Raqia debate : Genesis Day 4

Intro to Raqia debate with Drew Gasaway · Midrash part of Debate with Drew · Raqia : debate on 3 Baruch 3:5-8 · Raqia debate : Josephus (and Philo) · Raqia debate : Hezekiel 1:22 · Raqia debate : Psalm 148 · Raqia debate : Genesis Day 4

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Drew Gasaway

Now let's look at Genesis again so you can see the impossible description

Genesis 1:15-17
""15 And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
16 And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
17 And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,."

Genesis 1:6 "And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters."

From the Sumerian myth, Enuma Elish which says, "The Great Abode, Esharra, which he made as the firmament. Anu, Enlil, and Ea he made occupy their places. Marduk puts the heavens in order, establishing the zodiac and telling the moon how to shine."

The picture below is from ancient Eygpt so this was a common theme in the ancient near east mythology. This doesn't mean Genesis or the message of the rest of the Old Testament isn't true. It just means we have to look at things in the ancient near east before Herodotus differently.

[Picture given of heaven goddess holding hands and feet to earth god in Egyptian mytho-theology.]

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"Now let's look at Genesis again so you can see the impossible description Genesis 1:15-17"

Not impossible, computer time is short, I'll be back for another comment.

Comment by Biblical Spotlight

came before Drew posted below as a separate thread.

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl in Genesis 1:15-17 having the stars, moon, and sun inside a hard dome above with an ocean behind is wrong from observation. There are probably a couple hundred sextillion alone most of which are many times the size of the earth and very hot and would have had to move away very fast. Then you have the issue of an ocean behind them. The creationist who think there was an ice canopy before a flood doesn't realize the belief was before the 1800s was that it still exists outside the astronomers before the 1500s.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"inside a hard dome above"

"Firm" and "strong" are in the text, "hard" is'nt (including parallels in the Bible).

"with an ocean behind" "Then you have the issue of an ocean behind them."

"Ocean" is not in the text, waters are.

"There are probably a couple hundred sextillion alone most of which are many times the size of the earth and very hot and would have had to move away very fast."

You omitted the word "stars" I presume?

Star sizes are determined from visual angle (apparent magnitude) and from distance. With geocentrism, there is really not any kind of proof for those distances.

Heat is partly determined from distance and size, partly from an equivalence with physics of the sun, which we have no proof for.

"The creationist who think there was an ice canopy before a flood"

Just because you might know I am a sometimes and now on and off fan of Kent Hovind doesn't mean you may safely conclude I share his ice canopy theory. I have told him a few years ago I don't believe it and that I have another solution for "waters above". Difference before the Flood? Well arguably some low H2 from "above" met some high O2 from atmosphere and some sparks did a reaction leading this H2 to our Oceanic Basins. But there is still observable H2 as well as H2O left (and perhaps some "dark water" too) which King David can tell (as to its movers) to praise the Lord.

"doesn't realize the belief was before the 1800s was that it still exists"

I do believe it still exists, as outlined.

"outside the astronomers before the 1500s."

Parse the correlation with rest of sentence, please!

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl clouds are mist not waters and the ancient people didn't know that they thought the clouds were like smoke and saw blue and believed there was a sea. You won't won't find any mists that don't rain or someone sprinkling someone in ancient literature because they didn't understand that. Again about the waters above the Psalm was after your flood timeline and everyone from the patristics to Martine Luther and John Calvin used to think the waters were still there. The interpretation has changed as have the meaning of words from how the authors intended in many ways based on the facts of science. In the 1500s to the 1700s space denial was the game in Christian fundamentalism and now it is creationism.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

You are still missing, I am not a modern creationist, I am a scholastic. I also believe the waters are still there. So very probably did Riccioli.

The rest ... it so happens that the H2O and H2 we observe by spectrography is mostly more or less evenly dispersed.

This means, there would have been no overwhelming need to say "cloud" instead of "waters".

Explaing how "ancient people" thought is probably as imaginary as today (or 19th C.) explaining how "primitive people" think.

If 19th C. had a geographic tendency to racism, you have a historic one. From 19th C.

"In the 1500s to the 1700s space denial"

If you consider "geocentrism" as space denial, you have called me and Riccioli space denialists.

What ended geocentrism was not proof, but propaganda, like "think of where the Martians would visually observe the centre as being". A propaganda starting in the dialogus.

Biblical Spotlight

I'm sorry, but you guys sound like you're arguing as 8 year olds. You can't take what they saw as true to be, by folks who only had a naive perspective at best. The scriptures are not so much how imperfect they are, but more to how their faith was merely taking shape in the beginning. PLEASE!

Hans-Georg Lundahl

What you think we sound like is not very important to me.

"The scriptures are not so much how imperfect they are,"

They aren't imperfect.

"but more to how their faith was merely taking shape in the beginning."

The Scriptures do not reflect a "faith taking shape" but inspiration by God for writers who wrote:

• what they saw and heard as people
• what they were told by other people
• what God told verbally by dictation ("God spoke to Moses and said")
• what God showed them in visions with sometimes physical immersion.

I reject your view of what the Scriptures are as heretical, condemned by both Trent Council and Vatican Council of 1869-70 (implictly even by the Dei Verbum of a pseudo-Council same place) and by Pope Leo XIII.

In obedience to the Church that Christ founded I find no room and in my human reason no temptation to agree with your view on what the Scriptures are.

As for "mental age" schmuck, it's a timid version of telling someone "thou fool" and could as per Matthew 5:22 risk you Gehenna if you really do that. If it was just a kind of bad habit, try to kick it.

Drew Gasaway

Biblical Spotlight I am not saying anything in scripture is untrue the message about God and living is 100% in the Old Testament but the genre isn't a fact-based narrative. Herodotus invented that in the 4th century BC.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"the genre isn't a fact-based narrative."

It is.

"Herodotus invented that in the 4th century BC."

He did not.

There are no sane humans nor ever were who did not have the genre fact based narrative.

Herodot's innovation was sth else and I think closely parallel to what Moses had done before him when preserving Job and collecting Genesis.

Drew Gasaway

Hans-Georg Lundahl Martin Luther just wasn't geocentrism there is no commentary on his globe views but he believed that the stars were inside a hard dome. He cold the astronomer's philosophers and refused to believe they saw stars saying Christians have to believe otherwise. He believed they were challenging the authority of scripture by anything there wasn't a dome above.

Hans-Georg Lundahl as far as understanding ancient people there are over 100,000 known tablets of just Akkadian works just in western collections. We know a great deal about them. There also a great deal of information about Egypt but not as much even though it gets more attention. There are lots of Canaanite writings in various languages they used. We have plenty of Assyrian works.

Hans-Georg Lundahl if you're Romans Catholic you should listen to the Vatican's views on Genesis as well as most mainstream Catholic theologians. There is no council or ex-cathedra statement concerning Genesis being literal. The Fathers are complicated many see it as a theological book and some seem to see it as a historical book until you read else where in the same series of books or in their writings that was not what they meant. Sometimes this narration sometimes this expressing symbolism. At extent, not everything they say is a dogma as they taught things that aren't theological correct, cosmological correct and scientifically like their Greek version of the periodic tables. To find Catholic leaders who are creationists you have to resort "sedevacantist" and "old Catholics" that belong to sects no in communion with the Vatican.

Hans-Georg Lundahl there are no fact-based narratives in literature before the 4th century BC.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

"there is no commentary on his globe views but he believed that the stars were inside a hard dome."

Ptolemy's view as fix stars would be the outermost crystalline sphere, not refuted until Tycho's observation of a comet passing through supposed "crystalline spheres" after Luther died.

"He cold the astronomer's philosophers"

Context? Regiomontanus and Copernicus hardly were simply "astronomers".

"and refused to believe they saw stars"

I think you are garbling Luther's actual comment, precise quote please, even if he was a heretic, he was not a senile with Alzheimer. Astronomers certainly did see stars. They still do. Astronomers also certainly did not see earth move through stars, and they still don't. Heliocentrism was never an actual observation, it was always a conclusion.

"He believed they were challenging the authority of scripture by anything there wasn't a dome above."

OK, I get it, he was probably overdoing the singular and refused to believe the plural ... I'd still like the context though.

"as far as understanding ancient people there are over 100,000 known tablets of just Akkadian works just in western collections"

The Bible is not in Akkadian. You are behaving like a man purporting to study Esquimaux and claiming they believe in dream time and can't count to more than 4 because Australian aborigines show how "primitive peoples" think. There is no such thing as "primitive peoples" and there also is no such thing as "ancient people". There are peoples who are different and some have been lumped together as primitive, and there were peoples who were ancient and risk retrospectively getting lumped together in the equally chimeric "ancient peoples". You don't study Biblical cosmology by studying Akkadian or Sumerian cosmology, however well you do that.

"We know a great deal about them."

The anthropologist misrepresenting Esquimaux could claim he knew a great deal about Aborigines.

"There also a great deal of information about Egypt but not as much even though it gets more attention."

OK, fine, but this does not prove anything about the Bible. The world back then need not have been as uniform about cosmology as the modern (post-Christian) world is about Heliocentrism of solar system within a larger galaxy.

You find subterranean pillars shown as human-architectonic ones in Sumerian tablets (reminding me more of Yggdrasil than of anything in the Bible as to what it need mean), you don't find them in Egypt. Ergo, Egypt and Sumer are not equal, so why need Israel be equal to both? If A is B, C can either be or not be equal to A and to B, but if A is not B, C cannot be equal to both. You may think it is equal to the parts of A and B where they are equal, but as in some parts they aren't, you cannot know that.

"There are lots of Canaanite writings in various languages they used."

Epics, right? Mostly? From Ugaritic to Carthaginian, right?

I didn't know there were lots, but OK. If there are, a closer study will reveal discrepancies between D and A and between D and B, and therefore further show the possibility of C not being equal to A or B, without this meaning it has to equal D.

You are really unable to grasp an argument, you jumpt to my conclusion as proof I hadn't grasped yours and then repeat it with more detail.

"We have plenty of Assyrian works."

That falls under A - Akkadian and Sumerian. Or?

"if you're Romans Catholic you should listen to the Vatican's views on Genesis"

Yes, the Vatican in Exile has a view on Genesis Worth listening to. The exile of the pope is in Topeka. Wait, did you mean the usual location of the Vatican? [That's like saying:] "If you are of the diocese of Alexandria, you should listen to bishop George who says Arius was right".

"as well as most mainstream Catholic theologians"

It so happens, a falling away is predicted. People who follow Teilhard de Chardin are not fully Catholic and if in position of a bishop, they are apostates. In the 4th C. AD a real true Alexandrian followed the bishop in exile - St. Athanasius - not the bishop intrusive and abusive in place, that being George (by the way, with my name I think bishop is a carreer I should avoid, would that a certain Jorge had had similar caution!).

"There is no council or ex-cathedra statement concerning Genesis being literal"

Indirectly there is. Trent. Since there are plenty of Patristic statements Genesis is literally true. And believe me, both Academia and free time equip me lots better than you on this.

"The Fathers are complicated many see it as a theological book and some seem to see it as a historical book"

Both categories see them as both.

The difference is what aspect they are mentioning for the occasion.

"until you read else where in the same series of books or in their writings that was not what they meant."

You don't read that. You read that into them mentioning the other aspect.

"Sometimes this narration sometimes this expressing symbolism."

Sometimes / sometimes as to what they mention, always both as to what is true on their view.

"At extent, not everything they say is a dogma"

If directly said by all who touch a subject, yes it is according to Trent.

"as they taught things that aren't theological correct,"

If you mean in Catholic theology, that is only true for individual fathers, not for what all of them said.

"cosmological correct"

On your Heliocentric view.

"and scientifically like their Greek version of the periodic tables."

Are all who speak on creation or make up of man using the four elements? I think one would find exceptions. Did St. Hippolytus or St. Irenee mention them in a way showing clear approval?

"To find Catholic leaders who are creationists you have to resort "sedevacantist" and "old Catholics" that belong to sects no in communion with the Vatican."

You mean the occupied Vatican. You missed that that is precisely my position : except that "sedevacantist" is inadequate for "conclavist". If your stats are correct, that would mean a very rapid falling off, since Dei Verbum (albeit of an invalid Council) actually in paragraph three expressed itself as YEC.

"there are no fact-based narratives in literature before the 4th century BC."

That is a blatant lie on more than one plane.

It is circular proof : Genesis cannot be fact based narrative, since there were none before the 4th C BC, which we know because we cannot place Genesis, Exodus, Judges, four books of Kings as fact based, which we know since there were none before 4th C ... where do you presume to break the circle?

It is also obvious nonsense. People do not live without facts, people do not live without narratives and there is no urgent motive for strictly separating the two, many urgent practical motives for uniting the two, so it is a priori totally improbable.

Arguably it comes from a prejudice Iliad, Odyssey and Aeneid aren't fact based, and if you claim to find errors (apart from theological ones, immediately granted) so you find them in Herodotus. C. S. Lewis pointed out it is easier for God to send an angel with a plague than for mice to cooperate on nibbling precisely bow strings. Kings : Herodotus = 1:0.

Here is for the exact quote of the CSL alluded to by my final words in here:

"When the Old Testament says that Sennacherib's invasion was stopped by angels, and Herodotus says it was stopped by a lot of mice who came and ate up all the bowstrings of his army, an open-minded man will be on the side of the angels. Unless you start by begging the question, there is nothing intrinsically unlikely in the existence of angels or in the actions ascribed to them. But mice just don't do these things."

"Miracles" in God in the Dock p. 28 / p. 12 (depending on editions)

Thanks to the group Confirming C.S. Lewis Quotations