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Bible Questions and Spiritual Discussion

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Lanny Carlson 02/16/2012 19:57
Where did I say "everyone disregards Genesis?"
Who said ANYTHING about "erasing Genesis"?
Disagree with me if you wish.
But please don't quote me as saying things I never said.

Taking something seriously is not the same as taking something literally.
Indeed, it's quite possible to take Genesis literally
but not take it seriously at all!

Genesis is a very important book.
The first verse is the most important,
and the most basic to our faith...
"In the beginning God..."

The fact is that EVERY religion has a creation story.
And all of them are "flat earth" stories,
written when people believed the earth was flat,
when people believed that the sun circled the earth,
when people were unaware of other people beyond their own geography
(the writers of the Bible were totally unaware of other people
living in North America, living in the far east, living in southern Africa).
Genesis is not a science book,
nor it is a geography book,
or a history book.
Please don't force the Bible to be what it is not,
any more than you would accept other religions
insisting that you accept their creation stories as "history."

Accept the Genesis story for what it is,
a book of faith, affirming the belief that we are not an accident,
that we and everything are the products of a creative power we call God,
that man and woman
(which is what "adam" and "eve" mean in Hebrew - every man and every woman)
are made in the image of the Divine
and entrusted with the care of the rest of creation.
John T 02/16/2012 20:18
First point:

Here's where you said nobody believes in Genesis - yes, you said it - "First, we have to accept the story of the Garden as literal history, something very few Biblical scholars do today." That statement is false, as there are many many Christians that believe in creation. If you were to say that there are few secular scholars that believe it, that I will agree with, but Biblical ones, no.
Lanny Carlson 02/16/2012 21:26
OK, let's quit playing with words.
You said that I said,
"everyone disregards Genesis"
and that I want to "erase Genesis,"
neither of which I ever said.
Now you are saying that I said,
"nobody believes in Genesis,"
which I never said either.
All I said was that few Biblical scholars accept it
as LITERAL HISTORY, which is not the same as not believing
in the deeper messsage of Genesis.
And, except for fundamentlists,
very few serious Biblical scholars DO accept the creation story
as "literal history."
But nearly all take the essential message quite seriously.

Re-read what I wrote very carefully.
I'm not trying to insult you,
but it seems you keep missing my point entirely
when I talked about the important message of Genesis.
I'll say it again -

"Accept the Genesis story for what it is,
a book of faith, affirming the belief that we are not an accident,
that we and everything are the products of a creative power we call God,
that man and woman
(which is what "adam" and "eve" mean in Hebrew - every man and every woman)
are made in the image of the Divine
and entrusted with the care of the rest of creation."

Certainly we can agree on that, can't we?
John T 02/16/2012 21:26
Second Point:

Luk 3:23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli,
Luk 3:24 the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,
Luk 3:25 the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum, the son of Esli, the son of Naggai,
Luk 3:26 the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josech, the son of Joda,
Luk 3:27 the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, the son of Neri,
Luk 3:28 the son of Melchi, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er,
Luk 3:29 the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi,
Luk 3:30 the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim,
Luk 3:31 the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David,
Luk 3:32 the son of Jesse, the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Sala, the son of Nahshon,
Luk 3:33 the son of Amminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah,
Luk 3:34 the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor,
Luk 3:35 the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah,
Luk 3:36 the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem, the son of Noah, the son of Lamech,
Luk 3:37 the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalaleel, the son of Cainan,
Luk 3:38 the son of Enos, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Looks pretty much like History to me. If not, at what point do the real people become figments of our imaginations?
Lanny Carlson 02/16/2012 21:42
Come on, that's the genealogy
which some people used to argue that the earth is only 6000 years old.
No reputable scientists, and few lay people, believe that,
any more than they still believe that the earth is flat
and has four corners
or that the earth is the center of the universe,
or any of the other things people believed when Genesis was written.
The Bible is not, never has been and was never intended to be a science book.
That was never its purpose.

Also, I don't know how we ended up in this discussion,
when I was talking about how I can still read Leviticus
despite the images of God there which are inconsistent with the image of God
we see in Jesus.
John T 02/17/2012 20:31
Thanks Lanny - I have been harsh, and not full of grace here. I was reading today from Thomas a Kempis, for the first time, and was reading this: "If you knew the entire Bible inside out and all the maxims of the philosophers, what good would it do if you were, at the same time, without God's love and grace? Vanity of vanities! All is vanity, except our loving God and serving only Him." So I do apologize for my lack of grace. I do disagree with you, and evidently quite strongly, about your interpretation of the Word, however, it's no reason for my frustration. The world will keep turning, after all.

Onward and upward, the genealogy - Yes, you're correct, that's exactly what it is, it is a list of people from Adam to Christ, showing a great deal of names. Genesis goes on to list exactly how long many of them lived. It certainly does not read like anything but a family tree and history of a people, and I believe to read it as though Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methusalah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, etc, didn't exist is to read very acrobatically. If you propose that Adam is simply to be translated as "God created man" Then at what point do these people exist in your mind? Doe Abraham exist and did he have a son named Isaac whom he almost sacrificed? I don't understand how you can take a printed list like this and believe it not to be exactly what it appears to be. And if the proper reading of the genealogy and the dates leads to a belief in 6000 years and this is compared to secular teachings that we evolved from pond scum over billions of years - which would you rather believe in? That we are created and had life breathed into us personally, starting with Adam, or that we are an accidental creation over millions of years. May I remind you that the Theory of Evolution is very much a theory and is quite young, the Word of God has stood the test of time.

Why are we discussing this? Because a proper understanding of Leviticus, and any part of the Bible begins with proper foundations. You brought Genesis up with a comment that God did not sacrifice an animal to cloth them, suggesting that the animal was already dead. I simply contradicted your thought, and did not start a new conversation but followed the existing one.

In regards to the washed out Gospel, I thought this was interesting: I found it in a book by Jim Owen, that I also just started: "A great folly seems to have overtaken many 20th century evangelicals: they constantly yield the authority and sufficiency of God's Word to the idols of modernity. They concede this portion to an aged evolutionary "science", frayed and dated in its Victorian dress. The concede that portion to the social expediency of the times, fearful lest God' sovereignty in all things might offend the liberal sensibilities of the NOW generation. Will they also concede the wisdom and power of the cross to the heirs of Sigmund Freud? God forbid! Yet it seems many are doing so. In light of this, how much longer will the church believe in and support the idea of an authoritative Bible to which the followers of Jesus can commit themselves? Five years? Ten? Is it already too late? Within twenty-five years of the acceptance of Darwinism by the American intellectual community, practically every major seminary capitulated to liberalism. An inerrant revelation from God? Impossible! The virgin birth? Please. The deity of Christ? An attempt by the early church to compete with paganism. The atonement? How bloody and primitive! How can we believe in a God so barbaric? What was needed, these men in lock-step with the "discovered truths" of their day informed us, was a Christianity more in keeping with the assured results of current "scholarship." Fearing embarrassment, a considerable segment of the American church created just such a Christianity. Forty years later, H. Richard Niebuhr was to write that liberal Christianity was reduced to "a God without wrath (bringing) men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross""

I read that and thought of the many discussions that we've had, and the last few statements hit me as shocking truth - the inerrant revelation, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ, the atonement - all torn out of the new liberal church. That is what appears to be happening.

One final point, as for the straw men you've set up, the "un-reputable" scientists, the "non-serious" Biblical scholars, that appear to do all the believing that is contrary to your beliefs. I must say that what appears to be closer to the truth is that the Biblical scholars that you and I read and hear are two separate groups, and you believe that mine are few and I believe that yours are few, and we are both likely quite wrong. There is a documentary called "Expelled" which shows just how shunned the one side is in the evolution debate, and how it is a great risk to their careers and livelihoods. I would not expect many of those that disagree to be very vocal, considering they would have no jobs, and so if there is a perception of few, it is a forced one, and not the reality. Just as Christians hid from early governments when they were oppressed, these folks are much the same. Here is an audio clip that speaks of a book that discusses the subject more thoroughly: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/14207132/120217-Does_Bible_Teach_Flat_Earth_USA.mp3 I think it may help, as I found it interesting. It is from Creation ministries, a group that includes both serious PHD Scientists and also serious Biblical Scholars, although it is doubtful you will agree, since they fit into your "un" and "non" groups.

I hope this sheds some light, truthfully and as gracefully as I can, on what I believe and why I believe it.
Respectfully,
John
Lanny Carlson 02/18/2012 11:53
John,

Thank you for your response,
and its cordial tone.
I'm sure we will never agree on a lot of things,
but, as I am fond of saying, I pray we can disagree without being disagreeable
I'm addressing that to me as well as to you or anyone else at DAB.
I'll also try not to set up any more "straw men,"
or to talk about what "most" people believe or don't believe,
at least with no statistical data to back it up.

There is so much we could discuss in this thread,
but for now I want to address a question you asked:

" if the proper reading of the genealogy and the dates leads to a belief in 6000 years and this is compared to secular teachings that we evolved from pond scum over billions of years - which would you rather believe in? That we are created and had life breathed into us personally, starting with Adam, or that we are an accidental creation over millions of years. May I remind you that the Theory of Evolution is very much a theory and is quite young, the Word of God has stood the test of time."

The question really isn't which I would RATHER believe in, is it,
but which is TRUE.

It's also important to realize that creation and evolution
aren't "either-or" propositions.
E. Stanley Jones, the great missionary to India,
wrote this in 1942:

"God would be as necessary for evolution as for a once-for-all creation. Which takes the more intelligence - to strike a billiard ball straight into the pocket at one stroke, or to strike a ball, which in turn strikes another, and that another, and that another, until the last one goes into the pocket? Obviously, the latter stroke. God seemingly creates something, which creates something, and the whole thing moves on to a moral universe in which you and I stand, not pushed from behind by blind forces, but beckoned to from before by ideals..."
(E. Stanley Jones, "Abundant Living," p. 7)
I don't know about you, but I find this image thrilling!

As for the Bible standing the test of time
while the concept of evolution is relatively new -
the same could be said of so many things that are new or newer,
and were also ridiculed at one time -
the germ theory of disease, the idea that people could one day fly,
so many things we take for granted
but which the people who recorded the Scriptures couldn't have imagined.

Suppose God or a visitor from our time
had said to the Biblical writers -
that the earth is only one of billions and billions of planets;
that the stars aren't tiny lights in the sky
but massive balls of gas, shining as they convert hydrogen into helium,
helium into carbon, and into all the heavy elements in the universe,
until they explode as super novae and send those elements into space
where they form planets and satellites, and provide the building blocks for life
(the soil from which humans were said to have been created);
that some of those stars are so far away that it has taken billions of years for the light to reach your eyes and be seen by you;
that the sun is just one of those stars located in a remote region of the universe;
that the earth is one of multiple planets circling this star;
that the "lesser light," the moon, isn't a light at all
but a huge ball of rock reflecting the light of the sun,
a rock to which people will one day send rockets and
upon which they will one day walk;
that one day you won't have to record these words on rock or parchment
but will be able to type them into a computer and send them instantly to people
on another side of this planet.
You get the picture.
People then would have had absolutely no context for understanding any of this.
So to suggest that the cosmology and geology and biology they could understand
and which provided the only context they had
in which they could write what they wrote
must take precedent over modern science because the Bible is older,
is a conclusion I don't believe either one of us could accept.
Yes, much of what the Bible says is gloriously true -
God is love, the God we see in Jesus is worthy of our praise
and the standard by which life is intended to be lived -
but the Bible is not, never has been, and was never intended to be
a science textbook.
And who ever said God can't communicate through the discoveries of science,
even when those discoveries don't fit the pre-scientific understanding
of the writers of the Bible?
The problem with "Creation scientists" is that many of them by definition
start with the conclusion and try to make the science fit,
rather than following the facts wherever they may lead,
even if it threatens their presuppositions.

(Another thought occurred to me -
Every doctor agrees with the Hippocratic Oath and its pledge to do no harm;
but would we want our doctors to also follow the same medical procedures
Hippocrates and other early physicians used?
I don't think so!
The ethics is valid, but not the science.)

You are right, we do read quite different authors.
I for one have always been fascinated by paleoanthropology
and the exploration of the story of pre-historic man.
I am fascinated by astronomy and biology and physics
and all the incredible, unimaginable discoveries
of this wondrous universe.
But that doesn't diminish my faith;
in some ways it makes it that much deeper.
Who can but stand in awe at all we are only beginning to see and understand?

Finally, I can't answer your question about the genealogies.
I do know that Matthew and Luke were using them to make their own points -
Matthew was writing to Jews and was making a political point,
that Jesus was the successor of King David,the king of the Jews.
Luke on the other hand was writing to Gentiles
and was intent on showing Jesus' importance for the whole human race.

At the same time, of course,
they knew nothing of other peoples living in yet unknown parts of the world -
The Americas, southern Africa (where modern humans are believed to have emerged), the far east - and of course they aren't reflected in any Biblical writings.
I can't say which, if any, names were simply "made up."
I'm simply saying that any genealogy which suggest the earth
is only 6000 years old
is clearly not all-inclusive.

Finally, H. Richard Niebuhr is a theologian with whom I am quite familiar.
As always, it's dangerous and misleading to use a single quote.
He was criticizing the tone of the so-called "social Gospel."
But he was in fact far more liberal than some would like.
A part of the Wikipedia article says,

"Niebuhr borrowed often from Paul Tillich's notion of God. He was comfortable describing God as Being-itself, the One, or the Ground of Being. In this regard, Niebuhr held something of a middle ground between the dogmatic, confessional theology of Karl Barth and the philosophically oriented neo-liberalism of Paul Tillich.
Niebuhr was also concerned with historical relativism. While God may be absolute and transcendent, human beings are not. Humans are a part of the flux and movement of the world. Because of this, the ways in which God is apprehended are never permanent. God is always understood differently by people at different times in history and in different social locations. Niebuhr's theology shows great sensitivity to the ways in which expressions of faith differ from one religious community to another. His thought in some respects anticipated latter-day liberal Protestant concerns about pluralism and tolerance."

Well, This was supposed to have been a short response!!!
I'm sorry it became so extremely long.
But there was a lot of ground to cover.

Again, thank you for your post,
and for sharing what you believe and why you believe.
I've tried, however imperfectly, to do the same,
and hope it sheds some light on my perspective.

Grace and Peace,
Lanny
John T 02/18/2012 22:06
Thanks Lanny,
Lots of material to consider there, and I'll likely not be able to digest it all at once and will likely come back and re-read more of this whole thread again.

I really do not know H. Richard Niebuhr, and that was actually a quote within my quote, so it was a 2nd degree quote. I found this part of my quote, if I am to point to the specific part that grabbed my attention, as the meat of what we've been discussing over the past weeks on this and other threads: "Within twenty-five years of the acceptance of Darwinism by the American intellectual community, practically every major seminary capitulated to liberalism. An inerrant revelation from God? Impossible! The virgin birth? Please. The deity of Christ? An attempt by the early church to compete with paganism. The atonement? How bloody and primitive! How can we believe in a God so barbaric? What was needed, these men in lock-step with the "discovered truths" of their day informed us, was a Christianity more in keeping with the assured results of current "scholarship." Fearing embarrassment, a considerable segment of the American church created just such a Christianity."

The reason I found this so surprising, is that is nails to a "T" exactly where our differences lie. Every one of those things that he mentioned fell with Darwin are things that you deny believing in, the inerrant Word of God, the virgin birth, the deity of Christ and the atonement - at least the atonement as I understand and believe. And the fact that this author had it just that succinctly in his book and I stumbled upon it was amazing. The American church has created such a Christianity - and you are indeed evidence of that. Is that good or not - well, that remains to be seen at the end of our time here on this earth. All of our actions, thoughts and deeds will one day be shown to be true or not, and we will all learn something then!

As for the pre-historic bit, I have always found this term to be laughable. By definition, something cannot be pre-historic, but rather simply early-history, or late-historic. Our history, and the history of the world encompasses all things and events, and as I understand it, we have the history of the very first man recorded in Genesis, and we have the records of his sons and daughters all the way through Christ. Nothing in this listing shows anything that would lead us to believe there is a "..." in the middle. As for the people in the other lands - quite simple, a worldwide flood (read the account of how high the water was above the tallest peaks, and think of how water reaches a natural level... hence, worldwide) and the fact that both Genesis and Paul speak of how only 8 survived, and this detail is mentioned in more than one place, show that the peoples in other areas of the Earth, and they were certainly there, we have the evidence through digging up stuff! -- all of these people were descendents of the 8, through Noah. The Bible doesn't provide any way around that. To state that this was a local flood goes quite contrary to the writings, and disagrees with not only the old but the new testament - and also contrary to the baptism of the earth in water, and our upcoming baptism by fire when the earth is destroyed in preparation for the new earth!

I too am fascinated by astronomy and biology and physics and all the incredible, unimaginable discoveries of this wondrous universe. And it doesn't diminish my faith in the slightest either! I too stand in Awe of what God has created - we see the majesty of his glory in every bit of the universe, and we are discovering more and more of his glorious detail every day - but that doesn't diminish the fact that he created it as he told us he did. The book of Genesis, and the entire Bible, I disagree with you of course here - does stand as a record and a history of events of the people and places and times of history - specifically tracing God's people! It is no wonder that all other peoples have creation and flood stories, they all came from the same source - the true creation and the true flood! The people, the Bible teaches, spread out from Babel (spelling?) and spread out to cover the whole earth! When we read of Joshua and his battles, those are real people and battles. When we read of King David - he was a real king with real people. Likewise, when we read of the people in Abraham's life, those are real, and the people listed in Noah and Adam's day are real. Think about it, the Bible goes to great lengths to list when they had their first son, and when they were born and died, in great detail! It spells it out so that we can be sure by the details that this is not just a story! Why would God place the details that Methuselah lived for 969 years in the Bible if this was not true? If this is simply a metaphor for life, then why did he list life lengths for so many?

Did the people know about germs? Certainly not in the magnification and detail that we do - but they did know about them - look at the rules that God set up - they have to do with cleanliness. Look at each of these rules and compare it with our understanding. Pork is a less clean meat, and was avoided. Mould was burned. People with contagious skin diseases were separated. No they certainly didn't have the technological detail that we did, and yes the people fell into a darker age and forgot to follow God's laws and paid for it, certainly, but these laws were there for a purpose - to keep the people strong and clean and free from disease as God promised!

And, oh I wish that every doctor would agree with the Hippocratic Oath and its pledge to do no harm! There are many doctors today that specialize in death - death of our children, death our our seniors. Mind you these are certainly not the majority, but we have centres today where children are scheduled to be put to death, hundreds a day, and yet there is no grand public outcry! In these things we are no better than the ancient child sacrificing people's of the Bible's time, except that instead of sacrificing these children at a couple years old to a god that was actually a demon, we are sacrificing them before they are even born to fit our whims of timing and to keep money that we don't want to spend. Oh, yes, I wish that those doctors would first do no harm to those children! Yes, that is an entirely different subject, and one that bothers me very much! I was just listening while driving today to a talk by Randy Alcorn, a wonderful Christian who has done much work and much writing in this regard, and I would highly recommend any of his books!

I know that we've touched on a variety of subjects here, and that's ok. I've enjoyed the discourse.

All the best,
Grace and Peace,
John
Lanny Carlson 02/19/2012 06:50
It's Sunday morning, 6 AM. I just got up, and don't have a lot of time,
but wanted to thank you for your post,
and quickly comment on just one part of it.
As for "pre-history," I was using it in the traditional sense
of before RECORDED history. Writing only began about 500 years ago,
but there is plenty of evidence of human life long before then -
the cave paintings exist in over 300 caves in France,
and some date to 30,000 years ago.
Other evidence of human culture -
religion, tool making, etc.- are even older.
The fossil record from Africa, of course, dates to much earlier times.
The earliest modern humans are nearly 200,000 years old,
an age which coincides with DNA studies.

Which raises another issue -
the DNA pool from only 2 people would have been too small
for a species to even survive, let alone lead to the diversity
of today's population
DNA studies indicate that such diversity as we see today would have taken, again, nearly 200,000 years, close to the same thing we see in the fossil record.

As for the story of Babel,
the "whole earth" in the writer's mind would have meant
the whole known earth.
There are many artifacts in North American
indicating human habitation 16,000 years ago,
long before the invention of writing.
There were also populations in other parts of the world
which were totally unknown in Biblical times.

You're right, people in Biblical times knew nothing about germs,
or any other microscopic life, though some, not all, of the dietary laws
MAY have been related to hygiene -
but that could have learned by simple observation.
Don't touch fire, you'll get burned.
Don't eat that, you'll get sick.
For years, people thought tomatoes were poisonous,
because the leaves of nightshades are poisonous.
Fortunately, they learned better!
People in Biblical times knew nothing about atoms and molecules, either,
and had no more knowledge about the larger universe either -
nova, supernovas, pulsars, dark matter, etc.
The people of Biblical times had some marvelous insights;
but let's not give them knowledge they didn't have
or didn't have the prerequisite knowledge to even understand.

The one thing we DO agree about is the Hippocratic Oath.
I have been pro-life most of my life,
and am appalled by the abortion industry, which is what it is,
and the cheapening of human life, and all life,
which has become so much a part of our culture.

Well, I've been at this for over a half hour,
so I better bring it to a close
and go listen to today's DAB!

Grace and Peace,
Lanny
John T 02/19/2012 18:57
Thanks Lanny. I would seriously question your writing date - 500 years ago doesn't even take us back to Christ, and we know there was writing well before then with the history of the scrolls. Writing has been happening for far longer than that!

Also, I would say that although we have more technological knowledge, the early humans were far wiser and without as much disease - see the lifespans of the first 10 generations, nearly 1000 years - often in the 900's and almost all over 500. Imagine the wisdom they would have! It also states that Tubal Cain was a maker of tools - there are plenty of examples of wisdom and insight in the early world, I mean, Noah built that ark with his sons - have you seen the measurements? And the Temple that was built over all those years by Solomon! That is incredible. Even the Egyptian constructions - amazing! These people were far smarter than we give them credit for. The perfect DNA and genome has become far more riddled with mutations, and we are more de-volving than we are e-volving! We have more disease than the first people's had, and partially, like the case of more recent Aids, from sins we as people have been committing. If we obeyed the law to be abstinent to marriage and stay married to one, the aids problem would literally not exist! Yes, they may not have known all the details we know today, but let's not discredit these people - they were very smart. The wise man followed stars to find Jesus, something many of us could not do today, myself included!

As for genetic information - there is far more we have to learn from DNA, and I would dare to suggest that there is no issue whatsoever with two perfectly created people having the diversity to create all of us, just as two of the dog kind created all the variety of dogs we see today. There are recent examples of twins being born, one white, one black - amazing examples of genetic diversity in action.
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