Comment on Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’ by BobRyan.
Kris said
I believe that the flood is a local event
, likely that happened in Mesopotamia at around 2900 BC (A reasonable date since the Gilgamesh epic is dated to about 2700 BC).
To which I responded
BobRyan said –
Then you are using an extreme form of eisegesis to bend the text to the usages of evolutionism.
Instead of using local or regional terms like “land of Shinar†or “mesopotamia†or “Caanan†(regional and local terms known to Moses) – the text specifically says this is an event occuring to the EARTH, ALL FLESH on the Earth, The EARTH is filled with violence, ALL FLESH corrupt, the END of all flesh..
Thus the only limits, the only qualifiers for these terms that can be allowed in actual exegesis are the limits and qualifiers found IN the text itself.
God said that the scope is “the face of all the earthâ€.Gen 7:4
4 “For after seven more days, I will send rain on the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made.â€Pretty hard to believe that “from the face of the land every living thing that I have made†refers to God making stuff in Mesopotamia alone. That form of eisegesis just does not work in the text.
Gen 7:11
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.
12 The rain fell upon the earth for forty days and forty nights.Again – All the fountains of the great deep “but just in mesopotamia†does not work in the text as a valid “insertâ€.
“All the high mountains everywhere … All the flesh that moved on the earth — of all that was on dry land†is not a euphamism for “of all that was on dry land in mesopotamiaâ€.
Very often those who use the term “proof text†in pejorative way fail to take the time to look at what the term means – because they then go on to abandon exegesis altogether and to build their entire doctrine on “a single word†not even a “textâ€.
Kris makes this effort to bend Genesis 6 – 8 using Acts 2 (the Greek text, different author, different subject) as the excuse
And at that point I show that Kris’ argument seeks to claim that there were nations on the planet some place that Jews living there – but did not have at least one Jew from that nation showing up in Jerusalem — sans the data to support such a claim of course – but apparently willing to make the claim “anyway” presumably because it helps with a “bible details cannot be trusted” line of argument.
OTNT replies
I would hardly call attempting to interpret the meaning of the word “earth†as anything but the “whole earth†“bending the text.†The Hebrew word in question (From Strongs) is:
H776
×רץ
eh’-rets
From an unused root probably meaning to be firm; the earth (at large, or partitively a land): – X common, country, earth, field, ground, land, X nations, way, + wilderness, world.It is a word used for a lot of things from local to probably global (although the ancients’ understanding of “global†is not completely certain, let along precisely what the writers of Genesis might know of the “whole earth.†At any rate, there are quite a number of texts that use the term “whole earth.â€
The not-so-subtle point missing in your comment so far is that the “alternate usages” element exists for almost every word in every text of the Bible. HINT – that is WHY we appeal to principle of exegesis such as “context” and things like the Historical-Grammatial hermeneutic for interpreting the text RATHER than an isolated “single bent word snippet” model.
In exegesis we consider the Author and immediate context FIRST – taking the text as it reads to best undrestand how the first-order primary intended reader of the text (i.e. usually this means the author’s contemporarys) would have read the text given the way the Author writes it. The idea is to get the Author’s own intended meaning RATHER than trying to insert “mesopotamia” in the text every time by-faith-alone belief in evolutionism “needs it”.
My post gave examples “IN the text” and also gave examples of other Bible authors commenting ON that every text.
By contrast your own response and Kris’s response shows a certain need to distance itself from the actual local indicators IN the text for the scope of the flood! How “instructive” then for the unbiased objective reader!
As you point out – in your survey of OTHER texts that make no mention at all of the global flood –
OTNT said –
Many of these texts could be interpreted either in a local or global sense (and many are ambiguous in context). But below I list, after the couple of texts in Genesis, several texts that clearly are better interpreted in a local sense, as they would have little meaning in a global sense. So, given the broad use of the phrase “whole earth†it hardly seems extreme to suggest that the use of the phrase in Genesis could be a local usage,
The first rule of exegesis is “context” – your “Take any text BUT the one we are trying to render accurately” idea is the opposite of context. You are using classic eisegesis so far.
An example of just how the eisegesis model does not work is seen with Ruwach in Gen 6-8 – is that simply “wind” as it is used in some places in scripture. Are people just made up of “Wind”?
In the context for 6:3 Ruwach is the Spirit of God
Gen 6:3 –
And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
In the context for 6:17 it is the life principle in living beings.
Gen 6:17 –
And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth shall die.
Gen 7:15 – [
And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life.
Gen 7:22 –
All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
In chapter 8 it is the wind of planet earth – drying out the earth.
Gen 8:1 –
And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;
Although WIND is a valid translation for the term in Genesis 6 – it does NOT fit the context! Our JW friends often choose the eisgetical method of simply “picking a definition among the ones available” that they prefer regardless of “the context problem”. I would be very sad to find that our SDA evolutionst friends are forced to resort to those same methods.
The idea of fleeing the context — to find some place in the Bible where one of the alternate translations fits your “need” is classic eisegesis.
OTNT said
especially in light of the probable ignorance of those in the Middle East of the literal “whole earth.â€
It is unclear whether you are deliberatly trying to shoot your own argument or not with that statement.
1. If you are arguing that the Moses and his readers were so stupid that they thought mesopotamia was “the whole earth” THEN the real meaning Moses was giving and that his readers would have gotten is indeed “THE WOLE EARTH” and not “some tiny section of earth” — I do not see how such a dumbed-down-bible argument helps you with the case for context and exegesis.
2. SDAs view the Bible as the “Word of God” not the “word of ignorant people of the middleast”.
OTNT said
A worldwide flood doesn’t explain the fossil record very well anywayHow so?
A world wide flood would explain “Whale fossils at 440 feet above sea level, and the “piling” action of the wind would explain “fossil bone yards” where many fossils are all lumped in together.
OTNT said
And just for the record, I don’t see interpreting the Genesis Flood as a local event as questioning the sacredness of the Bible or the accuracy of its writers.Actually the “accept the text as it reads” model of the Historical-Grammatical model for hermeneutics – does point to the accuracy and trustworthy nature of the Bible “As it reads”.
OTNT said
I am talking about interpretation of the text. Interpreting a text in a manner that may be different than the traditional SDA approach hardly constitutes questioning the authenticity or accuracy of the Bible.The Bible says “A”, evolutionist says “B” and then innexplicably adds “but that is not questioning the Bible”????
OTNT
I just question a dogmatic interpretational approach to the Bible.(Gen 8:9) But the dove found no rest for the sole of her foot, and she returned unto him into the ark, for the waters were on the face of the whole earth: then he put forth his hand, and took her, and pulled her in unto him into the ark.
(Gen 9:19) These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.
(Exo 10:15) For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left: and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt.
In your example you give a good contrast between texts in genesis that have NO limit (other than the limit of all life on dry land) vs one in Exodus 10 where EGYPT is stated as the limit IN the context of the text you choose to ignore.
God said:
Exodus 10:3-8
3 So Moses and Aaron came in to Pharaoh and said to him, “Thus says the LORD God of the Hebrews: ‘How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me? Let My people go, that they may serve Me.4 Or else, if you refuse to let My people go, behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts into your territory.
5 And they shall cover the face of the earth, so that no one will be able to see the earth; and they shall eat the residue of what is left, which remains to you from the hail, and they shall eat every tree which grows up for you out of the field. 6 They shall fill your houses, the houses of all your servants, and the houses of all the Egyptians—which neither your fathers nor your fathers’ fathers have seen, since the day that they were on the earth to this day.’†And he turned and went out from Pharaoh.
“IN the context” of the chapter the limit is given “your territory” and seeing the earth is clearly Egyptians seeing the ground as we see in vs 4 — so carefully avoided in your illustration.
And the limiting context “IN the text” IN Gen 6-7 is “on dry land” all life “on dry land” in which there is “the breath of life”.
The very details you are ignoring by of context IN the text itself are the ones that show that your efforts are merely eisgesis and patterned after the same method used by every group on the planet trying to bend the text.
This brings up another point that I find curiously consistent when it comes to our SDA evolutionist friends. They seldom show any interest in looking at what the Bible says – but in the rare cases where they can be coaxed into doing so – they make the same kind of arguments that every non-SDA on the planet makes on other topics when they debate/object to what we say about the state of the dead, bodily resurrection, virgin birth, 10 commandments, sevent-day SAbbath etc. It is as if our evolutionist SDA friends never actually study the Bible in a context where they must rely on accurate exegesis and “context” to make the case with a non-SDA!!
But suddenly when it comes to a world wide flood they want to “try their hand at it”.
I find that whole thing very strange.
in Christ,
Bob
Table of Contents
BobRyan Also Commented
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
@krissmith777said I do beg your pardon.I made that apparently unwarranted assumption because that is the most common way to explain Ellen White’s visions by those who do not recognize her to be inspired. Perhaps you have other ways of explaining her “non-inspired†status (in your eyes), or perhaps you even recognize her to be inspired?At any rate, I won’t quote her at length (Bob Ryan has likely done so already), but you probably know that Ellen White explained the Flood and accompanying geological activities in unequivocally global terms. If you do accept her writings as inspired, how do you harmonize your beliefs with her writings?If you don’t accept her writings as inspired, just saying so is sufficient explanation.
Thanks much
It should be “expected” that this is a pro-Seventh-day Adventist web site and that even LSU and PUC will claim to be pro-SDA and will claim to accept the prophetic ministry of Ellen White.
I do not know why the idea of rejecting the ministry Ellen White would be “assumed” in this context OTHER than claims that “in practice” this or that institution is rejecting her ministry or rejecting Genesis 1 and 2 or rejecting the words in Ex 20:8-11 etc. But none of the SDA groups being discussed is on record as admitting that they reject Ellen White’s prophetic ministry.
Erv Taylor may have a correction to this sweeping claim of mine. We will see.
in Christ,
Bob
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
First is the question of biogeography. Even a layman like myself can understand the “kangaroo problem.†Of course it goes beyond just the kangaroos, involving a number of creatures, many of which probably did not have common ancestors. It has been suggested that all the many marsupial animals in Australia just all happened to die out everywhere else between Ararat and Australia. Or perhaps angels were told to herd them all to their destination. Or maybe Noah chose some of his grandchildren to take some animals here and some there, lemurs to Madagascar, for instance. But, it would seem to me that even if you can present a reasonable argument that one of these scenarios *could have* happened, the only reason one would present them would be to defend the Genesis account, rather than because there was some other scientific evidence. So, how many of our biology college professors finds one or more of these possibilities to be something he can back up with scientific evidence? If 90% or more of them can’t maintain one of these *possible scenarios,†do we fire them, and do we maybe tell the religion teachers to teach biology?
This is the “classic” bait and switch claim that evolutionists may well believe in the myth that birds come from reptiles without actually showing that to be the case – but creationists “need a video” in hand for any solution relative to the flood or else they must leave science.
The lopsided nature of that argument is fairly transparent to the unbiased objective reader.
Alvin asks
I respect Ellen White for so earnestly upholding the truthfulness of Genesis. But, does that mean I have to respect every scientific explanation she ever put forward? Am I supposed to resort to the defense of “Well, you know, not everything was *verbally* inspired,†so that we can conscientiously discard her “amalgamation†statements, as perhaps being on the same level as the number of rooms in a building. But, given that we generallly maintain that she didn’t necessarily mean that any human beings were partially descended from apes, what did she mean? Do I need to respect the amalgamation statements, even though they have been used from time to time by some people to uphold racial superiority? I respect her earnest campaign for the souls and physical well-being of black people. But, why didn’t she ever tell us what she meant by this statement, instead of us having to try to explain it to each other nowadays? Does anybody know what point she was really trying to make? Is there any useful, helpful thing we can get from this statement, as it relates to the races of men?I have addressed this point in several posts — and they mysteriously dissappear for some reason I am not clear about. Maybe my computer has a glitch when it comes to that subject.
The bottom line is that Ellen White identified what science today calls a “hybrid” as the explanation for the wide diversity in animal genomes that we see today. She never said that humans are mixed with animals.
in Christ,
Bob
Panda’s Thumb: ‘SDAs are split over evolution’
What a TOTAL SHOCKER that not one EducateTruther is willing to come forward and declare their belief in the superiority of Scripture over Science. Not Sean Pitman, not Bob Ryan, not Inge Anderson, not Oink, not
Every time I check back on this thread Kent is trying out some new “Flat earther” model trying to argue that EducateTruth people need to be “Flat earth creationists” ignoring science because of course in Kent’s mind science is opposed to the Bible.
I think Dawkins will clearly join him in that crusade – but what Christian would do it??
in Christ,
Bob
Recent Comments by BobRyan
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
george:
By definition, I don’t believe in miracles or apocryphal, anthropomorphic stories about same.Why aren’t scientists observing them today if they occur?Circular argument. If they were naturally occurring we would expect scientists to see that they are still occurring today. If they are singular events caused by an intelligent being – that being would be under no obligation to “keep causing world wide floods” as if “to do it once you must continually do it”. Armstrong went to the moon.. shall we argue that unless he keeps going to the moon so each new generation can see it … then it did not happen?
Your argument is of the form “all eye witness evidence to some event in the past is no evidence at all unless that event keeps repeating itself so we too can witness it”. Seems less than compelling.
“Could it be that science is better able to detect hoaxes and false claims?” As a rule for dismissing every eye witness account in the past – it is less than compelling. (even when that event cannot be repeated)
Evolutionists “claim” that dust, rocks and gas (in sufficient quantity and over sufficient time and a lot of luck) self organized into rabbits via prokaryote-then-eukaryote-then-more-complexity. But such self-organization cannot be “observed” today.
(What is worse – such a sequence cannot even be intelligently manipulated to occur in the lab)
By your own argument then you should not believe in evolution.
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
@Sean Pitman:Suppose you were at a crime scene … there is a tree limb on the ground and a bullet hole in the victim — “all natural causes”? or is one ‘not natural’? Those who say that nothing can be detected as “not naturally occurring in nature” – because all results, all observations make it appear that every result “naturally occurred without intelligent design” seem to be missing a very big part of “the obvious”.
Academic Freedom Strikes Again!
george:
Gentlemen,What just God would allow an innocent child to be born guilty for the sins of a distant ancestor? …What if there was only One Commandment? Do Good. ‘Kant’ see a problem with that.
An atheist point of view is not often found here – but this is interesting.
1. God does not punish babies for what someone else did – but I suppose that is a reductionist option that is not so uncommon among atheists. The “details” of the subject you are commenting on – yet according to you “not reading” – is that humans are born with sinful natures. A “bent” toward evil. That is the first gap right out of the gate between atheism and God’s Word..
2. But still God supernaturally enables “free will” even in that bent scenario, the one that mankind lives in – ever since the free-will choice of the first humans on planet earth – was to cast their lot in with Satan and rebellion..(apparently they wanted to see what a wonderful result that poor choice would create). John 16 “the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin and righteousness and judgment”. And of course “I will draw ALL mankind unto Me” John 12:32. (not “just Christians”). Thus supernatural agency promotes free will in a world that would otherwise be unrestrained in its bent to evil.
3.God says “The wages of sin is death” — so then your “complaint” is essentially “that you exist”. A just and loving God created planet Earth – no death or disease or suffering – a perfect paradise where mankind could live forever … and only one tiny restriction… yet Adam and Eve allowed themselves to be duped by Satan… tossing it all away. The “Just God” scenario could easily just have let them suffer the death sentence they chose. He did not do that… hence “you exist” – to then “complain about it”.
4. Of course you might also complain that Satan exists – and Satan might complain that “you exist”. There is no shortage on planet earth of avenues for complaint. But God steps in – offers salvation to mankind at infinite cost to himself – – and the “Few” of Matthew 7 eventually end up accepting that offer of eternal life. The rest seem to prefer the lake of fire option… sort of like Adam and Eve choosing disease and death over eternal life (without fully appreciating the massive fail in that short-sighted choice).
In any case – this thread is about the logic/reason that should be taken into account when a Christian owned and operated institution chooses to stay faithful to its Christian mission — rather then getting blown about by every wind of doctrine. Why let the alchemy of “wild guessing” be the ‘source of truth’ when we have the Bible?? We really have no excuse for that. As for science – we can be thankful that it has come as far along as it has – but no matter how far back you rewind the clock of our science history – we should always have chosen the Bible over wild guessing.
Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions
Ervin Taylor:
Perhaps Dr. Pitman would enlighten his readers what on earth “the neo-Darwinian story of origins” might be. Darwin did not address origins.Origins of what?? the first eukaryote??
Or “origins of mankind”??Darwin himself claimed that his own false doctrine on origins was totally incompatible with Genesis and that because of this – Genesis must be tossed under a bus.
hint: Genesis is an account of “Origins” as we all know — even though “bacteria” and “amoeba” are terms that don’t show up in the text.
The point remains – Darwin was promoting his own religion on origins totally counter to the Bible doctrine on origins. He himself addresses this point of the two views.
Newly Discovered Human Footprints Undermine Evolutionary Assumptions
Ervin Taylor:
Here we go again.If the footprints upon close examination, are determined not to be from a hominim/hominid, I wonder if Educate Truth (sic) will announce that determination.Or if the date of the surface is determined to be much younger, will there be a notice placed on fundamentalist web-sites.If you believe the answer to these questions are yes, I have a big bridge that I would like to sell you for pennies on the dollar.Here we go again … hope piled upon hope…no matter the “observations in nature” that disconfirm the classic evolutionary hypothesis
Reminds me of “What we still don’t know” by Martin Reese and Leonard Suskind
