Old Earth or Young Earth

[Guest]

The age of the Earth was drawn up by a monk and an archbishop who used bad math to calculate the Earth 's age. It is completely unbiblical and nonscientific. This is what the YEC founded their 'data' on. Nowhere in the Bible does it give the age of the earth. Nor is the the Genesis 1 and 2 account accurate historically. It is a poetic allegory that God created the earth. 

[Guest shiloh357]

1 minute ago, Allroses48 said:

The age of the Earth was drawn up by a monk and an archbishop who used bad math to calculate the Earth 's age.

I am not going by what some monk wrote.  I am going by the text of Scripture and there is nothing in the Bible that says the earth is billions of years old.

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It is completely unbiblical and nonscientific. This is what the YEC founded their 'data' on.

No, it is not.   That is just a lot of misinformation on your part.   You clearly don't understand how young earth creationists arrive at their conclusions.  You just parrot what someone else told you without doing your own research.

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Nowhere in the Bible does it give the age of the earth.

If that is the case, then how can YOU say that the Bible agrees with science that the earth is billions of years old?   You cannot have it both ways.   You cannot claim the Bible supports billions of years and then claim it has no information about the age of the earth. 

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Nor is the the Genesis 1 and 2 account accurate historically. It is a poetic allegory that God created the earth. 

And that shows an ignorance of hermeneutics and how we understand the genre of the various texts in Scripture.  There is nothing allegorical about Genesis 1 and only someone unschooled in hermeneutics and exegesis would make such a comment.  

There is no poetry in Genesis 1, either.  Hebrew poetry has a parallel structure.  There are three types of Hebrew parallelisms in Hebrew poetry and none of them exist in Genesis 1.   Again, you are simply regurgitating what you read or heard from someone else and are just repeating  it without fact-checking it.

[Guest]

Ok....believe whatever you want. 

[siegi91]

9 hours ago, Allroses48 said:

Ok....believe whatever you want. 

If I may....

I am not a Christian. But I know a couple of Christians, and I like to learn about people beliefs. And after interviewing those friends of mine, I still do not see  clear cut heuristics that say: this part of the narrative is metaphoric, this part is not. A cursory browsing of the Bible does not show any obvious caveat or procedure to come to a decision in this area.

So, how do Christians decide today (and in the past)? Do/did they wait for scientific evidence before deciding what is what?

 siegi

 

 

Edited May 21, 2017 by siegi91

[Guest shiloh357]

5 minutes ago, siegi91 said:

If I may....

I am not a Christian. But I know a couple of Christians, and I like to learn about people beliefs. And after interviewing those friends of mine, I still do not see  clear cut heuristics that say: this part of the narrative is metaphoric, this part is not. A cursory browsing of the Bible does not show any obvious caveat or procedure to come to a decision in this area.

So, how do Christians decide today (and in the past)? Do/did they wait for scientific evidence before deciding what is what?

 siegi

 

 

Not sure what you're asking.  Can you rephrase the question?

[siegi91]

3 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

Not sure what you're asking.  Can you rephrase the question?

Well, sorry. My English, I guess.

My question is: if I knew nothing abut science, how do I decide what parts of the Bible are metaphoric (or figurative) and which ones are not? Assuming that there are figurative parts, of course.

My question is mainly directed to the process of demoting to "figurative" parts of the narrative when external (scientific) evidence is presented. Focus here is not metaphoric language that would sound absurd when taken at face value (like "it rains cats and dogs"), but the actual narrative in the first chapters of Genesis.

[Guest shiloh357]

Just now, siegi91 said:

Well, sorry. My English, I guess.

My question is: if I knew nothing abut science, how do I decide what parts of the Bible are metaphoric (or figurative) and which ones are not? Assuming that there are figurative parts, of course.

My question is mainly directed to the process of demoting to "figurative" parts of the narrative when external (scientific) evidence is presented. Focus here is not metaphoric language that would sound absurd when taken at face value (like "it rains cats and dogs"), but the actual narrative in the first chapters of Genesis.

You mean if you had no reading comprehension skills at all?   You mean if you could not tell the difference between a work of fiction and a biographical novel?   Is anyone really like that?   I can imagine that most scientists are pretty good at reading comprehension, too.

Metaphors and Similes and other such things are literary devices meant emphasis the literal meaning in a given text.  There is nothing in the text of Genesis that employs any figurative literary devices.   It is a chronologically ordered historical narrative and that is easy to see in the text. 

[siegi91]

7 minutes ago, shiloh357 said:

You mean if you had no reading comprehension skills at all?   You mean if you could not tell the difference between a work of fiction and a biographical novel?   Is anyone really like that?   I can imagine that most scientists are pretty good at reading comprehension, too.

Metaphors and Similes and other such things are literary devices meant emphasis the literal meaning in a given text.  There is nothing in the text of Genesis that employs any figurative literary devices.   It is a chronologically ordered historical narrative and that is easy to see in the text. 

Nope. That is not what I meant.

If I were a Christian, and I believed that the Bible is the work of God, and I had all the necessary reading skills available: how would I know that the narrative in Genesis is intentionally metaphoric or not, if I had no clue about science?

Honestly, if I read the Bible under those conditions, I would consider it a literal historical account of what happened. I really do not see any sign that says "caveat: what follows should be taken as figurative and does not represent exactly the course of events".

I actually agree with you. But I would like to hear what others from the symbolic front would say. My impression is that some modern forms of Christianity (not only Christianity) operate under the following paradigm:

1) If science shows X instead of Y, then the part addressing Y is figurative

2) If science does not, then that part can be kept literal

I am not sure how intellectually impeccable that is.

[Guest]

1 hour ago, siegi91 said:

Nope. That is not what I meant.

If I were a Christian, and I believed that the Bible is the work of God, and I had all the necessary reading skills available: how would I know that the narrative in Genesis is intentionally metaphoric or not, if I had no clue about science?

Honestly, if I read the Bible under those conditions, I would consider it a literal historical account of what happened. I really do not see any sign that says "caveat: what follows should be taken as figurative and does not represent exactly the course of events".

I actually agree with you. But I would like to hear what others from the symbolic front would say. My impression is that some modern forms of Christianity (not only Christianity) operate under the following paradigm:

1) If science shows X instead of Y, then the part addressing Y is figurative

2) If science does not, then that part can be kept literal

I am not sure how intellectually impeccable that is.

You have to look at the linguistics of ancient Hebrew. For ex yom has multiple definitions from a 24 day to an unknown period of time. The nacash is not really a literal snake. The word means enchanter, diviner, one who hisses in the ear, one who lies/manipulates, and it also means shining one, and serpentine.  So this nacash is actually a fallen angel/entity, not a literal snake. The two trees aren't literal trees. It wasn't a literal fruit but the knowledge obtained from the nacash. 

[Guest shiloh357]

11 hours ago, Allroses48 said:

You have to look at the linguistics of ancient Hebrew. For ex yom has multiple definitions from a 24 day to an unknown period of time. The nacash is not really a literal snake. The word means enchanter, diviner, one who hisses in the ear, one who lies/manipulates, and it also means shining one, and serpentine.  So this nacash is actually a fallen angel/entity, not a literal snake. The two trees aren't literal trees. It wasn't a literal fruit but the knowledge obtained from the nacash. 

You know nothing about the linguistics of Hebrew and I would point out that your entire perspective is based upon proving that the Bible we have cannot be trusted and doesn't mean what it says. 

Your approach also fails to understand the literary concept of "literal."