Right. But a lot of times one person’s “face value” interpretation of a translated text from thousands of years ago does not resemble what the words meant when they were used by the original speakers and hearers in a different language, time, and cultural context.
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Hi again Glenn. I’ve long appreciated your testimony, the research and articles you’ve written (from Morton’s demon to Lake Suigetsu), and your mediating position on Adam and Eve.
We chatted and squabbled a bit on TheologyWeb about 15 years ago. I wasn’t a regular, so I’m sure I remember you better than you remember me. This thread brought on some serious deja vu with the claim that God doesn’t know squat if he didn’t get the science right in Genesis 1. I know you know the rejoinder to that claim, but just for old times’ sakes, here’s one more go at it.
Here’s one I think we’ve discussed before:
Thus says the LORD: …
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
“I the Lord search the heart
and test the kidneys,
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”(Jeremiah 17:5, 9-10, ESV, using literal translation from footnote)
There’s little doubt how Jeremiah’s audience would have heard this statement. They, and other ancient peoples, thought the central entrails contained the organs of thought and will and volition. For instance, when Egyptians prepared bodies for the afterlife, they meticulously preserved those organs in the body cavity while disposing of the brain matter like so much used tissue. Other biblical authors spoke of the heart and kidneys the same way. The Hebrew language had no word for the brain. So the heart and kidneys were not metaphors the way “fruit of his deeds” is. These statements corresponded with the most widely accepted understanding of the day.
So why didn’t God get the science right? Even if there was no word for the brain, why not at least say “head” and get the general location right? My answer is… because the point wasn’t to reveal new details about which organs we think and feel and decide with. God accommodated to their understanding, to their language, to the “science” of their day, and that was sufficient to get the message across. Trying to work in a correction of their physical understanding would only have obscured that message by shifting the focus.
If God is not going to accommodate false things in a culture, then God either stays silent or God begins by creating a new language to teach us. Every human language embeds within its words and grammar the culture and false things of its speakers. That’s inevitable.
Deny God’s ability and willingness to accommodate our limitations, and every passage holds the potential to expose God’s ignorance if we look too close. Even if one lowers the standard somewhat so that it’s okay for God to say we think with our kidneys, such accommodations on our part can’t help but make God appear a little smaller. Why does God only pass our test when we grade on a curve?
Maybe the test is foolish. Maybe God has no intention of meeting its requirements. Maybe it’s grace that God ignores such preconditions for revelation and stoops to speak in ways that we – and they long ago – can hear.
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And verbs. The important thing is about God creating, not fishes and birds. It is also interesting in what nouns are not present. The author had words for sun and moon, but choose not to use them as they referred to deities and the point was that they were created by God, not deities themselves as the culture of the time held.
I want to go back to Mervin’s discussion of Genesis 1:6 above.
Then God said, “Let there be [a]an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
I think we agree if we take this at face value then it is false, or is it? It is interesting to me, Melvin, that you don’t provide an explanation for this verse, just say that Im doing wrong or creating falsehood by drawing the obvious conclusion from the written words. That isn’t very satisfying because am I to believe that the words don’t mean here what they normally do? When my wife tells me to take out the trash, and I assume she has a deeper meaning than the face value of the words, and tell her, 'yes, I do need to get rid of my sinful ways, and clean up my life. I will get right on it" She would look at me with that why-did-I-think-you-were-so-smart-and-cute-when-I-married-you" look. If one assumes words don’t mean what they normally mean, then any sentence can mean anything one wants at all. Taking out the trash can mean eating cherry pie. We need to deal with what we are given, not what we wish we had been given. We have been given a problem here.
There are two communicators involved here, God and the human. What God said, might not be understood by the human. The human may have understood it to be a vaulted ceiling, Elihu certainly did
Job 37:18 can you join him in spreading out the skies,
_ hard as a mirror of cast bronze?_
but Elihu’s words are not divinely inspired
Further, contrary to some accounts of the vaulted sky, Hebrews knew where rain came from. Hebrews knew clouds caused rain and that it didn’t come from the waters above the vault. Remember Job is considered the oldest book in the Bible.
Judges 5:4“the clouds poured down water."
2 Samuel 22:12"the dark rain clouds of the sky."
1 Kings 18:45 "Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling "
Job 26:8 “He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.”
Job 36:28 "the clouds pour down their moisture and abundant showers fall on mankind.
Job 37:11 “He loads the clouds with moisture; he scatters his lightning through them.”
Job 37:13 “He brings the clouds to punish people, or to water his earth and show his love.”
Job 38:34 ““Can you raise your voice to the clouds and cover yourself with a flood of water?”
Job 38:37 “Who has the wisdom to count the clouds? Who can tip over the water jars of the heavens”
Psalm 18:11 "the dark rain clouds of the sky.
Now that we have established that Hebrews knew the source of rain–and weren’t quite as stupid as we thought, let’s think about how to get out of this problem.
One way out of this issue is to think about the water in the solar system. Earth got its water from the asteroid belt when it contained more water. After 5 billion years, the sun has evaporated all of it. But the earth got the water as comets from the asteroid belt of the early solar system time slammed into earth. Such a situation is inimicable to life, every impact vaporizes the water and kills life. But God separated us from the source of ice by raqia–a spreading, the root word for raqia is expansion. The one reality that modern physics has learned about space is that it expands on its own. Given enough time for orbital dynamics to clear the system we would be separated from these other waters.
There is lots of water in our solar system out there.
Earth has 1.335 zettaliters of water–zettaliter = 1 hundred billion cubic km. Europa has 2.6, Callisto has 5.3, Titan 18.6 and Ganymede 35.4 zettaliters. Then there is the Kuyper belt and the Oort cloud of icy objects, the Oort cloud is about 1.9 earths and probably 50% of it is water(about 4x the amount of water on earth)
No doubt you will find this eisegetical, maybe even ridiculous. But my explanation, is better than the NO explanation you gave for this verse in the post above. Accommodationalism simply has no explanation for how this verse which starts with “And God said…” says something true. My explanation allows the verse to be true and still understand the face value meanings of the words in the verse.
I am open to other, better explanations which might avoid the conclusion that God is showing his lack of knowledge of the creation. Simply saying I should read the words and their meaning in the normal way doesn’t change the fact that God said something false unless we understand the verse in a different way,all the while honoring the written words.
Edited to add:The root of the word raqia is expansion
Ezekiel 1:22 uses raqia and it is interesting in that it says it is "an expanse like the color of a crystal’ or another translation says “an expanse like the gleam of a crystal” the point here is that raqia is NOT said to BE a crystal. It is not solid in this instance of its use.
I don’t have a problem with God not naming the sun and moon. Pronouns are allowed, synonyms are allowed and everyone knows He is talking about the Sun and the Moon, even if unnamed. So, Im not against God having chosen his words with care for the culture of the day, I am against God saying falsehoods. That creates big theological problems
I guess I don’t feel a need to explain it any more than I would feel a need to try to explain why your wife might sometime say to you: “dear - the sun is rising and it’s beautiful - come and see it!”. Would you then get into an argument with your wife for lying to you because the sun isn’t actually moving but the earth is turning instead? At this point we would all rightly chastise you and say: C’mon, Gbob! get over yourself. It’s just an expression and everybody, including your wife knows this and isn’t trying to deceive you but is just using the expression to communicate something else entirely: that the sun is now visible over the horizon and you are invited to enjoy it with her. You’re the one suddenly trying to turn your wife’s invitation into a cosmological treatise. The problem would definitely be yours, not hers.
Now - to be fair, I don’t doubt that the original author(s) of Genesis probably actually did think of these vaults and domes and separated waters in ways that we would not think of them today. So I’m not claiming that they weren’t drawing on some commonly accepted cosmology of the time even as they were co-opting it to teach truth about God. But just as I’m willing to forgive [accept as valuable teaching] expressions that refer to God as a male or as a rock or as a mother bird with wings (all of which would have to be seen as bare falsehoods in your way of treating the bible - which you apparently think should all be the same uniform genre or form of communication as your wife instructing you to take out the trash!) - just as I’m quite willing to refer to God with such dubious anthropomorphic pronouns or “attributes”, so I also allow that other cultures can also learn true things about God through the vehicles of metaphor, simile, allegory and such. Language is a wonderful thing! And as we all discover, misunderstandings can easily proliferate even between people who grew up in the same culture. Imagine how much we misunderstand when trying to understand translated writings from early oral traditions from cultures thousands of years ago! I think it’s amazing that we [think we] understand as much as we do.
Two things, when it was admitted that on the face this thing looks like God is saying something false, and you provide not alternative, skeptics will draw the conclusion that God doesn’t know much about nature. During my 12 year crisis of faith, I engaged with many atheists and I know they would jump on this. Thus, I think it is imperative to explain it.
To your second point about the Hebrews understanding it as a dome, some clearly did, but a study of the same word turns up some interesting things. First etymologyonline.com says that the use of the word firmament entered through the Vulgate and it was an erroneous translation.
"_Used in Late Latin in the Vulgate to translate Greek stereoma "firm or solid structure," which translated Hebrew raqia , a word used of both the vault of the sky and the floor of the earth in the Old Testament, probably literally "expanse," from raqa "to spread out," but in Syriac meaning "to make firm or solid," hence the erroneous translation." firmament | Etymology of firmament by etymonline
Firmament obviously brings to mind the word solid. But what does the Bible say about other uses of Raqiya? The word seems to mean spreading or stamping. Here are the instances of spreading:
Isaiah 42:5 Thus says God the Lord,
Who created the heavens and stretched them out,
Who spread out the earth and its offspring,
Who gives breath to the people on it
And spirit to those who walk in it,
One certainly can’t say who firmament the earth. This word refers to spreading.
Further the word translated as stretched out the heavens is a different word, is not Raqiya and thus, here we have God saying he stretched out the heavens. It is interesting that Raqiya can be translated as spreading and such a translation would be consistent with this verse.
Thus, one could translate Gen 1:6 as" Let there be an spreading in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. Such a view doesn’t have God saying stupid things.
this translation could make the verse refer to planet formation and thus make the verse accurate. edited to add: remember this is God speaking not the human, and human understanding of the sentence is not important. It is God’s understanding of this statement we need to find. If God’s understanding of the universe is that it has a vaulted cosmology, we are worshipping a God who knows nothing about nature.
Next verse:
Isaiah 44:24 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb,
“I, the Lord, am the maker of all things,
Stretching out the heavens by Myself
And spreading out the earth all alone,
Again we see the same issues as above. The earth is spread out, and skies are stretched out. If we are to be consistent we must do what I suggested above, put a spreading in the midst of the waters.
Job 37:18 “Can you, with Him, spread out the skies
Here raqiya is translated as spread, with the skies. Clearly the translators think the word is ‘spread’ not firmament.
Isaiah 40:19 As for the idol the craftsman casts it
A goldsmiith plates it with gold,And a silversmith fashions chains of silver.
Here it is translated as plates, but Strongs keeps the sense of spreading as the meaning, when he says A goldsmith overspreads it with gold. which is what plating actually was in those days, unlike today’s technology.
This says to me, we have perfect latitude to not believe that Genesis 1:6 was meant by God to talk about the vault of the sky, but was meant to talk about a separation of things in the sky. Firmament is considered an erroneous translation and so,…
In my view God meant Genesis 1:6 in one way, and some humans may have taken it in another way.
When we have a choice of translation, one of which makes God say something stupid and the other makes Him say something possibly reasonable, then I vote we take the 2nd option. Unfortunately I know most will continue to hold to the precious vaulted cosmology idea. I don’t have a clue why because it makes God look unknowledgeable about his creation.
“False” in what sense? Have you never heard of Aesop’s Fables? Adults have accommodated children’s understanding from time immemorial.
You didn’t understand what Christy said:
When God inspired a specific writer, the Lord was limited to the language and ideas of that specific author’s time, place, and culture.
Your argument about “thus saith the Lord …” really comes down to your theory of inspiration. If you believe God dictated the Scripture word-for-word to the original authors, then yes, you have a problem. There are other models of inspiration that don’t lend themselves to that interpretation.
Glad you’ve read Wittgenstein. Certainly, usage determines meaning, but maybe you remember another crucial observation of his:
- But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion,
question, and command?—There are countless kinds: countless different
kinds of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. And
this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new
types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into
existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a
rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) Here the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.
In Wittgenstein’s terms, the language-game of Genesis 1 became obsolete and was forgotten in the hundreds of years since it was written. The ANE “form of life” (culture) ceased to exist and was buried in the sands of time. If we truly want to understand the language-game of Genesis 1, we must first strive to understand it in its own cultural and literary context, where the language-game derived its meaning.
This is precisely what Walton has done in The Lost World of Genesis 1.
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Hi Jay,
You wrote:
False” in what sense? Have you never heard of Aesop’s Fables? Adults have accommodated children’s understanding from time immemorial.
Sure I’ve read Aesop’s fable, but not a one of them starts with “And God said…” Below you say this comes don’t to my interpretational method. Partly, yes, Logic though dictates that there are two possibilities, either God said those things, or a man claimed God said those things. If the latter, there is no reason to pay attention to those statements. If God said them, then we have an issue if he says something about nature that is false.
You didn’t understand what Christy said:
Christy:
When God decided to use a specific human language to communicate, he limited himself to the conceptual categories encoded by the language. Those conceptual categories were not always scientifically accurate.
When God inspired a specific writer, the Lord was limited to the language and ideas of that specific author’s time, place, and culture.
Languages are capable of expressing any concept, and indeed people with make up new words for new concepts. So, I don’t find that language would limit ideas as much as yall. In Mandarin they combined words to make their word for telephone–dian hua–electric speech. A train is a 'fire cart" Huo che. Atom was “primary seed” yuanzi. And an elevator is “electric floor” floor as in the floor of a building. There are loads and loads of ways languages handle new concepts.
Jay wrote:
Your argument about “thus saith the Lord …” really comes down to your theory of inspiration. If you believe God dictated the Scripture word-for-word to the original authors, then yes, you have a problem. There are other models of inspiration that don’t lend themselves to that interpretation.
No, I don’t think your logic is correct here. I think it is ok to believe that when it says, “and God said,” it is a quote from, well, lets figure out who might have said it, …… must be God who said it and is being quoted. If These phrases are not quotes, and you seem to think they are not from what I gather, then if they are not correct quotes, then what really do we know about what God wants from us? If none of those statements that begin with "And God said, or Thus saith the Lord, are merely figments of some guy’s imagination, I see no reason to be a Christian. We know nothing about God in that case.
Much of the Bible is history, but not the statements “and God said…”
Jay wrote:
Glad you’ve read Wittgenstein. Certainly, usage determines meaning, but maybe you remember another crucial observation of his:
- But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion,
question, and command?—There are countless kinds: countless different
kinds of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. And
this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new
types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into
existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten . (We can get a
rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) Here the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.
In Wittgenstein’s terms, the language-game of Genesis 1 became obsolete and was forgotten in the hundreds of years since it was written
Wittgensteins view of language games was far more damaging to Christianity than you seem to indicate. He literally didn’t believe that works could be translated into other languages because the English idea of farmer was not the same as the Chinese notion of nongfu. Of course, he didn’t object when his Tractatus was translated into other language. I recall well my prof saying how translating from one language game to another was equivalent of translating Monopoly into the Game of Life.
If Wittgenstein’s view is correct, then we can’t understand Hebrew or Greeks and so we can’t know anything from the bible. And maybe everyone here is a Wittgensteinian. It would explain why everyone doesn’t like my view. From Wittgenstein - Language Games - Wikiversity
For Wittgenstein, language could be used correctly or incorrectly within the rules of the game, but primarily it is non - cognitive and its primary purpose is not to make factual statements. All forms of life have their own language and are therefore separate to each other. For Wittgenstein, language was an anti - realist truth (one that is a truth held by a particular group and thus is meaningful to them without requiring verification or falsification)\
Edited to add: if language isn’t about factual statements, then yippee, when my wife tells me my cat has thrown up on the floor, I don’t have to take that as a statement of fact.
But if language is not about factual statements, then science is about nothing and we can’t say the resurrection is a fact either and if we can’t say that, Christianity collapses like a house of cards.
I’m loath to hammer any more (so to speak) on the disputed solidity of the dome (raqia) simply because this has been hammered to death by people who have researched it extensively and far more deeply than I have or intend to. Just do a search on ‘raqia’ in the forum search tool and be amazed at how many threads (some of them long running ones) have been dedicated to that particular subject. Or even try this article from a one-time commenter here, Jon Garvey who has done a lot of respectable research into it as well. He may have some conclusions that might surprise you - he is sometimes at odds with the Biologos crowd here, but I’ll recommend him without reservation. And that probably isn’t his only one about it - just the first one that popped up when I searched for raqia on his site. Be prepared to jump into the deep end if you’re really interested in this - and better block several days out of your schedule.
And I would draw the conclusion that these “skeptics” know nearly zilch about language or literature. The embarrassment is entirely theirs. We have a stunning array of literary variety from deep to poetic to fun to instructive to mythical to informative to … who knows what all and with incredible range of depth and power of narrative. But the Creator of the universe is apparently not allowed (on your reading) to use any of that but must be limited to writing at the level of an automobile user manual telling you how to change the oil. I mean - yes - there are many parts of it that are simple instruction given at that level - it is accommodation after all, but … all of it?!
So while it might be instructive to plunge into the nuts and bolts of something (like raqia), I would first want to address the larger issue of your recognition of different kinds of literature in the bible. Because until you have that straight, these issues over particular passages will just amount to rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic. Or to use another colorful metaphor - if somebody thought the primary use of a chain saw was to cut butter at the table, or give somebody a back massage, I would probably not waste time instructing them about fuel mixing or blade tightening until I was satisfied that they had some correct idea what a chain saw is even for.
Hi Mervin,
I note, you don’t really say anything about how raqiya is translated as spreading elsewhere. That is always a frustration on these lists. I work hard to gather that data and people just skip over it.
anyway…you wrote
Or even try this article from a one-time commenter here, Jon Garvey
I will look him up
gbob:
…skeptics will draw the conclusion that God doesn’t know much about nature.
Mervin replied:
And I would draw the conclusion that these “skeptics” know nearly zilch about language or literature.
I think that would be a gross overgeneralization about the knowledge and varied backgrounds out in the atheist community.
Mervin wrote:
The embarrassment is entirely theirs. We have a stunning array of literary variety from deep to poetic to fun to instructive to mythical to informative to … who knows what all and with incredible range of depth and power of narrative. But the Creator of the universe is apparently not allowed (on your reading) to use any of that but must be limited to writing at the level of an automobile user manual telling you how to change the oil. I mean - yes - there are many parts of it that are simple instruction given at that level - it is accommodation after all, but … all of it ?!
Please respond to these question, Is this statement historically and scientifically true?
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
If it is true, How do you know it is true and why is it found in a passage with so many things we shouldn’t read as if they are real?
If not true, I think we are done. lol
Mervin wrote:
So while it might be instructive to plunge into the nuts and bolts of something (like raqia), I would first want to address the larger issue of your recognition of different kinds of literature in the bible . Because until you have that straight, these issues over particular passages will just amount to rearranging deck furniture on the Titanic. Or to use another colorful metaphor - if somebody thought the primary use of a chain saw was to cut butter at the table, or give somebody a back massage, I would probably not waste time instructing them about fuel mixing or blade tightening until I was satisfied that they had some correct idea what a chain saw is even for.
Of course there are various genres, but this is a canard. Just because there are other genres does not automatically require that Genesis 1 is a poem, not to be taken as scientific fact. Not to mention I can and have written perfectly true poems, so the real question is Genesis 1 a poem and I see no reason to take your word or anyone’s word for it. It isn’t written like a poem in my opinion and I don’t know how anyone would be able to claim its a poem with certainty. Again, I think there is a hidden assumption that God has told someone that it is a poem, but again left me out of the loop… Maybe it is my unbelief, maybe it is my general crotchetiness and cussedness. The idea that this is not historical literature is hard for me to fathom given Genesis 1:1. If God created the heavens and the earth, then the first thing in this ‘poem’ is absolutely true, historically and scientifically.
Yes. That is true.
I don’t have any scientific means to know that it is true. It is for me a matter of faith in Christ who made use of teachings from the law and the prophets - thereby obliging us to follow suit.
And you still haven’t answered my question about Jesus parables. He was obviously spinning yarns about things that aren’t literally true (Satan being the birds that come to eat the sower’s seeds from off the path, or the Pharisees having dangerous yeast). Since you maintain this hard and fast division between what you deem real and not real, have you then been dismissing Jesus’ teachings wholesale? If you insist on only one form of truth (what you call ‘real’), then the ‘Raqiya’ is the least of your problems. You haven’t even made it out of Genesis 1 yet, and have the whole rest of the Bible to go. I would want to encourage you in your faith in scriptures (itself a deficient thing until it can be replaced by the infinitely better faith in Christ), but from what you write here, that appears you don’t even have faith in those. It seems to be in your own [science-based, you probably fancy] knowledge of what you deem real or not-real (and you are far from alone in this, by the way).
It is a faith-struggle that engages us all - and almost certainly none of us can claim to have remained totally unscathed or aloof from the competing supplicants for our allegiance. So I don’t mean to single you out. Only point out that among all who tend to hang out at places like this (myself very much included obviously) we tend to place a high-premium on empirical data. But then we too often neglect to actually go and sit at the feet of him who invites us to “come to me - my yoke is easy and my burden is light” and then to be willingly sent forth by him.
Once we submit to that obedience, all these other tempests of theology tend to suddenly either evaporate or sort themselves out. I wish I could say I know that 1st hand, but I’m still on the same side of the vale as you, and I struggle with the same things (which is why you’re resonating with me so here). I read of others who have gone before us, and once they are there (or at least much farther in that direction than I am), at that point I note that they are too busy actually living by the light of the sun to be bothered about thoughts of “does the sun actually exist” or “is this or that theory of light the better one to explain the sun.”
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I can’t keep up with your Gish Gallop, so I’ll confine myself to this bit:
You misunderstand what a language-game is, which is why you misunderstand Wittgenstein and your professor’s example. First, language-games don’t have to involve translation from one language to another. Every language has multiple games within it. They can be anything from description to satire to testifying in court. Second, what your professor was trying to illustrate was Wittgenstein’s idea that philosophy stirs up trouble for itself when it interprets one language-game according to the rules of another. An example of that would be interpreting the Biblical language-game of signs and wonders according to the Augustinian language-game of miracles.
You understand that Wittgenstein himself was bilingual, and that the Tractatus was published with English and German on facing pages? In any case, if Wittgenstein believed it was impossible to translate from one language to another, explain this little oddity:
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Hi Mervin, glad you think that the statement God created the heavens and the earth is a scientific and historical fact. I actually had one guy say it wasn’t. lol
If that one is true, why can’t we look for truth in the other ones, Like let there be light.
As I have said, I view Genesis 1 and the pre planning of the structure of the universe. Not the actual creation which came sometime ‘afterwards’, if afterwords applies to a non-temporal time. Time came into existence at the Big bang.
I am a physicist so that statement tells me much about nature that is implicit in the statement. First, the earliest part of the Big Bang 30-50,000 years, was an era dominated by radiation–light is radiation. It was too hot at this time for quarks to condense and hold together to form particles. The fact that light exists tells me that the laws of electroweak theory were in effect. Electricity, magnetism and the weak force are all one thing with 3 different aspects. This represents 2 of the 4 fundamental forces of nature. Light travels on the shortest path (geodesic) on the space-time maniforld. Thus, because light has to have something to travel on, Gravity was also in existence. General Relativity is about both gravity and the space time that comes with it. Gravity is one of the fundamental forces in nature. So, with the very first thing–I know a lot about the universe, from the proclamation on the first day. Thus, I think that proclamation is as true as is the first proclamation.
I missed that one. Everyone throws that out as if it is the coup de grace to my views. It isn’t. Jesus told parables that were LABELED parables. Genesis 1 is NOT labeled poem.
My guess is that you believe God created light also. So from what we know of science all the above comes with the existence of light. Thus we have two true statements in Genesis 1, then we come to Genesis 1:6 which for some reason we insist on interpreting as if God knows nothing about what he created. .
If you insist on only one form of truth (what you call ‘real’), then the ‘Raqiya’ is the least of your problems. You haven’t even made it out of Genesis 1 yet, and have the whole rest of the Bible to go.
lol, I am probably stubborn enough to stay with you through the whole Bible. Believe me, in my crisis of faith I heard ever criticism the atheists could come up with, and I had to think about them.
As to one standard of truth, we obviously use truth differently. The word is defined as:
- n.Conformity to fact or actuality.
- n.Reality; actuality.
Unless you think there are multiple realities, then there is only one truth about the reality we are in. Now, you are most likely going to say that there is truth in theological statements., that there is truth in the sublime theology of the bible or something similar–been here before. There is truth in those theological views IF AND ONLY if the theology corresponds to metaphysical reality. If in fact, the Buddhists are right, and they do outnumber us, then the theology of the Bible is untrue. It tells us nothing real about the spiritual world. So, truth wherever it comes from MUST match reality. I can’t think of a second kind of truth, one that doesn’t match reality, isn’t real. That simply isn’t truth…
I would want to encourage you in your faith in scriptures (itself a deficient thing until it can be replaced by the infinitely better faith in Christ), but from what you write here, that appears you don’t even have faith in those. It seems to be in your own [science-based, you probably fancy] knowledge of what you deem real or not-real (and you are far from alone in this, by the way).
I don’t have faith in Scriptures, I have faith in Christ. My salvation comes only and soley from his sacrifice. But when it comes to theology, I also have trust in logic, the -logy in theology stands for logic. I mean in grad school, they made me take so many of them, classical logic, symbolic logic, fuzzy logic, I gotta use it for something. When two things conflict, one is wrong or there is a novel way to make both true. I try to look for the novel way to make things true.
It is a faith-struggle that engages us all - and almost certainly none of us can claim to have remained totally unscathed or aloof from the competing supplicants for our allegiance. So I don’t mean to single you out. Only point out that among all who tend to hang out at places like this (myself very much included obviously) we tend to place a high-premium on empirical data. But then we too often neglect to actually go and sit at the feet of him who invites us to “come to me - my yoke is easy and my burden is light” and then to be willingly sent forth by him.
That is true, but I don’t think I have lacked completely sitting at his feet. None of us do as much as we should. You know the old saying, “hanging concentrates the mind?” I got a serious cancer in 2003. They don’t keep statistics on guys with my precise situation because they don’t live long enough to make it worth while. Doctor said I would be likely dead in 2 years and statistics from that time bear him out. Then in 2008, I was told my life expectancy was 5 years. Then in 2013 I was told I have 2-3 years. I am a 99.99% outlier. Prayer by friends have kept me going. So, I have had all the reason in the world to remain connected, and I am more sure of Christianity than most people in the pews surrounding me. For them it is theoretical, for me, it is reality…In spite of how atheistic I may sound. I just don’t see a reason to agree with atheists that our bible is full of lunacies–which is what they think, and sadly I think too many here think that. A book full of lunacies is not a good recommendation for it to the one book to tell us the path of salvation.
Once we submit to that obedience, all these other tempests of theology tend to suddenly either evaporate or sort themselves out.
I disagree with that. It becomes more clear that these tempests of theology NEED a solution.
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You misunderstand what a language-game is, which is why you misunderstand Wittgenstein and your professor’s example. First, language-games don’t have to involve translation from one language to another.
I don’t think I said that language games have to involve translation. I said he didnt’ think translation could capture the nuances of meaning for the other culture.
Every language has multiple games within it. They can be anything from description to satire to testifying in court. Second, what your professor was trying to illustrate was Wittgenstein’s idea that philosophy stirs up trouble for itself when it interprets one language-game according to the rules of another. An example of that would be interpreting the Biblical language-game of signs and wonders according to the Augustinian language-game of miracles.
Yeah, Wittgenstein thought he could solve philosophical problems by showing they were misusing language, I know this. I don’t see the point here.
You understand that Wittgenstein himself was bilingual, and that the Tractatus was published with English and German on facing pages? In any case, if Wittgenstein believed it was impossible to translate from one language to another, explain this little oddity:
That was a piece of hypocrisy on Wittgenstein’s part. Which is why I mentioned it. Yes, I know about Wittgenstein, born rich, gave his money away and became a philosopher. Are we trying to compare who knows more about Wittgenstein? that isn’t useful or to the point of this thread.
I don’t know if anyone responded in this way yet, but:
To what extent is the basis of your “problem” justified? For example, is it true that the Bible is “God’s Word” and if any part of that is threatened, all of Christianity “falls apart”?
If so, when did that come to be? What happened after Jesus’ resurrection/ascension but before all the New Testament documents were completed?
He also told parables that weren’t. Like the good Samaritan, etc.
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Hello @Lostnfound,
I strongly recommend that you stay with the literal interpretation of Genesis. Period! The confusion and the stumbling on the slippery slope that you expressed is the dangerous consequences for not doing so!
When you instruct your children, what better way to keep the instructions simple for their little minds than to keep the instructions literal? If for example there arose a need for them to “break in” something that’s breakable, would you instruct them with the use of the expression or would you leave out the expression to instruct their little minds literally? Aren’t we all little children in the sight of God? It is written:
“Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein (Mark 10:15).”
As you expressed, the book of Genesis provides the vital foundation for the knowledge expounded in the rest of the Bible without which the Bible has little meaning if any.
Will science ever catch up with the Bible? Will knowledge ever catch up with the Bible? Isn’t the Bible the Source of knowledge? Where did our natural surroundings originate other that the fact that it was created by God as we are informed in Genesis? Science is defined as, “knowledge, as of facts or principles; knowledge gained by systematic study” according to the dictionary. The field of science is thus that of inquiry for deeper knowledge of what’s created around us by individuals by the scientific method. What’s revealed only upholds the Bible.
Think for example of the failure of SETI and what we learned about planets around other stars, non of which are anywhere near the ability to support life. From a sample size of about 400 so far, we see that God created only the earth to support life. Even if found, a planet only in a Goldilocks zone would be far insufficient. This is only two of countless examples where science only upholds the Bible.
We also know that full understanding of the word of God comes only with the spiritual mind. Otherwise discussion of the precious word of God would only drift and eventually lead to a tangent. It is thus written:
“But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned (1 Corinthians 2:14).”
Finally here is one important way to guard against slippery slopes:
“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever (Psalms 111:10).” Proverbs 9:10 adds, “and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.”
This leads to continual prayer seeking His divine wisdom for every move. We know that God will bring the wisdom of man to naught. I Corintians 1-3 contains a goldmine of help for guarding against the slippery slope as we expound Biblical truth.
Jesus and His plan for redemption are the central theme of the Bible. We can’t leave out Adam as some said because Jesus is the second Adam that made available restored fellowship that the first Adam lost.
As you showed, a move from the literal meaning of the Genesis foundation compromises the whole structure and is the equivalent to altering the value of Pi. Is it wrong to take the word, “STOP” on a STOP sign literally?
ELD
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lol, not out of the realm of possibility that that was a real event, Are you saying it for sure couldn’t have been?
For starters, you have vastly over reached on what I have been talking about. I have focused on statements that start, “And God said…” Those are a very minor part of the Bible, so the caricature that I am saying ‘any part’ is absolutely false. I think a better understanding of what I have been arguing is needed. Seems to me, either God said those statements or he didn’t. If he didn’t then the preface, “And God said…” is really a mislabel, and if God did say them, and they are false statements, why wouldn’t that threaten Christianity?
If a bunch of “And God said…” statements can be determined to be false, then why should we think we have to pay attention to this particular unverifiable "God said’ statement?
Then God spoke all these words, saying,
2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house ofslavery.
3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.
4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
I don’t have a clue what your 2nd paragraph means.
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