 |
| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > The Bible - Scientifically Sound? | Forum Quick Jump
|
| 
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/19/2003 12:42 PM (GMT -6) |   | quote:
By-the-by, the photo’s I showed are many archaeological proofs that either man is billions of years old and lived with dinosaurs – even before them, or that, man and dinosaurs were both caught in a large flood. Remember, millions and billions of dead things are buried in sedimentary rock laid down by waters. This sedimentary rock comprises about 75% of the land masses in the world, and with the recent laboratory and deep sea drilling, slow processes have bee shown to not account for the layering effects we find. Catastrophic events in nature have been clearly shown to do this type of layering effects, like Mount St. Helens.
Needless to say, none of this is the conclusion of tens of thousands of mainstream expert scientists, Christian and otherwise, from around the world, over generations, with no common presuppositions other than those basic to daily living. We generally believe them, at least in broad-brush strokes, when they near-unanimously tell us about oil, coal and gas deposits; the depths of space; the nature of stars; the source and treatment of infectious disease; the basic features of the world's major ancient civilizations; and all kinds of things directly observable and not, both current and historical. Why? Because the methods they use are proven - are in fact validated in each of our daily lives when we ourselves use those same empirical/rational methods to navigate through the day and solve problems - and their success is shown in the material knowledge the world has accumulated. So what is it that makes them all so radically and magically wrong whenever those methods cross the 6000-year boundary or otherwise go against-the-grain of a factually-inerrant interpretation of Genesis? I suppose you'd say sin, or Satan, but there's no evidence, Biblical or otherwise, for such perfect and complete corruption in man's empirical abilities - only his spiritual and moral discernment.
Your evidences almost certainly all have more prosaic explanations of one kind or another. To back this up, I suppose I should investigate and here report on one of those evidences, to see if it too fails to withstand scrutiny, and then another, and another (so far I've been batting pretty well at that, if people have noticed - and I say that not to boast, since none of it reflects my own novel thinking but only reports on the very reasonable consensus that's out there). But I don't have the hours that takes at the moment. So just a word of caution to everybody: a little skepticism in lieu of thorough detailed research goes a long way when considering claims that radically diverge from the consensus of experts :-)
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
 |
GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 3/19/2003 3:03 PM (GMT -6) | | Scott: I suppose I should investigate and here report on one of those evidences, to see if it too fails to withstand scrutiny, and then another, and another (so far I've been batting pretty well at that, if people have noticed - and I say that not to boast, since none of it reflects my own novel thinking but only reports on the very reasonable consensus that's out there). But I don't have the hours that takes at the moment. So just a word of caution to everybody: a little skepticism in lieu of thorough detailed research goes a long way when considering claims that radically diverge from the consensus of experts :-)
Greg: My sentiments exactly -- except more so. I could never have invested the time and patience you've exhibited on different threats to seriously engage in this material. The suppositions put out to be investigaged are for me too improbable and too inconsequential to engage me. I suspect Sean interpretes this as evidence that both of us have been duped by the materialistic scientific worldview, successful clones of the vast deceptive conspiracy.
Sean, I've always been impressed with how well read you are in the area of your interests and with your tenacity. But with Scott I would encourage you to treat your own sources and position with as much skepticism as you view others. And, even more importantly, I would encourage you not to lean too heavily on your minority views for support for your Christian faith. Its very possible that your estimation of the minority views you hold will change in time, and I'd hate to see this undermine your faith.
I just remember when my literalistic view of the scientific accuracy of the Bible was blown sky high as a freshman in college. It contributed to a long painful period of unbelief.
Blessings
Greg
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6
Edited by - GregBoyd on 03/19/2003 8:04:44 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/19/2003 5:00 PM (GMT -6) | | Again, the question is asked. You asked why they were important, I told you. There are two modals of origins. One says man and dinosaur did not co-exist, the other says they did. That’s all there is to it. So the question is asked again, Are these man-made Dr.Boyd?
Are these human skeletons Dr. Boyd?
What does this look like to you? I am just giving a few of many examples, these are three that are easily viewed. In fact, the footprints in Texas and other places were originally found by an evolutionist, creationists took over at this one site because the evolutionist had pre-suppositions that man and dinosaur did not co-exist. I have personally put my foot in one of the prints I helped uncover (jack hammering and pry barring 135 million year old sediment out of the way before uncovering it). Three simple questions guys.
Scott, is the Tower of Babel a myth?
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/19/2003 6:51 PM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
You asked me:
quote:
Scott, is the Tower of Babel a myth?
Nothing's ever as simple as a one-word answer, but to satisfy your desire for a one-word answer, yes. More specifically, my reading's led me to conclude it is a legend in the same genre basically as the rest of Genesis 2-10. I base this conclusion on external evidence and internal evidence.
The external evidence is very well-established data and equally reasonable interpretation thereof, from archaeology and linguistics, that at no time in the Mesopotamian period (indicated by the Near Eastern location and the clear reference in the story to baked bricks and what is almost certainly a ziggurat) did all the world's people share the same language. Indeed the mainstream evidence establishes that at that time, human beings were so disjoint and widespread over the earth, and had been for so many tens of thousands of years, that, even had they ever shared a common language, natural linguistic evolution (of the sort that has transformed Old English into modern English in just 1000 years) would have wiped that out long before.
The internal evidence is from literary criticism of Genesis 11, showing the same features (anthropomorphism of deity, play on words, etc) common to the genre of legend. Legend being stories about the deep past explaining why things are the way they are in the present day, in such a way that worldview truth concepts are enthemed. Incidentally, legend is a very common genre in culture and thus a sure-fire way to communicate worldview themes to people. To think that God would have made use of other strictly-fictional literary forms in the Bible, such as parable and poetry, but not legend, strikes me as arbitrary.
Now, as legend, it is clear the historical-grammatical interpretation is literal. When Genesis 11 speaks of the "whole earth", "one language", etc, it means just that - these are not code-words understood by the author and his listeners to mean "Sumer", "one family of languages", etc. But it is not necessary for us to accept this literal meaning, in these days when the tools of empirical and critical inquiry, properly directed against nature and history as God intended (as demonstrated by these tools' remarkable success within their domains, and perhaps even as blessed by God's commandment that we subdue the earth), show otherwise and reveal the legendary nature of the account. It is rather incumbent on us that we accept the themes of the account insomuch as what they tell us concerning faith and practice, since those are the teaching points.
In other words, God has accommodated his revelation in a fashion that makes use of the power of legend as a teaching vehicle. That he does so is no fault against him, as he is not teaching the literal truth of the legend, but making use of the legend to improve receptiveness, comprehension and impact of the teaching point.
I'm reminded of a time a few weeks ago when my 5-year-old son asked me what the moon was. I thought about it and told him it was a planet without air or water or any living thing, etc. Now why did I do that? Strictly-speaking, after all, the moon is not a planet. Was I errant or unfaithful in my teaching? No. I realized that my son had no conception of the literal truth - that the moon is a satellite, and what distinguishes a satellite from a planet. But I realized that he's watched enough Star Wars to know that planets are bodies like the Earth but far away in space, and with different and exotic features. This understanding of his was leverageable by me in describing the moon to him in such a way that his comprehension would be best aided. And since my goal, and his desire, was primarily to learn about what its like on the moon, and not exacting details of what it orbits, it cannot fairly be said that I was errant or unfaithful to my son in teaching him that way. No, not even if, in addition to learning what I sought to teach about the moon, he also took away some unintended-on-my-part, irrelevant-to-my-point, and literally-false knowledge regarding what it orbits.
Well, so too with God and legend. Now, lest you say, "Where does it end - is Jesus legend too?", my answer is that we let the evidence, internal and external, decide. And I think the evidence, internal and external, suggests that the Bible generally becomes relatively less legendary and embellished, and more factual (though never to modern standards), as time goes on (though thats another topic). So no, I do not think this is a slippery slope to denying the historicity of anything in the Bible.
Hope this helps,
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 3/19/2003 7:28 PM (GMT -6) | | Nice post Scott. I hadn't thought much about it before but I think you nailed it - I'm sold. And seeing it as a communication through the vehicle of a legend really allows us to seek the deeper meaning.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
|
Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/20/2003 1:34 AM (GMT -6) | | I think it's one thing to have a beef with how Christians handle Scripture; applying passages to themselves without any connection (or understanding in many cases) of the context. But I think it's a grave mistake to assign clear, concise meaning--not necessarily the language used to convey meaning--to myth, legend or otherwise when the intent of the language forbids such.
Open theists often rebuttal the argument against open theism "Oh, those are just anthropomorphisms; it isn't that God really gets angry or really changes His mind" with the question "If it is anthropomorphism, what exactly is the intention of the anthropomorphism to anthropomorphisise?" In other words, if it's just a human element being falsly ascribed to God (that He gets angry or changes His mind), what then is being said if it isn't that He gets angry or changes His mind? What else can the language, particularly when it's used so consistently and frequently, be saying?
This same issue holds for mythologis(z)ing the Old Testament. We don't quite know how creation was accomplished, there's surrounding legends of the same account, science isn't as clear as it could be . . . well, it must be myth. This completely sacrifices the common demoninator of language that all humans on all of the earth can utilize: a communcation that isn't perfect but clear enough to make the point and not make myth out of the point.
When God is clear that He made the world, that He made two people to start it, that there is evil (Satan, as we know him, working through the form of a serpent in the Genesis record and being directly rebuked by God), that there was a flood wiping almost everyone out, that mankind had to start over through a fellow named Noah, etc., what exactly is being said, or rather, communicated through this if it isn't the common denominator of the intent of the language used: that it happened accordingly? How else could God have communicated what He wrote in Genesis--Hebrew or non-Hebrew cultures in existence and influencing--than to have it say what it says? No one in the Old or New Testament seemed to question either soundness and literality of it's meaning or the validity of its content. Jesus certainly didn't, and He was quite adament about particular things in the OT being true and real: God created two people to start the Adamic race on earth. How else can it be said, without mythologizing it, than . . . God created two people? The fact that there's surrounding legends of similar event surely supports the idea that the one true account exists just as much as someone can argue that the one true account doesn't exist.
Again, it is one thing to misuse Scripture--taking it out of context, misquoting it, appealing it falsely, mis-applying it, etc., but it is quite another thing to dismiss the common demoninator of its meaning, anymore than one would expect to be understood by others for the simple common demoninator of meaning, by stating that the OT starts out as mostly legend and myth but becomes more historically valid or reliable (in regard to the meaning of its content) in the NT. Is God helpless? Is God not able to communicate what He means--culture or no culture--and still speak the common denominator to us? Whether one is angry, happy, changing one's mind, saying "I'm going to the store; I'm buying eggs," is clearly to say what this means. Does it really make any sense at all to ascribe to God confusion, legend and myth to His the account of His created order? Does it make any sense to have God utilize myth and legend to not only communicate badly, but worsen the issue by muddying up the waters in trying to make it all mean something . . . other than what it says it means? Doesn't plain common sense suggest that perhaps it wasn't God using myth and legend, but that those came about as the normal distortions man is so good at committing when it comes to the things of God?
So, again, I say that the intent of the meaning of Genesis is clear (again, not necessarily the language word-by-word, grammer-by-grammer): God created the world. There were two people first made. There was an evil being (whom God personally curses) communicating (in the common denominator of language) to one of the first two people. And on it goes. Myth? Legend? Well, not EVERY scientist believes this; not EVERY bit of archeology supports this; and not EVERY legend proves that the Genesis record must be myth.
Let's all be sure to allow God the freedom to communicate and to do so without being weakened by language barriers; He created language.
For the record,
Starkman
Edited by - Starkman on 03/20/2003 06:40:42 AM | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/20/2003 7:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Keith "Starkman",
You asked:
quote:
...what exactly is being said, or rather, communicated through this if it isn't the common denominator of the intent of the language used: that it happened accordingly? How else could God have communicated what He wrote in Genesis--Hebrew or non-Hebrew cultures in existence and influencing--than to have it say what it says?
What is being communicated through a hymn? The words of the hymn have a literal meaning, but that meaning is not the point. The themes are the point. So if the themes are the point, why bother with the hymn? Why not just use the genre of systematic, abstract discourse to teach the themes directly? Well, because if the purpose is to have the most lasting and memorable impact, the hymn - with its music and meter and picturesque language - is going to sink-in more to listeners of all times, cultures, ages, intellectual capacities, etc, than the discourse. The ancillary elements of the hymn make it more memorable and receptive to the broadest audience in comparison with dry discourse. This is especially true in "primitive" (not a pejorative term - perhaps I should use "pre-modern" instead) cultures which don't even have the cultural/literary concept of abstract systematic discourse - such as the ancient Hebrews.
Well, so too with legend. How many of you remember the dry facts you once learned about George Washington, enough that you could recite them and explain what they mean? Now, how many of you remember the legend of George Washington and the cherry tree so clearly you could recite it and expound on what it means? Far more, I would bet. There you go. That is the power of legend. And you are a modern - one who since relatively early schooling has been made familiar with abstract discourse, a product only of relatively middle- to late civilization (Greek, Roman, Islamic, etc). Imagine if you were a pre-modern.
quote:
No one in the Old or New Testament seemed to question either soundness and literality of it's meaning or the validity of its content.
No, they didn't, and that's quite consistent with what I've been saying. Legend is understood within the pre-modern context to be literally true. And why not - there is no reason known within that pre-modern, pre-critical culture to doubt it - and believing it to be literally true is incidental and harmless to the teaching point anyway (just as would be literal belief in the figurative speech used in a hymn, say - harmless to the teaching point of the hymn).
Thus when Paul, in Romans and 1 Corinthians, draws on Adam as a foil to Jesus, I've no doubt Paul understood Adam to have been literally real. But even if Adam is understood as legend, Paul's teaching points still stand, because he wasn't teaching the literal reality of Adam as such, but co-opting it as a rhetorical device to emphasize the work of Jesus. So, understood this way, what does it matter to the validity of Paul if Adam is legendary and even if Paul himself thought Adam to be real?
Similarly for other references throughout the Bible back to the legends. They take the legends at face value because that is what the cultures did, and then draw upon them to establish teaching points whether on the work of Jesus, the intransigence of men and their coming judgement (ie Peter's references to the flood), the establishment of the 7-day Jewish week, etc.
Now, you may agree with this, or disagree with this, but in any case you must admit that it is not a special-plead in the general argument of accommodation. If - as I've been representing here - God's revelation in matters of faith and practice is accommodated to the times, then that naturally applies not just to the legends themselves, but also to the references to them from elsewhere in the Bible. These references in themselves present no further special or unique difficulty to the premise. After all, the whole Bible is revelation and thus subject to possible accommodation in matters outside faith and practice.
quote:
Jesus certainly didn't, and He was quite adament about particular things in the OT being true and real: God created two people to start the Adamic race on earth. How else can it be said, without mythologizing it, than . . . God created two people?
Jesus' references back to the legendary accounts of Genesis can be explained in basically the same way, depending on your christology. If you adhere strongly to kenosis, then it is possible to believe that Jesus himself, while personified on earth, was no less human in his limited secular knowledge, eg of cosmology and history, than his contemporaries. Omniscience would have been laid aside by him, including knowledge of actual cosmology and history. But even if your christology is not so kenotic, it is possible to say that Jesus, while knowing actual cosmology and history, accommodated those to his listeners in the surrounding culture, by adapting to them. Again, this presents no further unique difficulty to the view of accommodation - for that view says that God accommodates his revelation to our low understanding, so if God in spirit does so when inspiring his prophets and apostles, then God in person certainly could do so when addressing his people.
Hope this helps,
Scott
PS. I make no comment on the open view or consistency (or lack thereof :-) of this line of reasoning with the open view's face-value acceptance of "anthropomorphisms" of God reacting in time. The open view is not something I have really studied.
PPS. I am going to have to rollback my level of involvement in these threads, folks. Its just taking too much time, fun and engaging though its been. Anyway, I think everyone pretty much knows by now where I'm coming from :-)
| | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/20/2003 1:30 PM (GMT -6) | | Good post Starkman!
Scott said: “The external evidence is very well-established data and equally reasonable interpretation thereof, from archaeology and linguistics, that at no time in the Mesopotamian period (indicated by the Near Eastern location and the clear reference in the story to baked bricks and what is almost certainly a ziggurat) did all the world's people share the same language. Indeed the mainstream evidence establishes that at that time, human beings were so disjoint and widespread over the earth, and had been for so many tens of thousands of years, that, even had they ever shared a common language, natural linguistic evolution (of the sort that has transformed Old English into modern English in just 1000 years) would have wiped that out long before.”
actually, written history only goes back about 7,000 to 10,000 years. Any other interpretation of dates attributed to writing is done with C-14 dating, or some other dating method. Again, writing when put into a historical and archaeological context outside of any influence with radiometric dating fits within the Biblical time frame. And to be clear… language has been proven to come from one source, and the ancient histories of the Chinese, aboriginals, and others (even the belief of Nebuchadnezzar) supports this.
quote:
Philology
First, language studies have led many scholars to the conclusion that the varied human tongues ultimately can be traced to a common source. Max F. Muller (1823-1900) was one of the world’s foremost comparative philologists, i.e., one who studies ancient languages and observes their similarities and differences. He taught at Oxford University. In his book, Science of Language, the celebrated professor wrote:“We have examined all possible forms which language can assume, and we now ask, can we reconcile with these three distinct forms, the radical, the terminational, the inflectional, the admission of one common origin of human speech? I answer decidedly, Yes” (quoted by Free, 1950, pp. 46-47). Sanskrit was the ancient and classical language of India. Sir William Jones (1746-1794), was an accomplished scholar in this language, and in 1786 he wrote:“The Sanskrit language, whatever may be its antiquity, is of wonderful structure; more perfect than Greek, more copious than Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either; yet bearing to both of them a stronger affinity, both in the roots of verbs and the forms of grammar, than could have been produced by accident; so strong that no philologer could examine all three without believing them to have sprung from some common source which no longer exists” (quoted by Robertson, 1919, p. 10). Jones also suggested that Gothic, Celtic, and Persian belonged to the same linguistic family, now known as Endo-European.
In his respected two-volume work on Genesis, Dutch scholar G. Ch. Aalders has this comment:“A famous Assyriologist made the amazing discovery that there is a clear relationship between the languages of some of the native people in Central and South America and some of the Islands, on the one hand, and the ancient Sumerian [the oldest known language] and Egyptian languages, on the other. This scholar, who formerly had considered the account in Genesis 11:1-9 to be no more than a myth, came to the conclusion that the biblical narrative is more credible than had been supposed” (1981, p. 254). Dr. Harold Stigers has an interesting summary of this matter.“Though there are countless languages and dialects [approximately 3,000 currently known], yet ultimate derivation from a parent language is revealed through the continuing studies being made across the boundaries of the major language families. Common features of syntax and vocabulary, which are similar enough, yet different enough not to be labeled borrowings, indicate that one must posit a common ancestor” (1976, p. 130). Interestingly, secular journalists recently discussed the work of certain linguistic scientists, who, using computers to compare languages, are speculating that there may indeed be a mother tongue, which they are calling “proto-World.” One writer went so far as to say:“Maybe the Bible is right, and there really was a Tower of Babel. Or at least, maybe there really was once a single human language, before we were all cursed with a confusion of tongues” (Dyer, 1990). Yes, just maybe modern Bible critics aren’t as informed as they pretend.
History
There are historical evidences that lend support to the Genesis record regarding the origin of languages. There are several ancient traditions concerning this incident.
Abydenus (a Greek historian of the mid-fourth century B.C.), as quoted by Eusebius, spoke of a great tower at Babylon which was destroyed. The record notes:“. . . until this time all men had used the same speech, but now there was sent upon them a confusion of many and divers tongues” (quoted by Rawlinson, 1873, p. 28). In a grossly garbled account, but one which obviously has roots in some ancient event, Plato in one of his works, tells of a golden age when men spoke the same language, but an act of the gods caused them to be confounded in their speech (see M’Clintock & Strong, 1895, p. 590).
Josephus, the Jewish historian, quoting from an ancient source, records these words:“When all men were of one language, some of them built a tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon” (Antiquities 1.4.3). Aside from such references, the details of Genesis 11 are strikingly precise from an historical perspective. Consider the following:
a. The identification of Babylon with Shinar was apparently known in the earliest of times (cf. Gen. 10:10; Dan. 1:2).
b. The allusion to a “tower” in Babylon is certainly consistent with the fact that such towers, called ziggurats, were common in that ancient locale. These towers consisted of several platforms, constructed one on top of the other, progressively smaller in size till a pinnacle was reached which accommodated a small temple dedicated to some particular deity.
c. The reference to “brick” and “bitumen” (“slime” KJV) has a genuine touch of authenticity. The region of Babylon did not contain the common building stone that was characteristic of Palestine. Some of the fired bricks from that area were usable for centuries. There is no reason whatever, aside from anti-religious bigotry, to question the historicity of the Genesis account of the Tower of Babel.
Donald J. Wiseman, Professor of Assyriology at the University of London, has confidently stated that the record in Genesis 11 “...bears all the marks of a reliable historical account...” (1980, p. 157). Even a liberal writer concedes that “...the background that is here sketched proves to be authentic beyond all expectations” (Speiser, 1964, p. 75).
Archaeology
The precise site of the ancient Tower of Babel is a matter of uncertainty for there are remnants of several ruins in the region that are possibilities. Many writers, following Jewish and Arab traditions locate the Tower ruins at Borsippa (the “Tongue Tower”), about 11 miles southwest of the northern portion of Babylon (formerly a suburb of the city). Others identify the site with Etemen-an-ki (“the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth”), which is located in the southern sector of the city near the right bank of the Euphrates river. One or the other of these ruins may represent the archaeological “descendant” of the original Tower of Babel.
In his book, Chaldean Account of Genesis (1880), George Smith of the British Museum – the scholar who translated the Babylonian Flood account – published a fragment which is certainly reminiscent of the Mosaic record. The inscription tells of an ancient ziggurat. “The building of this temple offended the gods. In a night they threw down what had been built. They scattered them abroad, and made strange their speech. The progress they impeded” (Caiger, 1944, p. 29).
SOURCES
From: http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/babel.htm
Aalders, G. Ch. (1981), Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zondervan), Vol. I.
Allen, Steve (1990), Steve Allen on the Bible, Religion, & Morality (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus).
Bowie, Walter Russell (1952), “The Book of Genesis,” The Interpreter’s Bible (New York: Abingdon), Vol. 1.
Caiger, Stephen L. (1946), Bible and Spade – An Introduction to Biblical Archaeology (London: Oxford University).
Dyer, Gwynne (1990), “Seeking the Mother Tongue,” New Zealand Herald, September 17.
Free, Joseph P. (1950), Archaeology and Bible History (Wheaten, IL: Van Kampen Press).
Josephus, Flavius (1957), The Life and Works of Josephus, William Whiston, Translator (Philadelphia: John C. Winston Co.).
M‘Clintock, John & Strong, James (1895), Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1968), Vol. I.
Rawlinson, George (1873), Historical Illustrations of the Old Testament (Boston: Henry A. Young & Co.).
Robertson, A, T. (1919), A Grammar of the Greek New Testament In The Light of Historical Research (London: Hodder & Stoughton).
Speiser, E.A. (1964), The Anchor Bible – Genesis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co.).
Stigers, Harold G. (1976), A Commentary on Genesis (Grand Rapids: Zoadervan).
Wiseman, Donald J. (1980), “Babel,” The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, J. D. Douglas, Ed. (Wheaton, EL: Tyndale House), Vol. 1.
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne
Edited by - SeanG on 03/20/2003 6:34:21 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/20/2003 2:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
Nothing you wrote or quoted (see below) engaged what I wrote. I reported that Babel clearly dates to the Mesopotamian period some 4000-5000 years ago. I also reported that at that time we know that many other languages were already in existence and people were already scattered across the face of the earth. We know this not just from properly-calibrated C14 dating (which is essentially proven to be highly reliable) but also from king lists and what-not. The fragmentation of the original language (if there was one, and I'm not disputing whether there was or not) was already long over by the period implied by the Babel account. What you've presented is orthogonal to this.
Regards,
Scott
PS. I really am going to start trying to cut back in my participation here... really I am :-)
quote:
Scott said: “The external evidence is very well-established data and equally reasonable interpretation thereof, from archaeology and linguistics, that at no time in the Mesopotamian period (indicated by the Near Eastern location and the clear reference in the story to baked bricks and what is almost certainly a ziggurat) did all the world's people share the same language...”
actually, written history only goes back about 7,000 to 10,000 years. Any other interpretation of dates attributed to writing is done with C-14 dating, or some other dating method. Again, writing when put into a historical and archaeological context outside of any influence with radiometric dating fits within the Biblical time frame...
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/20/2003 3:04 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Scott,
You quote me: You asked: ...what exactly is being said, or rather, communicated through this if it isn't the common denominator of the intent of the language used: that it happened accordingly? How else could God have communicated what He wrote in Genesis--Hebrew or non-Hebrew cultures in existence and influencing--than to have it say what it says?
And then addressed the quote:
quote:
What is being communicated through a hymn? The words of the hymn have a literal meaning, but that meaning is not the point. The themes are the point.
Scott, it's absurd to say that a hymn's words have literal meaning, but they (the words) are not the point; that the theme is. Countless hymns (for that matter, prose, poetry, song--all forms of writings) have been written litterally in account, meaning, theme and purpose. People only write otherwise when they intend to do so. Even writers of legend know they're writing legend, unless they believe the legend to be truth and therefore think they are conveying truth. Nevertheless, they are saying something that is really communicable by words that mean what they say. Songs, hymns, poetry, prose . . . it can all convey meaning that's literal and should be taken as literal both in meaning and in theme, if this was the intent. So, a hymn is not a legend, myth or anything else unless the author intends it to be such. It is ludicrous to appeal to the belief that the ancients couldn't fathom a simple conversation (and, therefore, communication) of truth; that Genesis just has to be legend because, well, the ancient civilizations only communicated by legend and myth. Over and over and over God insists that real truth, not legend, be spoken, be lived, be believed. There's just no reason to not think that God didn't say what He meant--existing or no existing surrounding legends of the creation or flood accounts--without obscuring plain, simple meaning to be something other than what it means.
You quote me: Well, so too with legend. How many of you remember the dry facts you once learned about George Washington, enough that you could recite them and explain what they mean? Now, how many of you remember the legend of George Washington and the cherry tree so clearly you could recite it and expound on what it means? Far more, I would bet. There you go. That is the power of legend. And you are a modern - one who since relatively early schooling has been made familiar with abstract discourse, a product only of relatively middle- to late civilization (Greek, Roman, Islamic, etc). Imagine if you were a pre-modern Emphasis Keith's.
Wouldn't make a difference. All people of all ages have been able to communicate real, honest, non-legend truth to each other. We're no different than the ancients when it comes to this. It's almost as if, Scott, you don't want to believe that what's written means exactly (and as it is said to have happened) what it says.
I have noted, that the language of Genesis isn't always as clear as the meaning and intent it conveys. That, however, is not a contradiction, as if difficult language means its true meaning can't be communicated. We do this with language every day; we speak in metaphor, in something of obscurity, in slang, in parable, in analogy, but the truth of the account we are conveying isn't said to be myth or legend. A parable is clearly a parable. Myth and legend are clearly myth and legend WHEN someone with expertise knowledge--I can think of no one more expertise in the knowledge of historical events than God--steps up to the plate and speaks the truth.
You quoted me: No one in the Old or New Testament seemed to question either soundness and literality of it's meaning or the validity of its content.
And you responded:
quote:
No, they didn't, and that's quite consistent with what I've been saying. Legend is understood within the pre-modern context to be literally true.
Let me be more clear: No one in the Old or New Testament seemed to treat the then known Word of God as legend: none of it. Further, it simply isn't logically solid to conclude that surrounding legends must mean that the original account, if one is even going to believe there's an original account, is therefore legend too.
You quote me: And why not - there is no reason known within that pre-modern, pre-critical culture to doubt it - and believing it to be literally true is incidental and harmless to the teaching point anyway (just as would be literal belief in the figurative speech used in a hymn, say - harmless to the teaching point of the hymn).
Pre-modern, pre-critical means nothing, Scott. People have always been people. People have always talked to each other very clearly, concisely and literally in what they convey, whether they speak or write it. It's something that just cannot be gotten around by appealing to previous civilizations as almost being dumber than rocks, unable to simply say it as it is, or simply won't say it as it is. That's just ludicrous. This ISN'T to say that there cannot be story-telling, legends of old, etc. But that's nothing uncommon in current civilizations anymore than it was in old civilizations. Though old civilizations utilized the LANGUAGE of myth (Biblically speaking) more than we do, it is neither hard to see when it was being done, and it is not impossible to discern when they had not done so. We simply cannot toss most, if not all, in Scripture to the lion's mouth of myth and legend. (I am aware of the usage of the word 'myth' to communicate tradition, the then-known concepts, etc., without attributing legend to the word, but that doesn't seem to be what you mean in your usage of the word.) We are not smarter, more able, less able, more culturally able, or any other "able" to communicate than they were. It's fallacy to think so, and it's fallacy to think that God didn't communicate what He meant to say, particularly, as I said, when He demands we do so.
quote:
Thus when Paul, in Romans and 1 Corinthians, draws on Adam as a foil to Jesus, I've no doubt Paul understood Adam to have been literally real. But even if Adam is understood as legend, Paul's teaching points still stand, because he wasn't teaching the literal reality of Adam as such, but co-opting it as a rhetorical device to emphasize the work of Jesus. So, understood this way, what does it matter to the validity of Paul if Adam is legendary and even if Paul himself thought Adam to be real?
Scott, in my opinion, this is reaching way beyond anything reasonable and hermeneutically acceptible. Paul believed that Adam was real, that the account of his creation was real, that his falling from grace was real--at least he leads us to believe so, just as Jesus did. Legend? To make a point? What happened to simple truth making the point? Why make it be something it doesn't even hint to be, Scott?
quote:
Similarly for other references throughout the Bible back to the legends. They take the legends at face value because that is what the cultures did, and then draw upon them to establish teaching points whether on the work of Jesus, the intransigence of men and their coming judgement (ie Peter's references to the flood), the establishment of the 7-day Jewish week, etc.
You're legending yourself right out of any sensible conversation! There's no meaningful conversation to be made if all is legend and myth. Even legend and myth, if they do not convey real truth, are no means of true commuincation. All that's left is meaninglessness. Nothing is true and truth; the legend purporting to convey truth has to have a bed of rock on which to lie or there is simply nothing to convey if there is no true, original account to be found.
quote:
Now, you may agree with this, or disagree with this, but in any case you must admit that it is not a special-plead in the general argument of accommodation. If - as I've been representing here - God's revelation in matters of faith and practice is accommodated to the times, then that naturally applies not just to the legends themselves, but also to the references to them from elsewhere in the Bible. These references in themselves present no further special or unique difficulty to the premise. After all, the whole Bible is revelation and thus subject to possible accommodation in matters outside faith and practice.
I'm most certainly not trying to be rude, Scott, but I can't make out heads or tails of any meaningful conversation about the Bible at this point. Is the Bible true in its account of events or is it not? Did God give or not give the true (partial) account of mankind's history to convey something true and real about mankind, his creation, fall, and chance for restoration? Was there or was there not a flood? Was there or was there not a man named Noah? Were Adam and Eve real or were they not? Is there revelation--not legend, but revelation--from God or is there not (we just cannot couch God's revelation in or equate it with legend and myth if "revelation" is to hold any meaning at all.) If it is mostly legend--or at least the parts you have arbitrarily ascribed to legend--then, without any true reference to solidify the true meaning of the legend, where's there any value in this? How can you finally end up with truth that should be both lived by and died for if the legend has no factual backing?
Finally,
quote:
Jesus' references back to the legendary accounts of Genesis can be explained in basically the same way, depending on your christology. If you adhere strongly to kenosis, then it is possible to believe that Jesus himself, while personified on earth, was no less human in his limited secular knowledge, eg of cosmology and history, than his contemporaries. Omniscience would have been laid aside by him, including knowledge of actual cosmology and history. But even if your christology is not so kenotic, it is possible to say that Jesus, while knowing actual cosmology and history, accommodated those to his listeners in the surrounding culture, by adapting to them. Again, this presents no further unique difficulty to the view of accommodation - for that view says that God accommodates his revelation to our low understanding, so if God in spirit does so when inspiring his prophets and apostles, then God in person certainly could do so when addressing his people.
No, there is a third alternative: Jesus knew the record as real, literal and true in its meaning, and He spoke about it as real truth and not legend or myth. This is not only the most natural interpretation, but it is the only one that makes sense. Otherwise, we all--not just old civilizations, since we today speak in the same common denominator of language--are only speaking in circles and in obscurity and never arriving to any meaningful conversation.
That's my thoughts about it, Scott. I don't mean to be rude at all.
Thanks,
Starkman
By the way, what evidence to you have to prove that before the tower of Babel there were multiple languages (remember--of different families: there has to be room for dialects, so they don't count)? And what proof do you have that people were well scatterd (not just normal growth) before the tower account? I ask because I really don't know the subject outside of the Bible's account, so I'd be interested to know what you have learned here.
Edited by - Starkman on 03/21/2003 06:07:03 AM | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/21/2003 8:46 AM (GMT -6) | | Keith,
On myth and legend in the ancient world: I'm not disputing that people in their everyday lives have always communicated literally. I'm certainly not suggesting that, in the ancient world, myth and legend as means of communication were so prevalent that, say, when the farmer came in from the field to ask his wife about supper he would do so by spinning a tale about a hardworking and hungry turtle, for example :-) No, in everyday communication people have certainly always been literal.
But it cannot be disputed that legend/myth (perhaps there is a distinction, but for my purposes I'm not considering there to be one I'll use "legend" hereout) were far more pervasive throughout those ancient cultures than they are today as means of addressing, not the little everyday things, but the big things: major current events, history, and cosmology. That is, in the formal literature of the time, not the everyday communication, legend is indeed prevalent.
Why? Apparently because of a lack of an understanding and valuing of formal critical methodology. That's just the way cultures were. We think our insistence today on "VCR-replay" style precision in communicating such things just comes naturally to people, but the evidence shows that it doesn't. To produce such precision requires an understanding of how to formally experiment and why; of how to corroborate sources and why; of formal logic; etc. And to value such precision requires a mindset and value system in which getting the details right in describing the big things is considered important; in which embellishment, no matter the "higher" purpose, is considered fraud; in which sensation is considered suspicious; in which it is considered that moralization should be kept separate from impartial description; and so on. These epistemological suppositions of the modern age, though quite reasonable, do not come to people naturally but instead are an outgrowth of centuries of gradual development, beginning perhaps with the Greeks.
What is the evidence for this? Simply the vast array of ancient literature, all of it riddled with what we would call mythical and fanciful elements. Mesopotamian king lists in which these pagan kings are described as living for centuries and ruling the whole earth. Egyptian literature in which pharaoh comes from the gods and consorts with them and likewise rules the whole earth. Kings and heroes flying through the air. All kinds of magic and sorcery. It goes on and on. Being from pagan sources, I think we'd all agree this stuff is most probably legendary (and anyway, what's verifiable today in it generally isn't borne out by mainstream archaeology either). So given this is the genre of the day, how do we explain it? In the way I described above.
Now, given it was the genre of the day, would God, as he began to carve a people out for himself, have cared? Well yes, very much - insomuch as these legends almost all carry explicit or implicit messages about gods, the deity of kings, the supernatural, and so on - the stuff regarding faith and practice for which we obviously need God's direct revelation and which is obviously God's interest. But insomuch as the legends express certain details about science or history, no - I don't think he would have cared about errors in that because there's no evidence anywhere in the Bible that he cares about our getting secular knowledge as such straight. Calculus isn't revealed, nor electromagnetism, etc, and what secular content is brought up in the Bible is sometimes imprecise or simply false (the best example being the classification of rabbits/hares among those animals that chew the cud) - I know inerrantists dispute this and my bringing it up opens a whole other Pandora's box of claims and counterclaims, but bear with me here. So I don't at all see it as apriori impossible that God would have used legend, co-opted and turned toward his right revelation in the things that matter to our relationship with him (faith and practice), in those ancient days well over 2000-3000 years ago when it was so prevalent. As time went on, and the culture Hellenized in a more-modern direction, such that the legendary genre became less accepted and more subject to skepticism, God would I believe have turned away from it (though still not to modern standards) - and I think we generally see that happening by New Testament times. God always reaches out to communicate about the important things with us "where we're at", and he never seems to show much interest in addressing or correcting the unimportant things - such as our understanding of science and history at the time. This is true whether God's revelation comes through a merely human author directly relating a legend under his inspiration (eg the author of Genesis), a merely human author later referring back to such a received legend for a teaching purpose (eg Paul and Peter vis-a-vis Adam and the flood), or God himself appealing to such a received legend for a teaching purpose (eg Jesus).
Now, let me also say that this view of divine accommodation isn't in the driver's seat, as far as I'm concerned. When looking at a passage in the Bible and wondering how historically-precise it is, I at least do not look for incredible elements and, if any are present, declare it to be legend and accommodation. After all, I can't think of anything more incredible than the incarnation, and I accept this (and consider it essential to Christianity). Rather, my opinion on the historicity of a passage is swayed by the convergence of evidence. If highly reliable, longstanding, multiply-replicated, not-likely-to-be-overturned, consensus external evidence unequivocally rules out the literal historicity of a passage; and if the internal evidence suggests legend, eg by the date of the passage, the culture influencing the author, and the motif/elements of the story; then I see probable legend, and appeal to accommodation to understand that theologically. In the absence of such evidences compelling me in that direction, I don't see legend but generally accept the historicity. Most/all of Jesus' miracles, for example - because there's no external evidence against their being real, and because the internal evidence of the Gospels, in my opinion, leans against their being purely legendary.
By the way, you asked about external evidence that, by the time of the Tower of Babel, humanity was already scattered and speaking many languages. This evidence comes from physics and archaeology, as follows.
From physics, we have carbon-14 (C14) dating, also called radiocarbon dating. This uses carbon-14, an element present in all organic material because it is incidentally taken in from the atmosphere by the organism while it respires, very quickly reaching equilibrium with the atmosphere. When respiration ceases (ie the organism dies) C14 is no longer taken in. Working backward from a knowledge of the concentration of C14 in the atmosphere at the time, we can infer the initial C14 concentration in the organism at the time it died in equilibrium with that. Working backward from that, the remaining C14 in the preserved organic material today, plus the known C14 decay rate, yields the approximate date of the organism.
The C14 decay rate, like all radioactive decay rates, is virtually constant. This is confirmed experimentally by physics and also falls-out of modern physical theory (nuclear physics, quantum mechanics and the weak nuclear force, I believe) as a necessary consequence - ie the same physical theories that produce working nuclear reactors and thus are thereby validated, say that the decay rate must be virtually constant.
The concentration of C14 in the atmosphere at the time, though - and hence in the organism at the time it died - has historically been more problematic to determine. Early C14 dating efforts assumed the concentration was the same as today - but, as it turns out, there are good theoretical reasons invalidating that assumption. C14 dating would be showstopped, then, if not for calibration methods - ways to deduce the C14 concentration over time.
The most famous of the calibration methods uses dendrochronology - the comparison of tree-ring sequences across trees living and dead. By aligning ring widths in specimens, a chronology from the present day to the past has been established independently using bristlecone pines in California and various species of oak in Europe. (Note that each year in the chronology is represented whenever possible by multiple specimens; thus aberrations in individual specimens' adherence to the general rule-of-thumb - one ring per year - are ruled out. Note also that in at least some of the chronologies, ring density alignments have been used to independently corroborate the ring width alignments - a valid methodology, since width and density are not necessarily correlated. Thus all these techniques serve to weed-out erroneous alignments and make the overall chronology very reliable.)
Anyway, bristlecone pine and German and Irish oak dendrochronologies, in particular, go back approximately 11,000 years. And since pine and oak are obviously organic, C14 dating on the specimens is possible. Thus it is possible to work back from the C14 date obtained when assuming the current C14 concentration, to what the actual C14 concentration must have been in the atmosphere over the last 11,000 years, by comparing the C14 dates with the dendrochronological dates. And when this is done, everything matches up, across all the pine and oak sequences, to the year, down to the little fluctuations in C14 concentration over time.
And that's not all - the same kind of calibration has been done using varves covering the last 10,000 years and containing organic material over that time - and the varves line-up too with the dendrochronological results. Consequently, calibrated C14 dating is extremely reliable.
Now, what do we know from archaeology? Genesis 11:2 says the Tower was constructed in lower Mesopotamia (Shinar - the general region of Babylon, as every commentator agrees). 11:3 says the Tower was constructed of baked brick, with asphalt (bitumen) for mortar. 11:4 says the Tower was constructed to be monumental ("to the heavens...make a name for ourselves"). Putting this all together, it appears the tower was a ziggurat constructed in Mesopotamia of baked brick with asphalt. So dating the Tower becomes a matter of searching Mesopotamia for ancient architectural sites, especially ziggurats, made of baked brick and bitumen (both very hardy and well-preserved materials), then C14-dating them. When this is done, we find that ziggurats, baked brick, and bitumen - all independent of one another - do not enter the Mesopotamian architectural record until about 3000 BC, give or take a few centuries. So the Tower dates to approximately 3000 BC at the earliest.
Where was humanity, and what languages existed, at that time? Archaeology has of course found ancient sites all over the world, and the earliest of them all significantly predate 3000 BC, using C14 dating. Archaeological sites are scattered all over the ancient Near East, not just lower Mesopotamia, and they date much further back than 3500 BC.
A first walled settlement at Jericho, for example, dates to 7000 BC. Outside the Near East, the indigenous Ainu culture of Japan shows continuous occupation back to 5000 BC at least. The Jomon culture of Japan predates that, back to 10,000 BC. In Thailand, the Spirit Cave culture dates back to 5000 BC. In Australia, there are human artifacts (eg bone) dating back to 20,000 BC, and occupied sites at 5000 BC. Here in the Americas: there are Native American occupied sites dating to 9000 BC (eg Danger Cave in Utah), and I believe even further back in South America and a few temporary sites along the northwest coast of North America. Note that all these calibrated C14 dates are further corroborated by stratigraphy - the relative layering of soils at these sites (ie generally the lower the layers, the older the dates - thus everything generally cross-checks by this stratigraphic rule-of-thumb).
So its clear that humanity was already scattered over the face of the earth by 3000 BC. What languages were they speaking? That's a harder question - there's no way to recover spoken language, of course, only written language; and there are few samples of that outside of the ancient Near East (since written language is itself quite an advance - many pre-modern peoples never independently developed written language, as you probably know, such as most peoples in the Americas). But there are examples of different character sets predating 3000 BC and thus different languages predating that time.
In the Near East, Sumerian cuneiform dates to 3100 BC or so. The first Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is found in sites dating to 3400 BC or so. The ancient Chinese village site of Pan-p'o includes potsherds showing proto-Chinese logographs. Pan-p'o including these potsherds dates to 4000 BC (I've also read 4800 BC - 3600 BC, I don't know which is more accurate), making it the earliest known culture to demonstrate some form of written language.
So, put it all together and the mainstream conclusion is plain. Based on highly reliable C14 dating and numerous redundant and mutually-reinforcing archaeological conclusions, humanity was already scattered and exhibiting different languages by the time of the Tower of Babel. And lest one say all these sites predating Babel actually correspond to the antediluvian world - well, its another subject, but it goes without saying that none of these sites show any massive flood disturbance.
Hope this helps,
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/21/2003 1:39 PM (GMT -6) | | All these “ancient” cultures are radiometric dated:A first walled settlement at Jericho, for example, dates to 7000 BC. Outside the Near East, the indigenous Ainu culture of Japan shows continuous occupation back to 5000 BC at least. The Jomon culture of Japan predates that, back to 10,000 BC. In Thailand, the Spirit Cave culture dates back to 5000 BC. In Australia, there are human artifacts (eg bone) dating back to 20,000 BC, and occupied sites at 5000 BC. Here in the Americas: there are Native American occupied sites dating to 9000 BC (eg Danger Cave in Utah), and I believe even further back in South America and a few temporary sites along the northwest coast of North America. Note that all these calibrated C14 dates are further corroborated by stratigraphy - the relative layering of soils at these sites (ie generally the lower the layers, the older the dates - thus everything generally cross-checks by this stratigraphic rule-of-thumb). We know currently the half-life of the magnetic field. So about 5,000 years ago, less carbon would be entering our atmosphere, so less carbon would enter bones through ingestion, plants, and the like. Giving the appearance of an age older than what it actually is. A cataclysmic worldwide flood (like the Biblical record and 180 “ancient” cultures have reported) would have further made the C-14 dates appear older. Carbon dating is based on assumptions that are not provable by empirical science.
http://www.trueorigins.org/dating.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/dating.asp
Bristle cone pine tree’s are the oldest on earth, and only date to about 5,000 years old
http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/docs/tree_ring.asp
http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/546.asp
The Babylonian tablets mention Daniel… other ancient writings reference something that we know historically to be a certain age – radiometric dating aside. Writing doesn’t go back further than about 6,000 years ago. I believe Job to be the oldest surviving document, written a few hundred years after the flood. Ebla is another old example of civilization and writing.
You can use C-14 dating all you want, it just doesn’t work well, that’s all.
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/21/2003 2:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
You observed:
quote:
All these “ancient” cultures are radiometric dated...You can use C-14 dating all you want, it just doesn’t work well, that’s all.
The amount of C14 in the atmosphere fluctuates all the time for many reasons - but back to 11,000 years before present these fluctuations don't undermine C14 dating because they are already accounted for via multiple independent calibration methods, as I explained. So whether past fluctuations due to magnetic field variation or a global flood or what-not happened or not is immaterial - whether they did or didn't, their effects (if any) have already been taken into account.
Ironically, inerrantists are quite happy when calibrated C14 dating procedures yield results in other areas that are concordant with the biblical record - eg the general timeframe of the entry into ancient Canaan of what appear to be invaders (Israelites perhaps).
Scott
PS. The best one-place coverage I've found of the very reasonable and well-established mainstream view on dating the Tower of Babel is in Paul Seely's paper, "The Date of the Tower of Babel and Some Theological Implications", Westminster Theological Journal 63 (2001) 15-38. | | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/21/2003 3:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Willard Libby, the inventor of C-14 says 3,000 years only? The half-life of Earths magnetic field is a little over 5,000 years. This won't fluctuate Carbon input into our atmosphere, it will drastically alter it.
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne | | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/21/2003 3:52 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Scott,
I wanted to put a hold on this discussion until we discuss a more pressing issue. I posted it in “Tearing Down Walls.” Also, I wish to still address the issue of myth or poetry in Genesis. But I would really like to engage you in the “What is Science” forum. You too Starkman.
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/22/2003 10:51 AM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
quote:
Willard Libby, the inventor of C-14 says 3,000 years only? The half-life of Earths magnetic field is a little over 5,000 years. This won't fluctuate Carbon input into our atmosphere, it will drastically alter it.
You seem not to get the point. You seem instead to fixate on my use of the word "fluctuate". So I'll say it again: "fluctuate", "drastically alter", whatever you want to call what happens to C14 concentration in the atmosphere - whatever's happened to that concentration over the last 11,000 years has already been factored into C14 dating calibrated by bristlecone pine and German and Irish oak dendrochronology, and Lake of the Clouds varves. For these reasons even young-earth "creation scientist" Gerald Aardsma (5 years at ICR) accepts calibrated C14 dating.
Libby in your reference is probably speaking of uncalibrated dating. Ironically, it is calibration - the very thing you seem to deny - which gives him sufficient data to say what the limit to uncalibrated dating is. Incidentally, calibrated dating shows the uncalibrated limit is closer to 2000 years ago, not 3000. In other words, uncalibrated C14 dating, based on the assumption that past C14 concentration generally equals the present concentration, works back to only somewhat more than 2000 years ago - somewhere in the first few centuries BC, IIRC. (Not that this has any bearing on my point, but just to make a minor correction.)
Finally, I'll point out again that inerrantists are quite happy when calibrated C14 dating, of the exact same kind that reveals the dates I quoted in my post of yesterday, supports the literally-interpreted historical record in the Bible. It is calibrated C14 dating, for example, that shows apparent fire and destruction at Jericho ~1400 BC, about the time the biblical record's "early date" view of the Exodus and conquest places the entrance of the Israelites into Canaan. Is it hypocritical and arbitrary to accept calibrated C14 dates when they conform to, or at least do not conflict with, one's overly-particular presuppositions, and deny them when they don't? I would think so.
Scott | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/22/2003 10:56 AM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
quote:
I wanted to put a hold on this discussion until we discuss a more pressing issue...
This might be a good break-point for me to step away for a while, then. As I've been "PS"-ing in at least some of the last few posts, I really need to shift more of my time away from contributing to this forum. We'll see. If I'm unable to participate in your other new thread, please accept my regrets.
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Starkman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1747
| Posted 3/22/2003 4:20 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey Scott,
quote:
But it cannot be disputed that legend/myth (perhaps there is a distinction, but for my purposes I'm not considering there to be one I'll use "legend" hereout) were far more pervasive throughout those ancient cultures than they are today . . .
Not a problem; I agree.
quote:
Why? Apparently because of a lack of an understanding and valuing of formal critical methodology . . . To produce such precision requires an understanding of how to formally experiment and why; of how to corroborate sources and why; of formal logic; etc. And to value such precision requires a mindset and value system in which getting the details right in describing the big things is considered important; in which embellishment, no matter the "higher" purpose, is considered fraud; in which sensation is considered suspicious; in which it is considered that moralization should be kept separate from impartial description; and so on. These epistemological suppositions of the modern age, though quite reasonable, do not come to people naturally but instead are an outgrowth of centuries of gradual development, beginning perhaps with the Greeks.
I disagree. It simply requires writing down what God said, plain and simple. Nothing more complicated than that. He speaks, Moses (as an example) writes. "God created the heavens, the earth, and the seas in six days . . . And God made the man and the woman . . . and Noah got in the ark . . ." It's just not that hard to see that God (or the writer(s) of Genesis didn't have to use Myth.
quote:
What is the evidence for this? Simply the vast array of ancient literature, all of it riddled with what we would call mythical and fanciful elements. Mesopotamian king lists in which these pagan kings are described as living for centuries and ruling the whole earth. Egyptian literature in which pharaoh comes from the gods and consorts with them and likewise rules the whole earth. Kings and heroes flying through the air. All kinds of magic and sorcery. It goes on and on. Being from pagan sources, I think we'd all agree this stuff is most probably legendary (and anyway, what's verifiable today in it generally isn't borne out by mainstream archaeology either). So given this is the genre of the day, how do we explain it? In the way I described above.
One difference between what you've quoted and what the Bible portrays: they're not even in the same league. Oh, there's some of it in, say, Job, but there isn't similarity--I'm talking real similarity here, not word-similarity or stretches to make it seem so--between Mesopotamian or Egyptian myth and the Bible. Again, REAL similarity, not that kind of similarity where one could say, "Oh, these are obviously speaking of the same accounts," and it's concluded that both accounts must therefore be myth. Similarity of accounts is one thing. Similarity of the kind you're speaking is another, one that's simply not found in the Bible in near enough material to substantiate your claim.
quote:
Now, given it was the genre of the day, would God, as he began to carve a people out for himself, have cared? Well yes, very much - insomuch as these legends almost all carry explicit or implicit messages about gods, the deity of kings, the supernatural, and so on - the stuff regarding faith and practice for which we obviously need God's direct revelation and which is obviously God's interest. But insomuch as the legends express certain details about science or history, no - I don't think he would have cared about errors in that because there's no evidence anywhere in the Bible that he cares about our getting secular knowledge as such straight.
Here goes the conversation again, Scott: right into no-man's land again. What's said to be God's Word (at least some of it consisting of revelation) from the start is myth. This, however, is supposed to then move into . . . revelation (whatever that is) to convey truth, which anything before it (that was or wasn't revelation--myth, or something like this) apparently doesn't communicate truth . . . well, truth, but not real truth, just legends of the day! This is confusion, Scott. It really is. Why not just let God speak as God always speaks: in truth.
quote:
. . . and what secular content is brought up in the Bible is sometimes imprecise or simply false (the best example being the classification of rabbits/hares among those animals that chew the cud)
Answers in Genesis, for example, deals with the cud issue: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3725.asp
quote:
So I don't at all see it as apriori impossible that God would have used legend, co-opted and turned toward his right revelation in the things that matter to our relationship with him (faith and practice)
You're assuming that Genesis--what you've attributed to myth and legend--is not important, or rather, not important in regard to matters of our relationship with Him; nothing could be further from the truth, Scott. Without Genesis being truth and true, the whole thing crumbles, baring Jesus' life, death and resurrection. It is to the early chapters of this 'mythical' Genesis that Jesus authoritatively appealed to when he spoke of marraige. It is to this same book he appealed when He validated His authority and calling; Moses spoke of Him. On and On Genesis is refered to in the rest of the NT (and the OT), particularly by Paul in regard to WHY we are outside of relationship with God as sinners and WHY Christ's work makes any sense at all. Again I have to say, that everyone in Scripture treats Genesis and Moses as as bonified, true and real (accounts and person). That simply cannot be tossed aside.
quote:
Rather, my opinion on the historicity of a passage is swayed by the convergence of evidence. If highly reliable, longstanding, multiply-replicated, not-likely-to-be-overturned, consensus external evidence unequivocally rules out the literal historicity of a passage; and if the internal evidence suggests legend, eg by the date of the passage, the culture influencing the author, and the motif/elements of the story; then I see probable legend, and appeal to accommodation to understand that theologically. In the absence of such evidences compelling me in that direction, I don't see legend but generally accept the historicity.
I can surely respect this, Scott, though I think that it's a little too one-sided to conclude so heavily that the evidence is just too weighty to be equally combatted by the other side: the side that perhaps what the Bible has said is accurate. Well respected archeologists have become Christians after spending lifetimes not only as atheists but as those out to prove the Bible wrong; they found it to be remarkably accurate. The fat lady ain't sung yet, Scott!
[quote]Most/all of Jesus' miracles, for example - because there's no external evidence against their being real, and because the internal evidence of the Gospels, in my opinion, leans against their being purely legendary.[quote]
But you haven't proven the creation account, Adam and Eve, Noah or much else in the Genesis account to be legend beyond a shadow of a doubt, or at least so heavily weighted in proof that these are legends that there's really nothing left to talk about. Yet, there's not a whole lot of proof that Jesus did perform miracles, and yet you're willing to believe them. I don't follow the logic there, but perhaps I missed it in your post.
Finally, regarding Carbon 14 dating, I can easily produce scientists who will dispute the reliability of Carbon 14 dating with enough weight and argument to call it into question. It's simply not that done of a deal. All one has to do is search Google, for instance, for "Carbon 14" reliable unreliable" and the list hits come up. You can say that all of the arguments against its dating are no good, completely answered by those who believe it's reliable, and I'd simply say the converse. It's not a done deal either. I'm no scholar, and I don't have the time to quote all of the sources, but it's not a rocket-science requirement to read the research by respected scientists on BOTH sides of the argument and see that the votes are not completely in yet.
Well, when it all said and done, we're simply on two different sides of the camp. You're wrong, you're going to spend eternity in . . . in . . . okay, in a seperate building in heaven just for believers in Carbon 14! (I'm hasslin' ya!) Unlike Ken Ham, I don't hold as strongly to his idea that those who don't believe in Genesis as literally as he or I do are just on the edge of hell's flames. Maybe that's an over-statement of what he believes, but I think it's pretty accurate. I simply am arguing the issue. We both are. That's all.
For truth,
Starkman
Edited by - Starkman on 03/22/2003 9:25:58 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/24/2003 9:19 AM (GMT -6) | | Keith,
I'm trying to step away from this, but I don't want you to think I haven't read or have ignored your response. So here is my reply; it will probably be my last.
In general, a great deal of your response seems to indicate you haven't understood what I'm saying, or I haven't explained it well enough. For example:
quote:
It's just not that hard to see that God (or the writer(s) of Genesis didn't have to use Myth.
First, you seem to think I'm saying God had to use legend. I don't believe God had to use legend, but neither do I believe there's any evidence that God would have abhorred legend at a time when people's transmission of Big Ideas happened through that genre anyway. To use legend would be in the same spirit as what motivates God to use other fictional genres like parable - its a way of addressing people where they're at, and thus better seizing-on and exploiting their receptiveness to such genres, in order to communicate the Big Ideas.
So that is all I am saying - God could have used legend. His use of legend isn't ruled-out a-priori, except by extrabiblical, modernist-inspired, deductive arguments along the lines of "legend is false, God is truth, therefore God can't use legend." (I suppose such a cold, dry mindset likewise sees no truth or value in Lord of the Flies either, since after all its just a made-up story.) But whether God actually did use legend in any case is determined, as far as I'm concerned, by case-by-case evidence. This evidence leads me to lean toward legend for most of Genesis 1-11 and some other OT passages but less so in later OT books and the NT.
quote:
quote:
What is the evidence for this? Simply the vast array of ancient literature, all of it riddled with what we would call mythical and fanciful elements...
One difference between what you've quoted and what the Bible portrays: they're not even in the same league...Similarity of accounts is one thing. Similarity of the kind you're speaking is another, one that's simply not found in the Bible in near enough material to substantiate your claim.
Second, you seem to think I'm drawing upon specific commonalities between, say, the Noahic Flood account and the Gilgamesh Flood account; or between Genesis 1 and the Enuma Elish; and you seem to think I'm then saying that these similarities indicate a common mythical origin. One could argue that point. But I am not doing so here, because its irrelevant to what I'm talking about. I'm not drawing commonalities in specific motifs and story elements between Genesis 2-11 and non-Semitic legends. I am instead pointing out the characteristics of Genesis 2-11 which are shared by all legends everywhere, from King Arthur to Coyote, and which are generally not shared by reliable historical accounts - such as word play/pun (Adam, Babel); personified forces (tree of knowledge, serpent); explanation through descent (cursed serpent loses its legs and that's why serpents don't have legs; cursed Adam/Eve committed sin and that's why we commit sin); etc.
quote:
This is confusion, Scott. It really is. Why not just let God speak as God always speaks: in truth.
Third, you seem to pass over or deny what I've related about ancient ways of understanding the universe. They didn't perceive valid ways of communicating the Big Picture amongst themselves in the same way that we moderns do. If you doubt this, I recommend doing some reading on pre-scientific cultures, whether Native American or ancient Near Eastern. Other than that, I can say nothing more on the subject than I already have.
quote:
quote:
. . . and what secular content is brought up in the Bible is sometimes imprecise or simply false (the best example being the classification of rabbits/hares among those animals that chew the cud)
Answers in Genesis, for example, deals with the cud issue: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/3725.asp
Fourth, I was afraid this might open a Pandora's box. People such as Gleason Archer and Norman Geisler have of course spent much of their careers creatively resolving 1001 "Bible difficulties" but their doing so only demonstrates the fluidity of language and interpretation. If we instead insist on plain understanding (as I do and as inerrantists claim to) and not inventing things out of whole cloth, then many of these discrepancies can only be understood in a non-strictly-inerrant fashion.
For example, on cud-chewing rabbits in particular, the AIG article simply denies the plain and well-accepted (again, in every Hebrew lexicon) meaning of 'alah' with 'gerah'. 'alah' has many connotations, most of them involving some permutation on an upward action: 'bring up', 'rise up', 'catch up', 'take up', etc. 'gerah' means cud, literally, 'scraping of the throat'. See Strong's Hebrew to English concordance. Put together, the meaning of these words is plain - to 'bring up' by 'scraping of the throat'. This clearly implies regurgitation - first, because of the upward action (mouths are over stomachs, so an upward motion from the stomach tends toward the mouth); second, because it is a single action (implied by the single verb 'alah'); and third because of the involvement with the throat and scraping thereof (a good phenomenological description of what you see and hear in large ruminant when the cud is regurgitated).
In contrast, it is only by very loose understanding of 'alah' and 'gerah' that they can be said to plainly mean 'pass through and then re-ingest', as AIG and other inerrancy apologists often insist (so as to explain the passage by appeal to refection). For in refection, there are two actions involved: excretion and then re-ingestion of the pellet. The initial action, from stomach to anus, is downward. And of course the scraping of the throat is not involved in these actions. Furthermore, the distinctions between regurgitation, excretion, and re-ingestion are clear to even the simplest and most "primitive" human observer; different words are used in every language and culture for these actions. That the OT fails to use different words in describing the rabbit than in describing cattle suggests it views the same process taking place in both.
Now why would the OT do that? It is perfectly understandable when you consider that, phenomenologically to a human observer, the rabbit's constant quivering mouth suggests rumination of the kind practiced by cattle. So yes, while rejecting the refection interpretation, I'm quite comfortable with this sort of phenomenological understanding. However the phenomenology clearly reflects the understanding of the people as to what rabbits actually do, and thus cannot be said to be biologically inerrant. Rather this is just an accommodation to the errant scientific understanding of the people of the day.
And there are many other such technical accommodations in the Bible to the less-accurate and/or less-stringent-in-detail standards of the cultures of the time. Only because language can be so well-molded to fit just about any understanding (witness politics most anyday :-) are Archer and Geisler able to get away with what they do (and of course their techniques, being so fluid, work just as well in the hands of Mormon and Muslim inerrantists with respect to proving the inerrancy of their sacred books, and thus proving the authority of their religions, too).
quote:
You're assuming that Genesis--what you've attributed to myth and legend--is not important, or rather, not important in regard to matters of our relationship with Him; nothing could be further from the truth, Scott. Without Genesis being truth and true, the whole thing crumbles, baring Jesus' life, death and resurrection...everyone in Scripture treats Genesis and Moses as as bonified, true and real (accounts and person). That simply cannot be tossed aside.
Fifth, nowhere have I said that Genesis "is not important, or rather, not important in regard to matters of our relationship with him." That you should think so, shows that either I have badly miscommunicated my view or you have badly misunderstood it. I'm a little astonished that you would think "Genesis is unimportant" to be my position, actually :-) All I can suggest is re-reading what I have been posting since this topic came up. The revelation on faith and practice - who God is, who we are - which Genesis gives is crucial. And it survives even if the details of the story aren't historically factual, just as the paler themes of lesser works of literature survive despite being conveyed by fiction (to reach back to my Lord of the Flies example). For instance, in order to understand why I sin, I do not need to literally understand that Adam and Eve were real progenitors who committed the first sins and then biologically passed that curse on to me. I only need to understand how the seed of rebellion starts within myself, and indeed within Everyman, just as the Adam story illustrates through the genre of legend.
And since legend is always understood in the culture of the time to be literally true, it is entirely consistent with the spirit of accommodation that Jesus and the apostles and prophets would have discussed them as such. That is why God accommodated to use such legends - because doing so gave him an inroad to the people. The apostles and prophets would hardly do any differently. The accommodation view stands or falls on its own merits, to be sure; but because the back-references to Genesis from Jesus, the apostles and prophets are entirely consistent with the idea of divine accommodation, they offer no data one way or another to decide the question.
quote:
But you haven't proven the creation account, Adam and Eve, Noah or much else in the Genesis account to be legend beyond a shadow of a doubt, or at least so heavily weighted in proof that these are legends that there's really nothing left to talk about.
Oh, certainly not. IMHO, its unrealistic to expect any understanding of anything in this world to be so set-in-concrete, as for there to be nothing left to talk about. Your view is quite reasonable. So is what I have been representing. I and many other Christians conclude the evidence objectively favors the latter view but does not prove it (indeed hardly anything is ever rationally proven, eg, God's existence, let alone such an ancillary question as this issue we've been discussing). But we may be wrong in this. That is my opinion and I mean no offense or denigration of your view :-)
quote:
Yet, there's not a whole lot of proof that Jesus did perform miracles, and yet you're willing to believe them. I don't follow the logic there, but perhaps I missed it in your post.
Consistent with the logic I sketched, I believe in their historicity because there's no compelling evidence against it. Unlike with Genesis 1-11, there's no external historical evidence against them (nor would such evidence ever likely be found, as most of Jesus' miraculous work was on such a small scale that it is not at all unlikely no trace of it would have survived besides the testimonies we have). And the internal evidence from the gospels suggests relatively greater overall historical reliability than the deep OT (for example, multiple accounts, relatively soon after the fact, in a culture that was at least partly beginning to demand adherence to the critical method due to Greek and Roman influence).
quote:
Finally, regarding Carbon 14 dating, I can easily produce scientists who will dispute the reliability of Carbon 14 dating with enough weight and argument to call it into question.
First, you must be sure to distinguish between small-scale debate within the mainstream and large-scale rejection of C14 dating from the fringe. C14 dating has had a controversial history within the mainstream scientific community, due to its initial lack of calibration, but that is all over now and has been for a few decades. Yet you may find discussion of the controversy and validity of dates before calibration, or discussion over the validity of this or that particular anomalous date (all experiments in science occasionally produce anomalous results).
Second, those on the fringe who do reject C14 dating wholesale don't represent the mainstream consensus. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of "creation scientists" in the USA who would do so; and there is a conservative-evangelical apologetic infrastructure for them to get their views heard among the public (and they certainly have the motivation for it). But they are a fringe element compared to the hundreds of thousands of scientists in the mainstream who have carefully and professionally concluded otherwise.
quote:
Well, when it all said and done, we're simply on two different sides of the camp. You're wrong, you're going to spend eternity in . . . in . . . okay, in a seperate building in heaven just for believers in Carbon 14! (I'm hasslin' ya!) Unlike Ken Ham, I don't hold as strongly to his idea that those who don't believe in Genesis as literally as he or I do are just on the edge of hell's flames. Maybe that's an over-statement of what he believes, but I think it's pretty accurate. I simply am arguing the issue. We both are. That's all.
I thank you for your irenic spirit. Others in the evangelical community are less charitable, as someone like Greg Boyd knows all too well :-(
Best regards,
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
|
SeanG
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 278
| Posted 3/24/2003 1:16 PM (GMT -6) | | From a debate at another site
F$!*#^%r Said,“Ho hum. I'm bored. I suppose I'll chuck in a random thought or two [I will only use two in responding]. The Bible has no scientific inaccuracies? I'll show just two IDIOTIC errors that no godly work would make, since they're infallible (emphasizing the error for the benefit of others).
LEV 11:6 ‘And the hare, because he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof; he is unclean unto you.’ {Rabbits chew cud? (Actually the translation is more accurately "bring up the cud" or something like that, but rabbits don't do that either.)}” I love how people reject the Bible, or get their information from sources who are “dis-provers” of the Bible. To be a real skeptic, you must give up skepticism to go to the good sources of information about these verses. This is why I have every religious text from the major (and minor) world religions and cults. I have at least two positive commentaries on the texts from their own apologists. Also, where is your heart in this? Are you posting these actually looking for someone to explain what the verse means? Or do you think they are unanswerable? If they are explained properly – and in context (which you did not do) – would you consider looking into the Bible more thoughtfully? These are just some questions to think about that will help you figure out where your heart is in the matter (did you read my flood posts? They help show that all cultures and religions do come from a common source that match the Biblical story quite close (the Chinese said 8 people survived the worldwide flood as well as the native Fiji Island peoples). That said, let me explain this verse.
Leviticus 11:5 – refers to the sapan (or Hyrax syriacus) as an unclean animal (e.g., unfit for sacrifice or human consumption) because “though it chews cud, it does not divide the hoof” (NASB). Clean animals had to do both to be eligible for food. The question at issue is the chewing of the cud. Did (or does) the sapan (translated “coney” in KJV and “rock badger” in NASB) really “chew the cud” (Heb. ma’a leh gerah, literally, “raising up what has been swallowed”)? Similarly in Leviticus 11:6 the same statement is made about the ’arnebet (“rabbit,” “hare”). Does the hair ruminate? The answer to both statements must be in the negative so far as the actual digestive process is concerned. True ruminants normally have four stomachs, and that which has been worked over in these stomachs is regurgitated into the mouth when it is ready to be chewed again.
In this technical sense, neither the hyrax nor the hare can be called ruminants, but they do give the appearance of chewing their cud in the same way ruminants do. So convincing is this appearance that even Linnaeus at first classed them as ruminants, even though the four-stomach apparatus was lacking. But we need to remember that this list of forbidden animals was intended to be a practical guide for the ordinary Israelite as he was out in the wilds looking for food. He might well conclude from the sideways movement of the jaws that these animals ruminated like the larger cattle; and since they fed on the same kind of grass and herbs, they might well be eligible for human consumption. Thus it was necessary to point out that they did not have hooves at all and therefore could not meet the requirements for clean food.
G. S. Cansdale gives this interesting information concerning the habits of the ’arnebet: Hares, like rabbits, are now known to practice “refection”: at certain times of day, when the hare is resting, it passes droppings of different texture, which it at once eats. Thus, the hare appears to be chewing without taking fresh greens into its mouth. On its first passage through the gut, indigestible vegetable matter is acted on by bacteria and can be better assimilated the second time through. Almost the same principle is involved as in chewing the cud (“Hare,” in Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, 3:33.) So to conclude with a summary:
1. God made it very clear that neither the rock hyrax or the Hare ruminates. If you read 11:5 and 11:6 in context, that meaning becomes apparent.
2. The Jews were out in the wilds for some time, so God had to make the fact in #1 apparent for His people.
3. Hares do have a ruminating look about the way they chew. And in some sense of the words meaning, they in fact practice re-chewing their food. This is why God pointed out in 11:5 and 11:6 that they in fact do not chew the “cud.”
SeanG!"I quote others only the better to express myself." Michel de Montaigne
Edited by - SeanG on 03/24/2003 6:21:30 PM | | Back to Top | | |
|
scott_jorgenson
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2002
Total Posts : 271
| Posted 3/25/2003 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Sean,
I didn't see anything new in your post, though maybe I overlooked something. As far as goes this first explanation you offer:
quote:
In this technical sense, neither the hyrax nor the hare can be called ruminants, but they do give the appearance of chewing their cud in the same way ruminants do. So convincing is this appearance that even Linnaeus at first classed them as ruminants, even though the four-stomach apparatus was lacking. But we need to remember that this list of forbidden animals was intended to be a practical guide for the ordinary Israelite as he was out in the wilds looking for food. He might well conclude from the sideways movement of the jaws that these animals ruminated like the larger cattle; and since they fed on the same kind of grass and herbs, they might well be eligible for human consumption. Thus it was necessary to point out that they did not have hooves at all and therefore could not meet the requirements for clean food.
This explanation I find quite reasonable and convincing. It is just the same phenomenological interpretation which I endorsed in my last post (and which, incidentally, is suggested as well by many Bibles and commentaries - see NIV Study Bible, IIRC, for example). However because the phenomenology isn't being used merely as a figure-of-speech, but as an observation on how the animal is actually thought to behave (ie, chew the cud), in no way can this be considered totally factually inerrant - as I also pointed out in my post.
As far as goes the second explanation you offered:
quote:
G. S. Cansdale gives this interesting information concerning the habits of the ’arnebet: Hares, like rabbits, are now known to practice “refection”: at certain times of day, when the hare is resting, it passes droppings of different texture, which it at once eats. Thus, the hare appears to be chewing without taking fresh greens into its mouth. On its first passage through the gut, indigestible vegetable matter is acted on by bacteria and can be better assimilated the second time through. Almost the same principle is involved as in chewing the cud (“Hare,” in Tenney, Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia, 3:33.)
I explained in my post why it is a great stretch of the wording 'alah gerah', which literally means 'bring up the cud' or 'bring up scraping of the throat', to extend this to include refection. I see no counter in this passage, nor have I ever seen one, to the reasoning I presented, which leads to the conclusion that the plain and natural sense of 'alah gerah' is strictly cud-chewing.
Finally, your conclusion...
quote:
God made it very clear that neither the rock hyrax or the Hare ruminates. If you read 11:5 and 11:6 in context, that meaning becomes apparent.
...doesn't even follow granted your own arguments. Ie granted your own arguments, the best that can be said is that the Bible says rabbits look like they're ruminating and practice something like rumination (refection) - neither of which specifically rules out rabbit rumination. It is a non-sequitur from your own arguments to say that therefore those biblical passages make it "very clear" that rabbits don't ruminate. I point this out, not to insist that an inerrant Bible would make it "very clear" that rabbits don't ruminate (indeed an inerrant Bible would only have to state what is the case in any matter, not what is not the case), but simply to show how your logic doesn't follow.
Just to round out the discussion, I see no-one has yet presented the third way inerrantists try to deal with Leviticus 11:6 (and its parallel in Deuteronomy) - ie to postulate a now-extinct animal which chewed the cud, but to which the Hebrews gave them same name as rabbits. If memory serves, Henry or John Morris at ICR has suggested this, for example. Needless to say, it is completely ad-hoc and without evidence, but it has been suggested.
The only plain and natural conclusion is that Leviticus 11:6 (and its parallel in Deuteronomy) is not totally factually inerrant. I've already explained why that is OK and unthreatening to us as Christians. It's sad and upsetting that skeptics might take heart at this "admission", but it must be said that they are operating under the same overly-technical, overly-modern mindset as inerrantists. In fact, skeptics' glee at finding factually-errant biblical passages mostly stems from knowing how it undermines inerrancy and thus, by inerrantists' own admission, reason for faith itself. In other words, it is our own fault for giving the Enemy this weapon through our off-target expectations of total factual inerrancy.
Continuing to wind down,
Scott
| | Back to Top | | |
|
Observer
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 4
| Posted 4/1/2003 2:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Dear SeanG!
I have read a large number of your many, many posts. Regardless of subject, your posts all sound very, very similar. (ANGRY !)
I think you may have too much free time on your hands.
I hope you find peace.
Sincerely,
This Observer
| | Back to Top | | |
|
AlyoshaKaramazov
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 49
| Posted 4/1/2003 7:05 PM (GMT -6) | | Observer writes:
quote:
Dear SeanG!
I have read a large number of your many, many posts. Regardless of subject, your posts all sound very, very similar. (ANGRY !)
I think you may have too much free time on your hands.
I hope you find peace.
Observer,
I too have read many of SeanG!'s posts, however, I fail to sense that any of them have been angry, or should I say "ANGRY!". Even though I don't always agree with Sean, I think he always puts forth vigorous argument for his positions, and is an excellent contributer to this site.
Unfortunately, I sense that some people interpret someone passionately arguing for his/her position and criticizing positions he/she disagrees with as being "angry". Now, I haven't read all of Sean's posts, so maybe he does get a little angry somewhere. However, you need to back up your claims with evidence--this is, after all, a philosophically minded website! Otherwise this is just ad hominem.
"Superstition, idolatry, and hypocrisy have ample wages, but truth goes begging."--Martin Luther | | Back to Top | | |
| 48 posts in this thread.
Viewing Page : 1 2 |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 3:08 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|