gone - or more likely evolved - and then evolved again. I am especially thinking of so called Native American.
Is every dialect something so valuable that we need to do everything possible to preserve? Every sub-species of sparrow, etc?
I say this as having a Masters in TESL - and fascinating with language - but uncertain whether any language has intrinsic value - but very much in the nascent stage of forming thoughts.
Obviously what is relevant is the ability to understand forms of written languages that inform us of historical human reality.
“so-called Native American” is not a language or a language family. Indigenous languages are not “dialects” they are languages. Dialects refer to mutually intelligible varieties of the same language used by specific communities. So African-American Vernacular English (Ebonics), Appalachian English, RP British English, Cockney English, Singaporean English, etc are all dialects of English.
That is the question, right? At SIL we don’t think of translations of the New Testament as being for languages, we think of them as being for communities who speak the languages. So the main goal isn’t preserving a language just to keep around some abstract construct that fits in a chart of language evolution (keep a species from going extinct to use the analogy you brought up), it’s to communicate God’s word in the language a community understands best so the gospel can transform their community. If that language changes or disappears within several generations, the fruit of the gospel taking root in the community would theoretically still have impact for generations to come. The value of the language is not because languages as abstract entities are valuable, it’s because languages are spoken by people created in the image of God, and those people are valuable to him and his Kingdom.
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