Peg writes:
i believe MANKIND is 6,000 years old
And you believe this because... that's the timeline implied by the specific genealogy provided in the Bible?
If you don't accept the YEC view of the six days being literal 24-hour days (because you do accept the physical evidence regarding the age of the universe and the age of the earth), then why do you not apply the same reasoning to the age of
homo sapiens? Why reject the evidence of the fossil records, the cave paintings in France, and genetics? Rejecting just these things leads to unavoidable contradictions with the evidence that points to a 14-billion-year-old universe and a 4-billion-year-old earth, which in turn leads to an inconsistent (and ultimately incoherent) view of the world.
I'm assuming that Rhain's purpose in this thread is to nail down the untenable falsehood of the Genesis creation story, to somehow nullify any tendency to consider it "historically" valid in any regard, and defeat any "looser" interpretation of it that would reconcile it with observed evidence. (Then again, maybe I'm missing his point entirely -- I find this to be a confusing thread.)
Whatever his purpose may actually be, I think there is no sense in trying to "interpret" (i.e. distort) reality in an attempt to reconcile it with some literal reading of (any portion of) the Genesis account. Maybe the genealogy is based (roughly) on some stuff that actually happened in a particular family, but that bears no relation to the age of mankind, and the stories around the genealogy (the creation, the flood, the Tower of Babel) are pure fabrication, whose importance and relevance are due solely to their metaphorical value, and what the metaphors tell us about the nature of the deity that the Hebrews had in mind when they worshipped.
autotelic adj. (of an entity or event) having within itself the purpose of its existence or happening.
™ Version 4.2
