Yesterday (Sunday) as we were singing Morning Prayer, I was reflecting on the elephant hurled by a commenter on this blog, of ‘genre’ criticism. This has come up a couple of times as though the mere mention of this critical approach will somehow bring to heel the dogs of the literary scallywags who accept the direct meaning of Genesis 1.
Morning Prayer went on, and we got to Psalm 95. This is what we today would call poetry: but a 'song' to the Hebrews. I don’t think the word ‘poetry’ is known in the OT. The genre boosters would have, I think, that as soon as a piece is defined as ‘poetry’, it ceases to make meaningful reference to the real world. If they didn’t then they wouldn’t keep insisting that the identification of genre (‘list’ in the case of Genesis 1, which is a sub genre of ‘narrative’), which they don’t identify when it comes to Genesis 1, despatches the topic of interpretation of the passage.
Of course two things are confused here: what the text says, and what it means. Gunkel, Von Rad, Barr et al insist that the text says that God created in six normal ‘evening and morning’ type (i.e. 24 hour) days. They think it means little outside the tribe, it being, to them, a tribal myth and having little if anything to do with the real world (I’ll leave you, dear reader, to untangle the ontological conundrum this last phrase entails for the Christian). But that’s what the authors meant to communicate. That falls into line with most readers’ views until materialism reared its banal head in the 1800s.
But, let’s look at a couple of what we might call poems, and see what their being poems does for their relation to the real world.
Psalm 95 first. What I’ll do is comment on the factualness or not of each line or idea.
O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD,
FACT: there is a “Lord’ to whom we can sing, and joyfully.
Let us shout joyfully to the rock of our salvation.
FACT: God is our rock (a metaphor for stable one) and the source of our salvation.
Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving
FACT: it is possible to come before his presence with thanksgiving.
Let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms.
FACT: what is not factual about this?
For the LORD is a great God And a great King above all gods,
FACT: I think that line is all factual.
In whose hand are the depths of the earth,
FICTION: the depths of the earth are well known to not be in God’s hands. Deep drilling for oil has not detected hands at any depth, let alone the deepest. Alternatively, this might be a metaphor to the factual statement of God’s disposing power over the planet.
The peaks of the mountains are His also.
FACT: If you accept the Bible’s statements about God (including Genesis 1 as being factual) then this is factual. Not only the peaks, mind you, but the slopes, cliffs and ledges too! Of course, if Genesis 1 is not factual, then this is a mistake.
The sea is His, for it was He who made it,
FACT: according to the Bible, God is he who made and therefore owns the sea. If you don’t follow Genesis 1, then this of course is another mistake. Take your pick.
And His hands formed the dry land.
FACT if your beliefs are biblically informed, fiction if they are not. Taking the latter view: it is well known that dry land is formed by the recession of the sea and subsequent drying by solar action and not by hands. Hands big enough have never been seen. It could of course be a metaphor. Metaphors are a well-known means of communicating and most primary school graduates can detect them; indeed, use them.
Come, let us worship and bow down,
Let us kneel before the LORD our Maker.
For He is our God,
FICTION: As this is poetry, I guess we must deduce that the Lord is not our Maker, nor our God and we cannot worship, bow down or kneel before him. However, I have seen people do all of these things on their presumption that God is their maker!
And we are the people of His pasture and the sheep of His hand.
Clearly FICTION. We are not people of pastures and certainly not sheep.
Today, if you would hear His voice,
FICTION: God does not have a normally audible voice. Although Paul the apostle might contest that.
Do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
As in the day of Massah in the wilderness,
"When your fathers tested Me,
FACT.
They tried Me, though they had seen My work.
FACT
"For forty years I loathed that generation,
And said they are a people who err in their heart,
And they do not know My ways.
"Therefore I swore in My anger,
Truly they shall not enter into My rest."
FACT, fact and more fact.
So, what does the genre of ‘song’ do for the facticity of most of the content of Psalm 95? Not a lot!
We could apply the same to Waltzing Matilda.
What in the following does not have a real world counterpart: billabong, jumbuck, squatter, trooper, waltzing, matildas (a world war 2 small tank), billy, boiling (in most parts of the earth water will be able to be boiled), tree, shade, one, two, three (these are well known natural numbers and occur in many songs, either alone or together), and so on.
So, the genre of Waltzing Matilda (song/poem) does not let us escape that most of it has a real world referent! That is, it is written on a highly factual framework. Indeed, if one were familiar with the 1890’s depression in Australia, the song would be close to a news report in content. Did it really happen? I don’t know, did it?
The thing is, the song doesn’t claim to be reportage. Genesis 1 does (and is treated as such elsewhere in the Bible). But there is nothing in the song, or Psalm 95, for that matter, which is counter-factual.
Now, what would it tell us if Genesis 1 was poetry? It is not, by the way. Its literary structure is list like and nothing like what we like to call ‘poetry’ in the Bible. Compare Ps 95, as a case in point. Compare it on the other hand to the many lists in the Bible! Does it contain other literary devices? Probably. All literature contains literary devices. It is unavoidable: that’s the way of literature. Commit to written words and you would be hard pressed to avoid them. So, it tells us nothing that Genesis 1 has a particular genre, unless that is explicated for our enlightenment. It tells us nothing that Genesis 1 has particular literary devices; especially when it is recognised that before typographic conventions were developed, literary devices substituted to give structure to the text. Today, of course, we’d just select the whole list of days in our word processor and make it a ‘bulleted’ list, as below.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (TITLE)
· <> The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
· <>Then God said, "Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters." God made the expanse, and separated the waters which were below the expanse from the waters which were above the expanse; and it was so. God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
· <>Then God said, " Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear"; and it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them"; and it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed after their kind, and trees bearing fruit with seed in them, after their kind; and God saw that it was good. There was evening and there was morning, a third day.
· <>Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. God made the two great lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good. 19 There was evening and there was morning, a fourth day.
· <>Then God said, "Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.” God created the great sea monsters and every living creature that moves, with which the waters swarmed after their kind, and every winged bird after its kind; and God saw that it was good. God blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth." There was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.
· <>Then God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind"; and it was so. God made the beasts of the earth after their kind, and the cattle after their kind, and everything that creeps on the ground after its kind; and God saw that it was good. Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, " Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth." Then God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food"; and it was so. God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Seeing most translators are free and easy with interpretation through typography, perhaps in generations to come we’ll see translations with bulleted lists, numbered lists, and so on . . how kewl would that be?!
What we learn from the vague references to ‘literary devices’ or ‘genre’ is precisely nothing that would detract from the factual content of Genesis 1. Unless we are given precise reasons! You might also note the distinct narrative style that dominates the passage: the recurrent ‘then God said’ is a characteristic of narrative accounts of events. The numbering of days gives precision to the account which is repeated in other numbered passages and use of numbers elsewhere in the Bible and by my accountant; and in a manner atypical of myth, for instance (although the Taxation Commissioner does regard some accounts as largely myth).
________
On a similar theme in the Sydney Morning Herald “Spectrum” section one of the questions this week in ‘Big Questions’ was “who was God talking to when he said ‘let there be light’, and so on.”
Of course, the answer is: he wasn’t ‘talking’ to anyone, but as a simple spiritual being (simple as in having no parts), God’s only mode of action is by will, and is propositional, Therefore he is telling us his method of creation: by speaking. Refer also to Hebrews 11:3. The word for ‘word’ here is “reemati’: his ‘word’ of speaking, not of being. That is, not ‘logos’. The significance is that Hebrews tells us that God’s ‘method’ of creation is speaking. Note the rest of the verse too.
Back to the ‘genre’ idea. The forerunner of ‘genre’ criticism was form criticism. This was introduced to the world by Hermann Gunkel. He was a refreshing break from the source criticism guys (JEDP) whose tedium had dominated then recent scholarship, largely to much heat and little light, and his innovation was the view that the ‘forms’ of the OT were based on long oral traditions, reduced to writing at the time of the exile. Great assumption Hermann!
The genre critics go one better by claiming that the genre, or type of the passage will determine our reading of it (Gunkel said the same thing, but he thought there were only two genres; narrative and poetry). Not bad, as far as it goes, but where it goes when it comes to Genesis 1 (or most other chapters in Genesis) is straight to narrative. I’ve been through that above. There is nothing in the text that should persuade us that it is anything but a straightforward account of actions producing events in real time and space, after time and space were created, of course, in Gen 1:1. It uses a style to delimit a list without using typographical bullets (which hadn’t been invented, because, of course, it was before the time of real bullets); that is, a recurrent termination of each day. It uses consecutive language introducing each day, furthering the delimitation of the list elements, but also ensuring we understand the passing of time and movement of events, and it counts the days, just to make sure we don’t miss the point. Over this it tells us, in the terminal delimiter, that the days are ‘evening and morning’ type days. Its as though the writer has gone over the top to make the point: here is a list of events taking place on 6, six, VI, half a dozen . . days, one after the other.
If you don’t want to accept this, then don’t but please don’t try to pretend that Genesis 1 is anything other than what it is (I refer to Meredith Kline, John Dickson, John Polkinghorne, Philip and Peter Jensen and the entire cast and crew of ISCAST: the “Institute for Sacrificing Christianity by Acquiescing to Social Trends” to name a few).
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169 comments:
Using their own methodology, the compromisers would not accept the "Division of the Land" carefully detailed in the book of Joshua.
Potentially then, the descendants of Judah lived in some place not identified by markers and according to the tribes as stated.
The form and a little repetitiveness of the Joshua account destroys any sense of historicity to this event. We know they took up residence in the land (we do don't we?) so, quite possibly, Israel settled by a means something like the land rush so amusingly portrayed in some of the old western movies and serials.
Sam Drucker
O what a tangled web we weave when first we practice deceive. This came to mind as I re read Sam's blog above.
I have taken part in the 'exchange of ideas' & also read carefully that written by various SA's & have seen the ducking & weaving which has occurred to bend & twist Scripture to fit with an obviously worldly view.
As I understand it it all began with certain SA's accepting the age of the earth has been established in the order of billions of years. As Christians they have not wanted to give up on their faith in God or His Word so quite reasonably have re-visited Scripture to see how the two views could be reconciled. Obviously if the radiometric dates are correct then creation cannot have occurred in the order of thousands of years ago. I am not ridiculing anyone for reasoning that way.
The attempted reconcilliation has been to reinterpret Genesis etc away from the natural meaning. The Word of the inerrant God who was there at the beginning has been modified out of all recognition to bring it into line with current beliefs of men who were not there at the beginning, do make mistakes & different to God are not always honest. What man is?
Having had a little to do with radiometric dating I know the system is based upon untestable assumptions therefore the dates cannot be promoted as scientific fact. There are many examples of dates which are ridiculous with basalt which was seen to form just 200 years ago being dated at 3.3 billion years! This doesn't mean these dates are incorrect by this or that margin but that the dates bear no connection to reality.
Also timber found in supposedly 30 million year old limestone near Oxford in the UK was found to have considerable amounts of c14 therein. How did timber dated at thousands of years get covered by 30 million year old limestone. It didn't did it?
I think it sad that the SA's have given up on the plain meaning of God's Word because of such a problem riddled system of radiometric dating.
Maybe it isn't to late for some critical thinking & a return to the traditional 6-day view. We can only hope & pray for such a thing.
"Eric" said
I don’t think the word ‘poetry’ is known in the OT.
Of course it wasn't known. "Poetry" is an English word, the OT was not written in English and contained no English words.
"Eric" said
The genre boosters would have, I think, that as soon as a piece is defined as ‘poetry’, it ceases to make meaningful reference to the real world.
You're quite right: anyone who makes this claim is quite mistaken. Poetry can be quite specific in its reference, and prose can be entirely figurative.
But you're quite wrong about genre and its importance. Subtle changes in form can have a major impact in the way we understand a text. Imagine an English text which appears to have very specific historical detail and appears, for all intents and purposes, to be a true account of historical events. Imagine, then, if the first four words of the text were "Once upon a time..." This profoundly effects the way English readers will understand the text. Now it is quite possible that someone 2,000 years hence may believe that this text is meant to be historiographical, but we know better.
So to Genesis 1. There are a number of subtle but significant elements in the text which distinguish it from portions of the OT which we can unequivocally affirm as presenting "literal" historical detail. These variations do not prove that Genesis 1 is not historical. To determine its historicity we need to look for other information. And surely the fact that the seventh day is not a literal day is such information (I note that many contributors to this site consistently refer only to a literal "6 day" creation and avoid mention of the seventh day).
How do we know that the seventh day was not a 24 hour rest for God? A couple of things. First, Genesis doesn't just say he rested on that day, but that he "rested from all the work of creating that he had done" (NIV). In other words, his rest was specifically from creating: if that day only lasted 24 hours, on day 8 he would've started creating again. So if you hold to the notion that the seventh day lasted only 24 hours, there'd be an extra universe somewhere for each week since that first.
Second, the NT indicates that the seventh day continued. In particular, John 5:16-18 has Jesus justify his own works on the Sabbath on the basis that God continues to work on his Sabbath. This argument makes little sense unless Jesus understood the seventh day to have continued to that day!
warwick said...
As I understand it it all began with certain SA's accepting the age of the earth has been established in the order of billions of years.
You may be right about this for "certain SA's," whoever they are. But in my case, I've come to think that demanding that Genesis 1 must mean that creation took place within 6 earth days of 24 hours simply doesn't fit with what the Bible actually says! Radiometric dating may or may not be an accurate way to date items. The earth may be billions or only thousands of years old. The point is, I can't determine this from Genesis 1, and I think there are too many indications in the text that you have to ignore to arrive at the literal 144 hour creation belief. I'm happy for you all to argue scientifically that the earth is not old, but I think you can only argue this from the Bible by misreading the text.
In response to Anonymous, it should be noted that Jesus'activity on the Sabbaths was recreative activity not creative activity. The context (John 5:17)of Jesus' reference to His and His Father's work "to this very day" is recreative or redemptive activity from the Godhead. The activity has been a response to the consequences of rebellion of man. At least that is what has been held as mainstream belief for ages.
This development over the last century to take the non inclusion of "there was evening and morning the seventh day" to destroy the defining markers for the previous six days is a nonsense. It is to allow the minor to dicate to the major. The creative work had already been completed by the end of the sixth day, whatever the duration of the day on which the Lord rested has no interpretive consequence for what has gone before regarding the duration of the earlier days.
Exodus 20:11, because of the context of the proposed working week for Israel, firmly asserts the creation of all things occurred in six days as we and Israel experience them. How does Anonymous deal with this passage of Scripture?
Sam Drucker
"sam drucker" said...
The context (John 5:17)of Jesus' reference to His and His Father's work "to this very day" is recreative or redemptive activity from the Godhead. The activity has been a response to the consequences of rebellion of man. At least that is what has been held as mainstream belief for ages.
The problem with this attempt to explain away Jesus' words is that it makes them meaningless in the context in which he spoke. He is being accused of breaking the Sabbath by working on it. He responds by saying "My Father is working until now..." So what? If it isn't his Father's Sabbath, what relevance does this have to the accusations of the Jewish leaders? Jesus' response only makes sense if he is claiming that his Father worked on his Sabbath just as Jesus was doing on that Sabbath!
Furthermore, your view has not been "mainstream" for ages. Jewish scholars have long held that God was working on his Sabbath. They usually explained this as being permissible because God can pretty much do what he wants, he is the Creator, if he wants to work on the Sabbath he is allowed, but that's no excuse for Jewish people to break the Sabbath. This thinking is probably also in the mind of the Jewish leaders in John 5:18, because by saying "if God can work on his Sabbath, then so can I" they recognise Jesus' claiming equality with God (as the passage says).
"sam drucker" said...
This development over the last century to take the non inclusion of "there was evening and morning the seventh day" to destroy the defining markers for the previous six days is a nonsense. It is to allow the minor to dicate to the major.
I disagree. The approach which has to ignore the indicators in the text that it should not be read "literally" is an abuse of the text. It is like reading a fairy tale and ignoring the import of the opening "once upon a time..." Genesis 1 is not a fairy tale, it does make true and vital points, but if you ignore these parts of the text you misread it.
"sam drucker" said...
Exodus 20:11, because of the context of the proposed working week for Israel, firmly asserts the creation of all things occurred in six days as we and Israel experience them.
No, it does not, no more than it requires that the seventh day of God's creation week must only be 24 hours. It appeals to the way the author of Genesis shaped the account of creation: God worked and now he rests from his work. The author shaped the account to demonstrate this principle and to form the basis for the Jewish Sabbath. It no more requires that the creation week be a literal 144 hours of work than Paul's use of Jesus' words about the Lord's Supper requires that Jesus' original words must be literal, or if I were to commend people behave like the good Samaritan require that the good Samaritan were a real person.
Anonymous welcome. Not being paranoid I have no problem talking with unidentified people.
Anon you say:
'I've come to think that demanding that Genesis 1 must mean that creation took place within 6 earth days of 24 hours simply doesn't fit with what the Bible actually says!'
Anon I was once a T/E but further Biblical study & research into linguistics showed me that the days of creation are definitely to be taken as earth rotation days.
In all the languages I researched there are three meanings for the word day.
1) A vague unbounded period of time as in-the day of the prophets.
2) Daytime as in-I spent the day gardening.
3) But when the word day is accompanied by a number -a la -there was evening & there was morning-the second day it always means a 24 hour day.
If not then language would be meaningless. Consider this statement- I will see you here in five days or on the fifth day we.... Does anyone have to ask how long are your days? Of course not it's ludicrous.
Also God knowing how slow we are to understand & the deviousness of human nature added a second layer of qualification, writing- & there was evening & there was morning.... What time period, other than a normal day has evening followed by morning?
Anon please explain how it is that 24 hour creation days don't fit with what the Bible says?
Anon it is not that radiometric dating is accurate or inaccurate but that there is no way of verifying if the results bear any resemblance to reality. There is one place in the US (Grand Canyon)where different radiometric dating methods gave dates of between 10,000yrs & 2,600 million years for the same rock! And everything in between. Just pick whatever date fits your story. And this unscientific foolishness is what people use to reject the clear meaning of Scripture.
So my question (repeated) is how is it that 24 hour days don't fit with the Bible says?
warwick said...
Not being paranoid I have no problem talking with unidentified people.
That's good to hear, given that most of the contributors to this blog appear to be pseudonymous.
warwick said...
Anon I was once a T/E but further Biblical study & research into linguistics showed me that the days of creation are definitely to be taken as earth rotation days.
I didn't say that I was T/E at all. I've explicitly stated that my understanding of Gen 1 is not derived from any perceived scientific understanding of the universe, but from my understanding of the text of the Bible. Unfortunately, most Young Earth creationists seem to have prejudicial reading of my words and, despite my protestations, read what I say as if my claims rested on scientific data. My claims rest on my reading and understanding of the Bible.
Furthermore, I've not even disputed that the days of Genesis 1 ought to be understood as "earth rotation days." I've disputed the notion that these days were to be understood as a literal account of the chronology of creation. The days function to provide a literary framework to creation and to provide a connection with the Sabbath, not to provide a chronology. How do we know? Aside from the formal distinctions present in the text which set it apart from historical reporting in the OT, there is the seventh day, which unequivocally demonstrates that treating the days as literal markers of time misunderstands the passage.
warwick said...
Consider this statement- I will see you here in five days or on the fifth day we.... Does anyone have to ask how long are your days? Of course not it's ludicrous.
Quite true, but of course your example is tailored to make your point, and other examples can be made to make different points. Have you heard the song "The 12 Days of Christmas"? You know the one: "on the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me..."? Are they literal days? Well, yes they are meant to be understood as such. Are they historical days? Did this really happen?
Now of course Genesis 1 is not the same as that song. But it illustrates a point: language can be used in many different ways, and context plays a large part in understanding how language is being used. In Genesis 1 there is no reason to believe that the numbered days should not be understood as days, but there are good reasons to believe that we should not blindly connect them to a chronology of creation. Genesis 1 presents God's creation in the framework of a week to order it and connect God's rest with the Sabbath.
warwick said...
Anon please explain how it is that 24 hour creation days don't fit with what the Bible says?
Re-read my previous posts about the seventh day. I notice you've avoided discussing it. It seems to me that to maintain your position you need to overlook both the seventh day and the formal indicators in the text. The result is that you force from the text meaning that it simply isn't written to support!
Dear Anon you said:
'That's good to hear, given that most of the contributors to this blog appear to be pseudonymous.' As is yours but not mine. I think we should be on equal terms who are you?
One of the problems I have is actually finding what people like you do indeed believe. With John, Sam, Eric et al their beliefs are clearly stated. Others who I believe are SA's dance around the truth not prepared to nail their beliefs to the mast. You are probably aware I have repeatedly asked for a clear T/E statement but to no avail. I think that curious.
Likewise you haven't told me what you believe. I wouldn't know whether you are T/E or not would I? Your arguments would indicate that you are.
My point was that I (not you) was a T/E & for this reason alone reinterpreted long ages into Genesis 1. It’s all part of the one package. SA's have protested that their view has not been influenced by long ages science while at the same time vigorously defending the long age view, a view contrary to Scripture(& rudely ridiculing any who disagree). Jesus the creator-obviously there at day one- said man was made at the beginning of creation. So unless He got this wrong this should 'put paid' to any long-ages views which obviously have man appearing at almost the end of creation.
I have heard the 7th day story before & find it illogical because by the laws of grammar the 7th day is no less a 24 hour day than those before or after it. Also Scripture says God rested on ‘it’ (the specific day) from all the work of creating he had done. Then the Ten Commandments repeat His creation week time-frame making it the basis for his people’s working week & Sabbath. Do you infer the text means He created in 6 non consecutive days (over some greater time span?) so man would work six consecutive days?
Where does it say in Scripture that creation did not take place in six consecutive days?
The 12 day song is about the real 12 days from Christmas until the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th; the 12 days count from December 25th until January 5th). So the song confirms my point that the word day in conjunction with a number always refers to a 24 hour day. Even if it was not a literal 12 days the wording still conveys the writer wanted us to understand 12 ordinary days. This is of course irrelevant as we both know Genesis 1 was no concocted story.
I note Jesus & the Apostles quoted from & referred to the first 11 chapters of Genesis 107 times never hinting it was anything less than sober history. Nor giving any suggestion the creation week was other than the at face value 7-day event.
I have no reason to consider you to be anything less than sincere however I am convinced you are sincerely wrong. I have no desire to offend but have to say that your view as explained appears to me as little but an artfully contrived attempt at circumventing the plain meaning of Scripture.
Anonymous, I think you misunderstand part of my position. I have no problem with it being the Lord's Sabbath - Father's or Son's (Lord of the Sabbath until handed over to the Father). There is no denying the concept of a Sabbath Rest which might also be described as the Kingdom of God and which, by the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, believers enter into and enjoy blessings flowing from being in relationship with Father. The establishment of the Kingdom of God is the work that Father, Son and Holy Spirit have been working at ie the restoration of the relationship between the created and the Creator, a relationship ruptured after God rested on the seventh day.
There are numerous figures, types and concepts depicted through the lives of people and events in Scripture. But it must be remembered the people and events are a reality, a historical reality fitting into time and space. The danger you present for your listeners, through your Post-Modernist approach to literature, is to emphasise the concepts to the dilution of the historical.
You are building a house of straw for the many in the world today who want to feel and touch their reality and identify with those who have gone before them. For them the ethereal alone will not do. Especially when the world is presenting an alleged historical reality of origins contrary to straight forward reading of the creation account in Scripture.
To run with you is to have to look for hidden meaning behind the text. Something quite different to what it and other supportive passage, by all commonsense, are clearly saying.
If the markers of a day, as recorded for the six days of creation week, do not have the meaning ordinarily applied to them, what was the point of including them? Why did God not exclude them? Surely, their exclusion would make your case watertight. As it is they sit there speaking clearly against you.
My reference to mainstream thinking was concerning Christian doctrine on the recreative or restoritive work of the Godhead. I accept a failure to make this emphasis of Christian doctrine.
It might be that the Good Samaritan the Lord Jesus spoke of was a real person or an invention of the Lord Jesus. However, I am not mindful of anything the Lord Jesus said He, Himself, had done or was going to do that was not a reality. So it is when the Lord said "For in six days the Lord created the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them ..." (Ex. 20:11)
The Church has had times of high activity and enlightenment from the Lord God. Examine the time we now live in and compare it with the time of the Reformation.
Anonymous encourages us to read Scripture like John Dickson whose thinking accords with the spirit of the age. Alternatively, we could read Scripture like Luther and Calvin. The latter two said the following:
Martin Luther said this, "He (Moses) calls 'a spade a spade' i.e., he employs the terms 'day' and 'evening' without Allegory, just as we customarily do ... we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e, that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit."9 Luther also said, "We know from Moses that the world was not in existence before 6,000 years ago."
John Calvin said this, "For it is not without significance that he divided the making of the universe into six days, even though it would have been no more difficult for him to have completed in one moment the whole work together in all its details than to arrive at its completion gradually by a progression of this sort."11 Calvin also said this, "They will not refrain from guffaws when they are informed that but little more than five thousand years have passed since the creation of the universe."
Who do we run with? John Dickson or the Reformers. For me, John Dickson hasn't even left the starting gates.
Sam Drucker
warwick said...
'That's good to hear, given that most of the contributors to this blog appear to be pseudonymous.' As is yours but not mine. I think we should be on equal terms who are you?
No, you're not on equal terms. You are posting here with apparent knowledge of who at least some of the other pseudonymous posters are, and you are in agreement with their position. That does not put us on equal terms. If everyone here wishes to reveal their true identities I may be convinced to do the same.
warwick said...
One of the problems I have is actually finding what people like you do indeed believe. With John, Sam, Eric et al their beliefs are clearly stated. Others who I believe are SA's dance around the truth not prepared to nail their beliefs to the mast. You are probably aware I have repeatedly asked for a clear T/E statement but to no avail. I think that curious.
Likewise you haven't told me what you believe. I wouldn't know whether you are T/E or not would I? Your arguments would indicate that you are.
I have explained what I believe. I believe that Genesis 1:1-2:3 does not provide information about how long it took for God to create the universe. I believe it clearly states that God was the sole creator of the universe, that he populated and ordered the earth for our benefit and placed us in authority under him to rule it. I do not know whether God used evolutionary processes to populate the world, and the fact that you think that I do reveals more about your prejudices than it does about me. It would appear that you believe that anyone who disputes your interpretation of Genesis 1 must belong to the T/E "camp."
warwick said...
Jesus the creator-obviously there at day one- said man was made at the beginning of creation. So unless He got this wrong this should 'put paid' to any long-ages views which obviously have man appearing at almost the end of creation.
I don't think you can pin so much on Matt 19:4. Obviously it cannot mean "from the beginning" because even the literalist view doesn't have human beings created on day one. Jesus' words in Matt 19:4 in context relate to marriage and the fact that human beings have always, since the beginning, been male and female, and since the beginning, have been married. Divorce has not been since the beginning. This beginning, then, must refer to the time when the first human beings were created.
warwick said...
I have heard the 7th day story before & find it illogical because by the laws of grammar the 7th day is no less a 24 hour day than those before or after it.
Quite so, and because it has no end, because it continued to Jesus' day according to Jesus' own testimony, the reference to "day" was figurative. The word means 24-hour day, but text is not using the days to affirm the notion that creation was carried out in the precise chronological framework you demand of it. That is clear because the absence of the closing "evening and morning" for the seventh day points to it as the goal of creation: to arrive at rest, not to resume work the next morning. This is affirmed by Hebrews.
warwick said...
Also Scripture says God rested on ‘it’ (the specific day) from all the work of creating he had done. Then the Ten Commandments repeat His creation week time-frame making it the basis for his people’s working week & Sabbath. Do you infer the text means He created in 6 non consecutive days (over some greater time span?) so man would work six consecutive days?
No. I must not be explaining myself very clearly. I've said over and over that I don't believe that Gen 1 provides any information on the chronology of creation in history. The days function to reflect the structure of the creative work of God, to order that work and highlight the goals. God could have created in six days and rested for one, but the text seems gives ample indicators that we ought not to read it that way. You choose to ignore them and believe that other passages force you into your reading, but they do not. Do you also ignore the opening words of books which begin "once upon a time"? (Again, Gen 1 is not a fairy tale, but if you ignore clear signals about how to read the text in one form of literature, do you also choose to ignore them in all forms?)
warwick said...
The 12 day song is about the real 12 days from Christmas until the beginning of Epiphany (January 6th; the 12 days count from December 25th until January 5th). So the song confirms my point that the word day in conjunction with a number always refers to a 24 hour day. Even if it was not a literal 12 days the wording still conveys the writer wanted us to understand 12 ordinary days. This is of course irrelevant as we both know Genesis 1 was no concocted story.
Sometimes I think you've almost grasped my point. The song's days, you say, are real days, but the song itself is a concocted story. You've admitted that you can make reference to days, real days, in a non-historical text. Yet in Genesis you deny the possibility that days are part of a text designed to relate information about creation without it being literalistically historically accurate in every detail!
warwick said...
I note Jesus & the Apostles quoted from & referred to the first 11 chapters of Genesis 107 times never hinting it was anything less than sober history. Nor giving any suggestion the creation week was other than the at face value 7-day event.
But they do not quote from it either affirming that the details of the chronology are literal history, and Jesus' own argument with the Jewish leaders in John 5 indicates that at least one aspect of the text was not understood as "literal history," and that the "face value" of Gen 2:3 was, for 1st century Jewish readers, not the same as the "face value" you would have us understand.
warwick said...
I have no reason to consider you to be anything less than sincere however I am convinced you are sincerely wrong. I have no desire to offend but have to say that your view as explained appears to me as little but an artfully contrived attempt at circumventing the plain meaning of Scripture.
I too am aware of your sincerity. But your appeal to "the plain meaning of Scripture" seems to me to disagree with Jesus' understanding, and appeals to "plain meaning" are ultimately very subjective and assume without any argument that your "plain meaning" is exactly the same as the "plain meaning" of readers more than 2,000 years ago. It really is just a way to avoid discussing difficult aspects of the text!
"sam drucker" said...
The danger you present for your listeners, through your Post-Modernist approach to literature, is to emphasise the concepts to the dilution of the historical.
This is a nonsense argument for at least two reasons. First, your approach is more post-modern than mine, because I seek meaning based on the assumption that the author's intention controls meaning (most certainly not a post-modern task), whereas you are happy to appeal to the "straight forward" reading of Scripture which ultimately means your straightforward reading of Scripture without any real concern for what it originally meant.
Second, you present a false metric for truth and meaning in text. You dismiss my understanding because it diminishes the amount of historical information in the text. Yet my point of view suggests that you read into the text historical meaning that isn't there.
"sam drucker" said...
To run with you is to have to look for hidden meaning behind the text.
To "run with me" is actually to believe that we may need to do some hard work to understand some parts of the Bible. To run with you is to ignore this and believe that whatever meaning stands out to you is the truth, overlooking the fact that someone has actually done hard work translating the text so you can arrive at your obvious meaning oblivious to that hard work.
"sam drucker" said...
If the markers of a day, as recorded for the six days of creation week, do not have the meaning ordinarily applied to them, what was the point of including them? Why did God not exclude them? Surely, their exclusion would make your case watertight. As it is they sit there speaking clearly against you.
Why did God speak in obscure prophecy? Why does he have poetry at all in the Bible? Why does he use figurative language? Why didn't Jesus just say what he meant instead of using obscure parables? Why didn't God have the Bible written in English to start with? All these have caused similar problems of interpretation through history! But no, we have to work hard in some places to understand, but God has given us enough information (I believe) to understand most of it. When Jesus indicates that the seventh day should not be read as a chronological indicator of the time of creation, and there are other indicators in Gen 1 to differentiate it from historigraphical writing, should we ignore these indications? No-one here has been able to explain why you're all happy to ignore them.
I have no idea who anonymous is, and I don't wish to know. But Sam and Warwick, it must be plain to you guys that he has a far better grip of Scripture (and logic) than either of you do.
Surely the God-honouring thing to do is to look again at your presuppositions.
Warwick especially, you can only play the "I'm just a simple man with a simple faith" card so many times.
And Marc/John/Sam whoever you are, you are the only person who ever mentions John Dickson. Obviously he upset you in the past, but he is not relevant to this debate.
Anonymous, you will work hard to find a different meaning in the creation narrative if you want to stay comfortable with the world on origins. You don't run with Reformed theological doctrine in doing so. You have a new teaching which lays a dangerous foundation.
Straight forward reading traditionally has meant the passage speaking simply to the reader. Overwhelmingly, the Genesis 1 account has been interpreted in Jewish (even Josephus)and Christian history as what we today call historical narrative or prose. Most decidedly, you are importing your thoughts to the text to the dilution of the historicity of what has been said.
You refer to other indicators but haven't labelled them. Is this to invite you to expound them? Will you trot out the faulty John Dickson paper's indicators of numbers, repetition, chiasmus etc?
I will stay with the Reformed tradition of doctrine because it has been blessed so much by the Lord in His Kingdom work, because it makes greater sense of of the use of language (within its genre) and has support from genuine science.
The real trouble I have with people teaching what John Dickson teaches is that they continue to claim to be of the Reformed tradition yet they depart from the Reformers on the important doctrinal position of creation.
I have to go to work now so will be offline for a while.
Sam Drucker
The real trouble I have with people teaching what John Dickson teaches
Why do you keep bringing him up? He is an ancient historian who specialises in the New Testament era. He is not an Old Testament theologian.
Alternatively, we could read Scripture like Luther and Calvin.
Luther and Calvin also both affirmed the geocentric model, for scriptural reasons. Should we accept that as well?
Anon or is it John? If you wish to keep your name anonymous then who am I to try & change your mind. In fact I don't know why anyone needs to know who other bloggers are?
When I read your posts the quote -you strain at a gnat but swallow camels whole-comes to mind. I don't doubt your Christianity nor your sincerity but sniff the musty odour of excessive academia.
I've been involved in Christian ministry for a few decades, having spoken in hundreds of churches here & overseas & in that time I have heard all these arguments over & over. In the early days the T/E's, liberals, progressive creationists et al, compromisers all, openly stated that it was the 'facts' of science which caused them to look deeper & deeper into Scripture until a new meaning became obvious. As they 'knew' the world was billions of years old Genesis could not be taken at face value.
Dr Pattle PT Pun the progressive Creationist said it well in about 1987:
‘It is apparent that the most straightforward understanding of Genesis without regard to all the hermeneutical considerations suggested by science, is that God created the heaven and earth in six solar days, that man was created on the sixth day, that death and chaos entered the world after the fall of Adam and Eve, and that all the fossils were the result of the catastrophic universal deluge which spared only Noah’s family, and the animals therewith.’
Then along came organizations such as Answers in Genesis which began to point out the error of basing Scriptural interpretation upon the shifting untestable beliefs of falible men. In reaction to this T/E's, progressive creationists & others now began to insist that their convoluted interpretations were Scripture driven not science driven. I don't believe it.
You said:
'I don't think you can pin so much on Matt 19:4. Obviously it cannot mean "from the beginning" because even the literalist view doesn't have human beings created on day one'
I don't have a literalist view & believe this 'literal' idea to be a straw-man argument. I take Scripture & all literature at face value unless some good reason exists no to do so.
Matthew says 'at the beginning' while Mark says 'at the beginning of creation.' Jesus was speaking about 4000 years after creation which is 1,460,000 days by my calculation. Now maths was never my strong suit but the sixth day is less than one thousandth of one percent of time from the beginning of the creation to Christ. But you don't see this as being consistent with 'at the beginning.' You jest!
If we allow your curious unsubstantiated creation of the gaps with unknown eons in between each day (24 hours as you agree) then Man was made rather at the end of creation when you consider the time line. If you are correct Jesus had it backwards. What else did He have backwards? Remember He said if you don't trust me about earthly things how can you trust me about heavenly things. Anon how indeed?
You said:
'Sometimes I think you've almost grasped my point. The song's days, you say, are real days, but the song itself is a concocted story.
Anon you have missed the point it is obvious from the grammar that the writer wants us to take the 12 days as 12 24 hour days & consecutive, which they are. The point is this song isn't Scripture but by the language we know the writer meant us to comprehend 'his' days as everyday consecutive 24 hour days. By the language likewise we know that God wants us to understand that his real creation was accomplished over 6 24 hour consecutive days.
You said:
You've admitted that you can make reference to days, real days, in a non-historical text. Yet in Genesis you deny the possibility that days are part of a text designed to relate information about creation without it being literalistically historically accurate in every detail!'
Anon anything is possible, possibly Moses rode a pogo stick. But why would God open His Word with His account of creation using every key that the days are both ordinary & consecutive if in fact they weren't? Is He hiding something? Are the facts somehow less palatable: maybe He isn't Almighty after all & had to take eons to achieve what He said took six days. Non-Almighty & deceitful as well!
Anon said:
'I note that many contributors to this site consistently refer only to a literal "6 day" creation and avoid mention of the seventh day.'
For obvious reasons Anon as the creation took 6 days not 7. The next day was a day off, but none the less a 24 hour day as the text demands- And God blessed the seventh day(following from first day, second day,....)and made IT holy, because on IT he rested from all the work of creation that he had done. Note that the day is called 'it' twice & that God who needs no rest,rested from what he HAD done. Worked six not rested one- the pattern. The idea that this 7th day of rest was unending makes no sense at all as God continued working in sustaining all things, miracles & creating. He is still at work. Meanwhile His people worked 6 consecutive days & rested the 7th, & continue to do so following the pattern God set.
I find your arguments to be contradicted by Sripture John.
In trying to get my last blog finished between phone calls & the men finishing our new kitchen I rushed & made a mistake or two. How sad.
I wrote this incomprehensible bit in my last paragraph. 'Worked six not rested one- the pattern.' When I am sure I meant -worked six & rested one-the pattern.
My humblest apologies at dinner I shall punish my self with a glass of Rutherglen Durif for my sins.
"sam drucker" said...
Straight forward reading traditionally has meant the passage speaking simply to the reader.
So am I to believe then that you don't care what the author meant or what the original audience understood the author to mean?
"sam drucker" said...
You refer to other indicators but haven't labelled them. Is this to invite you to expound them? Will you trot out the faulty John Dickson paper's indicators of numbers, repetition, chiasmus etc?
First, I'm not familiar with John Dickson's paper or his teaching on this matter. Second, labelling something "faulty" does not constitute an argument. You have not explained why you feel free to ignore aspects of Gen 1 which distinguish it from historical writing in the OT. So, what sets Gen 1 apart? Some considerations include:
1. Structured variation in repeated phrases ordering the text.
2. The open-ended seventh day.
3. The aetiological aspect of the text.
4. The 6+1 pattern common to other ancient Near Eastern writing.
5. The absence of the opening toledot formula, setting it apart from the remainder of Genesis.
"sam drucker" said...
The real trouble I have with people teaching what John Dickson teaches is that they continue to claim to be of the Reformed tradition yet they depart from the Reformers on the important doctrinal position of creation.
Are you not aware that the "Reformers" disagreed on important points of doctrine (of particular significance to them included baptism and the Lord's Supper). The "Reformed tradition" is not about agreeing with the Reformers on all points of doctrine, for they did not all agree either. It most certainly has nothing to do with one's interpretation of Genesis (as craigs has pointed out, many of the Reformers argued for a fixed earth at the centre of the universe as well). If that is the "real trouble" you have, then you've misunderstood what is at the heart of the reformation.
warwick said...
When I read your posts the quote -you strain at a gnat but swallow camels whole-comes to mind. I don't doubt your Christianity nor your sincerity but sniff the musty odour of excessive academia.
What, in our discussion, constitutes the gnat and camel? It is apparent that small features in a text can have a profound impact on the meaning. And is the opposite of "excessive academia" "inadequate academia"? Is that what you claim in support of your position?
warwick said...
I've been involved in Christian ministry for a few decades, having spoken in hundreds of churches here & overseas & in that time I have heard all these arguments over & over. In the early days the T/E's, liberals, progressive creationists et al, compromisers all, openly stated that it was the 'facts' of science which caused them to look deeper & deeper into Scripture until a new meaning became obvious. As they 'knew' the world was billions of years old Genesis could not be taken at face value.
If you have heard all these arguments over and over, I wonder if you've misunderstood them as you appear to fail to grasp them here and now.
I don't doubt that many people question the accuracy of Genesis motivated by perceived contradictions with science, although once again you try and associate me with these groups. My position, however, comes from carefully reading the text and also extensive reading of ancient Near Eastern creation stories. Your position, however, appears to be the result of ignoring the historical context of the book, overlooking facets of the text which count against your interpretation and reading into the text your presuppositions.
warwick said...
Dr Pattle PT Pun the progressive Creationist said it well in about 1987...
Your quoting someone whose speciality is molecular biology regarding the interpretation of ancient Hebrew literature. Why should his opinion count for more than yours in this matter?
warwick said...
Matthew says 'at the beginning' while Mark says 'at the beginning of creation.' Jesus was speaking about 4000 years after creation which is 1,460,000 days by my calculation. Now maths was never my strong suit but the sixth day is less than one thousandth of one percent of time from the beginning of the creation to Christ. But you don't see this as being consistent with 'at the beginning.' You jest!
Jesus' argument turns on the fact that marriage was instituted from the very time when human beings were created whereas divorce was allowed by Moses some time later. My point was that to try and employ this to prove a chronologically precise reading of Genesis 1 goes way beyond the meaning of Jesus' words.
warwick said...
If we allow your curious unsubstantiated creation of the gaps with unknown eons in between each day (24 hours as you agree)...
I haven't postulated gaps between each day at all. I have suggested that the days are employed as a means to shape the creation account without referring to historical days.
warwick said...
But why would God open His Word with His account of creation using every key that the days are both ordinary & consecutive if in fact they weren't? Is He hiding something?
Well, every key except for a number of keys that they weren't to be treated as a literal chronology of creation, such as the distinct form of writing, the never-ending seventh day, and so on.
warwick said...
The next day was a day off, but none the less a 24 hour day as the text demands- And God blessed the seventh day(following from first day, second day,....)and made IT holy, because on IT he rested from all the work of creation that he had done. Note that the day is called 'it' twice & that God who needs no rest,rested from what he HAD done. Worked six not rested one- the pattern. The idea that this 7th day of rest was unending makes no sense at all as God continued working in sustaining all things, miracles & creating. He is still at work. Meanwhile His people worked 6 consecutive days & rested the 7th, & continue to do so following the pattern God set.
None of this proves that the seventh day was a 24 hour day, for God continues to rest and we hope to enter that rest as Hebrews makes clear. Furthermore, as I've indicated, it is apparent that Jews in Jesus' day (and Jesus himself) believed that God's Sabbath continued to that day. In other words, he is still resting from the work of creating which he did in the first six days. You say that "the idea that this 7th day of rest was unending makes no sense at all as God continued working in sustaining all things, miracles & creating..." but this is exactly the problem faced by Jewish scholars: how could God do these things on the Sabbath? Their answer was to allow God an exemption (of course they probably didn't include "creating" and I'm not sure what basis you have for including it). Furthermore, this is also Jesus' point in John 5: God does continue to work on his Sabbath, and so Jesus can also work on the Jewish Sabbath. Of course this argument basically assumes that the exemption the Jews allowed God was being claimed by Jesus, and so they got very annoyed because he was making himself equal with God.
As you see, I think that your position is not consistent with Scripture.
Anonymous really does turn language and meaning upside down. God is the author of Scripture and in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 gives a straightforward message for all generations to understand and believe - not just the first receivers of the message. Included in the Genesis message of creation are the boundaries of what all generations have understood to be a day ie evening and morning. In the Exodus reaffirmation of the creation account the context provided is that of the six solar days and one solar day of rest which Israel and we understand.
Anonymous, with this new and worrying approach to narrative reminds me of former USA President Harry S Truman's facetious Minister for Semantics. "I have recently appointed a Minister for Semantics - a very important portfolio. His task is to provide me with expressions that appear to be heavy with meaning, to teach me how one can say yes and no in the one sentence without becoming entangled in contradictions, to work out a word combination which will make me appear to be against inflation in San Francisco, and supporting inflation in New York, and, finally, to show me how one can wrap oneself in silence but still tell all." Actually, I think former President Truman was desirous of a Minister for Pragmatics.
To stay in with the world Christians in the past hundred years or more have invented carefully devised means to reinterpret Scripture.
On the matter of geocentricity supporters may not have been totally out of order although in error on the relationship of the earth to the sun. Evidence is mounting that our solar system is somewhere near the centre of a bound universe.
So, do I still maintain the need to uphold the position of the Reformers. Yes, on essential doctrine and the means to interpret Scripture.
Sam Drucker
Anon you said:
‘If you have heard all these arguments over and over, I wonder if you've misunderstood them as you appear to fail to grasp them here and now.’
Anon if indeed I have failed to grasp them(poor silly great unwashed me)it is because you have not actually explained what it is you believe. It is a compromisers commonality to skirt around the truth in a type of ‘danse macabre’ of equivocation. You hide your meaning.
I have asked for someone to explain the mechanics of the T/E belief(which you may or may not hold)but only received evasive incomplete answers. You also waste ink telling me what you don't believe & how I have assumed this or that. But have left me actually puzzled at to what you do believe.
What you write appears to me to be sophistry, a carefully crafted & honed side-step around the clear meaning of Scripture. I have had long experience with Jehovah’s Witnesses & their style of argument is similar to yours. To illustrate, Dr Carl Wieland of Creation Ministries International (then AiG) spoke at a men’s function at a large North Shore Anglican Church. Those who heard him, whether agreeing or no, considered he stated his beliefs succinctly & clearly. The senior minister of the church then spoke & people were confused as to what he actually believed. In question time a member of the congregation asked him what he believed about Genesis. The answer he gave did not clearly state his beliefs- well it could mean this or it could mean that or…. was his reply. He was then asked very directly but I want to know what you believe- to which he gave no clear reply.
Anon it is time for you to cut the dance & spell out what you believe.
You said:
'once again you try and associate me with these groups.'
John not knowing what you believe I placed you gently in the Biblical compromisers basket. It is clear you have reinterpreted Scripture because of non-Biblical ideas which makes you a compromiser, what specific breed is yet to be established.
You said:
‘Your quoting someone whose speciality is molecular biology regarding the interpretation of ancient Hebrew literature. Why should his opinion count for more than yours in this matter?’
Anon I used Pun’s quote to illustrate that in the past compromisers were open in admitting their reinterpretation of Scripture was for reasons of 'science.' Compromisers today having learned from their mistakes now hide this, engaging in sophistry, attempting to hide their compromise in BibloSpeak.
Pun is indeed a scientist but also an active Progressive Creationist who has written & lectured upon these Biblical issues.
The theologian Gleason L. Archer has written much the same as Pun. He doesn’t believe in six 24 hour creation days but admits:
'From a superficial reading of Genesis 1, the impression would seem to be that the entire creative process took place in six twenty four-hour days ... This seems to run counter to modern scientific research, which indicates that the planet Earth was created several billion years ago ... . The more recently expanded knowledge of nuclear physics has brought into play another type of evidence which seems to confirm the great antiquity of the earth, that is, the decay of radioactive minerals.'
I trust you now understand my point?
You said:
‘Jesus' argument turns on the fact that marriage was instituted from the very time when human beings were created whereas divorce was allowed by Moses some time later. My point was that to try and employ this to prove a chronologically precise reading of Genesis 1 goes way beyond the meaning of Jesus' words.’
Anon indeed Jesus was speaking about marriage but in doing so he clearly said man was made at the beginning of creation. Do you agree with Him?
You said:
‘I haven't postulated gaps between each day at all. I have suggested that the days are employed as a means to shape the creation account without referring to historical days.’
Anon your carefully & artfully worded comment is no answer at all, please cease saying what you haven’t said & tell me what you do believe. You debate for the sake of debate which I find unproductive & boring. Maybe you are better suited for the Areopagus?
You said:
‘Well, every key except for a number of keys that they weren't to be treated as a literal chronology of creation, such as the distinct form of writing, the never-ending seventh day, and so on.’
Anon Genesis calls the day of rest ‘the seventh day’ three times referring to the seventh day as ‘it.’ To propose that the events in John 5 somehow support a continuing seventh day is feeble. Yes God has created since The first 7th day of rest.
You are on the slippery path to liberalism, a downwards path which has destroyed whole denominations.
Anon said: "I must not be explaining myself very clearly. I've said over and over that I don't believe that Gen 1 provides any information on the chronology of creation in history. The days function to reflect the structure of the creative work of God, to order that work and highlight the goals. God could have created in six days and rested for one, but the text seems gives ample indicators that we ought not to read it that way."
OK, let's assume you are 100% right and Genesis 1, Exodus 20 & 31 are all unequivocally not communicating 6 24-hour consecutive days. So, just to see what it would look like, indulge me and pen a line or two that would unequivocally communicate that He had taken 6 24-hour consecutive days. I really want to see what the difference is.
Anon said: "My position, however, comes from carefully reading the text and also extensive reading of ancient Near Eastern creation stories."
Since you are so well-read on ancient Near Eastern literature, would you mind detailing those which set out their creation stories by using the formula 'day + number' and "an evening and a morning'. I am extremely curious to know what cultures followed the same pseudo-chronological pattern as Moses. It would be also helpful to know which cultures likewise placed this pseudo-chronology into their principal legal code and made it a capital offence if transgressed.
I have asked for someone to explain the mechanics of the T/E belief(which you may or may not hold)but only received evasive incomplete answers.
What nonsense. Like a lawyer defending a guilty client, you ignore the answers that are given you and keep repeating the same questions, in the hope of creating reasonable doubt in the minds of the jury.
Here is a simple definition of T/E. It is less than 10 words. You CAN understand this.
Are you ready Warwick? Never again will you be able to say "No-one ever explained T/E to me."
Here it is. Here is the definition of T/E -
"God used evolution in the act of creation."
Warwick, it is very important for you to answer this question - do you understand this definition? It seems very simple to me.
Do you understand, yes/no? And if yes, do you agree that you can no longer claim that "no-one has ever explained T/E to me before."
On the matter of geocentricity supporters may not have been totally out of order although in error on the relationship of the earth to the sun.
This is a very paradoxical statement. The theory of geocentricity as opposed to heliocentricity is *all* about the relationship of the earth to the sun.
To say "Geocentricity is right except what it asserts about the relationship between earth and sun" is like saying "Marxism is right except what it asserts about the relationship between capital and labour." It is a nonsense.
Oh, and care to provide some of the "mounting evidence" that the earth is the center of the universe?
Like you, I also endore the Reformers approach to scripture. And, like you, I reject the specific conclusions they came to about the orbital relationship between the earth and the sun.
So you, Sam Drucker, can endorse the Reformers approach to Scripture without endorsing every conclusion they drew from Scripture? Right?
Interesting...
One brief response, I shall endeavour to reply further in the coming days.
"sam drucker" said...
God is the author of Scripture and in Genesis 1 and Exodus 20 gives a straightforward message for all generations to understand and believe - not just the first receivers of the message.
I entirely agree that the message of the Bible is for all people in all times. This does not mean that your 21st century reading of Genesis 1 automatically agrees with a 10th century BC reading or even a 1st century AD reading of the same text. Each reading is coloured by the reader's presuppositions, and when you read what you claim to be the "straightforward message" or "plain meaning" you ignore the very important differences between yourself and the ancient reader. The meaning needs to be transferred (a process which includes translation, but accounts for the gap between us and the original audience and author), and if you think that you're immune to this, you may as well make up meaning as you go along.
Anon we do see how people of the time interpreted the six days of creation & one day rest as they worked six & rested the 7th. And they were informed working on the 7th day was punishable by death. As God is just they had to know exactly what & when the day was, and they did, as we do. It was the seventh day of the week.
What sort of an ogre would hide what & when the 7th day was then punish people for not obeying that which they could not obey?
Anon wrote: “I entirely agree that the message of the Bible is for all people in all times. This does not mean that your 21st century reading of Genesis 1 automatically agrees with a 10th century BC reading or even a 1st century AD reading of the same text.”
This is entirely an argument from silence and begs the question that early Christians would necessarily read the text differently to us. But let’s examine what the early accounts have said what some early Christians understood.
1. Theophilus of Antioch
"On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth come from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it" (To Autolycus 2:15 [A.D. 181]).
"All the years from the creation of the world [to Theophilus’ day] amount to a total of 5,698 years and the odd months and days. . . . [I]f even a chronological error has been committed by us, for example, of 50 or 100 or even 200 years, yet [there have] not [been] the thousands and tens of thousands, as Plato and Apollonius and other mendacious authors have hitherto written. And perhaps our knowledge of the whole number of the years is not quite accurate, because the odd months and days are not set down in the sacred books" (ibid., 3:28–29).
2. Lactantius
"Therefore let the philosophers, who enumerate thousands of ages from the beginning of the world, know that the six-thousandth year is not yet complete. . . . Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years. For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day [Ps. 90:4]’" (Divine Institutes 7:14 [A.D. 307]).
3. Basil The Great
"‘And there was evening and morning, one day.’ Why did he say ‘one’ and not ‘first’? . . . He said ‘one’ because he was defining the measure of day and night . . . since twenty-four hours fill up the interval of one day" (The Six Days Work 1:1–2 [A.D. 370]).
4. Ambrose of Milan
"Scripture established a law that twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent. . . . The nights in this reckoning are considered to be component parts of the days that are counted. Therefore, just as there is a single revolution of time, so there is but one day. There are many who call even a week one day, because it returns to itself, just as one day does, and one might say seven times revolves back on itself" (Hexaemeron [A.D. 393]).
5. Augustine
"They [pagans] are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of [man as] many thousands of years, though reckoning by the sacred writings we find that not 6,000 years have yet passed" (12:10).
There are many more, and yes, a few did not toe the literal line but this was in spite of the text, not because of it (they gave clear eisegetical reasons why they didn't!).
Anon wrote: “Each reading is coloured by the reader's presuppositions, and when you read what you claim to be the "straightforward message" or "plain meaning" you ignore the very important differences between yourself and the ancient reader. The meaning needs to be transferred (a process which includes translation, but accounts for the gap between us and the original audience and author), and if you think that you're immune to this, you may as well make up meaning as you go along.”
I have friends whose first language is Hebrew, who have studied Ancient Hebrew at a tertiary level, yet they have no problem recognising the straightforward language and meaning of the text. So, I don't get your point.
Again, you beg the question that an ancient reader would notice (or ignore?) something IN the text that we wouldn’t.
Furthermore, that you use the expression “reader’s presuppositions” as your epistemic starting point clearly reveals the extent that postmodern epistemology has influenced you. This is an indication that an eisegetical approach to Scripture is your preferred analytical tool rather than allowing the text to communicate what God wants us to understand about the what, how and when of his creation action.
When God says directly to Moses, “Achiy, Moshe, I want you to go back and tell all 12 tribes and all the Israelites that I created everything on earth and in the heavens in 6 days and then I rested on the seventh”, would you tell us YECs what exactly from these words would make a Jew several thousand years ago conclude that God did not mean to communicate an historical statement of his activity and that he or she after hearing these words would then walk away and believe that God’s words did not mean he created in 6 consecutive 24-hour days? What are these gaps between their understanding and ours which means we must take the meaning differently?
Well said John. I think we understand the different creative reinterpretations such as we have gleaned from various SA'a & anon do not come from the straight forward reading of Genesis, but are dangerous distortions compelled by an extra Biblical starting point.
I seem to remember a quote which goes something like this-Facts don't speak for themselves, a library is full of facts but silent. Facts are always interpreted in the light of theory. My theory (& I imagine yours) is that God is well able to create all there is in the 6-day time period (Jeremiah 32:27)& constrained by His nature to give a truthful & understandable explanation of His Creative act.
Those who passionately promote the differing array of compromise views have a different theory through which they view His Word. It is apparent they do not start with the Word of the God who was there as no one would read long ages into His account without an extra-Biblical starting point compelling them to do so.
No amount of carefully crafted script changes that.
So what are we dealing with here? Deceivers or the deceived.
I have attended numerous events where compromisers have expounded their view and have left with the same feeling when leaving a funeral conducted by an atheistic 'celebrant'-empty. There is no 'food' in this.
Sorry Anonymous, Warwick and John. I can't get enough time to spend on the computer because of work and domestic commitments. My responses can therefore be a little delayed.
Anonymous, as suggested by Warwick and John, can't you see that I must respond by laying the 'anachronistic' charge at your feet rather than accepting it myself.
Perhaps we can shortcut discussion so that we know what we are dealing with.
Can you inform me whether you agree the overwhelming weight of Judaic and Christian belief prior to the Twentieth Century held that God had created the world in six twenty-four hour days?
No need to rush. I may not be able to respond to your answer until Monday.
Sam Drucker
Anon wrote: "You have not explained why you feel free to ignore aspects of Gen 1 which distinguish it from historical writing in the OT. So, what sets Gen 1 apart? Some considerations include:
1. Structured variation in repeated phrases ordering the text.
2. The open-ended seventh day.
3. The aetiological aspect of the text.
4. The 6+1 pattern common to other ancient Near Eastern writing.
5. The absence of the opening toledot formula, setting it apart from the remainder of Genesis."
John writes:
One branch of postmodern literary studies elevates form over content, even to the extent of ignoring content (i.e. language) completely. This has now been taken up by the Church and is very apparent in your own take on Genesis 1. I will, where I can, briefly address your claims as set out above.
1. Numbers 7 is a perfect example of an unambiguous historical report being set out with a "structured variation in repeated phrases ordering the text." In this passage we have Moses setting up the tabernacle, the altar etc, God speaking directly to Moses and, inter alia, telling Moses to arrange an offering from each tribe’s head on each successive day, for 12 days. After this, a record of what was offered up on each of those days, followed by the total of what was offered over those 12 days, and then finally Moses entering the tent to speak with God. Each of the 12 days mirrors all the others apart from the change of tribal name, head and the day.
2. The open ended 7th day has been adequately explained by others here.
3. The aetiological aspect has to be unpacked before I can comment.
4. The 6+1 formula argument requires further explanation as I cannot see how a putative salient numerical aspect necessarily signifies ahistoricity. Please unpack.
5. The lack of the opening toledoth may be explained by the argument that some do not regard the toledoth as an opening but as a concluding signature. Thus Genesis 2's verse, "This is the history [toledoth] of the heavens and the earth" is a concluding statement to Genesis 1.
warwick said...
It is a compromisers commonality to skirt around the truth in a type of ‘danse macabre’ of equivocation.
Warwick, your use of perjorative labels such as "compromiser" serves no real function in the discussion except to "play the man." A number on this site accuse contributors to the SA forums of lampooning you or defaming you, but then descend to exactly the same tactics. I'm sorry to see that in our exchange you feel it necessary to adopt this approach.
warwick said...
I have asked for someone to explain the mechanics of the T/E belief(which you may or may not hold)but only received evasive incomplete answers.
I have unequivocally asserted above that (and I quote) "I do not know whether God used evolutionary processes to populate the world." I'm afraid that I cannot be any clearer than this. What do I believe about Genesis 1? I believe that the days are primarily a literary device within the text, that God created the universe, all that is seen and unseen. I believe he created human beings to rule over the earth as his representatives. There is much more that I believe Gen 1 teaches, but I don't have space here to expand.
warwick said...
What you write appears to me to be sophistry, a carefully crafted & honed side-step around the clear meaning of Scripture.
Warwick, no-one has responded to the very serious problems I've raised over any appeal to "the clear meaning of Scripture" which you keep appealing to. It is an argument of about the same value as that of the lawyer in The Castle who claimed that his case was true because it was "the vibe" of the constitution.
warwick said...
John not knowing what you believe I placed you gently in the Biblical compromisers basket. It is clear you have reinterpreted Scripture because of non-Biblical ideas which makes you a compromiser, what specific breed is yet to be established.
First, it would be helpful if you didn't call me "John," it is not my name and there is someone else on this site using "john" as a pseudonym so it will only confuse people.
Second, it is my claim that you have reinterpreted Scripture by failing to recognise inherent indications that your literalistic approach is misplaced. I have not appealed to any non-Biblical data but highlighted where subtle indications within the text should warn us about our approach to the text. You ignore these and then appeal to other passages which don't actually clarify things, and continue to ignore scriptures which do not support your position. It would seem to me that you've erected such a colossal edifice upon your reading of the text (i.e. the entire endeavour of young-earth creation science) that you dare not question your reading of the text for you place too much value in all the paraphenalia you have associated with it.
warwick said...
Anon I used Pun’s quote to illustrate that in the past compromisers were open in admitting their reinterpretation of Scripture was for reasons of 'science.' Compromisers today having learned from their mistakes now hide this, engaging in sophistry, attempting to hide their compromise in BibloSpeak.
Then there is no point in arguing, because if I really do believe what I do as a result of close reading of the Bible, you'll never believe me and simply assume that I'm basing my interpretation on science.
warwick said...
Anon Genesis calls the day of rest ‘the seventh day’ three times referring to the seventh day as ‘it.’ To propose that the events in John 5 somehow support a continuing seventh day is feeble. Yes God has created since The first 7th day of rest.
And this proves nothing if the days are not to be taken literally, and your entire argument against my interpretation of John 5 is to label it "feeble." I don't find that very compelling. And what has God created since the sixth day?
warwick said...
Anon we do see how people of the time interpreted the six days of creation & one day rest as they worked six & rested the 7th. And they were informed working on the 7th day was punishable by death. As God is just they had to know exactly what & when the day was, and they did, as we do. It was the seventh day of the week.
They worked 6 and rested one because they were commanded to (and, in fact, the second record of the 10 commandments does not appeal to creation at all, so apparently they could feel bound to the requirement without having to have it tied to Gen 1). I don't see how this demonstrates at all whether the original readers of Gen 1 would have believed that the days of God's creation were to be taken as equivalent to their days.
"john" said...
Anon wrote: “I entirely agree that the message of the Bible is for all people in all times. This does not mean that your 21st century reading of Genesis 1 automatically agrees with a 10th century BC reading or even a 1st century AD reading of the same text.”
This is entirely an argument from silence and begs the question that early Christians would necessarily read the text differently to us. But let’s examine what the early accounts have said what some early Christians understood.
Do you know what "begs the question" means? Do you know what an "argument from silence" is?
The argument from silence here is really the claim that an obvious reading of the text is universally obvious across time, space, and culture. All I've done in the quotation above is to question this assumption. You then quote a number of figures, but forgive me, which one was a 1st century AD or 10th century BC figure?
"john" said...
I have friends whose first language is Hebrew, who have studied Ancient Hebrew at a tertiary level, yet they have no problem recognising the straightforward language and meaning of the text. So, I don't get your point.
The point is that modern readers resolve ambiguities in texts by providing tacit information from the modern worldview. Reading Hebrew alone does not resolve this (in fact, since biblical Hebrew is quite different to modern Israeli Hebrew there's a real danger in overlooking the differences and so misapprehending the text, and of course the same applies to modern Greek readers of ancient Greek texts).
"john" said...
Furthermore, that you use the expression “reader’s presuppositions” as your epistemic starting point clearly reveals the extent that postmodern epistemology has influenced you. This is an indication that an eisegetical approach to Scripture is your preferred analytical tool rather than allowing the text to communicate what God wants us to understand about the what, how and when of his creation action.
What nonsense. The difference between us here is that you fail to acknowledge your presuppositions when you read the text and derive the "obvious meaning" whereas I try and make myself aware of both my presuppositions as well as those of the original reader and author. These all form part of the message communicated from the author to the reader. Your position ignores this and assumes the correct meaning just "falls out" of the text which tacitly affirms the post-modern notion that meaning is not an inherent property of texts, nor is it even connected to the author, but it is the creation of the reader. I claim that the text ought to be recognised as an act of communication between the author and his audience, and seek to ensure that the communication is achieved.
Anon, sorry for the John slip, your writing style, choice of words & apparent beliefs are very much the same as a previous anonymous bloger who turned out to be John. I was too smart for my own good.
I am sorry you believe I’ve played the man as that wasn’t my intention. I have had many visits from JW’s over the years & they would tell you they were treated cordially. One visited me every Saturday for maybe even a year until he returned to England. We became quite friendly. None the less he was left in no doubt as to my rejection of His dangerous theology. We had great arguments which became emotional at times but as our Lord hates the sin but loves the sinner I never hated him, nor do I hate you whoever you are.
You are offended by my use of the term ‘compromiser’ however I believe you are compromising so in my terms you are a compromiser. It’s a description of your belief not an assessment of your worth.
Anon as regards the days of Genesis & your whole excessively academic approach to Scripture I cannot see any person coming to the Bible & reading it as the Word of God, could imagine that the days of creation, tightly defined as they are could mean anything other than days as we experience them. How would God have to describe a day for you to take it as an earth-rotation day?
You posed the idea that the opposite of ‘excessive academia’ is ‘inadequate academia’ but I disagree. You often refer as to how someone in ancient times would approach Genesis & what meaning would they gain. Are you saying they would have to have an academic at hand to understand?
Anon Genesis ch. 1 is written in very straight forward prose & I have little problem understanding what it says, especially about the time frame. When I was a T/E I did have difficulties with it because my T/E view gave me reason to doubt the plain meaning. Just like Pun, Archer & countless others we reinterpreted it for extra Biblical reasons. I believe you are doing the same, probably unconsciously. You are of course entitled to insist otherwise. It would be interesting to know your academic background as I am convinced you have an ‘educated in’ extra Biblical stumbling block. We are the product of our genes & our education which commences in our infancy.
Parts of Scripture are hard to read in line with what Peter said of some of Paul’s writing. However Genesis is written in such a straight forward prosaic way so that even Bob the Bedouin could understand–'bereshit bara Eloihim shamayim erets'–literally-in the beginning created from nothing God the heavens & the earth. At face value that tells me that there was a beginning of time and that Elohim (the uniplural) created the heavens & the earth from-just as it says-nothing. And Genesis continues in like manner broken at appropriate places with–& the evening & the morning was the first, second…. day.
Anon I am convinced we are to take Genesis as face value there being no feys such as 'once upon a time' to suggest otherwise.
As I have asked how could God more clearly describe an every day ordinary day?
Anon I don’t take a literalistic approach to Genesis or any literature but take it at ‘face value’ unless there is some very good reason to do so. Therefore I have absolutely no problems with Jesus’ parables. However there is nothing in the style of Genesis which suggests it is parable or poetry, just a factual, historical account of His creative work.
Anon said: 'And this proves nothing if the days are not to be taken literally, and your entire argument against my interpretation of John 5 is to label it "feeble." I don't find that very compelling. And what has God created since the sixth day?'
And you have given no good reason as to why the days should not be taken literally. Therefore your point regarding John 5 is feeble in that it hangs in space upon nothing.
I define the dry bones becoming breathing humans as a creative act, I describe Jesus feeding the 5 thou. as a creative act, the same for the raising of the dead & rotten Lazarus as this was no act of healing. I think the creation of bulk litres of wine from water was a creative act. Not ‘bara’ of course but more ‘assah’ but none the less creation. Once there was water now there was wine. And not some rough red but the best wine kept for last. As I am sure you know God is master of time & it is time which transforms rough new wine into its much more palatable older brother. In an instant He created vintaged wine.
Anon said: ‘They worked 6 and rested one because they were commanded to (and, in fact, the second record of the 10 commandments does not appeal to creation at all, so apparently they could feel bound to the requirement without having to have it tied to Gen 1). I don't see how this demonstrates at all whether the original readers of Gen 1 would have believed that the days of God's creation were to be taken as equivalent to their days.’
Anon the fact that the second version of the 10CC’s does not mention creation does not say that the first doesn’t include a linking creation statement. The 10CC’s obviously include God’s creative/rest week as the literal basis for the Hebrews week.
Ex. 31:12-18 confirms this.
as reported in Ex. 19: 10-14 the people of God were told to wash their clothes & abstain from sexual relations, & be ready for the third day. Then verse 16 says ‘On the morning of the third day there was thunder & lightning,…..’ Sounds familiar doesn’t it, just like Genesis ch1. ‘There was evening & there was morning the third day.’ I believe Genesis one defines ordinary day combining day & number with evening & morning added just in case we didn't get the point. The days of creation being just as much literal days as the days of Exodus ch. 19.
Obviously if the third day of exodus was not literal then there would have been no Hebrews left.
Anon we are just going around in cirles so is there any point in continuing this conversation?
Regards,
Warwick
Warwick, your use of perjorative labels such as "compromiser" serves no real function in the discussion except to "play the man."
This is well said, and Warwick you should take note. You continually complain about alleged comments made about YECS people - these turn out to have been made long ago, on other sites or media articles.
You seem to think that the 2 or 3 insults allegedly made against a YECSer gives you the right to continually insult those who disagree with you. "Anglo-Nasty" being another of your favoured terms.
Your standard appears to be "2 wrongs make a right". You remind me of my sons when I catch them hitting their brothers. Their invariable response? "He hit me first!"
Whenever anyone challenges your behaviour, you say, "Well, someone said something nasty to a young earth-er sometime in the past." This is immature behaviour, more suited to a child than a man of your years.
"john" said...
One branch of postmodern literary studies elevates form over content, even to the extent of ignoring content (i.e. language) completely. This has now been taken up by the Church and is very apparent in your own take on Genesis 1. I will, where I can, briefly address your claims as set out above.
Which branch is that? Your assertion that I completely ignore content is without any substantiation. When I read a fairy tale, I do not ignore all the content except "once upon a time..." but do actually account for that as part of the meaning of the text. When I read Gen 1 I do not ignore the form, but realise that the meaning of the content is modified by the form. To ignore the form of Gen 1 is equivalent to reading fairy tales as non-fiction (and not, as I've said before, because Gen 1 is a fairy tale). You need to account for both form and content, you seem to prefer to ignore the form altogether.
"john" said...
1. Numbers 7 is a perfect example of an unambiguous historical report being set out with a "structured variation in repeated phrases ordering the text."
If you believe that Num 7 is formally similar to Gen 1 then you need to read more carefully. There is no significant variation in the patterns of Num 7 (as you admit: "the 12 days mirrors all the others apart from the change of tribal name, head and the day"), the text does not employ a standard narrative form at all. In fact, just about the only similarity with Gen 1 is that it numbers the days (although day 1 is also expressed differently).
"john" said...
2. The open ended 7th day has been adequately explained by others here.
I must have missed that, I haven't seen an "adequate" explanation, although your measure of adequacy clearly differs from mine.
"john" said...
3. The aetiological aspect has to be unpacked before I can comment.
Gen 1-11 as a whole is replete with aetiologies, whereas these do not appear commonly elsewhere in the OT. It explains things from the structure of the cosmos to pain in childbirth. Most historical narrative in the OT is not self-consciously aetiological, whereas here it appears to be and that consequently has shaped the text. God's creative work has been presented in such a way as to anthropomorphise his work/rest and thus found in it the Sabbath laws.
"john" said...
4. The 6+1 formula argument requires further explanation as I cannot see how a putative salient numerical aspect necessarily signifies ahistoricity. Please unpack.
It doesn't signify ahistoricity, it marks a departure from normal historiography and reflects a pattern found elsewhere in aNE texts. Given that there appears to be a polemic throughout Gen 1-11 it seems likely that this reflection may function in this way as well.
"john" said...
5. The lack of the opening toledoth may be explained by the argument that some do not regard the toledoth as an opening but as a concluding signature. Thus Genesis 2's verse, "This is the history [toledoth] of the heavens and the earth" is a concluding statement to Genesis 1.
I've seen this claim, and it is spurious. Akkadian texts with "signature" colophons are quite distinct from the toledoth phrase found repeatedly in Genesis. Given that Gen 1 is quite distinct from the subsequent material, whereas Gen 37:3-50 is quite similar to the preceding material, it is more problematical to suggest that the last portion of Genesis is not marked by toledoth. Furthermore, in some of its occurances it makes no sense to make it a colophon, and the majority of scholars agree that it functions as a title, not a "signature."
warwick said...
You are offended by my use of the term ‘compromiser’ however I believe you are compromising so in my terms you are a compromiser. It’s a description of your belief not an assessment of your worth.
Would it help the discussion if, because I believe that you maintain your position in the face of evidence to the contrary, to label you as well? Perhaps I could label you an "anachroniser" because you don't believe the original meaning of the text is important, you insist that what is plain to you reflects the original meaning.
warwick said...
Anon as regards the days of Genesis & your whole excessively academic approach to Scripture I cannot see any person coming to the Bible & reading it as the Word of God, could imagine that the days of creation, tightly defined as they are could mean anything other than days as we experience them. How would God have to describe a day for you to take it as an earth-rotation day?
For you and "john" I would expect something more like this:
ויהי ביום הראשון ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור וירא אלהים את האור כי טוב ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשך קרא לילה ויהי ממחרת ויאמר אלהים יהי רקיע בתוך
warwick said...
You posed the idea that the opposite of ‘excessive academia’ is ‘inadequate academia’ but I disagree. You often refer as to how someone in ancient times would approach Genesis & what meaning would they gain. Are you saying they would have to have an academic at hand to understand?
No, but I'm suggesting that to work it out today it helps to have an academic on hand. In fact, most people do make use of academics, but only to a point. After all, most people would not make much sense of the text I've quoted above, but that's the same language Genesis is written in. You seem to forget that, and believe it the meaning simply falls out of a translation without acknowledging that it had to be translated in the first place!
warwick said...
Anon Genesis ch. 1 is written in very straight forward prose & I have little problem understanding what it says, especially about the time frame.
Although it is straightforward, it is not identical with historical narrative, and subtle differences can have a significant impact on meaning (as with "once upon a time..."). In 1,000 years someone could read a fairy tale and argue convincingly that "once upon a time..." simply meant that the precise date of the recorded historical events is unknown, and that the remainder of the text is clearly straightforward history. Would they be right? Yet you are convinced that unusual features of Gen 1 can be ignored because you can understand it without accounting for them.
warwick said...
When I was a T/E I did have difficulties with it because my T/E view gave me reason to doubt the plain meaning.
I don't understand why you keep asking what T/E believes and at the same time claim to have once been a believer in T/E! There's something wrong there.
warwick said...
Just like Pun, Archer & countless others we reinterpreted it for extra Biblical reasons. I believe you are doing the same, probably unconsciously.
In actual fact, your repeated appeals to "plain meaning" or "straightforward reading" conceal an unconscious imposition of your worldview onto the text and a failure to admit the possibility that the vast gulf between modern cosmology and ancient cosmology has coloured your reading of the text and produced a plain meaning quite inconsistent with the original meaning!
warwick said...
You are of course entitled to insist otherwise. It would be interesting to know your academic background as I am convinced you have an ‘educated in’ extra Biblical stumbling block. We are the product of our genes & our education which commences in our infancy.
Well, there's no hope for any of us then. I'm convinced that you are not willing to look at this text with an open mind, because you've committed yourself to a particular interpretation and convinced yourself that there are no other options and, worse still, that any suggestion of an alternate understanding is the sign of compromise and heresy.
warwick said...
Parts of Scripture are hard to read in line with what Peter said of some of Paul’s writing. However Genesis is written in such a straight forward prosaic way so that even Bob the Bedouin could understand–'bereshit bara Eloihim shamayim erets'–literally-in the beginning created from nothing God the heavens & the earth.
Well, for starters, if you're going to quote Hebrew, you should include all the words. You're argument carries no weight, because you fail to recognise that "Bob the Bedouin," if he lived around 2,000 BC or earlier, believed that the earth was flat and that a solid dome covered it, among many other things very different to what you assume he believed. You are right, "Bob" could probably understand it (if someone read it to him, because there's a good chance he wasn't literate). The problem is not whether Bob could understand it, but the assumption you make that we can get the same meaning from it that Bob did without us putting in any effort (ignoring the effort the translators put in).
warwick said...
At face value that tells me that there was a beginning of time and that Elohim (the uniplural) created the heavens & the earth from-just as it says-nothing. And Genesis continues in like manner broken at appropriate places with–& the evening & the morning was the first, second…. day.
Anon I am convinced we are to take Genesis as face value there being no feys such as 'once upon a time' to suggest otherwise.
Well, I've spelled them out. You choose to ignore them because you're unquestioningly committed to your position. In fact, I'd argue that the "and there was evening and there was morning" repetition is also one of the unusual components of the narrative that highlights its distinction from normal historical narrative.
warwick said...
As I have asked how could God more clearly describe an every day ordinary day?
See above.
warwick said...
And you have given no good reason as to why the days should not be taken literally. Therefore your point regarding John 5 is feeble in that it hangs in space upon nothing.
At least I've argued some specific points about the understanding of John 5. Your response is simply to label it "feeble."
warwick said...
I define the dry bones becoming breathing humans as a creative act, I describe Jesus feeding the 5 thou. as a creative act, the same for the raising of the dead & rotten Lazarus as this was no act of healing...
Very well for you to define things this way, but I'm not convinced that it is biblical to so describe these things.
warwick said...
as reported in Ex. 19: 10-14 the people of God were told to wash their clothes & abstain from sexual relations, & be ready for the third day. Then verse 16 says ‘On the morning of the third day there was thunder & lightning,…..’ Sounds familiar doesn’t it, just like Genesis ch1. ‘There was evening & there was morning the third day.’
You're kidding, right?
warwick said...
I believe Genesis one defines ordinary day combining day & number with evening & morning added just in case we didn't get the point. The days of creation being just as much literal days as the days of Exodus ch. 19.
Part of the problem is "just in case we didn't get the point." As I've said, many careful readers of Genesis 1 note that the patterns appear such that variations in the pattern are significant. Why does "evening and morning" get mentioned? It is superfluous to the point of establishing the passage of days, but it sets up an expectation that is not met at the end of the seventh day. We are then forced to ask why that day is different from the first six.
warwick said...
Anon we are just going around in cirles so is there any point in continuing this conversation?
You are probably right.
Anonymous, I appreciate the burden you could have in dealing with a few correspondents.
In time I hope you will respond to my question concerning the weight of Judaic and Christian belief on whether God created in six twenty-four hour days.
Just an added comment and question on something you recently said. In the book Deuteronomy, Moses is recorded as restating the ten commandments. As you have indicated, in Deuteronomy, Moses is not recorded as exactly repeating every word previously said for every commandment - almost all but variation in three. Are you saying that what Moses is recorded as saying in Deuteronomy invalidates what the Lord God is recorded as saying at Sinai? If so, what scholars have, in the past, supported your view.
Sam Drucker
Anon: "God could have created in six days and rested for one, but the text seems gives ample indicators that we ought not to read it that way."
How nice that we have anons to tell us benighted "literalists" of these "indicators" that Josephus, most Church Fathers and all the Reformers overlooked. And, I would add, the biblical writers themselves, who treated the events, people and order of events of Genesis as real history.
<sarcasm> Of course, it's pure coincidence that these "ample indicators" were discovered only after anti-Christian deists such as Hutton and Lyell asserted great ages for the Earth, so the Bible had to be reinterpreted to fit.</sarcasm>
The late Meredith Kline, the pompous proponent of the Framework nonsense, was at least more honest than anon about his real motivation in Space and Time in the Genesis Cosmogony, Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 48:2, 1996.:
‘To rebut the literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation week propounded by the young-earth theorists is a central concern of this article. At the same time, the exegetical evidence adduced also refutes the harmonistic day-age view. The conclusion is that as far as the time frame is concerned, with respect to both the duration and sequence of events, the scientist is left free of biblical constraints in hypothesizing about cosmic origins.’
‘In this article I have advocated an interpretation of biblical cosmogony according to which Scripture is open to the current scientific view of a very old universe and, in that respect, does not discountenance the theory of the evolutionary origin of man.’
Anon: "In fact, just about the only similarity [of Numbers 7] with Gen 1 is that it numbers the days (although day 1 is also expressed differently)."
Rubbish. Both also have the waw consecutives throughout, standard for narrative but rare in poetry. Both end with "in the day that" beyôm or bayôm to describe the previous series of numbered days (thus refuting compromisers who claim that "in the day that" in Genesis 2:4 denies that the creation days were literal days).
The differences are not so much in structure but in subject matter. Of course the creation account would have "aetiologies", because the whole point is to explain teh origin of things!
Anon: "It is superfluous to the point of establishing the passage of days, but it sets up an expectation that is not met at the end of the seventh day. We are then forced to ask why that day is different from the first six."
Duh, because nothing was created on that day! Systematic theologian Dr Doug Kelly (whom the Moorites boycotted when he was keynote speaker at a seminar using Moore as a venue) responded to this sort of argument for denying the plain meaking of Genesis in Creation and Change p. 111:
‘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” (Gen. 2:2) seems just as definite as that of “and the evening and the morning were the first day”.’
ktisophilos
How nice that we have anons to tell us benighted "literalists" of these "indicators" that Josephus, most Church Fathers and all the Reformers overlooked. And, I would add, the biblical writers themselves, who treated the events, people and order of events of Genesis as real history.
<sarcasm> Of course, it's pure coincidence that these "ample indicators" were discovered only after anti-Christian deists such as Hutton and Lyell asserted great ages for the Earth, so the Bible had to be reinterpreted to fit.</sarcasm>
Your "<sarcasm>" should have started in your first paragraph. Up until your entry into this conversation the tone has largely (apart from warwick's derogatory use of "compromisers") remained fairly civil. It is disappointing that your first contribution to the discussion necessarily lowers the tone. Retreat into sarcasm and mockery reflects an absence of anything valuable to contribute to the debate.
ktisophilos
The late Meredith Kline, the pompous proponent of the Framework nonsense, was at least more honest than anon...
You assume that you can read my motives, so you clearly must be a mind reader. Perhaps I could reciprocate and claim that you are motivated by a desire to keep funding pouring into creation science ministries and continue decieving people by claiming you are the authority on these matters. Frankly, the assumption you've made that I must be motivated by a desire to reconcile the Bible to old-earth science (an assumption shared by others here) is only made because you don't want to admit that you may have misinterpreted the Bible because others can reach different conclusions from the text of the Bible alone. In asserting this, you seek to misrepresent me and deceive others.
ktisophilos
Anon: "In fact, just about the only similarity [of Numbers 7] with Gen 1 is that it numbers the days (although day 1 is also expressed differently)."
Rubbish. Both also have the waw consecutives throughout, standard for narrative but rare in poetry. Both end with "in the day that" beyôm or bayôm to describe the previous series of numbered days (thus refuting compromisers who claim that "in the day that" in Genesis 2:4 denies that the creation days were literal days).
Before rubbishing things, you should check your facts. Whoever is feeding you this information is deceiving you. In the entire section of Num 7 which recounts the sequence of days there is only one waw-consecutive verb: at the very beginning in Num 7:12.
I only just came across the following news story. I understand now why you guys were so keen to distinguish between CMI and Answers in Genesis -
Click here
You're right, wayyomer YHVH. I take full responsibility for my own mistakes, and refuse to blame anyone else for deceiving me, when it was my faulty recollection (of what, I'll show later when I check the source).
But no apology will be forthcoming for my point that all these fanciful schemes, such as the "framework hypothesis", were invented only after long ages became popular in "science". It's easy enough to check the commentaries before and after the rise of uniformtarian geology. When people invent novel interpretations never seen before, it is perfectly reasonable to check their motivations, and in many cases (such as Kline's) they are explicitly stated.
If you want demonstrable Hebrew experts, try Dr Robert V. McCabe, Professor of Old Testament at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, MI, e.g. A defense of literal days in the Creation Week, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 5:97–123, Fall 2000; A Critique of the Framework Interpretation of the Creation Account, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, Part 1, 10:9-67, 2005, Part 2, 11:63–133, 2006.
And yes, I do want to see creation ministries well supported, because they have encouraged huge numbers of people that they can trust the Bible right from the beginning chapters. The Anglocompromisers (who likewise want Moore well supported financially) in effect tell people that uniformitarian "science" should trump Scripture, so that the latter must be "reinterpreted".
CraigS, see what a neutral party (i.e. anti-creationist) thinks of the dispute, by someone calling himself Duae Quartunciae (my two cents):
Answers in Genesis lawsuit.
Anon-It's surely time you had the courage to tell me who you are. I promise I won't write a letter to your 'Bishop' & Minister.
warwick said...
You are offended by my use of the term ‘compromiser’ however I believe you are compromising so in my terms you are a compromiser. It’s a description of your belief not an assessment of your worth.
Anon replied:
Would it help the discussion if, because I believe that you maintain your position in the face of evidence to the contrary, to label you as well? Perhaps I could label you an "anachroniser" because you don't believe the original meaning of the text is important, you insist that what is plain to you reflects the original meaning.
Anon-Please feel free to call me whatever you like. I am apparently already a hillbilly, moron & possible even a potential letter-bomber if Dave someone is to be believed! However I don’t think anachroniser is an apt description as I do not hold my view in the face of contrary evidence. But call me what ever what you feel accurately fits my beliefs.
warwick said...
Anon as regards the days of Genesis & your whole excessively academic approach to Scripture I cannot see any person coming to the Bible & reading it as the Word of God, could imagine that the days of creation, tightly defined as they are could mean anything other than days as we experience them. How would God have to describe a day for you to take it as an earth-rotation day?
Anon replied:
For you and "john" I would expect something more like this:
ויהי ביום הראשון ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור וירא אלהים את האור כי טוב ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשך קרא לילה ויהי ממחרת ויאמר אלהים יהי
רקיע בתוך
Anon-That’s pathetic! What a poser!.
warwick said...
You posed the idea that the opposite of ‘excessive academia’ is ‘inadequate academia’ but I disagree. You often refer as to how someone in ancient times would approach Genesis & what meaning would they gain. Are you saying they would have to have an academic at hand to understand?
Anon replied:
No, but I'm suggesting that to work it out today it helps to have an academic on hand. In fact, most people do make use of academics, but only to a point. After all, most people would not make much sense of the text I've quoted above, but that's the same language Genesis is written in. You seem to forget that, and believe it the meaning simply falls out of a translation without acknowledging that it had to be translated in the first place!
Anon-Having met with native Hebrew speakers, Rabbi’s et al they tell me that the English translation is fine. They are also a great source of information on the beliefs & culture of various times in Hebrew society.
Being a person who speaks in non-English speaking countries I have a better than average understanding of the difficulties of translation, being directly involved in same. I am well aware that highly qualified Christian men & women have been most careful in their work of translation.
warwick said...
Anon Genesis ch. 1 is written in very straight forward prose & I have little problem understanding what it says, especially about the time frame.
Anon replied:
Although it is straightforward, it is not identical with historical narrative, and subtle differences can have a significant impact on meaning (as with "once upon a time..."). In 1,000 years someone could read a fairy tale and argue convincingly that "once upon a time..." simply meant that the precise date of the recorded historical events is unknown, and that the remainder of the text is clearly straightforward history. Would they be right? Yet you are convinced that unusual features of Gen 1 can be ignored because you can understand it without accounting for them.
Anon-Can you show me anywhere that Jesus or the Apostles said Genesis 1 wasn’t to be taken as factual history?
I can quote you numerous instances where they quoted from or alluded to it as sober history-the real events which really brought real sin & real death in to the real world, leading to Jesus really coming into our world as the real Saviour to really die & really rise again, that we might really be saved & really inherit a place in a real heaven. Do you believe all this has in part really happened & is really in part yet to happen? Or is it poetry/Allegory/ truth but not True Truth?
Do you believe that death entered the world because of Adam’s sin or was it here before sin?
warwick said...
When I was a T/E I did have difficulties with it because my T/E view gave me reason to doubt the plain meaning.
Anon replied:
I don't understand why you keep asking what T/E believes and at the same time claim to have once been a believer in T/E! There's something wrong there.
Anon-Then I shall explain, once again-from vague comments & allusions some SA’s made I came to feel they believe in some variant of theistic evolution. I have asked them to explain what they believe, in detail(other than the usual T/E) but they have not been willing to do so. Curious I think, don’t you? One of them said something like-we believe God used evolution,as if that adds anything. I feel these guys hold some different form of T/E the details of which they refuse to explain.
As a group they are very forward in expressing their views but not about this. This makes me suspicious- what are they hiding?
warwick said...
Just like Pun, Archer & countless others we reinterpreted it for extra Biblical reasons. I believe you are doing the same, probably unconsciously.
Anon replied:
In actual fact, your repeated appeals to "plain meaning" or "straightforward reading" conceal an unconscious imposition of your worldview onto the text and a failure to admit the possibility that the vast gulf between modern cosmology and ancient cosmology has coloured your reading of the text and produced a plain meaning quite inconsistent with the original meaning!
Anon-There may be some degree of truth in this but very little as I am convinced no one would hold SA T/E views, or yours, without holding science as the ultimate authority,or accepting the view of the science influenced teachers. I have to accept I may be wrong however I've seen nothing yet to convince me otherwise.
warwick said...
You are of course entitled to insist otherwise. It would be interesting to know your academic background as I am convinced you have an ‘educated in’ extra Biblical stumbling block. We are the product of our genes & our education which commences in our infancy.
Anon replied:
Well, there's no hope for any of us then. I'm convinced that you are not willing to look at this text with an open mind, because you've committed yourself to a particular interpretation and convinced yourself that there are no other options and, worse still, that any suggestion of an alternate understanding is the sign of compromise and heresy.
Anon-Isn’t this just a wordy attempt at avoiding the very reasonable question?
I do approach the text with a mind open to the fact that God is Truth, Truth not comparable to human truth. We don’t even know how much there is to know so we don’t know what percentage total human knowledge is of the total of His knowledge. Therefore it’s a reasonable assumption He knows more that we can even imagine exists. So I consider it a worthy ideal to grant it to God that He is the only teacher of Truth & we the ignorant listeners. Nowhere in Scripture are we advised to put our faith in the opinions of man, rather the opposite.
Anon-With no insult intended I believe that which you hold to be true isn’t your own understanding but that which has been taught to you, & is spoken of in Colossians 2:8.
We are told to be listeners to His Word via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be disciples, having an attitude of submission, prayerfully considering what the text is saying to us. Not imposing upon the text our man derived opinions of what Bob the Bedouin may have believed. Give it to God that he can write in a way that is understandable for all people of all times.
If at the end of my time I stand before the Lord & He says Genesis wasn’t meant to convey an accurate chronology of creation do you imagine He will condemn me because of my excessive faith? As Paul (or was it Peter?)said-it is by faith that we understand that the world was created…. & Scripture says–that which is not of faith is of sin.
But what will the Lord do with those who have promoted a 'different Gospel'
warwick said...
Parts of Scripture are hard to read in line with what Peter said of some of Paul’s writing. However Genesis is written in such a straight forward prosaic way so that even Bob the Bedouin could understand–'bereshit bara Eloihim shamayim erets'–literally-in the beginning created from nothing God the heavens & the earth.
Anon replied:
Well, for starters, if you're going to quote Hebrew, you should include all the words. You're argument carries no weight, because you fail to recognise that "Bob the Bedouin," if he lived around 2,000 BC or earlier, believed that the earth was flat and that a solid dome covered it, among many other things very different to what you assume he believed. You are right, "Bob" could probably understand it (if someone read it to him, because there's a good chance he wasn't literate). The problem is not whether Bob could understand it, but the assumption you make that we can get the same meaning from it that Bob did without us putting in any effort (ignoring the effort the translators put in).
Anon-You assume too much. It wasn’t that long ago liberals insisted Moses couldn’t write. How do you know that Adam could not write? Is it beyond God to create man literate?
I used the beginning of Genesis simply to illustrate how straight forward it is. Is the description of the beginning a True historical fact? If not where does it change?
Bob thought the world was flat? You assume too much. Even the atheist Karl Kruszelnicki agrees the flat earth idea was invented by atheists out to make Christianity look foolish. Bob lived in the vast trackless deserts where the curvature of the earth is obvious. Bob didn’t have a mobile phone however there is no reason to assume he was less intelligent than we. In fact living closer to creation he was less affected by the downward spiral of the curse so was most likely more intelligent. Your concept reeks of the evolutionary assumption of primitive man struggling upwards to our magnificent level of intellect.
warwick said...
At face value that tells me that there was a beginning of time and that Elohim (the uniplural) created the heavens & the earth from-just as it says-nothing. And Genesis continues in like manner broken at appropriate places with–& the evening & the morning was the first, second…. day.
Anon-I am convinced we are to take Genesis as face value there being no feys such as 'once upon a time' to suggest otherwise.
Anon replied:
Well, I've spelled them out. You choose to ignore them because you're unquestioningly committed to your position. In fact, I'd argue that the "and there was evening and there was morning" repetition is also one of the unusual components of the narrative that highlights its distinction from normal historical narrative.
Anon-Don’t agree- evening & morning was there to make sure even slow-witted modern man had no logical escape from accepting the days as real 24 hour historical days. This isn’t a dig at you as I believe we all are in reality not too bright.
warwick said...
As I have asked how could God more clearly describe an every day ordinary day?
Anon sort of replied:
See above.
Anon- Nous conversons en anglais ici. See my comment above.
Warwick said...
And you have given no good reason as to why the days should not be taken literally. Therefore your point regarding John 5 is feeble in that it hangs in space upon nothing.
Anon replied:
At least I've argued some specific points about the understanding of John 5. Your response is simply to label it "feeble."
Anon I described it as feeble only because I consider it feeble. It has nothing to do with the 7th day, the day of rest.
warwick said...
I define the dry bones becoming breathing humans as a creative act, I describe Jesus feeding the 5 thou. as a creative act, the same for the raising of the dead & rotten Lazarus as this was no act of healing...
Anon replied:
Very well for you to define things this way, but I'm not convinced that it is biblical to so describe these things.
Anon-Man was created ‘asah' from the dust of the ground & the wine was also created ‘asah from water. I am quite happy to believe that God has been working in sustaining, healing & creating since the eighth day.
warwick said...
as reported in Ex. 19: 10-14 the people of God were told to wash their clothes & abstain from sexual relations, & be ready for the third day. Then verse 16 says ‘On the morning of the third day there was thunder & lightning,…..’ Sounds familiar doesn’t it, just like Genesis ch1. ‘There was evening & there was morning the third day.’
Anon replied:
You're kidding, right?
Anon-Kidding about what exactly?
warwick said...
I believe Genesis one defines ordinary day combining day & number with evening & morning added just in case we didn't get the point. The days of creation being just as much literal days as the days of Exodus ch. 19.
Anon replied:
Part of the problem is "just in case we didn't get the point." As I've said, many careful readers of Genesis 1 note that the patterns appear such that variations in the pattern are significant. Why does "evening and morning" get mentioned? It is superfluous to the point of establishing the passage of days, but it sets up an expectation that is not met at the end of the seventh day. We are then forced to ask why that day is different from the first six.
Anon- I disagree as so many Christians approach the Bible with ‘educated in’ideas which cause them to reject the days as being ordinary days. Today few admit to their extra Biblical foundation. Evening & morning are parts of only one thing, a 24 hour day & there to make the meaning beyond dispute for anyone without an extra-Biblical bias.
The 7th day was a day of ‘rest’ & not a day of creation, a point which you did not understand when you first bloged here.
Regards,
Warwick
Thank you Ktisophilos, it is helpful to know the thinking behind the Meredith Kline when he advocated the Framework Hypothesis. I wonder whether Moore College students are made aware of this?
Also, don't be distracted by 'spoilers'.
Anonymous, there is much more to be broached so hang in there.
Look forward to receiving your response to my questions in due course.
Sam Drucker
Ktisophilos, regardless of who is right and wrong in the AiG vs CMI dispute, is it appropriate for one Christian organisation to sue another? AiG are already claiming they are under "spiritual attack".
I have asked them to explain what they believe, in detail(other than the usual T/E) but they have not been willing to do so. Curious I think, don’t you? One of them said something like-we believe God used evolution,as if that adds anything. I feel these guys hold some different form of T/E the details of which they refuse to explain.
Warwick, you are being duplicitous. You complained that no-one would explain to you what T/E was about. You complained that the explanations were long and confusing.
So I explained. I said "T/E teaches that God used evolution in the act of creation."
Then you said "Ah! Now I understand! I disagree with you, but thankyou for simply explaining T/E to me."
Well, no, you didn't say that. You changed your request. You said "I have asked them to explain what they believe, in detail(other than the usual T/E)".
Neutral observers, do you see what Warwick has done? He asked a question, I answered it. So now he pretends to have asked a different question.
This is dishonest. Even if you are a YECS, you should reject such tactics.
I feel these guys hold some different form of T/E the details of which they refuse to explain.
Well, feelings are deceptive, and in this case you are wrong. For a start, you can't generalise about the whole Sydney Diocese - that is ridiculous. For myself, my brand of T/E is no different to "the usual" (assuming there is a usual).
Two can play at this game. I will now engage in Warwick tactics -
"Warwick, I feel you hold to a different version of YECS to the usual, but you refuse to explain it. That makes me very suspicious Warwick. What are you hiding Warwick? Why wont you answer my questions Warwick?"
ktisophilos said...
If you want demonstrable Hebrew experts, try Dr Robert V. McCabe, Professor of Old Testament at Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary in Allen Park, MI, e.g. A defense of literal days in the Creation Week, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 5:97–123, Fall 2000; A Critique of the Framework Interpretation of the Creation Account, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal, Part 1, 10:9-67, 2005, Part 2, 11:63–133, 2006.
Thank you for providing links to these articles, I found them interesting (although badly in need of editing). Although this is not the place to provide a detailed analysis of McCabe's arguments, but I will make some points.
1. At many points McCabe is not addressing the position I am espousing. For example he argues against the idea that some maintain that God created the universe through "natural processes" rather than supernaturally. I have not argued that and would not suggest that it can be derived from Gen 1 or Gen 2.
2. I note that McCabe agrees that tôlĕdôṯ functions to introduce sections in Genesis. I've made this point above against "john" who sought to use the idea that it functions as a colophon to counter one of my arguments.
3. McCabe argues that "evening" and "morning" are always used literally in the OT, never metaphorically. In doing so, however, he fails to examine controversial passages such as Dan 8 (where it occurs of 2,300 evenings and mornings in a section of Daniel where symbolic numbers are common). In spite of this, metaphorical use of language fundamentally depends on the majority of occurances of the metaphor elsewhere being literal, or else the meaning of the metaphor becomes rather difficult to determine. The likelihood that any particular instance of a word is metaphorical or figurative cannot be determined based on statistics or else there could never be such language used anywhere.
4. I have no problem with much of McCabe's analysis of Gen 2-3, but he does attribute to the use of the waw-consecutive the implication of historicity when it is simply not an inherent property of the grammar when, for example, he writes "the use of waw consecutive indicates that 3:1–24 advances historically from 2:4–25." There is no historical necessity implicitly associated with this construction. He makes this mistake a number of times.
5. I also agree with McCabe's understanding of the nature of the plants mentioned in Gen 2:5, following Cassuto and others, where the fact that they require irrigation and cultivation by man, and are said to be השדה suggests that the author is referring to cultivated plants or crops.
6. I have to admit to a certain amount of discomfort with the pluperfect rendering of ויצר in Gen 2:19, especially given that the author had previously presented an aside with virtually the same effect without resorting to such an unusual use of the waw-consecutive. OTOH, I cannot entirely exclude the possibility that we should read the verb this way. McCabe's claim that Gen 12:1 ought also to be understood as an instance of a pluperfect form is not convincing.
7. McCabe has an extensive discussion of the omission of the evening/morning formula on the seventh day, presenting a number of reasons as to why the seventh day should not be understood as being eternal. All of these are flawed, as I shall explain.
• None of the other repeated phrases from the first six days appears on the seventh day. The absence of these phrases (what McCabe refers to as a "fivefold pattern") "was to demonstrate in literary form that Day 7 was a day of cessation from divine creative activity." He thus connects the omission of the evening/morning to the omission of the other four repeated phrases. The problem with this is, however, that each of the other four phrases is explicitly related to the act of creation whereas the evening/morning phrase does not have any such tie.
• The evening/morning conclusion functions rhetorically to mark the transition from one day to the next. McCabe quotes Pipa, "we do not find the formula at the end of the seventh day, since the week of creation is complete." This point, however, ultimately counts against McCabe's position, for it highlights the fact that there is no "next day" after the seventh.
• The claim that the omission of the evening/morning phrase indicates that the seventh day is eternal is an argument from silence because the text does not explicitly state that the seventh day was eternal. This, however, begs the question, because it assumes that the absence of the evening/morning phrase is not an indicator of the continuity of the seventh day.
• McCabe claims that Exod 20:11 and 31:17 exclude the possibility that the seventh day continued. However, McCabe requires that these texts bear more exegetical weight than they can realistically support. If God's creation can be figuratively described by six days followed by one of rest, there is no problem for the commandment to draw an analogy between the human working week and the patterned description of God's working week and subsequent rest. Furthermore, if we follow the literalist approach to its logical conclusion, we're forced to believe that God resumed work on the eighth day, and presumably resumed the work of creating from which Gen 2 says he rested. The fact that God completed his creating on the sixth day (Gen 2:3) indicates that there was no more creating to be done.
• McCabe finally argues that the seventh day must have ended because he blessed it, and that it could not be unending because otherwise he would have "on the same unending day, cursed the earth with the Fall of Genesis 3." This argument fails because it claims that blessing and curse cannot coexist, but surely they do throughout the remainder of the Bible. It also assumes that the Fall didn't happen on the seventh day, even though no passage of days is recorded between Gen 2-3!
8. Ultimately, McCabe is arguing against those holding what he calls an "unargued presupposition" that God created entirely through "ordinary providence." I'm not making that claim at all. Surprisingly, most YEC science arguments fall into the "ordinary providence" explanations! McCabe's "extraordinary providence" does not mandate that the days be literal and the account be interpreted as a strict chronology.
9. McCabe also discusses God's rest in Hebrews 4, where he even goes so far as to admit that "[t]he author of Hebrews uses the Mosaic omission of the evening-morning conclusion as a type patterned after God’s eternal rest." He avoids the obvious conclusion here by claiming that "the actual kind of rest in Genesis 2:2–3 is completely different than the rest in Hebrews 4:3–11" in spite of the fact that Heb 4 explicitly connects the two!
10. McCabe also argues against Kline's "two-register cosmology." The idea that there needs to be two separate time "zones" (i.e. regions where time operates differently) is an unnecessary and improbable explanation of Gen 1's temporal markers. If Gen 1 uses time as a figurative and structural literary device, then there is no need to require that it actually corresponds to a specific time anywhere in particular. Thus, refuting the notion of a two-register cosmology does not ultimately undermine my position (from my preliminary reading McCabe appears incorrectly to conflate all who reject the literal view and those who propose a two-register explanation of the temporal markers in Gen 1).
In short, I don't think McCabe has proven his case except for some specific points against one very specific interpretation of Gen 1 to which I do not subscribe in all its details, as I've explained.
CraigS: according to Clarrie Briese, well regarded by both sides, CMI is justified in its actions, and AiG was the first to invoke legal proceedings in the "agreements" signed behind the back of the management. See his very detailed report.
See CMI's comment on why it is holding AiG-US accountable at law, including the formal offers CMI made to go to binding arbitration before Chrsitian legal experts.
See also a pdf of the full conditions of the last-ditch arbitration offer by CMI, not taken up by AiG. (It also quotes an earlier threat of legal action made against
CMI by AiG-USA, which counters their subsequent claims that legal action by CMI would never be appropriate under any circumstances.)
Anon: thanx for taking that paper seriously. It shows that real experts in Hebrew have ample justification for taking Genesis the same way as most Church Fathers and as all the Reformers, and for not adopting novel ideas such as whatever version of the Framework Hypothesis you hold. You should submit these criticisms to the journal that published McCabe.
Ktisophilos, I am not denying that CMI have every *legal* right to do what they are doing. But, as the apostle Paul points out, taking another Christian to court is a failure before the world. To quote Scripture, "Why not rather be wronged?"
I don't think this can end well for CMI. After all, they are calling the guy who effectively founded their organisation a cheat and a liar. It means that lots of dirty laundry will be aired in the secular media. As you would know, there has already surfaced reports of very perverse (even bizarre) immorality.
Anyway, I will watch the progress of the case with interest.
CraigS: that is very accusatory against Warwick, and most unfair. Warwick has been totally up-front about what he believes:
Creation in 6 normal-length days about 6000 years ago
Adam and Eve as a special creations not descended from any other creature; all other humans who have ever lived descended from this first couple.
When Adam sinned, a death sentence was pronounced on humanity. And because Adam had dominion over creation, the whole creation was cursed.
Man's sin became so bad that God judged it in a global watery cataclysm that covered all the high mountains under the entire heavens. All land creatures that breathed through nostrils were destroyed, except those on a gigantic vessel that God had commanded Noah to build.
Corrolaries: since Adam's sin is what brought death, all fossils must come after him, not millions of years before. Most were likely formed in the watery cataclysm.
But what about CraigS? We would like some answers. Were Adam and Eve real individuals who were the ancestors of every other human ever? Was Adam created or generated? When? Were the Australian Aborigines really here 40,000 years? If so, did they come from Adam? If yes, how do you stretch the chronogenealogies so far? If no, then how can they be saved by a blood relationship with Jesus, the Last Adam (1 Cor. 15:45) and Kinsman-Redeemer (Is. 59:20)? And what do you think of undoubted human fossils "dated" to >150,000 years?
warwick said...
Anon-It's surely time you had the courage to tell me who you are. I promise I won't write a letter to your 'Bishop' & Minister.
As I've explained, since I'm posting on your list and am surrounded by your pseudonymous friends, I don't think we're on an even footing. Will "sam," "john," "ktisophilos" and the others all reveal their real names?
And since I'm not an Anglican, I don't have a 'Bishop'.
warwick said...
Anon-Please feel free to call me whatever you like. I am apparently already a hillbilly, moron & possible even a potential letter-bomber if Dave someone is to be believed! However I don’t think anachroniser is an apt description as I do not hold my view in the face of contrary evidence. But call me what ever what you feel accurately fits my beliefs.
Well, I don't think "compromiser" or any of the other derogatory terms is an accurate description of me, so there we are equal. Personally I think it inapproprate to descend to that sort of discussion, so I shall try and avoid doing it. You may choose to persist despite the fact that it does not further the debate in any way.
warwick said...
Anon replied:
For you and "john" I would expect something more like this:
ויהי ביום הראשון ויאמר אלהים יהי אור ויהי אור וירא אלהים את האור כי טוב ויבדל אלהים בין האור ובין החשך ויקרא אלהים לאור יום ולחשך קרא לילה ויהי ממחרת ויאמר אלהים יהי
רקיע בתוך
Anon-That’s pathetic! What a poser!.
Warwick, it proves a point. You and "john" have asked what I would expect Gen 1 to look like if it were to be taken literally. Gen 1 is written in Hebrew, we're discussing Hebrew genre and form, so it is appropriate that the answer is Hebrew! You read the text and treat it as a piece of English historical prose, but that is not what it is.
warwick said...
Anon-Having met with native Hebrew speakers, Rabbi’s et al they tell me that the English translation is fine. They are also a great source of information on the beliefs & culture of various times in Hebrew society.
No doubt they can shed some light on it, but a "native Hebrew" speaker speaks modern Israeli Hebrew, which is distinct in syntax and semantics from biblical Hebrew, as I've explained. I agree that modern English translations do a good job, but a translation cannot provide sufficient insight into every aspect of the text to make it clear to every reader.
warwick said...
Anon-Can you show me anywhere that Jesus or the Apostles said Genesis 1 wasn’t to be taken as factual history?
We've discussed John 5 and Hebrews 4 before, and I've addressed the objections you have raised.
warwick said...
I can quote you numerous instances where they quoted from or alluded to it as sober history-the real events which really brought real sin & real death in to the real world, leading to Jesus really coming into our world as the real Saviour to really die & really rise again, that we might really be saved & really inherit a place in a real heaven. Do you believe all this has in part really happened & is really in part yet to happen? Or is it poetry/Allegory/ truth but not True Truth?
Warwick, you've regressed to the "all-or-nothing" attitude. If one aspect of the text is figurative that does not mean that it conveys no true information at all. When the NT says God created the world, I wholeheartedly agree. But even the death issue is not so simple as you imply: God warned Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Well Adam lived for 930 years, so is that how long a day was (I'm not arguing that it was, just illustrating the complexities involved)?
warwick said...
Do you believe that death entered the world because of Adam’s sin or was it here before sin?
I believe that "through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned."
warwick said...
Anon-With no insult intended I believe that which you hold to be true isn’t your own understanding but that which has been taught to you, & is spoken of in Colossians 2:8.
We are told to be listeners to His Word via the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to be disciples, having an attitude of submission, prayerfully considering what the text is saying to us. Not imposing upon the text our man derived opinions of what Bob the Bedouin may have believed. Give it to God that he can write in a way that is understandable for all people of all times.
Yet, warwick, you choose to ignore the fact that to understand the Bible you are depending on the scholarship of translators who work with a long-dead language, and some of the information they use to translate depends on understanding what people like Bob the Bedouin believed, what words meant in other languages related to Hebrew, and so on. If you dismiss my methodology, you dismiss the possibility of translating the text at all, because both depend on understanding the historical context of the document.
warwick said...
If at the end of my time I stand before the Lord & He says Genesis wasn’t meant to convey an accurate chronology of creation do you imagine He will condemn me because of my excessive faith? As Paul (or was it Peter?)said-it is by faith that we understand that the world was created…. & Scripture says–that which is not of faith is of sin.
But what will the Lord do with those who have promoted a 'different Gospel'
Yet there are some proponents of YECS who promote a different gospel: you must believe that the Earth is young as well as that Jesus is Lord. Yet I believe in the reality of sin, death, that God is creator, that we need rescuing, and so on. I just don't believe that the days in Gen 1 must be understood literally. So what will the Lord do with those who, like the circumcision part of Paul's time, claim that Jesus is not enough?
warwick said...
Anon-You assume too much. It wasn’t that long ago liberals insisted Moses couldn’t write. How do you know that Adam could not write? Is it beyond God to create man literate?
I never said anything about Adam's literacy. Of course we don't know and we have no reason to believe, from the Bible, that Adam wrote anything down.
warwick said...
Bob thought the world was flat? You assume too much. Even the atheist Karl Kruszelnicki agrees the flat earth idea was invented by atheists out to make Christianity look foolish.
You have badly misunderstood this. Those who seek to ridicule Christianity claim that the medieval church subscribed to a flat-earth cosmology, but that is not the case, as Dr Karl probably admits (you provide no reference). However, there is very clear evidence that prior to the 5th century BC most people in the near East believed in a flat earth cosmology, so Bob would have too. We know this from Egyptian, Canaanite, and Mesopotamian texts. Here is a quote from Wikipedia:
The modern misconception that people of the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat first entered the popular imagination in the nineteenth century, thanks largely to the publication of Washington Irving's fantasy The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus in 1828.
warwick said...
Bob lived in the vast trackless deserts where the curvature of the earth is obvious. Bob didn’t have a mobile phone however there is no reason to assume he was less intelligent than we. In fact living closer to creation he was less affected by the downward spiral of the curse so was most likely more intelligent. Your concept reeks of the evolutionary assumption of primitive man struggling upwards to our magnificent level of intellect.
Given that we have ample evidence of flat-earth cosmology from 2000 BC and earlier, your entire argument is simply an imposition of your beliefs onto the ancient world without one iota of evidence.
warwick said...
Anon-Don’t agree- evening & morning was there to make sure even slow-witted modern man had no logical escape from accepting the days as real 24 hour historical days. This isn’t a dig at you as I believe we all are in reality not too bright.
If we are all slow-witted, perhaps it is not me who is wrong. If God really wanted it to be that clear, why not end the seventh day with the evening/morning phrase?
warwick said...
Anon-Man was created ‘asah' from the dust of the ground & the wine was also created ‘asah from water. I am quite happy to believe that God has been working in sustaining, healing & creating since the eighth day.
First, man was formed 'יצר' from the dust, not made 'עשה'. Second, Jesus miracle at the wedding was recorded in Greek, so the Hebrew word was not used there. Jesus teaches that God has been sustaining even though this is his rest, his Sabbath, so there's no reason to persecute Jesus for doing the same work on the human Sabbath.
warwick said...
as reported in Ex. 19: 10-14 the people of God were told to wash their clothes & abstain from sexual relations, & be ready for the third day. Then verse 16 says ‘On the morning of the third day there was thunder & lightning,…..’ Sounds familiar doesn’t it, just like Genesis ch1. ‘There was evening & there was morning the third day.’
Anon replied:
You're kidding, right?
Anon-Kidding about what exactly?
That it sounds the same. It doesn't sound the same.
warwick said...
Anon- I disagree as so many Christians approach the Bible with ‘educated in’ideas which cause them to reject the days as being ordinary days. Today few admit to their extra Biblical foundation. Evening & morning are parts of only one thing, a 24 hour day & there to make the meaning beyond dispute for anyone without an extra-Biblical bias.
Warwick, this is equivalent to arguing that "hands" and "clapping" amount to only one thing, so Isa 55:12 must mean that the trees grew hands and applauded. You think your reading is free from "educated in" ideas, but your constant appeals to "plain meaning" obscure the fact that you simply ignore your presuppositions when reading the text.
warwick said...
The 7th day was a day of ‘rest’ & not a day of creation, a point which you did not understand when you first bloged here.
No, I appreciate that it is not a day of creation, but I also accept Jesus' argument that his Father works despite it being his Sabbath, sustaining the universe (a point the Jews of Jesus' day accepted as well). You seem to reject this point, redefine 'creation' to mean making water into wine (doesn't really sound much like the work of Gen 1 to me).
CraigS: it would behoove you to read CMI's statement before rushing to judge. There is something here about the way AiG is now hiding behind 1 Cor. 6. In any case, neither CMI nor AiG are Christian brothers; they are government-created entities (corporations). There will be no CMI or AiG in heaven, only individual believers.
According to CMI (and they make a good case), there are other passages to consider, e.g. the duty of directors under Romans 13 to protect the company under their control, because this is a requirement of Australian company law and thus binding.
Compare the case of Jesus telling believers, as individuals, to "turn the other cheek". But the leader of the nation has no right to turn the cheeks of his people: he has a duty under Romans 13 to use force to protect them against invaders from without and against criminals from within. Similarly, although an individual might consent to be defrauded, the directors of a company must act to prevent its supporters from being defrauded.
Note that according to the copious documentation, AiG is not just taking from CMI; rather, it is taking from many individuals outside of CMI. Even worse, the "agreement" which CMI plausibly claims was signed behind the backs of their managment, makes CMI liable should any of those individuals sue AiG, e.g. for falsely attributing articles.
This is a Sword of Damocles about CMI's head. So CMI is desperate to remove, since it renders CMI susceptible to financial destruction. Indeed, CMI is duty-bound to seek removal, because the Bible has explicit instructions as to what someone should do if they find themselves in a potentially destructive contract like this. See Proverbs 6:1–5 and also 22:23–24 and 11:15. "Do not rest until you can extricate yourself" is what these passages teach. Mr Briese documents that this is what CMI have been desperately trying to do. The possibility of extrication would have passed, without resolution, if CMI had accepted AiG’s much belated and obviously sham request, offered only after CMI commenced formal legal precedings. CMI rightly will accept only binding Christian arbitration, not AiG's delaying tactics of going to "mediation".
To put it another way: yes, Jesus said that if someone asks for your shirt, give him your coat too. But this case is like CMI saying to AiG, yes, you can have our shirt, coat, and even our pants and underwear, but please don't take our supporters' and authors' clothes as well and say it's our fault, because we could become bankrupt (with loss of supporters' money) if they sue us over the loss of their clothes.
Anon: "Gen 1 is written in Hebrew, we're discussing Hebrew genre and form, so it is appropriate that the answer is Hebrew! You read the text and treat it as a piece of English historical prose, but that is not what it is."
No, it is Hebrew narrative, as we have stated. It is nothing like Hebrew poetry, while there is no essential difference between Gen. 1-11 and 12-22 in terms of verb structure (according to a friend who recently gained his doctorate in Hebrew). No wonder Josephus and Ibn Ezra understood it straightforwardly, as did most Church Fathers and all Reformers.
It is most suspicious that the novel Framework Hypothesis (as well as dodges like day-age and gap theories) was only promoted after anti-Christian uniformitarians asserted great age for the earth. If anon's view were really the correct teaching, it's bizarre that far greater exegetes throughtout church history never saw a trace of it.
Anon: "God warned Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Well Adam lived for 930 years, so is that how long a day was (I'm not arguing that it was, just illustrating the complexities involved)?"
No complexity at all. You know perfectly well that beyom is often a Hebrew idiom for "when".
As for the flat earth myth you propound, there is no evidence that the Church ever taught it, and much against it -- see The Myth of the Flat Earth (Summary by historian Prof. Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of the book Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus & Modern Historians.
Nor is there any evidence of it in the Bible; the likes of that wolf Paul Seely mistake equivocal language for geographical statements. See Is the ’erets (earth) flat? Equivocal language in the geography of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament: a response to Paul H. Seely by James Patrick Holding and his response to Seely's lame counters to defend his biblical errantist heresy.
Oh, yeah, my friend with a doctorate in Hebrew also said that elleh toledot took the result of the previous section and carried it forward in the narrative. Another friend who gained his Masters thesis on Genesis said the same thing independently. Both are committed 6-day creationists BTW. So the colephon idea of Wiseman should be abandoned.
Ktis, regarding CMI's decision to sue, well, I suspect no good will come of it. Are they seeking specified or unspecified damages? Presumably the outcome of the court case will be that at least one of the organisations (CMI or AiG) will be ruined financially.
Regarding your other questions, I will answer them as best I can. These are my opinions, they are not "official Sydney Anglican" views in any way shape or form.
I can already see you taking what I say and saying "Sydney Anglicans believe..."
If you do this, you are being very deceptive. You are being dishonest. Are you going to do this Ktis?
Now, I don't have precise answers for every one of these scientific, and some of my thinking has changed over time. In the same way that YECS that don't have a solid answer for the age of starlight (for one example) - only some speculation.
Anyway, here goes, my-opinion-only, not acting for any other organisation -
Were Adam and Eve real individuals who were the ancestors of every other human ever?
My view for sometime was that the man and woman in Genesis 1-3 were archetypes rather than individuals. But now I'm leaning toward them being individuals. I'm comfortable with a Christian believing either.
Was Adam created or generated?
I don't see a difference between the two. Because I believe in Reformed theology, I believe that God is in complete control of the universe, every atom, every molecule, every wave, every force.
Whether God works through some visible means or by instant fiat, it is still God doing the work.
So yes, Adam was created. But God may well have used a process (like, I dunno, evolution) to create him.
Adam was certainly not created "out of nothing" as even the most literal reading of the text must claim he was created from mud.
When?
I do not know. The Bible does not tell us the age of the earth.
Were the Australian Aborigines really here 40,000 years?
I don't know - I wasn't in Australia 40,000 years ago. But I have no reason to believe the science behind this assertion is faulty.
If so, did they come from Adam?
Yes.
If yes, how do you stretch the chronogenealogies so far?
Father also means ancestor, son also means descendant etc etc, we both know the arguments on both sides.
And what do you think of undoubted human fossils "dated" to 150,000 years?
I don't know which fossils you are speaking of, but they cause me no problem whatsoever.
Anonymous, in all your intellectual discussion please don't forget the ordinary country folk.
I await your answers to my questions in fur course.
Sam Drucker
Anon-thank you for your responces. If you don't mind I will leave it there. As an evangelist it seems a waste of time to me.
That you would hang so much upon the lack of evening & morning regarding the seventh day is amazing.
Regards,
Warwick
"ktisophilos" said...
Anon: "Gen 1 is written in Hebrew, we're discussing Hebrew genre and form, so it is appropriate that the answer is Hebrew! You read the text and treat it as a piece of English historical prose, but that is not what it is."
No, it is Hebrew narrative, as we have stated. It is nothing like Hebrew poetry, while there is no essential difference between Gen. 1-11 and 12-22 in terms of verb structure (according to a friend who recently gained his doctorate in Hebrew). No wonder Josephus and Ibn Ezra understood it straightforwardly, as did most Church Fathers and all Reformers.
I've already agreed that it is not (apart from Gen 1:27) Hebrew poetry, so I'm not sure what you're objecting to (unless you think "prose" somehow excludes "narrative"). But I've also pointed to essential differences between Gen 1:1-2:3 and all that follows in Genesis. There is no particular "Verb structure," as I pointed out in my discussion of McCabe, that is tied exclusively to history. Hebrew narrative can be used to record history, or a parable, or other non-historical forms of literature.
"ktisophilos" said...
Anon: "God warned Adam that "in the day that you eat from it you will surely die." Well Adam lived for 930 years, so is that how long a day was (I'm not arguing that it was, just illustrating the complexities involved)?"
No complexity at all. You know perfectly well that beyom is often a Hebrew idiom for "when".
Quite true, but I'd have thought that dying 930 years after eating was not the same as "when he at it"!
"ktisophilos" said...
As for the flat earth myth you propound, there is no evidence that the Church ever taught it, and much against it -- see The Myth of the Flat Earth (Summary by historian Prof. Jeffrey Burton Russell, author of the book Inventing the Flat Earth: Columbus & Modern Historians.
And if you read your own link, you'll notice that it is referring to beliefs of medieval christians. I am arguing that people living 2,000 years before the people referred to in the link believed in a flat earth, so I am not propounding a myth, you are by suggesting that people living 1,000 BC and earlier believed in a spherical earth in spite of considerable evidence to the contrary! Let me quote from your link:
It must first be reiterated that with extraordinary few exceptions no educated person in the history of Western Civilization from the third century B.C. onward believed that the earth was flat.
Do you see that? From the 3rd century BC? Western civilization? Educated person? Do you know that the Bible is set in the near East, not part of "western civilization"? Do you think it was addressed to educated people only? Do you think it was all written after the 3rd century BC?
"ktisophilos" said...
Nor is there any evidence of it in the Bible; the likes of that wolf Paul Seely mistake equivocal language for geographical statements. See Is the ’erets (earth) flat? Equivocal language in the geography of Genesis 1 and the Old Testament: a response to Paul H. Seely by James Patrick Holding and his response to Seely's lame counters to defend his biblical errantist heresy.
I have read some of Holding's material, and it is fundamentally flawed. He fails to understand the way language operates and argues that, because we can possible read some terms equivocally, that equivocal meaning is appropriate. Most communication includes a degree of ambiguity which is resolved because the speaker/writer and the recipient of the communication share a common worldview. This ambiguity only becomes a problem when there is no common worldview. So if the author wished to make clear that the earth was not flat, it would not be sufficient to describe it ambiguously, because the meaning inferred by the audience would be that it was flat. The author would need to make it unambiguous. Adopting Holding's claims it would also be possible to claim that when God created Adam in Gen 2 he was initially androgynous and only became male and female after Gen 2:21!
The other problem lies in Holding's view of Scripture itself. No doubt he'd also have a problem dealing with Jesus' assertion that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world.
warwick said...
That you would hang so much upon the lack of evening & morning regarding the seventh day is amazing.
Well, warwick, you should realise there is more to it than that, because I've given other reasons. Remember the people 1,000 years hence who will say to us "that you would hang so much upon the few words 'once upon a time' is amazing."
I'm glad you see this discussion as a waste of time. Hopefully in your work as an evangelist you shall point people to the risen Christ rather than waste time tying the gospel to creation science.
Anon shows his true enmity towards Scripture, by denying its inerrancy, and thus his enmity towards Christ who said "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). Yeah, right, anon, point people towards a christ of your own making who made mistakes! ISCAST also claims that Jesus was mistaken about creation, but we know better thanks to "science".
Holding has dealt with that mustard seed canard, also a favorite of misotheistic sites along with the flat earth rubbish.
Craig S: according to CMI's documentation, AiG can avoid the court case by submitting to binding Christian arbitration.
Paul calls Adam the "first man" (1 Cor. 15:45), states that Adam was created before Eve (1 Tim. 2), and that all people in the world were made from one (Acts 17:26). Was Paul mistaken?
Yes, son can mean descendant, but in Genesis 5 and 11, there were clearly direct father-son relationships. E.g. sometimes the father names the son. Even more important, it's not really an issue, because even if there were gaps in the genealogy, the time between the names on the list is still given. Thus it is a tight chronology regardless.
The undoubted human remains are documented in Ethiopian ‘earliest humans’ find: A severe blow to the beliefs of Hugh Ross and similar ‘progressive creationist’ compromise views, and the primary sources therein.
Anon said: "My position, however, comes from carefully reading the text and also extensive reading of ancient Near Eastern creation stories."
John asked: Since you are so well-read on ancient Near Eastern literature, would you mind detailing those which set out their creation stories by using the formula 'day + number' and "an evening and a morning'. I am extremely curious to know what cultures followed the same pseudo-chronological pattern as Moses. It would be also helpful to know which cultures likewise placed this pseudo-chronology into their principal legal code and made it a capital offence if transgressed.
Any answers, Anon?
"sam drucker" said...
Anonymous, as suggested by Warwick and John, can't you see that I must respond by laying the 'anachronistic' charge at your feet rather than accepting it myself.
Part of the problem is that you assume the correctness of your "straighforward reading" of the text without even trying to work out what it meant to the original audience.
"sam drucker" said...
Can you inform me whether you agree the overwhelming weight of Judaic and Christian belief prior to the Twentieth Century held that God had created the world in six twenty-four hour days?
I am no expert on early Church history, I have contented myself with trying to understand the Bible. I would respond with a few broad points anticipating further study:
1. I'd like to see the context of all the quotes. I am somewhat suspicious because "john" includes the likes of Augustine who we know held to instantaneous creation and so did not take the "days" literally. So the fact that "john" cites some such authorities in support of your position is somewhat deceptive. Finding a quote that the earth is less than 6,000 years old is not equivalent to finding support for your reading of Genesis 1.
2. YECS has, in spite of your claims to historical antecedents, largely only arisen in the last few decades, and the issue has only been a significant one since Darwin. The age of the universe was not one which preoccupied the early church in the way that it does some segments of the modern church, they were dealing with other issues (Arianism, for example). Augustine himself made the point:
One does not read in the Gospel that the Lord said: I will send you the Paraclete who will teach you about the course of the sun and moon. For He willed to make them Christians, not mathematicians.
3. I am somewhat loathe to participate in some form of exegesis by suffrage because I am only too aware that I'd thus be inclined to support other doctrines with which I disagree. Do you endorse prayer to the saints? I could garner an impressive number of historical witnesses in favour of that position! Most of us would disagree with a substantial number of these early historical witnesses over some point of doctrine or other, claiming that they misunderstood the Bible.
"ktisophilos" said...
Anon shows his true enmity towards Scripture, by denying its inerrancy, and thus his enmity towards Christ who said "Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35).
So you think with your heart? That's what Scripture says, because in Hebrew the heart was considered equivalent to what you would call your "mind." The problem with your definition of "inerrancy" is that it is not supported by most who have sat down and thought out what "inerrancy" means and thought about what the Bible says about itself.
Anyway, you've seized on this red herring to clearly avoid addressing the flat-earth issue, because your link didn't prove what you wanted. I stick by my assessment of Holding's work: he consistently fails to understand the way language works and impose his own meaning on words so as to avoid problems where, if he understood correctly what the Bible claims for itself, he need not.
Paul calls Adam the "first man" (1 Cor. 15:45), states that Adam was created before Eve (1 Tim. 2), and that all people in the world were made from one (Acts 17:26). Was Paul mistaken?
Of course not. I can't see how what I wrote contradicts any of these statements. I have a feeling that you had prepared your answer before reading what I wrote.
Regarding the court case, it seems a tricky piece of sophistry that allows CMI to ignore 1 Corinthians.
But I can't deny that I'm quietly pleased that the likely outcome of this trial is that either CMI or AiG will cease to exist, or will be badly burnt at least.
Your comments to anon are pretty ugly. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that the upcoming court case is causing you to be less polite than usual.
Anon considering your hyper-academic posts I understand why Jesus refrained from selecting academics as Apostles. He did call one academic, Paul, but left him waiting 14 years or thereabouts before entrusting the Gospel to him.
Knowing the capacity some of you guys have for misunderstanding let me say that we need each other. The practical needs the academic & vice versa but problems arise when academics are let loose, unrestrained by the practical folk.
We kindly call the computer experts nerds but that doesn't convey disrespect. Neither does it when we think likewise of the overly academic. However I wouldn't want to be lost on a desert island with one.
I think you would benefit by stepping back and looking at the big picture as well.
BTW I always point people to the risen Christ & never waste time tying the gospel to 'creation science', whatever that is.
Actually I don't know anyone involved in 'creation science' a term which infers one should use science to 'prove' the Bible.
I do however use creation evangelism as a very useful tool for those whose thinking has been clouded by evolutionary indoctrination. Some can maintain Christian faith holding in tension the two opposing ideas of creation & evolution. Most can't & the information provided by CMI has kept countless numbers in the fold, & brought many erstwhile non-believers to a living-I can trust it all- enduring faith.
I don't know if we have ever met as you have not been open enough to share your name with me however I have met many who write in a similar style to you. From experience I have found their faith to be very much of the mind:luke-warm & lacking the robustness to influence the average red-blooded man to look seriously at Christ's offer.
Regards,
Warwick
I don't know if we have ever met as you have not been open enough to share your name with me however I have met many who write in a similar style to you. From experience I have found their faith to be very much of the mind:luke-warm & lacking the robustness to influence the average red-blooded man to look seriously at Christ's offer.
I'm speechless...you can't be serious????
Kist, I read the article about the Ethiopian fossils. I have no idea why you would think it would bother me. Perhaps it is a problem for Hugh Ross, I don't know. Then again, I thought that Hugh Ross was not a T/E.
So I really don't know why you think that link is relevant? Also, do you agree or disagree with the scientific report it cites? You seem to do both.
CraigS said...
"Regarding the court case, it seems a tricky piece of sophistry that allows CMI to ignore 1 Corinthians."
Idiot. They haven't ignored it at all. Read the link I posted. You are the one who ignoring things, such as Romans 13, the same way that you have to ignore the clear statements of Scripture to maintain your evolutionary faith.
Good grief man, don't you remember the trouble that the short-lived Governor General Hollingworth (aka fan of humanist Plimer) and the Roman Catholic church got into by NOT reporting serious wrongdoings to the legal authorities? Should the CMI directors also allow its supporters to be defrauded, and thus violate their fiduciary duties that Romans 13 obliges them to follow?
Anon: "YECS has, in spite of your claims to historical antecedents, largely only arisen in the last few decades, and the issue has only been a significant one since Darwin."
Rubbish. Don't take the shoddy work of Ron Numbers as gospel. The YE view was universal in the church right up to the time of the uniformitarian geologists. And even the allegorical interpreters like Origen and Augustine denounced old-earth ideas.
There was little YECreation Science simply because there was little need to defend what was not in dispute until the rise of uniformitarian "science". But there was a group called the Scriptural Geologists, which included experts in geology, who challenged the uniformitarians in the early 19th century. Terry Mortenson gained his doctorate from a secular UK university for his detailed research into them. What is "modern" is not the biblical teaching, but the apologetic methods to defend them that needed to answer the uniformitarian claims. Apologetics by its very nature is a defence against attacks on Christianity.
Anon: "So you think with your heart? That's what Scripture says, because in Hebrew the heart was considered equivalent to what you would call your "mind." "
Tell me something I don't know. So you had better not tell your wife "I love you with all my heart", because we all know that the heart is a blood pump without any emotions. For goodness' sake man, if we can use figurative language without being accused of error, then give the Bible writers the same benefit of the doubt! Your pathetic attempts to adduce God-breathed error fall flat and discredit you as a credible Christian witness.
"The problem with your definition of "inerrancy" ..."
My definition is the dictionary one. Your "definition" turns its meaning on its head.
"... is that it is not supported by most who have sat down and thought out what "inerrancy" means and thought about what the Bible says about itself."
I support the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy, which is very well thought out. Not the faux statement of the ilk of you and Seely who dishonestly claim that inerrancy allows the teaching of errors! Holding was more than capable of demonstrating the nonsense behind Seely's flat earth myth.
Anonymous, thank you for your reply. It fails to demonstrate whether you know one way or the other the the weight of Judaic and Christian (up to 20th Century) on whether God created the world in six twenty-four hour days.
My reading indicates the weight of Judaic and Christian (up to 20th Century) held to a six twenty-four hour day creation event.
The term YEC was not in use in those times but the belief of YECS in a six twenty-four hour creation event is the same as the weight of belief that has gone before.
Therefore this YEC belief is definitely not, as you assert, a more recent belief. Your belief on the days or day or whatever is the more recent phenomenon.
Your attempt to dismiss the difficuluties of Augustine's belief on origins was cute but did nothing to dismiss the point being made by John because of the other scholars' views mentioned. There are also others that could be cited who were before and after those scholars mentioned.
Sam Drucker
Kitsophilos, don't waste your time dealing with the time waster.
He committed a despicable act behind Warwick's back a little while back so the rest of us have no fellowship with him.
Anonymous warrants consideration so I advise proceeding with that dialogue.
Sam Drucker
Idiot. They haven't ignored it at all. Read the link I posted.
I did - and I assessed their reasoning as sophistry.
Charming language by the way. I know you wouldn't speak this way face to face. One of the problems of the net is that in some people, it can encourage such behaviour.
He committed a despicable act behind Warwick's back a little while back so the rest of us have no fellowship with him.
There has been absolutely nothing "despicable" about my actions with regards to Warwick or anyone else.
If you or anyone has a problem with me Sam, you are obliged by Scripture to bring it to my attention and attempt to resolve it. You don't have the option of just ignoring me - not if you wish to be obedient to the revealed word of God at least.
I've posted some more thoughts on the CMI lawsuit on my blog - Click here
Sam, you're right about CraigS. Now he's backbiting about CMI. He doesn't really care about 1 Cor. 6, but just wants to see YEC ministries destroyed. For those that do care, see commentaries by Matthew Henry or John Calvin, where it is clear that this passage prevents vexatious litigation over trivial matters, not holding someone accountable to prevent further defrauding. The churches that hushed up pedophilia and kept it in house could also hide behind this passage, but were wrong.
Well, lets look at the passage itself and decide -
Does any of you who has a complaint against someone dare go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels—not to speak of things pertaining to this life?
So if you have cases pertaining to this life, do you select those who have no standing in the church to judge? I say this to your shame! Can it be that there is not one wise person among you who will be able to arbitrate between his brothers? Instead, brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers!
Therefore, it is already a total defeat for you that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather be cheated?
There is no indication in the text that Paul is talking about "vexatious litigation over trivial matters" - that simply is not there in the passage. You have added that qualifier in yourself.
In fact, Paul makes it plain that he is talking about genuine wrong where there has been "injustice" and someone has been "cheated". This is exactly what CMI claim to have suffered.
It's plain to me that the rationale behind the lawsuit is simply self-serving, and does not come from a disinterested exegesis of the passage.
This is relevant for a few reasons -
1. Firstly, you will know a tree by it's fruit, so how a Christian organisation acts is certainly relevant
2. Ken Ham was a "founding father" of the creation science movement in Australia. If people are now claiming he is a liar and a fraud, motivated by money, that certainly reflects back on the movement as a whole.
3. Since creation science types claim to be solely concerned about the right exegesis of Scripture, it is very relevant to see how they treat texts of scripture apart from Genesis 1.
Craig is just wasting more time. He ignores everything I've said (and what CMI has pointed out) about the duty of directors under Romans 13 and more.
And of course, it would reflect worse on biblical creationism if one leader was allowed to defraud people without being challenged, cf. the covering up of sexual sins in some churches.
Note that plenty of people started off fine then were led astray by pride. Think of King Saul. So whatever is wrong with Ham does not undermine biblical creationist ministries in the slightest, no matter how much a vexatious compromiser like Craig might wish this.
Craig is just wasting more time. He ignores everything I've said (and what CMI has pointed out) about the duty of directors under Romans 13 and more.
Romans 13 has *nothing* to do with it! Dear me, you complain about people "stretching" Genesis 1, and you come up with a bizarre interpretation of Romans 13.
You are not filling me with confidence about your exegetical skills! And that's why it is good to have this conversation.
And of course, it would reflect worse on biblical creationism if one leader was allowed to defraud people without being challenged, cf. the covering up of sexual sins in some churches.
This is a false analogy - stop using it. You first need to understand the difference between a civil and a criminal litigation. And indeed, 1 Corinthians is very plain about dealing with sexual immorality in the church.
He ignores everything I've said
Not at all. I've heard everything you've said and I think it has very little value as far as understanding the bible is concerned. It is plainly self-seeking.
The irony is that what I've read suggests that CMI probably in the right, morally speaking. But that's what "turning the other cheek" is all about. It's not about absorbing a good that someone has done us, it's about absorbing a wrong.
CMI cannot win this ultimately. Even if you win the court case, your reputation will be irretrievably compromised, especially in the US where people will naturally feel more sympathy for AiG.
And if you think I'm wasting time, you can ignore me like Sam and Warwick are doing. It doesn't bother me in the slightest and I'll take as many "free kicks" as you guys give me.
The reality is, that a blog like this only exists if there is conflict in the comments. Very few people actually take the time to read the long and tedious posts that "Sam" and "John" put up...
"sam drucker" said...
Therefore this YEC belief is definitely not, as you assert, a more recent belief. Your belief on the days or day or whatever is the more recent phenomenon.
My claim is that YECS (note the "S") is a relatively recent phenomenon.
"sam drucker" said...
Your attempt to dismiss the difficuluties of Augustine's belief on origins was cute but did nothing to dismiss the point being made by John because of the other scholars' views mentioned. There are also others that could be cited who were before and after those scholars mentioned.
My point was that "john"'s inclusion of Augustine was deceptive, because he did not approve of a literal reading of the text. Some of the other quotes only claim that the earth was not yet 6,000 years old, a point with which Augustine agreed. So I don't know that these others held to a literal reading of the text or whether they were in agreement with Augustine, or whether they held a quite different position again! Given the dishonest attempt to claim support from Augustine against my position (when it does not count against my position), I don't trust "john" sufficiently to acknowledge, without more information, that these ancient scholars held to a literal reading of Gen 1.
Let me remind you at this juncture that my point all along has not been that the earth is necessarily ancient, but that Gen 1 does not allow us to establish the age of the universe. It could be 6,000 years old, or it could be billions of years old, Gen 1 does not answer this question.
Anon- you say we can't know how old the world is? So the genealogies also don't mean what they appear to say, a time line from Genesis to a later period of Biblical history?
Man, is anything in Scripture historically based? Apparently little if Anon is right.
The truth of what Jesus said is apparently also up for grabs as he thought man was made 'at the beginning of creation.' But anon says 'at the beginning of creation' doesn't mean what it appears to say because apparently He was only talking about marriage, & anyway man wasn't made at the beginning but 6 days from the beginning! I would have thought 6 days out of 1,460,000 days from creation to Christ was 'at the beginning'. Draw a time-line of 1,460,000 days & pencil in the 6th day, then tell me that isn't at the beginning.
But hold on Anon thinks the whole 6-day(or he says 7-day) creation wasn't 6 days at all but......
Then I did a spot of reading and spied the following:
"When the verse concludes with the statement that the first 'day' (yom) is concluded, the term must mean a twenty-four hour period….There ought to be no need of refuting the idea that yom means period. Reputable dictionaries like Buhl, B D B or K. W. know nothing of this notion. Hebrew dictionaries are our primary source of reliable information concerning Hebrew words. Commentators with critical leanings utter statements that are very decided in this instance. Says Skinner: 'The interpretation of yom as aeon, a favorite resource of harmonists of science and revelation, is opposed to the plain sense of the passage and has no warrant in Hebrew usage.' Dillmann remarks: 'The reasons advanced by ancient and modern writers for construing these days to be longer periods of time are inadequate….'" (Leupold on the Old Testament, Vol. 1, pg. 56, 57.)'
Methinks: this will challenge Anon but no as he agrees the writer of Genesis meant to communicate literal days but they were only allegorically literal as they are not what actually happened & they weren't consecutive anyway. There goes the week as well.
But then I read what the Jew Josephus (circa AD 37)wrote saying he was convinced the 6-days were just that 6 ordinary days. Also that there are no gaps in the genealogies from Adam to the flood. That's the flood which he considered to be world-wide as in the whole world.
Please excuse me but its all too silly for me.
Am I sounding just a little confused here? Maybe because I have suffered a mind-stall from reading so much linguistic ducking & weaving.
Maybe I should just stick to sharing the Gospel, the real one which starts in Genesis. But maybe that's just allegory or somesuch as well.
Some questions Anon.
1. Where in Genesis would you regard genuine historiography begins?
2. Where in Genesis do you first place credence in the events having actually occurred as written?
Now to what you’ve previously argued.
1. You’ve implied I do not understand the meanings of “begging the question” and “argument from silence”. I still accuse you of these fallacies because of the following:
a. You have not furnished any evidence that ancient writers understood Genesis 1 as you do and for exactly the same reasons as you.
b. I challenged your argument by providing clear evidence that there were early writers (the majority) who held to a literal Genesis 1 who unambiguously noted that the earth was young and that the creation week was a real 6 consecutive days, each of which were 24 hours long.
c. You then moved the goal posts and asked me for evidence from the 10th cent BC and 1st cent AD that supports literalism.
d. Because I have not [as yet] provided (c), you are now implying that you are quite justified opting for the literary approach and rejecting literalism.
e. You argue that your position has more warrant because mine supposedly takes for granted (i.e. begs the question, as you charge) “that the text is universally obvious across time, space and culture.”
f. As a consequence, you now hold that the text is NOT universally obvious across time, space and culture and it is thus more warranted to subscribe to the literary view.
g. Your deductive argument aside, you provide zero evidence for your claim.
h. I maintain that this in fact DOES beg the question and is an argument from silence.
2. Still, your shrewdness shines through. I furnished evidence that early readers of Genesis 1 (one from the 2nd cent AD) did hold to a strict, consecutive 6-24 hour creation week and your response was to ignore these quotes. You then asked for evidence of any 10th century BC or 1st century AD reader holding to a literal approach. Isn’t that somewhat disingenuous, Anon?
As you are aware, there is very little material extant from the 10th cent BC, let alone a running commentary on the hermeneutics of Genesis 1, so that’s a dishonest red herring. As for requesting 1st AD beliefs, again very little is extant. However, there is one interesting passage from Josephus which evinces his literal take on Genesis 1:
“On the fourth day he adorned the heaven with the sun, the moon, and the other stars, and appointed them their motions and courses, that the vicissitudes of the seasons might be clearly signified. And on the fifth day he produced the living creatures, both those that swim, and those that fly; the former in the sea, the latter in the air: he also sorted them as to society and mixture, for procreation, and that their kinds might increase and multiply. On the sixth day he created the four-footed beasts, and made them male and female: on the same day he also formed man. Accordingly Moses says, That in just six days the world, and all that is therein, was made. And that the seventh day was a rest, and a release from the labor of such operations; whence it is that we celebrate a rest from our labors on that day, and call it the Sabbath, which word denotes rest in the Hebrew tongue.
Moreover, Moses, after the seventh day was over begins to talk philosophically; and concerning the formation of man, says thus: That God took dust from the ground, and formed man, and inserted in him a spirit and a soul. This man was called Adam, which in the Hebrew tongue signifies one that is red, because he was formed out of red earth, compounded together; for of that kind is virgin and true earth. God also presented the living creatures, when he had made them, according to their kinds, both male and female, to Adam, who gave them those names by which they are still called.” (Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus Book I, Containing The Interval Of Three Thousand Eight Hundred And Thirty-Three Years. From The Creation To The Death Of Isaac
Chapter I, The Constitution Of The World And The Disposition Of The Elements)
Especially note that Josephus considers (i) the Genesis account and genealogies sufficiently accurate to state how old the earth was at his own point in time (ii) that the seventh day ended. In other words, whatever its symbolic qualities, it was a real, limited day, just like the previous 6.
Furthermore, there is some circumstantial evidence (though it may not be if I could find Rashi’s source for it!) that R. Akiva of the first century AD held to a strict literal line. Ironically it pertains to Numbers 7 and is located at this section of Torah in R. Hertz’s translation and commentary. He quotes the Midrash and I have it on rabbinical authority (Hertz neglects to provide the precise Midrashic source) that he is quoting from Rashi who is quoting Akiva. It’s written that the total weight of silver offered in the dedication ceremony is 2,400 shekels and this “corresponded to the years that had passed from the Creation of the World to the advent of Moses in the fortieth year of his life.” (p. 601)
I’ll allow you to do the maths.
3. Now, I suppose that in order to save your argument you could argue, as you have previously done, that believing in a young earth is neither necessarily synonymous with nor requisite upon a literal 6 consecutive day creation week. In other words, one can hold to a young earth but not believe in the literalness and consecutiveness of Genesis 1’s days. Yes, you could make that division in your mind, but I suggest it is more consistent and rational to argue that a person who takes the genealogies of Genesis literally, adds them up and then works out a creation date of approximately 4000BC, would similarly take our line about the 6 days and not yours, wouldn’t it?
In any case, Anon, I would hazard a guess and say that you certainly do not believe in a young earth. So do you or don’t you? Therefore my quotes which, do not expressly comment on the 6 days, nevertheless do tacitly prove that early readers were committed to a literal line and did not know anything like the one you’re suggesting.
4. So, Anon, can you provide any evidence, from any source in early Christianity or Judaism, which takes your literary approach of contemplating deep structure and literary devices and goodness knows what else, and allowing these to dictate meaning rather than language? (BTW, you do acknowledge, finally, somewhere, that language does play a role in the message but you give no clue as to what this role actually is apropos Genesis 1. Maybe you could briefly set this out?)
5. Let me get you to clarify your argument here.
(i) Are you saying that the ancient reader would have noticed these literary devices and then subsequently understood the text exactly as you?
(ii) Are you saying that no ancient reader would have ever concluded that the days were normal 24-hour, consecutive days?
6. You have rightly pointed that the ‘waw’ in the majority of the Numbers 7 passage is copulative (i.e. being utilized to augment material in the text rather than indicating temporal succession). What do you regard is the role of the waw consecutives in Genesis 1, these being variously translated as ‘and’, ‘then’ etc ?
7. You claim that a lack of “self-conscious” aetiology is an important aspect in determining if a passage is historical. You further claim that Genesis 1-11 is replete with aetiological explanation and thus, I gather, shouldn’t be really regarded as “normal” historical text.
(i) Why does the inclusion of aetiology in a text more than likely render a passage ahistorical?
(ii) Can you point to a few examples elsewhere in the Bible where aetiology is present yet you would consider these historical.
8. I remain unconvinced by your argument that this ‘6+1’ pattern in Genesis 1 marks it out as a departure from “normal historiography”.
i. What exactly is this ‘6+1’ pattern?
ii. Why does this turn Genesis 1 into non-history (let’s not beat around the bush – this is what you are really saying!) rather than understanding it as a breakdown, a report, so to speak, of what God did, said etc on 6 consecutive days, followed by no creative work on the seventh?
iii. And even if this pattern exists in other ancient Near Eastern texts, so what? I am unaware of any rule that says similarity negates claims to historicity. (Of course, this is the philosophy with which liberal scholars and atheists have traditionally attacked other parts of the Bible, even though the comparisons are problematic or even outright unsound e.g. the Flood account Vs Gilgamesh, Christ’s birth, life, miracles, death and resurrection Vs Krishna’s, Buddha’s, Queztacoatl’s etc) (BTW, I’m STILL waiting for your answer to my question concerning the close similarity of time sequence in other ancient Near Eastern texts.)
8. There is a perennial argument that the open-ended nature of the seventh day somehow negates (it’s never really unpacked) the historical reality of that day as recorded in Genesis 1. Now it is quite obvious that irrespective of whether that seventh day as mentioned in the text is the actual 7th day, there must have been a first 7th day.
So what could be the significance of the open-endedness of the 7th day? I believe that in addition to the information in Hebrews, there is a clue contained in Exodus 31:12-18, one of the very few (?only) laws reiterated by themselves outside of the usual listing. It calls the Sabbath an ETERNAL sign and b’rit (or covenant). By having “no” evening and morning, the seventh day God is inviting us to participate in his eternity making the Sabbath the Day of Eternity.
Sure, the open-ended seventh day is significant, a sign which points to something (just as Exodus 31:17 states), but not the significance which Anon et al have suggested. As one commentator suggested, all the other mitzvoth require our efforts to be holy but when we rest it is God who makes us Holy. Calling the seventh day in Genesis 1 not an actual day because of the absence of an ‘evening and a morning’ is neither warranted nor does it look at the big picture.
9.BTW Anon, just a little anecdote. The other day I worked with a guy who had never read Genesis 1 and didn’t believe in God. I gave him a copy of the passage, got him to read it, then asked him to tell me what he thought the intent of the writer was. I was quite surprised when he, armed with a 10th grade education, informed me that he had straight away noticed the prevalence and frequency of the many literary features, adding chiasmus and parallelism to your list. Ignoring all the content, he went on to say that it was perspicuously obvious that the writer was not communicating history but rather attempting to inform that God was sovereign, that man ruled the earth, and that the 7th day didn’t have an ‘evening and a morning’. So he confidently said to me, “You know, John, this is not a historical record and these are not real consecutive days.”
So, on this Anon, I’ll have to concede that you win the race.
Warwick,
What's this thing about letter bombing? Don't tell me some paranoid person over at the real heretic Anglican site reckons we would actually consider or carry out an act of terrorism?
CS: "Romans 13 has *nothing* to do with it! Dear me, you complain about people "stretching" Genesis 1, and you come up with a bizarre interpretation of Romans 13."
Nothing bizarre about it. Australian company law requires company directors to act in the best interests of their company. Romans 13 requires people to obey the law of the land. The former directors apparently did not act in the best interests of their own company (CMI) but in the interests of a foreign entity (AiG), which is probably why they resigned in return for indemnity from prosecution.
"This is a false analogy - stop using it. You first need to understand the difference between a civil and a criminal litigation."
And you need to see some serious commentaries, such as the ones I've mentioned, which show that 1 Cor. 6 deals with vexatious litigation over trivial matters. OTOH, CMI is trying to prevent wholesale theft of its intellectual property. And to get rid of the possibility of crippling liability against it for AiG's actions if they falsely attribute an article.
"And indeed, 1 Corinthians is very plain about dealing with sexual immorality in the church."
Indeed. Nothing about going to the cops here. That's why the Bible also contains Romans 13, which implies that sexual predators should be brought to the justice of the land.
"The irony is that what I've read suggests that CMI probably in the right, morally speaking. But that's what "turning the other cheek" is all about."
CMI doesn't have the right to turn the cheek its supporters. The CMI directors have no right under Australian law to let their company be defrauded. And CMI has every right to get rid of a mendacious copyright agreement signed by their former directors (in a display of either gross negligence or treachery) that claimed that authors had given their consent to have articles falsely attributed, and for CMI to bear the costs if an author sues AiG for so doing.
Nothing bizarre about it. Australian company law requires company directors to act in the best interests of their company. Romans 13 requires people to obey the law of the land.
Once more, your exegesis is faulty. The government cannot compel Christians to act against God's law - where the law of God contradicts the law of man, clearly the law of God prevails.
By your reasoning, if the law required you to commit gross acts of immorality, Romans 13 would compel you to obey. Clearly nonsensical.
And you need to see some serious commentaries, such as the ones I've mentioned, which show that 1 Cor. 6 deals with vexatious litigation over trivial matters.
It does not!! There is no evidence in the text of that. Find me the words "vexatious" or "trivial" in the text.
I read Calvin's comments on it in his 1 Corinthians commentary, and also his comments in 4.20 of the Institutes. I find his reasoning unpersuasive in the extreme. And he admits that his interpretation is new.
By the way, if you think just saying "Calvin said this..." will persuade me, you have seriously misjudged me. Calvin is a theologian I admire deeply, but he is not infallible.
To quote Shakespeare, "Methinks he doth protest too loudly." CMI have said they are pursuing this legal action "with tears". But the shadow of doubt is clear in everything you write. There is a gnawing feeling that it is very wrong for you to do what you are doing.
It just *looks* so bad. As Paul said "Lawsuits amongst belivers...and in front of unbelievers too!" As St Paul, holy prophet of God, said, "You have already failed."
Your poor handling of these texts makes me very wary of your handling of Genesis 1.
It's even worse when you realise that AiG offered to go to Christian arbitration. Yes, I read your reasons for not accepting their offer. But, once more, it doesn't look good.
"Did AiG offer to go to Christian arbitration..."
"Yes, but..."
[donor closes cheque book]
Now you are not only criticising Ken Ham, you are suggesting that the entire former board of CMI were either incompetent or treacherously immoral.
The history of Creation Science in Australia looks pretty ugly, doesn't it? And there are worse things, that you and I know about, that I have chosen not to bring up.
And now, the final chapter of this tale of woe - CMI, a Christian organisation, suing another Christian organisation. And the secularists look on and laugh, and despise the church.
I repeat, belief in God creating the world in six twenty-four hour days has been the majority belief of Jews and Christians up to the 20th Century and believers in this view have not died out altogether.
Until Anonymous can refute this, the statement stands as does the statement that YECs (more appropriately called Biblical Creationists), because of the same belief, are not a recent phenomenon.
I leave it to objective readers to assess the veracity of Anonymous' or my statement.
Sam Drucker
John I spoke with two individuals who follow this site & the AngloForum, both of whom told me that an AngloNasty suggested YEC's were potential letter-bombers. What a foolish & evil thing to say of brother Christians. Strangely I am not surprized by it considering the contempt some AngloNasties hold for any who dare to oppose & expose their non-Biblical views.
BTW I stopped using the term AngloNasty just in case I inadvertantly insulted Anglicans in general. The term was ONLY directed at the few nasty ones however I don't want to insult the whole of the Anglican community so stopped its use.
Now a MinorNasty resurrected the term here so I feel free to use it once again. And I think you will agree more apt than ever.
MinorNasty has expressed his wish that CMI be destroyed or burned in the court case with AiG. Doesn't this truly earn him the AngloNasty appelation? What a vile & evil thing to wish upon a Christian organization. It shows his true heart now the middle-class 'nice' gloves are fully off.
Then I had a look at one of the sites discussing the CMI/AiG battle where an an avowed atheist expressed almost the same hope as MinorAngloNasty- hoping that CMI & Aig will be destroyed.
From experience it isn't uncommon or strange for an activist atheist to wish evil upon a Christian organization. But it shows us that certain AngloNasties run beside activist God haters. What does that say about their Christianity?
Surely we can tell the cut of a person by the pack they run with?
MinorNasty has expressed his wish that CMI be destroyed or burned in the court case with AiG. Doesn't this truly earn him the AngloNasty appelation?
This name calling is infantile.
For my part, I pray that God will grant you every good blessing Warwick.
What a vile & evil thing to wish upon a Christian organization. It shows his true heart now the middle-class 'nice' gloves are fully off.
Wait a moment. I'm not the one suing AiG - CMI are! And CMI are claiming that AiG have taken actions that have forced them to the brink of financial ruin.
Surely, Warwick, to be consistent, you should condemn both these organisations for their actions?
If I am "nasty" for wishing the end of these organisations, what label should you give the organisations themselves, which are using commercial and legal means to destroy each other?
"john" said...
1. Where in Genesis would you regard genuine historiography begins?
That all depends on what you mean by "historiography"!
"john" said...
2. Where in Genesis do you first place credence in the events having actually occurred as written?
Genesis 1:1.
"john" said...
1. You’ve implied I do not understand the meanings of “begging the question” and “argument from silence”. I still accuse you of these fallacies because of the following:
...
g. Your deductive argument aside, you provide zero evidence for your claim.
h. I maintain that this in fact DOES beg the question and is an argument from silence.
I have pointed to the NT for support.
"john" said...
2. Still, your shrewdness shines through. I furnished evidence that early readers of Genesis 1 (one from the 2nd cent AD) did hold to a strict, consecutive 6-24 hour creation week and your response was to ignore these quotes. You then asked for evidence of any 10th century BC or 1st century AD reader holding to a literal approach. Isn’t that somewhat disingenuous, Anon?
As I've noted above, at least some of your evidence is designed to deceive. Can I trust the rest?
"john" said...
As you are aware, there is very little material extant from the 10th cent BC, let alone a running commentary on the hermeneutics of Genesis 1, so that’s a dishonest red herring.
There are no commentaries on Genesis 1, but there is a considerable amount of material of that vintage which reflects the beliefs of people living at that time. You comrade here has sought to dispute, for example, the notion that people at the time Genesis was written believed the earth was flat, but all the evidence points to this being the case. This fact is important for understanding Genesis, along with much similar information. Your references are all to those living after the significant and widespread impact of Greek philosophical thought had been felt.
"john" said...
3. Now, I suppose that in order to save your argument you could argue, as you have previously done, that believing in a young earth is neither necessarily synonymous with nor requisite upon a literal 6 consecutive day creation week. In other words, one can hold to a young earth but not believe in the literalness and consecutiveness of Genesis 1’s days. Yes, you could make that division in your mind, but I suggest it is more consistent and rational to argue that a person who takes the genealogies of Genesis literally, adds them up and then works out a creation date of approximately 4000BC, would similarly take our line about the 6 days and not yours, wouldn’t it?
No, because there are formal differences between the texts involved.
"john" said...
In any case, Anon, I would hazard a guess and say that you certainly do not believe in a young earth. So do you or don’t you? Therefore my quotes which, do not expressly comment on the 6 days, nevertheless do tacitly prove that early readers were committed to a literal line and did not know anything like the one you’re suggesting.
You are trying to justify your use of quotes which support my case for not reading the text literally by claiming that, because they too agree with the YE age, they support your case. The difference here is not between young or old, it is between literal and figurative understanding of the days. There's no escaping the fact that you've included references to people who do not support your position in order to imply that they do support your position. Is that not deceptive?
"john" said...
5. Let me get you to clarify your argument here.
(i) Are you saying that the ancient reader would have noticed these literary devices and then subsequently understood the text exactly as you?
Yes, in most instances (see below). Do modern readers miss the significance of "once upon a time..."? What you dismiss as insignificant can have far more impact than you imagine.
"john" said...
(ii) Are you saying that no ancient reader would have ever concluded that the days were normal 24-hour, consecutive days?
No. The meaning of modern texts is not always undisputed among modern readers, I don't imagine that there would have been complete unanimity in understanding of ancient texts among ancient readers.
"john" said...
6. You have rightly pointed that the ‘waw’ in the majority of the Numbers 7 passage is copulative (i.e. being utilized to augment material in the text rather than indicating temporal succession). What do you regard is the role of the waw consecutives in Genesis 1, these being variously translated as ‘and’, ‘then’ etc ?
The difference is more substantial than merely a change in semantic significance of waw. The waw-consecutive is not merely a waw but rather the conjunction prepended to a prefix conjugated verb form. Num 7 does not use finite verbs throughout the list section.
Furthermore, waw-consecutive does not necessarily imply temporal succession, there are many exceptions. Although there is debate amongst scholars as to the best way to characterise the waw-consecutive, I think it can largely be said to represent logical succession: that each even logically flows from the previous. In historical texts this usually represents temporal sequence, but it need not. Most recent grammars cover this topic in at least some detail.
"john" said...
7. You claim that a lack of “self-conscious” aetiology is an important aspect in determining if a passage is historical. You further claim that Genesis 1-11 is replete with aetiological explanation and thus, I gather, shouldn’t be really regarded as “normal” historical text.
(i) Why does the inclusion of aetiology in a text more than likely render a passage ahistorical?
I don't think it does. I think it marks the text as different to the more generic historical narrative elsewhere. The significance of the difference is open to debate in most circumstances, although it may have been apparent to the original reader. That is why we need more information before we can decide, but the difference ought to make us as the question.
"john" said...
(ii) Can you point to a few examples elsewhere in the Bible where aetiology is present yet you would consider these historical.
Most aetiologies outside Gen 1-11 deal with names of people and places (e.g. "Abraham" or "Israel").
"john" said...
8. I remain unconvinced by your argument that this ‘6+1’ pattern in Genesis 1 marks it out as a departure from “normal historiography”.
i. What exactly is this ‘6+1’ pattern?
Numbers often function symbolically in ancient literature. 6+1 (=7) is found in a number of aNE texts (e.g. Enuma-eliš V; and twice in Gilgameš XI).
"john" said...
ii. Why does this turn Genesis 1 into non-history (let’s not beat around the bush – this is what you are really saying!) rather than understanding it as a breakdown, a report, so to speak, of what God did, said etc on 6 consecutive days, followed by no creative work on the seventh?
I'm not claiming it "turns Genesis 1 into non-history." Warwick was making this same mistake, supposing Genesis 1 is either all-or-nothing. History can be portrayed in different ways. I am claiming that the days do not provide a chronological framework but a literary and logical one.
"john" said...
iii. And even if this pattern exists in other ancient Near Eastern texts, so what? I am unaware of any rule that says similarity negates claims to historicity.
I am not claiming it negates historicity. I am claiming that the form distinguishes it from historical narrative and I suppose that there is some reason for the change. We then need to determine what the change means. I think that the absence of the close to the seventh day undermines any claim that the days can be understood historically. Furthermore, this overcomes any problems with the apparently alternate order of events in Gen 2.
"john" said...
8. There is a perennial argument that the open-ended nature of the seventh day somehow negates (it’s never really unpacked) the historical reality of that day as recorded in Genesis 1.
It has been unpacked in terms of the way the NT understands the text.
"john" said...
Now it is quite obvious that irrespective of whether that seventh day as mentioned in the text is the actual 7th day, there must have been a first 7th day. So what could be the significance of the open-endedness of the 7th day? I believe that in addition to the information in Hebrews, there is a clue contained in Exodus 31:12-18, one of the very few (?only) laws reiterated by themselves outside of the usual listing. It calls the Sabbath an ETERNAL sign and b’rit (or covenant). By having “no” evening and morning, the seventh day God is inviting us to participate in his eternity making the Sabbath the Day of Eternity.
Sure, the open-ended seventh day is significant, a sign which points to something (just as Exodus 31:17 states), but not the significance which Anon et al have suggested. As one commentator suggested, all the other mitzvoth require our efforts to be holy but when we rest it is God who makes us Holy. Calling the seventh day in Genesis 1 not an actual day because of the absence of an ‘evening and a morning’ is neither warranted nor does it look at the big picture.
You've also overlooked Jesus' words in John 5. Assuming an eighth day also requires that God resumed the work of creating. In spite of warwick's attempt to redefine all sorts of things as works of creation, they are not similar to the acts of creation recorded in Gen 1. In terms of creation, all time is represented by 7 days in Gen 1:1-2:3. You'll also note in Exod 31:17 God reiterates the uniqueness of the creation week: it does not say God works six days and then rests, it refers to the one-off event of creation. This highlights the fact that God's creative work is not understood to be identical to the cyclical weeks humans live through. God's one week is a model for all weeks. Hebrews then argues that we still anticipate entering God's "rest" (using the same language associated with Sabbath rest).
"sam drucker" said...
Until Anonymous can refute this, the statement stands as does the statement that YECs (more appropriately called Biblical Creationists), because of the same belief, are not a recent phenomenon.
I referred to YECS, note the "S" = Science. This is a relatively recent phenomenon.
Warwicks comments have prompted the following post on my blog.
As I've said, I'm no expert on early Christian or Jewish views on the interpretation of Genesis 1, but I'll post a brief summary of some positions as reported by Jack P. Lewis in "The Days of Creation: An Historical Survey of Interpretation," JETS 32/4 (Dec 1989) 433-455.
1. Philo of Alexandria says that "beginning" is not to be understood as a chronological beginning, but rather means God made the heavens first. He also claimed that there was not time before there was a world. He also held that the six days actually represent an instant, not six full days. Philo upholds the symbolic significance of the numbers 6 and 7.
2. The Epistle of Barnabus treats the six days as a sort of timetable of the entire universe, the seventh day's rest coming when the Lord returns. There will be an eighth day following this, the period of the new millenium. He appeals to Ps 90:4 and 2Pet 3:8.
3. Many orthodox early church figures treated the days literally, but not really in the same way as many YE believers today might. Theophilus reads the first three days prior to the creation of the luminaries as a type of the Trinity. Irenaeus held that Adam and Eve ate and died on the same day, identifying that day with the day before the Sabbath on which the Lord died. This is also tied to the 1000 year-day idea.
4. Origen was prompted by perceived difficulties in a literal understanding to apply a spiritual understanding (Origen seems to have adopted this approach with all Scripture, and since he found difficulties in treating Gen 1 literally he proposed a spiritual understanding for it). He suggested a series of creations so that this world is neither the first or the last. He said, "I do not suppose that anyone doubts that these things figuratively indicate certain mysteries, the history having taken place in appearance, not literally."
5. Celsus described the notion that the world was created in literral days as being silly!
6. Origen, Athanasius, and Augstine all wrestled with the problem of how there could be simultaneous creation and yet a six-day creation. Others believing in instantaneous creation include Hilary of Poitiers, Peter Lombard, and Hugh of St. Victor. Both Aquinas and Luther tried to argue for both instantaneous and six-day creation.
7. Many writers speculated about the symbolic meaning of the numbers. E.g. Jerome suggested that there is something inherently evil about the number two, and so the second day had no "God saw that it was good." Augustine argued that God finished his work in 6 days because 6 is a mathematically perfect number.
8. Not until the 17th century do credal statements appear which go beyond the affirmation that God created heaven and earth. The Irish Articles of Religion from 1615 seem to be the first to include a phrase such as "in the space of six days..."
Goodness me anon, you have COMPLETELY obliterated one of Sam/John's major points.
Craig's false piety is nauseating. On his blog, he expresses a strong desire to see CMI and AiG destroyed. (Conversely, none us us have wished for destruction of Moore College or the Sydney Anglican denomination).
Then he whinges against CMI's last-ditch legal defensive counteraction to prevent AiG's legal attempt to destroy it. If Craig had bothered to read the documentation, he would have found that these "godly" agreements are implicitly a case of using a secular court.
Craig lies through his teeth when he claims that YECs make YE essential to being a Christiam. All of the YECs on this blog, as well as CMI and AiG, have explicitly rejected this.
As for Anon destroying our arguments, in Craig's dream! Anon doesn't seem to realize that Celsus was a rabid anti-Christian. And I also have read the Lewis paper, and it supports YEC claims. Davis Young, an old earth churchian, likewise agreed that the early church universally accepted YE, and most accepted literal days. See the documentation in Did Jesus, the early Church leaders and reformers believe the literal creation account given in Genesis?, including clear statements on a literal reading by Basil. There is no trace of nonsense like millions of years or anon's/Anglocompromisers' Framework view.
Lack of creedal statements is an argument from silence. Creeds were largely drawn up to negate some heresy. Six days was hardly in dispute, but Luther and Calvin were very strong on this matter of believing what the text said, and rejected the pseudo-philosophy of a minority of Fathers who tried to make the days into an instant.
MinorNasty also just swallows AiG's soundbite about being willing to go to arbitration. Again, read the documentation! It seems conclusive that AiG had cut CMI off completely, insisting that those mendacious agreements were "godly", and refusing to negotiate further. It was only CMI's biblically warranted defensive legal counteraction that prompted them to go to Peacemakers. And CMI has in turn offered AiG binding arbitration by Christian legal experts, but I am not aware of any reply.
MinorNasty doesn't really care about the biblical teachings, as shown by his butchering of Genesis as well as ignoring CMI's exegesis about legal counteraction. As he said, he just wants YEC ministries destroyed, so it suits him to ponrificate from on high that CMI should just let itself be bankrupted, and never mind supporters' money.
Kist, you are welcome to call me names for as long as you like. My piety may seem false - well, you are not even making a pretense of piety in your abuse.
On his blog, he expresses a strong desire to see CMI and AiG destroyed.
That is true - I have explained what I object to with this organisations. This blog has just confirmed my view that this form of YECS is very unhelpful, and we would be frankly better off without it.
There is great hypocrisy in your position though. You condemn me for wishing to see AiG and CMI "destroyed" - yet AiG and CMI are attempting to destroy each other as we speak! Surely they deserve the greater condemnation - both of them.
(Conversely, none us us have wished for destruction of Moore College or the Sydney Anglican denomination).
And why would you? They are both fine institutions that uphold the true gospel of Christ.
Then he whinges against CMI's last-ditch legal defensive counteraction to prevent AiG's legal attempt to destroy it.
I have explained why I think CMI's actions are unChristian. If you felt entirely comfortable with what has happened, you would not feel the need to use such abusive language.
If Craig had bothered to read the documentation,
I have
he would have found that these "godly" agreements are implicitly a case of using a secular court.
I don't understand what you are talking about.
Craig lies through his teeth when he claims that YECs make YE essential to being a Christiam.
I never said all YECS make this claim. That is a lie.
Yet the way the YECS on this thread have spoken, it certainly makes it sound like you do not believe your opponents on this issue are Christians.
Certainly it's hard to see how you can justify the stream of abuse I (and others) have had to endure if you consider us "brothers in Christ".
MinorNasty also just swallows AiG's soundbite about being willing to go to arbitration.
Yes, the documentation shows they were willing to go to arbitration.
It was only CMI's biblically warranted defensive legal counteraction that prompted them to go to Peacemakers.
Oh, so you admit that AiG did approach Peacemakers? So we are agreed that AiG were willing to submit to Christian arbitration? Good!
MinorNasty doesn't really care about the biblical teachings,
Most untrue
as shown by his butchering of Genesis as well as ignoring CMI's exegesis about legal counteraction.
So anyone who doesn't agree with CMI's exegesis "doesn't really care about scripture" ? I'm not surprised you think this way.
Regardless, I think CMI's exegesis of 1 Corinthians 6 has been clearly self-serving, and directly contrary to their avowed committment to taking scripture at "face value".
As he said, he just wants YEC ministries destroyed,
That is true
so it suits him to ponrificate from on high that CMI should just let itself be bankrupted,
It suits the holy apostle Paul to say the same. I don't think Paul was as worried about bankruptcy as CMI appear to be.
and never mind supporters' money.
Well, you are going to need plenty of that to pursue expensive legal action.
Actually, I believe the course CMI are following at the moment is the surest way to destroy the organisation. As I said above, you cannot win. Even if you win the court case and get lots of money, you will still lose.
Oh, and don't think I haven't figured out who you are Kist. You are not doing your organisation any credit on this thread.
Kitsophilos, has responded giving a link to redress Anonymous' insufficient response. That saves me providing a list myself.
Anonymous' citing of scholars heavily influenced by the non-Christian Plato undermines his case. Further, Anonymous deception by slipping in a non-Christian (Selsus)is the sin he attempts to accuse John of.
I leave it to objective readers where the overwhelming weight of early centuries AD belief was on creation in six twenty-four hour days.
Sam Drucker
Apologies, typing error. Delete Selsus and insert Celsus.
Sam Drucker
Maybe I will name some of whom I have read something of:
Theophilus of Antioch
Methodius
Lactantius
Victorinus of Pettau
Ephrem the Syrian
Epephanius of Salamis
Basil of Caeserea
Cyril of Jerusalem
Ambrose of Milan
Sam Drucker
Anyone wishing evil upon Christian brothers is evil. It isn't a matter of 'name calling' but naming-evil is as evil does.
Hard comments have been made on this & the AngloForum but no YEC has even hinted at wishing to see the Anglican church, an Anglican organization or any individual 'burnt' or destroyed or even hurt. This fact must not be lost sight of. MinorNasty says YEC's are intolerant which considering his evil desires is hypocracy of the highest order.
All argument here has been against the anti-Biblical beliefs certain people hold.
It is quite shocking to comprehend that a man while insisting he is a Christian could hold such hate in his heart towards brothers. Is it any reason many non-believers hold Christianity in such contempt?
No amount of evasion or double-speak can cover up this sad reality.
MinorNasty says certain YEC's insist YE belief is necessary to be a Christian. I do not know of anyone who has said this & believe this to be a lie. Yes an everyday ordinary lie, but only to be expected from someone who would like to see the demise of Christian organizations.
To say that CMI & AiG are out to destroy each other is also a lie. Being well aware of the happenings of the last 2 years I know that CMI has made numerous serious efforts to reach a compromise with AiG, but to no avail. The meticulous report done by Clarrie Briese, an Anglican, held in high esteem, clearly shows where the blame lies. Even atheists acknowledge who has been wronged but not MinorNasty.
It is very relevant that he has joined with God-haters in hoping to see the demise of AiG & CMI.
This alone definitely calls Minors Christianity into question. Repentance & an unreserved apology is called for from Minor.
It is quite shocking to comprehend that a man while insisting he is a Christian could hold such hate in his heart towards brothers.
Warwick, you were better off not responding to me. You don't do yourself any credit.
I wish hate on no-one. Those who engage in childish, unpleasant name-calling could well be accused of hateful behaviour.
I'll say again, it is great hypocrisy to condemn my desire to see an end of CMI and AiG, whilst at the same time giving explicit and implicit support to those organisations as they seek to destroy each other in legal battle. Grossest hypocrisy.
Here is a scenario where I would be happy to see the organisations continue. If they were to stop attempting to promote their form of science and focus solely upon the proclamation of the gospel, the pure gospel, without any mention of rocks or dinosaurs or radiometric dating or anything else - then I would gladly support the continued existence of these organisations.
But whilst they continue to promote poor science and worse theology, they do no credit to the cause of Christ.
This alone definitely calls Minors Christianity into question. Repentance & an unreserved apology is called for from Minor.
Warwick, it is absolutely not your place to judge my faith. I stand by the cross of Christ alone. Any accusations you have against me, you must take to Him on the final day. In the meantime, stop it.
Nor is it your place to call me to repentance. You certainly have not demonstrated that I've done any wrong, and nor do I have a pastoral relationship with you.
Your continual name calling is childish and obnoxious. You wonder what brings discredit to the cause of Christ? It is threads such as this, where one party is incapable of abiding by the rules of courtesy.
It is extraordinary that you made such a fuss earlier about Anglicans allegedly calling some YECSers names. Assuming the original allegations were true, you have returned evil for evil a hundredfold and more.
Anyway, you call me "MinorNasty". I call you a beloved child of the Most High God, bought by the precious blood of Christ. I give you back a blessing for your curse. I admonish you, gently, to reconsider your behaviour on this thread.
Apparently I lack courtesy because I called a person with openly disclosed evil in his heart, nasty. Considering the sin 'nasty' is gentle.
This empty accusation from a man who holds open hate towards Christian brothers & lies about the problem between AiG & CMI. Lies fuelled by admitted hate.
He knows the facts as they have been clearly spelled out but continues with deceit.
Open hate & lying & my crime is name calling. He is wrong these are not names but well earned descriptions. Just as John the Baptist called the Pharisees & Sadducees- a brood of vipers. Mere name calling or descriptive?
Have you read the report Clarrie Briese wrote Minor? Are you suggesting he has lied, as to where the blame lies? Direct answer please so I can inform him.
How should I handle Minors blessing? Should I happily receive a 'blessing' from one who admits to holding hate in his heart wishing evil upon Christian brothers?
I make no accusations simply pointing out what Minor has said. He has accused himself.
Apparently I do myself no credit. I don't need nor seek credit but am commanded to defend the word of God against those who would denigrate it. This I do & will do to the best of my limited ability. And no abuse, deceit or false accusation will stop me. In fact I find the attacks of such a hate-filled person to be encouraging.
"sam drucker" said...
Kitsophilos, has responded giving a link to redress Anonymous' insufficient response. That saves me providing a list myself.
Labelling something "insufficient" is not an adequate argument. The point Kitsophilos tried to make was largely irrelevant, for I was not claiming that anyone argued against a young earth but against a literal interpretation. Further, I was not enlisting Celsus to aid my argument, I was summarising a scholarly article.
You claim that I'm citing scholars heavily influenced by Plato. Are you claiming that the historical characters who support your case were free from influence by their historical context?
I summarised the article because there was the claim that the literal view had near universal support. This is clearly not the case.
Answers in Creation
one who admits to holding hate in his heart
Where was this admission made?
Clarrie Briese Anglican of high repute, ex NSW Chief Magistrate, well respected as a corruption fighter wrote a lengthy report on the problems between AiG & CMI.
The report explains where the problem began & who caused it-where the fault lies.
So
I asked MinorNasty the question: 'Have you read the report Clarrie Briese wrote Minor? Are you suggesting he has lied, as to where the blame lies? Direct answer please so I can inform him.'
But as expected no direct answer, in fact no reply at all. Evasion.
So I ask again:
MinorNasty- please answer the above question without the usual ducking & weaving.
I wonder if Michelle still reads these pages. She was offended by the bluntness of some our our replies.
I wonder what she thinks of Minor's hate towards Christian brothers as plainly exposed in his hope that they will be hurt or destroyed. Is this an attitude of love for errant brothers or of hate-the latter. If I wrote to someone saying I hoped they would be hurt or destroyed financially that would reasonably be classified as hate mail right.
I wonder what Michelle thinks of an AngloNasty suggesting YEC's were potential letter-bombers?
Isn't it interesting that no Anglican has written against such horrible suggestions & hate?
I'm back!
This blog has become worth following again. 'anonymous', thanks for your detailed work here and careful and moderate tone throughout. The reference you gave a few posts back to Jack P. Lewis in "The Days of Creation: An Historical Survey of Interpretation," JETS 32/4 (Dec 1989) 433-455 was fascinating, so I'm just reposting it because it looks like Lewis has made a really valuable contribution on one particular question. Thanks for digging it up.
For others logging in, I would recommend you skim reasonably quickly through the blog authors' material applying the simple test of where, in a blog that claims to be upholding the gospel, can you find any explanation or even reference to the meaning of Jesus' death for the forgiveness of our sins, and his bodily resurrection in anticipation of future glory.
My own reading suggests that the gospel itself has been thoroughly sidelined by a blog that appears to confuse acceptance of the gospel with acceptance of one not particularly scientific view of how to interpret Genesis 1-3.
The recommendation by Craig to check out CMI and AiG in wikipedia is also worth pursuing.
Thanks anonymous for your work here, and I hope and pray that it bears fruit further afield.
Thank you also to the blog initiators for allowing this forum for the presentation of anonymous' views. It may not have been what you intended, but it seems the blog has had some value after all. May God cause his light to shine on you and give you peace.
God bless,
Gordon
The arch Anglomocker Cheng is back. Presumably he had to take a sabbatical from his Atheist Admiration Society where they gush at the greatness of Hume and Darwin.
It says something about Cheng's level of scholarship that he recommends Wikipedia as a reliable source, when any idiot can edit it. Not without reason has it been called "The Abomination that Causes Misinformation".
Maybe we will hear from Cheng about how he twists the Gospel that Paul stated in 1 Cor. 15 to cope with his faith that Adam's sin didn't really result in death, "the last enemy". Maybe the Last Adam, Jesus, really didn't conquer physical death either.
Nothing in Lewis' paper refuted the claim that the overwhelming majority of exegetes supported literal days. Certainly, many proposed a chiliastic scheme where each Day of Creation corresponded to (but was not equal to) one thousand years of subsequent Earth history. The Seventh Day of rest corresponded to the future Millennium where Christ would reign for 1000 years. They were convinced that the world was not yet 6000 years old at the time of writing. Note, they still believed in literal 24 hours in history.
One of the leading Presbyterian compromisers, Davis Young admits:
‘But the interesting feature of this patristic view is that the equation of days and millennia was not applied to the creation week but rather to subsequent history. They did not believe that the creation had taken place over six millennia but that the totality of human history would occupy six thousand years, a millennium of history for each of the six days of creation.’
The problem for compromisers like our anon is to explain why the church fathers and reformers didn't perform his arcane eisegesis on certain passages to deny a historical Genesis. And while he's at it, they can explain why nonsense like the Framework Hypothesis, gap theory and day-age theories were unknown before they were invented as a reaction to uniformitarian "science".
Is MinorNasty prepared to pay CMI's legal costs if an author sues AiG for falsely attributing authorship to someone else? If not, stop pontificating about how CMI should just sit back and smile sweetly, and violate Romans 13.
And while he spruiks "just preach the Gospel", he can't actually be doing that much. People involved in street witnessing know they receive questions about Genesis and creation/evolution all the time. And the questioners won't be fobbed off with "don't worry about that; just trust in Jesus". Conversely, one reason that most people are afraid to witness is fear that they won't be able to answer these questions.
No, creation ministries are servants of the Church, equipping them to follow 1 Peter 3:15 and 2 Cor. 10:5, as well as Jesus's greatest commandment to love God will all our ... minds.
Genesis' literary form matches exactly what we would expect if it were historical narrative, and doesn't match the features we would expect of poetry.
Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar states:
‘One of the most striking peculiarities in the Hebrew consecution of tenses is the phenomenon that, in representing a series of past events, only the first verb stands in the perfect, and the narration is continued in the imperfect.’
Joüon's and Muraoka's A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew states more technically:
"Usually a narrative begins with a qatal (historic perfect) and continues with a wayyiqtol (waw consecutive), which is followed, if need be, by other wayyiqtols, …"
No wonder that Genesis was understood as historical narrative for most of church history.
Theophilus of Antioch (2ndC) and Basil the Great (4thC) thought that God had deliberately made the sun on Day 4 after the vegetation to to show how foolish sun worship was.
The AngloCompromisers bleat on about how Genesis is a polemic, not history, but these early exegetes used the historical truths as an automatic polemic against falsehood. Indeed, if Genesis were not historically true, it would be a useless polemic.
It's also notable that until the rise of uniformitarian geology, exegetes regarded death and suffering as the result of the Fall. This entails that any fossils must post-date Adam, and is one of the strongest refutations of any old-earth compromise. E.g. Basil the Great:
"Let the Church neglect nothing; everything is a law. God did not say: "I have given you the fishes for food, I have given you the cattle, the reptiles, the quadrupeds." It is not for this that He created, says the Scripture. In fact, the first legislation allowed the use of fruits, for were were still judged worthy of Paradise.
"What is the mystery which is concealed for you under this?
"To you, to the wild animals and the birds, says the Scripture, fruits, vegetation and herbs (are given) .... We see, however, many wild animals which do not eat fruits. what fruit does the panther accept to nourish itself? What fruit can the lion satisfy himself with?
"Nevertheless, these beings, submitting to the law of natures, were nourished by fruits. But when man changed his way of life and departed from the limit which had been assigned him, the Lord, after the Flood, knowing that men were wasteful, allowed them the use of al foods; "eat all that in the same was as edible plants (Gen. 9:3). By this allowance, the other animals also received the liberty to eat them [I would say the animals began to eat meat after the Fall, which is the big discontinuity as Basil himself says].
"Since then the lion is a carnivore, since then also vultures watch for carrion. For the vultures were not yet looking over the earth at the very moment when the animals were born; in fact, nothing of what had received designation or existence had yet died so that the vultures might eat them. Nature had not yet divided, for it was all in its freshness: hunters did not capture, for such was not yet the practice of men; the beasts, for their part, did not yet tear their prey, for they were not carnivores .... But all followed the way of the swans, and all grazed on the grass of the meadow ...
"Such was the first creation, and such will be the restoration after this. Man will return to his ancient constitution in rejecting malice, a life weighed down with cares, the slavery of the soul with regard to daily worries. When he has renounced all this, he will return to that paradisal life which was not enslaved to the passions of the flesh, which is free, the life of closeness to God, a partaker of the life of the angels."
[On the origin of Man 2:6-7)]
Gordon Cheng said:
I'm back!
Gordon welcome.
Gordon said:
For others logging in, I would recommend you skim reasonably quickly through the blog authors' material applying the simple test of where,in a blog that claims to be upholding the gospel,can you find any explanation or even reference to the meaning of Jesus' death for the forgiveness of our sins, and his bodily resurrection in anticipation of future glory.
Gordon as I understand it the sites creators set it up as a forum to discuss what they saw as heresy as promoted by certain Anglicans.
Martin Luther said,something along the lines of-the Christian soldier should be where ever battle is loudest. I believe the battle is at the place where Christians compromise the creation account because it does not fit in with the long ages which they perceive as proven fact.
Other denominations have set out earlier on the theistic evolution path & been destroyed ending up as liberals who ultimately reject the truth of the Gospel. I have met so many of them who openly admit they no longer believe Jesus literally died & rose again. So what do they have? Some social gospel stripped of power.
So ultimately the battle, beginning with Creation, is fully about the Gospel. Sydney Anglicans tell me that much(but not all of course)of the Anglican church beyond Sydney is very liberal,holding views of the Gospel quite the opposite of that held by most SA’s.
Now sections of the Sydney Anglican community are passionate supporters of theistic evolution, that view which began the slide of brother Anglican churches into liberal belief. So passionate that one SA bloger would like to see Creation Ministries International burnt or destroyed financially. But not one YEC bloger here has intimated or written about his interest in seeing the Anglican Church in Sydney,or any part of it,hurt or destroyed financially. That speaks to me.
Convinced the slide to liberalism & away from the Biblical Gospel begins with the reinterpretation of Genesis to conform to extra Biblical beliefs I have spent considerable time opposing this view here & elsewhere.
Therefore this is about the Gospel, that Good News which tells the sinner forgiveness is freely available to any who will repent & accept the free gift of Christ. That He paid the price for sin, dying in our place & rising again. It is by grace we are saved not by works so that no one can boast. It is this grace of God which saved me 30+ years ago & so to be told that the blogers on this site (which of course includes me)avoid the Gospel or preach a different Gospel-believe in 6-day creation or perish-is both untrue & unfair.
Gordon wrote:
My own reading suggests that the gospel itself has been thoroughly sidelined by a blog that appears to confuse acceptance of the gospel with acceptance of one not particularly scientific view of how to interpret Genesis 1-3.
Gordon: simply untrue
Gordon said:
The recommendation by Craig to check out CMI and AiG in wikipedia is also worth pursuing.
Gordon- I am no expert but knowledgeable people tell me wikipedia is edited by whoever wishes to do so & is therefore of doubtful authenticity.
Gordon said:
Thanks anonymous for your work here, and I hope and pray that it bears fruit further afield.
Thank you also to the blog initiators for allowing this forum for the presentation of anonymous' views. It may not have been what you intended, but it seems the blog has had some value after all. May God cause his light to shine on you and give you peace.
Gordon: as I understand it the initiators started this site with the idea that any who wish may freely express their opinions whether agreeing or disagreeing with the initiators views. No censorship.
Gordon I believe you are the Gordon Cheng who described YEC’s as morons & imbeciles which is not a helpful,to say the least. However I hope we can put this rudeness behind us & possibly learn from one another. Do you regret describing YEC’s this way?
God bless indeed.
Warwick
God bless,
Gordon
JUNE
Sadly, ktisophilos, you seem determined to further lower the tone of the conversation on this thread. There seems to be little point in debating with you because any substantive argument is almost entirely subsumed under a sea of name-calling and mockery. I notice on other posts that even some YECS contributors have expressed concern over the tone of some of the comments, and it seems to me that this concern is well founded. If you think this sort of behaviour somehow advances your argument, then I think you are mistaken.
ktisophilos said...
The problem for compromisers like our anon is to explain why the church fathers and reformers didn't perform his arcane eisegesis on certain passages to deny a historical Genesis.
Frankly, I don't see it as a problem. I've asked before if you affirm everything that the church fathers taught, but you failed to answer. I know that I do not. I do not affirm everything that Luther taught. The reason is that I think the Bible overrides them and, at some points, they misunderstood it. ISTM that you're happy to enlist the support of figures from church history (although, as Lewis points out, not some of the more significant figures) when it suits you, but I doubt that you do agree with them on every point.
The question is not what the church fathers taught or believed, but what someone believed when they heard Gen 1 two weeks after it was written and it was read out to them. That puts the church fathers over 1,000 years past that time, so they have no better appreciation for the historical context than we do, for we now have a far better understanding of the ancient Near East before 500BC than they did have then.
So your problem is why you think agreeing with the church fathers on this matter (and still disagreeing on others) somehow proves your point, unless you are of the opinion that they are a greater authority than the Bible itself.
ktisophilos said...
Genesis' literary form matches exactly what we would expect if it were historical narrative, and doesn't match the features we would expect of poetry.
At this point there is clearly little reason to continue the discussion for at least two reasons. First, I have no great desire to continue to be called names and have my faith called into question by those with no authority to do so. Second, I have repeatedly addressed the issue you raise in this point and you have apparently entirely failed to apprehend anything I've said. For the last time, I have said Gen 1 is not poetry, but I have said that not all narrative needs be historical, and there are clear indications that Gen 1 is formally distinct from historical narrative in the OT.
ktisophilos said...
Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar states:
‘One of the most striking peculiarities in the Hebrew consecution of tenses is the phenomenon that, in representing a series of past events, only the first verb stands in the perfect, and the narration is continued in the imperfect.’
Gesenius' analysis of the Hebrew verbal system is considerably out of date, and that is reflected in your next quote which actually doesn't say the same thing:
ktisophilos said...
Joüon's and Muraoka's A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew states more technically:
"Usually a narrative begins with a qatal (historic perfect) and continues with a wayyiqtol (waw consecutive), which is followed, if need be, by other wayyiqtols, …"
You see, this is not really "more technically," the change in terminology actually reflects a change in the understanding of the Hebrew verbal system. Nonetheless, these prove nothing about how we should understand Genesis (as I've said over and over). Notice no grammar ties the use of this to historiography?
MinorNasty- please answer the above question without the usual ducking & weaving.
I will not answer to that childish, abusive name. To do so would encourage your bad behaviour.
God's blessing upon you Warwick, praying for you.
And while he spruiks "just preach the Gospel", he can't actually be doing that much. People involved in street witnessing know they receive questions about Genesis and creation/evolution all the time. And the questioners won't be fobbed off with "don't worry about that; just trust in Jesus".
I'm not a full time evangelist, but but I do get the opportunity to share the gospel fairly frequently.
The age of the earth has only come up very rarely, and people are very comfortable with the idea that Genesis 1 is figurative and poetical. It makes perfect sense to them. And then you get to move on immediately to sin, Jesus and his death and resurrection.
YECSers, by contrast, are forced at this point to spend days and weeks attempting to prove that 99% of the scientific establishment is wrong, and that a tiny minority actually have it right.
It is destructive of the pure preaching of the gospel. A distraction.
Anyway, I'm hopeful that the latest dispute between CMI and AiG may well be the beginning of the end for this little aberration in Christian history. AiG and Ken Ham are very strongly associated with Creation Science in the US. If CMI can establish in court that Ham has practiced fraud for financial gain, the movement as a whole will suffer a devastating blow.
I make no apologies for wishing for an end to an organisation and a movement that is interfering with the true preaching of the gospel. I can wish an end to the organisation, the message and the methods while still wishing well for Ken Ham and others involved.
Despite what Warwick says, I certainly have no hatred for Ken Ham or anyone on this thread. Those who are still making up their minds can read this thread from top to bottom and decide which side appears "hateful".
Kist, I am growing tired of your insults. But my Master said "Bless those who curse you", and so I pray that God will richly bless you, your wife and your children (you have 4, don't you?)
A summary of the AiG vs CMI dispute, written by a secularist.
I thank MinorNastyCraig for displaying the secularists take on the AiG vs CMI situation. Though it has been placed on this site before it makes good reading. Interesting to see the writer definitely a 'hostile witness' states: 'My own conclusion is that the ethics of this case are all in favour of the Australian group, which has been treated with cynical malice by the Americans.'
MinorNasty says:
'If I am "nasty" for wishing the end of these organisations, what label should you give the organisations themselves, which are using commercial and legal means to destroy each other?'
He freely admits he wishes to see an end of these organizations. Surely he deserves condemnation & the MinorNasty title because of this hate alone. Why would any Christian wish harm on Christian brothers? BUT maybe CMI & followers aren’t Christian (in his mind) as they believe in a young earth? Actually that never occurred to me before but it makes some sense. Are we your Christian brothers Craig?
From months of reading what he & his mates have written about CMI I know they have precious little understanding of what CMI believes & promotes, or the wonderful salvation results this organization has achieved over more than two decades. But none the less he wants to see his brothers burnt or financially destroyed! Maybe just for having the gall to promote a different (& I believe more Biblical) view of Scripture.
AngloNasties also lied claiming that AiG would not answer their questions. Following this they were given a written personal invitation to pose questions but as of the last time I asked no questions had been received. They didn’t even know the Australian organizations name had been changed from Answers in Genesis to Creation Ministries International, two years previously! Nothin like keeping up with the latest.
Further CMI is not using any means to ‘destroy’ AiG. CMI attempted personal negotiation with AiG for two years before reluctantly taking the necessary legal steps. The aim of CMI’s the legal action is not to destroy anyone & to say otherwise is deceit. Even the ‘hostile witness’ knows where the blame lies.
Pertinent to this dear readers you may remember I posed this question (twice) to MinorNasty:
'Have you read the report Clarrie Briese wrote Minor? Are you suggesting he has lied, as to where the blame lies? Direct answer please so I can inform him.'
You will not be surprized that MinorNasty has ducked this important question –twice. Revealing?
BTW I use the terms AngloNasty & MinorNasty not as terms of abuse but as succinctly descriptive with tongue in cheek. I don’t know these people but as long as they lie, deceive & call their brothers, ‘morons & imbiciles’ I will continue to describe them thusly- simply succinct, accurate, descriptive tongue in cheek titles.
MinorNastysays:
'YECSers, by contrast, are forced at this point to spend days and weeks attempting to prove that 99% of the scientific establishment is wrong, and that a tiny minority actually have it right.'
Though I dispute MinorNasties 99% statement I always wonder about people who consider truth to be a matter of majority, as if it were an election issue.
Though no expert I have done some reading on various scientific disciplines & this has shown me that( for one example) medicoscientific advances have regularly come from the 'tiny minority', against the opposition & beliefs of the majority.
Scripture tells us that God had reserved a tiny majority of 7,000 who had not bent the knee to Baal. Isn't God saying the massive majority were wrong? Indeed. So in the field of truth numbers don't count.
Billions of people reject Christ, including well intentioned, sincere, highly educated thinkers. But does their majority prove anything?
God is a majority of one.
Ktisophilos, I have been unable to access this site for a while because of other activities.
I have been informed of the actions of a brood of vipers on a spoiler and time waster's site and it has spilled into this site. I won't access the other site.
The difficulties of two Christian organisations is sad and you have tried to defend one organisation. Thank you for the information on what's going on.
What you ought to do is do a google search on the two names Scandrett/Dowling. You will find it very interesting.
To summarise and perhaps add a little background you may not find there.
In 1992, the issue of Ordination of Women Priests had some momentum in the Australian Anglican Communion. The matter was yet to come up for debate at General Synod (Australia wide synod). Bishop Dowling of Goulburn decided to preempt synod by ordaining women as priests himself.
There was a man, Dr. Laurie Scandrett in Sydney Diocese, a member of Standing Committee (ie the Sydney Synod when not in session) who, once told me he was a member of St. Matthias, Centennial Park church (you know, where Michael Jensen's uncle Phillip Jensen was Rector). Laurie Scandrett went to the civil courts to obtain an interlocutory injunction to prevent Bishop Dowling ordaining women as priests. I believe Laurie Scandrett was a member of an organisation called REPA (Reformed Evangelical Protestant Association) which was around at the time and which had been spawned at St Matthias.
Of course, there were those who supported women priests who said an appeal to the civil court was out of order but among the evangelicals of the Sydney Diocese there was strong support. Certainly, leading evangelicals, including in Laurie's church were 'holding the cloak' of Laurie as he took his action. Even the Archbishop of the time, Donald Robinson, and the Vice-Principal of Moore College, Peter O'Brien came out in support of Laurie's actions and, just as you have done, they cited Romans 13 in support of the civil action. I too supported the action.
For the brood of vipers to ignore the actions of those in the Sydney Anglican Diocese (and thus tacitly condone their action) just to put the boot into other Christians in difficult circumstances is downright cruelty. It is also filled with hypocrisy.
Further, tell me if I am wrong? One of those persons has taken offence at name calling yet that same person, from almost day one, has deliberately spelt an abbreviation of your name ie Kist when Ktis would be the correct spelling.
Finally, wasn't it the Anglo forum that started the name calling and this site is just the response to those actions? Isn't this situation just the illegitimate child they conceived?
Neil
With the passage of time, Anonymous, continues to reveal himself as a deceiver and I encourage each contributer who has engaged with him to scrutinise whether he has dealt honestly with their assertions and questions.
His statement that he was citing Celsus "because there was the claim that the literal view had near universal support" is false because the "universal" term was intoduced by Ktisophilos (when quoting Davis Young) after Anonymous' posting which included the citing of the non-Christian, Celsus.
I have noted another deception of Anonymous. After he had said, on 16 June "I entirely agree that the message of the Bible is for all people in all times. This does not mean that your 21st century reading of Genesis 1 automatically agrees with a 10th century BC reading or even a 1st century AD reading of the same text." I asked him, on the same day, "Can you inform me whether you agree the overwhelming weight of Judaic and Christian belief prior to the Twentieth Century held that God had created the world in six twenty-four hour days?" Now, it would be quite clear to all reasonable people that in this and later reminders I was trying to ascertain from Anonymous whether he agreed our 21st Century reading of God creating the world in six twenty-four hour days was not a recent phenomenon but was the same as the overwhelming weight of Judaic and Christian belief prior to the 20th Century. However, somewhere along the way Anonymous shifted the goal posts by saying he was referring to Young Earth Creation Science as a recent phenomenon. This is a deceptive shift.
I make the claim, which has not yet been successfully refuted, that Young Earth Creationists (or Biblical Creationists) read Genesis 1 in the same way as the overwhelming weight of Judaic and Christian readers up to the 20th Century.
Anonymous in his "I think" assertions is danger to believers. He might say he is not a theistic evolutionist but he is an accomplice to them by giving aid and comfort through his post-modernist approach to Scripture (although he denies he is post-modernist). Theistic evolution is an abominable slight on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a death, disease, mutational, frustration and dead end riddled process which in no way identifies with the demonstrated activity of the Incarnate Lord Jesus Christ.
Advocates of Theistic Evolution rob Christ of His glory.
Anonymous might not be the one who picks up the goods but he is standing there holding the door open for the thieves to come in and rob.
As for his pious criticism of Ktisophilos' style, I say that Ktisophilos is writing the same as when he or she first came on and it had not prevented Anonymous from engaging then. No, I think Anonymous is pulling a deception and is signalling a retreat.
As regards Anonymous' question "Are you claiming that the historical characters who support your case were free from influence by their historical context?" My answer is - No doubt they came under pressure from influences arising in their historical context (as did the Alexandrian School) but on the reading of Genesis 1 they seem to have resisted and remained consistent with those who had preceded them in history.
Good Night!
Sam Drucker
You will not be surprized that MinorNasty has ducked this important question –twice. Revealing?
And I told you - I will not answer a question using that term of abuse.
Do you understand? If you ask the question 1000 times using that label, I will ignore it 1000 times.
If you want me to answer a question, you will use my name, which is Craig, and you will address the question with what is considered normal courtesy in our society.
Anyway, once more, the bystanders who haven't made up their minds can decide which "side" is behaving in a more Christian manner.
BTW I use the terms AngloNasty & MinorNasty not as terms of abuse but as succinctly descriptive with tongue in cheek. I don’t know these people but as long as they lie, deceive & call their brothers, ‘morons & imbiciles’ I will continue to describe them thusly- simply succinct, accurate, descriptive tongue in cheek titles.
This is a really sad paragraph, considering it is written by a Christian man in his sixties. I am saddened by it, and I am praying for God's blessings on you Warwick.
Finally, wasn't it the Anglo forum that started the name calling and this site is just the response to those actions? Isn't this situation just the illegitimate child they conceived?
So two wrongs make a right, that is what you are saying?
This is primary school morality.
Further, tell me if I am wrong?
You are wrong.
Regarding the court action in '92, I think it was a grave mistake. The court effectively said, "sort out your own problems." It achieved nothing except to bring the name of the church into disrepute. It certainly didn't stop other diocese in Australia from ordaining women priests.
One of those persons has taken offence at name calling yet that same person, from almost day one, has deliberately spelt an abbreviation of your name ie Kist when Ktis would be the correct spelling.
Is saying "Kist" name calling? "MinorAngloNasty", "deceiver", "viper", "compromiser", "idiot" - these are name calling. But you object to "Kist"????
Be serious...
My latest blog entry, "Name Calling"
For those who are curious, my blog gets about 4,000 hits/week. As far as I can tell, I am the third most popular Christian blog in Australia (behind Ben Myers and Darren Rowse).
I'd be interested in finding out how many hits this blog receives.
Anon persists in his bluff and bluster to retain his faith in the non-historicity of Genesis. He doesn't get this from the grammar, (he doesn't actually refute the points of Gesenius and Joüon/Muraoka that the verb patterns of Genesis (whether using old or updated terms) are just what we would expect from historical narrative.
Instead, he arrogantly proclaims his arcane interpretations of New Testament passages of fact. Never mind that this eisegesis was unheard of before the perceived "need" to harmonize with uniformitarian geology. Framework advocates like Kline and Blocher are quite open about this motivation.
MinorNasty is just stuck on stupid.
FWIW, calling me "Ktis" misses the point, since κτίζω (ktizō) is the NT Greek for "create", κτιστής (ktistēs) creator, κτίσις (ktisis) creation or creature. My pseudonym is meant to express the importance of the doctrine of Creation, as revealed by the Creator Himself. This is foundational to the doctrine of re-creation in Jesus, through whom all things were created. See also Genesis—the seedbed of all Christian doctrine.
ktisophilos said...
Anon persists in his bluff and bluster to retain his faith in the non-historicity of Genesis. He doesn't get this from the grammar, (he doesn't actually refute the points of Gesenius and Joüon/Muraoka that the verb patterns of Genesis (whether using old or updated terms) are just what we would expect from historical narrative.
That is because, if you re-read the grammars carefully, they do not make this point (as I said, you are inserting "historical" where they would rightly not). You are enlisting them in your cause, but they do not support your case.
"sam drucker" said...
As for his pious criticism of Ktisophilos' style, I say that Ktisophilos is writing the same as when he or she first came on and it had not prevented Anonymous from engaging then. No, I think Anonymous is pulling a deception and is signalling a retreat.
If you read back through the above, I posted long before Ktisophilos made any contribution to this discussion. True, his writing style appears not to have changed once he began contributing, but apparently you believe that justifies his or her continuation in that style. Now others I have read here have expressed concern over this, but you are happy to condone it (and even emulate it to some extent). I am saddened that you feel you can dismiss any criticism by labelling it "pious." I'm sure some of the Corinthians probably treated Paul's words with the same level of considered reflection.
If Ktisophilos (and Warwick and yourself) were able to restrict your comments to addressing the issues without name-calling and abuse, then it may be that this discussion could proceed in a fruitful manner. (Of course, I know someone was once nasty to you and so all bad behaviour on your part is thus eminently justified.) As it is, there seems to be more and more name-calling and less and less substance to the posts, and any words of any value are lost in the noise.
Now, however, this thread has become too long and my time can be far better spent on other matters where I am not abused for questioning dubious sacred cows. I will leave you to have the last word, and to believe that you have vanquished the forces of evil without having to engage too thoroughly with any of the points that have been made above.
Some wiser friends have convinced me to stop contributing here as well. I will, however, be writing a multi-part series on my blog describing the problems with the Young Earth Creation Science movement, and you are welcome to comment on that.
I'll also be following the court case with interest, and will be posting up links as things progress.
Once more, a blessing on Sam/John/Marc, Warwick and Ktis. I hope you find something more worthwhile to invest your time and passion in than Creation Science.
‘To escape from the plain factual statements of Genesis some Evangelicals are saying that the early chapters of Genesis are poetry or myth, by which they mean that they are not to be taken as straightforward accounts … If you act thus with Genesis you are not facing up to the facts, and that is a cowardly thing for Evangelicals to do. Genesis is not poetry. There are poetical accounts of creation in the Bible—Psalm 104, and certain chapters of Job—and they differ completely from the first chapters of Genesis. Hebrew poetry had certain characteristics, and they are not found in the first chapter of Genesis.’
E. J. Young, In The Beginning (Banner of Truth, Edinburgh) 1976, p. 18.
Wow, what a contest: most church Fathers, all Reformers, leading Hebraists like Dr Young above, Dr McCabe cited earlier, even liberal Hebraists like James Barr all agree that the Hebrew of Genesis points to its being intended to be taken as history.
On the other side, anonymous bluster and obscure eisegesis to deny this, to fit in with old-earth beliefs.
I asked Craig a question about the report Clarrie Briese wrote on the AiG/CMI situation & true to form he ducked it THREE times. Methinks he felt cornered & did the duknweev to slip out of the corner.
He says he won't answer my question until I cease & desist from name-calling & abuse. I insist that AngloNasty,MinorNasty et al are neither name-calling nor abuse as these are but well earned titles. Somewhat like John the Baptist calling the Pharisees & Sadducees 'a synagogue of Satan.' Surely if MinorNasty is name-calling & abuse then 'Synagogue of Satan must also qualify? That is unless both titles are accurate.
Further my understanding of 'abuse' from the French 'abuser' carries the meaning of to disuse, to misuse. ill-use, when in fact I have used it tongue in cheek as a very reasonable title considering his hateful attitudes. Wanting to see Christian brothers hurt is indeed nasty so Craig, live with it or do something about your nasty attitude.
Then Gordon Cheng appeared left stage after an absence & I addressed him by name, & very respectfully. However I asked if he was the same Gordon Cheng who described young earth creationists as 'morons & imbiclies.' Despite being addressed respectfully, with no abuse or name-calling he also did the duknweev.
I just can't win can I?
I have read much of what Anon has written but have to admit I tired of its complexity.
No doubt it's carefully thought out & engineered. Surely a sincerely held belief but nonetheless fatally flawed, as I see it. But that isn't my main objection to his interpretation. I believe the whole philosophy behind it to be dangerous.
My overriding objection to his whole philosophy isn't just that it is overly academic but what this philosophy means for the average but dedicated Christian.
It carries with it images of the Middle-Ages church where the priest interpreted the Bible for the common man.
I don't for one second believe Anon is a cult leader but his approach is like the cult leader who interprets Scripture for his followers.
As I see it Anon is saying we who can only read Genesis in English & don’t know the way early man would have understood Genesis need his 'glasses' so as to understand that the deeper message behind the apparent message is that we cannot be positive what the message does in fact mean! If I remember him rightly he says 'the third day' though meaning the third 24 hour period doesn't necessarily mean an historical day. Just look through my 'glasses' & you will understand, that we can't be sure. It's like the saying-I studied more & more about less & less until I came to know all there is to know about nothing.
If we need to have an intimate knowledge of how early man would have interpreted Genesis so as to understand then people thousands of years later would have the same problem. If Anon is right then these people would also be unable to comprehend the true meaning as language & culture had changed over the thousands of years. And quite possibly they knew no more of the beginning mind-set than we do.
But when we read the inspired Word of God in the NT we can comprehend the OT, from page one, through Jesus' eyes (obviously there at the beginning) & through the 'eyes' of the Apostles inspired writings. Their writings clearly demonstrate they understood Genesis to be sober historical fact. No one has been able to tender a single Scripture which would prove otherwise.
I totally reject the notion that the Almighty God (See Jer.32:27) who sees the end from the beginning, was unable to secure His Word so as to assure that all men of all times could understand it by the power of the Holy Spirit, Martin Luther's teacher.
A flawed & dangerous philosophy. One Anon is free to hold & I am equally free to condemn.
How could Amos the shepherd of Tekoa, called by God to be a prophet of restoration, have understood Scripture with his lack of education? Did he have the same cultural mind-set so as to gain the same understanding of Scripture that early man had? No.
Or maybe did he, like we, understand God's Word, its message for all men of all times, by the power of the Holy Spirit?
Martin Luther said 'we assert that Moses spoke in the literal sense, not allegorically or figuratively, i.e., that the world, with all its creatures, was created within six days, as the words read. If we do not comprehend the reason for this, let us remain pupils and leave the job of teacher to the Holy Spirit.'- Martin Luther, Lectures on Genesis.
Let us have the Holy Spirit as teacher rather than a teacher who ‘knows’ we can’t indeed know.
Eve encountered a most crafty creature who reinterpreted the word of God in the beginning and led Eve into sin which brought down her husband, Adam, which had ramifications for all of us.
God's Word is clear and the direct utterance of God in Exodus 20:11 cannot be misunderstood unless someone deliberately wants to reinterpret it.
As I have earlier said elsewhere on this site, beware of those who come to you asking "Did God Really Say?"
Sam Drucker
Can I just appeal to objective readers of this site to watch out for those who attempt to speak in niceness but not far beneath the surface lies a cold hearted contempt.
This is what you will find in many Sydney Anglicans. Not all. Not even the majority (thankfully) but a fair appraisal of things said by some on the yoursydneyanglicans. net forum on 'Peace with Evolution' earlier in the dialogue there and the actions of one of those who went behind the back of someone here and critised his belief in the Word of God to the denomination hierarchy and his own Pastor; these things and that same critic and cohorts wishing ill, even destruction, and criticising two Christian organisations, that same critic, (as Neil Moore so helpfully pointed out) hypocritically said nothing about or to the many evangelical leaders within the Sydney Diocese who condoned civil court action on a particular matter; these things, this behaviour is what lies not far below the gloss of niceness presented here and elsewhere. Deceit is hard to accept.
I urge caution in the handling of poison and likewise urge caution in accepting the invitation of that person to visit his site.
Sad to say, I see more hate than love in at least one of those people.
Correspondents who support the existence of this site are not without blemish.
The Word of God must be upheld, in love. Israel was required to take violent action to remove the threat to the faith of the people of God by the inhabitants of Canaan. That Israel failed to do this completely gave rise to the surviving inhabitants becoming a snare to Israel. The Lord Jesus introduced a covenant emphasising love but our Lord saw the need to use names such as 'hypocrites' to describe the actions of those who misrepresent God.
I lay before you the words uttered by supporters of this site in response to all that was said and done by one or more of our opponents. Judge fairly.
Sam Drucker
Warwick, You seem a little disappointed that Gordon Cheng came on for a moment but did not go on to respond to you.
Don't be perturbed. I suspect Gordon is in remorse for his sin. Neil exposed Gordon and others for their self righteousness and hypocritical behaviour on the matter of criticising two Christian organisations going through a period of difficulty and pain.
When Craig foolishly came on an said "Goodness me anon, you have COMPLETELY obliterated one of Sam/John's major points." Gordon also thought it was safe to join the fray.
To their dismay, Anonymous' argument was quickly demolished. Anonymous was exposed as being a 21st Century reinterpreter of God's Word - standing outside mainstream Christian belief. This immediately left Gordon and the other fellow with nowhere to run but home.
Sam Drucker
Sam various YEC comments here (though oft blunt)have been in a straight forward, easy to understand style. When replying these same people have obviously been at pains to reply to what the other side has actually said.
The other side with their various reinterprtations of Scripture have often done the 'duknweev' writing guardedly in such a way that one can't be sure what they actually mean & believe.
One example I would offer concerns my request that someone explain the details of what the SA theistic evolutionists believe. Craig insists that saying-we believe God used evolution-is a detailed answer! Most would be aware that T/E is about God using evolution, & an oxymoron. However from hints I gathered the SA's believe some variant & wanted to know the details. None were good enough or straightforward enough to answer my question. Why, are they ashamed to expose the details/don't know/haven't thought it through?
I think the latter as I recently met some Moore students who were sceptical about the YEC view but had little idea what we believe. They had been told we insist on 6-day creation as a salvation issue!
They proposed the T/E idea but had little understanding of what it actually entailed, just as I understand from Craig's comment.
Interestingly these young T/E's were were quite open that it was their old-earth beliefs which caused them to accept T/E.
Another strange thing is the reaction anonymous had to my quote (Pattle Pun) who openly admitted he rejected the historicity of Genesis 1 because of his scientific beliefs. I carefully explained this quote was given only to illustrate that such openess was once common but now many compromisers insist science had nothing to do with it, that their view came straight from Scripture.
The obviously intelligent & eloquent Anon claimed to misunderstood my obvious point. In fact I think this was just a part of the 'duknweev' game.
Fortunately the SA's who argued here do not make up a majority of the SA body.
Craig was advised by friends to leave this site & I think that was good advice.
And Gordon Cheng did a hit and run-apparently that same G. Cheng who described us as 'morons & imbeciles.' Apparently Craig- MinorNasty(my descriptive title for him)thinks giving accurate titles is name-calling & that we lacks courtesy! Apparently HitNRun Cheng can fling baseless accusations but that's ok.
Maybe with the departure of Anon, Craig & Cheng we may have others appear who are eager to have sensibble debate.
Warwick, I accept your sentiments. This site is a field where a lot of firmness is required in response to unkindness and deceptiveness which some correspondents brought over from the Anglo site. One even went beyond words to unleash his hatred.
In addition to the name calling you have cited who was it that introduced the LOL (and a blogspot with that title) and ROFL? It was these fellows we speak of. I just don't think it is the nature of our Lord to suggest laughing out loud and rolling on the floor with laughter at the view of your Christian brothers and sisters.
Sam Drucker
I note that 'anonymous' and CraigS have decided to pull out of discussion, so once again I think the value of returning to this blog has diminished. I certainly would not recommend it as a forum for anyone genuinely interested in the issues.
I notice that Craig has decided that rather than pursue the argument here, he will post the occasional thought about Creation Science on his blog. His first post is here:
http://creative2567.blogspot.com/2007/06/creation-science.html
and it makes worthwhile reading.
I'll just finish by repeating a point I've made in two of my four posts on this blog, which is that holding to a wrong-headed view of the meaning of Genesis 1-3, as for example the one held by the blog authors, does not necessarily make you a fool—simply misguided. Specifically, I deny calling anyone a 'moron' or an 'imbecile', as has been falsely alleged on this site.
The language of the blog authors speaks for itself, however. It is shameful.
Given that anonymous and Craig have decided not to return, I will be following their lead.
Gordon as the saying goes- everyone gives us pleasure. Some when they come & some when they leave.
I am sure there are SA'a who disagree with our point of view but may wish to discuss same without ridiculing our position or wishing that evil may befall Christian brothers. I think Craig's comment about this more than anything exposed the level of hate & contempt which a very few SA'a hold for those of a contrary view. It will make good reading in my book!
I trust you keep your word & don't recommend this blog to like-minded people.
The language here is shamefull Gordon? That's the pot calling the kettle black. You guys sure are entertaining. You have no idea what we know.
As regards the 'Moron & Imbecile' comments we shall see.
How peaceful it is here when the nasties disappear.
I was looking at some stuff on the AngloForum and saw this:
'and I (repeatedly) make the point that the interpretation of Gen 1-11 offered by groups such as “Answers in Genesis” actually misinterprets the text and leads readers astray.'
This was from Martin Shields.
As an ex theistic evolutionist I ask 'leads readers away' from what Martin or anon rather? Have any of you noticed the uncanny similarity of Anon & Martin Shields writing style?
After attending an AiG seminar in the 80's all my doubts about the truth of Scripture faded away. Quite reasonably I wondered & worried about the truth of Scripture as a T/E because if Genesis 1 can't be taken as God's explanation of creation, in history, then what else is just a story. The flood maybe? Just local or maybe it's simply an allegory? Maybe as some liberals say the parting of the Red/Reed sea was no miracle just a strong wind. The problem being that reinterpretation is like rust in an automobile in that once it begins it is almost impossible to stop unless you cut the corroded parts out. Even then when rust has spread it is only a matter of time until it springs up somewhere else.
But then as I read more & more AiG literature I came to understand that the Bible could be taken as historical fact. Certainly there are parables but it doesn't take much IQ to work that out.
What is the effect of AiG teaching? It brings us to the understanding that the Bible is the truth, that the Gospel begins with the real sin of real people as recorded in Genesis.
Isn't it interesting that Rev. 14:7 says that the eternal Gospel is to worship the creator. Curious that some say that creation is a side issue. Not to God apparently. They apparently have a more limited view of the Gospel than God.
Years later I was at Macquarie Uni. & met a genetics student called Luke who was attending a church with a T/E pastor,who said he was losing his faith because of what was being taught in his genetics classes. The T/E idea made no sense to him as he considered almighty God was able to do what He said He did & compelled to record the Truth.
Luke came to my home & over some months & borrowed AiG Video's & books on the subject.
The transformation was rewarding & amazing. His whole demeanour changed-doubts now replaced by confidence. I spoke with his compromising pastor about presenting a creation message to the whole church & the suggestion was rudely rejected.
Martin thinks that believing Genesis Ch.1 to be an historical account of history leads people astray. My long experience here & overseas shows the opposite.
This site will continue to expose the heretical teaching which has invaded the Sydney Anglican Diocese.
Many evangelicals in the USA, because of the apalling state of the Episcopal Church in the USA, are already a bit wary of the Episcopal Church in Australia.
Those in evangelical churches in the wide vista of this world need only to google on heretics and they will learn of the down hill trend occurring within the Sydney Diocese of the Episcopal Church.
Comments posted here are helpful but most international readers will look more often at the blogs.
More blogs to come.
Sam Drucker
Well I said I'd be going, but this is just too good to pass up. Craig Schwarze has blogged an excellent comment regarding Augustine (who by the way, does not support the YEC view as you are outlining it here)
Here's the place to look:
http://creative2567.blogspot.com/2007/06/augustine-on-science.html
It is an excellent quote. Augustine's observations match the experience I 've had with atheists recently, who by and large use YEC as an opportunity to scoff at the stupidity of Christians. I spend a fair bit of my early conversations with atheists attempting to persuade them that not all Bible believers are committed to YEC, after which we can generally move on to talk about actual gospel matters--God the creator, God the redeemer, Jesus' life, death, and bodily resurrection for the forgiveness of sins.
OK, I will leave this site for a while, but if I find more worthwhile material on Craig's blog, I may drop by to report it.
Cheers and best regards,
Gordon
Gordon, considering the poor standard of what Craig has posted here & his expressed hatred of his Christian brothers-(wishing harm would come to AiG & CMI) I don't think anyone here would be much interested in what he has to say.
I am just speaking personally of course as I do not speak for anyone else.
My experience here & overseas with atheists & agnostics is the opposite of that which you report. I also have been lead to people whose faith was all but destroyed by the mental juggling exercise called theistic evolution, at best an oxymoron. A belief which is contrary both to evolution & Scripture. Evolution needs no gods & God needs no evolution.
Are you able to supply letters from ex-Athiests expressing the fact that it was T/E that was instrumental in their conversion?
Gordon said,
"The language of the blog authors speaks for itself, however. It is shameful."
In life, when I hear people articulate ideas like the above, I've learned to quickly recognise it as self-righteousness. That is, you are actually putting your own "righteousness" forward instead of Christ's. Gordon, you confuse your own middle-class values with Christ's.
Maybe it's all those years I spent living on the street. Maybe it's the "losers" I prefer to hang out with. Maybe, it's me and I'm not you....but....
Today, like most days at work, I was called a "cunt" by one of my clients. Truth be known, I'd rather have a man be a man and abuse me in an honest manly way (i.e. call me a "cunt") than listen to someone like you use the opportunity to elevate yourself over us because you consider that we are crude. Frankly, Gordon, I don't give a fuck!
Come on, don't be shy and whatever you do, don't keep that first thought to yourself. Share it with all. No? Well, I'll do it for you: "Oh, dear, what a brute. he CAN'T be a Christian!"
I had wanted to post this as a separate blog but I've decided against it despite its fascinating final point.
Many times the anti-YECs gang have tautologically defined creationism as unimportant and far from people's minds. Yes, guys, that billions of dollars, no trillions of dollars are spent each year in academia, television, Hollywood, business, print medium, etc etc to prop up a theory of origins that by definition removes God completely from playing any role, means it is a dead horse. And yes, notwithstanding guys like Gordon and CraigS saying over and over again, "The age of the earth has only come up very rarely, and people are very comfortable with the idea that Genesis 1 is figurative and poetical. It makes perfect sense to them. And then you get to move on immediately to sin, Jesus and his death and resurrection", people are just ignoring all that stuff in the media about fossils, ape men, fungi being our latest ancestor, aliens and the age of the universe.
[BTW Craig, stop beating the monkey mate. We know that you don't ask NON-CHRISTIAN people that question. In any case, even if they asked you, and you told them that Genesis was a piece of poetry, do you honestly think that they'd go away and think, "Gee, I know the earth is billions of years old, I know that plants didn't come before the sun, I know that whales didn't come before land-dwelling creatures...well, gee whiz, despite these incongruities, I can really trust all the Bible now that I know that the first page of it, although it kind of looks like a chronology of sorts, is only a myth, something like, hmmm...what's that pagan story that the Eouri people have..or was it the Batak people of Lake Toba and their origin tale... or maybe, just maybe, it could, with a little effort, match up with that exciting tale of Marduk and co.?]
No, what people really need are: To be handed tracts (i.e. You're-a-sinner-and-you're-going-to-hell-if-you-don't-accept-Jesus kind of stuff), given 2 Ways To Be Bored, I mean, To Live, have their faces painted, given balloons, invited to sing a few carols at Xmas time, to listen to talks by famous Christian scientists who believe that God loves you so much that he actually in his plentiful benevolence made babies to suffer from cystic fibrosis, women to get breast cancer etc etc.
No, it definitely is a waste of time spending, for example, 8 hours on your feet, for 5 days, discussing where we came from, who we are, that there is a creator, that Christ is his name, that he loves you so much that he gave the clearest sign possible through his death, and that by his physical resurrection he proved that physical death is not a part of God's plan for the original creation. No it's all unimportant and no one is really interested in origins. Yep, what a waste of time. Well, Warwick, you're a loser. Fancy giving up that well-paid job you had and cutting your wage by two-thirds or three-quarters, or whatever it was, and spending far too many hours away from home. Yes, Warwick, you should have been like Peter Jensen and sat in a beautiful manse in that really up-market suburb and got over $100,000 for serving God in the only real way possible.
So what's the unbiased evidence, seeing as YECs are liars, morons and parasites and can't be trusted? Check out the following BBC funded MORI survey in which it was found, surprise, surprise, surprise, that more than half of the British public DO NOT accept evolution, preferring to believe that creationism and ID Theory provide a better explanation.
Yep, we are really wasting our time standing in the cold and heat and getting painful feet and rotten sleep because you have to go and do a night-shift straight after.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4648598.stm
Cheng is notorious on fhe Anglocommpromisers site for his supercilious mocking of those who held the same view of Genesis as most Church Fathers and all the Reformers. He even claimed that this view might be demonnic. Conversely, he is full of praise for Christ-haters like Darwin and Hume.
And now he misrepresents Augustine, which is his fault for relying on MinorNasty. But he didn't quote the following:
‘Let us, then, omit the conjectures of men who know not what they say, when they speak of the nature and origin of the human race. … They are deceived, too, by those highly mendacious documents which profess to give the history of many thousand years, though, reckoning by the sacred writings, we find that not 6000 years have yet passed.’ ["Of the Falseness of the History Which Allots Many Thousand Years to the World’s Past", De Civitate Dei (The City of God) 12(10).
Yeah right Gordo, Augustine wasn't a YEC. Pull the other one. Then tell us how you tell people about the Gospel, but omitting the part about how "the Last Adam" conquered death, "the last enemy" that entered the world because of the sin of "the first man, Adam" (all in 1 Cor. 15).
ktis, if you read Genesis as you read my posts it is not hard to see why you misread Genesis.
I said of Augustine:
(who by the way, does not support the YEC view as you are outlining it here)
italics mine.
I said would return from time to time to point out any relevant comments on Craig's blog, so I simply direct readers to:
http://creative2567.blogspot.com/2007/06/hate-site-goes-obscene.html
Regards to all.
Gordon
Gordon I asked you a question which you have not attempted to answer. I will ask it again with a wider scope, to assist.
I have met many people who believed in evolution who said this belief stopped them from taking the Bible seriously. I spoke with one (Brian)at length showing him that evolution was a belief without proof, therefore nothing he had to believe. In fact we had a few chats.
A few months later he phoned & excitedly told me he had become a Christian, thanking me for what I had done. He was at the time running a wedding reception place & said he hosted many Christian events & that numerous people from different denominations had preached the Gospel but as he believed in evolution it made no sense. He was well aware that evolution needs no gods. He said my information put the Gospel in perspectice & led to his salvation.
He wrote to me explaining this in detail & I still have his letter & numerous others.
Question Gordon: do you have such letters where people who believed in naturalistic evolution became Christian after hearing your God used evolution story?
Well Cheng, why don't you demonstrate from Scripture that most Church Father and all Reformers were wrong (and maybe demonic)? And stop weaselling out of the fact that Augustine explicitly affirmed a young earth.
Then you can explain why Genesis shouldn't be taken as historical narrative when it has all the features common to Hebrew historical narrative. And explain why the Genesis days with a numeric and evening+morning are not historical, although numbered days and evening+morning is a clear indicator of normal-length days elsewhere in Scripture. Further, tell us how you would evangelize an unbeliever concerning "the wages of sin is death", that death is "the last enemy", and that the actions of "the Last Adam" relate to those of "the first man, Adam" if there has been death of undoubted Homo sapiens a hundred thousand years before the biblical Adam.
Interesting: Craig's blog says:
"Personal Evangelism - not so good
"Talking to some people, I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that reformed evangelicals are not terribly good at personal evangelism, and this is true of the local anglican scene as much as anywhere. I'm very keen on checking out any effective personal evangelism material anyone has. If you've got something, please email it to me. "
I posted:
"Hardly surprising, since the Anglican church in effect tells people to trust "science" over Scripture when it comes to origins. Hardly surprising that people will trust "science" that also says that people are born gay, that dead men don't rise, virgins don't conceive, &c."
"Note that those who use "Way of the Master" [as another poster recommended] will tell you that unbelievers often have questions on the first book of the Bible. They won't be fobbed off by "don't worry about that; just trust in Jesus." Yeah right, when we read through the Bible, where does it start to tell the truth? "
Readers should note the pride that constrains many Sydney Episcopalians such as Gordon Cheng.
They believe the Sydney Diocese and its theological seminary, Moore College, has it all. All knowledge, all wisdom, the Lord's Church resides here. The Diocese is the Way.
It is a stench in their nostrils that a blogspot should arise by the title of Sydney Anglican Heretics.
Oh what embarrassment! How cruel that someone should speak so badly of us to the world. What shall we do now that they have out-argued us on our, well, a little loose interpretation of Genesis?
I know, says Gordon, I will come on this site from time to try and deflect visitors to another blogspot which is more sympathetic to the greatest Episcopalian diocese on earth.
Well, Gordon, all I can say is ..............................................................................................................................................................................Gottcha! Game over, we win!
Sam Drucker
Oh, and for the record. I don't agree with the language occasionally used by John.
Together on many things but not on that.
Sam Drucker
Ktiso a friend (now missionary)studied at a Sydney Bible College & was taught the usual stuff-you know the story that Genesis 1-11 isn't history or as his lecturer said- 1-11 is a bit dickey. My friend asked-at what verse does the 'dickey' bit stop? For example did Abram have a father or is his father 'dickey' as well. The lecturer, put on the spot, refused to answer. I imagine he had none.
So in answer to your question-where does the truth start? They don't know. However if I understand Martin Anon & others correctly the truth bobs up here & there, somewhat like the Scarlet Pimpernel- they seak him here, they seek him there...
Yes I know some of our brethren would say my friend was a little disrespectful in his attitude towards his perfectly gentlemanly compromising lecturer. But rubbish is rubbish isn't it.
I am sure you would know of Prof. Douglas Kelly the reformed Theologian, the one who spoke at a conference at Moore College some years ago, 1999 I think. He finds no Biblical support for the SA's various T/E or Documentary Hypothesis beliefs considering that these folk have 'Imported an alien philosophical proceedure into the interpretation of Scripture'- Creation and Change p119.
When he spoke at Moore, at the 1999 AiG conference all students & staff were personally invited to attend, free of charge I believe. Only very few students did so & two of the students independantly said they had been strongly advised not to do so. The lecturers & students would have been able to directly challenge such a distinguished man but...
Another quote from Prof. Kelly is so relevant here 'This chapter has suggested that it must be some factor from outside the Scripture itself that has caused disctingished Christian exegetes to bring in such a tortured mode of interpretation of texts, which though rich in literary form, have always been understood to furnish a clear reference to historical, chronological realities.' He goes on to show how Hugh Ross admits his extra Biblical import.
I thought the 'tortured mode of interpretation' very relevant to the back-roads meanderings of Mr Anon.
Sam I was also concerned about John's language.
Though I have respect for all people as God's creatures I have no respect for any doctrines which undermine or attempts to hide the truth of Scripture. I think these extra-Biblical ideas evil, and defined by 2 Co.10:5 as arguments & pretensions which set themselves up against the knowledge of God.
However I always pray that people will be enlightened by the Holy Spirit to discerne what is ultmate truth. Truth which doesn't exist in the opinions of men but only in the Word of God.
So as unpleasant as his language was it pales into insignificance when compared to 'the tortured mode of interpretation' Prof. Douglas Kell's words- which some of our liberal brethren promote as truth.
That is truly offensive way beyond two swear words.
I also thought that John's language was a concern. Quite aside from intrinsic foulness, they give the Anglocompromisers something to whinge about. But contrast this with the high praise for arch-Anglomocker Cheng, who suggested that YECs might be demonically inspired as well as moronic.
But their compromise is worse, as Warwick says, because it tells the world that "science" (which they mistakenly believe includes evolution and uniformitarianism) trumps the Bible when it comes to Earth history. And although they think that they are so great, a recent report said:
And not all evangelical churches are forging ahead. "While Melbourne Anglicans declined by 43,000, or 9.1 per cent, Sydney Anglicans (the most evangelical diocese) declined by 90,000 or 10.5 per cent — so much for the claims of their style of Anglicanism," [Prof. Gary Bouma] said." [http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/drop-in-youth-religion-a-matter-of-interpretation/2007/06/29/1182624171503.html] Hardly surprise to the people who run this site, since they have pointed out that the liberals are just more consistent--they treat every part of the Bible the same way that Sydney treats Genesis.
These statistics provided by Ktisophilos will come as a severe blow for the Diocese.
With great hope and confidence the Diocese adopted the strategy of the Archbishop in having 10% of the population in the Church.
Instead of going forward the Diocese is going backwards or even under.
Something is wrong. As with the crew of the good ship 'Jonah' something must be jettisoned. Is there something wrong with what the Diocese teaches? Is there a penalty for rejecting the Word of God?
Neil
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