From: Alexanian, Moorad (alexanian@uncw.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 26 2003 - 14:03:44 EDT
I very much agree with your post. I deal with the Bible the way I deal with Nature. Nature is something to be studied and understood and so is the Bible. At times, there are apparent dilemmas or discrepancies in our understanding of Nature, but we still keep the tried theories and seek for theories that are more encompassing, which is the way we also deal with the Bible. It is our understanding of Nature and the Bible that changes not the subjects under study. There are important facts in Nature, whose explanations give deeper knowledge of the truth of Nature than some other less significant facts. The same is true with the Bible. Who Jesus is and what He did on the cross is the fundamental question. The verses that deal with that issue are the fundamental one and the others are less significant. We can know enough about Nature and thus tinker successfully with it, but we will never reach the thorough understanding of any part of Nature that must invariably lead to the Creat!
or.
Moorad
-----Original Message-----
From: Debbie Mann [mailto:deborahjmann@insightbb.com]
Sent: Sat 4/26/2003 1:37 PM
To: Jim Eisele; Asa
Cc:
Subject: RE: No death before the fall theology
All or nothing?
Either the scribes of the Bible sat like spiritualists at a seance and wrote
everything down in the exact verbage of God or it has nothing to do with
God?
Either it has been preserved verbatim for 6000 years or it should be thrown
in the trash? Not even worthy of display in a museum?
If our copies have transcriptional errors from 600BCE, then we should
discount the whole things as being devoid of truth?
Am I to assume that pre-writing people were given spiritual material which
could survive memorization by generations of oral historians, retranslation
by a variety of cultures - many of them writing by candle light using a
variety of primitive pens and inks, social evolution that took man from
caves and huts and firelight to computers - and yet the literature is
supposed to be translatable into all cultures in all times with exactly the
same divine meaning?
And if I do not accept this literal belief the only alternative is to accept
that the Bible is "WRONG"?
By that standard, I should throw out every textbook with a typo. 'Hey,
professor, I didn't study for the test because the textbook is wrong.'
I used to be a mathematician, now I'm an engineer. Do you want to know the
difference? There's a frog jumping half the distance to the finish line each
time he jumps. Does he ever get to the finish line? The mathematician says
no. The engineer says, "If I'm a fly, I'm going to get out of there."
I don't trade in my car when it gets a ding, I don't buy a new sofa at the
first stain on the old, I don't put my kid up for adoption when she splashes
paint on my new drapes.
I'm not going to devalue the greatest book of all time because Man, unholy,
unperfect, man, has tainted the Holy Book with His Humanity.
There are a number of books available from both camps on the Bible. One of
the 'against' resorted to attacks on semantics. One of the 'fors' provides a
great quantity of circumstantial evidence, cultural consistencies in odd
details. There is also direct architectural evidence for a large portion of
the book.
When I was in school, 96% was often an A and 38% was occasionally a passing
grade. Yet, attackers of The Bible seem to believe that if they can find one
fault, or show that 5% is inconclusive, vague or impossible to take
literally - that the portion that has been verified by multiple sources can
be ignored and the portion which is unverified is definitely wrong.
By this standard, I and everyone I know would have been tossed on the trash
heap long ago.
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of Jim Eisele
Sent: Saturday, April 26, 2003 11:25 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: No death before the fall theology
Um, I don't see anyone addressing the point here.
Maybe you need an atheist for some objectivity.
YECs know what the Bible says. Then they become
a cult as they retreat from modernity and impose
irrationality/ignorance on their followers.
Those not interested in truth-seeking should
probably stop reading NOW.
Your Bible is wrong. It is a mythological
explanation for death, a la Pandora's box.
The Bible says Adam is the first man about
6,000 years ago, and the rest is in the book.
TE/OEC won't reconcile with the Bible, despite
the pained twistings of Christians.
Now, I appreciate non-YEC Christians for their
efforts to keep that ignorance in check.
But the Bible can't be defended once you give
up YEC. Tough choice.
Jim Eisele
P.S.
I debated whether or not to post this to a
Christian list. It is the disturbing lack of
honesty and integrity that I have seen among
some Christians that prompted me to do so.
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