Hello, Alessio, I think there is evidence right in the first 2 chapters of Genesis that the early chapters of Genesis are not literal history: there are two creation stories with different orders and methods of creation.
Nevertheless, I suspect Abraham was a real person. His stories could have been embellished somewhat, but I don’t think that really matters. Our faith is built on the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
By the way, I will be in Italy in early December. Looking forward to it!
What a pity that you changed your mind on this. When I came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God and our Savior, as a student biology, I knew at the same time evolutiontheory is not right.( 1972)
I find such a great amount these days ( anno 2020) of explanation by so many scolars that I am even the more convinced of a creation in 6 days, a Flood, and Tower of babel. Being a biologist after my graduation at Wageningen University I have not at any time find any sceintific reasoning that would cinvince me of the evolutionery theory being true. You of course knwo creation,com, answers in Genasis. In Holland we have logos.nl and in Germany Word und Wissen, You find it in spanish, japanese etc. Especially the Flood is something you can easily find in the geology all around. I like to watch Grand Canyon that way and all the things in Europe par example. Russ Miller is one of my faviorites. Greetings from Dirk de Vries.
Hi, Dirk - and welcome to the forum! The posts you are responding to here are all months old by now - not that some of these folks aren’t still around to respond. But if you don’t get much response, feel free to interact in other more current threads as well.
Feel free to share about what evidences you do or don’t find convincing and why. There are many in the forum here who are very knowledgeable about all this and pursue faithful Christian understandings.
Hi Alessio. He’s less mythic than A&E and infinitely less than YEC, but he’s still pretty mythic. It’s all pretty mythic but more realistic as Genesis progresses. The story telling is sublime, beautiful. Polished for a thousand years up to the C6th BCE. Inspired. I find one of the most powerful examples of the evolution of God - who was already well advanced in Eden - with Abraham under the Terebinth Trees at Mamre. The story of Joseph is wonderful too. Redemptive. Echoed in Jesus even.
So, … are you saying here that God evolves? Please explain or clarify.
Och no Mervin, He changes not. We do. Culturally. The God of the OT evolved for a thousand years and more before the final C2nd BCE cut. The God of Genesis was well polished by the C6th. The evolution of religion took off in the neolithic, although cultures like the the Native Americans have an at least henotheistic, timelessly beautiful one of Wakan Tanka (Sioux) - the Great Spirit or Mystery - at least as old as their culture. May be ten to thirty thousand years and beyond back in Siberia. That’s a fair chunk of our species lifetime. As is Australian aboriginal religion which appears more primal.
The evolution of God took the greatest possible leap in Jesus and continues to this day in adapting to science.
I agree, God doesn’t change but out view and understanding of Him does. How the people pre-exile saw God, and how they saw Him post-exile even to the days of Jesus is very different from how we in the 21st century see Him.
Your first couple of sentences say that God does not change.
But then all the rest of your paragraph contradicts this by speaking of an evolving God. (“Evolution” means “change”). Are suggesting instead that what is evolving is our cultural ideas of who God is?
That would make more sense to me anyway.
God is not changing.God became a man in Jesus that we might see Him, whom is the Invisible What we know of God is what He has reveiled to us in the Bible and in nature. The very first people Adam and Eve knew Him, in our days we can know Him through the holy Spirit.Jesus has said that when we love Him, he and the Father will come and live in us. That is what eternal life is, that we know Father God and him who he has send to us. This is the gospel according to the scriptures.
God as God is cannot evolve. But the God of the Bible and our take on Him continues to.
While I am not in agreement with all things Enns, his books like “How the Bible Actually Works” give a lot of insight into how our understanding of God has evolved.
While doesn’t change, our understanding of Him does via culture and religion. How the Jews understood Him before the exile is vastly different from how He was understood after the exile and even unto the days of Jesus and the early church and even now our view and understanding of Him is being renewed as we look deeply as the life and ministry of Jesus Christ and see the Love of the Father as it is.
While true the Bible and nature does reveal who God is, I also feel there are reflections of God in other religions as they have made contact with God or at least come to knowledge of Him and try to understand Him. What makes the Bible unique is that it revels the love of God through the person and ministry of Jesus Christ.
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