Some water measurements for the Flood

But neither of us believe that it actually represents reality. Why? Seeing as you hold that Biblical evidence trumps all other knowledge including science...

I don't reject scientific knowledge at all, except where it clearly contradicts the Bible. In this case, though, literal openings in heaven contradict science -- contradict simple observation -- and it isn't necessary to take them literally from a biblical point of view either. The Bible uses metaphor a lot so there is no problem with taking such an expression as metaphorical. In fact I'd think even an ancient Israelite should have taken it as metaphorical. All you have to do is look at the sky.

While I, on the other hand, accept the Bible as the Word of God, but also accept that we can understand the reality around us and that understanding can change the way we understand and interpret the Bible.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me you let science do a lot more than just change the way we interpret the Bible, or like No Nukes if the contradiction is too severe you just decide to interpret the Bible allegorically or something like that?

And yet we come to the same conclusion on this issue. Why?

Because the contradiction isn't all that severe, or in fact there really isn't a contradiction at all. The Bible often does use metaphor.

Do you also accept that our understanding of the reality around us (understanding we gain from science, for example) changes how we understand and interpret the Bible?

No, I never look at it that way although of course I notice that there are no actual windows or openings in the sky, which affects my understanding that the word must be metaphorical, but I would assume even the ancients should have seen it that way so their physicalistic rendering seems odd to me. Nobody reads the Bible in a total vacuum, that would be impossible.

If Biblical evidence trumps all other knowledge, then why could there not be "windows" in heaven?

See above.

It's a natural reading in my opinion.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Makes the destruction of the entire world by water "humdrum?" You must be joking.

Again I don't see a problem if you want to call it a miracle either although I don't see it as a miracle myself and I think I've made the case for that. The whole creation science enterprise treats the event as natural, that's the reason they try to explain it in naturalistic terms.

I don't see why it matters ultimately, He still brought the Flood for the purpose of doing away with that sinful world.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

OK, some see it as miraculous. Hard to keep that in mind it seems so silly to me.

If you found a source of knowledge that guarantees truth you would also put it above whatever any other source of knowledge had to say. There is nothing at all illogical or even unscientific about putting the Bible above science.

And as usual of course you are absolutely wrong: the only areas where there is a conflict between the Bible and science are the historical sciences that purport to know things about the past they have absolutely no way of knowing, yet they reject the one way of knowing that we do have: the Biblical report. THAT's what's irrational and illogical.

False analogy of course. I don't reject science except where superior science requires it.

Despite its name, biblethumpology is not actually a science.

Despite its status as science, oldearthdogmalogy is not actually a science, and Bible truth beats it all to Hell.

Dear JF, I don't recognize anything that purports to show the Bible is in error, it's obviously wrong and has to be rethought.

The vapor canopy makes the best sense of the Biblical terminology and the amount of water that flooded the earth, that's all. If you have a better idea that fits the Bible I'm all ears.

As for the word "windows" the Bible uses metaphors frequently (God's "hands" for instance, or "Lamb of God," or "Bride of Christ" and so on) and the ancients could see there are no holes in the sky same as we can.

You have based your conclusion on observations made externally to the text. You have NOT concluded that the description "windows of heaven" is a metaphor FROM the text itself but from external observation.

But this is a very misguided objection. There is no way to read at all without including your own personal observations and experiences. We don't read in a vacuum as I said. Do I believe that Jesus was actually a lamb because He's called the Lamb of God? That would be ridiculous. But how do I know He's not a literal lamb? Because I know from my own experience that a human being is not a lamb. Likewise I know from my own personal experience that there are no openings in the sky, so I know that "windows" is a metaphor just as "lamb" is.

And not observation you have really made yourself. You have not been to the parts above our atmosphere where such a dome would be located. You rely on observations made by others who have traveled to the outer reaches of our atmosphere.

Actually I think it's from my own observations as I say above. I can see that there are no holes in the sky and so can everybody else.

But certainly, if you believe that the ToE is a massive conspiracy to discredit the Bible, then you could also see space exploration as a massive cover-up / conspiracy to hide the fact that there is indeed a giant dome that covers our earth. And there are those who DO believe this.

Well there are lots of unintelligent people, and people who don't know how to read the Bible either. Are you going to require me to say all points of view are equal or something?

Because the contradiction isn't all that severe, So it comes down to a personal opinion of what constitutes "severe?"

let's say it comes down to an educated personal opinion of what constitutes "severe." Some opinions are better than others.

Well let's use the age of the earth as an example. That the earth is young and was formed in six literal days contradicts science, and I believe contradicts simple observation. I believe the evidence that the earth is very old is so simple and straightforward that one could not honestly look at the evidence and come to any other conclusion unless they reject those simple observations out of hand. The evidence that the earth is very old is as clear and as simple as the fact that the earth is not the center of the universe and that there are not "windows of heaven" situated in a dome above the surface of the earth. Just as simple and clear!

Interesting you are so insistent about this without giving an example to show why it's so "simple and straightforward" that that the earth is old. As a matter of fact there is no simple and straightforward evidence that could possibly tell you that. There is also no certain, obvious, simple and straightforward evidence that it is young. The fact is that simple observation cannot tell you the age of the earth, observation of ANYTHING as a matter of fact. It's ALL theory. And remember please, that up until I was almost fifty I believed in an ancient earth too, because, well, because it just SEEMS it MUST be old. I don't know why, I guess because it's big and complicated and the universe is gigantic. But more telling, we've all been taught that it's old. And we've also been taught that natural processes explain everything. And that's all you have too.

And the contradiction between this belief and what the Bible says is very severe indeed, it's not at all like the idea that "windows" aren't literal, which is not a contradiction at all, since the Bible doesn't require them to be literal, nor does observation, nor does science. But the age of the earth that we can determine from the Bible is certainly severely contradicted by the billions of years science has been piling up on this poor little planet over the last couple of centuries. All based on ideas, not facts (it just MUST have taken such and such a phenomenon a long long time to form), not on anything that can be called simple and straightforward fact or observation.

or in fact there really isn't a contradiction at all. That's the thing. I don't see that an old earth contradicts the Bible at all. I don't believe that Genesis was written to describe a historic, literal account of creation. Instead it was written to refute and oppose the creation mythology that the Hebrews would have been exposed to during their time in Egypt. Everything in the story is a direct confrontation to the Egyptian creation myths and their gods and it establishes God's place in the cosmos and his relationship to the creation (and ours as well).

But in order to claim that the old earth doesn't contradict the Bible you have to accept this whole other explanatory system you are now laying out that would be impossible for a simple reader to glean from the text alone. What ordinary reader is going to have any knowledge of "Egyptian creation myths" for instance, but you are putting that reader in the position of being completely unable to understand the text for lack of such arcane extrabiblical knowledge.

So to maintain your position you have to disqualify the average reader's ability to read the text. I can agree that it does take some external historical knowledge to understand the Bible well, and the more informed the reader and the more educated in language and other basic knowledge the better, but I can't agree that it takes the mindset of ancient Israel's experience of Egypt to do so. If the Bible is the word of God it is meant for everybody.

So no contradiction at all! The creation account in Genesis served a specific purpose and did so in language and with a cosmological framework that the people of that day could relate to. It is not meant for us in the 21st century to use as a science book.

And yet it is written to the average reader HBD. And it certainly includes factual statements that are awfully specific genealogical records that do in fact give very specific reference points for calculating times and years of the generations from Adam and Eve through Noah and beyond, so that it is possible to do the math and arrive at least at a rough estimate of the time from Adam to the Flood and so on, and it isn't more than thousands of years. In other words you have to bend the text to external suppositions, reinterpretations, allegorizations or whatever, to make it support an old earth because a natural reading of it does severely contradict such an idea. Your claim just doesn't hold water HBD.

My point is not to argue the age of the earth, but to illustrate that in principal what we have done is not that different, it is a matter of "severity," not principal. But for the reasons above, I don't think accepting an old earth is all that severe a treatment of the text.

I suppose you mean all that severe a contradiction with the text. But it is that severe a contradiction, as I've laid out above.

I'll continue this later.

My point is not to argue the age of the earth, but to illustrate that in principal what we have done is not that different, it is a matter of "severity," not principal. But for the reasons above, I don't think accepting an old earth is all that severe a treatment of the text. It does not diminish my appreciation for the text at all - in fact, it enhances it. Now the text actually makes sense. It makes sense why the author uses strange language like "windows of heaven," "placed the stars in the firmament," and "evening and morning - the first day." (this one was a direct confrontation to the Egyptian myth that Ra, the sun god, went into the underworld every evening and struggled against the dragon and only after defeating it could he rise again the next morning. The God of the Hebrews had no such struggle, there was nothing that opposed him during the night, he did not struggle in the underworld like Ra had to)

I also believe that the early parts of the Bible were written to educate the Israelites away from the beliefs of the pagan nations and teach them the true nature of God which had been lost since the time of Noah, buried under superstitions and demonic reinterpretations and other distortions by the pagan nations. But the particular myth you are hanging everything on isn't the only one they were exposed to. I just googled the topic and found a long discussion of the background influence of the Enuma Elish on the writing of Genesis, meaning Babylonian myth rather than Egyptian myth.

I've also read a very convincing background study on the sacrifice of Isaac in terms of Abraham's experience with the pagan human sacrifices to their gods, and God's teaching him that there is only one human Sacrifice He will accept, represented by the ram in the thicket, and that all the sacrifices of human children are evil misunderstandings of the promise of the Messiah.

So I'm not saying such things don't figure in the understanding of Genesis, but I am saying that what is actually written there has to be taken as God's truth in contrast with all the myths He is answering. What good does it do to think of it as just another myth? We're to learn what the Creation was REALLY like from the Bible, not just another creation myth, we're to learn what God is REALLY like, not just another god myth. Yes, the Bible is intended to answer all the pagan myths, but how can it answer them if it is only another myth? It's the truth or it is nothing. And, yes, of course it would have to have been written in terms that made sense to the first people to hear it, but also in terms that make sense 3500 years later, or it's worthless.

You say all this doesn't diminish your understanding of the text but makes you appreciate it, but that's hard to see from what you've said. You are making it into just another myth that modern science contradicts, judging it by science. If God's word is subject to human judgment it's not God's word.

If the ancient Israelites had such a physicalistic idea of what it was teaching that doesn't mean that's what it IS teaching, it just means they got it wrong. And I'm not totally convinced that the model you keep insisting on really does represent their understanding. ONE understanding maybe, but THE understanding, not convinced. Who actually had that model and believed it, that's not clear from what you've said. Who were they, who did they represent? Where did that model come from?

No, I never look at it that way although of course I notice that there are no actual windows or openings in the sky, which affects my understanding that the word must be metaphorical, but I would assume even the ancients should have seen it that way so their physicalistic rendering seems odd to me. In fact I'd think even an ancient Israelite should have taken it as metaphorical. All you have to do is look at the sky. No, the ancients had a pretty messed up view of cosmology, I don't doubt they thought that there were literally windows in the dome of the sky. If you look at the cosmologies of other societies both before and during that time, you will find they are rather similar in their ideas about how the universe was structured. They simply did the best they could with what they could observe and understand.

Which, again, doesn't mean that they were right about what Genesis was saying. God's word accommodates many human points of view, but it isn't written from a human perspective, it's from God's perspective and His revelation speaks to all cultures in all times.

If God had intended Genesis to be a scientific explanation of the cosmos, don't you think he would have corrected those misconceptions about the structure of the universe, not used the same ancient terminology to describe it?

You haven't convinced me yet that the terminology is all that tied to a particular cultural expression, but to the extent it is the aim would have been to communicate a different understanding in the familiar terminology, not set the usual understanding in concrete, so that if they couldn't break out of that understanding that's not the fault of the language of Genesis but just the usual fault of human habits of thought. A later generation would not read it the same way. By the time we get to David we have a much more sophisticated understanding of the heavens above as expressed in the psalms and yet he had the same Book of Genesis the early generations had.

In any case, again, it's God's truth or it isn't, and I say it is, it is not just another myth. And if it's truth and it says anything at all about the physical universe, in a sense that IS a rudimentary form of science, it's a knowledge we must take seriously as written. Or again, we're not talking about God's word, God's truth. It's either God's word or it isn't. What you are doing with it makes it into something less than God's truth.

Nobody reads the Bible in a total vacuum, that would be impossible. Exactly. And today we have so much more knowledge about how the universe works than they did in ancient Israel. So we need to look at the text, in the best way possible, from the eyes of those it was written to, not as if it was written in the 21st century.

God is a lot bigger than that, HBD, He wrote the text to ALL generations everywhere. Sometimes the writers themselves didn't fully understand what they were writing. They were moved by God to write what they wrote.

2Pe 1:21 For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.

Even the angels didn't completely understand it:

1Pe 1:12 Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things the angels desire to look into.

You seem to want to tie the writing of the Bible too completely to the times in which it was written, making it a merely humanly inspired text, but it presents itself as God-inspired and people in all generations have to reach to understand it.

ANY knowledge we have cannot contradict God's word, but our science does, meaning our sciences of the past do, basic physics doesn't, basic biology doesn't, basic genetics doesn't, even basic geology doesn't, etc etc etc., but old earthism does and evolution does. If the Bible is God's word those sciences are wrong.

So I am OK with you believing what you believe. But, what is not OK is that you try to make those who have different views less Christian than you (if Christian at all) when what they do in principal is really no different than what you yourself do. All because it doesn't fit your preconceived notion of how it should be and your opinion of what constitutes "severe". As in when you say: In this case, though, literal openings in heaven contradict science -- contradict simple observation What is not OK is that you consider scientists to be liars and frauds,

I haven't ever said that, but if I ever did it would accord with scripture that says "Let every man be a liar but God be true." Where there is a contradiction with scripture, which, remember, is God's truth, God's word, the scientists are wrong.

Liars and frauds, not necessarily, no, but wrong about whatever they affirm that contradicts God's word. Whatever work they do that accords with God's word is fine, and a lot of it does of course.

... intent only on discrediting the Bible simply because they are trying to understand the world around us in the best way possible.

The problem is that they should start out with a belief in the Bible because it is God's truth, and any conclusions they come to that contradict it should be set aside, but what in fact they do is accept the contradictory science and call God the liar. And that is also what you are doing.

So, if you want to hold to the premise that we can not be sure about the past, fine. But as for me and many others, we believe we can know a lot about the past with a fair amount of certainty.

And apparently it's OK with you if what you think you know contradicts what the word of God says. The reason I reject the sciences of the past for starters is that they contradict God's word, but when you go on from there to think about how they are formulated you should be able to see that there is no actual basis for them, no observational basis, it's all theory and conjecture, a gigantic edifice of thought piled on thought (the entire Geological Timetable for instance, what a fantastic elaborate piece of fiction) that rarely touches earth and when it does it imposes assumptions and interpretations that are not supported by the actual facts. And yet you are willing to accept it as if it were the same as solidly testable science, the kind that sends rockets to distant planets and produces medicines for complicated diseases and invents useful machines and so on. It is not. It contradicts God's word and it produces absolutely nothing useful, only more mind-twisting theory, and it has no basis in actual scientific method either, which of course is to be expected if God's word IS God's word.

And that knowledge must color our understanding of the Bible. To do otherwise would be to read the Bible in a vacuum and quite frankly, would be dishonest.

There is nothing dishonest about taking God's truth as foundational to science. It is in fact the only honest way there is to approach it IF it is God's truth. The only way you can make science the judge of God's word is by not taking it as God's word. Most here don't accept it as God's word so their putting science above it is just an expression of their belief that there is no God and the Bible is just a fairy tale. You on the other hand claim to respect the Bible and yet the way you put science above the Bible shows that in practice you don't really, you reduce it to a humanly inspired text that is subject to human judgment, rather than submitting to it as God's inspired word that judges all of us.

It's a natural reading in my opinion.

Yes, well I guess you could say that treating the Biblical text as just another human production, or just a myth as most here do, IS "natural." That's how the fallen mind works, it's quite natural.

I say it is God's truth also. But it has a higher purpose than to teach science or a scientific understanding of the universe.

Such a phrase as "higher purpose" suggests there is going to be an attempt to change the meaning of the text to suit some agenda or other and I fear that is exactly what you are talking about. We no longer have to take it as describing anything in the actual physical world, I suppose, 'cause it REALLY means.... something so "spiritual" it doesn't touch down on Earth I would guess.

Nobody takes Genesis as primarily teaching science, who would ever say such a thing? Creation Science was born in an attempt to counter the Bible-destroying false sciences of evolution and an old earth, building on Genesis, but nobody ever said that was the purpose of Genesis. Nobody reads Genesis as a creation science text as such.

To take it that way seriously misses the mark. I don't use the word myth to describe the Bible. I believe it teaches the truth, and a truth that transcends science, not supersedes it.

Which is the sort of thing that is usually said as a word-twisting way of turning it into a myth and denying what it actually says while claiming to do something else. I read some about the book you recommended, just another tour de force attempt to make the Bible mean something other than it has always been understood to mean, and what for? To rationalize the false sciences of evolution and the Old Earth I would guess.

Read the book I referenced. If you can't bring yourself to spend the time to do it, I will try to out line their arguments for you

From a skim-through at Amazon I get that it's a claim that Genesis 1:1 has been mistranslated lo these many millennia. I didn't spend the time to get a clear idea of what they think it should say, just that they don't like what it says and they think a better understanding of the Hebrew will show that it means something else. A couple of Dallas seminary guys.

I'm sure you don't know enough Hebrew to judge their thinking and I certainly don't so I don't see what it would accomplish to tell me more about their conclusions.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I may spend time on this post later but right now this caught my eye:

What average reader has access to the vapor canopy idea? How do you think a Bushman in Africa would read this text? Do think he would clearly recognize this as a metaphor and decide that this must be referring to some kind of vapor canopy that we no longer can see?

There is no need and no expectation that the Bushman understand the vapor canopy idea. There is no need or expectation that anybody read Genesis 1 to 11 in terms of Creation Science although it certainly should be read as factually true as written. Creation Science is a special study of Genesis for the specific purpose of answering the false sciences of Evolution and the Old Earth, but that is not the "purpose" of Genesis as such and not the way I'd expect people to read it.

120 feet in 24 hours. Or 4800 feet by the end of the forty days and nights of the rainfall. That would pretty well cover the pre-Flood mountains which weren’t anywhere near as high as the mountains we have now that were formed by tectonic force. You specifically calculated for mountains that are lower than the ones that exist and you made up a non-Biblical mountain growth during the flood.

I didn't calculate "for" that purpose at all. I calculated based on the highest rate of rainfall I could find mentioned for today's world, it had nothing to do with anything else. I discovered that the rain alone at that rate was sufficient for the coverage of the low mountains we always ascribe to the pre-Flood world. The water level appears to be more than sufficient for that height. I also calculated a lower rate and got a much lower water level, which probably wouldn't be sufficient for the height of the pre-Flood mountains, but all we surmise about them is that they were lower than the mountains we have today, we don't know what their height would have been. In any case, again, my water calculations were in no way planned in relation to the mountain height.

As for the tectonic cause of the higher mountains we have today I've argued that already in many a thread. Why you think it would influence my water calculations is beyond me. Judging from the way the strata were laid down I came to the conclusion that tectonic and other disturbances didn't occur at all during the laying-down period but at the very end. Whether that means while the Flood waters were still present or while they were receding or sometime afterward I don't know, but after all the strata were in place for sure.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Feel I have to do a better job responding to this:

I say it is God's truth also. But it has a higher purpose than to teach science or a scientific understanding of the universe.

if it is in fact God's truth then it is true and you can't treat anything it says as false.

It is meant FOR everybody, but it was not written TO everybody.

I don't see as a matter of fact that any of it was exactly written TO anybody specifically at all in the sense of being addressed to anybody in particular if you want to get nitpicky about that. I'm only saying it was all written to everybody in a general sense and not at all confined to the original audience with their peculiar context and expectations.

Remember that you don't read the Bible in a vacuum? Well the ancient Hebrews weren't in a vacuum either. They understood certain things in certain ways and not like we do. It's not that we have to have the mindset of the ancient Hebrews, but we do have to consider it in context of their situation. To do otherwise is to miss the point.

All I've said is that it isn't ONLY written for them and to confine the interpretation to their context is what is wrong. But that's what you seem to be doing and that book you recommended as well.

And yet it is written to the average reader HBD. And yet the average reader can't have it in a version that is readable - it has to be the KJV - or at least readable versions are corrupt and so the average reader will be deceived.

Now you are bringing in a completely separate point. Yes I argue that the KJV is the most trustworthy translation for many reasons but primarily because the underlying Greek manuscripts are corrupted, but I also allow that the modern translations give enough of the truth for most purposes including conversion. And my point has always been that we still need an updating of the KJV so that it will be more readable. BUT again it is not as hard as people say it is to teach people who know English from the KJV. Granted it would be a lot easier if it had remained our authorized version so that everybody was familiar with it instead of having all these utterly inferior choices that now litter the landscape.

And yet the Bible uses metaphorical language that is so foreign to us that the average reader can not make sense of it.

Here I have no idea what you are talking about.

And yet there are thousands of commentaries that are intended to explain difficult passages of text. And yet there are thousands of different denominations that have broken off because of differing interpretations. And yet so many who set down to read the Bible give up because they feel it is just inaccessible.

Oh balderdash. What a bunch of made-up nonsense. If you want to discuss the Bible go find a thread about it or start a new one.

I do believe the Bible is relevant to us today. But it takes some unpacking, some explanation and some work to make sense of it and to extract what it has to say about how we live our lives and how it is relevant to us today.

Such a general statement can hardly be disagreed with.

Your claim just doesn't hold water HBD. Well, neither does the vapor canopy. So what is the source of the "windows of heaven?" What is it metaphorically referring to?

Obviously has to be referring to a source of rain, and what is that but a lot of vapor held in the atmosphere, you know, clouds, or in other words "a vapor canopy."

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Everything you quote has "windows" or "doors" of heaven being clearly metaphorical. Blessings come down from heaven, the manna came down from heaven and so did the rain. It all came from ABOVE. Rain normally comes from vapor in the atmosphere. It's not that God couldn't just pour out rain miraculously but God says He WILL do all kinds of things in scripture and most of it doesn't happen miraculously, such as He will make of Abraham a great nation, He will make a great nation of Hagar's son too, and we don't expect Him to do it as a miracle ex nihilo, He does it through the normal channels of reproduction. "Blessings" from heaven can be anything, probably most of them coming through normal channels. Manna was of course a miracle. But rain from heaven like all the other normal events mentioned doesn't need a miraculous source. God makes EVERYTHING happen, very little of it miraculous, and there's nothing miraculous about rain.

ABE: I pulled up all the "I will" phrases in the Bible and those attributed to God are just about all statements of what He is going to do to Israel either as a blessing or a punishment. This one is typical:

Jer 5:15 Lo, I will bring a nation upon you from far, O house of Israel, saith the LORD: it is a mighty nation, it is an ancient nation, a nation whose language thou knowest not, neither understandest what they say.

Again, God does EVERYTHING. In the Bible He shows us what He does and why so we can apply it to our own lives. Very little of it is miraculous. This passage is a prophecy or warning of judgment coming upon the nation in the form of an attack by a powerful enemy.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Edited by Faith, : No reason given.