An exhortation from Greg on Genesis, miracles, and natural evil

[AllenWitmerMiller (Semi-Expired Professor & Minister.)]

Greg, you will find my extended article on the three different Greek words for “life” in this comment from last year:

Are Plants Alive?

This Creationist 419 Scam article also refers to a Sensuous Curmudgeon article which skewers Institute for Creation Research for a Henry Morris article about how “plants are not alive” and so, he reasons, there was no death (via plant death) before the fall when Adam and Eve ate plants because plants aren’t alive: I enjoy a lot of the SC articles but this is another one where SC (and DreadTomatoAddiction) doesn’t really grasp what underlies Morris’ argument—in part because Morris does such a poor job of articulating it. Here’s the linguistic situation in a nutshell: It is TRUE that the ancient Hebrews didn’t consider plants alive in the sense that we do, and didn’t think they were subject to death like humans and animals. SC makes fun of the idea that plants aren’t just as alive as animals but he is applying English language (and Indo-European languages in general, for the most part) and cultural perspectives as if they are the final standard of categorization. When translati…

There are additional posts on that PS thread which will give you some grounding in some important exegetical and heremeneutical basics.