The flood does seem global to me,but I'm open to hear another view and to be honest I haven't really studied this indepth.
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People who are always looking for fault,can find it easily all they have to do,is look into their mirror.
There they can find plenty of fault.
I agree. However, I think the point is that the Bible might be describing eternal spiritual truths and might not be meant to be read as a literal scientific document. It's truths would then stand regardless of the findings of science.
For example, if they PROVED beyond a reasonable doubt that man evolved tomorrow it would devastate faith in the Bible if we are to read it literally like a literal historical or scientific document. However, if we see the Bible as God's letter to man expressing truths in stories that are not necessarily required to be taken literally, those truths still stand. Consider the story of The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf. Was there a literal little boy? No. A literal wolf? No? Is the story a literal fact? No. But does it teach a truth? Yes. If understood like this, Genesis is God's "anointed story", written to man to teach us not about a literal Adam and Eve with coats of skins... but about ourselves and our need for a blood covering. While The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf is merely a story written by men... Genesis would be a story given directly from God. An eternal truth.
Aquilas, you would have to prove to me by the Bible itself (and I know many would reject this type of attempt as being circular in nature) that Genesis 1 is a story similar to The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf in that it exemplifies a truth much like the parables Pelathais is appealing to. I need more than your interpretation. I don't see the NT authors speaking of Adam or Eve as anything other than real people and not characters in a "story".
Humans are not error proof therefore science is not error proof. I know the word of God is true because God has proven to me the veracity of his word. Comparing certain accounts in the OT, accounts that don't SEEM to line up with what we see around us because of the way scientists explain these phenomenon, with parables is not sufficient, in my mind, dismiss a literal interpretation of the creation or the flood account.
How do you explain the speed with which the fig tree dried up in Mark 11:12-21? It dried up and withered in one day! The disciples were amazed. Matthew 21:20 Do you know how long it takes cut flowers to dry up and wither? What is so amazing about God causing plants to grow up to a mature state in the matter of seconds?
I only wandered back into this thread looking for something Pel said that I wanted to quote elsewhere but I couldn't find it!!! Pel where is that little ditty you said about preferring to have a thousand loose threads than every thing in a nice little package and be wrong (my paraphrase)?
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His banner over me is LOVE.... My soul followeth hard after thee....Love one another with a pure heart fervently. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee, that, if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God?
To be a servant of God, it will cost us our total commitment to God, and God alone. His burden must be our burden... Sis Alvear
I've done a lot of reading on that. Aquila and I sort of started on a topic about it. He started calling me names though and threw a bunch of gluons at me. Funny thing, they went right into his monitor and across the Internet. They were split up into several different packets and a bunch of header information appended and then some how got through my port sniffer and hit me square in the face; but not before condensing into baryonic matter and accumulating mass. I think the both of us would get a Nobel prize if we could figure out how they became massive.
I don't see it as a lie, especially since God discloses the information in His Word. For example, if I created a diamond through artificial means and wrote to you about how I did it... did I lie? No. But if you refused to read what I wrote regarding how I made it and claimed that it was formed by thousands of years of pressure... you'd be the one misleading people.
If I remember correctly, even Hugh Ross believes that God formed a literal man whom God named Adam from the dust of the earth. Was Ross' idea of Adam a lie because God formed him with an appearance of age? No.
When Jesus cursed the fig tree and it withered...it essentially aged before their eyes and died. Was that a lie? No. If God actually created all things in six literal days it would demand an appearance of age (however in a perfect condition). And since God revealed this in his Word... it cannot be said that he lied. However, if this is true, it could be said that many a man has disregarded what God said he did in the Bible, and thereby ended up misleading themselves.
The big difference is that this man-made diamond would not have any "history" to it that showed it forming over a long period. Therein lies ALL the difference.
The same can be said about "rapid aging". All your doing is accelerating the "break down" process but you are not adding false history (things that never happened) in the process. For instance, if God accelerated the age of a tree so that it grew from sapling to 100 foot monster in one day, you would not find any rings (indication of history) inside of it. It would be akin to God creating a rock.... complete with fossils of creatures that never actually lived, inside of it, all for the appearance of age.
Aquilas, you would have to prove to me by the Bible itself (and I know many would reject this type of attempt as being circular in nature) that Genesis 1 is a story similar to The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf in that it exemplifies a truth much like the parables Pelathais is appealing to. I need more than your interpretation. I don't see the NT authors speaking of Adam or Eve as anything other than real people and not characters in a "story".
Most believe that Jesus is speaking of Adam and Eve, yet it’s interesting the wording that Jesus chose,
Mark 10:6
But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.
Jesus appears to be speaking of mankind, not necessarily of Adam and Eve. When Paul speaks of Adam it is in the context that in Adam all die. Rather or not Adam is a literal person or a divine literary device, we all discover our own spiritual death in him. Adam is me, Adam is you. We’ve all rebelled from God. Eve is found in all of us in that we’ve all given into temptation. They are very real… even if not literal. They are in all of us. Jesus is therefore the Second Adam, in him we have life.
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Humans are not error proof therefore science is not error proof. I know the word of God is true because God has proven to me the veracity of his word. Comparing certain accounts in the OT, accounts that don't SEEM to line up with what we see around us because of the way scientists explain these phenomenon, with parables is not sufficient, in my mind, dismiss a literal interpretation of the creation or the flood account.
I agree for the most part. However, my point is that even if science PROVED evolution or something like it beyond a doubt, the Bible’s TRUTH is an eternal TRUTH that isn’t subject to time and space. Its truths are everlasting. Its truths are not strictly history or science… its truths are spiritual, mystical, and eternal. It doesn’t matter if there was a literal week or a literal Adam. The Bible’s point is that God created all things, man is his prized creation, and man has fallen into sin and cannot cover himself in his own righteousness (fig leaves), but rather it takes the coats of skins (the sacrifice of the lamb) to cover mankind’s unrighteousness. In Genesis we don’t see just history… we see the Gospel.
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How do you explain the speed with which the fig tree dried up in Mark 11:12-21? It dried up and withered in one day! The disciples were amazed. Matthew 21:20 Do you know how long it takes cut flowers to dry up and wither? What is so amazing about God causing plants to grow up to a mature state in the matter of seconds?
I don’t doubt that God can or maybe even did do exactly that. My point is that if we are to have intellectual honesty, we have to admit that the scientific evidence appears to point to a very slow evolution.
The big difference is that this man-made diamond would not have any "history" to it that showed it forming over a long period. Therein lies ALL the difference.
Ah, but a diamond perfectly formed by the creator in full maturity might. Consider also that we don’t know the methods. Did God pick up coal and “change its properties” instantly? Did God create the diamond out of “thin air”? Did God pick up the coal, hold it tightly in his hand, and speed up time around the diamond to form it naturally in a matter of seconds, producing the end result? We don’t know. What we do know is what God said. Therefore if God created all things in six literal days and disclosed it in his Word, he’s told the truth…even if science thinks otherwise.
Did Jesus heal the sick, blind, and halt? Did Jesus raise the dead? Did he curse the fig tree? Did he turn water into wine? Did he, himself, rise from the dead? Obviously “miracles” aren’t beyond him.
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The same can be said about "rapid aging". All your doing is accelerating the "break down" process but you are not adding false history (things that never happened) in the process. For instance, if God accelerated the age of a tree so that it grew from sapling to 100 foot monster in one day, you would not find any rings (indication of history) inside of it. It would be akin to God creating a rock.... complete with fossils of creatures that never actually lived, inside of it, all for the appearance of age.
If God accelerated the age of a tree so that it grew from a sapling to a 100 foot monster in one day, we just might find tree rings. It depends on how God did it. Did God accelerate its growth in a bubble transcending time and space? What if one could read the tree rings and see what the weather will be like (or could have been like) for the 300 years it would have grown? For example, did Adam have calloused feet to protect him as he walked through the garden? Or was he soft footed like an infant tip toeing through the tulips? The calluses on his feet would no doubt implied the years of walking that would have taken place, though they never did.
It boils down to this…one can believe that creation is a “miracle” or a natural process.
I dunno, with genealogies from Adam through Abraham and beyond, including the ages of fathers when kids were born, and the exact ages of folks when they died, it sure seems like it was meant literally. (Ever notice that Methuselah, Noah's grandpa, died the year the flood started?)
Comment, anyone? Why would someone write down a bunch of genealogies with names and ages, starting with fictional characters (if the flood is a parable) and leading up to real people, and not expect it to be believed literally? I think it was intended literally, and I still think the NT talks about it as if it were literal.
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Hebrews 13:23 Know ye that our brother Timothy is set at liberty
From a group who states their purpose for existance is:
"The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit, membership organization providing information and resources for schools, parents and concerned citizens working to keep evolution in public school science education. We educate the press and public about the scientific, educational, and legal aspects of the creation and evolution controversy, and supply needed information and advice to defend good science education at local, state, and national levels. Our 4000 members are scientists, teachers, clergy, and citizens with diverse religious affiliations." [empasis mine]
They are not concerned with Science, they are concerned with keeping their pet theory front and center, and don't even think of challanging it. These are flat earthers who insist anyone who thinks different is a kook.
They are working on that goal because evolution is simply the best explanation for the data that we have. And given the fact that their main opposition is led by the Moonie funded Discovery Institute you can see that they do encounter a lot of kooks.
This is from a bio on one of the directors of the Discovery Institute:
"John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells (born c. 1946) is an American author and a prominent advocate of intelligent design.[1] A member of the Unification Church, Wells wrote that the teachings of church founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism",[2][3] a term which intelligent design proponents often use to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution[4] and which he describes as the theory that various species developed as a wholly natural process "without God's purposeful, creative activity."[3]"
"One of the things that Father [Reverend Sun Myung Moon] advised us to do at UTS was to pray to seek God's plan for our lives." He later described that plan: "To defend and articulate Unification theology especially in relation to Darwinian evolution."
Comment, anyone? Why would someone write down a bunch of genealogies with names and ages, starting with fictional characters (if the flood is a parable) and leading up to real people, and not expect it to be believed literally? I think it was intended literally, and I still think the NT talks about it as if it were literal.
That's because we aproach it from a western mindset. "In the ancient near east it was common to use selective geneologies when ordering history."
My soul followeth hard after thee....Love one another with a pure heart fervently. 
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