Evidence for God from Science

zoegirl wrote:ah, but what is literal? The Hebrew allows for a literal understanding of old age....

cubsfan wrote:I don't know. Maybe all the mission minded "valued members" are on vacation or busy making money. Maybe I'm under the wrong topic. I think I'll go phishing in the philosophy department.

zoegirl wrote:Another nice take

http://www.reasons.org/chapters/seattle ... 200809.pdf

Fürstentum Liechtenstein wrote: Interesting to chat about over a martini, but no more.

cubsfan wrote:Zoegirl, I will be convinced when you have demonstrated your position is correct. I will not quit because you show my position is incorrect.

cubsfan wrote: I have stated from the start that I do not take the plain read approach dogmatically. I have stated I am not simply anti OEC and I am not simply pro YEC. I am pro God of the Bible. Like you, I just want the truth, whatever it may be. You might doubt this. That's okay.

cubsfan wrote: The high ideals of this forum indicate its members should act Christian enough to try to build each other up in the faith. I have said I am trying to be iron sharpening iron, a phrase made popular among Promise Keepers based on a verse I could look up, which refers to Christians being strong for each other to encourage growth.

cubsfan wrote: I have criticized the OEC position primarily on the basis of argumentative methodology. I have not said its overall position (as opposed to cetain statements or points OEC'rs have made) is absurd or wrong. I have said it is in the minority. It must be in the minority, if there is no OEC exegetical scholar who has ever gotten a new translation of Ge 1 which incorporates the great exegetical insights they have into a major bible, or any bible for that matter.

cubsfan wrote: I also conclude OEC is in the minority based on the fact that most Christians understand this dilemma as all or nothing. They believe that if you don't read the 6 days as literal, 24 hour days, you have said scripture lies or is undependable. Consequently, most Christians over simplify the problem, and conclude, as I have argued, that they should embrace an old earth and stop believing the Bible, or they should remain skeptical about the claims of science and hold fast to the Bible.

cubsfan wrote: You and your friends argue this is a false dilemma, as there are other options. My point throughout was that (a) I have yet to read or hear a sound argument for the OEC position and (b) the effect of the OEC position is, so far, not to strengthen the body overall.

cubsfan wrote: The effect has been to help the twin philosophies of Naturalism and Scientism to confuse the body of believers. If YEC's think your position is dangerous, whose fault is that?

cubsfan wrote: I'll put this another way: The OEC message has a PR problem which prejudices the body against it. The body is not primarily made up of scholars or science afficianados. They primarily listen to their leaders, who themselves are usually not scholars. OEC introduces a new paradigm for reading Ge 1, and it is motivated 100% by empirical evidence.

cubsfan wrote: That kind of thing alarms serious Bible students. This is not because they do not like or respect legitimate science. It is because they believe most cosmologically significant science is driven by a philosophy of Ontologically Naturalistic Scientism (though they wouldn't use those words), and many of the conclusions drawn are tentative. But worse, categorically, science or conclusions about empirical observation are in many ways inappropriate bases upon which to intepret scripture.

You say, why not use science to help intepret scripture? and, paraphrasing, The creation and the Bible are two testaments to God. When one is ambiguous, the other should explain the other. Without arguing this point with you, OEC's need to understand that this is a paradigm of hermeneutics that most Bible believing Christians would not agree with.

cubsfan wrote: It is not surprising, then, that you get angry Christians on your site trying to convince you to change your ways.

cubsfan wrote: Whether they understand your position or not, they represent a large contingent of Bible believing Christians who do not trust what OEC's are trying to do. OEC's can disparage them as stupid, small minded and paranoid all they want. But that will not fulfill a mission of educating them and building them up in Christ.

cubsfan wrote: If OEC's really believe they are correct, they owe it to the body to help it move along with them. For my part, I'd like to see a convincing argument. That shouldn't be so hard to muster, with all those wonderful scientific minds and OEC intellectuals out there.

One of the most frequently argued objections to the trustworthiness of Scripture is found in the apparent discrepancy between the account of creation given in Genesis 1 and the supposed evidence from the fossils and fissionable minerals in the geological strata that indicated Earth is billions of years old. Yet Genesis 1 allegedly teaches that creation took place in six twenty-four-hour days, at the end of which man was already on the earth. But this conflict between Genesis 1 and the factual data of science (in contradistinction to the theories of some scientists who draw inferences from their data that are capable of quite another interpretation by those equally proficient in geology) is only apparent, not real.

To be sure, if we were to understand Genesis 1 in a completely literal fashion—which some suppose to be the only proper principle of interpretation if the Bible is truly inerrant and completely trustworthy—then there would be no possibility of reconciliation between modern scientific theory and the Genesis account. But a true and proper belief in the inerrancy of Scripture involves neither a literal nor a figurative rule of interpretation. What it does require is a belief in whatever the biblical author (human and divine) actually meant by the words he used.

An absolute literalism would, for example, commit us to the proposition that in Matthew 19:24 (and parallel passages) Christ actually meant to teach that a camel could go through the eye of a needle. But it is abundantly clear that Christ was simply using the familiar rhetorical figure of hyperbole in order to emphasize how difficult it is spiritually for a rich man (because of his pride in his material wealth) to come to repentance and saving faith in God. To construe that passage literally would amount to blatant heresy, or at least a perversity that has nothing to do with orthodoxy. Or again, when Jesus said to the multitude that challenged Him to work some miracle, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), they grievously erred when they interpreted His remarks literally. John 2:21 goes on to explain that Jesus did not mean this prediction literally but spiritually: “But He was speaking about the temple of His body. Therefore when He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this, and they believed the Scripture.” In this case, then, literal interpretation was dead wrong because that was not what Jesus meant by the language He used; He was actually referring to the far greater miracle of His bodily resurrection.

It thus becomes clear in this present case, as we study the text of Genesis 1, that we must not short-circuit our responsibility of careful exegesis in order to ascertain as clearly as possible what the divine author meant by the language His inspired prophet (in this case probably Moses) was guided to employ. Is the true purpose of Genesis 1 to teach that all creation began just six twenty-four-hour days before Adam was “born”? Or is this just a mistaken inference that overlooks other biblical data having a direct bearing on this passage? To answer this question we must take careful note of what is said in Genesis 1:27 concerning the creation of man as the closing act of the sixth creative day. There it is stated that on the sixth day (apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth—therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day), “God created man in His own image; He created them male and female.” This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six, along with Adam.

As we turn to Genesis 2, however, we find that a considerable interval of time must have intervened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. In 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim (i.e., the Lord God) put Adam in the Garden of Eden as the ideal environment for his development, and there he was to cultivate and keep the enormous park, with all its goodly trees, abundant fruit crop, and four mighty rivers that flowed from Eden to other regions of the Near East. In 2:18 we read, “Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'” This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction.

In order to compensate for this lonesomeness, God then gave Adam a major assignment in natural history. He was to classify every species of animal and bird found in the preserve. With its five [sic] mighty rivers and broad expanse, the garden must have had hundreds of species of mammal, reptile, insect, and bird, to say nothing of the flying insects that also are indicated by the basic Hebrew term 'ôp (“bird”) (2:19). It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam's day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

Finally, after this assignment with all its absorbing interest had been completed, Adam felt a renewed sense of emptiness. Genesis 2:20 ends with the words “but for Adam no suitable helper was found.” After this long and unsatisfying experience as a lonely bachelor, God saw that Adam was emotionally prepared for a wife—a “suitable helper.” God, therefore, subjected him to a deep sleep, removed from his body the bone that was closest to his heart, and from that physical core of man fashioned the first woman. Finally God presented woman to Adam in all her fresh, unspoiled beauty, and Adam was ecstatic with joy.

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.

The second major aspect of Genesis 1 is the revelation that God brought forth His creation in an orderly and systematic manner. There were six major stages in this work of formation, and these stages are represented by successive days of a week. In this connection it is important to observe that none of the six creative days bears a definite article in the Hebrew text; the translations “the first day,” “the second day,” etc., are in error. The Hebrew says, “And the evening took place, and the morning took place, day one” (1:5). Hebrew expresses “the first day” by hayyôm h­āri'šôn, but this text says simply yôm 'ehād (“day one”). Again, in v.8 we read not hayyôm haššēnî (“the second day”) but y óm šēní­ (“a second day”). In Hebrew prose of this genre, the definite article was generally used where the noun was intended to be definite; only in poetic style could it be omitted. The same is true with the rest of the six days; they all lack the definite article. Thus they are well adapted to a sequential pattern, rather than to strictly delimited units of time.

Genesis 1:2-5 thus sets forth the first stage of creation: the formation of light. This must have meant primarily the light of the sun and the other heavenly bodies. Sunlight is a necessary precondition to the development of plant life and animal life, generally speaking (though there are some subterranean forms of life that manage to do without it).

Genesis 1:6-8 presents the second stage: the formation of an “expanse” (r­āqí­a') that separated between moisture in suspension in the sky and moisture condensed enough to remain on the earth's surface. The term r­aqí­a' does not mean a beaten-out metal canopy, as some writers have alleged—no ancient culture ever taught such a notion in its concept of the sky—but simply means “a stretched-out expanse.” This is quite evident from Isaiah 42:5, where the cognate verb r­āqa' is used: “Thus says the God Yahweh, the Creator of the heavens, and the one who stretched them out [from the verb nātāh,'to extend' curtains or tent cords], the one who extended [rōqa'] the earth and that which it produces [the noun se'e sā'í­mrefers always to plants and animals].” Obviously r­āqa' could not here mean “beat out,” “stamp out” (though it is often used that way in connection with metal working); the parallelism with nātāh (noted above) proves that here it has the force of extend or expand. Therefore, the noun r­āqîa' can mean only “expanse,” without any connotation of a hard metal plate.

Genesis 1:9-13 relates the third stage in God's creative work, the receding of the waters of the oceans, seas, and lakes to a lower altitude than the masses of land that emerged above them and thus were allowed to become dry. Doubtless the gradual cooling of the planet Earth led to the condensation of water necessary to bring about this result; seismic pressures producing mountains and hills doubtless contributed further to this separation between land and sea. Once this dry land (hayyabbāšāh) appeared, it became possible for plant life and trees to spring up on the earth's surface, aided by photosynthesis from the still beclouded sky.

Genesis 1:14-19 reveals that in the fourth creative stage God parted the cloud cover enough for direct sunlight to fall on the earth and for accurate observation of the movements of the sun, moon, and stars to take place. Verse 16 should not be understood as indicating the creation of the heavenly bodies for the first time on the fourth creative day; rather it informs us that the sun, moon, and stars created on Day One as the source of light had been placed in their appointed places by God with a view to their eventually functioning as indicators of time (“signs, seasons, days, years”) to terrestrial observers. The Hebrew verb wayya'aś in v.16 should better be rendered “Now [God] had made the two great luminaries, etc.,” rather than as simple past tense, “[God] made.” (Hebrew has no special form for the pluperfect tense but uses the perfect tense, or the conversive imperfect as here, to express either the English past or the English pluperfect, depending on the context.)

Genesis 1:20-23 relates that on the fifth creative day God fully developed marine life, freshwater life, and introduced flying creatures (whether insects, lizards, or winged birds). It is interesting to observe that the fossil bearing strata of the Paleozoic era contain the first evidence of invertebrate animal life with startling suddenness in the Cambrian period. There is no indication in the pre-Cambrian strata of how the five thousand species of marine and terrestrial animal life of the Paleozoic era may have developed, for there is no record of them whatever prior to the Cambrian levels (cf. D. Dewar, “The Earliest Known Animals,” Journal of the Transactions of the Victoria Institute 80 [1948]: 22-29).

Genesis 1:24-26 records that in the sixth and final stage of the creative process, God brought forth all the land animals after their various species (lemînāh in v.24 and lemînēhû in v.25 mean “according to its kind,” whether the antecedent was male or female in grammatical gender), culminating finally in the creation of man, as discussed more extensively above.

In this connection, a comment is in order concerning the recurring formula at the end of each creative day: “And it was/became evening, and it became/was morning, a second day” or whatever ordinal it might be). The reason for this closing statement seems to have been twofold. First, it was necessary to make clear whether the symbolic unit involved was a mere sunrise-to-sundown day, or whether it was a twenty-four-hour day. The term yôm (“day”) could mean either. in fact, the first time yôm occurs is in v.5: “And He called the light day, and the darkness He called night.” Therefore, it was necessary to show that each of the creative days was symbolized by a complete twenty-four-hour cycle, beginning at sunset of the previous day (according to our reckoning) and ending with the daylight portion, down to the setting of the sun, on the following day (as we would reckon it).

Second, the twenty-four-hour day serves as a better symbol than a mere daylight day in regard to the commencement and completion of one stage of creation before the next stage began. There were definite and distinct stages in God's creational procedure. If this be the true intention of the formula, then it serves as no real evidence for a literal twenty-four-hour-day concept on the part of the biblical author.

Some have argued that the reference in the Decalogue (commandment four) to God's resting on the seventh day as a basis for honoring the seventh day of each week strongly suggests the literal nature of “day” in Genesis 1. This is not at all compelling, however, in view of the fact that there was to be any day of the week especially set aside from labor to center on the worship and service of the Lord, then it would have to be a twenty-four-hour day (Saturday) in any event. As a matter of fact, Scripture does not at all teach that Yahweh rested only one twenty-four-hour day at the conclusion of His creative work. No closing formula occurs at the close of the seventh day, referred to in Genesis 2:2-3. And, in fact, the New Testament teaches (in Heb. 4:1-11) that the seventh day, that “Sabbath rest,” in a very definite sense has continued on right into the church age. If so, it would be quite impossible to line up the seventh-day Sabbath with the Seventh Day that concluded God's original work of creation!

One last observation concerning the word yôm as used in Genesis 2:4. Unlike some of the modern versions, KJV correctly renders this verse “These are the generations of the heavens of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” Since the previous chapter has indicated that there were at least six days involved in creating the heavens and the earth, it is abundantly evident that y óm [sic] in Genesis 2:4 cannot possibly be meant as a twenty-four-hour day—unless perchance the Scripture contradicts itself!

Taken from Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties by Gleason Leonard Archer, Jr. Copyright 1982 by Zondervan Corporation. Used by permission of Zondervan Publishing House.

Next, Adam was given the assignment of naming the birds, cattle and wild animals. The list includes only birds and mammals and does not mention fish or other lower life forms. Even so, it would require that Adam name at least 14,600 species (8,600 species of birds and 4,000 species of mammals). This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours). For those who believe in a young earth, it would require that Adam name not only all of the existing birds and mammals but all the ones in the fossil record also (since they would all have to be alive on day 6 - no animal death before the fall). Such a task would probably double the number of species to be named. However, Adam did not have the entire 24 hours, since part of it was required for the planting and growing of the garden, Adam tending the garden, and God putting Adam to sleep to create Eve. Realistically, Adam would have to name at least 20 species per minute, including all the species found in the fossil record. Following this naming of the animals, no suitable helper was found for Adam. So, God put Adam to sleep, took at piece of Adam's side, and created Eve. Adam's response to Eve's creation is also telling. Upon seeing Eve for the first time, Adam says "at last."33 This is not exactly the response one would expect from a person who had waited for less than one day. So, we must conclude that the sixth day was most certainly longer than 24 hours, and probably took at least several years from Adam's response.

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.

24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. (ESV)

7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ... 15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (ESV)

we must take careful note of what is said in Genesis 1:27 concerning the creation of man as the closing act of the sixth creative day. There it is stated that on the sixth day (apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth—therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day), “God created man in His own image; He created them male and female.” This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six, along with Adam.

As we turn to Genesis 2, however, we find that a considerable interval of time must have intervened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. In 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim (i.e., the Lord God) put Adam in the Garden of Eden as the ideal environment for his development, and there he was to cultivate and keep the enormous park, with all its goodly trees, abundant fruit crop, and four mighty rivers that flowed from Eden to other regions of the Near East. In 2:18 we read, “Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'” This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction.

In order to compensate for this lonesomeness, God then gave Adam a major assignment in natural history. He was to classify every species of animal and bird found in the preserve. With its five [sic] mighty rivers and broad expanse, the garden must have had hundreds of species of mammal, reptile, insect, and bird, to say nothing of the flying insects that also are indicated by the basic Hebrew term 'ôp (“bird”) (2:19). It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam's day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

it would require that Adam name at least 14,600 species (8,600 species of birds and 4,000 species of mammals). This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours).

It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam's day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

(a) I have already stated I see no evidence in the text to say how much of the animal kingdom God created on Day 6 or before was placed in the Garden. Nor do Deem and Archer present textual support for their assumptions. We just don't know. If we don't know, then how is this a hard and fast argument as to how much time it would take?

(b) Both writers assume that the process of naming was complicated and time consuming, because that is how it goes for moderns trying to classify animals. Naming is not that easy of a term to intepret as anything more than a handle. Look at Strong's Hebrew Lexicon:

The NAS Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon

Strong's Number: 7121 Browse Lexicon
Original Word Word Origin
arq a primitive root [rather identical with (07122) through the idea of accosting a person met]
Transliterated Word TDNT Entry
Qara' TWOT - 2063
Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech
kaw-raw' Verb

Definition
to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim
(Qal)
to call, cry, utter a loud sound
to call unto, cry (for help), call (with name of God)
to proclaim
to read aloud, read (to oneself), read
to summon, invite, call for, call and commission, appoint, call and endow
to call, name, give name to, call by
(Niphal)
to call oneself
to be called, be proclaimed, be read aloud, be summoned, be named
(Pual) to be called, be named, be called out, be chosen


NAS Word Usage - Total: 734
become 1, become famous 1, call 121, called 301, calling 11, calls 17, cried 24, cries 1, cry 19, crying 2, dictated* 1, famous* 1, gave 4, given 1, gives 1, grasps 1, guests 4, invite 6, invited 14, live 1, made a proclamation 1, make a proclamation 1, men of renown 1, mentioned 3, name* 4, named 12, named* 62, offer it terms 1, proclaim 28, proclaimed 17, proclaiming 3, proclaims 2, read 35, reading 2, reads 1, screamed 2, screamed* 1, shouted 1, spoken 1, sues 1, summon 6, summoned 14, summoning 1, summons 2

NAS Verse Count


Hebrew Word: Arq
Transliterated Word: qara'
Book to Display: Genesis
Verse Count: 102


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Ge 1:5 And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Ge 1:8 And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
Ge 1:10 And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Ge 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
Ge 2:20 And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
Ge 2:23 And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."
Ge 3:9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
Ge 3:20 Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

(c) Archer thinks Adam named the insects, but the text says, "the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. " If the Hebrew includes insects with that, so be it, I guess.

(d) We don't know what all God put into the Garden. It is possible the superlatives of every and all in the text were meant to show that it was God alone, and not a natural process or some other group of gods who made all of them. There is no clear indication in the text whether he made all of the animals that existed in the day of Moses or later. Thus, we are without a basis to conclude how much time was involved. Moreover, I wonder if it is possible to read the text to say God formed those animals in the Garden (as opposed to the rest ofthe animals outside the garden) out of the ground right there on the spot to show them to Adam, and they were just representative of certain animal groups. Read it again: "I will make him a helper fit for him." 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavensand brought them to the man to see what he would call them."

(i) Only the ESV says "had formed" every beast. The NIV and NASB and KJV just say "formed". I'm not sure who is correct or why, but I don't find that to be an impediment to my idea.
(ii) Moreover, God's purpose seemed to be to see how the man would react to these potential helpers. Archer says he was being prepared to receive the real deal in Eve. That's fine, but to suggest it took forever for Adam to tell the difference between a rhino and his sweetheart makes no sense. Though the Hebrew does not record it, he likely named all the animals, "no, nodda, no way, are you kidding me?, Oh, gross!" and the like.

Conclusion: As to this attempt by Deem and Archer to say the text is either contradictory or calls for a longer 6th day than 24 hours, they might be right. The problem is, they have not demonstrated they are right. Their arguments are shoddy. They fail to establish what they claim they establish. This is because the text is too indeterminate for them to nail it down, and because they make all these assumptions. I don't have time to address the rest of the article on the other topics right now.

Zoegirl, if you can prop up their arguments and make them better on this point, please do. Please keep the sarcasm and incredulty at the same level of mine, if you can. I would be glad to be shown I am wrong. For now, I believe I have shown these guys have failed to destroy the YEC view regarding the 6th day of creation.

cubsfan

p.s., This business of naming the animals is quite interesting and even mysterious. Why did God have Adam name the animals? Which animals did he have him name? Did it serve God's purpose to have him name insects? Did he only name animals that might serve as potential help mates? Was he just trying to prepare Adam to recognize his need for woman? Was he training Adam, or trying to get him to act like God by naming things? Did the naming actually involve a lot more than applying an identifying signifiar or moniker? Is the naming of "woman" a paradigm for how all the naming got done? What about the name, Adam, and all the highly significant names for people, places and things in the OT in general -- what do those naming paradigms tell us? Anything that applies here? Is GE 2 saying the names Adam gave had stuck all the way until the time of Moses? What language did he name them in? Where did language come from? Did God endow Adam with language? Was it Hebrew? What happened to that language after the Tower of Babel? On and on and on. The answer to any of these questions is mostly SPECULATIVE. This is, perhaps, the biggest reason why the Deem and Archer arguments fail to convince. The fact Deem and Archer have theories about how to resolve the indeterminate expressions of the text doesn't make them right. The YEC have theories too. And then when the OEC's here fail to even give reasons in favor of their theories, but merely assume them, you have devolved from a semblance of an argument to speculative story time. Their efforts are no more helpful than the efforts of YEC trying to figure out a way to harmonize the would-be contradictions out of the text. The only thing the OEC have on their side is their empirically based cosmology story they think is beyond questioning, and their presumption that scripture should be read to be consistent with it. Hope that helps you to see my perspective. CF

cubsfan wrote:My new friend, Zoegirl, let's look at Archer's argument regarding the length of the 6th day from your last post, and treat it fairly but critically.

Note that Richard Deem makes the same general argument in his article, "The Literal Interpretation of the Genesis One Creation Account" http://www.godandscience.org/youngearth ... 1.html#n33:

Next, Adam was given the assignment of naming the birds, cattle and wild animals. The list includes only birds and mammals and does not mention fish or other lower life forms. Even so, it would require that Adam name at least 14,600 species (8,600 species of birds and 4,000 species of mammals). This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours). For those who believe in a young earth, it would require that Adam name not only all of the existing birds and mammals but all the ones in the fossil record also (since they would all have to be alive on day 6 - no animal death before the fall). Such a task would probably double the number of species to be named. However, Adam did not have the entire 24 hours, since part of it was required for the planting and growing of the garden, Adam tending the garden, and God putting Adam to sleep to create Eve. Realistically, Adam would have to name at least 20 species per minute, including all the species found in the fossil record. Following this naming of the animals, no suitable helper was found for Adam. So, God put Adam to sleep, took at piece of Adam's side, and created Eve. Adam's response to Eve's creation is also telling. Upon seeing Eve for the first time, Adam says "at last."33 This is not exactly the response one would expect from a person who had waited for less than one day. So, we must conclude that the sixth day was most certainly longer than 24 hours, and probably took at least several years from Adam's response.

Archer draws this rather strong conclusion:

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 Genesis 1 account of God's creation on day 6 is this:

24And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kinds—livestock and creeping things and beasts of the earth according to their kinds." And it was so. 25And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good.

26Then 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 birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
27So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.
28And God blessed them. And God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth." 29And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. (ESV)

Genesis 2 continues the account of mankind:

7then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. 8And the LORD God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. 9And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. ... 15The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die."

18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. 21So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. 22And the rib that the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said,

"This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. 25And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. (ESV)

1. I have to comment first that this is a beautiful story of intimacy between God and man, and between man and woman. It is a story of peace and intended purpose, of intended love. But it didn't take long to mess it all up. I do not doubt that the events of Ge 3, involving the fall of mankind could have all happened on Day 6 as well. There is no obvious textual reason to say they did or did not that I see so far. This, I gather, is good for Archer and Deem, as that requires more time to get things done on Day Six, further making their point that getting it all done would be impossible.

2. Archer says Eve must have been created in the closing hours of day 6, because the rest of the day had been used up. Now, please understand the nature of how I am going to argue here. There are two big ways to criticize Archer and Deem here: (1) you can defend the YEC view or (2) you can attack the OEC view. Or, you can do both. I am only going o defend the YEC view here, by showing that the arguments of Archer and Deem are far from airtight. This means that I will show the YEC view has survived the textual arguments against it. This does not imply the OEC view is wrong, or that the YEC view is right. It simply shows that the arguments made by Archer and Deem have not shown the YEC view to be "irrational". [If I were to write in large font, I would have written that explanation in it.]

Archer writes:

we must take careful note of what is said in Genesis 1:27 concerning the creation of man as the closing act of the sixth creative day. There it is stated that on the sixth day (apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth—therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day), “God created man in His own image; He created them male and female.” This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six, along with Adam.

Now, Zoegirl, this is exactly what I mean by a 'shoddy' argument. First Archer weakly says that "apparently toward the end of the day, after all the animals had been fashioned and placed on the earth" that man was created and put in the garden. There are no time references in the text of day 6. He should have said, 'I will presuppose and assume toward the end ofthe day ... that man was created and put in the garden.' He is, indeed, presupposing or assuming that most of the day was gone after creating the land animals. If you deny this is a presumption, and want to argue 'it only makes sense', then I understand why you think his argument is just fine -- in that case, you are unable to detect the several fallacies employed there, not least of which is "hasty conclusion."

cubsfan wrote: Next, he says, "—therefore not long before sundown at the end of that same day". So, he has gone from an assumption to supposedly drawing a logical conclusion, "therefore not long before sundown." He has basically pulled this conclusion out of his hat and then, via his "therefore" tried to imbue it with a sense of logical necessity, which it definitely lacks.

cubsfan wrote: Finally, he says, "This can only mean that Eve was created in the closing hour of Day Six ..." No, it is not the case that Mr. Archer has demonstrated the "only" conclusion that can be drawn from the text. His conclusion, that she was created "in the closing hour of
Day Six" is based on presumption alone. There is no logical necessity to it and not even a good reason given for the conclusion. I must speculate that he thinks it took a long, long time for God to create the animals. Why does he think that?

cubsfan wrote: Do you see, Zoegirl, why I have accused OEC's of acting like God is not capable of doing a miracle and doing it fast? I know that elsewhere Archer and Deem will pay lip service to the idea they believe God can do anything and as fast as he likes. But then they turn around and argue like this. This is a fallacious argument and totally worthless to advance the OEC position, let alone to disprove the YEC position.

cubsfan wrote: Now, let me argue the merits of the YEC position a bit here, solely for the purpose of showing the fallacious argument of Archer really matters.

(1) God could have created the animals in their vast array instantaneously, leaving all of the 24 hours of Day 6 available to devote to the creation of mankind.

rich wrote:This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours).

cubsfan wrote: (2) We have no idea how much of Day 6 was devoted to animals and how much to mankind, and it is possible the two creation projects overlapped in time. We just don't know.

cubsfan wrote: (3) The description of the creation of the animals "according to their kinds" is extremely difficult to intepret. There are superlatives used, like "everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind" at Ge 1:25, and "every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens", and "every living creature" (Ge 2:19), as well as "all livestock" and "every beast of the field" (2:20). Yet, it is unclear whether the text is saying that all the animals in existence in the time of Moses, at his writing Genesis, were created on Day Six, or just some of the animals. A plain read would likely say, yes, until it ran up against the idea that Adam could name all of them in one day.

cubsafn wrote: Then, it would likely say, these were only all the animals located in the Garden with Adam, and there is no proof in the text that all the animals created by God on Day 6 were also present in the Garden. Certainly, when it comes to plants, only certain plants and trees where in the Garden: "God planted a garden in Eden. ... out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food... You may surely eat of every tree of the garden" (GE 2:8,9,16). There is no reference to the plants, I guess, just trees. We have no basis to assume or say "apparently" all the animals or all the plants were in the Garden, and certainly not all the trees. Accordingly, we not only don't know if God really made all the animals that existed at the time of Moses on Day 6

cubsfan wrote: and we don't know if God really allowed all those "kinds" of animals into the Garden on Day 6 or thereafter. Thus, we can't relate the number of animals to the amount of time involved in their creation even if we don't believe God can create them instantaneously.

cubsfan wrote: (4) Thus, we have no idea based on the text whether God had a full 24 hours or only 1 hour left after he created the animals to create Mankind on Day 6. Archer's assumptions are clearly unwarranted.

cubsfan wrote: Archer goes on to write:

As we turn to Genesis 2, however, we find that a considerable interval of time must have intervened between the creation of Adam and the creation of Eve. In 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim (i.e., the Lord God) put Adam in the Garden of Eden as the ideal environment for his development, and there he was to cultivate and keep the enormous park, with all its goodly trees, abundant fruit crop, and four mighty rivers that flowed from Eden to other regions of the Near East. In 2:18 we read, “Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'” This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction.

In order to compensate for this lonesomeness, God then gave Adam a major assignment in natural history. He was to classify every species of animal and bird found in the preserve. With its five [sic] mighty rivers and broad expanse, the garden must have had hundreds of species of mammal, reptile, insect, and bird, to say nothing of the flying insects that also are indicated by the basic Hebrew term 'ôp (“bird”) (2:19). It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam's day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

(1) Archer says, "In 2:15 we are told that Yahweh Elohim (i.e., the Lord God) put Adam in the Garden of Eden as the ideal environment for his development." Now, where does the text say the Garden was to be the ideal environmnent for Adam's development?

cubsfan wrote: This is a generalization made over the conclusions Archer is about to draw. It is not directly textual. I call that 'shoddy'.

cubsfan wrote: (2) Archer says, "In 2:18 we read, “Then the Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.'” This statement clearly implies that Adam had been diligently occupied in his responsible task of pruning, harvesting fruit, and keeping the ground free of brush and undergrowth for a long enough period to lose his initial excitement and sense of thrill at this wonderful occupation in the beautiful paradise of Eden. He had begun to feel a certain lonesomeness and inward dissatisfaction."

"Finally, after this assignment with all its absorbing interest had been completed, Adam felt a renewed sense of emptiness. Genesis 2:20 ends with the words “but for Adam no suitable helper was found.” After this long and unsatisfying experience as a lonely bachelor, God saw that Adam was emotionally prepared for a wife—a “suitable helper.” ... Finally God presented woman to Adam in all her fresh, unspoiled beauty, and Adam was ecstatic with joy."

Obvioulsy, the underlined points here are not taken directly from the text, but Archer says they are "clearly implied." There is not a single reference in Ge 2 to Adam's attitude toward his work or being in the garden or being alone there. To the contrary, the attitude expressed is that of GOD: "18Then the LORD God said, "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him." ... 20... for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. ... 22 ... he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23Then the man said, "This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
she shall be called Woman,
because she was taken out of Man."

That is hardly an emotional outburst.

cubsfan wrote: Deem focuses on Adam saying, "at last", as if this is a great show of emotion. Well, maybe you and I can imagine such things, but the text does not give us that.

cubsfan wrote: "At last" simply means that of all the creatures he reviewed and named, she was the only one with flesh like his: I.e., she too was human, and he did to her what he did to the animals; he up and named her. Thus, not only was woman not the man's idea, but we have no idea how he felt about any of it.

cubsfan wrote: The fact Adam named the animals and found no work mate in them does not say anything.

cubfan wrote: (3) Now, these playful exegeses of Ge 2 by Deem and Archer would all be taken in stride as an enjoyable romp into relating to what the scripture is saying, but for the fact that Deem and Archer rely on their interpretations to say the YEC position is "irrational".

cubsfan wrote: This is why I say the argumentation is 'shoddy.' AGAIN, please understand I am saying only that the argumentation methodology of Archer and Deem here is a joke. This is not good exegisis.

cubsfan wrote: This is speculation and presumption openly and overtly injected into Archer's read of the text. Why should anyone be convinced by this kind of shoddy argumentation?

cubsfan wrote: You are convinced only because you already agree with him.

cubsfan wrote: (4) The idea that Adam was tending the garden for years prior to naming animals and prior to the creation of Eve is simply an assumption. Although the purpose given to Adam was to tend the Garden, there is no evidence he got much of that done on day 6. Thus, that can't impugn the 24 hour day view.

cubsfan wrote: (5) So, let's get to the real issue that really challenges the YEC read of Ge 1 & 2: The idea that naming all the animals would take a long, long time. Deem says:

it would require that Adam name at least 14,600 species (8,600 species of birds and 4,000 species of mammals). This would require Adam to name more than 10 species per minute (assuming he had the entire 24 hours).

Archer says:

It took the Swedish scientist Linnaeus several decades to classify all the species known to European scientists in the eighteenth century. Doubtless there were considerably more by that time than in Adam's day; and, of course, the range of fauna in Eden may have been more limited than those available to Linnaeus. But at the same time it must have taken a good deal of study for Adam to examine each specimen and decide on an appropriate name for it, especially in view of the fact that he had absolutely no human tradition behind him, so far as nomenclature was concerned. It must have required some years, or, at the very least, a considerable number of months for him to complete this comprehensive inventory of all the birds, beasts, and insects that populated the Garden of Eden.

(a) I have already stated I see no evidence in the text to say how much of the animal kingdom God created on Day 6 or before was placed in the Garden. Nor do Deem and Archer present textual support for their assumptions. We just don't know. If we don't know, then how is this a hard and fast argument as to how much time it would take?

cubsfan wrote: (b) Both writers assume that the process of naming was complicated and time consuming, because that is how it goes for moderns trying to classify animals. Naming is not that easy of a term to intepret as anything more than a handle. Look at Strong's Hebrew Lexicon:

The NAS Old Testament Hebrew Lexicon

Strong's Number: 7121 Browse Lexicon
Original Word Word Origin
arq a primitive root [rather identical with (07122) through the idea of accosting a person met]
Transliterated Word TDNT Entry
Qara' TWOT - 2063
Phonetic Spelling Parts of Speech
kaw-raw' Verb

Definition
to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim
(Qal)
to call, cry, utter a loud sound
to call unto, cry (for help), call (with name of God)
to proclaim
to read aloud, read (to oneself), read
to summon, invite, call for, call and commission, appoint, call and endow
to call, name, give name to, call by
(Niphal)
to call oneself
to be called, be proclaimed, be read aloud, be summoned, be named
(Pual) to be called, be named, be called out, be chosen


NAS Word Usage - Total: 734
become 1, become famous 1, call 121, called 301, calling 11, calls 17, cried 24, cries 1, cry 19, crying 2, dictated* 1, famous* 1, gave 4, given 1, gives 1, grasps 1, guests 4, invite 6, invited 14, live 1, made a proclamation 1, make a proclamation 1, men of renown 1, mentioned 3, name* 4, named 12, named* 62, offer it terms 1, proclaim 28, proclaimed 17, proclaiming 3, proclaims 2, read 35, reading 2, reads 1, screamed 2, screamed* 1, shouted 1, spoken 1, sues 1, summon 6, summoned 14, summoning 1, summons 2

NAS Verse Count


Hebrew Word: Arq
Transliterated Word: qara'
Book to Display: Genesis
Verse Count: 102


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ge 1:5 And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.
Ge 1:8 And God called the expanse heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.
Ge 1:10 And God called the dry land earth, and the gathering of the waters He called seas; and God saw that it was good.
Ge 2:19 And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
Ge 2:20 And the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
Ge 2:23 And the man said, "This is now bone of my bones, And flesh of my flesh; She shall be called Woman, Because she was taken out of Man."
Ge 3:9 Then the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
Ge 3:20 Now the man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.

(c) Archer thinks Adam named the insects, but the text says, "the man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him. " If the Hebrew includes insects with that, so be it, I guess.

cubsfan wrote: (d) We don't know what all God put into the Garden. It is possible the superlatives of every and all in the text were meant to show that it was God alone, and not a natural process or some other group of gods who made all of them. There is no clear indication in the text whether he made all of the animals that existed in the day of Moses or later.

cubsfan wrote: Thus, we are without a basis to conclude how much time was involved. Moreover, I wonder if it is possible to read the text to say God formed those animals in the Garden (as opposed to the rest ofthe animals outside the garden) out of the ground right there on the spot to show them to Adam, and they were just representative of certain animal groups.

Read it again: "I will make him a helper fit for him." 19 Now out of the ground the LORD God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavensand brought them to the man to see what he would call them."

(i) Only the ESV says "had formed" every beast. The NIV and NASB and KJV just say "formed". I'm not sure who is correct or why, but I don't find that to be an impediment to my idea.

cubsfan wrote: (ii) Moreover, God's purpose seemed to be to see how the man would react to these potential helpers. Archer says he was being prepared to receive the real deal in Eve. That's fine, but to suggest it took forever for Adam to tell the difference between a rhino and his sweetheart makes no sense. Though the Hebrew does not record it, he likely named all the animals, "no, nodda, no way, are you kidding me?, Oh, gross!" and the like.

cubsfan wrote: Conclusion: As to this attempt by Deem and Archer to say the text is either contradictory or calls for a longer 6th day than 24 hours, they might be right. The problem is, they have not demonstrated they are right. Their arguments are shoddy. They fail to establish what they claim they establish. This is because the text is too indeterminate for them to nail it down, and because they make all these assumptions.

cubsfan wrote: Zoegirl, if you can prop up their arguments and make them better on this point, please do. Please keep the sarcasm and incredulty at the same level of mine, if you can.

cubsfan wrote: d be glad to be shown I am wrong. For now, I believe I have shown these guys have failed to destroy the YEC view regarding the 6th day of creation.

cubsfan wrote: p.s., This business of naming the animals is quite interesting and even mysterious. Why did God have Adam name the animals? Which animals did he have him name? Did it serve God's purpose to have him name insects? Did he only name animals that might serve as potential help mates? Was he just trying to prepare Adam to recognize his need for woman? Was he training Adam, or trying to get him to act like God by naming things? Did the naming actually involve a lot more than applying an identifying signifiar or moniker? Is the naming of "woman" a paradigm for how all the naming got done? What about the name, Adam, and all the highly significant names for people, places and things in the OT in general -- what do those naming paradigms tell us? Anything that applies here? Is GE 2 saying the names Adam gave had stuck all the way until the time of Moses? What language did he name them in? Where did language come from? Did God endow Adam with language? Was it Hebrew? What happened to that language after the Tower of Babel? On and on and on. The answer to any of these questions is mostly SPECULATIVE. This is, perhaps, the biggest reason why the Deem and Archer arguments fail to convince. The fact Deem and Archer have theories about how to resolve the indeterminate expressions of the text doesn't make them right. The YEC have theories too. And then when the OEC's here fail to even give reasons in favor of their theories, but merely assume them, you have devolved from a semblance of an argument to speculative story time. Their efforts are no more helpful than the efforts of YEC trying to figure out a way to harmonize the would-be contradictions out of the text. The only thing the OEC have on their side is their empirically based cosmology story they think is beyond questioning, and their presumption that scripture should be read to be consistent with it. Hope that helps you to see my perspective. CF

cubsfan wrote:I have invested some time with you, and now I am cutting my losses. When you are done being furious, you should consider how you have treated me and my arguments. Also, I can't believe what I have said is "misguided intensity" but what you do is acceptable here. I said I would not quit just because you show me I am wrong. Indeed, I have said from the start I was not domatic about a plain read, and I strive to remain teachable. But you have not shown me anything but what kind of person you are.

At least you are a Zoegirl.

Over and out. CF

cubsfan wrote:zoegirl, I thought you were going to be a new friend. I asked you to use the same level of sarcasm and incredulty as I, in the hope that we might communicate in a friendly way. Whereas you might have had a chance to convince me my thinking was uninformed or just plain wrong had you remained calm enough to make an actual argument, by being so obnoxious in your response, you have left me feeling that I have wasted my time, because I don't get a fair hearing here. There is no effort to understand the other person's point of view, but only a ferocious need to defend your own views, or those collectively held by the site. I also feel you are not equipped to understand my arguments, because other than harping that I am not reading the text plainly, all you said was you thought my views were stupid, in so many words.

This kind of exclamation might protect your community from having self-doubts, but don't fool yourself that you are serving the body at large. I have yet to talk to anyone on your site who resembles a Christian in demeanor and willingness to engage in a conversation. I have said this site has a PR problem, and it is not doing much to gain the trust of the church at large. Moreover, I sincerely doubt many converts are coming into the kingdom thru here. If they are, and you are replicating the attitudes I have seen here, then you have earned your reputation, and I wonder, how real is it.

I have invested some time with you, and now I am cutting my losses. When you are done being furious, you should consider how you have treated me and my arguments. Also, I can't believe what I have said is "misguided intensity" but what you do is acceptable here. I said I would not quit just because you show me I am wrong. Indeed, I have said from the start I was not domatic about a plain read, and I strive to remain teachable. But you have not shown me anything but what kind of person you are.

At least you are a Zoegirl.

Over and out. CF

Fürstentum Liechtenstein wrote: [The various Creation theories are] Interesting to chat about over a martini, but no more.