It could have literally stood still, à la my massive superior mirage scenario. Is the Red Sea parting a “linguistic expression” too?
That’s absolute. “You weren’t there.” 
Maybe someone already said much the same thing, but…
We can never (in this life) “know” it is inspired. But we can believe it is inspired, with, in my opinion, the necessary and sufficient cause being the supernatural intervention by the Holy Spirit.
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Also by that reasoning, God is not knowable in this life. He is.
Maybe. But I would say that I do not know God exists or know his attributes, but rather I believe that God exists and I believe that what I have gleaned from scripture and creation about his promises and attributes is true. I don’t think that makes God unknowable, but we can agree to disagree.
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We cannot ‘know’ scientifically of course, but we are speaking about epistemology.
When I was a child, I freely accepted the testimony that Japan existed. I was given it from trusted sources – my parents, teachers, pictures, books, maps and globes. I was a “believer” in the existence of Japan, or maybe more accurately a “believist”, a “Japanist”, making a somewhat esoteric and technical distinction. Now that I have been there and have seen it firsthand, I am not going to deny its existence, and I am a “believer” – a “Japaner”.
A Christian believer, then, being someone who has had something irrefutable happen in their life experience and which they will never deny as being legitimate evidence. That evidence can be as personal and intimate as a recognition of a change in heart and a change in their heart’s desires, or it can be events that can be documented. Either can certainly be denied as being evidence by others, as flat earthers deny any and all evidence that the earth is spherical, but denial does not constitute proof of the contrary fact. There are many who count themselves as believers, or say that they used to be believers, when in fact they are now or used to be merely “believists”.
I’ll have to set aside some time in the future to dig more into it. I’ve tip toed into it a few times and everything I’ve ever read, has always pointed towards this belief.
The majority of the world, including the ancient Jews, believed in a flat world. Multiple texts from multiple sources all show this belief. Throughout history though, even ancient history, in and off different people and groups believed in a spherical earth. But that seems like it was more of the exception.
It seems like the prevailing thought of ancient nations, besides China, believed in a flat circled world with water, and usually a water monster, ringing around the land. In Asia it seems they believed in a flat square world and a circular heaven. Seems that depending on if it was a Jewish or gentile Christian, they also believed in a flat or spherical world.
Maybe in mid winter this year I can set aside a month or two to dig more into it by continent and established nations.
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David, I totally agree with you that in this life we can’t "know’, but we can know of data that supports the concept of inspiration–like how in the heck did a description of the eastern med of 5.5 myr ago get into the Bible describing a place where the only known geologic flood on earth that matches Noah’s flood? That isn’t proof of inspiration, it is support for it.
Looking at Dale’s reply to you, I must confess, that as my time on earth has grown short, God has been very good to show me things about nature and this end of Genesis that I never thought I would see and it makes be more certain of his existence and plan than I have ever been in my life. It isn’t logical/ objective truth but it sure does a good job of supporting his existence.
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David, I think I can know that the Bible in its entirety is historically true. I certainly interpret it quite differently from the two widely believed group-thinks–YEC and Accommodation. The fact that I have found a path, an intellectual path by which the early Bible (where I spent my life puzzling) can be historically true, certainly makes me beleive the rest of the story is true in a way that just believing what my mamma told me doesn’t do.
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Yeah, sadly life gets in the way of doing research. lol. But be skeptical of what ‘everyone’ beleives. consensus is often nothing more than groupthink. I doubt anyone would charge me with engaging in group think because I have no group!
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Mind if I just list the problems with this version.
You want to make the contribution of a spring, which is divided into 4 parts, into the head waters of 4 rivers. The contribution is going to be so small that to call it the head of a river makes no sense. By your own data the rivers were carrying a lot of sediment and the flow would be greater than a spring.
What is the source for an artesian spring? The source would need to be higher than Eden.
You added the green lines based on your belief the Bible is true. What actual data supports this? Are you not doing the same thing the YEC folk do? It certainly looks like confirmation bias to me.
It isn’t hard to pick and choose some data points and say they match what is admittedly a vague description. Other than your commitment to your theory why should we accept that you are correct?
That is originally what the 4 arrows were for.
No, As I said, I contend that the verse doesn’t mean ‘head waters’ but that it means cheif waters. Under that assumption I am ok. Please at least criticize it from within my set of assumptions which I did lay out. If you don’t chose to accept those assumptions ok, but you shouldn’t list objections based upon what you would assume rather than what IS assumed by the other guy.
You added the green lines based on your belief the Bible is true. What actual data supports this? Are you not doing the same thing the YEC folk do? It certainly looks like confirmation bias to me.
This is a scenario which is consistent with the known facts. This site is now buried under about 5000 fet of seidment and sevral thousand feed of water. Thus, there is no data to support the green as it is. But you know something? When I started this back in the 1990s, I proposed this area as where Eden was and there was zero evidence for it. Now, there is both biblical and geologic support for the four rivers mentioned to have been together. As my quote of Munday’s paper shows everyone thought there is not the slightest possibility that Eden could exist given that 2 rivers emptied into the Persian Gulf, and two into the Med. Now it is clear that the rivers did join up. I think that is incredible progress. You might not because you seem to think that geologic science delivers definitive answers NOW on EVERYTHING. Science doesn’t work that way. it is incremental and I am happy with the increments God has shown me. I really didn’t think I would see this much information on this idea.
So why did I suggest this in my book and my article of 1997? Because Christianity has gotten stuck in an either or situation, YEC, biblical historicity and no evolution or OEC, nonbiblical historicity and evolution. I view both as failures to actually explain anything. One dosn’t explain anything by saying it didn’t happen. and that is what Christian scholarship has done. And YECs don’t explain things by making up a fantasy science. My view is OEC, biblical historicity and evolution. At least I am trying something new and novel. Surely someone should explore other options rather than sitting on our hands with the status quo! Sitting gets us nowhere (both figuratively and literally).
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@Christy. The events in Joshua 10 were probably written about 700 years after they were set. Why wouldn’t they be mythic? It’s therefore forced and untrue to the text to rationalize it as figurative to paradoxically try and make it more real.
You said.
You need to back up a couple of words. According to my interlinear the literal translation is “it parted and became four chief rivers” and this seems to be the way most English translations are done.
Again with the false dichotomy.
How about OEC, Biblical Historicity with known limits and evolution.
And I have looked at the words, in that and have come to a different conclusion. See this is the problem we have in theology. No one seems to try to understand the system of the other guy. Philosophy also had that problem and it was one reason I left it.
Bill, logically if your assumptions were the governing rules of he universe, then everyone would draw the same logical conclusion as you. The same goes for mine. I learned in logic class years ago that if an outcome leads to an absurd situation, then examine the assumptions and change one if you can. That is what I did. Your interlinear is someone’s interpretation of what the hebrew words mean in English. Others are free to interpret them differently so long as they don’t say a horse means an alligator.
In my opinion, if a biblical interpretation based upon word choice leads to the Bible being objectively false, then I think we are obligated to at least look to see if another interpetation is posible. I mentioned the numbers in Numbers. If the classical interpreation of the number system is used, then we have more Hebrews than could have lived at that time, especially lived off the resources in the Sinai. Some decided that the word ‘aleph’ which is used as 1000 in hebrew numbers didn’t mean 1000 there but meant clan chieftain. Doing that, the numbers of hebrews became reasonable and were not of the scale of locusts in Africa. That change of interpretation is a good thing.
You might not like or agree with my view on what head should be translated. I do, however, have a perfect right to think something different than your interlinear or even, you do. You have a perfect right to say I am wrong. What you don’t have is the right to say I must accept your interlinear as more infallible a source of knowledge than the Bible itself.
Tell me where history in Scripture starts in your opinion. Genesis 10? Gen 12? Joshua?. Also, who decides ‘the known’ limits? You? Your interlinear? If so, why am I bound to your limits, which would deny me freedom to do anything differently.
As to where historicity starts, I mean you can trust the stories to be historically accurately told. Where is that point? Also I would hope that you have a better defined criteria for historicity other than ‘it feels ok’.
As to a false dichotomy? no, not this time. If you say anything that is false has been ‘accommodated’ by God, then you are on the nonbiblical historicity and evolution branch. Why because you have said one thing is nonhistorical.It is kinda like one can’t be pregnant with known limits.
Edited to add: Here is what The Wordbook of the OT says about ro’sh
head; top, summit, upper part, chief, total, sum
"The primary meaning of this root is “head.” It is common to all Semitic languages and appears in its root forms and derivatives nearly 750 times. It is used for the “head” as part of the body (Gen 3:15) and by extension for the notion of “chief” of a family (Ex 6:14), as “chief officer” of the divisions of Israel (Ex 18:25) and the like"
White, W. (1999). 2097 רֹאשׁ. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 825). Chicago: Moody Press.
I call your interlinear and raise you a TWOT! 
And I quite agree. Where we part, if you pardon the pun, is Genesis says the stream from Eden parted and become the head of four rivers. From what I read there is significance in this spring being the headwater of the four rivers. Could you please explain how a spring that flows into a river could be said to become the head of the river?
Sigh, it doesn’t say 'become the head of the river" I keep pointing that out. If that is what you want to believe, fantastic. go for it. What it says in the AsV is:
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads
As I have pointed out I think it means 'became four chiefs. or four biggie rivers, or four main’s, To do what you want it to say is to make it a fable. If that is what you want, go for it.
Here is why I have spent my life, for better or worse on this part of the Bible. Early in my christian life, long before my doubting phase, I became convinced that H. G. Well’s atheistic attack on Christianity, via evolution, was logically sound. He said:
"If all the animals and man have been evolved in this ascendant manner, then there would have been no first parents, no Eden, and no Fall. And if there had been no Fall, the entire historical fabric of Christianity, the story of the first sin and the reason for an atonement, upon which current teaching bases Christian emotion and morality, collapses like a house of cards." H. G. Wells, The Outline of History, (Garden City: Doubleday, 1961), p. 776-777
I think that is absolutely correct. Not the evolution part bu the story of the first sin which is the reason for the atonement. Few here agree with H. G. Wells, but in my opinion they fall into the trap that Huxley, another virulent anti-christian says about Christian ‘flexibility’ with the Hebrew language. He applied it to Gen. 1, but it is equally applicable to the story of the Fall.
“If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis–as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake–is not the meaning of the text at all. The account is divided into periods that we may make just as long or as short as convenience requires. We are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the most complex plants and animals may have been evolved by natural processes, lasting for millions of years, out of structureless rudiments. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” Thomas H. Huxley, “Lectures on Evolution” in Agnosticism and Christianity, Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1992), p. 14
If I were to re-write Huxley for Gen 2, I would say
“If we are to listen to many expositors of no mean authority, we must believe that what seems so clearly defined in Genesis–as if very great pains had been taken that there should be no possibility of mistake–is not the meaning of the text at all. The account speaks of a non-existent Eden, rivers which can’t ever be near each other, and the creation of Eve from a rib… We are also to understand that it is consistent with the original text to believe that the story might be about the change from hunting to farming, or just some unspecified even which t at some unspecified time happened to a population, not a pair, that we might say constitutes moral responsibility. A person who is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations.” Apologies to Huxley but I think he would approve.
Until a week ago, no one could conceive of those rivers ever being in contact, at least in theological circles. Now that we have the rivers actually interacting on a real earth, you and I Bill seem to be debating nothing more important than how to arrange the river channels. This is like rearranging fleas on a dog. There are bigger issues–like did Eden actually exist?
As I have said, Scripture names 4 rivers for Eden. All of them were in near contact on the Med. basin floor–that is geologic fact. The Med basin also just so happens to be the only locale where a real, historical flood happened, that fits the description of Noah’s flood–lasted a year, covered high mountains and was capable of landing an object on the Mountains of Ararat. But none of that interests you other than how to pick at it.
The time of the flood also is consistent with the curses which are both due to Adam and Eve getting a bigger head size. As I have said over and over there is no reason to give those curses when they already had those problems. What kind of punishment is that?
So Bill, just ignore this idea. I really don’t care. As a geoscientist it is the only set of facts that have any chance in, well, you know what, of making the biblical stories actually TRUE. If that is of no interest to you, then use your ‘known limits’ to dismiss my view and wander on. One more rejection won’t be a big deal.
I will finish with this. Don’t lose sight of how big our God is. Abram believed the stupidest thing–that he and his 65 year old postmenopausal wife would have children. That is a silly thing to believe. Everyone knows that is impossible. Yet “Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness” Gen 15:6. And before he had a single kid, Abram changed his name to 'Father of many Nations–what a joke, a childless old man and barren wife claiming to be father of many nations–Abraham. And the night God made the covenant, an equally idiotic thing was said to have happened–"When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces v. 17
Our ‘known limits’ surely will reject a self propelled firepot with a torch sidekick. But if that Covenant didn’t happen, just about everything else falls apart except for a nice philosophy…
I will soon meet my Maker. Hopefully I have another year. Even if I am totally wrong and off base, I will meet him and be able to say, “I believed what you said” rather than saying, “I thought what you said was nonsense because my interlinear told me so.”
There is a difference between saying “don’t take that story literally” and “don’t take that expression literally.” I’m saying using the verb stand still with sun is a figure of speech. Identifying figurative language in a narrative tells you absolutely nothing about whether the narrative describes factual events (i.e. a historical battle) or is a fictional account. You can use figures of speech to describe either. Identifying an idiom is just linguistic analysis. It makes zero commentary on the “reality” of the events described by the idiom. So that last sentence of yours is not what is going on at all.
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You said originally.
Note you said the spring flows into the main rivers. This is the normal understanding people have of rivers and springs.
When a creek flows into a river it doesn’t “become a river”. The river existed before the creek. It joins the river. The reason I keep harping on this is everyone knows the headwaters of a river are small streams. Even the Hebrews would know this. As the streams join together at some point they “become” a river. After this point the river is a river until it flows into a lake or the ocean. You want to throw out the normal meaning of Genesis to get it to fit your theory. You do this with almost everything in your theory.
And the fact that the spring from Eden became the headwaters of the four great rivers is not important for defining the geology of the region. But you seem to be blind to this.
Sigh, Bill, you and I will disagree on ‘head waters’ show me the word waters in that verse! You can’t! It says ‘head’ and we are left to interpret the meaning of that word. . Headwaters is your interpretation. And you are entitled to it. Bit I am entitled to my differing interpretation. I won’t debate assumptions unless thee is data to support it and your interlinear aint it.
Do I not have freedom in your world view?