Blake wrote:
>If you do, the game is over since the whole Bible
>(according to Glenn) is now a tissue of lies. I, on
>the other hand, think at worst, the writers used the
>description of a bowl to describe what they saw (hey
>even Calvin and Luther before him made it clear that
>the perspective of those writing is the human
>perspective, not God's so when the sun rises, this is
>not a claim to a geocentric universe).
Just a wee bit over the top, are we? I think you need to actually look at
what I have written on this particular topic before you misrepresent what I
have said, Blake. It is one thing to disagree, another entirely to
misrepresent. Below is an old post(Aug '95) I put out on the evolution
reflector (don't know where those archives are now. Please before you
criticize someone understand what they actually believe and don't act like
the caricature of your own making represents reality!
Subj: Flat earth terms
Date: 95-08-19 12:35:07 EDT
From: evolution@Calvin.EDU
To: evolution@Calvin.EDU
From: GRMorton@aol.com
Resent-from: evolution@Calvin.EDU
To: evolution@Calvin.EDU
Loren Haarsma wrote:
>>"But this leads immediately to another question:
"Why didn't God relate a spherical-earth account of creation in
Genesis 1?" Although a heleocentric view may not have been
available around the time of the completion of Genesis, a
spherical-earth view almost certainly was. Yet God allowed his
revealed truth to be couched in the cosmological imagery of the
author's culture, without first correcting that imagery. So it
seems unlikely to me that the passage's essential revealed truth
has much, if anything, to do with the actual "formative history"
of creation.<<
I think everyone would be happier if certain bilbical
descriptions of nature had not occurred. But I am going to make
the strongest case I can for what I think may have been going on,
knowing full well that it is a weak argument.
After you posted the above, I looked in some of my astronomy
books. From my freshman astronomy text, Baker and Frederick, _An
Introduction ot Astronomy_, p. 14, we find this:
"Fig1-15 Apparent Flattening of the Setting Sun by Refraction"
and the John R. Percy, _The Observers Handbook, 1978_(Toronto:
The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, 1978), p.15 has several
pages taken up by a table with columns entitled "sunrise sunset"
for various latitudes. Later, this same journal has a table for
"moon- rise set"
On page 42 he advises you to "Look up the *sunrise and sunset
times* in the newspaper,...." The terms sunrise/sunset is used
many times on page 42 and indeed throughout the book.
My sophomore astronomy text, George Abell, Exploration of the
Universe, (Holt,Rinehart and Winston, 1969), p. 13 has a section
entitled,"Rising and Setting of the Sun". On page 12 he talks
about stars rising and setting.
Are these noted astronomers, hopelessly Ptolemaic? Do they really
believe that the sun revolves around the earth as they obviously
believe that the moon does (afterall, they use the same term for
sun rise and moon rise). [Since the Canadian Royal Astronomical
Society fills their pages with "sunrise/sunset" it is probably
best that 200 years ago, the Canadian colonies did not join us in
our revolution against Britain. Wouldn't want to have to drag
along such a backward people. :-) ]
With enough time, other examples could be found. The authors of
these statements are not "believers" in the Ptolemaic system.
They are scientists who in almost all cases are careful in
choosing their words to reflect the observations. But the
language they inherited from an earlier age requires the use of
such terminology. The term "earth-turn" has not evolved to
replace the archaic term (nor do I think this particularly
unpoetic term will). Thus, what I am suggesting is that even
though there are a few references to a wrong cosmology, it may
have been more due to the language the writers were forced to use
than either the appearance or their belief.
A search through modern literature (I don't read much fiction so
am unable to do this) would probably find numerous examples of
the phrase "the four corners of the earth". This phrase which
might once have conveyed the concept that the earth was flat with
4 literal corners, now has adapted to modern life, and lives with
the meaning of "the entire earth".
Baker and Frederick state, "Vertical circles are great circles of
the celestial sphere that pass through the zenith and nadir,
accordingly cross the horizon vertically." p. 10 They believe
in the celestial sphere?
and
"The celestial poles are the two opposite points on the celestial
sphere toward which the earth's axis is directed, and around
which the stars circle." p. 26
If pages 10 and 26 were the only preserved pages out of this book
in 1000 years, they might think we believed in the old Ptolemaic
system of a tangible sphere surrounding the earth and poles
sticking out to hold the sphere up.
J.M.A. Dansby, in his classic _Fundamentals of Celestial
Mechanics_ MacMillan, 1962, p. 7 states:
"The direction of an object is given by two angles that fix its
position on the celestial sphere. This is a spherical shell of
arbitrarily large radius on which celestial objects appear
projected."
Does this mean that Dansby believes that way, way out there there
is an actual shell against which the stars are projected? The
shell of course marking the end of the universe. Although I
couldn't find a case, I think I have seen astronomy texts use the
term dome of the sky.
Of the galactic disk, they state, "The disk rotates around the
axis joining the galactic poles." Poles? That too is an
outdated word which now has acquired a new meaning and is happily
living on in the late 20th century.
The astronomical term "conjuction" may be a slight holdover. In
the old system the planets were considered to be very close to
each other and were co-juncted. Now we know that Jupiter and
Mercury can appear to have a conjuction even though they are not
at their point of closest approach. A better term would be
"apparent conjuction" but that will never catch on.
When we talk about the constellation Cassiopia do we believe the
old story
about the queen who was put into the sky?
Terms like zodiac have altered their connotation and now do not
entail a belief in astrology (necessarily).
To conclude, the use of a given term may not necessarily indicate
belief on the part of the writer but be part of the idiomatic
construction of his language. Terms which once meant one thing
acquire new meanings at later times and thus need to be
understood in such a fashion. Whether this can be applied to
Biblical exegesis, is far beyond my expertise.
glenn
***end of old post***
I think you should have the courtesy to withdraw this criticism and admit
you erroneously represented my position.
glenn
see http://www.glenn.morton.btinternet.co.uk/dmd.htm
for lots of creation/evolution information
anthropology/geology/paleontology/theology\
personal stories of struggle
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