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Let me begin by introducing myself (sort of). I go by Pinky, and I'm not technically an Agnostic. Nor am I another Atheist, I'm Wiccan (put simply). Then why am I here? I take an interest in questioning the possibility, probability, or lack there of, of religion and what it entails (yes, even my own). I thought this might be an appropriate place to discuss/debate this type of thing. I hope no one finds me intrusive, and that you all can accept me with open minds. That said, here's something that's recently caught my interest, about one of my favorite topics of debate (Genesis):
It is said that "Christian scientists" claim to have calculated how old the world is, according to the bible. The bible, of course, does not give an actual date, or mentions any date at all within its pages, to my knowledge. Apparently, the "Christian scientists" have determined the age of the earth to be roughly about 9-10 thousand years old, by following the lineage of people mentioned in the bible, and tracing them all the way back to the creation of Adam and Eve.
There is something I feel they greatly overlooked. There are in fact two creation stories mentioned in the bible. The first is contained in the first and (beginning of the) second chapters of Genesis, and the second starts just after the first story. The creation of Adam and Eve isn't until the second creation story (Genesis 2:7-22). The first creation story, however, does include the creation of both male and female humans (Genesis 1:27). There is also later evidence that there had been humans created before Adam and Eve, when one of their first two sons, Cain, finds a wife in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Genesis 4:16-17). If no other offspring of Adam and Eve's had not even been conceived yet (according the order presented in the bible), then from where else could this mystery woman have come?
The bible gives no reference to how much time passed between the first creation, and the creation of Adam and Eve (to which "Christian scientists" trace back the beginning of the earth). Assuming the bible might be true, there is no way to say either the creation of Adam and Eve occurred instantly after the first creation story, or billions of years later. So who is to really say that the Christian Bible does NOT support the age of the earth being several billion years old, as current evolutionists claim?
Thoughts?
It is said that "Christian scientists" claim to have calculated how old the world is, according to the bible. The bible, of course, does not give an actual date, or mentions any date at all within its pages, to my knowledge. Apparently, the "Christian scientists" have determined the age of the earth to be roughly about 9-10 thousand years old, by following the lineage of people mentioned in the bible, and tracing them all the way back to the creation of Adam and Eve.
There is something I feel they greatly overlooked. There are in fact two creation stories mentioned in the bible. The first is contained in the first and (beginning of the) second chapters of Genesis, and the second starts just after the first story. The creation of Adam and Eve isn't until the second creation story (Genesis 2:7-22). The first creation story, however, does include the creation of both male and female humans (Genesis 1:27). There is also later evidence that there had been humans created before Adam and Eve, when one of their first two sons, Cain, finds a wife in the land of Nod, east of Eden (Genesis 4:16-17). If no other offspring of Adam and Eve's had not even been conceived yet (according the order presented in the bible), then from where else could this mystery woman have come?
The bible gives no reference to how much time passed between the first creation, and the creation of Adam and Eve (to which "Christian scientists" trace back the beginning of the earth). Assuming the bible might be true, there is no way to say either the creation of Adam and Eve occurred instantly after the first creation story, or billions of years later. So who is to really say that the Christian Bible does NOT support the age of the earth being several billion years old, as current evolutionists claim?
Thoughts?
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Seattle
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Re: Overlooked
Mon, December 19, 2005 - 7:37 PMThe bible supports whatever you want it to support. That is why the idea of a literal interpretation of the bible is so ridiculous.
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Re: Overlooked
Mon, December 19, 2005 - 11:14 PMThe bible has a fairly specific, albeit ridiculous, timeline from Adam to Noah, IIRC. -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 12:15 AMPlease, forgive my ignorance, but "IIRC" means...? -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 9:13 AM
Pinky,
"IIRC" is "if I recall correctly", iirc :-)
Regards,
John
Falling You - exploring the beauty of voice and sound
www.fallingyou.com
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 10:16 AMPinky, for once I pretty much agree with you! In my view, the two creation stories in Genesis were written by different authors.
4 facts jointly imply this conclusion:
1. The two stories consistently refer to the deity by a different names--one uses YHWH, the other Elohim--this disctinction survives into english translations as "God" vs "The Lord God". The first story consistently uses "God," the second always uses "The Lord God".
2. The order of events of creation is different between the two stories. Simply reading the two stories and listing the order of events reveals contradictions.
3. There are substantial stylisitic differences between the two stories. The first presents a more "priestly" perspective that involves a transcendent, somewhat impersonal God and the story proceeds according to a strict methodical formula. The second story offers a flowing narrative with an anthropomorphic God who comes down to earth to do stuff.
4. These same differences of interest, storytelling style, and contradictory details are also present in other doublets (stories told twice) in Genesis (and some other Biblical books).
I'm not presenting some wacko fringe theory here--this is a piece of what's known as the "documentary hypothesis" and this is the idea that guides most biblical research at the University level. The best book I've found on this is UCSD professor Elliot Friedman's "Who Wrote The Bible". It's an extremely lucid and compelling read.
Given this extremely plausible hypothesis that Genesis is a patchwork quilt of the works of multiple authors (most scholars estimate the number of authors as 3, plus an editor to combine the works) and the various factual/ historical/ political/ spiritual disagreements between the authors, Genesis has little credibility as a historical text, and the project of trying to deduce the age of the earth from this ancient text loses steam.
Add to all this, the fact that multiple sciences like biology, geology, astronomy, etc converge on the conclusion of an earth much older than the one arrived at by those who try to deduce its age from Genesis. Clearly this kind of Christian research is a massively degenerating research programme that can only struggle to explain-away plausible empirical-theoretical data from nearly every other relevant field of study. Given that its only support is faith in a nearly 10,000 year old document from a pre-scientific time, the really amazing thing is that people still believe in this paleo-paradigm. -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 2:30 PMActually, from what I've heard, "Elohim" is better translated into a more proper word for "a group of gods and goddesses." This is supported, I think, by the way pronouns are used in the Genesis creations. The only time "God" is referred to as "He" or "Him" is when it is a narrative voice, or in stories past the two creations. Whenever he is referring to "Himself (in the first chapter of Genesis and a few times in the second)" he uses plural pronouns, like "us" and "we." My personal interpretation has to do with that infamous "Absolute Faith" theory that at least you, Geoff, have heard about, that supports all religions and spiritual paths as being equally accurate. What if all the gods and goddesses ever worshiped really do exist, and it was a group effort to create everything, including humanity. Then some individual god, "YHWH," separated from the group and did his own little experiment with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Then in gets into how "I am a jealous god," and how "God" (even though he also claims there is no other god but him), continuously drops hints throughout the bible that there are indeed other divine beings, and how he doesn't want anybody worshiping them, and is selfish enough that he wants even the people he's not responsible for creating to worship him as their creator. But that's whole other story... -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 3:37 PMYes, I seem to remember reading somewhere that Elohim is a plural noun. Not sure what to make of that.
It's interesting that you raise the issue of the position of the various biblical authors to other gods. They seem to be ambiguous. For example, I believe the commandment reads something like "you shall not put any other gods before Me," not "there are no other gods." Maybe other passages state the monotheistic position more clearly, I'm not sure offhand.
But I think there is a reason for the Bible's wavering attitude toward gods other than YHWH. The Israelites at the time when the various books of the Bible were being written were not a monotheistic people, or at least most of them were not. The collected texts that we now refer to as "the Bible" (which is only a "book" in the sense that we can bind it betwen two covers) represent a radical right-wing perspective on ancient Israelite religion--a small minority of religious fundies who wanted the tribe to exclusively worship YHWH-while most isealites wanted to worship Baal, Mithra, the host of heaven, and nearly any other god that might bring them fortune. You can see this in Kings (I think) where the author does a chronicle of all the kings of Israel (I think there were like 40-50, the info is not fresh in my mind anymore) and only 3 of them are given approval as following the ways of god. The other kings were polytheism-friendly. The perspective the Bible gives us on the ancient Israelites is a bit like the history of America we would get if Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, John Birch, and George W. Bush got together and wrote it. -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 4:30 PMHere's a list of someone's compilation of all the passages in the bible that support there only being one god, YHWH, and all the passages that support there being many:
www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/co...tml
Oh goodness! Anything founded wholly by Jerry Fallwell, Pat Robertson, John Birch, and George W. Bush must be Satan's doing! -
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Re: Overlooked
Tue, December 20, 2005 - 4:31 PMQuite an uneven balance there, eh?
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Re: Overlooked
Wed, December 21, 2005 - 9:17 AMHey, thanks for the link! Good stuff. It's interesting that in all the Pentateuch only Deuteronomy has passages strictly supporting monotheism (if this is an exhaustive list). -
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Re: Overlooked
Wed, December 21, 2005 - 10:54 AMIt's supposed to completely cover the entirety of both the old testiment and the new testiment. It's from www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/
These guys literally pick apart the bible, verse by verse, and point out every contradiction, every refrense to injustice, absurdity, cruelty and violence, intollerance, sex, (foul) language, homosexuality, etc. It'th thuper! :P
They even cover the Quran and the Book of Mormon!
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