Scientific Discoveries that Point to the Creator

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Dr. Brown interviews Doctors Hugh Ross, Fuz Rana, and Jeff Zweernick, scientists at Reasons to Believe, as they discuss some amazing scientific discoveries that point to God the Creator. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.

 

Hour 1:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: You do not need to shut off your mind to believe in God. You do not need to deny the scientific evidence. No, look at the scientific evidence and fall on your knees in worship of the Creator!

Hour 2:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We don’t need to be afraid of science. We don’t need to be afraid of atheistic claims that if you knew science you wouldn’t believe in God. To the contrary, the God of Scripture is the God of science, and the more you know science the more you worship the God of the Bible!

 

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Dr. Brown Interviews Oxford Professor John Lennox and Takes Your Questions

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Dr. Brown Interviews Dr. Hugh Ross and Dr. Fuz Rana on Hidden Treasures in Job, Why the Universe Is the Way It Is, Creating Life in the Lab, and the Cell’s Design

529 Comments
  1. [I think it is clear from what we read in the other ANE literature that the Hebrews shared the same cosmological conceptions as their neighbors.]

    But your view of what the people’s of antiquity believed is greatly clouded by the claims of modern scholarship, which has consistently tried to fish out and then proclaim alone the myths that could in any way possible have naive but *naturalistic science read into them*.

    So for instance, did the Egyptians literally believe the sky is a cow? That the stars hang by this cosmic cow’s utters? Well this is one of their depictions of the sky / of Nut. But since you can’t read this in a cosmic geographic way, those who spread these selective accounts of the ANE cosmic geography (were the Egyptians really interested in scientific geography?!) often ignore the majority of depictions which are like this, i.e. which can’t possibly have science read into them. While proclaiming alone the small minority that might possibly have an actual scientific conception read into them. 7 or 3 gem stone heaven floors for instance in Mesopotamia. But these are rare depictions, indeed the 7 floor text is entirely esoteric, written in a secret text with enchantment or what not, and the real message was about the seven levels of the gods that occupy heaven, not about physio-mechanical levels of heaven, not in my view at least. At other times, the sky is a gigantic falcon or vulture with wings outstretched. And they literally believed (did they?) that the sky / heavens are *actually* a gigantic vulture?

    But most commonly, Nut is depicted as… (did you say stone?, why are you fishing out a naturalistic material?) a gigantic naked woman, being fondled by geb, who is depicted as having intercourse with her, or trying to as he often has a full erection, but is separated by Shu. And yet the only thing you have talked about in mentioning Nut is any and everything that might be understood in a dry materialistic/scientific sense! Why haven’t you said the Egyptians believed the sky was erotic? Because that wouldn’t further notions of ancient views of naturalistic geography? What if these tendencies lead us to cherry pick such materialistic evidence, and then lead us astray in proclaiming what their ‘scientific views’ were? Also, I think you are getting some facts wrong, like saying Nut holds up the sky (no Shu hold *her* up). And you keep saying she is stone.

    So much of this has to do with the lenses and expectations that we put on before we’ve learned anything. But one of the worse of those lenses is reading the account and witness of the noble and honorable God of the Hebrews and of his majestic and rational creation, through the lens of these dishonorable and foolish pagan mythologies. They are as far apart as east is from west. This is not to deny there were ever parallels, just as the pagans all had a Noah and a worldwide flood. So too it is easy to believe that they had some left-over but highly perverted notions from their father Noah about the creation, that it started with water for instance.

    [“I also believe it is very clear, from the Scriptures, that the Hebrews believed and taught that the sky was a solid vault.” … ]

    You cited Prov 8:28 in support of this in post 333 above, and then you also cited Job 22:14. I cover those two texts in the PDF I posted. http://hebrewcosmology.com/temp-articles/Firm-Skies.pdf.

  2. Josh,

    Thanks for thanking me…but I am sure that you are only thanking me for the notion that the rich man and the servant of Elohim is a parable, and not for the discussion at the end of my psot and logical conclusion that was drawn.

    How can the one that made the heavens and the earth not know and believe how they were actually created? Why do we not believe Moses and Messiah?

    John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

    John 2:25 And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

    John 3:34 For he whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.

    Ex 33:11 And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.

    De 34:10 And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face,

    Num 12:6 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.
    7 My servant Moses is not so, who is faithful in all mine house.
    8 With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

    YHWH did not speak to Moses or Messiah in dark speeches, but face to face. What ever Moses wrote were words received directly from YHWH. He didn’t invent a creation story.

    Mt 3:17 And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

    Joh 12:28 Father, glorify thy name. Then came there a voice from heaven, saying, I have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.

    It is inconceivable that the maker of heaven and earth didn’t know how and when it was made.

    Shalom

  3. Bo, to add to your Scriptures there is also these ones:

    John 8:56-58 “Your father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he saw it and was glad. Then the Jews said to Him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have You seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.”

    John 6:38-40
    “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me; and this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

    Mark 14:13 “And He sent out two of His disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water; follow him.”

    Mark 14:28, “But after that I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee.”

    John 13:38, “Jesus answered him, Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake? Verily, verily, I say unto thee, The cock shall not crow, till thou hast denied me thrice.”

    John 18: 4 Jesus therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye?

    Do these sound like the words of a man that had only the knowledge of every other man of his day?

    I see no reason from the Scriptures to say that Jesus did not fully know and understand every single thing that He taught and proclaimed because everything He said was from the Father. We clearly see that the understanding that Jesus had was clearly exceedingly superior to the understanding of any other human being of His time. This is because Jesus was God and was in constant communication with the Father.

  4. Jonathan,

    Yep! If they won’t believe Moses and the prophets, they won’t believe the one that rose from the dead.

    Shalom

  5. Nicholas,

    Forgive me for the above careless misspelling of your name.

    From Chapter 36 of my book, entitled ‘What the Scripture literally say’


    The eighteenth-century British scholar Robert Lowth (1710-1787) discovered that frequent use of parallelisms suggested that much of the Old Testament Scriptures were originally composed as poetry. Whether originally composed in this fashion, parallelism certainly makes for easier memorization which is why meter and rhyme were commonly used in ancient times for oral compositions. It is reasonable to suppose that oral composition styles influenced the written style of the Bible, but to German scholars of the nineteenth century, poetry suggested that the Old Testament was romantic (imaginative) poetry. Discovery of Ancient Near Eastern poetry with similar language and motifs as that of Genesis seemed to settle the question that many of the Old Testament passages were in fact myth.
    Some of these myths drew on sagas pertaining to sea monsters, themselves the imaginative product of battles with creatures living in the sea. According to scholars who supposed that the ancient Sumerians lived in a watery plain, that they imagined a world composed of water was a natural conclusion, and it explained why the Scriptures declare that the world itself was formed out of water. These are some of the same passages that I have taken literally to develop the geology and cosmology in Chapters 30 and 31. Of course, I projected this light of Genesis on the way we currently understand our modern cosmos. Doubtless those of the Ancient Near East envisioned the cosmos in the terms that they knew, but the accounts of a world being formed by a divine Creator from water are essentially the same. The “monster of the sea” is of course the Great Dragon or ancient serpent called Satan. In the Scriptures, the sea also refers to peoples, languages, and nations, that is to say to the Gentiles or to the world under the sway of Satan.215 It seems that the struggles to birth the Creation mirror those to birth the New Creation.

    We should not be surprised to learn that a water-based cosmology was present not only in the Bible, but prevalent throughout the Ancient Near East. The early chapters of Genesis were not, as some traditionalists seem to assert, to create but rather to restore knowledge of God and the earliest history of man. Can we imagine that Noah knew nothing of the truth that had been owned by his recent ancestors, some of whom walked with the Lord? It seems evident that Noah passed this knowledge on because native peoples throughout the world still preserve remnants of a teaching that sees the world formed of chaos and of water. It is now clear that these teachings are reliably preserved only in the early chapters of the Bible. Regardless of the fact that the ancients had no way of viewing the extent of the universe, their water-based cosmology was in truth a superior understanding of the essence of the greater cosmos than are the latest scientific myths.
    ….

  6. Another snippet from Chapter 36,

    As in the case of a young earth, outdated cosmologies of a flat earth, a column-supported sky, or an earth-centered universe have been claimed as literal readings of the Scriptures. European professors taught that the ancient world of the Bible was enveloped in crude myths, marking “the childhood of early man.” According to them, things outside the European experience or that are not believed by learned professors simply could never have existed. Hearing this spoken with the authority of an imperial officer, as was the manner of the university professors in Germany, must have intimidated and impressed the minds of their young students who brought their manner of pronouncing dogma to students in the universities of America. Saying it so makes it so? Having rejected that the God of the Bible had this power, these professors assumed it for themselves.

    Projecting what are now seen as primitive scientific views onto the words of the God of the Bible is patronizing and arrogant. Falsely rationalized by the dogma of historical distance, those charges are disingenuous, unreflective, and pedantic. Hardly as critical as they claim to be, modernists tend to believe in the finality of the latest scientific cosmology as much as earlier scientists, the Aristotelians, believed in their earth-centered universe. Everyone is limited in his understanding, but the Scriptures serve as a light to develop an increasingly deeper understanding of the world that God created.[216] Fortunately, rather than using changing cosmologies or specialized scientific terms, the inspired words of the Bible speak from the universal human perspective that we still use today.

    The Scriptures are in fact not imaginative poetry. They refer to the determinative spiritual reality that underlies and sustains the physical world. Because we live in bodies with physical limitations, physical things seem far more important than they are. Science implies that ultimate reality can be measured by our dull physical instruments and our senses and understood by reductionist, scientistic thinking. Materialistic thinking is in fact the way that children think. In truth, the world that we experience with our physical bodies and understand with our present minds is but a faint reflection version of the spiritual reality of invisible Heaven.

    Yet, contrary to what philosophers such as Plato, Augustine, and Aquinas have taught, the spiritual world that our physical eyes fail to see is no less concrete than the world that we know from our fleshly senses. Far from the vague abstractions and ideal forms preferred by these philosophers, it is more specific and detailed, far richer, more concrete and meaningful than the world we know from our physical senses and understanding. It is no less real and no less rich with significance than the greatest events of human history – the latter having been great for the very reason that they also involved the participation of Heaven. Beyond the understanding of scientists and the imagination of the philosophers, even beyond words, that more fundamental reality can only be experienced. The joyful part of that experience comes only through the presence of God’s Spirit given to those who trust his eternal Word. Thus, we should not be surprised by the reactions of those who experience God in his glory. Theophanies recorded throughout the Scriptures reveal that God’s presence overwhelms all but the pure in heart.[217]

    Footnotes

    216 2 Peter 1:19
    217 Judges 6:22; Isaiah 6:5; Luke 5:8; Matthew 5:8

  7. Jonathan,

    Re. #349 — “I hope this post finally drives the point home that “all that is in them” HAS to include the waters.”

    I understood your error perfectly well the first time you posted it, brother. Let me try to restate my case once again for the sake of clarity. The primeval waters and empty and formless land, as depicted in Gen 1:2, are present when God begins to create on day one. The first and only thing God creates on day one is light. We know this because the only things that God names and gives purpose to are the light and the preexisting darkness. The waters and land are not mentioned again until the second and third days. The waters and dry ground are named sea and land on the third day when the functionless materials God was working with were given purpose. So, Gen 1 is not talking about ex nihilo creation. Rather, it is describing an ordering of the chaos and the assignment of purpose and function to the materials which already existed. And, that is the understanding that needs to be carried forward into Ex 20.

    You might be interested to know:

    The Babylonians had a similar cosmogony, they too believed that the heavens and earth were the made from preexisting material. In their case it was the body of the sea monster Tiamat (which is etymologically related to the Hebrew tahom – the deep) was split in half by Marduk. One half became the earth and the other half became the heavens.

    The Egyptians had a conception in their cosmogony and theogony that material and the gods were created from preexistent waters. These waters are designated as “nonexistent” in Egyptian texts. They believed that before the world was formed, there was a watery mass of dark, directionless chaos. In this chaos lived the gods of infinity, invisibility, water, darkness and chaos.

    So, Israel’s neighbors, and former captors, did not believe in creation ex nihilo either. That does not mean, obviously, that the Hebrews borrowed from the myths of other nations to formulate their own origins story, it simply means that this was the cosmological air they were breathing; and it is the framework through which God chose to reveal himself to Israel.

    Re. #350 — There is a forest somewhere in the midst of all those trees, Jonathan.

    Jonathan and Bo,

    Re. #352 thru 354 — You guys have an imbalanced and insufficient view of the Incarnation. Jesus laid aside his divine attributes when he took on flesh (Phil 2). Jesus was a man. He was not a demigod or a man with divine attributes. He was the God-Man. In the Incarnation he limited himself voluntarily to know only what all men knew in his day. And he only knew more when revelation was given to him by the Spirit. From the way you guys seem to present things, it sounds like you’d be happy to have him building rocket ships and designing iPhone apps in the first century. He had to be FULLY man, in every sense of what that means, to be a worthy substitute for his people. So, it is okay that he only knew what other poor carpenters from Galilee would have known about the cosmos. He knew the Scriptures, he believed them, he was fully dependent upon the Spirit, and he was utterly submitted to the will of the Father; and that was enough because that is precisely what was required of him to be the last Adam.

    Nicholas,

    Modern scholarship is the only school which could possibly deal with many of these myths since most of them have only been discovered and translated in the last century.

    Nut is the goddess and the personification of the vault of heaven, there is no disputing that. And the vault was conceptualized as being made of stone in Egyptian cosmology (“oåq∂r,” TWOT, n.p.. ). Perhaps you are suggesting that these two conceptions ought not be joined?

    I cannot comment further as I’ve not read your PDFs. How about let’s you and I pick this up after I’ve had time to read your paper and the documents you’ve posted. How about over email, in the coming weeks? I’d like to isolate our discussion from the rest of the conversation going on here. It is far too confusing to discuss it in this forum, with all the other topics going on.

    All,

    I’m sorry but I must disengage from this discussion completely. I am in danger, if not already guilty, of forsaking my primary Christian calling of serving my family and neighbors in the gospel. I’ve enjoyed our time in the sandbox, but it’s time for me to go home.

    In the end, the preponderance of the evidence still leaves me convinced that the Creation Narrative was delivered to the Hebrews in a form that was congruent with the ancient near eastern cosmological milieu that they were immersed in. This, in my opinion, is far more likely than not. Because if we are to say that the other ANE creation stories are simply corrupted traditions of the original oral accounting, then we are forced to ask why they believed that primeval waters existed before creation. Where did that notion come from? And why is it exegetically plausible to arrive at the same conclusion when we look at the Hebrew Scriptures? Why would this be so confusing for us, if the creation narrative of Genesis was so innovative for a Bronze Aged cosmogony?

    A rational argument can certainly be made against each of my proofs, that is not denied, but one must weigh the number of the proofs which must be argued against to maintain a young earth position. I’m obviously biased, but it sure seems to me that the scales tip in my favor.

    With that said, we all assemble at the foot of a Roman cross and praise our Father at the opening of an empty tomb. No matter who of us is on the right side of this debate, our anchor is the resurrection! So, with genuine charity and respect, thank you for sharpening my iron.

    One final question and you may have the last words.

    Did Jesus correct the reading of the LXX when he heard people read Gen 1:8?

    If you wanna get a hold of me, you can find me on Facebook or Twitter — @JoshElsom.

    Grace and Peace.

  8. Hello Josh,

    I’m sorry to say that you completely ignored the real points I made, and then summarized it as if my real point was somehow that modern scholarship simply has no usefulness (quite the contrary, read my other posts where I said the exact opposite). The point I made that you are ignoring is extremely important, I wish you would heed it. It exposes a tendency that you are exemplifying in fishing for naturalistic/scientific conceptions alone within the pagan myths, and then parading those naturalist elements (half the time never even there in the first place, eisegesis) out of their true mythological context. So let me emphasize this in the plainest terms I can: Nut is first and foremost *a naked woman*, not a stone vault, just look at the pictures!

    “Nut is the goddess and the personification of the vault of heaven, there is no disputing that. And the vault was conceptualized as being made of stone in Egyptian cosmology”

    You should rather say that Nut represented or was the personification of “Sky,” and be more careful in your over-usage of the word “vault” (which is typically a word *we* are supplying for descriptive purposes). If you want to put the emphasis on “vault”, please supply the original texts where an Egyptian word for “vault” is used in conjunction with Nut (not saying it never happens, I don’t know).

    “the vault was conceptualized as being made of stone.” Please provide the texts and sources for Nut’s or the sky’s purported composition of stone in the Egyptian view. I just now went looking again, and after perusing 6-8 summaries, came back empty handed with a single one that even mentioned the word “stone”. Here is an example:

    http://www.egyptianmyths.net/nut.htm
    [Symbols: stars, the night sky, cows [note: no mention of ‘stone’], Cult Center: Heliopolis

    The goddess Nut was the daughter of Shu and Tefnut and the wife of Geb, the earth god. She was the goddess of the daytime sky and the place where clouds formed. In later periods, she was no longer the goddess of the daytime sky, but of the sky in general. The goddess was typically portrayed as a woman who wears on her head a vase of water . Many times she is shown as a woman whose hands and feet touch the ground so that her body forms a semi-circle. As such she represents the heavens.]

    One thing she *is* closely associated with, besides sky in general, is water, although I’ll admit its not always primarily mentioned. It’s hard to not see the parallel with watery Tiamat, half of which made the skies. Neither of which are stone though to my knowledge.

    As for the TWOT reference, I am aware of that claim: “In pre-Christian Egypt confusion was introduced into biblical cosmology when the LXX, perhaps under the influence of Alexandrian theories of a “stone vault” of heaven, …” Note though that: 1) they speak of “Alexandrian” theories, i.e. Hellenisitic period, not ANE period, and 2) as I said earlier, I’ve looked for this and do not think (though I don’t claim this is certain) there ever was such a conception.

    [Perhaps you are suggesting that these two conceptions ought not be joined?]
    What “two” do you refer to? But I certainly do question if there ever was any stone conception of the sky in Egypt. I would be more than glad to see contrary evidence, but what I can say with more certainty is this: if anything, such a view would be rare or obscure. It could not be a prominent view. I’ve read enough of their torturous myths to at least be confident of that much.

    But Josh, there is a take away point to all of this. It’s the point I made in my last post. What if your teachers in these issues have lead you and themselves astray by unduly fishing for / going cherry picking for naturalistic / scientific notions within these pagan myths (thus emphasizing things like stone vaults)? I of course don’t care to defend a scrap of their ridiculous and dishonorable myths, so obviously why would I care if they did have a unscientific view like a stone vault. But I’m interested in the truth. The truth I see is a thousand and one depictions of a naked woman as sky, of a cosmic cow as sky, of a cosmic vulture … of a cosmic woman who eats the sun and then births it each day (no *naturalistic* reading can be done with that one for “how the sun rises and sets”) … are you emphasizing the wrong things?

  9. Josh,

    What is absent from your analysis of the opening of Genesis and Exodus 20 are two things. 1. Is Genesis 2:3 “And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created (bara) and made (asa).” There is special emphasis given here. Both the words created and made are used. If you look at the words used in other places, you can see they are pretty much used interchangeably. Why the special emphasis here? Do you think God is trying to make it abundantly clear that He is addressing all of His creative acts and not just the completion of these acts?

    Let’s also look at Exodus 20. Exod 20:9-11 “Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
    10But the seventh day [is] the sabbath of the LORD thy God: [in it] thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that [is] within thy gates:
    11For [in] six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them [is], and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.”

    The whole basis of the 6 day work week is God’s work. It is said He did it in 6 days. The children of Israel were instructed not to do any kind of work except for in these six days because that is what God did in creating the heavens and the earth. Do you see how that correlation would break down if God actually worked prior to these 6 days? From the saying of “everything that is in them” to the strong implication that everything was done in 6 days, we have to do contortions to get to a conclusion other than that God created everything in 6 days. That’s just what it comes down to.

    I really don’t need to address the pagan mythologies that much. I think Nicholas did a fine job of addressing those. Accept to point out that Adam walked and talked in the Garden prior to sin. We don’t know what they talked about, but don’t you think it a reasonable conclusion that the manner in which Adam and the rest of the creation came to be might have been one of the things that they talked about? If that were the case, do you think Adam might have passed these along from generation to generation? Noah was only born 20 years after Adam died. So Noah would definitely have heard any stories that Adam had passed down. Noah was still alive in Abraham’s time. Those early lifespans mean that anything Adam passed down firsthand was passed down relatively few times. If when men fell into pagan idolatry they incorporated anything from what actually happened into their pagan myths shouldn’t shock us. But I think Nicholas has made a point that at least in certain areas some of what is presented as what the pagans believed about the earth’s beginnings may not be presented entirely accurate as well.

    As for Jesus, I don’t think anyone is debating that Jesus did not lay aside at least part of His divine attributes. Obviously Jesus could not have undergone a human death if He hadn’t. Yet Jesus was not just like every other man in His knowledge. To reduce it down that far is to take it too far. I have included quite a few verses that show that. Jesus said that whatever He taught came straight from the Father. So either Jesus was lying or the Father supplied Jesus with things that actually happened or the Father lied to Jesus. I think the reasonable conclusion is that the words that the Father specifically communicated to the Son to be taught to mankind can be trusted to be things that were actually literally true and not words to deceive people and reinforce false ideas. That in no way is the character of our Lord.

    I think the other point that was my main point coming into this discussion and that I don’t think has been sufficiently addressed by those that advocate an old earth is what Ken Ham addressed in one of the transcriptions of his video that I transcribed above. To repeat part of it:

    “In the fossil record there are thorns said to be 100′s of millions of years old. The Bible said thorns came after the curse. (Putting on the screen Genesis 3:18.) How can you have millions of years of death and animals eating each other and bloodshed and diseases like cancer and thorns before man when the Bible says it’s man’s sin that resulted in those things? To believe in millions of years is to blame God for the mess we created. To believe in millions of years is to blame God for cancer and brain tumors; to blame God for death. By one man sin entered the world and death by sin.”

    I want to reiterate, since the discussion (at least with Josh) may be coming to a close: That although I have strong disagreement with Josh, I don’t impugn his character in any way and trust from his statements that he is a Christian. I maintain that his beliefs are misguided and dangerous but I still love him as a Christian brother.

  10. oops. I just realized that I failed to address Josh’s final question: “Did Jesus correct the reading of the LXX when he heard people read Gen 1:8?”

    Someone can correct me if I am wrong. But I believe the readings of the Old Testament in the Temple were done in Hebrew and that the common Jewish man in the area of Judea where Christ ministered would not generally know Greek. So I could be wrong, but I doubt that the Greek Septuagint would have been read very much by the people that Jesus was in contact with. Obviously the question itself as well as my answer contains a lot of presumption with no real definiteness. But since there is no record about any actual encounters, that is all we are left with in that particular question.

  11. Folks, I’m not able to follow the posts here but just noticed this last one. Yes, we can assume the LXX was not being read in synagogues in Galilee or Judea as a whole but rather the Hebrew scriptures with an Aramaic translation.

  12. Dr. Jonathan Sarfati,

    May I address your reference to Hebrews 4 vis a vis the duration of the Creation days. As in the case of my above response to your comments, my concern is that to justify your case for the duration of the days of Genesis you compromise with the evolutionary view. Your compromise eliminates an important argument against evolution: that we do not see evolution occurring in nature. Not even the intelligence of man can create new kinds of fertile animals. If you do not accept that Genesis 2:1-3 as teaching that the Lord completed his first or natural creation in six days, surely Hebrews 4 ought to settle the matter.

    To all my dear Sabbatarian friends, please don’t suppose that Sabbatarian observance depends on the bad defense of trying to link it to a 24-hour duration of Creation days. I would love to see our world return to a Sabbath observance whether it be the Jewish or Puritan Sabbath: so long as your Sabbath be truly devoted to the Lord rather than yourself and your natural family.

    Also, keep in mind that the Son of Man is also Lord of the Sabbath. That is to say, he created the Sabbath for man and not man for the Sabbath. The Sabbath was now created by the Law of Moses. Even the pagans recognized the seven day week. But Seventh Day observance does belong to the Law of Moses which the Apostle Paul explains as being a guardian (or schoolmaster) until Christ. Notwithstanding the claims of some of the Apostle’s Jewish opponents, the Law of Moses ends with the New Covenant of the Spirit. When we enter into his rest, we are led by the Spirit.

  13. Philip,

    What hoops you jump through. The Sabbath was blessed and made holy (sanctified) from the beginning. It is the seventh literal day consisting of darkness and light, evening and morning. It was not made for the Jews, but for mankind…from the beginning.

    Genesis 2
    2 And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
    3 And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

    Mark 2
    27 And he said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath:

    1 Corinthians 11
    7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.
    8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.
    9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.
    10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.

    I am betting that you will not say that marriage is done away with or that man can choose a different being for a wife. Woman was made for man just as the Sabbath was. Neither has been rendered null and void. There is a day that both Sabbath keeping and human marriage will be done away with.

    Matthew 5
    18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.

    As I am sure you know that in the resurrection there will be no human marriage. And when heaven and earth pass away there will be no time divided into seven day weeks. It will be day all the time with no sun. Until then those things that were made for man are still for man.

    Sabbath keeping is the way that we declare to world that we believe in and worship the One Elohim that created everything in six literal days and rested on the seventh literal day. Young earth creationists are inconsistent when they fail to keep the seventh day Sabbath. We declare His lordship over all creation and all time by submitting to His command to keep the Sabbath. We declare His authority structure by submitting to His rules about head coverings.

    These two things are resisted by modern Churchianity.

    Shalom

  14. Philip,

    And to comment on your last sentence…the Spirit does not lead us to disobey YHWH’s commandments. Those that have entered into YHWH’s rest stop doing their own thing and submit to YHWH’s word.

    Romans 8
    4 That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
    5 For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit.
    6 For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
    7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.

    It is the carnal minded man that cannot or will not be subject to YHWH’s law. Keeping the law does not save us, but those that are saved obey YHWH. Transgressing the law is sin. We are deceived if we think that the Spirit will lead us to go against YHWH’s righteous commandments.

    1 John 3
    4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.
    5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin.
    6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him.
    7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous.

    Shalom

  15. Bo,

    I am sure that you do not intend to support Jewish apologetics, but that is precisely their argument against the New Testament and Christianity. They read this with a mind that is not biblical, that is to say, not based on a relationship with the true God.

    Putting law ahead of the living God is Greaco-Roman. Such legalism is a product of the classical pagans. These two nations influenced Second Temple Jews whom they ruled for so many centuries, but John the Baptist, then Jesus aimed to return the Jews to their roots.

    As the Apostle Paul tells us, the Law [of Moses] is spiritual and must be spiritually understood. Jesus explained that by telling us that all the Law and the Prophets hang on the two greatest commandments: loving God with all one’s heart and loving one’s neighbor as one’s self – the royal commandment. The prophets of the Old Testament tell us as much. Even the Law of Moses points to the fact that those to whom it was given would fail to heed it and thus the Lord would make them jealous by another nation. Obeying the Law means heeding the Prophet, who the disciples understood as Jesus.

    The resurrection is Christ. Not only is there no marriage in Christ, neither are there male or female. And, yes, the Spirit is a downpayment on the resurrection.

  16. Philip,

    Loving YHWH with our whole being cannot be divorced from keeping His commandments. Abraham the friend of Elohim kept them.

    Ge 26:5 Because that Abraham obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws.

    In Exodus 16 (Before the Ten Commandments were spoken from the mount) YHWH tested the Israelites to see if they were going to keep His commandments. He tested them with Sabbath keeping.

    Exodus 16
    4 Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.
    5 And it shall come to pass, that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in; and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily…
    26 Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none.
    27 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none.
    28 And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?
    29 See, for that the LORD hath given you the sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days; abide ye every man in his place, let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.
    30 So the people rested on the seventh day.

    They were tested to see if they were true children of Abraham.

    Joh 8:39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham.

    De 11:1 Therefore thou shalt love the LORD thy God, and keep his charge, and his statutes, and his judgments, and his commandments, alway.

    De 11:13 And it shall come to pass, if ye shall hearken diligently unto my commandments which I command you this day, to love the LORD your God, and to serve him with all your heart and with all your soul,

    Deuteronomy 5
    4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
    5 And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.
    6 And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:
    7 And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

    1 John 5
    2 By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments.
    3 For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.

    If we love Him we keep his commandments. Are they in our hearts so that we love to do them or are they grievous to us. Do we really know Him if we do not keep His commandments?

    1 John 2
    3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
    4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
    5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
    6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.

    How did Messiah walk? He kept all of the Father’s commandments. The new covenant is about YHWH’s law being written on our hearts. If it is on our hearts we do it. If it is just letters on a stone to us we do not do it because we are still carnal minded as Paul says in Romans 8.

    Jeremiah 31
    33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

    The call of true saints that endure to the end and follow the lamb is this:

    Re 14:12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.

    Faith without Biblical works is dead.

    I, in no way, put the law ahead of YHWH. He sets commandment keeping as a test of our faithfulness and rewards us in His kingdom accordingly. There is good reason that Sabbath keeping is in the ten commandments. It is still a test of loyalty to our Creator.

    Matthew 5
    18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
    19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

    Shalom

  17. Philip, regarding post # 362, I think the problems you are running into are not problems of violation of Scripture as much of problems of preconceptions on your part that I believe are misconceptions.

    So let me walk through a few things with you and see if we are on the same page in these areas.

    First off, I would ask you what specifically would be defined as God breaking the Sabbath rest? We know that (contrary to Deist belief) that God is in fact, working in the world today. Scripture proves that out:

    Philipians 2:13 “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of [his] good pleasure.”

    1 Corinthians 12:6 “And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.”

    Romans 14:20 “For meat destroy not the work of God. All things indeed [are] pure; but [it is] evil for that man who eateth with offence.”

    So the first thing we must stipulate is the rest that is spoken of is specifically a rest from creation in the Creation Week.

    We can also clarify that God still brings forth life today. The Psalmist speaks of God knitting him together in his mother’s womb.(Ps 139:13) He is simply not creating new “kinds” of life. That word “kinds” is key and we will get back to that.

    The next thing we can determine is that God has changed His original creation. We need to carefully look at the Curse that God pronounced upon His creation after man sinned and understand that God did make adaptions on His original creation. Genesis 3 clearly shows this. Verse 14 shows that the serpent was adapted. It is strongly implied that the serpent had legs before the Fall or else why would its curse be to go on it’s belly and eat dust. This shows the serpent was adapted as part of the curse.

    Verse 16 shows that there were changes in the woman as well. Her childbearing physiology was adapted as part of the curse.

    Verse 17 and 18 show that the land was changed. Both the soil and what grew in it were adapted as part of the curse according to these verses.

    When we fully understand this. It makes perfect sense when we read:

    Romans 8:19-22 “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected [the same] in hope, Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.”

    There were adaptions brought upon the whole of God’s creation due to the curse. Apparently these adaptions were not considered a violation of the rest spoken of in Genesis 2 and Hebrews 4 because these adaptions occurred after the 6th day of creation.

    So with this in mind, we turn back to the created “kinds” I noted earlier.

    Philip, I believe you see the word “kind” in the Genesis 1 account (eg. “after their kind” “after his kind” etc.) and read that specifically to mean species. But what is your basis for reading it as species? I have already shown that an adaption within the original creation does not constitute a cease from the rest of the Creation. So why could the created “kinds” not show adaptions within the “kind” so long as these adaptions stay within a fixed “kind” boundary?

    Dr. Sarfati and I both provided you with links to understand what YEC’s propose to be the created kinds and why they come to this determination from what is written in Scripture.

    But there is a large difference between seeing a fixed created kind that could produce variations within the created kind. And what evolution would propose as adaption from one kind to another. While Scripture does state that the animals that God created were to reproduce after their kind, nothing is said about changing from one kind to another. So it would be a violation of what the Scriptures say about an animal producing after its kind for that to happen.

    As far as your point about fertility within species (that you interchange with the word “kind”) that is what a Young Earth Creationist would expect might happen today. Because we do not propose that it is happening today.

    This is what the one link that I gave you on this subject had to say in reference to that:

    “There are several reasons why hybrid data may be lacking between individuals within the same baramin. First, it is relatively difficult to gather good hybrid data in the wild, and often the opportunity for hybridization is lacking when animals live in different parts of the world. As a result, hybrid data is more complete for animals that are domesticated or held in captivity (for example, in zoos).
    Second, as described earlier with sheep and goats, even for animals that have produced hybrids, many attempts may be unsuccessful. This may be the result of genetic changes (mutations) that have accumulated in one or both species since the Fall, that causes a loss of ability to interbreed. Finally, if an animal is only known from the fossil record there is no opportunity for it to hybridize with animals alive today.”

    I do hope this helps to clarify a few things.

  18. Bo,

    What about stoning those who break the Sabbath: isn’t that part of the commandments had the Law of Moses not been fulfilled in Christ?

    If we break one commandment, aren’t we guilty of breaking them all?

    Do you believe the Apostle Paul when he declares love the fulfillment of the Law?

  19. I would like to make a suggestion. If the discussion is turning to the discussion of whether a New Covenant believer is to keep the law, Dr. Brown asked us the last time this happened (at least the last time when I was part of the discussion) that it be moved to a more appropriate thread. That is a subject matter that has been discussed extensively by Bo and myself previously and I believe by many others.

    The discussion was moved to the following thread the last time I was part of such a discussion: http://www.lineoffireradio.com/2011/10/28/dr-brown-answers-your-questions-38/

    So it is my suggestion, knowing that was Dr. Brown’s wish the last time, that you may want to move that topic over there.

  20. Jonathan,

    That is a good suggestion, though clearly for some this subject is tied to the duration of Creation days.

    Thanks for pointing this out. I am for dropping the discussion here.

  21. I agree Philip, I wasn’t talking about the duration of the Creation days as much as whether New Covenant believer should keep the Mosaic Law. I think that particular discussion is one step removed from the Creation discussion.

  22. Philip and Jonathan,

    Just know that it is inconsistent to say that we believe the whole Bible and reject YHWH’s commandments. The literal 6 day creationist is more inconsistent than the other types of creationist. The Sabbath was made for man…not the Jew. It was instituted on day seven. Made holy and blessed until heaven and earth pass away. We have no record in scripture of any believer not keeping it. It is the testimony that we believe that there is a Creator that worked for 6 days and rested the seventh. You would both do well to deal with the passages that I quoted above. I will also leave the conversation about Sabbath keeping.

    One last thing. Sabbath is not Mosaic law. It is from creation just like marriage. Exodus 16 is not Mosaic law either…it is expected of those that were in the Abrahamic covenant with YHWH to keep it. Are we children of Abraham if we do not do the works of Abraham? In the new covenant, YHWH’s law (The very same law that Jeremiah called YHWH’s law) is supposed to be written on our hearts. If it is on our hearts to do something we do it. If it is just on stone to us we will surely continually break it.

    I call you Jonathan to consistency and you Philip to read the scripture literally.

    Shalom

  23. Bo, This is an issue you and I have already discussed at great length before. I have addressed many of those verses you brought up in that prior conversation. I do not wish to rehash that conversation. Hebrews 4 and specifically verse 10 tells us what it means to enter into God’s rest. I am so thankful that we are able to walk in this rest every day of our lives. I do know where you stand, Bo and realize we are not in agreement on this issue. I thank you for setting this issue aside in this conversation.

  24. Jonathan, Bo’s reference to commandments that he supposes date from Adam is in keeping with the subject here, that is to say the knowledge of Creation that predate Moses. It is most important to the discussion concerning the similarity of teachings in the Ancient Near East and elsewhere to those in the Bible.

    I already mentioned how the pagans knew the seven day week. The account of Noah’s Ark and the accounts immediately following the Flood make it clear that Noah and his sons knew about clean and unclean animals and not eating flesh before draining it of blood. Animal sacrifices date at least to the time of Able.

    Most of the ancients not only knew about the Flood, they also understood that the world was created however much they mixed this with myth and lost the details preserved by the servants of God.

    But I see no commandment to observe the seventh as a day of rest until the Law of Moses.

    A lot of problems have been caused by treating this as if knowledge of such things was first revealed to Moses – as if Adam, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham didn’t know that the Lord was Creator or even that the earth was created.

  25. Philip,

    Exodus 16 is before the law of Moses. It is a test to see if the people will keep YHWH’s law. Abraham kept YHWH’s law. Just like firstling offerings at the time of Abel and clean and unclean animal classification at the time of Noah, Sabbath keeping preexists the Decalogue. It is pretty obvious that all the ten commandments predate them being spoken form the mount.

    Also of note is the clean and unclean laws showing up preceding the Mount Sinai covenant that is really a restatement of the major tenants of the YHWH’s law. These were not new things. The new covenant seems also to be a return to the offer given in Exodus 19:5-8 as it is restated in 1 Peter 2:5-9. Hebrews 4:1-3, and verses surrounding, also indicate that the same gospel is offered to us that was offered to them and that it must be mixed with faith and produce works/obedience.

    So you are right that the pre-Moses people of Elohim knew things that we presume to have originated with Moses…but you are wrong about the Sabbath that was also from the beginning…made for man…not just the Jews.

    Shalom

  26. Does Hebrews 4 indicate that we are to rest on the seventh day or that we are supposed to enter into that rest everyday? It seems from verse seven the day that it was limited to was not the seventh day but rather “Today”. In other words, every day. Romans 14 indicates that we can set aside a certain day. There is nothing wrong with that. Setting aside that day makes it easier to assemble together as brothers and sisters in Christ and help each other to grow in the Lord. But really, whether we esteem a certain day or every day alike, as long as we observe all of our “Todays” as unto the Lord, we can enter into the rest 24/7. The goal is to allow the Lord to work through us instead of working in our own strength. When we do that, we are observing the Spirit of the Law.

  27. As far as clean and unclean animals and the seventh day goes. It is readily apparent these things were known about prior to Moses. But the clean and unclean animals were in reference to animal sacrifice according to the commands given to Noah. When it comes to the commands about eating, clearly the clean/unclean laws were not established. There was a prohibition against eating blood (this corresponds to the instructions given to Gentile believers in Acts). But “every moving thing that liveth” was allowed to be eaten. That would clearly include unclean animals. So we can obviously readily understand there were things given at Mt Sinai that were not given previously. Bo is correct that God told the children of Israel not to gather food on the Sabbath in Exodus 16. It is the first reference to that type of command though so to say the command was in place prior to that would be mere conjecture. When it speaks in Mark 2 that the Sabbath was made for man. It does not say the seventh day was made for man. It says the Sabbath was made for man. The seventh day and the Sabbath rest for man are made synonymous in the wilderness. I see no evidence that it was prior to that. I believe the purposes of the Sabbath are to rest in and glorify the Lord and that Hebrews 4 indicates it was limited to a certain day only because they weren’t entering into that all the time. While previous generations knew and understood that God rested on a certain day, it was never recorded in Scripture prior to in the wilderness that this was commanded of anyone else. Our Sabbath is listed in Hebrews 4 as “Today”. But I really don’t desire to get into such a discussion. I believe all three of us agree that it is clearly demonstrated that people knew of the seven day week from the beginning. So since no one disagrees with that, I don’t see further discussion on these points relating specifically to the topic of creation. Therefore, I hope we can agree to disagree on this topic and proceed with the topic of creation.

  28. In an effort to get back to the actual discussion of creation, I do wonder what Philip thought of the posts # 367 and 368 and if that clarified some things about young earth creation viewpoints on that subject?

  29. Jonathan,

    Yes, those are fair questions about the Lord’s rest and God’s working.

    We must first ask what the Lord was resting from. The simple answer is that he rested from creating the heavens and the earth which are covered in the first chapter. Thus we should not see any new kinds of creatures appearing since the completion of Creation.

    And yes, the Lord has changed things due to man’s activities, and he will do so again with the approach of his millennial reign. Likewise, man can modify God’s creation, but he cannot create new kinds of animals.

    Hebrew 4 clearly refers to the Lord resting from his Creation.

    We must keep in mind that it was the Lord rather than God the Father working apart from his Son who was the instrument of Creation. Thus, we probably don’t think about the Creation as “work” as the Scriptures do declare. Had the Creation not involved some effort on the part of the Lord, his Seventh Day rest would have no purpose or meaning.

  30. Jonathan,

    I would say that your logic and your understanding of the passages you referenced are convoluted. Today if you will hear His voice is concerning obedient faith not resting. The word in Hebrews 4 is sabatismos which means sabbath keeping not rest. Rest is a poor translation of the word. Katapasis is the word for rest. There is still sabbath keeping for the people of YHWH. Remember this book was written to the Hebrews. As far as choosing our own day to esteem higher than others in Romans it is not saying that we can undo the Sabbath. That is the day that YHWH chose to be holy. We cannot make a day holy. We can break the 4th commandment and defile it, though. We can esteem one above another but not declare it holy (set apart from the others).

    Gotta go for now.

    Shabbat Shalom

  31. Bo,

    I hope that we are not to understand you teaching that the Lord himself is a Sabbatarian. But that would appear to logically follow calling the Seventh Day of Creation an ordinary Sabbath. The Sabbath (which he commanded us to observe) was made for man, not God.

    You mention above that there is no record of anyone in the New Testament not observing the Sabbath. Have you never read the Scriptures? That is precisely what angered the Jews. The disciples themselves when they were with Jesus violated the Sabbath. As Jesus pointed out, the priests in the Temple always “violate” the Sabbath.

    The Sabbath was intended to be a day devoted to the Lord. That can’t apply to the Lord himself. Nor does it apply to work such as that of the priests that is devoted to the Lord.

  32. Philip, responding to post # 380:

    “Thus we should not see any new kinds of creatures appearing since the completion of Creation.”

    Young earth creationists entirely agree with this statement. This is where you have not explained why you believe “species” should be synonymous with “kind”. Young earth creationists believe that no new created kinds have come into being since the end of the creation week.

    “We must keep in mind that it was the Lord rather than God the Father working apart from his Son who was the instrument of Creation.”

    This is where words like “trinity” and “three persons” that are not found in Scripture in reference to God affect people’s understanding in non-Biblical ways.

    Jesus is the Father. Jesus is the Son. Jesus is the Holy Spirit. God is one. He may manifest to us in different ways, just as He did with the pillar of cloud and fire and just as He did as the burning bush and just as He did as the Rock in the Wilderness. But He is one God.

    Read Malachi 2:10 and then tell me that the Father did not create the world. It was God who created the world. That means it was the Father. It was the Son. It was the Holy Spirit that created the world. It ruins your thinking when you use extra-Biblical words such as “persons” to divide the one God’s being.

  33. Bo, I could respond back to you and then you could respond back to me. But since I said and you agreed that the topic of keeping the law was off topic, I will not say another word on the subject. Hopefully that way we can get back to discussing the Creation.

  34. Johnathan,

    I see that you are Oneness. I regard you as good brethren, if known for your excessive rigidity. But please, don’t use your Oneness doctrine as any premise here because most of us don’t share it. Let us stick with Scripture. In any case, to use your own admonition, that is not the discussion here.

    So, why do you bring up these non-biblical terms such as “species”?

  35. Philip,

    Whether someone is oneness or not doesn’t make a difference for my point though. Did you read Malachi 2:10? That is Scripture. Also note that you are the one that brought the Trinity into the discussion, not I; by saying the Son created and not the Father. Using such reasoning would only work under the supposition that Oneness is false. So in making that your argument and then telling me not to discuss oneness, you’re basically saying I am not allowed to question your premise for your argument.

    As for “species”. I agree. It is not the term used in the Bible. The term used in the Bible is kind. Yet you seem to equate the word “kind” to “species”. As I said, young earth creationists agree with you that no new “kinds” were created after the creation week.

    So for instance, a dog kind could have been created in the creation week from which variations within the dog kind produced wolves, dingoes, coyotes etc. A primate kind could have been created in the creation week from which variations with the primate kind produced apes, lemurs, monkeys, etc. But there would have been no new created kinds after the creation week. There would have only been variation within kinds. The created kinds would have been fixed and no mixing between the created kinds and no new created kinds would have happened after the creation week.

    This is consistent with the Scriptures unless you force the meaning of “kind” to be synonymous with “species”. If you want to force that, my question would be why should we see it that way?

  36. Jonathan,

    Please check above. I am using strict Scriptural exegesis. I have not so much as mentioned “Trinity” until this response to you. Nor have I mentioned the word “person” above, except in response to Sarfati who calls me “Philip person.” I don’t mind him doing that since man was created in the image of God.

    Believe me when I tell you that when I wrote above, my thoughts were entirely focussed on the exegesis of Genesis 1, particularly the matter under discussion: the Lord God first working then resting on the seventh day. I was applying to Genesis 1 what we learn from the New Testament: that Jesus created all things and there was nothing created that he did not create. Yes, he could do that because God, his Father, was in him. Thus, Jesus is also God (divine). The Father, his overlord, is Lord of all. But until his resurrection, Jesus was King only of the Jews. According to the Scriptures, there are things that the Father does apart from the Son: he tends the creation, feeds the sparrows, and prunes the vine of the family of God. He sent his only son to become an atonement for our sins.

    The Apostle Paul reminded the Ephesians that all of us believe in one God, one Lord, and one Spirit. When I was thinking about the effort expended by the Lord on the days of Creation, I had in mind such things as Daniel 8 where the Lord appears to Daniel, explaining that he was delayed in coming to him due to his battle with the Prince of Persia. I recall Jesus telling us that there were some things that he did not know, just as we see in the Old Testament in the case of the Lord God. But he also told us that the Father was greater than himself. Do you doubt that Jesus’ rest (after he completed Creation) is in the Father?

    But I do now see why you are troubled with what I wrote about the Lord resting. Just believe me when I tell you that is collateral damage. I did not know that you were Oneness. Nor was aiming that at my Oneness brothers or your doctrine.

    Moving now to your excellent question about why I reject the evolutionary doctrine of species. You should know that a great deal of controversy exists even within the evolutionary camps over the definition and meaning of species. There are great battles between the lumpers and splitters because they have no objective definition of this vague concept.

    During the many years of work on my book, I traced how that was understood by the foremost NeoDarwinian authority on this particular subject. That would be the late Ernst Mayr (1904-2001). I discovered that he was defining species through geographical isolated populations, which would make the native Australians a separate species of humans.

    I also discovered that the problem was older than that and was rooted in the Enlightenment’s Great Chain of Being, a modification of Aquinas’ NeoPlatonist version of Aristotelian science. This doctrine became codified for moderns via Carl Linnaeus (1707-1708) system of classification of the animals. Linnaeus system projects a lot of racist and non-biblical ideas into biology. The so-called close kinship of man and the apes is due to his classifying man and the ape as primates. He also added to the primates, the so-call troglodytes (cavemen) that he supposed intermediate between man and apes leading to reckoning of cave-dwelling Neanderthals as sub-human. For more on why biology became so confused and controversial, I refer you to my book.

  37. (Correction: the reference above to Daniel 8 should instead have been to Daniel 10.)

    With regard to Linnaeus, a lot of his influence is due to his invention of the binomial Latin classification of species. Those binomial Latin names give the species game its scientific flavor.

  38. Philip,

    In your last response you talked about your response being totally related to the exegesis of Genesis 1. But there is a problem with that. Your exegesis has to take into account what agrees with the rest of Scripture. I notice you did not address Malachi 2:10. Why is that? Doesn’t Malachi 2:10 prove that the Father created?

    When you said, “Moving now to your excellent question about why I reject the evolutionary doctrine of species.” You can note that I never asked you that. I reject the evolutionary doctrine of species as well. I’m not talking about evolutionary theory though. The fact that you equate it makes me think you did not read the links that Dr. Sarfati and I gave you. Is this true?

    For example, this was the opening of one of the articles: “Whoops! Two or more species from one kind! Isn’t that evolution?
    Some evolutionists certainly think so. After I participated in a creation-evolution debate at Texas A & M, a biology professor got up and told everyone about the flies on certain islands that used to interbreed but no longer do. They’ve become separate species, and that, he said, to a fair amount of applause, proves evolution is a fact—period!
    Well, what about it? Barriers to reproduction do seem to arise among varieties that once interbred. Does that prove evolution? Or does that make it reasonable to extrapolate from such processes to real evolutionary changes from one kind to others? As I explained to the university-debate audience (also to applause), the answer is simply no, of course not. It doesn’t even come close.
    Any real evolution (macroevolution) requires an expansion of the gene pool, the addition of new genes and new traits as life is supposed to move from simple beginnings to ever more varied and complex forms (“molecules to man” or “fish to philosopher”). Suppose there are islands where varieties of flies that used to trade genes no longer interbreed. Is this evidence of evolution? No, exactly the opposite. Each variety resulting from reproductive isolation has a smaller gene pool than the original and a restricted ability to explore new environments with new trait combinations or to meet changes in its own environment. The long-term result? Extinction would be much more likely than evolution.”

    So evolutionary theory is actually the complete opposite of what young earth creationists propose. It is not the same.

    You would also see if you had read the articles that lumpers and splitters were discussed in the articles.

    I am also well aware that there is racism in the roots of evolutionary theory. Ken Ham has a book on the subject entitled “One Blood”. Obviously young earth creationism bears no resemblance or link to the racist roots of evolutionary theory. We believe that all human beings today came from Adam and Eve and then after that all human beings came from Noah and his family. When we understand we are all one blood, there is no room for racism.

    I again ask you to read the articles I provided. It would help you to correct misconceptions you have if you hear from the young earth creationists themselves about what they actually believe.

  39. This one sure is going for the long haul isn’t it?
    One of the longest threads, it seems to me.

    I remember hearing how we only see one side of the moon. I wonder what the other side looks like.

    I suppose if one was viewing our moon from the nearest planet to the sun, that he could see both sides of our moon, since the moon is in orbit around the earth.

    Does science have an explaination about all of this? Does it explain all the forces involved?
    I just can’t take it all in. That’s for sure.

    Surely God had to be the beginning of it all. It had to be his design. He had to have had it all prepared according to plan. Amazing is our God.

  40. Jonathan,

    As I mentioned, I didn’t suppose this the place to discuss your Oneness doctrine. But to answer your question. No, Malachi 2:10 does not prove that the Father created us, certainly not apart from his Son. Take seriously what the Apostles wrote. The prophet asks: “Do we not all have one father?” The Jews were children of Abraham. If “Father” here refers to the Creator, the very next question would be unnecessary. The foreigners that concern these passages also have the same Creator as the Jews, but they did not have Abraham as their father.

    I agree that a reading of Genesis 1 that makes sense of God working and resting doesn’t support your Oneness doctrine, only that was collateral damage rather than any intention to refute it.

    I have read the links making distinctions without a difference (so far as concern the teachings of the Bible) I have Dr. Sarfati’s book written against Hugh Ross. Have you read my book? If you want to raise your stature, take a cue from Dr. Sarfati.

    You make a distinction between kinds and species, but in light of the Bible describing the kinds of animals as giving birth to offspring after their own kind, I am shocked at what you write. It was due to the way that the Lord described his creation of animals as each producing offspring after their own kind that caused me to reject evolution. I discovered that everything that caused me to believe evolution was false. Was I angry at myself for being deceived by so many false claims. The more science I learn, the more skeptical I become.

    I am especially shocked at your lack of skepticism when someone makes a claim that contradicts the BIble. You and Sarfati are doing the very thing that you are accusing others of doing: re-interpreting the Scripture to make it accord with the teachings of science.

  41. @Bo and Jonathan,

    I recently saw a video that has an culturally relevant, contextual, paying attention to the actual Greek, interpretation of Romans 14:5.

    It brings in the Talmud and everything. I highly recommend it. Check it out if you like and tell me what you think:
    http://youtu.be/mMB9TBuBntc#t=5m06s

    It’s toward the end where the literary context that I really want you to hear is at 7:05

  42. Philip,

    First off, I would ask that you not make statements that imply I said something I did not. You have done that in two of your last few comments. It would seem to show that either 1. You are not really reading what I am writing or 2. You are being a smart alek. (If it is something I am missing, you can let me know. But this is what seems evident in the following two examples.)

    You said, “Moving now to your excellent question about why I reject the evolutionary doctrine of species.” And as I noted, I never asked you that. So I’m not sure why you would say that.

    In your latest comment, you said: “I agree that a reading of Genesis 1 that makes sense of God working and resting doesn’t support your Oneness doctrine, only that was collateral damage rather than any intention to refute it.” Who are you agreeing with? I never said that Genesis 1 doesn’t make sense of God working and resting in a Oneness doctrine. So why would you say you agree with me when I never said it? Again, the implication that comes across to me is that you are being a smart aleck. I hope I’m wrong about that. But please limit your comments about what I said or if you agree with what I allegedly said, that it be instances of things I have actually said.

    That would help to have productive dialogue. I don’t try to put words in your mouth and would appreciate the same respect shown to me.

    Thanks

  43. Philip,

    Messiah was accused of breaking the Sabbath by men that had written hundreds of their own statutes concerning it. If Messiah sinned/broke the law instead of fulfilling it, like he said he did, he also lied and a liar and sinner cannot atone for our sin as he himself would then need a savior.

    Shalom

  44. “As I mentioned, I didn’t suppose this the place to discuss your Oneness doctrine.” And as I said, if you make the Creation a divided event where the Son created without the Father, it leads to that. If you prefer to drop the subject you brought up in post # 362, we can do that. But in order to speak about it, I cannot separate what I believe the Scripture to be saying from that. Because according to what I see Scripture say, it is impossible for the Son to create without the Father.

    “But to answer your question. No, Malachi 2:10 does not prove that the Father created us, certainly not apart from his Son.” I did’t say apart from the Son. Of course, you know that I believe the Father and Son were both at work in the Creation, as well as the Holy Spirit (who hovered over the waters).

    “Take seriously what the Apostles wrote.” You imply by that statement that I don’t. But you do not expound on what you are talking about. I do take seriously what the Apostles wrote. Please be more specific.

    “The prophet asks: “Do we not all have one father?” The Jews were children of Abraham. If “Father” here refers to the Creator, the very next question would be unnecessary. The foreigners that concern these passages also have the same Creator as the Jews, but they did not have Abraham as their father.” Romans 9:7 says “Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, [are they] all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called.”
    John 8:39-44 says, “They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, [even] God. Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me.Why do ye not understand my speech? [even] because ye cannot hear my word. Ye are of [your] father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.” So I don’t think it was children of Abraham that was being addressed. You say that if Father refers to the Creator that the second question would not be necessary. But I disagree. I believe it is an example of parallelism that is used throughout Scripture. Just like verses such as the following: “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path”. (Psalms 119:105) Also observe Psalm 15:1-3: A1. Lord, who may dwell in your sanctuary?
    A2. Who may live on your holy hill?

    B1. He whose walk is blameless
    B2. and who does what is righteous.

    C1. who speaks the truth from his heart
    C2. and has no slander on his tongue.

    D1. who does his neighbor no wrong
    D2. and casts no slur on his fellow man.

    In response to your other statement that I already addressed in my last post. I see no conflict in the rest of God from His Creation. I already said that in previous posts. Which leads me to believe you aren’t really reading what I am writing. I already said that adaptions within the created kind would not be considered a work of creation. The work of creation was in creating the animals that would produce after their kinds. So I see no conflict in that and God’s rest from His Creation.

  45. “I have read the links making distinctions without a difference (so far as concern the teachings of the Bible)” Could you further explain what you mean by this? You are very non-specific. What exactly are you talking about?

    “I have Dr. Sarfati’s book written against Hugh Ross. Have you read my book? If you want to raise your stature, take a cue from Dr. Sarfati.” Again, non-specifics. Take a cue from Dr Sarfati in what way? What are you trying to say?

    “You make a distinction between kinds and species, but in light of the Bible describing the kinds of animals as giving birth to offspring after their own kind, I am shocked at what you write. It was due to the way that the Lord described his creation of animals as each producing offspring after their own kind that caused me to reject evolution. I discovered that everything that caused me to believe evolution was false. Was I angry at myself for being deceived by so many false claims. The more science I learn, the more skeptical I become.” I fail to see how you feel it is a departure from Scripture. Young earth Creationists believe wholeheartedly that animals produced offspring according to their kind. As I said already, they believe in a fixed kind that does not change but variations within that created kind.

    “I am especially shocked at your lack of skepticism when someone makes a claim that contradicts the BIble. You and Sarfati are doing the very thing that you are accusing others of doing: re-interpreting the Scripture to make it accord with the teachings of science.” Of course not. Because as I said above I see no contradiction. I don’t see the opening chapters of Genesis as a myth. I see them as literally and actually true and I see the young earth interpretation as faithful to the Scripture text and what it says.

  46. Jonathan, brother,

    Sometimes I think that you are looking for ways to take offense, but I do not intend to offend you. And you probably didn’t mean to offend me when you misread what I wrote about the Son being the Creator. Nowhere do I write, as you have me saying, that the Son creates without the Father.

    As to taking seriously what the Apostles wrote, in the context of what we are discussing, I mean their teaching that Jesus Christ is the Creator.

    On Malachi, you take that to be parallelism, but consider that would not make sense in context due to the fact that he was contrasting those to whom he spoke with gentiles who had various fathers and gods, but all Israel came from the same father and had the same God.

    Your last paragraph in 386 makes it appear that you believe that perhaps natural selection is capable of creating, as the Darwinists claim, and not only creating, like God does, but creating new kinds of animals.

    Bo, it was Jesus who said that the priests in the Temple profane the Sabbath. His point was that it is impossible for the Lord to break the Law of the Sabbath because it was never intended for him.

    Brothers, this has been a good discussion of the proper exegesis of Genesis 1. As Jonathan reminds us, let it not become distracted by other matters,

  47. Philip,

    I am curious. One of the biggest challenges from those who do not believe in a global flood like you and I do is that Noah could not have fit the thousands of species of animals onto the ark.

    Here is an article addressing the issue from the perspective of Answers in Genesis: http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/am/v8/n1/no-kind-left-behind

    But it is clear that you disagree with their position. So I am curious what the position is of a fellow believer in a worldwide flood who also at the same time rejects the positions held by young earth creationists about the created kinds. Could you explain your position on how many animals were on the ark?

  48. Philip, you said, ” Nowhere do I write, as you have me saying, that the Son creates without the Father.” OK, I’m sorry, I thought that’s what you were saying. So that means you DO agree with me that both Father and Son created. I had thought you were saying otherwise. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

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