Oh come on Jon. Calling something a lie is accusing those who teach it of lying by definition.
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There has been a widespread notion in the mainline denominations that the Bible “contains the word of God”, which is not the same statement as “the Bible is the word of God”. Moreover, some liberal theologians have tended to redefine the revelation - to replace the concept of divine message with the concept of spiritual experience that a human being receives in some borderline existential situation. These people were Christians, but, perhaps, not of the Bible-believing kind. For example, I would never dare question the Christian commitment of Paul Tillich or even of John Shelby Spong; still I can’t classify them as believers that the Bible is the word of God.
So if we don’t know the starting point on how to calculate the first hour of the whole earth Day-1, then we can’t say that “DAY in Genesis 1:1-5 is 24 hours”, right ?
Because, again, we don’t know the starting point from what time until what time in order to reach “24 hours” for the first time.
If for example we know and we declare “the first hour of the whole earth Day-1 is starting at 7 pm at night”, then that’s where we can “reach” the 24 hours.
Just like in current view, we need to have the time first as the starting point to reach “24 hours”.
If say in my country the day begin at 12.01 am, then the next day in my country at 12.01 am has 24 hours elapsed.
But if we don’t what time is the first hour of the whole earth Day-1 occur, then how we can reach into 24 hours ?
But I think you actually know, as I have gave a link from a Bible Believing Christian:
But then again, a claim that “the first hour of the Earth Day-1 started in the evening”:
A. true, if the earth is flat
B. true if the claim is meant for local worldview
C. not true at all if the claim is meant for univeral worldview
Of course it is important for me to know, Jon. Because if I don’t know, then I can’t say “DAY in Genesis 1:1-5 is 24 hours”. I also can’t say : “24 hours has elapsed … now the next creation is in Day-2”. I also can’t say : “6x24 hours has elapsed … now is the first hour of Sabbath day”.
If I don’t have a knowledge “when is the starting point of time”,
then how come I claim “DAY in Genesis 1:1-5 is 24 hours” ???
Thanks.
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I would say that the Hellenistic world has already known such literary type as historical narrative, but the verification procedures of the epoch have considerably differed from the verification procedures of the modern historiography. As for the ancient Middle East where the Old Testament books were written - surely, it was strikingly different even from the Hellenistic civilization; and it is rather obvious that the very idea of what we call “historical narrative” was foreign to the writers and initial audience of Genesis.
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You did not phrase in the post that evolution is a “worldview.” You stated “deceitful lie”, and deceitful lies are told by deceitful liars. That is plainly an accusation, and you have been appropriately called out.
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Are you making reference to Mark 10:6-9? It is not a statement confirming or denying the historicity of Adam and Eve. Here Jesus utilizes the Genesis text to teach that marriage is a bond inherent in humanity from the very beginning of the latter’s existence; and that this covenant between a man and a woman has been devised by God to be indissoluble.
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You need to remember that there are NO REAL literalists out there, else they would be found without their right hand, right foot, and right eye. …from Mark…“If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life crippled or lame than to have two hands and two feet and be thrown into the eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.”
Here is my creation story: > Day one. Created the Heavens and Earth….The Big Bang….the heavens were easy, the Earth took 9 Billion years to create.
Day two. Waters from dry land. Introducing God’s first miracle chemical, water. The solids for most compounds are more dense than the liquids and hence, when they solidify, sink to the bottom of the system. If water did that, the first ice in the fall in Lake Michigan would sink to the bottom, followed by more ice until it was completely frozen. No life would exist. Instead, ice floats, insulates the water below from the cold above, and life in the water goes on.
Day three. Plants. Lots of them. Living, dying and becoming the coal, oil, and gas we use to make life more abundant as noted in John 10:10….life and life abundant. Here the second miracle chemical is introduced, chlorophyll, that amazing molecule that turns water, carbon dioxide and sunlight into useful energy……Think about it….all life and nutrition comes from plants, either directly or from animals who are nourished by plants. The third miracle chemical is carbon dioxide, the vehicle for bring carbon into a lifeless church of rock.
Day four. The moon. Life on a straight-up Earth would be dull, so a big astronomical body collided with the Earth and knocked the Earth off axis to an angle of 23 degrees, giving us our seasons and our moon with a 28-day orbital cycle. And, with that 28-day orbital cycle, providing a timetable for the week, ½ moon phase…. and for the human ovulation cycle. The off-angle provided not only seasons, but warm periods and ice ages. A much more interesting place to live. Is it purely random that the human ovulation cycle is directly connected to the orbital cycle of the moon.
Day five. Animals, finally, after there are lots of plants to eat and a moon to set life cycles. Alas, they were not provided with the gift of fire and warmth. Including that miracle animal as described by the late Dairy Scientist, Dr. Richard Davis, the cow. Skin for clothing, meat for eating, milk for the young, and labor for pulling the plough.
Day six. Finally, after there was abundant fossil fuel, lots of plants to eat, lots of animals to eat and take care of, it was time for human beings.
There are Christians who do want to tell God what he can do and how he can do it and want each of these periods to conform to what is now one 24-hour spin of Earth. As Nils Bohr famously stated….”it is not for us to tell God how to run his universe”. And, Richard Feynman noted…”we just get to watch and see how much we can figure out”.
But that is plainly ridiculous!
Thus you are claiming that because I do not agree with evolution or ‘deep time’:that is is sufficient justification to state:
Well from where I stand, that type of behaviour is being deceitful, and unfortunately appears to be a pattern, just as you invent stories elsewhere, you have made many egregiously false statements that you then build your false accusations upon, such as the following examples:
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There are a couple of observations worth making here.
First of all, young earthism is not “the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history.” It is a cartoon caricature of “the clearly stated reality of Genesis as history” with a thick layer of science fiction slathered on top of it. Genesis 1-11 has a lot of powerful and important things to say to us, but the idea that The Flintstones is a documentary is not one of them.
Secondly, this comment illustrates just how hostile young earth zealots are towards correction. One thing they like to do in particular is to quote mine the voice of the serpent, taking the words “Did God really say…?” out of context to try and shut down any challenges to their dogma. This approach is totally contradicted by other verses of Scripture such as 1 John 4:1:
OR
The nonsense about a flat Earth, which as I have stated is a belief that as far as I am concerned makes no sense whatsoever. The assumptions made that the early authors of the Old Testament were simple unintelligent folk, just doesn’t wash with me and that belief also fails to recognise that those early Biblical authors were inspired by God, thus what they wrote can be accepted as accurate and complete.
My personal thoughts on those Biblical Authors intelligence.
I may be wrong but it is my sincere belief that people when the Bible was written, were far more intelligent and healthy and resourceful and capable than we are today. The concept that they were lacking in knowledge about the Earth is I believe in error. Sure that knowledge may have been lost along the way between then and now, but that doesn’t mean it was never there.
The idea that today we can know what those people understood is in error.
God Bless,
jon
I find it interesting that people are willing to ‘color’ their interpretation of the supernatural actions of God written in Genesis based on what they believe to be God’s character. But they criticize the use of God’s knowledge to translate the original Hebrew into an interpretation that makes sense. There is little doubt that from an ancient human perspective, the literal translation preserves the primitive understanding of the ancient literature. As such, the original Hebrew words and syntax must be unaltered. The epistemic translation and meaning of those words with a modern vocabulary may represent God’s knowledge.
There are a lot of scholars of Hebrew who have no clue about ancient literary types because they only read Hebrew. They are either ignorant of ancient literary types or are imposing their personal preferences on the text or they are being deliberately deceptive in order to be able to keep their jobs.
There’s a strong strain of what is really cultural arrogance that insists that the opening chapters of Genesis have to fit modern literary types.
It isn’t – it only looks that way to people who arrogantly think they don’t have to study to be able to tell what they’re reading. Most of them have never even bothered to ask if ancient people had the same literary types we do.
No, it sounds like story. If “sounds like history” is enough to categorize something as being history, then Dickens’ novels, Tom Clancy’s novels, Mark Twain’s novels, and indeed the vast majority of the fiction written in the last few centuries must be classed as history. Ever read Around the World in Eighty Days by Verne? It reads like history. How about Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck? It reads like history.
Most story is written deliberately to sound like history, so “sounds like history” is useless as a measure of what kind of literature something is.
That’s reading into the text something that isn’t there. The most that can be said is that Jesus regarded the writings of the Tanakh as authoritative.
Stop asking the same question over and over – it’s a way of being deceptive, which violates a rather important one of the Ten Words in the Pentateuch.
Those translations do not have “the text in Genesis written as a real historical event” – that’s not possible to do in a translation because translation can’t tell you literary type.
Since you fall into the category of people who think they can understand ancient writings without having to learn anything about ancient writings, then what is “clear” to you is meaningless…
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Among other questions that have also been asked repeatedly yet get studiously get ignored!
Toss in accusing me of lying when I related how in geology lab we dated a number of rocks using established laboratory methods.
At the very least it is accusing every scientist who has published anything at all about evolution of lying: if something is a lie, and someone publishes supporting that thing, then that someone is lying.
You’re engaging in deception no different than someone asserting that all Democrats in the U.S. Congress are communists but then claiming to have never accused any Democrats of being communists. You may be able to justify this by playing word games, but it is evident to most people that you’re just engaging in sophistry.
And as you’ve already noted, for the day = 24 hours to work, the entire Earth would have to be all lit by light at the same time and all be dark at the same time.
I’ll toss in a reminder that while the days are sequential, they are not presented as successive because it’s “A first day”, “another day”, “a third day”, etc. for days one through five.
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What a strange question. Read the old testament books of isaiah, jeremiah, daniel is a classic rebuttal…i could list every major and minor prophet in the bible here…please dont play dumb!
Even as late as Tacitus it can be accurately said that Roman ‘historians’ were writing what we would call propaganda, not history; this included inventing miracles the person being written about had supposedly done as a child, thus revealing the greatness to come (Gnostic tales of Jesus making clay birds and bringing them to life, along with other fanciful stories, fall into this category). The only focus on accuracy of events was on things that had been witnessed by multiple individuals deemed reliable.
Trivia: I once read an article arguing for the reality of Christ’s miracles during His adult ministry on the basis that invented miracles in Greek and Roman biography were nearly always set in childhood. In keeping with this the writer asserted that the “boy in the Temple” account of Jesus was invented as a way of indicating that He would end up being a great teacher.
Definitely. Almost all narrative back then was theological in nature. Just as an example, when the Akkadians give reigns for kings lasting tens of thousands of years, they all knew that wasn’t literal, it was theological propaganda. The entire Gilgamesh cycle – and others – were theological propaganda in story form.
Though it should be noted that this didn’t mean there was nothing historical involved; mythologized history was common. The Tower of Babel story is a superb example because the details of a massive tower (ziggurat), that didn’t get finished, and the work force gave up and left due to different languages, and the city was abandoned are all actual events; what the Genesis writer did was use those to make a theological point or two.
Final note: we fail to grasp what it meant to be an oral culture. Stories were told in recognized forms that indicated what they purpose of the story was. Both the ‘royal chronicle’ genre and the temple inauguration one were recognizable to audiences by cues in the story structure, clues we totally miss because we don’t have those categories. Sometimes the important clue as to what type of story was being told was saved till the end (John Walton does a great job of showing how that worked with the first Genesis Creation account as temple inauguration), and we miss that, too, because since we can go back and read we don’t work at holding the entire story in our mind right through to the finish. Holding the key clue till the end was actually a way to keep audience interest; until it was revealed the story could mean a number of different things, but once that key was provided the listener would be suspending judgment (poor word, actually, but I can’t think of a better one at them moment) until that resolution came and brought the reaction, “Ah! That’s what this was about!” followed by all the details falling into their proper places.
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No, he is saying that calling something a lie is an accusation of lying against those who tell that lie. It has nothing to do with agreeing with someone.
You mean the examples where you have been accurately called out on things? When you started the very post with a falsehood?
The not-quite-a-dozen examples that are completely accurate?
More science fiction.
If that is true, then there is no way at all to have the slightest idea what the opening chapters of Genesis were intended to mean.
Creationists discredit your claims not be cause they are lies, but because you refuse to read what scripture tells us quite plainly. You cite that we cannot interprete the bible because it isnt written for modern man to understand…and yet note what the Bible tells us about the ten commandments (the 4th commandment - the Sabbath completely demolishes your claims because its very easy to understand in any time period and language):
Exodus 24
12Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and stay here, so that I may give you the tablets of stone, with the law and commandments I have written for their instruction.”
Deuteronomy 9: 9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the LORD made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights. I ate no bread and drank no water.
10Then the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, inscribed by the finger of God with the exact words that the LORD spoke to you out of the fire on the mountain on the day of the assembly. 11And at the end of forty days and forty nights, the LORD gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant.
Note Exodus 20 verse 8-11 where “the finger of God” (Deuteronomy 9:10) wrote…
8Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God, on which you must not do any work—neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant or livestock, nor the foreigner within your gates. 11For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, but on the seventh day He rested. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart as holy.
outside of the 1st chapter of Genesis, when the word Yom is used and associated with a number corresponding with day/s…in the 400 or so times where this occurs, it means a specific day or number of days
So why would we then isolate Genesis chapter 1 and claim it doesnt mean specific days given the above evidences?
Jon, the precise words that you used in “not agreeing with evolution” were “deceitful lie”.
It may be possible to reject evolution without accusing those who teach it of lying, but it is not possible to describe evolution as a “deceitful lie” without accusing those who teach it of lying.
Seriously Jon. This is English Language 101. It’s FizzBuzz territory. It’s the kind of thing that you learn in primary school. If you don’t understand that, then either you need to take remedial English classes, or you’re approaching these discussions in bad faith, or you’re a parrot. Whichever way, it’s obvious to me that continuing this discussion any further is just wasting my time and everybody else’s.
If you mean that it points to their worldview (flat earth, etc), sure. But a literal translation can’t tell us what kind of literature an account was intended to be; for that we need to investigate ancient literary types and see which one(s) an account matches.
Then reading it as literal inside the account, for understanding the account’s lesson/message, is proper, but carrying those details outside the account to stand on their own fails to understand ancient literature.
From examples I’ve seen it’s more likely to toss the actual meaning and insert what someone wants it to say.
It’s not strange at all: your claim was that “Gods revelation to us . . . was largely given via verbal and visionary methods”. The problem is that for most of the ancient text we aren’t given any indication of how it came to be, so we can’t make any assertions about those portions, we must presume that they are human literature written in human fashion by those humans the Spirit chose for the work, and that they wrote using the language, literary types, and worldview they had.
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That has nothing to do with what I wrote: I was in fact accused of lying when I related how in geology lab we dated a number of rocks using established laboratory methods.
False – and you know it.
It wasn’t – it was written for the original audiences in their language, using their literary types, with their worldview. To say otherwise insults both the ancient audience – who are part of God’s people – as well as the Holy Spirit Whose intent it was to communicate clearly to those people.
Only to someone who thinks that if there’s one pink flower in a bouquet then all the flowers must be pink, or that because one clock is correct then all clocks must be correct.
That’s actually a myth invented to support the false view of Genesis 1 that pretends it is modern literature.
Because we aren’t stupid enough to think that the entire Torah was written as the same type of literature – because we should be humble enough to let the text be what it is, what it was written to be, instead of insisting that we are so superior that we don’t need to actually study in order to understand.
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Or a combination thereof.