Re: [asa] Empiricism, Faith and Science

PS: I also said some years ago that the aleph tau (the 4th word) just =
before "the heavens and the earth" is a late addition to the text,
and =
not a word as such but only a marker of the accusative. It is not part =
of the original. Even if you regard the later additions to the text as =
inspired, it is more like a colon, a mark of punctuation, than a
regular =
word. If you had not built upon it, your numerology would at least
have =
a solid basis for coming from the inspired original, but including it
as =
you do tells me that your numerology is doubtful.=20

IS: Sorry but this is not an impressive argument at all. It seems
that =
you are placing a requirement on God to only insert a pattern in the =
original text. This reminds me of Richard Dawkins's equally weak =
argument "If I were God, I wouldn't have done it by evolution", ie =
placing a requirement on God to create a world different from the one
we =
observe because in his view there is too much misery in the world for
a =
benevolent creator. I take it you agree that this is a feeble
argument, =
but I think your argument here is no better.=20

In fact it could be said that your argument strengthens Vernon's case =
for claiming a miraculous event, because it effectively rules out the =
possibility that the pattern was contrived by the human writer. It =
would be difficult enough to construct a pattern from scratch given
any =
meaningful sentence that you wanted to write, but it must be even more =
unlikely that the pattern wasn't there at all but appeared when a =
grammatical change came into the language.=20

I'm also wondering if, for example we were speaking French that you =
would insist on not counting the "pas" in the "ne ... pas" negation =
construct, on the grounds that the "pas" has no regular translation
into =
English, but seems to be just a placeholder in the place of other
words =
with more direct meanings than the general negation ( like "ne ... =
jamais" and "ne .... plus").=20

I am arguing from what I assume are Vernon's assumptions: the =
conservative belief that it is the originals which are inspired, not
the =
copies; also that Moses wrote the text. There is good reason to
believe =
that Hebrew in the time of Moses did not use the aleph tau to mark the =
accusative and especially in a sentence where the object (the heavens =
and the earth).immediately follows the verb (created). The aleph tau =
would not in that case be part of the inspired text, so why would the =
non-inspired added aleph tau have a divine hidden meaning embedded in =
it? =20

The idea that it is all the more a miracle if the original did not
have =
the pattern, but it appeared later when a late scribe added the aleph =
tau seems to me to confuse miracle with magic. The sudden appearing
of a =
numerical pattern in an inspired text when a scribe adds an uninspired =
aleph tau is like a genie coming out of a lamp when it is rubbed. Even =
if the scribe was inspired to add the aleph tau, having this create an =
amazing pattern that did not exist previously still seems more llike =
pagan magic than biblical miracle to me.

I do not think the aleph tau is like French pas. Pas is a regular
word, =
not a mere grammatical marker. =20

Paul

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Received on Sat Sep 23 01:35:46 2006