The Mispaired Dancers:
The Archaeological Challenge to Biblical Literalism
By NeoTherm
Archaeology and Biblical Literalism are an unlikely pairing. This came to mind recently when I read about the founding of the Armstrong Institute of Biblical Archaeology. This opinion piece centers on the discord there must be, in some respects, between these two disciplines, one scientific and the other hermeneutical, when they are joined in a single scientific endeavor. Archaeology discovers and interprets and Biblical Literalism has an interpretative agenda of its own. The idea that, armed with the hermeneutic of Biblical literalism, you can sort through some habitation layers and find nice affirmations of the Old Testament is ingenuous. The ill-conceived notion that artifacts are just lying there waiting to be unearthed and to be placed in evidence, like pre-formed puzzle pieces, supporting the OT's literal veracity is boundlessly optimistic. This is because there is a high interpretative hurdle that must also be jumped in order to obtain the prize of credibility. The meaning of an excavated discovery does not fall solely within the domain of Biblical Literalism but must also be subject to peer review by other archaeologists and other schools of Biblical interpretation.
There is another overarching problem. The idea that archaeological discoveries in habitation layers around Palestine will resolve the overall issues of Biblical archaeology is untenable. There are some really profound issues in Biblical archaeology for Biblical literalists. This designation “literalist” includes almost all fundamentalists and atheists. Atheists always choose to be literalists because it is an easy but sophomoric advantage in debates about Biblical accuracy. A few outstanding issues at the uneasy boundary of conflict between archaeology and Biblical Literalism:
1. There is no evidence of a global flood.
An enormously catastrophic flood that would have resulted in the globe being covered by waters that rose to heights that exceed the elevation of Mt. Everest (greater than 29,032 feet) would have had enormous geological consequences. Scientists have found no such consequences. And according to literalists it happened only a few thousand years ago. There is good reason to believe that the flood was a local event (Carol A. Hill, “The Noachian Flood: Universal or Local?” in Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, September 2002). A minister in the WCG once stated to me that the Grand Canyon was carved out by the receding waters of the Noachian Flood. I suggest looking at this article:
Flood Geology and the Grand Canyon: What Does the Evidence Really Say?
2. Nobody knows where Mt. Sinai is.
I always thought that Mt. Sinai was a known peak somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula. After all I had seen the Cecil B. DeMille movie when I was a kid. But, alas, which peak might be the actual Mt. Sinai is still unknown. There are a number of candidates. Each peak has proponents. Each peak has issues. A good summary statement:
“It is the most important mountain in Jewish history. It is central to our religion and it is the birthplace of one of the founding documents of world civilization. It is our rock and our salvation - but where is it? … We Jews received the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Sinai, but where was that mountain? The location of Har Sinai is still unknown.” -- Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, The Jerusalem Post
3. Nobody knows how the logistics of the Red Sea crossing would have worked.
First, logistics:
“They had to get across the Red Sea at night. Now, if they went on a narrow path, double file, the line would be 800 miles long and would require 35 days and nights to get through. So, there had to be a space in the Red Sea, 3 miles wide so that they could walk 5,000 abreast to get over in one night.” -- Dr. Danny Kellum, Headmaster of Donelson Christian Academy
Next, historicity:
“Modern historians are puzzled that no ancient source, including the Egyptians ones, even hint at an event of this scope… Maybe the Egyptians left no record because they were too embarrassed… And even if Egypt did keep this public embarrassment under wraps, we would have expected nearby nations to have jumped all over it… But nothing.” -- Peter Enns in his book “The Bible Tells Me So … Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It,” pp. 116-117.
For further development of this topic, see the video series beginning with: Pete Ruins Exodus (Part 1)
4. There is no archaeological evidence of the destruction of the Canaanite cities that matches the account in Joshua.
“The story of the conquest in Joshua does not accord, either in its general outlook or its specific details, with the archaeological data. These data suggest that instead of a violent entry into a populated land, the first Israelites settled in a mostly empty part of the region, the central hill country … The story of the conquest and settlement as it now appears in the book of Joshua is a literary, ideological construct, the result of many editions, revisions, and additions, reflecting changing concepts of the fulfillment of the divine promise of the land over a long period of time.” – Jewish Study Bible, 2nd Edition, p. 439.
I would imagine that the typical Armstrongist sitting in Sabbath services does not know that the above issues are without plausible resolution at this time. I would bet that most of them presume they can find Mt. Sinai on a map in Jamieson-Fausset-Brown. I used to be that way. And finding a reference on a pottery shard to "Hezekiah" in a habitation layer in or near Jerusalem contributes only very, very little to the resolution of this larger picture of lacking evidence supporting major Biblical events. I have used only summary statements to support each of the numbered topics above for this brief article. There is an extensive and accessible literature on each topic.
What I am not saying is that these are reasons to believe that the Bible cannot be trusted and needs to be discarded. That is the impoverished viewpoint of atheism. These findings from archaeology are not an attack on faith but an attack on Biblical Literalism. Faith should never be assaulted by science but this requires a hermeneutic other than Biblical Literalism.
I believe in a version of each of the numbered topics above. I believe there was a large local flood that affected many Middle Eastern nations. I am not concerned about where Sinai is – the theological content of the Old Testament is not contingent on geology. The exodus of Israelites from Egypt may have been smaller and less complex than scripture suggests. Once again the moral values asserted by the exodus text are undiminished by its literary nature. And as for Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, maybe it wasn’t as violent as the scripture suggests. Maybe the Israelites segued in and the Canaanites segued out. After all, the Canaanites are still a nation near present day Israel. There is a firmly established genetic connection between the Canaanites, the Phoenicians and the modern Lebanese. This was recently reaffirmed by scientists at the Welcome Trust Sanger Institute when they sequenced the entire genomes of four 4,000-year-old Canaanites that were present during the Bronze Age and compared the results to modern populations. And the modern Lebanese are genetically closely related to the Jews. The conquest of Canaan was more like your unwanted cousins showing up on your doorstep to stay. Archaeology reveals the actual events to be less dramatic than the literary versions. But miraculousness is not scalable but binary. A thousand people fleeing Egypt may just as much involve the miraculous suspension of the laws of the Cosmos as two million fleeing. Overall, it is as Dr. Peter Enns stated, “God let his children tell the story.”
What I am saying is that archaeology does not support the literalist interpretation of the numbered Biblical events listed above. But this does not diminish the theological content of the Biblical accounts of these events. And it is likely that these accounts were based on some actual historical happenings. But the actual historical events based on archaeology do not agree with the literalist interpretations. The Biblical accounts are then more literary than literal. The accounts emphasize relevancy rather than accuracy or historicity. And that is a workable hermeneutic. The imperative concern is not in finding artifacts that support the literal interpretation of the OT. It is in recognizing that a different approach to Biblical interpretation is required and that the OT has been under human curation for millennia and bears the evidence of it. I believe that in the Old Testament spiritual principle and theology have been conserved but material detail and univocality have suffered. And this is the demanding scientific and historiographic context in which any archaeological organization embracing Biblical literalism must be prepared to function.
31 comments:
This post is the atheist version of the flawed "God of the gaps" argument. There was a time when your list could have included "There's no evidence of David's existence" and "There's no ancient attestation of Old Testament texts" -- but then archaeological work and the Dead Sea Scrolls filled in those gaps. Be honest -- if someone proved the location of Mt. Sinai and found archaeological evidence of a global flood, you wouldn't start believing. So, your argument is disingenuous from its start, you're just being a theist in inverse.
The issues raised here are undoubtedly interesting.
I certainly think one can lay at the feet of atheism many questions that cast grave doubt also on its assertions.
As Nobel prize Belgian biochemistist Christian de Duve who specialises in origin of life research comments,’I have rejected the chance hypothesis precisely because I judge the necessary fortuitous convergence of events implausible in the extreme’.
Benjamin Wiker and Jonathan Witt write in A Meaningful World, ‘ that a cell of the most minimal function would contain at least 250 genes and their corresponding proteins. The odds of a primordial soup randomly burping up a concoction even half it length are vastly less than one chance in 10 to the 150th power’.
As Stephen Meyers writes ,’ the probability of producing even a single functional protein of modest length (150 amino acids) by chance alone in a prebiotic environment stands at no better than one chance in ten to the 164th power. That is one chance in one followed by 164 zeros. In other words it cannot’.
The numbers are staggering.
Jewish historian Henry Abrahamson is an interesting source to consider and his comments ( on YouTube) about the exodus
are informative.
Anonymous 6:28
I am an orthodox Christian. And you are making a category error by referring to the Dead Sea Scrolls. That is nothing like the fact that there is no evidence of a global flood or other huge evidential vacuums related to physical historical events. The Dead Sea Scrolls are metadata. I am writing about physical processes that leave hard evidence. I am already a believer, and the location of Mt. Sinai is irrelevant to my belief. I am only saying that it is unlikely that an archaeological project is going to resolve these issues. In light of this, sifting through habitation layers is like rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. Or like Dean Blackwell used to say, "majoring in the minors."
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For what it's worth, and my opinion doesn't count for much, I am in TOTAL AGREEMENT with NeoTherm. We'll put sir. đź‘Ť
Ancient NEO who leads a double life. Writes on here about believing in nothing but gingerly saying the opposite in church. Everyone knows NEO.
Neo,
Great post - this is a good introduction to some of the issues raised by archaeologists with the historicity of the Pentateuch and Joshua. For those who are interested, one of the foremost archaeologists of the last forty plus years, Israel Finkelstein, has a number of talks on this subject that have been posted on YouTube (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck4ZJFXYzaM) and elsewhere. Professor Finkelstein makes plain that the biblical accounts of the patriarchs, exodus and conquest were designed to explain/give meaning to later realities and do NOT provide an accurate historical account of the period they describe.
As Neo suggests in this post, while this does serve to discredit the Literalist and Fundamentalist perspective on Scripture, it does NOT destroy the value of these stories from a moral, spiritual and literary perspective. Once again, God never intended for Scripture to be employed as a scientific or historical textbook. On the contrary, as the Bible itself indicates in numerous passages, this collection of writings was intended to reveal the God of the Hebrews and his plans to save humankind from themselves. Scripture was always a joint project between humans and the Divine, and only the Divine contribution to that project can credibly be characterized as perfect or inerrant!
Many cultures in different continents have accounts of a major flood. Furthermore, shells and sea life fossils have been found on Mount Everest and every major mountain range. That is, Mount Everest might have been raised up after the flood. And it's not obvious that civilization extended to Mount Everest at the time of the flood. Another point is that the Hebrew word used for mountain in the flood account should be translated hill. The flood might not have been higher than mount Everest. There's many unknowns
Since God answers my prayers, I'II stick with the bible account.
With no alternative credible answer to the beginning of this planet and its complex ecosystem, or of the complexity of the fleshy machines that inhabit it. Those that are frankly just rebellious towards the acknowledgment of the intelligent Creator that put all this together, have hope that they will find evidence that God , does not exist, or that He has abandoned this earth. Their rebellion is not against the idea of a God, because we all have Gods, whether we call ourselves atheists or not, we have something that we think about, and place above all else, even if that god turns out to be one's own self.
The rebellion is because the Creator God has given us laws to help us govern our lives, that if followed would enable man to live in peace and happiness. But man on the whole does not like the laws. Because they are humanity friendly, not just self friendly, and want to do things that please the self, not what is good for everyone else, while still wanting others to think well of them.
So what these rebels do is to try to disprove that there is a creator God, to whom they are accountable. They are unable to reconcile dumb evolution, with the complexity of our existence, they then try to say that God does not intervene in the affairs of man, that we can pretty much do what we want because God will do nothing. They want to believe that God created all of this , just so that man, can just have a good time, and die, but not willing to accept death's finality, they then start to get spiritual and hope that they will continue living in some spiritual sense after death.
They cling to straws. God did create this earth, He did make man. He did destroy the earth's surface and all the flesh that was not in the ark in a great flood. And |He will intervene in man's affairs on this earth again very soon.
He will not disappear because man refuses to believe that He exists, or keep the law He set in place. The breaking of those laws incurs a penalty of death. He is a God of love, and all was made from His love. But He is also a God of justice, so penalties will have to be followed up, so that order will be kept.
I have never seen the person that wrote the article, but I know that they exist or existed, and my lack of faith in them does not change that fact. Like it or not God Exist.
Anonymous 6:28 wrote, "This post is the atheist version of the flawed "God of the gaps" argument."
I think the literalist brother deserves a clarification of my viewpoint. So let me lay out the propositions:
1. God of the Gaps Theory (Theist): Science cannot tell us how life began, for instance, so God must have done it.
Logical form: There is something we cannot explain so God did it.
2. "Inverted" Gap Theory (Atheist): Archaeology cannot find evidence of the Conquest of Palestine under Joshua, so there is no God.
Logical form: There is something we cannot explain so there is no God.
3. NeoTherm's Argument (Theist): Archaeology cannot find evidence of the Conquest of Palestine under Joshua, so we, using literalism, have misinterpreted the data and its purpose and need to pursue a non-literalist approach.
Logical Form: There is something that we cannot explain using a literalist interpretation, so we need to move to a non-literal hermeneutic.
I think you can see from this that I am not just inverting the gap theory. I am making a separate argument focused on hermeneutics. My view acknowledges God but criticizes literalism. There is much to be said about this but let let me briefly state that I believe in a non-literal, incarnational view of the Bible as advocated by Peter Enns (his book is cited in the body of the post). The Bible is midrashic. It is literary and is rife with allegory (like in the cartoon), poetry and symbolism. The Bible is not univocal within our scope of understanding. Even literalists clash over various "literal" interpretations. This means that Herbert Armstrong was not a singular fount of truth - he was just an interpreter among many other interpreters. Sorry.
Note: To my knowledge, Armstrongists have never tried to address the four conundrums that I have listed in my post, that is, the reconciliation of the Biblical text with the findings of geology and archaeology. If someone knows of a documented effort to do this by Armstrogists, please let me know and cite the source. Thanks.
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Anonymous 3:46 wrote, "...I'II stick with the bible account."
You mean you will stick to your interpretation of the Bible account or some interpretation that someone taught you. There is reason to believe that the Hebrew words used in the Flood description have been given a biased meaning by the KJV translators. After all, they came to the translation with a pre-conceived traditional agenda.
On the other hand, I believe that generations of Christians have lived their lives and gone to their rewards without understanding that the Bible as anything but literal as "literal" meaning was defined in their culture, time and place.
What you cannot do is claim that you know God's truth and everyone else is in error. That is the redoubt not of the faithful but the egocentric.
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Anonymous 12:10 wrote, "...but gingerly saying the opposite in church. Everyone knows NEO."
Er, uh, I don't go to church. The nearest congregation of the denomination I belong to is too far away. I think you believe that I am someone else. "Everyone" cannot know Neo because apparently you don't.
Debaters in this comments section are weak. Let's pick things up a bit by considering leprechauns.
• Leprechauns are trickster beings of immense power.
• One of the greatest leprechaun powers is their power to hide themselves from prying humans.
• Therefore, if you think you've found a leprechaun, it isn't really a leprechaun.
• Only if a leprechaun chooses to reveal itself to you, then it is a leprechaun.
As a result, the fact that you haven't seen a leprechaun is proof that they exist. Actually, the fact that a leprechaun hasn't appeared to you is not only proof that they exist; it's proof that you aren't a credible authority as to their existence.
I never understand the dispute that erupts over this sometimes. Sure, the archaeological record doesnt always match the text. Why should we be surprised? Quiz anyone about a semi-recent historical event and you'll probably get a few factual errors. Why should we think the people who wrote the text were any different? They werent writing these things down when they happened.
Paul Ray wrote, "I don't see how you can believe in the existence of the Christian God, or the divinity of Christ, and not be a literalist"
The literalist view leads to a renunciation of God. That is why atheists clutch it to their bosoms. It leads to a renunciation because it precludes the idea that the Bible might contain literary content. A case in point: Leviathan. Is Leviathan poetical or literal? If it is literal, then what is it? The description of Leviathan in scripture seems for all the world like the traditional mythological dragon. Fire comes out of its nose. It has a row of plates down its back. It corresponds to no creature in the domain of earthly fauna. Apologists try to equate it with the sea-going crocodile - a cumbersome comparison.
Before and atheist steps in and says that Leviathan proves that there is no God, let me say that I believe Leviathan is a poetic characterization. It symbolizes something of huge, ugly, terrifying power. Like the "beasts" in Daniel. We can get wrapped around the axle on this topic or just make a simple acknowledgement - you can believe in the Christian God but deny the existence of Leviathan as a literal creature by recognizing that Leviathan is poetical. Poetry often is non-literal. For me that is not a leap, at least now. But for some people, who only know how to read instruction manuals for appliances, it's a show-stopper. And I cannot help but believe they have a diminished and impoverished view of scripture.
Sidebar: The WCG back in the old days recognized the "symbols" of the Passover. This meant that they knew that when Christ stated that the wine was his blood and the bread was his body that he was talking poetry. If the WCG wanted to cling to literalism, it could have hove towards the doctrine of transubstantiation. The WCG seemed to recognize that there were some things in the Bible that were literal and some that were non-literal. But there was no well-formed, consistent hermeneutic that defined this view.
Neo's god just doesn't know how to, does not, communicate clearly.
I don't care where Mt Sinai is at this time but I want to know later. The internet has discussions on archaeological evidence of the destruction of Jericho (choose to believe or not believe it). The net has discussions of fossils near top of Everest, and of course, on the exodus (the dry bed on which Israel crossed could have been 5 miles wide).
Anonymous 9:28 wrote, "Neo's god just doesn't know how to, does not, communicate clearly."
Neo's God communicates very clearly. I think it just may not be the kind of communication you would like to have.
Here is a little discussion on Jericho from the internet, " Kathleen Kenyon re-excavated the site over 1952–1958 and demonstrated that the destruction occurred at an earlier time, during a well-attested Egyptian campaign against the Hyksos of that period, and that Jericho had been deserted throughout the mid-late 13th century BCE, the supposed time of Joshua's battle ... Scholars agree almost unanimously that the Book of Joshua holds little historical value."
There is an easy explanation for why there are fossils on top of Everest without positing a global flood. You just have to understand a little about plate tectonics and orogeny. Besides the fossils up there are ocean deposits not flood deposits. There is a difference if you want to look into it.
So, does this mean you run screaming into the night? No, you just need to set aside the mythical hyperbole and think about the theology. 1 Peter 3 speaks of the flood. I think there really was a flood, but I think it was a local event affecting Noah and his region.
"I don't care where Mt Sinai is at this time but I want to know later"
Why would you say that? Mt Sinai is not relevant in the Kingdom to come. No one will look to Mt Sinai as something sacred or have anything to do with the Old Covenant.
We see in the commentary here the truth of the observation that Neo and I have made at various times over the years - that both Atheists and Literalists/Fundamentalists believe it's all or nothing where Scripture is concerned. They present us with a FALSE DILEMMA. They reason in two dimensions. Literalists and Fundamentalists have made Scripture into their god, and Atheists have used it to make their case against God and religion.
However, the TRUTH is that there is another way to view Scripture. A way that actually predates the modern notions of inerrancy, complete revelation, and Scripture as the FINAL AUTHORITY in matters of faith. It is a view that recognizes that the Judeo-Christian Bible contains some of the words of God and some of the words and notions of men. It is also a view that understands that the inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not make one immune to error and the baneful effects of human reasoning.
Neo's critics deride the notion that an Almighty God would choose to communicate with his people in this fashion. Even so, if we really see God as our Creator, then we must believe that he understands the weaknesses inherent to all forms of human communication better than anyone else in the universe. Isn't it self-evident that such a being would understand the many obstacles which exist for one human trying to convey his thoughts to another one through the vehicle of an imperfect spoken or written language? One has only to think about the problems inherent to sending and receiving a message, and how so much is often lost in translation and/or interpretation of the intended message. Moreover, with everything that science has revealed about the reality in which we exist and the limitations on how we perceive that reality through our five senses (our eyes can only see a small portion of the light spectrum, our ears can only hear a very limited range of the available frequencies, etc.).
Knowing that humans are so limited, how would a God without limits (sensory or intellectually) convey a message to them? If you know that your message is going to be garbled, twisted and misinterpreted, what would you do to make sure that it got through to your intended audience? Would it make sense to involve your intended audience in getting that message out? Would making your audience personally invested in the message and its dissemination increase your chances of success? Would a variety of voices and styles make it more likely that your message would get through to at least some of those folks? And what if your message was so complex and had so many different layers of meaning to convey to different members of that audience - wouldn't the employment of a variety of messengers make more sense? Who is better to speak to and reason with an alcoholic or drug addict than another alcoholic or addict? And we can't imagine why a Divine being would choose to communicate to his creatures in this manner? I call that a lack of understanding and imagination!
Miller:
Thanks for those points. It is interesting that Jesus is the Logos which means the Word but also implies reason and logic, yet God passed the Bible along to us with both divine and human imprints as you point out. And that is the kind of communication he chose. And as you state, it apparently communicates better than anything else in our context. Jesus referred to parts of the OT and had no qualms in doing so. I believe this is because Jesus is the actual Word of God not the OT so he was not that concerned about rhetorical state of the OT. The OT served its purpose. He did not try to explain that there is no real Leviathan in the earthly realm anyway. The real Word of God was in our midst no matter what we might read in the Septuagint. Can you imagine one of the disciples hauling out the Septuagint and reading to Jesus about how wrong it is to pick corn on the Sabbath or about anything for that matter?
I do not want to give the impression that I believe that the OT is a mess. It is an instance of the word of God. It does illuminate. There is parallelism between Adam and Israel, for example. There are themes that run throughout the corpus of the text. It is held together by these inspired strands of meaning and should be respected. It is just that it also speaks at times in the language of high literature.
I think the statement Jesus spoke in Matthew that follows is extraordinary in what it reveals about the formation of the OT:
"They said to him, ‘Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?’ He (Jesus) said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery."
Jesus states that 1) Moses acting solo was the author of this law of divorce and 2) what Moses added was not aligned with what God originally intended. In this I think we see the grace of God and his willingness to let his children be involved.
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Quote "Like it or not Allah exists. Prove me wrong.
Like it or not Thor exists. Prove me wrong.
Like it or not Vishnu exists. Prove me wrong.
Like it or not leprechauns exist. Prove me wrong."
Rom 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
The creator God exists, and is known by the things He has made. There is no proof of the existence of others in the quote apart from being created in the minds of men.
Satan exists, But He came from the Mind of God created perfect, but with free will. He has not created anything, and cannot procreate, therefore there is no physical proof of His existence. Satan is only made known by what God tells us of him. Believers in God's word can see the evidence of satan's existence by the chaos, death , horror, pain, and hatred he has caused men to experience by getting us to rebel against our Creator. He is the one who wants us to question God. But to question God is to question one's, own existence by asking "Did I have a mother". The fact of how we come into existence, and that our minds do not exist outside of our bodies, makes the question nonsense.
As we are made mortals there will be a time when we exist no more, and the only evidence that we did, will be our bones. If they are not found, then anything we have made and left of a more permanent material, and of course our children. But for God, this is not so. He is eternal, and also this earth will remain forever. Ecc 1:4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.
What He has made will always be unquestionable evidence.
Fantastic comments Anon 4:10.
Anonymous 4:10 wrote, "I have never seen the person that wrote the article, but I know that they exist or existed, and my lack of faith in them does not change that fact. Like it or not God Exist."
I just had a look at your "fantastic" comment, and I have not been able to connect it to anything I wrote. It is more like a personal testimony as to why you believe in God and what the flow of religious history has been. Your final statement "Like it or not God Exist" has to do with what?
I am a theist and what I wrote is a theist perspective. Let me state it clearly. What I wrote is pro-God and pro-faith and against Biblical literalism. Biblical literalism cannot be equated to theism or to Christianity. This seems to be the mistake that you made.
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I for one have not been dissuaded by this post and comments from believing this (taken from internet): Biblical literalism is the method of interpreting Scripture that holds that, except in places where the text is obviously allegorical, poetic, or figurative, it should be taken literally.
Anonymous 11:43
If you are going to stake your faith on something it needs to be more than just a confession. You need to explain to yourself why you believe there was a global flood when there is no evidence of it, for example. You see the Hebrew word eretz can mean the "earth" or it can mean "homeland."
My favorite ploy in my literalist days when confronted with dilemmas of this sort was to say that it is all supernatural. If God wanted there to be a global flood, then there was one and it left no trace. All miraculously. But then I had to think about it. Since God, you believe, told you about the flood in the Bible, why would he then want to conceal any trace of it? Why not have both the written account and the clear physical data correspond? In fact, God had to carefully fake the history of the earth to make it look like there was no flood so that science would deliver to us the wrong results. Wasn't there that eternal moral law that said something about bearing false witness?
You see, saying you believe something for no reason is kind of strange. It is not faith. It's delusional. There really was a big flood in the Middle East. And it created havoc. And many peoples retained legends about the flood. It probably killed a lot of people and wiped out a bunch of villages, but it was local. The theology is the same whether it is local or global so why needlessly decide to fall on your sword over this?
Biblical Literalism takes on many different forms. And it does not always lead to the same interpretations. My guess is that all forms of Biblical Literalism posit a global flood.
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"If you are going to stake your faith on something it needs to be more than just a confession"
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It is: the Bible, but looking out for mistranslations, etc. since all I have today is a translated Bible, but believing a God who inspired it can also preserve, at least, the intended meaning of it.
You might want to consider Gen 6:17 NASB: Now behold, I Myself am bringing the flood of water upon the earth, to destroy all flesh in which there is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the earth shall perish.
Twice it is mentioned all, everything will die. Assume the flood is local. Outside of that locality there was nothing that draws breath? Don't think so. All, everything, drawing breath (excludes fish?) under heaven will die. Which part of the globe is not under heaven?
Would you believe the waters covering 70% of the earth's surface are vestiges of the flood?
Anonymous 8:35 "Would you believe the waters covering 70% of the earth's surface are vestiges of the flood?"
The word eretz in Hebrew has more than one scope. It refers to the surface of the earth and it can be all of it or part of it. It often means homeland. An alternative rendering of Gen 6:17 is this:
"Now behold, I Myself am bringing the flood of water upon the land, to destroy all flesh in which there is the breath of life, from under heaven; everything that is on the land shall perish." "The land" would be whatever is relevant to Noah.
Either all the earth or part of the earth can equally be "under heaven." When the OT speaks of eretz Israel it does not mean "the entire earth of Israel" it means "the land of Israel."
As for the oceans being a remnant of the Flood, are you seriously suggesting that there were no oceans until after the Flood? If you are a Young Earth Creationist, I know you have a profound dedication to your beliefs. All I can say is that the science that contravenes YEC is extensive. If you have an open mind, you might look at the Biologos website. Carol A. Hill has some articles there as well.
So, the answer is, "No, I wouldn't believe the waters covering 70% of the earth's surface are vestiges of the flood."
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Neo Therm said Quote " What I wrote is pro-God and pro-faith and against Biblical literalism.".
I am a biblical literalist. I have a choice as we all do, I can believe all, or I can choose what to believe, or discard all. I choose to believe all. Of course, there is an understanding that some things are symbolic and a lot of Proverbs and how Jesus taught crowds was in parables. But other than that I see God's word as the most reliable record of earth History that there is. Taking into consideration that He is the only one that can give a true record as He has been there from the beginning. So therefore I believe that the record He gave to Moses of creation is true, and all we as men need to know. The accounts of what followed after are also true. Knowing men for what we are, how we seek praise from others, and will falsify evidence, etc. I, 100% prefer to believe what the bible says other than anything man may say. There is of course a lot of detail left out of God's record. But if we needed to know those details. I am sure He would have supplied them.
To assume that we need to find bits of pottery and relics to prove that what He told us through His prophets is true , is to assume that God can lie. Which He has testified that He does not. Nothing we can find will prove His existence to people who do not want to believe.
Luk_16:31 And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.
God does not have to answer to anyone, there is none above Him for him to fear. He is not trying to please us, so why would He lie. The very fact that He has allowed many things to be hidden shows that He wants us to exercise faith. The very thing that is essential to our development to complete our creation.
As you may well know, the Bible is a coded book. It was not written for all, although all have access to it. It is written for those who God has called during this time. according to His plan. He opens their minds to understand what He wants them to know, and leads them to the truth even though men may have meddled with The Bible. So beliving in God, and being surrounded with overwhelming evidence of His handy work, the finds or the lack of finds by archeologists means little to those who have faith, it's just a "by the way".
We are now living in what God tells us from the signs we see, are the last days. We are that last generation that will see the return of Christ. That being the case, God's called-out ones are focused on developing our spiritual relationship with God, in obedience to His will and living by His word.
Anon 4:45:00
Thank you for the post.
I quite agree with you.
‘As you may well know , the Bible is a coded book’.
This is where I think we can disagree. A coded book?
It seems illogical to me why God would indeed give us a coded book, He has nothing to hide. The invisible attributes of God are clearly seen by the things that are made.Scripture comments that God is not far from us or hid. And the message of the gospel of salvation is not hid. And is open and accessible to all.
If the Bible is indeed coded how can we trust that the gospel accounts are as written correct; or are they incomplete as a coded book would imply?
If the Bible is coded then even faith is suspect.
For who can unlock the code and how do we know that the one claiming to be ‘the unlocker’ is as they say.
For it leads us all back to Armstrongism and all its ludicrous claims as having ‘the keys’ to all understanding.
Anonymous 4:45 wrote, "So therefore I believe that the record He gave to Moses of creation is true, and all we as men need to know."
I believe that what Genesis says about the creation is true, too. But I believe it differently than you do. You believe it is literally true and I believe it is allegorically true. And I get as much meaning out of it as you do, if not more. I think maybe the people who read it literally, as if it were textbook, don't think beyond that level of concrete interpretation. And for people who receive it as allegory it serves as a springboard into more consequential thought.
And finally which account of creation to you believe is the correct one? The one in Genesis 1 or the one in Genesis 2. They do not quite mesh. Not a problem for allegory. Big problem for literalism. You might have a look at:
https://biologos.org/articles/what-is-the-relationship-between-the-creation-accounts-in-genesis-1-and-2
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RE: the biologos article: the accounts in Gen 1 and 2 do mesh. What's the problem with God having multiple names? Does the chronological order of events have to be the same order in narrative form in both chapters? Not necessarily. The chapter 2 account lists more detail without any contradiction. The allegorical approach asks questions such as: how many humans did God create? A question in the article. The allegorical answer: who knows? The literalist answer: two. The dry land appears in Gen 1, is then referenced in Gen 2. No problem. The author did acknowledge the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Who I believe did not inspire conflicting statements in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
It’d be nice to fellowship with such people.
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