Elijah

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Rebecca_New

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What can I say to a scientist who is 90, and since the age of 13 has believed that the Old Testament stories are myths. No one lives to be 900 years old…Everyone dies…Elijah did’t die in the Old Testament.
 
Hi Rebecca,

Several subjectcs related to your question are treated by Catholic Answers at this address :

catholic.com/library/faith_science.asp

You may give your friend this reference or print out selected texts for him.

Don’t expect to get very far with him. Besides the fact that it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks, it is God that changes hearts.

Verbum
 
Rebecca_New said:
What can I say to a scientist who is 90, and since the age of 13 has believed that the Old Testament stories are myths. No one lives to be 900 years old…Everyone dies…Elijah did’t die in the Old Testament.
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Rebecca,

You have already received the excellent response that someone that age is probably quite set in his ways but that God can change hearts (and we can’t).

You can start by saying that there is no logical connection between “this does not happen” and “this did not happen.” The statement “this does not happen” boils down to “every time we looked for this to happen, it did not happen.” It does not cover every single instance; according to the best evidence we have, Elijah did not die. There is no scientific evidence that he did.
  • Liberian
 
I am not the teacher, I am the student;) Thank you for the references.
 
Rebecca_New said:
What can I say to a scientist who is 90, and since the age of 13 has believed that the Old Testament stories are myths. No one lives to be 900 years old…Everyone dies…Elijah did’t die in the Old Testament.
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The Ancient Hebrews were as aware of these facts as the scientist.
So ask him how he thought those ages got into the Bible. This is a real question - very few Catholic commentators believe they are historical, but no one has any really good theory.

See if he is capable of making any kind of intelligent comment or not. If you like, start him out with the idea that the ages might have represented tribes’ stays in an area, and then go onto numerology and the magical attributes given to the Hebrew letters.

The case of Elijah is a bit different. If you disbeleive in God you will naturally disbelieve that Elijah was assumed into heaven. If you beleive, it is hard to really know.
 
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