Children's ministries as easy targets or true outreach (re neo-orthodoxy)

[EarlyActs]

I still don’t recall your response to the ultra glider and his sense of science

 

[EarlyActs]

This is reading into Scripture what you want to see. You are making assumptions that words in the text mean what you think they mean today. The word dividing is used multiple times throughout Genesis 1 - dividing light and darkness, water above from water below, land and water. This repetition of 'dividing' is a literary device, highlighting God's creative acts and his ordering of the world. Viewing it as describing actual space-time events is missing the point and distorts the meaning of the text.


Yes, I accept the supernatural basis. But my understanding of Scripture is not to conform my views to uniformitarian, gradualist views. Nor is it to conform with evolution (which I am undecided about) or any other modern Scientific view. My aim is purely to read the text as it was originally meant to be understood. We are in a much better position to do that today than Christians have been for many centuries due to the large amount of ancient texts that have been discovered - especially in light of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery. If you want to call that neo-orthodoxy, then go ahead.

The way you used the term dividing just now is neo-orthodox. In one sentence! You said it was just a literary device … to describe his creative acts and ordering. Which never happened bc you then say it is a mistake to think of them as space-time.

If they are not space-time, that are not there at all. That is what supernatural means—that they do enter and are found in the natural. Gradualism does not have anything outside itself, outside of nature, which is why Lewis called it Nature—capitalizing the N, as though it had the powers and intelligence of a deity. Bc people have certainly attempted to give it those powers , to say it “designs” when that cannot be the case. There even said evolution “designs.” Genesis means the opposite of that.

I notice in Deut 4:32+ that Moses compares creation in the distant past to the exodus. It was a deliberate, planned act by God, of which there is nothing else of the kind in the universe.

Happy Christmas to you!

 

[Sereni-tea]

I agree with you that the Creation was a deliberate, planned act by God. Everything was creted by Him and for Him and He alone holds all things together. Scripture affirms this. And in Genesis 1 we see God ordering His creation to achieve His purposes. What is important is to approach the text in its context, without reading into the text our own modern day biases. Genesis was written to an ancient people using a language and context of their day, not ours. The text itself, written in ancient Hebrew, is an intricate passage, filled with literary devices and presented within the ancient cosmological understanding of the day. Thus it talks about watery chaos - which to them was the pre-existent state of creation. It talks about the 'raqia' - the solid dome above the earth that holds back the waters above the earth. It is why they can talk about the light before the sun is created, because they did not understand the light of day as coming from the sun in the way that we do today. All of these ideas are consistent with an ancient view of the universe. God wasn't interested in correcting their views on science as it had no bearing on the message He was conveying.

Genesis 1 is not a straight-forward scientific account of Creation as many try to make it. The passage contains many literary devices including word plays, and repetition. The passage is entirely structured around the number 7 which was the divine number and represented completeness. Every word in the passage in Hebrew has been carefully placed. But we lose so much of this in English and even more when we read it with our modern day biases. However, God has gifted us with scholars who are familiar with the ancient languages and context and have done the hard work for us. So we can learn how to read this and other passages the way they are meant to be read. And when I approach the passage in this way, I find it says nothing that resembles the ideas of the so called young earth creationists, nor the ideas of the so called old earth creationists. Instead I have altogether rejected a concordist view of the passage as I see such views as trying to distort either Scripture or science to suit their own purposes. Instead I take a non-concordist view which I think is more faithful to the original intention of the author. But do not assume that just because I hold a non-concordist view that I think the events described in Genesis never happened. I believe they describe real events. They are just told in a way that brings out the theological message that was intended, not a scientific message.

So you can talk about the errors of 'gradulism' or 'evolution' or whatever you like but none of that has anything to do with how I read the passage. If you wish to discuss Scripture, then please do so (that is what I am here for, althought I do not have much time these days, and I apologise for that!). If you wish to argue science then great, (but I am not interested in that).

Blessings to you. Happy Christmas!

 

[EarlyActs]

I agree with you that the Creation was a deliberate, planned act by God. Everything was creted by Him and for Him and He alone holds all things together. Scripture affirms this. And in Genesis 1 we see God ordering His creation to achieve His purposes. What is important is to approach the text in its context, without reading into the text our own modern day biases. Genesis was written to an ancient people using a language and context of their day, not ours. The text itself, written in ancient Hebrew, is an intricate passage, filled with literary devices and presented within the ancient cosmological understanding of the day. Thus it talks about watery chaos - which to them was the pre-existent state of creation. It talks about the 'raqia' - the solid dome above the earth that holds back the waters above the earth. It is why they can talk about the light before the sun is created, because they did not understand the light of day as coming from the sun in the way that we do today. All of these ideas are consistent with an ancient view of the universe. God wasn't interested in correcting their views on science as it had no bearing on the message He was conveying.

Genesis 1 is not a straight-forward scientific account of Creation as many try to make it. The passage contains many literary devices including word plays, and repetition. The passage is entirely structured around the number 7 which was the divine number and represented completeness. Every word in the passage in Hebrew has been carefully placed. But we lose so much of this in English and even more when we read it with our modern day biases. However, God has gifted us with scholars who are familiar with the ancient languages and context and have done the hard work for us. So we can learn how to read this and other passages the way they are meant to be read. And when I approach the passage in this way, I find it says nothing that resembles the ideas of the so called young earth creationists, nor the ideas of the so called old earth creationists. Instead I have altogether rejected a concordist view of the passage as I see such views as trying to distort either Scripture or science to suit their own purposes. Instead I take a non-concordist view which I think is more faithful to the original intention of the author. But do not assume that just because I hold a non-concordist view that I think the events described in Genesis never happened. I believe they describe real events. They are just told in a way that brings out the theological message that was intended, not a scientific message.

So you can talk about the errors of 'gradulism' or 'evolution' or whatever you like but none of that has anything to do with how I read the passage. If you wish to discuss Scripture, then please do so (that is what I am here for, althought I do not have much time these days, and I apologise for that!). If you wish to argue science then great, (but I am not interested in that).

Blessings to you. Happy Christmas!

Happy Christmas, too.

It does indeed revolve around the number 7, and there is nothing cryptic about it doing so. This past term in the history of discovery we read Boorstin's DISCOVERERS. No society seemed to get anywhere in time-keeping until they followed the 7 days and adjusted for new moons accordingly to start over a month. I mention this because at the end of the day, that artefact is both science and Scripture.

I notice that several thousand years after the first verbal recitations of these materials, both Moses and Jesus are able to reach back to it matter of fact, and there is no confusion or mystery about creation or the two genders or marriage. How did that happen? Did they forget to factor in the hidden nuances that would remove it from meaning anything about the authority of creation ("since creation...") or gender or marriage?
I'm surprised that you got as far as you did but did not find the connection to ancient narrative that defeated some type of monster as was also in Egypt, Persian and Hindi narratives, but disintegrated as found there. (Waltke, Wakefield). That's something that keeps it from being just a hydro- and biological state in the opening, and puts it in the category of a tangle with the supernatural that needed to be defeated.

In addition, the image of God has less to do with dignity than it does with ownership. So the place was destroyed to ruin what was going on, and God now owns it, with mankind as regent. This is why there are Psalms (104) where it can be tricky to know if the writer is speaking of creation or cataclysm; they obviously were very similar events, and tohu wa-bohu means an enemy, a force of darkness, was defeated, as was the kingdom era of Jerusalem.

They are just told in a way that brings out the theological message that was intended, not a scientific message.

If you wish to discuss Scripture, then please do so...

If you wish to argue science then great,

Neo-orthodoxy does split these things this way.

 

[EarlyActs]

I agree with you that the Creation was a deliberate, planned act by God. Everything was creted by Him and for Him and He alone holds all things together. Scripture affirms this. And in Genesis 1 we see God ordering His creation to achieve His purposes. What is important is to approach the text in its context, without reading into the text our own modern day biases. Genesis was written to an ancient people using a language and context of their day, not ours. The text itself, written in ancient Hebrew, is an intricate passage, filled with literary devices and presented within the ancient cosmological understanding of the day. Thus it talks about watery chaos - which to them was the pre-existent state of creation. It talks about the 'raqia' - the solid dome above the earth that holds back the waters above the earth. It is why they can talk about the light before the sun is created, because they did not understand the light of day as coming from the sun in the way that we do today. All of these ideas are consistent with an ancient view of the universe. God wasn't interested in correcting their views on science as it had no bearing on the message He was conveying.

Genesis 1 is not a straight-forward scientific account of Creation as many try to make it. The passage contains many literary devices including word plays, and repetition. The passage is entirely structured around the number 7 which was the divine number and represented completeness. Every word in the passage in Hebrew has been carefully placed. But we lose so much of this in English and even more when we read it with our modern day biases. However, God has gifted us with scholars who are familiar with the ancient languages and context and have done the hard work for us. So we can learn how to read this and other passages the way they are meant to be read. And when I approach the passage in this way, I find it says nothing that resembles the ideas of the so called young earth creationists, nor the ideas of the so called old earth creationists. Instead I have altogether rejected a concordist view of the passage as I see such views as trying to distort either Scripture or science to suit their own purposes. Instead I take a non-concordist view which I think is more faithful to the original intention of the author. But do not assume that just because I hold a non-concordist view that I think the events described in Genesis never happened. I believe they describe real events. They are just told in a way that brings out the theological message that was intended, not a scientific message.

So you can talk about the errors of 'gradulism' or 'evolution' or whatever you like but none of that has anything to do with how I read the passage. If you wish to discuss Scripture, then please do so (that is what I am here for, althought I do not have much time these days, and I apologise for that!). If you wish to argue science then great, (but I am not interested in that).

Blessings to you. Happy Christmas!

I'm still interested in the ultra-light analogy. Human nature/instincts are the same.

I also recall you marginalized the ark structure. Sure about that? I know the 'memorial chest' aspect; it's the same term in later worship texts. But the amount of detail is arresting. Compare descriptions of any number of things--tabernacle, layout of encampment, descriptions of Solomon's temple--what nuance would marginalize the detail? DNA issues? There only needs to be one of each kind--if there is no supernatural to it. God could have just re-created, but there was the memorial aspect of saving something innocent from that time.

Can you see that I would never be able to tell when I was just talking about scripture and just science/archeology? I'm sure your text scholars got some things right, but I can't end in ultimate conflict. It goes against the nature of these people, their grasp of reality, as found in a wide reading of the rest of Moses and beyond.

 

[Sereni-tea]

Happy Christmas, too.

It does indeed revolve around the number 7, and there is nothing cryptic about it doing so.

I didn't say it was cryptic, I said it was a literary device.

This past term in the history of discovery we read Boorstin's DISCOVERERS. No society seemed to get anywhere in time-keeping until they followed the 7 days and adjusted for new moons accordingly to start over a month. I mention this because at the end of the day, that artefact is both science and Scripture.

Did the 7 day week start after Genesis 1 was written or was Genesis 1 written around the number 7 because of its significance in Israelite culture? How can you prove one way or the other since we do not know when or who put the final structure of Genesis 1 together?

I notice that several thousand years after the first verbal recitations of these materials, both Moses and Jesus are able to reach back to it matter of fact, and there is no confusion or mystery about creation or the two genders or marriage. How did that happen? Did they forget to factor in the hidden nuances that would remove it from meaning anything about the authority of creation ("since creation...") or gender or marriage?

When did I say anything about removing the authority of creation?

I'm surprised that you got as far as you did but did not find the connection to ancient narrative that defeated some type of monster as was also in Egypt, Persian and Hindi narratives, but disintegrated as found there. (Waltke, Wakefield). That's something that keeps it from being just a hydro- and biological state in the opening, and puts it in the category of a tangle with the supernatural that needed to be defeated.

There is nothing in Genesis 1 that suggests there was a supernatural that needed to be defeated. Other cultures had this, which I have mentioned before, but not Genesis 1. This is where the Biblical text deviates from other near eastern cultures - the God of the Bible is the Creator God and created everything with a purpose.

In addition, the image of God has less to do with dignity than it does with ownership.

The image of God is a vocation - we (humans) are to reflect God, represent Him in this world. It has to do with status.

So the place was destroyed to ruin what was going on, and God now owns it, with mankind as regent. This is why there are Psalms (104) where it can be tricky to know if the writer is speaking of creation or cataclysm; they obviously were very similar events, and tohu wa-bohu means an enemy, a force of darkness, was defeated, as was the kingdom era of Jerusalem.

God has always owned it and yes, mankind is His reagent. God dod not have to defeat anyone to create this world and there is nothing in Genesis 1 that even hints at that. There is certainly no evidence that the phrase tohu wa-bohu means what you say it does, nor does the grammar fit with your assumptions.

Neo-orthodoxy does split these things this way.

Call it what you like, but show me that the 'science' in Genesis 1 is anything more that the ancient cosmology that was part of the culture of the ancient near east, and then I might change my mind.

 

[Sereni-tea]

I'm still interested in the ultra-light analogy. Human nature/instincts are the same.

I also recall you marginalized the ark structure. Sure about that? I know the 'memorial chest' aspect; it's the same term in later worship texts. But the amount of detail is arresting. Compare descriptions of any number of things--tabernacle, layout of encampment, descriptions of Solomon's temple--what nuance would marginalize the detail? DNA issues? There only needs to be one of each kind--if there is no supernatural to it. God could have just re-created, but there was the memorial aspect of saving something innocent from that time.

Can you see that I would never be able to tell when I was just talking about scripture and just science/archeology? I'm sure your text scholars got some things right, but I can't end in ultimate conflict. It goes against the nature of these people, their grasp of reality, as found in a wide reading of the rest of Moses and beyond.

The detail given in the passage is indeed arresting, but not what you need if you are looking for blueprints to build a boat. There is so much that can be said about the ark but this is not the place and I have only began to scratch the surface in my research. However, what I have discovered leads me to agree with Morales who describes the ark as a symbolic Eden or temple:

While popular depictions of the ark often mislead one into viewing it as a boat, the vessel, having no sails, rudder, oarsman, etc., was no boat, and Noah was no “captain” steering his own fate. Indeed, that the ark was completely given over to the sovereign guidance of God seems to be a primary emphasis of the narrative … [T]he instructions to build the ark in Gen 6:13-17 utilize three times as many verses than for the flood itself, demonstrating … the emphasis on the ark itself as the means of deliverance. How would ancient readers have understood the ark? Several considerations lead to the conclusion that the ark was meant to be seen as symbolizing a temple. — MICHAEL MORALES, THE TABERNACLE PRE-FIGURED: COSMIC MOUNTAIN IDEOLOGY IN GENESIS-EXODUS, P. 146-147

Understanding the passage in its original context helps to remove the erroneous modern day ideas that have been inserted into the text, leading to much confusion and once again leading many away from Christianity.

 

[EarlyActs]

I didn't say it was cryptic, I said it was a literary device.


Did the 7 day week start after Genesis 1 was written or was Genesis 1 written around the number 7 because of its significance in Israelite culture? How can you prove one way or the other since we do not know when or who put the final structure of Genesis 1 together?


When did I say anything about removing the authority of creation?


There is nothing in Genesis 1 that suggests there was a supernatural that needed to be defeated. Other cultures had this, which I have mentioned before, but not Genesis 1. This is where the Biblical text deviates from other near eastern cultures - the God of the Bible is the Creator God and created everything with a purpose.

The image of God is a vocation - we (humans) are to reflect God, represent Him in this world. It has to do with status.


God has always owned it and yes, mankind is His reagent. God dod not have to defeat anyone to create this world and there is nothing in Genesis 1 that even hints at that. There is certainly no evidence that the phrase tohu wa-bohu means what you say it does, nor does the grammar fit with your assumptions.


Call it what you like, but show me that the 'science' in Genesis 1 is anything more that the ancient cosmology that was part of the culture of the ancient near east, and then I might change my mind.

re cryptic:
Maybe you didn't but mythology is. I was saying that it was scientific artefact first, before there were 'traditions' or 'ceremonies' or 'culture.' That's how their world was put together and they knew it.

In a survey of ancient cosmology, I think you would find Genesis predominantly reality-based, and the others predominantly fantasy or mythology based (the Greek gods anger at one child sacrifice, the throwing of stones over the shoulder after the cataclysm to result in male and female).

The writing of Genesis came through Joseph. It was verbal transmission before that, for generations (but at that time that meant much more than 70 years!)

 

[EarlyActs]

I didn't say it was cryptic, I said it was a literary device.


Did the 7 day week start after Genesis 1 was written or was Genesis 1 written around the number 7 because of its significance in Israelite culture? How can you prove one way or the other since we do not know when or who put the final structure of Genesis 1 together?


When did I say anything about removing the authority of creation?


There is nothing in Genesis 1 that suggests there was a supernatural that needed to be defeated. Other cultures had this, which I have mentioned before, but not Genesis 1. This is where the Biblical text deviates from other near eastern cultures - the God of the Bible is the Creator God and created everything with a purpose.

The image of God is a vocation - we (humans) are to reflect God, represent Him in this world. It has to do with status.


God has always owned it and yes, mankind is His reagent. God dod not have to defeat anyone to create this world and there is nothing in Genesis 1 that even hints at that. There is certainly no evidence that the phrase tohu wa-bohu means what you say it does, nor does the grammar fit with your assumptions.


Call it what you like, but show me that the 'science' in Genesis 1 is anything more that the ancient cosmology that was part of the culture of the ancient near east, and then I might change my mind.

re the battle with the monster
there are not that many times tohu wa-bohu is used is why it should be confined to a conflict or a defeat.

Waltke, Regent College, Hebrew, believed that Genesis was a declaration to those other cultures you mentioned that the god who defeated what was there before, was Yahweh. Cp M Wafefield, GOD'S BATTLE WITH THE SEA MONSTER. There are Egyptian narratives that the Pharoah did this, or the Sun, or Pharoah as the Sun, and they were humiliated to read that someone else did and the sun didn't even appear for 3 days. On the correction to ancient myths, or their disintegration from Genesis see, P. James-Griffith "Tracing Genesis..." on Youtube, or Lewis "The Myth That Became Fact" in GOD IN THE DOCK. That essay is about Christ, but the crumbling of myths applies the same.

 

[EarlyActs]

the ultra light analogy
I was trying to give an update to Lewis' child who associates poison with 'horrid red things' (the title in GOD IN THE DOCK) but as a nurse and adult learns what poison is. The child still successfully identified danger!

Mine was a VW powered ultralight at a modern airport, Juneau AK. Assuming he was allowed in the airspace, The ultralight operator at Juneau would see the 300 ft hill directly west. He has no dashboard or instrumentation. He would divert left or right or rise abruptly. The 737 operator, of course, has a sheet of codes and regulation for Juneau W. The official turn marked by the modern runway lighting would not matter tothe ultralight operator. The ultralight operator might not even know any of the signal locations being checked on the 737 bulletin. (I read it and have lived here 3 years, without recognizing any of them!).

Is the ultralight less scientific? Is he not scientific at all? I don't see why. We do science (take measurements and observations to function and function safely.). The Tlingit AK indian knew that a split branch had tension that would return it back together. So they made fishspears for centuries that 'pinched' salmon this way by inserting 'teeth' in each split. That is science, too. Today we would have high tech spear fishing gear. So what? Aren't they dealing with the same issue and solving it the same way?

So I don't get this idea of there being cultural-narrative first. They described things as reality as best they knew (far below our standards), but they weren't inventing it out of their heads. By this standard, the description of the ark is quite advanced. The Klamath tribe did it this way:

the clever warrior was an archer and could weave his arrows together in the sky and make a barge. This was how he saved his family and his animals. He survived the great flood and the rise of the mountains.
--Meyer, INDIAN LEGENDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Can you not see a substantial difference in this, especially in light of the fact of a marine engineer attempting to reconstruct the model in Tennessee? I had a customer in a company who was a retired Naval engineer. He rebuilt a model of the swift Viking craft in his front yard. I once asked him to look at Genesis and see what he thought of the structure. "I already have; it is remarkably suited. Where we would have watertight sections, it had structural bulk to resist collisions."

 

[Sereni-tea]

re cryptic:
Maybe you didn't but mythology is. I was saying that it was scientific artefact first, before there were 'traditions' or 'ceremonies' or 'culture.' That's how their world was put together and they knew it.

In a survey of ancient cosmology, I think you would find Genesis predominantly reality-based, and the others predominantly fantasy or mythology based (the Greek gods anger at one child sacrifice, the throwing of stones over the shoulder after the cataclysm to result in male and female).

On the contrary, as I have pointed out, Genesis 1 is clearly describing ancient cosmology. That is why verse 2 talks about darkness and the deep waters, verses 3-5 can talk about the presence of light before the sun and the 'raqia' in verses 6-8. The 'raqia' is used elsewhere to talk a piece of metal hammered out - the ancient cultures, including the Israelites, believed that there was a solid dome above the earth that kept the water above the earth at bay, opening 'windows' every now and then to let out rain, etc. This is the ancient cosmology that I am talking about, which bears no resemblance to modern day views. I am not referring to myths that talk about wars between gods, etc, although I do believe that Genesis 1 serves as a polemic against such views, presenting God as the One True God and creation as conforming to His purposes.

You need to show me from the text why I am wrong.

The writing of Genesis came through Joseph. It was verbal transmission before that, for generations (but at that time that meant much more than 70 years!)

Show me what evidence you have for this claim and not just say that some rabbi claimed this to be true, but actually show me in Scripture where it states this.

 

[Sereni-tea]

re the battle with the monster
there are not that many times tohu wa-bohu is used is why it should be confined to a conflict or a defeat.

You are correct - the word 'tohu' appears 20 times in Scripture, but the word 'bohu' occurs only 3 times, and in each case appears in combination with 'tohu' (Genesis 1:2, Isaiah 34:11 and Jeremiah 4:23). A semantic look at each place where 'tohu' is found shows the word to mean non-productive (in human terms), desolate, desert, wasteland, etc. Obviously it could be used to describe the land after a conflict or defeat has taken place, but there is no requirement for it to be confined to a conflict or a defeat. You would need a lot more evidence from the text to claim that Genesis 1:2 is a result of some prior conflict.

Waltke, Regent College, Hebrew, believed that Genesis was a declaration to those other cultures you mentioned that the god who defeated what was there before, was Yahweh. Cp M Wafefield, GOD'S BATTLE WITH THE SEA MONSTER. There are Egyptian narratives that the Pharoah did this, or the Sun, or Pharoah as the Sun, and they were humiliated to read that someone else did and the sun didn't even appear for 3 days. On the correction to ancient myths, or their disintegration from Genesis see, P. James-Griffith "Tracing Genesis..." on Youtube, or Lewis "The Myth That Became Fact" in GOD IN THE DOCK. That essay is about Christ, but the crumbling of myths applies the same.

You need to provide evidence to substanitiate your claim - and not just quote authors and books or essays. While I do believe that Genesis 1 is a polemic against other ancient near eastern creation stories, I do not believe that there is anything in the grammatical, cultural or theological context of Genesis 1 to provide evidence for a pre-Genesis 1 battle.

 

[Sereni-tea]

the ultra light analogy
I was trying to give an update to Lewis' child who associates poison with 'horrid red things' (the title in GOD IN THE DOCK) but as a nurse and adult learns what poison is. The child still successfully identified danger!

We are not talking about 'danger' or anything like that. We are talking about what the text of Genesis 1 acutally says. Show me that I am wrong, don't just use analogies. I have presented my argument using Scripture. I expect you to do the same, if you can.

Mine was a VW powered ultralight at a modern airport, Juneau AK. Assuming he was allowed in the airspace, The ultralight operator at Juneau would see the 300 ft hill directly west. He has no dashboard or instrumentation. He would divert left or right or rise abruptly. The 737 operator, of course, has a sheet of codes and regulation for Juneau W. The official turn marked by the modern runway lighting would not matter tothe ultralight operator. The ultralight operator might not even know any of the signal locations being checked on the 737 bulletin. (I read it and have lived here 3 years, without recognizing any of them!).

Is the ultralight less scientific? Is he not scientific at all? I don't see why. We do science (take measurements and observations to function and function safely.). The Tlingit AK indian knew that a split branch had tension that would return it back together. So they made fishspears for centuries that 'pinched' salmon this way by inserting 'teeth' in each split. That is science, too. Today we would have high tech spear fishing gear. So what? Aren't they dealing with the same issue and solving it the same way?

That's great, but has nothing at all to do with what I am talking about.

So I don't get this idea of there being cultural-narrative first. They described things as reality as best they knew (far below our standards), but they weren't inventing it out of their heads. By this standard, the description of the ark is quite advanced. The Klamath tribe did it this way:

the clever warrior was an archer and could weave his arrows together in the sky and make a barge. This was how he saved his family and his animals. He survived the great flood and the rise of the mountains.
--Meyer, INDIAN LEGENDS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST

Can you not see a substantial difference in this, especially in light of the fact of a marine engineer attempting to reconstruct the model in Tennessee? I had a customer in a company who was a retired Naval engineer. He rebuilt a model of the swift Viking craft in his front yard. I once asked him to look at Genesis and see what he thought of the structure. "I already have; it is remarkably suited. Where we would have watertight sections, it had structural bulk to resist collisions."

Again you are mixing up ideas here that are not relevant. I have made the claim that the text in Genesis is theological in nature, not scientific. I have presented why I think it is wrong to try to read modern science into Genesis 1. Show me I am wrong - using Scripture.

In terms of the ark, I have made the claim that it is a symbolic Eden or temple. The details given in Genesis 6 is not so that we can try to build a boat out of what is written (i.e. not scientific), but so that we can see it for what it is (a symbolic Eden/temple) and understand what God is doing in the passage (salvation of His image bearers and His creation). If I am wrong, show me from Scripture, not from some story/analogy that is irrelevant.

 

[EarlyActs]

On the contrary, as I have pointed out, Genesis 1 is clearly describing ancient cosmology. That is why verse 2 talks about darkness and the deep waters, verses 3-5 can talk about the presence of light before the sun and the 'raqia' in verses 6-8. The 'raqia' is used elsewhere to talk a piece of metal hammered out - the ancient cultures, including the Israelites, believed that there was a solid dome above the earth that kept the water above the earth at bay, opening 'windows' every now and then to let out rain, etc. This is the ancient cosmology that I am talking about, which bears no resemblance to modern day views. I am not referring to myths that talk about wars between gods, etc, although I do believe that Genesis 1 serves as a polemic against such views, presenting God as the One True God and creation as conforming to His purposes.

You need to show me from the text why I am wrong.


Show me what evidence you have for this claim and not just say that some rabbi claimed this to be true, but actually show me in Scripture where it states this.

The latter is Logic. It is a matter of finding out that dating of the origin of Biblical Hebrew was not as late as the gradualists say. See the Malone doc THE MOSES CONTROVERSY. When he got immersed in it , he realized it was far more essential material than his EXODUS—PATTERNS OF EVIDENCE.

We are generally not suspicious enough about the extent of damage by late 1800s “science” fraud. In this case it would be German work that buried or shredded so many essential components.

By breaking free of the constricted Egyptian vocabulary through actual language like Hittite (actual letters with infinite combinations), he Joseph could write down the verbal narratives preserved thus far.

 

[EarlyActs]

On the contrary, as I have pointed out, Genesis 1 is clearly describing ancient cosmology. That is why verse 2 talks about darkness and the deep waters, verses 3-5 can talk about the presence of light before the sun and the 'raqia' in verses 6-8. The 'raqia' is used elsewhere to talk a piece of metal hammered out - the ancient cultures, including the Israelites, believed that there was a solid dome above the earth that kept the water above the earth at bay, opening 'windows' every now and then to let out rain, etc. This is the ancient cosmology that I am talking about, which bears no resemblance to modern day views. I am

not referring to myths that talk about wars between gods, etc, although I do believe that Genesis 1 serves as a polemic against such views, presenting God as the One True God and creation as conforming to His purposes.

You need to show me from the text why I am wrong.


Show me what evidence you have for this claim and not just say that some rabbi claimed this to be true, but actually show me in Scripture where it states this.

Scripture also says the sun rises, which is like referring to a raqia. It may be harmlessly used and accurate until another POV is adopted.

However , if it was inaccurate, why bother to mention its collapse in the cataclysm? It would still be there, if the cataclysm was tiny. It was differentvworld, and there’s plenty of evidence of giantism and longevity—except for the trainloads dumped into the Atlantic by the Smithsonian gradualist zealots.

It wouldn’t, and couldn’t, then “bear resemblance” to modern views, Could it? The arrogance of gradualism has captured you on this. Everywhere I find it, it is dictatorial. If a German archeologist misses an entire layer In Egypt bc he notices and suppresses a Semitic term or fragment of writing in the lower level, his concepts rule for 100 years. And honored text critics from Tel Aviv to Chicago are sure that Biblical Hebrew started after the Exile. That kind of dictatorial.

 

[EarlyActs]

I notice in Ps 46 that there is a deep fear by the writer that the entire world could be entirely changed—mountains collapsing, seas overrunning. Where would such a fear come from if there were no basis in observed experience and/or declarations that YHWH might spew the evil world out again and do just that?

Matching this are passages like Jer 2 that are assured that God had set boundaries on these things. D. Ager (U Swansea) was inspired by that line to study geology and cataclysm, though I find his book highly contradictory, teeming with evidence of a total earth event on almost every page.

 

[EarlyActs]

It's rather grotesque, but I was reminded yesterday how "modern" Kinsey was as a scientist (about sex). He interviewed the men accused of rape who said the women actually enjoyed it; but never interviewed the women. (New article "Nigerian Islamic men in the UK can't relate to a woman's view of rape." 1-2-24).

That's pretty close to my view of modern sciences when surveying Haeckl, Darwin's pals-- Huxleys, the USGS treatment of Bretz, the burial of Pellegrini's tectonics and the German who buried the Semitic tribal layer in his excavation of Goshen, making Egyptology fraudulent for 100 years. My book might be out next year.

 

[Sereni-tea]

Scripture also says the sun rises, which is like referring to a raqia. It may be harmlessly used and accurate until another POV is adopted.

It is used in the way they understood things. This is the point I am making - the text is written to an ancient people in the language and culture of that time. The passage in Genesis 1 is totally consistent with this. But it is not just phenomenological POV like the sun rising, etc. They believed in a literal solid dome above the sky (the 'raqia') that the sun, moon and stars were on. They believed it held back the waters above from the waters below. The flood in Genesis 6 describes the reversal of this - it is written in hyperbole to bring out the point that what was happening was cosmic in scale - it was a return to Genesis 1 state.

However , if it was inaccurate, why bother to mention its collapse in the cataclysm? It would still be there, if the cataclysm was tiny. It was differentvworld, and there’s plenty of evidence of giantism and longevity—except for the trainloads dumped into the Atlantic by the Smithsonian gradualist zealots.

You see this question you asked - if it was 'inaccurate' - this comes back to the OP and is what gets me so annoyed about the concordist way modern Christians read the Bible. We try to make science fit the Bible, or the Bible fit science. When people find it doesn't work they turn away from the faith, or discard Christianity altogether as being illogical, nonsense, fantasy. But if it is read as intended, and understood in its cultural, literary and theological contexts they would understand that the point of the text is not scientific, but theological, and has such a deeper meaning and significance than modern Christians think.

It wouldn’t, and couldn’t, then “bear resemblance” to modern views, Could it? The arrogance of gradualism has captured you on this. Everywhere I find it, it is dictatorial. If a German archeologist misses an entire layer In Egypt bc he notices and suppresses a Semitic term or fragment of writing in the lower level, his concepts rule for 100 years. And honored text critics from Tel Aviv to Chicago are sure that Biblical Hebrew started after the Exile. That kind of dictatorial.

 

[Sereni-tea]

It's rather grotesque, but I was reminded yesterday how "modern" Kinsey was as a scientist (about sex). He interviewed the men accused of rape who said the women actually enjoyed it; but never interviewed the women. (New article "Nigerian Islamic men in the UK can't relate to a woman's view of rape." 1-2-24).

That's pretty close to my view of modern sciences when surveying Haeckl, Darwin's pals-- Huxleys, the USGS treatment of Bretz, the burial of Pellegrini's tectonics and the German who buried the Semitic tribal layer in his excavation of Goshen, making Egyptology fraudulent for 100 years. My book might be out next year.

You go off on so many tangents and are not really displaying any attempt to engage with me in the actual text, so I am not really sure there is any point in continuing the conversation. God bless.