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--Original Message Text---
From: D... W...
Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 23:05:49 +1000

Here is my public response to an item of `fan mail' I received from a no
doubt well-meaning YEC.

DW>Brother I am left wondering after briefing 'your call' as to what you
>are defending!!

The truth of what *really* happened.

DW>My God, the God of Isac, Abraham And Jacob does not need to be
>synthesized into man's thinking.

Yet it's funny how much "man's thinking" is in this (and all YEC's)
arguments!

DW>You claim Jesus as your Savior; why
>do we need a literal 'second Adam' if the first was only symbolic

Note the "man's thinking"!

I don't *necessarily* say that "Adam ... was only symbolic" but I consider it
a real possibility, since that is implied in the Hebrew text itself:

"Conservatives are very `touchy' about the historicity of the fall of
Adam, because of its importance to their soteriology and theodicy,
and, therefore, about the status of the Genesis narratives on that
event (Genesis 2-3). They are reluctant to admit that the literary
genre in that case is figurative rather than strictly literal even though
the hints are very strong that it is symbolic: Adam (which means
`Mankind') marries Eve (which means `Life), and their son Cain
(which means `Forger') becomes a wanderer in the land of Nod
(which means `Wandering')!" (Pinnock C.H., "The Scripture
Principle," Hodder & Staughton: London, 1985, pp.116-117)

DW>and
>death and struggle existed before sin entered,

More "man's thinking". The *Bible* says nothing about there being
no animal "death and struggle ... before sin entered".

DW>or may I ask when did it enter.

More "man's thinking". If the question is "when did it [sin] enter"
the Bible says it was when Adam and Eve disobeyed God's
commandment (Gen 3).

DW>Anyway I could go on all night.

Yes, with "man's thinking"!

DW>Don't be intimidated by science so called but rather be ye
>transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Maybe my `fan' needs to consider the plank in his own eye, before
he worried about removing the splinter in my eye (Mt 7:3)?

DW>Let not God be mocked for He who formed you from dust will
>to dust return.

Well, if we want to be "literal", the fact is that I was not
"formed ... from dust". I was formed within my mothers womb
(Ps 139:13) from the fusion of a gamete each from my father and
mother.

DW>God is literal,

That's funny. My Bible says "God is spirit" (Jn 4:24).

The word "literal" is not in my Bible (NIV or KJV). So the
requirement to be "literal" is just more of "man's thinking".

DW>the begining is literal and the end will also
>be literal.

More "man's thinking".

This is confusing literal" (which means "of the letter"), with *real*.

DW>There is much to find written to comfort ones Soul in a
>literal creation stance,

If "comfort" means sticking one's head in the sand and ignoring reality
(both Biblical and scientific), then I am sure there must be "comfort ... in a
literal creation stance". But I am more interested in a *true* "creation
stance", whether that is comfortable or not.

DW>we don't need to be synthesized with men's anti-
>God thinking..

The funny thing is, as I have pointed out before, YECs like my `fan' are just
dutifully reading from the script of their part in the play that the "anti-God
thinkers" have written for them.

Proof of that is that the "anti-God thinkers" are *very happy* with YECs
obligingly confining themselves to their part and leaving the "anti-God
thinkers" in control.

I am not so obliging. I prefer to think for myself and just because "anti-God
thinkers" think something, I see no reason why I should automatically think
the opposite. Jesus Himself said that in some things "the children of this
world are in their generation wiser than the children of light" (Lk 16:8).

DW>Your's D... W..

Thanks to D.W. You mean well but you are simply *WRONG* if you think
the Universe and Earth are only ~10,000 years old. If they were, then *all*
the age data would be pointing to it (when in fact *no* age data is).

Then the `signal in the noise' would be *deafening* because: a) it is *one*
date; and
b) it is so *recent*. It is not good enough that YEC picks on problems
with radiometric dating. YEC needs to produce its own evidence showing
*all* the age data converging on ~10,000 years ago. But in fact *none*
of it is.

Steve

PS: Here is a quote I discovered only today, that the controversy over the
word "day" in Genesis 1 is an artifact of the Bible being translated from
Hebrew with its small vocabulary and therefore broader range of meaning
in its words into English with its large vocabulary and therefore narrower
range of meaning in its words.

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"From the outset, we note that at least some of the acrimony over the
interpretation of the Genesis days arises from language differences. Turning
biblical Hebrew into English prose and poetry presents some enormous
difficulties. Whereas biblical Hebrew has a vocabulary of under 3,100
words (not including proper nouns), English words number over 4,000,000.
The disparity is even greater for nouns. Therefore, we should not be
surprised that Hebrew nouns have multiple literal definitions. The English
word day most often refers either to the daylight hours or to a period of 24
hours. As in `the day of the Romans,' it is also used for a longer time
period. English speakers and writers, however, have many words for an
extended period-age, era, epoch, and eon, just to name a few. The Hebrew
word yom similarly refers to daylight hours, 24 hours, and a long (but
finite) time period. Unlike English, however, biblical Hebrew has no word
other than yom to denote a long timespan. The word yom appears
repeatedly in the Hebrew Scriptures with reference to a period longer than
12 or 24 hours. The Hebrew terms yom (singular) and yamin (plural) often
refer to an extended time frame. Perhaps the most familiar passages are
those referring to God's `day of wrath.' Before English translations were
available, animosity over the length of the Genesis days did not exist, at
least not as far as anyone can tell from the extant theological literature.
Prior to the Nicene Council, the early Church fathers wrote two thousand
pages of commentary on the Genesis creation days, yet did not devote a
word to disparaging each other's viewpoints on the creation time scale. All
these early scholars accepted that yom could mean `a long time period.' The
majority explicitly taught that the Genesis creation days were extended time
periods (something like a thousand years per yom). Not one Ante-Nicene
Father explicitly endorsed the 24-hour interpretation. Ambrose, who came
the closest to doing so, apparently vacillated on the issue. We certainly
cannot charge the Church fathers with `scientific bias' in their
interpretations. They wrote long before astronomical, geological, and
paleontological evidences for the antiquity of the universe, the earth, and
life became available. Nor had biological evolution yet been proposed.
Lamarck, Darwin, and Huxley came along some 1,400 years later." (Ross
H.N. & Archer G.L., "The Day-Age View," in Hagopian D.G., ed., "The
Genesis Debate: Three Views on the Days of Creation," Crux Press:
Mission Viejo CA, 2001, pp.125-126)
Stephen E. Jones http://members.iinet.net.au/~sejones
Moderator: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CreationEvolutionDesign
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