Garvey demonstrates in his book that good exegesis, and the actual millennia’s worth of Bible reading, is on his side. The idea that the Fall radically changed Nature only came about in the 1500s or so.
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Nobody who honestly reads Genesis could ever make such a statement, which sadly means you are not honestly reading it. Check out where God says “Cursed is the ground for your sake”… “thorns and thistles it will bring forth” … these are massive changes in the whole ecosystem. I’m afraid you are missing what is sitting right in front of your face because you don’t want to see it.
I say that given God elsewhere approves of and provides food for his predatory creations, the “very good” in Genesis 1 does not exclude predation and thus animal death.
A non-sequitur. God giving approval to eat meat in a post-Fall, cursed world, does not indicate it was part of God’s original plan. Indeed, the Scriptures say the opposite.
I don’t see that there’s any reason for me to keep responding to you. You are now cherry-picking what you respond to, and I’ve said all I need to in order to demonstrate your take on the text is not faithful to it’s clear intended meaning.
Tell that to the first 1500 years of church fathers that @jongarvey quotes in his book.
It’s saddening that YECs so often have to resort to attributing evil motives to their Christian brothers. You’ve admitted, @PDPrice, that you are only human and can be wrong… but you don’t seem to be able to apply that admission to your interpretation of Scripture, nor even conceive that others might disagree with your interpretation in good faith.
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No, it is not “here” as you say. My clear point is that neither of those scientists violated Scripture.
Your motives are between you and God alone. What’s saddening to see is when Christians feel the need to twist the Scriptures up in knots to avoid a fight with the scientific establishment. I’ve made my case and you’ve begun ignoring large sections of what I have to say, so that’s all that needs to be said.
Christians say the same of Darwin.
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Whew weee! Ditto to that…!!!
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And to those Christians I still say, make up your mind – you are either evolutionists or theists but not both.
That’s what Cardinal Bellarmine said about Heliocentrists.
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Not what I’m doing. But I won’t say I told you so when we find out I’m right in the Resurrection. 
Let’s reconvene on this at that time. The loser has to do the other’s yardwork for 100 years.
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Your premise is that there are only 2 categories: untrustworthy fiction and trustworthy journalistic history. This premise is deeply flawed; it misunderstands how the original audience perceived the sacred text.
There is no dishonor in starting out unaware of how cultures from other times and places treat literature. We all do. A big influence in my continuing journey was spending 5 years in North Africa with a Christian humanitarian organization. I would hope that you, PD, are willing to make the journey to understanding, rather than entrench yourself against those who raise questions of culture and literature.
Tim Keller follows C. John Collins in identifying the genre of Genesis 1-3 as exalted prose narrative. Wheaton professor John Walton provides deep exposition on the passages’ emphasis on function (vs. chaos) and their use of temple imagery to convey the divine nature and rule of Yahweh. I heartily recommend those 2 resources, as opposed to my anemic and time-constrained posts.
Best,
Chris
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Is this concept- that the audience was not intended to believe the text as true history- something you can demonstrate to me from Scripture itself? Please do. Creation.com has articles critiquing the compromise views of both Walton and Keller. I don’t agree with them. They are eisegeting, rather than exegeting, the text. If you want me to take this seriously, then show me in the Bible where it says I should not really believe what Genesis teaches about history–that all life started out herbivorous, that death entered because of sin, that God created the world out of water and that God flooded the whole world, above all the highest mountains. Peter was adamant that I should believe those things in 2 Peter 3, and I do believe them. God’s word is more important to me than the prevailing views of our times.
@Chris_Falter didn’t say it was a parable. He used the familiar parable to explain to you exactly what you would learn in an introductory hermeneutics course at most any seminary and Bible college in the USA—including the Young Earth Creationist schools. You need to learn what words like literal and figurative and how human language and literary genres operate in layers of meaning.
@PDPrice, do you have any seminary or Bible college background? Have you at least read of these concepts on your own?
Are you genuinely unaware that the famous work by C.S. Lewis describes theological truths about Jesus—and the Lion represents Jesus, just as in the scriptures. (Ever hear of the Lion of Judah in Revelation 5:5?)
@DaleCutler didn’t state that Genesis was fictional—and I think you know that. Your misrepresentation of people’s statements and positions on this thread is very disturbing. Do you think your straw man arguments help advance the Kingdom?
Yes.
We can pray that @PDPrice will eventually understand this. His attacks on his Christian brethren by misrepresenting their positions is most regrettable
Please think about that, @PDPrice. I’m actually kind of surprise that creation science proponents don’t cite the giving of plants for food as an example of Genesis getting the science right: all animal life depends upon plants as the foundation of the food chain. Even a carnivore who relies entirely on a diet of meat would soon starve if all plant life was eliminated.
Seriously? I would hope that you are being facetious. What about the “plain and natural reading of the scriptures.” Anyone who has read the Bible knows that it is about the story of salvation and not geologic history!
How absurd. Read it again. Just because it talks about events (the Noahic Flood and the future destruction by fire) doesn’t make it a natural history exposition!
Incredible.
Just wondering: If I gave you access to my garden (“You are given everything in my garden to eat as you wish”), would that prevent you from also eating meat?
Have you ever studied hermeneutics in a Bible college or seminary? (Yes, you will ignore this question yet again, along with most others.)
I find it interesting that you chose the word “indication”. I think that indicates that the Bible makes no such claim—and you recognize that it is merely an implication which you think you found in the Biblical text.
And why did God reveal truths through his creation (aka the universe?) For what purpose? And why do you denigrate that purpose by rejecting those truths? Why do you deny what God has revealed? Don’t you trust God’s revelations?
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Then what was the original plan for T-Rex, filter feeders, spiders, pelicans, and diverse examples can be multiplied endlessly? Nature is red in tooth and claw. Any child can recognize that, this is simple not hard. Everything about strictly carnivorous animals, from dentation, digestive system, morphology, agility, poison delivery, is exclusively for predation. How would filter feeders even discriminate between animal and plant plankton?
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A double dose of irony here!!
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If you want to talk about what any child can recognize, then we’ll add the fact that death, disease, and suffering are not “very good”. Any child can recognize that, also. These things you’ve listed are characteristics of life as it exists now, post-Fall, so I don’t know what relevance it has to this discussion. I will add that not everything you said is accurate, either. Sharp teeth are not exclusively for predation. Pandas have sharp teeth they use to eat bamboo.
Here’s yet another example of where even that “heretic” rabbinical scholar you derided could teach you a few things about the meaning of the Hebrew word TOV (“good”, “suitable”) in conveying the fact that the creation God made was exactly as he intended it to be—even the elements which don’t quite achieve your personal approval!
And that’s yet another reason why we don’t get our Hebrew exegesis and hermeneutics lessons from “any child.”
Do a lot of the children you know read Classical Hebrew?
I’m preaching from Ephesians 4 this Sunday. Verse 14 exhorts us not to any longer be infants, where we let our peer group blow us around with every popular-level wind of doctrine. Creation science in my church community was what led me astray for years before I got grounded in the scriptures and the science.
I’m always amazed how often “Ask any child!” is used as an argument in Young Earth Creationist circles. Not persuasive.
I’d like you to explain why you put the word heretic in quotes here.
I wonder if this is another case where your unusual version of the perspicuity of the scriptures doctrine has failed you. The semantic domains of TOV in Hebrew do not perfectly overlap those of good in English. (Good is not necessarily a bad translation per se. It simply reflects the limitations of translation and the necessity of good scholarship and commentary. It is also a case of entrenched tradition. Most English Bible readers today don’t want their Bible translation to tell them that the finished creation was very appropriate or very much what God intended.)
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