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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: Noah
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Grits
Compassionate fundamentalist
# 4169
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Posted
quote:
It's one of the sort of matters which we usually discuss on our Dead Horse board because people rarely, if ever, shift their views one way or another on it, but at least people can explain their views a bit more to each other
Thank you for the information you posted. I do appreciate and learn from these other views, and I especially enjoy knowing so many who take their study and belief so seriously. Makes me all the more hopeful for the world.
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Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff, and shut it when I've said enough. Amen.
Posts: 8419 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Feb 2003
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Dave the Bass
Shipmate
# 155
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Posted
"There was a man who had two sons";
"A farmer went out to sow his seed";
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho".
All opening words from some of the parables in Luke's gospel (NIV) - and nowhere does Jesus give any indication that these events didn't happen. It was understood by his audience that these were stories he was telling to make a point, and the point he was making transcends the question of whether the stories were of actual events.
We tell the story of the flood, and all the other stories in the old testament, not just because they are great stories, but also because we believe that they contain truths about God. And, just as in the parables, these truths transcend the stories that contain them, so that the question of whether the stories tell of real events is actually not very important. What we believe about God remains whether the stories are literally true or not.
Posts: 2162 | From: In a forest | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by DaveC:
We tell the story of the flood, and all the other stories in the old testament, not just because they are great stories, but also because we believe that they contain truths about God.
Beautifully put, Dave. ![[Not worthy!]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
And the truths about God are profound ones, told better in a story than by an explanation. ![[Angel]](graemlins/angel.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by DaveC:
We tell the story of the flood, and all the other stories in the old testament, not just because they are great stories, but also because we believe that they contain truths about God. And, just as in the parables, these truths transcend the stories that contain them, so that the question of whether the stories tell of real events is actually not very important. What we believe about God remains whether the stories are literally true or not.
Reader alexis
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
I'm perplexed.
When did the flood occur? Allegedly within human history, and yet there is no worldwide flood layer within archaeological remains.
What about further down? Again, nothing. There is no period within earth history that shows world wide flood deposits.
Are we supposed to think that the miles of sedimentary rock are the flood deposits? Then why are the fossils within them so well sorted? What phenomenon sorted ammonites by complexity of shell sutures, so that the simpler patterns are always found in the lower strata? What ensured that all the grass was somehow ripped off the land and kept in the top Cenozoic strata? What ensured that Acanthostega's bones ended up in strata just above those of Panderichthys and just below those of more terrestrial amphibia?
I have to suspend far too many critical thinking faculties to believe in a world wide flood.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Freddy
Shipmate
# 365
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
so you believe in a local flood Karl?
I think the point is that the story isn't about a flood at all. This was just an ancient way of describing big changes in the ancient past, a plausible description of some kind of ancient disaster caused by man's sins. Floods were something familiar and understandable.
For what it's worth, I have always been taught that there was a literal event like a flood, but not a flood of water, in which the people of the most ancient church died out at some point in pre-history. Personally, I link it with the inexplicable extinction of the Neanderthals.
It was not a flood of water but a flood of evil.
The deep and close spiritual relationship of the people of the most ancient church was physically linked with their breathing. As this relationship ended, because of their increasingly sinful lives, they were literally unable to breathe.
Among a few, however, the thought was able to separate from the will, their breathing changed to the more vouluntary kind of breathing we now enjoy, and they survived. This was Noah.
The flood was a flood of evil, which drowned people as surely as any natural flood. How would an ancient person ever describe this?
I wouldn't expect people to accept this particular explanation. I merely use it as an example of a non-literal way of explaining the flood description. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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"Consequently nothing is of greater importance to a person than knowing what the truth is." Swedenborg
Posts: 12845 | From: Bryn Athyn | Registered: Jun 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
so you believe in a local flood Karl?
I am agnostic as to whether the flood myth derives from a specific event (such as the inundation of the Black Sea) or whether it is a story informed by knowledge about various flood events.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
[ I shall now have some cow pie for breakfast.
On the train to work this morning it occured to me that our local supermarket now sells green eggs. OK, it is only the shell that is green, but a little colouring will fix that. I rarely eat ham, but I am sorely tempted.
I succumbed. Details will be posted soon on the Mystery Worshipper Gin thread.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Freddy:
I think the point is that the story isn't about a flood at all. This was just an ancient way of describing big changes in the ancient past, a plausible description of some kind of ancient disaster caused by man's sins. Floods were something familiar and understandable.
For what it's worth, I have always been taught that there was a literal event like a flood, but not a flood of water, in which the people of the most ancient church died out at some point in pre-history. Personally, I link it with the inexplicable extinction of the Neanderthals.
Hmmmm...
I want to stick my hand up for a literal reading of the Bible.
I'm pretty sure that the people who wrote down the story of the flood thought that they were writing history.
In which case, for us old-fashioned Biblical literalists, it has to have been a local flood because there is no evidence of a recent worldwide flood - things like that leave marks on the surface of the planet. Take a look at the scablands of Washington State some time - do an internet search for Lake Missoula.
We do, of course, have plenty of evidence for widespread glaciation, which was widely misinterpreted in the late 18th and early 19th century as evidence of the Genesis Flood. But these explanantions have been untenable since the 1820s - people like Sedgwick & Buckland (devout Christians) more or less established the impossibility that the geology of even Britain can be explained by a single massive flood.
Anyway, it isn't the Flood that causes problems for a literal interpretation of the Bible - as we know God is honest and the Bible true, and as we know there was no recent global flood, the account of Noah must refer to a regional flood - it is the bit between Adam and Noah with all those long lives.
And, of course, the Tower of Babel. The idea that everyone in the world, or even everyone in Mesopotamia, spoke the same language just five or six generations before Abraham is much harder to fit in with current scholarship than is the idea that there was a huge (but not global) flood
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Grits
Compassionate fundamentalist
# 4169
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Posted
quote:
"There was a man who had two sons";
"A farmer went out to sow his seed";
"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho".
All opening words from some of the parables in Luke's gospel (NIV) - and nowhere does Jesus give any indication that these events didn't happen. It was understood by his audience that these were stories he was telling to make a point, and the point he was making transcends the question of whether the stories were of actual events.
They actually begin:
"And he told this parable, saying..."
"He spoke by way of a parable..."
"'And who is my neighbor?' Jesus replied and said..."
No where in Genesis, nor in any of the other OT or NT references to Noah, does the wording even remotely postulate the flood as a fictional event.
I am in total agreement with your loving and universal view that, whatever the answer, it can NEVER supersede the meaning nor the love behind the lesson. I would never let it be a bone of contention that would prevent being able to show someone the way to Jesus. Perhaps God lets such diatribes exist to keep us in the Word, to keep us studying, to keep us interested and excited about all the possibilities of what was and what is to come.
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Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff, and shut it when I've said enough. Amen.
Posts: 8419 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Feb 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
No where in Genesis, nor in any of the other OT or NT references to Noah, does the wording even remotely postulate the flood as a fictional event.
That's as maybe, but somehow I have to come to terms with the simple fact that a global flood never happened.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
The sheer weight of water in a 5 kilometer deep flood would have created a pressure of 15 tons to the square inch and killed all the plants. If it lasted for a year the result would have been utterly cataclysmic.
Whoops ![[Embarrassed]](icon_redface.gif) Actually it is 3 tons not 15. An embarassing miscalculation.
But it would still have killed all the plants.
Glenn
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
That link is to an article which appears to pre-suppose that the Bible is inerrant.
What was your point?
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Kevin Iga
Shipmate
# 4396
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Posted
I'll speak as someone who once was interested in tying together Genesis 1-8 with geological history, and finding creative ways to make it fit, but in recent years, by focusing on the narrative intent of the story, feels comfortable with the idea that any combination of pieces of it are metaphorical.
1. Statements like "X can't have happened, scientifically" are harder to prove than you might think, because there is a wide range of interpretation that includes events we haven't thought of yet. The filling of the Black Sea is a recent example of this. What's to say we won't think of something else one day that's an even better explanation?
2. "To get the water there and back would take a miracle" kind of begs the question. "Of course the flood was miraculous," the inerrantist responds. "That's just the point." Or do you think the Bible was there to record natural historical events that are have no supernatural component?
3. "The writers couldn't have known X" is an argument with limited value if you believe God inspired these writers to write precisely those words. Not all inerrantists believe that, but they generally believe something close to it. After all, people are flawed, but the reason an inerrantist believes the Bible is not flawed is because he or she believes the words of the Bible are exactly as God intends them, and His testimony. And God knows about the shape of the earth and about plate tectonics and so on.
The main way the historical context would have an impact, then, is that God knew the mindset of the people He was writing to, and used their frame of reference to explain what He wanted them to understand (typically spiritual truths and not the hydrologic cycle). So He says the heavens opened and rain fell, but in Ecclesiastes, when He talks about the fact that the world goes on in cycles no matter what we do, He points out that water goes down the to sea, and returns to the place where it rains.
Really, then, this point is really based on a more fundamental issue: where the Bible comes from. Is it a bunch of human writings that got collected and at some point people found useful for faith? Or is it a collection of writings whose every word was shaped by God and which God directed to be handed down through the generations?
Or to put it another way, is the formation and transmission of the Bible different, fundamentally, from that of Greek or Babylonian myths?
4. In a way, modern inerrancy is derived from a certain scientific approach. The scientist may like some theories more than others, but must, in the end, test these theories against the natural world using experiments designed with sound methodology. The inerrantist may like some theories more than others, but must, in the end, test these theories against the text of the Bible using hermeneutics designed with sound methdology. Sometimes scientists disagree amongst themselves, since the level of proof needed is different for different people. Sometimes inerrantists disagree amongst themselves, since the level of proof needed is different for different people.
To the inerrantist, the "liberal" Christian is being arbitrary in not using the same strict standards of proof for their theories. Instead they seem to choose which stories are historical and which are metaphorical based on their current scientific understanding of the natural world. To the inerrantist, this puts the scientific methodology of understanding the natural world as more certain than their "scientific" methodology of reading the Bible, and to them, it should be the other way around.
To the inerrantist, the ideal is to independently study science and the Bible and, in the end, find they are saying the same thing, thereby each validating the other. When they are in conflict, the inerrantist believes that something was wrong with one or the other interpretation, and tends to be more suspicious of science than "liberals".
Okay, that being said, I am still in some sense an inerrantist in a broad sense even though I accept Darwinian evolution and think many of the stories in Genesis 1-8 are metaphorical. I can say this because I try to decide which stories in the Bible are metaphorical and which are literal using evidence internal to the Bible, and try not to let my scientific beliefs interfere with that process. I have, however, found it necessary to consider the historical and cultural milleu of the O.T. Israelites, including examining stories of other ancient Near-East cultures. I have also had to think theologically about the role these passages play in our spiritual walk.
I'm still not certain about Noah. It seems that the text doesn't require a global flood, based on the range of literary meaning. It also therefore doesn't require that *all* animal species were in the ark. Again, the genre and use of language permits some level of hyperbole. Perhaps "animals" meant not Kingdom Animalia, but those animals that were herded and used by man.
The geneaologies connecting Noah to Adam on the one hand and Abraham on the other are similar in some ways to other ancient geneaologies, and geneaologies used in some tribal peoples today, and based on this similarity and my understanding of these other cases, I don't think they were intended to be literal, but rather to explain relationships between nations. I'm a little perplexed about why ages of fathering and dying are even there, not to mention their extreme longevity, and I suspect there is a hidden meaning that is not literal (though I have no problem with a handful of people living hundreds of years).
It's hard to understand why the story is in the Bible the way it is, on literary grounds. It is handy later in the Bible, but there are many details in the story (like the size of the ark and the number of days on the water) that don't seem to add much to the metaphorical uses.
I've already tossed in a hypothesis that the Noah story was intended as a parody of the Babylonian Utnapishtim story. That would make some sense to me, though I carry that theory around as one possibility of many.
Kevin
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Presbyterian /prez.bi.ti'.ri.en/ n. One who believes the governing authorities of the church should be called "presbyters".
Posts: 521 | From: Pepperdine University | Registered: Apr 2003
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
That link is to an article which appears to pre-suppose that the Bible is inerrant.
What was your point?
just that the Bible doesn't teach a flat earth, that's all. Nothing profound I'm afraid.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
Let me summarise their argument:
Th Bible does not explicitly teach a particular cosmology. It can be taken to suggest that the earth is flat. But that would be a false cosmology (presumably because we beleive the earth to be a globe). Because the Bible is inerrant, it cannot teach something false. Only a sceptic would suggest that the Bible teaches something false, so only a sceptic would say that the Bible refers to a flat Earth.
How exactly does this highly fallacious argument make your point?
To say that a flat earth is a false cosmology is a modernist viewpoint and nothing short of chronological snobbery. Why should what people beleived three thousand years ago be automatically false, and our views true? If the Bible is understood as progressive revelation, there is nothing "false" about a flat earth worldview.
This highlights that flaw of inerrancy in that it insists that the Bible must be literally correct in terms of a modernist worldview. Why is this worldview correct? Just hang around another couple of thousand years, and it will be superseded.
The early chapters of Genesis make clear sense in terms of a flat earth model. They are also clearly contradicted by modern cosmology. IMNSHO, it is a mistake to view either worldview as "wrong". They both have significant use in terms of the understanding that man has about his place in the world, and God's dealings with it. Ultimately, there can be no conflict between the Bible (or the book of "why") and the natural universe (the book of "how"). There will of course be conflicts between thologians and scientists, because both have limited understanding.
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
quote:
Let me summarise their argument:
Th Bible does not explicitly teach a particular cosmology. It can be taken to suggest that the earth is flat. But that would be a false cosmology (presumably because we beleive the earth to be a globe). Because the Bible is inerrant, it cannot teach something false. Only a sceptic would suggest that the Bible teaches something false, so only a sceptic would say that the Bible refers to a flat Earth.
How exactly does this highly fallacious argument make your point?
The point is that I believe God kept the writers from explicitly putting a false cosmology in there.....the Bible does not explicitly teach false science.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
So what is false science - the belief of 21st century man in the year 2003?
Sceince is continually changing and evolving. Did Neton express false science? No he made the best approximation given the available data. So did Einstein. And so did the author of Genesis.
A flat earth model in the Bible is not false science - it is the best fit to the available data for the culture within which it was written.
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
Duh! Science, Newton. ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
(retreats into gin-shop mumbling incoherently)
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
It gets worse:
quote:
So what is false science - the belief of 21st century man in the year 2003?
should read
So what is false science - a belief that disagrees with the worldview of 21st century man in the year 2003?
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
the Bible does not explicitly teach false science.
Quite true. But then the Bible does not explicitly teach any science - false, true, good or bad. It's quite simply not important for Biblical teaching - which is still true no matter what science tells us.
[D'oh my grammar is awful tonight!]
[ 19. May 2003, 21:39: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Grits
Compassionate fundamentalist
# 4169
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Posted
quote:
That's as maybe, but somehow I have to come to terms with the simple fact that a global flood never happened.
I have done some thinking today. (Yes, I AM capable of clear-headed thought at times!) I believe I could actually live with the idea of a local flood, based on the following:
1. "I will blot out from the face of the land every living thing that I have made." If all living things were still centered in this "cradle of civilization" area, then I suppose it would be possible to blot out everything with a localized flood.
2. "...all the high mountains EVERYWHERE under the heavens were covered." See, I don't know about this one. Once again, one would have to assume that the locality of "everywhere" was just that everywhere known to and inhabited by man at that time. You know there were high mountains on other continents at this time.
3. "And all flesh that moved on the earth perished..." This would mean there could be no animal life on any other nonlocalized land mass. I suppose that could be possible.
One would have to continually make the assumption of a "known world" flood throughout the references, and I think I might could live with that, although I would never make it a regular practice for Bible study. I think when Jesus said, "Go into all the world..." He was telling them to go into the regions of the earth inhabited by man at that time. Of course, that region has spread considerably since that time and, if the message is for us today, gives us a much more "global" mission.
To me, critical thinking often tends to water down and negate things that may just have no explanation. They lose their worthiness in men's eyes if they can't be explained to their satisfaction. It doesn't take much faith to believe in something is laid out before you like a mathematical equation. "For the wisdom of this world is foolishness before God."
I don't mind being that kind of fool.
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Lord, fill my mouth with worthwhile stuff, and shut it when I've said enough. Amen.
Posts: 8419 | From: Nashville, TN | Registered: Feb 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by G.R.I.T.S.:
I think when Jesus said, "Go into all the world..." He was telling them to go into the regions of the earth inhabited by man at that time. Of course, that region has spread considerably since that time and, if the message is for us today, gives us a much more "global" mission.
There's not really been all that much expansion of the range of human population in the past 2000y - New Zealand and Iceland are the only places I can think of (unless you count small temporary outposts in the Antarctic and in orbit).
And you don't gain much by saying the flood was local to where humans lived - that would still be effectively global given that there have been humans in Africa for 100000 years, and in Australia for 50000 years.
And if you limit the flood to those lands occupied by people known to the writers then Noah et al were not the only humans to survive.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
quote:
And you don't gain much by saying the flood was local to where humans lived - that would still be effectively global given that there have been humans in Africa for 100000 years, and in Australia for 50000 years.
doh.....you would go and spoil a lovely worldview wouldn't you? Hmmm, think it can still work in two possible contexts, one is if you don't actually acknowledge those in other parts of the world as true humans, which I think is possible if God gave adam a unique spirit......The other scenario would be just destroying this one land and leaving the others.......but that would seem to have implications for the rainbow covenant.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
quote:
And you don't gain much by saying the flood was local to where humans lived - that would still be effectively global given that there have been humans in Africa for 100000 years, and in Australia for 50000 years.
doh.....you would go and spoil a lovely worldview wouldn't you? Hmmm, think it can still work in two possible contexts, one is if you don't actually acknowledge those in other parts of the world as true humans, which I think is possible if God gave adam a unique spirit......
Could be nasty. It would imply that modern Aborigines are not human. Possibly better not to go there?
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
The point is that I believe God kept the writers from explicitly putting a false cosmology in there
Why? Do you have any evidence for believing this?
Or do you just assume that it must be true, because you like the conclusions that such a belief leads you to better that those that you come to without such a belief?
[fixed code]
[ 20. May 2003, 08:10: Message edited by: Scot ]
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
quote:
Could be nasty. It would imply that modern Aborigines are not human. Possibly better not to go there?
Point taken......am beginning to see why so many people insist on a worldwide flood.....I suppose the other option is that the covenant means that God will never again use a flood as an act of judgment to wipe out a whole land.....but I think I'm going to have to admit at some point that I'm never going to have a clue.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
(other option would be that the flood happened before there were people in Australia......but don't think that the technology matches up in that case)
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by markporter:
(other option would be that the flood happened before there were people in Australia......but don't think that the technology matches up in that case)
Means pushing the flood back to >50,000 years ago. I think this carries its own problems...
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
WHAT MAKES A 'LOCAL' FLOOD LOCAL?
What makes a 'local' flood local is:
(a) that the rainfall or other source of inudation is so intense that the normal drainage of the area is unable to cope withh the extra flow so that the level of water builds up in an area that will be confined within a particular area by high ground.
Now the Genesis account specifically says that the waters were so high that they overtopped all the high mountains. Ararat is 5165 metres (over 16,000 feet high). In other words the confining high ground was overtopped. It is not possible for a local flood to submerge the highest mountain in the locality. Since the next nearest areas are seas then the sea level would have to be over 5000 metres too, so the flood as described in Genesis is NOT a local one.
Since, as Karl and others have pointed out, there is no evidence for a global flood then the genesis account CANNOT be literally true.
The local flood theory is not compatible with a literal reading of the account, unless God confined the waters (which it does not say that he did).
Glenn
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by G.R.I.T.S.:
I think when Jesus said, "Go into all the world..." He was telling them to go into the regions of the earth inhabited by man at that time. Of course, that region has spread considerably since that time and, if the message is for us today, gives us a much more "global" mission.
There's not really been all that much expansion of the range of human population in the past 2000y - New Zealand and Iceland are the only places I can think of (unless you count small temporary outposts in the Antarctic and in orbit).
If one of the astronauts on Apollo or Mir witnessed to Christ, would that have been in obedience to the Great Commission?
After all, it isn't part of "all the world", is it?
Obviously a silly question - neither Jesus nor any of his hearers would have been thinking about travel to the moon at the time.
And if we want to say that "world" was the Greek "kosmos" which could mean the whole created unoiverse then we can. So cosmonauts are supposed to take the Gospel with them. Let's get out there and evangelise the aliens. But whether or not the Gospel writers meant that is a different question & I somehow suspect they didn't.
Why am I wibbling here? Oh yes - the point is tht any reading of the Bible (or in fact any other text, but that's beside the point) to get the clear and literal meaning involves such judgements.
GRITS asks who are we to decide which bits are stories and which bits histories?
Good question. But the answer is that we always make such judgements whenever we read or hear anything. If you think you don't, all you are really doing is accepting the judgements of your teachers or preachers, so you are in fact basing your faith on tradition, not Scripture. Well, more than that of course, because in fact you have to interpret what your teachers and preachers say to you, and the same ambiguities arise. More so, I suspect, unless your preacher happens to be an inspired prophet.
Also, incidentally, that is the reason the common Roman Catholic criticism of Protestant insistence of the authority of Scripture as giving everything over to personal interpretation is nonsense. Because if we are under authority (as they would have us) we still have toi interpret the instructions given us by our masters. Or if we are embedded in unchanging tradition (as the Orthodox would have us) we still, whether they like it or not, would be interpreting that tradition & making choices about it, deciding what we think it means, coming to different beliefs about it than others in the same tradition have. Such choices are logically unavoidable, short of telepathy.
They are right, in that putting ourselves under the authority of Scripture does involve individual judgements - the only alternative to it is to be under the authority of tradition or leaders. They are wrong in that being under the authority of tradition and leaders also involves individual judgement (if only choosing which of the many available leaders and traditions to follow), so they can't get away from it themselves.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Since, as Karl and others have pointed out, there is no evidence for a global flood then the genesis account CANNOT be literally true.
MEEP! Logic error - absence of evidence for something is not proof that it is not true.
For example, if I assert that my invisible friend was responsible for drinking Karl's pint of Sam Smith's, but provide no evidence to support my assertion, it cannot automatically be deduced to be untrue (although most observers would regard it as being highly unlikely).
Was that point that you were making that the very substantial contradictory evidence and lack of any corroborating evidence would lead an impartial observer to conclude that, on the overwhelming balance of probabilities, there was no global flood?
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Since, as Karl and others have pointed out, there is no evidence for a global flood then the genesis account CANNOT be literally true.
MEEP! Logic error - absence of evidence for something is not proof that it is not true.
For example, if I assert that my invisible friend was responsible for drinking Karl's pint of Sam Smith's, but provide no evidence to support my assertion, it cannot automatically be deduced to be untrue (although most observers would regard it as being highly unlikely).
Was that point that you were making that the very substantial contradictory evidence and lack of any corroborating evidence would lead an impartial observer to conclude that, on the overwhelming balance of probabilities, there was no global flood?
Granted. But I would say the evidencial status of a global flood goes further than "no evidence".
There is considerable falsifying evidence - evidence that could not exist had their been a worldwide flood - the existence of continuous chinese and egyptian histories throughout the period the flood is alleged to have occured; the existence of cities from that period preserved in conditions that are incompatible with a flood, and so on and so forth.
I think it is fair to say that as much as anything in science can be certain, the global flood hypothesis has to be considered falsified.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
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# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
To say that a flat earth is a false cosmology is a modernist viewpoint and nothing short of chronological snobbery.
Ham'n'Eggs, the problem with the modernist viewpoint is that it is overconfident about the human ability to stand aloof as an impartial, rational, scientific observer. That does not mean that we are totally incapable of making decisions about the truth or falsity of beliefs, or that by calling something true or false we are acting as "modernists." One of the Ten Commandments forbade false testimony. Does this mean that the Israelites were modernists, or rather that truth and falsity are ideas upon which modernists do not have a monopoly?
A "flat earth cosmology" doesn't fit with the data that we now have; therefore, it is false. There is no snobbery about it, period.
What is snobbery is to assume that because the ancients were wrong about a lot of things that they were gullible, or that they had inferior intellects. It would be wrong to say that Hebrews were fools for believing in a flat earth, since for all the practical purposes of the Hebrews, the earth seemed flat enough.
In and of itself, though, there is no hubris in saying "This is false."
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
I do take your point.
But surely it is the case that for the authors of the Bible our current cosmology would not be the best fit for the available data, and would therefore be false.
For Newton, Einstein's General Therory of Relativity would not be the best fit for the available data, and would therefore be false.
Are future scientific discoveries false? And is our current view, that may in future be disproved, true? If something is always true, and the discovery of truth is progressive, how do we know that we have yet discovered any truth at all?
I would contend that for all practical purposes, truth often has a contextually dependant element.
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Glenn Oldham
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# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Since, as Karl and others have pointed out, there is no evidence for a global flood then the genesis account CANNOT be literally true.
MEEP! Logic error - absence of evidence for something is not proof that it is not true.
For example, if I assert that my invisible friend was responsible for drinking Karl's pint of Sam Smith's, but provide no evidence to support my assertion, it cannot automatically be deduced to be untrue (although most observers would regard it as being highly unlikely).
Was th[e] point that you were making that the very substantial contradictory evidence and lack of any corroborating evidence would lead an impartial observer to conclude that, on the overwhelming balance of probabilities, there was no global flood?
I hope Neil Robbie is reading this, he will be amused to find me caught in a logical error!
You are right Ham & Eggs, of course, and yes that is what I meant.
Your analogy might be changed to “I assert that my invisible friend was responsible for drinking Karl's pint of Sam Smith's, but provide no evidence to support my assertion not even an empty beer glass , it cannot automatically be deduced to be untrue.” ![[Wink]](wink.gif)
The opening post asked of the flood was it local or global? The dilemma that faces anyone who wants to be able to believe that the biblical account of Noah’s flood is literally historically true is that - it can’t have been local since the text says it went higher than the highest mountains; and yet
- it can’t have been global since if it was global such a massive catastrophe would have left evidence of its occurrence, but it has not.
As you have pointed out there is a way out of this dilemma – as I said in my earlier post “ The local flood theory is not compatible with a literal reading of the account, unless God confined the waters (which it does not say that he did). ” I should have added a similar qualifier to my statement about a global flood such as that after the global flood God did a huge amount of tidying up, restoration work, disposing of evidence and so on. But again the bible is entirely silent about that.
How should we regard the bible? Why not look at the Bible and see what it is like. Here we have a story that cannot be taken literally in the light of our current best theories of biology, geology, physics, the history of human migrations and so forth. Either God has massively covered up the evidence or the story is not literally historically true or inerrant. I do not believe that there is sufficient compelling evidence or other considerations which would lead to the view that Christians must regard the story as inerrant.
If biological, geological, archaeological and other such evidence counts for so little in Christians’ assessment of the Noah story why should anyone ever bother reading an evangelistic book that talks about ‘the evidence for Christianity’? If Christians play fast and loose with inconvenient evidence why should we take their appeals to convenient evidence seriously?
By the way I found your reference in an earlier post to the flat earth as a reason why the writer would not have found where the waters went a problem most illuminating.
Glenn
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
For Newton, Einstein's General Therory of Relativity would not be the best fit for the available data,
Why not? As I understand it it would fit all the observational evidence that Newton had.
G.
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
But surely it is the case that for the authors of the Bible our current cosmology would not be the best fit for the available data, and would therefore be false.
For Newton, Einstein's General Therory of Relativity would not be the best fit for the available data, and would therefore be false.
Are future scientific discoveries false? And is our current view, that may in future be disproved, true? If something is always true, and the discovery of truth is progressive, how do we know that we have yet discovered any truth at all?
Take a read of Issac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. I think it shows the problem with your reasoning.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
For Newton, Einstein's General Therory of Relativity would not be the best fit for the available data,
Why not? As I understand it it would fit all the observational evidence that Newton had.
G.
Yes, it would fit. But with the data available to Newton, it would not be the best fit. If you lined up the Newtonian model along with Einsteins, surely Occam's razor would have removed Albert's beard?
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Ham'n'Eggs
Ship's Pig
# 629
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by J. J. Ramsey:
Take a read of Issac Asimov's The Relativity of Wrong. I think it shows the problem with your reasoning.
Thanks J.J., a most excellent article.
In terms of science, it seems most satisfactory. I don't think that it deals with all the philosophical issues, however.
More thought required....
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"...the heresies that men do leave / Are hated most of those they did deceive" - Will S
Posts: 3103 | From: Genghis Khan's sleep depot | Registered: Jun 2001
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ham'n'Eggs:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
As I understand it it would fit all the observational evidence that Newton had.
Yes, it would fit. But with the data available to Newton, it would not be the best fit. If you lined up the Newtonian model along with Einsteins, surely Occam's razor would have removed Albert's beard?
Do you mean to say that Newton had no observational evidence that didn't fit his theory, but would have been better served by Einsteins? Didn't Newton talk about God having to adjust the clockwork from time to time?
Is there a physicist/historian of science on the ship?
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Do you mean to say that Newton had no observational evidence that didn't fit his theory, but would have been better served by Einsteins? Didn't Newton talk about God having to adjust the clockwork from time to time?
Is there a physicist/historian of science on the ship?
Not a historian of science, just a mad scientist. But ...
I don't think there was any observational data available to Newton that his laws of motion and gravity couldn't explain - though if someone tells me that the slight discrepancy in the orbit of Mercury was known I wouldn't think it impossible but I would be surprised. If Newton was able to understand Einsteins theories of Relativity I think he'd be happy, his mechanics can be derived from Einsteins theories outwith velocities close to the speed of light and very high gravitational fields.
As for the "adjusting the clockwork" comment. I know Newton said something like that with regard to the motions of the planets, I just can't find the exact comment and observations that lead to it. Though it may be (and I'm just speculating prior to getting time to look it up) that it was a combination of observational errors (such as explanations for such discrepancies by the later discovery of additional planets) and the complexity of multi-body calculations - the planets disturb the orbits of other planets in a non-linear manner.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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J. J. Ramsey
Shipmate
# 1174
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Posted
Three things:
- Whether a theory is true or false depends on how well it models the universe, not per se on how much we know about the universe. Therefore, it is incorrect to say that Einstein's theories would have been false in the days of Newton because there was no data known at the time for which Einstein's theories were a better fit than Newton's. Unless the universe itself was radically different in Newton's time, Einstein's theories still modeled the universe of Newton's day better than Newton's own theories. It's just that no one would have known it yet.
- If a theory is true if and only if it models the universe perfectly, then more likely than not all our theories are technically false. Technically speaking, it is more precise to think in terms of a sliding scale, with theories that more accurately model the physical universe as more true than theories that are less accurate models. In practice, though, we tend to call theories that poorly fit the data as false, and theories that fit the known data really well as true.
- We can have far more certainty about whether a theory is false than whether it is true.
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I am a rationalist. Unfortunately, this doesn't actually make me rational.
Posts: 1490 | From: Tallmadge, OH | Registered: Aug 2001
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Kevin Iga
Shipmate
# 4396
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Now the Genesis account specifically says that the waters were so high that they overtopped all the high mountains. Ararat is 5165 metres (over 16,000 feet high). In other words the confining high ground was overtopped. It is not possible for a local flood to submerge the highest mountain in the locality. Since the next nearest areas are seas then the sea level would have to be over 5000 metres too, so the flood as described in Genesis is NOT a local one.
Actually, it's not clear from the text that the ark rested on the top of the peak. It could mean that it rested in the mountainous region of Ararat, which could be interpreted to span quite a broad area.
Kevin
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Presbyterian /prez.bi.ti'.ri.en/ n. One who believes the governing authorities of the church should be called "presbyters".
Posts: 521 | From: Pepperdine University | Registered: Apr 2003
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kevin Iga:
quote:
Originally posted by Glenn Oldham:
Now the Genesis account specifically says that the waters were so high that they overtopped all the high mountains. Ararat is 5165 metres (over 16,000 feet high). In other words the confining high ground was overtopped. It is not possible for a local flood to submerge the highest mountain in the locality. Since the next nearest areas are seas then the sea level would have to be over 5000 metres too, so the flood as described in Genesis is NOT a local one.
Actually, it's not clear from the text that the ark rested on the top of the peak. It could mean that it rested in the mountainous region of Ararat, which could be interpreted to span quite a broad area.
Kevin
You are right Kevin, but my quote says absolutely nothing about where the ark came to rest so I am not quite sure what you are suggesting.
Are you suggesting that the high mountains referred to as being submerged were actually much lower and that Ararat and it neighbouring mountains were the high ground that confined the flood? The problem then would be, surely, that the flood would have been exceedingly local unless you can suggest some basin-like topography in the region that would be large. The black sea basin would be ideal but there are not any mountains in the middle of it so we would be at a loss to see how the verse about the high mountains being submerged could be true.
Glenn
Posts: 910 | From: London, England | Registered: May 2001
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markporter
Shipmate
# 4276
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Posted
forgive me if I'm wrong....but I think that I read somewhere that the word that gives mountains can just mean hills....so the highest ground within the area really.
Posts: 1309 | From: Oxford | Registered: Mar 2003
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Kevin Iga
Shipmate
# 4396
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Posted
Yeah, what markporter said. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The flood need not have actually covered Mt. Ararat for the Biblical story to be relating the event accurately. Not literally, but accurately in the ordinary use of language. Certainly we talk about mountains near my house that are only 1000 ft. high or so, and if a flood came and submerged them, I would not be lying if I said that the water "covered all the high mountains", even though within a day's drive or so I can get to mountains that are over 10,000 ft. above sea level.
The point is how God was interacting with that society at that time.
Kevin
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Presbyterian /prez.bi.ti'.ri.en/ n. One who believes the governing authorities of the church should be called "presbyters".
Posts: 521 | From: Pepperdine University | Registered: Apr 2003
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Glenn Oldham
Shipmate
# 47
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Posted
Ham'n'Eggs,
I have had a hard time following some of your arguments about the uses of the terms ‘true’ and ‘false’ when applied to theories and worldviews, but I think that I can see what you are driving at. You are seeking to claim value for ancient worldviews even if they contradict our own contemporary worldview at some levels. I approve of this.
I am not sure that you need all the arguments that you have put forward to establish this. All you really need is to point out that theories and worldviews are not all-or-nothing affairs that can be pronounced as false (totally) or true (totally). Theories and worldviews are usually much larger collections of claims and beliefs, some of which may be false, or inaccurate, without thereby causing everything about the worldview to be nonsense.
So to say that the ancient cosmology of the flat earth was false is misleading. That cosmology included the belief that the earth was flat, and we now know that particular belief to be false. (Whether we affirm this with humble indebtedness to the evidence that we have and they did not, or with snobbery, it is still false.) But that early worldview also said that the sky is above the earth and that rain falls from the sky. In saying those things it was not wrong. Similarly with our worldview today there are parts of it that are uncertain and which may well prove wrong (such as views about the expansion rate of the universe) but there are parts that are, frankly, beyond reasonable doubt (such as that the earth is round).
That is all you need really. I don’t think that it is clear enough to just say that Newton’s science was not false science – that is far too vague.
But there is a strand in what you have posted that seems to lean towards a version of the argument, which says that
quote:
All claims by scientists, no matter how well supported, may be overturned by future evidence. And that therefore we can’t be sure that we really know anything scientific at all.
Some of the occasions where you hint at this are comments such as:
quote:
(A) Why is this worldview correct? Just hang around another couple of thousand years, and it will be superseded - 19. May 2003, 20:22 -
… (B) Science is continually changing and evolving.- 19. May 2003, 20:57 - … (C) If something is always true, and the discovery of truth is progressive, how do we know that we have yet discovered any truth at all?- 20. May 2003, 18:47 -
The first problem with the argument is that it overlooks the status of some of the claims involved in ruling out parts of previous theories. For example: that the world is not flat; that phlogiston does not exist,; that the moon is not carried by a crystalline sphere; and so on. All these overturned assertions from old theories have been so comprehensively falsified that there is no chance of them returning. We are sure beyond reasonable doubt that the world is not as they described it, so we have some reliable information about the world after all. We are not going to awaken next week to the serious headline: ‘EARTH FLAT AFTER ALL SHOCK!’
Secondly, since theories are not all-or-nothing affairs the argument is based on a misconception about what it is for one theory to ‘overthrow’ or ‘supersede’ another. The idea that one theory supersedes another does not at all mean that it wipes out every claim of the previous theory. What rather happens is that much of the previous worldview is retained, some of it scrapped, some of it refined or modified, and some genuinely new concepts are introduced.
The flat earth theory was superseded by Aristotle and Ptolemy’s theory which was then superseded by Newton’s, which was then superseded by Einstein’s. To hear it put like that tempts one to say that we can never believe anything. But the temptation is misleading. Among the genuinely new insights brought in by the Greeks including Aristotle and Ptolemy was that the world is not flat but round. That has stood the test of time for over a thousand years. Neither Newton nor Einstein have ditched it, (though ‘round’ has been refined from ‘spherical’, to ‘oblate spheroid.’) And there are, of course large numbers of other details of theory which have fared the same as this example (that there are chromosomes, that the planets have orbits, and so on). As human science progresses, weeding out mistakes and consolidating and refining genuine insights, we have every reason to suppose that, overall, our current theories approximate to the truth better than previous ones. This does not, of course, mean that previous theories did not approach the truth at all (Newton’s equations guided the Voyager missions with spectacular success).
All of which is a long winded way of saying what J.J. Ramsey has already said: quote:
Technically speaking, it is more precise to think in terms of a sliding scale, with theories that more accurately model the physical universe as more true than theories that are less accurate models.
(To which i would add that it is not necessary for us to know how long the scale is, or how near either end of it we are. We know enough by knowing that our current theories are further along than the previous ones.)
(Your comments sent me off to a section in Ch 2 ‘The Sceptics’ of Janet Radcliffe Richards excellent book Human Nature after Darwin Routledge 2000. My comments are based on that. See also any introductory textbook on Philosophy of Science. A recent very detailed book on this issue (which I have yet to digest) is Scientific Realism: how science tracks truth by Stathis Psillos (Routledge 1999).)
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This entire doctrine is worthless except as a subject of dispute. (G. C. Lichtenberg 1742-1799 Aphorism 60 in notebook J of The Waste Books)
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