Re: [asa] legitimate parallel to explain death before Adam?

Denis wrote the following to sum up the YEC position which claims to be the historical view of the church.
             The greatest problem with evolutionary creation is that it contradicts the traditional literal interpretation of the opening chapters of the Bible.

  Christian churches have always had a diverse view of the opening chapters of Genesis, some mopre literal some allegorical. In my chapter in Myth and Geology (Geol soc of London special publication Mar 2007) and an article in the Evangelical Quarterly of April 2002 I present the evidence that Literalism was not the dominant view of the churches from 1600 to 1800. Most especailly those with some education accepted even before geologists demonstrated the vast age of the earth in about 1770 that the time scale was more than 4004BC

  Church history reveals that nearly all believers have understood the creation accounts to be a record of actual historical events.

  what do you mean by history?

  Even more troubling for evolutionary creation is the fact that the Biblical authors, including Jesus Himself, often refer to the early chapters of Genesis as literal history.

  This is a typical YEC canard based on dodgy evidence . Douglas Kelly gives 50 or so examples in Creation and Change p 129 and falsely claims that the NT took Genesis literally

  In addition, the origin of physical death poses a particularly acute problem for conservative Christians who accept biological evolution. The Scriptures clearly state that death came after the creation of humanity and that it was a Divine judgment on the world for Adam's original sin.

  That's funny. It doesnt say it in any of my bibles, whether AV, RSV, NIV. NRSV, JB or anything else

  However, according to evolutionary biology death existed for billions of years prior to the appearance of the first humans.

  That's funny too as the vast age of the earth and that animals had died well before humans appeared was demonstrated before 1800. That is before there was any evolutionary biology/

   Clearly Denis was putting the case against his position, but as it was not the dominant view of Christians before the discovery of Deep Time and the later discovery of evolutiuon, we cannot play the Traditional card to show that YEC must be right.

  Michael

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Received on Sun Sep 2 16:15:05 2007