To Garamond: Genesis Commentary
- From: Zoe <muze10@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 20:40:34 -0500
Garamond, I am combining your last three responses in this new thread
in order to avoid tracking down the old thread any further. And I'll
be snipping a lot for brevity. Forgive me, okay?
So then....where were we in this delightful discussion of our
differences.
On 10 Dec 2007 02:39:20 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
snip>
So you're making the claim that there is no creative power in evolution.
I will absolutely agree that it cannot be detected, but that's far
different than proving its absence.
flying pink elephants cannot be detected, but we cannot prove their
absence, either.
Come on now, isn't that a rather useless concession? Nobody cares if
you can or cannot prove their absence. The fact that they cannot be
detected is sufficient to live your life as if they do not
exist....which matters not a whit. But to live one's life as if God's
creative power does not exist is to suffer eternal loss.
snip>
I'm not sure what exactly you are misunderstanding. I voluntarily
choose to love and worship the God of the Bible because the record of
His love towards earthlings has awakened a response of love within me.
Job? The Egyptians? "Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who
has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never
slept with a man." (Num 31:17)
hold up. That last, when read in context, is a command from Moses,
not God.
The Israelites lived among societies that conducted their wars as we
see in the Bible, according to the cultural mores of their time. Not
everything Moses said was exactly what God wanted to say. Jesus, when
he lived on earth, said of Moses' instructions, "It has been
said....but I say unto you...." or "Moses, because of the hardness of
your hearts suffered you to.....but from the beginning it was not
so...." or "Ye have heard that it hath been said, An eye for an eye,
and a tooth for a tooth, but I say unto you..."
Finally, in Jesus, we are faced with a firsthand knowledge of what God
is really like.
Have you read the OT straight through?
I have read the OT many times, along with the New Testament writers
who throw a floodlight on what God is really like. And by comparing
text to text, I have come to terms with some of the darker moments in
OT history.
For instance, Zephaniah 3:17 (NKJV) depicts God as follows:
"The Lord your God, in your midst, the mighty One, will save. He will
rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you in His love; He will
rejoice over you with singing."
Yet there are accounts of God's power wiping out surrounding nations.
How does that fit? Well, the way I see it is that a God Who rejoices
over His children with singing is a God Who will protect His children
at any cost. His children's enemies are His enemies, and He will do
whatever it takes to defend them and protect them.
And in case this seems unfairly partial towards some small group of
Hebrews, note His invitation in Isaiah 45:22 (KJV): "Look unto me and
be ye saved, all the ends of the earth, for I am God and there is none
else." Choose to become His, and you will be defended with an
intensity worthy of only the most loving, most powerful parent. Choose
to alienate yourself, and you will be among the enemies of God's
children.
If you convince me that this same God is actually a sadistic, hateful,
uncaring god, I will rebel at the thought of worshiping such a god, and
am ready to fight him with every fibre of my being.
And I don't want that.
why not? Do you advocate the mindless worship of a hateful, uncaring
god? We humans are not constituted to respond with joy when hated and
with displeasure when loved. So why are you wanting me to NOT fight a
god who is hateful and unloving?
Right now, as I understand it, you're apply a literal interpretation to a
book that doesn't exist (specifically, an Old Testament that has a
message that God loves earthlings). The solution is not to apply that
interpretation to the actual book, but to gain a better understanding of
both the book, how the authors understood it, and how people understand
it now.
God, under a literal interpretation in the Old Testament, is a
sonofabitch. If you limit yourself to literalism, that's what you're
stuck with (unless, I guess, you choose not to read those passages).
There are better interpretations out there that are consistent with a
loving God, history, and science (even evolution).
I have read the passages and resolved them for myself, but I can
understand why you would want to make them nonliteral. It's an easy
way out of the dilemma. But I submit that the Bible interprets
itself. The revelation of what God is truly like, as revealed by
other writers of scripture, throws light on the Old Testament accounts
of God in relation to Israel. It does not de-literalize the accounts.
It just helps one to understand more about what God is like, about
what is important in light of eternity, about priorities in a universe
that is teeming with life -- physical life. No disembodied
intelligences floating around in space, playing ethereal harps, but
physical worlds, filled with physical beings, living physical lives in
a universe owned by a physical God, Who has promised us way more than
what we find in our few years here on earth. Whether we live or die
in this earthly life is not as important as whether we live or die for
eternity.
snip>
On 10 Dec 2007 04:20:08 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
snip>
http://www.jstor.org/view/00143820/di000301/00p08377/0
this article is not easily accessible, so tell me, what is it about the
fruit fly's changes in morphology that demonstrate evolution in action?
And how does this data support macroevolution?
Bother -- sorry 'bout that. I'll email it to you.
got it. Thanks.
snip>
You had asked:
How does evolution differ from "real sciences"? Specifically in terms of
the Dodd paper above, what do you find lacking there that is not lacking
in real science?
the paper itself is scientific. I'm not disputing that.
What is lacking, (for me, anyway) is demonstration of any phenotypical
changes that affect morphology. It is the differences in morphology
that cause species to be classified as belonging to one genus or
another. And I would like to see evidence for these changes. This
paper does not address that.
What is addressed is reproductive isolation as an agent of speciation.
And what would interest me is scientific evidence on the kind of
speciation that shows evolving morphology. If the claim is going to
be made that one species evolves into some other genus, then
experiments should show this. Bacteria, with their brief life spans,
would be a good universe from which to pull samples.
Dodd's experiment shows that reproductive isolation can and does occur
under certain circumstances, but there is no demonstration of any
morphological changes. The stage is set, reproduction is isolated, but
nothing beyond that. There IS one single mention at the beginning that
"speciation is basically a problem of reproductive isolation." Nothing
more. It is the "more" that I'd like to hear about. And why
speciation is a "problem" of reproductive isolation, I don't know. I
would think it would be considered a result or an outcome of
reproductive isolation. Not a problem. But, in any event, that's the
extent of any description of macro-tending speciation, which is the
area that I am contending is not scientific.
As to the article itself, it is written with some ambiguity which left
me confused. But that's okay, I guess, since I'm sure it wasn't
written for the layperson. For instance, Dodd states that four
populations were reared on a starch-based medium and four were reared
on a maltose-based mediium, but in her discussion at the end, she
says, "... all tests were performed using flies that had been reared
on a common medium and had experienced neither starch nor maltose." I
suppose she might mean that all eight populations were taken from a
population reared on a common medium, and were then put on the starch
vs. maltose? Except it sure would have helped to have had an
explanation of how the same samples could have been "reared on starch
and maltose" and also "reared on a common medium....neither starch nor
maltose."
Regardless, the point remains that this article, as scientific as its
methods were, does not produce any scientific evidence of actual
speciation, only evidence of reproductive isolation that supposedly
can lead to speciation. It has not yet reached the area that I'm
questioning as unscientific.
snip>
Finally, once all of that background is firmly in place, you look at the
text itself.
pity the poor man on the street who does not have access to all this
higher criticism. Must he come to the scholar in order to experience
salvation? Definitely not.
Must he become a scholar before making public claims about the correct
interpretation of scripture? Probably a good idea.
so, again, only the scholar can make public claims about salvation
(which is what the scriptures are about)? If this is your position, I
think you would be competing with the pope for that position of
authority.
snip>
Is it "random" that's giving you problems? As used in "Random Mutation
+ Natural Selection", it has a technical meaning: to a first
approximation, each allele has an equal chance of being modified.
if natural selection retains the advantage, then natural selection has
to be random, also, since it depends on the random beneficial mutation
in order to select.
Natural selection is not random.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_selection
I'm almost convinced we should suspend this conversation and go over
precisely what evolution is. Let's keep going for the moment.
If a selection process will not occur unless a
random process occurs, then that selection process is also random.
The first clause is false.
why? If a selection rides upon the happenstance of a random
beneficial mutation, isn't that selection as random and therefore as
unpredictable as the mutation itself? Please tell me where this is
false. Or maybe we are addressing two entirely different areas. I am
addressing predictability of a process. What are you referring to?
If
selection is random, then evolution is unpredictable, and if
unpredictable, then untestable. If untestable, then unscientific.
You're making this up, and it shows. Please don't do that.
I am reasoning it through, not making it up. Explain to me how you
can predict what natural selection will do next, and I will accept the
correction.
There are a
number of accessible explanations for random mutation, natural selection,
genetic drift, evolution, methodological naturalism -- whatever you'd
care to learn about. But you have to be honest enough to ask for them,
or at least ask if you're working with the correct definition.
I've been reading the evolutionary position here in TO for quite a few
years now and think I have a pretty good grasp of what your theory
says.
Please tell me what is wrong with the following line of reasoning:
Q. What are the processes that make a heritable trait selectable?
A. Those processes that produce heritable favorable traits worthy of
selection are random beneficial mutations and genetic drift (which has
no preferred direction=random).
Q. If the processes are random, then new traits are random. On that
basis, can you predict what random advantages will be retained through
natural selection?
A. No. You can only predict that natural selection may retain a new
advantage, but you cannot predict what that retained advantage will
be.
That is what I mean when I say that evolution is unpredictable,
therefore untestable, therefore unscientific.
Now I await your corrections.
snip>
At this point, let me stop and answer the rest in a separate post.
On 10 Dec 2007 05:46:05 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:32:04 -0500, Zoe wrote:
On 09 Dec 2007 03:50:11 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:35:15 -0500, Zoe wrote:
<very large snip -- see other post>
the reason given for suffering and death makes a world of difference in
how we view our condition here on earth. If you view suffering and
death to be a result of sin, then you understand why it now exists,
where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. If you
view it to be the result of a mindless struggle for survival, then you
live without a future or a hope. So just because suffering and death now
exist does not mean that this condition points to only one source --
evolution.
You're making a distinction between a theologically purposeful and
theologically purposeless world. Evolution doesn't address this. It
cannot.
If you assume God created the earth, God went out of His way to make it
look like evolution is not only correct, but pervasive. God also went
out of His way to provide hope and purpose. The only conflict I'm seeing
is if you have misunderstood evolution, the Bible, or both.
I've always taken exception to the attitude that imposes one's
understanding on someone else's creation, and insists that it was the
intention and motive of the creator of the item to make it look
exactly the way the observer understands it to be. It's not the fault
of a creator of an item if someone comes along and misinterprets what
he sees, and then blames the creator for making the item in such a way
as to fool the observer. This becomes all about "me and my
perspective governs the world" instead of "what is the perspective of
the creator?"
The aspect of an unplanned, purposeless existence awaiting the chance
random mutation that might take a life form in some unknown
purposeless direction.
As above, science studies evolution as if it were purposeless. This
does not preclude a theological purpose.
many students of biology and the other ologies have lost their way with
respect to the theological purpose, just by being exposed to the
authoritarian conclusion that we evolved without purpose or plan.
Authoritarian? Not outside the old Soviet Union. The quickest, easiest
way to fortune, fame, and tenure in academia is showing why the current
received wisdom is wrong. It's common enough to be unremarkable. Of
course, you have to have evidence, and scientists enjoy carving up people
who don't have all their ducks in a row.
Zoe, the reason creationists (in particular) lose their faith when they
get to college is that they realize they've been lied to. The foundation
of their faith makes naturalistic claims, and for the first time they're
in an environment where people know more about the world than their
parents and pastor did. The claims are falsified with piles and piles of
evidence, and the natural reaction is to suspect everything else they had
been told.
from my personal experience, there are reasons why students lose their
faith, and it is not because they felt they had been lied to (I am
becoming fairly certain that evolutionists have no other character
traits in their vocabulary). Students can be intimidated by the
authoritarian approach of the scientist who says, "our way or the
highway." Or the approach of the professor who says, "believe our
way, or I will not write you a favorable reference for your resume."
Or the peer pressure of those who refuse to think for themselves, who
mindlessly follow the party line in hopes of avoiding ridicule.
Whatever the catalyst, God gets put on the back burner and finally
ignored altogether. I've met people like this, so I'm not making this
up.
snip>
Evolutionists, on the other hand, use
the philosophy of evolution to say that God is not near....IF God even
exists at all.
Not in my experience. Cite?
oh, dear, dear Garamond, I really don't have the time to search
through TO. If you read this forum long enough, you will come across
just such attitudes. I'm surprised you have not discovered such
comments yet.
The aspect of earthlings struggling on into the unknown, without a
future and without hope.
Evolution says nothing about this, either.
evolutionists, using the theory of evolution, say that the only future
open to all organisms is death...deal with it, they say.
Cite?
you can either take my word for it or research it yourself. This is
most definitely an attitude among some found here in this newsgroup.
And those loudly voiced attitudes have an influence.
A personal, caring, loving parent would never put their children
through this process, if they could choose a method of creating their
children.
As someone recently quoted to me: "God's ways are above man's ways."
right. And if God's ways, which are higher than man's ways, are
interpreted to be unloving ways, then you would be interpreting the ways
of earthly parents to be more loving than God's way, right?
Why would I interpret God to be unloving?
well, if you think that leaving your child to struggle through life on
its own is loving, then I understand why you do not see that kind of
god as unloving.
snip>
on whose say-so do you think I have based my understanding of Genesis?
Parents, pastor, other members of your congregation.
my understanding of Genesis comes from my personal reading of the
Bible.
And where did I say that I thought that Genesis promotes a vengeful,
sadistic God?
I find a literal interpretation supports that. For example, God knew
(having created them) that Adam and Eve would be tempted to eat of the
tree of knowledge, and to insure that they did, he created the snake to
make sure that it occurred to them. God then jump out with the Hebrew
equivalent of "Gotcha" and banishes them.
except that is not the tone or understanding that I get from that
account. So I'm not ready to go to battle with God on the basis of
that version.
Now that's a weak interpretation, but (as far as I can tell) it can't be
dislodged using more literalism. This has consequences, notably:
<q>
I can tell you that if I became convinced that the god
of the universe were a sadistic, vengeful, and unloving god, I would
do everything in my puny power to fight him, even if it meant my sure
death in the process; much better to go down fighting than to live
worshipping that kind of god.
</q>
So if I agree with you that literalism is to be preferred, and that an
unloving God is not to be worshiped, how am I to detect the error of my
personal literal reading of Genesis?
it is an easy way out to dismiss these stories as nonliteral. But
with the dismissal goes the chance to think things through more
deeply, line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a
little.
snip>
On 11 Dec 2007 02:26:04 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Sun, 09 Dec 2007 21:34:37 -0500, Zoe wrote:
On 09 Dec 2007 05:21:09 GMT, Garamond Lethe <cartographical@xxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 19:47:00 -0500, Zoe wrote:
<snip>
it is a nice though not necessary bonus to be able to understand the
original language. For instance, the word Elohim, used for God here,
is a plural word. "Let us make..." Yet the same word is also used in
singular fashion elsewhere. Plurality in a single God. Monotheism
retains its integrity...
Just so it doesn't get lost in the other thread: Could you give me your
understanding of the word "deep" in Genesis 1:2? (It may show up as
"waters" in your translation.
in the Hebrew/English translation, it says, "...and darkness on the face
of the deep" immediately followed by "and the Spirit of God moving
gently on the face of the waters." In light of the two phrases "on the
face of" it seems reasonable to conclude that "deep" and "waters" are
one and the same.
What do higher critics say "deep" means, please?
Hey, look what I found!
http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/biblio/bible.html
I think we're not the first people to have this discussion..... anyway.
Beginning with Sarna[1]:
<q>
The Babylonian creation epic [Enuma Elish [2,3]] tells how, before the
formation of heaven and earth, nothing existed except water. This primal
generative element was identified with Apsu, the male personificaion of
the primeval sweetwater ocean, and with his female associate Tiamat, the
primordial saltwater ocean, represented as a ferocious
monster. . . .After a fierce battle in which [Marduk] defeated the enemy
forces and slew Tiamat, Marduk sliced the carcass of the monster in two
and created of one half the firmament of heaven and of the other the
foundation of the earth. . . .There is other evidence to indicate a
knowledge of the Babylonian myth. We are told that when God began to
create the heaven and the earth, darkness covered the surface of the deep
(1:2). This latter word is the usual English translation of the Hebrew
original Tehom, which is, in fact, the philological equivalent of Tiamat.
</q>
Sarna spends then entire first chapter on the relationship between _Enuma
Elish_ and the two creation narratives in Genesis. The above is only
intended to pique your interest.
Garrett[4] states:
<q>
See [3] for examples of ancient creation myths. Incidental similarities
to Genesis 1 are well known, but they do not make for true formal
parallels, and the differences are far more profound. A useful
discussion of similarities is by [5]. For a thorough and provocative
challenge to the widely held assumption that a dragon/chaos mythin is
behind Gen. 1:2, see [6].
</q>
Finishing up with von Rad[7]:
<q>
"Tohuwabohu" means the formless; the primeval waters over which darkness
was superimposed characterizes the chaos materially as a watery primeval
element, but at the same time gives a dimensional association: tehom
("sea of chaos") is the cosmic abyss[8]. . . .In the last analysis, all
these statements have their terminological origin in the mythologies of
neighboring religions. (Tehom, "primeval flood," is unquestionably
connected with the Babylonian Tiamat, that primeval dragon of chaos; bohu
is probably related to Baau, the nocturnal mother goddess in Phoenician
mythology.) The actual mythical meaning, however, has been long since
lost in our text, as is clearly shown in the arranging of terms from
quite different mythological circles. Therefore, we must reject even the
assumption that the Priestly document necessarily had to fall back on
strage and half mythological ideas to make clear the chaotic primeval
state. The terms used in v. 2 are freed from every mythological context;
in Israel they had long since become cosmological catchwords, which
belonged to the inalienable requisite of Priestly learning.
</q>
Obviously, none of the above invalidates divine inspiration. However, I
do think it presents a few issues for a literal reading. If the original
translators into English had rendered Tehom as Neptune (and that's an
awful translation for several reasons, but bear with me), then I think
you'd have no trouble in concluding the passage was not to be taken
literally. However, I think the translators tried to capture what was
closer to the poetry of the text -- and I think "deep" is a wonderful
choice -- with the understanding that it would *not* be taken literally.
(I might be totally wrong here -- it would be interesting to track down
when the knowledge that Tehom was part of Babylonian mythology entered
into the Church. If this is a relatively late finding, the KJV
translators may have thought Tehom simply implied "abyss". It shouldn't
be hard to find this out, though.)
Your thoughts?
I think there are at least two ways to approach the many accounts
found worldwide with regard to creation and/or the flood, not to
mention the pervasive use of the word "Sabbath" in cultures worldwide.
One way is to suggest that they all (Hebrews included) copied each
other's legends. Another way would be to suggest that there was an
original true event which got corrupted as time passed. And the fact
that certain accounts are so widespread would lend credence to the
idea that something worldwide had indeed occurred.
If the second option is chosen, how does one recognize which is the
original true account, of which the many variations are but a
reflection of the true? For me, it is by weighing any indicators of
authenticity that surround a particular account. The Bible has, imo,
these indicators of authenticity.
Back to you....
One more thing: Going to scholar.google.com and searching on <Tiamat
Genesis> brought up 1260 hits. If you see something there that looks
interesting but can't get access to it, let me know.
Garamond
[1] Sarna, Nahum M., _Understanding Genesis_, Schoken, 1970. pgs 4-23.
[2] Heidel, A. _The Babylonian Genesis_, Chicago, 1963.
[3] Speiser, E. A., tr., 1969, Akkadian Myths and Epics, in Pritchard, J.
B., ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament [3rd
ed.]: Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, p. 60-72.
[4] Garrett, Duane. _Rethinking Genesis_, Baker House, 1991. pg. 192.
[5] Lambert, W. G. "A New Look at the Babylonian Background of Genesis"
Journal of Theological Studies 16: 287-300. 1965.
[6] Tsumura, David Toshio. "The Earth and the Waters in Genesis 1 and
2: A Linguistic Investigation". Journal for the Study of the Old
Testament, Supplement Series 83, 1989.
[7] von Rad, Gerhard. Genesis: A Commentary. Westminster Press, 1956,
pgs 47-48.
[8] Jacob, Benno. _Das erste Buch der Tora, Genesis_ Berlin, 1934.
.
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