>After doing some research, I'll change the wording of some statements.
>These new words will reflect some new ideas.
>
>However, the principle behind the conviction, at least mine, won't change.
>If anything it got stronger. Briefly stated, I didn't found any mountain
>of evidence to show me that evolution was a collection of irrefutable
>facts.
>
>What I encountered was rather a collection of assumptions knit together
>with a strong dose of faith. I found out that all still comes down to
>belief. And belief speaks of faith and trust. Who or what do you believe
>and where do you put your trust.
>
>My second motive for writing this message has to do with the loose,
>surprisingly often and erroneous (whether willfully or not isn't for me to
>say) interpretation of The Scriptures by some writers in this list.
>Although I don't doubt their expertise in their areas of endeavor, I do
>question their Biblical knowledge and hermeneutical skills.
>
>Biblical hermeneutics is the science and the art of Biblical
>interpretation. It is a science because it is concerned with principles
>within an ordered system. It is meant to derive and classify the
>principles necessary for the proper scriptural interpretation.
>
>It is also an art because it is concerned with applying the principles
>derived. Because of the nature and claims The Bible makes about itself,
>these principles can't be mechanically applied but need the skill of the
>interpreter. Not a skill to willfully deceive but by adhering to the
>linguistic, cultural, geographical and historical gaps being able to
>explain in plain language the meaning.
>
>The primary purpose of Biblical hermeneutics is to ascertain what God has
>said in the Scriptures and to determine its meaning. We derive no benefit
>from the fact that God has spoken, unless we understand what is meant by
>what He said.
>
>The Bible is The Book of Truth. No amount of 'Scientific Theory' can ever
>explain away scriptural fact.
>
>The Bible is:
>
>1. Enduring -'Forever O Lord, Your word is settled in
> Heaven' Psl. 119:8
> 'Heaven and Earth shall pass away but My
> words shall not pass away' Math. 24:35
>
>2. Inerrant -'All scripture is God breathed' 2 Tim. 3:16
> 'Every word of God is pureDo not add'
> Prov. 30:5-6
> 'scripture cannot be broken.' John 10:35
> 'Let God be true, though every man be found
> a liar' Rom. 3:4
>
>3. Clear God's wisdom is 'righteousness; nothing
> crooked or perverse is in it'
> All His words are 'plain and right to those
> who find Knowledge' Prov. 8:8-9
>
I don't know how long you have been on the list, but I will stand shoulder
to shoulder with you on the issue that the Bible must be historical or it is
probably not inspired. My good friend, Denis Lamoureaux says I am
hermeneutically unclean, and you probably would agree. However, since the
two of you are coming from opposite sides of the theological spectrum, I
feel pretty good being in the middle.
I do have one problem with your approach. In your entire post, you did not
discuss the problems and issues I raised, the fact that a global flood
violates the second law, the fact that ammonites are sorted according to
suture shape. You did not try to explain why that data is as it is. You
were content to go another direction and raise other issues.
The problem I have with this approach concerns the question, "Are Christian
theological views immune from observational data?" The nature of your
response would seem to suggest that your view does not need to take into
account the problems I raised. In my opinion this leads to relativism.
here is why.
Consider the Hindu who believes his religious books that the world is on the
back of a turtle swimming in a cosmic sea. You, wishing to evangelize him
say, "Hey, that is wrong! We have sent spaceships up, photographed the earth
and there is no turtle and no sea. Your religion is wrong!"
To which the Buddhist replies, paraphrasing you, " The Bhagavadgita is The
Book of Truth. No amount of 'Scientific Theory' can ever explain away
divine fact."
How do you now evangelize him? Evidence is irrelevant to him. When you say,
"Hey, you can't ignore that evidence that spacecraft provide!" He can say,
"Yes I can, you do it all the time with that global flood idea!" Stand off.
Relativism reigns.
by doing what you are doing you reduce your religion to the same level of
every religion that believes wierd things. Christianity should be higher
than that.
>
>Now about the flood.
>
>1. What is the oldest living thing on Earth today? How
> about the Bristlecone pine trees in the White Mountains
> bordering California and Nevada. These rare and rugged
> trees have been growing for about 5000 years. By all
> indications, these trees will continue to grow for
> another ten centuries unless something catastrophic
> will occur. But why don't we find a grove of trees
> somewhere in the world dating back say 6000, 8000,
> 10000 or even 15000 years? It is almost as if these
> trees were planted on virgin Earth around 5000 years ago.
>
Let me assure you that there was lots of life prior to 5,000 years ago. The
Sumerians were in existence at least 500 years prior although they had not
invented writing.
>2. What about human population? If man have been on this
> planet for a million years, why is population explosion
> only recently becoming such a problem? If today we
> believe this million-year theory and we were to have
> families worldwide averaging 2.5 children (yielding
> annual population growth of 1/2%) the Earth will have
> 3,000 billion humans. But what is the population
> today? Using the same averages and planetary
> population growth and taking the planet population of 5
> billion we find that only the descendants of one family
> will take a little over 4,000 years to arrive at our
> current numbers. And let me add that these rates are
> about one fourth of the current growth rates.
>
Technically this is not an argument for a global flood. This is an argument
for a young earth. Even if the earth is young, it does not mean that there
was a global flood. However, your 1/2% per year does not work because the
rate of population growth has varied throughout history. It is estimated
that there were 3-5 million people on earth at 8000 B.C., 162 million in
400 B.C. If I did my math correctly that is a rate of .045% per year. By
AD 1 the population had grown to 250 million. This is a rate of
approximately .1% per year. By AD 500 the population was 206 million a
decrease of 17% over those 500 years. By 1500AD the population had grown to
417 million more than doubling over these 500 years.It nearly doubled again
to 770 million people by 1750. By 1970 (less than the previous sampling
period of 250 years) the population had quintupled. And in the last 27
years, the population has nearly doubled. The rates of population increase
is not constant through time. This argument assumes a constant rate of
increase which is observationally false. At low rates of increase, mankind
could have lived long, long ago. For the data I used, see (L. Luca
Cavalli-Sforza, Paoli Menozzi and Alberto Piazzi, The History and Geography
of Human Genes, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), p. 68 )
>3. Sir Charles Leonard Woolley in 1923 was in charge of an
> American and British team of archaeologists that set
> out to find and dig up Ur of The Chaldees (Abraham's
> birth place). During the sixth digging season the team
> encountered some very peculiar facts when they thought
> that virgin soiled had been reached. He carefully
> prodded the ground on the floor of the shaft and found
> pure clay. Only water could put that type of clay
> there. They dug nearly another 10 feet before the clay
> stopped. When they found dirt again, they expected it
> to be virgin soil void of any human artifacts. But
> they found more evidence of human habitation. More
> pottery, jars, bowls that perfectly matched the ones
> uncovered before the 10 feet of clay. That day, a
> telegram from Mesopotamia flashed with the words 'We
> found the flood'. This was headline news in Britain
> and the US.
>
What does this have to do with proving a global flood? I don't think the
local flood was in Mesopotamia. I think a mesopotamian flood is as
observationally unsound as is a global flood.
>4. Throughout the planet, one finds stories of a worldwide
> flood. For example the Chibcha Indians who live in
> what it is today Colombia in South America tell the
> story of Bacata. Where a big flood filled a valley.
> Suddenly this god, Bacata, appeared and touched the
> rocks, which were broken creating the Tequendama
> Falls emptying the valley of water. This valley today
> is where Colombia's capital, Bogota is located. This
> city sits 8400 feet above sea level.
>
All this provides is SUPPORT for an anthropologically universal flood. It
does not prove a global flood and does not even prove an anthropologically
universal flood.
>Last two points are going to deal with The Bible itself. To obtain a
>sound interpretation, one must avoid the tendency to impose one's own
>ideas upon Scripture. For instance, I noticed that Gen. 6:17 was
>mentioned as example of how translators used land, earth and ground for
>the same Hebrew word.
>
>But why did the interpreter violated the contextual principle (principle
>by which the interpretation of any verse is determined upon a
>consideration of its context) and stopped at this verse? A little further
>in verse 19 we read 'They rose (the waters) greatly on the earth, and all
>the HIGH MOUNTAINS under THE ENTIRE HEAVENS were covered. The waters >rose
and COVERED THE MOUNTAINS to a depth of MORE THAN TWENTY >FEET'. This is
the NIV text.
yes I agree. Using a similar use of "under the entire heavens" Jobe
36:33-Job 37:4, Job is speaking of the thunder of a storm being heard "under
the entire heavens" this is not possible. I can not hear thunder from
California. I think the phrase means "under the dome of the sky" meaning
the local region. Job 37:3-4 says
"He unleashes his lightning beneath the WHOLE heaven and sends it to the
ends of the earth.After that comes the sound of his roar; he thunders with
his majestic voice." NIV
>
>There isn't a doubt in the Scriptural narrative of how high and where the
>waters arose. Moreover, verse 23 leaves no doubt as to who perished on
>this event 'EVERY LIVING THING ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH was wiped out; >men
and animals and the creatures that move along the ground and the birds of
>the air were wiped from the earth.'
>
You can only hold this if you decide apriori that EARTH means planeat earth
not land. If we are going to hold this type of view of Biblical words, then
why do you not believe that the entire UNIVERSE was filled with water? 2
Pet. 2:5 says the entire KOSMOS was destroyed. Why would you not include
Mars, Jupiter, Alpha Centauri and the Andromeda galaxy in the destruction of
the Flood? After all that is what the Bible says.
>The last point has to do with rain. According to Scripture, rain as we
>know it today didn't happen until after the flood. In Gen. 2:5 'for The
>Lord God had not sent rain on the earth and there was no man to work the
>ground' Not until Noah do we find rain again Gen. 7:4. But the water
>that poured from heaven was no common storm. The Biblical description in
>Gen.7:11 'all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the
>floodgates of heaven were open. And rain fell on the earth forty days and
>forty nights'.
>
This may not be what that verse says.
NIV
"and no shrub of the field had yet appeared on the earth and no plant of the
field had yet sprung up, for [BECAUSE] the LORD God had not sent rain on the
earth and there was no man to work the ground." Gen 2:5.
Well if there was no rain before the Flood, then there were no plants or
shrubs before the flood either. This view of this verse is problematical.
Genesis 1 clearly says plants were created, but I guess they weren't created
until the flood because there was no rain.
I view this verse as saying that agricultural plants were not on the earth
because there was no man. See my web page for more info on this verse.
>We find some very key words in this small passage. Deep is found in Gen.
>1:2 describing the state of the earth when it was all underwater.
>Floodgates of heaven are used in Mic.3:10 in the only part of Scripture
>that God challenged men to put Him to the test. And the implication here
>is that is going to be a huge quantity. Forty speaks of generations. Day
>of light, night of darkness. Space and time doesn't allow me to knit all
>of these together so I leave this portion with the oldest and most
>regarded adage of Biblical hermeneutics: 'Scripture interprets Scripture'.
>
>Lastly, we find that clouds aren't mentioned in the Bible until after this
>deluge takes place. And the clouds are associated with the rainbow. The
>symbol by which God establishes the Noahic covenant and promises never to
>use a flood to destroy all life on the planet.
We don't find elephants mentioned either. Were there no elephants before
the Flood?
>
>So we end up with the fact that to believe Glenn's growing reasons of why
>the flood is not global, one must reject Biblical portions under the
>'belief' that they are wrong. In other words, if one believes Glenn's
>reasons, the Bible is wrong. If one believes the Bible flood description
>then Glenn's reasons are wrong.
I would disagree with you here. I believe in a historically correct
Biblical account of the Flood and I believe that the 6 days were 24 hour
periods, I believe that the details of the Flood account were correct.Noah
was on an ark for a year, only 8 humans survived. The entire LAND was
flooded. What is it that I don't beleive? I don't believe your
interpretation of 'eretz" as planet earth is the correct one. While I may
disagree with you, I do not disagree with the Bible.
>
>It isn't the first time in history that this situation arises.
>
>Sorry Glenn, I don't believe your statement of 'Why the Flood is not
>Global'. I don't doubt your sincerity and your commitment to your work.
>But it will take more than sincerity and commitment to make me believe the
>Bible is wrong, specially with the hermeneutical approach used.
I fail to see why the Bible, a book inspired by God, must force me to
believe that what I see with my eyes in nature, is illusion. Surely God
knew what was buried in the rocks prior to telling Moses what to write. If
He didn't know, then He isn't God.
How did the flood sort the suture patterns of the ammonites?
glenn
Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm