Scientific Mistakes in the Bible?

[Mike_from_NJ]

But again the author us not trying to give you a science class his point is that god created the sky, separated waters, created, land, trees etc. Then says that the morning came and the third day started and here speaks about the sun. The catholic church has for a long time stated that the protestant fundamentalist literal reading of the bible is incorrect.

OK, let’s hear why the Catholic Church does not take the ordinal numbers in the Bible literally.

The use of days one two three four, in the bible does not mean literally that it was done like that. The catholic church has a different interpretation (I am not going to now go and write it all because it would be too long but you probably would want to look at the catholic interpretation of the genesis insteadbof the fundamentalist Protestant interpretation).

What? After wading through all of that to find why you don’t think something that happens third comes before something that happens fourth, you don’t present any arguments? Not even a summary or even a link to a writing of a church father or a part in the Catechism? If you’re not going to back up your assertions even slightly then there is no point.

Genesis only gives you general fact not details about a process. The world was not created within a 24 hour period of six days. The word day in the genesis refers to a time period of unidentified length. Because the author doesn’t have a time length to place event, he uses days to refer to an unidentified time length and place the narrative there…in short.

At no point have I argued here that the word “day” is a literal 24 hour day. My issue is with the use of the ordinals – first, second, third, etc. Day might mean an era, but there is no usage of those ordinals that indicate it’s an idiom. The sole purpose of ordinals is to indicate order. They show what items occurred before or after other items. Your excuse is that who knows what the initial authors really meant on even the most basic of words, then why have any confidence on any specific word in the Bible?

Again, what I’m looking for is an explanation about the use of 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th… not “day”.

I would recommend you to read st Augustine who makes an excellent explanation on the topic (st Augustine was very rational.and very scientifically inclined) to help you understand because as long as you keep using a fundamentalist view of the bible you will continue to find errors not because the bible has an error but because you are using the wrong method.

Not even a specific writing of Augustine? I’m guessing it doesn’t matter and that what you want me to look at is that if something eventually differs with what we know is true, then just chalk it up as figurative language and don’t let inconsistency concern you.

 

[lightbeamrider]

That is a post hoc explanation. I found a very interesting article [ The article states the ancients assumed the Earth as flat. They had the sun and moon. They knew about eclipses. They knew about phases of the moon. They knew how to build structures in such exact detail, we today cannot figure out how they done those things. There is no real reason to assume everybody considered the Earth flat other than literal interpretations of their writings. They agree with you in that they think people like me are overly nitpicky when pointing out items in the Bible that are scientifically inaccurate. ](http://biologos.org/blog/the-firmame. It’s from the BioLogos Forum, a religious group committed to find harmony between science and Christianity. [/QUOTE) Its called confirmation bias. Setting up impossible standards. Select info based largely on literal interpretations.

There is one point though that they disagree with you on, and that’s the meaning of raqia in its context in Genesis. They go into detail as to why raqia can’t mean a non-solid object. I hope you look it over. It’s fairly short.

 

[Lion_IRC]

Genesis has as much to do with the formation of the sun, moon, and Earth as Abraham Lincoln has to do with skydiving.

I don’t think Abraham Lincoln ever spoke about or attempted skydiving.
Genesis on the other hand certainly DOES speak of Gods creation of the sun and the moon and the entire cosmos.

I’m not sure if you are being flippant for your own self-entertainment or some other reason.

…If you haven’t had a chance, look over my rebuttal of Frankfurter’s suggestion that Jacob was doing selective breeding on the sly. To add to scripture and say the details given about the reeds was really a ruse to fool onlookers is a post hoc explanation, and a poor one at that.

If Frankfurter was ‘adding’ post-hoc details to scripture which aren’t in the text, take it up with Frankfurter. I never said anything was a ‘ruse’ to fool onlookers.

The text is clear. Jacob’s herd grew faster and the offspring were different to the original progenitor of the flock. How were they different? Striped - a miraculous mutation which, by amazing coincidence, happened to confer a survival advantage, thereby resulting in the events exactly as described in the bible.

 

[Frankenfurter]

If you haven’t had a chance, look over my rebuttal of Frankfurter’s suggestion that Jacob was doing selective breeding on the sly. To add to scripture and say the details given about the reeds was really a ruse to fool onlookers is a post hoc explanation, and a poor one at that.

Post Hoc? He stole the man’s herd by breeding all the spotted animals out of the herd that he was to attend to. He then kept them for himself. This is just the beginning of the deception. Probe deeper and you will find the meaning of this story in terms of how you can’t claim that God is helping you to get ahead even if things seem to go your way. Jacob may have in fact thought that what the animals see affects their offspring - that kind of thinking was common among simple people, but is not relevant to the story. He was running a scam. That is the point of the story. The scam goes deep for sure. He gets lost in his scam, even to the point of claiming that God is the one who is helping him. Really Jacob? You have to learn to read the bible this way to understand its meaning. It is giving lessons through stories. That is also how Jesus delivered his messages.

To point to this as an example of scientific error in the bible is, well, a bit naive. Sorry dude.

I suppose you will next be telling us that there is a mathematical error in one of Jesus’ parables? See what I mean dude? It’s a nerdy sort of point missing kind of commentary.

Peace. Your journey seems to be just starting.

 

[NotAllHere]

Your interpretation that “God created the sun on the fourth day” is the protestant interpretation of the bible. I will go further over that later but here you are talking to catholics not proyestants so you cannot use a protestant interpretation of things because it is the wrong.

4.6 Genesis One Outline: KJV-2000 Hindsight
After each stage is obviously assured, comes its Epilogue
Typical Hebrew poetry is found at 1:27 and 2:2-3
Abstract
1:1 In the beginning time span
God created the skies and the land.
Early Status Report Here at Eye-level
1:2 Occluded sky, land underwater or awash, no life
God as sovereign was here in command

Dominant Theme: Overlapping Stages & Counterpoint: Six Days
1:3-5 DAYLIGHT Command 1 - given in the darkness of 1:2
So there came to be daylight- bright fog yet
God saw the daylight: “That is Good …”
God had divided the daylight and the darkness
Day One

1:6-8 . EXPANSE OF SKY Command 2
So it came to be—high cloud-cover yet
Day Second

1:9-10 . . GATHER WATERS Command 3a
DRY LAND APPEAR Command 3b
So it came to be—via specified processes
“That is Good. . .”

1:11-13 . . . LAND VEGETATION Command 4
So it came to be
“That is Good…”
Day Third

1:14-19 . . . . UNVEIL LIGHTS Command 5
So it came to be—first blue sky
God had made the lights—before 1:2
God gave them in the expanse
“That is Good…”
Day Fourth

ibri.org/RRs/RR043/43hindsight.htm

The olde chestnut of Sun being made on fourth day comes from Atheist books, not protestant to my knowledge.

Bottom line God made light on the first day, fog lifted on the fourth day.

 

[NotAllHere]

Does the bible contain science mistakes? I was listening to a Catholic Apologist here in Brazil, and he said that although the bible does contain some scientific mistakes such as the fact that some of the writers of the bible thought the earth was plain and it refers to the “four sides of the earth” he said that the main message of the bible remains intact, which is the core message of jesus, etc.

But anyone could help me with this?
As far as I know, the bible doesn’t even infer on dealing with issues of the natural world, and I always thought it was metaphors, such as in the case when the bible mentions that in the end of times the stars would fall, and many other things.

2 Peter 3:5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:

It is just my opinion, that the human writers of the Bible may have had some wrong ideas about cosmetology based on their knowledge of the world at that time. But, God was able to use these imperfect vessels to get what we know about him to us.

 

[NotAllHere]

Genesis 30:37-42 would have us believe that both the appearance and strength of a flock of sheep’s offspring can be determined by what they stare at when mating.

“6 And Rachel said, God hath judged me, and hath also heard my voice, and hath given me a son: therefore called she his name Dan.”

If you read the whole chapter the main point is God gives us or controls offspring in general. Starting with human offspring then later in the chapter animal. The purpose of the chapter is not science(even thou the verses you quote do support natural selection), but to say God is the creator and blesses us with children and goats.

 

[NotAllHere]

I guess I’d better be more guarded when I say that “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

We could take a clue from word of faith people and say it is raining gold and use it to build a new house after the falling gold destroys the one we have under its weight.

 

[marymary1975]

Which begs the question as to what we can and can’t trust in the Bible if we take that tack. Does the Bible ever mean what it says?

Yes.

I’ve explained this twice now but I’ll do it a third time. In the story Jesus is flesh. He is hungry. The Devil – who in the story may be intangible (like it’s the worst episode of Quantum Leap ever ) – tells Jesus to turn a stone into bread. The stone is material as would be the bread if Jesus transformed it. He takes Jesus to the top of the tempta Again, we know this is material since the Devil wants Jesus to risk his life by possibly crashing into the material ground. Then he takes Jesus to the top of a mountain to have a proper vantage point to see all of the kingdoms in the world. Desert and stone = material. Top of the temple and ground below = material. Top of the mountain = We supposedly have to then shift to a non-material world.

In short, even if the Devil himself was immaterial, the story tells us Jesus is quite material. It’s like in those cartoons where a devil sits on one shoulder and an angel sits on the other. The person in the middle is material while the two sides trying to influence the person are immaterial.

I would classify it as a Protestant interpretation so much as a plain reading of the text.

Any time that I take a passage as written then I’m using a Protestant interpretation? If I read “This is my body which shall be given up for you” as literally the body am I giving it a Protestant interpretation?

I’m fine with going beyond a plain reading if an allergorical reading makes sense and it’s shown that we should do so. “One Hundred Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez loses much of its meaning with a plain reading. The issue with trying to apply an allegorical reading to the Bible passages we’ve talked about thus far is 1) there are no indications in the text that we are to read them allegorically, 2) they were often taken literally for thousands of years, 3) the call for taking an allegorical approach often derives only when non-biblican truth shows a literal reading to be impossible.

Desperate is an understatement.

Does Chinese from the Ming Dynasty contain idioms? I would assume so. Linguists will look at other texts not only from the same time but also before and after to get a better handle on intended meanings.

Tell me, has there ever been a use in Hebrew where something written as happening “third” occurred after happening “fourth”?

That us why the catholic church inyerprets the bible according to tradition, the full context of the test, doctrine, the original language that it was written, based on the time and circumstances that was written and depending the literally style that was written. Also that is wjlhy the church has priests that spend years specializing in ancient languages, has priests specializing in Greek and Hebrew roots, priests that specialize in history and ancient civilizations and many other specialties. That is why also for many years the church opposed to the translation of the bible and that is why for many years only priests that had the knowledge and specialition were the one who taught how we are to read the bible.

Any time that you read the bible using the fundamentalist literal interpretation of the bible yes you are using the Protestant technique which the church is opposed to. As I stated in my first paragraph the bible must be read according to tradition, doctrine, etc.

As to Jesus. We humans are flesh. Jesus became flesh but at the same time remained with a second nature: divine. We only have the human/flesh nature. Jesus had two different natures at the same time, one human and one divine. Because of his double nature, unlike humans, Jesus can go from the material to the immaterial world to say it easier (remember the transfiguration?). Jesus adopted a material nature but he also can take an immaterial nature. Hence why he can transfigure, see the entire past present and future, talk and interact with angels, Elias see them too and even talk to the devil, while you and me who ate pure material cannot do any of these things.

You pointed out correctly the example of one hundred years of solitude, in fact I can tell you having read the novel both in English and Spanish, that the English version is heavily heavily different than the Spanish one, and that an English reader who is not familiar with Colombia, not familiar with Colombians customs and their every day life, is going to come out with a complwtly different idea of what the novel is actually talking about. If I who am a native Spanish speaker with a Colombian great mother and who have been in Colombia several times ask you to tell me what is the novel about, I bet your answer is going to be something that has very little to do with the actual meaning of the novel. So exactly what happens with 100 years of solitude is exactly what happens with the bible.

 

[NotAllHere]

…Which has science and health implications…

under cooked pork, separating lepers from camp, sewage outside of camp all come to mind.

Aside, math does not need to be as precise as we are today to be correct for what it was used for then.

1 Kings 7:23King James Version (KJV)

And he made a molten sea, ten cubits from the one brim to the other: it was round all about, and his height was five cubits: and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

The Bible gives us an approximation for PI. For what was being made, it was correct enough for their calculations — not as precise as we are today for building machines.

 

[lynnvinc]

Does the bible contain science mistakes? I was listening to a Catholic Apologist here in Brazil, and he said that although the bible does contain some scientific mistakes such as the fact that some of the writers of the bible thought the earth was plain and it refers to the “four sides of the earth” he said that the main message of the bible remains intact, which is the core message of jesus, etc.

But anyone could help me with this?
As far as I know, the bible doesn’t even infer on dealing with issues of the natural world, and I always thought it was metaphors, such as in the case when the bible mentions that in the end of times the stars would fall, and many other things.

I teach mythology (which means not “falsehoods,” but the ultimate truths for people who hold those beliefs and narratives), and I look at it this way as a Christian: the ancients were very smart and wise, and observed the sun rising in the east and setting in the west (and other such things). That was their “science” of their time," based on hard evidence and the best theories they could come up with. None of us today, without the benefit of centuries of science and learning it, would have a clue that that earth is going around the sun and not vice versa. We are not smarter than the ancients.

So when God inspired or perhaps even dictated the passages in the Bible, the ancients receiving it would have put it in terms that made sense to them. Or, perhaps God understanding they were not ready to receive or capable of receiving the whole truth (as we today are not ready or capable), put it in terms the ancients would understand…sort of the way a parent has to dummy things down for a child.

So, I would not characterized whatever scientific issues are present in the Bible as mistakes, only outdated science.

I think of the Bible – written as it was millennia ago when there were no distinct fields of science, philosophy, ethics, religion, sociology, psychology, entertainment, etc – as being science/philosophy/ethics/religion/sociology/psychology/entertainment/etc all rolled into one. Many of these areas have developed and changed over the centuries and have split into separate fields, and we’d be remiss not to move ahead with those changes (including evolution), as God is truth and we should strive for the best we can re truth. However, the moral principles, our fallen Adam/Eve/Cain human nature, and our redemption and salvation through Christ remain the same.

 

[modofac]

Of course there are scientific errors in the Bible. There have to be! The only alternative is that it is an openly miraculous book which would have advanced mankind’s scientific understanding by a thousand years, several time over.

Rather, it’s written in the idiom and with the knowledge of the people who wrote it, and inspiration is not a series of parlor tricks.

You ignorant people who have ‘Catholic’ in your sig, but argue with atheists exactly like fundamentalist Protestants, you are an embarrassment. Yes, taking up an actual Catholic understanding of inspiration (as taught, contra posters here, in Provendentissimus Deus, Divino Afflante Spiritu, Humani Generis, and Dei Verbum) is difficult, and still leaves unanswered questions - but St Augustine was willing to do it 1500 years ago!

Get with the times…or even with the 5th century…of Catholicism.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . Get with the times…or even with the 5th century…of Catholicism.

not sure what you are talking about, but you seem upset and i can’t see why
you are no less swimming in a sea of ignorance than anybody else here

you are embarrassed by catholics who argue like fundamentalists
i am embarrassed by scientists and doctors who are atheists

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Its called confirmation bias. Setting up impossible standards. Select info based largely on literal interpretations.

As I noted you would be able to find other sites that would support your position. The caveat that I mentioned was that you wouldn’t find one that would say that this was read as exapanse/nothingness prior to the age of scientific inquiry.

The way you read it you’re saying that your definition of raqia must be correct because we know that the “firmament” is not solid. As I noted before, you’re saying I can’t use that verse to show a scientific error in the Bible because doing so would show a scientific error in the Bible.

Your article mentions expanse which you repeatedly ignore.

Yes, as I noted it explains why raqia can’t be expanse. Of course it mentions it. It gives several reasons why they discount the notion that it wasn’t mean to mean a non-solid.

Wait a second. Did you just go to the link, do an ALT-F on your broswer looking for the word expanse, then stopped reading when you saw that it contained the word expanse? You did, didn’t you? That’s why your only rebuttal was that the article mentioned the word even though it’s clear it’s used to discredit the notion that it’s accurate.

If you didn’t want to read the article, just say so. There’s no need to pretend that you read it.

Like you mention liberal sites. Here is another little tidbit you ignored. The atmosphere of the Earth is functionally a shield. Any object which crashes on the Earth from space has to get through the atmosphere, including harmful rays from the sun. Why is that? Why is the Earth the exact distance from the sun and provides an environment suitable to sustain all the diversity of life?

As you or one of your co-posters said water is essential to life (or at least life as we know it). Mars is believed to have had water on it at one time. If this is so (and it should be noted that it has not been proven) then Mars was capable of life. Depending where in its orbit it’s located Mars is over 50% farther away from the sun than the Earth. Your use of “exact” is puzzling.

Here’s another way to look at this Assume just for a moment:

1. The stars and planets were forged without a supernatural intelligence guiding the process.
2. The odds that intelligent life could form on a planet is 1 in a trillion.
3. There are 10^24 planets in the universe. (Note that this figure varies wildly but for analogy on CAF purposes it’s good enough. I just want to show that there if part 2 is correct that the universe would have multiple planets that could house life.)
4. One of these planets we’ll call Planet Hubris and its intelligent life has technology near what we have on Earth.

So we have our alien planet and our aliens. They see the other planets in their solar system don’t have the right atmosphere or may be gaseous instead of solid.

Question: Would you expect that an alien on that planet might look at the lack of immediate habitable planets and assume that they are special in some way? They would indeed. They would use the same argument that you are using here even though they have no idea that there is an Earth and there are earthlings on it feeling just as special.

Douglas Adams (the guy who write “The Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy”) described a puddle who sees that the ground below is perfectly shaped to contour him then assumes that the world was designed for him. Life is forged or not forged by the characteristics of the planet, not the other way around.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Critics are not really held to account for the blunders they assume in spite of written evidence. The non existence of David. The non existence of Bethlehem. The non existence of Jesus. Now they assume the Exodus was impossible and Moses a myth with zero ancient precedent.

I’m not saying that Exodus is definitively a myth. We may find something that shows it is real, but as it stands right now no evidence exists. This has to be somewhat concerning as (based on the number of men said to have been part of it) that there was an estimated 3 million Jews who left Israel, yet we see no evidence of this. There are no bones, no pottery shards, no records from the Egyptians. Again that’s not to say that they won’t turn up, but the evidence is glaringly lacking.

Do you think David considered Moses or the Exodus myth? By the same standards you impose don’t look to the moderns for truth when they screw up so much and then attempt to explain it all away by saying it is all self correcting. Here is a quote from you.

This is a quote from a so called critics who allows for everything from nothing for no reason. Or multiple universes with no observable evidence anywhere.

You’re confusing theoretical physicists with fiction writers. When someone supposes that there are multiple universes it’s because the math at this time bears it out. It’s a possibilty. No one is saying definitively that there are multiple universes, but it’s not a concept pulled out of thin air. As scientists study the matter more we may find more information to support the idea or refute it. But we’re leaving the door open based on what we know at this time.

Since you presuppose Genesis was fiction to justify your atheism,

I don’t presuppose anything. In fact, my argument in combatting the Genesis 1 story is that if we assume it is factually true, then we have a problem since it differs from what is demonstrably true regarding the order of when celestial bodies were formed.

it is no problem for you to misuse the Bible to justify your myth assumptions. In the same manner a rapist would misuse the Bible to justify rape. Or a southern racist slave owner would misuse the Bible to justify beating slaves. Do you own a dog? Why is it objectively wrong to own a human when it is not wrong to own a dog? That is, since there is no God and we are nothing more than big brained ape like creatures here for no real reason and cease to exist post death?

And there it is. When the question at hand becomes to difficult to attack head-on the subject will invariably turn to atheists allegedly having no moral framework. Have you ever met an atheist face-to-face? You know, just a regular guy shooting the breeze? I think you’ll find that atheists and other non-christians aren’t robots. They have compassion and concerns. They have lives and relationships. I have to think this belief that all atheists as uncaring sociopaths is related to a very disturbing belief: Those christians who say that without God in their lives that there would be nothing to stop them from raping and murdering. THAT’S scary, the idea of being good only for fear of otherworldly punishment. Look are atheists perfect? Heck no. There are flawed atheists just as there are flawed christians, muslims, jews, mormons. Still this claim that there is nothing keeping atheists from going on the warpath is shown to be false by the overall morality of unbelievers that is no worse than other groups.

Work on your reading comprehension.

Are you sure? Because I seem to be the one going over these arguments in a rational and methodical manner.

Again work on your reading comprehension. It is typical atheist ploy to resort to personal attacks when any attempt to add historical context to their mostly ignorant
assumptions.

Are you denying that in defense of slavery you went into detail as to the practicality of whips? You didn’t get into the rights of people not be beaten or even a reasonable explanation why people should be beaten. Instead you responded to when I said slaves were beaten that Solomon did use a whip but that for the most part they were impractial. This ignores that people are not beaten solely with whips, and far more importantly: We shouldn’t beat people.

And did not learn a thing (from the CAF topics on slavery}.

Oh, I’ve learned several things, some of which I touch on below.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

If you want to take that part of the discussion to a new thread or in direct messaging with me that would be fine; but we’re already going far afield of the original topic of science in the Bible (which I noted I am partially to blame).

For someone who keeps telling me to work on my reading comprehension, you’d think you’d be sure to do the same. Doctor, heal thyself. I wrote that it was a mistake to bringing up slavery because it took us further off-topic. In my quote just above I noted I’m partially to blame for us going off-topic from scientific mistakes in the Bible. Prior to that there were other posts that strayed off topic from science, but I didn’t help by throwing in my comment. It’s not an either-or situation. I was one of the people that went off topic and I take blame for my part in that.

If you believe the Exodus is myth in spite of all the multiple source written evidence to the contrary

I would be greatly interested in seeing this evidence. Please provide links.

then why, at the same time do you consider slave regulation and corporal punishment real? That is since those regulations were written within the context and time frame of the Exodus? Can you distinguish the difference between and ancient written historical account and Aesop’s Fables?

(Mods, please note that I did offer to take this part of the discussion to a different topic.)

Slavery and corporal punishment are real things. How much they occurred in ancient Israel I couldn’t say, but it’s still an important topic no matter how prevalant those things were at that time.

For one. it speaks of the God character and his morality. Without fail whenever the topic of slavery comes up on CAF, someone will chime in to say that those regulations came from Moses and not God. I point them to Exodus 20-24, how that is a single conversation with the rules about slavery (mostly found in Exodus 21) are said to be from God’s mouth. The usual next step is to say that God allowed it like he did with divorce. My response then is that I can find the verse that tries to explain why divorce was allowed, but no such verse exists for slavery.

Oh sure there are some verses (not in God’s voice) that say to be nice to slaves but none of them overturn the brutality that allows one to manslaughter a slave among other vile acts.

Then we get to the heart of the matter with God’s position on slavery as a reflection of his morality. God almost killed Moses for not having his son circumcised in a timely manner. He tells a town’s leaders to kill a man for picking up sticks on the Sabbath. These things draw the ire of God far quicker than the subjugation and terror of slavery which he set the guidlines for. Again even if ancient Israel and few to no slaves the story itself – which is said to be divinely inspired – shows God as a true uncaring beast. It’s not a pretty picture.

Secondly, it reflects poorly on those who try to defend those passages. These are people who believe what is written in the Bible is accurate, yet time after time the way they sometimes go about and trying whitewash the stories makes me lose my faith in the basic decency of humanity.

Third, as a non-believer I’ll often get asked where I get my morals from if not from a god. I tell them how the use of history, communication, sympathy, and the golden rule (which is not exclusive to Judeo-Christianity) at least sets me on the right path. I tell those people proudly that while my morality is not perfect thankfully at least it’s non-biblical.

If it is non reproductive then there is no real science to it. Shorten for space.

I’m sorry. Are you saying that any sex act that is non-reproductive is non-scientific? If I’m wrong let me know, but I think that just because it’s something that you don’t approve of doesn’t mean that there isn’t science behind it.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

I don’t think Abraham Lincoln ever spoke about or attempted skydiving.
Genesis on the other hand certainly DOES speak of Gods creation of the sun and the moon and the entire cosmos.

Yes, and it gets it completel wrong. It’s fair to say that Abraham Lincoln, by remaining silent on the matter of skydiving, was more accurate on that topic than the Bible is on the sun, moon, and stars.

I’m not sure if you are being flippant for your own self-entertainment or some other reason.

Mostly it’s an anti-frustration tool. Having to respond to the ideas of a shepherd trying to fool other unmentioned shepherds for no good reason, third somehow not coming before fourth, that slavery was peachy-keen, that no one can say what the water above the firmament is, and so many other giant pieces of nonsense it’s easy to get frustrated. I’ll sometimes use snarkiness to avoid saying some things that would not be appropriate in a public forum.

If Frankfurter was ‘adding’ post-hoc details to scripture which aren’t in the text, take it up with Frankfurter. I never said anything was a ‘ruse’ to fool onlookers.

The text is clear. Jacob’s herd grew faster and the offspring were different to the original progenitor of the flock. How were they different? Striped - a miraculous mutation which, by
amazing coincidence, happened to confer a survival advantage, thereby resulting in the events exactly as described in the bible.

The text is clear, by placing the striped reeds in front of the animals as they mated they somehow imparted that characteristic on to the offspring. It tries to demonstrate a cause and effect. Why else would the story go into detail as to making the reeds striped and putting some animals in view of them and some not? It has nothing to do with mutations and everything to do with the believed but incorrect concept that what is seen at the time of conception affects the next generation.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

Post Hoc? He stole the man’s herd by breeding all the spotted animals out of the herd that he was to attend to. He then kept them for himself. This is just the beginning of the deception. Probe deeper and you will find the meaning of this story in terms of how you can’t claim that God is helping you to get ahead even if things seem to go your way. Jacob may have in fact thought that what the animals see affects their offspring - that kind of thinking was common among simple people, but is not relevant to the story. He was running a scam. That is the point of the story. The scam goes deep for sure. He gets lost in his scam, even to the point of claiming that God is the one who is helping him. Really Jacob? You have to learn to read the bible this way to understand its meaning. It is giving lessons through stories. That is also how Jesus delivered his messages.

I didn’t say that the scam against Laban was post hoc, and you know that. What I said is the explanation you gave why Jacob is mating some of the animals in front of the striped reeds is a post hoc explanation. You said:

He wants people to think that the rods in the water were were some kind of magic, but actually he is just a great animal breeder.

It appears you are backing away from the explanation of a separate deception of other unnamed people to make them think the reeds had something to do with the outcome. That’s the post hoc explanation that I’m talking about, the one you now discard. Instead, now you are saying that Jacob was infested with magical thinking and yet was still somehow doing proper breeding techniques.

Again, like your previous post hoc explanation, this one has similar problems:

1. The Bible tells he was separating the animals by strength. It does not say that he was grouping striped offspring with strong offspring. The only part of the process that mentions stripes is the part with the reeds.
2. As it is written the Bible wants the reader to believe there is a one-to-one cause and effect going on here. Once it was determined that such practices don’t work, apologists attempted to add more to the story after the fact by adding to scripture (Deuteronomy 4:2 and Proverbs 30:6 be damned).

To point to this as an example of scientific error in the bible is, well, a bit naive. Sorry dude.

Dude, can I call you dude? Dude, I’m not the one scrambling to add what is not there and ignore what I don’t want to see. I let the truth take me where it leads.

I suppose you will next be telling us that there is a mathematical error in one of Jesus’ parables? See what I mean dude? It’s a nerdy sort of point missing kind of commentary.

Some years ago I was listening to sports radio (“Mike and the Mad Dog”) and they were going over Doris Kearns Goodwin’s then-recent book about growing up as a Dodgers fan. They noted that she was likely too young to remember the details and beyond that there were numerous factual errors. Doris Kearns Goodwin is a historian and biographer. I’m paraphrasing Chris “Mad Dog” Russo when he asked, “How am I supposed to trust what she writes about someone like Abraham Lincoln when she gets something much more recent wrong that she could easily look up?”

I’m not saying that a single scientific error or historical error dooms the whole biblical narrative, but each bit, each digression from truth has to be taken into account. When people say there are no errors in the Bible when there so clearly are it’s a true “head in the sand” moment. It’s true naivete.

Peace. Your journey seems to be just starting.

I have walked many a mile already, but it’s a journey for truth and not blind comfort. When a man tells you what is said or written is not really what is meant it’s rare that it leads to truth.

 

[Mike_from_NJ]

That us why the catholic church inyerprets the bible according to tradition, the full context of the test, doctrine, the original language that it was written, based on the time and circumstances that was written and depending the literally style that was written. Also that is wjlhy the church has priests that spend years specializing in ancient languages, has priests specializing in Greek and Hebrew roots, priests that specialize in history and ancient civilizations and many other specialties.

Studying these ancient languages and cultures is a good thing. It’s not a good thing to use that knowledge to decree by fiat that something is meant to be read in a purely figurative sense despite:

1. Only ruling out its literal meaning when science demonstrated that it was not possible, and
2. The figurative sense is clearly incorrect.

That is why also for many years the church opposed to the translation of the bible and that is why for many years only priests that had the knowledge and specialition were the one who taught how we are to read the bible.

Truth is best when it can withstand claims against it. Science isn’t perfect, but its greatest feature is peer review. Those concepts that can’t pass muster are discarded. Silencing detractors (sometimes by death) who wish to question or translate your book is a bug and not a feature.

Any time that you read the bible using the fundamentalist literal interpretation of the bible yes you are using the Protestant technique which the church is opposed to. As I stated in my first paragraph the bible must be read according to tradition, doctrine, etc.

Traditionally the word “third” means that the event occurred after those events labeled “first” and “second” and before all items that follow (like “fourth”, “fifth”, and “sixth”). Even in ethereal non-tangible items like dreams and symbolic imagery when applying those ordinals the terms have the same weight.

I asked and did not get an answer so I’ll ask again – please give me an example of where an item “third” came after an item “fourth” or any such transposition of order. If the church uses tradition and doctrine to make such a determination, then surely there is a precedence for interpreting these terms in this backwards and completely opposite way. Where is it? Back up your assertion with more than just the church says so and that you believe it.

As to Jesus. We humans are flesh. Jesus became flesh but at the same time remained with a second nature: divine. We only have the human/flesh nature. Jesus had two different natures at the same time, one human and one divine. Because of his double nature, unlike humans, Jesus can go from the material to the immaterial world to say it easier (remember the transfiguration?). Jesus adopted a material nature but he also can take an immaterial nature. Hence why he can transfigure, see the entire past present and future, talk and interact with angels, Elias see them too and even talk to the devil, while you and me who ate pure material cannot do any of these things.

Even if Jesus can do those things, the story is set in the physical world. The Devil takes Jesus to a high place and we can confirm it’s meant to be a physical location and not just a vision of one. The Devil takes him to another higher place but we are supposed to believe that it’s figurative even though there are no clues for this change from literal to figurative, and that there would be no need for the Devil to take him to a specific vantage point if it’s all a vision.

You pointed out correctly the example of one hundred years of solitude, in fact I can tell you having read the novel both in English and Spanish, that the English version is heavily heavily different than the Spanish one, and that an English reader who is not familiar with Colombia, not familiar with Colombians customs and their every day life, is going to come out with a complwtly different idea of what the novel is actually talking about. If I who am a native Spanish speaker with a Colombian great mother and who have been in Colombia several times ask you to tell me what is the novel about, I bet your answer is going to be something that has very little to do with the actual meaning of the novel. So exactly what happens with 100 years of solitude is exactly what happens with the bible.

I agree that things sometimes get lost in the translation. The thing is that those who question the veracity of items in the Old Testament are looking at the exact same documents that the church has. Someone kept bringing up “four corners of the earth” and compared it to “raining cats and dogs”. With those phrases there is an etymology to them. Where is that language study that shows third and fourth are idiomatic?

Also “100 Years” was written in the magic realism style and it wasn’t meant to impart universal truths of actual events. The same level of critique for a novel isn’t applied to a holy book.

By the way, you still haven’t answered this question: What is the water above the firmament? Even if it’s figuartive it still has to represent something, so what is it?

 

[Darryl_B]

By the way, you still haven’t answered this question: What is the water above the firmament? Even if it’s figurative it still has to represent something, so what is it?

Instead of figurative there is a theory that the edge of the universe is reflective in nature which because of that reflection, objects can sometimes appear further away than what they really are. The current school of thought on dark matter is that there is not enough stuff within space to hold it together, therefore dark matter was proposed to solve the problem. But with a reflective extremity of the universe, we are incapable of seeing the edge, we can only see reflections which would appear to us to be outside the actual extremity of the universe, even though they are potentially inside, and there is no longer a vastness where there should be matter, dark matter becomes a redundant theory. That is the firmament.