Evolution? (interpreting The Bible)

[God Conquers]

Literal within the proper context and literary style of the book. Genesis was written long, long ago. And verbally trnasmitted for thousands of years before that. It is an allegorical style, so although we know the world was created by God, six days does not necessarily mean 6, 24 hour days. It is the opening chapter of SALVATION history, but not necessarily SCIENTIFIC history.

Best quote about the Big Bang theory ever (not sure who said it):

"For there to be a Big Bang there must be a Big Bang-er!"

[Paladin D]

I'm not exactly sure what I believe on the literal six days of creation. But I honestly do believe in a global flood.

I have this Christian science book (hear me out, trust me on this). Most Christian science books are ethier...

A) Quote Scripture all the time, with lack of scientific evidence

B) Do not even feel like Science books, just preaching books

C) Tend to claim everything is fact

...however, this book doesn't do anything of the sort. It maintains a very scientific foundation, even our belief in Creationism is a "Theory". Nothing can be 100% proven fact with science, but we can get very close.

I honestly love this book, if you're into science but want a Creationist type perspective, without all the Scriptural quotes and Bible thumping content, pick up...

"Exploring Creation With General Science" by Dr. Jay L. Wile

...it's a fantastic book, and provides a lot of examples.

Trust me on this, this isn't like most other Creationist type books, I've been through a lot of them.

[sem1357]

"For there to be a Big Bang there must be a Big Bang-er!"

i think that could fit any theory for the beginning of time or the world or the universe or humanity or whatever. God made it happen and He loves us, and i think that's what the point really comes down to.

i mean, am i right?

p.s. thanks for all y'alls input so far!

[jasJis]

sem1357,

Exactly. That is basically St. Thomas Aquinas' explanation of God as the 'First Cause'. Check out the Catechism, and read the section about the nature of God and man. I'll give you the paragraph #'s if you're lost.

[Brother Adam]

"Jesus's parables when in a long line of teaching stories as found in the..."

Please keep in mind that Christ always told us when he spoke in a parable.

Also keep in mind that the theory of evolution was not created with God in mind. It was developed to explain how life originated from an athiestic standpoint- no God needed.

Also keep in mind that evolution has been declared a mathamatic impossibility. The probability is 1 in 1^280, which to a scientist is impossible.

If we are to believe God is capable of anything, I certainly can believe that he can create a full grown functioning creation.

God Bless,

Bro. Adam

[cmotherofpirl]

If he wanted us to develop over millions of years and at some point insert a soul into a first set of humans he could.

If he wanted to make everything all set last week he could have as well.

I think the first hypothesis is a bit more likely.

God is not in or bound by our time.

[sem1357]

now i like that way of looking at it!

[Kathryn]

so then y'all agree with me that some parts of the Bible aren't meant to be taken literally? what about the Big Bang theory, i've heard of it, but who knows anything about it? is that a viable theory too? 

This is my first post here, and I am a little late in responding, but I wanted to say that the father of the Big Bang Theory was a devout Catholic priest and scientist Mgr.George Lemaitre.

Pope Pius XII and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences hailed Lemaitre's work. The Big Bang Theory was initially met with a lot of scepticism by most astronomers including Einstein for the reason that it was proposed by a Catholic priest.

When Albert Einstien heard Lemaitre give a presentation on it, he stood up and applauded and said, “This is the most beautiful and satisfactory explanation of creation to which I have ever listened.”

It wasn't until about 1966 that the theory started to be taken seriously in the world of science. Previously it was thought that the universe always was, and always would be. The Big Bang Theory places the universe as having a beginning and will have an end, which fits in with the idea of an expanding universe. Mgr. Lemaitre believed the world was created by God.

God Bless

[Aloysius]

Also keep in mind that evolution has been declared a mathamatic impossibility. The probability is 1 in 1^280, which to a scientist is impossible.

not to say that evolution definitely did happen, but in my opinion this is a weak argument

how many planets are there in the universe? could there be 1^280? i donno, i was interested in that mathematical proof against evolution till i thought that way

God created man

God created woman

Original sin took place with woman listening to the devil and bringing sin to man

Salvation took place when new woman listened to the angel and brought savior to man

God saved woman

God saved man

that's all that really matters right?

\

God Bless

[Thomas Michael]

Well, I've read Genesis, I've read about evolution... and from that I've pieced together my personal beliefs as follows:

God made the universe starting with the Big Bang.

God created DNA and let it run its course in developing life, guiding the evolution along.

God experimented around with humans (thus the Neanderthal, the Homo Erectus, the Homo Sapiens) before perfecting his creation with the Cro-Magnon species.

Adam and Eve were the first Cro-Magnons. God formed many other humans after Adam and Eve, using different colored skins and so on, and some of these people probably survived the 40-day flood as well. I'm kinda hesitant to believe that EVERYONE came from Adam and Eve (or Noah and his friends)... I don't think God would've wanted humanity to have such an incestuous beginning.

I also believe there's life on other planets. And God may well have sent his Son to proclaim the Good News to those planets as well, when the time was right. Jesus may be known as Ikperdul-zogzat to believers some 30,000 light years away.

[VanHooty]

Well... there was this Jesuit. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He, for one, had some pretty <insert appropriate words here> about evolution, matter, and the state of things. His ideas seem to be out of favor with both theologians and scientists nowadays.

[cmotherofpirl]

yep he is...

and thats as it should be.

[Paladin D]

But wouldn't the whole Evolutionary concept diminish the original sin factor? If there were humans before Adam and Eve, and they (the humans before them, and the animals) ate meat (which is from other animals, and uh humans)...

...wouldn't that diminsh the whole "Adam and Eve were first Vegetarians"? And all the animals were too? No sin and death?

[cmotherofpirl]

No.

God made everything. So if he took 10 millions years or seven days it doesn't matter.

THe important part is this: God at some point took a first couple and gave them souls. they sinned and the rest is history: sin and death.

Does it really matter when we started eating meat?

[mustbenothing]

(dUSt) If the story of creation is not literal, then what about Noah's ark, or the Tower of Babel?

(Me) Exactly! The idea that the first chapters of Genesis are not historical raises a pivotal interpretive question - why is the rest of the Genesis narrative clearly historical (and regarded as such by both OT and NT writers)? This creates a disjunction in content between the two sections of Genesis. But where is there textual warrant for such a disjunction? On the contrary, the early narratives flow right into the latter narratives concerning the historical patriarchs. The placement of such a disjunction, under the "figurative" view, is the first sign of an artificial interpretive device. Thus, the figurative view must be considered false - and can be considered such on these grounds alone.

(cmotherofpirl) One of the best ways to teach something is to tell a story. Jesus's parables when in a long line of teaching stories as found in the OT. Genesis up to Abraham are considered teaching stories: ways to transmit universal truths. Adam and Eve teach us many important things, as do Noahs ark and the tower of Babel.

God made everything good, we messed up. God gave us a way to be saved.

God loves us in spite of our stupidities. Noahs teaches that God brought us into the world and He can take us out. ( to paraphrase Bill Cosby). the Tower of Babel teaches us the dangers of technology and overreaching ourselves.

(Me) Jesus always identified His parables, yet I see no identification of Gen 1-11 as non-historical. I think we can see immediately how accepting such a method of interpretation is going to be terrible: If we're just going to arbitrarily label chapters of Biblical history as non-historical, why not label Christ's resurrection as non-historical?

(God conquers) Literal within the proper context and literary style of the book. Genesis was written long, long ago. And verbally trnasmitted for thousands of years before that. It is an allegorical style, so although we know the world was created by God, six days does not necessarily mean 6, 24 hour days. It is the opening chapter of SALVATION history, but not necessarily SCIENTIFIC history.

(Me) In addition to the arguments presented above, the following observations seem to support the literal, six-day view (these arguments have been borrowed from Kenneth Gentry and R.L. Dabney):

1. Yom ("day") refers to a normal day as experienced regularly by man (though it may be limited to the hours of light, as per common understanding) in the overwhelming majority of the 1704 times it appears in the OT. The preponderate usage of a term should be maintained in exegetical analysis unless contextual forces indicate otherwise. This is particularly so in historical narrative.

2. Moses carefully identifies each of the six "days" with "evening and morning." This is clearly a qualification of the days. Outside of Genesis 1 the words "evening" and "morning" occur together in thirty-seven verses, and always refer to normal days.

Examples from Moses include:

Exodus 18:13: And so it was, on the next day, that Moses sat to judge the people; and the people stood before Moses from morning until evening.

Exodus 27:21: In the tabernacle of meeting, outside the veil which is before the Testimony, Aaron and his sons shall tend it from evening until morning before the LORD.

3. A numerical adjective (first, second, third, etc.) is added to yom 119 times in Moses's writings, and never means anything other than a literal day. The same is true of the 357 instances outside the Pentateuch.

Examples include:

Leviticus 12:3: And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised.

Exodus 12:15: Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread. On the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses. For whoever eats leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that person shall be cut off from Israel.

Exodus 24:16: Now the glory of the LORD rested on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days. And on the seventh day He called to Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

4. Days 4, 5, and 6 occur after the creation of the sun, which was designated to "rule" the day/night pattern (Genesis 1:14), compelling us to understand this as a normal Earth day in light of the "evening and morning" pattern. The same description is given to days 1-3 as days 4-6, meaning that the days should all be considered the same.

5.In Exodus 20:9-11, God patterns man's six-day work week after His six-day work week. Seeing man's seven days as being different than God's seven days here is read into the text.

On two occasions in Moses’s writings this rationale is used:

Exodus 20:11 For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.

Exodus 31:15-17 Work shall be done for six days, but the seventh is the Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD.... It is a sign between Me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed.

6. Exodus 20:11 says that God's creation week is "six days" (yammim), plural. In the 608 instances of the plural "days" in the Old Testament, we never find any other meaning than normal days. Ages are never expressed as yammim.

7. Had Moses intended to express the notion that the creation covered eras, he could have employed the term olam. Even the resting of God on the "seventh day" does not express His eternal rest, for it would also imply not only His continual rest but also His continual blessing of creation, as if sin never intervened:

Genesis 2:3

Then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work which God had created and made.

(Aloysius) that's all that really matters right?

(Me) You are right that whether or not God created the Earth in seven days is not very important to most people in their daily lives. However, step back for a second: what is important is the principle behind this discussion. It seems obvious to most people that we should assume that anything taught by supposedly autonomous human reason trumps the direct Word of God. However, "Let God be true, though every man be found a liar" (Romans 3:4). The question of origins is vital because it indicates where our ultimate authority lies: do we really believe that God's revelation trumps man's hypotheses, or do we trust man's reason over truth told us by God?