Faith writes me:
quote:
The premise being discussed is that it occurred because God said it did, and that whatever can be known about it from the Bible must be taken into account.
That's the crux of the issue right there. Nothing can be known if the source is only a book. The book can be studied in scientific ways (see
higher criticism), but most of the stories and episodes within it can't. Similarly, Shakespeare's
Hamlet can be studied in scientific ways (as it has been extensively; the story of the play's text presents a fascinating journey into the history of the printed word, if you should ever care to look it up), but there's no way one could, for instance, ever prove or disprove whether the ghost of King Hamlet really visited Elsinore on that fateful night. Appeals to ghosts are no different in this respect from appeals to god.
So while we can learn a lot about human history from the bible and about the history of printing from
Hamlet, the bible is no more help in scientifically studying god than is
Hamlet in scientfically studying ghosts. No matter how many written words you can find that talk about god or ghosts, both belong to the supernatural and thus neither can be scientifically studied.
You and other YECs choose to look to the bible to assist you in studying god. That's fine, but don't pretend that you're engaging in science. Science is based on what can be observed directly, not on what can be observed in a book.
"We look forward to hearing your vision, so we can more better do our job. That's what I'm telling you."-George W. Bush, Gulfport, Miss.,
Sept. 20, 2005.