According to the Myers-Briggs for Canines … he’s a Labrador!!!
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For the link below, use 50% Zoom - it’s a huge (very tall!) page!
www.petdoors.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/PetDoor_Infographic_MBTI_Test.jpg
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You are reversing the burden of evidence. You have never proved that he shared your view of Torah authorship. I have already provided the positive evidence for Jesus’ view on Torah authorship; he speaks about Genesis and the rest of the Pentateuch the way I do, not the way you do.
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I did not come to BioLogos to convince anyone of anything. I do not carry the burden of proof here.
Neither do I place a burden of proof on you…unless you want me to believe you.
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Thanks George. I am an Australian Sheppard, which oddly (or maybe not so oddly) was my favorite dog having had two through the years, and my granddog is an Aussie.
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Stop being so dogmatic, George.
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Whenever you make a claim, you carry the burden of proof regardless of whether or not you want to convince anyone.
You have repeatedly placed a burden of proof on me, and others here. You have repeatedly requested evidence for our claims. We have repeatedly given it. Yet when we ask for evidence for yours, you beg shy.
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Nice try, but no cigar. I was not “making a claim.” I was explaining to you why the solution you were proposing to me was deficient. If you want to wash your hands of me, fine; but if you want to keep pressing your solution you need to remedy the deficiency.
Did I start the BioLogos Forum? Did I invite you to it? I thought you folks wanted folks like me to come to your forum and hear your views. I didn’t know I was placing a burden on anyone when I asked them to explain their views. Is someone making you read my posts and answer them against your will?
I haven’t been shy at all about explaining my views. Where I stop short is when it’s likely to become a quarrel rather than an exchange of views, or when, as in this case, you are demanding work from me for which I can see no redemptive purpose.
This is a really nasty thing to write, Mike.
I haven’t seen the slightest evidence that Jonathan is out to establish any doubt in anyone’s mind about anything.
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Please explain your views on science. Why do you always portray science as only hearsay or post hoc inference, but never as prospective hypothesis testing?
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Yes, when you say that Moses wrote the Pentateuch (as you’ve done), you’re making a claim. When you say that Jesus confirmed Moses wrote the Pentaeuch, you’re making a claim. You’ve made many claims on this forum, and when challenged you typically do not provide evidence for them.
You’re committing the fallacy of equivocation. The sense of “burden” in the term “burden of evidence”, is that the other person has the responsibility of substantiating their claim with evidence.
You’re changing the subject. I said that when asked for evidence for your views, you beg shy. You have certainly explained your views, but when pressed for evidence for your claims, you typically change the subject (as you are doing now), or resort to another round of questions, including repeating questions which people have answered many times before. Many of us have seen this same tactic of YEC run-around before, and we know that when it happens the YEC concerned has reached the end of their bag of tricks and is simply ducking and dodging.
You see no redemptive purpose in simply providing the evidence for your claims?
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I wasn’t commenting on his intent, I was commenting on his effect. His approach is very effective if the goal is to win a debate; it’s not as effective if the goal is to teach. I didn’t come to BioLogos to debate. I might do that some other time down the road. This time, however, I came to learn.
On what possible basis do you say that? I’ve laid out posts with considerable amounts of Biblical data, and shown the implications of that data. That is actual teaching, especially given the fact that I am showing a number of people information in the Bible which they have never seen before (like you for example). That is exactly what teaching is; providing you with information about a subject, which you didn’t know previously.
As Phil the moderators said:
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I see no redemptive purpose in debating with you when my purpose here is to find out if there are biblical options for reconciling with evolution, old earth, etc. You’ve made it clear that your option involves exchanging the Law of Moses for the Law of who-knows-who. That won’t work for me. And I don’t have time to prove to your satisfaction why I think it’s ridiculous to think Jesus ascribed the Torah to anyone but Moses.
[quote=“Mike_Gantt, post:21, topic:36389”]
I wasn’t commenting on his intent, I was commenting on his effect. His approach is very effective if the goal is to win a debate; it’s not as effective if the goal is to teach.[/quote]
I’ve learned a lot from him. BTW, you’ve changed your claim. Why?
[quote]I didn’t come to BioLogos to debate. I might do that some other time down the road.
[/quote]Debating is all I see you doing here. Mainly fallaciously.
I haven’t seen any hint that you came to learn–particularly about science, given your repeated attempts to falsely portray it mere hearsay and/or post hoc inference.
Have you learned that the most powerful aspect of science is hypothesis testing?
I see you making far more claims than asking questions. Look at this thread! You’ve attacked the author and his motivation instead of reviewing and engaging with his extensive analysis of the biblical options.
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And yet we have provided you with the best and most relevant Bible texts which have put at ease the minds of untold numbers of Christians:
Psa 90:4
**For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. **
Matthew Henry wrote this commentary about verse 4 of Psalm 90:
“The foregoing psalm [Psalm 90] is supposed to have been penned as late as the captivity in Babylon; this, it is plain, was penned as early as the deliverance out of Egypt, and yet they are put close together in this collection of divine songs. This psalm was penned by Moses (as appears by the title), the most ancient penman of sacred writ.”
“It is supposed that this psalm was penned upon occasion of the sentence passed upon Israel in the wilderness for their unbelief, murmuring, and rebellion, that their carcases should fall in the wilderness, that they should be wasted away by a series of miseries for thirty-eight years together, and that none of them that were then of age should enter Canaan. This was calculated for their wanderings in the wilderness, as that other song of Moses (Deu. 31:19, 21) was for their settlement in Canaan. We have the story to which this psalm seems to refer, Num. 14. Probably Moses penned this prayer to be daily used, either by the people in their tents, or, at lest, by the priests in the tabernacle-service, during their tedious fatigue in the wilderness.”
"To acknowledge the infinite disproportion there is between God and men, v. 4. Some of the patriarchs lived nearly a thousand years; Moses knew this very well, and had recorded it: but what is their long life to God’s eternal life? “A thousand years, to us, are a long period, which we cannot expect to survive; or, if we could, it is what we could not retain the remembrance of; but it is, in thy sight, as yesterday, as one day, as that which is freshest in mind; nay, it is but as a watch of the night,’ which was but three hours.”
“1. A thousand years are nothing to God’s eternity; they are less than a day, than an hour, to a thousand years. Betwixt a minute and a million of years there is some proportion, but betwixt time and eternity there is none. The long lives of the patriarchs were nothing to God, not so much as the life of a child (that is born and dies the same day) is to theirs.”
“2. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are as present to the Eternal Mind as what was done yesterday, or the last hour, is to us, and more so. God will say, at the great day, to those whom he has turned to destruction, Return-Arise you dead. But it might be objected against the doctrine of the resurrection that it is a long time since it was expected and it has not yet come. Let that be no difficulty, for a thousand years, in God’s sight, are but as one day. Nullum tempus occurrit regi-To the king all periods are alike.”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The New Testament picks up this very same theme:
2 Peter 3:8
But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
2 Peter 3:1-9
This second epistle . . I now write unto you. . . [t]hat ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets… Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying,
“Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.” [ < Does this not sound like you, Mike? ]
[Peter continues] “For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.”
“But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Regarding this text, Matthew Henry writes this:
"The truth which the apostle asserts-that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years are as one day. Though, in the account of men, there is a great deal of difference between a day and a year, and a vast deal more between one day and a thousand years, yet in the account of God, who inhabits eternity, in which there is no succession, there is no difference; for all things past, present, and future, are ever before him, and the delay of a thousand years cannot be so much to him as the deferring of any thing for a day or an hour is to us. "
That is not remotely a good faith comment. As with other comments you’ve made to me and others, that is a direct misrepresentation of my view. I do not exchange the Law of Moses for anything, certainly not “the Law of who-knows-who”.
So while a large number of people including myself have poured hours into answering every one of the many questions you’ve been firing at us (including answering many of your questions repeatedly, as a result of you asking them up to half a dozen times), you don’t have time to provide even a single verse in which Jesus says the Pentateuch was written by Moses.
That is clearly not your purpose here, because you’ve already been shown several biblical options and you’ve dismissed all of them completely out of hand instead of assessing them in good faith, simply because they don’t agree with the view you already have.
The dominant emotion expressed whenever you’ve been faced with new information, has been fear. Every reason you’ve given for not acknowledging the validity of a particular interpretation, has been to claim (typically without evidence), that the interpretation is destructive to some aspect of the Christian faith; inerrancy, inspiration, creation itself, or whatever. This is particularly ironic when you’ve been shown repeatedly that the way you treat Genesis 1-11 is not the way that the Bible treats Genesis 1-11.
And you know, we get that. Many of us were once in that same situation, afraid of what we would find if we read the Bible too deeply, afraid of giving up the traditions we’d accepted for years and replacing them with unadorned Bible teaching, afraid of the idea “If I’m wrong about this, what else might I be wrong about?”. But we came through it by facing those fears directly and honestly, and plenty of people here have spent hours patiently providing you with the tools and support to get through it too.
If there’s one thing you have learned from all this, it’s how much there still is to know about the Bible which you’ve never even seen before. For a start, the initial post in this thread; a wealth of rich information in the text of Genesis 1-11, which would have been completely transparent to the original audience, but which you’ve never realised because you’ve read the Bible superficially, filtered through layers of human tradition and modern Western scientific culture.
My main point in making this post (which was for others as well as you), is that you can completely leave science out of the picture, but if you want to interpret Genesis 1-11 honestly you must first address the actual information it contains. And many people have no idea of the information it contains, and where that information will lead. It definitely cannot lead in the direction of YEC.
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Such a comment is unbecoming a man of good faith. The Lord has visibility to my heart, and I appeal to His judgment.
As I’ve understood it, your position is that Ex 20:11 and Ex 31:17 are interpolations by an inspired writer (possibly Daniel) from the time of the exile. These interpolations are not identified as such in a score of Bibles I checked. Yes, I understand that commentators adhering to some form of the documentary hypothesis may identify them in their works, but I do not consider that hypothesis valid. Therefore, the text as presented to English readers in most Bibles shows Moses as the author of those verses yet you say it is someone else - someone that you cannot name definitively. By its very nature, your proposal calls into question practically every verse in the Torah, for I now have to consult with your favored commentators to know which verses to attribute to someone other than Moses - not knowing whether I will even be given the name of said person or rather simply be told it was “an inspired writer” centuries after Moses. This strikes me as a transition from believing that the Law is of Moses to believing the Law is of “who knows who”? You may not like the sound of this, but it is my honest description of what you’re proposing.
However many hours you or anyone else has spent on interactions with me, it’s a fraction of the hours I’ve spent on interactions with all of you.
As for Jesus’ acceptance of Moses as author of the Torah, I will accede to your badgering and say the following. Jesus called the Law “the Law of Moses.” He never called it the Law of anyone else. He used Moses’ name as a metonym for the Law. He quoted from it describing Moses as the originator of what was quoted. The Pharisees and Sadducees did the same and Jesus never corrected them - while He was correcting them about many other things. Jesus’ apostles and other disciples referred to the Law in the same way as Jesus, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. So many things were controversial in the New Testament - that the Law was “of Moses” was not. Even if you were right, you are making important something that the Lord Jesus did not make important.
You have no business saying this. You are not the Lord. You cannot see into my heart.
I have given due consideration, and will continue to give some consideration, to all proposals made. I mull them over day by day. Moreover, I have bought and read books recommended here - even on proposals I had previously studied and dismissed - John Walton, for example. I have been putting myself through the mill giving every possible consideration to what’s been proposed. For you to say that I’ve “dismissed all of them completely out of hand” is not only wrong, it’s something you would have no way of knowing.
You are not the Lord. You are not omniscient.
No. It’s because upon analysis a given solution does not commend itself. I have not gone into detail about all the reasons your proposal fails, but I wouldn’t know it had so many flaws unless I had given due consideration to it.
Again, who made you God?
If that’s not a valid reason to reject a proposal, what would be? You may disagree with me that a given proposal destroys some aspect of Christian faith, but surely you wouldn’t want to say that destroying Christian faith is not a valid criterion by which to assess an interpretive option.
Because I do not read Gen 1-11 in a Wellhausen-like fashion does not mean I do not read it as the Bible reads it. I believe “Letting Scripture interpret Scripture” is the best way to understand Scripture. So, on the principle you appear to be promoting, I agree wholeheartedly. But that the Torah is riddled with non-Mosaic interpolations from almost a millennium after he lived is not a principle I see taught elsewhere in Scripture. I’m still willing to be convinced, but for you to suggest that your evidence to date has been convincing is simply not true. You have not even made a positive biblical case that Jesus held your view about authorship of the Torah, much less that He taught us to consider this view important.
I came to BioLogos in my own name - no alias - putting myself and my doubts on display for anyone to see. Like any human being, I have fears…but I did not let those fears keep me from coming here and subjecting myself and my views to considerable scrutiny. You seem frustrated that I haven’t accepted what you’ve presented so far. Just because I’m not willing to accept weak or flawed or incomplete arguments does not mean I’m not willing to accept good arguments. If you think you are right and want to stay involved, then do. But don’t hector me for operating in bad faith just because you’ve failed so far in your mission.
Your main failure with me has not been so much with your approach to Gen 1-11, but rather with your approach to Ex 20 and Ex 31. A Torah that requires an extrabiblical guide to know which sentences to regard as being from Moses and which to regard as being from someone whose identity is uncertain and who was not writing under Moses’ authority is not the Torah I see New Testament people using. I’ve given you the opportunity to convince me that Jesus, and others in the NT, read the Torah the way you read it, but so far you’ve declined.
The one upside of being repeatedly accused by someone of operating in bad faith is that it signals to you not to waste any more time trying to engage with such a person. To try to convince such a person of your good faith is a fool’s errand. Though I wrote all this for your benefit, and for the benefit of others, I hold out no hope that you will cease judging me as operating in bad faith.
The quest for a biblical solution to dealing with evolution and the age of the earth is legitimate, whether it is conducted by me now or someone else later. If someone should not immediately accept the biblical proposals on offer in this forum, it might - I say “might” - have something to do with the quality of the proposals and/or the way they are presented.
Here is what I think. Jesus was a 2nd temple Jew and spoke like a 2nd temple Jew. God accommodates to the hearers/readers and so those accommodations can show up in speech. When Jesus or others say “Moses said” they are using a shorthand to mean “God in the Torah/Pentateuch said” in other words, that the quotes are authoritative for Judaism. The modern ideas of authorship did not exist in the ancient world.
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This is information which is in the text, but which you have never seen due to your hermeneutic of just reading English Bible translations and study Bibles. This is just one indicator of the fact that your approach to Scripture is leading you astray; you are completely missing massive amounts of information in the text.
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