Christian Democrats in the United States

Thursday, September 11, 2008 3:24 AM

time, "literal" bible interpretations and history

In 1st Timothy 1:4 Paul exhorts Timothy to charge certain men not to give heed to myths and endless genealogies, which cause disputes, rather than God's stewardship, which is faith.

The people attempting to trace lineages through Abraham and Noah back to Adam and Eve to "prove" that the world was created some 10,000 years ago ignore this sound advice.

All evidence and observations of the world outside our doorsteps seem to indicate that there was a massive ice age that ended sometime around 10,000 to 14,000 years before Jesus.

When the weather changed and all that ice melted, there would have been a lot of flooding. So it's plausible to think that Noah was a real person, and built an boat to protect a number of wild creatures, who perhaps would have known the mega-storms were coming and were led, instinctually or by the mind of God, to his Ark. As for the specific and contradictory details of the story, which were by some accounts stitched together from separate texts around 4,000 years before Jesus, are they really that important? It's a miracle that humanity survived the Ice Age. Isn't that enough?

As for the lineage from Adam and Eve to Noah, just think about how bad our government is at keeping records. Imagine how hard it would have been to do so for a scattered handful of illiterate nomadic tribes who faced constant threats for survival! Maybe 10,000 or maybe 100,000 years passed between the dawn of humanity and Noah's divinely inspired prudence. Who cares? If you take a step back from the biblical details and view the stories as more recent recordings of millenia of oral history, the light of what we have discovered about our world in the modern age only magnifies the miraculous nature of our survival and proliferation against all odds.

Both our survival of the Ice Age, and our modern science now, are testament to how incredible was the difference that separated Adam and Eve from the animals. I contend with the scientists, there is no physical natural selection process like bird beaks or flippers that can explain the appearance of such highly developed upper cortex in the primate brain, which enables us with sophisticated language, iterative and lateral critical thought, and unquantifiable abilities to communicate with the Spirit.

If you don't want to be considered an ape, stop acting like one, read books, reflect and learn to seek knowledge on an ever higher plane.

"But don’t forget this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." II Peter 3:8

"For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night." Psalms 90:4

Arguments that say the world was created at some specific point 6000 years ago are arguments from the perspective of human time, and are wrong, divisive and anti-biblical.

Open your eyes to the reality of creation and all of its mysterious evidence. Take it with an open mind and an open heart. Stop dividing people with ignorance. That's not what we're supposed to do.

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