Fruit bearing plants before dinosaurs?

[Philip]

Making up fairy tales, like the one about the rich man who stored up all his goods in his barn? or the man who spread cornseed on stony ground? or the one about the man who sold all his goods to buy a field with a jewel in it? Yes indeed, making up fairy tales is one of the few things that absolutely characterize God.

My definition of fairy tales is that they are totally untrue. And yet the supposed "fairy tales" in Genesis are foundational to the rest of Scripture. So God chooses totally untrue stories, has His prophets and apostles believe them as factual, as He has based the entirety of Scripture upon totally made-up nonsense? Really?!!! Of course, if you don't believe that the Apostles wrote truth, not only as they witnessed it but also as inspired by God, then it is useless to debate. Again, even IF only some of it is true, or even most of it, but huge portions are not - how do you know which is which or what is what? How do you decide that? Please don't say, "I FEEL" or "by logic."

For clarity, I don't view Genesis as a science book, and its terminology was never meant to be understood as such. And I don't view it as necessarily telling how long the periods of time were (the "days"). One can sincerely debate the meaning of "days" and their lengths - doesn't bother me (I believe the universe to be ancient/billions of years old). There is good reason to believe that some of Genesis is not necessarily even chronological, and that creation sequences are meant as much to correct the false creation myths and pagan beliefs that Israel had before it received the Ten Commandments and The Law of Moses. That is not to say that the Genesis Creation accounts are mere allegory, nor is it to say they are not factual. It's just that they do not describe things in neat order or scientifically as we would. And so you can't view Genesis through your modern, 21st century, scientific world mindset. This is where many make mistakes. And you sure don't link/establish the chain in a lineage of men to the "Son of Man" by inserting a fictional Adam into His lineage.

If one is going to properly understand the Bible and Genesis, they had better understand theology and proper exegesis and interpretive methodology of Scripture. I would say this: If science and Scripture disagree and are in conflict, then either the science is wrong or we have totally misunderstood Scripture. Most whom question major parts of Scripture typically focus on doubting its miraculous components, just like Jefferson, whom believed in a Creator that is responsible for the universe but that He couldn't possibly have come to earth as a man and made a little water turn to wine. What kind of logic is THAT? And a Creator God Whom cannot do miracles - both small and huge - cannot truly be God the Creator.

Anyone with a "low" view of Scripture is not going to find the Bible of much use. And, yes, we all must decide these things as we understand them. But there are important rules of consistency (per Scripture) and interpretive analysis of texts that one must apply when trying to correctly understand Scripture. You can't just take verses out of their surrounding context and you can't take numerous, supporting/corroborating passages that line up on key doctrine and teachings our of the context of the entirety of Scripture. And you can't apply just a modern, scientific understanding to the original intent. Doesn't work that way, and it's a universal mistake people make when they bring modern understandings to ancient texts.

[hughfarey]

You seem to misunderstand my view of Genesis, and the comparison I make between the Old Testament stories - Adam and Eve and let's add Noah and maybe Jonah - with New Testament parables, and you also seem to misunderstand fairy-tales, which are often equally allegorical on several levels. I agree that it can be a problem to work out how allegorical any particular bit of the bible is supposed to be, but that's a problem we all share, whatever our interpretation. I think you also misrepresent Thomas Jefferson, whose rational point was not that God couldn't perform the minor miracles, but that he didn't.

But fair enough; both of us consider the bible divinely inspired, and neither of us thinks it is to be understood literally. We simply interpret it in different ways. I maintain that my interpretation make more sense, scientifically, historically and theologically, and you maintain the opposite. Insofar as our opinions clash, an impartial observer might ask how he should judge which, if either of us, is more likely to be right.

[Philip]

Hugh, I know a bit about allegory, about literary traditions and techniques - I have a journalism degree, after all. Took all the literature anyone could ever stand. And I write and design for a living.

Yes, I'm sure that Jefferson thought God COULD do miracles, as anyone knowledgeable about the physics, chemistry, planetary sciences, etc, also realizes that God is unleashed a mind-blowing sequence of miracles in order to create our universe and world. So, does such a God, One Whom created in such fanatical, incredible detail - really, a universe full of complex and constantly and necessarily interactive miracles - does He just suddenly stop doing them? Does such a God, creating with and holding the universe together with such astounding precision - does He then get sloppy with His word? CAN'T control it? Wasn't important enough to control it? Indifferent about what happened to it? Has all knowledge but didn't want us to understand important things - or didn't make it clear what it meant or what parts are His word and what isn't? And, remember, Jesus says He DIED to fulfill God's word!

Hugh, again, I'm very curious as to how do you decide which is true in the Bible and which is total fiction? And how do you even know for sure that you are saved? Do YOU doubt the miracles in the Bible, as well? Most? Just some? What?

[hughfarey]

Remarkably, I keep finding that the arguments you put forward to support your point of view actually support mine rather better!
It is the creationists who think that the origin of the universe, world and living things were the product of a series of stupendous miracles, after which there's been not much more than a bit of tweaking here and there as the world got out of hand, leading to the Incarnation to try to sort it all out again. Evolutionists, who see everything from the Big Bang to the freshness of every dawn as a continuous manifestation of the glory of God, don't see that there has been any diminution of God's continuous involvement in his creation, or any lack of control or interest.

You seem to see the universe as a sequence of largely disconnected events, without recognising that to God, who is outside time, it is no such thing. His manifestation in Jesus was part of the unfolding pattern from the very beginning, not a consequence of a history of man's incalcitrance. Similarly, our increasing understanding of the world (and of the scriptures) is again part of God's entire developmental design. The beginning and the end of the universe were created simultaneously.

This has confused theologians and atheists alike, as to theologians it smacks of mechanism and the denial of free-will, while to atheists the probability of a self-conscious universe is too vanishingly small to admit of, but some progress is being made towards a resolution via variations on the multiverse hypothesis, whereby Creation encompassed not a single succession of consequences, but every possible consequence (no doubt including one in which there was no Fall and therefore no Redemption), through which mankind meanders via free-will, or (for atheists) quantum randomness.

[Philip]

Remarkably, I keep finding that the arguments you put forward to support your point of view actually support mine rather better! It is the creationists who think that the origin of the universe, world and living things were the product of a series of stupendous miracles, after which there's been not much more than a bit of tweaking here and there as the world got out of hand, leading to the Incarnation to try to sort it all out again. Evolutionists, who see everything from the Big Bang to the freshness of every dawn as a continuous manifestation of the glory of God, don't see that there has been any diminution of God's continuous involvement in his creation, or any lack of control or interest.

Hugh, how you have deduced what I've been saying with the above is baffling. Of COURSE, God stands outside of time and knows the beginning from the end and has always known ALL of His plans that He would eventually implement. Your comment ("Evolutionists ... don't see that there has been any diminution of God's continuous involvement in his creation, or any lack of control or interest) shows that you have NOT carefully read what I've put forth.

But you've ignored my questions about how you think about a God whom has designed every aspect of this magnificent universe hasn't left His word so that we can discern truth amidst its supposed fictions or highly debatable, supposed allegorical fairy tales or outright fictions. So how do you decide what is true and what is not? What about the REST of Scripture that clearly shows that Adam is considered to be a real man, and that the events of his life were true and understandable?

So, again my direct questions to you:

So, does such a God, One Whom created in such fanatical, incredible detail - really, a universe full of complex and constantly and necessarily interactive miracles - does He just suddenly stop doing them (By this, I'm also questioning what you think about Scripture supposedly being mixed up with mere uncertain, indecipherable allegories)? Does such a God, creating with and holding the universe together with such astounding precision - does He then get sloppy with His word? CAN'T control it? Wasn't important enough to control it? Indifferent about what happened to it? Has all knowledge but didn't want us to understand important things - or didn't make it clear what it meant or what parts are His word and what isn't? And, remember, Jesus says He DIED to fulfill God's word!

Hugh, again, I'm very curious as to how do you decide which is true in the Bible and which is total fiction? My statement: "The New Testament views Adam as a real person and his and Eve's stories as being historical fact." Your response: "So it does. Jesus, of course, knew better." And your statement: "Yes indeed, making up fairy tales is one of the few things that absolutely characterize God." And so, as you doubt many and key portions of Scripture) how do you even know for sure that you are saved? Do YOU doubt the miracles in the Bible, as well? Most? Just some? What?

What I'm asserting is that you are picking and choosing which parts of Scripture you want to believe, but you appear to be doing so by picking it from the writings of those very people/writers (the prophets, Jesus, the apostles) whom endorse it ALL of it as being God-given. Jesus endorsed "the Law" as being TRUE, God's Word, of which Genesis was a part. But I'm not talking about arguing about just some of the science or meanings in Genesis. As if you don't believe large parts of Scripture, how do you even know that you are saved? How do you even know that it is necessary to be saved? Or what that requires? The parts critical to salvation, God becoming man, Jesus dying and being resurrected - these are miraculous/unscientific things, so how do you know that THOSE are true and not just allegory, if you reject the very same writers whom are viewing and asserting that Scripture is true and also a God-given WHOLE that stands together? You believe God has an eternal plan and has created a universe of awe and astounding precision and order, but you don't believe God can or would protect his word, or that He wouldn't give it in such a way as so that we could clearly understand it from mere allegory. That makes no sense!

If we can't understand key, foundational portions of Scripture from allegory, with its many POSSIBLE meanings, then it becomes essentially worthless to us. As then you must have faith in what parts of it YOU think is true and which are not - meaning, YOU are determining what is Scripture and what is not. But that's not a Biblical understanding or interpretation of or from Scripture.

[neo-x]

If the scientific evidence is against scriptures interpretation as you hold it, then it must be abandoned.

[Jac3510]

If the scientific evidence is against scriptures interpretation as you hold it, then it must be abandoned.

If the biblical evidence is against the scientific interpretation as you hold it, then it must be abandoned.

[1over137]

You gyus are reminding to me Galileo Galilei and some of his qoutes.

[Jac3510]

The difference, of course, is that Galileo understood that the Bible did not teach geocentrism. Those passages used in its favor were misunderstood, and, if you really get into the history of that position, you'll find it was brought to Scripture in the first place. Neo and other TEs, on the other hand, admit that the Bible does not teach TE, and that, taken at face value, the Bible teaches a literal seven day creation. They just see the Bible as factually incorrect on this matter and therefore either reject inspiration or redefine it.

[neo-x]

If the scientific evidence is against scriptures interpretation as you hold it, then it must be abandoned.

If the biblical evidence is against the scientific interpretation as you hold it, then it must be abandoned.

Evidence is evidence Jac, to deny it is to deny the truth, something I don't think God would ever want us to do. I really don't want to follow an interpretation which is scientifically wrong and evidence proves it wrong.

[Philip]

It's one thing to debate the MEANING of various parts of the Bible. But IF God is the ultimate Inspirer and thus Author of the Bible - and what we have is what was, with reasonable certainty (through literary criticism and manuscript analysis), originally written down (by the prophets, apostles, etc), then where science and the Bible do not seem to agree, then either we've misunderstood what the Bible is saying or our science is partially or even totally incorrect - and at times it may be a case of both. If God created our universe, we are observing the very handiwork of a mind and Genius that we, even at man's best scientific and other understandings, can just barely discern various parts and workings of it. It is arrogant and naive to believe that where science and Scripture disagree that the Scripture is just plain wrong or parts of it were just made up by man, or it is merely an allegorical tale. It would appear that many have much more faith in science than in Scripture, and so where they don't match up, they simply decide to dismiss the Scripture. Truly, just asserting "allegory" or "theistic" into one's understanding would often seem to be a way of dismissing Scripture.

[Jac3510]

Evidence is evidence Jac, to deny it is to deny the truth, something I don't think God would ever want us to do. I really don't want to follow an interpretation which is scientifically wrong and evidence proves it wrong.

Precisely. Evidence is evidence, and the biblical evidence is that the inspired authors of Scripture believed the world was created in seven days. I really don't want to follow a scientific interpretation which is biblically wrong and evidence proves it wrong.

It just comes down to who we should trust, neo. You find fallible, human scientists more trustworthy in their fallible, partial interpretation of our world's history than Scripture. I find the infallible, perfect God who inspired the infallible, inerrant Scriptures more trustworthy on that same history than those fallible, human scientists.

"Let God be true, but every man a liar" ~ Paul (Rom3:4)

[hughfarey]

I'm sorry I didn't express myself clearly enough. Let's see if I can try again, using your last post as a guide.

1) Why do I think that God "hasn't left His word so that we can discern truth amidst its supposed fictions or highly debatable, supposed allegorical fairy tales or outright fictions"?
ANSWER: But I don't think that at all. I think God has enabled us to discern truth among the various literary styles of the books of the bible, even though they include allegorical stories. You remind me of the disciples in Matthew 13, asking why Jesus spoke in parables. The secrets of the kingdom, he said, were given to some but not to others, which explains why the bible is not written in plain language throughout as much as it explains why he spoke in parables.

2) How do I decide what is true and what is not?
ANSWER: It's ALL true. What you mean, I hope, is how do I decide which bits of the bible are literally scientifically true, and which bits are allegorical. Mostly, I suppose, by reference to historical, literarary, archaeological and scientific discoveries. That, and the authority of the Church to which I adhere, and even partially my own personal conscience (though I admit that's a dangerous path). When the geocentric theory of the solar system was the best way we could understand the skies, then the idea that the sun might stand still could reasonably be accepted as literally true. Now that we know that as far as the solar system is concerned the sun stands still all the time, and that day and night depend on the rotation of the earth, we must look for an allegorical truth to that story.

3) What about the REST of Scripture that clearly shows that Adam is considered to be a real man, and that the events of his life were true and understandable?
ANSWER: The word Adam occurs 14 times in the Bible outside Genesis. 3 are generic references to 'sons of Adam' and 3 are genealogies. Hosea uses Adam as an example of a covenant-breaker, and Job as an example of one who tries to hide his guilt. The other five occur in Paul's letters. In Romans and Corinthians Paul compares 'the first man' and 'the last man,' balancing the initiation of sin by the one with the redemption of sin by the other. In Timothy Adam and Eve are compared as evidence of how contemporary men and women should behave. Although the human authors of these passages certainly understood Adam to be a historically verifiable person, the meaning of their teaching is not diminished by our interpreting Adam as an epitome.

4) Did God stop doing miracles after the creation?
ANSWER: No.

5) Is the bible a mixture of divinely inspired work and indecipherable allegories.
ANSWER: No. It is all divinely inspired, including a lot of allegories, which are all decipherable.

6) Is God still involved in his creation, or has he stopped work, lost the ability to control it, become indifferent about it?
ANSWER: No. Nothing in any of my former posts could possibly be interpreted in this way.

7) Why didn't God "make it clear what it meant or what parts are His word and what aren't?"
ANSWER: God's plan for the universe is evolutionary. He wanted it, and human understanding of it, to unfold gradually.

How do you decide which is true in the Bible and which is total fiction?
ANSWER: Same as my answer to (2) above.

9) What do I mean by: "Making up fairy tales is one of the few things that absolutely characterize God?"
ANSWER: I think you missed my reference to Jesus's parables. The teaching of the bible, like Jesus's own teaching, is often by means of stories which illustrate a point. The story of Noah is no more literally true than the story of the man who stashed all his wealth in a huge barn, only to be told that he would die that very night. One is Old Testament, and inspired by God, and one is New Testament, told by God made man. Telling stories that illustrate a point is what God does. It was a particular feature of Jesus's (God's) teaching in the New Testament. It was also a feature of the inspiration God gave to man in the Old Testament.

10) How do I know I am saved?
ANSWER: Faith, I guess.

11) Do I doubt the miracles in the Bible?
ANSWER: Miracles are wonderful events that create faith. The Bible is stuffed with stories describing when something happened which increased the faith of the people who observed them, and continue to increase the faith of the people who read them. The scientific literalness of these miracles is unimportant; some may have been literally true, some may be allegorical. I myself doubt whether any of them contradicted the laws of physics, but that's not the point.

12) How do I know that it is necessary to be saved?
ANSWER: That's what he teaching of Genesis is all about.

13) How do I know that the events of the New Testament are not as allegorical as other parts of the bible?
ANSWER: Same as my answer to (2) really. Some of them probably are (water to wine, maybe, or 2 fishes for 5000 people, or walking on water). The teaching of Christ doesn't depend on magic.

14) You conclude that because we cannot differentiate literal truth from allegory, God would not have given us his teaching in such an incomprehensible form. This implies that you think every word of the bible is literally true. No pork or prawns for you then! On the other hand I think that we can differentiate literal truth from allegory, and that God did indeed give us his teaching in a mixture of the two. Notice I use the word 'we.' In your last paragraph you seem to be saying that my interpretation can only be my own personal version. You imply an arrogance on my part, in deciding entirely by myself how to interpret the bible. Well that's nonsense, of course. Nothing I have said contradicts mainstream Christian theology, and I have had continuous recourse to various biblical commentaries old and new to help me understand the teaching of the magisterium, that huge body of exegisis and doctrine, of the church to which I adhere.

ps. I see that several new posts have arrived while I was writing this. I may comment on them separately.

[hughfarey]

Philip is entirely correct in warning us of the dangers of choosing Science rather than Faith too hastily. The story of the Manna in the Desert was first assumed to be entirely literal, then largely allegorical, more recently scientifically explainable, and more recently still as more probably allegorical. Perhaps the wheel will turn again. "Truly, just asserting "allegory" or "theistic" into one's understanding would often seem to be a way of dismissing Scripture," says philip, and I agree with him. I hope I'm not guilty of any such thing...

[neo-x]

Evidence is evidence Jac, to deny it is to deny the truth, something I don't think God would ever want us to do. I really don't want to follow an interpretation which is scientifically wrong and evidence proves it wrong.

Precisely. Evidence is evidence, and the biblical evidence is that the inspired authors of Scripture believed the world was created in seven days. I really don't want to follow a scientific interpretation which is biblically wrong and evidence proves it wrong.

It just comes down to who we should trust, neo. You find fallible, human scientists more trustworthy in their fallible, partial interpretation of our world's history than Scripture. I find the infallible, perfect God who inspired the infallible, inerrant Scriptures more trustworthy on that same history than those fallible, human scientists.

"Let God be true, but every man a liar" ~ Paul (Rom3:4)

And just to reiterate your point i hope the fallibility of the men who wrote the bible has not gone unnoticed by you. If God ha d had handwritten the present canon and dropped it from heaven that would have been a problem to deny, and sadly enough that is not the case. By rejecting all that I have and you are to some extent aware of it, God's nature is only become more invigorating for me. I seriously don't see the loss you refer to, i don't see how that is spiritually even valid let alone be relevant.

If science and evolution had been mere guess word as you would have me believe then I would have no problem, but that is far from the truth, my personal opinion of little value is that i think you misunderstand evolution or perhaps don't like it with the biblical view, in any case evolution mechanisms are observable, predicted and are evident, if one is bent on denying it than of course no amount of evidence is enough. And we would only agree to disagree.

Ironically at this junction i found your asking for evidence the same way an atheist would ask for God. If you dont accept something there is no evidence which will convince you. This however is only my observation i don't say this to undermine your point, we disagree on that for sure. Even without the immediate words above.