(If you edit the post above by hitting ENTER just before “Personally” which will move it to the next line, the post will be fixed.)
So, thanks for your note… Are you understanding me to say that I’m recommending that people take the scriptures literally in every case? If so, that’s not at all what I said and clearly not what I meant.
What I said was this:
The reason I said this was made clear by @jammycakes:
Please let me know if you have any questions or it is not clear what is intended.
I still see it as if we have to live out the Bible literally so as not to be hypocrites.
I don’t think that all YEC demand anything. Which an eye for an eye literally would. I do not think that there is metaphor in Genesis 1. Yet I get in trouble for pointing out that today’s science gives us insight to what dust and earth could mean. Simple forms of matter. No metaphor needed. Just a better definition not available to readers in 1000 bc.
This statement was quite shocking to me. I think I understand what you were aiming for, but it’s a very broad statement. What made you phrase it this way?
Greetings all!
Has anyone else started reading? Any thoughts (or any further thoughts)? @jammycakes, @Michael_Callen, @aarceng?
Hello Jonathan: I’m nearly half way through now.
Honestly, I have no idea what you mean. Are you responding to something that was said previously? How in the world (and where) are you getting in trouble for pointing out that science gives us insight regarding dust and the earth?
I have read that “creation from dust” is metaphor for the process of evolution. Not that God actually created fully mature humans from the dust of the ground.
I view the part that heavens and earth would be vastness of space and matter. Matter without form and void. Dust of the ground still being matter after the earth had form and full of life.
That is not metaphor for whatever makes sense. Earth is formed out of matter, and so is human life. It is not a science text book, so God did not go into the full blown physics lesson. Dust being part of the earth showing a more specific type of matter.
I don’t see any contradiction at all. Tell me, in your view, when God says, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return,” does he mean that only Adam was literally made from dust, or does he mean all of humanity was? And if he means he created all of humanity, including us today, from dust, how is that different from saying he created Adam from dust over a long period of time?
More importantly, the metaphors that allow layers of meaning and richness of interpretation are what make the Bible,or any religious text, or even any piece of great literature valuable. If you restrict yourself to only looking at the surface meaning of Genesis, there would never be any point to rereading it after the first time, would there?
God told Adam that his punishment would be hard labor. Returning to the dust is the natural breakdown of the physical flesh, which is just matter. Adam was created on the 6th day with a nondisclosed amount of other humans. It is not given whether they contained both sexes or created in pairs. I tend to think they were created with both sexes. That sexual reproduction was totally changed with Eve, as part of her punishment and purpose in life. So no, I do not think humans were part of a long drawn out process, but were created instantly, and had bodies totally different than ours today.
Since I only mentioned chapter 1, and we have moved to chapter 3 already, there has been a change in form and narrative several times. Each chapter has it’s own way of stating things, and not just one reading will give one all there is at one time. Nor can they be lumped together and glazed over as just some metaphorical explanation. A literal event can be used as metaphor, but saying it was metaphor without an actual event, does not follow. Even if humans just imagined Scripture it still comes from God, and can be taken as fact, unless stated otherwise.
Ummmm… can you please show me where in the scriptures you are getting your information. Specifically about the “nondisclosed amount of other humans” …
Thank you for clarifying this. I read Genesis pretty differently than you do, but I’m glad we can agree that metaphorical and other indirect meanings can be important to Scripture.
Genesis 1:27 So God created humankind in his own image; in the image of God he created him:
male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them: God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea, the birds in the air and every living creature that crawls on the earth.”
This is the indication that the sons of God were the created beings as God’s image on earth. There is no indication that humans worked toward the state of being sons of God, but we were created as sons of God in God’s image.
The term son means “of God”. They had no human parents. It was not a reference of gender, nor a declaration that God is a single gender. The verse is describing the act of God placing humans as God’s self on earth.
Eve was taken from Adam, and later Seth was the image of Adam, not God. Humankind comes from Seth, with crossover of God’s own image until the time of the Flood. Adam was created on day six because Genesis 2:7 includes Adam in those images of God created on day 6. Chapter two was only about Adam, not the rest of the sons of God. If you want to argue that Adam was not created on day six, Adam was still “of God” without human parents. That is getting into the assumption that God created a separate control subject apart from the rest of humanity, as in a behavior experiment, according to the plan God envisioned from the beginning. Chapter 2 does state that God took this particular human and placed him in a situation seperate from other humans.
@Timtofly Are you ever concerned that you are extrapolating too much information from some fairly obtuse and poetic passages?
I don’t really want to argue about anything at all. When I read the first couple of chapters of Genesis, I see a story that highlights humanity’s need for redemption. That even a couple who would have been in the very presence of God, living in paradise, with only one, single rule to follow will eventually choose to sin. Because they will, so will I.
I don’t see androgenous people. God placing “human selves” on the earth or any of this. I see man’s tendency to sin, but God providing a way out. This, I’m sure of. I don’t see any reason to add to this perfectly fine story any complexity that may not be justifiable.
I’ve read Todd’s book. It has some interesting points although I disagree in some areas.
Greetings, @aarceng! I would love to hear your thoughts (including where you disagree), if you would like to share! I would like to hear the thoughts of @Michael_Callen as well (if/when he has time 
)!
that is what I tried in my CRSQ pubications in the 1970s and 1980s. I eventually changed sides. There is zero models that will explain the geologic data within a young earth perspective, but most YECs don’t know the geologic data in the detail that an exploration geophysicist like I had to do. Thus they don’t feel the force of that evidence.
I guess I don’t know what you mean by “zero models that will explain geologic data within a young earth perspective.” Have you read Michael Oard or John Morris, Steve Austin, Kurt Wise and others? Maybe you disagree with them, but that is a long way from being “zero models.”
Craig, nice to see you again. You will enjoy @gbob’s notes. He trained as a YEC and worked in the oil fields. He can tell you more.
Did you ever go to the red plateau area of Sokoto in Nigeria? I lived near there (actually, in Galmi, Niger). A geologist who came out with SIM said it was oceanic basalt, from underwater lava eruptions. It covers a huge area–all the way to Burkina, I believe. As kids, we’d gather fossils of sea urchins, clams, nautilus or snails, among other cool things in limestone washouts under the red basalt slopes. Boy, that dark red-brown rock was hot in the sun (it was 100 degrees by 9 am).
I wonder if you ever found fossils around Jos or Lagos. I don’t recall any on the 2 volcanoes near Miango, but I was mainly flying balsa airplanes with my dad and brother on those occasions. Blessings, Randy
This is late. I am having lots of health issues, so occasionally off, and I didn’t see your not.
I know personally, John Morris, Steve Austin and have met Kurt Wise I think it was breakfast at the 1986 ICC in Pittsburgh. , it has been a long long time since we corresponded. This is going to get me introuble probably, but here is what I know about John Morris’s ‘geological’ degree. I wrote this back int he 1990s.
Yes, he got a valid Ph. D. just not in geology. Remember Joe, I spent 2.5 years in charge of recruiting. I know what a geology M.s. and Ph.D. is.
1.On the Radio Show Science, Scripture and Salvation, on July 10, 1994, John Morris claimed to have a PH. D. in Geology. KCBI Radio Station, Dallas, Texas.
8-7-1994 Science Scripture and Salvation
John Morris said, ““As a geologist who studies…”” dinosaurs. KCBI““In the fall of 1975 I enrolled at the University of Oklahoma in the Geological Engineering graduate program, obtaining the M.S. degree in 1977 and the Ph.D. in 1980, specializing in coal utilization and the mechanics of rock folding and fracturing.”” ~ John Morris, ““For Such a Time as This-ICR and the Future-””, Back to Genesis, 87, p. c
This is a funny claim, rock folding and faulting? Bull. But here are the facts. He got degrees in 'Geological Engineering"" which is what Oklahoma Univeristy calls a petroleum engineering degree. This is not geology. I looked up his thesis and dissertation.
His Masters Thesis was entitled ""Tidal Power State of the Art -1977
His Ph.D. was entitled, ““Development and properties of a self-bursting Pellet as Agglomerated from Coal Fines by Use of an Organic Binder,”” 1980
His Ph.D. dissertation includes only one legitimate geological reference ""S. A. Friedman, ““Investigation of the Coal reserves in the Ozarks Section of Oklahoma and their Potential Uses,”” Oklahoma Geologic Survey, Special Publication 74-2, 1977.
His Masters Thesis also includes only one legitimate geological reference. D.J.P. Swift and A. K. Lyall, ““Origin of the Bay of Fundy,”” Marine Geology, 1968, 6, pp 331-343.
All other references are to engineering and mathematical texts.
John told me at the ICC in 1986, publically and it is on tape, that he had worked in the oil industry. Also bull.
In 1979-1981, as a young man around 30 years old, I was “Mgr of Geophysical Recruiting” for Atlantic Richfield Co., ARCO. Being a creationist and having the goal of hiring 10% of the geophysical graduates in the US, I decided to go out to Christian Heritage College as they had a geophysics degree, taught by Tom Barnes and Harold Slusher. Shell was the only other company that recruted there. It was then in 1979 I met Steve, a newly minted PH D. who had been publishing under the name of Stuart Nevins so that he wouldn’t be kicked out of grad school at Penn State (if I recall correctly). Anyway, I just so happened to be in his office when he got the call from the school, who had just learned of his Stuart Nevins connection and they threatened to pull his degree. I did and still think such a threat is discriminatory. YECs have a right to get an education if they can do the work.
That shook Steve and that afternoon and evening at the dinner we held for the professors (a whole story unto itself). I need to tell this too. On this trip I was ushered into Henry Morris’ office met him and I got to tell him that I had gone over and reproduced Jody Dillow’s calculations of the earth temperature under a 40 ft vapor canopy. I told him Jody had made a mathematical error. Henry said, “The math is out there for everyone to see.” rejecting my statement. I went over the mistake, Henry said the same thing, and I finally said, 'How many idiots like me do you think there are who will actually go over all hat math?, He made an error". Henry repeated his mantra. I was ushered out. At the dinner I met Gish also, sat next to him. We had a nice time. On the other side of me was Steve.
Steve and I discussed some of the hard issues geological data presented to the YEC view–shoot, just the mere thickness of the sedimentary layer (60,000 feet) was a problem. We did specifically discuss the fact that radioisotopes are essentially gone after 10 half-lives and we discussed the fact that at that time no isotope which had a half life shorter than 450 myr was found on earth unless it was part of a process of decay chain or being made in some other currently active process. Several years later when I mentioned in the literature that he had agreed with me on this, he denied it in the literature. But I know what we talked about that night. Steve knows, but by being Stuart Nevins, he cut himself off from any other geological job. That isn’t fair, but it is the truth. He paid a high price for his belief but I know he knows the problems.
Kurt’s entire mission was to try to solve some of the issues of geology in a better way. So Kurt knows as well.
One guy shell hired from Christian Heritage that year was so disturbed by what he saw he quit the industry and went into a real tailspin. Another CHC guy shell hired eventually left the faith. I hired one good guy from CHC who has become a life long friend. When he decided the earth was old, I asked him if there was anything geological that he was taught by the ICR gang that he still believed to be true. He said no. So I called all the CHC grads in the oil industry at the time and asked them all. the answers were all ‘no’. My friend still doesn’t believe in evolution, but he knows the world is old. Same with Steve Robertson who was author of the first (I think) ICR monograph on the Poyting Robertson effect. He dated Henry Morris’s daughter for a while and was very serious about her. They didn’t marry.
I had a YEC geologist I worked with. He and I were friends. This was after I had become an old earth evolutionist. He knew the problems and everytime I would throw a new issue at him, he would laugh and say “I will put it in my bucket”, and I would reply that is one mighty heavy bucket, and he would slump one shoulder. He felt he had to be a YEC for theological reasons. But he didn’t deny the data was not in favor of his position.
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