How Are We Meant to Understand Genesis?

Ken Smith (K) wrote (May 11):

Don’s (D) eighth paragraph in his section 1 reads: Some say, “The Bible is authoritative in matters of faith and practice”. This is dangerously deficient: if we cannot trust the Bible in matters of history, for example, how can we trust it in matters of faith and practice (theology)?

K What many Christians would regard as “dangerously deficient” is the view that if we can’t trust a modern interpretation of various matters recorded in the Bible which are peripheral to its main message of salvation, then we can’t trust any what it says about faith and morals. This view essentially says that either the Bible is completely accurate when read as a modern scientific textbook, or it is completely worthless.

D

That is a caricature of what I said (Straw Man fallacy). I never said that the Bible should be read as a modern scientific textbook. I made it very clear that it should be understood using the grammatical-historical hermeneutic. I did say that the history recorded in Genesis is foundational to the rest of the Bible. And as I have shown, this history is not peripheral to the main message of salvation at all, but is foundational. If Adam was not a real person in time a space who sinned and brought physical death and corruption to God’s very good creation (Genesis 3 and Romans 8), then the Gospel is undermined, and so is our theodicy. The meaning of Jesus’ death and resurrection is predicated on the historicity of Adam and his actions (Romans 5; 1 Cor. 15). Furthermore, as I have shown over and over, my understanding of Genesis is not some new modern view, but was the view held by the church fathers since the beginning, right up to, and including, the Reformation. See ‘church fathers and reformers’ at http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/faq/genesis.asp

K

Suppose we reverse the situation. In his book “A Brief History of Time” which can claim to be the least read, and certainly the least understood, best-seller of all time, Stephen Hawking concludes with the paragraph However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be bale to take part in the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason — for then we would know the mind of God. Many Christians would claim that Hawking is wrong about human reason being able to know the mind of God. On Don’s argument, if we can’t trust Hawking here, then we can’t believe anything else that he has written. And it wouldn’t be hard to find examples of similar things written by most scientists. However anyone who claimed that no scientist could be believed would promptly be ignored, at best, and subject to ridicule from all quarters, or worse.

D

This analogy is false. I was not aware that Hawking had claimed that his book was Holy Writ (although some people treat it like it!). If Hawking had claimed that the words of his book were inspired by someone who knew everything (omniscient) and never makes mistakes (infallible) and we found clear errors in it, then we could reasonably conclude that his claim to divine inspiration for his book was false. That is the issue. And then, with the Bible, we would logically need to question Jesus who treated it as inerrant and authoritative, including the parts most scoffed at today.

K

Put in these stark terms, I suspect that Don will object. But the history of Christian theology has been based on just this contrast, and it is only since Reformation times that theologians have gradually realised the error of this approach.

D

So you do agree that our view is the historic view of the Christian church through the centuries and it is in fact the ‘liberal’ / neo-evangelical view that is the recent aberration?

K

There are exceptions from earlier times, but the dominant view has been to import into reading the Bible all the current (at the time of reading) aspects of culture, and then interpret the Biblical text to fit the culture.

D

That’s exactly what happened in Galileo’s time. The church had imported Aristotelian philosophy into the Bible and they judged Galileo accordingly. And it is exactly what you are doing today: modifying the clear teaching of the Bible to make it fit with the conjectures of historical science (the culture of today). I am not smuggling into the Bible any novel scientific view; I am understanding the Bible as it has always been understood. You have not demonstrated that the modern creationist view of origins is anything different to the traditional view of the EO and RC churches.

K

Creationists do not realise that scientists, on the whole, have a very jaundiced view of Christians who attempt to make scientific statements on the basis of some interpretation of some passages in the Bible.

D

O come on Ken! Of course we know that most scientists dislike what we are on about. And this is only to be expected, since only a minority of scientists accept the authority of the Bible. However, the vast part of the scientific enterprise has nothing to do with the Bible; it is only parts of historical ‘science’.

K

The name of Galileo is well known, but the biblical texts which were quoted at his trial for heresy,

D

And note that according to historian John Heilbron in his book The Sun in the Church: ‘Galileo’s heresy, according to the standard distinction used by the Holy Office, was “inquisitorial” rather than “theological”. This distinction allowed it to proceed against people for disobeying orders or creating scandals, although neither offence violated an article defined and promulgated by a pope or general council. … Since, however, the church had never declared that the Biblical passages implying a moving sun had to be interpreted in favour of a Ptolemaic universe as an article of faith, optimistic commentators … could understand “formally heretical” to mean “provisionally not accepted”.’

Heilbron supports this simply by documenting the general reactions by Galileo’s contemporaries and later astronomers, who: ‘appreciated that the reference to heresy in connection with Galileo or Copernicus had no general or theological significance’. (Heilbron, J.L., The Sun in the Church: Cathedrals as Solar Observatories, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999, p. 203).

This is shown by the fact that far from opposing astronomical research, the church supported astronomers and even allowed the cathedrals themselves to be used as solar observatories – hence the subtitle of Heilbron’s book, Cathedrals as Solar Observatories. These observatories, called meridiane, were ‘reverse sundials’, or gigantic pinhole cameras where the sun’s image was projected from a hole in a window in the cathedral’s lantern onto a meridian line. Analyzing the sun’s motion further weakened the Ptolemaic model, yet this research was well supported. And Arthur Koestler documented that only 50 years after Galileo, astronomers of the Jesuit Order, ‘the intellectual spearhead of the Catholic Church’, taught geokinetic astronomy in China.

K

in support of the view of a fixed earth and a moving sun, are less well known. I’ll quote from the NIV which should be acceptable to modern creationists. The world is firmly established; it cannot be moved. Psalm 93:1 The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved. Psalm 96:10 The sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises. Ecclesiastes 1:5 These verses clearly teach that the earth is stationary and that the sun moves around the earth.

D

No they don’t at all. In Psalm 93:1 (and similarly in Psalm 96:1), the phrase ‘the world also is established, that it cannot be moved’ needs to be read alongside v. 2, ‘[God’s] throne is established of old’, where the same Hebrew word [kown = ‘established’] is used and has the meaning ‘set up’, ‘stable’, ‘secure’, ‘enduring’, ‘confirmed’, etc., not ‘immobile’ or ‘stationary’. The synonymous parallelism (a feature of Hebrew poetry) needs to be noted. Likewise the Hebrew word for ‘moved’ (v.1) is used in Psalm 16:8, ‘I shall not be moved’, meaning that the writer would not stray from the path of the Lord, not that he was rooted to any one spot. The context shows that this is a false understanding of these verses – which are in the poetic books anyway. Furthermore, Psalms 93-101 are widely regarded as messianic (including by Jewish commentators), so referring to a future state, with nothing to do with the physical state of the world at the time.

Ecclesiastes 1:5 is a correct statement from the earth’s frame of reference. The late Sir Fred Hoyle made it clear that using the earth’s reference frame was not a scientific error (Nicolaus Copernicus, Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., London, p. 78, 1973):

“The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and geokineticism] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view … . Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”

That is the key issue. The geokinetic theory greatly simplifies the mathematics, since the planets move in a simple geometric curve (ellipse) around the sun. This contrasts with the ever-increasing number of epicycles required to keep the Ptolemaic system viable. But it is wrong to say that geokineticism is more ‘correct’, as Sir Fred said. The only mistake is an absolute geocentrism which claims that the earth is the only reference frame allowed, and neither Hoyle nor AiG accept this view, which the Bible didn’t teach anyway. Note that the great pioneers of geokineticism – Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler and Newton, were all Bible believers. AiG has long dealt with this misunderstood Galileo canard, e.g. http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0207dembski.asp#galileo We use the earth as a frame of reference every day (e.g., sunrise / sunset), so we should not criticize the Bible for doing so also. I hope Ken will correct his wife if she ever says, “Look at this beautiful sunset”, pointing out that it should be, “Look at what happens when the earth’s rotation brings our line of sight to the sun near a tangent on earth’s surface.”

I take the point that the insights of modern science help us to understand Scripture here, as they do the healing of the blind man: http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v21/i4/trees.asp But we are talking here about observational science, not conjectures about history parading as science. Also, we are using science in a ministerial capacity, which is to clarify certain passages, not in a magisterial capacity that overrules them.

K

Many thousands of conservative Christians, mostly in USA, regard the idea that the earth goes around the sun as one of Satan’s wiles to lead people away from Biblical truth.

D

Another attempt at the ‘guilt by association’ fallacy, Ken? AiG has published strong refutations of absolute geocentrism. See, for example: http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v15/i2/geocentrism.asp

K

And in Reformation times this teaching wasn’t restricted to just the Catholic Church: in his commentary on Psalm 93 John Calvin wrote at some length about the earth being fixed and the heavens rotating around it.

D

Actually, ‘at some length’ probably overstates it. You can read what Calvin says at http://www.biblestudyguide.org/comment/calvin/comm_vol11/htm/ii.htm But, yes, he did argue for an earth fixed in space (we all have feet of clay). Commentators are not infallible (and nor am I).

K

In each of the following sections the writers quoted take up the question Don posed in his paragraph quoted above. Repeating the last sentence here for ease of reference: … . So if we can’t trust the Bible about earthly things (such as the timeframe of creation), why should we trust it on heavenly things (e.g. faith and morals)?

D

Again, notice I was talking about a matter of history which is foundational to the Gospel. And you would need to take it up with Jesus re what He said to Nicodemus in John 3:12. Perhaps the time frame of the Resurrection doesn’t matter, Ken?

K

However the writers take a different approach to this: if our interpretation of what we claim the Bible says about earthly things conflicts with what unbelievers have learnt about the universe in which we live, how can we expect them to abandon their knowledge and accept what we say the Bible teaches about eternal verities? Are they not much more likely to simply dismiss anything we say about Christianity?

D

Not that I’ve ever seen you defend Christianity when your Skeptic buddies attack it (which they do frequently).

K

(a) The Early Church Around AD 400 there were a number of Christians who tried to deduce scientific information about the world by reading the Bible. Augustine in his large commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis had something to say about this approach. The following quotations are taken from his work “The Literal Meaning of Genesis”, translated and annotated by John Hammond Taylor, S.J., and published in two volumes by Newman Press, New York, in 1982. Augustine’s interpretations are quite cautious, and he recommends the same caution to others at the end of chapter 18 of Book 1 (on page 41 in volume 1): In matters that are obscure and far beyond our vision, even in such matters as we may find treated in Holy Scripture, different interpretations are sometimes possible without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such a case, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search of truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for the teaching of Holy Scripture but for our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture. Apparently Augustine, in his day, had trouble with people who tried to make deductions about the way the world works by assuming that Genesis provided information of a scientific nature. The long section 39 in chapter 19 of Book 1 was quoted, in part, by Galileo, and is worth reproducing in full (from pages 42 and 43 in volume 1): Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to, as being certain from reason and experience. Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn. The shame is not so much that an ignorant individual is derided, but that people outside the household of faith think our sacred writers held such opinions, and, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we toil, the writers of our Scripture are criticized and rejected as unlearned men. If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions about our books, how are they going to believe those books in matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they think their pages are full of falsehoods on facts which they themselves have learned from experience and the light of reason? Reckless and incompetent expounders of Holy Scripture bring untold trouble and sorrow on their wiser brethren when they are caught in one of their mischievous false opinions and are taken to task by those who are not bound by the authority of our sacred books. For then, to defend their utterly foolish and obviously untrue statements, they will try to call upon Holy Scripture for proof and even recite from memory many passages which they think support their position, although they understand neither what they say nor the things about which they make assertions. D

This passage has little relevance unless the particular interpretations in question are identified. Otherwise, it is pure conjecture as to what was in view. Since Augustine was largely responsible for the adoption of Aristotelian philosophy by the church, it could well have been those who (correctly) opposed this that Augustine had in mind. For example, a straightforward reading of Genesis 3 and Romans 8 should have given cause to wonder about the present creation being perfect (an Aristotelian idea).

K

The last 14 words here are quoted from Paul’s First Letter to Timothy, chapter 1, verse 7. In subsequent parts of this Commentary Augustine made further remarks deploring the dogmatism of people who wanted to insist on particular interpretations of some passages in Genesis.

D

The only interpretation of Genesis that I insist on is that which is consistent with the grammatical-historical hermeneutic, the testimony of the rest of Scripture and that which is important to the integrity of Scripture and particularly the Gospel. That is the point I made very strongly in my original posting. You have to demonstrate that my understanding of Genesis is not in concert with the rest of the Bible and that another understanding (theistic evolution?) is consistent with the rest of Scripture. I have seen nothing from you dealing with either matter.

K

Augustine’s second major work was “Concerning The City of God against the Pagans”. In Book XI of this he takes up in more detail the discussion he started in his “Confessions” about the nature of time, and the relation between time and creation. In chapter 6, entitled “The beginning of the world and the beginning of time are the same”, he writes at some length explaining his ideas, and concludes with the paragraph The world was in fact made _with_ time, if at the time of its creation change and motion came into existence. This is clearly the situation in the order of the first six or seven days, in which morning and evening are named, until God’s creation was finished on the sixth day, and on the seventh day God’s rest is emphasized as something conveying a mystic meaning. What kind of days these are is difficult or even impossible for us to imagine, to say nothing of describing them. Many theologians down through the ages have been just as wary as Augustine about attempting to define the nature of the “days”, principally because of the problem of “evening and morning” on the first three “days” before the sun was created. D

No, you will be hard pressed to find *any* ‘theologians down through the ages’ who have been wary of defining the days, other than Origen and Augustine, and neither of them believed in long ages. And as I pointed out, Augustine’s views were affected by Aristotelian philosophy and Origen allegorized all and sundry. According to Greek philosophy, the moon and sun, as celestial objects, had to be perfect. As such, they ought to have been free from blemishes such as craters and spots. Galileo observed sun spots and craters on the moon, thus coming into conflict with the church because of their Greek philosophy that they had become wedded to, not the Bible.

Also, there is no problem about the first three days. Calvin dealt with this (see link below), so since you, Ken, are so well studied in Calvin (below), you should be aware of this. See also ‘How could the days of Genesis 1 be literal if the Sun wasn’t created until the fourth day?’: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/1203.asp

K

(b) Reformation times Among conservative Christians John Calvin holds a high place, though not many of them have actually read what Calvin wrote. If they did they would get a few surprises. D

Once again, we conservative Christians are an ignorant lot!

K

Calvin was firmly of the opinion that the Bible should not be used as a source book for science, or even to provide information about the world around us. In his day (the mid-sixteenth century) the only subject which could be called “science” by modern standards was astronomy, and he made frequent reference to it. Calvin’s Commentary of Psalms has been mentioned above, but his Commentary on Genesis has much more to say about astronomy. A convenient edition is that published by the Banner of truth Trust in 1965. His words, on page 79, should be heeded by those who wish to use the Bible to derive theories in other areas of science: For, to my mind, this is a certain principle, that nothing is treated of here but the visible form of the world. He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. Had Calvin been writing today it is very probable that he would have written something like “He who would learn astronomy, physics, cosmology, quantum mechanics, geology, biology, anthropology, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere.”

D

Actually, I am confident that Calvin, like me, would make a distinction between the operational sciences, which deal with how the universe operates, which is open to repeated observation and experimentation, and the ‘sciences’ that attempt to deal with history, dreaming up stories that conflict with the history of the Bible (such as much cosmology, historical geology, palaeontology). Indeed, in his writing, he only referred to the operational sciences in this context. He made it abundantly clear that the days were literal and the death and suffering were the result of the Fall, and that Adam’s creation was different from the generation of all other people.

K

Calvin, in fact, was quite enthusiastic about the usefulness of astronomy, as is shown by his introductory remarks on Genesis 1:16 (on pages 86 and 87), dealing with the creation of the “two great lights”: I have said, that Moses does not here subtilely descant, as a philosopher, on the secrets of nature, as may be seen in these words. First, he assigns a place in the expanse of heaven to the planets and stars; but astronomers make a distinction of spheres, and, at the same time, teach that the fixed stars have their proper place in the firmament. Moses makes two great luminaries; but astronomers prove, by conclusive reasons, that the star of Saturn, which, on account of its great distance, appears the least of all, is greater than the moon. Herein lies the difference; Moses wrote in a popular style things which, without instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common sense, are able to understand; but astronomers investigate with great labour whatever the sagacity of the human mind can comprehend. Nevertheless, this study is not to be reprobated, nor this science to be condemned, because some frantic persons are wont boldly to reject whatever is unknown to them. For astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be known; it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable wisdom of God. Wherefore, as ingenious men are to be honoured who have expended useful labour on this subject, so they who have leisure and capacity ought not to neglect this kind of exercise. Nor did Moses truly wish to withdraw us from this pursuit in omitting such things as are peculiar to the art; but because he was ordained a teacher as well of the unlearned and rude as of the learned, he could not otherwise fulfil his office than by descending to this grosser method of instruction. Had he spoken of things generally unknown, the uneducated might have pleaded in excuse that such objects were beyond their capacity.

D

What is wrong with that? The moon is the second brightest light in our sky from our perspective. And the context is about giving light to the earth, not absolute magnitude.

K

Calvin is also renowned for his “Institutes of the Christian Religion”, a systematic approach to Christian theology. The following extracts are taken from the translation by Ford Lewis Battles, published by SCM Press in 1961. In chapter II of Book Two he shows his sympathy for the scientific endeavour in three sections. Section 14, `Understanding as regards art and science’, gives a general introduction. Section 15, `Science as God’s gift’, is worth quoting in full. Whenever we come upon these matters in secular writers, let that admirable light of truth shining in them teach us that the mind of man, though fallen and perverted from its wholeness, is nevertheless clothed and ornamented with God’s excellent gifts. If we regard the Spirit of God as the sole fountain of truth, we shall neither reject the truth itself, nor despise it wherever it shall appear, unless we wish to dishonor the Spirit of God. For by holding the gifts of the Spirit in slight esteem, we contemn and reproach the Spirit himself. What then? Shall we deny that the truth shone upon the ancient jurists who established civic order and discipline with such great equity? Shall we say that the philosophers were blind in their fine observation and artful description of nature? Shall we say that those men were devoid of understanding who conceived the art of disputation and taught us to speak reasonably? Shall we say that they are insane who developed medicine, devoting their labor to our benefit? What shall we say of all the mathematical sciences? Shall we consider them the ravings of madmen? No, we cannot read the writings of the ancients on these subjects without great admiration. We marvel at them because we are compelled to recognize how preeminent they are. But shall we count anything praiseworthy or noble without recognizing at the same time that it comes from God? Let us be ashamed of such ingratitude, into which not even the pagan poets fell, for they confessed that the gods had invented philosophy, laws, and all useful arts. Those men whom Scripture [I Cor. 2:14] calls “natural men” were, indeed, sharp and penetrating in their investigation of inferior things. Let us, accordingly, learn by their example how many gifts the Lord left to human nature even after it was despoiled of its true good. And in Section 16, `Human competence in art and science also derives from the Spirit of God’ Calvin expands on this. It is sufficient to quote just two sentences form this section. But if the Lord has willed that we be helped in physics, dialectic, mathematics, and other like disciplines, by the work and ministry of the ungodly, let us use this assistance. For if we neglect God’s gift freely offered in these arts, we ought to suffer just punishment for our sloths. So let us on a.r.c accept and use the “work and ministry” of ungodly geologists and biologists to help us understand more about the fascinating universe in which we find ourselves.

D

I have absolutely no problem with what Calvin said. It is concordant with the origin of modern science amongst those who firmly believed the Bible as the Word of God, so all this is rather beside the point. But, Ken, you subtly shifted from the science that Calvin was referring to (the experimental / observational sciences) to matters of history (historical geology and biological evolution), as if Calvin was speaking of these. Calvin was straight about the history of Genesis, stating clearly that he believed that God created everything ‘in the space of six days’, suffering and corruption on the earth came because of sin, physical death came because of sin, Adam and Eve were real people created directly by God, and a global flood, etc. (see http://www.answersingenesis.org/creation/v22/i4/calvin.asp ), so any so-called ‘science’ that contradicted this clear history of the Bible would not have gotten very far with Calvin. Such ‘science’ is not based on repeatable experiments or repeatable observation, but on materialistic presuppositions and story-telling about what supposedly happened in the past and when it happened.

K

(c) The 20th century Conrad Hyers, Professor of Religion, Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, has gathered together a number of his writings on science and religion into a book “The Meaning of Creation: Genesis and Modern Science”, published by John Knox Press in 1984. The first chapter, `Dinosaur Religion and Religion as Dinosaur’, is essentially a scathing criticism of creationism. In this he writes, on page 26: It may be true that scientism and evolutionism (not science and evolution) are among the causes of atheism and materialism. It is at least equally true that biblical literalism, from its earlier flat-earth and geocentric forms to its recent young-earth and flood-geology forms, is one of the major causes of atheism and materialism. Many scientists and intellectuals have simply taken the literalists at their word and rejected biblical materials as being superseded or contradicted by modern science. Without having in hand a clear and persuasive alternative, they have concluded that it is nobler to be damned by the literalists than to dismiss the best testimony of research and reason. Intellectual honesty and integrity demand it. It has been only too easy to dismiss the biblical teaching of Creator and creation by dismissing scientific creationism. It has been equally easy to conclude that scientific evidence leads to naturalistic conclusions and a nonreligious world view, since scientific and religious statements have already been placed on the same level. If the resulting evolutionism offers a kind of dinosaur religion, by the same logic biblical literalism turns religion into a dinosaur. The extreme rarity of scientific fraud among practising scientists is a good testimony to their “[i]ntellectual honesty and integrity”. And if the medical area, where financial rewards are greatest, and the temptations to fudge data are greatest, is excluded, scientific fraud is virtually unknown.

D

Hmmm…. Actually, evolutionary ‘sciences’ are rife with fraud: Haeckel’s embryo drawings; Piltdown man (it took 40 years to expose, such is the efficiency of the self-correcting nature of such ‘science’); the faked photos of peppered moths resting on tree trunks (they don’t, which then throws the just-so story of their adaptation into confusion); the feathered dinosaur (Archaeoraptor) published by National Geographic (Alan Feduccia, evolutionist bird expert at the University of North Carolina, reckons there is much more fraud yet to be uncovered regarding other supposed feathered dinosaurs); the Indian palaeontologist Vishwa Gupta maintained his fraudulent enterprise for over 25 years (in 1989, Australian palaeontologist John Talent wrote in Nature that Gupta faked over 300 papers). So much for peer review in palaeontology. How much more remains to be uncovered and probably never will be because of the lack of repeatable experiments that can be done on the past? Last year, Mostafa Imam, a Saudi Arabian palaeontologist was exposed for plagiarism. And just this year we have the German anthropologist expert on Neandertals exposed as cooking up his carbon dates (re-dating has given much younger ages): http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2005/0413dating_fraud.asp And I expect that much more remains to be revealed in the field of palaeoanthropology, because those funding the hunt for human ancestors have to get some tangible results to encourage them to continue the funding. It is not just medical research that is open to bias or financial incentives. Indeed, I am very aware of medical research and, considering the vast amount done, there is really not much fraud at all. Because medical experiments are likely to be repeated (and can be), fraud will be uncovered, so the risk is not worth it. However, with palaeontology, it is often difficult for anyone outside the outfit responsible for the initial study to even repeat the observations on the fossils and much of the background (geological location, etc.) has to be taken on faith and cannot be checked after the fossils are removed to the museum. It is a field ripe for fraud and this is the ‘science’ that the history of life on earth is determined by. And here I haven’t even begun to mention the fanciful interpretations, later shown to be so, which are so common in palaeontology (especially palaeoanthropology).

And Hyers is simply misinformed about flat-earth belief, which was almost absent in the Church, as historian Jeffrey Burton Russell showed (http://id-www.ucsb.edu/fscf/library/RUSSELL/FlatEarth.html ), and Hyers is also misinformed about the Galileo affair, as I have already indicated.

K

Further comment from me would not add anything to what these three highly esteemed theologians have said. They are united in pointing out that the Bible is not intended to provide scientific information, but is for guidance in spiritual matters. In his “Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina” Galileo quoted another theologian (a marginal note in Galileo’s hand attributes this to Cardinal Baronius (1538-1607) ): I would say here something that was heard from an ecclesiastic of the most eminent degree: “That the intention of the Holy Ghost is to teach us how to go to heaven, not how heaven goes.”

D

Again, there is a profound confusion of categories here. Of course I don’t go to the Bible to understand that water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen atoms (but it was the Bible that led to the science that discovered this). However, I do go to the history recorded in Genesis to understand why Jesus came and died on the cross and how I can understand that God is good, because the world we live in is not the same as God created; it is corrupt because of the sin of the first (real) people, Adam and Eve. This real history is what this is all about, versus a false history masquerading as science.

K

Dr Ken Smith – Christian, husband, unpaid mathematician, skeptic, … `To demonstrate that evolutionary theory was not true, they [creationists] did not hesitate to misquote, distort, take out of context, and in other ways violate the biblical injunction against false witness.’ Isaac Asimov

D

So, this is Ken Smith’s approach to being civil? You use the words of an atheist to slander your fellow Christians, accusing them (and by implication me) of lying! On JMM you also cited the atheist Ho-Stuart to say of my colleague and brother in the Lord, Jonathan Sarfati: “Sarfati is an idiot, and he is telling you lies” (with no substantiation of such sin). You have a funny idea of being civil, Ken.

Don