WillB said:
Genesis informs that God created over a period of 6 literal days and in Exodus this information is further developed when God informs that He set His creative work as a pattern for the nation of Israel to follow. They were to work for 6 days and rest for 1 day. This makes sense only when the days are of 24 hour periods as it would be rather absurd to think the Israelites had to work for 6 days of Billions of years and to rest for 1 billion years.
Jocund: Jewish Passover is 40 days despite the fact it commemorates 40 years in the desert. It doesn't make sense that there would need to be a one-to one correlation between the original event and the period of time that honours it. That's beside the point. Evolution and billions of years worth of happenings does not require billions of years to have actually taken place.
WB: Prior to Charlie Darwin people, generally speaking, believed in an Earth of thousands of years (and yes I know there are some exceptions.)
From Darwin’s time on the ruling paradigm has come to be first – millions of years and then with increased knowledge of the enormous complexity of the cell it was hundreds of millions of years and then 3 Billion years and then 8 Billion years and now guesstimates of 13.5 to 14.5 Billions of years.
In other words when ‘scientists’ discovered that microbes to microbiologists couldn’t possibly evolve in a few million years they S T R E T C H E D the time frame to Billions of years. Call it what you like – but don’t call it science.
WillB said:
IF God had created over billions of years He could very easily have inspired Moses to choose the correct terms to convey that by using OLAM and Qedem instead of 'yom.'
Jocund: "Correct" terms according to whom?
WB: According to Biblical Hebraists. https://www.icr.org/article/literal-week-creation
“One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him.
“Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.3”
Jocund: Figurative language exists in the Bible.
WB: Indeed so. But you will have to produce a solid argument based on hard facts of Hebrew grammar that the Genesis account of creation is ‘figurative language’ because when it comes to serious matters opinions are unreliable and therefore cannot be trusted.
Jocund: Jesus speaking in parables does not make the parables themselves "less correct".
WB: Jesus spoke in parables for the purpose of teaching believers vital matters and when it comes to Genesis He verified the real literal historical account of creation and Adam and created in the beginning and NOT after Billions of years of disease, suffering and death.
Jocund:All of that is still beside the point because billions' of years of happenings could have been placed within 6 literal days.
WB: Oh really? Do please explain by way of hard facts and evidence how Billions of years could elapse inside 6 literal days of 24 hour days.
WillB said:
Furthermore, Genesis informs that animals were created according to their 'kind.' Modern science confirms that the DNA content of each 'kind' is creature specific e.g. the DNA with the feline kind will only ever produce offspring that are cats; and humans will only ever reproduce other humans.
Jocund: The finalized creations (i.e. modern animals, hypothetically) are specialized into kinds. I don't see the issue.
WB: The issue is twofold.
Firstly, God informed His readers that He created animals according to their kind e.g. the feline kind i.e. cats; and canine kind i.e. dogs and that He did so on day ‘yom’ 6 in the creative week.
Secondly, the issue is that of whom do you believe i.e. put your faith in? God the Omniscient Creator? Or ‘scientists’?
You may want to give these points serious consideration because even though you may identify as a Christian your view on this issue does matter and influences your views on other areas of life.
You could do worse than conduct research and consider the arguments of Ph.D scientists associated with creation.com who are at least as well qualified as scientists who reject Jesus Christ.
WillB said:
It's a moot point but had Charlie Darwin known about the huge complexity of the cell which is more sophisticated than a Space Shuttle his 'Origins' - which by the way doesn't identify an original olrganism - would not have reached the printer.
Jocund: I can appreciate that there are many objections to atheistic evolution but that is still a different topic than theistic/God-guided evolution.
WB: I’ve spoken to hundreds of ‘theistic evolutionists’ including William Lane Craig’s science advisor Joshua Swamiddas and what they believe is so closely connected to Darwinian evolution i.e. bacteria to Bach that you couldn’t insert a hair between their notions.
Genesis informs that God created over a period of 6 literal days and in Exodus this information is further developed when God informs that He set His creative work as a pattern for the nation of Israel to follow. They were to work for 6 days and rest for 1 day. This makes sense only when the days are of 24 hour periods as it would be rather absurd to think the Israelites had to work for 6 days of Billions of years and to rest for 1 billion years.
Jocund: Jewish Passover is 40 days despite the fact it commemorates 40 years in the desert. It doesn't make sense that there would need to be a one-to one correlation between the original event and the period of time that honours it. That's beside the point. Evolution and billions of years worth of happenings does not require billions of years to have actually taken place.
WB: Prior to Charlie Darwin people, generally speaking, believed in an Earth of thousands of years (and yes I know there are some exceptions.)
From Darwin’s time on the ruling paradigm has come to be first – millions of years and then with increased knowledge of the enormous complexity of the cell it was hundreds of millions of years and then 3 Billion years and then 8 Billion years and now guesstimates of 13.5 to 14.5 Billions of years.
In other words when ‘scientists’ discovered that microbes to microbiologists couldn’t possibly evolve in a few million years they S T R E T C H E D the time frame to Billions of years. Call it what you like – but don’t call it science.
WillB said:
IF God had created over billions of years He could very easily have inspired Moses to choose the correct terms to convey that by using OLAM and Qedem instead of 'yom.'
Jocund: "Correct" terms according to whom?
WB: According to Biblical Hebraists. https://www.icr.org/article/literal-week-creation
“One leading Hebrew scholar is James Barr, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Vanderbilt University and former Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford University in England. Although he does not believe in the historicity of Genesis 1, Dr. Barr does agree that the writer's intent was to narrate the actual history of primeval creation. Others also agree with him.
“Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1-11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that (a) creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience; . . . Or, to put it negatively, the apologetic arguments which suppose the "days" of creation to be long eras of time, the figures of years not to be chronological, and the flood to be a merely local Mesopotamian flood, are not taken seriously by any such professors, as far as I know.3”
Jocund: Figurative language exists in the Bible.
WB: Indeed so. But you will have to produce a solid argument based on hard facts of Hebrew grammar that the Genesis account of creation is ‘figurative language’ because when it comes to serious matters opinions are unreliable and therefore cannot be trusted.
Jocund: Jesus speaking in parables does not make the parables themselves "less correct".
WB: Jesus spoke in parables for the purpose of teaching believers vital matters and when it comes to Genesis He verified the real literal historical account of creation and Adam and created in the beginning and NOT after Billions of years of disease, suffering and death.
Jocund:All of that is still beside the point because billions' of years of happenings could have been placed within 6 literal days.
WB: Oh really? Do please explain by way of hard facts and evidence how Billions of years could elapse inside 6 literal days of 24 hour days.
WillB said:
Furthermore, Genesis informs that animals were created according to their 'kind.' Modern science confirms that the DNA content of each 'kind' is creature specific e.g. the DNA with the feline kind will only ever produce offspring that are cats; and humans will only ever reproduce other humans.
Jocund: The finalized creations (i.e. modern animals, hypothetically) are specialized into kinds. I don't see the issue.
WB: The issue is twofold.
Firstly, God informed His readers that He created animals according to their kind e.g. the feline kind i.e. cats; and canine kind i.e. dogs and that He did so on day ‘yom’ 6 in the creative week.
Secondly, the issue is that of whom do you believe i.e. put your faith in? God the Omniscient Creator? Or ‘scientists’?
You may want to give these points serious consideration because even though you may identify as a Christian your view on this issue does matter and influences your views on other areas of life.
You could do worse than conduct research and consider the arguments of Ph.D scientists associated with creation.com who are at least as well qualified as scientists who reject Jesus Christ.
WillB said:
It's a moot point but had Charlie Darwin known about the huge complexity of the cell which is more sophisticated than a Space Shuttle his 'Origins' - which by the way doesn't identify an original olrganism - would not have reached the printer.
Jocund: I can appreciate that there are many objections to atheistic evolution but that is still a different topic than theistic/God-guided evolution.
WB: I’ve spoken to hundreds of ‘theistic evolutionists’ including William Lane Craig’s science advisor Joshua Swamiddas and what they believe is so closely connected to Darwinian evolution i.e. bacteria to Bach that you couldn’t insert a hair between their notions.
