Interesting concept... so many things were "discovered" when we invented
the telescope. Same with the microscope, and scanning-electron
microscope (discovering microbiology and microbiological "machines").
What device will be created next to discover a new frontier? On the low
end, it seems like we've already "seen" the smallest particle, now
moving into quantum mechanics (and waves, energy). How big is our
universe? Everything we can "see" out there might be like a drop in the
ocean, correct?
...Bernie
________________________________
From: mlucid@aol.com [mailto:mlucid@aol.com]
Sent: Tuesday, December 04, 2007 3:51 PM
To: Dehler, Bernie
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Evolution in the Bible
All this trying to force the semantics of so sacred a work as the Bible
into the rational specifics of our current cosmology is doing a
disservice, in my estimate, to its real message. What happens if you
wangle yourselves a beautiful new interpretation of Genesis that is one
to one concurrent with everything we think we know right down to the big
bang and then we find out the same thing we always find out about the
largest structure we can see (IT AIN'T THE LARGEST STRUCTURE)
Every time we look hard enough, we find out that what we thought was the
largest structure was neither the largest structure nor the only one of
it's kind. From a Bayesian perspective, it is nearly inevitable that
the Big Bang will turn out to be a little pop (Local Monster Black Hole
Goes Bang) in a broad field of little pops that in turn combine to form
a bigger structure just like every material object/system we ever
examined from Quarks to Galaxy Cluster in all 40 orders of spatial
magnitude we have discovered so far. No exceptions.
Every human cosmology we ever devised was in fact refuted in exactly
this the same way. What we thought was everything there was to see,
turned out time and again to be just one of many of the same class of
object forming bigger structures in a yet larger context. The flat
earth was one of may objects in a much larger Ptolemaic structure. The
round Earth turned out to be one of many smaller structures orbiting a
much larger Copernican Sun. The Copernican Soloar System turned out to
be many star systems in a much larger galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy
turned out to be one of many galaxies in a much larger expanding Big
Bang system. Get some Vegas odds maker to give you the spread and let
your grandkids go to college on it, the big bang is not the end of the
line.
So after you get your new interpretations of Genesis all hammer into
place, you'll just have to start all over again trying to torture the
beautiful prose of Genesis that lets us know that God is the beginning
and the end of all things as well as you will ever see it written, to
fit YET ANOTHER cosmological attempt to describe all of infinite
Creation as some tidy new finite model (this time for SURE). It ain't
gonna happen. This is the new, open ended Bayesian data profile facing
modern humans, which we need to formalize in lieu of constantly thinking
we have it all but figured out. Science is not transcendent. Science
is a finite set of local relationships couched in an infinite and
infinitesimal context the full extent in either direction of which we
will never figure out. Humans cannot rationally describe Creation EVER.
We can only describe spatially local relationships over a finite span of
time, nothing more. That's the best fit the data shows.
(www.thegodofreason.com)
You can interpret the Bible just fine for how you should live your life
without trying to mangle it into some specific, rational compliance with
our constantly changing, eternally provisional, rational world view.
-Mike (Friend of ASA)
-----Original Message-----
From: Dehler, Bernie <bernie.dehler@intel.com>
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Tue, 4 Dec 2007 2:17 pm
Subject: RE: [asa] Evolution in the Bible
How could there be the spirit of God hovering over the waters before the
big bang ??? There was water before the big bang??? That right there
disqualifies it all, I think.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
Before the Big Bang our observer saw only void and darkness: the
earth did not exist. The ancient Hebrew was constricted by their
cosmology. The earth was conceived
as a flat disk floating on a subterranean sea, kept stationary by
pillars (Jb. 9:6).
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light.
The Big Bang!
...Bernie
________________________________
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu
<mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu?> ] On Behalf Of Randy Isaac
Sent: Friday, November 30, 2007 7:42 PM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [asa] Evolution in the Bible
Someone who I know only by the name of George contacted me by email
recently to share his view of concordance between science and the Bible.
He sent me the following narrative, which we briefly discussed and I
gave him my opinon. He is interested in hearing from others and he
approved my sending it to all of you for response. I'll share the thread
with him later for some feedback.
Thank you,
Randy
EVOLUTION IN THE BIBLE
Today there is a big controversy between those who insist that the
Bible means just what it apparently says: the universe and all that is
in it was created by God in
six 24-hour days, and the evolutionist who assert that the universe
evolved over many, many billions of years, and that life on earth was
not created at all but evolved
through a natural process. But, says the former, evolution is just a
theory; a theory not proven and not likely to be. It is not the purpose
of this appendix to refute the creationist as it is impossible to do so.
Evolution as claimed by some evolutionist can't be "proven" almost by
definition, although there is a mounting of evidence of at least some
sort of natural development of the stars and galaxies and of the
life-forms here on earth. Nor is creation and evolution contradictory.
Both can occur: some things being created and others evolving from those
created.
It is the purpose of this paper to show that a literal
interpretation of the Hebrew word "yom" in Chapter 1 of Genesis to mean
a 24-hour day is not necessary to
continue to assert the validity of the creation story. Indeed it can be
shown that Genesis 1 is completely compatible with modern cosmology and
evolution theories. This is accomplished with a verse by verse exegesis
of Genesis 1 relating each verse with its corresponding event as
depicted from modern theories of cosmology and evolution.
The story of the creation of the universe and of man as told in the
Bible is quite consistent with modern scientific hypotheses. It has
been said that the first chapters of Genesis are but a rewrite of the
Babylonian myth "Enuma elish". Nothing could be further from the truth.
But this paper is not designed to answer this criticism directly.
Rather it is designed to point out how remarkable is the story of
creation as told in Genesis with modern scientific thought.
The writer(s) of the first chapter of Genesis knew nothing of
evolution. Indeed their cosmology considered a geocentric solar system
as a fact, and that the earth and
the stars was bowl suspended on a sea of water. The Biblical story of
creation utilizes this cosmology throughout its narrative. So how come
its correspondence with modern
evolutionary theories? I don't know. However for the sake of argument
let us assume that the writer of Genesis had a dream in which he was at
the location where the earth was to be, and the development of the
universe was revealed to him. He then attempted write down what he saw
in that dream. However in writing what he saw he is
constrained by the perspective of his current scientific knowledge.
In what follows Scripture is taken from the King James Version (KJV),
but alternate translations from the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) and
the New American Bible (NAB) are compared with the KJV as needed.
Gen 1:1 In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth.
This is a simple statement. God created the universe as we observe
it today. ( The JPS has it , "When God began to create the heaven and
the earth.") There is no
ancient Hebrew word for "universe". Now assume there is an observer
where the earth
is to be.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and
darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the
Spirit of God moved upon the face of the
waters.
Before the Big Bang our observer saw only void and darkness: the
earth did not exist. The ancient Hebrew was constricted by their
cosmology. The earth was conceived
as a flat disk floating on a subterranean sea, kept stationary by
pillars (Jb. 9:6).
Gen 1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light.
The Big Bang!
Gen 1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and
God divided the light from the darkness.
The stars and galaxies were formed. Our observer noted the blackness
among the light from the stars.
Gen 1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness
he called Night. And the evening and the
morning were the first day.
There is no ancient Hebrew word for "epoch". A Hebrew day began in
the evening and lasted until the next evening. What is being
designated here is a complete day = time period. (JPS has it, "And
there was evening and there was morning, a first day.")
Gen 1:6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters.
The solar system, or more exactly our galaxy (?), was now formed.
(JPS translates "firmament" into "expanse". NAB has it, "Let there be a
dome in the middle of the
waters, to separate one body of water from the other.")
Gen 1:7 And God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which were under the firmament from the
waters which were above the firmament: and it
was so.
According to the scientific theory of our observer the universe was
an ocean. Now there were two oceans divided by a "firmament."
Gen 1:8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the
evening and the morning were the second day.
Both JPS and NAB translate "Heaven" as "sky". Remember our observer
is at the location where the earth is to be. While the earth had yet to
be created our observer
noted the sky.
Gen 1:9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven
be gathered together unto one place, and let
the dry land appear: and it was so.
The earth is now created. Initially it was all dry land -
semi-molten actually. It was bombarded by meteorites, but the effects
of this activity have been completely erased by tectonic activity. The
oldest known rocks date from about 3800 million years ago (Ma).
Gen 1:10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the
gathering together of the waters called he
Seas: and God saw that it was good.
Now we talk about the earth. An atmosphere came next, and with it
oceans. Modern cosmology assumes that this original atmosphere to be
quite dense, consisting of water, carbon dioxide and monoxide and other
gases expelled by volcanoes. This is called the Archean period and
lasted until about 2500 Ma. Evidence from palaeomagnetism suggest that
the continental masses drifted as a supercontinent though most of
Proterozoic time (2500 Ma-700 Ma).
Gen 1:11 And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass,
the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree
yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
Gen 1:12 And the earth brought forth grass, and herb
yielding seed after his kind, and the tree
yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after
his kind: and God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:13 And the evening and the morning were the third
day.
Life must have first originated in an oxygen-free environment;
indeed, oxygen only entered the atmosphere as a result of the actions of
living organisms. The Bible
correctly mentions the creation of plant life next. We are in the
pre-Cambrian period which started with the evolution of marine algae and
perhaps some ediacaran
(soft-bodied) faunas (not mentioned in the Bible as the writer(s) of
Genesis had no experience with them). However it is evident that our
observer lumped all plant life,
including that said to have evolved in the lower cretaceous period. The
intent here is obviously to emphasize the order of creation in very
general terms.
Gen 1:14 And God said, Let there be lights in the
firmament of the heaven to divide the day from
the night; and let them be for signs, and for
seasons, and for days, and years:
Gen 1:15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of
the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it
was so.
Gen 1:16 And God made two great lights; the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
rule the night: he made the stars also.
Gen 1:17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven
to give light upon the earth,
Gen 1:18 And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness: and
God saw that it was good.
Gen 1:19 And the evening and the morning were the fourth
day.
Verses 14 through 19 is perhaps the hardest for both scientist and
creationist to reconcile. The moon and the sun and the stars obviously
were created (or evolved)
prior to the existence of plants. But remember that our observer was
earth-bound, and when the plants were created the earth was covered by a
thick atmosphere. The earth-
bound observer noted the dilution of the dense atmosphere which had hid
the sun and the moon. So startling was this event that it is mentioned
as a separate "day" in Genesis. Actually the "day"s of Genesis are not
related the geologic epochs as envisioned by modern science in a
one-for- one basis. Rather they are a rough description of the order of
the creative process. To the earth-bound observer
the sun and moon were "created" when he saw them. Note that the sun and
moon are creatures to aid man, not deities to rule over man.
Gen 1:20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth
abundantly the moving creature that hath life,
and fowl that may fly above the earth in the
open firmament of heaven.
Genesis correctly puts the creation of sea life prior to the
creation of birds.
Gen 1:21 And God created great whales, and every living
creature that moveth, which the waters brought
forth abundantly, after their kind, and every
winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it
was good.
Gen 1:22 And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and
let fowl multiply in the earth.
Gen 1:23 And the evening and the morning were the fifth
day.
The Precambrian-Cambrian boundary coincides with a period
when there was an explosive evolution of marine life, but the fifth
"day" apparently takes us through the entire palaeozoic and mezozoic
periods. It seems likely that the oxygen levels in the atmosphere
increased very slowly. As the atmospheric oxygen built up so the
protective ozone layer developed to allow organisms to live in shallower
waters, and eventually to live outside of water entirely. More highly
developed photosynthesising organisms led in turn to the development of
animals that could breath oxygen (birds of Genesis 1:21).
Gen 1:24 And God said, Let the earth bring forth the
living creature after his kind, cattle, and
creeping thing, and beast of the earth after
his kind: and it was so.
Gen 1:25 And God made the beast of the earth after his
kind, and cattle after their kind, and every
thing that creepeth upon the earth after his
kind: and God saw that it was good.
Mammals are next created taking us through the palaeocene, eocene
and oligocene periods.
Gen 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness: and let them have dominion
over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the cattle, and over all the
earth, and over every creeping thing that
creepeth upon the earth.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the
image of God created he him; male and female
created he them.
Gen 1:28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them,
Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the
earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over
the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the
air, and over every living thing that moveth
upon the earth.
Gen 1:29 And God said, Behold, I have given you every
herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of a
all the earth, and every tree, in the which is
the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it
shall be for meat.
Gen 1:30 And to every beast of the earth, and to every
fowl of the air, and to every thing that
creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life,
I have given every green herb for meat: and it
was so.
Gen 1:31 And God saw every thing that he had made, and,
behold, it was very good. And the evening and
the morning were the sixth day.
And finally man! "Man", the Hebrew Adam, is a collective noun
processing no plural. Mankind is meant, as is shown by the plural verb
and the pronominal object. All
that is said in Chapter 1 is that God created man in God's image
("selem" = exact reproduction, duplicate) and likeness ("demut" =
resemblance). Man is said to have
been created as one who is a "copy" of God, yet this statement is
immediately modified. There is a superficial resemblance to this
narrative in the Babylonian "Enuma
elis", according to which man is partly made from the blood of a god.
Here however a completely transcendent God freely creates man like to
himself. It is in the creation of man that Christians truly part
company with some evolutionists. No matter by what process that man's
body came to be he was created in "the image and likeness
of God, and God is not a physical being. We look to Chapter 2 of
Genesis for a further analysis of this point.
The difference in the divine names of Genesis 1 - 2:4a (Elohim) and
that of Genesis 2:4b - 2:25 (Yahweh) may indeed support the hypothesis
that these two chapters come
from different sources; but they are not two different accounts of the
creation. Rather Chapter 2 is a supplement to the creation story of
Chapter 1: the latter laying out
the order of creation, while the former is concerned with the details
concerning the creation of man. The applicable passage from our
viewpoint is:
Gen 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the
ground, and breathed into his nostrils the
breath of life; and man became a living soul.
Physically man was formed as other animals, out of "the dust of the
ground." Then God breathed into man that which make man unique from all
the rest of creation: a
living soul. As evolution only concerns itself with the physical body
this is perfectly consistent with the biblical account. The rest of the
chapter relates the nature of man of man as a social animal and the
nature of woman as processing the same nature as man.
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