Genesis Flood Local Or Global ?

[Timmy]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

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."

Mat. 1:8 has Joram as the Father of Uzziah, I Chronicles 3:10-12 has 3 generations between the two of them. Ezra 7:3 Meraioth is the Father of Azariah, but I Chronicles 6:6-9 there is six generations between them.

Alfred J. Hoerth, Archaeology and the Old Testament.


We only know the over all line of descent from Adam to Abraham we have no idea how many generations are excluded.

Well, that's fine, but my point was that it looks like history (and maybe that's your point, too), and doesn't look like parable. IMO.

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by pelathais

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]"

Wells says this about his father from heaven:

"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."

Yeah, I'd say kooks.

So all who teach intelligent design are kooks? You quoted one individual to show they were all kooks. My point was that the group you used to attack Stein's movie was biased, by their own admission.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by mizpeh

...

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)?

"I would rather have a thousand loose threads than one intractable knot woven of my own obstinacy."

Pelathais

Somebody needs to call for the google-bot to come and do another index.

[Baron1710]

Originally Posted by Timmy

Well, that's fine, but my point was that it looks like history (and maybe that's your point, too), and doesn't look like parable. IMO.

I would say history as recorded by someone with near eastern views. Which seem to be much looser than are own literal Western minds that are very literal.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

So all who teach intelligent design are kooks? You quoted one individual to show they were all kooks. My point was that the group you used to attack Stein's movie was biased, by their own admission.

I think all honest people would admit to having their own bias. That's part of the marvel of being human.

And the Discovery Institute is the leading advocated for the Intelligent Design movement. It's founder Philip Johnson is known as the "founder" of ID. Johnson isn't a Moonie himself, at least not publically yet. But he has turned his org over to the wiles of the Unification Church.

And "the group I used to attack Stein's movie" were the primary backers and key focus of the movie. Stein tried to distract from this with his "on the street" interviews in Seattle asking random people if they knew where DI was located.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Timmy

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.

The characters need not to have been "fictional" for the flood accout to have a parabolic interpretation. Abraham was not fictional yet he is a character in Jesus's parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus.

[pelathais]

I think one of the problems we are having with this is our way of thinking in the West. Even the "defenders" of the literal method do a great disservice to the Bible by demanding that this ancient Eastern text line up with their Western rationalistic expectations. It simply won't

Remember... we are "foreigners and aliens..." Ephesians 2:12. Just because we were adopted into the family doesn't mean that we will always understand all of the table talk. It is really arrogance to assume that we would.

A really good philosopher and linguist named Jacques Derrida pointed out one flaw in the Western approach to debate and most any issue in general; it was "binary thinking." We tend to want to divide everything up into two neat little categories called "Either" and "Or."

I had a pastor once who said, concerning the literal interpretation of the Bible: "Either it's true or I can run out and do anything I'm big enough to get away with!" And he was a pretty big guy.

How about developing some character? How about developing some compassion for your fellow man that would restrain your lusts no matter what hermeneutic you eventually employed?

But he demanded "Either and Or." I guess that's why when his buddy "showed up on our door step" with his secretary in tow all bets were off.

Face it folks, our walls are crumbling because it turns out that we've been building with wood, hay and stubble. Why don't we go back to the basics and build upon the solid foundation of Jesus Christ and the apostles? Let's be open to the reality of the natural world around us. However it got here, it got here long before you or I did.

The Bible is not and has never claimed to be a work on natural history. We dishonor the Bible by trying to make it say what we want it to say. Give up the "Either, Or" system and be willing to accept at least a few mysteries. It's the mystery that really makes the stars so beautiful at night.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Baron1710

I would say history as recorded by someone with near eastern views. Which seem to be much looser than are own literal Western minds that are very literal.

Yes!

Genealogies were documents written in the ancient world to establish deeds and rights. Their whole purpose was to serve as a sort of Magna Carta declaring the rights and freedoms of an oppressed people.

[Aquila]

Originally Posted by Timmy

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.

You're obviously not familiar with the custom in the ancient East going as far back as ancient Egypt (that's another issue that young earth creationists have to face...Egypt alone goes back further than their young earth models). In ancient Egypt, for example, the Kings and royalty would have their lineage traced back for exaggerated generations, often connecting them to Mythological figures and gods. This was intended to forever link a people, or group of decedents, to their religion or cultural tradition. It's just a cultural thing. A more recent example would be found in Europe; many British people believed and taught Anglo-Israelism because it would nationally connect them with their Christian religious heritage, though an Anglo connection with Israel is debatable.

Also the biblical genealogies contain acknowledged gaps. A few of them immediately in the Bible don't agree. It is customary to say that "someone begat someone else"...though they are truly grandfather or even perhaps great grandfather.

[pelathais]

Originally Posted by Timmy

Well, that's fine, but my point was that it looks like history (and maybe that's your point, too), and doesn't look like parable. IMO.

Like I said before, the literary genre of the parable was developed later, in the inter-testament time period. When I compare the Genesis account of the Flood with a NT parable it just that - a comparison and not a one-to-one correlation.

And I think the Baron brings up some good points. There are clearly differences in the various genealogies. Were the writers and/or "redactors" unaware of this? Are we so clever that we are the very first humans beings in 2,000 years to notice these apparent discrepancies?

I don't think so. The Biblical writers and their contemporaries must have looked at this type of literary expression with a completely different set of eyes than we have today. They saw the "discrepancies" but they didn't see them as "errors" but rather different points being made at different times by different writers.

Another example: (and I'm not trying to sell kabbalistic teachings - I'm just say that there are people who will read the same words that you and I read but will put them into categories we might not ever even think of) ...

The dimension of Noah's ark are used by Young Earth Creationists and Flood Geologists to attempt to show that such a boat was conceivable.

However, medieval rabbis read the same measurements and so "truth" being revealed about the nature of God and His plans for mankind. The rabbis never even attempted to think in terms of actually building a "boat." Such a thought appears to never have occurred to them. They couldn't care less what some unbeliever might say, they were seeking God.