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richardwy
Guest
If I get your drift correctly, since Joshua records “the sun stood still,” ergo the earth had to stop.
Do I have that right?
- Status
Do I have that right?
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
All this stuff about how long ago God made the world made me think of a question:
Did God already create the future? He knows what the future holds, right, does that mean it’s created? If so, what year did He make the future in?
Did God already create the future? He knows what the future holds, right, does that mean it’s created? If so, what year did He make the future in?
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Bibbit
Guest
Well, the title says “Reconciling Evolution with Adam and Eve”, so I’d like to focus on Adam and Eve, and as I did a long time ago (pre-forums being wiped out) I’d like to speak to them in relation to Jesus and Mary, and let you folks think about it.
First some background, I am a Catholic who went to a Catholic college and was taught evolution and bought it hook, line, and sinker. I believed in an evolution that was controlled by God. But over time I came to see holes in that, and for many, many reasons came to see that Genesis is probably the closest we’ll get in this life to knowing how it all began. Then, some years ago I was thinking about Adam, Eve, Jesus, and Mary. And in pondering them my opinion of Genesis strengthened. You see, I always loved the typology involved with these four folks. Here’s just a few:
First some background, I am a Catholic who went to a Catholic college and was taught evolution and bought it hook, line, and sinker. I believed in an evolution that was controlled by God. But over time I came to see holes in that, and for many, many reasons came to see that Genesis is probably the closest we’ll get in this life to knowing how it all began. Then, some years ago I was thinking about Adam, Eve, Jesus, and Mary. And in pondering them my opinion of Genesis strengthened. You see, I always loved the typology involved with these four folks. Here’s just a few:
- Adam comes first, Eve comes second, but she comes from Adam, she has no earthly father.
- Mary comes “first”, and Jesus comes from her, and He has no earthly father.
- Eve is “birthed” from the side of Adam, the Church is “birthed” from the side of Jesus.
- Adam and Eve (and mankind) fall in a garden, Jesus suffers and then tells man to rise in the garden.
- Adam and Eve do not do what God tells them to do, Mary tells others to do whatever Jesus (God) tells them to do.
- Adam and Eve fall as a result of eating forbidden fruit from a tree, Jesus is hung on a tree and becomes fruit that we must eat.
You get the semse of what I am saying. The splitting of Adam’s and Jesus’ sides, and the fruit on a tree are for me the most amazing. If Adam and Eve were simply “apes” endowed with a soul, thereby becoming the first man and woman, why would Jesus go out of his way to so amazingly fullfill the life of Adam and Eve? Why live in such a way as to literally undo (along with Mary) what Adam and Eve did? And why, if Genesis is just a story, give credence to it by living and dying in the manner in which He did?
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drpmjhess
Guest
Right. The author of Joshua – like everyone else in Hebrew culture – was a geocentrist.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
I guess there are any number of theories…
- All time is relative, God exists outside time/space but can intervene in any moment in time.
- God doesnt create the future but is aware of every possible future that can be until it is no longer future but present.
- God can and does create the future as he chooses.
- By creating the Universe, God creates time, and he controls no aspect of it from that moment on.
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
okay, well thanks for your answer…
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SpiritMeadow
Guest
I think the symbolism is lovely and I thank you for pointing it out. However, I might suggest that the same result would occur should you posit that the NT writers being aware of these scriptures and being very intent on developing a true account but also a Convincing account, may have drawn these same analygies themselves? More likely is that you are simply drawing these yourself. Some of them are so obviously the way biology works. Others are a bit of a stretch in fact.
Adam and Eve were in no case “apes” as you suggest, but human. In what sense are you arguing that Jesus fullfiled Adam and Eve? Who is living as to undo Adam and Eve?
The last sentence gets into the issue of humanity and deity, and how they co-exist with Jesus. Was he aware at all times of his divinity? As a child? Only as an adult? On the cross? At his resurrection? I’m not sure how he lived gave any credence to Genesis…please explain.
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
What if God created the future first, then the past. So he started with the big crunch (just my best guess as to what the end is) and worked backwards to the big bang. Then He would have created man before he created the evolutionary process.
Since God exists outside of time, there’s no reason why not. Well actually since He exists outside of time, he doesn’t create one time before another, there is no before and after if you are beyond time. He created all times in an insant.
So if he created man’s future and man’s past and adam and apes and dinosaurs all at the same instant, that doesn’t contradict evolution as a scientific description of the earth’s timeline, but makes it easier to see that God is creator, that we didn’t come from apes from the perspective of God, because apes and dinosaurs and man all were created by God in an insant.
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244Rocket
Guest
I believe that animals evolve but not in the way evolutionists believe. For instance, each succeeding generation of humans seem to be taller, heavier, etc.
If man came from apes, why do we still have apes? Why have they not found any fossils showing the different and various stages of evolution? I’ve heard that there are more than 200 different breeds of dogs; did they all evolve from one dog?
How did the eye evolve? You either can see or you can’t see.
Scientists have spent decades trying to discover the origin of life but to no avail.
I believe that life originated in the supernatural, i.e. God.
If man came from apes, why do we still have apes? Why have they not found any fossils showing the different and various stages of evolution? I’ve heard that there are more than 200 different breeds of dogs; did they all evolve from one dog?
How did the eye evolve? You either can see or you can’t see.
Scientists have spent decades trying to discover the origin of life but to no avail.
I believe that life originated in the supernatural, i.e. God.
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drpmjhess
Guest
244Rocket, if you came from your grandparents, why do you have cousins?
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drpmjhess
Guest
Neil Anthony, I agree with you about God being outside time; I think Augustine had a great insight in that regard.
It is important for theologians and other believers to be in dialogue with cosmologists to know what the latest science is saying. At a conference in June I spoke on the topic of the theological implications of the far future of the cosmos, and used the tem “Big Crunch” (inverse of the Big Bang). A friend and colleague, Joel Primack of UC Santa Cruz corrected me, saying that the evidence seems to be clear now that there is not enough “dark matter” to pull the expanding universe back into a singularity. Rather, our astronomical future looks to include indefinite expansion. This could involve an entropic heat death of the universe a hundred billion year from now, or it could involve something else, since the expansion is actually accelerating. The universe is flying apart, and he noted that this is a very special time to be doing cosmology. Our descendants will not be able to see as much as we can now.
What do we make of this theologically? Where is our hope in an acceleratingly expanding universe? Jack Haught’s “theology of promise” seems fruitful. He points out that we cannot conceive of what God plans for the future, just as an observer at the time of the Big Bang could not have conceived that out of the sea of nothing but super-high-energy quarks should emerge (13.7 billion years later) on at least one planet a species that can learn and think and love and be morally responsible and reciprocate with its Creator. The promise at the Big Bang is the reality today. Who can say what reality of the future the promise of today holds? Who can say what God in God’s infinite creativity can/might/will bring forth?
Petrus
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Orogeny
Guest
My ancestors were Europeans. Why are there still Europeans?
What makes you think that we haven’t found fossils showing transitions?
Well, one pair of dogs
. Actually, all domestic dogs are a subspecies of the gray wolf.A little research would answer this question.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_eye
talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB301.html
blog.case.edu/singham/2007/07/30/evolution16_the_evolution_of_the_eye
Scientists don’t know what causes gravity. Should they quit looking?
So do I. By the way, the origin of life isn’t really within the realm of evolution. Evolution deals with the change in life once it exists. It doesn’t matter how life began.
Peace
Tim
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Bibbit
Guest
Oy, I hit something and all my typing went away. Oh well. Let’s try again. First, the Gospel writers no doubt wanted us to see the similarities between Adam and Eve, and Jesus and Mary. Note the begining of John’s Gospel, where we have a literal 7 days counted off, and then we find Jesus and Mary in Cana. It is here where Mary tells us to dop whatever He tells us to do. Unlike Eve, who did not obey God, Mary stresses we are to obey God (Jesus). This 7 days is no accident, and it is a major reason for early Chrisitan writers referring to Jesus and Mary as the New Adam and the New Eve.
I put apes in quotes because whatever you would call Adam prior to his receiving a soul, he would not be human. Not in the Christian sense. A being without a soul is simply not a human being. Humans have souls.
As to Jesus giving credence to Adam and Eve, I would say that with God there are no coincidences. That being the case, it is not a coincidence that Jesus’ human creation, and human death occured the way they did. I cannot believe that Jesus’ choosing to die on a cross and become for us new fruit from the new tree of life, with the cross being that tree, is a coincidence. Nor his birthing of the Church in relation to Eve’s “birth”. I believe He meant to literally undo what Adam and Eve did, and I find it hard to believe that He did this despite Adam and Eve never existing. Does that make more sense?
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richardwy
Guest
I had never considered it before. It’s like the Red Sea, the Eucharist, the Resurrection, and the list goes on.
Everytime I’ve said in my own way “what the Church teaches and what the Bible says cannot be so because of XY and Z” I found out I was wrong.
It’s a non-issue for me. And what a relief too! When I err, it will unlkley be on the side of modernism.
My conscience is clear and the fight is gone.
Peace.
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scottm
Guest
Not one. Many. You have advocated many.
So I’m still in the hospital with my daughter, and the sick girl next to her for 3 days was a Sunni Moslem. Suppose I was to talk to her parents about Jesus and the Bible. I could tell her about Adam and Eve. They’d ask, “Did it really happen?”
I’d say, “No, it’s fiction. And it was altered from the original.”
Noah – same.
Babel – same.
Abraham and Sarah – I’d say, “They might have been real people but the stories are fiction altered from the original make-believe tales.”
Moses – same as Abraham.
the exodus – same as Abraham
Elijah and his miracles – more fiction altered from original stories
Elisha and his miracles – same
Daniel – same
And at this point the Moslem parents would say, “Interesting. That’s what we’ve been teaching all along, that your scriptures are an alterered corrupted facimile of the original truth. We have always taught that Allah sent Mohammed to restore the truth lost by your editors, and you, a Christian even, just admitted that your editors altered tales and wrote fiction. Wow. Why are you not a Moslem? Do you also believe the Greek myths of Zeus?”
And I would say, “I’m a Christian because of the New Testament. Because of Jesus.”
And they would ask, “What stories are true in the New Testament? Tell me about them.”
geneology of Jesus – well, not, not accurate and not even compatible with one another
Mary’s angelic visitation – legend only
birth story – legend
Jesus at the Temple at age 12 – legend
water into wine – legend
feeding the 4000 and 5000 – more legends
walking on water – legend
calming the storm – legend
trial and crucifixion – incompatible with Roman and Jewish practicese, unsupported by external evidences, and and internally inconsistent
resurrection – no evidence for it
And they would ask, “Who wrote these legends? Maybe the source or sources are trustworthy.”
And I would say, “Um, we don’t know, and anyway, they’ve been altered by successive anonymous editors.”
And they would say, “Do you also believe in Zeus and Hera? Because everything you’ve been saying is what we have always taught. We have always taught that Jesus was a real person and a prophet of Allah but his message was corrupted by people after his death. The so-called gospels are corrupted, altered testimonies of what actually happened. And you, a Christian even, just admitted that the gospels are altered and untrue accounts of what Jesus actually said and did! Amazing! Why are you not a Moslem?”
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scottm
Guest
Really? Let’s play the other side: I thought that they wrote decades after the fact, and got their information from people who were not eye-witnesses. Said another way, they were recording legends told by other people long after the events allegedly occurred.
That’s what the atheist will say right after he walks through the entire Bible from Genesis to Acts, and tells you why every story therein is a legend/myth/fiction just to make you feel good about believing in a God no more verifiable than Zeus.
The atheist will continue. When were the gospels written? Was it in the 50s or the 90s? If Jesus died in the early 30s, and nobody wrote anything for 40, 50, 60 years, how can you say that they got the story right? That sounds like urban legends to me. You know, people still say that Elvis is alive and that they’ve seen him alive. How are those reports different than your gospel reports? I’ll tell you how they’re different: some of us alive today actually saw Elvis and heard Elvis sing. None of us alive today saw or heard Jesus. That makes the Elvis reports more credible than your gospel reports.
And were the gospels written before or after the alleged prophesy of Jesus concerning the destruction of the Temple? If it’s after, why make it look as though Jesus was predicting something? It looks like your doctoring evidence. And who even wrote the gospels – eyewitnesses, or not? Did Luke actually go around talking with eyewitnesses like he claims in the opening verses, or not? Was Matthew an Apostle or not?
Etc etc.
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Doug50
Guest
Saint Augustine The Literal Meaning of Genesis
pibburns.com/augustin.htm
Catholic Answers
catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolution.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0401bt.asp
pibburns.com/augustin.htm
Catholic Answers
catholic.com/library/adam_eve_and_evolution.asp
catholic.com/thisrock/2004/0401bt.asp
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Doug50
Guest
THE INTERPRETATION OF THE BIBLE IN THE CHURCH
Pontifical Biblical Commission
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM
F. Fundamentalist Interpretation
Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by “literal interpretation” it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development. It is opposed, therefore, to the use of the historical-critical method, as indeed to the use of any other scientific method for the interpretation of Scripture.
The fundamentalist interpretation had its origin at the time of the Reformation, arising out of a concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of Scripture. After the century of the Enlightenment it emerged in Protestantism as a bulwark against liberal exegesis.
The actual term is connected directly with the American Biblical Congress held at Niagara, N.Y., in 1895. At this meeting, conservative Protestant exegetes defined “five points of fundamentalism”: the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, his virginal birth, the doctrine of vicarious expiation and the bodily resurrection at the time of the second coming of Christ. As the fundamentalist way of reading the Bible spread to other parts of the world, it gave rise to other ways of interpretation, equally “literalist,” in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. As the 20th century comes to an end, this kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents, in religious groups and sects, as also among Catholics.
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.
The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods. It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.
Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning.
Fundamentalism often shows a tendency to ignore or to deny the problems presented by the biblical text in its original Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek form. It is often narrowly bound to one fixed translation, whether old or present-day. By the same token it fails to take account of the “re-readings” () of certain texts which are found within the Bible itself.
In what concerns the Gospels, fundamentalism does not take into account the development of the Gospel tradition, but naively confuses the final stage of this tradition (what the evangelists have written) with the initial (the words and deeds of the historical Jesus). At the same time fundamentalism neglects an important fact: The way in which the first Christian communities themselves understood the impact produced by Jesus of Nazareth and his message. But it is precisely there that we find a witness to the apostolic origin of the Christian faith and its direct expression. Fundamentalism thus misrepresents the call voiced by the Gospel itself.
continued:
Pontifical Biblical Commission
ewtn.com/library/CURIA/PBCINTER.HTM
F. Fundamentalist Interpretation
Fundamentalist interpretation starts from the principle that the Bible, being the word of God, inspired and free from error, should be read and interpreted literally in all its details. But by “literal interpretation” it understands a naively literalist interpretation, one, that is to say, which excludes every effort at understanding the Bible that takes account of its historical origins and development. It is opposed, therefore, to the use of the historical-critical method, as indeed to the use of any other scientific method for the interpretation of Scripture.
The fundamentalist interpretation had its origin at the time of the Reformation, arising out of a concern for fidelity to the literal meaning of Scripture. After the century of the Enlightenment it emerged in Protestantism as a bulwark against liberal exegesis.
The actual term is connected directly with the American Biblical Congress held at Niagara, N.Y., in 1895. At this meeting, conservative Protestant exegetes defined “five points of fundamentalism”: the verbal inerrancy of Scripture, the divinity of Christ, his virginal birth, the doctrine of vicarious expiation and the bodily resurrection at the time of the second coming of Christ. As the fundamentalist way of reading the Bible spread to other parts of the world, it gave rise to other ways of interpretation, equally “literalist,” in Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. As the 20th century comes to an end, this kind of interpretation is winning more and more adherents, in religious groups and sects, as also among Catholics.
Fundamentalism is right to insist on the divine inspiration of the Bible, the inerrancy of the word of God and other biblical truths included in its five fundamental points. But its way of presenting these truths is rooted in an ideology which is not biblical, whatever the proponents of this approach might say. For it demands an unshakable adherence to rigid doctrinal points of view and imposes, as the only source of teaching for Christian life and salvation, a reading of the Bible which rejects all questioning and any kind of critical research.
The basic problem with fundamentalist interpretation of this kind is that, refusing to take into account the historical character of biblical revelation, it makes itself incapable of accepting the full truth of the incarnation itself. As regards relationships with God, fundamentalism seeks to escape any closeness of the divine and the human. It refuses to admit that the inspired word of God has been expressed in human language and that this word has been expressed, under divine inspiration, by human authors possessed of limited capacities and resources. For this reason, it tends to treat the biblical text as if it had been dictated word for word by the Spirit. It fails to recognize that the word of God has been formulated in language and expression conditioned by various periods. It pays no attention to the literary forms and to the human ways of thinking to be found in the biblical texts, many of which are the result of a process extending over long periods of time and bearing the mark of very diverse historical situations.
Fundamentalism also places undue stress upon the inerrancy of certain details in the biblical texts, especially in what concerns historical events or supposedly scientific truth. It often historicizes material which from the start never claimed to be historical. It considers historical everything that is reported or recounted with verbs in the past tense, failing to take the necessary account of the possibility of symbolic or figurative meaning.
Fundamentalism often shows a tendency to ignore or to deny the problems presented by the biblical text in its original Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek form. It is often narrowly bound to one fixed translation, whether old or present-day. By the same token it fails to take account of the “re-readings” () of certain texts which are found within the Bible itself.
In what concerns the Gospels, fundamentalism does not take into account the development of the Gospel tradition, but naively confuses the final stage of this tradition (what the evangelists have written) with the initial (the words and deeds of the historical Jesus). At the same time fundamentalism neglects an important fact: The way in which the first Christian communities themselves understood the impact produced by Jesus of Nazareth and his message. But it is precisely there that we find a witness to the apostolic origin of the Christian faith and its direct expression. Fundamentalism thus misrepresents the call voiced by the Gospel itself.
continued:
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Doug50
Guest
Fundamentalism likewise tends to adopt very narrow points of view. It accepts the literal reality of an ancient, out-of-date cosmology simply because it is found expressed in the Bible; this blocks any dialogue with a broader way of seeing the relationship between culture and faith. Its relying upon a non-critical reading of certain texts of the Bible serves to reinforce political ideas and social attitudes that are marked by prejudices—racism, for example—quite contrary to the Christian Gospel.
Finally, in its attachment to the principle “Scripture alone,” fundamentalism separates the interpretation of the Bible from the tradition, which, guided by the Spirit, has authentically developed in union with Scripture in the heart of the community of faith. It fails to realize that the New Testament took form within the Christian church and that it is the Holy Scripture of this church, the existence of which preceded the composition of the texts. Because of this, fundamentalism is often anti-church, it considers of little importance the creeds, the doctrines and liturgical practices which have become part of church tradition, as well as the teaching function of the church itself. It presents itself as a form of private interpretation which does not acknowledge that the church is founded on the Bible and draws its life and inspiration from Scripture.
The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations
Finally, in its attachment to the principle “Scripture alone,” fundamentalism separates the interpretation of the Bible from the tradition, which, guided by the Spirit, has authentically developed in union with Scripture in the heart of the community of faith. It fails to realize that the New Testament took form within the Christian church and that it is the Holy Scripture of this church, the existence of which preceded the composition of the texts. Because of this, fundamentalism is often anti-church, it considers of little importance the creeds, the doctrines and liturgical practices which have become part of church tradition, as well as the teaching function of the church itself. It presents itself as a form of private interpretation which does not acknowledge that the church is founded on the Bible and draws its life and inspiration from Scripture.
The fundamentalist approach is dangerous, for it is attractive to people who look to the Bible for ready answers to the problems of life. It can deceive these people, offering them interpretations that are pious but illusory, instead of telling them that the Bible does not necessarily contain an immediate answer to each and every problem. Without saying as much in so many words, fundamentalism actually invites people to a kind of intellectual suicide. It injects into life a false certitude, for it unwittingly confuses the divine substance of the biblical message with what are in fact its human limitations
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Neil_Anthony
Guest
- Status