It’s hard to believe that the Bible scribes would have ignored or left out creatures like this…
When should you introduce your child to evolution? - #176 by gbrooks9
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Ok. Now imagine that you are a Jewish farmer in the year 4000 BC and you are trying to describe a prophetic vision of that to your neighbor. Then imagine that you are a Jewish farmer in the year 4000 BC and for some reason your neighbor won’t let his kids play with your kids anymore and when you pass people in town they make clucking noises and laugh at you.
According to various texts, including Genesis 7:11,8:13-14, the flood doesnt occur until around 2300 BCE…
so in 4000 BCE EVERYBODY would have known about the Terror Birds!
Terror birds were in south and north america waaaaaaaay before noah’s flood (2.5 million years), so I don’t think that any of the folks in the middle east would have had any exposure to them.
Right… if we are specifically talking about Terror Birds.
But in the quote I produce from your posting above, you were comparing dinosaurs to giant chickens… and dinosaurs were not limited to South America.
If the dinosaurs of old were all wiped out by the great flood… then humans in 4000 BCE would have known about them!
The dinosaurs were killed by a big honkin’ meteor 65 million years ago.
The flood was a local flood. The procession of animals onto the ark was the local critters fleeing to the high ground of the 3 story tall boat Noah built in the desert. Critters do that in a flood.
Some dino’s were feathered. Feathered dinosaurs
I’m taking these folks http://www.genesisacademy.net/index.php?page=videos 7 week class as moral support for a friend who attends a church that invited them. They are conflating general relativity with moral relativism. Think about this. . . if Satan wanted to destroy evangelical Christianity in America, one way he might do that would be to convince people that the existence of God is testable. Then he would convince people that if general relativity is true then God does not exist. Then he would send their kids off to college where they would learn that general relativity is true. Then he would wait 30 years and viola! No more evangelical Christians in America.
Aren’t you mixing apples and oranges?
If the dinosaurs were wiped out 65 million years ago… then we don’t have to worry about why the Bible doesn’t correctly describe dinosaurs … the Bible doesn’t correctly describe LOTS of things.
This seems to be what you are describing:
- Flood is location;
- local animals climbing a structure to avoid a local flood.
So I guess what you are trying to do is explain why the Bible excludes even a MENTION of dinosaurs in the process of creation …
But if the Bible is going to describe the Earth surrounded by LIGHT … but wait until Day 4 to create the sun … there’s going to be lots of stuff it isn’t going to get right.
I believe in an old earth. It would be very hard to be a theistic evolutionist and not believe in an old earth. When the bible states that on the 4th day the sun and moon were created, what is being communicated is that during the 4th era of the creation of the earth, the atmosphere cleared sufficiently that the sun and moon could be seen from the surface of the earth. I am going to shamelessly name-drop that Isaac Newton believed the same. Isaac Newton on the Mosaic Account of Creation – Naturalis Historia
Hi Nick!
Apparently you believe that Genesis 1 is a chronological account of separate “eras” of creation. What do you think about the alternative proposal that the author of Genesis 1 was simply giving an organized description of the different parts of the cosmos that God brought into order? During days 1, 2, 3, God brings order to darkness, the watery abyss, and the formless earth. During days 4, 5, 6, God populates these respective aspects of the cosmos. For me, this produces an elegant understanding of the Creation account, without having to get stuck on the specific order of creation eras and material creation.
Darkness
Day 1: separation of day and night —>
Day 4: populate day and night with heavenly bodies
Watery abyss
Day 2: creation of firmament and separation of waters above and below —>
Day 5: populate the sky and the waters with birds and fish
Formless earth
Day 3: separation of land and water, creation of plants —>
Day 6: creation of land animals and humans.
For a nice BioLogos article by Conrad Hyers on this proposal, see:
http://biologos.org/blogs/archive/the-“cosmogonic”-form-of-genesis-1
That is the classic framework proposal. I’m fine with it, but there are a lot of evangelicals who think that leads to a slippery slope of metaphor and that it might encourage people to think that the Resurrection is not literal either. I am proposing a solution that allows for literal biblical inerrant scripture without contradicting natural history.
@Nick_Allen, I am familiar with this idea of the slippery slope of metaphor… But in reality, all Christians admit non-literal aspects of revelations inspired by God. Most evangelicals have no problem with viewing most of the Book of Revelation as having been meant symbolically / alegorically / poetically and at the same time truly inspired by God.
My concern with your proposal or the “day-age theory” in general is that it invites or presupposes the belief that writings of the Ancients can only be acceptable to us as God’s revelation if they conform to modern scientific conceptions of the cosmos. I view that as a slippery slope that ends somewhere near the likes of Ken Ham and company.
The process of conforming ancient writings to modern viewpoints tears them away from their original context, which subsequently deprives us of understanding the fullness of the revealed Scriptures as originally intended.
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I see your point about Ken Ham. If someone were trying to destroy evangelical Christianity, one way they could do it would be to convince people that the existence of God is testable, and then to convince them that the test for the existence or non existence of God is if the universe is 6000 years old and/or if the speed of light is not constant in a vacuum. So, the problem with Ham, is that what he is proposing as the natural history of the earth can be shown to be false. The constancy of the speed of light was proven by the Michelson-Morley experiments of 1887. If we can see the light from stars millions of light years away, then we know that the universe is more than 6000 years old.
I propose an old earth, local flood, and a local Eden. How would you disprove that?
Genesis 1 and the fossil record are describing the same thing. The Bible says:
1In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.
Science teaches that the solar system started out as a formless mass of rock, dust, ice etc. that spun and coalesced At this point, the earth was a formless mass.
The Bible says:
3And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. 5God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
Science teaches that as this mass coalesced, the solar system compressed in on itself until fusion began in the center and the sun ignited.
The Bible says:
6And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
Science teaches that the spinning cloud of space rock, ice, water vapor, steam, dust etc. that is the earth, compressed further, with heavy elements such as iron and radioactive isotopes sinking to the center, and lighter elements such as water and gasses floating out to the exterior.
The Bible says:
9And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so.10God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.
Science teaches that liquid water, being lighter than rock, and heavier than the atmosphere, covered the surface of the earth which was relatively uniform in its roundness until compression and radioactive decay in the center built up heat such that the core and mantle liquified, tectonic forces began, and continents and mountain ranges pushed up out of the ocean.
The Bible says:
11Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
Science teaches that the earliest life may have begun around volcanic ocean vents where chemical energy, heat and liquid primordial building blocks came together to create self replicating microbes feeding off of that chemical energy, and that over time these microbes evolved, some developing photosynthesis, and further evolving into diatoms, ferns, grasses, flowering plants and trees.
The Bible says:
14And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. 17God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
Science teaches that the atmosphere of the early earth was thick, similar to the present day atmosphere of Venus, and that the earth’s atmosphere cleared due to the absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere by oceanic plants (green phytoplankton). By clarifying the atmosphere, these plants made it possible for the sun, moon and stars to be visible from the surface of the earth.
The Bible says:
20And God said, “Let the water teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of the sky.”21So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living thing with which the water teems and that moves about in it, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.22God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth.” 23And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
Science teaches that some of the microbes that evolved stopped getting their energy from the surrounding environment, and instead started getting their energy by consuming other microbes. These microbes further evolved into early animals such as fish, amphibians, and dinosaurs which further evolved into Birds. Coincidence?
The Bible says:
24And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” And it was so. 25God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good.
Science teaches that while dinosaurs were dominant on the earth, small mammals arose and that mammals became dominant on the earth after the KT boundary extinction event.
The Bible says:
26Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
27So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
28God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
29Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
31God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.
Science teaches that mankind arose out of early hominids, and became sentient, and developed agriculture, art and science.
People have free will, by the grace of God. Some will look at the concordance in Genesis 1 and say that it is not perfect concordance with scientific theory, or that there is overlap and inconsistency and that it is just coincidence and an illusion that it appears to follow the actual progression that science indicates. But, other people will look at this and see a MIRACLE. It is a MIRACLE that Genesis 1 gets it so right, even if it simplifies it down to a level that uneducated people 4000 years ago could understand.
Most of the Christians I know think that The Book Of Revelation is literal and that it provides an accurate picture of the Second Coming of Christ.
I would say that there are much deeper problems with the approach of Ken Ham than that his conclusions are demonstrably false. One such problem is that it involves an extremely narrow conception of exegesis. As such, it basically distorts the intended meaning of the Scriptures.
I believe that the approach you present suffers from a similar problem. While I also enjoy the correspondence between Genesis 1 and natural history, I don’t think it was the author’s intention to convey the details of natural history. Therefore, it was also not the intention to be “miraculous” in that sense of the word. All miracles in the Bible are explicitly presented as intentional (e.g., Moses tapping the water from the rocks). Therefore, we shouldn’t be “mining for miracles” in places where such intentions were not indicated.
At a deeper level, looking for “hidden” miracles in the Scriptures shows an attitude similar to that of Muslims towards the Quran. For them, it’s essential that the Quran contains nothing human. Therefore, every single letter must convey some absolute perspective. This has led the Muslim community to invest huge amounts of resources into extracting “scientific miracles” from the Koran and the sayings of Mohammed (Hadith) (see, for example: http://www.miraclesofthequran.com/scientific_index.html ). It’s rather humorous at some level. I think that such practices indicate a rather “mechanistic” view of inspiration. I think that’s an unhealthy way of looking at God. In the Christian worldview, the Scriptures were inspired through God’s relation with mankind instead of through “mechanistic control”. So we don’t need any “scientific miracles” in the Bible, because God speaks to people from the perspective where they are standing. It does not matter whether that person believes that the heavens are a solid dome or whatnot.
The Book of Revelation is so strongly filled with imagery, that I can’t believe what you’re saying. Do they believe that there will be exactly 144,000 people with God’s name tattooed on their foreheads? And that there will be some kind of beast with horns, like a dinosaur? Or that there will be a literal “tree of life” in the end?
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Granted, the beast will not be a dinosaur with actual horns. And, the people with the name of God written on their foreheads may not literally have the name of God tattooed on their foreheads, and there may not literally be 144000 of them. But, I don’t think that one can deny that there is a literal truth behind what is being prophesied in Revelation. Jesus gives us partial information as part of his plan. For instance, in John 6 Jesus tells his followers:
51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”
52 The Jews therefore quarreled among themselves, saying, “How can this Man give us His flesh to eat?”
How’se that for wooden literalism? Jesus was forshadowing of course that he would sacrifice his body and blood on the cross, and that we have to accept his sacrifice on our behalf in order to accept his salvation. So, there is a meaning behind the metaphor, and it is not obvious, and until the meaning is revealed, we do not have sufficient information to understand it.
That being said, I disagree that if we admit the concordence between natural history and the days (eons) of creation we must then slide down a slippery slope of literalism until we find ourselves arguing over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Just because a slope is slippery, that doesn’t mean that you have to choose to slide down it. Also, some of these slippery slopes have guardrails.
For instance, the slippery slope argument is sometimes used to say that once you adopt a literary framework view of Genesis, then you will alegorize the entire bible including the resurrection. This discounts the fact that there is compelling historical evidence including eye witness accounts that support the literal resurrection. That is your guardrail around the resurrection.
Similarly, you are using a slippery slope argument to say that I will slide down a well of unwarranted literalism if I note that Genesis 1 is a literal account of the creation of the earth, simplified to a level that an ancient uneducated shepherd could understand. The slippery slope argument is a logical fallacy. It’s the slippery slope fallacy. Google it.
I think it’s not so much be that there is a slippery slope to literalism, but that good exegesis requires understanding features of genre and cultural context. If you accommodate people treating Genesis in a way that doesn’t pay attention to genre or cultural context, you are tacitly encouraging bad exegetical habits that will not serve them well elsewhere either.
Encouraging bad exegetical habits (such as literalism) that will not serve them well elsewhere (down slope) either.
I mentioned earlier that I was taking a 7 week class at a friend’s church as moral support. . . . They provided copies of Ken Ham’s The New Answers Book 1. It pretty much lines out all of the arguments against Theistic Evolution and makes this thread redundant. So, now I am wondering what is the motivation is for making these arguments?
Would you like to summarize his arguments for us? It probably won’t be surprising but I am curious anyway. Also, if there are particular points that still bother you please highlight those.