So Creationists - Which Came First

[Rational Root]

I think this one's worth a thread all to itself.

Either Man Was Created First


Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Genesis 2:19 And out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof.
1) 2:7 comes before 2:19.
2) 2:19 says the birds an animals were created and brought unto adam.
IE Man was created first, and the animals were created and brought to him to be named.

----------------------------------------

Or Birds and Animals were Created First

Reading this passage in order:


Genesis 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven. 21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Genesis 1:26-27 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.


Animals were created. Then Man was created to have Dominion over them.

--------------------------------------------------

So which was it. If the bible is literally true then was man created first or were animals ?
I'd like to know. I'm certain someone's got a better answer than "Evil people will try to twist the words of the good book".

[Norman Bernstein]

I can imagine some biblical literalist's head exploding about now! :D

It won't matter, Rational Root..... I haven't the slightest doubt that they will have some explanation to try to rationalize the inconsistency. They HAVE to, because otherwise, the logical house of cards collapses.

[Paul G.]

the chicken

[Paul G.]

no no sorry I mean the egg

[Fitz]

It was probably bacteria. 3.5 Billion Years Ago.

[Phillip Allen]

we even have some bacteria on this forum :) (sorry, I couldn't resist)

[Rational Root]

Don't mess with the bacteria.

They evolve pretty quickly, and they're one of the few things that humans don't seem to be able to make extinct.

<doh - I said the E word >


we even have some bacteria on this forum :) (sorry, I couldn't resist)

[Tom Montgomery]

Yep. There are two different accounts all right.

I also wonder how the new creationist museum in Northern Kentucky will represent the folks mentioned in Genesis 6:1-4?

[huisjen]

[4]Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown.

Right here Tom. ;)

[Honda_Shadow]

Rational Root:
If you were reading your Bible in context, and not just trying to find fault, then you would see that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not conflict. Genesis 1 is a chronology of when and what was created; the writer goes through each day and what was created. Genesis 2 then goes into a description of life in the Garden of Eden, and basically just hits on more details about His creation in order to tell the story of man.

[Popeye]

.

if you could memorize the phone book , are you then an expert on everyone in it ?

[westaway]

In the beginning was the void. Nothing. Not even nothing. Then God created light. There is still nothing, but now you can see it better.

[Rational Root]

Rational Root:
If you were reading your Bible in context, and not just trying to find fault, then you would see that Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 do not conflict. Genesis 1 is a chronology of when and what was created; the writer goes through each day and what was created. Genesis 2 then goes into a description of life in the Garden of Eden, and basically just hits on more details about His creation in order to tell the story of man.

I thought that each of the quotes was pretty clear. I'm not sure how context can change the meaning of these.

Did God Create the Animals, then create man to have dominion over them ?

Or did God Create Man, and then create the animals and bring them to man to be be Named ?

How can context possibly alter the meaning of this?

Unless you are saying that we should not take the order of what is said in the bible literally?

Well order is kind of important. If we can't take the order literally - what falls next?


Of course if the bible is mostly fables and moral stories, then this would be less important.

[Popeye]

honda , how do you know when to interpret information as factual , on what basis ?

[JimD]

When do we get dominion over the bacteria?

[Thad Van Gilder]

reading in context...

That's interesting.

So let me get this right without putting words in anyone's mouth.

1) The Bible is word for word literally true... you cannot pick and chose what is correct.

2) You must read everything in context, because taking sentences out of context gives a different than intended meaning. This is a problem because there is only one intended meaning and interpretation of every biblical phrase.

Am I correct in proposing this?

-Thad

[Popeye]

give me uh gEeezuus

[huisjen]

I should make more yogurt.

If I make beer, who has dominion over whom?

[Garrett Lowell]

I have it on good authority that the earth was actually manufactured by the Magratheans. Slartibartfast actually won an award for the design of Norway's coast. 42, people. 42.

[JimD]

Am I correct in proposing this?

-Thad

Certainly in the beginning you are correct, before there was anything to interpret. Later on there was something, however, which is open to interpretation.

[Phillip Allen]

I have it on good authority that the earth was actually manufactured by the Magratheans. Slartibartfast actually won an award for the design of Norway's coast. 42, people. 42.

Bartfast WOULD design something that no one else could afjord

[JimD]

Bartfast WOULD design something that no one else could afjord

In winning the design award he coasted to victory.

[Popeye]

what about those 'lost' gospels , what do they say ?

[JimD]

what about those 'lost' gospels , what do they say ?

They mostly say in the beginning there were australopithecines that walked out of Africa.

[Phillip Allen]

In winning the design award he coasted to victory.

it was a shore thing...(your turn)

[Popeye]

which parts of the bible do not have any poetry or symbols or metaphors or parables ?

[JimD]

it was a shore thing...(your turn)

One of his competitors, who fully expected to win, was heard to say "Nor way!" upon hearing the news.

[Phillip Allen]

One of his competitors, who fully expected to win, was heard to say "Nor way!" upon hearing the news.


With an attitude like that, its no wonder they have such a fishy economy

[JimD]

If they come from Norway why are they called Norwegians?

[George.]

I don't see the contradiction. What the Bible meant to mean is that man is an animal too. ;)

The real question is how did Noah fit all those animals, plus feed and water, inside the Ark. 30 million pairs of animals or so, including some pretty big ones.

[Rational Root]

So then...

Deciding that Genesis 2 does not need to be considered as an ordered set of descriptions would be Heresy?

Sort of like saying "Well God Said this, but I know better, he really meant this"

Or Have I re-interpreted what you meant ?


reading in context...

That's interesting.

So let me get this right without putting words in anyone's mouth.

1) The Bible is word for word literally true... you cannot pick and chose what is correct.

2) You must read everything in context, because taking sentences out of context gives a different than intended meaning. This is a problem because there is only one intended meaning and interpretation of every biblical phrase.

Am I correct in proposing this?

-Thad

[JimD]

And before God could say "Let there be lite" wouldn't he first have to say "Let there be Bud"?

[Phillip Allen]

And before God could say "Let there be lite" wouldn't he first have to say "Let there be Bud"?


Hey man, have you ever really looked at your hands...?

[Phillip Allen]

If they come from Norway why are they called Norwegians?


it was a compromise because the Gonweighgians did the competing bid for the original coast line

[JimD]

Hey man, have you ever really looked at your hands...?



http://www.geocities.com/georgianesther/cartoons/terminhand.jpg

[huisjen]

And before God could say "Let there be lite" wouldn't he first have to say "Let there be Bud"?

Since both sex and canoes came later...

[Popeye]

PRO 26:4 Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
PRO 26:5 Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.


a really big list of bible contradictions (http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html)

[Tristan]

Jeeeezus Guys, Don't you know that the Bible is the EXACT word of God! Every word is true 'cause God dictated every word, just like he dictated words to Jerry Falwell all the time. He'd dictate words to y'all only y'all would probably misspell 'em or take 'em out of context. And by the way, don't work on your boats on Sunday or you'll die right away ("Whoever does any work on the Sabbath day shall be put to death." Exodus 31:15)

[brad9798]

Folks like Honda frighten me ...

Only a fool would take the Bible literally ... it makes no sense if one does (take it literally).

What really gripes me, is when I get chastised for interpreting something in the Bible by a thumper ... then, when it suits them, they do the same g-damned thing.

Blinded by the light, they are, I guess ...

[brad9798]

Obviously, the Bible is NOT literal ... or Honda never leaves the couch on Sunday! :D

[Popeye]

according to gw theory there's gonna be a floody floody

[Iggy]

Momma told me not to play in the bilge, but i have a question:

Why do some alleged Christians waste so much time arguing about a Jewish story? Does Jesus anywhere reference the books of Moses? Why does this 'non-issue' continue to derail the simple truths that Jesus taught? (whoops, thats three questions)

(Maybe the answer really is: "WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE")

[Keith Wilson]

Only a fool would take the Bible literally It's not intelligence as such. I've know quite intelligent people, capable of doing complex technical work very well, who sincerely believe the Bible is the inerrant literal word of God. There's some sort of disconnect that I don't understand at all; its certainly not stupidity. If one abandons the methods of reason when thinking about human evolution, or the history of the earth, why doesn't one abandon them when fixing the car or designing an electronic circuit? Probably because the consequences are more immediate and severe - if one believes utter nonsense about the ancient history of the earth, for most people it has no practical consequences, but if one uses the Bible as a guide to carburetor repair, it will create an obvious problem. I'm sometimes surprised how easily one human mind can hold such obviously contradictory ideas, although I probably shouldn't be.

[Popeye]

some have no fixed ideas

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

Oh, god, I love these threads!
We is all brothers connected thru' our mutual relative, Blue-green Algae.
Is there going to be a pop quizz this week?

[Norman Bernstein]

It's not intelligence as such. I've know quite intelligent people, capable of doing complex technical work very well, who sincerely believe the Bible is the inerrant literal word of God. There's some sort of disconnect that I don't understand at all; its certainly not stupidity. If one abandons the methods of reason when thinking about human evolution, or the history of the earth, why doesn't one abandon them when fixing the car or designing an electronic circuit? Probably because the consequences are more immediate and severe - if one believes utter nonsense about the ancient history of the earth, for most people it has no practical consequences, but if one uses the Bible as a guide to carburetor repair, it will create an obvious problem. I'm sometimes surprised how easily one human mind can hold such obviously contradictory ideas, although I probably shouldn't be.

It's perfectly rational to me, Keith... we even have a word for it: 'faith'. With faith, all things are possible.... it's the evidence of things unseen, etc.

I'm perfectly OK with faith.. and it completely and fully explains religious belief to me. I don't criticize those of faith, nor their religions... as long as they don't criticize me for not having any.

[Popeye]

I don't criticize those of faith, nor their religions... as long as they don't criticize me for not having any.

which is also a belief:rolleyes:

[Nanoose]

Momma told me not to play in the bilge, but i have a question:

Why do some alleged Christians waste so much time arguing about a Jewish story? Does Jesus anywhere reference the books of Moses? Why does this 'non-issue' continue to derail the simple truths that Jesus taught? (whoops, thats three questions)

(Maybe the answer really is: "WE APOLOGIZE FOR THE INCONVENIENCE")

1. because Jesus was Jewish; because he lived in a Jewish world; because his teaching was to Jews; because the whole testament, old and new, is Jewish and comes from God
2. I'm speechless that you even ask this....all I can think of is "idiot!"
3. the issue of origins is part of any world view

CONTEXT, people. CONTEXT!!!!!!!!!!
Genesis was written by MOSES, to a people coming out of 400 years of slavery - 400 years of listening to that cultures creation stories. The point of Genesis is to teach those people about who they are, and who God is, and how they can be in relationship to Him. The issue isn't 6 days, order of events, a snake, or whatever else. The issue is there weren't 2, or however many, gods battling it out for supremacy, etc., etc. as every creation account around them said. There was 1 God.

For example: Why does evil come in the form of a snake in Moses' account? What was the one sign these people would understand as the consummate (sp?) evil - an evil they had experienced for 400 years? What was on Pharaoh's headdress?

Again, Context!! This is written AFTER these people had intimately experienced the hand of God - i.e. all that happened before Pharaoh let them go, and the events shortly thereafter and Mt. Sinai. They had SEEN with their own eyes the power of this God at work - it was a present day reality for them. They had seen God battle it out with Egypt's gods - they KNEW, from experience, something was there. They knew Egypt's gods (and Pharaoh in particular) weren't in fact gods at all.

And interestingly, most in our world today have no problem recognizing the existence of the supernatural, in whatever form. It is only in a minority of the world today, our rationalistic, materialistic North American culture where things like this are categorically denied because we "know" they are "impossible". But that requires all knowledge of all possibilies - something we just don't have.... Even today there are numberless anectdotes from around the world of God still revealing Himself in 'miraculous' ways.

The issue isn't the external - the issue is the relationship - consistently, throughout the bible. Genesis to Revelation is about the heart stuff, the Jesus' life stuff - loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The bible is full of stories - another Jewish thing - about God's consistent call to his people, their consistent blowing it. Just because the Bible says David committed adultery doesn't mean the Bible is teaching adultery, or that people committed child sacrifice we should do it as well, or that people practiced polygamy, we should too. Context, context, context.

Our culture is the Pharisees and Saduccees of his day, and he had pretty pointed words for them.

[Paul Pless]

1. because Jesus was Jewish; because he lived in a Jewish world; because his teaching was to Jews; because the whole testament, old and new, is Jewish and comes from God

Then why does he have a hispanic name?;)

[Nanoose]

Cute, Paul!

:D :D :D

[Keith Wilson]

Is there any evidence (except the bible itself) for a historical person named Moses that wrote those books? Y'know, the Egyptians were pretty fanatical record keepers; they mostly invented bureaucracy in the west, and although much has been lost, we have a lot of their records. IIRC there is little or nothing about the Hebrews in Egyptian records.

Minor point - baby chimpanzees that have never seen a snake before are still scared of them. I think that image is a little older than the Egyptians.
And interestingly, most in our world today have no problem recognizing the existence of the supernatural, in whatever form.There's a reason that Western civilization dominates the planet, and it's not because of the superior moral virtue of Christianity. Try to build something using "the supernatural" and see haw far you get. I've designed a couple of machines that required divine intervention, (although not intentionally) and it didn't work out well.

[brad9798]

Foolishness has nothing to do with intelligence ... :)

[Kaa]

I've designed a couple of machines that required divine intervention, (although not intentionally) ...

ROTFLMAO! I must remember this expression...

Kaa

[Keith Wilson]

I've designed a couple of machines that required divine intervention, (although not intentionally) . . .It's the gospel truth (so to speak). I wish it weren't. :rolleyes:

[Iggy]

1. because Jesus was Jewish; because he lived in a Jewish world; because his teaching was to Jews; because the whole testament, old and new, is Jewish and comes from God
2. I'm speechless that you even ask this....all I can think of is "idiot!"
3. the issue of origins is part of any world view



Thanks for clarifying, my real question of course is how the heck did this issue get to be so dang important when it's not truely relevant to the main tenets of Christianity.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

The Old Testament as a written text can be dated no farther back than the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews (700-500 BC). The chronological distance between Moses and the Babylonian scribes was about equal to the time span between the destruction of Troy and it's chronicler,Homer.
Suggesting that Moses, himself, wrote anything is a stretch. There is no evidence of anything being written or even the Jews having a written language at that time. Once the Jews were taken to Babylon they wrote in Aramaic.
An English archeologist, John Roemer, takes the view that the Isrealites got more than a convenient written language when they were in Babylon. Roemer sees a definite similarity between the Babylonian creation epic, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Jewish creation story. Hmmmm.

[Nanoose]

Thanks for clarifying, my real question of course is how the heck did this issue get to be so dang important when it's not truely relevant to the main tenets of Christianity.

I think the question of origins is central to the main tenets of Christianity. It is part of what it means to be human - to know who we are.

If I am a collection of proteins, the product of time and chance, using baby parts for my advantage will be ok, as will euthanasia, etc.

But if life is imbued with something more, if I am here by design and with purpose etc., then we answer those questions differently.

So I think what can seem like an irrelevant, ancient question ("We're here! Who cares?!?!") is actually extremely relevant to how we actually live.

[Kaa]

... if I am here by design and with purpose etc.,

What purpose would that be?

Kaa

[Rational Root]

And interestingly, most in our world today have no problem recognizing the existence of the supernatural, in whatever form. It is only in a minority of the world today, our rationalistic, materialistic North American culture where things like this are categorically denied because we "know" they are "impossible". But that requires all knowledge of all possibilies - something we just don't have.... Even today there are numberless anectdotes from around the world of God still revealing Himself in 'miraculous' ways.


Ya know, Occams razor. To me it's a lot easier to believe that there's things that we just don't understand but are not supernatural, than it is to believe that there's an omnipotent being.
Outrageous claims require Serious proof.


The issue isn't the external - the issue is the relationship - consistently, throughout the bible. Genesis to Revelation is about the heart stuff, the Jesus' life stuff - loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. The bible is full of stories - another Jewish thing - about God's consistent call to his people, their consistent blowing it. Just because the Bible says David committed adultery doesn't mean the Bible is teaching adultery, or that people committed child sacrifice we should do it as well, or that people practiced polygamy, we should too. Context, context, context.

Our culture is the Pharisees and Saduccees of his day, and he had pretty pointed words for them.

So then you are saying that the bible is not literally true. So maybe Creationism is taking things out of context and we did evolve.

[Iggy]

I don't mean to discount the BIG question (which I word as 'what does it all mean?'). I only intended to question blind acceptance of the Torah's account, given that it does not really 'connect' in any direct way with the Gospels. As a follower of Martin Luther, I suppose i am predisposed to question 'Church Authority'. I disagree about the 'question of origin' being central to Christianity. IMHO most of what Jesus said was about 'what to do with what we've been given'. BTW, didn't Jesus come to bring the God of Abraham to the Gentiles?

Iggy the Idiot

[Norman Bernstein]

So I think what can seem like an irrelevant, ancient question ("We're here! Who cares?!?!") is actually extremely relevant to how we actually live.

Which, of course, begs the question: is the belief sufficient, or does it actually have to be true?

[Rational Root]

... god made the heavens and then the earth...
then he said let there be light.
man! -
he created the heavens and the earth
and he DID IT IN THE DARK! - show off!

[Nanoose]

The Old Testament as a written text can be dated no farther back than the Babylonian Captivity of the Jews (700-500 BC). ...Suggesting that Moses, himself, wrote anything is a stretch. There is no evidence of anything being written or even the Jews having a written language at that time. Once the Jews were taken to Babylon they wrote in Aramaic.


The Old Testament as a completed canon is a separate question than the authorship/dating of the Pentateuch (Torah).

To suggest the Jews had no written language before Babylon is a first for me. If they learned from the Babylonians, why did the Babylonians teach them Hebrew? Also, Moses was raised in the Egyptian court and would obviously have been very well educated.

p.s. Wikipedia has an article on the Hebrew Language, noting it was spoken in the 2nd millenium B.C....
The historical period of Moses' life seems fixed with a fair degree of accuracy. We know that the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel was the same as the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. Since the former is known to be c.966, the latter was c.1446. Common understanding is the 40 year wanderings in the desert would have been the most likely time for Moses to write the bulk of the Pentateuch.

THere are a large number of ancient texts relating to the Old Testament - Caananite, Egyptian, Sumarian, etc.etc. One written approx. 10th century B.C. in Hebrew would contradict your understanding/dating. Also the Lachish Letters, inscriptions written on pottery fragments, vividly portray the desperate days preceding the Babylonian seige of Jerusalem indicating, again, that the Israelites did indeed have a written language before Babylon.

Interestingly, Sumerian documents from the early 2nd millenium B.C., before the flood, note the reigns of their kings as lasting for thousands of years - similar to lifespans noted in Gen.5

[Rational Root]

Interestingly, Sumerian documents from the early 2nd millenium B.C., before the flood, note the reigns of their kings as lasting for thousands of years - similar to lifespans noted in Gen.5


Do you actually believe that there were living humans with life spans of millennia?

If so why don't we live as long?

[Honda_Shadow]

Iggy:

When Jesus was being tempted by the devil, He used "swords of the spirit," The Word of God to put the devil away, Jesus quoted from the book of Deuteronomy each time.

When Jesus taught on sin, he was teaching on the breaking of the 10 Commandments, not the Levitical law.

If Jesus believed that the Torah was the Word of God, then I believe it. Further, Old Testament references are given throughout the New Testament.

The Bible is a collection of 66 books written by over 40 different authors over a period of around 1600 years; it has one hero, that is Jesus, it has one villain, that is the devil, and it has one theme, that is salvation.

[Nanoose]

To me it's a lot easier to believe that there's things that we just don't understand but are not supernatural, than it is to believe that there's an omnipotent being..

"It is easier"...probably right. But I want to know as much as I can possibly know, and not just stop because it takes some work.

Your assumption is that the supernatural is not possible, therefore, they become things that we just don't understand. I suppose I wonder why we need to assume the supernatural is not possible, though. The furthest we can go is to say we have no way of knowing. But there are many that will attest to experiences of it, and because of that experience, they definately believe it exists. Some of us look at those experiences and really wonder what is going on. And some say, "the supernatural does not exist, therefore I simply don't know what is going on".



So then you are saying that the bible is not literally true. So maybe Creationism is taking things out of context and we did evolve.

I'm saying issues of context, genre, culture are necessary to come to our best understanding of an ancient document. Who wrote it - when - why - to whom - what would they have understood from those words, etc. I don't any longer see Genesis 1 as a scientific discourse. I do see it in it's "big picture" context of a theological discourse - of a declaration that God is, and of His involvement in the creation of the world as we know it. And in the particular time and cultural context, His supremacy over the gods of Egypt, particularly Amon-Re.

[Nanoose]

Do you actually believe that there were living humans with life spans of millennia?

If so why don't we live as long?

I don't know. It is interesting that it is noted in the documents of more than one ancient culture, however.

Why we don't live as long now? Well that brings up a lot of interrelated issues - the flood (then we have to go to, "did it really happen?"), and what possibly happened to the earth because of/as a result of that event. I have come to my own conclusions, but I am not a scientist, so I think I'll leave that one be for the time being.

[Nanoose]

BTW, didn't Jesus come to bring the God of Abraham to the Gentiles?



Actually, he said pretty specifically that he came for Israel. OT prophets stated the messiah would be for all peoples, and the good news of Jesus was taken to the Gentiles. So, in one sense yes, and in one sense no.

[Honda_Shadow]

Nanoose:
On bringing the gospel to the Gentiles, read Romans 9 and spend some time with it. It's really deep and teaches on God's election. Salvation is for Israel, but not all Israel is Israel. Israel is a nation, but "Israel" is also a relationship to God.

[John of Phoenix]

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness...
Us? Our? Who is this "us"? How many? Were the Vikings/Romans/Greeks right after all?

[Kaa]

Us? Our? Who is this "us"? How many? Were the Vikings/Romans/Greeks right after all?

The Old Testament refers to many gods in a lot of places. One consistent way of reading the Torah, for example, is within the context of a universe where there are a lot of different competing gods each of whom chooses a tribe/people/nation as his own and makes a pact with it. The god of Torah chose the Israelites.

Kaa

[Honda_Shadow]

John:
The "Us" you are referring to is consistent with the triune God that Christians worship. God is: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. One God in 3 persons, each completely seperate from the other, but each completely the same. Like water can be a solid, a liquid, and a gas, if they could be all three at the same time, we'd have a better visual picture of the triune nature of God; it is to this trinity that God uses the word "Us." It could also be that God is speaking to His Heavenly court; the angels that surround Him to serve Him.

[Cuyahoga Chuck]

The Old Testament as a completed canon is a separate question than the authorship/dating of the Pentateuch (Torah).

To suggest the Jews had no written language before Babylon is a first for me. If they learned from the Babylonians, why did the Babylonians teach them Hebrew? Also, Moses was raised in the Egyptian court and would obviously have been very well educated.

I was of the impression that the Hebrews spoke and wrote in the language of their captors, Aramaic, and that the biblical texts composed there were written in that language.
Over time the Egyptians wrote in Hiroglyphs, heriatic and demotic. Don't ask me what comes when. Even if Moses was familiar with any of these who but he could read it? And, again, don't think there is any factual evidence of such texts existing.
The existance of many very ancient texts can only be explained with the theory they were memorized as elements of some religion and were committed to writing when a form of writing came along.


The historical period of Moses' life seems fixed with a fair degree of accuracy. We know that the fourth year of Solomon's reign over Israel was the same as the four hundred and eightieth year after the Israelites came out of Egypt. Since the former is known to be c.966, the latter was c.1446. Common understanding is the 40 year wanderings in the desert would have been the most likely time for Moses to write the bulk of the Pentateuch.

I'll accept the dates but the a previous comment still applies. Don't think the historcal record has any evidence of biblical writings from the time of Moses.


THere are a large number of ancient texts relating to the Old Testament - Caananite, Egyptian, Sumarian, etc.etc. One written approx. 10th century B.C. in Hebrew would contradict your understanding/dating. Also the Lachish Letters, inscriptions written on pottery fragments, vividly portray the desperate days preceding the Babylonian seige of Jerusalem indicating, again, that the Israelites did indeed have a written language before Babylon.

The history of the written word is known with some certainty but I have not run across claims that anything relating to the Old Testament was committed to writing before 700 BC. Even if you are correct there is 400 additional years between the 10th century BC and Moses.


Interestingly, Sumerian documents from the early 2nd millenium B.C., before the flood, note the reigns of their kings as lasting for thousands of years - similar to lifespans noted in Gen.5

What's in the Bible doesn't belong to any discussion of the history of the writing of the Bible. The veracity of a lot of Bible stories is not scientifically provable.
The world view of humans as far back as the Sumerians was decidedly different than that of our generation. That means their measures of the world, like time spans, could be much different than our more specific measures. Their understanding of the physical world was very meager and their lack of understanding meant they had to fill the gaps in their knowledge with whatever stories they could concoct. Such is the case with almost any primative culture. Ancient cultures have a common element in that their epics are very heavy with allegory and very light on depictions of the actual world.

[Kaa]

Um, Honda, how about things like Exodus 15:11 where Moses praises God?

"Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?"

along with, of course "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." which implies that there *are* other gods who should be ignored by the Israelites.

Kaa

[BrianY]

"It is easier"...probably right. But I want to know as much as I can possibly know, and not just stop because it takes some work.

Your assumption is that the supernatural is not possible, therefore, they become things that we just don't understand. I suppose I wonder why we need to assume the supernatural is not possible, though. The furthest we can go is to say we have no way of knowing. But there are many that will attest to experiences of it, and because of that experience, they definately believe it exists. Some of us look at those experiences and really wonder what is going on. And some say, "the supernatural does not exist, therefore I simply don't know what is going on".

I think you've got this wrong. Science does not say that the supernatural is impossible - well actually it does because anything that is possible is by definition not supernatural (see Spinoza) - what I mean is that science does not say that "supernatural" stuff like ESP, ghosts, spirits, gods, etc. are impossible. Rather, science says that this stuff is unproven. There is a significant difference.

There is also a significant difference between saying "the supernatural does not exist" and "I do not know what is going on". One does not have to believe the former to admit the latter. In fact, admitting that your knowledge and understanding are limited and that you simply have no explanation is a significant step towards rational thinking. It is far less rational to say "I cannot explain something, therefore it MUST be caused by a supernatural entity or force for which no objective evidence exists" than to admit that you simply do not know.

If you are truly interested in knowing as much as you can possibly know, you cannot employ this line of reasoning because the default to supernatural causes is the dead end of rational inquiry. If you truly want to know what is going on when you hear or read about people's supernatural experiences, you won't accept the supernatural as the true explanation because the supernatural is unproven. If everything that we don't understand can be attributed to the supernatural, why should anyone bother to try to figure anything out?

[Honda_Shadow]

Kaa:
Come on, don't you have any difficult theological questions?
A god (little "g") is anything that someone loves more, serves more, or esteems more than the one true God. (Big "G") Therefore people can make gods of money, boats, ect...

[brad9798]

The Bible is full of neat stories ... holy stories even.

But it is NOT divine in its creation ... hell, 'men of cloth' selectively chose which 'book's to include and which (peraps more uncomfortable accounts) to deny.

Last I checked, Mary Magdellan's gospel was not in the Bible ... nor was Thomas Aquinas ... and many, many others that threatened the purity (READ THAT as POWER) of the church ...

When the Bible was finalized, Christianity was about power, land, money ... hell ... still is, really.

I believe Jesus and Mary Magdellan loved each other ... she was not a whore ... like the many Roman Catholics like to make her out to be.

Seriously, what is your input on that, Honda?

[Kaa]

Kaa:
Come on, don't you have any difficult theological questions?
A god (little "g") is anything that someone loves more, serves more, or esteems more than the one true God. (Big "G") Therefore people can make gods of money, boats, ect...

That's not a theological question. That's a logically consistent approach to reading the Pentateuch -- one of several possible. It is also one that's very straightforward and literal. I understand that you don't like it, but that by itself doesn't mean it's wrong.

Also, looking at your definition, the first thing that comes to mind are children. Are they false gods?

Kaa

[Honda_Shadow]

Brad:
My input? Certainly, there's a greek word for it: BOLOGNA...

The people of Jesus (true believers mind you, not apostates) have never been interested in power, land, or money, only to tell others about salvation through Jesus. So much wrong in this world has been done in the name of Christianity, but you can't group all people who call themselves Christians in the same catagory, there are true AND false converts.

As to the books that were not included into what we call the Bible now; only the books that were inspired by God were included. How do we know what is inspired? If anything conflicts with God's nature, it's false. There's more to it than that, but that's the main idea.

You sound like you've been spending too much time in "The DaVinci Code." Tell me, where did you find that book? In the FICTION section...

[Honda_Shadow]

Kaa:
Yes, children CAN be false Gods. God calls each and everyone of us to love Him to such a degree that our love for anything else should seem like hate in comparison. (IN COMPARISON, that's not saying that we hate anyone, only that our love for God is so great)

[Keith Wilson]

As to the books that were not included into what we call the Bible now; only the books that were inspired by God were included. How do we know what is inspired? If anything conflicts with God's nature, it's false.Circular logic again. Only the books inspired by God were included; the others conflicted with God's nature. How do we know about God's nature? From the books that were included, of course!

The process of choosing the books of the bible was highly political, and had far more to do with the Emperor Constantine's desire to define orthodoxy so that he could put the power of the Roman Empire behind it, than with any kind of divine inspiration.

And Honda, while I don't agree with you about much of anything theological, I really appreciate that you've managed to stay polite and civil despite some folks' fairly provocative remarks. I'm not sure I would have as much patience.

[huisjen]

Man has yet to create a god superior to himself...most gods have the minds and manners of a spoiled child.

-Robert Heinlein

[Kaa]

Kaa:
Yes, children CAN be false Gods. God calls each and everyone of us to love Him to such a degree that our love for anything else should seem like hate in comparison.

Well, not only *can*. You seem to be saying that if you love your children more than you love God, your children are false gods and should be... um... what should you do, Honda?

Kaa

[Honda_Shadow]

Keith:
Circular reasoning? See, there you go again trying to define an infinate being using finite means. Man is fallable, and cannot produce an infallable description of the one true God, read Revelation and you get John's best attempt to explain what he saw and you get an idea of how difficult it actually is. In the end, if you are to truely see and believe in God, then He must reveal Himself to you, but you must first honestly seek him; I hope that one day you will be able to shake off the reason of this world and see beyond what can be logically explained.

It's not a myth, it's not a fairy tale, it's no story. I believe in Jesus, I KNOW He is real. Others in here apparently believe in science and reason. Yeah? Well why don't you see how far that gets you when you are in a hospital room watching your mother die. Your mother, whose skin is urine colored yellow from jondis and bloated so horribly from her sickness that if it wasn't for her medical charts with her name on it you wouldn't even recognize her. I was there. I saw what science and reason can do in this world. You can have all the intelligence in the world and the most it can do for you in the end is to define an illness that they can do NOTHING to cure. Do I lean on a fairy tale? Do I fall back on some simple religeous belief that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy when my mother doesn't have the conscious bearing enough to recognize who I am? No. I love my God, and it's in situations like that, that He shows Himself to be more real than the very room I was standing in, more than any science or reason, or even this keyboard I'm tying on. My God is more real to me than you are. Only God can bring you through an experince like that and grant that you still have your sanity. You can't tell me that my God doesn't exist; I've got more proof in my life of Him existing than I do that you exist.

[huisjen]

But Hyundai Shadow, your god made her sick in the first place.

[Keith Wilson]

I hope that one day you will be able to shake off the reason of this world and see beyond what can be logically explained. If I do, I won't tell the manager of the engineering department. :D

[glenallen]

Kaa:
Yes, children CAN be false Gods. God calls each and everyone of us to love Him to such a degree that our love for anything else should seem like hate in comparison. (IN COMPARISON, that's not saying that we hate anyone, only that our love for God is so great)

That sounds more like obsession or addiction than love, Honda.

[Honda_Shadow]

No one person on this earth has suffered as much as Job had in the Bible; my small amount of suffering in this world has taught me that death nor pains of this world are reason enough to denounce God. Those that do that never knew Him to begin with. I agree with Job when he said of God "Yet though he SLAY ME, I will ever praise Him!" (emphsis added)

I'm through arguing with whitewashed walls. I pray God may show himself to you all, but if he doesn't, I'll see you on the flip side.

I'm out of here. (And to whatever comment the peanut gallery may dream up for me from hereafter, with the best of my ability and with all the dignity I can muster: "TTTTTTHHHHHHPPPPPPPP" 8-P

[huisjen]

Eventually Job asked god why he had to suffer so, and god said "Screw you, I'm God, and I'll do to you whatever the scratch I please."

[Kaa]

My God is more real to me than you are.

...and then people wonder where did the Inquisition come from...

Kaa

[Tristan]

Read "Living Buddha, Living Christ," or "Going Home, Jesus and Buddha as Brothers," (both by Thich Nhat Hanh) for a much less literal, much more compassionate and loving view of Jesus. For a variety of Christian views, read, "Meister Eckhart, From Whom God Hid Nothing," "The Gnostic Gospels (by Pagels)" "Who Wrote the New Testament . . ." by Mack, "Stealing Jesus," by Bawer, and "Skeptics and True Believers," by Raymo. As for the rigid self serving literalists, they do become tiresome, as in Hebrews, chapter 13, verse 8, "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and today, and forever!"

[PatCox]

Our Bog is dood, our bog is dood, they lisped in accents mild. . .

[PatCox]

Our Bog is Dood
Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,
They lisped in accents mild,
But when I asked them to explain
They grew a little wild.
How do you know your Bog is dood
My darling little child?

We know because we wish it so
That is enough, they cried,
And straight within each infant eye
Stood up the flame of pride,
And if you do not think it so
You shall be crucified.

Then tell me, darling little ones,
What's dood, suppose Bog is?
Just what we think, the answer came,
Just what we think it is.
They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours
And we are wholly his.

But when they raised them up again
They had forgotten me
Each one upon each other glared
In pride and misery
For what was dood, and what their Bog
They never could agree.

Oh sweet it was to leave them then,
And sweeter not to see,
And sweetest of all to walk alone
Beside the encroaching sea,
The sea that soon should drown them all,
That never yet drowned me.

[Paul G.]

Who am I to say the bible is a crock... but the earth was made in 6 days? all life forms shipped out in a wooden ark for a summer holiday...

Bwaa...Bwaahhhaa.....BWAAAAHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAA

you cant be frickin serious!!!

[Rational Root]

Keith:
Circular reasoning? See, there you go again trying to define an infinate being using finite means.


There are an infinite number of primes numbers.

Proof - assume there a finite number.
Multiply them all together to give a number x
Take the number x+1

Devide x+1 by any prime in your finite list - you are left with a remainder of 1.

It is relatively prime to any of your finite list of primes.

This must be a new prime number not in your list.

Therefore there are an infinte number of prime numbers.

See simple - first order infinities are not really all that big.

Second order infinities - now they're big. And you don't want to mess with third order infinities - that'll hurt your head.

But - there's a serious point - I'm pretty much finite. I can understand this - likely if I have explained it at all well - you can understand it.

So - where did this understanding of the infinite come from.

Specifically - Euler.

Not the bible, koran, torah nor Winne the pooh.

[brad9798]

Oh Honda ... you have an answer for EVERYTHING ... do you discount Mary Mag?

Do you discount that men chose the easy way out for the Bible?

What the hell does the DaVinci Code have to do with it ... why would even bring up it? :confused:

I agree that real Christians are not interested in power/money/etc. ...

But your half bullsh*t interpretation to make things how you believe is just that ... half bullsh*t ...

Jesus loved Mary Mag ... plenty of support for that.

Reminds me of a line from COMING TO AMERICA:

He got Daniel out da lion den ...

Jona out dat whale ...

Got Gilligaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan, off dat island ... I'm talkin' bout the Lord!

We'll take the kind that jingles ... but we prefer the kind that folds.

honda-

I admire your steadfastnes ... but your closed-mindedness if STILL scary to me ...

[Nanoose]

Eventually Job asked god why he had to suffer so, and god said "Screw you, I'm God, and I'll do to you whatever the scratch I please."

Source on that quote, please...:rolleyes:

[Osborne Russell]

As to the books that were not included into what we call the Bible now; only the books that were inspired by God were included. How do we know what is inspired?

Because Constantine paid guys to tell us.

[Nanoose]

Because Constantine paid guys to tell us.

The N.T. canon was basically fixed by about 200 A.D. Hebrews, Revelation, 2/3John were the last to be settled, but were pretty much accepted by the church about that time. This is well before Constantine's time.

[glenallen]

"god said Screw you, I'm God, and I'll do whatever the scratch I please." huisjen

"Source on that quote, please..." Nanoose

LMAO! Priceless!

[Nanoose]

I was of the impression that the Hebrews spoke and wrote in the language of their captors, Aramaic, and that the biblical texts composed there were written in that language.
... And, again, don't think there is any factual evidence of such texts existing. ....I'll accept the dates but the a previous comment still applies. Don't think the historcal record has any evidence of biblical writings from the time of Moses.


Chuck - I was responding to your statement:
"Suggesting that Moses, himself, wrote anything is a stretch. There is no evidence of anything being written or even the Jews having a written language at that time." I then provided evidence of ancient documents written in Hebrew before the Babylonian captivity. And, as it is most commonly held that Moses is the author of the Pentateuch (curious about your alternatives, other than the Source Theory), and we can know approximately when that took place, we can date the writing of at least the Pentateuch to before the Babylonian captivity.




The veracity of a lot of Bible stories is not scientifically provable.


And...so...??

[glenallen]

The notion that God is infallible, or even halfway competent, can be disproven by any rational person. His incompetence is one of the reasons I can't believe He exists.

He makes a couple of people who turn out to be unacceptable to Him, then He blames it on them.
Many years later He decides to make himself a child so He can experience what human life is like, then he causes His child to be strung up in the sun like a slab of jerky.

Couldn't an all-powerful God come down here and see what life is like if He wanted to without all that drama? Ain't He the one whose "eye is on the sparrow"? It might be good for God to come down here and get a few chiggers on His sac. Catch a dose of the clap. Lie in a swamp and fight mosquitoes some night. Eat some bad meat tainted by those little microbes He's so fond of creating by the trillions and puke his head off.
When He comes, I hope He comes to Texas. There are some things I want to show Him that I think He has never seen.

[Nanoose]

...He decides to make himself a child so He can experience what human life is like....Couldn't an all-powerful God come down here and see what life is like if He wanted to without all that drama? ... It might be good for God to come down here and get a few chiggers on His sac. Catch a dose of the clap. Lie in a swamp and fight mosquitoes some night. Eat some bad meat tainted by those little microbes He's so fond of creating by the trillions and puke his head off.
When He comes, I hope He comes to Texas. There are some things I want to show Him that I think He has never seen.

I think you stated He did come down here. Well done, ga! :D

[Tom Montgomery]

I attended a function recently at which the assembled group recited the Lord's Prayer together. As the prayer ended the woman standing next to me looked up at me and said, "The God of my understanding would never lead me into temptation."

[pipefitter]

It's hard to believe, that a world evolved from microbes,ended up with a chain of events,that allows only one species that is able to live beyond nature and instinct and the programmed order of such and above all other life forms on the planet.
So in the eyes of all the other creatures,we must seem the supreme beings and it is hard to believe that the notion would stop there and leave us with the dead end view of that spectrum. Thats alot to leave to chance luck that everything just fell into place in such a way.

[Rational Root]

Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful without having to believe that there are fairies at the bottom of it too?
— Douglas Adams

[George.]

...if one believes utter nonsense about the ancient history of the earth, for most people it has no practical consequences...

It certainly does. Periodically, it results in things like the Inquisition, the Thirty Years' War, the destruction of the library at Alexandria, and 9-11.

[George.]

The people of Jesus (true believers mind you, not apostates) have never been interested in power, land, or money...

ROTFLMAO!!!

Ever hear of the "Donation of Constantine," for starters? After that, try the "divine right of kings," and move on to TV evangelists.

[Keith Wilson]

. . . that is able to live beyond nature and instinct and the programmed order of such and above all other life forms on the planet. We can? Beyond nature? News to me. I still had to eat and drink and breathe, last I checked.

George, I said "for most people". I'm certainly not arguing in favor of it. Nonsense tends to spread; you're right.

[George.]

It's hard to believe, that a world evolved from microbes,ended up with a chain of events,that allows only one species that is able to live beyond nature and instinct and the programmed order of such and above all other life forms on the planet.


Which species would that be?

[huisjen]

Source on that quote, please...:rolleyes:
Job 38
[1] Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
[2] "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
[3] Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
[4] "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.

[Fitz]

A couple of weeks ago, I was sitting next to the campfire in the North Maine Woods. The stones gathered to make the hearth included a rock that was teeming with fossils of long extinct brachiopods - small scallop like critters. These fossils were deposited in a warm, shallow sea, over what we now call "Maine" approximately 450 Million years ago. The sea was warm, because ancestral Maine was closer to the equator at that time.

There were no land plants, no Maine Pines at that time. They hadn't yet evolved. Most life was confined to the sea.

By looking at the rock, it appeared the critters were periodically wiped out by an influx of sediment. There was mountain building going on near by and the rains would wash the sediment into the sea, just like it does now. Katahdin was a huge volcanic peak, like Rainier, or St. Helens. Katahdin now is a fraction of it's former self.

There is a great deal written. Not in books, but in the layers and exposures of the skin of our planet. It is there for all to see. Records of glaciers, floods (not just one either), reefs, jungles, swamps, deserts, and records of life that span BILLIONS of years.

It is rediculous to try condense all of this wonder into 10,000 years or 6,000 years. The span of time is right there, written down in the rocks. The earth is billions of years old. Life is too.

This great span of time is wonderful. The story is wonderful. I have no problem with a possible Creator, but gee I think he needed more time to complete the project.

Oh, by the way, the project isn't finished yet.

[troutman]

Funny though how the real thumpers always seem to line up with the big money guys. If you really believed you'd, "sell what you have, give the proceeds to the poor and come follow me". Otherwise its all convenient hot air. They worship money just like the rest of America. But, Imagine believing the earth was 6,000 years old and all the scientists in the world have schemed to dream up bogus carbon dating to prove otherwise. Believe that and you'd believe the FBI blew up that building near ground zero that the conspiracy lovers harp on.

[Popeye]

Hyundai Shadow


thats a good one :D

[George.]

There is a great deal written. Not in books, but in the layers and exposures of the skin of our planet. It is there for all to see. Records of glaciers, floods (not just one either), reefs, jungles, swamps, deserts, and records of life that span BILLIONS of years.



If "God" wrote anything at all, that is what he wrote. Books were written by men with hidden agendas.

[Popeye]

if we only require faith then why did god(?) give us science and reason?

[Popeye]

the flood waters are rising and ahab and jezzy are forced to leave their home , as their neighbours load up their suv and start to drive off they offer ahab and jezzy a ride to higher ground and safety , ahab places jezzy and her few belongings in the neighbours suv, bids her farewell and climbs up to his rooftop proclaiming 'god will save me'!

the waters rise and the storm whips up , a police rescue boat comes by ahabs crumbling house , they extend him a gaff and call for ahab to jump aboard the boat , ahab yells back ' no , god will save me'!

as the wind reaches hurricane strength and the entire towns folk is now safely evacuated to refuge , the 103 SAR squadron cormorant helicopter flys over and lowers a stretcher to pick up ahab , he calls back , just before being swept away in the flood waters forever .. 'no thanks , god will save me' .. ahab over and out ..

upon reaching his goal and finally seeing god , ahab wipes away the cold water from his face and asks god his one question .. .. ' why didn't you save me' ?

god looks down upon ahab and says in a gentle understanding voice, well ahab .. i gave you great neighbours , next i ushered over a police boat and finally i sent you the 103 ...

[huisjen]

Actually, Ahab and Jez'ebel swung the other way.


I Kings 18
[17] When Ahab saw Eli'jah, Ahab said to him, "Is it you, you troubler of Israel?"
[18] And he answered, "I have not troubled Israel; but you have, and your father's house, because you have forsaken the commandments of the LORD and followed the Ba'als.
[19] Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the four hundred and fifty prophets of Ba'al and the four hundred prophets of Ashe'rah, who eat at Jez'ebel's table."

[Norman Bernstein]

if we only require faith then why did god(?) give us science and reason?

You bring up a good point.

For the 'faithful' like SamF, etc., they ague that science and reason support their beliefs, in ways which might not pass muster amongst scientists.... except under certain circumstances (like evolution), when they argue that the science is wrong.

For Biblical literalists like Honda Shadow, science and reason are instruments of the devil, it seems.

[George.]

science and reason are instruments of the devil

Who invented the devil?

Hint: it wasn't science.

[Popeye]

science could well be an attempt to understand the almighty

i think honda_sh could broaden his/her approach a little bit

[Nanoose]

Job 38
[1] Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind:
[2] "Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?
[3] Gird up your loins like a man,
I will question you, and you shall declare to me.
[4] "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding.

Ah...thankyou. But you've changed your quote!! ;)

[pipefitter]

. We can? Beyond nature? News to me. I still had to eat and drink and breathe, last I checked.

George, I said "for most people". I'm certainly not arguing in favor of it. Nonsense tends to spread; you're right.


We're the only animal that can alter what we eat or breathe or drink intentionally, just from desire and beyond the need to survive. There is a list of other things that humans can achieve beyond nature. A human can choose sexual orientation,even if it does nothing to perpetuate it's existence. As far as I know,we're the only animal that would or could do that intentionally as well.To be the only animal of such complexity, amongst so many life forms and to be the only one that could or would do so,just seems mind boggling beyond what nature provides for everyother living thing and yet somehow,science claims it all comes from the same basic start and process. I'm not promoting the religious argument,just that neither side has come up with the ultimate answer. Upon seeing the question in the topic,I saw the same stalemate that has been going on forever.

[Iggy]

... nor Winne the pooh.

Hey! Desist from disrespecting The Bear or the wrath of the Hundred Acre Wood shall fall upon thy head!

BTW - Saint Augustine proved the devil doesn't exist, so please stop blaming him for Job's suffering, there must be some mistake... (oh wait, that's not possible...)

[huisjen]

The meaning of Satan is "adversary". (Iran still calls the USA the "Great Satan".) The adversary troops into the heavenly throne room like he's a regular guest, as opposed to someone who's been cast out, and tells Yaweh that he should beat Job up for the heck of it, to see if he'll crack. And Yaweh does it like a chump.

But then Pooh is a Taoist.

Dan

[Keith Wilson]

. . . neither side has come up with the ultimate answer. On that point we can certainly agree.

Oh, and as I understand it, in Farsi "Shaitan" means something closer to "tempter". Shatians are generally more bumbling than diabolical. So the Iranians are actually saying something more like the US is the great tempter (away from the True Path of Islam, of course).

[Honda_Shadow]

http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/re1/chapter1.asp

[huisjen]

Hyundai, I think you were actually looking for the new jokes thread.

[Keith Wilson]

From the "Answers in Genesis" site Honda referenced:
The framework behind the evolutionists’ interpretation is naturalism—it is assumed that things made themselves, that no divine intervention has happened, and that God has not revealed to us knowledge about the past. Methodological naturalism is central to ABSOLUTELY ALL of science and technology, from particle physics to plumbing. This means one looks for explanations that can be tested by observation and experiment. The supernatural by definition cannot be investigated by the methods of science. Claims of revealed knowledge are not testable. Claims of divine intervention are not testable. This is the only reliable way human beings have found of investigating the physical world, and of using that knowledge to build things that work.

Try and do something in the physical world using "revealed knowledge" and see what happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalism_(philosophy)

[George.]

We're the only animal that can alter what we eat or breathe or drink intentionally, just from desire and beyond the need to survive.

You clearly don't have a dog. :D

[Honda_Shadow]

Keith:
Science is the means by which one investigates the physical world, but only in the form of Jesus was God ever a part of the physical world; God transcends the known physical universe, therefore, how is it possible to scientifically investigate something that is both in AND out of our known physical universe?

[Honda_Shadow]

"Try and do something in the physical world using "revealed knowledge" and see what happens."

How do YOU then explain certain miracles shy of the supernatural? There are for certain, things that happen in this world that can only be explained by the supernatural. (And no, to those cracking wise, I am NOT referring to ghosts, cryptozoology, or any of the like)

[Keith Wilson]

The history of the earth and the history and development of life on it are part of the physical world, and as such, should be investigated thorough observation and experiment. The "Answers in Genesis" site asserts the priority of "revealed knowledge" over observed knowledge, even when looking at the physical world.

There are many, many things in the world we don't understand. In time, we'll understand more of them, but the universe is an awfully big and complicated place, and at least for the foreseeable future, there will be a lot we don't know. I know of many things we can't explain. I know of nothing that I can say with any confidence "can only be explained by the supernatural."

And my point was not unexplained events, of which there are many, but that one cannot use "revealed knowledge" to do anything in the physical world that actually works.

[Norman Bernstein]

How do YOU then explain certain miracles shy of the supernatural? There are for certain, things that happen in this world that can only be explained by the supernatural.

The premise itself is false.

You talk about things that 'can only be explained by the supernatural', when you really mean things 'for which we haven't found an explanation yet'.

To primitive man, the eclipse of the sun was clearly a supernatural event... eventually, we found a scientific explanation for the phenomenon. As is always the case, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.... things which are called 'miracles' are simply things for which we haven't found explanations for yet.

Are there mircles? I don't know.... I haven't seen any affirmative evidence of them, only exclusionary evidence ("well, we can't seem to find a material explanation, so it must be a miracle!").

When someone illustrates a supernatural explanation of a miracle, i.e., comes up with a miracle for which there's actually evidence FOR a supernatural explanation, versus simply saying that there's no apparent material explanation... then I'm likely to become a believer.

Until then, I'd prefer my present stance: "I don't know... and neither do you".

[Kaa]

There are for certain, things that happen in this world that can only be explained by the supernatural.

Huh? "explained by the supernatural" means only that you don't know how to explain it.

For example, there is no good explanation on how gravity works at the quantum level and why is it so different from the other forces. That doesn't mean gravity is supernatural -- it only means that we don't understand it too well.

May I remind you that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic".

Kaa

[Honda_Shadow]

Well, I could tell you all about many situations in my life that can only be explained by the supernatural, but given how all of you feel about me, you wouldn't believe it. Things like answered prayers, or times when you think of someone and have a bad feeling, then give them a call and find out that something really is wrong, or like before my mother went into the hospital for routine surgery, I knew she was going to die. There's many more, though these aren't the greatest examples; probably the most notable in my life is a promise that Jesus gives each of us, that he gives us a peace that passes all understanding, and a comfort that simply shouldn't be there, but it's there. You just can't explain it unless you've felt it, but it is certainly unexplainable to me outside of Scripture.

[Norman Bernstein]

Well, I could tell you all about many situations in my life that can only be explained by the supernatural, but given how all of you feel about me, you wouldn't believe it. Things like answered prayers, or times when you think of someone and have a bad feeling, then give them a call and find out that something really is wrong, or like before my mother went into the hospital for routine surgery, I knew she was going to die. There's many more, though these aren't the greatest examples; probably the most notable in my life is a promise that Jesus gives each of us, that he gives us a peace that passes all understanding, and a comfort that simply shouldn't be there, but it's there. You just can't explain it unless you've felt it, but it is certainly unexplainable to me outside of Scripture.

That's fine, then. I'm sure it's a reality....for you. Whether it's a reality to anyone else is a completely separate issue, however. Each of us is entitled to our own private reality; it's called 'faith', and I have not the slightest problem with that.

Just don't try to tell me that it's real for me, or anyone else. We'll make up our own mind about that.

[Vince Brennan]

Some years ago I knew a guy who had the best Bible I ever saw. It held just over a quart of booze. Now, THAT was a Bible Study group I could seriously join in with, but he moved.

Now I'm stuck with the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Fair exchange.

[Honda_Shadow]

Norman:
OK, here's some logic that I'm sure Keith is going to appreciate...

You said that my truth is real to me, but that I'm not supposed to make my truth real for anyone else?

Essentially, that says that we all have our own truths that are real to us, but not necessarily true for anyone else, hence our own truths are correct and right for us. If everyone's truths are correct, then it can be argued that all truths are also incorrect, since there are truths that teach that there is ONLY ONE truth. If ALL truths are correct, then ALL truths are INCORRECT. We know that all truths are NOT incorrect, or we wouldn't have the word "TRUTH," indicating an exact or certain way of believing that is correct. THEREFORE, there is only ONE correct TRUTH - Jesus...

[Norman Bernstein]

Norman:
OK, here's some logic that I'm sure Keith is going to appreciate...

You said that my truth is real to me, but that I'm not supposed to make my truth real for anyone else?

Essentially, that says that we all have our own truths that are real to us, but not necessarily true for anyone else, hence our own truths are correct and right for us. If everyone's truths are correct, then it can be argued that all truths are also incorrect, since there are truths that teach that there is ONLY ONE truth. If ALL truths are correct, then ALL truths are INCORRECT. We know that all truths are NOT incorrect, or we wouldn't have the word "TRUTH," indicating an exact or certain way of believing that is correct. THEREFORE, there is only ONE correct TRUTH - Jesus...

*smiles*

Very good. Just what I expected. There's only one possible answer you can accept, so the 'logic' to get there must provide the correct result!

As I said before, you're entitled to your truth... the thing you believe... and it's called faith. I have no problem with that.

What if the one correct truth were Mohammed? After all, there are 1.2 billion Muslims who are every bit as convinced, as you are, that THEIR truth is the one truth. Hell, they're even willing to strap on bombs and commit suicide murder in defense of their truth.... and they have a book (the Koran), and religious leaders (mullahs), and so on....

Why should I believe you instead of them?

The answer, of course, is that I 'believe' neither.... bcause neither registers in my particular brain as truth. I don't object to their belief, or yours.... but I simply won't be told that my own belief is invalid.... without a damn good reason.

[Popeye]

how is it possible to scientifically investigate something that is both in AND out of our known physical universe?

string theory and the 'theory of everything' (toe) deal with the extra dimensions you are asking about

[Nanoose]

...The adversary troops into the heavenly throne room like he's a regular guest, as opposed to someone who's been cast out, and tells Yaweh that he should beat Job up for the heck of it, to see if he'll crack. And Yaweh does it like a chump.

Dan

Actually, he discusses with God the only reason Job loves God is because of all the blessings he has received. Take away the stuff, and Job will reject God - it's not a real relationship. God believes Job's relationship is authentic. God - sovereign over his creation - lets Satan carry out the "experiment".

There was nothing about "beat Job up for the heck of it" and Yahweh doesn't do it at all!

Go back and reread Job 1, Dan! :rolleyes:

[Popeye]

Science is the means by which one investigates the physical world

not exclusively , no

[Popeye]

only in the form of Jesus was God ever a part of the physical world

jesus said .. i am the son of man

[Popeye]

God transcends the known physical universe

also seems to be implicated in the unknown physical universe , which is an excellent reason to abide by science

[Popeye]

I'm through arguing with whitewashed walls. ..
I'm out of here.

.. and ressurected

[Popeye]

. If everyone's truths are correct, then it can be argued that all truths are also incorrect, since there are truths that teach that there is ONLY ONE truth. If ALL truths are correct, then ALL truths are INCORRECT. We know that all truths are NOT incorrect, or we wouldn't have the word "TRUTH," indicating an exact or certain way of believing that is correct. you are not correct , i would correct you , but in attempting to be correct , i broke off my correction

[Keith Wilson]

Honda, you're tying yourself in knots for no good reason.

There are truths (small t) about the physical world which we can observe, either directly or indirectly. Some are obvious (I'm sitting at the computer typing) some require a bit of study and work (matter is mainly composed of 100-odd kinds of atoms which have certain properties) and some are damnably difficult and obscure:

http://www.realtime.net/~drwolf/papers/dissertation/img565.gif

(Suffice it to say I don't understand it and I bet you don't either.) They all have several things in common.

First, they are testable. That means we can ask "What would happen if this were true?" -and we can then go look at the world, or maybe do an experiment, and see if it comes out like we expected. If we do this enough times, we get a pretty good idea that we're right. Observations consistent with our truth (small t) are evidence in favor if it. If we build something based on our ideas, and it works, that's also evidence in favor.

Second, we can't strictly prove any of it. (Proof only happens in closed systems like mathematics.) We can be reasonably sure something is true, but it's possible that we'll find new information which shows we were wrong. It's unlikely in many cases, but always possible, and if enough new information comes to light, we'll have to revise what we think is true.

Third, it's entirely possible to disprove something. The force of gravity is not proportional to the cube of the distance. We don't see because our eyes emit rays which are then reflected back from the world. Matter is not an undifferentiated mass with no fine structure. The earth is not only 6000 years old.

Now these are truths about the physical world. They are basically answers to questions like: What is this? How did it get here? What is it made of? How does it work? This s the proper realm of science; observation and experiment are the only reliable ways we have found to answer these questions. "Revealed Truth" does not help us at all. It make no more sense to go to the Bible to tell you about the geological history of the earth than it does to use it as a manual to fix your dishwasher.

These are important, but they are not the only interesting, valid, or useful questions. There's a whole other area characterized by questions like: What does this mean? What's the purpose of this? What's the right thing to do? which is properly the area of religion and philosophy.

That's my issue with "Answers in Genesis". It interprets an the bible in a way which is completely contradicted by an enormous amount of observation and experiments. It then claims that its version of "Revealed Truth" trumps all this observation of the actual world. This is, honestly nonsense.

[Kaa]

Let's do some analysis...



Essentially, that says that we all have our own truths that are real to us, but not necessarily true for anyone else,

So far so good


hence our own truths are correct and right for us.

Not exactly. Whether you own truths are "right" for you is a separate question at all, but let's focus on the "correct" part. The more precise formulation is "our own truths are correct within our own frameworks which are different for each person".


If everyone's truths are correct, then it can be argued that all truths are also incorrect, since there are truths that teach that there is ONLY ONE truth.

See, that's where the lack of thinking about the framework leads you.

Everyone's truths are correct only within their frameworks and not necessarily within the frameworks of other people.

For example, one guy thinks that wine is a heavenly drink and beer is a swill fit only for swine. That's his truth. Another guy thinks wine sucks, but beer is the right stuff to drink. That's his truth. These two "truths" contradict each other, but that's fine because each of them is "correct' only within their own framework and they happen to have two different frameworks.

Actually, people have the capability to hold contradicting beliefs in their single (hopefully) head at the same time -- ability called "doublethink" -- but that doesn't concern the main argument here.



If ALL truths are correct, then ALL truths are INCORRECT. We know that all truths are NOT incorrect, or we wouldn't have the word "TRUTH," indicating an exact or certain way of believing that is correct.

Again -- truths are correct only in their own framework and not necessarily in other frameworks.

You believe in Jesus and that's your truth. A random guy in Indonesia believes in Allah and that's his truth. Your belief in Jesus in correct in your mind, but wrong in the Indonesia guy's mind. And his belief in Allah is right in his mind, but your belief in Jesus is wrong in his mind.



THEREFORE, there is only ONE correct TRUTH - Jesus...

Huh? Where did Jesus come from? I was fully expecting a Flying Spaghetti Monster :D Or Shiva, or Avalokiteshvara, or Zeus, or something else...

Basically, even if you convince yourself that logically there must be a God, why do you think it must be a Christian God?

Kaa

[brad9798]

I completely believe in God ... just not the literal Bible.

I believe in prayer ... giving of myself, etc.

That may be a surprise to you, Honda.

I am in church at least one time per week ... often times more.

I volunteer there and elsewhere.

My only issue with you is that I believe the Bible is full of neat stories ... good stories ... positive examples. You believe it is truly the word of God ...

I think it illustrates God's words ...

:)

[Honda_Shadow]

Brad:
So my question to you is, how do you draw the line between what is the actual, literal Word of God, and what is just a story? See the fact is, either Jesus is who He said He is, or he is a lunatic and a liar. Jesus was either telling the truth about Himself, or He wasn't. If Jesus was a liar, then he cannot simply be a "good teacher." A Good teacher does not lie to someone to such a degree that others follow him to their own deaths. A good and moral person would never do such a thing.

It is not my place to tell you whether you are saved or not, and I have not accused anyone on this forum of either being saved or not. That is an issue that is between the person and God.

[brad9798]

The Bible was written by mere mortals ... not by Jesus.

JESUS is ABSOLUTELY WHO HE SAID HE IS/IS. No question in my mind about it.

The church compiled the Bible ... and you know as well as I that men are not pure of heart ... thus, no Thomas or Magdellan gospels ...

We all choose our destiny ... in fact, I believe folks like Hitler and Hussein, if they desired are waiting in Heaven with for me to speak when I get there.

Furthermore, I believe everyone's Heaven is unique ... what we believe it will be ...

I don't buy the streets paved in gold ... why would God give a crap about gold? That is a secular interpretation ...

[botebum]

Hey! Did y'all know that at 8 o'clock tonight(EST) on Discovery Channel there's a show that will straighten out your thinkin'? "Rise of Man" Documentary. History. The evolution of Homo sapiens. That should fix it and this thread can be about a whole bunch of people who completely agree and will never deviate from the same path. Or we could all watch one of the religeous channels together and think that way. Majority Rules and everyone must conform. At the end there will not be a test because we'll all have the same answers. By the way, Saturday's game will not be scored so noones feelings are hurt. Won't life be wonderful once we're all the same? Next week we can discuss which book to burn or which Constitutional right to hand over to the leader of all right thinking- G.W. Bush.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot- On the 8th day God created Cocaine. On the 9th day he rested but couldn't sleep.

Doug

[Rational Root]

If something is about 1 in 1,000,000 to happen to any given person in any given day, it happens to about 4000 people every day.

Ever play cards, ever really want a Jack to turn up - and it does. You remember that. You don't remember all the times it doesn't.

It's called "A Selection Effect". You select for the unusual memories. You don't remember all the times you strongly believed something would happen and it did not.

That's why statisticians hugely discount stories and recollections.

Also - Just because something makes you feel better - this does not mean it's true. A trivial example - Kids feel better because they believe in Santa.

-

By the way - Sorry to hear about your Mother.





Well, I could tell you all about many situations in my life that can only be explained by the supernatural, but given how all of you feel about me, you wouldn't believe it. Things like answered prayers, or times when you think of someone and have a bad feeling, then give them a call and find out that something really is wrong, or like before my mother went into the hospital for routine surgery, I knew she was going to die. There's many more, though these aren't the greatest examples; probably the most notable in my life is a promise that Jesus gives each of us, that he gives us a peace that passes all understanding, and a comfort that simply shouldn't be there, but it's there. You just can't explain it unless you've felt it, but it is certainly unexplainable to me outside of Scripture.

[George.]

Actually, people have the capability to hold contradicting beliefs in their single (hopefully) head at the same time -- ability called "doublethink" -- but that doesn't concern the main argument here.


On the contrary - that is central to the argument.

Doublethink is absolutely required in order to follow a religion and function in the real world at the same time.

[Keith Wilson]

Doublethink is absolutely required in order to follow a religion and function in the real world at the same time.Some types of religion. It's absolutely necesssary for folks who believe like Honda Shadow.

[Popeye]

just wondetring if people like honda see themselves as 'open minded' and the others who question (not doubt , but openly question) as close minded?'

[Honda_Shadow]

Keith:
Doublethink? Whatever... I follow the path I have chosen to follow because I have found it to be true. I have never found any proof of life sans God.

Look, to all you evolutionist proponents, how long did it take for the process of blood clotting to evolve? I've been told there's something like 12 processes that must occur in order for blood to clot. If evolution is a slow process, then how long would that take? It wouldn't even be possible for any animal to make it out of infancy without getting cut, bleed to death and die; nothing would survive. Unless the process of blood clotting was (by pure chance mind you) gotten right the first time, it would not be possible for animals to even exist. What is the statistical probability of that happening?

What about natural selection? That doesn't support evolution, it supports creation. In the process of natural selection, the best suited critter surviving in any given environment, biological changes are only made from the genes already encoded within the organism, no new genes are created. This can be witnessed today. Where is the observational evidence for entirely new genes being formed inside an organism based on environmental stimuli? It doesn't happen. You will never see humans growing gills over a long period of time simply because the earth gets covered with water. ("Waterworld," good movie by the way...)

[glenallen]

"I have never found any proof of life sans God." HS

The proof of life is you can see it all around you.
The proof of no God is He's not here.

[Honda_Shadow]

Glenallen:
Your statement is based on the assumption that if I can't see it, then it doesn't exist. Does that mean when your little girl hides by putting her hands over her eyes, that you no longer exist because she can't see you?

[George.]

Honda, you really need to learn rudimentary science, at least, before making statements about it:





... biological changes are only made from the genes already encoded within the organism, no new genes are created. This can be witnessed today. Where is the observational evidence for entirely new genes being formed inside an organism based on environmental stimuli? It doesn't happen.

It amazes me that in 21st century America there are people who own a computer and never heard of mutations.

[troutman]

Just heard about a attraction in Kentucky. Love how the heathen BBC pronounces American states, KENtucky. Anyway, in this creationist attraction they have an ark with animals including dinosaurs onboard. I didn't know that the Grand Canyon was created by the flood and how about God planting those fossils way down at the bottom to test people's faith. Our God is indeed a cleaver God.

[Honda_Shadow]

beneficial mutations? Oxymoron? Or Ninja Turtles?

[Nanoose]

The proof of life is you can see it all around you.
The proof of no God is He's not here.

The proof of life....ga, we see what is seeable, but not what is not. This analogy is not great, but if you built a boat and sold it to me, anyone who saw that boat would know it was built by someone, yet, you are not "here". To imply you don't exist would be ludicrous.

You say "The proof of life is you can see it all around you." And as I look all around me, especially at the complexity of the universe, I see proof of God, ga. I see the proof that He in fact is. Just as that little boat would be proof of your existence.

[Norman Bernstein]

Look, to all you evolutionist proponents, how long did it take for the process of blood clotting to evolve? I've been told there's something like 12 processes that must occur in order for blood to clot. If evolution is a slow process, then how long would that take? It wouldn't even be possible for any animal to make it out of infancy without getting cut, bleed to death and die; nothing would survive. Unless the process of blood clotting was (by pure chance mind you) gotten right the first time, it would not be possible for animals to even exist. What is the statistical probability of that happening?

I'm no evolutionary biologist, so I can't answer this.... I suspect Keith is a bit more literate on the subject. However, I know that this argument, as well as the others in support of either creationism and intelligent design, have been refuted by the majority of experts.

However, let's see if we can't step back a bit from the science.... since none of us here are PhD evolutionary biologists (I'm going to presume you're not one, are you?).

The argument you make above is a 'logic and reason' argument, having nothing to do with a bias of any sort... which is a good thing. It is an argument that does not require belief in God, or Christ, or the supernatural. It is a 'negative evidence' argument, i.e., without affirmative evidence to support it... so it's no less hypothetical than any opposing argment.

If so, then it fails the 'common sense' test, for the following reason: if it's so simple and obvious that you and Keith and I can understand it, then why do the vast majority of evolutionary biologists reject it?

The only argument I've ever heard from the pro-Creationism or pro-Intelligent Design community essentially boils down to the notion that the bulk of evolutionary biologists have an anti-religious bias.... and this most certainly fails the common-sense test. In order for this explanation to be valid, you'd have to presume that the bulk, and I do mean the vast majority, of scientists in this field are antagonistic towards the religious view..... and I don't see the slightest support for this. For this to be true, you'd need to assume a 'conspiracy theory' sort of stance. This is directly analogous to those who believe that the WTC was imploded from within, rather than destroyed by airplane strikes... to believe THAT, you'd have to believe that tens of thousands of professional structural engineers are keeping silent because they are 'in' on the conspiracy.

So, what can we say about the few (and I do mean few) scientists who support either Creationism or Intelligent Design... do they have a religious agenda? Last I looked (in the case of I.D., which has been discussed to death in this forum), virtually every 'scientist' listed on the web site supporting I.D. had a clear and open association with religious interests.

I hope you don't have kids considering a science career...

[Keith Wilson]

Honda, the blood clotting sequence is another poster child for the “irreducible complexity” advocates. The evolution of the eye used to be the standard case, but that one’s been mostly figured out and even simulated in computer models, so they don’t talk about it much anymore. Yes it’s complicated. Yes if you take away any part of it, it doesn’t work. However, that’s not how evolution works. The question is: can you change any part of it and still have something that’s better than what preceded it?. That is, does a path exist from a primitive condition where each step is an improvement, however small, over the last? Yes, it does. We don’t yet entirely understand how blood clotting evolved, and we may not for a long time - maybe even never. Because molecular mechanisms leave no fossils, there’s no record we can look at. However, in this case, “irreducible complexity” isn’t.

This web site has an interesting discussion of one possible evolutionary path for blood clotting. Be warned that it's pretty complicated and requires at least some knowledge of biochemistry.

http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/DI/clot/Clotting.html

This is a classic case of the ”God of the Gaps”. Human knowledge is always incomplete, so our ignorance is used as evidence of the supernatural. It’s been going on for a long time – Thunder and lightening used to be the anger of Zeus, floods and earthquakes happened because some deity or other got upset, plagues were caused by gods or demons or witches. Medicine and sanitation stop plagues much better than prayer alone, so that’s what we do now. We used to not understand how various species developed, and attributed that to special creation, but now we have a pretty good idea how that works.

The gaps in our knowledge have been shrinking for a long time, and if you have to fit your God into them, he keeps getting smaller and smaller. The thing is, it’s not necessary. Any God capable of creating the universe in all it astounding complexity is entirely capable of making it work his will in ways that we can’t tell from the operation of natural laws. Obvious supernatural intervention is completely unnecessary for religious faith.

Natural selection works like this:

- Some characteristics are heritable
- There are variations in those characteristics in different organisms
- Those characteristics that help an organism pass on more copies of its genes to the next generation will become more common.

That’s all it is. Over time, the results have been pretty dramatic.

Genes aren’t changed because of large-scale environmental stimuli, with the exception of mutagens that damage DNA. Variations in genes occur from a large number of causes. The process of copying DNA is pretty complicated, and lots of subtle things can go wrong that change the code. It's a bit like copying a long book a line at a time - occasionally things get changed, or out of order, or moved around. How it works is pretty well understood at this point. You really ought to look into it in the ordinary popular scientific literature; it’s fascinating, whatever your religious beliefs. Whether it evolved or God created it directly, it's a truly amazing thing, and I really suggest you read up on it.

[George.]

Come on, guys. You are trying to explain the function and evolution of blood proteins to someone who never heard of mutations. It's like trying to explain astronomical navigation to someone who can't do arithmetic.

No wonder Red America has a Creation Museum. In other countries, those who slept through high school science classes are at least informed enough to realize their own ignorance, rather than exalt it.

[Keith Wilson]

Ignorance is curable. One can only try.

Hey who knows - Honda Shadow might pick up a biology textbook and be so fascinated with the intricacies of DNA and protein synthesis, as a reflection of the glory and astounding ingenuity of God (as good an interpretation as any) that he goes on to learn a lot about it, and eventually starts to refute the know-nothings from their own conservative Christian perspective. It could happen! A man can dream, right?

[Nanoose]

I think the point of misunderstanding here is with Genesis 1 (or, 1-3 if you like), not with what science helps us know. I think we need a good look at that, for a clearer understanding of Genesis 1 lets us hold both theism and evolution together. Our understanding makes them appear contradictory and makes us feel we must choose one over the other. I have come to see they are not contradictory at all and can both be held.

I think we're discussing the wrong half of this believed dilemma.

[Kaa]

Where is the observational evidence for entirely new genes being formed inside an organism based on environmental stimuli? It doesn't happen.

You are correct. In fact, there was a famous historical debate on this very topic -- between Darwin and Lamark.

Lamark said that acquired characteristics are inherited -- in other words, "new genes are being formed inside an organism based on environmental stimuli". His explanation of why giraffes have long necks is that every generation of giraffes stretched its necks and with every generation they grew longer and longer.

Darwin said no, that's not how it works. What's happening is that there is natural and random variation in genes of a given species. Natural selection makes sure that useful variations get passed to the next generation and harmful are not. Darwin's explanation of why giraffes have long necks is that at some point some giraffe ancestor through random gene variation got a longer neck. It was useful, so his descendants multiplied and crowded out their shorter-necked cousins. Repeat this a few times and you've got giraffes.

So the position you're debunking has already been debunked, by Charles Darwin, no less :D

Kaa

P.S. Try Richard Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene

[Kaa]

Ignorance is curable. One can only try.

If it's willful ignorance, the chances aren't too good...

Kaa

[brad9798]

I remember about the witches that lived in Salem ... and the righteous men that used the Bible to kill them ... afterall, the believed in the literal words in the Bible ... and thusly killed innocent girls ...

[Keith Wilson]

These days they just won't let their kids read Harry Potter books. Who says we haven't progressed? http://www.woodenboatvb.com/vbulletin/upload/images/icons/icon14.gif

[brad9798]

One question for literalists worldwide:

Have you ever worked on a Sunday?

If you have, why are you no dead?

Serious question.

[Honda_Shadow]

Brad:
Those leaders in Salem apparently trying to cleanse the population must have known about Levitical law as they were demonstrating the evils of legalism. What they failed to see was the GRACE of God. Those people were what is commonly called apostates. A Christian under Grace understands that judgement for sin is not necessarily appointed in this life, but it is most certainly delt with at the Great White Throne Judgement of God. From that there is no escape. "Vengence is MINE, sayeth the Lord." (Emphasis added) Some of the greatest sins of this world have been commited under legalistic apostates.

Then again, that's not to say that there are not reasons to kill. The Bible says: "Thou shalt not kill," but the original Hebrew is better translated "murder." All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. Example: capital punishment, non-innocent deaths in a justifyable war, ect...

I KNOW this is going to stir the pot so to speak, but I'm not flinging poo, just stating what is in Scriptures...

[Honda_Shadow]

Brad:
See above on "legalism." The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Jesus even teaches on working on Sundays. Read your Bible before condemning it.

[Kaa]

One question for literalists worldwide:

Have you ever worked on a Sunday?

If you have, why are you no dead?

Serious question.

The serious answer (theologically) is that Jesus basically repealed all the Leviticus laws saying that after him they do not apply. That's why Christians eat pork and shellfish, work on Sundays, and are not trying to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem.

The serious answer (historically) is that the very very early Christians were Jews. And the very first split in Christianity was between those who thought that it should be limited to Jews only, and those (notably, Paul) who thought that it should be a universal religion, for both Jews and Gentiles. I guess you know which side was successful :-)

Kaa

[glenallen]

The proof of life....ga, we see what is seeable, but not what is not. This analogy is not great, but if you built a boat and sold it to me, anyone who saw that boat would know it was built by someone, yet, you are not "here". To imply you don't exist would be ludicrous.

You say "The proof of life is you can see it all around you." And as I look all around me, especially at the complexity of the universe, I see proof of God, ga. I see the proof that He in fact is. Just as that little boat would be proof of your existence.

I knew that would never get past you! lol
Yeah, I know it's not Proof of no God just because we can't see Him, but I've found it impossible to make the "leap of faith" necessary to say that because there is a material universe, there is God.

[glenallen]

"Vengence is MINE, sayeth the Lord." HS

My all time favorite quote of God!

[Rational Root]

"Vengence is MINE, sayeth the Lord." HS

My all time favorite quote of God!

"Vengence is MINE, sayeth the Lord", sayeth someone.

[Kaa]

It is, of course, rather strange for an omnipotent omniscient being to speak of vengeance...

Kaa

[glenallen]

"Vengence is MINE, sayeth the Lord", sayeth someone.


You mean like, Leroy said that Fred said that Frankie said that God said, "Vengeance is Mine"? I think you're right!

[Keith Wilson]

Actually, Nanoose, there's a very serious question to which I've never heard a convincing answer, which is: "Why doesn't God make his presence really obvious?" The standard answer is,"He does" but that won't wash. It would be so easy to make it clear to anyone, no matter how prejudiced, obstinate, or stupid. Revelations are always something obscure that happened a longtime ago, or are ambiguous, confusing, and not at all obvious. Why not put clear and testable things in the supposedly infallible Bible that the people of the time when it was written could not possibly have known? "Nothing goes faster than light" "The types of earthly substances are 92, each with three kinds of parts" Why not the ten commandments written on the moon in huge stone letters, or a 500-foot tall crucifix orbiting Mars? Why doesn't Jesus appear once per generation and get resurrected, just so we can't possibly miss it? Why is everything we can observe about the universe entirely consistent with no God at all?

I'm being a little facetious in my choice of examples, but it's a serious problem IMHO.

[George.]

The Bible says: "Thou shalt not kill," but the original Hebrew is better translated "murder." All murder is killing, but not all killing is murder. Example: capital punishment, non-innocent deaths in a justifyable war, ect...



And who decides which killing is murder?

Why, religious authorities, of course!

Jesus said: "My Kingdom is not of this world." It is little known that he then added, rolling his eyes: "But most of "my" churches will be." :rolleyes:

[Honda_Shadow]

Keith:
I would be pleased to answer your question. To answer it, look at the time when Jesus went into the wilderness, fasting for 40 days and the devil came to tempt him. One of his temptations was to jump off of the temple in front of the people, survive the more than 45 story plumit, and pronounce himself to be God. The devil misquoted scripture to him as a basis for his temptation saying that "He shall give his angels charge over you so that you shall not dash your foot against a stone." The quote was true, but taken out of context as that was never meant for Jesus. SO, why didn't he jump off and prove himself as God by performing an astounding miracle? BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL NOT BEILIEVE IN GOD JUST BECAUSE THEY SEE A MIRACLE. The scriptures are full of examples of people seeing miracles and still refusing to believe that Jesus is God. Even if they would believe, God wants his people to love him out of their own free will, not because of ANY other reason, be it force, or from witnessing a miracle, or whatever.

Does that help?

[Honda_Shadow]

George:
What constitues a justifyable death?
I hate to be so crass, but If someone comes into your home and rapes and murders your 6 year old child right before your eyes, then is found guilty of the crime beyond any shadow of a doubt, and gets the death penalty. That is a justifyable death. Why? Because there are punishments for sin. We are required to deal justly in the governing of the people, and sometimes that requires capital punishment. Jesus NEVER spoke against capital punishment. Neither did Jesus ever say to a soldier "lay down your arms for your occupations are evil." No, he told them not to extort and be content with their pay. (I guess some things never change, soldiers are still paid peanuts)

[Keith Wilson]

God wants his people to love him out of their own free will, not because of ANY other reason, be it force, or from witnessing a miracle, or whatever. God's hiding, and we have to find him based on subtle clues? Two problems with that: First, why do those arguing in favor of one religion or another regularly cite miracles as proof of God's existence and a reason one should believe? I've been told very seriously by intelligent people that the alleged eyewitness accounts of Jesus' resurrection proved the truth of Christianity.

Second, traditional Christian doctrine claims that those who don't believe will go to hell. Seems kind of harsh, if God keeps hidden. (Seems kind of harsh under any circumstances, but we don't have to go into that again.)

I think what George is getting at is that religious authorities have often decided that killing people they don't like is not murder - and with far less justification than the example you cite. Nasty historical examples abound: witch trials, heresy trials, Crusades, Jihad . . .

[George.]

George:
What constitues a justifyable death?
I hate to be so crass, but If someone comes into your home and rapes and murders your 6 year old child right before your eyes, then is found guilty of the crime beyond any shadow of a doubt, and gets the death penalty. That is a justifyable death.

I am not opposed to the death penality in theory. In practice, I have yet to see a government apply one with justice and effectiveness.

What I have often seen and read is of religious authorities applying the death penalty on the innocent, and claiming that this was in accordance with God's will. Ditto for wars. There is no lack of wars for profit and power endorsed by religious authorities.

Jesus never talked about justice on this earth, or what punishment should be administered. He never gave guidelines for "just war." But his so-called churches seem to be self-styled experts on these subjects.

[glenallen]

I have trouble believing in an insecure and needy God who craves the love of all people.
He needs a good self-help book to build some self-esteem.

[Keith Wilson]

Mark Twain: The War Prayer. The whole story is here: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/making/warprayer.html

O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle -- be Thou near them! With them -- in spirit -- we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it -- for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

[TomF]

"Vengeance is MINE, saith the Lord." HS

My all time favorite quote of God!It's a goodie. The intent being to absolve everyone else of the obligation to exact vengeance. Tells people to put their weapons down, even if they've been injured and have "just cause" to whack someone.

Just like "an eye for an eye" was intended to impose a limit on the amount of violence to be exacted for an injury, in a day when an accidental wounding could start a blood-feud between tribes.

Great examples of why the context is crucial if one's got a hope of getting the meaning straight.

[Honda_Shadow]

OK, look at it like this, the Bible uses many situations that we know of as comparisons between Him and his people. For example, Christians are called the "Bride of Christ" because we know of what great love there is between a newly wed couple. Now I use the comparison of a father and a child. When you have children, you want them to love you. You don't want to bribe them with toys, or try to coax them into loving you, you want to come home from work and that child jump up into your arms and whisper in your ear "I love you daddy..." I suppose on that note that teenagers are the best comparison to the devil that God has given us: "OK, let's see how YOU like it to create something in your own image that denies your very existence!" (Just kidding about the teenager thing)

God does not hide himself from us. I could go into Romans 9 but I really don't think I can explain it by merely typing... It's not long if you want to try it. www.biblegateway.com (http://www.biblegateway.com)
But I think it's only going to create more controversy than settle it.

[TomF]

...Jesus never talked about justice on this earth, or what punishment should be administered. He never gave guidelines for "just war." But his so-called churches seem to be self-styled experts on these subjects.I disagree. Jesus frequently talked about justice here, and spent an indordinate amount of his teaching talking about how to make this place reflect God's ideas of justice as much as possible.

He was also clear, though, that this had very little to do with running a government apparatus. He entirely tossed out the conventional Jewish idea of the Messiah setting up shop as the new King of a state called Israel ... that's what Palm Sunday was about.

[George.]

You mean there are things that today religion tells us are OK, which in the future will be seen as sinful and immoral?

[Keith Wilson]

And things that religion now tells us are sinful and immoral, which in the future will be OK, or even virtuous?

[TomF]

You mean there are things that today religion tells us are OK, which in the future will be seen as sinful and immoral?I'm certain of it.

[Leon m]

I got it !...It's the fish...the fish came first...right ?

[Honda_Shadow]

George.You mean there are things that today religion tells us are OK, which in the future will be seen as sinful and immoral?


No. The truths that Jesus taught are universal; for all time. If that's untrue, show me in Scripture.

[Keith Wilson]

(Totally off-topic) Hey Leon, I just watched The Wild One for the first time!

[TomF]

Honda? Jesus' teachings are pretty timeless, though there are a bunch of things he stayed silent on. Slavery, for one. War for another. Didn't talk directly about capital punishment either, or homosexuality, or environmental degradation.

But there's a big difference between the "subjugate the earth" biblically based views of resource management, and the "stewards of creation" biblically based view. Between the ethnic cleansing practised against the Canaanites by Joshua et al, and "love your enemies."

[Nanoose]

"Why doesn't God make his presence really obvious?" The standard answer is,"He does" but that won't wash. It would be so easy to make it clear to anyone, no matter how prejudiced, obstinate, or stupid. Revelations are always something obscure that happened a longtime ago, or are ambiguous, confusing, and not at all obvious. Why not put clear and testable things in the supposedly infallible Bible that the people of the time when it was written could not possibly have known? .

Hmmm....this is hard for me, because for me it is very obvious. I do understand your desire to see some type of hard, concrete, hold it in your hand evidence, but again, for me I would suggest that you have, and do. So, I'm not sure I can be helpful, or tell you anything you haven't already realized, but I will tell you what I can.

About making his presence really obvious....I see things you don't accept, so if you want more on this, just ask. BUt for now, I probably can't offer you anything new.

Making it clear to anyone....the obstinate and stubborn don't want to see, and so they don't see. It was the same with Christ right in front of them. There is nothing that can be done. Their minds are made up. We think if they could just see such-and-such, but it makes no difference for them, Keith.

Revelations are always something obscure that happened a longtime ago...some happened a long time ago, but because God is about relationship with his people, the revelations actually continue 24/7 in the lives of millions of people, but again, that is not sufficient for someone coming with this question. That is not heard - it is ignored as not credible.

Why not put clear and testable things in the supposedly infallible Bible...there are concrete evidences in many areas (historical and archaeological immediately come to mind), but I think you are asking the Bible to be something it is not. It is a record of God revealing himself to people in particular cultures and times, and these simply were not their questions, their needs. Again, it is a theological book, not a science textbook. Could he have? Sure. Why didn't he? Possibly because all he did put there was sufficient for the time. And, even if he had met your request, I'm not sure the authors would have written it in a way we would understand in this time/culture. For example, some of John's descriptions in Revelation I would describe as a nuclear explosion. John would have no understanding or context for 'nuclear explosion'. He simply does his best to describe his vision. A vision of things not yet known is hard to describe for those who then live in a time when it IS known. BUT AGAIN, God's concern is about being in relationship.

Why not put clear and testable things in the supposedly infallible Bible....taking this question another way, I would answer that he did! The bible is, among other things, a prophetic book, and we have evidences of prophecies fulfilled later in biblical times, and in post biblical times. Also, the bible has many relational/experiential promises that I and countless others have actually experienced. These, like all else, are simply discounted. In the materialist, rationalist framework of this type of question, of our culture, these are simply totally ignored. And I don't think that is an extremely educated, informed, or 'scientific' response. I would think even the rationalists would start to wonder about the sheer numbers and consistency of any type of occurance. But I don't think that is what you are needing.

None of what is there to answer this type of question is ever found sufficient, because this question is asked with an assumption. We all take our predispositions and assumptions to anything, and it is hard to lay them aside for a moment and really look at things. That is true for ALL of us. The assumption here is that God is not, and it is for some reason His job to overcome this assumption and prove otherwise. "God, if you exist, make an ice-cream cone materialize in my hand RIGHT NOW!! If you don't, I won't believe in you!". And, the difficulty is that He already has revealed himself, repeatedly, throughout history, even today, in countless ways, and it simply is not acknowledged.



... Why is everything we can observe about the universe entirely consistent with no God at all?

hehehehehe :D Was this one just to make me laugh? ;)

[Keith Wilson]

Over the last 1900 years or so, those who said they were following Jesus have done quite a surprising variety of things which they said were based on his ideas. I dunno, maybe they've finally gotten it right?

[Osborne Russell]

It's a goodie. The intent being to absolve everyone else of the obligation to exact vengeance. Tells people to put their weapons down, even if they've been injured and have "just cause" to whack someone.

Just like "an eye for an eye" was intended to impose a limit on the amount of violence to be exacted for an injury, in a day when an accidental wounding could start a blood-feud between tribes.


What was the Council of Nicaea vote on this one? Any dissenters?

[TomF]

Over the last 1900 years or so, those who said they were following Jesus have done quite a surprising variety of things which they said were based on his ideas. I dunno, maybe they've finally gotten it right?I wouldn't count on it.

I'm quite certain that folks not so long from now will look back at the contemporary "reformers," like we'd now look at reformers in the 19th or 18th or earlier centuries, and see glaring places where people got it wrong. Prejudices as yet unacknowledged, oppressions as yet unnamed.

I take great comfort in seeing the biblical record of faithful people making what I'd consider to be horrible choices ... and generations following changing their practices as they clued in. I see that as modelling an authentic approach to relationship with God - where what was understood to be The Good and The True yesterday needs to be questioned in the context of contemporary knowledge and ethics.

In some cases, I think we should "move backwards." I think, for instance, that we've moved towards license in any number of different sectors of personal and public life ... we forget that Victorian prudery was a response to seeing the social fallout of Georgian excess.

In other cases, I suspect that future generations will see blindingly obvious examples of oppression and prejudice, to which we're currently entirely oblivious.

Relying on Grace means that I don't need to be overwrought about my bits of context-bound blindness. I've enough to do, trying to practice ethical behaviour in my own time ... fully acknowledging that I'm undoubtedly getting some or a lot of it wrong.

[TomF]

What was the Council of Nicaea vote on this one? Any dissenters?Folks at the time of Nicaea weren't any bigger on applying textual criticism to ancient writings than they were on describing molecular physics. Nor did they have archaeological records describing semitic tribal behaviour in the near east.

But despite the Church's bloody history, there have always been strands within it that dissented. Jesus famously stopped a stoning ...

[Honda_Shadow]

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

It is impossible for the lost to see the things of God, it's not a statement of will, rather a statement of ability. It is without his ability to see. All of this arguing back and forth is getting nowhere except to unstick my keyboard from where drink had been spilled on it some time ago.

[Keith Wilson]

All of this arguing back and forth is getting nowhere except to unstick my keyboard from where drink had been spilled on it some time ago.Well, I'm glad I could help. ;)

[TomF]

As my New Testament professor famously said in our first day of class, after reading a passage from John
You realize, of course, that Jesus never said that.That quote, and ALL the sayings we've got in John, is written in idiomatic Greek. A language Jesus didn't know.

The us/them character of it reflects the conflict going on between Jews in Jerusalem, and the community that had grown up around John the beloved disciple.

I'll duck now.:D

t.

[Osborne Russell]

Folks at the time of Nicaea weren't any bigger on applying textual criticism to ancient writings than they were on describing molecular physics. Nor did they have archaeological records describing semitic tribal behaviour in the near east.

Yeah but they had inspiration from God. How'd they come down on eye-gouging?


But despite the Church's bloody history, there have always been strands within it that dissented. Jesus famously stopped a stoning ...

To me that would imply an anti-eye-gouging interpretation, but I claim no inspiration.

[Honda_Shadow]

TomF:
Trust me, just because a professor says something, doesn't make it right. True, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, the New Testament was written in Greek, but to say that Jesus didn't know Greek is to say that Jesus is not God, and doesn't know all things. True, Jesus may not have commonly communicated in Greek as we know that he spoke in Aramaic, and there are no recorded writings of Jesus to document a Greek hand, but we cannot make the leap that Jesus didn't say the things that John said that he did. Why would John lie? What your professor should have said was that Jesus said what he did in one language and it was written down in another. He spoke in Aramaic, it was written down in Greek.

Look at it this way, suppose I'm giving a lecture in Mexico on how to frame a house to a bunch of bi-lingual Mexicans. Now, the only Spanish I know and commonly use on job sites is "HEY STUPID!" But the audience knows both English and Spanish. If my lecture is to go to Mexicans, then it would most likely be written down in a language that would be most commonly understood, Spanish. The only difference in my analogy is that of course, Jesus knew Greek.

[TomF]

Well, what do you think, Oz?

The lads at Nicaea didn't really get into the eye-gouging thing, but they did set other rules for mixed martial arts. Why do you think folks fight in an octagon, and not in a pentagram?

t.

[TomF]

Honda,

Jesus was a 1st century Jew, from way out in the sticks. I do not think it's at all plausible to say that he knew Greek. Nor does it make the incarnation any less real to say that he didn't.

John (or rather, John's disciples) wrote what they understood to be the truth, distilled from John's memory of events and his interpretation of what Jesus said. But no, we've got libraries of research describing Semitic teaching styles, aramaic syntax etc., and noting the parallels between Jesus' sayings in the synoptic gospels. Very few were picked up in John's gospel.

Either John was paraphrasing ... or he followed around quite a different teacher than the other disciples. That's unlikely.

t

[Honda_Shadow]

TomF:
Jesus gave up many things to become human, He gives us insight into this when he is speaking of the second coming and said that noone knows when the second coming will be except God in Heaven. Obviously Jesus knows when, as He IS God, there were just many things he gave up when He became human, that being one of them. A Language barrier may have been another thing to give up, but I don't think so in this case...

Yes, Jesus was what we would now call a redneck, but he spent much of his early childhood in Egypt where Greek would have been spoken; there was also a Greek translation of the Old Testament that had been well established by Jesus' time, He was also a well educated man. It's not a huge deal, but I do think it is entirely possible that Jesus spoke Greek.

John gives personal accounts of his time with Christ, look at revelation and you'll see many references to a first person deliverance of the word.

[WillW]

Well, at least he's not Sam.

[TomF]

...he spent much of his early childhood in Egypt we've no record of this. Only a story of a trip back to Galilee taking a long route through Egypt.
John gives personal accounts of his time with Christ, look at revelation and ....Yes he does ... but John the Beloved Disciple and John of Patmos were different people.

My NT prof felt that the Gospel of John held the fewest actual sayings of Jesus, based on textual scholarship and linguistic analysis. He also felt that it may have been theologically closer (i.e. I Am the Vine, I Am the Good Shepherd etc.) to Jesus' own views than the Synoptics. Those typically didn't present Jesus' own interpretations of his teachings at all, and where they were given ... it's clear from textual analyses that the explanations are written by a different author than the parables they purport to explain.

t.

[Leon m]

(Totally off-topic) Hey Leon, I just watched The Wild One for the first time!

Damn good movie aint it ?

[Nanoose]

... but John the Beloved Disciple and John of Patmos were different people.

t.

Tell me more, please.

[TomF]

Of John of Patmos, we know little besides the name and the fact that he was imprisoned by the Romans ... on the island of Patmos. He wrote Revelation in a form consistent with Jewish apocalyptic literature (Daniel, the "little apocalypse" in Mark, a few bits in the Apocrypha, etc.). In a real way, it's well understood to be a writing in code - to slip out under the noses of Roman jailors, who wouldn't understand it.

John the Beloved Disciple was, well, the disciple. Lived in Jerusalem after Jesus' death, and was strongly associated with the group of Christians who got into conflict with the Jewish leaders of the time. More of the anti-semitic comments in the NT are actually in John rather than in the Synoptics, and likely reflect the degree of conflict experienced by the community.

The books are written in very different styles, which would be surprising if we thought that John the Beloved Disciple and John of Patmos were the same person.

[Keith Wilson]

"Hey Johnny, what'cha rebelling against?"
"What have you got?"
:D
Great movie. One really interesting thing was that it's pre-60s, pre rock and roll, pre all of that. They play loud jazz music in the café, use hipster slang (crazy!), and dance with their arms around the girls. Brando was a good actor despite the handicaps of the script.

Anyway, back to the theological discussion. Carry on . . .

[Nanoose]

Of John of Patmos, we know little besides the name and the fact that he was imprisoned by the Romans ... on the island of Patmos. He wrote Revelation in a form consistent with Jewish apocalyptic literature (Daniel, the "little apocalypse" in Mark, a few bits in the Apocrypha, etc.). In a real way, it's well understood to be a writing in code - to slip out under the noses of Roman jailors, who wouldn't understand it.

John the Beloved Disciple was, well, the disciple. Lived in Jerusalem after Jesus' death, and was strongly associated with the group of Christians who got into conflict with the Jewish leaders of the time. More of the anti-semitic comments in the NT are actually in John rather than in the Synoptics, and likely reflect the degree of conflict experienced by the community.

The books are written in very different styles, which would be surprising if we thought that John the Beloved Disciple and John of Patmos were the same person.

Perhaps the stylistic differences are due to their different genres...

There are 2 views on authorship. From as early as Justin Martyr, it has been held that this John was the apostle. In the third century, an African bishop, based on the stylistic differences decided there must be different authors. Many today follow this view of authorship, but the external evidence seems overwhelming of the traditional view (John the Apostle).

[George.]

John 3:3
Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.



Jesus also said that a rich man cannot go to Heaven anymore than a camel through the eye of a needle. He did not mention any exceptions.

You do realize that you are a rich man, don't you, Honda? Far richer than the overwhelming majority of mankind, and far richer than what passed for a "rich man" in Jesus' days.

Have you given away your fortune yet? Or do you, like most Christians, only follow those teachings that don't cramp your style? ;)

[Osborne Russell]

TomF:
Trust me, just because a professor says something, doesn't make it right.

If he's on the Council of Nicaea, it does.

[Honda_Shadow]

George:
Do you make sport of misquoting scripture, or is it strictly out of ignorance?

[glenallen]

George:
Do you make sport of misquoting scripture, or is it strictly out of ignorance?

It's Sport, Honda, trust me!
Let's hear your interpretation of George's misquote, please?

[Honda_Shadow]

Glenallen:
The rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked him what good thing he must do to have eternal life; see, he was used to "works based" false religeons, and thought that the stories of Jesus were no different. So Jesus tells him to keep the commandments of God, which he says he has done since his youth. The rich young ruler actually thought he was sinless as he thought he had kept all of the 10 commandments, then Jesus hits on the young ruler's sin that beset him, his god was his money. So Jesus told him to go and sell all that he has and give to the poor. (This is a reference to the teaching of "If your right eye offend you, pluck it out, ect... In other words, do whatever is necessary to remove sin from your life) The ruler did not want to remove that sin in his life, and was therefore lost.

[Honda_Shadow]

Incidentally, Jesus never teaches that money in itself is wrong; it is the LOVE of money that is wrong...

[glenallen]

Thanks, Honda.

[George.]

Once again, Honda displays the fundamentalist trick of picking and choosing his Bible passages, interpreting literally those that do not affect him personally (e.g., the creation myths), while spinning those that would so as to render them toothless.

There is no basis for interpreting John 3:3 as meaning you must become a "born again" evangelical to go to heaven, while interpreting the camel-through-the-eye-of-a-needle as meaning that it only applies to greedy third parties, not to your personal wealth.

Wake up, rich man. You are going to hell. Jesus didn't do spin.

[Osborne Russell]

Incidentally, Jesus never teaches that money in itself is wrong; it is the LOVE of money that is wrong...

That's what Buddha says too.

[Honda_Shadow]

George:
Have you even READ your Bible? I don't mean piecemeal, I mean the whole thing as a complete work. When you do accomplish this, maybe you'll be better prepared to understand it. When you take the Bible piecemeal and out of context as you seem to be doing, it is easy to make the passage mean anything you wish it to. As for John 3:3, if it isn't to be interpreted as it reads, then, pray tell, what DO you read it as saying? The passage is very clear...

[George.]

Honda, I have read the Bible. All of it. More than once.

Believe me, it works better piecemeal. It has too many internal contradictions - let alone contradictions with reality.

John 3:3? A symbolic phrase, not to be taken literally, composed by a mystical, perhaps somewhat Gnostic, fellow who never met Jesus, and probably never met anyone who had met Jesus.

[Nanoose]

John 3:3? A symbolic phrase, not to be taken literally, composed by a mystical, perhaps somewhat Gnostic, fellow who never met Jesus, and probably never met anyone who had met Jesus.

Who would that be, George?

[Tom Montgomery]

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/john.html


Robert Kysar writes the following on the authorship of the Gospel of John (The Anchor Bible Dictionary, v. 3, pp. 919-920):

The supposition that the author was one and the same with the beloved disciple is often advanced as a means of insuring that the evangelist did witness Jesus' ministry. Two other passages are advanced as evidence of the same - 19:35 and 21:24. But both falter under close scrutiny. 19:35 does not claim that the author was the one who witnessed the scene but only that the scene is related on the sound basis of eyewitness. 21:24 is part of the appendix of the gospel and should not be assumed to have come from the same hand as that responsible for the body of the gospel. Neither of these passages, therefore, persuades many Johannine scholars that the author claims eyewitness status.

There is a case to be made that John, the son of Zebedee, had already died long before the Gospel of John came to be written. It is worth noting for its own sake, even though the "beloved disciple" need not be identified with John, the son of Zebedee. In his ninth century Chronicle in the codex Coislinianus, George Hartolos says, "[John] was worth of martyrdom." Hamartolos proceeds to quote Papias to the effect that, "he [John] was killed by the Jews." In the de Boor fragment of an epitome of the fifth century Chronicle of Philip of Side, the author quotes Papias: Papias in the second book says that John the divine and James his brother were killed by Jews. Morton Enslin observes (Christian Beginnings, pp. 369-370): "That PapiasÂ’ source of information is simply an inference from Mark 10:35-40 or its parallel, Matt. 20:20-23, is possible. None the less, this Marcan passage itself affords solid ground. No reasonable interpretation of these words can deny the high probability that by the time these words were written [ca. 70 CE] both brothers had 'drunk the cup' that Jesus had drunk and had been 'baptized with the baptism' with which he had been baptized." Since the patristic tradition is unanimous in identifying the beloved disciple with John, at least this evidence discredits the patristic tradition concerning the authorship of the Gospel of John.

If the author of the Gospel of John were an eyewitness, presumably the author would have known that Jesus and his compatriots were permitted to enter the synagogues. But at one several points it is stated that those who acknowledged Jesus as the Christ during the life of Jesus were put out of the synagogue. This anachronism is inconceivable as the product of an eyewitness.

Kysar states that most scholars today see the historical setting of the Gospel of John in the expulsion of the community from the synagogue (op. cit., p. 918). The word aposynagogos is found three times in the gospel (9:22, 12:42, 16:2). The high claims made for Jesus and the response to them (5:18), the polemic against "the Jews" (9:18, 10:31, 18:12, 19:12), and the assertion of a superiority of Christian revelation to the Hebrew (1:18, 6:49-50, 8:58) show that "the Johannine community stood in opposition to the synagogue from which it had been expelled." (p. 918)

Kysar states concerning the dating of the Gospel of John: "Those who relate the expulsion to a formal effort on the part of Judaism to purge itself of Christian believers link the composition of the gospel with a date soon after the Council of Jamnia, which is supposed to have promulgated such an action. Hence, these scholars would date John after 90. Those inclined to see the expulsion more in terms of an informal action on the part of a local synagogue are free to propose an earlier date." (p. 919)

Kysar also observes on the dating of the Gospel of John: "The earliest date for the gospel hinges upon the question of whether or not it presupposes the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. Most agree that it does, although there have been persistent attempts to argue otherwise. The reasons for positing a post-70 date include the view of the Temple implicit in 2:13-22. Most would argue that the passage attempts to present Christ as the replacement of the Temple that has been destroyed." (p. 918) Note also the irony of 11:48: "If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place [i.e. temple] and our nation." Finally, there is no mention of the Sadducees, which reflects post-70 Judaism. The retort that there is also no mention of scribes misses the mark, as the Pharisees represented the scribal tradition, and the Pharisees are mentioned.

[Tom Montgomery]

Continued:
The terminus a quo might also be set by dependence upon the Gospel of Mark, if it were certain that the Gospel of John is dependent upon Mark. The matter is debated in contemporary scholarship, but Kysar says that the theory of Johannine independence commands a "slim majority" of contemporary critics. For a discussion of this issue, D. Moody Smith's John Among the Gospels is recommended.

The external evidence fixes the terminus ad quem for the Gospel of John. Irenaeus of Lyons made use of John (c. 180), and Tatian included the Gospel of John in his harmony (c. 170). The Gospel of John is also mentioned in the Muratorian Canon (c. 170-200). Justin Martyr (c. 150-160) and the Epistula Apostolorum (c. 140-150) may have made use of the Gospel of John. But the earliest known usage of John is among Gnostic circles. These include the Naassene Fragment quoted by Hippolytus Ref. 5.7.2-9 (c. 120-140), the Valentinian texts cited in Clement of Alexandria's Excerpta ex Theodotou (c. 140-160), a Valentinian Exposition to the Prologue of the Gospel of John quoted in Irenaeus' Adv. Haer. 1.8.5-6 (c. 140-160), and the commentary of Heracleon on John (c. 150-180, quoted in Origen's own commentary). The oldest fragment of the New Testament, known as p52 or the John Rylands fragment, attests to canonical John and is dated paleographically c. 120-130 CE.

Kysar writes: "In the place where the synoptics narrate the origin of the eucharist stands the account of the foot washing (13:1-10). The last meal Jesus celebrates with his disciples before his passion is not a Passover meal at all. Thus one of the basic features of the institution scenes in the synoptics is missing. Furthermore, there is no account of the baptism of Jesus, and there is confusion about whether or not Jesus practiced baptism (compare 3:22 and 4:2). Water baptism is treated critically and assigned strictly to the Baptizer in contrast with Spirit baptism (1:26, 31, 33). One is left with the impression that the sacraments of baptism and eucharist did not figure in the theology of the fourth evangelist." (p. 929)

Kysar states: "The passages which seem to address the sacraments are sometimes thought to be redactional. Some maintain that 'water and' in 3:5 and the discourse in 6:51-59 are insertions of a later hand by one interested in strengthening the explicit sacramental teachings of the gospel. It has been recently argued that portions of chaps. 13-17 come froma redactor at the time of the writing of the Johannine epistles some ten years or more after the completion of the gospel." (p. 922)

Norman Perrin believes that the redactor who added the sacramental passages to the Gospel of John also authored the first epistle of John, in which the sacraments are emphasized.

Helms adduces evidence that there were divisions over the interpretation of John at an early period, as early as the writing of the epistles 1 John and 2 John. Consider the passages 1 John 2:18-19 and 2 John 7. Helms writes (Who Wrote the Gospels?, p. 163):

Some members of the Johannine community departed, became a rival sect, over the question of the 'flesh' of Jesus Christ, an event that leads the author of I John to the certainty that 'this is the last hour.' We do not know for sure who these secessionists were, but as Raymond Brown notes, they were 'not detectably outsiders to the Johannine community but the offspring of Johannine thought itself, justifying their position by the Johannine Gospel and its implications' (1979, 107). This seems likely, until we reflect on the oddity of people who purportedly deny that 'Jesus Christ came in the flesh' citing a gospel that declares 'the Word became flesh,' and 'whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood possesses eternal life.' Brown's argument founders on his insistence that 'John exactly as we have it' (108, his italics) was the text used by those who left the Johannine community. Brown refuses to 'exclude certain passages from the Fourth Gospel on the grounds that they were probably not in the tradition known to the secessionists but were added by the redactor (either later or as anti-secessionist revision)' (1979, 109). He admits that many accept that John 1:14 - 'The Word became flesh' - was 'added by the redactor as an attack on the opponents of I John' (1979, 109) but continues to write as if there were no revision of the Fourth Gospel.

Helms states, "we need to note that part of the purpose of Irenaeus was to attack the teachings of Cerinthus, a gnostic Christian teacher who lived in Ephesus at the end of the first century" (op. cit., p. 162). Cerinthus was "educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, taught that the world was not made by a primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him...Moreover, after [Jesus'] baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler, and that then he proclaimed the unknown Father, and performed miracles. But at last Christ departed from Jesus, and that then Jesus suffered and rose again, while Christ remained impassible, inasmuch as he was a spiritual being" (1.26.1). Irenaeus stated that the purpose of John at Ephesus was as follows:

by the proclamation of the Gospel, to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men, and a long time previously by those termed Nicolaitans, who are an offset of that 'knowledge' [gnosis] falsely so called, that he might confound them, and persuade them that there is but one God, who made all things by His Word; and not, as they allege, that the Creator was one, but the Father and the Lord another; and that the Son of the Creator was, forsooth, one, but the Christ from above another (3.11.1)

Helms argues: "So the gospel attributed, late in the second century, to John at Ephesus was viewed as an anti-gnostic, anti-Cerinthean work. But, very strangely, Epiphanius, in his book against the heretics, argues against those who actually believed that it was Cerinthus himself who wrote the Gospel of John! (Adv. Haer. 51.3.6). How could it be that the Fourth Gospel was at one time in its history regarded as the product of an Egyptian-trained gnostic, and at another time in its history regarded as composed for the very purpose of attacking this same gnostic? I think the answer is plausible that in an early, now-lost version, the Fourth Gospel could well have been read in a Cerinthean, gnostic fashion, but that at Ephesus a revision of it was produced (we now call it the Gospel of John) that put this gospel back into the Christian mainstream."

[Nanoose]

Interesting, Tom. Quite frankly, I'm speechless. :rolleyes:

The site dates books that Paul is clearly identified as authoring as being written after his death! Amazing!! :rolleyes: :D

[Tom Montgomery]

Which ones?

My understanding is that the concensus of scholarly opinion (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and unaffiliated) categorizes the epistles as follows:

1) Certainly not written by Paul: Hebrews.
2) The "Pastoral Letters" not written by Paul but by a later acolyte using his name: 1 and 2 Timothy and Titus.
3) "School of Paul" or "Deutero-Pauline": Ephesians, Colossians, and 2 Thessalonians.
4) The "authentic letters" consisting of: 1 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Philippians, Philemon, Galatians and Romans.

The website I cited offers no dates that contradict the above. But perhaps you hold a minority view as to which letters are authentic.

[TomF]

Nanoose?

I'm afraid that the other Tom's list really is the accepted scholarly view - among conservatives like those at Regent College, as well as those to the centre and left.

It was not uncommon throughout the ancient world to put someone important's name on a document, to underscore the importance the writer put to it. Such attributions didn't have the same negative meaning we'd put to such things today.

t.