Is the bible inerrant?

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Burrawang

As it happens that you do not provide a shred of evidence or reasoning to support your denial that evolution and ‘deep time’ are false teachings, there is precious little to be gained from a back and forth exchange on this forum.

Not true, I have launched several relevant specific discussions on this forum, and you are welcome to do the same. For instance, have a read of Is Baraminology Even Scriptural?, or The Naica Cave Crystals. But the topic of this thread is the Bible inerrant?, and what that means in terms of literal and literary interpretations.

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Burrawang

The historical account of the creation and fall of Adam the first man in Genesis

But it isn’t a historic account. it is a myth! Speaking snakes, magical trees, Man stealing his cogniscence. God so incompetent He couldn’t protect the trees, and not wanting us to be sentient. It just isn’t reality.
Sin is anything that is not of God. It cannot be inherited transmitted or infect. Adam didn’t invent it, and neither could he corrupt the whole of humanity. Think! Where do all these people who want to kill Caine come from? Adam and Eve had three children! It doesn’t add up. it doesn’t work as history. God did not throw us out of Eden Sentience did. Only the naive and innocent could live as Adam and Eve are supposed to. God walking around the Garden. What happened to
“Anyone who looks at God will die!”

I am not dismissing the Garden narrative completely . but it is not history. It would be several thousand years before anyone could write it down.

@Burrawang

@RichardG

And the notion that anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken is so far off as to be laughable.

But I have never suggested such a thing!

That is the result of taking Adam’s sin as corrupting humanity. You don’t have to say it.

@Burrawang

To be clear here, WHAT exactly makes you believe that I think that, “anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken”???

If Adam’s sin corrupted the whole of humanity then unless they have been saved by Christ they are corrupt and sinful (broken) That is the doctrine.

If you don’t believe it then you don’t believe that Adam’ s sin affected all of creation. You can’t have it both ways

We are not all related to Adam. it is biologically impossible. But, that is genetics which might not be helpful to you. (That also applies to Noah. 7 people is not a viable gene pool especially considering the diversity of humanity. Besides, who did they marry? Are you sugesting brother marrying sister?

@Burrawang

Well yes, I agree that sin is unavoidable for every human on Earth ever,

That is not what I said.

I said practically. In theory a person could always make the right choice. Original Sin claims that we have no choice but to sin. That is rubbish.

@Burrawang

hence we all inherit the sin nature from Adam

No. Sin cannot be inerited. Neither can it infect us, or even control us. Sin is. It has no form or presence.

I guess I have blown it, sorry (I am expecting you to reject it all)

Richard

[Paraleptopecten (Timothy Campbell)]

@jammycakes

And what do we do? Do we learn the lesson, or do we do this instead?

• God: “What have you done?”
• Us: “It was original sin.” Blame Adam and Eve…

This is a valid critique worth keeping in mind if we might be using Original Sin as an excuse, however its being solely applied as an etiology (i.e., an answer to “Why does sin exist and why do all people sin?”), should hopefully not run into that problem.

[Burrawang]

@RichardG

@Burrawang

The historical account of the creation and fall of Adam the first man in Genesis

But it isn’t a historic account. it is a myth!

Dear Richard,
again we will just have to agree to disagree.
Genesis is absolutely an historic account of what happened in the garden of Eden during and after creation week. There is absolutely no way Genesis is a myth!
The writing itself is in the form of historical narrative, as affirmed by both secular, Jewish and Christian historians. God has not deceived us with a ‘myth’, He has set out what occurred in the garden of Eden, when it occurred and how sin and death came into the world.

It appears from where I stand, that the theistic evolution belief framework is built on foundations of false teaching. I’m sorry but there is no other way to state it. Adam’s rebellious disobedience to God is the start of the bondage to futility and decay that the whole of creation is now under.

Haven’t you read, Romans 5:12-21 KJV

12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law.

14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.

15 But not as the offence, so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many.

16 And not as it was by one that sinned, so is the gift: for the judgment was by one to condemnation, but the free gift is of many offences unto justification.

17 For if by one man’s offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.)

18 Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.

19 For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous.

20 Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:

21 That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

I think that Paul explains the situation very clearly, so WHY do you not understand?
Take verse 19 in the above scriptural excerpt from Romans, what is your interpretation of the part of this verse in italics, i.e., For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners,?

@RichardG

Speaking snakes, magical trees, Man stealing his cogniscence. God so incompetent He couldn’t protect the trees, and not wanting us to be sentient. It just isn’t reality.

I am having difficulty understanding that a Christian preacher (as you say that you are), appears to have unbelief about what we have been told in the Holy Scriptures by God.
Jesus Himself affirmed the Holy Scriptures and clearly understood Genesis to be REAL HISTORY.
The Bible states that the devil was in the form of a serpent and spoke to Eve, well that is good enough for me, I don’t know what that particular serpent looked like before God passed judgement as a curse on it for the deception perpetrated against Eve and as a consequence, Adam…
And the Lord God said unto the serpent, “Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field. Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life. Genesis 3:14
But it is clear that from then on serpents take the form of a snake.

You appear to have a problem with the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ and I expect that you would also include the ‘tree of life’ in your disbelieving classification of “magical trees”
Thus, it has to be asked, do you also disbelieve that Jesus walked on the water, and that He commanded the wind and storm to be still and they immediately obeyed, and do you doubt that Jesus made water into wine, and gave sight to the blind, and healed the many infirm and sick, and raised the dead etc…?
As you are a preacher, I would hope that you believe the miracles of Jesus are real historical fact!

The gospel of John makes it ever so clear that the Son, i.e., Jesus IS The CREATOR, thus if you believe that the miracles of Jesus are REAL, why do you stand in disbelief at the talking serpent, the ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ and the ‘tree of life’ etc…?
Jesus was there in the Garden of Eden with Adam and Eve, He knows the reality.
The deceiving nature of the followers of theistic evolution is becoming clearer to me now.
I am sorry but I was not aware of the depth of deception that theistic evolution embodies, quite frankly it is a bit of a shock, as the reality of what you believe sinks in.

Perhaps one of the most corrupt beliefs that I have seen from theistic evolutionists is the belief that DEATH came before Adam sinned; in my honest opinion, that single fact alone sets theistic evolution a long way from the truth.

The entire thrust of the gospel and why with Grace and Love, Jesus died for us all on the cross is to substitute His Death for our sins that are worthy of DEATH, such that those who believe that Jesus is Lord with a repentant heart are freely given LIFE.

How to you reconcile DEATH before Adam?
(I expect you will have a ready made explanation, that is consistent with the theistic evolutionary worldview, but it will be informative to hear how this inconvenient fact is explained away…)

@RichardG

Think! Where do all these people who want to kill Caine come from? Adam and Eve had three children! It doesn’t add up. it doesn’t work as history.

Well, do you know when it was that Caine killed Abel?

I sure don’t know, but as there were many people alive by then, it stands to reason that it was some considerable time after they were both born; it may have been fifty, or one hundred, or two hundred or more years later.
Yes, I believe that the ages of the people listed in the genealogy in Genesis are accurate and people did in reality live to exceedingly old age by today’s lifespan of about 100 years.
After all, Adam lived until he was 930 years old, then he died. It is clear tome at least that Adam would have had a near perfect human body, with virtually no genetic damage, being the first human being that ever lived, thus living to 930 years is not at all surprising to me.

The genetic bottleneck at the global flood severely truncated the genetic diversity and as a consequence the lifespans that after Noah, decreased rapidly to the situation we are faced with at the present time.

Thus the children of Adam and Eve having children of their own, and those children having children of their own… etc.(exponential growth), it is not at all difficult to accept there may well have been many people on Earth, in a relatively short period of time, such that if each nuclear family had only two children, (and they probably had many more than that, in response to God’s command to be fruitful and multiply) in less than 120 years there may have been considerably more that one hundred people, perhaps even two or three hundred or more, thus after THINKING ABOUT IT, I can see absolutely no problem whatsoever.

Oh, I see further down in your post that you are disbelieving at the prospect that brothers and sisters were marrying and having children, but your revulsion is misplaced. Of course they married close family relatives, that would have been the normal thing to do back then, and indeed there would NOT HAVE BEEN ANY ALTERNATIVE, as they were THE ONLY PEOPLE on Earth.

Of course such a thing today causes revulsion and disgust and rightly so, as the genetic consequences for the offspring of close relatives marrying is very severe from the physical manifestation of a myriad of terrible birth defects that result from the genetic damage that has accumulated since creation.

You may not be aware, that as Adam and Eves genetic information was close to perfect, (made by God in the image of God, as they were), there would not have been any ill effects or birth defects for a long time after creation until the inexorable accumulation of mutations in each individuals genome reached a critical level…

As you should know, being a preacher, at a much later point in history many, many years after creation, God commanded that it was no longer proper to marry close family relatives; this occurred when the Israelite’s were traveling through the desert prior to inhabiting Canaan.
The prohibited marriages in Leviticus are to:
your father or mother Leviticus 18:7
your father’s wife Leviticus 18:8
your sister Leviticus 18:9
your grandchild Leviticus 18:10
your half-sister [18:11], your aunt Leviticus 18:12-14
your daughter-in-law Leviticus 18:15
your sister-in-law Leviticus 18:16, 18
a mother and her daughter or granddaughter Leviticus 18:17
or a married woman Leviticus 18:20
The inhabitants of Canaan had defiled their land by committing these abominations Leviticus 18:24-29

Thus Richard, what’s I suggest that contrary to what you have asserted, there is in fact no problem whatsoever? In view of our current scientific knowledge, the Bibles account makes perfect sense that would not have been known to the people back then, but our merciful God fully understands the bigger picture, (He wrote the initial genetic information after all), and so He commanded that close family wedlock for procreation be prohibited; in view of God’s Love for us all, I suggest it is likely this occurred when risk of birth defect deformities would ensue if close family marriages continued.

@RichardG

God did not throw us out of Eden Sentience did. Only the naive and innocent could live as Adam and Eve are supposed to. God walking around the Garden. What happened to
“Anyone who looks at God will die!”

Oh Richard, what am I to make of all this, that you appear to truly believe?
It does appear that you do not comprehend that prior to their rebellion against God, Adam and Eve were blameless, they were innocent, they could commune directly with God.

Many people saw Jesus and when talking with Philip:

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you for so long a time, and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip? The one who has seen Me has seen the Father; how can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? John 14:9

Being innocent, does NOT equate to naïve! Your misunderstanding of the scriptures is worrying.
The life that God had provided for Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, would have been along similar lines as the life the saved will have in the coming New Heavens and New Earth, and each person will be blameless before God for the former things have passed away and the saved were purchased with the precious blood of The Lamb of God, Jesus our Loving Saviour.

@RichardG

@Burrawang

@RichardG

And the notion that anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken is so far off as to be laughable.

But I have never suggested such a thing!

That is the result of taking Adam’s sin as corrupting humanity. You don’t have to say it.

But Richard, I again must direct you to the text above from Romans 5:12-21 KJV.
Adam’s sin didn’t just corrupt humanity, it corrupted the entire creation, that is, even the furthest galaxy in the cosmos is corrupted and groans and travails in futility because of Adam’s rebellion against the Creator of everything that has been created!

@RichardG

@Burrawang

To be clear here, WHAT exactly makes you believe that I think that, “anyone who has not been touched by Jesus is somehow damaged or broken”???

If Adam’s sin corrupted the whole of humanity then unless they have been saved by Christ they are corrupt and sinful (broken) That is the doctrine.

Well it needs to be stated, I DO NOT judge anyone, indeed I am not worthy to do so.

However, in a purely hypothetical sense, fair enough, we are all sinners, (do you know or know of anyone who is not?) and according to scripture, not the least of which is Romans off the top of my head as quoted above, explains that sin and death entered the world through Adam’s act of rebellion, disobedience against God.
12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: . . Romans 5:12 KJV

@RichardG

We are not all related to Adam. it is biologically impossible. But, that is genetics which might not be helpful to you. (That also applies to Noah. 7 people is not a viable gene pool especially considering the diversity of humanity. Besides, who did they marry? Are you suggesting brother marrying sister?

Well, at the risk of being a little repetitive, WE ARE ALL RELATED TO ADAM!
The Bible is very clear that ADAM is the father of all the living, and his wife was named as the mother of ALL the living with the name EVE.
What makes you erroneously believe that, “it is biologically impossible” for us ALL to be related to Adam?
Why do you not trust what the Word of God, the Bible so clearly states?
Regarding the genetic diversity of humanity, there is in truth, absolutely no reason why the people on the ark are not related to everyone alive on Earth. The genetics of those on board the ark was obviously diverse enough to give rise to the various families that have since become nations,

I had a friend who was white Caucasian and she was married to one man who was of black African American descent; she gave birth to two sons, the first was white with blue eyes and very fair skin and European looking and the second was black with brown eyes and very dark skin of African Negro appearance. Sadly, my friend passed away a few years ago.

The point I am making here is that the diversity we see here on Earth today, is NOT remarkable, given the immense size of each of our individual genomes and given that my friend gave birth to two children from the same parents, of such vastly different (racial) appearance in this day and age after considerably more damage to the genome has occurred, than would have occurred four and a half thousand years ago.
Thus, indeed, it’s not at all remarkable the diversity of humanity we now see worldwide, has arisen from the Eight persons on the ark at the genetic bottleneck of the global flood!

As previously answered, of course brother and sister married in the early stages, after the flood as in the garden of Eden, but the prohibition of close marriage relationships would likely have been introduced not too long after that, given the massive reduction in genetic diversity.

@RichardG

@Burrawang

Well yes, I agree that sin is unavoidable for every human on Earth ever,

That is not what I said.

I said practically. In theory a person could always make the right choice. Original Sin claims that we have no choice but to sin. That is rubbish.

But I have never argued against, “In theory a person could always make the right choice.”,
I agree that is theoretically possible though I am not aware of anyone to which this would refer.

The FACT remains that sin entered the world through Adam and DEATH through sin; that is what you should be addressing; making a choice is a completely different matter.

You need to explain how our Loving, Righteous, Just, Omniscient, Omnipotent, God can, (at the very time of the creation of everything that has been made by Him), inform us, with the profound words, “and God saw that it was good” . and “God saw that it was very good”, if you believe that God used millions of years of pain, suffering, death and struggle to finally arrive at mankind.

You are the one who has raised the strange illustration of an incompetent God, i.e., that what I am saying in your mind somehow equates to making God incompetent: to wit:

@RichardG

God so incompetent He couldn’t protect the trees, and not wanting us to be sentient.

and yet, I presume, (and please forgive me if you do not believe the following myth), that God used millions or even billions of years of pain, suffering, death and struggle to achieve His Creation.

Don’t you think it is just a little incongruous that, (as I have already stated on previous posts on this topic), the the Creator - Jesus, performs His actions at the command of His Word and it is immediately so.
He commanded the wind and storm to be calm and it immediately became calm, He turned the water into wine and it was immediately so, He healed the sick, raised the dead, fed the five thousand and it was immediately so! Why do you think the Bible that is God’s beautifully written Word, and like NO OTHER Book on Earth, clearly and unambiguously describes the very act of the creation in so much detail, and in particular, once again we see that God commanded by His Word and IMMEDIATELY it was so:

“And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.” ; “9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.” etc…

The point being, don’t you think it just a tad strange that God commands by His Word in everything we are told about the creation and the miracles of Jesus and the effect on the creation is immediate, yet the religious philosophy of theistic evolution, claims that God took millions or billions of years just to get to creating man?

CLEARLY THE EDIFICE OF THEISTIC EVOLUTION IS A FALSE TEACHING, IT IS AN EMPTY RELIGIOUS MYTHOLOGY THAT IS DECEIVING MANY AND TO PARAPHRASE A PROMINENT SECULAR BIOLOGIST IS VIRTUALLY INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM ATHEISM.
.

@RichardG

@Burrawang

hence we all inherit the sin nature from Adam

It would be preferable if you put the extracted nine words in their proper context as I intended them to mean:

@Burrawang

Adam and Eve were innocent before God prior to their rebellion against His command to NOT eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
But once Adam and Eve crossed that line of disobedience and knew good and evil, the cat was out of the bag, and there is no way of putting it back, (they could not unknow what they then knew, they realised they were naked, prior to the disobedience they were innocent and blameless before God), hence we all inherit the sin nature from Adam.
That is why Jesus came incarnate to Earth to rescue us all from eternal separation from Him, through His selfless sacrifice to pay the penalty of the wages of sin that is death.

No. Sin cannot be inherited. Neither can it infect us, or even control us. Sin is. It has no form or presence.

Yes, you are correct in as much as that sin cannot be inherited in a strictly legal sense, however,.the fact remains that when Adam and Eve rebelled and lost their innocence before our Righteous and Just God, the knowledge of good and evil was from that point on, known in the minds of the first humans, on that fateful day in the garden of Eden, ***all future generations from that point in time forward, *** enter life into this world of humanity that is cursed with the knowledge of good and evil, i.e., the innocence of the family of mankind that was Adam and Eve’s original position before ‘the fall’, is no longer a possibility let alone a reality, and thus sin is in truth an inevitability for most if not ALL of mankind, at the very least, at one or more discreet points in time in the lives of each individual and if we are honest, for most people, many points in time. Thus in a very real sense, though not in a genetic or physical sense, we inherit the ability to sin; and according to the Bible no one is exempt from sinning; NO NOT ONE!:

3 What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision?
2 Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God.
3 For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?
4 God forbid: yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou art judged.
5 But if our unrighteousness commend the righteousness of God, what shall we say? Is God unrighteous who taketh vengeance? (I speak as a man)
6 God forbid: for then how shall God judge the world?
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
8 And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) Let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just.
9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin;
10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Romans 3:3-12

I don’t know what deception is holding or keeping those loyal adherents to theistic evolution in check, but it needs to be prayed against and the Bible and God need to be trusted.

God bless,
jon

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Burrawang

Oh Richard, what am I to make of all this, that you appear to truly believe?

Well you are supposed not to cast judgement.

You are treating me like a rebellious child not a mature Christian. Whether i am a preacher of not is none of your concern.

I could ridicule your beliefs but i will not. That is not my place. If you want to beleive in a magical garden and incest then so be it.

Sin had no inception. Sin has no presence or form. Sin is not something you can catch or transmit. Sin was never created. It is a by-product of choice and sentience. You can only sin if you understand what the alternative choice is and then deliberately make the wrong one. .
In terms of the garden Adam and Eve knew what God wanted and chose to disobey. They then tried to deflect the blame to someone else. So you have two lessons, one what is sin, and two you are responsible for your own actions.

All this talk about Adam’s sin continuing is based on two verses of Paul when he a not even talking about the persistence of sin, only the salvation of Christ. He goes out of his way to be precise and ends up being completely misunderstood, He must be turning in his grave. Adam is the theological first human sinner, Nothing more , nothing less. He did nit invent sinning. Sinning is disobedience to God.

Christ is the ultimate answer to sin. He supersedes all the traditional remedies of sacrifice. Adam first, Christ last. That is it. Simple.

There is no original sin in Judaism. There is no inherited sin in Judaism in fact both Jeremiah and Ezekiel specifically preach against it. Each one wil be judged by their own sin (or not)

Christ came for the fallen race, not us. The inclusion of gentiles i because it works for all, not just Jews. But.

There are litterally millions of people who lived before, during and after Christ who have no contact with either Him or Judaism. o you really think God just ignores them?

Christ Himself claimed to only come for the sinners. If Original Sin is correct there was no need for that statement because all are sinners!.

The Bible is propoganda. That may sound derisive but it is a fact. it is a handbook for Christianity, written by humans. You do not advertise any competing product be it religion or commodity. You do not claim any other understanding is possible. You do not admit to any other possibilites. To do so is self defeating.

I am a Christian. Not because it is the only possible choice but because I beleive it is the best choice (for me). it works. And I have spent most of my 65 years walking with God and He has looked after me in the fashion that He does. I preach for Him and He helps me with that, especially when I go astray. I am not perfect. I am not an authority. I am not the last word in theology. I dictate nothing, I say what i know and why I believe what I do. if that is not good enough for you then tough! Do not judge me or my beliefs unless you want your own judged by God (not me)
I know whqat you beleive and I even know why you beleive it., but that does not make either you or me right. or rong. Scriture is not so dogmatic so why should we be.
You want me to criticse the Bible? I can, but I won’t that is not my job. ALl you eed to know is that I honour and respect Scrioture above all writing. That doesn’t make it perfect or beyond reproach or criticism. Criticism is not destructive or condemnation. it is criticism. Scripture was not written by Go, or the Holy Spirit or even vetted by God or the Holy Spirit. It is human responses to God’s revelation with all the baggage that entails. Read it for what it is, not what you think it must be. And don’t get upset when someone like me disagrees with you. I am not alone in the world but pretty isolated on this forum.

Richard

[Terry_Sampson]

@Burrawang

There is absolutely no way Genesis is a myth!

Genesis has 50 chapters, try reading a Everett Fox’s Jewish translation from Hebrew into English.

Everett Fox’s Genesis Chapters 1 through 3

[St.Roymond]

@Terry_Sampson

@St.Roymond

That however is not helpful:

You remind me of my oldest brother: Nothing is helpful unless a thing helps him personally.

Your response has absolutely nothing to do with what I wrote.

@RichardG

Except that these are the words of Jesus, Are you calling Him a liar?

No, I’m saying that as usual you are reading your own religion into the text. Grammatically your position is without foundation.

@RichardG

You are obsessed with the notion of fallen humanity. It is just not true.

I’m not obsessed with anything, I just refuse to disrespect the Holy Spirit by denying the plain meaning of words.

@jpm

The authors of the scripture certainly used humor, irony, and even sarcasm in their writing at times, and Jesus was not humorless as well. That does not imply error

I recall an interesting study on the puns and jokes of Jesus; it was fascinating to see which make sense in Aramaic but not Greek, which make sense in Greek but not Aramaic, and which make sense in both.
Another thing we miss is just how crude the prophets could be at times; translators have traditionally insulated us from the bluntness of the original language (my favorite being Elijah’s comment about Baal, rendered in the KJV as “he has gone aside” when the idiom meant “he’s taking a dump” – to use an English idiom).

@Burrawang

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

the Scripture cannot be nullified

Dos not mean it is inerrant in the sense of factual details being correct, only that it is authoritative. It was a phrase used by rabbis including the Pharisees and Sadducees, so Jesus tossed it at them to amplify His point.

Well, we will have to agree to disagree.

“nullified” means, ‘to render null and void’; ‘to render invalid’; ‘to invalidate’; ‘to revoke’; it does not mean authoritative.

Ah, the errors we make when treating the scriptures as though they were written in modern English! “Cannot be nullified/broken” was a statement about authority; it’s what the phrase meant. A Cambridge commentary says it well:

‘cannot be deprived of its binding authority.’

You don’t get to overrule the original language and context by pulling things out of an English dictionary.

@Burrawang

THE BIBLE IS INERRANT

Only in the message it asserts – it never claims otherwise.

[St.Roymond]

@adamjedgar

@St.Roymond

It only implies that there were people who thought they didn’t need Him.

St Roymond, you are changing the focus of the illustration in this passage of scripture.

Um, what? From your own citation, I got it exactly right:

"Healthy people don’t need a doctor, Jesus says. Sick people do. Jesus was not declaring the Pharisees to be healthy, but pointing out that they saw themselves that way. "

@adamjedgar

then there’s this…

And this, and this, and this . . . . Nice quotations, but they don’t address the issue that the entire foundation of YEC is unbiblical. That foundation is the belief that to be true the scriptures have to be 100% scientifically and historically accurate (according to modern standards). No such claim can be found in the scriptures, and therefor it is an unbiblical foundation.

You trot out the same quotes repeatedly but never stop to ask if the worldview you are forcing on those quotes is even logical, let alone proper. The truth of the matter is that the foundational premise of YEC (as stated above) cannot be found in scripture but instead comes from a worldview called scientific materialism, so it is not merely unbiblical but anti-biblical, being inherntly atheistic.

@Burrawang

Genesis . . . provides the basis for why we need to be saved.
. . . .
Without the Old Testament, the gospel makes little sense as to WHY we need to be saved.

Jesus disagrees: “Come to Me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

He definitely doesn’t say, “Read Genesis and get back to Me”, He sets out being weary and burdened as sufficient reason to come to Him.

@Burrawang

Once again it is the forces of darkness that have deceived many Churches to compromise themselves for unholy motives such as vanity and pride, being seen to be ‘intelligent’ to conform with the widely held beliefs of what they perceive as science,

I see in that statement a perfect description of YECists: they insist (demand) that the Bible has to conform to (their understanding of) science, (arrogantly) assuming that they are so intelligent that they can understand the scriptures without bothering to apply even a minimum of the historical-grammatical method, treating the text as though it comes from the journal (in English) of a friend’s great-grandfather (of events he witnessed).
And that view hands atheists all they need to make the scriptures look foolish – just about every list of “errors” and “contradictions” atheists put online rest on the very same false approach to the scriptures that YEC requires.

@Marshall

When those outside and within our faith both see the same thing that we don’t see, humility demands that we at least consider the possibility that we might be the ones in error.

Or from my perspective of sticking to the text and not adding to (or subtracting from) it, that atheists use the same approach to the scriptures as YECists ought to suggest that there is something wrong with that approach.

@Marshall

I’m nervous whenever someone can’t see any reason why they would need Jesus aside from what their distant ancestors did. As if without knowing Genesis, they’d consider themselves perfect.

No kidding. This is one reason I love the song line, “You really need a Savior, you’ve known it all along”: I have seen more people come to Christ because they recognized that they were broken than because of someone quoting Bible verses.
It’s to a large degree a matter of “becoming all things to all men”. Paul didn’t start off with Genesis on Mars Hill, he went straight to a concern those philosophers had. And the prophets didn’t insist everyone learn the Torah to know they needed God; “Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters” isn’t an appeal to undertake theological study, it goes directly to what people know about themselves, that they thirst for something more, something they lack and cannot provide for themselves.

@Marshall

I think those who read the story as telling us who to blame are worse off with Genesis than others without Genesis who can still say “God be merciful to me, a sinner.”

Or even who read it as explaining why they need mercy in the first place! If a person can’t look at his/her own life and see the weariness and thirst, a theological treatise on how we got into this mess isn’t going to get traction.

@Marshall

It also makes it hard to see your words arising…

in Love and gentleness toward our brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Something it’s easy to lose sight of!

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@St.Roymond

I’m not obsessed with anything, I just refuse to disrespect the Holy Spirit by denying the plain meaning of words.

Unfortunately that means you claim to have that meaning.

Some of my most reliable friends are not Christian. They are definately not broken as you claim. They have more savvy and concerned about my interests than your view could contain.

It would seem that you just haven’t met the right people.

The Bible cannot dictate such things. The observations you refer to are about Israel several thousand years ago not the UK (or USA) now.

Richard

PS I take offence at your reference to “my Religion” I am a Christian, and you have no authority (or knowledge) to deny it… And if you continue I will bring it to the attention of the Moderators.

[St.Roymond]

@adamjedgar

the undeniable reality is, evidence being compiled in support of a scientific approach to creationism.

If you’re talking about YEC, the “undeniable reality” is lies, lies, and more lies, as has been shown repeatedly on this site, most egregiously perhaps in the example of having students stand in front of the very things that are being denied.

@adamjedgar

consistent with a normal reading of language in the bible

There’s the YEC error: “a normal reading of language” really means “a blind reading of English translations as though the scriptures were not written by ancient people in ancient cultures using ancient language and ancient literary forms in an ancient worldview”.
You can’t read anything “normally” without its historical and grammatical – which is to say its linguistic – context, but YEC throws those out in order to establish their modern worldview as the one and only correct one that God is required to have conformed to instead of addressing ancient people in their ancient context.

@adamjedgar

That rapidly growing scientific evidence groups like AIG have discovered, allows Christians to be sure that what we read in scripture is not a fairytale or myth.

Which being translated means, “The rapidly growing pile of lies that groups like AIG accumulates allows Christians to deceive themselves that they can ignore the admonition to study and congratulate themselves on being superior”.

Why is it that people are so arrogant as to tell God what kind of literature He gets to use instead of doing the homework to find out what He in fact did use?

@Burrawang

I certainly DO NOT believe in any way shape or form that our Righteous Lord and Saviour would do anything deceptive

Yet that is exactly what is required in order to hold YEC ideas! Geology alone, by physical analysis alone, shows that the globe we live on is no less than many hundreds of thousands of years old, probably millions; that does not depend on any theory except to believe that God doesn’t go around changing the rules but rather is what the scriptures tell us – faithful and true. So when YEC insists that the world is really just thousands of years old, it makes God a deceiver.

@Burrawang

It is a Biblical reality that Paul informs us of the spiritual wickedness in high places that seeks to keep each one of us from knowing God and salvation.

Are you aware of the Jewish mythology behind what he wrote – the mythology that ties into (second Temple) Jewish theology via Genesis 6 and Deuteronomy 32 (among others)?
“Myth” does not mean “fiction”, it’s just a different way of conveying truth.

@adamjedgar

normal reading of language in the bible (or any other piece of literature for that matter)

Basic rules for reading any piece of literature:

• know its historical and cultural context
• know the worldview under which the author wrote
• rely on the original language, not a modern version

These are why the program I took that led to studying ancient near eastern literature required us to study literature from different periods of history in different languages, from different cultures and with different worldviews: anyone who thinks they can just pick up a translation and understand the author’s message is guaranteed to go wrong.

Just for fun, an example of why knowing the genre is absolutely critical: Take this list–

• chocolate creme
• raspberries
• wine
• cheese

At first glance it appears to be a portion of a list of items needed for a social gathering, but that conclusion is pure assumption! Without being told, one cannot tell what this list is about – the above guess might be right, but what if there was a heading missing from the paper, for instance a letterhead of a police department? or the name of a laundry business? or just a notation “Billy likes these”?

In the ANE, this could be even worse; it could be a list of things to be offered to a deity, things to never feed a general, or even part of a magical incantation – which illustrates on a simple level that they had kinds of literature we can’t recognize in translation because we don’t have those, or even in the original language unless we’ve studied the various kinds of ancient literature.

@adamjedgar

, the claim of deceptiveness is only valid because the secular world has developed a model

In geology, no “model” is necessary; physical facts about minerals tell us that this globe is at the very least hundreds of thousands of years old.
And the claim of deceptiveness isn’t even a claim, it’s a declaration of fact, as in the example of the lying geologist who claimed there were no cracks in a certain formation and stood his students in front of the cracks that were there.

@adamjedgar

We talk about inconsistency in science…how about inconsistency in their own faith.

The inconsistency is in the YEC pretense that they read the scriptures honestly when they in truth pick and choose what to take literally and what not to, along with the pretense to use the historical-grammatical method when they ignore the history of the text and act as though English grammar trumps the original.

@adamjedgar

Even Christ clearly preached a real Noahs flood in Mathew 24.

So you’re ready to accept that what John Grisham and Tom Clancy write in their books is history? They’re “clearly” writing about actual events and their books are full of historically accurate information, aftr all.

@adamjedgar

Genre aelrguments simply do not work there

“Genre arguments” are required any time you’re dealing with language – period. If you don’t know the genre, you have no clue what you’re reading.

@adamjedgar

consider the detail of the flood account in Genesis (peoples ages, days, depth of floodwaters, rainbow…the flood account is clearly an historical narrative…not poetry!)

So again I ask, are you ready to assert that what Tom Clancy and John Grisham have written in their books is historical accounts? It fits all your criteria!

BTW, if you chart out the flood narrative it has many characteristics of poetry – Hebrew poetry, anyway; that it doesn’t fit modern English characteristics of poetry is irrelevant.

@Burrawang

the world we live in has many people working in rebellion against God and against His revealed Word.

The worst of whom are YECists: the whole YEC venture drove hundreds of students away from Christ when I was a university student, both many who had been Christians and many who had not. I cannot come to any other conclusion than that YEC is a clever lie foisted on Christians by the Enemy in order to build up their pride and make the Gospel look foolish, since those are its primary observed effects on university campuses anyway.

@Burrawang

There will of course be many other reasons also why many Churches have become compromised with belief in both ‘deep time’

How is it “compromise” when Hebrew scholars centuries ago concluded from the opening of Genesis that the universe and world are ancient beyond human comprehension? I regard the one(s) who decided that Creation must be “millions of millions” of years old to be a bit silly given how they had to really stretch some things from elsewhere in the scriptures, but those who stuck to the text itself deserve all our respect when they concluded that the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard and grew immensely rapidly to enormous size all before God commanded light into existence. Why do they deserve respect? Because they didn’t drag in their notions of ‘science’ or philosophy and force them on the text, they looked at the text and described what they found there.

@Burrawang

For Theistic evolutionists, the problem of reconciling long-age views with the Biblical witness is acute.

Nope. Hebrew scholars centuries ago drew their “long-age views” from the Bible, they didn’t force them onto it.

@Burrawang

It further follows that if there is no link between evil, including ‘natural evil’, and Adam’s sin, humankind cannot be held responsible for the evil that exists.

Logically incorrect. Humankind isn’t held responsible just because Adam sinned, we;re held responsible for our own sin. This statement shows profound ignorance of the relationship between God and evil.

@Burrawang

Regarding deep time, well again, I believe that the Bible is inerrant and as such I believe that the genealogies can be reliably used to get an approximate idea of when . . . .

That misunderstands how ancient genealogies worked and what their purpose was – as illustrated by how Matthew plays fast and loose with genealogies, at least in the modern view.

[St.Roymond]

@RichardG

The idea that oe man could ruin the whole of God’s “perfect” creation is abominable

This reminded me of a guy who argued that the effects of sin on material creation propagated away from the Earth – specifically from Eden – at the speed of light. He insisted that anything more than six thousand light years away couldn’t be under the curse of sin.

Talk about forcing the scriptures to speak science!

@jammycakes

My father used to summarise the story of Adam and Eve like this:

• God: “What have you done?”
• Adam: “It was that wife that you gave me.” Blame the wife and blame God.
• Eve: “The serpent deceived me.” Blame the demon. “I need deliverance ministry.”
• And the serpent didn’t have a leg to stand on…

Best laugh I’ve had all week!

@jammycakes

Do we learn the lesson, or do we do this instead?

• God: “What have you done?”
• Us: “It was original sin.” Blame Adam and Eve…

It was no accident that the ancient church condemned the idea that we are guilty of anyone’s sin but our own.

@Burrawang

the Genesis historical account

Genesis doesn’t engage in anything remotely historical until Abraham – the ancient world didn’t even have “history” as a literary form; that wouldn’t come along for many centuries, and even then it wasn’t the same concept that we have (one major item: no one would have had any idea what you were talking about if you told them that history is about facts).

@Burrawang

We’re all related, every man, woman and child on Earth is family, however distant, and all are related to Noah through the global flood population bottleneck that greatly reduced genetic diversity and drastically shortened life spans after that global event.

Has it never occurred to you that forcing ancient literature to conform to a modern scientific worldview is guaranteed to get it wrong?

@Burrawang

It is clear from your posts that you do not accept that ‘deep time’ and evolution are contrived deceptions.

I don’t accept that they are “contrived deceptions” because ancient Hebrew scholars found “deep time” in the text, and because in the case of evolution it requires some astounding conspiracy thinking.

Indeed the entire enterprise of “creation science” falls into a category of demonic deception that C.S. Lewis described in his book [u[The Screwtape Letters[/u]: getting Christians’ eyes off Jesus by getting them focused on something else that seems “biblical”.

@Burrawang

As it happens that you do not provide a shred of evidence or reasoning to support your denial that evolution and ‘deep time’ are false teachings

No YEC has ever provided a shred of evidence that the scriptures have any intention to teach science and history, or even aim to get them right – but people here who understand biology and geology have provided tons of evidence for “deep time”.

I stand on the text, and I find no support in it for much of anything that YEC says, and since I have observed hundreds of people turn from Christ due to YEC preaching, I judge from its fruit that YEC is a false ‘tree’.

@Burrawang

Join us as Dr Grocott (himself a former evolutionist) explains why he believes

Given that he sets out a false dichotomy less than a minute in, I doubt I’m going to e impressed.
Four minutes in, he hasn’t yet talked about evolution . . . .
and he falls for the fallacy that because we haven’t done something then it isn’t possible . . . .
then goes wild with an irrelevant story about “cockroach soup” that shows that though he may be a chemist, he’s no biochemist . . . .
Eight and a half minutes and he still hasn’t talked about evolution . . . .
I’m surprised he uses the chirality argument since it contains its own refutation.
Twenty minutes and he has still not talked about evolution!
He talks about “a perfect environment” even though he has essentially said we don’t know what environment would be perfect!
Wow – he never even talked about evolution! So the title is itself deceptive, and the fact that he doesn’t explain that he isn’t actually talking about evolution is deceptive.
Sadly, that’s what I’ve come to expect from Creation.com.

@Burrawang

If the world hates me,
because of my conviction that the Bible is true,
because I believe the Genesis Creation account as true history,
because I believe that God brought a global flood on Earth,
because I believe that deep time and evolution are a lie,
I count it as a blessing, although I am not worthy,

None of those what Jesus says we “should” be hated for – and therein lies the problem.
The thing you miss is that lines three through five do not follow from line two. I believe the Bible is true, but since the ancient Hebrews didn’t have anything remotely like what we moderns think of as “true history”, and because the text says nothing about a globe, and since the text has been read by serious scholars as pointing to “deep time”, I do not agree with your lines three, four, or five.

[jammycakes (James McKay)]

@Burrawang

If the world hates me,
because of my conviction that the Bible is true,
because I believe the Genesis Creation account as true history,
because I believe that God brought a global flood on Earth,
because I believe that deep time and evolution are a lie,
I count it as a blessing, although I am not worthy, because the world hates Jesus also.

It is one thing to be hated for being a Christian, for taking a stand for truth and righteousness, and for speaking out against sin.

It is a completely different matter to be hated for promoting scientific misinformation and conspiracy theories, or for accusing millions of hard working, honest, professional scientists of systematically and deliberately lying.

And I’m not making any kind of accusation against you here either. I am stating it as a fact that that is what you are doing. To refer to something that is taught in schools and universities as “a lie” is, by definition, to accuse those who teach it of lying. And no amount of saying “I refute that” or calling it a “vile accusation” will change that fact.

[Burrawang]

Dear Richard,
I humbly apologise if I have offended you, I most certainly do not wish to do that, I am merely stating the situation as I see it, nothing more and nothing less. Contrary to your accusation, I am most definitely not judging you or anyone else for that matter, but I am attempting to exhibit the unbiblical fallacies that prop up theistic evolution.

I do not accept there were other humans on Earth prior to Adam, that to me is nonsense, it is not Biblical, though I perceive it does appear to be one of the core tenets of theistic evolution.

I don’t believe in a magical garden, but I do believe the Bible that tells us there were two trees that God had created, and I do believe that after the creation of Adam and Eve by God, it was genetically safe to procreate with close family members, such as brother and sister and further down the family line for a period of time. The revulsion we all rightly have is correct in the present day where incest is not only against God’s command, but can also lead to terrible birth defects, which is why God forbade it when Israel was wandering through Canaan.

@RichardG

You can only sin if you understand what the alternative choice is and then deliberately make the wrong one. .

Richard, you will be relieved to know that I totally agree with you here. The stark truth of the matter is that yes we are all responsible for our own actions, our own choices, and because that is so, it is a fact that everyone sins, and thus everyone is in need of the salvation of our Lord Jesus.

@RichardG

Christ is the ultimate answer to sin. He supersedes all the traditional remedies of sacrifice. Adam first, Christ last. That is it. Simple.

I agree! You will get no argument from me, Jesus is the One who gave His own life to pay for our sins. We are purchased with the precious blood of the Lamb, who is Jesus our Saviour.

@RichardG

There are litterally millions of people who lived before, during and after Christ who have no contact with either Him or Judaism. o you really think God just ignores them?

NO, I don’t think that our Loving God ignores anyone and I know that He does NOT wish that any should perish; I am confident that our Loving God has a plan to save the lost who have never had the opportunity to hear the good news of salvation.

I know that Jesus died on the cross for you, me and everyone else on Earth.

@RichardG

Scripture was not written by Go, or the Holy Spirit or even vetted by God or the Holy Spirit. It is human responses to God’s revelation with all the baggage that entails.

I believe the Bible was written by people who were inspired by the Holy Spirit. God is NOT incompetent. He is more than capable of ensuring His communication to mankind is accurate and correct.
It may suit the religious doctrine of theistic evolution to claim that the Bible doesn’t really mean what it says, that it is just fallible humans who wrote it and God doesn’t care if there are errors, BUT I don’t buy that for one second.
You must remember WHO we are talking about here! The Living God who made the galaxies, the entire universe, time itself, who made every atom, every form of life on Earth with such brilliant design and beauty. He is not incapable of accurately inspiring those good men and women to recite and then to write down what He wants to tell us about how He created, where we came from, why the creation now has evil in it.
To use your words, THINK ABOUT IT!
In the beginning, before there was anything created, God existed, He then created the Earth. There were no humans to observe what happened, it is God’s revelation to the author of Genesis that allows us to accurately know the order of the creation of all things and life on Earth and man.
Again, GOD IS NOT INCOMPETENT! He Loves us all, He Loves you.
I am not against you Richard, I am your brother in our Lord Jesus, through His Love and Grace towards us.

I am against everything that set’s itself up against the truth and veracity of the Holy Scriptures and that clearly includes theistic evolution.

If you take that as judging you, then that is up to you, but it is NOT my intention, nor am I capable or worthy of judging anyone. The log in my eye prevents me from doing that!

But that does not mean that I must be silenced and not say what I know needs to be said about the false teaching of theistic evolution. I am stating what I believe and what I see here.

I hope that I am doing that with love and gentleness, and that I am clearly explaining why it is that I believe what I believe. If I didn’t do so, I would be letting you and the other adherents to theistic evolution down and I don’t want to do that.

@RichardG

And don’t get upset when someone like me disagrees with you. I am not alone in the world but pretty isolated on this forum.

I do not get upset when someone like you disagrees with me.
I sincerely hope I am able to accurately communicate WHY I believe what I believe and support it with Biblical and other evidence.
Do not feel isolated, you correctly state you are not alone, although it may feel that way at times.

Regarding me, I live in Australia and I am physically isolated to a large degree here in the Australian bush, surrounded by 150 foot high hardwood trees and a lot of our Lord’s beautiful creation, with the nearest city about 250 miles away.

But I do not feel alone, God is always with me, and my dear wife is here also, always cheerful, so I know that I am blessed.

I thank God for my good fortune to live in this time, and in this country, although I do see the Christian heritage upon which Australia was built being rapidly eroded away as the society becomes more and more secular, but these things will come to pass, God is ultimately in control and His will shall prevail.

God Bless,
jon

[rsewell (RON SEWELL)]

@Burrawang

The revulsion we all rightly have is correct in the present day where incest is not only against God’s command, but can also lead to terrible birth defects, which is why God forbade it when Israel was wandering through Canaan.

Despite the hand waving of YEC, the Bible nowhere intimates that Cain married his sister, and that was not the focus of the narrative. Given that Cain was afraid of not being well received by others, went and founded a city, and took a wife, - three activities in one chapter that involve more than one family - it seems clear that people outside the Adam family were assumed to be present.

I always find the full on sister bride patch up to be rather salacious and ad hoc, and especially the genetics dodge. Would it be OK with birth control? Given an all clear from genetic testing? And if the prohibition was to wait for Moses, was Cain’s murder of Abel no biggy as the law had not been yet given?

In the complete absence of any Biblical indication of incestual marriage, the usual support offered is “that is the only logical possibility.” But there is an even more logical possibility, the idea that Cain’s family was alone on the Earth is wrong. That the planet has had significant populations of modern humans going back tens of thousands of years, is of course supported by anthropology, archeology, and population genetics.

[Burrawang]

Dear Ron,

            again, we will have to agree to disagree.

I see the Biblical narrative in Genesis very differently to what you interpret.

For example, in Genesis 20:12 and prior to God’s command to no longer marry close relatives didn’t Abraham marry his half-sister who then bore children to Abraham?

It is therefore clear that marriage between close relatives prior to God’s prohibition was indeed a reality. To claim anything but, flies in the face of the revealed truth of the Bible!

To use your phrasing, ‘despite the hand waving of TE, the Bible nowhere intimates that’ there were millions or billions of years of death, bloodshed, suffering and struggle before Adam brought sin and death to the world!

For the religious zealots of TE to claim that there were millions or billions of years of death, bloodshed, suffering and struggle before Adam brought sin and death to the world, is forcing a false teaching onto the text!

That clear fact is plain for ALL to see, in the inerrant Bible texts we now ALL have access to.

God bless,
jon

[St.Roymond]

@Burrawang

I do not accept there were other humans on Earth prior to Adam, that to me is nonsense, it is not Biblical,

From reading the two Creation stories in Hebrew, it’s pretty evident that other humans are assumed in chapters four and following. Read the chapters as they are, without assumptions drilled by Sunday School, and it’s evident that in the first chapter Elohim made humans, male and female, then in the second chapter He makes a separate pair.

Of course that’s ignoring the actual literary genres involved, but given the ancient view of what makes an account authoritative it’s a legitimate treatment of the material.

At any rate, humans prior to Adam most certainly is biblical since there are two otherwise incompatible creation stories.

@Burrawang

I do believe that after the creation of Adam and Eve by God, it was genetically safe to procreate with close family members, such as brother and sister and further down the family line for a period of time.

Nice science fiction, but it has nothing to do with theology or with the text – it’s the result of demanding that the Holy Spirit forced the ancient writer to use modern forms of thought.

@Burrawang

can also lead to terrible birth defects, which is why God forbade it when Israel was wandering through Canaan.

That’s pure assumption without any foundation in the text.

It always amazes me how much YECers add things to the text that are based on a worldview that is alien to the entire set of scriptures.

@Burrawang

He is more than capable of ensuring His communication to mankind is accurate and correct.

More importantly – far more importantly! – He is more than capable of using the forms and terms and worldview of the people He is communicating with so that they understand the message.
BTW, asserting that the Bible has to be correct according to modern science is amazingly arrogant, as though somehow science is the ultimate form of knowledge and truth and that we have it right, and that the Bible should be judged by it in the first place!

@Burrawang

He is not incapable of accurately inspiring those good men and women to recite and then to write down what He wants to tell us about how He created, where we came from, why the creation now has evil in it.

This is making up a story about how you think God should have done things and forcing it on the scriptures; it is not biblical because it does not start by asking how God actually went about things.

@Burrawang

To use your words, THINK ABOUT IT!

Please do so. You’re imposing a whole pile of modern concepts onto ancient literature, which if true would mean that God had so little respect for anyone but our current few generations that He neglected to speak in ways that those earlier generations would understand!

@Burrawang

it is God’s revelation to the author of Genesis that allows us to accurately know the order of the creation of all things and life on Earth and man.

More assumptions, this time that God was required to have Moses write not according to ways he knew and understood – and that his audience would know and understand – but instead had to force him to write in strange ways that wouldn’t make sense for four thousand years.
God didn’t zap a modern worldview into Moses’ head, which is what would be required for your proposition to be correct. That makes God little different from a demon, changing how a person thinks and sees the world!

@Burrawang

Again, GOD IS NOT INCOMPETENT!

But YEC requires that God be incompetent, that He overruled His chosen writers’ worldviews and literary forms and made them use forms that would make no sense at all to the people around those writers. YHWH_Elohim is not so incompetent as to not have His chosen writers use the forms best known to the people they were writing to!

@Burrawang

But that does not mean that I must be silenced and not say what I know needs to be said about the false teaching of theistic evolution.

So far no YEC has ever been able to give an answer to this:

Where does the scripture state that it intends to make statements that are accurate according to a definition of truth that won’t come along for a few th9usnad years. i.e. that it intends to be scientifically and historically accurate?

@Burrawang

I sincerely hope I am able to accurately communicate WHY I believe what I believe and support it with Biblical and other evidence.

I wish you would, because no other YECer has ever managed it.

@rsewell

the usual support offered is “that is the only logical possibility.”

Which of course overlooks the obvious possibility that the two very different creation stories are actually what they appear to be – two different creation stories.
Which is interesting because the idea that they are really just a single story has no basis in the text, instead it comes to us as tradition through the Roman Catholic church.

Of course it also overlooks the fact that “historical narrative” wasn’t a thing for centuries after the Creation accounts were written, so that the actual logical possibility is that we’ve been following in inaccurate tradition (of men) – something that could be excused when we didn’t know any better, but God has in these later last days provided immense amounts of knowledge about the scriptures that our forebears lacked.

@Burrawang

the Bible nowhere intimates that’ there were millions or billions of years of death, bloodshed, suffering and struggle before Adam brought sin and death to the world!

1. The Bible has nothing to say on the matter, although it does portray God providing prey to carnivores as qualifying as good. So all you have is an argument from silence, but more one from tradition that conforms more to secular humanism than anything else.
2. Adam brought sin and death to humans – claiming anything else is reading into the text what isn’t there.

@Burrawang

For the religious zealots of TE to claim that there were millions or billions of years of death, bloodshed, suffering and struggle before Adam brought sin and death to the world, is forcing a false teaching onto the text!

What about the religious zealots of Hebrew scholarship that found millions, billions, and even (!) trillions of years in the text long before Galileo put two lenses in a tube and looked at Jupiter? Don’t ignore the fact that on the basis of the text in Genesis 1 Hebrew scholars concluded:

• the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for “th smallest thing possible”)
• the universe expanded incredibly rapidly so that the “waters” of “the deep” thinned more and more until light could shine (at which point God commanded light to be)
• that the earth is ancient beyond human imagining, and the heavens more ancient still

In other words, the idea of “deep time” was found in Genesis long before anyone even had a clue that the Milky Way isn’t the whole universe, long before scientists kind of stumbled on the concept.

TEism or whatever has nothing to do with it – honest Hebrew scholars who grew up speaking that language found deep time and a lot more in the text – and the text is what counts; not traditions about the text, not what modern translations look like to the uninformed, but the actual Hebrew text in its historical-grammatical setting.

@Burrawang

the inerrant Bible texts we now ALL have access to

Really? Where? I’ve handled original manuscripts in facsimile (not just the image but cut to shape and with the same texture as the originals), and the truth is that the manuscripts we have all proclaim one thing very loudly: God isn’t worried about the details, and He has let the text become quite “errant”.

The trouble is that when you say “inerrant” what you rally mean is “fitting my modern worldview”, which insults both the Holy Spirit and the writers He selected, along with the original audience. It requires that God zapped not just Moses but all of Israel and its neighbors so they could think according to a worldview that wouldn’t exist for millennia – and that is not just insulting to them all but also ridiculous (beside the fact that it constitutes brainwashing, an activity more suited to demons).

[Burrawang]

@St.Roymond

From reading the two Creation stories in Hebrew, it’s pretty evident that other humans are assumed in chapters four and following. Read the chapters as they are, without assumptions drilled by Sunday School, and it’s evident that in the first chapter Elohim made humans, male and female, then in the second chapter He makes a separate pair.

I’m surprised that you actually believe what you have written here…
IT IS A MYTH THAT THERE ARE TWO DIFFERENT CREATION STORIES.

I’m sorry Roymond, but although I have read and reread both Genesis 1 and 2 in KJV and OJB and Hebrew, the FACT remains the very same. The myth you are declaring is a FALSE TEACHING that is not borne out by the original Hebrew nor is it borne out in the carefully translated English versions KJV and NASB.

I have added the relevant parts below, regarding the creation of man in Genesis Chapter 1 (verses 26 to 31) and all of Genesis Chapter 2 that only adds some further detail about the creation of the same male and female, that is, Adam and Eve.

Genesis Chapter 1 is an overview with some detail about the order of creation during creation week when each of the created things were made by God.

Genesis Chapter 2 is about the same creation event, with some additional detail.

Your assertion that they are two separate creation events of different people betrays the error of deception that it would appear you are under regarding this matter.

See Genesis Chapter 1:26-31 KJV below:
26 And God saith, `Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness, and let them rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that is creeping on the earth.’

27 And God prepareth the man in His image; in the image of God He prepared him, a male and a female He prepared them.

28 And God blesseth them, and God saith to them, `Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it, and rule over fish of the sea, and over fowl of the heavens, and over every living thing that is creeping upon the earth.’

29 And God saith, `Lo, I have given to you every herb sowing seed, which [is] upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which [is] the fruit of a tree sowing seed, to you it is for food;

30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the heavens, and to every creeping thing on the earth, in which [is] breath of life, every green herb [is] for food:’ and it is so.

31 And God seeth all that He hath done, and lo, very good; and there is an evening, and there is a morning – day the sixth.

And Genesis Chapter 1:26-31 OJB below:
26 And G-d said, Let Us make man in Our tzelem, after Our demut: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon ha’aretz (the earth).

27 So G-d created humankind in His own tzelem, in the tzelem Elohim (image of G-d) created He him; zachar (male) and nekevah (female) created He them.

28 And G-d blessed them, and G-d said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

29 And G-d said, Hinei, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of kol ha’aretz (all the earth), and every etz (tree), in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for food.

30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food; and it was so.

31 And G-d saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was tov me’od (very good). And the erev and the boker were Yom Shishi (Day Six, the Sixth Day).

Then see Genesis 1 Hebrew below

Genesis 1:26-31 Hebrew

Parashat Bereshit : פרשת בראשית

כו וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ; וְיִרְדּוּ בִדְגַת הַיָּם וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּבַבְּהֵמָה וּבְכָל-הָאָרֶץ, וּבְכָל-הָרֶמֶשׂ, הָרֹמֵשׂ עַל-הָאָרֶץ.	26 And God said: ‘Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.’
כז וַיִּבְרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם בְּצַלְמוֹ, בְּצֶלֶם אֱלֹהִים בָּרָא אֹתוֹ: זָכָר וּנְקֵבָה, בָּרָא אֹתָם.	27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.
כח וַיְבָרֶךְ אֹתָם, אֱלֹהִים, וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם אֱלֹהִים פְּרוּ וּרְבוּ וּמִלְאוּ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ, וְכִבְשֻׁהָ; וּרְדוּ בִּדְגַת הַיָּם, וּבְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּבְכָל-חַיָּה, הָרֹמֶשֶׂת עַל-הָאָרֶץ.	28 And God blessed them; and God said unto them: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that creepeth upon the earth.’
כט וַיֹּאמֶר אֱלֹהִים, הִנֵּה נָתַתִּי לָכֶם אֶת-כָּל-עֵשֶׂב זֹרֵעַ זֶרַע אֲשֶׁר עַל-פְּנֵי כָל-הָאָרֶץ, וְאֶת-כָּל-הָעֵץ אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ פְרִי-עֵץ, זֹרֵעַ זָרַע: לָכֶם יִהְיֶה, לְאָכְלָה.	29 And God said: 'Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed–to you it shall be for food;
ל וּלְכָל-חַיַּת הָאָרֶץ וּלְכָל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם וּלְכֹל רוֹמֵשׂ עַל-הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר-בּוֹ נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, אֶת-כָּל-יֶרֶק עֵשֶׂב, לְאָכְלָה; וַיְהִי-כֵן.	30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.’ And it was so.
לא וַיַּרְא אֱלֹהִים אֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה, וְהִנֵּה-טוֹב מְאֹד; וַיְהִי-עֶרֶב וַיְהִי-בֹקֶר, יוֹם הַשִּׁשִ	31 And God saw every thing that He had made, and, behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.

Then see Genesis 2 NASB, below:

2 And so the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their heavenly lights. 2 By the seventh day God completed His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. 3 Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because on it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

The Creation of Man and Woman

4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made earth and heaven. 5 Now no shrub of the field was yet on the earth, and no plant of the field had yet sprouted, for the Lord God had not sent rain upon the earth, and there was no man to cultivate the ground. 6 But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the ground. 7 Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living person. 8 The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. 9 Out of the ground the Lord God caused every tree to grow that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

10 Now a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden; and from there it divided and became four rivers. 11 The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. 12 The gold of that land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there as well. 13 The name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole land of Cush. 14 The name of the third river is Tigris; it flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.

15 Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and tend it. 16 The Lord God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat from it you will certainly die.”

18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.” 19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all the livestock, and to the birds of the sky, and to every animal of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. 22 And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said,

“At last this is bone of my bones,
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called ‘woman,’
Because she was taken out of man.”

24 For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, but they were not ashamed.

Then see, Genesis 2 OJB below:
2 Thus HaShomayim and Ha’Aretz were finished, and all the tza’va of them.

2 And on Yom HaShevi’i Elohim finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the Yom HaShevi’i from all His work which He had made.

3 Vayevarech Elohim et Yom HaShevi’i, and set it apart as kadosh: because that in it shavat (He had rested) from all His work which bara Elohim (G-d created) and made.

4 These are the toldot of HaShomayim and of Ha’Aretz when they were created, in the Yom that Hashem Elohim made Eretz v’Shomayim,

5 And every plant of the sadeh was not yet in ha’aretz, and every herb of the sadeh had not yet yitzmach (sprung up, T.N. Moshiach is Tzemach [Zecharyah 3:8]); for Hashem Elohim had not caused it to rain upon ha’aretz, and there was not an adam (man) la’avod (to till, to work) haadamah (the ground).

6 But there went up a mist from ha’aretz, and watered the whole face of the adamah.

7 And Hashem Elohim formed the adam of the aphar min haadamah, and breathed into his nostrils the nishmat chayyim; and the adam became a nefesh chayyah.

8 And Hashem Elohim planted a gan (garden) eastward in Eden; and there He put the adam whom He had formed.

9 And out of the adamah made Hashem Elohim to spring up (T.N. see verse 5) kol etz (every tree) that is pleasing to the sight, and tov for food; the Etz HaChayyim (Tree of Life) also in the midst of the gan (garden), and the Etz HaDa’as Tov v’Rah (see 3:22, i.e., representing moral autonomy; contrast Exodus 9:20-21 where the Dvar Hashem is the guide of life, even for Gentiles).

10 And a nahar (river) flowed out of Eden to water the gan (garden); and from there it divided, and became four headwaters.

11 The shem of the first is Pishon; that is it which winds through the kol eretz Chavilah, where there is zahav;

12 And the zahav of that land is tov; there is [the gemstone] bedolach and the even (gemstone) hashoham [T.N.: this onyx gemstone is used in the construction of the Kohen Gadol’s Bigdei HaKodesh].

13 And the shem of the second nahar is Gihon; the same is it that winds through kol eretz Cush.

14 And the shem of the third nahar is Chiddekel (Tigris [see Daniel 10:4]): that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth nahar is Euphrates.

15 And Hashem Elohim took the adam and put him in the Gan Eden la’avod (to till, to work) it and to be shomer over it.

16 And Hashem Elohim commanded the adam, saying, Of every etz of the gan thou mayest freely eat;

17 But of the Etz HaDa’as Tov v’Rah, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the yom that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

18 And Hashem Elohim said, It is not tov that the adam should be alone; I will make him an ezer (a helper) suitable for him.

19 And out of the adamah Hashem Elohim formed every beast of the sadeh, and every oph HaShomayim; and brought them unto the adam to see what he would name them; and whatsoever the adam named kol nefesh chayyah, that was shmo.

20 And the adam gave shemot to all behemah, and to the oph HaShomayim, and to every beast of the sadeh; but for Adam there was not found an ezer for him.

21 And Hashem Elohim caused a tardemah (deep sleep) to fall upon the adam, and he slept; and He took from one of his tzalelot (sides, ribs), and closed up the basar in the place thereof;

22 And the tzela (rib), which Hashem Elohim had taken from the adam, made He an isha, and brought her unto the adam.

23 And the adam said, This is now etzem of my etzem, and basar of my basar; she shall be called Isha, because she was taken out of Ish.

24 Therefore shall an ish leave his av and his em, and shall cleave unto his isha: and they shall be basar echad.

25 And they were both arummim (naked ones), the adam and his isha, and were not ashamed.

Then see Genesis 2 Hebrew below:

Genesis Chapter 2 בְּרֵאשִׁית

א וַיְכֻלּוּ הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-צְבָאָם.	1 And the heaven and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
ב וַיְכַל אֱלֹהִים בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה; וַיִּשְׁבֹּת בַּיּוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ אֲשֶׁר עָשָׂה.	2 And on the seventh day God finished His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made.
ג וַיְבָרֶךְ אֱלֹהִים אֶת-יוֹם הַשְּׁבִיעִי, וַיְקַדֵּשׁ אֹתוֹ: כִּי בוֹ שָׁבַת מִכָּל-מְלַאכְתּוֹ, אֲשֶׁר-בָּרָא אֱלֹהִים לַעֲשׂוֹת	3 And God blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it; because that in it He rested from all His work which God in creating had made.
ד אֵלֶּה תוֹלְדוֹת הַשָּׁמַיִם וְהָאָרֶץ, בְּהִבָּרְאָם: בְּיוֹם, עֲשׂוֹת יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים–אֶרֶץ וְשָׁמָיִם.	4 These are the generations of the heaven and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven.
ה וְכֹל שִׂיחַ הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִהְיֶה בָאָרֶץ, וְכָל-עֵשֶׂב הַשָּׂדֶה, טֶרֶם יִצְמָח: כִּי לֹא הִמְטִיר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָאָרֶץ, וְאָדָם אַיִן, לַעֲבֹד אֶת-הָאֲדָמָה.	5 No shrub of the field was yet in the earth, and no herb of the field had yet sprung up; for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground;
ו וְאֵד, יַעֲלֶה מִן-הָאָרֶץ, וְהִשְׁקָה, אֶת-כָּל-פְּנֵי הָאֲדָמָה.	6 but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
ז וַיִּיצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הָאָדָם, עָפָר מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, וַיִּפַּח בְּאַפָּיו, נִשְׁמַת חַיִּים; וַיְהִי הָאָדָם, לְנֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה.	7 Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
ח וַיִּטַּע יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, גַּן-בְּעֵדֶן–מִקֶּדֶם; וַיָּשֶׂם שָׁם, אֶת-הָאָדָם אֲשֶׁר יָצָר.	8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward, in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed.
ט וַיַּצְמַח יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-עֵץ נֶחְמָד לְמַרְאֶה, וְטוֹב לְמַאֲכָל–וְעֵץ הַחַיִּים, בְּתוֹךְ הַגָּן, וְעֵץ, הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע.	9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
י וְנָהָר יֹצֵא מֵעֵדֶן, לְהַשְׁקוֹת אֶת-הַגָּן; וּמִשָּׁם, יִפָּרֵד, וְהָיָה, לְאַרְבָּעָה רָאשִׁים.	10 And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads.
יא שֵׁם הָאֶחָד, פִּישׁוֹן–הוּא הַסֹּבֵב, אֵת כָּל-אֶרֶץ הַחֲוִילָה, אֲשֶׁר-שָׁם, הַזָּהָב.	11 The name of the first is Pishon; that is it which compasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold;
יב וּזְהַב הָאָרֶץ הַהִוא, טוֹב; שָׁם הַבְּדֹלַח, וְאֶבֶן הַשֹּׁהַם.	12 and the gold of that land is good; there is bdellium and the onyx stone.
יג וְשֵׁם-הַנָּהָר הַשֵּׁנִי, גִּיחוֹן–הוּא הַסּוֹבֵב, אֵת כָּל-אֶרֶץ כּוּשׁ.	13 And the name of the second river is Gihon; the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Cush.
יד וְשֵׁם הַנָּהָר הַשְּׁלִישִׁי חִדֶּקֶל, הוּא הַהֹלֵךְ קִדְמַת אַשּׁוּר; וְהַנָּהָר הָרְבִיעִי, הוּא פְרָת.	14 And the name of the third river is Tigris; that is it which goeth toward the east of Asshur. And the fourth river is the Euphrates.
טו וַיִּקַּח יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, אֶת-הָאָדָם; וַיַּנִּחֵהוּ בְגַן-עֵדֶן, לְעָבְדָהּ וּלְשָׁמְרָהּ.	15 And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.
טז וַיְצַו יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, עַל-הָאָדָם לֵאמֹר: מִכֹּל עֵץ-הַגָּן, אָכֹל תֹּאכֵל.	16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying: 'Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat;
יז וּמֵעֵץ, הַדַּעַת טוֹב וָרָע–לֹא תֹאכַל, מִמֶּנּוּ: כִּי, בְּיוֹם אֲכָלְךָ מִמֶּנּוּ–מוֹת תָּמוּת.	17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.’
יח וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים, לֹא-טוֹב הֱיוֹת הָאָדָם לְבַדּוֹ; אֶעֱשֶׂה-לּוֹ עֵזֶר, כְּנֶגְדּוֹ.	18 And the LORD God said: ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him.’
יט וַיִּצֶר יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים מִן-הָאֲדָמָה, כָּל-חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה וְאֵת כָּל-עוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וַיָּבֵא אֶל-הָאָדָם, לִרְאוֹת מַה-יִּקְרָא-לוֹ; וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר יִקְרָא-לוֹ הָאָדָם נֶפֶשׁ חַיָּה, הוּא שְׁמוֹ.	19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man would call every living creature, that was to be the name thereof.
כ וַיִּקְרָא הָאָדָם שֵׁמוֹת, לְכָל-הַבְּהֵמָה וּלְעוֹף הַשָּׁמַיִם, וּלְכֹל, חַיַּת הַשָּׂדֶה; וּלְאָדָם, לֹא-מָצָא עֵזֶר כְּנֶגְדּוֹ.	20 And the man gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found a help meet for him.
כא וַיַּפֵּל יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים תַּרְדֵּמָה עַל-הָאָדָם, וַיִּישָׁן; וַיִּקַּח, אַחַת מִצַּלְעֹתָיו, וַיִּסְגֹּר בָּשָׂר, תַּחְתֶּנָּה.	21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof.
כב וַיִּבֶן יְהוָה אֱלֹהִים אֶת-הַצֵּלָע אֲשֶׁר-לָקַח מִן-הָאָדָם, לְאִשָּׁה; וַיְבִאֶהָ, אֶל-הָאָדָם.	22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He a woman, and brought her unto the man.
כג וַיֹּאמֶר, הָאָדָם, זֹאת הַפַּעַם עֶצֶם מֵעֲצָמַי, וּבָשָׂר מִבְּשָׂרִי; לְזֹאת יִקָּרֵא אִשָּׁה, כִּי מֵאִישׁ לֻקְחָה-זֹּאת.	23 And the man said: ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’
כד עַל-כֵּן, יַעֲזָב-אִישׁ, אֶת-אָבִיו, וְאֶת-אִמּוֹ; וְדָבַק בְּאִשְׁתּוֹ, וְהָיוּ לְבָשָׂר אֶחָד.	24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh.
כה וַיִּהְיוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם עֲרוּמִּים, הָאָדָם וְאִשְׁתּוֹ; וְלֹא, יִתְבֹּשָׁשׁוּ.	25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.

THE VALIDITY OF THE CLAIM YOU HAVE MADE IS NOT BORNE OUT HERE IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW OR THE TRANSLATIONS, REGARDING YOUR SPURIOUS CLAIM OF TWO SEPARATE CREATION EVENTS FOR THE CREATION OF HUMAN BEINGS BY GOD.

ANYONE WHO CARES TO CHECK THE VALIDITY OF YOUR STATEMENT CLAIMING TWO SEPARATE CREATION EVENTS OF MANKIND ARE DESCRIBED IN THE ORIGINAL HEBREW TEXT WITHIN GENESIS CHAPTERS 1 AND 2 WILL, IN TRUTH, SEE THIS DECEPTIVE FALSE STATEMENT FOR WHAT IT IS, A FALSE TEACHING THAT MISCONSTRUES THE CLEAR REALITY GIVEN TO US BY OUR LOVING GOD.

I don’t know why you choose to perpetrate such heinous untruths, but I hope and pray that you are delivered from attempting to deceive those that may accept what you claim at face value.

@St.Roymond

At any rate, humans prior to Adam most certainly is biblical since there are two otherwise incompatible creation stories.

WHY do you continue to propagate such a BLATANTLY FALSE TEACHING?

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

I do believe that after the creation of Adam and Eve by God, it was genetically safe to procreate with close family members, such as brother and sister and further down the family line for a period of time.

Nice science fiction, but it has nothing to do with theology or with the text – it’s the result of demanding that the Holy Spirit forced the ancient writer to use modern forms of thought.

Once again, WHY are you attempting to propagate this obviously false teaching?

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

can also lead to terrible birth defects, which is why God forbade it when Israel was wandering through Canaan.

That’s pure assumption without any foundation in the text.

It always amazes me how much YECers add things to the text that are based on a worldview that is alien to the entire set of scriptures.

Here you are on the attack. Your tactic of saying the text doesn’t say that is tiresome, repetitive and uncalled for, as in this particular case, I did not claim the text of the Bible mentions terrible birth defects, or anything of that nature. I think you will find that it is something I expect most people who have even a modecum of genetic knowledge would already know.
The year is 2024 right now, and we have a lot of knowledge about things like genetics.
Our Creator knows the very same thing many times more that we do, and because He Loves us all, He brought a stop to close family member intermarriage because He doesn’t want those terrible birth defects to occur anymore than we do.

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

He is more than capable of ensuring His communication to mankind is accurate and correct.

More importantly – far more importantly! – He is more than capable of using the forms and terms and worldview of the people He is communicating with so that they understand the message.
BTW, asserting that the Bible has to be correct according to modern science is amazingly arrogant, as though somehow science is the ultimate form of knowledge and truth and that we have it right, and that the Bible should be judged by it in the first place!

But Roymond, please, don’t you see, can you hear yourself?
I have NOT ever once claimed that the Bible has to be correct according to modern science!
This is a tactic I’ve seen you use over and over again in various forums, you build up a false straw man then bash it down, whilst all the while blaming the one you see as an enemy.
I’m sorry but it is truly quite sad that you appear unable to honestly communicate and have to resort to such underhanded tactics, that in truth show where your heart is.
If you truly see yourself as a Christian, you would do yourself a great service through communicating honestly, without resorting to deceptive arguments and claiming you know what the text is really saying and then stating what is obviously false teaching. We all have to stand before God and give and account of ourselves. Please for your own sake, stop this evil now.

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

He is not incapable of accurately inspiring those good men and women to recite and then to write down what He wants to tell us about how He created, where we came from, why the creation now has evil in it.

This is making up a story about how you think God should have done things and forcing it on the scriptures; it is not biblical because it does not start by asking how God actually went about things.

But again, I am NOT making up a story about how I think God should have done things, I am merely stating that God is more than capable of ensuring we get His Word accurately, after all He is all powerful, all knowing and Loves us all.

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

To use your words, THINK ABOUT IT!

Please do so. You’re imposing a whole pile of modern concepts onto ancient literature, which if true would mean that God had so little respect for anyone but our current few generations that He neglected to speak in ways that those earlier generations would understand!

Did it ever occur to you that our gracious God worded the text of the Bible in such a profound way that the meaning is comprehensible to ALL peoples at ALL times in history?

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

it is God’s revelation to the author of Genesis that allows us to accurately know the order of the creation of all things and life on Earth and man.

More assumptions, this time that God was required to have Moses write not according to ways he knew and understood – and that his audience would know and understand – but instead had to force him to write in strange ways that wouldn’t make sense for four thousand years.
God didn’t zap a modern worldview into Moses’ head, which is what would be required for your proposition to be correct. That makes God little different from a demon, changing how a person thinks and sees the world!

Sorry again, but I must say, your words here make very little sense in the context of what I wrote.
I was merely stating the obvious that Genesis or more specifically if you wish, Genesis 1 records the order of creation over the six days of creation week; the author, was obviously inspired by God to write down what actually occurred, simply because there was no-one else to witness the creation except God, because man wasn’t created until the sixth day.
In this text, I DID NOT STATE ANYTHING ABOUT A MODERN WORLDVIEW, I DID NOT IMPLY ANYTHING ABOUT A MODERN WORLDVIEW, that is completely yet another fabrication of yours.
These underhanded tactics that you employ might impress you, but I am sure there are many they don’t impress and that includes me, I’m not impressed at all about being so BLATANTLY misrepresented, over and over like a cracked record.
Please get over your self importance as a Biblical authority and get REAL, please be honest!

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

Again, GOD IS NOT INCOMPETENT!

But YEC requires that God be incompetent, that He overruled His chosen writers’ worldviews and literary forms and made them use forms that would make no sense at all to the people around those writers. YHWH_Elohim is not so incompetent as to not have His chosen writers use the forms best known to the people they were writing to!

And on it goes! Here you make up yet another story based on more lies and false teaching.
What you have written makes no sense and doesn’t warrant a response, indeed the entire thrust of your posts is a litany of deceit, false teaching and blatant misrepresentation!
However in the interest of thoroughness I will attempt to set the record straight.

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

But that does not mean that I must be silenced and not say what I know needs to be said about the false teaching of theistic evolution.

So far no YEC has ever been able to give an answer to this:

Where does the scripture state that it intends to make statements that are accurate according to a definition of truth that won’t come along for a few th9usnad years. i.e. that it intends to be scientifically and historically accurate?

Here you go again, what in the world has what I ACTUALLY WROTE got to do with your next straw man argument? Answer that!

Regarding what you have written, your question is ridiculous.
The Bible does not state anywhere, "that it intends to make statements that are accurate according to a definition of truth that won’t come along for a few th9usnad years."
What a ridiculous question to ask!

You introduce yet another straw man, by attempting to conflate two entirely different things, that is, science and history.
Well for starters science is a methodology for solving questions we have, working out solutions, understanding laws of physics, chemistry etc, but it has severe limitations when it comes to events that occurred in the past and even more so in the distant past. I don’t think the Bible has anything to say about science, it does NOT state that it intends to be scientifically accurate.
But HISTORY is an entirely different matter, I believe that those sections of the Bible that are written as historical narrative are accurate history, as I have the utmost RESPECT for God’s Word and I trust the Bible implicitly.
In any case it is a given that the Bible will be honest, reliable, unchanging and instructive for us all, and with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we are led to greater understandings about all manner of things that our Loving God wishes us to know including Biblical history.

@St.Roymond

@rsewell

the usual support offered is “that is the only logical possibility.”

Which of course overlooks the obvious possibility that the two very different creation stories are actually what they appear to be – two different creation stories.
Which is interesting because the idea that they are really just a single story has no basis in the text, instead it comes to us as tradition through the Roman Catholic church.

Once again, this is an egregiously FALSE statement!
At the top of this post, the original Hebrew text and English translations equally demonstrate that “two different creation stories.” mythology is blatant FALSE TEACHING.
All you have to do is read the text, it is plain to see for all who take the time to look.

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

the Bible nowhere intimates that’ there were millions or billions of years of death, bloodshed, suffering and struggle before Adam brought sin and death to the world!

1. The Bible has nothing to say on the matter, although it does portray God providing prey to carnivores as qualifying as good. So all you have is an argument from silence, but more one from tradition that conforms more to secular humanism than anything else.
2. Adam brought sin and death to humans – claiming anything else is reading into the text what isn’t there.

1. Your statement here is clearly in error, do you not understand that DEATH is not qualified in a restrictive sense in either the original Hebrew text or in any of the translations that I know of. DEATH did not arrive in the creation anywhere until Adam and Eve rebelled against God that was sin , that imputes due wages that are required by God’s absolute Righteous Justice to be paid, and those wages are DEATH!
   NOT just Human DEATH , but DEATH of ALL creatures in the creation that from that point forward was condemned to futility and is right now groaning under the weight of the curse upon ALL of creation.
   That is DEATH is absolute for all living creatures, not just Humans, (no matter how convenient that may be for TE doctrine), it is NOT Biblical.
   Prior to the ‘Fall’ there was NO DEATH, all animals were vegetarians, there was no bloodshed, no DEATH, no killing, the creation was good!
   Again THINK ABOUT IT!
   When Jesus returns and the present Heaven and Earth have passed away, there will be a new Heaven and Earth, there will be NO DEATH, all animals will be vegetarians again eating green plants for food, just as God intended and was in the original creation on Earth that was very good.

2. Adam brought sin and death to humans to the whole of creation, I don’t claim anything else!

@St.Roymond

What about the religious zealots of Hebrew scholarship that found millions, billions, and even (!) trillions of years in the text long before Galileo put two lenses in a tube and looked at Jupiter? Don’t ignore the fact that on the basis of the text in Genesis 1 Hebrew scholars concluded:

• the universe started out smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for “th smallest thing possible”)
• the universe expanded incredibly rapidly so that the “waters” of “the deep” thinned more and more until light could shine (at which point God commanded light to be)
• that the earth is ancient beyond human imagining, and the heavens more ancient still

I don’t believe you after checking your claim about two separate creations that is completely FALSE, why should I believe anything you claim. You do not appear to support your claims or arguments with any actual scriptural text to demonstrate the veracity of what you are saying.

PROVE IT!
WHAT ARE THE VERSES IN GENESIS 1 THAT THE HEBREW SCHOLARS YOU CLAIM CONCLUDED THE THREE BULLET POINTS YOU LISTED???

@St.Roymond

In other words, the idea of “deep time” was found in Genesis long before anyone even had a clue that the Milky Way isn’t the whole universe, long before scientists kind of stumbled on the concept.

TEism or whatever has nothing to do with it – honest Hebrew scholars who grew up speaking that language found deep time and a lot more in the text – and the text is what counts; not traditions about the text, not what modern translations look like to the uninformed, but the actual Hebrew text in its historical-grammatical setting.

AGAIN, PROVE IT!

PLEASE PROVIDE THE ACTUAL TEXT OR REFERENCES TO THE TEXT OR THE HEBREW AND ENGLISH TRANSLATION THAT SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS.
WHAT ARE THOSE PARTS OF SCRIPTURE IN GENESIS???

@St.Roymond

@Burrawang

the inerrant Bible texts we now ALL have access to

Really? Where? I’ve handled original manuscripts in facsimile (not just the image but cut to shape and with the same texture as the originals), and the truth is that the manuscripts we have all proclaim one thing very loudly: God isn’t worried about the details, and He has let the text become quite “errant”.

YOU ARE BIG ON MAKING BOLD CLAIMS BUT WEAK ON PROVIDING ANY ACTUAL SCRIPTURE TO SUPPORT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING IS TRUE.

WHAT SPECIFICALLY HAS GOD ALLOWED TO BECOME ERRANT???

God bless,
jon

[RichardG (Richard Gillett)]

@Burrawang

WHAT SPECIFICALLY HAS GOD ALLOWED TO BECOME ERRANT?

Methinks you have lost your rag.

If you want a list of textual contradictions go here

I am sure you can hermeneutical your way out of most of them.

I have already given you one blatant theological contradiction with the Book of Job, and another with Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 14 1-5. Paul specifically claims that it is alright not to place one day different to the rest which is a blatant contradiction of the Decalogue law 2. (I will give you the answer to that if you ask for it)

If you are going to claim inerrancy you have your work cut out.

Losing your rag does no one any favours it just puts people’s backs up and makes them try harder.

You appear to be testing your own faith which is never a good idea. Asking for something that you claim doesn’t exist, but does, is a train wreck in the making.

I trust your faith can see past your over-confidence.

Richard

[Marshall (Marshall Janzen)]

@St.Roymond

Read the chapters as they are, without assumptions drilled by Sunday School, and it’s evident that in the first chapter Elohim made humans, male and female, then in the second chapter He makes a separate pair.

I take it a bit differently. I agree that it’s evident the creation week and Eden account are two different sources, but I think they’ve been placed together in a way that encourages us to read them together. Not just because Jesus read them together, but because already in Genesis there are many hints we’re supposed to take them together and not sequentially. Whatever their different textual origins, in the canonical form of Genesis there is one adam, one Humanity.

When adam first appears on day six, the variation between not using the definite article and then using it links the name with its meaning: “Let us make Humanity in our image … so God created humanity in his image.” The “male and female” clause speaks of two sexes, not necessarily only two people. (The day six creation of humanity is read as applying to all humanity and not just a first couple by Psalm 8 and Jesus in Mark 10:6.)

Then we get the Eden account which can read as an adam who is only one person. (Technically, one person split in two, of which the male side continues to be called the adam.) Thus far, it would be fair to either read the two accounts together or sequentially. The clincher, I think, comes next.

Genesis 5 begins a new section: “This is the book of the descendants of Humanity.” All six sentences of the first five verses use the word adam. Most translations write adam as “Adam” in places that work as an individual man and use generic words for the others. But this obscures what Genesis is saying through linking all these statements together. It would be like taking the opening of John’s gospel with its repeated statements about the logos and only using the translation “Word” where it just referred to a man. The whole point of John’s prologue is to show that the Word is more than just a man – the Word is God, present from the beginning! And the whole point of the introductory paragraph of Genesis 5 is to show that adam is more than just a man – it is humanity. In both cases, if the word isn’t translated consistently, we’ll miss the point.

I realize this paragraph in Genesis 5 likely combines different sources that meant different things by adam. There may have been earlier stories that spoke of three different adams (generic humanity; the husband of Eve and father of Cain and Abel; the father of Seth), but in Genesis those three are fused as one. Genesis has only one adam who is all humans, male and female and also in a family with Eve, Cain, Abel and Seth.

@Burrawang

Genesis 1 records the order of creation over the six days of creation week; the author, was obviously inspired by God to write down what actually occurred, simply because there was no-one else to witness the creation except God, because man wasn’t created until the sixth day.

The assumption here is that God could only inspire a chronological and historical account. If there was no eyewitness, God would need to convey the necessary information to the author. But what if God didn’t need to do that?

Paul wrote under inspiration, and sometimes he included historical information that he witnessed. For instance, he shared which members of the Corinthian church he baptized. But unfortunately for Paul, even though he decided to write about this, God didn’t give him a perfect memory so he could write a perfect account. Instead, he messes up, realizes it, tries to correct himself, and then realizes he can’t (1 Cor. 1:13–16).

Now, had the Holy Spirit given Paul all the historical details he needed, he would come off looking a bit smoother in that passage. But in that case, we probably wouldn’t have 1 Corinthians 1:17–2:16! That whole passage seems to be a digression Paul takes due to having made a mistake. In chapter 3 he doubles back to talking about divisions, repeating the argument he started in 1:10–12, this time without stepping in it by talking about his baptisms. But the chapter-and-a-half between is all about how his foolishness as a messenger and orator doesn’t undermine the power of the gospel. It’s a beautiful passage, and perhaps one we wouldn’t have if Paul had been given perfect historical recall.

So if the Spirit doesn’t provide the Bible’s authors with perfect recall of events they participated in, how can we assume they will get perfect recall of events nobody witnessed? When someone in the Bible talks about things they didn’t witness, it’s not typically in the form of an eyewitness account. Instead you might get a symbolic vision (like Revelation) or a dream (like Joseph) or a poetic oracle (like many prophets). Since the creation week speaks of events no human could witness, that suggests it should not be read as eyewitness testimony.

And supporting this, the Bible describes how God created the world many times, but only one time (the creation week and its two pointers in Exodus) does it portray that creation happening over six days. Other accounts are still just as emphatic that God creates everything, but don’t confine God’s work to a week (e.g. Job 38–40; Psalm 65; 74:12–17; 104; Proverbs 8:22–31; Isaiah 40–45; John 1:1–14; Colossians 1:15–20). This suggests to me that the week is a literary framework used to organize the material and draw a parallel between God’s work and rest and ours. It doesn’t mean God only made humans on the first Friday any more than Exodus 31:17 means God really gets exhausted and needs to be refreshed.

[Burrawang]

Thanks Richard,
perhaps "I have lost my rag’, I know I’m not perfect and I’m getting on in years, I can only write as I see it and what I truly believe in my heart to be true in accord with my God given conscience.

I’m quite aware of my failings that are many, and I know my Lord and Saviour is of course aware of them too, yet I know He still loves me as He does you and everyone else.

Thus, as I have stated before, we will just have to agree to disagree.
I see no other way forward, do you?

Yes, Romans 14:1-5 is wonderful truth that clearly shows that truth of doing what you truly believe in your heart is what is important to our Loving God.

14 Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not to have quarrels over opinions. 2 One person has faith that he may eat all things, but the one who is weak eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. 4 Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

5 One person values one day over another, another values every day the same. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind.

This text reinforces the truth of the creation being conducted over six normal days as we would count days, and may appear as a ‘contradiction’ to some, but as Jesus showed to the Pharisees and Priests when He healed the man on the Sabbath, it is not the letter of the law but the Spirit of the law God respects.

Exodus 20:8-11
8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 For six days you shall labour and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; on it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male slave or your female slave, or your cattle, or your resident who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and everything that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day; for that reason the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

Thus, it affects no-one else, it is between the one person and God, for the one that truly believes in his heart, it is alright not to observe the Sabbath, there is no condemnation, there is no ‘contradiction’ with the Ten Commandments.
If you search through the scriptures as the sceptic’s do and the secular humanists and other atheists also do in search of ‘contradictions’ in your heart, then you will likely believe you have found them, but I haven’t seen any as yet that I count as valid.

God bless,
jon