Absolutely agree. People need to point to where the account becomes historical. Is it at Seth, is it at the Flood? Is it at Abraham? The account is written such that it appears to be written as history.
of your other post, I believe that early genesis is divinely inspired because I don’t believe oral tradition could be handed down as long as I have it, or even as long as Jay has the image bearing man alive.
I believe it was both.
If Moses wrote Exodus, then when he met God in that fiery blackberry bush God said he was the god of Moses’s father.
Exodus 3:6 New American Standard Bible (NASB)
6 He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
To me that implies that Moses was given some kind of oral and or written history that was not included in the Bible. At least a few hundred years went by between Abraham and Moses and surely they had a way to pass down down information until it was wrote by Moses.
It would make sense that Moses drew on those biblical histories along with inspiration.
I would agree with you that the history back to Abraham and maybe Nahor was oral tradition. Since no human was at creation, that had to be a God given story.
I wonder if accommodationists believe in pre-incarnate appearances of Christ. I doubt it.
I don’t see any reason to believe that the angel of the lord was Jesus.
The Bible says that the word became flesh and that through the word, through Jesus, all things were created. Life and the universe was created through God speaking it into existence. His words.
The words became flesh and the word was God and was with God. Jesus, the man born to marry was a human. He faced everything as a human. God emptied himself into a man in a humble form. That man was Jesus.
But the personality of that man, his likes and dislikes created by his human existence did not exist before hand. The word existed before, not Jesus.
Many people want the angel of the lord to be Jesus and I personally don’t see that in scripture. The angel of the lord is a separate being.
Why? . . . . .
Accommodationalism says God isn’t smart enough to tell a simple but true story of Creation that Neolithics could understand and we would also feel is true. Is our God that small? Third, if God is telling falsehoods, it shatters His credibility, like a perjuror’s credibility is ruined. From bob’s blog
The problem that I have with your position is that you agree with YEC that the Gen 1 must we perfectly true or God is a liar. This means in effect that the Bible must be the Word of God, not Jesus the Word of God.
People did write the Bible, which people must be able to put this story into words. The has to use the science of their day such as a solid firmament, because that was the only way they understood the sky. Furthermore, they needed integrate the stories of the Adam and Noah into the earliest history of humankind, even though there are some mythical ideas in those stories.
The story of evolution is in no way simple. It is a long complex story of change as God prepared the earth to be the home for humans and the bodies, minds, and spirits of hominids to be homo sapiens. A) There is no way that this story could be simplified to be understood and still be true. B) Scientists still do not really understand how evolution works because they resist the dominant role of ecology in this process. C) God has given humans the role of discovering science, while God has the role to revealing Godself to us.
God did reveal to humanity the Beginning in Gen.1:1. I think I agree with you here, but it is not really God’s problem that people like YEC and non-believers want to make the Beginning over to suit themselves.
Well, if the creation story which has God saying many things, is merely a human invention, then the question naturally arises “Are other places in the Bible where God says things, equally a human invention?”. That is why.
[quote=“Relates, post:27, topic:42368”]
The problem that I have with your position is that you agree with YEC that the Gen 1 must we perfectly true or God is a liar. This means in effect that the Bible must be the Word of God, not Jesus the Word of God.
Well, if YECs were the standard of truth I might agree with you, but the standard of truth here is what the Bible says about God and his inability to lie. It seems to me that the Bible, not the YECs makes an abundant case that God can’t lie. Not telling the truth is what lying is, and if accommodation is correct then God failed to tell the truth to the Hebrews. I can’t see it any other way Here is what the Bible says about not telling the truth:
Numbers 23:19 God is not a man, that he should lie
Psalm 119:163 I hate and abhor lying:
Proverbs 12:22 Lying lips are an abomination to the LORD:
Ananias and Sapphira
Acts 5:4-5: While it remained, did it not remain thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thy power? How is it that thou hast conceived this thing in thy heart? thou has not lied unto men, but unto God. 5And Ananias hearing these words fell down and gave up the ghost
If God slew this pair for lying, then can we really excuse God for telling a fib about what happened at creation? Is God to be called a hypocrite: Claiming he can’t lie and killing liars all the while he lies about creation? God would owe an apology to this pair.
Hebrews 6:18… it is impossible for God to lie
Titus 1:2 : In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
So, when people tell me that god ‘accommodated’ or ‘adjusted the truth’ for the early Hebrews, I think of the verses above. Either those verses are false, or Genesis has more to tell us than accommodationalists believe.
People did write the Bible, which people must be able to put this story into words. The has to use the science of their day such as a solid firmament, because that was the only way they understood the sky. Furthermore, they needed integrate the stories of the Adam and Noah into the earliest history of humankind, even though there are some mythical ideas in those stories.
If these stories are human-made myths then they are no better than the myths of the Greeks and Romans. At least I can’t see any reason to grant Hebrew myths a higher status than those of the Norse, Greeks or Romans. That being the case, we should cut out Genesis 1-11 from our Bibles because in such a case, they would not be divinely inspired.
The story of evolution is in no way simple. It is a long complex story of change as God prepared the earth to be the home for humans and the bodies, minds, and spirits of hominids to be homo sapiens. A) There is no way that this story could be simplified to be understood and still be true. B) Scientists still do not really understand how evolution works because they resist the dominant role of ecology in this process. C) God has given humans the role of discovering science, while God has the role to revealing Godself to us.
Good grief, the lack of creativity in thinking what God could have said about evolution that would have been absolutely true but not complete amazes me among the accommodationalists. God could have said
“out of the mud came life”
“out of the slime came life”
He did say, "Let the Earth bring forth living creatures which I do believe indicates mediated creation, i.e. God used evolution.
And in Genesis 2 with Adam, God did say he took the earth and created the man. It doesn’t say how, but in a nutshell, that is how we came to be within the evolutionary view–life arose from water and earth and ended up as us.
God did reveal to humanity the Beginning in Gen.1:1. I think I agree with you here, but it is not really God’s problem that people like YEC and non-believers want to make the Beginning over to suit
This is what I don’t like. We claim Genesis 1:1 is history and then deny history to the rest of the account because we won’t consider any alternatives to accommodationalism or YECism. We Christians seem to be stuck in a groove we can’t escape, seeing only 2 alternatives both of which have serious theological and scientific problems. What I offer is a way out of that.
Note about the the change in title of this thread: I want to say that yall only have maybe a year at most to put up with me. In January two oncologists independently told me I have only 6 months to live. So I must say I was quite proud when a moderator decided to mock me with the original title of this thread (it was admitted to me and I have a screen shot of the message, but I appreciate the change in title over night) . Over night the moderator changed it to what it is now. I will wear that attempt to isolate and stifle my views proudly as I am worthy of this even in the last few months of my life.
My views are different but they neither violate science, geologic history nor the Scripture. I have even run my ideas past some viscious anti-yec atheists to see what they would say. What they said was, they didn’t believe what I wrote but I didn’t violate scientific data. My views make the Scripture be historically accurate, something neither accommodationalism nor YEC do. . It is just that people are stuck in one of two failed opinions of how to deal with Genesis. Since this thread is about Genesis 1-11, I am going to post something on Genesis 6-9 and do what the new title says, explain how to make Genesis 6-9 real history.
God numbers our days, and only He knows the number of them. I pray that He might work a wonder for your health, for His glory and your encouragement, and the building up of your faith. May the God of all peace be with you, brother. My heart hurts for you, but I know, as you know, that something better awaits you. Should He choose not to intervene, in whatever manner that may take, you shall soon gaze upon His beautiful face.
Thinks like the Heresy of Peor?
Problems with the idea that Noah’s flood was in the Mesopotamian basin
1. The details of a Mesopotamian Flood do not fit the Scriptural account. Consider the following story historical story: A ship was sent to a foreign city to protect American citizens during a local revolution designed to overthrow a colonial government. While in the harbor, saboteurs, under the direction of the colonial government, planted two bombs on the ship which exploded, sinking the ship and taking the lives of many of the sailors. Obviously since the colonial government had knowledge of this dastardly deed, the Americans were incensed at this outrage and went to war. The war was the Spanish-American War. Slogans like, “Remember the Maine, to Hell with Spain” reverberated around the land.
The above story is a brief outline of our entry into that war. The problem comes in that the initial account of how the Maine was sunk, is not true. That is, it does not concord with what actually happened. The boiler on the Maine, exploded with no help from saboteurs. The resulting fire then ignited the ammunition aboard the ship. The same event, two explanations. Only one of them can be true and one must be false.
In order for an account to be true, the story must concord to the actual events. The facts in the account, must match the facts of history. The story which tells the false set of facts (saboteurs, Spanish government knowledge of the event, etc) does not match what actually happened and so can be dismissed.
What does this say about the nature of the Flood account? A story about a man who built an Ark, gathered animals on it, spent a year on the boat, and landed on a mountain, can only be true IF the facts of the account actually match the facts of history. There must have been a man who built an Ark, gathered animals on it, spent a year on the boat, and landed on a mountain. If there wasn’t, then like the story of the Maine, the Flood account is untrue.
Here are the facts which ought to be true if an explanation of the Flood account is to have any ability to make it true.
Eight people on the Ark
Animals on the Ark
Flood lasted for 1 year
Ark landed in the Ararat region on a mountain
Can the Mesopotamian Flood account for these facts? It can account for 8 people on the Ark and animals on the Ark. But it can not explain how the Flood could last for an entire year nor can it account for where the Ark landed at the same time.
Water in a riverine flood travels at a speed of 3-5 miles per hour, and occasionally faster. Since the slope of the Mesopotamian basin is towards the south, the water will flow south, carrying the Ark with it. At a slow speed of 3 miles per hour, the Ark could float from the Turkish boarder with Iraq to the Persian Gulf in about 200 hours. This is only 8 days. The Mesopotamian flood cannot concord with the account because the Ark would be forced towards the Persian Gulf which lies at sea level in the opposite direction from the Ararat region. Once the Ark is in the Indian Ocean, how is it to be transferred to the Ararat region, much less be lifted to land on the mountain?
If the Mesopotamian Flood actually solved the problem, the account would say that the Ark landed on a beach in Arabia.
2. The problem of getting the Ark to the Ararat Region. If one wants to have the flood occur in the Mesopotamian basin, picking up the ark and dropping it in Turkey, must believe that water runs uphill. The elevation profile from the Persian Gulf to Mt. Ararat is(Miles on the x axis Feet on the y-axis):
Miles from Persian Gulf Gulf
The east west elevation profile is:
If you go look at the 2000 ft line on the North South cross section you will see how far from the Mountains of Ararat the Ark would have to land because the water can’t get any deeper than 2000 ft.
But was there ever a flood in that valley which was ever that deep. The answer is no. Floods leave sedimentary evidence of themselves and since the Flood is widely believed to be a Holocene (<12000 years ago) event, then I took the Holocene fluvial deposits from a geologic map of Iraq and they are all to be found within a couple of miles of the river channel, which means no Holocene flood matches what people say about the Mesopotamian flood. There was NO widespread flooding in the Tigris-Euphrates valley within the past 12,000 years.
The whole problem with the Mesopotamian Flood concept is that the water required to pick the ark up and place it on the lower levels of any mountain in the Ararat region, is far above that which can be contained by the natural basin. In the east west direction, if the water level rises above 2000 feet it will spill over into the Mediterranean. The water level in the Tigris/Euphrates valley can get no higher than 2000 feet on the west. In other words, the entire world must be filled with water up to a 9500 foot level in order for the Ark to be placed on Ararat.
However the real problem lies to the south. There is nothing to the south which can hold the water and allow it to rise above sea level. The Tigris/Euphrates valley is a half-bowl. A great illustration of the problem would be to cut a breakfast cereal bowl in half and try to fill half the bowl with water. Obviously you can pour water into the half-bowl from now to the end of the universe and the half bowl will never fill up.
Because of reasons like this, those who blithely claim that Noah’s flood was in the Mesopotamian basin have not thought through the details of the flood outlined above. Like the YECs they cling to a false narrative to make the account true. But that false narrative matches none of the details of the description of the flood found in the Bible. So, as with Genesis 1, the Mesopotamian flood advocate changes what the words mean in the account and settle for any old flood as the source of the story.
In response to this problem, I have had some Mesopotamian Flood advocates suggest that the entire basin tilted to the north, sinking Turkey beneath the sea and then it re-rose to its present elevation. This would leave evidence of itself in the form of marine sediments covering Turkey, yet except along river valleys, Turkey is covered by sediments which are Miocene and older. Miocene and older sediments are prior to the advent of man on earth.
3. Lack of sediment from a widespread Mesopotamian Flood. A syllogism can be constructed.
All floods leave sediments covering what they flooded.
Noah’s Deluge was a flood.
Therefore Noah’s deluge must have left sediment.
From this one can go further,
All uneroded flood sediments can be detected by geology.
To completely erode flood sediments takes more than 20,000 years.
There are no widespread sediments dating from less than 20,000 years ago.
In support of the above syllogisms, people claim that the flood sediments are very thin and easily eroded. But this ignores the fact due to the way sediments deposit thicker layers in the topographic lows, a widespread flood could only deposit thin layers on the edges of the actual flooded zone. Along the river and for some extent away from the river (above the usual floodplain) one should see flood sediments thickening towards the river channel. But, the problem is that the riverine sediments don’t even leave the normal river flood plain. And that means that no extraordinary flood ever occurred.
Normal flood sediments lying within the normal flood plain have been preserved so it is not at all reasonable for people to say that there is no way that flood sediment could be preserved that long.
In northern Iraq the surficial sediments are Miocene in age. Except along the rivers themselves, the surficial rocks of northern Iraq are Miocene in age, much older than any proposed flood. (see M. H. Metwalli et al, Petroleum Bearing Formations in Syria and Iraq, AAPG Bulletin, Sept 1974, see cross section on page 1791.) If there was a flood in the Holocene, there should be some Holocene rocks away from the river valleys still left.
There is no evidence of a former high water level in the Mesopotamian basin. As one drives into Salt Lake City from the north along I15 one can see along the mountains on the east a set of perfectly horizontal ledges which extend for mile after mile. these “ledges” mark the former water level for the glacial Lake Bonneville. The waves on the water eroded the land at the beach. These features lasted for a 15,000 years. There is no reported evidence of raised beaches along the edges of the Mesopotamian valley. If it had ever been flooded, there would be some evidence of this.
Some have suggested that the Flood sediment has been eroded away. But this would not be reasonable. Large floods left evidence in the geologic record for far longer than 6000 years was already known, like the Lake Missoula Floods which have left sediment for over 15,000 years… The Lake Missoula Flood deposits had been scientifically described as a flood deposit since 1923 (see J.H. Bretz 1923 "The Channeled Scablands of the Columbia Plateau Journal of Geology 31:617-649 and Glacial drainage on the Columbia Plateau Geological Soc. Amer. Bull. 34: 573-608.) I would agree that it took a while for Bretz’s view to be accepted but it should have served as a warning. Besides that, the flood deposit at Ur itself had lasted many thousands of years so to say that a flood deposit couldn’t be preserved violated what he must have known about Mesopotamian events.
4. Continuous civilization in the region from 4000 B.C. on. The Software Toolworks Multimedia Encyclopedia states that Ur was inhabited from the 5th millennium BC (at least 4000 B.C) until 400 B.C. The city existed uninterrupted over that period (even the famous flood layer at Ur did not cover the entire town). It is difficult to see how there could have been a flood of such a magnitude that would get special note, last a year etc. Ur was along the river bank right at the ocean’s shore 6000 years ago. If there had been a great flood during that period, it would have wipe Ur out. Remember that their bricks were not that hard and a good soaking with water could destroy the structural integrity of the city. Thus any flood had to have been prior to 4000 BC. But because of the geologic evidence, there is little evidence for a Flood earlier.
As I said above, the wide spread view by modern people, that the flood was a Mesopotamian event does not pass even the briefest geological scrutiny. When people take an account, which has certain details and then say those details don’t matter, wouldn’t it be better to simply proclaim the account false than try to say it matches the Mesopotamian flood? Alternatively, one could do what I did, come up with a new location and time for the Flood. All it requires is that God has dealt with mankind far longer than most people want to believe.
I will next post on the problems of the Black Sea flood as a source for Noah’s flood–namely, it never happened.
I appreciate the thoughts Klax but I can assure you I am not doing what they did.
Wiki says:
The Talmud states that the area before the idol Pe‘or was used as a latrine, and that the worship of the idol consisted of defecating before it.[6] Rashi comments that Pe‘or was so called “because they would uncover before it the end of the rectum and bring forth excrement; this is its worship” 
Thanks for your kind consideration Josh. I have outlived 3 of their prognostications of my death and will probably outlive this one, but by how much is the question. Doctors told me I would be dead by 2005. Then in 2008 they said I had about 5 years: 2013. In 2016 they said I had 3 years. I have outlived 2019, so while I know time is getting short, I am content with whatever happens. I know the soul exists; I know where I am going and so, I can enjoy the time I have left. And I am.
I love my Freudian slip too.
THINGS like the Heresy of Peor. The depravity of the Moabites justified God killing twenty four thousand Israelites with plague until Phinehas butchered a couple consummating their marriage.
Hopefully we made that up.
And all of the other… excrement.
When the argument is phrased like this, you’re bound to get Jesus’ parables brought up as a counterpoint. I know you’re tired of that, but when you equate telling a story that doesn’t match historical facts with lying, you’ve moved Jesus’ parables (most of which aren’t labelled as parables) into the category of lies. That’s obviously not what you or the rest of us believe, so I think you’d get further if you could state your case in a way that the parables couldn’t immediately knock down.
Jesus’ parables are just the most obvious way we see that a story can be aimed at different kinds of truth than historical facts. That different aim doesn’t keep them from being true. Nathan’s tale about the ewe lamb revealed truth to David. He got that truth when he saw that it did something different than straight-forwardly relate historical facts. Likewise, the gory story of a woman named Jerusalem in Ezekiel 16 tells a lot of history, but only when we allow for some pretty psychedelic ways of telling history.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that accommodation isn’t really where we disagree. You don’t have a problem with God using existing human languages to reveal things. Obviously no human language is perfect, and none of them is free of cultural baggage. If God has spoken through Hebrew, Aramaic and dumbed-down Greek (Koine, not classical), God has no aversion to accommodation.
So, rhetoric aside, I think we agree that God accommodates. The question isn’t whether God stoops to speak in ways we can understand, but what God intends to communicate. Unless I’m reading you wrong, you are certain that God must have communicated key physical details of creation. I don’t think God chose to do that. The Bible contains many true statements about physical reality, but not a blow-by-blow account of how creation happened. That, I think, is where we differ.
That is what leads us to come to texts in Genesis and elsewhere with such different expectations. I think you’ve been clear that you wouldn’t see value in the Bible if Genesis didn’t contain facts about how creation happened, as it would no longer deserve your trust. I look to Genesis to find out more about the God I already believe in, not to ground that belief.
I don’t know why you think this is a problem for me. If God would slay Ananias and Sapphira for lying at a crucial time in the church’s formation, I see no reason why God would stay his hand at a crucial time in the formation of the Hebrew nation.
One of the things people ignore about the religion of Ba’al was their child sacrifice. This sacrifice was carried by the Phoenicians to Carthage where they constantly sacrificed children. Here is what the Bible says about the religions the Hebrews faced as then came into Ba’al’s territory:
Thou shalt not do so unto Jehovah thy God: for every abomination to Jehovah, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters do they burn in the fire to their gods.
American Standard Version. (1995). (Dt 12:31). Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
Here are some non-biblical statements about their religion:
Writing in the 4th century B.C.E, the Greek historian Cleitarchus said of the Carthaginian practice, “ There stands in their midst a bronze statue of Kronos, its hands extended over a bronze brazier, the flames of which engulf the child. When the flames fall upon the body, the limbs contract and the open mouth seems almost to be laughing until the contracted body slips quietly into the brazier. Thus it is that the ‘grin’ is known as ‘sardonic laughter,’ since they die laughing .” (trans. Paul G. Mosca) “Kronos” was a regional name for Baal Hammon, the chief of Carthage’s gods.
Another Greek historian named Diodorus Siculus writing less than a hundred years after the fall Carthage affirms his countryman’s account. “ There was in their city a bronze image of Cronus extending its hands, palms up and sloping toward the ground, so that each of the children when placed thereon rolled down and fell into a sort of gaping pit filled with fire. ”
Carthaginian inscription of a priest carrying an infant.Around the same time the famous Greek historian Plutarch charged, “ with full knowledge and understanding they themselves offered up their own children, and those who had no children would buy little ones from poor people and cut their throats as if they were so many lambs or young birds; meanwhile the mother stood by without a tear or moan; but should she utter a single moan or let fall a single tear, she had to forfeit the money, and her child was sacrificed nevertheless; and the whole area before the statue was filled with a loud noise of flutes and drums took the cries of wailing should not reach the ears of the people. ” Did The Canaanites Really Sacrifice Their Children? | Bible Reading Archeology
My son has been to Tunis and brought back pictures of the infant cemeteries which were filled by the child sacrifice of this cruel religion.
So, when Zimri, the son of Salu, a prince of a chief house among the Simeonites, was whoring with Cozbi, the daughter of the Midianite prince, the entire tribe of Simeon would have been at stake. What the leaders do, the average people eventually follow.
Leviticus seems to indicate that the ritual involved getting a woman pregnant for the purpose of sacrificing the child–throwing it into the oven.
Leviticus 20:3: “And I will set my face against that man, and will cut him off from among his people; because he hath given of his seed unto Molech , to defile my sanctuary, and to profane my holy name.”
I hope you are not in favor of that. Here is a picture of what the brazier may have looked like. This one is to Molech but like Ba’al which meant ‘lord’ Molech means ‘king’, but it was the same God. From Wiki
18th-century depiction of the Moloch idol ( Der Götze Moloch mit 7 Räumen oder Capellen. “The idol Moloch with seven chambers or chapels”), from Johann Lund’s Die Alten Jüdischen Heiligthümer (1711, 1738).
This interaction broke many of the commandments, 1 Have no other God before me. 2 make no image and worship it 6. you shall not murder (children) 7. you shall not commit adultery
Now, if we have a real God who involves himself in history (I know this is an antiquated idea), and He is trying to show that He is real to the Hebrews who seem to forget it over and over, why wouldn’t he try to purify the chosen people and punish child sacrifice, adultery, sex as a religious act etc.
I would hope you are not in favor of the right of the Ba’al worshippers to burn their babies (which is what they did.).
I think here particularly @gbob (but also in other places) you show that you are applying post-enlightenment criteria to the Bible. IE. if not literally as historical true it is false and therefore worthless. However, as @Marshall demonstrates with his parables comments, many cultures (including Jesus’ culture) do not share that Western value. Neither Did the readers feel the need to engage in historical criticism to sort the ‘facts’ from the ‘fiction’.
For such cultures, an account does not need to be 100% historical to communicate real, meaningful, genuine, identity and community shaping theological truth.* As such, I would say to look at Genesis 1-11 and say it is all historically true or none of it is true is, in my humble opinion, a false dichotomy.
*For 1st Century relevant examples of non-historical theology shaping texts, see 1 Enoch and the Book of Tobit.
Yep, because to do anything else is to make it say what I want it to say. And that is illogical. Having lived in many other cultures, and being married to a Lebanese-descent wife whose Lebanese culture is still in tact, I would disagree that they see truth differently than us. The middle easterners I have run into (including her uncle-in-law (now deceased) whose eulogy was delivered by Yassar Arafat’s secretary, also saw truth and falsehood the same as I. The difference was we started often from different assumptions.
And to apply post-enlightenment criteria to the Bible is also to make it say what one wants it to say, and to insist that it must communicate what one has decided is most important to communicate.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
This is a place for gracious dialogue about science and faith. Please read our FAQ/Guidelines before posting.
