YEC Limits God?

[nebula]

"To interpret the Bible literally, is to read it with an understanding of the object the author has in view."

 

Yes, it was ME HE had in view.

 

Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?

 

He didn't care whatsoever for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words? Really?

 

Wow!

 

I guess he didn't care about me either, huh?

[Enoch2021]

 

"To interpret the Bible literally, is to read it with an understanding of the object the author has in view."

 

Yes, it was ME HE had in view.

 

Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?

 

He didn't care whatsoever for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words? Really?

 

Wow!

 

I guess he didn't care about me either, huh?

 

 

"Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?"

 

Strawman.  Neb C'mon now.

 

Did I say ONLY me? NO.  Did I say "he didn't care whatsoever" for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words??  NO

 

Anything regarding the items I DID SAY?

[nebula]

"I believe that when God wrote Genesis through Moses the message was perfectly clear to Moses and his own audience."

 

If you are implying that's who it was for and only who it was for, then...............PREPOSTEROUS!!  is all I have to say.

 

Whose language was it written it?

Whose puns and literary expressions were written?

Whose cultural references were included in the texts?

 

Really, if Scripture was written with the purpose of being understood at face value for all cultures, languages, and times, we wouldn't have to research the true Hebrew meaning of a word or phrase.

 

And God most certainly would have given us the historical NAMES of all the PHAROAHS the Bible mentions!

[nebula]

 

 

"To interpret the Bible literally, is to read it with an understanding of the object the author has in view."

 

Yes, it was ME HE had in view.

 

Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?

 

He didn't care whatsoever for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words? Really?

 

Wow!

 

I guess he didn't care about me either, huh?

 

 

"Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?"

 

Strawman.  Neb C'mon now.

 

Did I say ONLY me? NO.  Did I say "he didn't care whatsoever" for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words??  NO

 

Anything regarding the items I DID SAY?

 

Come on, you opened up yourself wide with that kind of a response.

[Enoch2021]

 

"I believe that when God wrote Genesis through Moses the message was perfectly clear to Moses and his own audience."

 

If you are implying that's who it was for and only who it was for, then...............PREPOSTEROUS!!  is all I have to say.

 

Whose language was it written it?

Whose puns and literary expressions were written?

Whose cultural references were included in the texts?

 

Really, if Scripture was written with the purpose of being understood at face value for all cultures, languages, and times, we wouldn't have to research the true Hebrew meaning of a word or phrase.

 

And God most certainly would have given us the historical NAMES of all the PHAROAHS the Bible mentions!

 

 

(2 Timothy 3:16) "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"

 

Profitable for who.......?

[Enoch2021]

 

 

 

"To interpret the Bible literally, is to read it with an understanding of the object the author has in view."

 

Yes, it was ME HE had in view.

 

Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?

 

He didn't care whatsoever for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words? Really?

 

Wow!

 

I guess he didn't care about me either, huh?

 

 

"Really? You were the only person God had in mind when He wrote Scripture?"

 

Strawman.  Neb C'mon now.

 

Did I say ONLY me? NO.  Did I say "he didn't care whatsoever" for how Moses and the Israelites, would understand the words??  NO

 

Anything regarding the items I DID SAY?

 

Come on, you opened up yourself wide with that kind of a response.

 

 

It appears I opened it up for Strawmen.

[Spock]

Oh, on a different level, you seem to have mastered the art of quoting individual lines and then responding to each one.  It makes it all very orderly; I would like to know how you do that...?

 

On the top left of the icons bar, you should see a button that looks like a light switch. Click that. It's the Toggle button. It will turn all the graphics into code. You can then type in [ /quote] - without the space, I had to add that so it wouldn't mess the screen here - where you want to end a piece of quote and then type [ quote] - again without the space - at the beginning of the next section of quote.

 

Make sure you click the Toggle button again before posting to make sure you got it right. An additional or missing "quote" or "/quote" in the lot will mess things up.

Now where is the top left of the icons bar? Button like light switch?

Any chance you could print screen and show us where?

 

Sorry, I don't know how to do that.

 

When you are typing in the Reply box, notice above where you type a bunch of control buttons? You should have "B" to bold the letter so a highlighted text, "I" for italics", etc.

Above that is the "Lightswitch", the "eraser", some square image, The "Font" box, etc.

 

Do you see this?

Ahhhhh, there lies the problem. My IPad Air does not support those text editor features and thus I do not have them on this little guy. I went over to my PC to look, and of course I have it there.

But here is my conundrum-I rarely use my PC. Always on my ipad.

So guess what?

Yep, I won't be doing those fancy quotes that you have mastered.

Oh well, you can't have everything you want, right? It would make for a spoiled and rotten Spock, I suppose.

[nebula]

 

 

"I believe that when God wrote Genesis through Moses the message was perfectly clear to Moses and his own audience."

 

If you are implying that's who it was for and only who it was for, then...............PREPOSTEROUS!!  is all I have to say.

 

Whose language was it written it?

Whose puns and literary expressions were written?

Whose cultural references were included in the texts?

 

Really, if Scripture was written with the purpose of being understood at face value for all cultures, languages, and times, we wouldn't have to research the true Hebrew meaning of a word or phrase.

 

And God most certainly would have given us the historical NAMES of all the PHAROAHS the Bible mentions!

 

 

(2 Timothy 3:16) "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"

 

Profitable for who.......?

 

Everyone, of course. But again, you make it sound as if the Bible was meant to be read at face value by everyone without any research whatsoever.

 

How do you explain the references of "snow" to the jungle tribes of the Amazon? If the Bible was "written for them", it would not include references that made no sense to them, would it?

 

 

Consider this, Psalm 23 takes on a different meaning when someone who knows the geography of Israel points out that "green pastures" are not lush grassy fields like we have here, but rather tufts of grass found scattered throughout the arid landscape. One doesn't pick that up at face-value from the text.

 

So the same with history. God gave us brains. We can research the past and understand the perspectives the people lived with at the time the words were given, and then read the text in that context.

 

 

Case in point: How would you defend the criticism by non-Christians that the Bible commands slavery? (In the Torah, there are rules for how to obtain and treat slaves.)

[Enoch2021]

 

 

(2 Timothy 3:16) "All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:"

 

Profitable for who.......?

 

Everyone, of course. But again, you make it sound as if the Bible was meant to be read at face value by everyone without any research whatsoever.

 

How do you explain the references of "snow" to the jungle tribes of the Amazon? If the Bible was "written for them", it would not include references that made no sense to them, would it?

 

 

Consider this, Psalm 23 takes on a different meaning when someone who knows the geography of Israel points out that "green pastures" are not lush grassy fields like we have here, but rather tufts of grass found scattered throughout the arid landscape. One doesn't pick that up at face-value from the text.

 

So the same with history. God gave us brains. We can research the past and understand the perspectives the people lived with at the time the words were given, and then read the text in that context.

 

 

Case in point: How would you defend the criticism by non-Christians that the Bible commands slavery? (In the Torah, there are rules for how to obtain and treat slaves.)

 

 

"you make it sound as if the Bible was meant to be read at face value by everyone without any research whatsoever."

 

Strawman.  I never said that

 

 

"How do you explain the references of "snow" to the jungle tribes of the Amazon? If the Bible was "written for them", it would not include references that made no sense to them, would it?"

 

Right here: http://www.ehow.com/how_2056860_make-snow.html

 

 

"Case in point: How would you defend the criticism by non-Christians that the Bible commands slavery? (In the Torah, there are rules for how to obtain and treat slaves.)"

 

Like This;  As mentioned countless times.... there is much to be learned in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.  GOD was driving the "Culture" to root out the Centuries worth of Paganism that was rampant to make them a Holy People to testify of His Glory and to Bring the MESSIAH through.....to SAVE ALL!!

 

 

Do you believe there was Death, Disease, and Thorns (Fossils) before Adam Sinned?

[a-seeker]

 

 

 

Why subject a seeker to this? Why not rather emphasize Christ and let God take care of the details and convictions later?

If I had written an article about OEC or Theistic Evolution and why I thought either one was biblically sound, I doubt you would be questioning the need to write such an article. These are not nonessential details. One's worldview is shaped by how you view the origin of man and humanity.

YEC I think is for the firm Christian.

It is for everyone regardless of what stage they are at in their walk.

If you predicate acceptance of the Gospel with acceptance of YEC, you are going to lose people.

History has shown that Evolution has a far greater potential of shipwrecking people's faith than YEC. No one rejects God on an intellectual basis, but on a spiritual one.

I am not predicating acceptance of the Gospel with acceptance of YEC. That is a common false accusation that gets thrown around here in the absence of intelligent rebuttals. I am not saying that you have believe in the YEC model to be saved. I have never said or even implied it. Perhaps you could actually read what I have said instead misrepresenting my comments and framing them to mean something I never intended. Or am I asking too much of you?

"History has shown that Evolution has a far greater potential of shipwrecking people's faith than YEC"

I absolutely believe this: people who have grown up as Christians under the assumption that Genesis MUST BE READ LITERALLY and then discovering that perhaps the universe is older than what they've been taught will no doubt get shaken up a bit. I blame this on their upbringing: it is such upbringing that creates people like Bart Eerman (a staunch antiChristian). They are raised not only to believe that Scripture is inspired, but force fed a definition of what it means to be inspired--i.e. either creation happened in 6 days or Scripture is not inspired.

Very well....

.....But then we are not talking about people whose faith is shipwrecked. We're talking about people who have no faith to begin with, and then are asked to pit one interpretation of Scripture (yours) against claims made by scientists; no surprise that they reject Christianity because they've been forced to make a choice that (as I and others believe) was never required of them by Scripture. If you have stats showing that evolution or OE has actually prevented people from coming to faith in Christ, even though they have been introduced to interpretations that allow for both these claims, I'd like to see them. In my experience, most unbelievers think Christians are naive or obstinately stupid because they insist that the world is only 6,000 years old; of course, we do not alter our convictions to accommodate unbelievers: many cannot come to faith because they disbelieve in the miraculous, which excludes Christianity. But I and others with me do not think Genesis was intended by God to be read as read by YE.

I think you and I will both agree that it is better for a man to come to faith in Christ under the assumption that evolution or whatever is compatible with Scripture, then to reject Chrstianity because he is told he must make a choice between one interpretation of Genesis and science.

clb

Actually Bart Ehrman stumbled over the Problem of Evil. And he's not really anti Christian, just agnostic.

 

Very well, my chief point was not about Bart Ehrman's biography.  And there were probably numerous factors at work in his break with the faith: the one I had in mind occurred at Wheaton College where in Mark he read a quote clearly from Malachai being attributed to Isaiah.  He spent an enormous amount of energy trying to reconcile this "error".  My contention is that such discrepancies in scripture can only rattle a person who has imposed his or her own definition of "inspired" on the text.

 

clb