Thank you for these pre-darwinian excerpts. Assuming they were written
by Christians, I admit I was wrong in supposing that a local flood was a
child of the darwinian era.
Vernon
Glenn R. Morton wrote:
>
> >Regarding the Gn.6-9 meaning of 'eretz', it is interesting that in all
> >the Bible translations I have examined it is rendered 'earth' - not
> >'land', as Glenn so trenchantly demands. Do you agree with him that a
> >straight reading of these chapters - unhampered by all preconceived
> >notions - leads one naturally to the view that the Deluge was 'local'?
> >Wouldn't you rather agree with me that that the now widespread belief
> >that the event was 'local' is largely, if not entirely, of darwinian
> >parentage? I venture to suggest that the possibility of such an
> >interpretation would hardly have been contemplated by a Christian before
> >the Nineteenth Century.
>
> While I wouldn't want to speak for Paul, again I will cite Genesis 12:1,
> which you say should be rendered earth. "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Leave
> your earth, your people and your father's houshold..."
> Secondly, as to the local flood being of Darwinian interpretation, this
> shows how little of Christian heritage you know. I would cite Matthew
> Poole, 1670
>
> Matthew Poole wrote,
>
> "Peradventure this flood might not be simply universal over the whole
> earth, but
> only over all the habitable world, where either men or beasts lived;
> which was
> as much as either the meritorious cause of the flood, men's sins, or
> the end of
> it, the destruction of all men and beasts, required.. And the or that
> whole
> heaven may be understood of that which was over all the habitable
> parts of it.
> And whereas our modern heathens, that miscall themselves Christians,
> laugh at
> the history of this flood upon this and the like occasions, as if it
> were an idle
> romance; they may please to note, that their predecessors, the ancient
> and
> wiser heathens, have divers of them acknowledged the truth of it,
> though they
> also mixed it with their fables, which was neither strange nor unusual
> for them
> to do. "
>
> This is from a modern printing of his work:Matthew Poole, A Commentary on
> the Holy
> Bible, Vol. 1 Genesis-Job, (Hendrickson Publishers) p. 21
>
> Filby adds another:
>
> "The Bible speaks of a Flood that annihilated every living thing -
> everything that
> had breath - within that area of 'the world known to Noah as the whole
> earth -
> or land.' If it should be asserted that such a view of the Flood is
> merely a
> concession to modern geological observations it may be well to point
> out that
> Matthew Poole in his Synopsis (1670), and Bishop Edward Stillingfleet
> in his
> Origines Sacra, (1662), both held that the Bible did not necessitate a
> belief that
> the Flood covered the entire planet. These books were written 180 years
> before the real development of modern geology."Frederick A. Filby,The
> Flood Reconsidered, (Grand
> Rapids: Zondervan Publishing Co., 1970),p. 83-84.
>
> Since DArwin was born in something like 1811 I am sure you will agree that
> this was pre-Darwinian. And I am sure that as an honorable man you will
> admit that you were wrong that a local flood was a child of the Darwinian
> era.