From: Vernon Jenkins (vernon.jenkins@virgin.net)
Date: Tue Oct 28 2003 - 17:56:03 EST
Hi Gordon,
I quite agree that Scripture must be read in context. But this you are
failing to do in respect of Gen.2:6, I suggest. Here is the NASB rendering:
"But a mist used to rise from the earth and water the whole surface of the
ground." This is surely more suggestive of a _dew-like_ process than
rainfall. Again, if you are correct, reference to the _absence_ of rain in
the previous verse would surely lead one to expect the simpler and more
direct sequel, "Then it rained." - or its equivalent. In this context I fail
to see that Job 36:27 supports your contention.
You deny the necessity of the rainbow being a novelty when given as a token
of the Noahic covenant; this on the basis that the tokens associated with
the memorial of the Lord's Supper and with the rite of circumcision were
adaptations of _existing_ human practices. So let's consider the NASB
rendering of Gen.9:13-15: "I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a
sign of a covenant between Me and the earth. And it shall come about, when I
bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud, and I
will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living
creature of all flesh; and never again shall the water become a flood to
destroy all flesh." Would it have been necessary for God to have told Noah
where, and under what circumstances, this sign would appear if it had not
been a novelty?
It is worth observing that the Christian evolutionist has a second problem
with these verses: since Noah's time many _local_ floods have occurred - in
some cases, wiping out complete populations; ergo, if we believe the
covenant of the rainbow to be true, the Mabbul could not have been _local_!
This conclusion is reinforced by the ludicrous notion that a large
ocean-going vessel (built over a period of 100 years) was needed to take
Noah, his family and menagerie from A to B, when a leisurely walk (occupying
a few months, perhaps), taken before the big event, would have achieved the
same result.
I'm sure we can agree that there's nothing _shameful_ about Morris'
interpretations of these passages of Scripture; and that they are possibly
valid - as I believe them to be.
Vernon
----- Original Message -----
From: "gordon brown" <gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu>
To: "Vernon Jenkins" <vernon.jenkins@virgin.net>
Cc: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, October 27, 2003 1:49 AM
Subject: Re: Academics who actively support Young Earth Creationism
>
> One must read Scripture in context. Genesis 2 is part of the account of
> the Fall. It gives some background. The Garden of Eden is essential to the
> account. The region around Eden was barren before the Garden was planted.
> Gen. 2:5 tells us this. It also tells us why. The hydrologic cycle was the
> same then as it is now. Vegetation couldn't exist without either rain or
> human help. If there had been another hydrologic cycle in place, the
> author was mistaken in his assignment of the cause of this desolation. One
> or the other or both of these two conditions had to change before the
> Garden could exist. Certainly the second was changed in verse 7. How does
> verse 6 fit into the context? Isn't this the correction of the first
> problem? The word that has been variously translated as mist, vapor,
> fountain, or streams occurs only here and in Job 36:27. In Job it is
> associated with the formation of rain.
>
> Why should the sign of the Noahic covenant be a novelty? Was circumcision
> unknown before Abraham? Were bread and wine unknown before the Last
> Supper?
>
> Gordon Brown
> Department of Mathematics
> University of Colorado
> Boulder, CO 80309-0395
>
>
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