User talk:Ratiocinative

Good edits
Good edits on the creationism pages; of course a young earth is an interpretation, and not literal. It's something I argue quite frequently. I should have caught that, glad you did. Aunt Entropy (talk) 15:37, 14 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Wrong. The edit summary spoke of "all possible literal interpretations".  There is only one literal interpretation of any particular sentence.  Genesis lays out 7 days (laid out quite clearly with language that specifies normal days with multiple linguistic redudancy) and then gives genealogies with ages.  Interpret that literally and you get a timeline of circa 6,000 years from Creation to now.  If the days are anything other than normal 24 hour days then the interpretation is non-literal.  I am not discussing the merits of any particluar interpretation here, but call it what it is.LowKey (talk) 00:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Wrong. A literal interpretation is anything that is according to the dictionary definition of the word(s) (i.e. non-figurative). Unless the word has only one definition then there is more than one possible literal interpretation, and almost all words have more than a single meaning. The Hebrew word 'yom' refers to more than just 24-hour days, so it is not the only literal translation. Interpreting 'yom' in Genesis as a general unspecified period of time is supported by the dictionary of the word, and is required in various places in the Bible, such as Genesis 2:4, regardless of a old or young Earth belief. It is not an exaggeration, metaphor, simile, idiom, or any other figurative usage of the word. Ratiocinative (talk) 15:29, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I consider the young earth meme to be a synthesis, as described here SYN, not directly sourced.


 * FWIW, I grew up in a church that was very Bible-oriented in the conservative Southwestern US, and the age of the earth wasn't even an argument back then. It's not even in the top ten of interpretation debates that happen in the church. (I think faith vs. works issue still number one.) This "young earth" push is recent, from the early 90's; still I highly doubt than more than half of evangelicals in America will ever accept it. ID, on the other hand, is considered the more "intelligent", publicly acceptable choice of creation memes among even the more conservative Christians these days. Aunt Entropy (talk) 21:49, 20 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I agree that age of the Earth is low on the list of important topics. It is the theology that is present in nearly all young Earth ministries that poses a serious threat to Christianity. But this change has nothing to do with one's interpretations or beliefs, but rather the meaning of words. The dictionary is clear that the word literal refers to the dictionary definition of the words. If I were to say "I missed my friend.", there are several literal interpretations to what I meant. One could say I failed to hit my friend with the object I threw at him, that I was in desire of my friend's company, or that I arrived at my friend's house just moments after he left. All three of those interpretations would be literal meanings because they are dictionary definition uses of the word "missed". As to which one I actually meant, that is a matter of interpretation through the context. If we were playing dodgeball, then it would most likely mean I failed to hit my friend with the ball I was throwing at him, since the context involves an activity that involves throwing objects at people. Or if my friend had been gone on a vacation for a while, then it would be apparent that I was in desire of my friend's company because I had not seen him in a while. Interpreting the "days" of Genesis as unspecified periods of time is just as literal of an interpretation as interpreting them to mean 24-hour days. If LowKey disagrees then he should explain what makes a 24-hour day interpretation literal and an unspecified period of time non-literal, when the dictionary indicates that both are. Ratiocinative (talk) 00:30, 21 September 2008 (UTC)
 * One cannot simply choose ANY dictionary definition of each word in a sentence and then call it a literal interpretation of that sentence. (and dictionaries do NOT only list literal meanings, they include figurative meanings of common use) Interpretation (literal or not) must incorporate the WHOLE sentence, and it must make sense in the context, as you say. Per your example, the last meaning is based on common usage but is not actually literal.  If I say "on the morning of day one" the context spells out pretty clearly that this is a regular 24hr day - and that is the language used for the 6 days of creation.  These are not "unspecified"; they are in fact highly specified with "morning", "evening" and numbering.  If I say "in my day" then it is less likely that I am talking about a 24hr day and more likely to mean something other, which is the language of Genesis 2:4.  For Day to mean a general period of time, as in "era", then it must be Something's Day, or the Day of Something, and that language is absent from the 6 day account.  The language also does not support a meaning of "not night" as it include "evening".  If you wish to specify young earth in that statement, I would recommend that you change "literal" to "straightforward" which is after all more in keeping with what KH and other YEC's advocate. Having said all that, the "and" in the statement doesn't expressly say whether the two concepts are contradictory or concommitant or anything in between, it just lays them out.  Although I would prefer "straightforward" as above, I probably have little chance of getting it.  I had reverted your edit, but I will undo that and leave you to it. LowKey (talk) 23:24, 21 September 2008 (UTC)


 * Context has nothing to do with deciding whether a particular interpretation is literal or non-literal, context is what is used to decide which interpretation is correct. The ideal way to find the correct meaning of the text would be to ask the author but that cannot be done so we must use our best judgment based upon the context to decide what the author actually meant, which is why it is called an interpretation (definition is to explain the meaning of something). Genesis 2:4 is constructed the same way all other sentences that refer to 24-hour days, the day in Genesis isn't specified as belonging to someone, it simply says "in the day that the LORD God made earth and heaven". According to your logic, it is referring to a 24-hour day also.


 * Dictionaries do not have figurative definitions of words because a word by itself cannot be figurative. A word becomes figurative when it is used in a phrase to mean something that is not a definition of the word. For example: "walking a mile in someone else's shoes". The literal meaning would be to put on someone else's shoes and then go walk a mile, but this phrase is almost always used in a figurative sense to mean to experience what it is like to be someone else. What makes it figurative is that you can't look up the words 'walk', 'a', 'mile', 'in', 'someone', 'else', and 'shoe' in a dictionary individually and come up with the meaning of the phrase to be 'to experience what it is like to be someone else'. Many dictionaries do have definitions of phrases that use the particular word in a figurative manor, but that's a definition of the phrase and not the word and will be listed as an 'idiom', and not a 'noun', 'verb', or 'adjective', etc. The word 'figurative' is derived from the word 'figure', something that represents something else but is not that actual something. When something is literal, that means exactly what was said is exactly what was meant, and that what it means can be found by looking at the definitions of the words. But when something is figurative it means it represents something else, and the meaning cannot be found by looking at the definitions of the individual words.


 * If a 24-hour day is literal, but an unspecified period of time is not, then please explain why, because both are dictionary definitions of the Hebrew word 'yom'. If words have both literal and figurative meanings as you claim, what makes a meaning literal and what makes one figurative? Ratiocinative (talk) 03:15, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

<- In order. You missed my point completely, but I agree with the second half. I agree. No it isn't, true it doesn't, and yes that's what it says. It could well be. Nonsense and nonsense. A word is figurative any time that it is used to mean something other than it's literal meaning, single words can be figurative and figurative phrases are generally metaphors. I agree. Nonsense, it is figurative because it is a metaphor for experiencing someone else's life. Yes they do. And? Absolutely, and absoulutely. Absolutely, and absolutely. I already explained, it is a matter of usage and sentence construction, "yom" literally means "day" as in a day. It is a matter of usage and sentence construction as I explained.

I think we are talking at cross purposes here, as we obviously understand "literal" and "figurative" completely differently, and I think it unlikely that either of us will be persuaded by the other. As I said, I have left your edit as-is for good or ill. Is there any point to further discussion?LowKey (talk) 00:27, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I didn't understand most of what you wrote there, but you still haven't even attempted to explain what makes a specific usage of a word literal or figurative. All you said was "a word is figurative any time that it is used to mean something other than it's literal meaning", which explains absolutely nothing beyond the fact that the two words are opposites. What are you saying makes a definition literal? There has to be an objective method of determining what makes something literal or figurative, otherwise the terms literal and figurative are meaningless.


 * To start with, I intend to leave your edit in the article as-is. I am happy to continue this discussion in the interests of understanding each other, but I am not interested in having an argument (I hope you can see the the distinction that I am making there).    I honestly think that this comes down to a completely different apprehension of the word "literal".  If I understand correctly: You understand all dictionary definitions of a word alone (i.e. not a phrase) to be literal meanings of that word.  Therefore to you "literal" means "as per accepted definition of the word".  My understanding is that not all dictionary definitions of a word alone are literal, but that some are figurative.  To me "literal" is "of the letters" and is much more constrained. The literal meaning of a word is the main or root meaning and would almost always be the original meaning.  Figurative meanings are derivations from that, usually with some allusion to the original meaning.  "Toby is a pig" can be interpreted more than one way, the phrase can be either literal or figurative depending on whether "pig" as a word is used literally or figuratively.  It is not the phrase that makes the word figurative but vice versa.  If the word is used literally, then Toby has a snout and curly tail.  If the word is used figuratively then he is a person of some unpleasantness.  Both meanings can be found in a dictionary, but only one is literal.  If Toby is a human being then I am not using a literal meaning whether or not it is in the dictionary.  A literal pig is a kind four-legged animal, and the figurative meaning of "a piglike person" alludes to the literal meaning.


 * With the specific example of Genesis 1 the Hebrew word "yom" for "day" has a main or root meaning (which I would call the literal meaning) of a rotational day. The use of "evening" or "morning" or a number is accepted as constraining "yom" to this main meaning.  The use of all three in Genesis 1 is a triple redundancy emphasising this constraint to the main meaning.  So according to the language used, the days of Genesis 1 are normal 24 hour days.  In English the phrase "the day" without further specification could refer to a 24 hour period, to daylight hours, or to an era (the day I got married, where sunscreen during the day, the day of the aeroplane), but that does not mean that these are all literal meanings of day.  It just means that whether or not to take "day" literally had to be specified.  The phrase "morning and evening, day three" is very difficult to justify taking as refering to anything other than a normal 24 hour day in either Hebrew, English or I would suspect any other language.  Also, Adam was created during day 6, so unless that day was a normal 24 hour day then whenever Adam's age is mentioned it is a meaningless number.  If day 6 is a normal 24 hour day, then how is it justified to treat days 1 to 5 differently when they use the exact same formula of morning, evening and number.


 * In Genesis 2 it is not simply "yom" that is used but "beyom" which is a phrase meaning literally (of the letters) "the day that" but in normal use has the accepted figurative meaning of "when". Sorry not logged in. LowKey (talk) 03:48, 23 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I understand what you are saying, mostly, and I see how your defintion is more meaningful from a literary standpoint, but using that defintion seems to render it meaningless as an interpretation method because the entire Bible cannot be interpreted literally with that defintion of 'literal'. In order for a literal interpretation to have any significance then it must applied to the entire Bible without any subjective exceptions.


 * According to Strong's Hebrew Dictionary, the Hebrew word 'yom' comes from an unused root word meaning 'hot' or 'warm', which makes sense because sunlight provides warmth, but for what reason can night-time be added on to that for a 24-hour day and be included as a literal meaning but not an unspecified number of days or time, since nighttime is the opposite of the root meaning of the word? Strong's H#776, 'erets', comes from an unused root word meaning 'firm', which makes sense because is primarly used to refer to countries or other areas of land, and land is firm, but what about the many times it is used to refer to people? (Genesis 18:25, 1 Samuel 14:25, 1 Chronicles 16:14, etc..) Your qualifications for what constitutes a 'root' meaning were not very specific, so I am unsure how you fit these two examples into your 'literal' interpretation.


 * Basically, what I am asking is: Since the entire Bible cannot be interpreted literally using your definition, even when ignoring the obvious metaphorical statements such as "I am the bread of life", then what significance or need is there for having a literal translation according to your defintion. If you say that a non-literal translation is somehow a denial of what God says, then you yourself have to deny God's word to have an interpretation that makes sense. If you say that it only needs to be literal under specific circumstances and not all the time, then what circumstances ditate when a literal translation should be applied? Ratiocinative (talk) 04:50, 25 September 2008 (UTC)
 * I do not actually support a "literal" interpretation (using literal as I said above) for the entire Bible because as you said it is sometimes not possible to have a literal interpretation that makes sense. Your last question is probably the core question of this whole discussion and I see it as of the utmost pertinence.  The interpretation framework that I subscribe to is best described as a plain or straightforward interpretation.  This is in keeping with most of the YEC community, but I have been disallowed from including that in WP articles (it would avoid all of this agro over "literal" for one thing). It also uses Scripture to interpret Scripture (rather than allowing secular & sceptical opinions to dictate meaning)  Poetry and songs are read as such (being replete with simile and metaphor).  Accounts of visions and dreams are read as factual accounts, but of highly symbolic and not necessarily physical experiences (i.e. the accounts of Daniel's dreams are accepted as factual accounts of the dreams, while the dreams themselves are understood to be dreams and not to be taken "literally").  Letters (those in the NT) are read as letters.  Historical narrative is read as a factual account of historical events.  The queues to how to understand the intended meaning of particular statements are to be found in the context (as in con-text).  You could pick up a magazine in a waiting room and open it to a random article and be able to tell pretty quickly how to interpret the text (poetry, narrative, polemic etc).  This comes from an understanding of how your language is used and understood.  The same queues to interpreting Biblical etxt are present in the Bible.  The "yom" of Genesis 1 are accompanied (in triplicate) by modifies which contrain the meaning to a day, just as the equivalent modifiers in English would constrain day to mean a day.  If you read "Day 2" in English you would not think that to mean a second era, but a second ordinary day (wouldn't you?).  If I described how I start my day in the morning, you would not think I was speaking of an era.  If I described how we did thinks in my day, you would think I was speaking of an era.


 * "root" was probably a little clumsy. I am trying to lay out my understanding of "literal" without using terms that your understanding of "literal" would lead you to understand in a different manner to my intent.  "Main meaning" by itself seemed inadequate as I am sure that sometimes the figurative meaning becomes the main meaning through changes in usage.  The meaning of literal that I apprehend is "of the letters" and "without figure or metaphor".  I hesitate to invoke that second part because you are questioning how to differentiate literal from figurative and that definition assumes the differentiation (i.e. begs the question).  I think that my pig illustration laid out what I am getting at.


 * Back to Genesis, the common usage of "yom" in the Bible with "evening", "morning" or a number is to mean a day and so it is perfectly reasonable to understand Genesis 1 as an account of 6 ordinary days. To understand "yom" as something else in this context requires extraordinary justification.  "Beyom" in Genesis 2 by common usage means "when" and it is reasonable to read the phrase as "when God made the earth and the heavens".LowKey (talk) 06:02, 25 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I guess we pretty much agree then on the general way to interpret the Bible then. The Old Testament is mostly a historical account of God's interaction with people, mostly the Israelites and several specific prophets and prominent figures in Jewish history, and the New Testament is about the life of Christ and how the gospel was spread after Christ's death and resurrection. It is real people that actually lived on the Earth in their respective times and who participated in actual events as described in the Bible. Beyond that, I don't think there could be many specific interpretation rules that would be of any value, as almost all will eventually result in an incoherency somewhere. It has to be done on the basis of context.


 * However, there is no such "modifiers" as you claim, that require 'yom' to mean a 24-hour day in Genesis. They are often claimed as such by various Young Earth Creation Ministries, but that's all. Sure, if I were to read something that said "day 2" I would think of a 2nd 24-hour day, but that's only because there are very few instances in which a unspecified period of time is referred to, and even fewer where that period of time would need to be divided in to sections. However, in the context of creation, there is a need for multiple unspecified periods of time. God divided the creation account into six creation periods plus a ceasing period to setup the example of seven, which is used in the seventh day of rest for man, the seventh year of rest for the land, the year of jubilee, the setting free of slaves in the seventh year, and perhaps others that I can't think of off the top of my head. The length of the creation day must be determined by the context, not make-believe Hebrew grammar "rules" that Ken Ham and others have invented, and the context cannot be 24-hour days because Genesis describes events happening that take longer than 24-hours (plants growing, animals reproducing, Adam's exclamation of "now finally" when he first sees eve, Genesis 2 being a more detailed explanation of the sixth day, etc).


 * But, before you spend time rebutting me on the context of Genesis 1, the biggest reason I reject Young Earth Creationism is because of it's theology. Physical death as punishment for sin, creation was originally perfect but then ruined by sin, a global flood, all animals originally being herbivores, and death and suffering being evil, all of these ideas are absurd and I literally cannot understand how anyone can study the Bible and actually believe these things. The biggest reason I believe the Earth to be billions of years old is because of ministries like Answers in Genesis. If anyone could present a case for a young Earth it would be them, but in order to support the idea of a Young Earth they end up twisting and distorting scripture, so that can only mean that the Earth isn't young. So while I may not have a rock-solid argument as to why Genesis 1 says creation lasted billions of years, I do have a rock-solid argument as to why the Bible as a whole says creation lasted billions of years. Ratiocinative (talk) 01:53, 1 October 2008 (UTC)

Going by most of the content of that last posting, I can't see that we interpret the Bible in a similar way at all. It appears to me that you use your theology to decide what the Bible is saying instead of using what the bible says to decide your theology. You seem to choose the least straightforward and obvious interpretations to support your position instead of going with the most straightforward and obvious to arrive at your position. Some specifics. You say that there are "no such modifiers" but I double checked - using modern translations + Strong's as well as using the Hebrew Old Testament - and there they are: evening, morning and a number; over and over. You have provided no reason for ignoring "evening" and "morning", nor have you offerred any way in which these can be somehow related to anything other than normal days. You even acknowledge that a plain reading of "day 2" is a 2nd 24 hour day, but only because of the extreme rarity of such a phrase meaning indeterminate time periods. I would say that rarity is an understatement and this interpretation of such language is unique to Genesis 1, and therefore extremely unlikely to be valid. You justify the "sectional indeterminate" (to coin an unwieldy phrase) interpretation as being required in the context of creation, but this is only required if one presumes indeterminate time periods to start with. Seven certainly is one of those "special" numbers that God uses, but as to the Creation week setting the pattern as you suggest, the only explicit Biblical reference to the Creation week as a template is for the work week and is specifically matched as days for days. Everything else fits to the broader pattern of sevens, but they do not say something like resting the fields in the seventh year because God rested on the seventh day. The jubilee year is in fact modelled not on the pattern of creation directly but is modelled as a week of sabbaths years, specifically drawing an analogy to the known pattern of 7 days and explicitly extending it to work for years as well. This reinforces that a week is based on days as God's modelled week was based on days.

The length of the creation day is determined by context and by the rules of grammar. The immediate context is Evening, Morning & number which you have so far either ignored or confirmed as normally indicating a 24 hour day. The grammar "rules" are not make-believe and they are not some recent invention of "Ken Ham and others". The grammar has been understood in this way for many centuries, from the early Church writers right up to a couple of centuries ago. This has been amply documented (I'll look into the specific references if you wish, but I can't recall them off-the-top). Also, the authoritave position of Hebrew (after all, it's their language and they had the Old Testament first) scholarship is that Genesis 1 means normal days - even though some of the leading Hebrew authors subscribe to Old Earth views (i.e. they believe that Genesis says normal days, they just don't believe it to be factual).

You say that Genesis (I assume we are still talking Genesis 1 & 2 here) describes events that take more than 24 hours but again this is only by rejecting a straightforward reading of the text, and apparently reading extraneous information into the text. Plants growing? I assume you mean something more than basic plant growth, either "bringing forth" or perhaps something to do with the fruiting and seeds. Is this correct? As to "brought forth" remember that creation was a supernatural event - natural abiogenesis is a nonsense - so trying to impose natural process upon supernatural creation just doesn't make sense. Regardless, there is nothing in the text to say that these plants & trees produced seed or fruit within their creation day. My parents planted several fruit-bearing trees in the back yard of their new house. Now these are just seedlings and aren't likely to actually bear fruit for a couple of years yet, but fruit-bearing does not describe what they are currently doing, it describes what kind of tree they are. Genesis 1 describes "vegetation, plants bearing seed, and trees bearing fruit" each according to their kind. Now that is a description of 2 categories (or possibly 3 if vegetation is a separate category) of plant life, not a desciption of what they did on "day 3". Of course, since Adam was created as a man (i.e. mature) God may well have created mature plants already bearing fruit and seeds but we are not told either way. Genesis 1 does not describe any animals reproducing, it describes commanding the earth to bring them forth "according to their kind". This is saying that the kinds were established at creation (as opposed to evolving, for instance), but it doesn't say that reproduction was taking place on that day. Of course Adam exclaims "now finally" (or "at last" in some translations), he has just looked over and named all the various kinds of animals and then he is presented with Eve. None of this needs to take more than a day. I know I have looked for things for less than hour, and still thought "finally" when I found it. On top of this, Genesis 5 gives Adam's age as 930 years at his death. If Days 6 and 7 are not ordinary days, then Genesis 5 is lying, and if Days 6 & 7 are normal days, then why on earth would the other days not be when the language is the same?

Genesis 2 is a more details description of the 6th day, but I don't see what your point is. Sorry.

You ridicule the theology of "Young Earth Creationism" and list a number of "ideas" that you call "absurd". These "ideas" are Biblically sound (and certainly not new) and your extreme rejection of them is something that I find deeply disturbing. I had assumed that you believe the Bible, according to your own interpretation, but I cannot reconcile that assumption with this rejection of Biblical concepts. How on earth do you interpret Genesis 3:17-19? That covers death coming from sin, as warned in Genesis 2 (the Hebrew word's primary meaning is normal physical death, and it's secondary meaning is normal physical death as a punishment) and as specifially stated several times in the New Testament. You reject a global flood, but how do you explain a local flood that manages to "destroy all flesh in which is the breath of life under heaven" (Genesis 6:17) or Genesis 7:22&23? How do reconcile Genesis 9:14&15? Here God promises to never again do what has been done in Genesis 6 to 8. If that flood is local than God has been breaking this covenant ever since. You call the idea that death is evil absurd, but 1 Corinthians 15 identifies death as Christ's last enemy. How can it be other than evil? The new earth is promised as being free of death and of suffering: why, if they were part of the pre-fall creation? Commonly held evangelical theology understands the new earth to be a restoration of pre-fall paradise. LowKey (talk) 03:44, 6 October 2008 (UTC)


 * First off, it’s called scripture interpreting scripture. There are, in fact, ~1200 chapters in the Bible and not just one, so it is foolish to base your interpretation based upon the very first one. I am comparing the claims made by YECs to the entire Bible, and they just don’t fit.


 * Secondly, you need to define what ‘straightforward and obvious’ means. From what you wrote, it looks like you are suggesting that I should ignore the details, ignore the meanings of the original Hebrew words, and ignore the rest of the Bible when interpreting the meaning of a scripture. If this is how you want to define ‘straightforward and obvious’, then you’re right, I am choosing the least straightforward an obvious interpretation.


 * Thirdly, it doesn’t really matter what Strong’s says, it matters what the Bible says. There are multiple examples where each so-called “modifier rule” fails (Daniel 8:26, Deut 10:10), and a rule isn’t much of a rule if it has subjective exceptions.


 * To claim physical death is a punishment for sin is ludicrous. The entire cycle of nature is built on a cycle of life and death, and all life would cease to exist without death. I would assume you believe that God intends for humans to live on this Earth, right? Are you saying that God, at once point, intended for us to live forever on Earth? Are you saying that it was not until after we sinned that God intended for us to be in heaven with him? Also, what would we do if someone had layers and layers of debris washed over them in a flood? Or got trapped under tons rubble in an Earthquake? Or was buried under layers of ash in a large volcano eruption? Since they can't die, would they have to wait there thousands of years starving until the technology was developed to dig them out? Genesis 3:17-19 says that man now has to work and till the ground to feed himself "by the sweat of his brow". It says nothing about death coming from sin. God always intended for Earth to be a temporary universe in which man could exercise his free will to accept or reject God, which is evident by the fact that even before God created the world he purposed for us to be reconciled to him through Christ (Ephesians 1:1-10). Ephesians 3, specially verse 8-11, goes on to explicitly state that not only was this plan in place before the creation of the word, but that it was his eternal plan, the plan for us humans who believe to be a demonstration of God's wisdom to all the authorities in the heavenly places. So to claim that physical death on Earth was not always intended by God is a clear denial of all logic, science, and especially the Bible.


 * And you claim that these ideas of a global flood are Biblically sound? Genesis 7:20 says the flood water rose to 15 cubits high: How can a 23-30 feet deep water cover the entire planet? Genesis 8:1 says God sent a wind over the land which caused the water to subside: If the flood was global then the wind would just carry the water for a while and then put it back down, resulting in no water subsiding. Genesis 8:3 says the water receded steadily: How can water in a global flood recede? As far as verse 6:17, the Hebrew word translated as 'heaven' here has more than one meaning. S#8064 often refers to sky, and based upon the description of the flood in the Bible that verifies the flood was local, it is obviously appropriate to translate it as sky here as well. In fact, horizon would probably be the best word to use, as it is telling Noah that as far as he can see, and farther, will this destruction of the flood occur. And you should already know the explanation for the promise. The promise does not say another flood like this one, it says another to destroy all people. Since there has not been any other flood to destroy all people again, it has been kept.


 * The death that Christ defeated is spiritual death, obviously. The idea of the new Earth being a "restoration" to same pre-fall "paradise" is impossible. For one, we are told that New Jerusalem is a ~1500 mile cube (Revelation 21:2, 16). With gravity, all large objects become spheres, so a cube city that big cannot exist in our universe, so gravity will differ or be non-existent. Revelation 7:16 says that no one will hunger or thirst, and that there will be no heat. This obviously eliminates any possibility of the concept of thermodynamics as we know it in the new Earth. The current Earth and the new Earth serve different purposes, the current being a temporary place for man to exercise free will and the latter being to live with God forever, which is why there is physical death now, but not in the new Earth. Ratiocinative (talk) 23:26, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

Well, I am calling it quits here. I stated earlier that I was happy to continue discussion in the interests of understanding each other, but that I was not interested in an argument. I am forced to conclude that this has become mere argument. You have been referring to Strong’s quite freely, yet in this last post of yours you criticise my use of Strong’s, and then you later refer to Strong’s again. That seems more like debating tactics than discussion to me. You have ignored issues that I raised (a whole rather long paragraph, mostly responses to your earlier statements). You claim to disprove the grammatical rules of Genesis 1 but invoke one verse that supports it (uses the same language in the same way to mean the same thing) and one that doesn’t even use it (different phrase structure and even different words in the phrases). You claim to use scripture to interpret scripture, but instead you seem to advocate tip-toeing through scripture ignoring whatever does not match your belief. For example, you mischaracterise Genesis 3:19 by ignoring the entire end of the statement explicitly linking physical death with the other results of the fall. You also ignore the overwhelming language of universality in the account of the great flood, and even advocate interpreting “heaven” as “horizon” despite no linguistic support at all, because that fits your existing concept of the flood. You also misrepresent (actually misquote!) God’s “rainbow” covenant badly by claiming it refers only to people, when the covenant is explicitly - and emphatically - made with the animals as well as with mankind, regarding the destruction of the animals as well as mankind. You claim pre-fall carnivory when God specifically lays out a vegetarian diet to both mankind AND the animals. “Interpreting” such scripture out of existence is eisegesis, and has nothing to do with “context”. You claim that “death” equals “spiritual death” with no scriptural support for this claim. When scripture needs to differentiate between the physical and the spiritual, it does so quite clearly, but such differentiation is ABSENT from references to the origin of death (but present when referring to “the second death” showing that such differentiation COULD have been used in the MANY other references if warranted). You also oddly insist on a physically literal interpretation of the apocalyptic vision in Revelation (which is generally accepted as allegorical, with good reason) to support your theological position.

As I said, I am calling it quits. I feel that I comprehend your position (while still disagreeing with it), and that we are not really achieving anything more by continuing. It's your talk page, so wrap this up however think most appropriate.

Fortunately for all of us perfect understanding is not a requirement of salvation (grace being what it is), and we are assured that although “Now we see in a mirror dimly” we shall “know fully”. Meet you there? LowKey (talk) 02:25, 16 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Genesis 1:29-30 says nothing about plants being the only source of food, merely that all plants were given as food. To say that this verse says that no carnivorous was present is a brazen attempt add to scripture what it doesn’t say. The same goes for Genesis 3:19, as it states that Adam would now have to grow his own food though working the soil from now until he dies. To say that the ‘until he dies’ part means that he was going to live forever before, but is now being punished with death and that all of the world is being cursed with natural disasters, and disease, and such, is an even more brazen attempt to add into scripture what it doesn’t say.


 * If you had read past Genesis you would see that physical death as punishment for sin is not what the Bible teaches. Romans 5:18, 6:13,23, Ephesians 21:1-9, Colossians 2:13, and 1 John 3:14 all say that we were once dead because of sin, but that through faith we have life. John 5:24 and 1 John 3:14 both say that we have passed out of death into life when we believe in Christ. Obviously this is not referring to physical death because, with the exception of those who are alive when Christ returns, we all still die physically even though we believe. It is made clear throughout scripture that physical death is not the result of sin.


 * And as was said before, horizon is linguistically supported. The Hebrew word interpreted as "heavens" in the flood account also means sky, as is evident from many other passages in scripture. And all other such words are the same. The Hebrew word 'erets' almost always refers to to local areas of land, not global, so to say this has to mean a global flood is just silly. The Hebrew word 'ha' also can mean hills. And as I said before, since the context (the description of the abatement of the flood) clearly describes a flood encompassing only a localized area, it is only appropriate to use the local, not global, meanings of the words. And I did not misquote the promise. In Genesis 6 the goal of killing all people is clearly setup through "all flesh has become corrupt" and "the end of all flesh has come before me because the land is filled with violence because of them", so the usage of "never again destroy all flesh" is most appropriately interpreted to refer to people only since destroying animals was not a goal of the flood, only an effect.


 * And Strong's is a dictionary, not a biblical interpretation guide. Ancient Hebrew dropped out of common usage thousands of years ago, and there is no way for the authors of Strong's to prove any such grammatical modifier rules for specific words. And as I've said before, all of these so called 'rules' have exceptions and are therefore not really rules at all (Daniel 8:26, Daniel 11:20).


 * I agree that perfect understanding is not necessary for salvation, but hopefully you will learn to study the Bible past Genesis so that you will have understanding. Ratiocinative (talk) 09:32, 19 October 2008 (UTC)