Doc Holliday said:

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4th and Inches said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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J.J.Crockett said:

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1 CORINTHIANS, Chapter 2

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Yep Paul is writing to the Church, about apostolic transmission of the mind of God. The interpreter is the Spirit bearing community, i.e., the Church. That's why 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the Church "the pillar and ground (or bulwark) of the truth".

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the true church is people filled with the Holy Spirit. Everybody else is a wolf in sheeps clothing

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So who are these Spirit-filled people? How do you identify them? How do you know you're one of them and not the wolf?

Christians that have opposing dogma, those that deny the divinity of Christ and those that contradict each other all claim to have the Holy Spirit. Am I to believe the Holy Spirit sews confusion? How does an invisible, unidentifiable community function as a pillar and ground of truth in the world?

You need an external, authoritative, historically continuous standard against which claims to the Spirit can be tested. That is exactly what the Church's episcopate, Holy Tradition, and the Ecumenical Councils provide. The Spirit was promised to lead the Church into all truth (John 16:13)

You have two choices. Either believe yourself to be an individual pope or you can believe Christ established a visible Church aka Orthodoxy.

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you will know them by thier fruit..

The Holy Spirit guides me and I test my thoughts and my actions against scripture.

A Sprit lead church has apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers along with elders and deacons

1 Corinthians 12:28
And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

1 Corinthians 14:26
What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Who is chosing the readings, the teaching, the revelation, the prayer in tongues and the interpretation? Most churches, the pastor is doing all of this (or your church doesnt do it) while the body sits and listens.

After church, so many Christians of all denominations go about their worldly ways. My neighbor is Catholic, he serves at his church. He takes communion. He lies, he cusses, he is prideful, he is a worldly sinner.

I have another close friend who also is Catholic, and serves at his church. In the world, he acts like a good Christian.

Same with my protestant friends. It's easy to see by how they act outside of church whether they have the true spirit or not.. the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

These are not things to work on, they are naturally appearing. Christ is the root, you are the branch. Rooted in Christ, the good fruit grows. Without God,you can do nothing.

4th and Inches said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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4th and Inches said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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J.J.Crockett said:

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1 CORINTHIANS, Chapter 2

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Yep Paul is writing to the Church, about apostolic transmission of the mind of God. The interpreter is the Spirit bearing community, i.e., the Church. That's why 1 Timothy 3:15 calls the Church "the pillar and ground (or bulwark) of the truth".

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the true church is people filled with the Holy Spirit. Everybody else is a wolf in sheeps clothing

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So who are these Spirit-filled people? How do you identify them? How do you know you're one of them and not the wolf?

Christians that have opposing dogma, those that deny the divinity of Christ and those that contradict each other all claim to have the Holy Spirit. Am I to believe the Holy Spirit sews confusion? How does an invisible, unidentifiable community function as a pillar and ground of truth in the world?

You need an external, authoritative, historically continuous standard against which claims to the Spirit can be tested. That is exactly what the Church's episcopate, Holy Tradition, and the Ecumenical Councils provide. The Spirit was promised to lead the Church into all truth (John 16:13)

You have two choices. Either believe yourself to be an individual pope or you can believe Christ established a visible Church aka Orthodoxy.

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you will know them by thier fruit..

The Holy Spirit guides me and I test my thoughts and my actions against scripture.

A Sprit lead church has apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers along with elders and deacons

1 Corinthians 12:28
And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.

1 Corinthians 14:26
What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification.

Who is chosing the readings, the teaching, the revelation, the prayer in tongues and the interpretation? Most churches, the pastor is doing all of this (or your church doesnt do it) while the body sits and listens.

After church, so many Christians of all denominations go about their worldly ways. My neighbor is Catholic, he serves at his church. He takes communion. He lies, he cusses, he is prideful, he is a worldly sinner.

I have another close friend who also is Catholic, and serves at his church. In the world, he acts like a good Christian.

Same with my protestant friends. It's easy to see by how they act outside of church whether they have the true spirit or not.. the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

These are not things to work on, they are naturally appearing. Christ is the root, you are the branch. Rooted in Christ, the good fruit grows. Without God,you can do nothing.

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The Donatists tried your same argument and Augustine destroyed it. The holiness of individual members can't be the mark of the true Church. Mormons claim the same thing and show it...but we both know they're not Christians. You've described a church identified by invisible fruit, led by personal spirit guidance, validated by private Scripture reading. You've also said the Holy Spirit leads Christians...yet Christians "filled with the Holy Spirit" hold contradictory doctrines. You've given me no external criterion that isn't ultimately reducible to your own judgment.

Facts:

The Church existed for decades before a single Gospel was written down, and for centuries before the New Testament canon was officially closed.

How was the faith preserved? It was preserved through oral transmission, communal memory, and liturgy. This isn't contested. Its factual. Even most protestant scholars agree.

The New Testament Scriptures are the written expression of that already existing liturgical life, not a manual used to construct it later. When the Apostles went out, they didn't hand people a leather bound Bible to a population that almost entirely couldn't read for the next 1800 years. They established communities that prayed a specific way, baptized a specific way, and broke bread a specific way.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Are ya'll aware that the word of God isn't just scripture?

The Word of God is primarily a Person, not a text. The Logos is the Second Person of the Trinity. Scripture bears witness to Him, it's a letter about the Word, not the Word itself in the most proper sense.

Oral tradition preceded and accompanied written Scripture throughout salvation history. From Adam to Moses there was no written revelation, yet no one considers that period devoid of God's word. The prophets preached far more than was ever written down, Obadiah's 21 verses hardly represent his entire ministry.

The apostles didn't establish a canon. If sola scriptura were foundational to the Gospel, Christ and the apostles would have prioritized assembling one. Instead it took centuries of councils and debate, meaning the early church operated without sola scriptura by definition.

Paul explicitly calls his oral preaching the word of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 is direct, the Thessalonians received his spoken teaching "not as the word of men but as the word of God."

The canon itself is a product of Tradition. Even evangelical scholars like FF Bruce and Lee McDonald concede that apostolic tradition and church authority were absolutely necessary for determining which books belong. A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list.

The lectionary and liturgical context produced the canon, not academic textual scholarship, and not a self authenticating biblical text.

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You: "A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list."

Of course it can. This is exactly how God has been able to achieve his infallible will through fallible man ever since the fall. It's how the Jews were able to recognize their infallible canon of Scripture, despite obviously being fallible themselves.

No one doubts that oral tradition is how it started. But for us today, we don't have the original apostles with us, we only have the written record of their oral tradition, as well as their written letters. The simple fact is this: everything the church has today in its possession that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture, and nowhere else.

**Do the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have ANYTHING in their possession that we know came from the apostles through a continuous, unbroken chain of witness, that is NOT in Scripture? If so, what is it?

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Paul explicitly tells the Tessalonians to hold to traditions delivered by word or by epistle (2 Thess 2:15). He tells Timothy that the things he heard orally in the presence of many witnesses are to be committed to faithful men after him (2 Tim 2:2). Paul himself says he taught in Ephesus for three years day and night: do you seriously believe every word of that three year teaching is containing in his epistles? The text itself even tells you it isn't.

The Jews had no settled, universally agreed canon in the 1st century. There were competing canons, debates over books like Esther, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Songs well into the 2nd century. So the example you chose...actually demonstrates that the canonization required an authoritative community process, not individual fallible recognition producing a clean infallible result.

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Paul tells them to hold to THEIR traditions, meaning the apostles'. Not to any oral tradition created by the church.

No, not everything Paul ever uttered is likely to be contained in Scripture - but what's in Scripture is what the Holy Spirit decided to preserve. If you have his other teachings, then by all means, do share them. But you don't. No one does.

There is no evidence that the Hebrew canon wasn't closed. There was debate over whether books like Esther should remain in their canon, but the decision was always to keep it in. In other words, there were challenges to the canon, but the canon stayed the same. And ultimately, Jesus himself verified that their canon (the Tanakh) was correct.

No, canonization did not necessarily require an "authoritative community process". In the first century of the church, the vast majority of the New Testament was already collectively recognized as canon Scripture, not by any authoritative office's decree, but rather by the unified mindset of the Holy Spirit-led people of God, aka his church. No one is saying it is individually determined.

God has ALWAYS used fallible man to achieve his infallible will. That's how he demonstrates his sovereignty. The canon of Scripture is no exception.

Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Are ya'll aware that the word of God isn't just scripture?

The Word of God is primarily a Person, not a text. The Logos is the Second Person of the Trinity. Scripture bears witness to Him, it's a letter about the Word, not the Word itself in the most proper sense.

Oral tradition preceded and accompanied written Scripture throughout salvation history. From Adam to Moses there was no written revelation, yet no one considers that period devoid of God's word. The prophets preached far more than was ever written down, Obadiah's 21 verses hardly represent his entire ministry.

The apostles didn't establish a canon. If sola scriptura were foundational to the Gospel, Christ and the apostles would have prioritized assembling one. Instead it took centuries of councils and debate, meaning the early church operated without sola scriptura by definition.

Paul explicitly calls his oral preaching the word of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 is direct, the Thessalonians received his spoken teaching "not as the word of men but as the word of God."

The canon itself is a product of Tradition. Even evangelical scholars like FF Bruce and Lee McDonald concede that apostolic tradition and church authority were absolutely necessary for determining which books belong. A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list.

The lectionary and liturgical context produced the canon, not academic textual scholarship, and not a self authenticating biblical text.

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You: "A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list."

Of course it can. This is exactly how God has been able to achieve his infallible will through fallible man ever since the fall. It's how the Jews were able to recognize their infallible canon of Scripture, despite obviously being fallible themselves.

No one doubts that oral tradition is how it started. But for us today, we don't have the original apostles with us, we only have the written record of their oral tradition, as well as their written letters. The simple fact is this: everything the church has today in its possession that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture, and nowhere else.

**Do the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have ANYTHING in their possession that we know came from the apostles through a continuous, unbroken chain of witness, that is NOT in Scripture? If so, what is it?

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Yes the Church possess several things traceable to apostolic origin that aren't in Scripture.

1.) The Liturgy: The eucharistic liturgical structure, the shape of Christian worship, predates any canonical New Testament document and is attested continuously from the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius forward. Paul references an already established eucharistic tradition in 1 Cor 11:23 using technical transmission language parelabon/paredoka: recieved/delivered. The same language used for oral tradition.

2.) Baptismal practice/formula: The trinitarian baptismal formula and its theological freight is transmitted liturgically and catechetically, not exhaustively defined in the text alone.

The irony of your position is that you asked what the Church has that came from the apostles outside of Scripture...but the table of contents you're using to define Scripture is itself not in Scripture. The canon is an apostolic tradition transmitted through the Church. You received it from people you identify as pagan idol worshippers.

Here's an easy one. The tile "The Book of Matthew" is not found anywhere in the text itself. So how do you know it's Matthew's book? Answer 'Apostolic Tradition'.

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The Liturgy - sorry, this is obviously untrue, as your liturgy credits Mary for your salvation. I don't see how any rational person can even come CLOSE to arguing that the original apostles taught this. In fact, as I've been repeatedly saying, if one doesn't recognize this as egregious heresy and idolatry, it is highly likely that you aren't a Christian at all.

- Trinitarian Baptismal formula - STRAIGHT out of Scripture - "... baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".

- The canon of Scripture is NOT an apostolic tradition. No apostle taught which books were to be canon. You made this same claim before. You are repeating your mistakes.

- the book of Matthew: there is no apostolic tradition that Matthew wrote this book. That tradition comes from the unbroken chain of witness of the people of God, aka his church, starting from those who were first hand witnesses and therefore could attest to its authorship.

BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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BusyTarpDuster2017 said:

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Doc Holliday said:

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Are ya'll aware that the word of God isn't just scripture?

The Word of God is primarily a Person, not a text. The Logos is the Second Person of the Trinity. Scripture bears witness to Him, it's a letter about the Word, not the Word itself in the most proper sense.

Oral tradition preceded and accompanied written Scripture throughout salvation history. From Adam to Moses there was no written revelation, yet no one considers that period devoid of God's word. The prophets preached far more than was ever written down, Obadiah's 21 verses hardly represent his entire ministry.

The apostles didn't establish a canon. If sola scriptura were foundational to the Gospel, Christ and the apostles would have prioritized assembling one. Instead it took centuries of councils and debate, meaning the early church operated without sola scriptura by definition.

Paul explicitly calls his oral preaching the word of God. 1 Thessalonians 2:13 is direct, the Thessalonians received his spoken teaching "not as the word of men but as the word of God."

The canon itself is a product of Tradition. Even evangelical scholars like FF Bruce and Lee McDonald concede that apostolic tradition and church authority were absolutely necessary for determining which books belong. A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list.

The lectionary and liturgical context produced the canon, not academic textual scholarship, and not a self authenticating biblical text.

---

You: "A fallible process can't reliably produce an infallible list."

Of course it can. This is exactly how God has been able to achieve his infallible will through fallible man ever since the fall. It's how the Jews were able to recognize their infallible canon of Scripture, despite obviously being fallible themselves.

No one doubts that oral tradition is how it started. But for us today, we don't have the original apostles with us, we only have the written record of their oral tradition, as well as their written letters. The simple fact is this: everything the church has today in its possession that we know came from the apostles is in Scripture, and nowhere else.

**Do the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have ANYTHING in their possession that we know came from the apostles through a continuous, unbroken chain of witness, that is NOT in Scripture? If so, what is it?

---

Yes the Church possess several things traceable to apostolic origin that aren't in Scripture.

1.) The Liturgy: The eucharistic liturgical structure, the shape of Christian worship, predates any canonical New Testament document and is attested continuously from the Didache, Justin Martyr, and Ignatius forward. Paul references an already established eucharistic tradition in 1 Cor 11:23 using technical transmission language parelabon/paredoka: recieved/delivered. The same language used for oral tradition.

2.) Baptismal practice/formula: The trinitarian baptismal formula and its theological freight is transmitted liturgically and catechetically, not exhaustively defined in the text alone.

The irony of your position is that you asked what the Church has that came from the apostles outside of Scripture...but the table of contents you're using to define Scripture is itself not in Scripture. The canon is an apostolic tradition transmitted through the Church. You received it from people you identify as pagan idol worshippers.

Here's an easy one. The tile "The Book of Matthew" is not found anywhere in the text itself. So how do you know it's Matthew's book? Answer 'Apostolic Tradition'.

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The Liturgy - sorry, this is obviously untrue, as your liturgy credits Mary for your salvation. I don't see how any rational person can even come CLOSE to arguing that the original apostles taught this. In fact, as I've been repeatedly saying, if one doesn't recognize this as egregious heresy and idolatry, it is highly likely that you aren't a Christian at all.

- Trinitarian Baptismal formula - STRAIGHT out of Scripture - "... baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit".

- The canon of Scripture is NOT an apostolic tradition. No apostle taught which books were to be canon. You made this same claim before. You are repeating your mistakes.

- the book of Matthew: there is no apostolic tradition that Matthew wrote this book. That tradition comes from the unbroken chain of witness of the people of God, aka his church, starting from those who were first hand witnesses and therefore could attest to its authorship.

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Stop throwing a temper tantrum. This is why we I don't want to argue with you anymore because you resort to childish bull **** and claims like we worship Mary.

Our liturgy credits Christ for salvation consistently, repeatedly, liturgy-wide. The Theotokos is asked to intercede to her Son. The entire point of calling her Theotokos is a Christological affirmation, she bore God incarnate. So this idea that you think we believe she's God or can save us is re tar ded . Nobody believes that. This is you making a strawman to encourage others to hate us.

Boy do you hate us. You wont even tell us what denomination you are. Coward.

You made a specific factual claim about Orthodox worship, got it wrong, and then told me I'm probably not a Christian. Good luck changing minds like that.

Blocked.

.

So, clearly I was not throwing a "temper tantrum". It's obvious that was pure projection.

It's also clear that the Ortho bros can not deal with the serious Scriptural, historical, and logical issues presented to them that put the Orthodox Church's views in a quandary; so instead of facing them, they've decided to resort to denial and block me, as if that somehow solves their troubling issues.

This isn't about "hate" against Orthodox Christians. It is, however, about hate against their church's false teachings. The repeated claim of Orthodoxy is that their liturgy is apostolic - but does any rational, intelligent Christian truly believe that the apostolic churches in Acts were singing hymns to Mary that credit her for salvation and bowing and praying to images of saints? All while in elaborate costumes and in shiny, golden rooms with images of saints everywhere, singing "Anathema! Anathema!" against those outside their church? The Orthodox liturgy is considered infallible canon. I've posted this before, but it bears repeating here. This is what they say of Mary in what they consider to be apostolic and infalllible liturgy:

• SHE is the propitiation of the whole world.
• SHE is the restoration of men.
• SHE is the forgiveness for many who have stumbled.
• Through HER our sin is remitted.
• SHE is the ship of all who would be saved.
• SHE is the gate of salvation.
• SHE is the provider of God's mercy.
• Through HER is given new birth to those conceived in shame.
• SHE is the beginning of the new and spiritual creation.
• SHE joins in union the faithful to the Lord.
• SHE takes away the filth of sin.
• SHE is the acceptable sacrifice
• SHE is the salvation of my soul.

Folks, remember, ^^^THIS is what the Orthodox Church believes to be the faith of the apostles and the first churches. THIS is what Doc gets so defensive about when I bring it up. He calls it "hate" to call this for what it clearly is. This is what the Orthos defend with everything they have, mostly because they HAVE TO, otherwise their church's authority claims fail. This shows they are not of the truth, that they'd rather sacrifice truth for their tribe. I think it's clear to any true Christian what the spirit behind the Orthodox church, as well as Roman Catholicism which shares its many errors, really is.

Mary was a good woman to be honored in Christ for her blessing of baring the Son of God, but I agree that Catholics take things way too far with her. It seems like worship to me. We are only to pray to God Himself. We are only to worship God Himself. She cannot help us against the attacks of the devil, only the Lord can..

I find all this knowledge comforting , but at this point in time we should be on the wall watching .

J.J.Crockett said:

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I find all this knowledge comforting , but at this point in time we should be on the wall watching .

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We definitely should be on the wall watching but we can do both. We can talk about Theology and spiritual things while also watching at the same time.

It's a great Sunday and make sure you attend Biblical Chirch Services today.

Make sure you guys are translating from the LXX and not just the Masoretic text, or you're going to get wrong interpretations.

Ex. If you read Isaiah 53:10 as "pleased to crush him" and then interpret that as affirming penal substitutionary atonement...that's incorrect. Crush is derived from the Masoretic (6th-10th century). Its not what the apostles used.



The dead sea scrolls align more closely with the LXX. I'm not saying the MT is off limits, but to get the true translation is tricky.

Biblical Greek is a fake concept. The concept of 'Biblical Greek' as a distinct, standalone language is a misnomer. The NT wasn't written in standard Greek, but in a specific Jewish dialect of the language. Think of it like Yiddish, which is a Jewish dialect of German. The authors of the NT were using a version of Greek heavily shaped by their own Hebrew and Aramaic thought patterns. If you're just looking at Koine, you can end up treating the language as though it exists in a vacuum. Also specific authors have their own differences: like Paul's Greek is a higher register, he was a learned person and Luke's Greek is "proper Greek" he was a native Greek speaker.

This is why the patristic understanding and early Church fathers are so important. Going solely with scripture is a bad idea.

Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Any error by definition refutes inerrancy. One being more egregious than another is not the point. The totality of errors and inconsistencies overwhelmingly demonstrate errancy. Start with Genesis - Genesis 1 describes a false cosmology where a solid "firmament" separates waters above from below.

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Thank you for listing one apparent contradiction.

Do you assume that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are designed to be a science book?

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Answers in Genesis??? Ken Ham, fundamentalist evangelical Christian.

Blessed are they who have ears that hear, and eyes that see. Up on the wall, I see , DANIEL 11: 28 , DANIEL 11: 37, 38 &39. I see , JEREMIAH 51 : 14 . JEREMIAH 51 : 39 & 46 .

TexasScientist said:

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Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Any error by definition refutes inerrancy. One being more egregious than another is not the point. The totality of errors and inconsistencies overwhelmingly demonstrate errancy. Start with Genesis - Genesis 1 describes a false cosmology where a solid "firmament" separates waters above from below.

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Thank you for listing one apparent contradiction.

Do you assume that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are designed to be a science book?

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Answers in Genesis??? Ken Ham, fundamentalist evangelical Christian.

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Forgive me, but I don't know who that is or what you mean by your post.

In discussing alleged contradictions, you mentioned "false cosmology where a solid firmament separates waters from above and below."

I simply asked you if you thought that Genesis was designed to be a science book.

I'll rephrase and ask if you understand what the genre of literature genesis or at least the first 11 chapters of Genesis is?

Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Any error by definition refutes inerrancy. One being more egregious than another is not the point. The totality of errors and inconsistencies overwhelmingly demonstrate errancy. Start with Genesis - Genesis 1 describes a false cosmology where a solid "firmament" separates waters above from below.

---

Thank you for listing one apparent contradiction.

Do you assume that the first 11 chapters of Genesis are designed to be a science book?

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Answers in Genesis??? Ken Ham, fundamentalist evangelical Christian.

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Forgive me, but I don't know who that is or what you mean by your post.

In discussing alleged contradictions, you mentioned "false cosmology where a solid firmament separates waters from above and below."

I simply asked you if you thought that Genesis was designed to be a science book.

I'll rephrase and ask if you understand what the genre of literature genesis or at least the first 11 chapters of Genesis is?

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Ken Ham is the evangelist who built a replica of Noah's arc and sells tickets to the gullible, and he also built and runs the creation museum.

Ham teaches the Bible is a science book. That is how I was answering your question. Of course I don't believe any of the Bible is designed to be a science book, but Ken Ham and millions like him who are fundamentalist evangelical Christians do. You find them posting on this board.

Genesis first 11 chapters are theological history or mythological historical prose. It blends creation narratives, mythological motifs, and folklore from a myriad of older primitive sources. It has nothing to do with reality and everything do with theologic mythology.

TexasScientist said:

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Ken Ham is the evangelist who built a replica of Noah's arc and sells tickets to the gullible, and he also built and runs the creation museum.

Ham teaches the Bible is a science book. That is how I was answering your question. Of course I don't believe any of the Bible is designed to be a science book, but Ken Ham and millions like him who are fundamentalist evangelical Christians do. You find them posting on this board.

Genesis first 11 chapters are theological history or mythological historical prose. It blends creation narratives, mythological motifs, and folklore from a myriad of older primitive sources. It has nothing to do with reality and everything do with theologic mythology.

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Thank you. By your post, I would say that you understand that Ken Ham's view on Genesis don't speak for all of Christianity.

The Catholic Church does not teach that the Bible, much less the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is a science book either.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1909 affirmed that Genesis contains history in a true sense, but it acknowledges that the authors used literary forms proper to ancient Near Eastern culture.

In 1943, Pope Pius XII released his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu which explicitly directed Catholic exegetes to study the literary genres (genera litteraria) of ancient writers, stating that the sacred writers did not always write with the intention of conveying modern scientific or historical precision but always with the intention of conveying theological truth.

In 1950, Pope Pius released another encyclical, Humani Generis, directly addressing Genesis 1-11:

• They are not myth in the pagan sense
• Do contain history but history written in a popular and figurative style
• Must be interpreted in light of their ancient literary context

Finally, the consensus of Catholic scholars label those early Genesis chapters as primeval history which is widely found in ancient Near Eastern culture that uses:

• Figurative and symbolic language
• Archetypal narratives (stories that describe universal human truths)
• Theological poetry (especially Genesis 1, which reads as a structured liturgical hymn)
• Etiological narrative (stories that explain the origin and cause of present realities)

Considering all of this, I hope that we can agree that "false cosmology where a solid firmament separates waters from above and below," is NOT a contradiction given our somewhat mutual understanding of the literary genre those chapters.

What other alleged contradiction would you like to discuss?

Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Ken Ham is the evangelist who built a replica of Noah's arc and sells tickets to the gullible, and he also built and runs the creation museum.

Ham teaches the Bible is a science book. That is how I was answering your question. Of course I don't believe any of the Bible is designed to be a science book, but Ken Ham and millions like him who are fundamentalist evangelical Christians do. You find them posting on this board.

Genesis first 11 chapters are theological history or mythological historical prose. It blends creation narratives, mythological motifs, and folklore from a myriad of older primitive sources. It has nothing to do with reality and everything do with theologic mythology.

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Thank you. By your post, I would say that you understand that Ken Ham's view on Genesis don't speak for all of Christianity.

The Catholic Church does not teach that the Bible, much less the first 11 chapters of Genesis, is a science book either.

The Pontifical Biblical Commission in 1909 affirmed that Genesis contains history in a true sense, but it acknowledges that the authors used literary forms proper to ancient Near Eastern culture.

In 1943, Pope Pius XII released his encyclical Divino Afflante Spiritu which explicitly directed Catholic exegetes to study the literary genres (genera litteraria) of ancient writers, stating that the sacred writers did not always write with the intention of conveying modern scientific or historical precision but always with the intention of conveying theological truth.

In 1950, Pope Pius released another encyclical, Humani Generis, directly addressing Genesis 1-11:

• They are not myth in the pagan sense
• Do contain history but history written in a popular and figurative style
• Must be interpreted in light of their ancient literary context

Finally, the consensus of Catholic scholars label those early Genesis chapters as primeval history which is widely found in ancient Near Eastern culture that uses:

• Figurative and symbolic language
• Archetypal narratives (stories that describe universal human truths)
• Theological poetry (especially Genesis 1, which reads as a structured liturgical hymn)
• Etiological narrative (stories that explain the origin and cause of present realities)

Considering all of this, I hope that we can agree that "false cosmology where a solid firmament separates waters from above and below," is NOT a contradiction given our somewhat mutual understanding of the literary genre those chapters.

What other alleged contradiction would you like to discuss?

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Oh I'm glad to know you don't believe in what is literally written as being literally factual. You'll draw a lot of criticism from the evangelical fundamentalists on this board. However, the literal writing is in contradiction with the evidence of reality. No where in the Bible does it say it is written with any other meaning, figurative, or allegorical style. It took a 'man' to try and salvage the theology in the face of obvious conflict with the evidence by attempting a work around by edict. What it reveals is that it is not a divinely written book, but rather a book and religion with beliefs and roots in more ancient cultures - people from primitive Bronze and Iron Age immersed in ignorance.

Coke Bear said:

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Considering all of this, I hope that we can agree that "false cosmology where a solid firmament separates waters from above and below,"

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Recently, I picked up an English translation of the Ethopian Orthodox Bible. It doesn't render Genesis 1 as firmament, but rather as sky. Also picked up an English translation of the Mashafa Kidan and read that today. Pretty clear that's a non-canonical text, but provides some insight into early Christian thinking and liturgy.

TexasScientist said:

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Oh I'm glad to know you don't believe in what is literally written as being literally factual. You'll draw a lot of criticism from the evangelical fundamentalists on this board. However, the literal writing is in contradiction with the evidence of reality. No where in the Bible does it say it is written with any other meaning, figurative, or allegorical style. It took a 'man' to try and salvage the theology in the face of obvious conflict with the evidence by attempting a work around by edict. What it reveals is that it is not a divinely written book, but rather a book and religion with beliefs and roots in more ancient cultures - people from primitive Bronze and Iron Age immersed in ignorance.

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I disagree with your assertion that "it took a 'man' to try and salvage the theology in the face of obvious conflict."

Many early people understood the type of literature that Genesis is.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185254) believed that Chapters 1-11 were allegorical. He argued that the creation "days" could not be solar days in any straightforward sense, noting with remarkable acuity that the allegorical interpreters had specific scriptural reasons for rejecting a calendar-day view of Genesis 1; in particular, the creation days could not be solar days if the Sun was not created until the fourth day.

Clement of Alexandria (c. 152217) (most likely the Clement in mentioned in Phil 4:3) also believed in an allegorical nature of those passages.

But for the sake of the argument, let's say that people believed in the literal interpretation due to a lack of their scientific knowledge ...

If the scriptures were divinely authored, would you agree that a Divine author could written them to fit the genre and still hold historical truths?

Do you believe that it is disingenuous to state that literature has contradictions when authors are using common idioms?

Coke Bear said:

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TexasScientist said:

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Oh I'm glad to know you don't believe in what is literally written as being literally factual. You'll draw a lot of criticism from the evangelical fundamentalists on this board. However, the literal writing is in contradiction with the evidence of reality. No where in the Bible does it say it is written with any other meaning, figurative, or allegorical style. It took a 'man' to try and salvage the theology in the face of obvious conflict with the evidence by attempting a work around by edict. What it reveals is that it is not a divinely written book, but rather a book and religion with beliefs and roots in more ancient cultures - people from primitive Bronze and Iron Age immersed in ignorance.

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I disagree with your assertion that "it took a 'man' to try and salvage the theology in the face of obvious conflict."

Many early people understood the type of literature that Genesis is.

Origen of Alexandria (c. 185254) believed that Chapters 1-11 were allegorical. He argued that the creation "days" could not be solar days in any straightforward sense, noting with remarkable acuity that the allegorical interpreters had specific scriptural reasons for rejecting a calendar-day view of Genesis 1; in particular, the creation days could not be solar days if the Sun was not created until the fourth day.

Clement of Alexandria (c. 152217) (most likely the Clement in mentioned in Phil 4:3) also believed in an allegorical nature of those passages.

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And they built on the work of Philo, who was born before Christ and represented a tradition of non-literal interpretation in Judaism. Such questions are likely as old as the texts themselves.

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Protestants, “The Orthodox believe their works save them!”

Actual Orthodox prayers. pic.twitter.com/7hcW2ZyzW3

— HadesUndead (@HadesUndead) June 18, 2026

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Coke Bear said:

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Origen of Alexandria (c. 185254) believed that Chapters 1-11 were allegorical. He argued that the creation "days" could not be solar days in any straightforward sense, noting with remarkable acuity that the allegorical interpreters had specific scriptural reasons for rejecting a calendar-day view of Genesis 1; in particular, the creation days could not be solar days if the Sun was not created until the fourth day.

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What we call a 24 hour "day" is determined by the speed of the earth's rotation about its axis, not the presence or absence of the sun in the sky. The fact that God created the sun after creating the earth therefore has no bearing.

It's perfectly rational to understand that "days" were created before either the moon or sun.

In fact the very literal Jewish definition of a day running from evening to evening instead of from midnight to midnight traces its origin back to that very first day described in Genesis 1:5 "and the evening and the morning were the first day."

As far as the first 11 chapters being allegorical, nobody is making the argument that the genealogy in Genesis 5 is allegorical. It's just that people who have faith in evolution and an old earth want to reject Genesis 1-3 & Genesis 6.

Tomorrow is Sunday and Father's Day. Take your family to church tomorrow.