On 26 Oct 95 14:48:25 EDT you wrote:
>Glenn wrote:
GM>If you say that there was no farming for 40000 years after man's
creation,
>then the Bible is clearly wrong to say that Cain and Abel farmed. >>
JB>Of course I never said anything like this, but this struck me as
very curious
>indeed.
>
>1. Glenn says he believes the Bible, exactly as written.
>2. Glenn says there can be no recent creation because, e.g., there is no
>evidence of farming during this time period he cites.
>3. so Glenn's answer is that Cain and Abel did their farming over 5.5 million
>years ago.
>
>Does anyone else find this as curious as I?
I do. Firstly, no one "believes the Bible exactly as written". There
is always an interpretative element. The Bible might be infallible
but our interpretations aren't.
Secondly, just because "there is no evidence of farming during this
time period" (ie. about 40,000 years ago), that does not mean there
was no farming at all. It could mean that the farming was relatively
low-level and small-scale, and did not leave much evidence. The Bible
tells us that "Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil" (Gn 4:2).
It does not say how they did it. It is possible (even probable) that
it was a very simple and primitive form of pastoralism and
agriculture, that left little if any evidence behind.
Thirdly, the gap that the Old-Earth/Young view defends between an
origin of Adam (say) 40,000 years ago, and the first evidence of
farming (say) 10,000 years ago, yields a gap of only *30* thousand
years. This pales into insignificance compared with Glenn's gap
between his Homo habilis Adam *5,500* thousand years!
Fourthly, if the Bible says something and science seems to say
something different, it is bad practice to prematurely reduce either
to the view of the other. Both could be correct, but we might not yet
see how. Here I find Bacon's "two books" approach invaluable (sorry
David! :-)). Nature and the Bible must eventually agree without
doing violence to either. In particular, I find Glenn's solution to
the lack of sedimentary evidence for the Flood that Noah was a H.
habilis who lived 5.5 MYA, as not doing justice to the Biblical
evidence.
God bless.
Stephen
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