glenn morton wrote:
>
> At 07:41 AM 1/17/00 -0500, George Murphy wrote:
> >> The Bible doesn't talk about any details at all of the big bang.
> >
> > "Let there be light" - i.e., EM radiation.
>
> OK, I stand corrected here. But what theologically can we derive from it
> and why would you expect to learn from this that there was a 25% helium
> abundances as you suggested earlier? As I noted, I wouldn't expect to
> derive any helium info based on this, so I thought your question was kinda
> off base.
OK that's a stretch. But how about the microwave background? A concordist
could argue that that's the cooled down "light" of the 1st day. (Note for casual
readers: I am not endorsing that argument.)
> >> Howver, it
> >> does talk about at least one detail of the creation of life which has huge
> >> consequences--that is, the land created living things!
> >
> > You will no doubt call this a quibble but the land doesn't "create"
> >living things. God creates living things by having the land produce them
> - i.e.,
> >through the capabilities with which God has endowed it. There is a big
> theological
> >distinction here, the kind of thing that tends to get ignored if one is
> just trying
> >to read a series of events out of the text.
>
> While you are absolutely correct that God endowed the land to produce the
> critters, it was still the land that did it. Now where are we informed that
> this was a one time gift to work only once and only on one planet. Nowhere
> are we told that this gift had to work instantly. And in general no one
> ever admits that there is a very strong case to be made that evolution is
> both compatible with Scripture (and a non allegorical interpretation of it)
> and is indicated by Scripture. This verse is really hard to interpret as
> instant miracle, imo.
These verses are certainly compatible with classical views of divine action
in which God "co-operates" with natural processes, so that both God and those processes
truly act. & evolution can be seen as an important example of such action. This is
what I mean by Gen.1 being "open to evolution."
However, Gen.1 says nothing about the earth & waters bringing forth life
gradually, slowly, continuously, in accord with rational laws, or anything like that.
It is compatible with evolution, but also with the idea that plants & animals appeared
full grown from the elements. In an exchange Fred Van Dyke & I had in the ASA journal
in June 1986, he said that my giving this "the appearance of agreement with evolution"
was "misleading" and suggested that it gave a picture like that of Aslan singing the
creation into existence in Lewis' _The Magician's Nephew_. He was certainly wrong in
his first claim but I have to agree with the second: Genesis itself (& I think the
Bible as a whole) doesn't rule out such a picture. & if it's spread out over time it
gives a variety of PC.
> >> If the land did the
> >> bringing forth, what exactly can that be other than evolution?
> >
> > OK, the land brought forth "vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit
> trees
> >bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind" before
> there was
> >any life in the sea or any animals on land. Not single cells but trees
> &c. Then the
> >waters brought forth all the sea animals and birds from the waters before
> there were any
> >land animals - which in turn were brought forth from the land, not from
> any connection
> >with life in the sea. There is no statement of any change in any of these
> living things
> >once they have been brought forth.
>
> And no where is such a change ruled out.
Agreed. But that's quite different from saying that such a change is
"indicated".
> THis to me opens up the biggest
> misreading of the Scripture that Christendom has fallen into.
Something of an overstatement given the way Christians have read things like
works righteousness & pre-tribulation rapture into the Bible.
> Genesis is
> almost always read as implying that animals reproduce animals after their
> kind and plants reproduce plants after their kind. They miss totally the
> subject object relationship in those sentences. Indeed you missed it in
> your quote in the first sentence above. The word 'each' is not in the
> original. It is not in the old King James version. It is not in the NIV. It
> is not in the Revised Standard. It is in the new KJ.
It is not in NRSV but is in RSV & also the Lutherbibel ("ein jeglicher nach
seiner Art".) & KJV & NKJV which translate literally with the "tree" convey the same
sense. There is indeed no word corresponding to "each" in the Hebrew but meaningful
translation into another language sometimes requires such additions, as Luther argued in
rendering Rom.3:28 with "allein durch den Glauben" though there is no single word
corresponding to "allein" in the Greek. I would need somebody more expert than I in
Hebrew to set out the arguments for the Genesis verse.
You may well be right that a prejudice in favor of fixity of species has
influenced translation - though it's very unlikely that the RSV people, often accused of
"liberalism", had such a thought in mind. But to the extent that this is the case it
confirms my argument: Before evolution was taken seriously people tended to read into
the text their picture of the way things happened from their experience of nature -
which is what you're now trying to do with evolution.
> That version, by
> inserting the 'each' makes it sound more like this verse is talking about
> the reproductive capabilities of the plants. It is a translator problem.
See my comments above. Is there a Hebraist in the house?
> These statements have the "land produce animals after their kind," "the
> land produce plants after their kind" and "the waters produce life after
> their kind."
>
> Absolutely NOWHERE IN SCRIPTURE CAN A VERSE BE FOUND THAT SAYS "ANIMALS
> (SUBJECT) REPRODUCE(VERB) ANIMALS (OBJECT) AFTER THEIR KIND"
>
> Christians have totally misread Genesis 1 in this regard as ruling out
> evolution and it is the silliest thing around--making the Bible say
> something it very clearly does not say.
& it also doesn't say that new species can evolve.
> & finally human beings are simply created with no
> >indication (in the 1st creation account) of being "brought forth" from
> anything.
> > Is this an evolutionary picture? Not in anything like the sense in which
> the
> >word is used in modern biology. It's a picture of fully developed kinds
> being made
> >from the earth & waters separately.
>
> I would make a correction. It is a picture of kinds being made from the
> earth and waters separately. Whether they were fully developed is totally
> another question that the Bible may address with its wording.
Yes, I overstated somewhat. But note that even those church fathers who saw
the mediated aspect of creation here could understand it as creation of fully developed
organisms. Ephrem, e.g., in his commentary on Genesis, is quite clear about this for
the plants.
..........................
>
> And that is largely my point in this. For almost 200 years Christian
> leaders have proclaimed to the rooftops that the Bible rules out evolution.
> It has sent armies of believers off to fight against the dragon evolution.
> YEt there in the bible is the very basis of evolution--that matter, not God
> directly, created life. And there in the Bible is no statement of the
> stasis of species--
We're completely in agreement that the Bible doesn't rule out evolution
& that mediated creation provides an important opening for understanding evolution
theologically - though with rather different approaches to interpretation. But to
say that Gen.1 "indicates evolution" is, I think, an overstatement.
>in fact, it clearly implies in Lev. 19:19 that the forms
> can change.
This text expresses the priestly concern with the proper separation between
different "kinds" even though there may be no possibility of reproduction between
them - as is obvious in the prohibition on combining different kinds of cloth in a
garment. It isn't obvious that this regulation actually envisions the possibility of
some sort of trans-genic species in the mating of different animals. (Gen.6:1-4 does
suggest that for unions between humans and the "sons of God" but I'd hesitate to press
that mythic language.)
> >> >> PC doesn't generally acknowledge mediate creation.
> >> >
> >> > You lost me. PC? Political correctness. Pierre Curie?
> >>
> >> For goodness sake, progressive creation! This abbreviation has been used on
> >> this list for a long time!
> >
> > Quite right, mea culpa. But having acknowledged my inexusable mental lapse,
> >I'll point out that there's no reason at all why PC shouldn't involve
> mediated creation.
> >Once could easily picture God bringing forth new life forms from earth &
> waters at
> >critical points in earth history.
>
> I owe you an apology here. I was a bit miffed when I wrote so please
> forgive me for my rudeness there.
No problem - my slip was pretty dumb.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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