Christians Should Mind Their Own Business

The author of this very brief article in the ISBE is either unaware of the data that proves that the point of view in the article is seriously incorrect, or has chosen to ignore the data. The article in the Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature is a much longer and detailed article (Vol. III, pp. 568-569 [two lengthy columns of fine print per page] on the word רָקִיעַ. Of special importance is the following from the article,

The verb רָקַע, raká, means to expand by beating, whether by the hand, the foot, or any instrument. It is especially used, however, of beating out metals into thin plates (Exod. xxxix, 3, Numb. xvi, 39), and hence the substantive רַקֻּעַים “broad plates” of metal (Numb. 16:38). (The italics are theirs).​

Therefore, your comment enclosed in brackets is incorrect—the translation in the LXX is a correct translation of the Hebrew! The Latin Vulgate translates the Hebrew,

Gen. 1:7. et fecit Deus firmamentum divisitque aquas quae erant sub firmamento ab his quae erant super firmamentum et factum est ita

Firmamentum is the Latin word for ‘support’! And indeed, that support, the dome, would have to be immensely strong to hold up the weight of the water above it—enough water to cover even Mount Everest! (Just one gallon of water weighs approximately 8.35 lb (about 3.785 kg).

 

It appears to me that the very article for which you provided a link contradicts to a significant extent the conclusion drawn in your post. Nonetheless—thank you for the link. I had not been aware of that particular article.

 

These statements not only show a lack of knowledge of English grammar, but they also manifest an inexcusable lack of knowledge of both the Bible and science.

 

The study, teaching, and application of the Scriptures as a pastor and as a teacher of the Scriptures has been my life’s work ever since my career change more than 20 years ago from being a research biologist. Nowhere in the Scriptures do we find any indication of any kind of the age of the earth. Moreover, nearly all Old Testament scholars researching and publishing today in peer-reviewed academic biblical journals on the Scriptures teach that Genesis 1-11 is a severely redacted collection of epic tales, sagas, myths, or legends. They teach this because the evidence supporting this view is so substantial that most of them would say that it is conclusive. Indeed, Genesis 1-11 is written in a genre of literature that is not found elsewhere in the Bible, a genre of literature markedly different from the historical narrative in which most of the rest of the Hextateuch is written.

The fact that the flood did not occur proves that we have in Genesis an epic tale. The fact that the tower of Babble is a fictional story proves that we have in Genesis another epic tale. The fact that we have in Gen. 1-11 two differing creation stories proves that we have in Genesis two differing epic tales that have been edited into Genesis 1-11. What did the Book of Genesis read like before these stories were edited into it? We have no copies of Genesis that are early enough to answer that question.


The Bible describes, in detail and in many places, the earth as being a disk covered by a dome. The Bible describes a world-wide flood through which eight humans and hundreds of thousands of land animals were kept alive by a big boat while pretending that hundreds of thousands of kinds of marine life survived without so much as a lifejacket! The Bible describes a world-wide flood through which eight humans and hundreds of thousands of land animals were kept alive by a big boat while pretending that the ecosystems necessary for the survival of the humans and animals after the flood remained in tact without so much as a single miracle. The Bible describes Nimrod and his people building a tower out of bricks held together by bitumen in the land of Shinar—a tower to be so tall that it would reach beyond the dome into heaven. God becomes so alarmed by this that He and unspecified other persons go down to the earth from heaven and make Nimrod’s people forget how to speak Hebrew but know how to speak languages that had hitherto not existed. The trouble was, of course, that each individual could now understand only one of these newly created languages. This was supposed to make building tall towers and doing grand things impossible when in fact it was not a significant hindrance. Why didn’t one of the persons that went down to the earth with God tell Him that the plan would not work and that in the future the tallest buildings would be built by men and women speaking a wide spectrum of languages but still finding ways to communicate with each other?

Personally, I find it more than a little unsettling that some people believe that God was not allowed to communicate with us using epic tales, sagas, myths and/or legends. If God was not allowed to communicate in the manner that He chose to, was He really God?


Isa. 40:22. It is he who sits above the circle of the earth,
and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers;
who stretches out the heavens like a curtain,
and spreads them like a tent to live in; (NRSV)

This verse does NOT say that the earth is a circle! It says that the LORD sits upon the circle of the earth—the dome over the flat earth that had, before the Genesis flood, separated the oceans from the mass of water above the dome:

Gen. 6:6. And God said, “Let there be a dome in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
7. So God made the dome and separated the waters that were under the dome from the waters that were above the dome. And it was so.
8. God called the dome Sky. And there was evening and there was morning, the second day.
9. And God said, “Let the waters under the sky be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear.” And it was so.
10. God called the dry land Earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called Seas. And God saw that it was good. (NRSV)

Gen. 7:11. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened.
12. The rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. (NRSV)

Moreover, only a flat earth has four corners:

Isa. 11:12. He will raise a signal for the nations,
and will assemble the outcasts of Israel,
and gather the dispersed of Judah
from the four corners of the earth. (NRSV)

Rev.7:1. After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth so that no wind could blow on earth or sea or against any tree. (NRSV)

The literal four corners of the earth in the Bible gave rise to today’s popular expression.

Furthermore, Jesus was able to see all the kingdoms of the world from “a very high mountain.” This would have been impossible on a spherical earth:

Matt. 4:8. Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor; (NRSV)

Notice that Matthew states that the mountain was “very high,” realizing that for Jesus to see over all of the mountains in the region, the mountain that Jesus was on would have to be very high! Obviously, Matthew rejected proof from science that the earth was spherical, and was faithful to the word of God in the Old Testament which expressly teaches that the earth is flat and covered with a dome.

In Daniel 4:11, we read of a tree so tall that it could be seen from all over the flat earth,

11. The tree grew great and strong,
its top reached to heaven,
and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth.

In Job 38:22-23 we read of the storehouses of the snow, and the storehouses of hail, which God has reserved “for the time of trouble,”

22. “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,
or have you seen the storehouses of the hail,
23. which I have reserved for the time of trouble,
for the day of battle and war?”

In these verses, God Himself is speaking to Job in the context of Hebrew cosmology:

http://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/gre13.htm

Centuries before Christ, Greek scholars taught that the earth was a sphere, but first century Christians still believed in the ancient Hebrew cosmology of the Old Testament—and the New Testament reflects that point of view in Matt. 4:8 and Revelation 7:1. Unfortunately, Christians, with reinforcement from the New Testament, continued to believe that the earth was flat until the Middle Ages when they began to realize that in matters of science, science must be allowed to prevail. Today, over 99.99% of all Christians accept the proof from science that the earth is not flat, but spherical. Moreover, the very large majority of Christians today accept the proof from science that Kangaroos did not hop from Australia to Noah’ Ark, and that penguins did not fly there from Antarctica!

The Bible in the inspired word of God, but it must be taken into account that the Bible is not a college text book—and it was never intended to be one. It was given to us to serve a spiritual purpose, and not to contradict the fact that the earth is 4.54 billion years old. For an excellent article from a Christian perspective, please see the following:

http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/Wiens.html

 

The author of the article writes for creationist organizations that flaunt his Ph.D. in the science of geology, but do not bother to tell their readers that his specialty in geology is in the field of uranium exploration in Australia—and that he is, therefore, not at all qualified to have an opinion about the Genesis flood. Moreover, they do not bother to tell their readers that the author is unable to read the Bible in the languages in which it was written and is, therefore, not at all qualified to have an opinion about the genre of literature in which Gen. 1-11 was written. Indeed, he has less knowledge of the Bible than many teenagers! However, creationist organizations are so desperate that men like Andrew A. Snelling are the best that they can find to defend the nonsense that they teach.

That this is nothing but ridiculous garbage is shown by the fact that creationist organizations flaunt the Ph.D’s in fields of science that have been earned by 24 or 25 creationists. Or perhaps we are to believe that Andrew A. Snelling, the author of the article, is “a tool to minimize scripture and kill God “—something that he is doing a very effective job of!

 

That “great post” was copied and pasted from another website, and it failed to properly give credit to the author and publisher as required by the stipulations in the publisher’s statement of copyright.