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I have some questions that I have never resolved and that hamper my belief in the Bible still. Here are four of my biggest problems:

1. People living to be 900-something years old.

2. Noah finding 2 of every single species on earth and jaming them onto a 450 boat.

3. Fossil evidence of plants and creatures much, much older than genesis.

4. Fossil evidence of an evolving human kind, and the very very slow increase in human kind's intelligence and creativity.

What's up with this? Did anybody ever "research" this stuff?

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I have some questions that I have never resolved and that hamper my belief in the Bible still. Here are four of my biggest problems:

1. People living to be 900-something years old.

2. Noah finding 2 of every single species on earth and jaming them onto a 450 boat.

3. Fossil evidence of plants and creatures much, much older than genesis.

4. Fossil evidence of an evolving human kind, and the very very slow increase in human kind's intelligence and creativity.

What's up with this? Did anybody ever "research" this stuff?

I've read a few books by Hugh Ross [who is a Christian], here's a web site of his

http://www.reasons.org/

Somethings he gets into: on their longevity - the atmospheric conditions "back then" provided more UV protection and also their diet was different - not eating meat would cut down on heavy metals ingested, he claims Noah's flood was not global - just the area to kill off where all the people were - and some animals [the animals that could swim - didn't need the ark], and according to Ross the earth IS much older than what most theologians claim and suggests the "day" of Genesis 1 is much longer than 24 hours...I think in one of his books he made the point the Bible is not a scientific book - or rather not written from a scientific viewpoint. [And I remember reading in an old book The Harmony of Science and Scripture by Harry Rimmer - that we usually find scientific things in the Bible described in unscientific terms - as in the book of Job, near the end when God talks to him.]...Ross points out a science book is out of it's element to discuss matters of faith merely because of it's viewpoint - dealing with things that can be observed, examined, etc. as in the scientific method.

The Genesis Question: Scientific Advances and the Accuracy of Genesis by Hugh Ross, co. 1998, NavPress.

Edited by T-Bone
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Was it 2 by 2? How do we reconcile these?

Gen 6:19,20

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every [sort] shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep [them] alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every [sort] shall come unto thee, to keep [them] alive.

Gen 7:2,3

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two, the male and his female.

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

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God first

Beloved nolongerlurking

God loves you my dear friend

Ok let look

your questions

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1. People living to be 900-something years old.

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That is less sin passing sickness from generation to generation like eating the wrong food brings some illness

Ok All sin as brought some sickness which has cut short of lives from over 1,000 years to less than a 100 most of the time

next question

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2. Noah finding 2 of every single species on earth and jaming them onto a 450 boat.

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you answer that your self not every kind but one of every species

one of the cat family maybe a house cat or a wild cat but just two cats

but I believe Belle has answer that one

next

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3. Fossil evidence of plants and creatures much, much older than genesis.

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So some say but look up things like C-decay because if you measure how the earth is and do not have all the facts you will get the wrong answer

Like If a person who dies today decays at n percent per year and if we know how must a cabon a average living person has than we can do our math

but if 1,000 years ago a living person have more carbon or the decay rate was less or more percent per year your math will be off too

So you see to many unknown facts to get the right date because very few science look at a decay rate and the few that have are missing facts to that are not able to measure at this time

One would have to use math and see what it take to put a man in perfect health were his body could live a 1,000 years

just my two pennies

next

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4. Fossil evidence of an evolving human kind, and the very very slow increase in human kind's intelligence and creativity.

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Fossil can not tell how smart a person was nor how creativity the person was maybe we been over so called creativity which has been killing us over time

May be they understood plants and animals and did not have to do fancy things to grow more or get the best out of animals

you see for every question there is a answer but most will not look to see how little we really know about plants, animals, the earth, and the heavens

thank you

with love and a holy kiss blowing your way Roy

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I have some questions that I have never resolved and that hamper my belief in the Bible still. Here are four of my biggest problems:

I'll give some of them a shot.

1. People living to be 900-something years old.
That's fairly consistent until the time of the Flood,

and the lifespans drop catastrophically at that point,

until they more closely resemble current standards.

That's consistent with what one would expect if a species' genetic variety

was severely hampered by a sudden limitation in the breeding

population. (Certain animal breeds are prone to problems as a

result of severely limited breeding-so this is not without other instances.)

In short, we had better-bred humans, so they had longer lifespans.

Now, the genetic variation is crippled by comparison, so we have

poorer-bred humans.

3. Fossil evidence of plants and creatures much, much older than genesis.

Genesis starts "in the beginning."

By definition, no fossil record can preceed "the beginning."

(Otherwise, that would be "the beginning.")

Genesis does NOT include a date for "the beginning."

Different people have different opinions about when "the beginning"

is. Some claim it was something like 4000 BC.

Others say it was millions or billions of years ago.

The fossils predate a 4000 BC account but not the others.

The opinions that accept the Bible tend to explain "the beginning"

as follows:

A) Young-Earth Theory.

The earth started about 4000 BC.

Nothing is older than this.

The Young-Earth position suffers when facing scientific evidence.

B) Young-Earth with appearance of age.

The earth started about 4000 BC,

and God included some things that APPEAR older, but are NOT.

This is purely a faith-based position.

Technically, it can neither be proven nor DISproven.

God certainly CAN do this. DID He do this?

That's the relevant question there.

As such, scientific types skip this one.

C) Gap Theory.

The earth started a very long time ago,

then came a war in heaven,

and sometime AFTER that we get the current timeframe.

This one accounts for the huge span of time.

D) Progression Theory.

The earth started a very long time ago,

and God started various processes long ago,

culminating in humans. Each "day" was a period of time.

This one accounts for the huge span of time.

Personally, I find the last 2 hold water, and prefer not to

deal with the first one.

4. Fossil evidence of an evolving human kind, and the very very slow increase in human kind's intelligence and creativity.
Actually, given the "Cambrian Explosion", when the Earth went from

having virtually no life-forms (according to the fossil records)

to suddenly having MILLIONS of species,

I question just how much ANIMALS have evolved, let alone humans.

We can show ADAPTATION, but the "macro-evolution" postulated

by some people has been imposed on the system, and is not

supported by a fossil record DEMONSTRATING it.

What's up with this? Did anybody ever "research" this stuff?

Lots of people.

Just nobody in twi.

You can look at some of it on http://www.doesgodexist.org

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I accept that Genesis may be somewhat allegorical in many instances. That the flood, Which is found in many cultures) and Noah and, how animals ended up where, is not so much a line by line history as a overall explanation of those times and not necessarily a literal time line.

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Just to answer the animal one................I am sure that when the rain started coming, so did all the animals.

Nature is really connected to God, and I am sure they obeyed without delay!

It doesn't say that Noah had to go out and find them, just probably had to count and separate all the ones that showed up!

I would NOT feel up to catching critters after xxx amount of years building the titanic!

Could you imagine Noah trying to hunt down all these animals himself? What a nightmare.

God is much more helpful than that. IMO :who_me:

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This is where the fundy's really get their exercise. They have to spin an incredible amount to make Genesis line up with real life.

Maybe, if you really want to keep your faith in THE BIBLE, you could simply accept the records in Genesis - as Mo seems to do - as simply allegorical.

There's no way in hell you're ever going to come up with a plausible way to get every animal on earth into a boat (a boat many times larger than the largest wooden boat ever built, BTW, and there are HUGE structural issues that come into play that somehow don't get mentioned in the biblical account), then FEED them all, care for them all, keep the carnivores from eating the herbivores, clean up the manure for what? 10 or 12 months? And this is supposedly done by EIGHT people? THEN you have to get all those critters back to where they live, the three-toed sloths have to do the backstroke across the Atlantic, the penquins to Antarctica, and the Armadillos to Texas. It's utterly absurd. And I'm not even getting into the whole concept of the event - that a "loving" heavenly father would drown the vast majority of his creation!

The other "science" of The Bible is often equally flawed, IMNSHO.

So my advice would be, if you're still want to remain in the ranks of Christianity, religate these accounts to being parables or morality tales, and not factual. Life will be much easier for you...

Oh, and for your added reading enjoyment:

http://www.catalaw.com/detox/detox.shtml?results

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a tidbit................

The Ark measured 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is about 140x23x13.5 metres or 459x75x44 feet, so its volume was 43,500 m3 (cubic metres) or 1.54 million cubic feet. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent volume of 522 standard American railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep.

If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of 50x50x30 centimetres (20x20x12 inches), that is 75,000 cm3 (cubic centimetres) or 4800 cubic inches, the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. Even if a million insect species had to be on board, it would not be a problem, because they require little space. If each pair was kept in cages of 10 cm (four inches) per side, or 1000 cm3, all the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1000 m3, or another 12 cars. This would leave room for five trains of 99 cars each for food, Noah’s family and ‘range’ for the animals. However, insects are not included in the meaning of behemah or remes in Genesis 6:19-20, so Noah probably would not have taken them on board as passengers anyway.

Tabulating the total volume is fair enough, since this shows that there would be plenty of room on the Ark for the animals with plenty left over for food, range etc. It would be possible to stack cages, with food on top or nearby (to minimize the amount of food carrying the humans had to do), to fill up more of the Ark space, while still allowing plenty of room for gaps for air circulation. We are discussing an emergency situation, not necessarily luxury accommodation. Although there is plenty of room for exercise, skeptics have overstated animals’ needs for exercise anyway.

Even if we don’t allow stacking one cage on top of another to save floor space, there would be no problem. Woodmorappe shows from standard recommended floor space requirements for animals that all of them together would have needed less than half the available floor space of the Ark’s three decks. This arrangement allows for the maximum amount of food and water storage on top of the cages close to the animals.

* from Answers in Genesis.com

and it goes on........... :wave: hi George!!!

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So my advice would be, if you're still want to remain in the ranks of Christianity, religate these accounts to being parables or morality tales, and not factual. Life will be much easier for you...

pretty darn close there George...

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I'm not saying there wasn't or was something that happened in the physical, natural elements. Or that there was not an Ark. But water represents the Word all over the Bible as well as other things too. The washing of water by the Word, John baptising with water and so on.

Also it says the "windows of Heaven" were opened. Now I can think of at least one other place that phrase is used. And Jesus went to those after he rose from the dead, I'd say he did them some good then too.

---

In the beginning God said let there be Light. 1 John says this was the Light that was the Light of men. More to think about .....

And in those six "days" what was really happening...or what is it saying?

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Here's an interesting link I found

AFRICA'S NEW OCEAN

A Continent Splits Apart

http://service.spiegel.de/cache/internatio...,405947,00.html

It is easy to see from this article why people experiencing thiskind of event thousands of years ago ,when the earth was even more unstable and land masses were drifting apart, would think the world was destroyed. Many probably crowded on boats some on rafts, possibly taking their dogs, goats, chickens and other livestock with them. Some eventually found land. Cut off from each other, it would be easy to believe that you were the last people on earth.

Animals have much more innate instincts about earthquakes and volcanoes, (just check out my cat before St Augustine blows or we have a 4.+ earthquake, two days before the event, If you don't believe me) Their instincts tell them to run in the opposite direction

I accept the account of Noah as a lesson in obedience to God, which reiterates the common thread of- obedience equals life sin equals death, while at the same time understanding the history of it is many histories or parts of histories woven into one

Edited by templelady
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more on the flood. It's been debated many times...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deluge_(mythology)

That's a great link, CM. I also found another hyperlink from that same article -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_deluge_theory

- the Ryan-Pittman theory of the Black Sea area having been subject to a catastrophic deluge -

which I think is quite interesting.

I mean, why else would the legendary "Noah's ark" had thought to have ended up on

a mountain in Turkey, of all places?

Danny

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George Posted:

There's no way in hell you're ever going to come up with a plausible way to get every animal on earth into a boat (a boat many times larger than the largest wooden boat ever built, BTW, and there are HUGE structural issues that come into play that somehow don't get mentioned in the biblical account), then FEED them all, care for them all, keep the carnivores from eating the herbivores, clean up the manure for what? 10 or 12 months? And this is supposedly done by EIGHT people?

Aww George,

God just put the animals in suspended animation where they didn't need to eat, drink or take a dump. They just slept through the whole thing....

Seriously though, those are valid points that I have yet to see addressed to my satisfaction. They make it difficult for me to hold to a completely literal interpretation of Genesis.

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Which verse in Genesis is right - the sevens or the twos? :(

Both.

This is not dissimilar to the example in pfal that vpw gave.

(Sometimes he had a valid point.)

He claimed someone said there was a disparity in a census,

where one verse said the Israelite army had a certain number of men,

and a different verse said the Israelite army had a smaller number of VALIANT men.

Both verses were using different criteria for a count-

one of all the men in the army (including conscripts),

and one for the army regulars and veterans.

Was it 2 by 2? How do we reconcile these?

Gen 6:19,20

And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every [sort] shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep [them] alive with thee; they shall be male and female.

Of fowls after their kind, and of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every [sort] shall come unto thee, to keep [them] alive.

Gen 7:2,3

Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that [are] not clean by two, the male and his female.

Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.

The point is a LITTLE clearer when looking at the NASB rendering of some of the verses.

Genesis 7:2,3.

"You shall take with you of every clean animal by sevens,

a male and his female,

and of the animals that are not clean, two,

a male and his female;

also of the birds of the sky, by sevens,

male and female,

to keep offspring alive on the face of all the earth."

All animals were collected in PAIRS.

Most animals were collected as ONE PAIR.

"Clean" animals and birds were collected as SEVEN PAIRS.

Myself, I find it curious that modern shipbuilders confirm the ratio

for the Ark's dimensions to be close to optimal for the design of a ship.

If this was simply one man's invention, he's a BRILLIANT guesser.

Of course, all of you may believe whatever you wish.

Edited by WordWolf
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mean, why else would the legendary "Noah's ark" had thought to have ended up on

a mountain in Turkey, of all places?

Danny

interesting enough is that there is no record of hills or mountains till after the flood started

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interesting enough is that there is no record of hills or mountains till after the flood started
There is no mention in the bible of mountains or hills until Genesis 12. Saying that there is no record of any makes it sound like there was some kind of geological survey. There's "no record" of haircuts either :biglaugh:
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