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Originally Posted by etexas  Quote:
Originally Posted by Daniel Ritchie Quote:
Originally Posted by etexas OK, from your argument, what if I said :Well,Genesis is not that clear, perhaps the Gospels are not either. Perhaps they need a "touch" of Higher Criticism to bring out just the basic elements o Truth. | This is my point exactly etexas; if someone can say the history of Genesis 1-3 is not literal, then what is to stop then from saying that the historical accounts of the virgin birth and resurrection are not literal either. I am not saying that everyone who takes a non-literal view of Genesis 1 would go down that road, but it is difficult to what logical barrier there is to this. | Yes, it would be hard to avoid such thinking! I mean the 4 Gospels are not always "clear", does this give me the right to reinterpret? I see no "diff" with Genesis, but hey, if someone wants to mangle the Bible, why not start at the first book!  |
EXACTLY! I don't mean to sound like the crotchety old guy . . . but more than 35 years ago my Christian college profs convinced me that we should take Genesis symbolically. Without even thinking the issue through, I would throw out the "Genesis 2:4 uses 'yom' for a longer period than 24 hours" quip to dismiss critics as flat earthers. By the time I arrived in seminary, a prof was using the SAME line of thinking to explain that Paul was "wrong" about women in 1 Tim 2. Before that same prof died a few years ago, he was endorsing homosexuality using the SAME kind of hermeneutic for Romans.
Brothers and sisters, please take time to read some of the arguments FOR YOURSELVES.
If you have a problem with the issue of distant starlight, read up on gravitational time dilation, alternate synchrony conventions, and books by phsyicist Russell Humphreys or astrophysicist Jason Lisle. If you have issues with plate techtonics and the possibility of rapid subduction explaining the evidence, cf. geophysicist John Baumgardner. If you are want arguments against the antiquity of the race based on genetics, cf. J.C. Sanford's work on genetic entropy. The RATE study sponsored by ICR did some amazing work on radiometric dating.
Better yet, check out the Answers in Genesis web site:
Answers in Genesis - Creation, Evolution, Christian Apologetics. For the general reader, the
New Answers Book, available from Answers in Genesis has a great overview of the issues with chapters like these:
* Why Shouldn’t Christians Accept Millions of Years?
* Couldn’t God Have Used Evolution?
* Don’t Creationists Deny the Laws of Nature?
* What about the “Gap” & “Ruin-reconstruction” Theories?
* Cain’s Wife—Who Was She?
* Doesn’t Carbon-14 Dating Disprove the Bible?
* Could God Really Have Created Everything in Six Days?
* Does Radiometric Dating Prove the Earth is Old?
* Was There Really a Noah’s Ark & Flood?
* How Did Animals Spread All Over the World from Where the Ark Landed?
* What Really Happened to the Dinosaurs?
* Why Don’t We Find Human & Dinosaur Fossils Together?
* Can Catastrophic Plate Tectonics Explain Flood Geology?
* Don’t Creationists Believe Some “Wacky” Things?
* Where Does the Ice Age Fit?
* Does Distant Starlight Prove the Universe Is “Old”?
* Did Jesus Say He Created in Six Literal Days?
* How Did Defense/Attack Structures Come About?
* Is Natural Selection the Same Thing as Evolution?
* Hasn’t Evolution Been Proven True?
The study done by a Hebrew professor at Masters Seminary on the literary structure of Genesis was quite enlightening as well. Statistical analysis makes it nearly impossible to read this as anything other than historical narrative.
Since I only came to the YEC position myself during the last few years, I do not want to imply that those who disagree with me are heretics or willful in their ignorance. Most evangelicals and many Reformed thinkers have zero problem with billions of years and believing the Gospels. However, I contend that they are inconsistent in this belief. There does seem to be an organic connection between failing to treat the Bible with normal hermeneutics in Genesis and dismissing all kinds of politically incorrect beliefs in the New Testament.