From: gordon brown (gbrown@euclid.colorado.edu)
Date: Tue Oct 28 2003 - 18:42:47 EST
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003, Vernon Jenkins wrote:
> 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 are assuming the correctness of a particular translation whereas
comparison of translations shows that they must be guessing at the meaning
of a rare word. There seems to be nothing unusual about mentioning the
precursor of rain.
The real problem with claiming that there was no rain before the Flood is
that if lack of rain can be a valid reason for absence of vegetation, then
you must conclude that there was no vegetation in uninhabited areas before
the Flood even though it has been around since the third day of creation
in the Genesis 1 account.
> 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?
God was not telling Noah what a rainbow was. He was telling him what it
should remind him of.
> 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.
What on earth does this have to do with evolution? The Flood, although not
global, was very large, much larger than these other local floods. The
point B to which Noah was transported was flooded, and he could not have
survived the Flood there without the ark.
Gordon Brown
Department of Mathematics
University of Colorado
Boulder, CO 80309-0395
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