That assumes it’s God’s word instead of those of mere men. Actually, it also assumes God is trustworthy instead of deceptive. How would you determine that?
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Nope. It’s only necessary to dismiss the stories that the old-earth scientists have told. I don’t dismiss observational science. And I’ve made my case why this is the proper interpretation.
That would be a whole separate discussion. If you want reasons to accept the Bible as God’s word, you can start by searching out this question at places like creation.com.
Or He’s simply condescending to communicate with a pre-scientific culture in their own terms.
I could turn this around. Contrary to your assertions about the scientific evidence (which are strained, at the very least) we have abundant reason from studying God’s creation to think that it appears very old. Yet if Genesis 1 must be taken strictly literally as the YEC claims, this very much makes God the author of confusion - what is evident from His creation appears very strongly to contradict what it says in Scripture.
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Where else might God simply be ‘condescending’ to the poor people who can’t understand simple concepts like “long time” versus “short time”? Maybe God was just condescending to us when he said Jesus literally, physically, rose from the dead on the third day?
Yet if Genesis 1 must be taken strictly literally as the YEC claims, this very much makes God the author of confusion - what is evident from His creation appears very strongly to contradict what it says in Scripture.
Really? I’ve never seen God listed as a co-author on any old earth geology papers. God is not the author of old-earth storytelling, men (and women) are.
There’s so many differences between the resurrection accounts and the creation narratives that your analogy here is broken and dead on arrival.
But he is the author of an old earth. Try following some of the links here: Evidence and the Age of the Earth
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You have misunderstood “the doctrine of perspicuity”.
This doctrine was published during the Reformation to deny the Roman Catholic position that the Bible should not be available to anyone but only to those specially trained in understanding it. Martin Luther was very careful to apply his perspicuity claims to matters of salvation and not to the Bible in general or even what you would deem such “fundamentals” as your favorite interpretation of Genesis 1. I encourage to read the Westminster Confession on the topic of perspicuity.
I certainly admit that your misunderstanding of scripture perspicuity is an extremely common one, especially within the Young Earth Creationist community of which I was once a part.
And so do those of us who favor interpretations quite different from yours.
We’ve covered this argument many times on PS threads. There are good reasons why so many evangelical Christ-following Hebrew exegesis scholars strongly disagree with you on this one. For example, the parallel principle in the seven days of Genesis 1 and the seven days, seven years, and seven sevens of years in the Mosaic Law of the Book of Exodus is in the sevens, not a lexicographic definition of YOM! (Meanwhile, I have no doubt that the YOM in Genesis 1 is a conventional day, just as “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet” in Shakespeare is referring to a popular flower, yet actually talking about Romeo, her lover. The seven days in Genesis 1 constitute a literary structure, and the seven ties it to the seven of sabbatical days, sabbatical years, and sabbatical weeks of years. Obsessing on the time duration of YOM in Genesis 1 is like expecting Shakespeare’s rose statement to be a botanical truth about that flower.)
I have often referred to that passage as evidence that the Noahic Flood was not global. 2Peter 3 carefully distinguishes between the water-destroyed KOSMOS (world) which Noah knew and the entire GE (world) which will be destroyed by fire.
This is a good example of your stretching the doctrine of perspicuity far beyond its definition.
The beginning of creation would have been day one. Instead, Adam’s creation was tied to day six. Not “the beginning of Creation” in a literal sense. You’ve misunderstand “the beginning of creation” and twisted it to your own assumptions.
What does “the beginning of creation” mean? The Adam and Eve pericope is the beginning of the story of God’s chosen people. So we obviously must start with the question: The beginning of the creation of what? The universe? Planet earth? People? God’s chosen people? Or the institution of marriage? If you look at the context of Jesus statement, he is fielding a question about marriage and divorce—so he reminds them of the origin of marriage as God’s plan. (He’s not teaching on cosmology or origins in general.) It is also worth mentioning that the Hebrews used the first word of each book of the Tanakh as its title. Accordingly, the Book of Genesis was called BARASHITH (“in the beginning”.) So it is also possible that “the beginning of creation” is simply referring to Genesis.
We’ve covered this topic on many PS threads. You might want to look them up. I do empathize where your coming from, as I once held many of the positions you espouse here.
Be careful about conflating “true” and “literal”. Much of the Bible is true but not literal. (Jesus is not literally a door. We who follow him are not literal sheep, which explains why we don’t have wool growing from our skin.)
Well put.
Yes. This follows very logically from the actual perspicuity doctrine of the Reformation.
To you perhaps. And if you are going to obsess on the “literal day” aspect, you have the problem of days before a sun to define them. (And, no, “the evening and the morning” does not in any way demand a literal day. It can be idiomatic, structural, and literary—just as they days of Genesis 1 are a literary structure device.)
I’m curious. Do you read Greek and Hebrew? (That’s not an argument against your position. I’m simply posing the question because I’d like to know why you think your interpretation of what it says somehow trumps the many evangelical Bible scholars who disagree with you.)
Nobody here has claimed he was.
Yet the Apostle Paul said that “We see through a glass but darkly.” Confusion? No. Uncertainty? Yes. Lack of clarity? Certainly. Read 1Cor 13:12. Do you think that this lack of clarity might help explain why sincere devout Christ-followers of countless denominations and traditions disagree on all sorts of scripture topics? Do you think that this might explain why your interpretations of scripture are not the final standard?
I could just as easily make the same accusation about you.
Be cautious about implying that those who disagree with you face dire judgement. Yes, there is certainly a place for the classic warning passages of scripture. But your set of personal interpretations are not the standard for judgment.
Bingo.
You’ve done so throughout the “Were Dragons Real?” thread.
God is also not the author of young-earth storytelling.
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Thank you, though you followed up my post by putting it even better - so thank you for that as well!
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According to you. The majority of Christians don’t share your view, though.
Your interpretation. God is still speaking in the evidence that you’re ignoring in favor of hearsay from man.
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Given the fire hose of pseudo scientific nonsense from organizations such as creation.com and AiG, why would I trust their theology?
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I wince at the thought of how much damage Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter does in this regard. The young people who accept everything they see there will continue to propagate the pseudoscience. And the young who in a few years will actually learn the relevant science in college will eventually be writing “How I Lost My Belief in God” web blogs explaining how it was their trip to the Ark Park at age ten which led to their abandoning the Bible entirely.
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I’ve been imagining another Far Side-like cartoon for Peaceful Science in which a new “Apologetics Avenue” attraction opens at Ken Ham’s Ark Encounter—and the tourists are entertained every hour, on-the-hour, by an extravagant parade culminating in elephant-hurling demonstrations, Gish-gallops (i.e., a stampeding herd of wild horses, each wearing a sign naming a popular “creation science” trope, such as "Fossils on mountains prove the Flood), and a Keystone-Cops-like brigade of AIG firemen racing to reach the scene, setting up their hoses, and extinguishing a bonfire labelled “Science & Evidence” with a torrent of pseudoscience.
Yeah, I’m pretty much dizzy from knocking my own head against the wall in that long “Were Dragons Real?” thread. Given time my sanity will return.
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Not really. The Genesis account is a historical narrative, and so are the Gospels.
How do you know that? (I’m not saying that Genesis 1 does not have a basis in an actual historical event that we call the creation of the universe.) Tell us what rules you apply to a Bible pericope to determine whether or not it is a historical narrative genre.
How do you know that Genesis 1 is not a grand hymnic tribute to the Creator meant to serve as a fitting introduction to the Genesis scroll? How do you know that it wasn’t a much beloved oral tradition which Moses chose to incorporate into his story of the call of God’s chosen people?
I spent a lot of years studying Genesis including two semesters of Hebrew grammar and exegesis under a prominent rabbinical scholar. What did I miss?
P.S. “Because I say so” or “Because that’s what the text says” are not helpful responses. Can you please engage the question with some helpful methodologies?
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Do you mean an unbelieving Jew?
What did I miss?
You can start by reading the article I linked.
Do you have a problem with that?
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Of course I have a problem with an unsaved heretic teaching the Scriptures. Don’t you?
No I do not. Good to know where you are coming from.
Likewise!
Do you mean an unbelieving Jew?
I tend to write exactly what I mean.
PDPrice:
You can start by reading the article I linked.
And you can start by reading the actual book which the article basically reviews. Why are you focused on the book review instead of the book on which it is based? Of course, if you actually read the book you could learn a lot from Dr. Hoffmeier and Dr. Wenham. (I often chatted with them years ago. I don’t think I ever met Dr. Sparks.) I’m very familiar with their academic credentials and backgrounds. I used to see them at ETS and AAR/SBL conference—and Hoffmeier and I actually go back quite a few decades to when he was teaching at Grace Theological Seminary and I used to speak on the campus.
Author Lita Cosner could learn a lot from them as well. In fact, seeing how Ms. Cosner has an M.A. in NT from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School from 2012, I wonder if she took any OT classes from Dr. Hoffmeier. Probably not—seeing how the M.A. in NT at Trinity is quite focused on NT—but I’m curious to know.
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