Genesis: Fossils and the Genesis Creation Accounts

[Audie]

Perhaps I shouldn't entertain you Rick and help poke the stick further...

BUT, you're overlooking the fact the many non-Christians and lay people who aren't Day-Age (or should I say RTB fanatical Rossists, although Progressive Creation beliefs by no means originates with such); you're over looking the fact that such lay people actually can read for themselves and clearly understand that a plain reading of Genesis results in a YEC interpretation. Any erudite scholars in Biblical language, if they're Day-Age or something other, they're not interested in what Scripture actually says so we should defer to others who are more honest and know better.

Sure looks yecish to me.

[Audie]

Honestly! So retro you guys are!

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.p ... h%20Gallop

Seems you're more current with Creationist people than myself.
Archer doesn't do gish, although Gish might think otherwise.

Gish might be a bit of a stretch for the document dumps offered, but then gish has no exact meaning.

I like if possible to focus in on one thing at a time, small enough to actually discuss. A book or a series of links to websites may as well be a full blown gish, it is unanswerable. Which I take to be the point.

[Kurieuo]

You've been likely trained to see YEC, not dissimilar to how many Christians are, including myself up until early teen years.

Though I didn't know it as that, I do remember feeling disturbed by an old Earth, and I can't explain why I was but I just remember feeling threatened. I didn't really care at such a young age either, more vanity, dealing with hormones etc so moved on as quickly as the question arose.

You know it definitely wasn't Scripture that gave me such ideas, rather what I'd absorbed at Sunday school and Christian private school in my much younger primary years.

I hate being gished myself, when you respond the person normally gishes you again. I don't think that was the intention here though.

[B. W.]

Came across this interesting article by noted theologian and Bible scholar Gleason Archer, concerning supposed discrepancies between implications of the fossil record and the Creation accounts: http://www.reasons.org/articles/reading ... ssil-lines

Interesting quote from Archer...

Reading Between the Fossil Lines
October 1, 2001
By Guest Writer
by Gleason L. Archer
http://www.reasons.org/articles/reading ... ssil-lines

As we have compared Scripture with Scripture (Gen 1:27 with 2:15-22), it has become very apparent that Genesis 1 was never intended to teach that the sixth creative day, when Adam and Eve were both created, lasted a mere twenty-four hours. In view of the long interval of time between these two, it would seem to border on sheer irrationality to insist that all of Adam’s experiences in Genesis 2:15-22 could have been crowded into the last hour or two of a literal twenty-four-hour day. The only reasonable conclusion to draw is that the purpose of Genesis 1 is not to tell how fast God performed His work of creation (though, of course, some of His acts, such as the creation of light on the first day, must have been instantaneous). Rather, its true purpose was to reveal that the Lord God who had revealed Himself to the Hebrew race and entered into personal covenant relationship with them was indeed the only true God, the Creator of all things that are. This stood in direct opposition to the religious notions of the heathen around them, who assumed the emergence of a pantheon of gods in successive stages out of preexistent matter of unknown origin, actuated by forces for which there was no accounting.

Genesis 1 is a sublime manifesto, totally rejecting all the cosmogonies of the pagan cultures of the ancient world as nothing but baseless superstition. The Lord God Almighty existed before all matter, and by His own word of command He brought the entire physical universe into existence, governing all the great forces of wind, rain, sun, and sea according to His sovereign will. This stood in stark contrast to the clashing, quarreling, capricious little deities and godlets spawned by the corrupt imagination of the heathen. The message and purpose of Genesis 1 is the revelation of the one true God who created all things out of nothing and ever keeps the universe under His sovereign control.

I underlined the parts that caught my attention. I mentioned something similar on this thread:

Quoted from http://discussions.godandscience.org/vi ... =7&t=41261

Why I brought this up is simple that the Torah is a Jewish book and to use only western mindset in interpreting mechanically will cause folks to miss what is being convey that actually attaches to other parts of the bible even before the other parts were even written!

So in Genesis 1:6-8 the context of water should be defined as expressing Immensity and chaos/calamity Babylonian creation myths suggest gods created out of literal saltwater and from pure water, etc from the abzu (great deep). Now the bible warns not to mix paganism with the bible in the Torah and elsewhere. Therefore, one cannot interpret the Genesis account as a creation myth borrowed from Babylonian creation myths.

So to treat the meaning of water as only literal water as in h2o in Genesis 1:1-8 creation account verses, one is accidentally pointing to pagan creation myths without even knowing it. Moses, who took dictation from God on this was inspired to combat the Pagan creation myth of the gods involved in creation (note: the same god's in Egypt who are the same in the Canaanite, Babylonian pantheon as well as Hindu, Greek/Roman, Germanic, Nordic etc and etc albeit all go by different names and variations in the story line. God is setting the record straight). Only He created out of nothing and not from an abzu a deep reserve of h2o water as the pagan stories go.

The Genesis inspired by God account combats this notion by its use of words and letters. This is missed in modern western eyes. In Genesis account God alone creates out of nothing. From the immensity of God himself he created out of nothing and not from an abzu.

That is the way of the construct of the ancient Hebrew language and mindset. The western mind set is all about forms and cause and effect approach to understanding things. The western approach will insert causes to test for effect to find the right formula, or set by step method, to reach a desired effect. Unfortunately, this method refused to blend the old Hebrew method to uncover truth and usually rejects it unless it fits in one of their steps.

So to put this in simplest form: The ancient Hebraic model is all about God and the word of God reveals the need to repent from pride. The Word of God exposes pride, cuts to heart, divides the bad out of folks or allows them to remain dysfunctional. This model exalts God's sovereignty thru use of question and answers that promote freedom to reason together and bring one back to God. Paul write in Romans chapter Seven this principle of the purpose of the Law.

The old Hebraic model switched to the Law as stepping stones to earn favor with God by manipulating God to accept them for keeping the Law. Job 40:8 NKJV and Job 40:2 NKJV expresses this idea as well - the sin of the most learned and pious revealed. That sin summed up in the human attitude of: we can figure it all out all by ourselves, we can do this to get that result - we are in charge here! We are justified because of law (note Rom 2:14)

The Genesis creation account combats human pride that breeds dysfunction and forces folks to think for themselves. It exposes sin and boldly says, God created his way, by his own time, for his own reasons... One can either chose to deny God as Job 40:2,8 mentions or return to our Creator by his ways and acts alone all freely revealed by and on the cross of Christ.

As mentioned in the link to the post to the other thread - people leave out the symbols and meanings of these such as water when looking at the creation account and do not ask questions but rather seek a way of pride to justify a silencing truth... -- Isaiah 1:18 ---
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[Audie]

[do not ask questions but rather seek a way of pride to justify a silencing truth... -- Isaiah 1:18 ---
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This last part caught my eye. How do you interpret that?

[Jac3510]

Just for the public record, the distinction BW is making between the way the Greeks and Hebrews thought and the supposed influence that has on interpretation is typically rejected by linguists, insofar as if we are to maintain such a distinction, we cannot do so on the (current) textual basis or textual arguments we have today. The arguments usually provided (and BW provides an adequate and perfectly typical sample of what you will find in the literature that promotes the difference) simply do not work and are, at best, haphazardly applied in effort to create and maintain the distinction. Moreover, such arguments simply do not take into account the serious advances we have made in the fields of linguistics and theological lexicography over the past thirty years. For those interested in studying this more, I'd recommend two books easy to get: Moises Silva's Biblical Words and their Meaning (esp pp 18ff) and James Barr's The Semantics of Biblical Language, esp pp 21ff.

edit:

I'm too lazy to link it, but I know that you can at least find Silva's discussion on the Amazon preview. I would encourage people to at least look at that and the example he raises of the supposed difference between sarx and basar. He develops the arguments quite a bit throughout the book, but I think that example is easy enough to follow. I suppose there's a reason he put it in the introduction.

It's also worth pointing out that much of the idea of Hebrew having a special mindset is also rooted in the idea that the words--or at least the root words--are to be understood by seeing the original alphat pictographically, so the mem, for instance, supposedly represents water and the aleph represents strength. So the word am--aleph-mem--which is the word for "mom," is supposed to mean something like a strong glue, with the idea then that the mother is the glue that holds the house together. Or ab, the word for "father," means "the strength of the home," since the second letter (beth) means "house" or "home."

Anyway, lots of problems, linguistically speaking, with that whole idea. My point is just to say, then, for anyone following, that such ideas are very popular and easily and often talked about in blog posts, pulpits, and Sunday School lecterns. That doesn't mean that they're true or even very well substantiated. Preachers, sadly, are notorious for picking up on "what will preach" rather than what they themselves have vigorously studied and found to be warranted by the evidence.

So there you have it. You can study these ideas, then, as you so choose.