Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 11:23 pm
Well, it has been a while since I have been able to post to this forum. I enjoy the discussions here, but work has been quite hectic and if I am to stick to my priorities, I cannot let the addictiveness of meeting on-line override my commitments to my family, my church family, personal evangelism and personal study of God's word (although this forum always invokes the latter). And although I enjoy talking about this subject matter, it is good not to get too engrossed in one subject that takes time away from strengthen your knowledge in other areas.
Kurieuo, I hope that you did not think that your posts caused me to abandon the forum. I have in the interim bought and have been reading through the book you referenced (The Genesis Debate). I have found this at once intriguing and frustrating... and more frustrating than anything else. I am frustrated at the logic that is employed by all authors, even though I agree more with Duncan and Hall. I know I have several things to respond to, but here is a first attempt:
Actually I would disagree. I think our positions differ quite strikingly in both concept and foundation (and let me say here that it is never my intent to misrepresent your viewpoints and I fully expect you to correct me when I do). I would hope that when we finish studying the Bible, that we can come to conclusions that do not harbor the words "inject" or "interpretation". God does not have any interpretations, only truth. If we read His word, then we should know and understand His truth... not our interpretation of it. This is not to say that we will understand fully all that Scripture contains, but where God is silent, we should be silent. God's lack of elaboration does not give us license to do it in His place.
Two things:
1) At this point, I do take a "day" as a "literal day", (or, if you like, a literal day's timespan) simply because I have not seen any Biblical evidence in context to override the meaning. The issue is not that yom has other meanings in other places. The issue is context. If I were to write you a story and wrote in one place that "I ran the 5K race" and then later in the story wrote that "I ran to the store", surely you would be able to see the context of usage and understand that I took some form of transportation to the store. Neither would there be a great debate that I had a car on the 5K track.
2) As to "sunrise and sunset", my previous posts were emphasizing that the literalness was absent (e.g., the literal star and the literal form of the Earth), not that there was not an equivalency. Allow me to use another literary example. I have joined a team to go and terraform Mars. I write a journal so that everyone on Earth can read about it, and I write it in such a way that anyone (scientist and layman alike) can understand it. In it I write, "It took 6 months to build the Habitat." Now then, how should the reader understand that? How long are the "months" that I wrote about? Part of this answer comes from the intent of the author and the perspective of the intended reader (already stated). In time, someone comes along and says that his interpretation is that I am writing about Martian months because that was my experience. Another group comes along and works out an elaborate mathematical clock that illustrates months no matter where you are in the universe. Their interpretation is that I was using that universal month. Now, here is where my point about interpretation becomes clear (I hope). There is only one way in which I was writing about a "month" and any other interpretation adds to or takes away from the original truth of the matter. One interpretation attempts to put itself in the author's shoes where the interpreter has not been. The other interpretation stands upon a man-made foundation. Both overlook the clear and simple meaning of the text.
Let me be perfectly clear... The natural world is not the danger. It is not even the issue. I believe that nature does express the deity of God. That is a Scripturally sound concept. The problem is human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:20, 1 Cor. 2:12-16, Isaiah 55:8-9, Job 26:14; 38:1-4, Deut. 4:19). The danger is when we equate science (our understanding of nature) with the Bible.
I shutter when I read these words. God is seen in nature (Romans 1:20), but when we look to mankind's understanding of the natural world it is not the same as God speaking to us in the Scriptures (Deut. 4:2, Rev. 22:18-19). That is not a sound, Biblical concept. When God brought down the walls of Jericho, we should understand that event based on what the text illustrates. There didn't have to be an earthquake or some scientific explanation about how sound waves can crumble a wall. We don't have to figure out the number of different species in the ark based on the dimensions of the boat. And I shouldn't have to worry about whether the Hebrews understood the creation days to actually be billions of years. These were miracles. They were outside the boundaries of normal precedents, and if we try to scientifically process this information we are missing the point.
Kurieuo, I hope that you did not think that your posts caused me to abandon the forum. I have in the interim bought and have been reading through the book you referenced (The Genesis Debate). I have found this at once intriguing and frustrating... and more frustrating than anything else. I am frustrated at the logic that is employed by all authors, even though I agree more with Duncan and Hall. I know I have several things to respond to, but here is a first attempt:
Kurieuo wrote:
Firstly, whether you'd agree or not, I see that your position of each "day" being "24 hours" does not really differ that much from mine in that you believe creation consists of six epochs. The only difference is that you inject 24 hours into the meaning of each epoch, whereas I inject an unspecified period of time within each epoch.
Actually I would disagree. I think our positions differ quite strikingly in both concept and foundation (and let me say here that it is never my intent to misrepresent your viewpoints and I fully expect you to correct me when I do). I would hope that when we finish studying the Bible, that we can come to conclusions that do not harbor the words "inject" or "interpretation". God does not have any interpretations, only truth. If we read His word, then we should know and understand His truth... not our interpretation of it. This is not to say that we will understand fully all that Scripture contains, but where God is silent, we should be silent. God's lack of elaboration does not give us license to do it in His place.
Kurieuo wrote:
Similarly, you also make the same mistake many YECs accuse Day-Age proponents of (if indeed it is a mistake) in that you do not take a "day" as a literal day. For a "day" only has the property of being 24 hours, because the length of an Earth day takes 24 hours to complete. And a property (i.e., 24 hours) of an object (i.e., day) does not mean the property is the object. Without a literal Earth day existing, 24 hours would be void of any meaning related to "day." ... Surely under the scope of Duncan and Hall's argument here against anti-YECs, your own interpretation is also at fault? For what do you make of the "evening and morning" phrase if a literal sunset and sunrise as they believe does not exist?
Two things:
1) At this point, I do take a "day" as a "literal day", (or, if you like, a literal day's timespan) simply because I have not seen any Biblical evidence in context to override the meaning. The issue is not that yom has other meanings in other places. The issue is context. If I were to write you a story and wrote in one place that "I ran the 5K race" and then later in the story wrote that "I ran to the store", surely you would be able to see the context of usage and understand that I took some form of transportation to the store. Neither would there be a great debate that I had a car on the 5K track.
2) As to "sunrise and sunset", my previous posts were emphasizing that the literalness was absent (e.g., the literal star and the literal form of the Earth), not that there was not an equivalency. Allow me to use another literary example. I have joined a team to go and terraform Mars. I write a journal so that everyone on Earth can read about it, and I write it in such a way that anyone (scientist and layman alike) can understand it. In it I write, "It took 6 months to build the Habitat." Now then, how should the reader understand that? How long are the "months" that I wrote about? Part of this answer comes from the intent of the author and the perspective of the intended reader (already stated). In time, someone comes along and says that his interpretation is that I am writing about Martian months because that was my experience. Another group comes along and works out an elaborate mathematical clock that illustrates months no matter where you are in the universe. Their interpretation is that I was using that universal month. Now, here is where my point about interpretation becomes clear (I hope). There is only one way in which I was writing about a "month" and any other interpretation adds to or takes away from the original truth of the matter. One interpretation attempts to put itself in the author's shoes where the interpreter has not been. The other interpretation stands upon a man-made foundation. Both overlook the clear and simple meaning of the text.
Let me be perfectly clear... The natural world is not the danger. It is not even the issue. I believe that nature does express the deity of God. That is a Scripturally sound concept. The problem is human wisdom (1 Cor. 1:20, 1 Cor. 2:12-16, Isaiah 55:8-9, Job 26:14; 38:1-4, Deut. 4:19). The danger is when we equate science (our understanding of nature) with the Bible.
Ross & Archer in [i]The Genesis Debate[/i] wrote:
Nature is God's "expression" as much as the Bible.
...nature's "canon".
Extrabiblical evidences are not inconsequential. They are vital.
I shutter when I read these words. God is seen in nature (Romans 1:20), but when we look to mankind's understanding of the natural world it is not the same as God speaking to us in the Scriptures (Deut. 4:2, Rev. 22:18-19). That is not a sound, Biblical concept. When God brought down the walls of Jericho, we should understand that event based on what the text illustrates. There didn't have to be an earthquake or some scientific explanation about how sound waves can crumble a wall. We don't have to figure out the number of different species in the ark based on the dimensions of the boat. And I shouldn't have to worry about whether the Hebrews understood the creation days to actually be billions of years. These were miracles. They were outside the boundaries of normal precedents, and if we try to scientifically process this information we are missing the point.
), but if you will read again, I posted that vs. 6 (not vs. 5) referenced the flood we read about in 