A few years ago a friend attended an event where John Dickson, a Moore College graduate and clergyman of the Sydney Anglican Diocese gave an address entitled "The Genesis of Everything". Apparently a typed version of the address was made available and a copy has reached me.
Mr Dickson presented a hermeneutic approach to Genesis Ch 1 which encapsulates the decline of biblical interpretation identified in my earlier posting "Did God Really Say?". But he seems to go even further into murky waters. Devices such as number symbolism, intricate structure, repetition, chiasmus and rhythm were postulated in an effort to dehistoricise Genesis Ch 1. Genre and a pagan creation account were also raised to discourage hearers from receiving Genesis Ch 1 as historical narrative. One could also gain an impression from Mr Dickson that this passage was a human construction without any inspiration of Holy Spirit.
I need not go over again the eclipse of biblical narrative in the centuries after the God inspired Reformation of the Church, suffice to say our Reformist 'Fathers' allowed Scripture to interpret Scripture and regarded Genesis Ch 1 to be historical narrative describing an event in earth history. After that, the "Evil One" got to work on the Church to undermine the integrity of God's word.
Within the Evangelical Church it is broadly held that Moses was the author of the Pentateuch (allowing for a scribe to assist). But how did he get the information to record the history that preceded his lifetime? Many would say it came from oral testimony of his forbears dating back to Adam. It might well be that much of it was obtained by this means. However, when it comes to the creation account there was no man or woman present to observe and describe the sequence of events outlined in Genesis Ch 1 (well, at least up to day six of the creation week). Genesis Ch 2:4b-25 presents like an observation of the early earth from the perspective of one who was there - Adam. But what of Genesis Ch 1?
Obviously, the LORD God had to tell someone for it to become part of man's understanding. It may have been imparted by the LORD God to Adam and Eve or someone else between Adam and Moses. Scripture just does not tell us. However, there are clues in the words, laws and decrees given by the LORD God to Moses on Mount Sinai.
Forty days and forty nights Moses spent with the LORD on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24:18). Is it not reasonable to believe that a golden opportunity in the history of man was not well spent by Moses to learn from the LORD of things not previously known? How well commended was Mary when she sat at the feet of the LORD learning from him? (Luke 10:38-42). Why wouldn't Moses ask of the LORD of things relating to the beginning of all things? Why wouldn't the LORD tell Moses of this in a more expansive way than the summary recorded in Exodus 20:11 and Exodus 31:18?
Further, all readers of the Pentateuch should note a similarity in descriptive style in Genesis Ch 1 and that used by the LORD when giving the law, tabernacle specifications and priestly practices to Moses on Mount Sinai. A similarity is also observed in Moses' recording of the offerings of the twelve tribes at the consecration of the tabernacle (Numbers Ch 7). There is consistency.
Even if one rejects what I assert on the source and occasion of the giving of Genesis Ch 1 creation account there remains the clear words of the LORD in Exodus 20:11 which are a tight summary of the Genesis Ch 1 creation account.
Clearly, Mr Dickson's deliberate or accidental imputing of the creation testimony to the construction of a man and not of the LORD is at odds with Scripture. Further, Mr Dickson, in introducing various literary devices to the reading of Genesis Ch 1, would have readers doubt a clear historical account of origins has been rendered by the author. Instead, Mr Dickson wants readers to believe hidden features make the creation account a description of a work of art rather than a description of a historical event.
This brings to mind an incident in the life of Moses. Number Ch 12 describes it. Miriam and Aaron began denying the authority with which Moses spoke. The LORD called for Moses, Aaron and Miriam to assemble before him at the Tent of Meeting. Note the words of the LORD in dealing with this impertinence of Miriam and Aaron (Numbers 12:6-7) - "Listen to my words: "When a prophet of the LORD is among you, I reveal myself to him in visions, I speak to him in dreams. But this is not true of my servant Moses; he is faithful in all my house. With him I speak face to face, clearly and not in riddles; he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?" (emphasis mine)
The offence of Miriam and Aaron was great and the LORD's anger burned against them.
There is a sharp lesson here for those who want to question the authority with which Moses spoke and those who accuse Moses of speaking without clear injunction from the LORD. The LORD puts beyond doubt that he spoke straightforward language, without riddles when speaking to Moses. It is the height of insolence to imply that the LORD or that Moses, the recorder of the LORD's words, spoke in something other than clear language with clear meaning.
I urge Mr Dickson and others of the Sydney Anglican Diocese to desist from this continued dilution of the word of the LORD. It happened in the time of Moses. It happened in the life of Israel in the promised land and in the church after the ascension of our LORD. It happened in the centuries after the Protestant Reformation and is happening now in the Sydney Anglican Diocese.
Sam Drucker
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Dickson doesn't know what he is talking about. None of the literary markers in the creation and flood accounts that he prattles on about are news to creationists. And none of them militate against their historicity.
Sam Drucker has rightly pointed out that Numbers 7 is a highly structured sequence of 12 consecutive numbered days, yet no one doubts that these were 24 hour days in history.
And chiasmus is a common device throughout Scripture, including historical passages. If there is an odd number of components, the point is to emphasise the middle one. Here is one from another part of Genesis, which presumable Moore College agrees is historical:
17:1-25:
A Abram's age (1a)
B The LORD appears to Abram (1b)
C God's first speech (1b-2)
D Abram falls on his face (3)
E God's second speech (Abram's name changed, kings; 4-8)
X God's Third Speech (the covenant of circumcision; 9-14)
E' God's fourth speech (Sari's name changed, kings; 15-16)
D' Abraham falls on his face (17-18)
C' God's fifth speech (19-21)
B' God "goes up" from Abraham (22)
A' Abraham's age (24-25)
Here, the crux is the Abrahamic Covenant of b'rith milah. [Incidentally, if Moore accepts that Abraham and Genesis 12-50 were historical, then were his father, father's father, .... to Adam also historical, as seamlessly stated in Gen. 11, 1 Chr, and Luke 3?]
Or by John Dickson's reasoning, maybe Matthew is not historical, because of Matthew 13:15:
A For this people's heart is become gross
B and their ears are dull of hearing,
C and their eyes they have closed
C' lest at any time they should see with their eyes
B' and hear with their ears
A' and should understand with their heart
Or maybe the vital theological details of the Johannine Prologue can be dismissed with the same ease as he dismisses the historical details of the creation sequence:
A In beginning
B was
C the Word
D and the Word
E was
F with God
F' and God
E' was
D' the Word
C' the same (referring to "the Word")
B' was
A' in beginning with God
No, Mr Dickson, the chiastic structure of the Flood (Gen. 6:1–9:19), aside from demolishing JEPD crap, is not to deny its historicity but to focus on the middle point, God remembered Noah (see also http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4249).
Well said, Ktisophilos.
People like Mr Dickson and his fellow travellers are an embarrassment to the faith of the greats of Christianity in the past.
Sam Drucker
Guys I can't believe people like Atkins, Lankshear and others have the gall to persist writing when people such as Dannii Willis,Frank Savage, Michael Rees-Evans, and Derek Hazel have blown them out of the water both Biblically and scientifically on numerous occasions. They deal so kindly and partently with the Nasties and receive for their care only ridicule. I suppose they have nothing more substantial to write.
But they persist with such fooolish statements which ably demonstrate their lack of Biblical and scientific knowledge. I commend Dannii, Frank and Michael et al for their Christian forbearance.
The AngloNasties are insistent on preferring any non-Christian over their Christian brothers who they call morons and worse. One of them chirped on about Plimer whose book 'Telling Lies For God' was shown to be fallacious, badly written complete with serious scientific error and crammed with half truth and worse. When I say fallacious I don't mean just that I disagreed with his opinion(I do) but that he was shown to be false by testable methods. He made statements about the then AiG and its employees which were shown to be lies by documentary evidence. But the AngloNasties promote him against their Christian brothers. By this alone I now seriously doubt that these guys are truly Christian but are indeed 'wolves in the fold' whose purpose is to destroy the Biblical belief of others.
As Sam Drucker says they are an embararrment to the faith. Fortunately I have had the pleasure of rescuing quite a few Christians who became riddled with doubt, doubt sown by such 'wolves.' What a pleasure to meet up with the 'rescued' years later and to see how they have grown by feeding upon the Word of The God, not the fallacies sprouted by men such as these.
It wasn't very hard as many of those with whom I spoke were seeking the truth and the ideas promoted those of the AngloNasty ilk are simple to contadict both via Scripture and real science.
I think a good example is that at least one of the Nasties seems not to have read what Noah was commanded (by the God they claim to follow) to take on the ark. Obviously they have carefully read the nonsense written on the subject by God-haters.
Also they seem to imagine that Noah had to take a representative pair of Dog (for one example) on board. Last time I read up on the subject it was agreed that the great variety of dogs we have today came from the one original dog kind. Therefore Noah only had to take representatives of the original kind in which we know dwelt all the genetic information needed to produce all the varities of dogs we have today. Their ignorance of both science and Scripture is bewildering.
CMI has published a testimony from a girl called Sonia, who said she was saved through creation materials (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2789) Praise God that she didn't go to the great encourager Rev. Gordon Cheng, because imagine the following dialogue:
Sonia: Rev. Cheng, I was an obstinate atheist, but a workmate shared these articles from Creation magazine, and after two years, they convinced my stubborn heart that there really is a Creator:
Chang: Sonia,this is just a side issue; just trust in Jesus.
Sonia: Rev, with all due respect, this was not a side issue for ME.
Cheng: You shouldn't believe this moronic stuff from creationists. They might even be demon possessed.
Sonia: How can you say that? They have very convincing arguments, even enough to break through my rebellious skull, and make me realise my need for Christ.
Cheng: Hume clocked those design arguments 200 years ago. Anyone can see that there is silly design, like koala pouches.
Sonia: if a Rev. like you doesn't believe his own book, I don't know what to believe any more :(
Spot on Ktiso, I met a man who walked away from his old immoral life because of Creation Evangelism. He previously believed in evolution but evidence presented at an Answers in Genesis (now Creation Ministries International)presentation, and afterwards, was the spark of understanding which led him to faith in Christ. He began attending church and there met his wife. I met them ( a very pleasant young couple)when billited with them for an event.
Some years later I endeavoured to contact them and failed to do so, eventually speaking to a friend of theirs who told me the very sad story: He went to bible college where two lecturers attacked his creation beliefs telling him the AiG stuff was nonsense. His friend said he didn't know what to believe now becoming very confused. He told the friend that as he had become a Christian because of the evidence for Genesis creation-that evidence now rejected by his lecturers- he doubted the whole bible. Quite logically I would agree-if the foundation of sin and the need of the death and resurrection of Jesus isn't true then what's the point. It's just a story.
He, I believe, is representative of the majority who need to know the Bible is factual- cover to cover- before being prepared to jump on board. We believe by faith but faith in reality not some gooey pie in the sky nonsense. Others like his lecturers and some on the AngloForum appear able to hold two opposing beliefs in their heads at the same time, believing part of the Bible is truth and part is fantasy. That even though the Word of God explains how He created, and over what time-span, this part is wrong. They may be able to hold some sort of wishy-washy Christian faith together but others can't and in my experience these doubters or probably better 'wolves in the fold' destroy the Biblical faith of others. God will hold them responsible for this, and judge them accordingly.
Now with his faith destroyed he lost his 'rudder' left his wife and children, reverting to his old very dark and immoral life. Quite logial I believe because we are all sinners and sin is appealing or else it wouldn't be a problem. So if the Biblical story isn't absolute truth them why can't I do what I really want to do rather than deny myself.
As Scripture says- that which is not of faith is sin. And further that it is by faith we understand that the world was created. Those who preach an anti-creation message are unrepentant sinners. The scofffers of which Perer writes.
Hi "Sydney Anglican Heretics" bloggers.... I'm one of those "Anglo-Nasties", "Heretics", and whatever other names you've chosen to give your Christian brothers.
Below is my most recent post to the Sydney Anglican website creation thread. I fear it may be my last. Thanks for engaging in such a positive, Christ-like conversation about these passages, and being so honest in your methods! ;-)
************************
You know, I was enjoying this discussion.
I was having my views challenged and learning what others thought. I was honestly being forced to reconsider certain passages. I was just about to concede some points to Craig Thacker on Psalm 104.
And then I realized that the Sydney Anglican Heretics blog was real. I thought it was a joke up until now, and missed the seriousness of certain posts where Craig was asking about it.
Now I find this on their comments page by Warwick
Guys I can't believe people like Atkins, Lankshear and others have the gall to persist writing when people such as Dannii Willis,Frank Savage, Michael Rees-Evans, and Derek Hazel have blown them out of the water both Biblically and scientifically on numerous occasions. They deal so kindly and partently with the Nasties and receive for their care only ridicule. I suppose they have nothing more substantial to write.
But they persist with such fooolish statements which ably demonstrate their lack of Biblical and scientific knowledge. I commend Dannii, Frank and Michael et al for their Christian forbearance.
I don't know quite what dealing "partently" with someone is, but it's obvious Warwick is full of Christian forbearance himself with terms like "Ango-nasties" and "Blown them out of the water" etc.
Warwick goes on to say:
I think a good example is that at least one of the Nasties seems not to have read what Noah was commanded (by the God they claim to follow) to take on the ark. Obviously they have carefully read the nonsense written on the subject by God-haters.
Yeah Warwick, that was me. If you had been kind enough to ask, I was not reciting from the text but trying to explore what other life forms Noah might have needed to preserve IF that flood had been the Science Fiction continental plate bulging and twisting, earth-shaking event Frank Savage was suggesting. You Creationists are meant to be the scientific sort... please tell me what plant seeds and spores and fungi etc could survive such a world-shatteringly catastrophic event such as Frank was hypothesizing?
So now, as usual, some creationists are taking things we say out of context and blowing them out of all proportion. Because I explored some other scientific issues of a hypothesis a Creationist was putting to me, I suddenly don't know my bible and have "carefully read the nonsense written on the subject by God-haters."
Nice Warwick, whoever you are.
And nice demonstration of Christian love in the choice of the name, http://sydneyanglicanheretics.blogspot.com/
I honestly thought your blog name was a joke, until I was saddened to find out it was real. You go on about us Sydney Anglican's being "nasty"? Well, as you are no doubt aware, sometimes writing on these forums involves a little passion and a little ire (and sometimes a little fun.) But did you ever consider labeling your blog "Concerned for Sydney Anglicans"? ;-)
But on the other hand, maybe if you were more honest the blog title would read "Nasty Sarcastic Demeaning Sydney Anglican Heretics that only ever tease and cajole our poor saintly, kind, wise martyr brothers in Creationism". Maybe "Sydney Anglican Heretics" IS the godly choice of blog title!
;-)
But come on... get real. Some of the Creationists on this thread here, and on "Sydney Anglican Heretics blog", have been just as sarcastic and nasty as us good old cranky Anglican sorts!
*********
Also, in case there is any confusion, I am not an ordained minister or teacher at Moore College. Nothing I say represents the views of Sydney Anglican's — unless I am directly quoting someone — and so my views are my own, are changing and being informed by this debate, and should not be portrayed on the net as the views of Sydney Anglicans!
If Creationists are that sensitive that they need to set up a website to debunk the opinions of laypeople in a church as well as their staff, can I suggest "medication"? Because honestly, that kind of legalistic censorship DOES turn me into an "Anglo-nasty"... and now I think I'll have to go an ask for some medication of my own, something nice and strong!
;-) (See the wink? It helps discern literary style.)
Seriously guys... we love the Lord as well and are trying to understand His word to us. I believe Genesis is God's perfect word, and that it is just as God-breathed as any other part of Scripture. I just disagree with your assessment of it's format, and the need to spend the rest of my life debunking every second statement on every science show I ever see.
But for now, I thought this discussion was amongst Sydney Anglicans that wanted a little theological jousting and testing and growth... but with SydneyAnglicanHeretics a real entity... this thang just got kinda scary.
I'm not sure it's safe anymore. ;-)
Eclipse Now!, like most liberals, is happy to vilify creationists with the most vitriolic abuse (moronic, parasites, demonic, hillbillies), but bleats piteously when they fight back instead of being good little doormats.
One would expect that if he really loved the Lord as he claims, he would come to questions about the Flood with something on the lines of:
"I don't fully understand here, but since You inspired the Bible writers to teach a global Flood, I will trust You on this. I praise You when you raise up scientists who answer what sceptics claim were unanswerable problems. But You are not obliged to answer me on everything, and my unanswered questions will cause me to disbelieve (or 're-interpret') what You have clearly revealed in the Bible."
But no, this compromiser places his current scientific "knowledge" over what God has revealed. Of course, his knowledge is not up to much, otherwise he would know that fungal spores are very hardy, seeds can survive months of immersion in brine (ironically his hero Charles Darwin showed that!), and plants could also have propagated vegetatively.
And the catastrophic plate tectonics idea is hardly fiction, but explains features that are enigmas to uniformitarian plate tectonics theories. For example, the bottom parts of subducted plates are still relatively cool, which would be impossible if they had been in the mantle for millions of years.
Warwick, that's a shocking example of the damage these compromisers do in people's lives.
Note that the Bible denounces these compromisers as divisive ones, which is ironic because anti-YECs unbiblically call YECs "divisive". But Jude 17-19 says:
"But you must remember, beloved, the predictions of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ. They said to you, “In the last time there will be scoffers, following their own ungodly passions.” It is these who cause divisions, worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."
And the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ that Jude is quoting from is Peter, who defined these scoffers as follows in 2 Pet. 3:3-7:
"knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires.
"They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.”
"For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished.
"But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly."
Clearly, these scoffers who cause divisions, like those Demases who shipwrecked the faith of Warwick's friend, are those who accept the uniformitarian idea of constant natural processes over time. Thus denying the special acts of creation and God's watery judgement of the earth, which as Peter had earlier explained left only eight human survivors (2 Pet. 2:5).
Wow! You guys can really party!
Mate, please show me where I used one of these words? (moronic, parasites, demonic, hillbillies). Can you please apologize for slandering your brother in Christ, because I never said anything of the sort.
Now, as to your charges that I am a "scoffer".
I believe:-
That I am only saved by faith in Jesus Christ,
that Jesus is Lord,
that God made the world,
that God upholds the world,
that every word of the bible IS actually God-breathed, including all of Genesis,
and that God WILL COME BACK AND JUDGE US ALL!
Now, that last point is in caps not because I am shouting but because I am emphasising that this belief immediately disqualifies me as one of Peter's "scoffers".
The other thing is that I thought only those with the Spirit could call Jesus Lord, yet to be a scoffer I would be one of those "worldly people, devoid of the Spirit."
Like it or not mate, I trust in Jesus for my salvation.
I am one of your brothers in Christ and believe He will come back to judge. I also take the book of Genesis VERY seriously.
Correct me if I am wrong... but if you are drawing up a hyper-literalistic reading of Genesis 1 as a [i]requirement for salvation[/i], can I suggest you are a Pharisee, straining gnats but swallowing the camel of legalism? Are you REALLY so bold as to suggest I am not saved? Are you REALLY saying that only your reading of Genesis can save someone? If you are, you are in a cult my friend, and should repent of a pharisaic mindset.
Dave if it makes you feel better my name is Warwick D Armstrong. I have never been asked to give other than my first name on any site but if it makes you feel less threatened then so be it. BTW I work for no one, post on this site on my own behalf because of a burning desire to confront, & contradict Biblical compromise. And further I am not part of this site-not even a very tiny, miniscule part of this site. In fact I am sure it has not escaped your eagle-eye that I am not listed among the contributors & have never written an article & further Dave have never even been asked to!
It therefore follows within the steely grasp of logic that I had no part in naming the site. In fact I have made the comment that 'heretic' is an inappropriate word to describe the blue meanines on the AngloForum. However as I had no part in naming this site I accept the right of the createes to name it 'soup de jour' or "The wonky adventures of Ponce de Leon' if they so please. As Bill said what is in a name, a rose would smell so sweet by any other name.
I coined the name AngloForum as a humerous & shorter way of saying 'the discussion which continues on your.sydneyanglicans. net under peace with evolution......'
I also coined the names AngloBlog, AngloNasties &d AngloSpeak. And as creator of these terms I would appreciate it if you used them correectly, should you decide to use same. The term is AngloNasties, not Anglo-nasties. You just keep gettin it wrong Dave.
Now Dave if you feel AngloNasty is an apt term to describe yourself then so be it. You decide.
I think the term AngloNasties is fair as I haven't seen such terms of derision levelled at Christian brothers on any other Christian site. Morons, Hillbillies, Demonic, parasites -such choice derision aimed rudely at those who take a more Biblical attitude than the AngloNasties. More Biblical position Dave? Indeed as I have attempted to carefully read what has been posted on the AngloForum & am convinced that many postees have a worldly starting point, uncritically accepting an untestable anti-Christian world-view,then re-interpreting Scripture through these clouded world-view glasses. I have seen the Biblically based - maybe AngloBibs- patiently explain their view through Biblical glasses only to have certain AngloNasties come back with what is little less than rude trivia ridiculing their careful explanation while giving no cogent contrary view. Or missunderstanding their(to me)obvious point.
It occurs to me that AngloNasties having come to an extra-Biblical belief are forced to ridicule or reinterpret any section of Scripture which stands in opposition to their extra-Biblical starting point. For one example Craig some of the comments about Noah's flood have been bizarre. Too ridiculous to be taken seriously. People of Noah's day would have found 300k too far to travel? They could have done it on the local version (borrowed from some other culture in AngloNastySpeak of course)of the pogo stick in a fraction of the time it took to build the ark. The accountants would have preferred the pogo-stick migration option too.
Dave some on the AngloForum are (as I see it) wolves in the fold having been lead astray by what passes as Biblical training which runs downhill from Moore college. I don't make these comment from ignorance but from personal experience & the many reports of graduates. It is a disgrace to true Christianity. There is no other way of saying it Dave. I would love it to be otherwise but it isn't.
I did think heretic was too harsh a term view but certain Anglonasties have caused me to reconsider.
But would you agree with another contributor here that I am not saved because of my "mistaken" reading of Genesis 1 as yet another biblical metaphor or allegory?
Does calling into question my very salvation seem fair to you — or biblical? I thought I was saved by my faith in Jesus Christ.
It seems that it's faith in Jesus AND reading reading 500 anti-evolution, anti-geology, anti-ice-core-sample, anti-earth's magnetic field, anti-glacier, anti-anthropology, anti-planetary formation, anti-cosmology papers that really saves us.
Your Creationist ally on Sydney Anglicans, Craig Thacker, has just posted this.
As for the the SydneyAnglicanHeretics.com, I find the personal attacks on people that I know from here, where they are named and then attacked in ungodly fashion, to be repulsive. I am sorry that such behaviour has occured. I am all in favour of vigoursly discussing scripture, but that site is not primarily defending scripture but rather attacking fellow Christians.
Now, before more "issues" come up, I wanted to thank Warwick and Ktisophilos for at least admitting I might be a Christian.
I also agree that the term "heretic" is inappropriate for these Sydney Anglicans. "Heretic" should be reserved for those with salvation-endangering ideas about the person and work of Christ
Now some issues, Warwick first then Ktisophilos.
Warwick: What you wrote about me not getting macro-evolution.
I read a Creation science book or 2.
I have some creation science relatives (if you remember from our thread — which you are so obsessed in watching and criticizing here but not joining in over there — one of them had a go at me for letting my then 6 year old son watch "Ice Age", because Ice Ages are such scientific and biblical heresy! Oh, and this was in front of my son.)
I also have scientific friends who are Christian evolutionists.
I personally am not a scientist. (Oooh, you got me there.)
Yet you are unfair above when you have a go at me for not understanding macro-evolution. Sure I have not wasted my life reading the 500 Creationist books you have, but here's the reason your criticism of me was unfair. I was not giving a definition of macro-evolution!!!
If you try to read my sentences in context of the whole discussion, I was exploring what Derek Hazel meant by "genetic information on this planet is indeed declining." What did he mean? Was he stating that I as a human being have less information than my great ancestors? Or does he mean there is less diversity of species? I have not heard what he was communicating expressed in those terms. I was just trying to clarify another creationist perspective.
WHY you wrote it?
But then I find I am (inaccurately) backstabbed by you here. What's up? Just want to back-stab from a safe distance? How helpful is this really? What do you get out of it? I could understand if you jumped into the conversation over there and had a go at me. I could understand if you decided not to read the opinions of a mere lay-person such as myself, and blanked me from your mind never to read me again.
(It's not as if I'm the arch-bishop of the Anglican church, and you'd better record and debunk every word I say because I'm so influential and you've got to save other Christians from my terrible influence! ;-)
I'm just a Christian lay-person trying to understand. I also thought I could have a chat on Sydney Anglican's, and if any other Christians wanted to join in they could.
I had no idea it would generate a hate blog like this one, and that Christians would engage in such behaviour from afar... especially against a lay person. I'm small fry. Many of the people there are small fry. Some are bigger, yes. But... Warwick, what do YOU get out of sitting here writing super-long posts judging a conversation over on another forum?
From a mental health perspective... I've just got to wonder what you're getting out of it? Is the following really true for you? If so, get some help!
The AngloForum is like an addiction drawing me back again & again as I just cannot believe some of the liberal anti-Biblical trivia that some post there.
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Surely the biblical model is, if you've got a problem with me, drop me a line or write me a letter? I guess getting involved is not as fun as congratulating yourself here with your mates. Also not as challenging either. It's FUN to sit and criticize from a distance... and really BRAVE as well! (Read: repent).
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Ktisophilos: you said
Hankinson, a lot of people in the Church simply haven't thought through these issues. That is what was meant through "saved through blessed inconsistency".
Well, to be honest, that about sums it up for me. At least I'm still blessed.
Ahhh, isn't ignorance bliss? I don't have to spend my entire life reading 6000 science books on why the world is 6000 years old. I don't have to tell of my relatives when they show their kids horrible movies like "Ice Age". I can just "fit in". Nice.
Indeed, with all that extra time not wasted reading 6000 science books, maybe I'll read some other parts of the bible for a change, instead of obsessing over every last letter in every nuance of every word in Genesis 1-11.
Maybe I'll remember that the overwhelming emphasis in the bible is that God loves us enough to send His only son to die for my sin.
(Which no doubt includes my "Sin" of not even WANTING to read 6000 science books on why the world is 6000 years old! ;-)
I don't know... with all that extra time I might teach scripture in school this Thursday, run the kid's club this Friday, pray, and ... I don't know... HELP GET PEOPLE SAVED?
Also Ktisophilos, I'm really concerned about your "Moore College bible translation Compromise" jokes. Not only would that have taken a long time, I'm left wondering what you got out of it? Nice trolling, Ktisophilos, just join in the hate-email. Why not do something constructive with all your frustration, and pray for us poor sinners instead of just displaying your hatred of us? Or why not, I don't know, BE BRAVE and join in the discussion?
EclipseNow, who has certainly let uniformitarian "science" eclipse the propositional revelation of Scripture, needs to stop whinging. It's hardly my fault that Moore really does treat the Bible according to that compromise "translation" instead of according to what the text says. My list merely showed that far more than Genesis 1-11 is at stake.
I showed from the Bible that the scoffers are those who deny that the world was flooded, so if the cap fits ... Warwick has shown just how harmful the compromisers were when it came to a real person whose faith was shipwrecked.
Some of your Angloblog buddies have openly derided creationists with far nastier names than anything here, despite Thacker's bleating. Frankly, you and other Moorites who wish to be considered evangelicals would have far more credibility if Gordon Cheng was rebuked for sitting in the seat of scoffers, and Owen Atkins was castigated for advocating a rampant God-hating Bible-mocker like Ian Plimer. The silence from professing evangelicals against the evolutionists who deny biblical inerrancy is deafening.
The Eclipsed One wonders why the term "heretics" is used, but he need look no further than his anti-YEC ally, Owen Atkins. Here are some comments of his, followed by my response. Let's see if Eclipse will be brave and correct his antibiblical errors.
OA: "histories, these are quite incompatible. In the first case birds are made before man is made.
In the second, birds are created after man has been made and to be companions for man."
Jesus, unlike OA, didn't regard Genesis 1 and 2 as contradictory but complementary, as He cited from both in Mt. 19:3-6. Dannii Willis also rightly pointed out that Genesis 2:19 should be translated "had formed", which removes the alleged contradiction. Keil/Delitzsch and Leupold noted that wayyitser in this context is best rendered in the pluperfect (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3462#contradictions).
OA: "Babel myth"
Another attack on the authority of Scripture.
OA previously claimed to have read Noah's Ark: A Feasibiblity Study online, but Dannii Willis caught him out in this lie, because this is a book not available online. And OA's crass ignorance shows, because this book totally demolishes all the anti-Ark nonsense OA picked up from Plimer. E.g.
OA: "And the hole in the top allowed all the methane to escape and fresh air to get in."
Nope, a window one cubit high all along the length. If OA could get out of his Moore ivory tower down to an industrial estate, he would see many factories and warehouses with a long window at the top. This is because this is an excellent ventilation system.
OA: "Of course there was food supplies in plenty to keep everyone from starving."
Of course, as documented in the book.
OA: "Mind you, I have heard some great YECS stuff on that. God put all the animals to sleep."
Not necessary, because there is plenty of room for the food and water (his hero Plimer overestimated the water requirements by 8 orders of magnitude!!). But the God of the Bible that OA doesn't believe in was certainly capable of inducing hibernation.
OA: "I'm perplexed as to where they kep the brontosauruses and the Argentinosaurs ..."
I'm perplexed that OA spruiks on about science but doesn't realize that Brontosaurus was invalidated as a taxon decades ago (the creature was an Apatosaurus with a camarasaurid head stuck on by mistake). In any case, nothing in the Bible said they had to be fully grown. God, who brought the animals to Noah, could easily have chosen specimens of the right age to undergo their growth spurt after leaving the Ark (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/4508/)
OA: "and all the sea and water dwelling critters"
Duh, you don't need to rescue sea creatures from a Flood (despite his idol Plimer's nonsense). The Hebrew words also make it clear that only land vertebrates were required.
"And of course, who volunteered to carry all those wonderful diseases? Which of Noah's mob volunteered to ensure that leprosy and syphilus were to survive?"
Another crass Plimerism. Of course, diseases could survive in nsect vectors or corpses, or in the dried or frozen state, or be carried by a host without causing disease. And post-Fall degeneration turned previously benign bacteria into pathogens (e.g. Mycoplasma has undergone severe gene loss, and the cholera germ becomes dangerous after it loses its chemotactic abilities).
OA: "The ark was unfeasible. A huge wooden boat it managed, against the odds, to survive, apparently, a massive cataclysm which should have torn it to shreds."
Jesus said the Ark was a real boat that Noah really entered to survive a real Flood (Luke 17:26-27), so does OA know better? And Peter affirmed that Noah and seven others were the only survivors (2 Pet. 2:5).
OA also must think he knows better than Korean naval architects who calculated that the Ark would have been incredibly stable, able to withstand waves several times higher than the Boxing Day tsunami (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/1773/).
OA also absurdly thinks that the Genesis Flood account derives from the Gilgamesh Epic, a favorite of Martin Shields. Quite aside from a direct contradiction with Jesus whom OA professes to follow, the Gilgamesh Epic is the corruption, including an absurdly unseaworthy cubical Ark (http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3107).
Eclipse now- Dave you commented negatively about me bloging as Warwick-my my real name-then you came on this site under a fake name?? Fair suck of the sav. Dave.
I don't remember anyone on this site doubting your salvation-maybe I missed it. If I have written anything suggesting this then I was in error.
I believe people can accept Jesus' free gift & be saved while at the same time hold unBiblical ideas. I know I have done so & it's possible I still do. I know a man who is a Christian, attends church, but has a sexual relationship with a separated but still married woman. Is he still a Christian Dave? I believe there comes a time when we can lose our salvation if we willingly continue in sin. I see some of the AngloBlogers in that light. I assume they have made a Christian committment but persist in holding & promoting views of Scripture in opposition to Jesus' words & Scripture in general. Scripture tells us we are saved & comprehend Scripture by faith & that which is not of faith is sin. Peter talks of the scoffers who promote uniformitarianism & reject the world-wide flood. I endeavour to defend Genesis against dangerous non-Biblical views which destroy the faith of others who cannot maintain Christian faith in an atmosphere where the very foundations of sin & redemption are rejected. Nowhere in the whole of Scripture are we told to accept the opinions of men, just the opposite. We are to understand Scripture via Scripture with the aid of the Holy Spirit. Man's worldly philosophies add nothing and in fact destroy. If some testable repeatable fact of science was to contradict a Biblical belief of mine then that would give me good reason to consider I have it wrong. But nothing in long age evolutionary belief is in that category not being in the field of operational science. It is simply organized Biblical scepticism which constantly changes as new information comes to hand. Shifting sand Dave.
To cap it off some of the AngloNasties recommend such discredited God-haters as Ian Plimer. Dave remember he is a humanist a group whose basic charter -signed by members- declares that followers must work to defeat supernatural belief! And Anglonasties promote him against Christian brothers. And you & others wonder why some become angry, & write angry things against such a perversion of truth.
I write here-and elsewhere- to defend the truth of God's Word against attack. I am not selective in my defense I have defended the Word against Atheist leaders, Muslim activists & now against compromisers. Dave I would like to think that you (as opposed to a few on the AngloForum) are open to reconsider your views.
I have seen some strong language here & have posted against it. I believe dangerous faith killing views are pushed on the AngloForum & have no regret for attempting-however ineptly- to contradict these faith killing views. What do I think of these individuals? I think Jesus died for them. This doesn't stop me being deeply concerned about the problems their extra-Biblical & anti-Biblical views cause. I wrote above about a man who lost his faith, turned his back upon God & returned to his old deeply sinful life because of people preaching the very same views as the AngloNasties. This isn't a story but verifyable fact.
Please let me explain as clearly as I can not yet having had my morning Vittoria coffee. What you appeear to see as good debate I believe is the discourse of some people who reject the clear meaning of Scripture because their starting point is not the innerancy of Scripture. Maybe their 'much learning' has simply confused them & they truly see the hated yeccers as the enemy of Christianity. I believe them to be either deceived & actively spreading this deceit, or genuine deceivers. Not being a mind-reader I cannot say which. However decades of experience has shown me that these evolutionary-long age views are destructive when Christians apply them to Scripture.
Traditionally doubters begin by denying the historical truth of Genesis. I say traditionally because the AngloNasties are not proposing anything new but simply promoting old un-Biblical ideas which have been around for decades. After reinterpreting creation via the long ages/ evolution filter they must then progress through Scripture and reinterpret anything which contradicts their view. And they do. They step forward in time to reinterpret the flood as local. This doesn't fit with Scripture-either OT or NT-& is simply a consequence of their starting philosophy.
I have met people like the AngloNasties who have turned 180 degrees, coming to full faith in the innerancy of Scripture & I pray that these guys will do also. However there comes a point when people have progressed so far into liberalism they can't turn back. I do fear that some on the AngloForum are past the point of no return & even worse will take others with them. I hope I am wrong!
There are a variety of people on SA, OA being further out on a limb than many of us. I find some of his questions compelling, but don't agree with his answers. I'm still searching.
I don't want to attack the bible — I want to teach it and help others come to know the same Jesus that helped me cope through my son's Leukaemia. I don't want to bury my head in the sand about it either, or make mistakes in my translation.
I am very interested in how you all decide which sections of writing are allegory, and which are literal. Try Proverbs 8, Job 38, Psalm 104 for starters. Tell me, what things indicate a literal truth and what things indicate a more metaphorical theological commentary? I want to take the bible seriously — I really do — and yet God also gave us eyes to see the world and brains to figure stuff out, and I still have serious questions about the creation-science you guys seem so sure of.
Either the bible isn't true,
or the vast majority of scientists in old earth fields are stupid morons who can't do their jobs (and I say that harshly because there would have to be tens of thousands of professionally trained scientists ALL making the same mistake),
or we've misunderstood the bible,
or we've misunderstood science,
or a bit of both.
I am trying to understand which.
Get as nasty as you like, I am less likely to listen to you. I am just explaining my position to the other readers of your blog that might actually be losing their faith over YOUR dogma!
(For every story of faith lost over theistic-evolution, I can tell you of Christians nearly losing their faith because they didn't want to stick their scientific heads in the sand — and only just hanging on BECAUSE of theistic-evolution).
I am interested in what you make of those other verses I mentioned above.
So, let your nastiness begin.
(Oh and Warwick, I created my Eclipse account for other reasons than attacking Christian brothers anonymously from a distance. My name is published at the bottom of the Zadok article on the home page anyway.)
Eclipse, once more: you and the Moorites will have some credibility only when you correct OA for his blatant attacks on the Word of God and adulation of a rampant humanist. But no, your allies reserve their vituperation for those who hold the traditional view of the biblical text itself, the view held by the Fathers and Reformers.
And you don't need to read hundreds of creationist books but only a handful to find that your objections have long ago been answered. E.g. about how to tell the literary genre of Genesis, see
the article "Should Genesis be taken literally?" (http://www.creationontheweb.com/literal). For why the age question has nothing to do with real science, see Naturalism, Origins and Operational Science (http://www.creationontheweb.com/naturalism). Why many geologists believe in the old earth is explained by their a priori rejection of the Flood, as with their patron saint James Hutton (http://www.creationontheweb.com/hutton). Or read the book Refuting Compromise which answers all these points and more.
Thank you, however, you did not answer my questions about some verses above that you might just find to have some "inconvenient truths"
Please be more specific. It should be obvious that books with the earmarks of Hebrew poetry (parallelism) such as Job and Psalms should be interpreted poetically, while books that have the earmarks of historical narrative (qatal verb followed by waw consecutives) such as Genesis should be interpreted as historical narrative. This was the way Genesis was understood until the rise of deist-spawned uniformitarian "science" (Philosophical naturalism and the age of the earth: are they related?
by Dr Terry Mortenson, The Master’s Seminary Journal (TMSJ) 15(1):71–92, Spring 2004; http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3771/).
And you didn't answer my question: how do you intend to answer OA who has blatantly called parts of God's Word mythology, and yoked with one of Australia's leading Christ-haters, Ian Plimer? The silence of the Anglomoores is deafening.
Dave I believe you & it appears I have thrown you in the same bag as those 'further out the limb.' For that mistake I apologize.
I've studied the Bible seriously in the decades since becoming a Christian. Like you I've puzzled over the meaning of various bits of Scripture & had to put some in the too hard basket for some time.
None the less I don't have trouble comprehending parable, allegory, poetry & prose. I've always been a keen reader and this schooled me to understand language. The Bible was written for us to understand & isn't anywhere as complex & confusing as a some out on a limb would have us believe. The attitude of a quite a few on the AngloForum (towards CMI-was AiG) has been rude, dismissive & agressive from the very first blog I read there. The attitude to God-haters like Plimer has conversely been respectful. The attitude to individual Christian brothers who beleive in a young earth has also been rude & dismissive.
Considering the above I have no option but to consider these people enemies of the Gospel, possibly wolves in the fold. I say possibly as I don't know them & as yet haven't been given super powers so as to read minds. None the less they give me every clue to doubt their sincerity.
I believe their problems in understanding the Bible is because they come at it from a worldly philosophy.
As regards dating techniques & beliefs I've had a little experience within this field. I challenged one such scientist to have a particular piece of wood dated in his lab. by c14 of course to show that the limestone in which it was found could not be 20-30 million years old as claimed. The timber had previously been dated at around 20,000 years i.e. it still had considerable quantities of C14 within it so could not be more than 50-60,000 yrs old. So therefore the 20-30 million years is wrong. He rejected the other labs. C14 age but wouldn't run a test himself even though I arranged for a scientist to assist him in both field work & in the lab. I think it fair to say that his bias would not let him do so. And what would become of him if he was the man who showed that those looney creationists were correct?
This sort of scenario has been repeated many times showing that accepted dates are wrong but the silence is as they say deafening.
So why does the scientist who is a Christian go along with this? Probably for many reasons the main one being that if he/she works in this field they will be seen as a fool if they don't accept the ruling paradigm.
I remember someone quoting Peter Jensen's comments in a newspaper where he said, if I remember rightly- that he would be considered a hillbilly if he believed in young earth creation. The fear of ridicule & the need to be seen as modern & scientific is an overwhelmingly powerfull negative force.
My reading has shown me that science & medicine for example have progressed because of the efforts of tiny minorities who went against the majority. Truth and scientific fact is not democracy-the world is still a globe even if 99.99% of people insisted it is flat.
Ktiso has given you some good links to read.
As regards the passages you asked about would you, for a start,select one and tell me your problem with it?
I need to depart as lunch & the movies call.
Regards, Warwick
My issue is that the other creation narratives in the bible are highly poetic and seem to take creative liberties with your "Literalistic" reading of Genesis Chapter 1. Are these other authors also "God-breathed" and therefore writing scripture? Or are they the AngloNasty heretics... that just happened to write Proverbs 8, Job 38, and Psalm 104.
I'm surprised you had to ask. Not only have I listed the passages above, but there has been a lot of discussion on this at "Sydney AngloNasties never brush their teeth so we all have to "tune in" to study them in morbid fascination every night.com
Eclipse, I have already explained that these other books are inspired poetry, while Genesis is inspired straightforward historical narrative. For understanding the historical sequence, you go to the historical narrative first. Is that so difficult? Well it is for those who want to make uniformitarian science authoritative over Scripture, even though you and the Anglonasties are not qualified in science unlike many of the CMI apologists.
And you have given no indication that you accept the Bible as God's authoritative word, given your absolute silence over OA and others who explicitly call the creation and flood accounts man-made myths. We are still waiting for the ostensibly evangelical Moorites to defend the authority of Scripture against those wolves.
1. Too fast on those forms of biblical literature, and too simplistic. They take liberties with the passage that you have not explored, and potentially even add things that you would not want to admit! Please read through the link I supplied to "Those despicable, hateful, horrible Anglicans.com" above, and read through the pages where Craig S and I were discussing Psalm 104 and it's implications for Noah's flood... as well as the similarities and differences to Genesis 1. Compare and contrast.
2. I have just had a chat with Owen, so can you get off your high horse?
3. Your tone is horrific mate.
Can I suggest you pray for me the way I prayed for you this morning? It might help you rediscover your humanity and compassion. I am trying, but your tone is REALLY putting me off.
Eclipse
The Psalms are not taking liberty, but putting history into poetic form. There is a big difference between that and disputing the actual sequence of historical events and the time frames of passages that are historical narratives. As I said, it is faulty exegesis to interpret poetry as history just as it is to interpret history as poetry.
Your chat with Owen was quite good, although it might have gone further and overtly asked him why he denies the inerrancy of Scripture and relies so much on Plimer.
My tone is incredibly mild compared to the Anglonasties who accused YEC of lying (still not retracted despite Andrew Rayment's request), and all the other things like being moronic, demonic, hillbilly, and the rest. Where is your objection to that, and by moderators on the site at that!
Oh, right, so now you are appointing me responsible for every infringement on SA, while not taking responsibility for the swearing and demonization going on here!?
You still have not answered my questions raised in "All Sydney Anglican's eat cockroaches for breakfast.com" concerning Psalm 104. You really are avoiding it. I've been reading through some of your links and thinking them through, but you are just plain ignoring my questions raised on the very blog you seem intent on scrutinizing and criticizing.
This is your last chance to prove you are not just another of thousands of internet trolls I have come across. Read the conversation revolving around Psalm 104 will you please? I am specifically after your comment on the extra phrase "never again" in Psalm 104 after the water-creation cycle. Or I am out of here.
Eclipse Now,
I must thank you for actually taking the arguments of creationists seriously, though of course you do, at this time, disagree.
A question, how many instances in the Old Testament are there when a number is placed next to a day and you don't take it literally?
At the moment we are focusing on Psalm 104 which has brought Craig Thacker — a Sydney Anglican creationist — and I together for some interesting conversation. Please read through our conversation as it covers some territory you probably have not considered.
There are other parts of the bible that cover the creation event, and from a different angle. Psalm 104 even has implications for whether Noah's flood was local or global!
Eclipse: the abuse on the Angloblog is hardly an isolated incident, but committed by the mods as well. While Warwick and I have criticised some of the language by the owners of this blog, we are still waiting for similar criticisms by the Angloblog people of some of the anticreationist viciousness.
And it was not just abuse I was asking you to comment on, but the overt denial of biblical authority by the likes of Atkins and Austin.
About Psalm 104, what more is there to say? This is poetic, i.e. don't reinterpret the history of the historical narratives because . Genesis 6-9 is historical narrative, and unambiguously states that the Flood was global with the repeated use of the Hebrew kol (all). Are you seriously suggesting that we should dispense with the clearcut narrative, as well as the understanding of people like Josephus, the Fathers and Reformers, that the Flood was universal? It really is absurd to rely on a novel interpretation just because a Hebrew ignoramus like Richard Deem has twisted a poetic passage of Scripture to support his local flood compromise with uniformitarian geology.
I have also asked pertinent questions of the Anglomocker Cheng about how he would evangelize the Aborigines if they predate Adam and Eve.
.<——————
Translation: I will ignore the Hebrew grammar of Genesis 6-9 teaching the universal Flood with its repeated exclusive language, the understanding of some of the greatest exegetes in history, the clear teaching in the NT that only 8 people survived the Flood that destroyed the world that then was, the common sense considerations of the absurdity of the local Flood (e.g. why bother with an Ark, and how did the waters cover all the mountains of Mesopotamia without spilling out to the Indian ocean, carrying this unnecessary Ark with it, God's promise never to flood the earth again), because you won't indulge me further with this nobody Richard Deem's nonsensical novel interpretation.
Really, it's like expecting us to deal with ideas that aliens stole Jesus's body.
Dave- I'm just back from lunch and the movies & I see you have been very busy. i have just a few minutes before early dinner & off to Bible study.
I am no expert but was advised by a linguistic expert Dr Charles Taylor that Genesis 1 is prose. That is just a plain straight forward description of events. It is not Hebrew poetry such as in Psalms. However as I understand it poetry can be used to convey historical fact.
You seem so angry with the tone of some on this site but conversely have made no complaint about the abuse hurlers on the AngloBlog.
I do not take Genesis literally! As with all literature I take it at face value unless thhere is some good reason no too. This is very different than taking something literally.
Gotta go called to dinner.
Funny that - Dave Lankshear was really keen to correpond when the dialogue of the correspondents (including himself) was assertive but when dialogue toned down he was all too quick to take off.
I only tuned in today and missed involvement. As I read through the dialogue there were hints to me he was not genuinely inquiring after truth of the subject. Add to this his past dialogue tone on the Anglican forum and I feel confident in my observation.
BTW I don't believe our LORD Jesus Christ would use the term (abbreviated or in full) LOL!!! as used by some correspondents on the Anglican forum against YEC writers.
I wish it were otherwise. I wish there was genuine fellowship but the tone on the Anglican forum over time causes problems.
Sam Drucker
Sam Drucker
Yeah, it is strange. He thinks that the humanist-supporter Atkins had good questions, but they were not questions but assertions parroted from Slimer as to why the Flood account could not be trusted. And as shown here and on CMI, they have easy answers.
Funny that - Dave Lankshear was really keen to correpond when the dialogue of the correspondents (including himself) was assertive but when dialogue toned down he was all too quick to take off.
Ummm, I have life responsibilities, scripture to prepare, bible study to attend, kids club to run... and that's just my volunteer Christian stuff not my peak oil campaigning and my family time and my career and my housework! Can you please stop with the personal attack and Bulverism and keep to the debate? It's REALLY easy to demonize a PERSON rather than go over their arguments. It's so much easier to put them in the "bad guys" camp.
Can I ask you Sam Drucker and
Ktisophilos: have either of you spent more than 5 minutes in prayer for me, and Owen, and all the others you hate so badly? It might help, it really might. As it is, I've already sent an email to my old rival Craig Thacker on SA to say how much I admire his calm tone , and we've apologized over various things. Take a leaf out of his book guys, or this conversation is over.
Now, poor Ktisophilos has stumbled into it.
and unambiguously states that the Flood was global with the repeated use of the Hebrew kol (all).
I'm sorry, but that's a misleading representation of the Hebrew usage of the phrase. Brother, please be careful lest you mislead your fellow creationists into a serious misrepresentation of the God-breathed words in Hebrew, will you? Please double check your understanding of the Hebrew phrase here.
Dave,
I thought you had gone. I appreciate the opportunity to dialogue. I shall pray for you. It would be a help to me if you infomed me of what you prayed for me (this is not a jibe but a genuine inquiry).
From my observation, the charges of various derivations of the word "demonic" in this debate have come from an antiYEC on the Sydney Anglican forum and yourself (not that you are accusing but, rather, suggesting you are being demonized). I will give my apology if any YEC on this or the other site is accusing anyone of being demonic.
With decades of years of experience in reading correspondence I believe I can detect when someone is having a 'snipe'. Honestly, I think a lot of your comments here and there contain a tone of 'snipe' but periodically you make a comment suggesting you genuinely are inquiring. It's a puzzle to me. Nevertheless, I am prepared to engage if you have a similar wish.
On the matter of your reading of Psalm 104 can I say that I have been taught (through the Anglican Church) not to have Poetry take away from Historical Narrative. Further, I agree with Craig Thacker that Psalm 104 speaks of two events viz creation and flood. It is widely accepted by scholars that our Lord Jesus speaks of two events viz the destruction of Jerusalem and his second coming, when speaking of the end times, as recorded in Matthew 24. This dual reference in Psalm 104 is not unique.
I hope you will note from all correspondence on the website that varying tones (soft and strong) are used. It would be unfair then to say all speak with the same tone.
I shall log off now. If you decide to communicate, and I hope you do, then I must caution I won't be checking the site again until tomorrow night at the earliest.
Sam Drucker
Sorry about above, had some coding problems.
Hi Sam,
I prayed for everyone on this blog, that we would ALL repent of too much self-righteousness, that we would try to play the ball and not the man, that we would avoid caricature of the other's argument and generally play fair, and ... some of it was just expressing sadness before God at the whole thing between our 2 websites and parties. These debates really affect me, especially when I hit a wall of self-righteousness indignation from some here. I asked for forgiveness myself.
I'm on a bit of a roller coaster, moving from highs of discovery to lows of being attacked and misunderstood and misquoted, from highs of "victory" to lows of being challenged and having new data to assimilate.
Craig Thacker got me a beauty yesterday with a good argument, so I was extra "humble" and contrite and confused last night. I've got a little more confidence in my position today, but that could give way tomorrow.
Now... Psalm 104 can be read as the flood or as the creation narrative. As I said before, my Scripture Union commentary picks "Creation", as does this link.
But another thing that suggest it is the way the creation narratives unfold. God makes the heavens, the earth/foundations, then sorts out the waters. There's at least a 3 part statement in Genesis, then in Proverbs 8, then Job 38, then Psalm 104.
It simply fits Sam. I know you don't like it, but it fits. My commentary, that link, and common creation narrative themes all say the waters in Psalm 104 are the waters of CREATION which are then sent into their "global" positions, for good. This does not negate Noahs flood happening, but it does negate it happening on a global scale. It does not contradict God's promise not to wipe out "all flesh" in Noah's local flood (when all humanity was probably bound up in the middle east and Noah's arc at that time), but it does prevent Noah's flood being global.
Also, if you argue that the Hebrew says the whole earth was flooded, then you also have to be consistent and argue that the bible says the whole earth dried and basically turned into Mars!
I doubt that I need Hebrew lessons from the likes of Eclipse. After all, I can cite real Hebrew experts like H.C. Leopold, while all he has is a non-scholar called Deem whose "scholarship" is limited to "strolling through Strong's". Before Deem was born, Leupold had refuted such amateurish word studies used to justify an interpretation never seen in Judaism or Christendom till the mid 19th century:
'A measure of the waters is now made by comparison with the only available standard for such waters—the mountains. They are said to have been "covered." Not a few merely but "all the high mountains under all the heavens." One of these expressions alone would almost necessitate the impression that the author intends to convey the idea of the absolute universality of the Flood, e.g., "all the high mountains." Yet since "all" is known to be used in a relative sense, the writer removes all possible ambiguity by adding the phrase "under all the heavens." A double "all" (kol) cannot allow for so relative a sense. It almost constitutes a Hebrew superlative. So we believe that the text disposes of the question of the universality of the Flood.
'By way of objection to this interpretation those who believe in a limited flood, which extended perhaps as far as mankind may have penetrated at that time, urge the fact that kol is used in a relative sense, as is clearly the case in passages such as #Ge 41:57; Ex 9:25; 10:15; De 2:25; 1Ki 10:24. However, we still insist that this fact could overthrow a single kol, never a double kol, as our verse has it.'
Deem is rather naive to think that his local flood novelty rescues Genesis from conflict with uniformitarian "science". But in reality it creates far more problems than it solves. E.g. where is the geological evidence for such a year-long local Mesopotamian Flood comparible with the Channelled Scablands of the less violent Missoula Flood? What held the water in a half-bowl like Mesopotamia for a year instead of running out in the opposite direction to Ararat, carrying the Ark with it?
BTW, since Eclipse is spruiking on about Ps. 104, he should realise that this is what a poetic account of creation and the Flood looks like. Gen. 1-11 has a totally different structure.
BTW, Eclipse said: "that we would avoid caricature of the other's argument and generally play fair".
Yet I have yet to see the slightest protest at the likes of Cheng, a moderator of the Angloblog, who has done nothing but caricature and mock YEC arguments, although he is too intellectually lazy ever to read one of them. It is also laughable that he regards YEC as unscientific, when many of the staff at CMI have scientific qualifications that would leave Cheng in the dust.
Conversely, if Eclipse would look beyond what he calls "hate" (a case of projection, eh?), he would see that there are plenty of sober exegetical and scientific defences of our position on this site.
Ktiso thanks for the information. I'm more & more convinced the problems certain AngloBlogers have with creation & the flood etc are purely a consequence of their non Biblical starting point. The Anglican church has for long cosied up to academics & entered into convenient compromise rather than appear to be 'hillbillys.'
So called science has been uncritically accepted, given pride of place over Scripture whenever it appears this 'science' demonstrates Scripture to be wrong. This as I see it has given birth to the idea that in the beginning man was primitive & therfore had to have simple stories to read around the campfire, stories with spiritual meaning but not historical fact.
This is not Biblical thinking but pure evolutionary philosophy where man appears staggering from the dark after splitting off from his ape cousins. Man was created in the image of God by God by His spoken word, from the dust of the earth & was never primitive in his ability or reasoning. In fact considering the vast number of genetic faults which have accumulated in the human gene pool since the fall I think it obvious that our first ancestors were both physically & mentally superior to mankind today.
When I say that so called science was uncritically accepted by leaders & members of the Anglican church I am on solid ground as quite a spot of scientic illiteracy has been demonstrated on the AngloForum, & elsewhere. The phrase -I'm not a scientist- is uttered as some sort of an excuse but it isn't necessary to be a scientist to understand the scientific method & to see why evolution/long ages is not part of it but a belief based upon assumptions & faith.
Gordon Cheng is by his own words a most unpleasant character heaping scorn upon Christian brothers who chooose to trust God not man. That shows where his faith lies.
Interestingly the term 'unequally yoked' comes to mind when I think of these compromisers. They have uncritically accepted nonscience which in its essence needs no God. They apparently imagine that adding a little God to a Godless philosophy makes it good!
Atheists with whom I have spoken think the theistic evolution position to be foolish. I remember one at Sydney Uni. saying-- don't they know that evolution does away with God?
Ktiso focuses on the one word, "all" without listening to the thrust of the 2 Hebrew words, "all (the) land". Why? Because when you look at that Hebrew phrase, he knows it's devastating to his case as it can denote people, and can clearly denote local situations. So focus on "all all the heavens" if you want — but we are moving right on past you Ktiso.
Also Ktiso, if you want to be consistent then if the whole world drowned you're going to have to read the Hebrew consistently and admit that the whole world then dried up later, including the oceans!
(If anyone wants to read a more on why the Hebrew demands a "Global Drought" or "Marsification" then please read HERE. Indeed, you'll get a more complete appraisal of many Hebrew phrases and learn how "all the earth" can mean "all the local land" and "mountains" is the same word for "hills", you will have to read this link because Ktiso and Warwick are certainly not going to volunteer this information!)
Warwick spends and entire post Bulverising, psychoanalyzing WHY I am wrong, rather proving THAT I am wrong.
Warwick, to delete a post you click on the rubbish bin down the bottom. When you do, can you do it twice please? Don't Bulverize.
**************
Give me a break! The Bible says that the water covered the whole earth... Really?
When you read an English translation of the biblical account of the flood, you will undoubtedly notice many words and verses that seem to suggest that the waters covered the all of planet earth.2 However, one should note that today we look at everything from a global perspective, whereas the Bible usually refers to local geography. You may not be able to determine this fact from our English translations, so we will look at the original Hebrew, which is the word of God. The Hebrew words which are translated as "whole earth" or "all the earth" are kol (Strong's number H3605), which means "all," and erets (Strong's number H776), which means "earth," "land," "country," or "ground."3 We don't need to look very far in Genesis (Genesis 2) before we find the Hebrew words kol erets.
* The name of the first is Pishon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Havilah, where there is gold. (Genesis 2:11)
* And the name of the second river is Gihon; it flows around the whole [kol] land [erets] of Cush. (Genesis 2:13)
Obviously, the description of kol erets is modified by the name of the land, indicating a local area from the context. In fact, the term kol erets is nearly always used in the Old Testament to describe a local area, instead of our entire planet.4
Once more, Eclipse relies on a Hebrew ignoramus like Richard Deem and naive Strong-strolling. Does he really think that his great insights would have been news to global flood believers like Philo, Josephus, Justin Martyr, Theophilus of Antioch, Tertullian, Gregory the Theologian, Chrysostom, Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Keil and Delitzsch, Leupold and Gleason Archer.
And he keeps rabbiting on about kol erets. But as I cited from Leupold, while a single kol sometimes may be non-exclusive, it is the double kol, i.e. the combination with "under all the heavens" that makes it clear it is universal. An the writer goes on to use more exclusive language about the extent of the flood, and stresses that ONLY those on the Ark were saved.
Note also, Eclipse's examples are irrelevant, because "kol erets OF ..." is a different context from "kol erets" in isolation, or combined with "under the whole heavens".
This is the same contextual fallacy as those who use "day" combined with a preposition (Gen. 2:4 "in the day that God made the heavens and earth") to justify treating the creation days, which lack a proposition, as indefinite days. NB, the 12 days of Numbers 7 likewise close with this expression, and no-one treats this numbered sequence of days as anything but history.
BTW, thanx for the link to Bulverism. I basically agree. All the same, most of the posts on this side have indeed shown why the Anglocompromisers are wrong both exegetically and scientifically. Only then have we attribute their scriptura sub scientia attitude to pride and desire for academic respectability (which they naively think they will get if they pick and choose which parts of Scripture are authoritative).
Ktiso...
1. You still haven't explain the whole earth drying out.
2. Repeating an argument you like does not negate 2 other overwhelming arguments that you do not like. Nevertheless, I will endeavor to track down a Hebrew scholar and see if your one reference carries the weight of the Hebrew in one direction more than the 2 in the other, "local area" + "hills" direction. When I study the use of those words in all sorts of contexts, sometimes referring to the PEOPLE in the land and many other times DEFINITELY referring to a local geographic region, it really adds a lot more weight to the local flood argument. I know you don't like it, but just saying "Kol Kol Kol" 3 times and clicking your heels together does NOT make the other uses of those words disappear. It just makes your argument sound weak.
3. Calling an academic you dislike an "ignoramus" does not really help justify your position. It just makes you sound more arrogant and self-righteous. Please stop it. You're mimicking the behaviour you want me to condemn in Gordon.
4. And by the way, don't mention Gordon Cheng's outburst one more time. I was too busy for the thread when it happened, and missed it by several days (from memory). By the time I returned to the thread others had rebuked him, he'd apologized & clarified, and it was all over. Stop trying to "taint" me by association because it's all over.
Indeed, any "guilt by association" argument is weak. It attempts to make one group appear perfect, while the other group is of course full of corruption and vice. Also, the argument can backfire because I can make you accountable for every word written on this blog.
Tell me, does your theology tell you your "camp" is perfect? Another danger of it is that it leads the conversation away from the issues — how we are to understand the word of God — and onto party politics where theological ideas are sacrificed in a military effort to out-shout the other group and prove their party wrong, and my party right.
It's parliamentary politics, it's un-Christian, and I would ask you to stop it right now or this conversation is over. Just go back and COUNT how many times you have repeated the argument that "Gordon Cheng is a horrible man and YOU SHOULD TELL HIM OFF!!!"
What else do you know about him anyway? You only know his online behaviour?
Listen to me very carefully. I have been the brunt of his sarcasm, and asked him to calm down. He IS abrupt online sometimes... and SA bloggers have written to him on a number of occasions to calm down. However, if he goes really too far he tends to realize it and apologizes.
This is the crux of it... I have reason to be mad at him for debunking, criticizing, and sniping at my peak oil threads for the last few years. But you know, I've heard him preach. I've fellowship with him. I know of certain family health issues that would freak me out even though my boy had cancer a few years ago! You don't know what stresses he is under, or how much he cares for his family, or what he is achieving in church ministry. You blast him from a distance.
The reason the guy is abrupt like that in certain forum subjects more than others is that he's so passionate for the gospel, and is cranky with anything that detracts from attention on the gospel.
He sees red when he sees Christians utterly consumed by anything else, including Creationism. He's concerned about the months of obscure scientific reading that Christians get into to defend a specific reading of Genesis that he just can't see!
And yeah, he's done Moore, so yeah, he knows the same Hebrew your experts quote.
So can I ask you to try and forgive Gordo? Because I have to. He's my Christian brother in Christ, and he's asked me to forgive him for going too far in other threads, and he's asked Creationists to forgive him in this thread. So repent, ye judgmental sinner! ;-)
If it's that big an obsession to you, can I suggest that you get some counseling and try to learn how to forgive?
I forgot to add...
I don't believe you agree with avoiding Bulverisms when you then went straight into delivering another one. Red card you naughty naughty boy!
Eclipse, if you want to deny the traditional understanding of the Genesis Flood, then cite a scholar, not a nobody like Deem (who is neither an academic nor a Hebrew scholar).
And if you want to debate Hebrew with me, then deal with the double kol in the passage concerned (covered all the earth under all the heavens), not a whole lot of passages with a different context, lacking the double kol. This includes the earth drying out, because this also didn't have the double kol.
There is no point trying guilt manipulation on me. Cheng is a nasty piece of work, and I have failed to notice any repentance. And many of the other Anglobloggers have clapped his witless remarks and cheered his straw man attacks. So a lot of the Anglocompromisers deserve to be tainted by association.
Good for you in what you have done to rebuke him, and you also have my condolences for your son with cancer.
All the same, there is no excuse for Cheng's behaviour towards Christians who take the same view of Genesis as Luther and Calvin, and have used this successfully to ground the Gospel in the real world. Maybe Luther's and Calvin's commentaries on Genesis that affirmed a recent 6-day creation and global Flood were also "distractions from the Gospel"?
But one must wonder what Christ he preaches, since it doesn't appear to be the one who taught that God created male and female "from the beginning of creation" and affirmed the reality of the Flood and Ark. And I doubt that he has read the Hebrew experts I have, given his complete and willing ignorance on what YECs teach.
Eclipse: [Cheng]'s concerned about the months of obscure scientific reading that Christians get into to defend a specific reading of Genesis that he just can't see!
That is diametrically opposed to reality. Rather, the "specific reading of Genesis" is one a child would see, and the one that Josephus, most Church Fathers and all Reformers saw.
It is also the one that atheists, happily joined by Cheng, mock, so it behooves Christians to defend it. Luther stated:
"If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the Word of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Him. Where the battle rages there the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle front besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point." (Luther’s Works, Weimar Edition, Briefwechsel [Correspondence], vol. 3, pp. 81f.)
The Apostle Paul said, "for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God" (Acts 20:27). Cheng evidently sees the "whole counsel of God" a distraction from Christ.
I have also pointed out the problems he would have in preaching to the Aborigines, if they predate Adam and Noah.
Dave -maybe your nasty side is showing. But I prefer to think it was a friendly attempt at humour.
Not for one minute did I imagine I could 'prove' anything about science or Scripture because this argument isn't about fact but about bias. On the AngloForum solid Biblical & scientific evidence has been delivered by the BC's(Bible centered)to the MC's (man centered)to no avail- slid south like water off a duck's back. So why bother with Biblical quotes & science because the non-Biblical bias the MC's hold forbids them to accept anything which contradicts their non-Biblical bias. Am I also biassed? One hundred percent but I take upon myself the bias of great men of God like Luther & always give the benefit of any doubt to God considering Him far far more learned than me, & omniscient as well. My bias says to me that if Jesus & the apostles quoted & alluded to the first 11 chapters of Genesis as historical fact 107 times then that's good enough for me. And no ever-changing pseudo-scientific man-made belief will shift me from that. So I am every bit as biassed as OA for example but we each have to decide which is the best bias to be biassed with. I am biassed towards the One who will judge me.
Maybe this also is Bulverism. Then so be it Dave as I am in no way embarassed by being called a Bulverist, radical, fool, hillbilly, moron or other intended insult any atheist or compromiser can throw at me. Water off a ducks back Dave.
I have been insulted & threatened by Muslim radicals OS for my faith and arrested by the KGB so what atheists or Anglonasties or any other liberal compromisers throw at me is by comparison the mutterings of amateurs.
No my intention is to point out the fact(which they admit)that the MC's interpret Scripture through a non-Biblical 'lens', placing the opinion of man above the Truth of God so no amount of fact will budge them. I would like those truly seeking after truth to see this. I have no false hope that those so deep into compromise will pay my words or anyone elses any heed.
I would like bystanders to consider the following: If you reinterpret the first chapters of a novel via a pre-existing bias so that the plain meaning of the author is distorted or wholly rejected the chance of understanding the novel is severly diminished. Same with Scripture.
Warwick's last comment is most appropriate. We hope that Cheng and the rest of the Anglobloggers who share his seat of the mockers will come to realise this. Far from being a hindrance to the Gospel, the Gospel is grounded in the first chapters of the Bible. Without them, try rationally explaining "Jesus died for your sins, which brought death into the world". If billions of years and evolution are true, then sin did NOT bring death, because it has been around for billions of years. But if sin didn't bring death, then why should Christ die for sin?
Warwick, that was a nothing post. It said nothing except, "I'm right, and you guys are wrong and I don't trust your motives".
I'm not calling you a Bulveriser because you're a poor persecuted
martyr and I'm a horrible demon out to torment you. I'm calling you a Bulveriser because your psychoanalytical mud-slinging contains no logical argument. You contributed nothing. So, I'll ignore that post because there is simply nothing of substance there.
*********
Now, Ktiso, Sydney Anglicans are just trying to understand the bible. IF the reading is non-literal and yet still TRUE, I think the Sydney Anglicans still teach us that:-
1. God made the world
Details are irrelevant — we trust that every bit of Genesis is God's breathed-out word, but it just might be saying something other than the church has traditionally thought so far. If new Hebrew data and hermeneutics bring to light that we might have had a wrong emphasis, and God's WORD to us actually says something slightly different that we've only just "got", then it is YOU my friend who are allowing human traditions to cloud their biblical reading.
2. God teaches us WHY He made the world, and how we are to relate to that world.
Genesis beats the pagan belief systems over the head theologically. Reading it scientifically seems arbitrary and strange. The bible is intensely theological — concerned with us and God. There are many things it is not concerned with. You COULD BE asking the wrong questions.
3. Mankind sinned
4. Mankind dies as a result
Note: However mankind was formed, I believe the first humans lived in a Garden that was special, with a tree of knowledge, and a DAILY WALK WITH GOD! So they were immortal... however they got to be there, and whatever other difficulties you have with evolution, the bible teaches us that humans were in perfect relationship with God and in paradise. A daily walk with a "physically present" God (language breaks down here) in a way He is not now present, would change everything. They sinned, and were barred from Eden, the special garden with the tree of life.
They died. QED.
5. God sent the flood which carried out a real judgment on a region of the earth, that just may have contained all the humans that were alive. (They had not spread out over the earth as after Babel). hence, "All flesh" was destroyed... but for the 8 of course.
6. We need Jesus to save us.
OK? Main doctrines kept, Genesis taken seriously (but I admit not literally), and guess what?
YOU HAVE NOT ANSWERED MY QUESTION!
**************
I'll make it easy for you. I am simply not going to answer any more of your questions or accusations or holier than thou snipes until you answer this.
IF you are convinced that the WHOLE EARTH was flooded, then you must also be convinced that the WHOLE EARTH dried up! It turned into Mars. Yet we see that 75% of it is covered in water. Please explain?
***************
I'll let you Click Here and pan down to the pretty picture of an earth-turned-Mars.
Please explain why the flood is global when the earth drying up is obviously not. I'll be really interested in your professional reading of the Hebrew as well. ;-)
If it is not already crystal clear, there is no case in Scripture where a double kol is not universal. This describes the Flood. Yet this pseudoscholar Deem hopes to overturn millennia of understanding by the greatest exegetes with his "insight" about the earth drying up. Yet none of the passages he cites even has a single kol let alone a double!
As for the Moorite "lessons":
1. "details are not important"? Then why provide them?? Where do you get off limiting Genesis 1 to the first verse and ignoring all the others?
2. No, God does not tell us why He created. He tells us the time frame and order of events. I splattered the polemic idea here.
3,4: according to dating methods the likes of Deem accept, there were undoubtedly anatomically modern human fossils at almost 200,000 years old, far older than the most stretched biblical date for Adam that you could manage. Fossils mean something died! See http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/3004/
5. Again, the dating methods you trust over Scripture point to humans living outside Mesopotamia well before a biblical date for Noah. This also includes the Aborigines, allegedly 40,000 years in this country.
You also need to have a word with OA who regards the Flood as mythical, even though I demolished his Plimerite nonsense above in this thread.
Well, here I am eventually. A few minutes spared after a prolonged meeting and it is now after midnight and I am on the web.
Dave, thank you for your prayers. I commenced praying for you and for the will of our Lord to prevail in all this discussion.
You must feel a bit outnumbered on this site but I hope it doesn't deter you in your search for the truth.
I regret the tone in your dialogue with Warwick. I just don't think he is attacking you. Neither do I think Ktisophilos is attacking you but, rather, the source and strength of the argument you have presented regarding Psalm 104.
I note your intention to seek further advice on Hebrew. I commend this because one commentary does not necessarily make a theological position.
I really hope that we can all work our way through this to the glory of our LORD.
I expect you can cite instances of people coming to the LORD without taking a position on Genesis such as espoused on this site. However, at the meeting I attended tonight there was another of many examples I have heard of the LORD at work saving men through a YEC speaker. A Pastor of a church in the Blue Mountains sent an email to a friend thanking him for his address given at his church two years ago. A man who attended that church service two years ago was not then a Christian but was baptised last weekend and he gave testimony to the instrument of my friend's address that night turning his life around. It is one thing I and friends have noticed through YEC ministry. It gets more men saved and into the church than other strategies I have observed after many years in Christian ministry. Anecdotal? Perhaps, but I have consistently heard and read of testimonies of people coming to the LORD through a strong stand on what Genesis appears to be saying on origins in straightforward language. This probably means little to the discussion but I am always encouraged when someone is brought from death to life by our LORD. I just wanted to share it with others.
Sam
That's great to hear, Sam. People coming to Christ with a lasting, firm faith is cause for rejoincing on heaven and earth. And there is no doubt that the creation-gospel message helps immensely.
And even where it doesn't convince, I've noticed that many atheists grudgingly respect Christians who uncompromisingly believe the Bible, even the parts most ridiculed.
Dave you have missed my point again.
I will try to explain it more carefully.
And by the way I am neither persecuted nor a martyr- that was just another of your creative misunderstandings Dave. How anyone could see my comments in the way you have beggars the imagination.
Maybe it is a debating technique you use? My point was that having been insulted & threatened by experts the petty name calling on the AngloForum (& your Bulverism comment)is nothing. Water off a duck's back!
Remember I am not trying to 'prove' anything. I have previously pointed out, and here once again point out the biases in the two positions. The BC's (Bible Centered)& the MC's (Man Centered)
1) BC's start by accepting that God's Word is superior to mans philosophies. And they admit this bias! With this in mind they interpret Scripture as revealed truth accepting Genesis as historical prose, just as it's written. They have no reason to see it otherwise. As they read through the NT they see that Jesus & the apostles confirm that they are correct. The BC's are interpreting Scripture by Scripture- a good place to start.
2) The MC's approach the Bible with a bias which makes mans current philosophies the key to understanding Scripture. They come to Scripture already with an old earth bias firmly fixed- which they admit. As they 'know' the world is billions of years old anything in Scripture which contradicts this view is wrong (it's poetry/myth/alegory take your pick) and is reinterpreted.
I will say it again Dave as I have explained before: I have not entered into what you call 'proof' because vast amounts of proof has been ignored on the AngloForum because this debate is not about 'proof' but about bias.
Just in case you haven't got my point Dave what is the point of arguing 'proof' with people who disregard such proof?
You haven't understood my point Dave but others have.
This may be my last post for a while as I am off car racing at Wakefield today then down to Philip Island race track in Vic. Fortunately the development work we do on the racing car is real testable, repeatable, observable science not philosophies of men such as evolution/long ages.
Ktisophilos said...
I've noticed that many atheists grudgingly respect Christians who uncompromisingly believe the Bible, even the parts most ridiculed.
Actually there is a converse to that point Ktisophilos. Many years ago Richard Dawkins was asked by Phillip Adams about the people who hold to a short age earth. Quite surprisingly (I expected him to rave on about us being nutters etc!) he attacked those Christians who believe that Genesis 1 can be taken to mean "billions of years or whatever", describing them as disingenuous and dishonest.
As much as I find little to respect about RD, there is a lesson here. Throughout the Bible, Old and New Testaments, there are many instances of God both using and forming relationships with the "unsaved". RD I know isn't saved, but wisdom can be found even in men like him. For RD to rationally understand that Genesis 1 CANNOT be taken as the Sydney Anglicans routinely does is a clear sign that the language is plainly written.
Which brings me to a question I've asked continually: can, you Dave (i.e. Eclipse), give me a list of verses in the Bible where a number next to the word for 'day' can mean an indeterminate or non-literal length of time?
Regards
John
Eclipse,
A few questions and remarks.
1. If I were to run with all your putative exegetical commentary regarding the Flood and Genesis 1 I would have to conclude that God has failed me. What I mean by this is that God's revelation to us has become so obscure that it reveals nothing. Furthermore, it destroys the ability of God to clearly speak to the ploughboy, relocating understanding of God's revelation to men who can afford, and/or have the acumen, to attend fine theological establishments such as Moore College.
I am not taking a shot here but only summarising what has taken place here and on the SA Forum. Why would it be that to understand two quite straightforward passages about creation (also in Exodus 20 & 31) and the Flood (also repeated a number of times in the New Testament) one has to have knowledge of a psalm or pagan mythologies?
2. I wonder if you or the other people from the Anglo forum have actually read any of the pagan myths. What suprised me in my reading of them at university (and after that as well) was that there was only one instance in one myth that used a number next to a time period. This was only once and was in a brief line about the lunar cycle. Of course, it was clear that this was be taken literally, even in a pagan myth. The inclusion of 'gods' aside, I've never read any pagan creation or flood myth which reads anything like the Genesis record because of its use of temporal limiting language. The passages in Genesis 1 and 7 etc, with their number + days and months etc is not found in pagan stories.
As Ktisophilos stated, it doesn't say in Genesis 1 why God created. It does mention how long it took.
So, Eclipse, please show us IN Genesis 1 where it states WHY God created.
3. YECs don't read the Genesis and Exodus accounts scientifically, but straightforwardly. We read it like any list in the Bible. We read on a particular day God did such-and-such; on another specific day He did something different. If the Holy Spirit, the author of all Scripture (despite Bishop Forsyth's contrary OPINION!), says He did these things on these days, would I, a mere man, say, "No, no, no, we have a list of teachers and exegetes who say otherwise."? I don't think so. I'll take my chances and be as a ploughboy and go for the plain, unintellectualised sense of the passages.
In the end I suppose ours is a Pascal's Wager: we've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain by our "demonic", "moronic" and "parasitic" reading!
4. It's been asked a number of times, yet no SA bothers to respond because it would ruin their day: Exodus 20 is a legal passage and I really can't see any legal passage detailing something that is not to be taken straightforwardly. Why would God make it a commandment for the Israelites to not work on the Sabbath and give as the reason for this law something which was only figurative or poetic or metaphoric? This would have to be unique in legal writing if the SA understanding of Genesis 1 were true.
John
Hi Sam
I regret the tone in your dialogue with Warwick. I just don't think he is attacking you. Neither do I think Ktisophilos is attacking you but, rather, the source and strength of the argument you have presented regarding Psalm 104.
LOL! Warwick completely ignored the points under discussion, assumed a superior, "holier than thou" mindset, then set about demolishing my motives as part of that terrible mob, the Sydney Anglicans who "placing the opinion of man above the Truth of God". What utter rubbish! It's a nice Bulverism for Warwick to make, but what if the Truth of God is not as conveniently gift wrapped as you all think it is? (More under "Anglican Motives" below).
Ktiso — your post is replied to Here by Martin Shields. Martin also answers John's questions about numbered days more professionally than I can.
Days in the bible
Personally, I think that Genesis 1 screams "literary pattern" rather than "literal pattern". If it were literally true then we'd still be in the 7th day, because it never ended. The text contains no "morning and evening, the 7th day" finishing sequence. It's like a huge metaphorical leap, a liberty with the plain meaning of a "day" that it never ends.
And just maybe that is what God was telling us — that the 7th "day" was the pinnacle, the state of being we should look forward to, the point of the whole exercise. Maybe Adam and Eve were still in the "first day" biblically speaking, that is, until they sinned. Then they were no longer in Gods rest and the "7th day" ended. The real clincher for me though is the way Hebrews 4 talks about the 7th day of creation in such a metaphorical sense.
So I declared on oath in my anger,
'They shall never enter my rest.' "[b] And yet his work has been finished since the creation of the world. 4For somewhere he has spoken about the seventh day in these words: "And on the seventh day God rested from all his work."[c] 5And again in the passage above he says, "They shall never enter my rest."
6It still remains that some will enter that rest,
How can we enter the rest of the 7th day if it were a literal, once off day back at the end of the creation week?
11Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.
We simply should not be surprised by this. The Hebrew people often used numbers in a metaphorical way in apocalyptic and prophetic literature in Daniel. The New Testament carries the tradition on in Revelation. Numbers, repeated patterns in speech and language, all are used to convey meaning in an allegorical and metaphorical way.
Please note that the Bible communicates REAL truths in these other parts of the bible that are using metaphor! They are no less God-breathed than other parts of scripture. (So no Bulverism at me because I still see metaphor in the language of Genesis 1.)
And John, you're legal argument is interesting. It conjures the absurd image of modern lawyers wearing their wigs, shuffling through poetry to base their laws on. Of course the situation is not like that! (What a straw man argument.) Rather, we often see God's word drawing back on the principle of a passage to further establish another passage or argument. Look at Hebrews above! The principle is the rest of God, and the number 7 is repeatedly used throughout the bible as the perfection of God, so it is entirely correct to establish the law based on the "Perfect peace and rest" of God for establishing a 7 day week and Sabbath law.
Anglican Motives
Just imagine for a moment the hypothetical scenario that God is actually making a theological comment, not a literally historical one, in the early chapters of Genesis through a figurative narrative (for want of a better description).
Just imagine for a moment that Noah's flood was a massive local event, and that he COULD have slowly walked his family and animals out of harms way to escape it. But God — being merciful — wanted to demonstrate a sign of his justice to the people being judged and so had Noah build an ark, which they mocked and ignored to their peril.
Just imagine that the creationists are relying on a church tradition — granted an old one — that is actually a misreading of the text and creating incredible division, confusion, doubt, pain and suffering in the church.
Imagine that a careful reading of the Hebrew turns up new possibilities. Maybe this was initially prompted by some initial "doubts" because of modern science? Yet when the Scholars went to the text again to have another look, some stayed super-literal and defensive, but others actually found some startling things they had always missed! A combination of words and phrases that had always been under their noses allowed new readings.
They found that:-
* the word for "earth" is often used for local lands or even local people!
* the word for "mountains" is often used for hills
* the one word in Hebrew that really DOES describe the whole planet earth, "tebel" is never used once to describe the flood! (although it is used 37 times in the Old Testament.)
What if this different meaning of the text was there all along and we had missed it? If that were the case, then Creationists are now relying on the tradition of the church over the authority of the word of God! Do you agree that IF the texts say something different, and yet Jesus still quoted them and Paul did not see the doctrines of grace and redemption totally shattered, that maybe there are some subtleties in the text we need to adopt?
That is where I am coming from. That this is God's word, and what ever it says I am duty bound to accept! And I am NOT required to accept it a certain way just because that's the traditional way of reading it, but that I am required to understand the bible for myself as it is the highest authority, not you guys or anyone else.
Some, like Owen, might think reason is more important. Most are seriously trying to see what the bible is actually saying — rather than taking a knee-jerk reaction back into a traditional, church based understanding of what they THINK the bible has always said and what they are USED to the bible always saying.
We are asking the hard questions because of our commitment to the word of God and yet you lot treat us as Heretics, and always assume the worst and then even get into mocking penis size!
Even the creationists over on Sydney Anglicans are getting sick of you lot!
So can you see why I just blank out Warwick's sanctimonious attacks? "He's right, I'm wrong, because all my "team" have adopted the traditions of "men" in reading the bible".
Sorry Warwick, but you probably have not met some of the people teaching early Genesis as a theological commentary and figurative history. I have. They take it seriously Word of God to them, and treat it with respect.
Just because they have come to a different conclusion to you does not mean that you have the right to attack their motives and assume that their starting point has shifted. You have no right to assert this, just because you don't like their conclusions. What if God IS teaching something different? What if you are fighting Gods Spirit breathed word?
Some on SA have shifted very much from a "inerrancy" position, and I have responded accordingly. SA is a big and diverse group, but painting all of us with the same brush is a dishonest and silly argument. Or Warwick, do I taint "all you YECers" as being obsessed with going on about penis size in your "Christian" writing? This — Warren — is why you should not Bulverise, and why you should not play party politics.
Is YECism a new cult?
I'm sorry, but the following comment alarms me. I thought it was the gospel that saves, the gospel that teaches God made the world, we sinned, and Jesus came to die for that sin and save us. You know, what that terrible bastion of Heresy "2 ways to live" teaches! (A Sydney Anglican gospel tract.) So it is with great concern that I read the following:
It gets more men saved and into the church than other strategies I have observed after many years in Christian ministry. Anecdotal? Perhaps, but I have consistently heard and read of testimonies of people coming to the LORD through a strong stand on what Genesis appears to be saying on origins in straightforward language.
And I have consistently met Christians who were on the verge of losing their faith while studying science, and re-examined the texts and found that, guess what, God was not a "trickster" like the American Indian god Coyote and that — to them — they had simply misread the texts. I can't believe the translators always put "mountain" instead of "hill" and "whole earth" instead of "whole land". You must have some inside people working in some of our modern English translations!
But you'll just say, "Human reason over the scriptures" and my answer is, YES!
If you are going to uphold evangelistic success as a milestone of truth, then you are putting utilitarianism over truth. "We must be right, we've got all these converts".
What about Sydney Anglican churches being stronger than most of Australian Anglicanism, or the growth of the Charismatic church, or the strong growth of Islam? Is "success" a measure of truth? Come on! "Success" is a "Post Hoc Ergo Procter Hoc" argument to justify your position!
An example of Eclipse's intellectual dishonesty is a recent post on the AngloCompromise forum:
"I have less trouble with that than with the diameter of the earth expanding by 17.2 km's to cover Mt Everest (8.8 height * 2 for global expansion of water onto other side of the world) or of the Hebrew saying that the earth then DRIED UP!"
Of course, if he had lifted a finger to read what creationists actually teach, then he would have known that we don't believe that Everest was at that height back then. Rather, it grew to that height after the Flood given the catastrophic conditions. See for example Noah’s Flood—what about all that water?.
And now Eclipse is justifying OA's appeal to rabid Bible-mocking misotheists and his book Lies. This would be classed as "hate literature" if it attacked Jews, Muslims, blacks or gays the way it attacks creationists. Eclipse thus needs to understand Luther's old distinction between ministerial and magisterial use of reason. Biblical reason is ministerial, so is subject to God's propositional revelation. OA, and Eclipse it seems, places fallible human reasoning above God's revelation and puts him in the dock (ironic that Eclipse cited "God in the Dock" for the Bulverism reference).
It has been pointed out that the pattern in Genesis 1 is structurally almost identical to that of Numbers 7. But no-one claims that the latter is just a 'literary pattern'. This nonsense is a recent invention, unknown to Josephus, Theophilus, Basil, Luther, Calvin and Wesley. It is also rejected by top Hebraist James Barr. So why should we listen to an arrogant Gilgamesh worshipper like Martin Shields?
See also God’s rest in Hebrews 4:1–11 for a refutation of that tired old canard (which is very novel compared with church history).
No, Eclipse, our argument is NOT that evangelistic "Success" is ipse facto justifies our position, but it is a clear refutation of your defence of the Angloscoffer Cheng in claiming that YEC is a distraction from the Gospel.
Interesting, Martin "Enkidu" Shields states:
"However, I do think that this last expression, תחת כל השמים taḥaṯ kōl hašāmayim "under all the sky/heavens" is usually expansive, meant to encompass everything. I think this is upheld by the other passages where this expression occurs (see Gen 7:19; Deut 2:25; 4:19; Job 28:24; 37:3; 41:3; Dan 9:12). I also think Ecclesiastes uses "under the sky/heavens" (and "under the sun") in a similar way, to encompass the entire human realm. So Leupold's point on the meaning of the verse is largely correct, he just gets there the wrong way."
Then he tries to explain this away by chronological snobbery, i.e. ancient people were stupid. However, the point remains that the text points to universality, and we should remember that God is the ultimate author!
Then evidently my words were copied to the AngloCompromise forum:
"This is the same contextual fallacy as those who use "day" combined with a preposition (Gen. 2:4 "in the day that God made the heavens and earth") to justify treating the creation days, which lack a proposition, as indefinite days. NB, the 12 days of Numbers 7 likewise close with this expression, and no-one treats this numbered sequence of days as anything but history."
Enky replied:
"I think this is a separate issue. Aside from the fact that it is patently false to assert that "no-one treats this numbered sequence of days as anything but history" (many treat most of the Pentateuch as entirely fictional, although I am not endorsing that position),"
Now who is making an unwarranted hyperliteral universalization? When I said "no-one", it was in the context of genuine evangelicals who accept the inspiration of Scripture, as Moore College and Enky himself claims, not liberals.
"figurative treatment of the days in Gen 1 does not rest on the temporal syntactical construction using the word "day" in Gen 2:4."
Not for Enky perhaps, but a huge number of people DO appeal to Gen. 2:4 to deny that the Creation days were ~24 hours.
Martin and/or Eclipse wrote:
"We simply should not be surprised by this. The Hebrew people often used numbers in a metaphorical way in apocalyptic and prophetic literature in Daniel. The New Testament carries the tradition on in Revelation. Numbers, repeated patterns in speech and language, all are used to convey meaning in an allegorical and metaphorical way.
Please note that the Bible communicates REAL truths in these other parts of the bible that are using metaphor! They are no less God-breathed than other parts of scripture. (So no Bulverism at me because I still see metaphor in the language of Genesis 1.)"
It is ironic that you accuse me later on of presenting a straw-man argument. My original argument, which you refused to address, asked you to example verses in the Bible which have a number + day and which clearly indicate a non-literal understanding. Instead you reformulate my statement by dropping off the word 'day', state that the Bible uses numbers in metaphorical ways and then conclude that that proves that Genesis 1, Exodus 20 & 31 are metaphorical, figurative or poetic, but never actual. Well done guys! I'm going to give you an HD for your perspicuous logic. I'm really put into place by your clever rebuttal!
You then say:
"And John, you're legal argument is interesting. It conjures the absurd image of modern lawyers wearing their wigs, shuffling through poetry to base their laws on. Of course the situation is not like that! (What a straw man argument.) Rather, we often see God's word drawing back on the principle of a passage to further establish another passage or argument. Look at Hebrews above! The principle is the rest of God, and the number 7 is repeatedly used throughout the bible as the perfection of God, so it is entirely correct to establish the law based on the "Perfect peace and rest" of God for establishing a 7 day week and Sabbath law."
Again, you don't even follow your own argument. You claim that Genesis 1 is metaphorical or allegorical. If this is so, then some of the Law in Exodus (why not all of it??) is based on a metaphor or an allegory. Are you serious? A literal legal document based on non-literalness? What have you been smoking this morning guys?
Finally, your ravings about Anglican motives....what can I say?
Well, the Mormons and JWs love to tell you how their understanding overthrows everyone else's on the contemporary block. But your take on the whole matter goes even further; for you just don't want to claim that we modern YRCs might be in error but that the Jews got it wrong, the majority of the early Church fathers were hillbillies, the Reformers were parasites, etc etc. You even think that we could be fighting God on this one, something like Gordo's "argument" that we are demon-possessed, I suppose?
Your whole argument is an argument from silence and begins with a "what if". Now I'll give you my 'what if'.
What if all the Jews, the vast majority of Christians up until quite recently, and any number of atheists, read the text as 6 actual days, as it so obviously states, and that this IS the correct reading, the same reading a child in the New Guinea highlands or a scientist with 3 earned PhDs in biochemistry would read it as?
What if you guys are wrong not just because you refuse to read the text as it is, but because you routinely ask, for example, an atheist and God-hater like Plimer for advice?
What if the fact that you present a view of origins of the cosmos, of life and of man which is 99% the same as the atheist, materialist philosophy, which, for all things considered, cannot be distinguished from the anti-God idea, and thus when a non-believer hears it he see no reason to come to the Christ whose life and death is recorded in the NT? What if you'er putting a stumbling block in front of the non-believer because you have distorted the obvious sense of the Law of Genesis and of Jesus' and Paul's words? Wasn't it Jesus himself who said if you don't believe the things that Moses wrote about me (i.e the Creator!), then you won't believe what's happening now (i.e. at the time of Christ)?
John
Ktiso said:
"Of course, if he had lifted a finger to read what creationists actually teach, then he would have known that we don't believe that Everest was at that height back then. Rather, it grew to that height after the Flood given the catastrophic conditions. See for example Noah’s Flood—what about all that water?."
Are you serious? That's ANOTHER Coyote argument! "Oh, it LOOKS like it would have taken Everest a long time to get to that height from observable, empirical science but we magically know that it just sprang up overnight." I'm glad your Creationist scientific knowledge is so much more advanced than anyone else's that you can concoct these Catastrophic Continental Convulsions when you need them.
You guys make it up as you go along, as you need it.
John said: "Again, you don't even follow your own argument. You claim that Genesis 1 is metaphorical or allegorical. If this is so, then some of the Law in Exodus (why not all of it??) is based on a metaphor or an allegory. Are you serious? A literal legal document based on non-literalness? What have you been smoking this morning guys?"
You didn't get it did you John? "A literal legal document based on non-literalness?" Wow, now who's imposing their man-made, Western Culture back thousands of years onto the past for their own convenience. See, I believe that Genesis is God's word, and that Moses knew that, and that Moses was basing his law NOT on man made literal traditions, but on God's word to him. How many OTHER laws of Moses came from literal documents? Or did they come from God? But hey John, if it has to be some literal document for you... go ahead. Read into it whatever you want.
John continues... "And now Eclipse is justifying OA's appeal to rabid Bible-mocking misotheists and his book Lies. This would be classed as "hate literature" if it attacked Jews, Muslims, blacks or gays the way it attacks creationists. Eclipse thus needs to understand Luther's old distinction between ministerial and magisterial use of reason. Biblical reason is ministerial, so is subject to God's propositional revelation. OA, and Eclipse it seems, places fallible human reasoning above God's revelation and puts him in the dock (ironic that Eclipse cited "God in the Dock" for the Bulverism reference)"
Huh? Pull the silver-spoon out of your mouth and use real worlds mate. I'm not justifying OA's anything! I joke around with him sometimes on the forum, but go ahead... read what you want to into yet another field, my chats with Owen.
Numbers 7, yeah, EXACTLY the same mate, except that Numbers 7 announces the day FIRST and then lists a bunch of items Moses could see with his own eyes... and does so 12 times. Genesis 1 has a pattern that starts with "And God said" and then FINISHES with the day, in this interesting format.
"And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day."
And then light is created 4 days before the sun and the moon.
And that format is not delivered on the last day! Why? Hmmm? But other than the order being the wrong way around, the words being in a totally format, and the subject matter being things that are scientifically unexplained and impossible (light 4 days before the sun and the moon) they are EXACTLY the same! I'm with ya. ;-)
"See also God’s rest in Hebrews 4:1–11 for a refutation of that tired old canard (which is very novel compared with church history)." That's right John, because church tradition is so much more important than reading scripture as our final authority!
Noah's flood could EASILY have wiped out the entire human realm without covering the whole earth. The human race that the bible seems most concerned about, the line that would lead to Noah and on to Abraham and finally Jesus, was at this stage gathered in the middle east. One possibility is that the entire human race was wiped out (allowing for the universality of the language) in a local flood. The entire human race, "all flesh", except for Noah of course. What was that? There was an exception to the "all flesh"?
*****
When "all" does not mean "all"
The text uses many universal descriptions, which suggest global proportions. However, the universal text contradicts itself, if it is to be interpreted globally. For example, the Genesis text tells us that all flesh had become corrupted.11 However, the text also tells us that Noah was a "righteous man, blameless in his time."12 It is clear from the text that "all flesh" did not actually refer to all flesh, since there was at least one exception.
John, Sam, Warwick, and Ktis, why didn't Moses use the word Tebel to clear up how big Noah's flood was once and for all?
More amateurish pseudo-Hebrew and pseudo-science from the compromiser Lankshear, who is ignorant of both by his own admission. A few points:
Everest is currently growing slowly, so Lankshear applies the deistic uniformitarianism of Hutton to assume that it has always been growing at this rate despite all the difficulties this entails. Of course, with the forces of catastrophic plate tectonics and still-unconsolidated sediments, it could have grown much faster. This is consistent with God's Word. Its detractors need to show that this is impossible to justify their compromise; I need not prove anything. And the point remains that Lankshear prattles on against a position he has no clue about.
The Bible uses special words for Noah’s Flood: Hebrew mabbul and Greek kataklusmos (verb katakluzō). Compare the the words used to describe ordinary localized floods, e.g. Hebrew sheteph, nahar, nachal, zaram; Greek plēmmura.
Your hero Enky agreed that "under the high heavens" was a universal statement, at least according to the text itself. So are we expected to take your word for it about what tebel means? And how stupid Josephus, Luther and Calvin were to miss your great insight.
I have already told you, that if you want to accept man's fallible dating methods, they show that humans were living well outside Iraq long before Noah.
I have also asked by what Coyote science you think the Flood managed to avoid flowing out to the Indian Ocean, carrying the Ark with it.
See also God’s rest in Hebrews 4:1–11 for a refutation of that tired old canard (which is very novel compared with church history)." That's right John, because church tradition is so much more important than reading scripture as our final authority!
That was me, not John. And if you had bothered to read it, you would see that this paper was entirely exegetical.
As for your nonsensical argument about the the seventh day and the different wording, renowned Reformed theologian Doug Kelly (whom the Moorites boycotted when he spoke at a Moore venue) stated:
‘To say the least, this places a great deal of theological weight on a very narrow and thin exegetical bridge! Is it not more concordant with the patent sense of the context of Genesis 2 (and Exodus 20) to infer that because the Sabbath differed in quality (though not—from anything we can learn out of the text itself—in quantity), a slightly different concluding formula was appended to indicate a qualitative difference (six days involved work; one day involved rest)? The formula employed to show the termination of that first sabbath : “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made” (Genesis 2:2) seems just as definite as that of “and the evening and the morning were the first day”.’
The “rest” of Hebrews 4 clearly refers to the Kingdom of God NOT the seventh day of creation.
Numbers 7 is the closest structural parallel to Genesis 1. Each day (םוי yôm) is numbered, it has the same verbal pattern of qatal followed by a sequence of waw consecutives, and it also opens and closes (vs 10 and 84 NASB) with ‘in the day that’ (cf. Gen. 2:4) to refer collectively to all the ordinary days of the sequence.
His eisegesis to fit in with "science" (although he wouldn't know real science if he tripped over a test tube) becomes more desperate when it comes to all flesh died, except on the Ark, all were evil, except Noah. What on earth is the connection between the universal language of the Flood, where no exception is given what the Flood covered?
Blast, posting somewhow reversed the Hebrew letters of yôm.
Ktisophilos just shouts and snipes and insults rather than answering the questions.
1. Archaeologists have found a very thick layer of mud in excavations at Ur, around the time of these events, so a large flood around the middle east is just pseudo science? I think not. God said it, I believe it, that settles it. :-p
2. Everest is currently growing slowly, so creation scientists insert a bunch of "could have's" into the picture as if that's evidence. Every "could have" you insert into the picture takes it away from what we can deduct from our observations. Every "could have" you assert makes your god into a trickster just like Coyote. Hey, I'll join in. Why didn't He create us 1 second ago with complete life histories and memories while you are at it? Sorry, but my God is not a trickster like Coyote.
3. Ktisophilos ignores the word tebel because I dared suggest it! Well how about Strongs?
"8398 tebel tay-bale'
from 'yabal' (2986); the earth (as moist and therefore inhabited); by extension, the globe; by implication, its inhabitants; specifically, a partic. land, as Babylonia, Palestine:--habitable part, world."
1 Samuel 2:8 "For the foundations of the earth are the LORD's; upon them he has set the world."
2 Samuel 22:16
16 The valleys of the sea were exposed and the foundations of the earth laid bare at the rebuke of the LORD, at the blast of breath from his nostrils.
1 Chronicles 16:30 The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved.
So why isn't Tebel used to describe Noah's flood?
Now you keep harping on about the water rising under "kol kol" the heavenes...
19 They rose greatly on the earth, and all the high mountains under the entire heavens were covered.
Tell me something mate, what did "the heavens" mean to them? What shape was the planet, to them! For real now, none of your tricky pseudo-anthropology! They thought there were spheres in heaven, floodgates in heaven, and that the earth was flat. So if the flood was as massive as I believe it was, it was a fearsome thing indeed, covering everything as far as the eye could see "under ALL ALL the heavens". It still does not change the fact that the word for "earth" means "land" in some places and "people" in others, and that the words for mountain actually means hills. It just seems to say to me, all the land was flooded, as far as the eye could see, everything under the heavens.
But we shouldn't really talk about those heavenly floodgates or you might have to contradict yourself and explain why you don't accept God's word.
Genesis 7,
" 11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, on the seventeenth day of the second month—on that day all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the heavens were opened."
Do you want to insert a "could have" for why the floodgates disappeared, the spheres disappeared, and the earth went from being flat to a globe, or do you just not accept God's plain teaching in the bible?
Your Doug Kelly quote is just silly, convincing at all Tissy. What was God doing on the day? Oh, resting.
2 By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested [a] from all his work. 3 And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
Where is the end of the day? Yes there is a pattern to the language, but it has got nothing to do with the very laboriously spelt out pattern of "And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day." Nothing definitive ending the day there. Maybe there is a reason Doug was not invited to speak at Moore college? :-p
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to you trying to avoid either denying God's word, or inserting some more "pseudo-science could haves" to explain the biblical author's cosmology and those darn annoying floodgates! Have fun.
Lankshear has no clues. It is perfectly legitimate to insert "could haves" which are consistent with known science (of which he is ignorant) and with God's Word. It is the height of arrogance for a scientific ignoramus like Lankshear to say that his puny understanding can't work out how a global flood could have happened, so instead he tells God what He really meant to say.
Woolley was no geologist, and the mud layer has nothing to do with any local Flood (which Coyote Lankshear thinks magically levitated the Ark to the mountains of Ararat).
LOL, even Lanky's own source contradicts him about tebel:
"specifically, a partic. land, as Babylonia, Palestine:--habitable part, world."
That's what you get when you rely on pseudo-scholars like Deem instead of real scholars like Dr Kelly (who the Moorites boycotted because he shows up their compromise).
Then Lanky thinks his nonsensical argument about the seventh day trumps Kelly, Calvin, Luther, Basil and Josephus. Then Lanky has the bizarre argument that in effect says that if someone started to rest on Saturday and rested till Monday, then Saturday itself continued to Monday. Then he asserts, contra Kelly and all great exegetes of the past unencumbered with uniformitarianism, that the alleged lack of an ending to day 7 means it was not 24 hours. But by this "reasoning", why is not the presence of endings to Days 1-6 should mean that they really are 24 hours.
Lastly, he thinks ancient people were stupid, although there is no proof that the Bible writers believed in a flat earth, and disproof that the church ever did.
And he shows his true allegiance to the Angloscoffer Cheng, parroting his dishonest straw man about floodgates.
LOL! Oh, so much misinformation where to begin?
1. You insult rather than deal with those floodgates. Come on, give it to me, what's your definition of a metaphor? "Figure of speech"? Are there floodgates in heaven or not? It took a while for me to see the real significance of the floodgates argument, but just avoiding it does not make it go away. Unless you're chucking a Tissy, Tissy.
Come on, It's time to deal with some data other than your own for once.
No doubt you will have a go at my source, but if you are to take the bible literally at every point, you've just got to accept that this data speaks of a flat earth!
Or do you just ignore all the inconvenient verses and only look at the ones that make you feel good?
2. Yes, I was terribly contradicted by Strongs. Terribly! ;-)
If you had just made ONE more click, ONE more little bit of research, you would have found the following.
8398 tebel
(The following are the references for tebel as the whole world)
world
1 Sam 2:8,
2 Sam 22:16,
1 Chr 16:30,
Job 18:18,
Job 34:13,
Job 37:12,
Psa 9:8,
Psa 18:15,
Psa 19:4,
Psa 24:1,
Psa 33:8,
Psa 50:12,
Psa 77:18,
Psa 89:11,
Psa 90:2,
Psa 93:1,
Psa 96:10,
Psa 96:13,
Psa 97:4,
Psa 98:7,
Psa 98:9,
Prov 8:26,
Isa 13:11,
Isa 14:17,
Isa 14:21,
Isa 18:3,
Isa 24:4,
Isa 26:9,
Isa 26:18,
Isa 27:6,
Isa 34:1,
Jer 10:12,
Jer 51:15,
Lam 4:12,
Nahum 1:5
(The following are the references for tebel as "part")
part
Prov 8:31
Now... can you count? LOL!
So... if Tebel is that common through the Old Testament as really truuuly wuuuly "most of the time" (34 out of 35 times) referring to the whole WORLD in the Old testament, why didn't Moses use it in the Noah event?
Why Tissy?
LOL! Oh, so much misinformation where to begin?
1. You insult rather than deal with those floodgates. Come on, give it to me, what's your definition of a metaphor? "Figure of speech"? Are there floodgates in heaven or not? It took a while for me to see the real significance of the floodgates argument, but just avoiding it does not make it go away. Unless you're chucking a Tissy, Tissy.
Come on, It's time to deal with some data other than your own for once.
No doubt you will have a go at my source, but if you are to take the bible literally at every point, you've just got to accept that this data speaks of a flat earth!
Or do you just ignore all the inconvenient verses and only look at the ones that make you feel good?
2. Yes, I was terribly contradicted by Strongs. Terribly! ;-)
If you had just made ONE more click, ONE more little bit of research, you would have found the following.
8398 tebel
(The following are the references for tebel as the whole world)
world
1 Sam 2:8,
2 Sam 22:16,
1 Chr 16:30,
Job 18:18,
Job 34:13,
Job 37:12,
Psa 9:8,
Psa 18:15,
Psa 19:4,
Psa 24:1,
Psa 33:8,
Psa 50:12,
Psa 77:18,
Psa 89:11,
Psa 90:2,
Psa 93:1,
Psa 96:10,
Psa 96:13,
Psa 97:4,
Psa 98:7,
Psa 98:9,
Prov 8:26,
Isa 13:11,
Isa 14:17,
Isa 14:21,
Isa 18:3,
Isa 24:4,
Isa 26:9,
Isa 26:18,
Isa 27:6,
Isa 34:1,
Jer 10:12,
Jer 51:15,
Lam 4:12,
Nahum 1:5
(The following are the references for tebel as "part")
part
Prov 8:31
Now... can you count? LOL!
So... if Tebel is that common through the Old Testament as really truuuly wuuuly "most of the time" (34 out of 35 times) referring to the whole WORLD in the Old testament, why didn't Moses use it in the Noah event?
Why Tissy?
Dave,
I am now convinced you were disingenuous when you said you implied you were searching for the truth of the matter on origins. The heat is now on and it is due to your combative approach. You weren't searching for the truth you were searching for a fight. A reading of your comments here and there (Anglican forum) discloses a constancy of sniping. By your own words you condemn yourself.
An olive branch was presented by myself and I noticed other contributors to this site beginning to tone things down but you quickly went on the attack even 'throwing punches' at shadows.
It has been said before that LOL!, as an expression in response to a statement by a Christian brother or sister, is not the nature of our LORD. ROFL! - likewise. This is a blemish on yourself and other antiYECs over there. Are you prepared to confess to the LORD your sin of laughing at your brethren, Dave? Are you prepared to repent.
Sadly, I now see an unpleasant characteristic in you. You applied a false (and in this instance malicious) interpretation of what I was saying about YEC speakers being instruments of the LORD in the salvation of many men. You implied I was said that to trust YEC testimony on origins was sufficient for salvation. In truth I said "...LORD at work saving men through a YEC speaker" and "It is one thing I and friends have noticed through YEC ministry. It gets more men saved and into the church than other strategies I have observed after many years in Christian ministry" Only if you wanted to be mischevious would you immediately accuse me of espousing a false Gospel. If you had an inkling of error you should have sought clarification from me. Dave, we are saved through a living faith in the person and atoning death and resurrection of our LORD Jesus Christ. As far as I can observe, all YEC speakers I know of attest to this. YEC ministry can open the eyes of an unbeliever to the existence of the LORD and bring the unbeliever to an awareness they have lived out of relationship with the LORD but only when the living faith I have mentioned follows does one come to salvation in the LORD. That is my understanding of what happened in the instance I mentioned last night and it was true of me and others I am aware of. An understanding of relevant truths contained in Genesis is part of the Gospel message but not all. Just as "Come to Jesus' is not all the Gospel (I agree with Dr Martyn Lloyd-Jones when he made this claim). There is some historical activity of the LORD which holds the Gospel message together.
Had you asked me to clarify, that is what I would have said. I haven't checked the Anglo forum tonight and I don't intend doing so, Dave. In the recent past you have quickly gone there quoting someone from here. I hope you haven't run off and slandered me there without seeking clarification from me to settle doubts in your mind. Did you Dave?
BTW in your comments you refer to the penis size statement of John. You referred to it twice. On one occasion you attribute it to all of us by saying "you lot treat us as Heretics, and always assume the worst and then even get into mocking penis size!" It is wrong to say this Dave because it was one person, not all of us who said this. It is not phrasing I would use and I spoke to John personally about some things he has said and tried to caution him against it. Please do not attribute something to me I wouldn't say.
I suppose, though, if all you want to do is fight with me and others then you will pick up anything within reach.
It's been a regrettable experience.
Sam Drucker
Bully for Lanky, he now goes to an atheist non-scholar like Schadewald (well he's not an atheist any more, because he's dead) for his flat earth smear of the Bible. For real scholarship, not village atheist nonsense, try What Shape is the Earth In? An Evaluation of Biblical Cosmology.
Lanky's comment "but if you are to take the bible literally at every point" is just a Chengite straw man. None of us on this blog take the Bible literally at every point, and I can't think of any YEC who does. He has already been directed to articles like Should Genesis be taken literally?, so his straw man can no longer be attributed to ignorance but rather to intellectual dishonesty.
His obsession with the word tebel has no support among Hebrew scholars whatever. So where does he get off claiming that a universal Flood "should" have used this word. Maybe Genesis 1:1 means that God only created part of the earth since He used erets.
It has been said before that LOL!, as an expression in response to a statement by a Christian brother or sister, is not the nature of our LORD. ROFL! - likewise. This is a blemish on yourself and other antiYECs over there. Are you prepared to confess to the LORD your sin of laughing at your brethren, Dave? Are you prepared to repent.
Neither is going on about a brother's penis size, just because an Archbishop mentions where he got his training. Are you and your ilk prepared to repent and force your brother to delete that offensive article? It's horrific, and far worse than LOL!
Lanky, if Aborigines have been in Australia for 40.000 years, and the local flood wiped out all humans then living, then which is it? Did Noah live >40,000 years ago (meaning the geneaologies have over a thousand missing names), or are the Aborigines not human?
Dave, if you are not suffering from some alterego problem you are dishonest.
Your behaviour as a mocker upon first entering the Anglican forum gave clue to your character but then you come on here crying foul and suggesting you were genuinely searching for truth. People then genuinely responded to you but you immediately went back on the attack, mocking and deriding.
This sort of behaviour to non Christians brings disgrace to the name of Jesus Christ and it grieves us Christians.
You didn't answer my question about slandering me. Did you quote me on the Anglican forum and use my words falsely to imply I promote a false Gospel?
Sam Drucker
Dave, buddy, (brother??),
I, John, am the one who mentioned "penis size", no one else. Blame me!
The humour, the irony, the point of it all obviously escapes you. I find it offensive that a man (i.e. Peter Jensen) would think it relevant to brag about from where he obtained his PhD (i.e Oxford), and so I inserted another irrelevancy (i.e. a man's penis size).
Don't you get it? A man's argument shouldn't stand on where he graduated from but his argument. I graduated from Sydney but I don't shove that forward as being superior to the bum-wiping sheet of paper that graduates walk away from Moore with. However, Peter Jensen reckons because he did his doctorate at Oxford (BTW, what was it on? Elizabethan Anglicanism? Gee whiz, that would really assist the poor and unsaved in the world! Yes, another reason why I wouldn't reckon he'd know whether evolution is true or if there had been a universal flood!) he shouldn't be regarded as a hillbilly like creationists should be.
If you can't understand my humour but take some middle-class, pompous, moral highground, all I can say is...get a life, mate. We don't all come from your background...or comedic taste! Some of us were brought up in and work in totally different worlds than you.
B'rit milah[ly] yours
John
BTW in your comments you refer to the penis size statement of John. You referred to it twice. On one occasion you attribute it to all of us by saying "you lot treat us as Heretics, and always assume the worst and then even get into mocking penis size!" It is wrong to say this Dave because it was one person, not all of us who said this. It is not phrasing I would use and I spoke to John personally about some things he has said and tried to caution him against it. Please do not attribute something to me I wouldn't say.
I suppose, though, if all you want to do is fight with me and others then you will pick up anything within reach.
It's been a regrettable experience.
Ummm, yeah, this is what I've been trying to say all along. Please don't try and paint me with exactly the same brush as other Sydney Anglican's that might have totally different views, especially when I've distanced myself from those views publicly, and you just get defensive and defend the "penis thang"! If you were really interested in pursuing godliness, you'd have that whole article removed immediately. So I'm afraid your failure to distance yourself that article and author speaks far louder than any nauseating preaching you send my way.
I was interested in discussing the biblical theology with you guys for a while there, but Tissy and Warwicks patronizing dismissal of everything I write, and worse, why I write it has made decent conversation here impossible.
You guys are not gracious enough to allow that I/we might be sincerely trying to understand the bible as God's breathed out word to us. Sam you write: People then genuinely responded to you but you immediately went back on the attack,
If you think the initial conversation here was genuine — from your people here — then I'm sorry but I think you guys are the ones with the "alter-ego problem" as you put it.
So Sam, I guess with the behaviour of your mates here — that you have still failed to take any action over — this conversation was sadly never to be. Your blog co-author boasts about his poor writing! (See John's latest submission). Sam, I can't take you seriously until you do something about requesting John delete that article.
Sam, I'm too busy to remember, if I quoted you. I did quote Tissy.
If you have a problem with what I wrote can you save me some time by clicking on the bottom of the particular post where it says "LINK" and copy and paste the URL into here? Please use the code Slanderous insult! and paste the URL over the x's which will then hyperlink the words "Slanderous insult" and I'll know where to click. ;-)
*******************
Floodgates + flat earth
Tissy once again avoids the floodgates argument because while Tissy might allow allegory in some other parts of the bible, he does not want to point out that Genesis obviously uses some very allegorical and metaphorical "figures of speech" that are not intended to be read "Literally" or "Historically".
Flat earth
Likewise Tissy embarrassedly shoves the word Tebel aside, wanting readers to quickly pass over the fact that Strongs documents 34/35 uses of it to describe the whole globe. As Tissy claims no support among Hebrew scholars whatever. No, not at all Tissy, just Strongs.
So we come to the flat earth thang. That atheist wrote an interesting paper but went too far on a number of occasions — and did not even recognize when the bible was referring to angels! He was trying to smear the bible with star-worship when one GOOD thing we get from Genesis 1 is that the stars are our servants, our time-pieces and tell us the seasons. That's one of the theological bombshells one can easily miss if one reads this stuff defensively with modern day evolutionary questions in mind.
But I think you miss the reason I quoted him. The strength of his argument is seeing it all together. It forces the Christian academic to take a serious look back at the texts, which is always a good thing. And what do we find?
Well, Strong's says that Tebel is used for "the world" most of the time, and is only once used as a "part". But Tissy's link contradicts Strong's in a case of special pleading to escape the literal reading of....
1 Sam. 2:8 He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory: for the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and he hath set the world upon them.
So because we don't want a flat earth on pillars, J.P.Holding has to contradict Strongs and make Tebel say something else here. (The only time Strongs allows that Tebel is used other than world is for Proverbs 8:31.)
Could it be that the Hebrew author actually meant the world was on the pillars? No, that would mean the bible literally taught a flat earth (and floodgates). So maybe he was quoting common imagery of the time, and being metaphorical?
Do biblical authors ever do this? Do they refer to or use imagery from pagan, or even other whackier Jewish imagery not actually found in the bible?
Yes. Jude 14 - 15 quotes 1 Enoch (the main reason I quoted Schadewald). Under the inspiration of God, Jude draws on imagery of judgment from a text which has some really whacky ancient cosmology in it. Granted Jude does not quote that cosmology, but quoting it proves awareness of the work and maybe even risks making it more popular.
Yet on some occasions it seems to me that authors will misquote Strong's use of the Hebrew to change the plain meaning of the Hebrew words to avoid the actual reading leaving the Hebrew page, just in case someone reads it as literally claiming the world was flat! I mean, why not just claim it was a "figure of speech" (as your Creationist friends have attempted to in dismissing the floodgates.)
Back to those floodgates
I think the floodgates went beyond figure of speech... it was quoting the whole cosmology frame of reference of the ancient world, something they understood, and moved into metaphor.
I'm probably not using the correct idioms, but the "picture language" of the "figure of speech" of the floodgates is echoed in the separation of the waters in Genesis 1 and the other ancient cosmology and imagery. It's not a poem, no, it's not the same linguistic device — it seems the poems have a totally different pattern in the Hebrew. But it's still imagery. IF this is so, then God's word to us is still the inerrant, God-breathed, sufficient word to us. We've just been reading it wrong. So Tissy, go ahead and quote a thousand traditional readings of it your way... but my reading of it is that there are no critical doctrines that are threatened, and indeed, there are new riches in this approach.
Your link was clear that on many occasions, erets = land
Now, Tissy, I have to thank you for your link.
776. 'erets, eh'-rets; from an unused root prob. mean. to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land):-- X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world
In disproving that Job 11:9 is about a flat earth your link author writes:
This is supposed to indicate a measurable earth with "length" - but "earth" here is that slippery old 'erets, and in light of the fact that a fixedly measurable body like "sea" is used in parallel, we are justified in reading 'erets here in its less "global" sense.
"Slippery old erets."
"SLIPPERY OLD ERETS!"
For once, I can read something you quote and say "Amen and Amen."
So how many times is eret's used as "earth" and how many times was eret's used as "land?" Well, I went to Strongs with the aim of counting. There were so many verses listed for both erets as "Land" and "earth" that to count them quickly, I just brought the word "Earth" up to the top of my screen, and hit page down. The page went down 3 times before "Earth" verses ran out.
Then I check erets as "Land". It was close to 8 pages long!
Oh my! Tebel is used as "world" for 34/35 of it's uses in the Old Testament, but erets mans "land" twice as frequently as it does "earth"!
WHY DIDN'T MOSES WRITE THE NOAH STORY WITH TEBEL!
Erets is also used as country (and countries) for about a page! So if we were to read Noah's story as another piece of Hebrew writing without all our precious church traditional inferences, erets would more than likely end up as "land" than as "earth".
*****
Tissy, I've thought long and hard about the Aboriginal 40,000 year thing and there are a number of answers.
1. Bible wrong, lose your faith. (Not my favorite solution).
2. Our understanding of the bible wrong, and that the "all flesh destroyed" verses referred to all the flesh under the heavens in that land (erets), all parts of the significant theological story of Abraham's ancestors. There were some exceptions to the "all" that Genesis describes. Pan down to... When "all" does not mean "all" The bible does not answer all our questions, but what is sufficient for Godliness.
3. Our understanding of the science wrong... and that aboriginal and all other humans actually came from the ark. This is — ironically — Deem's solution. That although the flood was local, it was universal in judging humanity because all humanity lived in the area.
So... who knows? It could be a mix of the second 2... a little bit of misunderstanding of the text and of science. My trust in the Lord Jesus does not depend on it.
I know He judged "the land" back then, (so am not a scoffer as you so kindly introduced me to the list) and I know He comes to judge again. So I'd better get busy praying, reading my bible, and encouraging my Christian friends in the Lord. There's no time to waste on 500 Creationism books, that's for sure.
LOL at self!
My code lecture for sam did not work. If Sam can't do the code for hyperlinking text, can someone here email it to him and explain it? I'm too busy.
Lanky really needs to learn to discern good sources from bad ones. Schadewald is the nadir, a fundyatheist lacking qualifications in science or theology. And real biblical language scholars have said, "if it's in Strong, then it's probably wrong." This is not a real lexicon but a gloss on the KJV.
Lanky's argument then boils down to saying that if one part of the Bible is figurative, then any part is.
Deem's "solution" doesn't answer the dilemma: was Noah >40ka, or are the dating methods he puts so much faith in wrong on the Aborigines.
BTW, you don't need to read 500 creation books but just a small handful. Refuting Compromise would probably be sufficient for now. In any case, it is better than criticising creationists without having read any, like you and Cheng.
Fellow YECs, I have had enough of Dave Lankshear for now. He is too much a disapointment.
I'll leave it to you to decide whether you should respond to his non genuine inquiries. I am too busy and I need to do some research for another blog to this site.
I have since looked at the Anglican forum and note that the venom and derision previously handed out to the YECs on that site has toned right down. This is because the venom and derision has been diverted to us.
This then has enabled our fellow YECs there, in dealing with the man-fearers, to receive kinder responses. Perhaps the robust treatment applied here has been beneficial all round because the kind for kind approach here has had the earlier antiYECs there examine their behaviour, see their failings and repent of it.
So gentlemen, well done. You have been a help to the brethren.
Cheers for now,
Sam Drucker
Tissy doesn't want to answer the questions so as always, he attacks the source. Now he's attacking Strongs when he was quoting Strongs earlier. Quick Tissy, you'd better find a source you like!
Lanky's argument then boils down to saying that if one part of the Bible is figurative, then any part is.
(Clears throat)... no. If many parts of the bible on a similar theme are figurative, then it seems logical that a very similar section would also be figurative. Or are you arguing for a literal reading of those awfully troublesome Floodgates?
My solution for the aborigines works fine, IF we have the science of dating as wrong as you think we have. ;-)
I have read "Men of Science, Men of God" and "What is Creation Science" by Henry Morris. It raises many questions, but does not answer anything conclusively. What can I say? I was young. I nearly went down the "dark side", forever believing that every scientist in every different field that discusses an old earth was wrong, or worse, part of a global conspiracy.
My creationist mates have a Creationist book for nearly every field of science. One whole book dedicated to the Earth's magnetic field... someone, somewhere argued that the earth's magnetism proves the age of the earth, so the Creation scientists frantically rush around to disprove it. That was a book on top of this guy's list of Creation - books - to - get - to - one - day. He is no longer a Christian.
I just want to know what the bible says, and leave the rest of the details up to God. With erets being used as "land" twice as commonly as "earth" and tebel not being used once to describe the Noah flood, I'm getting an interesting amount of freedom from God's word as to how to read that Noah event. (Especially if Psalm 104 refers to creation — as my commentary suggested — and prohibits a global flood). But that would be horrific, because re-interpreting all "normal" geological science through the lens of the flood is the big past-time of all creationists?
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to get on with more normal Christian pursuits like sharing the gospel.
Sam, it seems you only want a one-way monologue, where I sit at your feet like a "young apprentice" listening to the guru. I should only approach you with my brain wiped clean of any independent thought or any biblical data other than yours. Oh, and where I unquestioningly "repent" of any frustration in my writing that might come out as sarcasm, while your friends pour filth over an archbishop I and the other SA Creationists even respect!
You are right, you never were interested in a more to and fro conversation. But at least some of the sillier assertions above have helped me clarify some more data from the Hebrew. Bye.
Wow, so Lanky's creationist knowledge is based entirely on one old book about past great creationist scientists, and another 30yo book.
And now, he implicitly trusts scientists who have a presuppostion that God never judged sin in the past with a global Flood. So they reinterpret all the data in terms ot processes happening to day, yet Lanky thinks that this deist-spawned uniformitarianism is objective.
Yes, that is exactly my point about the aborigines -- the dating methods in which you place so much faith for your old-earth dogma are wrong. So why trust them elsewhere over God's propositional revelation? But if the dating methods are right, since all those uniformitarian scientists can't be wrong can they (because Jesus was wrong about most people preferring the wide road and loving darkness over light), then again, how do you share the Gospel with the Aborigines.
I quoted Strong's only because YOU did, to prove that even your own source contradicted your claims about the universality of tebel. And you never answered my question: if you're whinging about why not use the word in Gen. 6-9, then why not also in Gen. 1:1? Did God only created a block of land in the beginning?
If Lanky wants to be taken seriously about the Bible, he needs to explain why nearly all the Jewish, Patristic and Reformed exegetes got it wrong, while a nonentity like Deem with his novel eisegesis is right.
BTW, I have answered his handful of desperate arguments to fit the Bible into deist-spawned uniformitarianism, but he has ignored a multitude of ours, the hypocrite.
Dave,
Finally read the entire post here.
You seem to - correct me if I'm wrong - not answer the specific question raised about the difficulty of numbers and days meaning metaphorical or allegorical days (non 24 hour days). Your reply was something along the lines of , "Well, numbers can indicate metaphorical things."
Pardon my intrusion in this debate guys but Dave, your answer is like the following:
A: "You know she bought a blue dress, a yellow dress and a red dress."
B: "Can't be a real red one, blue one or yello one because colours can be used in a metaphorical way."
I know my analogy doesn't quite fit the bill but the point is that you chopped the equation in half and then talked only about one piece of it, a sort of philosophical divide-and-conquer move.
Are you really saying that on "day 1", "day 2", "day 3" etc, that we can jump first to the metaphorical and ignore the real, on the first page of the Bible and all?"
Dave wrote,
"Oh, and where I unquestioningly "repent" of any frustration in my writing that might come out as sarcasm, while your friends pour filth over an archbishop I and the other SA Creationists even respect!"
While I don't necessarily approve of discussion about men's penis size, I can see the point raised.
I can recall the Archbishop's comments in the paper many years ago and indeed I wrote to him expressing my dissatisfaction over his comments about creationists. I received no response. I know of others who also wrote with the same result.
I think that that is the point of that blogger's comments: one can't abuse fellow Christians, Archbishop or not, and believe that you are above reproach (remember, there will be no ABs in heaven!). The AB, and other high-ranking Anglicans, has since made a number of other denigrating comments about his fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
What do you say, Dave, are you willing to say something about the Archbishop on this matter or do you think he has done nothing wrong?
Peter
Hermeneutics in Everyday Life:
Suppose you're travelling to work and you see a stop sign. What do you do? That depends on how you exegete the stop sign.
A postmodernist deconstructs the sign (knocks it over with his car), ending forever the tyrrany of the north-south traffic over the east-west traffic.
Similarly, a Marxist sees a stop sign as an instrument of class
conflict. He concludes that the bourgeoisie use the north-south road and obstruct the progress of the workers on the east-west road.
A serious and educated Catholic believes that he cannot understand the stop sign apart from its interpretive community and their tradition.
Observing that the interpretive community doesn't take it too
seriously, he doesn't feel obligated to take it too seriously either.
An average Catholic (or Orthodox or Coptic or Anglican or Methodist or Presbyterian or whatever) doesn't bother to read the sign but he'll stop if the car in front of him does.
A straw man creationist that Moore College students imagine would take the text very literally, by stopping at the stop sign and waiting for it to tell him to go.
A Moore College graduate might first see what evolutionary scientists claim about how random processes could have formed the sign without intelligent input. But to convince naive donors that Moore really does believe the text rather than being intimidated by the consensus of misotheistic scientists, he first looks up "STOP" in his lexicons of English and discover that it can mean: 1) something which prevents motion, such as a plug for a drain, or a block of wood that prevents a door from closing; 2) a location where a train or bus lets off passengers. The main point of his sermon the following Sunday on this text is: when you see a stop sign, it is a place where traffic is naturally clogged, so it is a good place to let off passengers from your car.
An orthodox Jew does one of two things:
Take another route to work that doesn't have a stop sign so that he doesn't run the risk of disobeying the Law.
Stop at the stop sign, say "Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, king of the universe, who hast given us thy commandment to stop," wait 3 seconds according to his watch, and then proceed.
Incidently, the Talmud has the following comments on this passage: R[abbi] Meir says: He who does not stop shall not live long. R. Hillel says: Cursed is he who does not count to three before proceeding. R. Simon ben Yudah says: Why three? Because the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. R. ben Isaac says:
Because of the three patriarchs. R. Yehuda says: Why bless the Lord at a stop sign? Because it says: "Be still, and know that I am God." R. Hezekiel says: When Jephthah returned from defeating the Ammonites, the Holy One, blessed be He, knew that a donkey would run out of the house and overtake his daughter; but Jephthah did not stop at the stop sign, and the donkey did not have time to come out. For this reason he saw his daughter first and lost her. Thus he was judged for his transgression at the stop sign. R. Gamaliel says: R. Hillel, when he
was a baby, never spoke a word, though his parents tried to teach him by speaking and showing him the words on a scroll. One day his father was driving through town and did not stop at the sign. Young Hillel called out: "Stop, father!" In this way, he began reading and speaking at the same time. Thus it is written: "Out of the mouth of babes." R. ben Jacob says: Where did the stop sign come from? Out of the sky, for it is written: "Forever, O Lord, your word is fixed in the heavens."
R. ben Nathan says: When were stop signs created? On the fourth day,
for it is written: "let them serve as signs." R. Yeshuah says: ...
[continues for three more pages]
A Pharisee does the same thing as an orthodox Jew, except that he
waits 10 seconds instead of 3. He also replaces his brake lights with 1000 watt searchlights and connects his horn so that it is activated whenever he touches the brake pedal.
A scholar from the Jesus Seminar concludes that the signs reading STOP could not have been made by Jesus himself. Being the progressive Jew that he was, Jesus would never have wanted to stifle people's progress. Therefore, STOP must be a semiotic insertion belonging to stage III of the gospel tradition, when the church was first confronted by traffic in its parking lot.
A liberal NT scholar notices that there is no stop sign on Mark street but there is one on Matthew and Luke streets, and concludes that the ones on Luke and Matthew streets are both copied from a sign on a completely hypothetical street called "Q". There is an excellent 300 page discussion of speculations on the origin of these stop signs and the differences between the stop signs on Matthew and Luke street in the scholar's commentary on the passage. There is unfortunately an
omission in the commentary, however; the author apparently forgot to explain what the text means.
An OT scholar of the Wellhausen school points out that there are a number of stylistic differences between the first and second half of the passage "STOP".
For example, "ST" contains no enclosed areas and 5 line endings, whereas "OP" contains two enclosed areas and only one line termination. [Only in a sans-serif font, I realized later.] He concludes that the author for the second part is different from the author for the first part and probably lived hundreds of years later.
Later scholars determine that the second half is itself actually
written by two separate authors because of similar stylistic
differences between the "O" and the "P".
Another prominent OT scholar notes in his commentary that the stop sign would fit better into the context three streets back.
(Unfortunately, he neglected to explain why in his commentary.)
Clearly it was moved to its present location by a later redactor. He thus exegetes the intersection as though the stop sign were not there.
Because of the difficulties in interpretation, another OT scholar
emends the text, changing "T" to "H". "SHOP" is much easier to
understand in context than "STOP" because of the multiplicity of
stores in the area. The textual corruption probably occurred because "SHOP" is so similar to "STOP" on the sign several streets back that it is a natural mistake for a scribe to make. Thus the sign should be interpreted to announce the existence of a shopping area.
A "prophetic" preacher notices that the square root of the sum of the numeric representations of the letters S-T-O-P (sigma-tau-omicron-pi in the Greek alphabet), multiplied by 40 (the number of testing), and divided by four (the number of the world - north, south, east, and west), equals 666. Therefore, he concludes that stop signs are the dreaded Mark of the Beast, a harbinger of divine judgment upon the world, and must be avoided at all costs.
A "Word of Faith" preacher reads the sign and explains that we are redeemed from the curse of the law; therefore we are not bound from such negative laws. He further expounds that to repeat the word printed on the sign is to make a bad confession. Gives advice that it is best to interpret the sign as a "GO". (Does so and is unfortunately hit by the Mac truck of reality coming in the opposite direction.)
Hi,
Just engaged with this blog.
Ktisiphilos, realy took my breath away with a really insightful analogy of how an increasingly redundant church is handling the inspired word of God.
Arrogant defilers of the word of God, that's what they are.
Gwen
Ktisiphilos,
Here I am at a public library laughing to myself like a mad man.
You missed your calling - should have been on stage.
John
Thanx people :)
Ktiso, just back from car racing as advised hale and hearty and obviously alive. Alive enough to split my sides on your 'stop' analogy. How apt! However it appears to me you left out the Bible believer who takes God at His Word accepting the text at face value unless there is some good reason not to do so.
Later I will read through that which has been posted in my absence and undoubtedly will make what Dave will regard as a pointless piece of 'sanctimonius,holier than thou Bulverism.' Isn't this one of the lower forms of debate that where the indiviual attacks the messenger rather than the message.
Warwick
Sam, Sadly I think you have summed Dave up correctly.
I have looked at what I wrote some time ago,that which caused him to ridicule me and call me names and I can't see where I stepped outside the known. And I explain: My bias is that having accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal saviour about 30 years ago I eventually came to the understanding that His Word is the true version of history. It neeeds no embellishments or interpretation by Popes or non-Biblical ideas.
Some on the AngloForum and other Sydney Anglicans with whom I have spoken over the years have openly admitted they believe in evolution. As I see it this means they have adopted a non-Biblical philosophy, adapting it, calling it theistic evolution (T/E) so as to include God in the process. Am I right so far Dave?
Nowhere in Scripture do I see any support for an evolutionary/long ages view.
The problem is not theology or science but bias/ starting point. I would consider this to be an evident fact. By the way I am well aware they do reject atheistic evolution as it is at its core an anti-God
humanistic philosophy.
So the situation is that the Bible Centered interpret the world via a Biblical bias. However the Man centered T/E's claim to honour the Word of God and claim to be searching for truth. I have little doubt that most of them are sincere in these claims. However I am confident that some are deceivers who are leading the others astray. I don't think this is a startling revelations as the whole Christian church is riddled with all sorts of deceivers who have lead Christian's astray with a startling array of non-Biblical or pseudo Biblical philosophies.
In my contact with the Anglican community I have met a few I consider to be deceivers, those I caught in lies or those who would not give straight answers.
Sadly these deceivers (in various denominations) have fooled many good Christians by their philosophies which mostly fall into the Bible plus category. I once attended a pentecostal church which was alive and active, outreaching and preaching the Word fearlessly. Then the madness of the Toronto Blessing came in where people sat and giggled or made animal noises or stood in the pulpit and sniggered, unable to speak coherently.
What do I think of this phenomenon? I am convinced it is evil and straight from satan the ultimate deceiver. The deciever of those who deceive others!
What do I think of T/E? I believe it to be from the same source and it has and increasingly will have the effect of drawing whole churches away from the truth. Do I think those Anglicans who accept T/E ere either evil or the enemy? No! The doctrine is the enemy.
Dave and others have talked about preaching the Gospel and I agree but it has to be The Gospel, not another Gospel and I am convinced that the T/E Gospel is wrong.
Maybe some of the bloggers here will let me know if I have correctly pointed out the facts of the situation.
Regards,
Warwick
Seems accurate to me, Warwick. Welcome back!
Ktiso,yes it's good to be back in my own comfy bed. The racing went well and I managed to almost keep the car on the black stuff the whole time. That is until an Audi got in my road causing a line change, followed by a bit of plowing. Actually car-racing is relevant here as we apply operational science in our endeavours to shave some time off our laps. We endeavour to come to the evidence with an open mind and see where it leads. We experiment with various changes eg the balance of tyre pressures between front and back. Last Friday upping front pressures by quite a small amount increased our speed through a few bends. We may have feelings about the cars set-up but the clock has no feelings. Real science is like this and evolutionary philosophies play no part. They are little more than feelings.
I just had a look at the AngloForum as it is interesting reading and there is some good argument there. However as I wrote in my last effort the problem is about bias not facts. if you want to see the evidence of this have a look at the AngloForum at page 123 where c14 is being discussed. The point that diamonds have measurable amounts of c14 was brought up as it is solid evidence that they are relatively young. But this was dismissed by one anti-creationist. Not for good reason but as I see it simply because it does not fit with his non-Biblical old-earth view. He is locked into that view just as solidly as I am locked into accepting the Biblical view.
He says
"If C-14 is found in diamond which, by other means, is held to be very old, the question must be: are there other means for producing C-14?
That is we 'know' the earth is old so C14 musta got in there somehow. This flies in the face of reason and evidence but his bias forces him to make this statement- 'which, by other means, is held to be very old'- that is by radiometric dating a method which is not accurate, is based on untestable assumptions and gives results which are innacurate by massive degrees. How about c200 year old bassalt dating at about 3,000,000,000 years. But these Christians accept this patently fault-ridden method uncritically. That's where the bias begins and no amount of theological reasoning or scientific evidence will shift them away from their man-made philosophies.
I admire those like Thacker and Savage et al who patiently explain while the knockers ridicule.
I notice on their anti-creationism forum that there are moves to close it down. The fact that it has been the longest thread of any on the Anglo site demonstrates to even blind Freddy that it is an issue that people want to discuss. Why would you want to close down the most successful site? And notice who is instigating it: Luke Stevens, Gordon Cheng and dear old Dave (the man who admits he doesn't know even a thing about science and who has only read 1 book about creationism, yet wants to say creationists are fools)
Yes, Warwick, I did notice the ignoring of the diamond and C14 argument. If these guys were truly in the Christian spirit they'd actually want to investigate what their Christian brothers were saying here. Instead they mocked and made excuses, attacking creationists by throwing in the old line about creationists being into conspiracy theories.
John
That's absurd! It shows how much blind faith underlies the evolution/long-age view. They haven't any answer for the C-14 in diamonds, and are even more pathetic than the atheistic evolutionists' excuses (see Diamonds: a creationist’s best friend--Radiocarbon in diamonds: enemy of billions of years which includes a rebuttal to the main ones).
But while they insist by faith in unknown means of C-14 production, if a creationist has a problem with an evo argument, they are expected simply to throw in the towel. The double standards are palpable.
I just had a look at the Anglo forum and saw the following:
our mate Dave says-
'Interesting, I honestly thought it went back further than that. Cool. OK. That minuscule little point is eliminated from dating the earth for the hundreds of millions of years scale, but .... even 50 thousand years is devastating to the Creationist case.'
Then Frank Savage replies:
'Dave, if carbon 14 is all gone by 50000 years, and yet carbon 14 is found in coal and diamonds, that means the coal and diamonds can not be older than 50000 years. This is devastating to the idea that the earth is millions of years old. It also strongly supports the Biblical record that the earth is about 6000 years old. (50000 years for carbon 14 does not give the actual age, but the maximum possible age. 6000 years is still within that range.) http://www.creationontheweb.com/content/view/2906'
Thinks I- surely Dave will get the point- If there is c14 present then the MAXIMUM age is about 50,000 years for reasons previously explained. This does not mean the sample IS 50,000 years old. It could be a few thousand years old.
But no Dave doesn't get the point or maybe will not admit to getting the point as he replies:
'OK, read it the way you want.
The statement below clearly says that the fossil fuels are so old that they have lost all of their own Carbon 14, but have been "contaminated" by other sources of Carbon 14 surrounding the fossil fuel deposits. The statement below makes it clear that fossil fuels are far older than the maximum carbon dating methods possible, but you read contamination as evidence for 6000 years.'
Notice Dave says- 'but have been "contaminated" by other sources of Carbon 14.'
But what does the statement he quotes actually say?
'Most man-made chemicals are made of fossil fuels, such as petroleum or coal, in which the carbon-14 has long since decayed. However, oil deposits often contain trace amounts of Carbon-14 (varying significantly, but ranging from 1% the ratio found in living organisms to undetectable amounts, comparable to an apparent age of 40,000 years for oils with the highest levels of Carbon-14). This may indicate possible contamination by small amounts of bacteria or a second source of Carbon-14 production. It has been noted that Carbon-14 levels in oil deposits appears to be positively correlated with radioactivity in rocks surrounding the oil deposit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_14
There's no bias against the data or anything is there? ;-)'
Did you note the extremely tentative language of the statement-- 'This may indicate possible contamination'- in direct opposition to Dave's confident assertion of- 'but have been "contaminated"'
Dave asks if he is displaying bias? Yes Dave Bias with a capital B which has caused you to misuse your own quote.
This doesn't in anyway explain C14 in diamonds as no one has (from my research) come up with any idea of how c14 could contaminate diamonds.
The bias is in the continuing dogged defence of the indefenceable. As I see it a Christian with an enquiring mind,holding to a true Biblical bias would have changed position by now.
As I have asserted before the problem is not about facts or evidence but purely about bias. As the man said -It's not whether you are biassed of not but about which bias is the best bias to be biassed with anyway. I choose to be biassed towards God being able to clearly and truthfully write the historical truth in His Word, understandable for all time.
Regards,
Warwick
You have assessed the situation correctly,Warwick.
Satan is very good at fooling mankind and those in the church are not exempt. Satan works quickly and slowly, ever so slowly.
The gradual erosion of trust in the word of the LORD has occurred throughout history. History thus records rises and falls in the strength and influence for good by the church.
As someone once told me - the only sure way to tell if a stick is crooked is to stand it up against a stick you know is straight.
The word of the LORD is straight and all views of life must be set alongside the clear unction of the LORD for evaluation of worth.
Sam
Good grief, Dave has so much faith in uniformitarian that he goes to Wikipedia for a source. Note, ANYONE can edit this, so it has been called 'The Abomination that Causes Misinformation'. Never mind that contamination can be tested by the δPDB method, and the labs tested this very thing. Also, how on earth could a diamond be contaminated when it is the hardest substance known? And if contamination is so easy, then why should we even place our faith in radiometric dating over God's Word?
Actually Ktisophilos, it isn't the case that anyone can edit Wikipedia - anyone can except creationists. This is why a group of Christians in the US are starting up their own version of Wikipedia and trying to remove the evolutionary bias and anti-creationist stance the original maintains.
I guess this is why the Anglos frequently rely on Wikipedia, because it supports their anti-biblical views on origins.
John
Upon further checking, I find that you're right, John. There are some scandalous examples where evolutionary moderators are blocking creationist editors on trumped up charges.
The definition of 'day' when it is meant as a 24 hour day has been covered on the AngloForum, a few times. None the less one soul today came up with the question aimed at those creationists who take Genesis 'literally'- do we? I don't know anyone who takes it literally rather we take it at face value unless there is some good reason not to do so. And a pre-existent belief in evoultion isn't a good reason to do a spot of textural torture.
'2. What does Gen 2:4 mean?' he asks apparently seeing the use of the word day here as some challenge to the dreaded yeccers. Mate it is the word day alone, without evening & morning or the added cue- the first day, the second day etc. It just means time like every dog has his day. It could be written as 'when God made the earth.'
The standard of theology & reasoning on the AngloSite is sometimes very poor. Some of it is plain foolish but we are not dealing with fools. That's what the wrong bias, & compromise does. It causes people to avoid the obvious clear meaning and twist the text out of recognizable shape.
And apparently showing people that this is God's created world is a hinderance to evangelism! And this from Christians who reinterpret the Bible to make it conform to a totally unproven Godless philosophy. Will wonders never cease?
I notice also that some creationists have given links to AiG & CMI websites for all to read. I would do the same but wonder at the effectiveness of giving such links to compromisers who consider such organizations to be composed of hillbillies, morons or whatever. They already 'know' that whatever they read there is wrong!
You may remember that certain AngloNasties complained that AiG & CMI would not answer their questions. Well I have been informed 'by a usually reliable source' that CMI has not been swamped by emails, phone calls or letters from these ardent seekers of truth. No AngloRush at all! Strange that as they were insistent that their many questions had not been answered. AngloFibs perhaps?
Dave L-aka Eclipse now-has a problem with the light on day one of creation, as recorded in Genesis Ch.1:3 As I read it, first it was dark, then God said let there be light & there was light- days before the sun. What's the problem? Is God not able to create a light source to light the earth without the sun? There definitely was light shining upon the earth before the sun or God would not have said -& there was evening & there was morning-the first day. There is no problem to those who take God at his Word but apparently serious problems for those who approach the Word with a non-Christian evolutionary bias. There's that bias word again.
Some of the AngloBloggers keep talking about creationists treating Genesis as a science text which is ridiculous. It's a testimony like that in a court where an eyewitness tells the story- a testimony of the events-the truth, the whole truth, & nothing but the truth. How truthful testimony of events becomes a science lecture is beyong my comprehension. A straw-man argument perhaps?
Once again it is about bias, not facts.
These Anglocompromisers have a nerve. Dave, whose Christianity is eclipsed by his uniformitarianism, already posted something of mine on the Angloblog, showing that "in the day that ..." is also used to close of the sequence of 12 consecutive numbered days in Numbers 7. Yet the Gilgamesh-besotted Martin "Enkidu" Shields resorted to cheap point-scoring by saying that Gen. 2:4 was not used as "evidence" against a plain reading of Genesis. So I hope he will rebuke the compromiser that DID invoke it, but don't hold your breath.
Of course, the Hebrew beyôm is an idiomatic expression for "when", as Warwick says. The preposition be is lacking on the Gen. 1 days, so it is appallingly bad exegesis to carry over the meaning from a different context as the Anglo-eisegetes do.
Yeah, the silly point the Anglocompromisers bring up have long ago been answered on the CMI site, e.g. How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal if the Sun wasn’t created until the fourth day? and ‘But Genesis is not a science textbook’.
Good point Ktiso these guys keep bringing up points which have been fully answered long ago. It is obvious they don't read good creationist articles or literature. 'Sacre bleu vous speek of ze bon creationiste literatoor? Eet does not existe, I know zis.' Jean-Claude how do you know zis ar this? 'I jerste know eet therefore eet is so, mais qui. I am ze product of milliardes de ans a evolution et mon grand-grand-grand Pére e was an petit hairy homme with the longue arms. To emajeen zat zis god he spokes and poof ere we are is trés trés stupide.' But Jean-Claude have you read good creationist literature. 'Ze very thought eez encroyable zis literature as bin writ by ze illbillies & cretan's why would a sophisticated personne like moi want to rid sush rabbish eh?' To get the other side of the story from the horses mouth maybe? 'Orses vous spik of orses? J'deteste ze orse zay are large smelly cretins.
Please excuse my poor attempts at humour. I used to be better but maybe depression has set in after reading to much AngloCompromisers stuff.
In humour Warwick
Didn't one of them prattle on about having to read 1000 creationist books to understand the issue. Maybe better to just start with one like Refuting Evolution.
The is enough information on the AngloForum for someone to write a 'How not to treat the Bible' book.
Yeah, while Dave prattled on about having to read 1000 creationist books to understand the creationist viewpoint, some of his allies think they know all they need to know because they read only Plimer's Lies, the hypocrites.
Ktiso the saying goes that you can gauge the heart of a person by the company they keep.
Certain AngloNasties have recommended Plimer's book as a tool to use against those they should consider to be Christian brothers. That alone is enough to call into question the actuality of conversion of a few. They make great noise about being card-carrying Christians but would real Christians recommend an anti-God fanatic such as Plimer?
A bit of slanging & name calling is one thing but to run with the hounds shows their true colour.
The ignorance (maybe willing ignorance) of some of the nasties is truly amazing. Surely any reasonably aware Christian would know that Plimer is an anti-Christian activist whose Telling Lies book was discredited.
The only other people I remember recommending the book to Christians were anti-Christian activists. The AngloNasties are running with these hounds and that says it all.
I was actually asked to follow up on a few stories from his book & can say without fear of contradiction that they were entirely false. There was not a shred of truth in them. But none the less AngloNasties recommend it.
As mentioned before I have also been concerned about the lack of scientific knowledge shown by the anti-Bible brigade on the the AngloForum.
Bed time.
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