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The death of another YEC PRATT

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  • #16
    Originally posted by TheLurch View Post
    Regardless of what it means for YECs, this is a very cool finding. Things with a stable orbit in the solar system have an eccentricity of less than 1. Those with an eccentricity of somewhat above one will pass by the sun once on a ...
    ... hyperbolic orbit.

    Circles have eccentricity 0, ellipses between 0 and 1, parabolas exactly 1, hyperbolas greater than 1.

    Comment


    • #17
      Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
      Astronomy and Cosmology that continue to offer up evidence that the universe is older by a few magnitude that several thousand years.
      All of science has moved far beyond the fundamentalist Christian worldview of the nature of our physical existence by thousands of years. One failure of 'arguing from ignorance' hardly adds to their pile of failures, and deliberate dishonest self-imposed ignorance of science to justify a religious agenda.

      Lucretius was much closer to the reality of the nature of our physical existence over 2000 years ago than the Christian fundamentalists today.
      Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
      Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
      But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

      go with the flow the river knows . . .

      Frank

      I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

      Comment


      • #18
        Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
        All of science has moved far beyond the fundamentalist Christian worldview of the nature of our physical existence by thousands of years. One failure of 'arguing from ignorance' hardly adds to their pile of failures, and deliberate dishonest self-imposed ignorance of science to justify a religious agenda.

        Lucretius was much closer to the reality of the nature of our physical existence over 2000 years ago than the Christian fundamentalists today.
        Blissfully unaware that many of the contributors to The Fundamentals (IOW, the original "fundamentalists") accepted that the earth was incredibly ancient and a significant number were either open to or accepted evolution.

        Please quit with the broad brushing.

        I'm always still in trouble again

        "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
        "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
        "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

        Comment


        • #19
          Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
          Blissfully unaware that many of the contributors to The Fundamentals (IOW, the original "fundamentalists") accepted that the earth was incredibly ancient and a significant number were either open to or accepted evolution.

          Please quit with the broad brushing.
          Check your history, because most of the Church Fathers believed in a literal Genesis and a young earth. The 'broad brush is valid for the dominant view in history up until the past several hundred years as science developed a coherent definitive well documented view base don the evidence.

          It still remains the dominant view of 40% or more of the Christians of the USA today.
          Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-20-2019, 08:39 AM.
          Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
          Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
          But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

          go with the flow the river knows . . .

          Frank

          I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

          Comment


          • #20
            Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
            Check your history, because most of the Church Fathers believed in a literal Genesis and a young earth. The 'broad brush is valid for the dominant view in history up until the past several hundred years as science developed a coherent definitive well documented view base don the evidence.

            It still remains the dominant view of 40% or more of the Christians of the USA today.
            While they accepted a young earth simply because there was no contradicting evidence available at that time they had a variety of different ideas of how the days of the Genesis 1 should be regarded ranging from taking place outside of time, taking place instantly, lasting a thousand years each as well as being literal 24 hour long days.

            But you specifically brought up "fundamentalists" which is why I noted that many of the originators of that movement accepted an ancient earth and a significant portion were even either open to or embraced evolutionary theory.

            I'm always still in trouble again

            "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
            "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
            "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

            Comment


            • #21
              Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
              While they accepted a young earth simply because there was no contradicting evidence available at that time they had a variety of different ideas of how the days of the Genesis 1 should be regarded ranging from taking place outside of time, taking place instantly, lasting a thousand years each as well as being literal 24 hour long days.

              But you specifically brought up "fundamentalists" which is why I noted that many of the originators of that movement accepted an ancient earth and a significant portion were even either open to or embraced evolutionary theory.
              Noted?!?!? no references.

              You have failed to respond to the fact that most Church Fathers believed in a literal Genesis. The marginal ancient earth? included the literal Noah flood. There is absolutely no evidence that the early Church Fathers remotely considered evolution an option.

              See this thread that documents the views of the Church Fathers.

              The belief that Genesis is literal does consider Creation taking place in either 7 days or 7 thousand years. Clearly I said the majority. As noted only one argued for a symbolic representation of Creation; St. John Chrysostom.


              Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



              "These leaders were known as the Church Fathers and they wrote to encourage believers, mainly during the period of AD 96 – 430 (Clement to Augustine). Of the 24 Church Fathers that I examined, 14 clearly accepted the literal days of Creation; 9 did not mention their thoughts on this subject, and only one held to a clearly figurative belief, which he imbued from the Jewish liberal philosopher, Philo, who had, in turn, been greatly influenced by the pagan Greeks.

              The first Church Father who mentions the days of Creation is Barnabas (not Paul’s companion) who wrote a letter in AD 130. He says:

              “Now what is said at the very beginning of Creation about the Sabbath, is this: In six days God created the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day; and he rested on that day, and sanctified it. Notice particularly, my children, the significance of ‘he finished them in six days.’ What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years; witness His own saying, ‘Behold, a day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days – six thousand years, that is – there is going to be an end of everything.” (The Epistle of Barnabas 15)2

              Barnabas is referring here to the traditional view of both the Jewish Rabbis and the early church leaders, that the days of Creation were literal six days, but that Psalm 90:4 (and for the Christians, 2 Peter 3:8) prophetically pointed to the coming of the Messiah after 6,000 years (and for the Christians, the return of Christ).3 This is not to be confused with the modern idea in the church, which wrenches verses out of context and makes the days of Creation to be evolutionary billions of years. Such a view has nothing to do with traditional Christianity; it is an attempt to make the Bible palatable to the masses who have been indoctrinated by the pagan religion of evolutionism.

              Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 120 – 202), was discipled by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself been taught by the Apostle John. He tells us clearly that a literal Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin on the literal first day of Creation (an idea influenced by the Rabbis). He writes:

              “For it is said, 'There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.' Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die.”4

              When he refers to Adam sinning and bringing death to the human race on the sixth day, he also points out that Christ also died on the sixth day in order to redeem us from the curse of sin. It is impossible to manipulate the text to make Irenaeus look as if he believed in the long-age days of the modernist theologians.

              Agreeing with Barnabas, he explains that the literal six-day Creation points to six thousand years of history before Christ’s return:

              “And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”5

              Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, near Rome (AD 170 – 236), was trained in the faith by Irenaeus, and like his mentor, he held to literal Creation days. He writes:

              “And six thousand years must needs be accomplished… for 'a day with the Lord is as a thousand years.' Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows that 6,000 years must be fulfilled.”6

              Lactantius, a Bible scholar (AD 260 – 330) who tutored Emperor Constantine’s son, Crispus, taught the official Christian doctrine of the traditional church. He wrote:

              “To me, as I meditate and consider in my mind concerning the creation of this world in which we are kept enclosed, even such is the rapidity of that creation; as is contained in the book of Moses, which he wrote about its creation, and which is called Genesis. God produced that entire mass for the adornment of His majesty in six days…. In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night….”7

              As with the other church leaders at the time, he accepted the prophetic days of 2 Peter 3:8, and tells us:

              “Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years.”8"

              © Copyright Original Source



              More to follow . . .
              Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-20-2019, 09:48 AM.
              Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
              Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
              But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

              go with the flow the river knows . . .

              Frank

              I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

              Comment


              • #22
                Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                Noted?!?!? no references.

                You have failed to respond to the fact that most Church Fathers believed in a literal Genesis. The marginal ancient earth? included the literal Noah flood. There is absolutely no evidence that the early Church Fathers remotely considered evolution an option.

                See this thread that documents the views of the Church Fathers.

                The belief that Genesis is literal does consider Creation taking place in either 7 days or 7 thousand years. Clearly I said the majority. As noted only one argued for a symbolic representation of Creation; St. John Chrysostom.


                Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



                "These leaders were known as the Church Fathers and they wrote to encourage believers, mainly during the period of AD 96 – 430 (Clement to Augustine). Of the 24 Church Fathers that I examined, 14 clearly accepted the literal days of Creation; 9 did not mention their thoughts on this subject, and only one held to a clearly figurative belief, which he imbued from the Jewish liberal philosopher, Philo, who had, in turn, been greatly influenced by the pagan Greeks.

                The first Church Father who mentions the days of Creation is Barnabas (not Paul’s companion) who wrote a letter in AD 130. He says:

                “Now what is said at the very beginning of Creation about the Sabbath, is this: In six days God created the works of his hands, and finished them on the seventh day; and he rested on that day, and sanctified it. Notice particularly, my children, the significance of ‘he finished them in six days.’ What that means is, that He is going to bring the world to an end in six thousand years, since with Him one day means a thousand years; witness His own saying, ‘Behold, a day of the Lord shall be as a thousand years. Therefore, my children, in six days – six thousand years, that is – there is going to be an end of everything.” (The Epistle of Barnabas 15)2

                Barnabas is referring here to the traditional view of both the Jewish Rabbis and the early church leaders, that the days of Creation were literal six days, but that Psalm 90:4 (and for the Christians, 2 Peter 3:8) prophetically pointed to the coming of the Messiah after 6,000 years (and for the Christians, the return of Christ).3 This is not to be confused with the modern idea in the church, which wrenches verses out of context and makes the days of Creation to be evolutionary billions of years. Such a view has nothing to do with traditional Christianity; it is an attempt to make the Bible palatable to the masses who have been indoctrinated by the pagan religion of evolutionism.

                Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons (AD 120 – 202), was discipled by Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna, who had himself been taught by the Apostle John. He tells us clearly that a literal Adam and Eve were created and fell into sin on the literal first day of Creation (an idea influenced by the Rabbis). He writes:

                “For it is said, 'There was made in the evening, and there was made in the morning, one day.' Now in this same day that they did eat, in that also did they die.”4

                When he refers to Adam sinning and bringing death to the human race on the sixth day, he also points out that Christ also died on the sixth day in order to redeem us from the curse of sin. It is impossible to manipulate the text to make Irenaeus look as if he believed in the long-age days of the modernist theologians.

                Agreeing with Barnabas, he explains that the literal six-day Creation points to six thousand years of history before Christ’s return:

                “And God brought to a conclusion upon the sixth day the works that He had made; and God rested upon the seventh day from all His works. This is an account of the things formerly created, as also it is a prophecy of what is to come. For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year.”5

                Hippolytus, Bishop of Portus, near Rome (AD 170 – 236), was trained in the faith by Irenaeus, and like his mentor, he held to literal Creation days. He writes:

                “And six thousand years must needs be accomplished… for 'a day with the Lord is as a thousand years.' Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows that 6,000 years must be fulfilled.”6

                Lactantius, a Bible scholar (AD 260 – 330) who tutored Emperor Constantine’s son, Crispus, taught the official Christian doctrine of the traditional church. He wrote:

                “To me, as I meditate and consider in my mind concerning the creation of this world in which we are kept enclosed, even such is the rapidity of that creation; as is contained in the book of Moses, which he wrote about its creation, and which is called Genesis. God produced that entire mass for the adornment of His majesty in six days…. In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night….”7

                As with the other church leaders at the time, he accepted the prophetic days of 2 Peter 3:8, and tells us:

                “Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years.”8"

                © Copyright Original Source



                More to follow . . .
                [*SIGH*]

                What part of

                While they accepted a young earth simply because there was no contradicting evidence available at that time they had a variety of different ideas of how the days of the Genesis 1 should be regarded ranging from taking place outside of time, taking place instantly, lasting a thousand years each as well as being literal 24 hour long days.


                was not addressing your statement about the ECFs?


                I said "noted" because I mistakenly thought this was the thread this recently came up in and in which I posted
                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                As an aside even several of the authors of The Fundamentals (from which "fundamentalism" got its name) were either open to or outright accepted evolution including James Orr, R. A. Torrey, E.Y. Mullins, Benjamin Warfield (who also played a pivotal role in the formulation of the concept of inerrancy) and even George Frederick Wright who would waffle back and forth but even in his "anti" periods was focusing on materialistic evolution and seemingly still open to theistic evolution.

                I'm always still in trouble again

                "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                Comment


                • #23
                  Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                  [*SIGH*]

                  What part of

                  While they accepted a young earth simply because there was no contradicting evidence available at that time they had a variety of different ideas of how the days of the Genesis 1 should be regarded ranging from taking place outside of time, taking place instantly, lasting a thousand years each as well as being literal 24 hour long days.


                  was not addressing your statement about the ECFs?
                  Statement to vague without references.

                  I said "noted" because I mistakenly thought this was the thread this recently came up in and in which I posted
                  This reference does not specifically deal with the references from the early Church Fathers nor the beliefs of the church through history. You need more specific references to justify your argument. I provide specific references to what the early Church Father believed, and the early church.

                  Source: http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/home/article/43



                  Origen, Clement of Alexandria and Augustine of Hippo
                  Usually liberal Christians refer to these three church leaders to support their ideas. However, we must understand that these three scholars never even thought about interpreting the days of Genesis in a way that today’s liberals understand. To try and do this is a violation of their teaching.

                  Firstly, even these three leaders who interpreted Scripture in a more symbolic way than the others, never once tried to mix the long ages of the pagan philosophers like Plato with their teaching. Every single person among the Christian leaders who spoke about Creation said it had happened much less than 10,000 years ago. Augustine (AD 354 – 430) could write:

                  “fewer than 6,000 years have passed since man’s first origin,”

                  and he referred to the pagans’

                  “fairy-tales about reputed antiquity, which our opponents may decide to produce in attempts to controvert the authority of our sacred books....”9

                  Liberals are keen to get Augustine on their side because apparently he believed that the days of Creation were symbolic, and not literal. He tells us in his City of God what he understood about the Creation days:

                  “The world was in fact made with time, if at the time of its creation change and motion came into existence. This is clearly the situation in the order of the first six or seven days, in which morning and evening are named, until God’s creation was finished on the sixth day, and on the seventh day God’s rest is emphasized as something conveying a mystic meaning. What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them.

                  In our experience, of course, the days with which we are familiar only have an evening because the sun sets, and a morning because the sun rises; whereas those first three days passed without the sun, which was made, we are told, on the fourth day. The narrative does indeed tell that light was created by God…. But what kind of light that was, and with what alternating movement the distinction was made, and what was the nature of this evening and this morning; these are questions beyond the scope of our sensible experience. We cannot understand what happened as it is presented to us; and yet we must believe it without hesitation.”10

                  From this we realise that Augustine held to a literal interpretation of the Creation days, although he admitted he had to take it by faith, rather than by reason. In his earlier book (AD 397 – 398), Confessions, he does spiritualize the Genesis account of Creation to communicate with a different audience, but his City of God was completed only four years before his death, and, as shown above, this later book shows a literal understanding of the days of Genesis.

                  He did teach an idea known as the “seminal principle,” which some liberals have jumped on with glee, stating that Augustine was a theistic evolutionist. This is, however, reading too much into his work from a post-Darwin mindset. He simply believed that all living things contained within them seeds, which grew to form the complete species, but that all kinds of living things had fixed boundaries. These seeds, he believed, grew rapidly into fully mature living forms during the creation process – there was no thought about millions of years in between each stage of the days of Genesis.11

                  Origen (AD 185 – 230/254) was one of the most prolific Christian writers in the Early Church, and was used by God to lead many into the Christian faith. He was recognised as one of the greatest scholars of the church at that time. He led a Bible school in Alexandria, and in order to become a better missionary to the pagan philosophers, he attended the lectures of Ammonius Saccas, who had founded the school of Neo-Platonism in Alexandria. Sadly, it was the influence of pagan philosophy that led Origen astray in some of his Scriptural interpretations.

                  Origen started preaching that human souls had already existed and that they were waiting to be put into bodies. This heresy was known as the “Pre-existence of the Soul”, and it was totally rejected by the church. He also taught that the stars possessed their own souls. This belief he adopted from the pagan scientists of the day. He began to explain away Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden as figurative, and he also bought into a pagan understanding of the Creation days. He believed that “the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that”,12 but saw the six days of Creation as figurative.

                  The reason why he struggled with a literal understanding of the six days is because he could not understand how light could exist, and the earth rotate in a 24-hour cycle before the sun had been created. He appealed to Genesis 2:4 in order to give a figurative meaning to the six days of Creation and wrote:

                  “We found fault with those who, taking the words in their apparent signification, said that the time of six days was occupied in the creation of the world, and quoted the words: 'These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.'”13

                  Of course today we know that the sun is one among many stars, and that light radiation existed before they were created. The problem of a 24-hour earth cycle before the sun was made is not a difficulty for God; it is just that we do not yet understand it. When Origen quoted Genesis 2:4 to give a figurative foundation for the days of Creation, he did not realise that traditional rabbinical understanding of this verse was that the “generations” meant “the account of” and “the day” meant “at the time when”.14 Thus he is guilty of twisting Scripture.

                  Clement of Alexandria (AD 153 – 217), was famous as a Bible teacher, and he taught Origen. Although some evangelicals think he held to a liberal view on Creation, he actually had a mixed approach. He has an historical date for Creation of 5592 BC (Stromata, or Miscellanies 1:21) and he said about the Creation days:

                  “For the creation of the world was concluded in six days ...Wherefore also man is said to have been made on the sixth day ... Some such thing also is indicated by the sixth hour in the scheme of salvation, in which man was made perfect.”15

                  Although the context of the above passage is indeed figurative, it is clear that Clement was referring to a literal six-day Creation with man being “made perfect” in the sixth hour of the sixth day. Clement was influenced by the rabbinical teaching of the six hours in which God completed man, an idea which goes beyond the bounds of Scripture, but yet demonstrates a literalist view.16

                  In conclusion, my investigation clearly demonstrated to me that the Church Fathers were almost unanimous on the twin beliefs of a literal six-day Creation and a “young earth”. Origen, who was influenced by pagan views and held to some heretical ideas, was the main exception to the rule. Although the Church Fathers were literalists, it is true that they also used Genesis in a figurative way to point prophetically to the return of Christ, and to draw out spiritual messages for their audiences, as do literal creationists today."

                  © Copyright Original Source



                  The belief in a Literal Genesis authored by Moses is an important point in 'Sola Scriptora' during the times of the Church Fathers, through the history of the churches and today.

                  Still neglected the fact that even today the polls show a greater than 40% of the USA believes in a literal Genesis, and more than 46% believe the Theory of Evolution is in conflict with their beliefs.
                  Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-20-2019, 11:36 AM.
                  Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                  Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                  But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                  go with the flow the river knows . . .

                  Frank

                  I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                  Comment


                  • #24
                    facepalm3.gif

                    You brought up fundamentalists, which I addressed. You also brought up the Early Church Fathers (ECFs), which I briefly addressed since that wasn't the thrust of my point.

                    But since you keep bringing it up...

                    As I already indicated, there was a lot of disagreement over the nature of the days of creation among the ECFs -- although, importantly absolutely nobody thought this disagreement was important.

                    While a number of ECFs thought that the days did indeed represent literal 24 hour long sequential days, others held that creation took place instantaneously, a few that it took place outside of time and some held that each day represented a thousand years (Psalm 90:4; cf. II Peter 3:8).

                    It appears that those in the latter group had varying reasons to do so although one of the most popular is based upon the fact that Adam didn't die within 24 hours after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as he was told ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" -- Genesis 2:17) but lived until he was 930 years old (Genesis 5:5). To them this indicated that the days were a thousand years.

                    For example, Justin Martyr, while writing about the reign of a thousand years, wrote in his "Dialogue With Trypho", Chapter 81, when he commented that[1]:

                    For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years.


                    Twenty or thirty years later, in his Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"), Book 5, Chapter 23 (written between 175 and 185 AD), Irenaeus expressed a similar sentiment:

                    And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years," he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin.


                    Later (c. 250 AD) Cyprian of Carthage, in his "Treatise 11," or "Exhortation to Martyrdom," (section 11), also expresses a comparable view in passing when he observed that

                    As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand years


                    Victorinus of Pettau, who I've heard even some YECs say taught that the days were 24 hours long[2], wrote in "On the Creation of the World" that

                    Wherefore to those seven days the Lord attributed to each a thousand years


                    While that indicates that he held that the days of creation were each a thousand years long, I don’t know if he used the same reasoning as the others did.

                    The other reason offered for believing that the days were a thousand years long is the mention by psalmist that with God "a thousand years is as one day, and one day is as a thousand years" (Psalm 90:4; cf. II Peter 3:8). According to the Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Methodius said that Origen suggested the possibility that each day was a thousand years long based on II Peter 3:8.

                    The idea that Adam’s life span being less than a thousand year "day" was not a new one and can be traced back to Jewish literature. It is found, for instance, in the Book of Jubilees (generally dated from between 160 and 150 BC)[3]:

                    "And at the close of the Nineteenth Jubilee, in the seventh week in the sixth year thereof Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried on the earth. And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; of one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: ‘On the day ye eat thereof ye shall die.’ For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it."


                    Several centuries later a similar saying occurs in the B'reshith Rabba on Genesis 3:8:

                    I said to him, on the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die. But you know not whether it is one of My days or one of yours. Behold I give him one of my days which is as a thousand years.


                    It should also be noted that Jewish philosophers such as Philo stressed a "spiritual" or allegorical interpretation for scripture, rejected the idea of a literal 6 day creation.


                    Among those who thought that the creation took place outside of time is Clement of Alexandria who, around 208 A.D., wrote in his Miscellanies:

                    And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? ... That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.’ For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production.


                    In his Stromata Clement also appears to further question the idea of a 24 hour day.

                    Yet another view to consider is the one expressed by Augustine who didn’t hold to six literal days because, influenced by the Apocryphal book Sirach (a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus) where it says at 18:1 "He who lives forever created all things at once," believed that everything was created simultaneously[4]. In De Genesi ad literam ("Literal Meaning of Genesis") he wrote:

                    Thus, in all the days of creation there is one day, and it is not to be taken in the sense of our day, which we reckon by the course of the sun; but it must have another meaning, applicable to the three days mentioned before the creation of the heavenly bodies.


                    He expanded upon this in De Civitate Dei ("City of God"), Book XI, Chapter 6 he wrote:

                    But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world's creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!


                    Also worth noting was that another supporter of the literal six day creation, Martin Luther, even lamented in his lectures on Genesis from 1535 that[5]:

                    Hilary and Augustine, almost the two greatest lights of the church, hold that the world was created instantaneously and all at the same time, not successively in the course of six days.


                    Also, Basil of Caesarea, who provides one of the most detailed expositions of the six days of creation to come down to us from the early church, was convinced that the world was created "in less than an instant."

                    Further, as can be seen in his Hexameron while writing about the creation of plants, Basil wrote in the same work that:

                    God did not command the earth immediately to give forth seed and fruit, but to produce germs, to grow green, and to arrive at maturity in the seed; so that this first command teaches nature what she has to do in the course of ages.


                    This seems to suggest that he didn't believe that plants appeared in a single day.

                    IIRC, Ambrose (c. 339-397) largely followed Basil but I'm not certain.

                    FWICT, at least in the Western or Latin Church, it wasn't until the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) that the trend in which commentators preferred to understand the six days to be real days took solid hold. While some commentators, such as John Scotus Erigena (c. 815-877), still followed Augustine's views, most followed Bede's approach, sometimes combining various elements from both views as in the case of Robert Grossteste (c. 1168-1253), who also emphasized the literary structure of Genesis 1 with three days of ordering and three days of parallel adornment.

                    And yet according to The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, edited by Henry Snyder Geliman, 1970, p. 191 (in the entry on Creation):

                    Before the Reformation, scholars were uncertain whether the days of Genesis 1 denote a succession of time or are merely the distribution into logical groups of things created by one divine fiat (Augustine, "De Civitate," xi. 6,7). During the next 300 years the narrative was understood to mean that God created the universe in one week of 7 consecutive days of 24 hours each.


                    The take away point of all this is that there was far from any consensus concerning the nature of the days mentioned in the creation account of Genesis 1 among early Christians and moreover they showed not the slightest indication that such a disparity of views was troublesome or important.

                    Nor did it ever become part of any creed nor has it even been discussed by a Council or Synod. And none of the great Reformed confessions make any comment on the matter of the nature of creation. Not the French Confession (1559), the Scots' Confession (1560), the Belgic Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563, 1571) or any of the others. They may stress the sovereign action of God in creating all things but the universal absence of any reference connected even remotely to the issue of the days of creation or the processes involved establishes that it was not a confessional issue in the slightest.

                    And the reason that it wasn't a matter of definition is because it was not a matter of controversy or even a point for discussion, despite the varying views in exegetical history. As I've shown above there have always been wildly divergent views regarding this subject and not once has it been thought necessary to form a single orthodox view.

                    The closest this ever even came to taking place was during the 1982 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy where the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was crafted by a group of largely very conservative evangelicals. There the father of the modern creationist movement, Henry Morris, sought to include a 144-hour creation as an essential component of a fundamentalist belief in inerrancy. It was rejected by every other member -- including by other YECs such as the co-author of the book with Morris that launched the modern YEC movement (John C. Whitcomb -- The Genesis Flood).













                    1. Recently I read of someone declaring that in Justin Martyr's case he believed that Adam's thousand-year day was actually the first of seven that encompassed all of world history. But that would mean that if animals such as cattle and the like came about on the sixth day that would have been only a thousand years prior to Justin Martyr's time. I seriously doubt that he thought that the camels and other animals that Abraham had didn't exist yet. Or that Moses was a shepherd of non-existent animals while staying with his father-in-law while in exhile.

                    2. James Mook, "The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth," in Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury (both employed by AnswersinGenesis (AiG) -- and hence YEC), eds., "Coming to Grips with Genesis"

                    3. One source lists this as Jubilees 4:29-30 (HERE as well) whereas another says it was Jubilees 4:21

                    4. Even AnswersinGenesis (AiG) admits that Augustine thought that everything was created simultaneously and not over the course of six literal 24 hour long days.

                    And IIRC in his Confessiones ("Confessions") Augustine maintained that the seventh day of creation continues (it has no evening or morning because God sanctified it for everlasting continuance) giving yet another indication that he doesn't think hold that the "days" of creation were literal 24 hour long ones.

                    5. In Summa Theologica Aquinas also recognized the difference of opinion among the early fathers for the proper interpretation of "days" in Genesis 1.
                    Last edited by rogue06; 10-20-2019, 12:57 PM.

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #25
                      Wiki: 2I/Borisov
                      2I/Borisov, originally designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov),[8][12] is the first observed interstellar comet[13][6] and the second observed interstellar interloper after ʻOumuamua.[14][15] 2I/Borisov has a heliocentric orbital eccentricity of 3.3 and is not bound to the Sun.[3] The comet will pass through the ecliptic of the Solar System in December 2019, with the closest approach to the Sun at just under 2 au on 8 December 2019.

                      So looks like it won't be visible without a telescope.

                      Comment


                      • #26
                        PRATT?

                        As in Pratt Institute?

                        Comment


                        • #27
                          Originally posted by Leonhard View Post
                          PRATT?

                          As in Pratt Institute?
                          An acronym for Point Refuted A Thousand Times.

                          I'm always still in trouble again

                          "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                          "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                          "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                          Comment


                          • #28
                            Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                            An acronym for Point Refuted A Thousand Times.
                            Thanks, it wasn't obvious to me. I've been out of the discussions on evolution vs creationism ever since the Kitzmiller vs Dover trial.

                            Comment


                            • #29
                              Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post
                              All of science has moved far beyond the fundamentalist Christian worldview of the nature of our physical existence by thousands of years. One failure of 'arguing from ignorance' hardly adds to their pile of failures, and deliberate dishonest self-imposed ignorance of science to justify a religious agenda.

                              Lucretius was much closer to the reality of the nature of our physical existence over 2000 years ago than the Christian fundamentalists today.
                              It’s a pretty safe bet that Fundamentalists do not read late Roman Republican Epicurean poets. 150 years ago, in the UK, their forefathers might well have.

                              The loss of familiarity with the Greek and Latin Classics is a great calamity.

                              Comment


                              • #30
                                Originally posted by rogue06 View Post
                                [ATTACH=CONFIG]40348[/ATTACH]

                                You brought up fundamentalists, which I addressed. You also brought up the Early Church Fathers (ECFs), which I briefly addressed since that wasn't the thrust of my point.

                                But since you keep bringing it up...

                                As I already indicated, there was a lot of disagreement over the nature of the days of creation among the ECFs -- although, importantly absolutely nobody thought this disagreement was important.

                                While a number of ECFs thought that the days did indeed represent literal 24 hour long sequential days, others held that creation took place instantaneously, a few that it took place outside of time and some held that each day represented a thousand years (Psalm 90:4; cf. II Peter 3:8).

                                It appears that those in the latter group had varying reasons to do so although one of the most popular is based upon the fact that Adam didn't die within 24 hours after eating the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil as he was told ("for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die" -- Genesis 2:17) but lived until he was 930 years old (Genesis 5:5). To them this indicated that the days were a thousand years.

                                For example, Justin Martyr, while writing about the reign of a thousand years, wrote in his "Dialogue With Trypho", Chapter 81, when he commented that[1]:

                                For as Adam was told that in the day he ate of the tree he would die, we know that he did not complete a thousand years.


                                Twenty or thirty years later, in his Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"), Book 5, Chapter 23 (written between 175 and 185 AD), Irenaeus expressed a similar sentiment:

                                And there are some, again, who relegate the death of Adam to the thousandth year; for since "a day of the Lord is as a thousand years," he did not overstep the thousand years, but died within them, thus bearing out the sentence of his sin.


                                Later (c. 250 AD) Cyprian of Carthage, in his "Treatise 11," or "Exhortation to Martyrdom," (section 11), also expresses a comparable view in passing when he observed that

                                As the first seven days in the divine arrangement containing seven thousand years


                                Victorinus of Pettau, who I've heard even some YECs say taught that the days were 24 hours long[2], wrote in "On the Creation of the World" that

                                Wherefore to those seven days the Lord attributed to each a thousand years


                                While that indicates that he held that the days of creation were each a thousand years long, I don’t know if he used the same reasoning as the others did.

                                The other reason offered for believing that the days were a thousand years long is the mention by psalmist that with God "a thousand years is as one day, and one day is as a thousand years" (Psalm 90:4; cf. II Peter 3:8). According to the Wesleyan Bible Commentary, Methodius said that Origen suggested the possibility that each day was a thousand years long based on II Peter 3:8.

                                The idea that Adam’s life span being less than a thousand year "day" was not a new one and can be traced back to Jewish literature. It is found, for instance, in the Book of Jubilees (generally dated from between 160 and 150 BC)[3]:

                                "And at the close of the Nineteenth Jubilee, in the seventh week in the sixth year thereof Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried on the earth. And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; of one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: ‘On the day ye eat thereof ye shall die.’ For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it."


                                Several centuries later a similar saying occurs in the B'reshith Rabba on Genesis 3:8:

                                I said to him, on the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die. But you know not whether it is one of My days or one of yours. Behold I give him one of my days which is as a thousand years.


                                It should also be noted that Jewish philosophers such as Philo stressed a "spiritual" or allegorical interpretation for scripture, rejected the idea of a literal 6 day creation.


                                Among those who thought that the creation took place outside of time is Clement of Alexandria who, around 208 A.D., wrote in his Miscellanies:

                                And how could creation take place in time, seeing time was born along with things which exist? ... That, then, we may be taught that the world was originated, and not suppose that God made it in time, prophecy adds: ‘This is the book of the generation: also of the things in them, when they were created in the day that God made heaven and earth.’ For the expression ‘when they were created’ intimates an indefinite and dateless production.


                                In his Stromata Clement also appears to further question the idea of a 24 hour day.

                                Yet another view to consider is the one expressed by Augustine who didn’t hold to six literal days because, influenced by the Apocryphal book Sirach (a.k.a. Ecclesiasticus) where it says at 18:1 "He who lives forever created all things at once," believed that everything was created simultaneously[4]. In De Genesi ad literam ("Literal Meaning of Genesis") he wrote:

                                Thus, in all the days of creation there is one day, and it is not to be taken in the sense of our day, which we reckon by the course of the sun; but it must have another meaning, applicable to the three days mentioned before the creation of the heavenly bodies.


                                He expanded upon this in De Civitate Dei ("City of God"), Book XI, Chapter 6 he wrote:

                                But simultaneously with time the world was made, if in the world's creation change and motion were created, as seems evident from the order of the first six or seven days. For in these days the morning and evening are counted, until, on the sixth day, all things which God then made were finished, and on the seventh the rest of God was mysteriously and sublimely signalized. What kind of days these were it is extremely difficult, or perhaps impossible for us to conceive, and how much more to say!


                                Also worth noting was that another supporter of the literal six day creation, Martin Luther, even lamented in his lectures on Genesis from 1535 that[5]:

                                Hilary and Augustine, almost the two greatest lights of the church, hold that the world was created instantaneously and all at the same time, not successively in the course of six days.


                                Also, Basil of Caesarea, who provides one of the most detailed expositions of the six days of creation to come down to us from the early church, was convinced that the world was created "in less than an instant."

                                Further, as can be seen in his Hexameron while writing about the creation of plants, Basil wrote in the same work that:

                                God did not command the earth immediately to give forth seed and fruit, but to produce germs, to grow green, and to arrive at maturity in the seed; so that this first command teaches nature what she has to do in the course of ages.


                                This seems to suggest that he didn't believe that plants appeared in a single day.

                                IIRC, Ambrose (c. 339-397) largely followed Basil but I'm not certain.

                                FWICT, at least in the Western or Latin Church, it wasn't until the Venerable Bede (c. 673-735) that the trend in which commentators preferred to understand the six days to be real days took solid hold. While some commentators, such as John Scotus Erigena (c. 815-877), still followed Augustine's views, most followed Bede's approach, sometimes combining various elements from both views as in the case of Robert Grossteste (c. 1168-1253), who also emphasized the literary structure of Genesis 1 with three days of ordering and three days of parallel adornment.

                                And yet according to The New Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, edited by Henry Snyder Geliman, 1970, p. 191 (in the entry on Creation):

                                Before the Reformation, scholars were uncertain whether the days of Genesis 1 denote a succession of time or are merely the distribution into logical groups of things created by one divine fiat (Augustine, "De Civitate," xi. 6,7). During the next 300 years the narrative was understood to mean that God created the universe in one week of 7 consecutive days of 24 hours each.


                                The take away point of all this is that there was far from any consensus concerning the nature of the days mentioned in the creation account of Genesis 1 among early Christians and moreover they showed not the slightest indication that such a disparity of views was troublesome or important.

                                Nor did it ever become part of any creed nor has it even been discussed by a Council or Synod. And none of the great Reformed confessions make any comment on the matter of the nature of creation. Not the French Confession (1559), the Scots' Confession (1560), the Belgic Confession (1561), the Heidelberg Catechism (1563), the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England (1563, 1571) or any of the others. They may stress the sovereign action of God in creating all things but the universal absence of any reference connected even remotely to the issue of the days of creation or the processes involved establishes that it was not a confessional issue in the slightest.

                                And the reason that it wasn't a matter of definition is because it was not a matter of controversy or even a point for discussion, despite the varying views in exegetical history. As I've shown above there have always been wildly divergent views regarding this subject and not once has it been thought necessary to form a single orthodox view.

                                The closest this ever even came to taking place was during the 1982 International Council on Biblical Inerrancy where the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy was crafted by a group of largely very conservative evangelicals. There the father of the modern creationist movement, Henry Morris, sought to include a 144-hour creation as an essential component of a fundamentalist belief in inerrancy. It was rejected by every other member -- including by other YECs such as the co-author of the book with Morris that launched the modern YEC movement (John C. Whitcomb -- The Genesis Flood).













                                1. Recently I read of someone declaring that in Justin Martyr's case he believed that Adam's thousand-year day was actually the first of seven that encompassed all of world history. But that would mean that if animals such as cattle and the like came about on the sixth day that would have been only a thousand years prior to Justin Martyr's time. I seriously doubt that he thought that the camels and other animals that Abraham had didn't exist yet. Or that Moses was a shepherd of non-existent animals while staying with his father-in-law while in exhile.

                                2. James Mook, "The Church Fathers on Genesis, the Flood, and the Age of the Earth," in Terry Mortenson and Thane H. Ury (both employed by AnswersinGenesis (AiG) -- and hence YEC), eds., "Coming to Grips with Genesis"

                                3. One source lists this as Jubilees 4:29-30 (HERE as well) whereas another says it was Jubilees 4:21

                                4. Even AnswersinGenesis (AiG) admits that Augustine thought that everything was created simultaneously and not over the course of six literal 24 hour long days.

                                And IIRC in his Confessiones ("Confessions") Augustine maintained that the seventh day of creation continues (it has no evening or morning because God sanctified it for everlasting continuance) giving yet another indication that he doesn't think hold that the "days" of creation were literal 24 hour long ones.

                                5. In Summa Theologica Aquinas also recognized the difference of opinion among the early fathers for the proper interpretation of "days" in Genesis 1.
                                Your jumping all over the place with silly meaningless Star Trek pictures. ALL the various versions still remains a literal interpretation of Genesis, whether 7 days or seven thousand years. Yes, St, Augustine believed in an instantaneous creation as in the beginning of Genesis, but also believed in a literal form of Genesis with a world flood. ALL believe in a literal Biblical flood, and yes all these various views dominated Christianity up until recent history, but St. Augustine's view of an instantaneous Creation did not get traction, and various literal versions still represents a prevalent view of Christianity of more than 40% of Christians, and over 46% consider evolution to be in conflict with their religious beliefs.

                                You still have not been very specific in your references concerning any other view than the various forms of literal beliefs in Genesis. There was no version that included any concept comparable to evolution. Broadly citing a Bibliography without specific citations is meaningless.

                                Also again claims you made like the following lack citations:

                                Originally posted by rogue06
                                Blissfully unaware that many of the contributors to The Fundamentals (IOW, the original "fundamentalists") accepted that the earth was incredibly ancient and a significant number were either open to or accepted evolution.
                                My references were clear and specific as to what the Church Fathers believed, and you have failed present specific alternatives. The fundamentalist view continued strong throughout history as believed by Martin Luther, Baptists and Calvinists.
                                Last edited by shunyadragon; 10-20-2019, 06:22 PM.
                                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                                Frank

                                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                                Comment

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